44

 

NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, TYSON’S CORNER, VIRGINIA, TUESDAY EVENING

At Tyson’s Corner, a fifteen-minute drive from Washington off Route 66, lay an urban sprawl of anonymous-looking concrete and glass buildings. They looked from the outside like commercial offices. But behind the concrete walls, heavily fortified to prevent electronic eavesdropping, they contained highly restricted classified spaces. Entry was gained via retinal scanners, electromagnetic key fobs, and backed up with personal PIN numbers.

The complex looked like a wasteland in some ways. Cars busied back and forth—black Escalades with tinted windows seemed to be the car of choice—before disappearing into underground car parks. No pedestrians attempted to cross the roads, or were seen anywhere. Employees drove the ramps to the basements, swiped their fobs, entered their PIN numbers at the security check, and gained admittance to one of the myriad buildings in the burgeoning secret world of US counterterrorism.

CTC was the agency of choice, but in the era of budget cuts and financial crises, the tens of thousands who labored inside the fortified walls felt under increasing pressure to justify their existence.

Chief Andrew Canning, the man who felt the pressure most keenly, beckoned the young and brilliant Arabist into his office.

“Sit, please,” he told the woman, eyeing her speculatively. She was attractive, fit, with none of the pallor he might have expected in someone who must have spent half her life in an office translating intercepts.

Canning’s two assistants, Frank Del Russo and Ol Peters stood by the door, as if ready to repel any sudden attack.

The Arabist stuck out her hand, shook Canning’s firmly. “Pauline Southward, sir.”

Canning nodded. “Ms. Southward.” He turned to his assistants.

“Ms. Southward has come over from Fort Meade to brief us. Told her boss she has what she believes to be a live one.” He turned back to the woman. “All right Ms. Southward. Tell us what you got. And it better be good. Pulled me out of a dinner party. Mrs. Canning’s not best pleased.” Canning felt a little dyspeptic. He needed to hear this, but he needed to eat too. There were so many false alerts, analysts with target fixation seeing smoke in dusty breezes, that he was beginning to feel like a fireman called out on hoaxes: relieved that there was no fire, but some small part of him secretly hoping that there was.

The analyst gave him a bright, professional smile, devoid of warmth. CTC had a reputation for arrogance. She saw it in the eyes of Canning’s two aides: built, confident, languid with entitlement. They would regard her, an employee of the National Security Agency, as a mere functionary, a troglodyte who never got to see the light of action, while they, either CIA or FBI—probably CIA, ex Marine Corps, thought Southward, rapidly profiling them—were the glory boys.

“Sorry about that, sir. It is good, or perhaps bad would be a better way to describe it. Yesterday, over at NSA, we picked up an intercept. It’s been working its way through the system since then. Got to me an hour ago. Sheikh Ali Al Baharna. We have a FISA Court Warrant on him, which allows us to intercept as many of his comms as we’ve managed to track so far. We also listen in to some of his close family members, in this case his brother, Nasr. The call was encrypted, suspicious enough in itself.” Southward paused, gave a crisp smile. “But we broke the encryption.”

Canning nodded, awaiting the punch line.

“We believe Sheikh Ali is behind many of the suicide bombing attacks in Israel. We believe he pays bonuses to the families of the martyrs depending on how many Israelis die. We’ve long suspected it’s only a matter of time until he sets his sights on the US. He spends a lot of time here. He’s here now, in California. As you know, he’s a Saudi, a Shia from the Eastern Province. In this call, he’s talking to his brother, Nasr, asking him if his eldest son is still in California. Nasr says that, yes, his eldest son is studying in Los Angeles. The Sheikh tells him: A dangerous place for the infidels and the holy alike. The brother asks why and the Sheikh says this:

Because as the sun rises each morning, be sure that the wrath of Allah will rain down upon them.

Nasr asked when he should invite his son home for a visit. The Sheikh said that the celebrations of Hussein’s birthday might be extra special this year, as might be his grandfather’s. He suggested he come home then.”

Canning snorted. “Hell of a lot of use that is. How many Husseins are there?” He made no effort to veil the contempt in his voice.

Del Russo and Peters looked down at the Arabist dismissively. They’d been yanked out of the dinner party’s catering kitchen, halfway through a spectacular beef Wellington.

If she were rattled, Southward didn’t show it. She smiled.

“I believe it’s code,” she replied softly. “I think the particular Hussein is the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson. His birthday will be celebrated this year on Saturday, the twenty-fourth of November in the festival of Ashura. As you know, Islam follows the Lunar Calendar, so birthdays, feast days, and so on change every year. For Shia Muslims, it’s a major festival marking Hussein’s martyrdom. While the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday falls January twenty-ninth. Milad un Nabi.”

“Your hypothesis,” mused Canning, leaning back in his chair. He still looked skeptical, but the contempt had gone from his voice.

Southward shrugged. “Sure. We’ve already searched for any Husseins connected to Sheikh Ali, come up with several, but none stand out. This is the best hypothesis we’ve got.”

“Their voices, when you listened in. You think this is for real, or just Jihadi posturing?” Canning asked.

“Jihadi jive talking,” cut in Del Russo, with a satisfied smile.

Southward didn’t condescend to look at him, she replied to Chief Canning.

“I’ve heard the Sheikh’s voice announcing a one-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus to the families of the Shuhada’, the suicide bombers, for every dead body in the bombings. He said it in code, but I interpreted it, I knew what he meant. I’ve listened to over a hundred hours of his voice. I know the posturings, and I know when it’s for real. This, I am sure of it, is for real. The wrath of Allah will rain down, some aerial attack. Could be planes crashing into their targets. Or dropping bombs.”

“How the hell would they get hold of bomb carriers and bomb loads?” asked Del Russo.

“What if they managed to turn one of our own, or more than one?” posed Southward.

“What, our own Air Force attack us?” asked Canning scowling.

“It’s an avenue, sir. Another is a private plane. The Sheikh has resources; we believe he has at least four billion US dollars in liquid investments, some of that earned by shorting the Dow pre-Nine-eleven. It would be nothing to him to buy a couple of private planes, kit them out.”

“You’re very well informed, Ms. Southward,” observed Canning.

“The Fusion Group sends me the briefings they collate. I read them, well, some of them. All the ones relating to Sheik Ali.”

“Target fixation,” murmured Del Russo. Southward again ignored him.

Canning sat back, massaged his temples. They got so much intel coming at them like flak. What to prioritize, what to ignore? Even with the monstrous resources at his disposal, they had to prioritize. Only time would vindicate, or hang him.

He eyed the woman before him. He’d read her CV in the car on the way. She was brilliant, one of the top Arabists of her generation. Ambitious, keen to make her career, keen to prevent an atrocity. Her clear, bright eyes looked back at him. He saw in them utter conviction, a conviction that he, these days, overburdened, sometimes lacked. Hoax or fire? He went with his gut.

“OK, Ms. Southward. We’ll run with your hypothesis. We’ll explore both ideas. Maybe this is a Shia version of the Sunni’s planned second wave post-Nine-eleven.”

Canning turned to his aides. “You’ll remember Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with a little persuasion from the boys in Guantánamo, disclosed that he had been planning to attack the Liberty Building in LA. We arrested all the plotters, foiled the attack, but we’ve all been wondering when the next would come. This might be jive talking, but it might be real. We cannot afford to discount it. Get it typed up, Ol, circulate to Category A. Frank, get a list of all private airfields in California. Have every last one of them checked out. Discreetly.”

Both men straightened, ready for action. Now that their boss had spoken, all their languor stiffened into resolve, observed Southward, amused but also relieved. From the moment she had listened to the intercept, her spine had been tingling.

“One question, sir,” asked Peters. “At what stage do we consider bringing Ali in? I mean if he’s here in the US now…”

“Reality is, we’d upset our allies,” replied Canning. “We cannot afford to piss off the Saudis without a damn good reason. Even if Baharna is a Shia not a Sunni. Plus, some proof would be good. We have nothing concrete. We have suspicions, but Ali Al Baharna always speaks in riddles, as you know. All our suppositions are extrapolations. He cannot be arrested for mouthing veiled threats without there being evidence to back up the threats. As far as the world is concerned, he is a legitimate businessman, vastly successful. And that part is all true. So we keep doing what we’re doing.” He turned to Southward. His craggy face had softened a fraction, as if he had eased, just a fraction, the barrier of his cynicism. “And you guys at NSA keep digging. We all keep digging until we expose him for the Jihadi you believe him to be.”

“One more thing, sir,” murmured Southward. “He signed off his call to his brother saying: habat hoboob al jenna.”

“And?” demanded Del Russo with a defensive jut of his jaw.

“Oh, sorry, I thought you’d know what it meant,” replied Southward with a sweet smile. “It is rather well known. It means: the winds of paradise are blowing. It’s what the suicide bombers and the Nine-eleven hijackers signed off with.”