gate, quarantined, questioned, and ultimately released.
Suspects might also be placed on the “selectee list,” which automatically had them passing through extra screening measures if they met certain criteria that might include booking a one-way flight, paying cash for tickets, making reservations on the same day as their flight, and flying without an ID.
Leghari had been training for this trip for nearly nine months, memorizing the layout of the terminal, considering what people would say to him and how he would react. He’d spent the better part of his life in Dera Ghazi Khan, a poverty-stricken frontier town in the Punjab Province with a growing phalanx of hard-line religious schools.
His parents were veterans of Pakistan’s state-sponsored insurgency against Indian forces in Kashmir until pressure from the United States forced then-president Pervez Musharraf to withdraw support for the Punjabi group. His parents were forced to flee to the tribal areas, where they deepened their ties with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Leghari was left behind with relatives.
This, more than anything else, drove the embittered boy to the local madrassa led by Muhammad Ismail Gul, a recruiting center for the banned Punjabi Lashkar-i-Jhangvi Taliban group.
Leghari took a deep breath and stepped into the hexagonal-shaped millimeter wave full-body scanner. The airport had been testing the controversial technology for months on all passengers of United States — bound flights but had more recently broadened its scope of use. Leghari was instructed to raise his arms, then moving plates simultaneously beamed extremely high-frequency (EHF) radio waves at the front and back of his body. The reflected energy produced an image interpreted by security. He was, of course, not carrying liquids, sharp objects, or anything that would trigger an alarm.
However, as he was shifting down a corridor of polished steel and glass and following large yellow signs, he was accosted by two men in dark blue uniforms, along with the friendly check-in agent from the desk.
“Is that him?” they asked her in English.
The taller man said something to him that Ahmad did not fully understand, but a few words chilled him: U.S. Customs and Border Protection Immigration Advisory. One of the patches on the man’s uniform displayed the American flag.
He took a step back and swallowed. American security here? His trainers had not anticipated this.
Suddenly, he couldn’t breathe.
They spoke to him again, more slowly, and the woman told him in French that he would have to go with the men.
Ahmad gasped. And then, without thinking, without any forewarning at all, he ran. Straight ahead. Down the corridor. The men shouted after him. He didn’t look back.
As he wove his way past travelers dragging suitcases on rollers or carefully balancing their coffee cups, he sloughed off his own backpack, which was weighing him down. He left the pack in his wake and broke into a full-on sprint.
The men shouted again.
He didn’t stop. He wouldn’t. He reached an intersection, ducked around the right corner, and an alarm began to blare inside the terminal and voices rattled through loudspeakers.
A male French voice finally ordered all passengers to remain at their gates.
Ahead lay a bank of glass doors, but beyond was a maintenance area with baggage trucks lined up in neat rows. The sign said something about restricted access. He didn’t care.
Outside. He needed to get outside.
But then he nearly ran head-on into an airport security officer. He tried to shift around the portly man, but the guy tackled him, and Ahmad dropped to the ground, his hands fumbling for and finding the man’s pistol. He got it, wrenched himself away, and fired two shots into the man’s chest. He sprang to his feet, and people screamed around him and cleared away, the shots still echoing, the Americans behind him hollering — and then a crackling like fireworks …
Sharp, stabbing pain woke in his back and drove him down to the tile once more. Suddenly, he was choking — on his own blood, he knew. He dropped, rolled onto his back, and envisioned himself dropping into the open arms of thousands of virgins.
They reached him and kept screaming, the Americans’ faces twisted into ugly masks, their weapons pointed at him, as the world grew dark around the edges.
Samad wiped the sweat from his brow and turned away from the laptop computer screen, where he’d just watched an Al Jazeera video news report of the shooting at Paris — Charles de Gaulle.
Of the fifteen Taliban who were coming to Colombia, each using a different route, only one had been caught — of course the youngest and most inexperienced. Ahmad Leghari had failed to realize that the Americans had no authority to arrest him in Paris. They were there only in an advisory capacity. His paperwork and passport were flawless. He would have been detained, questioned, and most likely released. Instead, he’d panicked. Still, the question remained of how he was identified. Again, the Americans were paying handsomely for tribesmen to spy on Taliban operations, and Samad had to assume that was what had happened. He could only sigh deeply and shake his head at Niazi and Talwar, both seated across from him and sipping on small bottles of Pepsi, since their barbaric host had no tea.
As he took a pull on his own soda, Samad once more heard Mullah Omar Rahmani’s words ring in his head:
Samad could only glare at the fat pig who entered the house with the unlit cigar dangling from his lips. If Juan Ramon Ballesteros had bathed in the last week, he would still need an attorney to prove it. He removed the cigar, stroked his silver beard, and said in Spanish, “I’ll help get you to Mexico, but the submarine will not be available.”
“What?” cried Samad, practicing his own Spanish. “We were promised, and you’ve been well paid for this.”
“I’m sorry, but we’ll have to make other arrangements. The sub will be overloaded with my product — and yours — and the other two are being serviced right now. When we agreed on this arrangement, I was very careful to tell Rahmani that once the opium reaches Colombia, I am in charge of shipment. You have a much better chance of success this way. Do you understand?”
Samad gritted his teeth. Their collaboration was unprecedented but a work of genius, according to members of the Juarez Cartel. Instead of having Ballesteros and his cocaine compete with the opium being smuggled in, why not partner up to streamline and expedite the shipping process? Bonuses would be paid by the Juarez Cartel to both organizations for playing nice and getting along. It was a unique relationship, and they hoped it was unforeseen by the Americans. Ballesteros had already established a dozen separate smuggling routes via land, sea, and air, and Rahmani had seen the wisdom in this and been willing to pay for access to those routes and for couriers.
“The rest of my group will be here soon,” Samad told Ballesteros. “How do you expect us to get to Mexico? Walk?”
“I’m looking into a plane that will get you as far as Costa Rica. But don’t worry about that now. We’ll need to go to Bogota soon. Perhaps tomorrow. Look, let’s agree that we do not like one another, but our employer has paid handsomely for this, and so we will be tolerant.”
“Agreed.”
“You must also promise never to tell anyone about how I’ve helped you with, shall we say, your travel plans. Not our employer. Not anyone.”
“I have no reason to discuss this with anyone but you,” Samad lied. He already knew that the head of the Juarez Cartel could help him and his men gain safe passage into the United States, and he had every intention of seeking out that man’s help. Sure, Ballesteros the pig could help him get to Mexico, but once he was there, it would be difficult to cross the border without help.
Ballesteros turned toward the door and cursed over the heat.
That’s when gunfire suddenly ripped through the walls and windows, glass shattering, men outside screaming, more gunfire echoing the first wave.
