with the dynamite were open. While we got the money out of the van, the seller had his men go into a barn where the rest of the explosives were being kept. They also brought the open boxes into the barn to reseal them. A switch could have been made while the boxes were out of sight.”
“You idiot,” Afridi snapped.
“Calling me names isn’t going to solve anything, Imran. And if you calm down, you’ll see that we have a bigger problem. It’s the reason I think this meeting is a mistake. I’m going to find the man who sold us the detonators, and you can be certain that he’ll tell me if he’s responsible for this clusterfuck by the time I’m finished with him. But whether it’s him or Ali or someone else behind the switch, one thing is obvious. Someone got to the seller or Ali, and that person knew what we planned to do, where we planned to do it, and when. And they may know that you and I are involved in this, which could mean we’re under surveillance. So we should not meet or communicate unless it’s absolutely necessary. And we should both try to figure out who the mole is in this operation.”
“Do you think Ali Bashar is in custody?”
“I’d bet on it,” Reynolds said.
“Can he tell the FBI about you?”
“Yeah, but he’d have no idea where I live or who I am. He just knows me as Steve.”
Afridi was quiet. The men could hear the water flowing softly beside them.
“You’re right. We should have no further contact unless it’s absolutely necessary.”
Reynolds nodded. Then he folded into the darkness and disappeared.
A fridi had brought another disposable cell phone with him, and he punched in an overseas number as soon as he was in his car.
“What happened?” Rafik Nasrallah asked.
“It was the detonators. They were all faulty.”
“How could that happen?”
“We were betrayed.”
“By who?”
“I’m not certain, but I have my suspicions. We may have made a mistake with Reynolds.”
“You think he was deep cover?”
“It’s possible, but there is another possibility. Koshani knew about the operation. She was tortured before she was killed.”
“I thought that escaped serial killer murdered her.”
“Perhaps that is what the CIA wants us to think. Koshani was blackmailing Senator Carson for information on what the CIA knew about the operation. What if he went to them, and they had him arrange for the Intelligence Committee to subpoena her? They could have been waiting for her and tortured the information about FedEx Field out of her.”
“Is there something I can do?”
“Send Mustapha. If he thinks he needs help, tell him to choose some men to come with him. The traitor is Ali Bashar, Senator Carson, or Steve Reynolds. We can’t get at Bashar but we can get to Carson and Reynolds.”
“It’s done.” Nasrallah paused. When he spoke, he sounded subdued. “I’ve been sick with disappointment. How are you handling this failure?”
“I have been too angry to process what happened. Everything was in place. Every contingency was accounted for. Then this.”
Afridi choked up. Nasrallah waited for his friend to gather himself.
“Be strong,” Nasrallah said. “You will find who did this and make him pay. Then we will regroup. Allah’s vengeance will come. It will just take more time. Do not despair. Allah has great patience.”
Chapter Thirty-one
When Ali Bashar came to, he was lying on a cot in a narrow, windowless concrete cell wearing an orange jumpsuit. Shining down on him was a caged lightbulb. The light hurt Ali’s eyes. He closed them and forced himself to sit up. The effort made him dizzy. He rested for a moment, then struggled to his feet. His knees buckled, but he managed to stay upright.
Ali looked around. His only furnishings were the cot and a squat toilet. There was a thick metal door in one wall with a spy hole in the middle and a slot at the bottom. Ali tried to open the door even though he assumed his efforts would be futile. They were. He was sealed in. Ali sank down on his cot and tried to clear his head.
In the camp, Ali had been told how to act if he was captured. Ali’s instructors had told him that he would be tortured, and he had been briefly subjected to waterboarding and other cruelties so he would know what to expect. The consequences of capture were an added incentive to carry out his mission.
Ali’s imagination started to work on him. His life was filled with incidents in his village when he was singled out for teasing or beatings by older and bigger children. Ali was always too frightened to fight back, and he endured humiliation and pain daily. It was his fervent hope that he would find the peace in paradise he had never found on earth, and now his hope of meeting Allah had been dashed. Fear ate at Ali and robbed him of his strength and his will. He waited for his torturers to come. But no one came.
There were no clocks in Ali’s cell, and no one fed him. The ceiling light was always on, and every time he tried to sleep, loud music blasted into his cell through an invisible loudspeaker. Once he had slipped into unconsciousness despite the noise, and a guard had slapped him awake and threatened worse if he caught him dozing off again.
Other than these intrusions, silence was Ali’s constant companion, with one exception. Every so often someone would scream. The screams would go on and on, and they were horrible. Ali would get sick to his stomach as he imagined what you would have to do to people to make them scream like that.
Ali had been clean-shaven when he was arrested. By feeling his stubble, he estimated that he had been a captive for two to three days. He hoped that he would be brave when his time came to be taken for interrogation, but his bowels loosened and he grew faint when the locks in his door finally snapped open.
The guards were big and moved with athletic grace. Ali knew that there was no point in resisting. They pulled Ali to his feet without a word, shackled his hands and ankles, and placed a hood over his head. Ali’s legs felt like jelly. If the guards had not held him up, he would have melted onto the floor.
When the hood was removed, Ali found himself in a bare concrete-block room. The guards sat him on a chair with a headrest. Then they secured his head to the headrest, tied his arms and legs to the chair’s arms and legs, and put a strap around his chest. When they stepped away, Ali could not move.
Seated in front of Ali behind a metal desk was a slender man dressed in a suit and tie. He had on old- fashioned tortoiseshell glasses with thick lenses and his black hair was slicked back. He looked like an attorney.
“How has your stay been so far, Ali?” he asked.
Ali found the question odd. It was a question a friend would ask a guest. Ali had been told that he should not answer questions and should resist any attempts by his captors to seduce him with kindness, so he remained mute.
“Do you know where you are?” the man asked. “No? I’ll tell you. You have disappeared into hell. But there are different levels in hell, and you will have a chance to save yourself from being cast down into the depths. Answer my questions, and you will save yourself from pain and receive the most comfortable quarters available to our prisoners. You will have access to the Koran, books, and television. You will be allowed to exercise. Your food will be decent. If you resist, there will be terrible consequences.”
The man gave Ali time to think about what he had said. While they sat in silence, Ali’s interrogator stared at Ali. Ali was afraid to close his eyes and his head was secured in place so he couldn’t look away. The stare was ice cold and unfeeling. Ali could see no sign of pity and no hope of mercy. Suddenly, the man graced Ali with a gentle smile.
“Before we have a serious talk I want to tell you a little about myself. I have no family. I did have a family-a wife, a son who was eight, and a daughter who was eleven. I loved them very much. On September 11, 2001, they
