There were still countries and states that were a threat to the world’s most powerful nation. Following the disintegration and dissolution of the Soviet Union, the prospect of a traditional attack had as good as disappeared. But as the US had interests all over the world, it was still important to focus attention on unfriendly nations and hostile states that could attack for ideological, economic or territorial reasons.
So those functions continued, now as ever.
But it was not a state that had attacked the US on the 11th of September. There was no country to strike back at. The men who had hijacked the four planes and crashed them on American soil were individuals, of different origins and diverse backgrounds. While the political machinery surrounding President Bush had constructed a classical enemy in the form of the axis of evil, and targeted all its aggression towards existing nations, Helen Lardahl Bentley was convinced that the attackers were far more dangerous than that.
They were people.
They had not been recruited to fight, like the terrified soldiers through the ages who had faced death for a flag and a country they would never see again. The battlefields were no longer drawn up by generals on both sides of the front, who basically fought with the same parameters for victory and defeat: territory won and battles lost.
America’s new enemies were individuals, with an individual’s experience, greatness and flaws. They did not live in one place, in one system, and they did not wave a visible flag. They did not go to war because they had been ordered to, but because of their own conviction. They were not bound together by the same nationality and sense of belonging, but by belief and distrust, hate and love.
America’s new enemies were everywhere, and Helen Lardahl Bentley was convinced that the only way to uncover them and render them harmless was to get to know them. The first thing she did in office was to establish the Behavioural Science Counter-terror Unit. Their remit was to transform dry facts and random intelligence into living images. The BSC Unit was to see people where the rest of the extensive domestic security system saw only possible attacks and potential terrorists, bombs and hi-tech equipment. By analysing, understanding and explaining what made men of different nationalities and from different backgrounds choose a martyr’s death in their collective hate of the US, the States would become better at forestalling them.
Warren Scifford had been allowed to choose from the most talented people. The group of nearly forty special agents included some of the best profilers in the FBI. Every single one of them had accepted eagerly.
But Warren had begun to regret his decision.
When one of the special agents had wandered into his office six weeks ago, with four sheets of paper in his hand, and in a quiet voice had shared his concerns with his boss, Warren Scifford had for the first time in his fifty-six years been truly scared.
A Trojan horse attack did not fit in with the picture they had drawn.
It didn’t make sense. It was neither spectacular nor symbolic. It would not generate terrifying, unforgettable images like those of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center. No hordes of people fleeing in fright and tears, panic and disbelief to frame in powerful TV images. The Trojan Horse would not attract attention to the enemy; there was no honour, no matter how twisted, to be gained from this.
The rest of the system had done everything it could to link al-Qaeda or related organisations to the Trojan Horse. Warren Scifford and his men and women had protested violently. Something wasn’t right, they argued. That wasn’t the way al-Qaeda operated. They didn’t think like that. And it certainly wasn’t the way they wanted to punish the US. As the BSC Unit had already been frozen out by everyone other than the President, what they said generally fell on deaf ears. After a couple of weeks of intense and focused work, trying to find a link with existing terrorist networks, without so much as a hint of success, it was concluded that Warren Scifford’s group had been right after all. Al-Qaeda was not behind this. The diffuse, incomplete information was therefore no longer of interest. The vast US intelligence apparatus received so much; there was almost too much to deal with. So as more incomprehensible and chaotic information about more potential attacks ticked in, every hour, every day, the Trojan Horse was parked in a quiet back alley.
But Warren Scifford was still worried.
And so was Madam President.
And now Warren was lying in bed in a Norwegian hotel room with a gnawing feeling in his belly. He read the memo for the fourth time. Then he got up and went to the bathroom. He took a lighter out of his pocket, held the document over the toilet pan and set light to it.
The thing that made him most uneasy was the feeling that someone was taking him for a ride.
For a few weeks now, he had been dogged by a nagging suspicion that the information was planted. Having thoroughly studied the document, which included all the new information they had received in the past twenty-four hours relating to the complex he had chosen to call Trojan Horse – searching up and down, left to right, until nothing made any sense any more – he was still completely at a loss.
The flames licked the paper. Small flakes of soot drifted down towards the white porcelain.
If everything was planted, the whole thing was a red herring. And if that was the case, the President could be the actual target. And in that case, they were facing an enemy they knew nothing about. Not Osama bin Laden, not the many terrorist organisations based in…
‘It can’t be true,’ Warren said out loud to himself, to interrupt his own thoughts. ‘No one has the apparatus to plant something like this. It’s too good to be planted.’
He had to let go of the last tiny scrap of the paper. He flushed the toilet. Small black flakes still clung to the pan, and he had to use the toilet brush to get rid of it all.
He went back to the desk and picked up a copy of the note that had been left in the President’s hotel suite.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ muttered Warren Scifford. ‘But when?’
He dropped the note suddenly as if it had burnt him.
He had to eat.
The clock on the TV told him that breakfast was now being served. It took him three minutes to pack up his office and put the locked suitcase back in the cupboard. Only the pile of coloured paper was left on the desk, with the three pens lined up like tin soldiers on top.
He put one of the mobile phones in his pocket before he left. It hadn’t been necessary to call anyone after all. And to be honest, he wasn’t sure who he should ring anyway.
II
The customs officer at Oslo Airport Gardermoen could scarcely believe his own eyes. The gang of Americans had arrived on a charter flight, but their arrogance in relation to the security and laws of another country still beggared belief.
‘Excuse me!’ He held up his hand, then took a couple of steps out from behind the counter where he had been standing getting bored for the last hour and a half.
‘What is that?’ he asked in English, with an accent that made the American smile.
‘This?’ The man lifted his jacket, so that his government-issue firearm was visible.
The customs officer shook his head in disbelief. There were more of them coming through now, all with that characteristic bulge under their ribcage. They descended on him, wanting to get past, but he stood there with his arms held out and shouted: ‘Stop! Wait just a moment!’
An irritated mumble spread quickly among the new arrivals, who must have numbered some fifteen or sixteen men and a couple of women.
‘No guns,’ the customs officer said firmly and pointed at the wide, low counter. ‘Put all your weapons here. Then form a queue and you will get a receipt for each one.’
‘Now listen here,’ said the man who had come first. He was in his fifties and a good head taller than the small, rotund customs officer. ‘Our arrival has been cleared with the Norwegian authorities, as you no doubt know. According to the messages I’ve received, we were to be met by a police office as soon as we-’
‘Makes no difference,’ the customs officer persisted, and for safety’s sake pressed the button under the counter that closed the mechanised doors further down the corridor. ‘I’m the one in charge here. Do you have papers for these weapons?’
