“Business,” Ali Bahmad replied. “And maybe a day of sailing on the Chesapeake.” He smiled pleasantly. “I’m told that it’s quite nice this time of year.”
“Fishing isn’t what it used to be,” the officer said, stamping the British passport. He looked up. “But you’re right, it’s real nice down there. Have a pleasant stay.”
Bahmad pocketed his passport and, carrying the slim attache case that had been handed to him in London, sauntered down the dingy corridor and out into the customs arrivals hall, a small man without a care in the world. He wore a loose-fitting natural linen suit by Gucci, a collarless white cotton shirt, and a soft yellow ascot tied loosely around his neck. His two bags were Louis Vuitton. He was a dapper, seasoned international traveler.
“Do you have anything to declare, sir?” the uniformed customs officer asked. The man looked like a bulldog, and Bahmad had to wonder if he came from Queens or Brooklyn in a questionable neighborhood. It would be difficult, he decided, to be pleasant day after day under such circumstances.
“Nothing,” Bahmad said, handing the man the declaration form he’d filled out on the 747 coming in from London.
Another customs agent came over with a drug-sniffing German shepard that circled Bahmad’s two bags on the low counter, and then sniffed the attache case. The dog looked up at his handler as if to say, no.
“Would you like me to open my suitcases?” Bahmad asked. “Just dirty laundry, I’m afraid.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir,” the officer said. He made chalk marks on all three pieces, then turned away indifferently as the other agent with his dog went off to another passenger’s luggage.
Bahmad summoned a porter for his things, and heading out into the terminal, and across to the taxi stands outside, it amused him to think what he could do to the customs officer with little or no effort. When he finished it would be enough to give the man’s family nightmares for the rest of their lives.
He’d changed some pounds into dollars at Heathrow and he gave the redcap a nice tip, and ordered the cabbie to take him to the Corinthian Yacht Club in southwest Washington on the Anacostia River, then sat back to enjoy the ride.
“We can take the Beltway. It’s longer, but much faster,” the driver, an east Indian, suggested.
“Go through town, I haven’t been here in a long time and I’d like to see some of the sights.” “Yes, sir,” the driver said. He noticed in the rearview mirror that his passenger was looking out the window obviously not wanting to talk. Which was fine with him. Brits gave him a headache.
Bahmad smiled his secret smile, his face a bland mask of indifference. It was 4:30 in the afternoon local time, and he was amazed, as he was every time he traveled in the west, at the number of big, shiny cars on the road. After living for so long in the mountains of Afghanistan and in desert training camps in Libya and Iran, you tended to forget the quotidian face of the enemy. Rapers of the soil, despoilers of the earth’s resources and peoples, conspicuous consumers indifferent to the plight of the other eighty or ninety percent of the world, Americans should have been miserable. But the sky over the Virginia countryside was clear of all but a few puffy clouds, there were no burned out cars or trucks along the side of the highway, no tanks on the overpasses, no helicopter gunships swooping low. Despite his mission, Bahmad was able to relax and thoroughly enjoy himself as he hadn’t for entirely too long a time.
Two days out of Afghanistan and already he was beginning to realize how much he despised the life of a terrorist in hiding in the Middle East. The lack of simple amenities got to him. The dirt, the abysmal ignorance and the fanatic adherence to Islam — to any religion for that matter — was depressing. His mother and father, before they had been killed by the Israelis, had lived an often times very good and even elegant life in Beirut. And he had enjoyed his time spent in London and here in Washington, even though he hated the Americans who in their blindness supported the Israelis against every other people. That was what his fight was all about. Not religion, not any ideology or idealistic notions about the destiny of the Arab peoples. His motivation was simple revenge.
That, and the fact he enjoyed what he did for a living.
Coming back like this though brought another memory to mind, and he was somewhat disturbed by it. During the six months he had worked at the CIA’s Langley headquarters he had met a woman. She worked as an analyst in the Directorate of Intelligence, and had little or no intelligence value for him, but she was nice. Her name was Anne Larson, she was divorced and was raising two children on her own. Weekends they were off with their father, and Bahmad spent time with her. She was a kind and patient lover, and although she was a little odd because of the work she did, she was always pleasant to be with. For months after he had left Washington he thought about her everyday. But then he dropped out, and ran back to Lebanon. Since then he seldom gave her a thought, though when he did it was with regret. He wondered what a life with her would have been like. Certainly it would not have been as lonely as the life he had led in the Afghan mountains. He wondered where she was now.
“Men like you are Imams of your profession,” bin Laden told him. “Religious leaders. Dedicated and lonely by necessity.”
The early rush hour was in full force by the time they crossed the Roosevelt Bridge onto Constitution Avenue, and the cabbie was content to let the meter run as they crawled past the Ellipse and the White House on the left, the Washington Monument on the right. He dropped down to Independence Avenue past the Smithsonian and then took South Capitol Street, turning off before it crossed the Douglass Bridge over the Anacostia River. Finally the taxi passed through the yacht club gates and Bahmad ordered the driver to the slips where they pulled up at a very large motor yacht, all her flags flying in the pleasant breeze, the boarding ramp down.
Bahmad paid off the driver and, when the cab was gone, stood looking at the boat. She was the Papa’s Fancy, a 175-foot Feadship out of Newport, owned by a wealthy New Jersey banker with considerable though secret financial ties to the bin Laden worldwide empire. He’d agreed to lend the yacht to Bahmad for as long as he needed her, no questions asked. As it turned out, the boat had been docked at a shipyard farther down the Potomac where her annual inspection and refit had just been completed, and had been moved up here yesterday on a moment’s notice. She was the biggest boat in the club and had garnered a lot of attention already.
A slightly built man in his early forties with a ponytail and earring, but dressed impeccably in crisp white trousers and a yacht club polo shirt, trotted up from the dockmaster’s office.
“Mr. Guthrie, welcome to CYC, sir. I’m Terry the dockmaster. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more pleasant just ask me, sir.”
“Thanks,” Bahmad said with a pleasant smile. “We’re all hooked up and provisioned?”
“Yes, sir. Your crew took care of that first thing when they got here yesterday,” Terry assured him. “May I help you with your bags?”
“That won’t be necessary,” a pretty, athletically built young woman with a deep tan called out coming down the ramp. She was dressed in white shorts and a dark blue shirt, cheryl — papa’s fancy stitched above the left pocket. Terry gave her an appreciative look, then nodded pleasantly and walked off.
“Welcome to Washington, Mr. Guthrie,” Cheryl said, picking up the bags. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you to your quarters and afterwards Captain Walker would like to have a word with you.”
“Where is he at the moment?”
“I believe he’s checking something in the engine room.”
“Ask him and the rest of the crew — all the crew — to join me in the main saloon immediately.”
Cheryl gave him a worried glance. “Yes, sir.”
At the top of the ramp they stepped onto a broad, gently sloping deck, the gleaming superstructure rising above them, the bridge forward and the main saloon aft. She showed him the way, then disappeared with his bags.
The yacht was in immaculate condition. The furnishings and appointments were out of Yachting magazine or Architectural Digest. Thick carpeting covered the floors, rich, thickly cushioned furniture was arranged tastefully and the large windows admitted the late-afternoon sun through thin Venetian blinds. Some very good artwork hung on the richly paneled walls, and the second movement of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played softly from built-in speakers.
Bahmad set his attache case down, and was pouring a glass of white wine from the extensive bar, when a tall, distinguished man with white hair came in with a much shorter, heavier, younger man. Both were dressed in whites. The older man’s epaulets were adorned with four gold stripes, the young man’s with three.
“Mr. Guthrie,” the older man said, extending his hand. “Welcome aboard, sir. I’m Captain Web Walker.”
Bahmad shook his hand. “I’m happy to be aboard, Captain.”
“May I introduce my first officer Stuart Russell.”
Bahmad shook hands, and moments later the rest of the crew showed up; the engineer, Blake Walsh, two
