He knows it as he and the others in the second truckscramble for their weapons. He knows it when he hears, over the sounds of hisbrothers’ cries, the thwip, thwip, thwip of rockets cutting through theair-undoubtedly in the direction of the rear truck in the convoy-followedquickly by the explosion upon impact with the gasoline engines.
He knows that the Americans have found them.
And they know who is traveling in this convoy. That is whythe obvious security flanks have been eliminated from the outset. In no morethan ten seconds, the front and rear trucks have been obliterated, trapping thetwo middle trucks on a narrow, winding road.
Ram Haroon looks toward the rear of the truck, where thesheath covering the back is flapping open. He sees small flashes from thered-orange gasoline fire two trucks behind.
Haroon races for the exit as the gunfire erupts-the pop pop,pop pop from the M4s, the rat-a-tat-tat from the stationary machine guns-leadsplitting the canvas exterior of the cargo cabin and hitting skulls, torsos,bone. Haroon extends himself horizontally as he dives through the sheath,trying to minimize himself as a target, trying to freeze out the sudden smellsof blood, of bowels releasing, of death.
He lands on the hood of the third truck, slamming his headonto the cold surface, and everything goes dark.
First he dreams in smells: the odor of burning gasoline, thecopperlike scent of burning flesh. Then he dreams of dust filling his mouth, ofwounded cries and urgent prayers before death. He dreams of his mother andsister. He dreams of his leg on fire.
He dreams of a man talking to him in broken Arabic, andHaroon’s eyes open. Two sets of boots, two sets of legs, two M4 rifles withininches of his cheek.
“Irka,”one of them shouts. “On your knees, fuck-face.”
U.S. Army Rangers, working in pairs, searching for survivorsand confirming the dead. One of them steps back, training the rifle on him, whilethe other pats Haroon down for explosives. Then he grabs Haroon’s shirt andpulls until Haroon is on his knees. His shirt is violently ripped from hisbody, his hands zip-tied behind his back.
He knows why they attacked and who they wanted. Their high-valuetarget. Muhsin al-Bakhari.
Haroon struggles to gain his bearings, his body limp fromthe assault and his mind in chaos. He is in northern Sudan. It is early June.It is close to midnight.“Kiff! Kiff!” the Ranger says to Haroon, yanking him tohis feet. A blindfold is wrapped over his eyes, and he moves forwardtentatively, his legs unreliable, assisted by a Ranger’s hand cupped under hisarmpit.
Don’t let them take you alive, he has been told.They willtorture you. Corrupt you. Take you to Guantanamo Bay and make you turn on yourbrothers.
Die with dignity, they have told him.
But resistance is obviously futile. This whole thing wastimed perfectly. The Americans did not plan for a gunfight. They planned for amassacre.
Ram Haroon recalls other instructions as well, outside thepresence of the leaders.Show them your hands and they won’t kill you.
He hears thethwop, thwop of the rotors of a Chinookhelicopter as he is marched forward, forced into a jog. He feels a wash of airas he approaches the Chinook, and a hand on his head pushes it down, eventhough Haroon knows the rotors are well overhead.
He is turned around. A hand on his shoulder forces him tosit on a cold aluminum floor. He shivers. The rotors spin faster and louder,the copter shakes-even sitting, he lurches to one side and bumps into thebarrel of a rifle pointed at him. The copter shakes again and rises.
He feels a boot pushing against his arm.“Hal TatakalmAlingli’zia?” an American shouts at him in passable Arabic.“Ma Ismok?”
“Zulfikar,”he answers wearily. “Sorirart Biro’aitak.”
A moment passes. The Americans are speaking to each other inexcited voices. This is a moment of celebration for the Rangers. Nauseaovertakes Ram Haroon, the jerky movements of the helicopter and the smell ofburning flesh, still lingering in his nostrils, combining to launch the bile tohis throat. They are enjoying themselves, these Americans. A moment for whichall Americans have waited for years-the capture of Muhsin al-Bakhari. A storythey will share with their grandchildren someday.
Where he will go now, he does not know. They have quicklywhisked away the few survivors, including the one whom the Americans prize themost. Left behind is a massacre; over thirty Islamic soldiers dead.
And then it comes to Ram Haroon. He remembers the woman atthe airport in America four days ago. McCoy, that was her name. Yes. The womanat the airport knew this was going to happen.
Haroon shakes his head, silent. He will probably be sent toGuantanamo Bay, along with the others. He will never see his homeland again.His life will never be the same.
He wonders what has become of his partners in the States. Heassumes that they will soon be in U.S. custody as well. And if they have gottenso far as to coordinate this attack, they have probably learned what reallyhappened to Allison Pagone, the American novelist, as well.
THREE DAYS EARLIER…
McCoy knows almost everything about him. She knows hisnames-his real one and the one he is using. She knows one parent is listed asPakistani, the other as Egyptian, and that the paperwork all the way back toIslamabad will show that. She knows that the CIA files will show that he is anoperative with the Liberation Front, an organization responsible for the deathof more than nine hundred civilians in the past five years. She knows he willdeny that if asked. She knows that he is studying for a graduate degree ininternational economics at the state university. She knows when he flew intothe United States. She already knew, before receiving the call, that he hadbooked a flight to Paris. She knew about ten minutes after he bought theticket.
Jane McCoy stands with her partner, Owen Harrick, and theBICE agent in charge at the airport, a guy named Pete Storino, in a small roomwith monitors along a high shelf.
McCoy has spent the last ten minutes babysitting Storino,explaining why she couldn’t tell him squat, giving him numbers to call to clearall this. Storino doesn’t like it and he doesn’t like her. The BICE guys aren’tthe happiest these days. With the reorg under Homeland Security, Storino’sagency is now the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They don’tlike it because people call them “BICE” agents. FBI agents don’t like itbecause they think of their agency as “the Bureau” and don’t want another one.The agencies left out of the BICE acronym, like the Coast Guard and BorderPatrol, were pissed off because, well, they were left out. Word is, they’regoing to change it to the Bureau of Investigations and Criminal Enforcement,keeping the acronym but giving it a more general connotation, but McCoy willbelieve it when she sees it.
“I’m going to make those calls,” Storino says to McCoy,sounding like a wounded child who’s going to call his mom.
“Great,” she says. “I’m going in soon. If that’s all right.”She winks at her partner with that last comment.
“Do what you’re gonna do.” Storino closes the door behindhim.
McCoy leans forward and watches the monitor covering thesmall room where the subject is seated. He is cool, his legs crossed, his handsresting on the rectangular table, occasionally checking his watch and shakinghis head. He is no dummy, this one. He knows he’s being watched. He wants to bea Pakistani student offended by the racial profiling, not a bad guy who’snervous about what the G is going to ask him.
McCoy and Harrick leave the room and walk down a narrowcorridor to the door in question. McCoy takes a breath, nods at her partner,and opens the door.
“Mr. Haroon,” she says, walking in and taking a seat. “I’mSpecial Agent Jane McCoy. This is Special Agent Owen Harrick. FBI.”
Ram Haroon is thin but muscular. He has ink-black, kinkyhair and a long, coffee-colored face. He looks the age that is on his passport: twenty-six. He studies each of them with coal-black eyes but says nothing.
