The Camel Club

opportunities.”

“A keen insight for someone you admittedly didn’t know all that well.”

“That assessment could apply to half the people here. Quite frankly, they want to be you. But they never will and it bothers them.”

Gray sat back in his chair. “I’ve taken a good look at Johnson’s file. There was nothing in there to indicate that he would be turned. Do you agree?”

Hemingway nodded.

“But then again, the same could be said of virtually all the people who have been turned against this country. It has more to do with psychology than bank accounts.”

“There are others here who knew Johnson better than I did.”

“I’ve spoken with them,” Gray said. “I’ve also spoken with his fiancee. She believes the drug business is absolute garbage.”

“Well, it’s not surprising that she’d defend him.”

“Tom, I recall that the centralization of all intelligence databases was completed four months ago. Is that correct?”

“Yes, with the proviso that we only recently completed integration of the Transportation Safety Administration’s files from their Screening, Coordination and Operations Office. That was due to some legal hang- ups with Homeland Security, among others.”

“Any more significant glitches in the system?”

“No. And as I’m sure you also recall, the TSA piece was fairly substantial. It had the Secure Flight, Registered Traveler and the US VISIT programs among others. The US VISIT program was particularly sensitive for us because it contained detailed backgrounds, digital fingerprints and photos of foreign travelers. However, the ACLU had a field day with that one, screaming profiling and big brother to every court that would entertain them. But it belonged here and we eventually got it. Before, this data was scattered over a dozen departments with no workable integration, incredible overlap and duplication, with the result that much of it was worthless.”

“Well, that failure was one of the chief reasons 9/11 happened,” Gray said.

“Speaking of, I understand the president asked you to attend the memorial event in New York tomorrow.”

“The office grapevine; it’s better than any spy network devised. Yes, he did and yes, I declined. As always, I prefer to hold a very private ceremony honoring those who lost their lives that day.”

“I also heard that you’re going up to Brennan, Pennsylvania.”

Gray nodded, opened his desk drawer and pulled out a book.

“How well up are you on your Bible, Tom?”

Hemingway was accustomed to swift changes in direction with Gray. “I’ve read the King James Version. Along with the Qur’an, the Talmud and the Book of Mormon.”

“Good. What’s the one similarity you find in all of them?”

“Violence,” he answered promptly. “People talk about the Qur’an inciting violence. They have nothing on the Christians. If I recall correctly, Deuteronomy was particularly full of fire and brimstone. Thou shalt smite this and that dead.”

“At least it’s consistent. And yet the Qur’an instructs its followers not to take their own lives, which does not reconcile with the concept of a suicide bomber. Indeed, it doesn’t promise paradise, but rather warns of condemnation in hell for taking one’s own life.”

“The Qur’an says this when the death is outside the cause of Allah; it doesn’t apply to those who die for the cause. And there are enough references to killing the unbelievers in the Qur’an, and also in writings and local laws and customs subsequent to the Qur’an that it’s possible to justify that killing oneself and unbelievers at the same time is authorized. And for those who die in the cause, it says they don’t really die, nor should their loved ones grieve for them. That’s a distinction between Islam and Christianity.”

“Correct. But there’s also another great similarity between the two religions.”

“What’s that, sir?”

Gray put away his Bible. “The resurrection of the dead.”

CHAPTER

37

THE SPACIOUS HOUSE THAT Captain Jack had rented in the suburbs of Brennan was set far off the main road with no other residences nearby. It also had a large home theater, a facility he was taking advantage of right now.

Captain Jack placed the DVD that Hemingway had given him in the player but did not turn it on yet, as the men who’d come here today took their seats. None of them were eating popcorn; no refreshments at all had been passed around. It was not that sort of movie night.

Captain Jack took a minute to survey his crew. They were good, capable men. They had been hardened by a life that had not included many moments of happiness or things that others took for granted, such as food, clean water, a bed and a life free from constant persecution and threat of violent death. Assembled here were his bomb makers and engineers, his shooters, his snipers, his fedayeen, his mechanics, his inside people and his wheelmen. Djamila was not here, however. Her mission was completely separate. And quite frankly, Captain Jack didn’t know how the males would react to a woman being such a critical part of the operation. Only a few of his company knew of her involvement, and the American knew it was best to keep it that way.

The men’s appearances had all changed. Hair cut or grown longer. Beards shaved off. Weight gained or lost. They all wore Western-style clothes. Some sported glasses, others had dyed their hair. While none of their “real” images remained on the NIC database, the operation was too important to become slack with the small but important details. Altered NIC photos notwithstanding, they might still be recognized by American intelligence operatives who’d seen them in the flesh years ago.

He walked to the front of the room and addressed them all by name as a sign of respect and camaraderie. He asked for progress reports, and each man reported back succinctly and knowledgably.

Captain Jack, Tom Hemingway and a third person had handpicked these men from a pool provided to them by this third party, a man they both trusted. They had not chosen the most violent and zealous Muslims among the group. Ironically, restraint was the quality they’d required above all.

The 9/11 hijackers had come from varied backgrounds. Fourteen of the fifteen hijackers who accompanied the four “pilots” on the jets were from Saudi Arabia. They were from middle-class families that were not particularly active either politically or in the Muslim faith. And yet these young men left their good homes and families, trained with Al Qaeda, became steeped in the practice of radical Islam and jihad and carried out their orders with military precision, no doubt with the hope of riding that flight path to paradise. The 9/11 hijackers had not had to make any decisions for themselves; all had been planned out. The situation developing in Brennan was far different. Each man would have a great deal of input in what would happen.

Thus, Hemingway and Captain Jack had sought out older, reasonably educated men who had once led normal lives. These men had not trained with Al Qaeda. They had not given their lives over to jihad for reasons typically associated with that mind-frame. And while several had had run-ins with American and European law enforcement, and their fingerprints and photos had been taken, necessitating the cover-up at NIC, none were at the level where their photos were plastered in newspapers everywhere. The youngest of them was thirty, the oldest fifty-two, and the average age was forty-one. These men, while they had experience with killing, were not eager in taking someone’s life. Every one of them had lost at least three immediate family members in wars and other conflicts over the years. Indeed, a half dozen had lost their entire families to such violence. They had volunteered for this mission for reasons other than those typically assumed to be at the core of the Middle Eastern terrorist mind. Indeed, all of these men considered themselves soldiers, not terrorists. That was the composition of the “holy warrior” Tom Hemingway had insisted on.

“Remember this,” Captain Jack told his men. “While we sit here planning this operation, in another room