type of plane does Abu Abdullah want, and how much is he willing to spend?”
“Something that has a range of more than two thousand miles,” el-Hage replied, “for no more than three hundred fifty thousand dollars.” He explained that bin Laden wanted to transport Stinger missiles from Peshawar to Khartoum.
“You have to be careful transporting weapons, you know,” Ridi said. “You need to make sure you get permission from the countries on both ends, or you’ll find yourself in trouble.”
“Don’t worry, we’ve got permission from the authorities in Peshawar and Khartoum. But that’s why we need the two thousand miles. We can’t risk running out of fuel and being forced to land elsewhere—it will be chaos.”
Ridi found a suitable plane; the seller even agreed to give him a 9 percent commission for arranging the purchase, a fact Ridi chose not to divulge to el-Hage. In any case, his profit was never realized; inexplicably, el- Hage dropped the allowance for the plane to $250,000. “This is the price that the sheik has decided on, so see what you can do,” he told Ridi.
Ridi argued that the terms were impossible. He knew what was out there; they would never be able to get what they wanted for $250,000. At last, however, he found a decommissioned military aircraft for $210,000 that had a range of 1,500 miles. “It’s in storage in Tucson, Arizona, and hasn’t been used in a while,” he told el-Hage, “so I need to get it checked and fixed.” When el-Hage asked him how he would get it to the airport, Ridi replied, “I’ll fly it there myself.”
El-Hage said that he had one final request to convey: bin Laden wanted Ridi to work for him as a pilot. Ridi demurred, suggesting that they discuss the offer in Khartoum. He had the plane refurbished and repainted, updated its equipment, and took off from Dallas–Fort Worth. Minus-65-degree weather while flying caused the plane to malfunction, and a window cracked on the way. It took him a week to get there.
El-Hage met him at the airport and inspected the plane. He was full of praise for Ridi. “It looks good. Well done.”
“For what it cost, it’s good,” Ridi shrugged. The journey had exhausted him.
El-Hage took him to his own home and later they dined with bin Laden, to whom Ridi presented the keys to the aircraft. They agreed to meet at the airport the following morning so that bin Laden could inspect the plane. Ridi rose early to clean it—the exterior was dirty from the flight—but bin Laden failed to show at the appointed time, and Ridi spent several idle hours before getting in touch with el-Hage, who apologized and summoned him to the office for a meeting.
Ridi arrived at a residential building in the Riyadh neighborhood of Khartoum. El-Hage, manning the front desk, greeted Ridi warmly. Besides performing the duties he had inherited from Ridi, he had taken over as bin Laden’s secretary following the departure of Jamal al-Fadl, one of the first members of al-Qaeda. Fadl, who was Sudanese, had spent several weeks training el-Hage in the management of the office. Beyond el-Hage’s desk was an office that belonged to Abu Jaffar (Abu Khadija al-Iraqi), bin Laden’s business manager; the interior office was bin Laden’s. Ridi was ushered into bin Laden’s office by el-Hage.
Bin Laden was wearing a white thawb (a traditional Arab garment) and had a black beard. “I’m sorry for not coming this morning,” he said to Ridi. He spoke quietly, with a Saudi accent, his voice seeming to betray a hint of shyness. “But I’ve got a new request for you now. I’d like you to stay here in Sudan and work for me. I’ll pay you twelve hundred dollars a month.”
“Before we discuss any job offer,” Ridi replied, “there’s something that I need to say to you on a personal level. You may know that when we were both in Afghanistan, I resented the fact that you were a rich man with no military background or experience trying to be a military leader. That was one of the reasons I left Afghanistan. Now that you have the experience, it’s a different situation, so my view has changed.”
Bin Laden thanked Ridi and explained the particulars of the job. “You will fly the plane for me personally. You will also use it for crop dusting.” Bin Laden owned farms that grew crops from which vegetable oil was produced. “And you’ll fly the crops to other countries to be sold.”
“That’s three jobs,” Ridi replied. “Which one is for twelve hundred dollars?”
“That’s for all three. This, you should know, is the highest I’m paying my officers.”
“It might be the highest, but I’ve heard that there’s high inflation here in Khartoum,” Ridi replied. “I’ve also heard that schools are expensive for expatriates. So is furniture. It’s not a healthy environment. Living here is going to cost me more than twelve hundred dollars a month. Even if you’re paying this salary to your top officers, it doesn’t mean I should be paid the same. I’m doing a different job, and have different expenses.”
“That’s the highest, so consider it,” bin Laden said. “And just so you know, in case you do still have any of your concerns, this is not jihad, this is strictly business.”
Ridi later confirmed, with el-Hage, that the proposed salary was one of the highest bin Laden paid. Nonetheless, he turned it down. But he assured bin Laden that he was still prepared to “help you as usual whenever you need it.” After getting reimbursed for his expenses, Ridi flew to Peshawar, where he spent time catching up with old friends from his days in Afghanistan, and then returned to the United States.
True to his word, Ridi continued to run missions for bin Laden when asked. Sometimes it involved flying the plane; at one point, he traveled to Khartoum to take five Arabs to Nairobi. Their job was to join cells being set up in Somalia. Other times, Ridi helped purchase weapons and materiel.
About a year and a half went by with no calls to fly the plane. Ridi took a job in Egypt with an airline but soon was summoned, once again, by el-Hage. “Brother, can you come to Sudan to fix up the plane and make it workable so it can be used for business?” When Ridi asked what had happened, el-Hage explained that the plane simply hadn’t been used for a while and was languishing at the airport. “We haven’t been able to get it to work since last time you used it.”
Ridi pointed out that flying directly from Egypt to Sudan to meet with bin Laden was likely to raise government suspicion. Bin Laden was involved in weapons smuggling through Egypt; he had been sending caravans with weapons to meet Egyptian terrorists in the desert. Intelligence operatives were closely monitoring anyone with ties to bin Laden, and Ridi didn’t want to come to their attention. “That’s fine, meet me in Nairobi,” el-Hage suggested. “That’s where I’m now based.”
“Why are you here now?” Ridi asked el-Hage in Nairobi.
“I’m working for a charity called Help Africa People.” The improbable name gave Ridi an indication of what was going on.
“A charity?”
“It’s really a cover for our efforts in Somalia and here,” el-Hage replied with a smile.
Ridi laughed. “I guessed as much.”
Their discussion turned to the plane. Ridi said that in order to get it ready to be used for business, he would need a copilot.
“Okay, Ali Nawawi will help you. He’ll meet you in Khartoum.”
Ridi flew to Khartoum, checked into the Hilton hotel near the airport, and then met Nawawi at the airport. The two men examined the plane and found that it had a flat tire, and that some of the other tires had melted from the heat. The engine was full of sand, and the batteries were dead. Parts of the plane were rusty from disuse, and the craft was filthy. They also couldn’t find the keys. A few al-Qaeda operatives had met them at the airport; they, too, didn’t know where the keys were.
Nawawi went off to hunt for the keys, and Ridi stayed to work on the plane. The keys were eventually located, and after the two men had finished making the necessary repairs and had checked the hydraulics and run a series of tests, they decided that they were ready to see how the plane handled. It took off without incident. After touching down on the runway a few times and going back up into the air without slowing down, Ridi decided that the plane was operational and that it was time to land properly. They touched down successfully, but when Ridi tried applying the brakes, nothing happened.
“We’ve lost the main hydraulic or the main brake system,” he told Nawawi. “I’m going to try the alternate brake system.” As the more experienced pilot, he was in control. The alternate brakes failed to work, and he tried the hand brakes. When this, too, failed, he shut down the engine. The plane continued to speed along the runway.
Ridi was sweating, but his voice was calm and his hands steady; his professional training had kicked in. They were still traveling fast—about sixty knots—and he found himself quickly explaining the obvious to Nawawi: that they would soon run out of runway space. He aimed the plane at a sand dune. “When we crash into the dune, take
