Chapter 11

On the Pakistan-Afghan border

The three SUVs arrived at the abandoned air base just after midnight.

This place was called Bakrit. Built by the CIA for the resupply of Afghanistan resistance fighters during their war against the Soviet Union twenty-five years before, the base was surrounded by snowcapped mountains and high, barren plains. The runways had been made long enough back then to support all kinds of aircraft, from large cargo jets to U-2 spy planes. The main strip was more than three miles long. It could handle anything flying these days.

The small A321 200 Airbus arrived five minutes later. It touched down in the dark aided only by the pilot’s night-vision goggles. Blowing up a small storm of snow and dust, it taxied to where the three SUVs were waiting. The men in the SUVs were high officers in the Intelligence Service of Pakistan, an organization that, despite its name, was closely aligned with Al Qaeda. Each SUV was carrying two officers; each was heavily armed.

The plane stopped and its cockpit door opened. A ladder folded out and Kazeel and Uni climbed down. Kazeel was immediately whisked into the second-in-line SUV; Uni took a seat in the third. Their separation was a matter of security procedure. Though joined at the hip, Kazeel and Uni almost never traveled together, especially on the ground, because, simply by osmosis, Uni knew almost as much about the next big attack on America as Kazeel. Furthermore, Uni held on his person, at all the times, a piece of information that, when implemented, would activate Kazeel’s sleeper agents who were waiting to carry out the big attack. This was known as the sharfa—loosely Arabic for “The Key.”

Only Kazeel and Uni knew the sharfa and it would be acted on only when it was confirmed that the weapons for the big attack were safely in place. Crude and hardly perfect, it was the terrorist version of a fail-safe. If the worst ever happened to Kazeel, Uni would still be around to activate The Key, and the plan could still move forward.

So for them to be killed by the same bomb, rocket, or land mine would not be wise. An entire brain and a half would be lost.

Thus the separate cars.

 

The small caravan screeched away and drove north, toward the section of northwest Pakistan known as the Pushi.

Their destination was even more remote than Bakrit. It was so isolated, in fact, and wild in its terrain that in better days NASA sent its lunar astronauts to the Pushi so they could train in the most moonlike conditions possible without actually leaving the Earth.

The trip would take four hours. The three SUVs passed several military checkpoints along the way. In each case they were simply waved on through by Pakistani troops, even though it was an open secret that Sheikh Kazeel himself might be riding in one of the three trucks.

Around two in the morning they reached the Krutuk mountain range. The Pushi lay beyond. This was where the terrain became particularly rugged and as unearthly as advertised. The three trucks began climbing. They easily went over a series of small mountains; boodis, the locals called them. But soon enough the mountains became larger and the roads became steeper. The going became very slippery as some of the higher peaks were encased in thick, icy clouds. After another 90 minutes, they’d reached the Pushi, a hidden valley surrounded by Himalayan-like summits. The village of Ubusk sat in its center. For the past 10 years, this was what Kazeel had called home.

The three SUVs roared through the village at high speed, waking many of its 400 villagers. Then the vehicles began climbing the boodi on Ubusk’s north side. This small mountain was known as Pushi-pu. Kazeel lived at the top.

His house was square, two stories, with a flat roof and many windows. It had four rooms in all, a palace by this region’s standards. The largest room was the master sleeping quarters. It was all windows, including six in the ceiling. Kazeel had a monstrous water bed in here, but he never used it. Most nights he spent here, he slept in a blanket on the floor.

The rest of the house was spare of furniture. However, there were many high-tech media devices about. Largescreen TVs, radio receivers, video recorders, CD players—all American-made. There was also an extensive videotape and DVD collection on hand. All of these were American as well.

The house had a grand view of the ring of barren mountains surrounding it. It looked out over the valley and gave an impressive panorama of the night sky as well. The view from the bedroom was the best. Both the sunrise and sunset could be seen from here. In the morning, the mountains turned a weird orange; in the late afternoon, they took on a shade of blue.

But the house’s location had nothing to do with aesthetics. Kazeel, being joyless and sexless, saw nothing of the beauty in nature. Why he lived at the top of this mountain was all about his security.

There was only one road up to the top. A small army of security guards watched this entrance, located at the southern base of the boodi. These guards were Ubusks, men from the village; they were also distant cousins of Kazeel. They kept an eye on things while he was away, guarded him when he was home, and provided protection for him whenever he moved about Pakistan or Afghanistan. They were very loyal and fierce fighters. Kazeel trusted them highly.

Their checkpoint was heavily fortified. Not only were they armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades; they also had an old T-72 Russian-made tank hidden inside a rock shed next to the entrance to the access road. The tank could hit a target just about anywhere in the valley below, including the village, as well as the road leading up to Kazeel’s mountain.

Seven men were waiting inside Kazeel’s house. They were the people who’d helped him plan the attack on the USS Lincoln. They’d all had a hand in 9/11, too. Once Kazeel was airborne out of Manila, he’d used a secure in-flight phone on the Airbus to call a meeting of these men. Without a doubt his closest advisors, all of them were made men in Al Qaeda as well. They all lived in caves nearby, which was no surprise. After the United States landed in Afghanistan and tore up the Taliban, the Pushi was where this pack of rats came to hide.

Kazeel’s small convoy arrived at the base of his mountain just before 4:00 A.M. The horizon was just beginning to brighten, the start of a cold and windy day. They drove up to the main checkpoint, the place where the tank was hidden. But no one came out to meet them. Kazeel was puzzled. The guards were supposed to be on alert 24/7. He had his driver beep the horn. Nothing. The driver beeped again. Finally, four sleepy gunmen emerged from the tank house.

They went pale when they saw Kazeel through the back window. They’d taken a vow to lay down their lives for him. But he’d caught them napping.

Kazeel got out of the SUV and greeted the men warmly nevertheless. This surprised them, but they recovered quickly. The hugs and double-cheek kissing went on for nearly a minute.

Then Kazeel climbed back into the SUV and proceeded up the hill.

His compatriots had been waiting since midnight. They knew all about his brief capture—they thought, by a CIA team—and subsequent quick release. His safe return was a great relief for them. He was the alpha dog here, the godfather of the clan. Without him, the rest would be nothing. Kazeel rarely let them forget it.

He walked through his front door with no fanfare. The Pakistani Intell men were nowhere in sight. The seven friends greeted Kazeel with exaggerated warmth, sloppy kisses on both cheeks, four, five, six times. Kazeel finally had to put an end to it. He threw up his hands and then Uni ushered him away.

Kazeel didn’t bother to wash up after his long ordeal, nor did he change out of his Western-style clothes. Rather, he commenced the meeting immediately. He and the seven men sat on the floor in the main room of the house. The windows were blacked out with cardboard and curtains, shutting off that grand view of the universe. Candles were lit. Uni dispensed bowls of yogurt and lamb’s guts and cups of tepid tea.

Kazeel did not eat or drink. He got right down to business.

“Brothers, we are in possession of the launchers,” he said, his tired voice betraying no hint of triumph.

There was applause from the others.

Kazeel went on: “And I have secured the means to get them into the United States—thanks to our new judus.”

More applause. Several men shouted: “Praise Allah!”

“Now, all we need are the missiles themselves,” Kazeel said. The other men quickly settled down. They looked at each other worriedly. Kazeel was surprised by their unease. Something was wrong.

“Brothers, you have known of this need all along,” he began lecturing them. “This was the agreement with our New Friends. They would get us the launchers. They would get us the funding. They would get the weapons into the United States. But we had to ‘get our hands dirty together’—and that meant our providing the missiles. And I assured them that this we could do.”

The seven men looked at their dirty feet for a very long time. Finally one man spoke up. He was Abu al-Saki el-Saud, a minor Saudi prince.

“But just as with the launchers, the missiles too are a very hard item to get these days,” he said nervously as Kazeel was known to have a volatile temper. “Supply was never very good anyway. And now, our friends in the Afghan are all gone. Our friends in Iraq, gone as well and our brothers in Syria have become women since the Americans landed next door. And Brother Ghadafi—well, as we all know he is a woman. So, my sheikh, it has become very hard for us to…”

“Are you saying you could find no one who would want to make a deal with us?” Kazeel cut him off tersely. “With all our contacts? Are our old friends deserting us?”

“It is the quantity, brother,” El-Saki told him bravely. “We could probably get one or two missiles from the Yemenis. A couple more from the Egyptians. One or two from the Irish. Maybe even our friends inside the Pakistani military could find two or three. But you require at least thirty-six. A very large number all at once. Why?”

Kazeel paused for a long moment. Outside, the wind began to howl.

“Brothers, we have been in this jihad together for a very long time now,” he began, fingering his crusty beard. “We have had our highs and lows. We have been praised by Allah and cursed by him. But you must believe me, we are now in a new chapter, thanks to our newfound friends. And along with this new alliance comes the greater need for security, even amongst ourselves.”

Kazeel took a deep breath. He was trying his best to sound sincere, but the truth was, he didn’t trust any of the seven men, even though they were his closest friends. He barely trusted Uni.

“This is why you must believe in me now,” he began again. “And believe that the plan I have in mind, with the blessings of our judus, will make the events of September 11, and anything since, look like child’s play. But as for the kernel of the plan itself, I have to keep it close to my heart and no one else’s.”

The seven men shifted uneasily on the floor. They did not like being left out of the loop. But this was one of the things that had changed since Kazeel hooked up with the judus. The risks they took had not decreased, as even now, sitting here like this with Kazeel, was enough to get them all shot on sight by any of their various enemies. But access to what was going on inside Kazeel’s head was quickly becoming a thing of the past.

“It’s a security issue,” Kazeel told them, quite aware of their concerned looks. “In this case, and for what is at stake, some things are best not known, even by myself. But again, be reassured, that this is a massive assault we are talking about—one that will attack the very fabric of the Americans’ way of life, praise Allah, in ways they can never dream of. That is why so many weapons will be needed.”

Kazeel had actually expected some applause at this point. Some praise, even if it was perfunctory and rote. But all he got from his associates were more nervous stares. There was still doubt in the room, Kazeel could taste it.

He took another deep, troubled breath. Suddenly he felt old and tired. But he pressed on: “Now, I’m sure I can read your minds. You are asking: ‘Remember our snipers in Washington? Remember how they met their end?’ Yes, brothers, I do. But that was just a drill. That taught what to do as well as what not. With this new assault, the Americans will be stung for a very, very long time. The confusion we will sow, the chaos we will create, it will rock them to their foundations. Indeed, they may never recover, not fully anyway. And isn’t that what our ultimate goal is? To get a knife right into their heart and give it a twist?”

Kazeel paused again, caught his breath, and then continued: “We have so many people standing by, sleepers, in their cities, in their suburbs, just waiting for our call. So many martyrs, it will be impossible to subdue them all. And even if half or two-thirds were somehow caught before they acted, that would still mean plenty will be free to carry out the big plan.”

He looked each man in the eye now. “So we are so very close, my friends,” he said slowly. “And so many things are already in place. We have the launchers. We have the funding from our judus. We have their guidance. Their expertise. And we have God’s blessing. What more do we need?”

He looked around the room again.

“Just one more thing, brothers,” he answered his own question. “We need the missiles.”

But the seven men never did look up at him. Kazeel repeated his earlier question: “You have found nobody to deal?”

A long silence. The wind blew again outside. Al-Saki finally spoke up: “We have, brother. Just one….”

Kazeel’s eyes lit up a bit. “Praise Allah. Now that’s better. Why would you withhold such positive information from me for so long?”

“Because of who he is,” al-Saki said.

Kazeel seemed confused. “Tell me his name.”

Al-Saki finally looked Kazeel in the eye. “It is Bahzi. He will deal.”

This took Kazeel by surprise, but in the same moment he knew why his friends had been so reluctant to speak the name.

Usay Bahzi was scum. He was an Iraqi, strike one in Kazeel’s book. He was a Ba’ath Party member and one of Saddam’s former legion of black-market arms dealers. Bahzi fled to Pakistan just hours before the U.S. troops rolled into Baghdad and transitted through Iran and Afghanistan on a diplomatic pass and a suitcase full of money. He now lived under an assumed name in Karachi, Pakistan.

Kazeel intensely disliked the Iraqi. He was well known as a sneak, a liar, and a cheat. But he also had extensive contacts in arms markets, both legal and not. He had access to everything, including anthrax, biotoxins, radioactives. But his customers sometimes wound up dead—always after money had already changed hands. He was a dangerous person and dealing with him would be a dangerous undertaking.

But time was running out. Kazeel’s judus were impatient types, and the pressure was on him to perform unlike ever before. How he wished for the old days, before the Americans finally woke up.

He snapped his fingers and Uni was there with a cup of hot water.

“No one at Pan Arabic ever rose to the top?” Kazeel asked the seven glumly.

They all shook their heads no. This was a cut that went deep. Prior to the failed attack on the USS Lincoln, Kazeel and his cohorts had been financed in large part by a Saudi prince who owned the Pan Arabic Oil Exchange, a huge company that controlled nearly a fifth of the oil leaving the Persian Gulf. By siphoning money from their oil profits, this Prince—His Royal Highness Prince Ali Abu Abdul Hamini el-Saud Muhammad—had supported many of Kazeel’s terrorist activities, including his role in 9/11.

But on the same day as the attack on the Lincoln, not an hour after the carrier had been saved, a chartered airliner crashed into the headquarters of Pan Arabic in downtown Riyadh. Everyone inside the multistory building was killed, as was everyone on the plane. The crash was somewhat lost in the headlines surrounding the Lincoln’s near-miraculous escape. But the startling fact was this: onboard this charter plane was none other than the man who ran the company itself, Prince Ali. Why would Ali—along with several of his closest friends—want to die by plunging their charter plane into his own building? The assumption was that it was a bizarre mass suicide, as Ali and his band had been very involved in the Lincoln attack. But other reports said the pilot of the plane was actually an American agent and that he’d intentionally carried the Prince and the others to their deaths. An American dying as a martyr? This did not make sense to anyone. But neither did the mysterious circumstances surrounding the crash.

The loss of Prince Ali and his money had forced Kazeel to deal with people he would not have normally even spoken to. His judus were some of them. And Bahzi was certainly another. But Kazeel knew he had to adapt to survive, even if it meant dealing with the devil.

Kazeel remained quiet for a very long time. Finally he asked: “You can set up a meeting with Bahzi?”

His friends nodded yes. “We can,” al-Saki replied. “You say where. You say when. Just tell us…and it will be done.”

Kazeel’s reply was interrupted by four gunshots—distinct, sharp, in the brisk mountain wind. Kazeel winced when he heard them but quickly carried on.

“Tell Bahzi the place will be Sat Put,” he said.

“And the time, brother?”

They heard four more gunshots; they came quicker than the first, but Kazeel hardly moved this time.

“I will inform the snake of the time and date later,” he said. “Carry this news to him, and make it clear I am plumbing the depths even talking about him….”

With that, Kazeel abruptly dismissed his guests with the wave of his hand. The men rose to their feet. Uni brought them their various outer garments. Woolen robes, bedsheets, in one man’s case house curtains.

As they started for the door, Kazeel grabbed the man he considered his closest associate, Ali Hassan Wabi, a small elderly Kuwaiti with snow-white hair. Out of earshot of the others, Kazeel indicated to Wabi he had one more piece of business to conduct.

“I have a favor I must ask of you especially,” he said to Wabi.

“Anything, brother…” Wabi replied.

Kazeel lowered his voice. “I need new bodyguards. Can you help?”

Wabi paused a moment. “You mean, you want additional bodyguards, my brother?”

But Kazeel shook his head. “No—I must replace the ones I have now.”

Wabi was very surprised to hear this. Kazeel’s Ubusk security people had been with him for years. They were considered the best in the business. It seemed like a strange time to change them out.

But Wabi knew better than to ask Kazeel why. “I will talk to my contacts,” he said instead. “And I will let you know.”

“Make it fast, my brother,” Kazeel told him before showing him out the door. “We have many challenging days ahead. Whoever you get for me will have to be the very best.”

Wabi didn’t like the sound of that. He’d never seen Kazeel this nervous.

“Can you confide in me?” Wabi asked him. “What is the problem, brother?”

Kazeel paused a moment. He did not open up to people so quickly. But…

“Let’s just say my escape from Manila was not as clean as it might have seemed,” he told Wabi. “I was a breath away from Paradise, and pray, brother, I do not want to go there so soon.”

“But you are now here, my brother,” Wabi said, trying to provide comfort. “And Allah be praised you are still in one piece.”

Kazeel just shook his head. He was suddenly on the verge of tears. “Brother, you don’t understand. For the first time in my life I am looking over my shoulder. These people who almost had me in Manila. They weren’t just some CIA group. They were the Am’reekan Maganeen. I’m sure of it.”

Am’reekan Maganeen, the infamous Crazy Americans. The words sent a chill down Wabi’s spine. The Crazy Americans were the secret special ops unit that had been sent against them—the 9/11 plotters—even before the attack on the Lincoln took shape. It was widely believed in the Islamic underworld that these special U.S. soldiers had been the reason the carrier survived that day. There was even talk that they had foiled the big attack in Singapore as well.

Unlike most U.S. special ops troops the jihad organizations had come up against, the Crazy Americans held to none of the conventions that other American units did. No Geneva rules of war for them, the Crazy Americans were terrorists themselves. They rarely spared anybody who crossed their path, especially anyone who was in on the planning of the 9/11 attacks. Their means of extracting information from those they collared was already legendary for its sheer brutality.

Wabi could not shake off the chill. This was not good news. With what they were about to do they certainly did not need this interference from these very dangerous, very brutal American troops. But he also felt sorry for Kazeel. The Crazy Americans’ reputation certainly preceded them. They always got their man. If you were on their hit list, you were as good as gone. All this finally explained Kazeel’s queer tension.

“I will make my inquiries immediately,” Wabi told him. “I have heard of a protection outfit recently relocated to this area. Highly trained. Highly disciplined.”

He lowered his voice. “Blue-eyed Muslims,” he said. “Do you know the type?”

Kazeel’s face lit up. Blue-eyed Muslim was a code. And upon hearing it, for the first time since arriving home, Kazeel actually relaxed a little. But then came the apprehension.

“You are talking about…?” Kazeel started to say.

“I am, my brother,” Wabi confirmed. “But I do not want to even say the name, as I don’t want your hopes to soar, and then have it not come through.”

“But you must try to arrange for that!” Kazeel told Wabi anxiously. His voice became so loud Uni heard him from the kitchen.

“I will certainly try,” Wabi replied, now just in a whisper. “But as they are skilled, and loyal and disciplined and fearless, they, too, will have to be very well paid—”

“And they will be,” Kazeel said quickly. “Our new friends will pay the bill. Just talk to them for me, brother. Promise them heaven and earth. And please do so with haste….”

 

Wabi kissed him good-bye and climbed into his own armored SUV. His driver proceeded slowly down the steep hill.

The conversation with Kazeel had made Wabi nervous. Kazeel’s escape in Manila had been harrowing. So why was he so suddenly in need of new bodyguards? Why would he not keep his own guys on and hire some more?

Only when he reached the bottom of the boodi did Wabi get his answer.

Out in the field next to the tank house he saw four figures lying motionless, facedown, in the short grass. They were Kazeel’s bodyguards, the Ubusks who’d manned the tank house. Standing over them, smoking cigarettes, were the Pakistani intelligence agents, the men who had driven Kazeel here. They looked menacingly at Wabi and his driver as they rolled by.

But Wabi passed close enough to the field to see that each bodyguard had two bullets in the back of his head.

The price these days for falling asleep while working for Sheikh Kazeel.

 

Five days went by.

In that time, Kazeel ate little and slept less. He’d also installed a Roland antiaircraft launcher near the front door of his house. It was a leftover from Gulf War I, a present given to him by Saddam Hussein himself, back in friendlier times. Kazeel had been keeping it in storage in a cave nearby; the original idea was to sell it someday. But his second day back he sent to the village for its two engineers. They pulled it out of its hiding place and checked its systems, with a manual in hand. It was a little out of their league, but eventually they got it to turn on and come on-line.

Did it work? No one knew. Kazeel kept it up anyway, not so much for his own protection but just for the peace of mind he thought it would bring.

It was a stupid thing to do, because if a U.S. satellite spotted the missile battery an American bomber would soon be circling his house. But Kazeel didn’t care. He was never so in fear for his life as these past few days. That’s what the Crazy Americans did to you. They got inside your head. They got you thinking what they would do to you, the horrendous torture they inflicted on their victims before finally putting them to death. They were rumored never to sleep, hopped up on drugs, endlessly stalking their victims. Kazeel knew they had been haunting Prince Ali and his syndicate—and look what happened to them. In some really dark moments, Kazeel believed Prince Ali did kill himself simply because he knew the Crazy Americans would get to him eventually. The man was a multibillionaire, yet he could not outrun his ghosts.

Praise Allah, the Paki agents were still watching the road below. He’d asked them to stay on, as his temporary security force, until he could make his other arrangements. They’d graciously agreed, after a nod from the top in Islamabad. But the Pakis could not stay forever. They were not professional bodyguards; they were intelligence men. They had other things to do.

It was just another example of the turmoil in Kazeel’s life. He did not want to deal with Bahzi but knew he would have to. Yet he couldn’t go to Sat Put to see the Iraqi until he had some reliable protection. But time was running out. His judus were not the most patient souls. They had their own agenda and they didn’t like things to go slow. The longer the plan dragged out, the better their chances of it being discovered. So it was always chop-chop, toot-sweet, hurry the hell up with them.

That’s why Kazeel felt paralyzed, a prisoner in his own house. Unable to move.

It was now the beginning of the sixth day. Midnight had arrived and the wind was howling again.

Kazeel was lying not on his water bed but on his prayer mat, looking through the room’s ceiling window. The stars were out and the moon had risen over the eastern peaks, but these celestial events were lost on him.

He was not counting stars overhead but rather the number of insects crawling on his ceiling. It was a rare night when he couldn’t get to sleep. But this had been going on for five nights now. More than 100 hours with little more than a doze or two. It was a new and very unpleasant condition for Kazeel. He’d personally murdered more than three dozen people in his lifetime, many of them brutally, many with his bare hands. He’d been responsible for the deaths of thousands more in the terrorist acts he’d planned and executed. Yet none of this had ever disturbed his sleep. He had no conscience, so there was nothing that could keep him awake.

But these days anytime he closed his eyes the ghosts of those he’d killed would flash before him, some as corpses, some not. And mixed in, always, was the scowling red face of the American soldier who’d laid his gun muzzle briefly on his nose back in Manila. Dave Hunn!…Queens, New York!…Remember me…. This was a vision Kazeel could not shake. There was hate inside this American. Real hate and real emotion, which was strange, because Kazeel never believed Americans had any emotions. Then again, that had been the closest he’d ever been to a real-live American. This man Hunn scared him deeply and Kazeel knew he would never give up in his pursuit of him. Again, that was how the Crazy Americans worked. They hunted you, they found you, and then they killed you, very painfully. Simple as that.

Kazeel checked his Rolex watch. It wasn’t even one in the morning yet….

He started counting bugs again. He had six more hours of this hell to endure.

But suddenly came redemption from the darkness. It arrived with the sound of his cell phone ringing.

The voice on the other end was distant and distorted.

“Hoozan!” it was calling to him, using his boyhood name. “Wake up! I have good news!”

“Who is this?” Kazeel asked.

“It is Wabi, your white-haired friend and brother.”

Kazeel cleaned out his ear. Wabi’s voice sounded different.

“Good news, my friend,” Wabi said. “You’ll soon have new eyes watching over you.”

Kazeel shot straight up on his prayer mat. “Is it how we had spoken?” he asked anxiously.

“They have blue eyes,” Wabi replied, his voice smug but still distorted. “Though friend and enemy alike will be hard pressed to see them.”

“And they have no qualms about who they may have to fight?”

“I’ve been told these people were in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Serbia and became millionaires for it,” was the reply. “You know recent history, my friend. Do you not think that surviving, indeed thriving, in those places would give them the mettle to keep you safe?”

“Certainly better than most,” Kazeel replied. “But where do these men call home exactly?”

“Let me put it this way,” Wabi replied. “These men are the best because they are from a place that has been called the worst….”

Kazeel did not have to hear anything more after that. He thanked Wabi and said good-bye.

Then he settled back down and finally drifted to sleep, knowing that starting tomorrow he would be well protected again.

 

It was just before noon the next day when the three black Range Rovers climbed up the mountain road, heading for Kazeel’s compound.

The trucks’ windows were tinted to opaque and each had a small forest of cell antennas poking up from the roof. They arrived and parked three abreast. They turned off their engines in unison; then every door on each of the three vehicles opened, again in unison. Five men stepped out.

Four were huge, towering over Kazeel’s five-seven frame. They were wearing identical black combat uniforms, with plenty of ammo belts, utility packs, and night-fighting gear but no insignia. Each man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle, a Magnum pistol in a shoulder holster, and a gigantic knife in his boot.

All five were also wearing black ski masks, with holes cut out for their eyes and nothing else. Kazeel met them by his back door. They formed a line in front of him, and each snapped off a smart salute, his first and last for the new boss.

Kazeel didn’t even have to say a word. He already felt psychically connected to them. Their body language said it all: they were ruthless, unwavering. Their regimentation was hugely impressive, yet they didn’t seem real somehow. They were more like Robocops, characters from one of Kazeel’s favorite American movies. Having them watch his back was a fond wish come true.

His new bodyguard detail hailed from what many thought was the worst place on earth: a place called Chechnya. How fanatical were the Chechyans? There was a slang term going around the Gulf these days, being called Chechnya meant you were a “totally crazy person.” According to Wabi, in addition to their mercenary work these blood-and-guts fighters had been battling the Russians for nearly 10 years in their own country. For the most part, they’d embarrassed the old Soviet empire almost as badly as it had been in Afghanistan twenty years before. What made them even more different was that these blue-eyed Chechyans were also Muslim fundamentalists, some of them even more radical than Kazeel and his Al Qaeda cohorts.

This particular group was known as the Dragos. They were famous for two things: their masks, which were for intimidation purposes but also so the men could never be identified even by the one they were protecting (You don’t want to see our faces was a favorite Drago phrase), and, more important, their uncanny ability to extract those they were protecting from some of the tightest, most dangerous predicaments. Assassination attempts. Predator drone strikes. Carpet bombings. The Dragos always managed to pull their client through.

Kazeel was smiling so wide now his cheeks hurt. These men would make a great match for the Crazy Americans, he thought. If the two teams were to ever meet up, it would be the battle of the century, at the very least.

One Drago finally stepped forward and bowed a bit. He addressed Kazeel in perfect Arabic. He introduced himself simply as Alexi.

“I understand you want to travel soon?” he asked.

“I should be in Sat Put tomorrow at dawn,” Kazeel replied. He’d called Bahzi that morning.

“Who knows you are coming?”

“The people I have to meet,” Kazeel told him. “And their security people.”

The man looked over his shoulder at the Roland missile launcher. Then he turned back to Kazeel, who suddenly felt very embarrassed.

“Did you make any of your arrangements on a cell phone?”

Kazeel was taken back by the question. He rarely kept a cell phone longer than 24 hours these days. This procedure had been drummed into all the Al Qaeda hierarchy from the very beginning. Simply put, the United States could intercept cell phone calls and track their user. That was a quick way to get a Hellfire missile dropped on one’s head.

But Kazeel hadn’t dumped his phone now in nearly a month. He couldn’t. Just about everything having to do with the next big attack on America was locked into the photofone’s extended memory. Kazeel had nowhere else to put it.

“I’m sorry, but yes, I did use my cell,” Kazeel finally admitted. “But it was a necessity. Time was running while I was waiting to hear from you. I had to set up the meeting quickly.”

“It’s fine,” the bodyguard replied with a touch of good nature, a big surprise. “No problem at all. Can you leave in two hours? It’s a fourteen-hour drive to Sat Put and it’s best that we sleep along the way.”