9

Jalal al-Khattabi took a seat at the rear of the main cabin, avoiding anyone else who had boarded the ferry, preferring to keep to himself. The less he had to interact, the less could be learned should someone be questioned later. He knew he was being paranoid, but he’d been taught specifically that such things had caused catastrophic failure in the past. The enemy was everywhere. After the operation, it would be very hard for anyone to connect the dots to this trip, but he certainly didn’t want to give the authorities any extra help.

It had been thirteen long years since he’d left his homeland of Morocco, and in that time plenty of changes had occurred—most that the average person visiting would never blink an eye at. But for those like him, it was a danger.

The ship under way, he saw the people line up for the immigration officer, each dutifully handing a passport over and answering the usual questions.

He despised the fact that the Europeans were treated perfunctorily, while anyone of Moroccan descent was questioned more harshly. An indicator of what he fought for.

Directly in front of him were two Eurotrash couples, the males disheveled, with tattoos and backpacks, the females with disgusting dreadlocks that looked like cotton rope that had been dipped in wax. He knew exactly why they were making the trip, having worked the supply side of the Moroccan drug trade for most of his life, and he was sure the immigration officer knew as well.

And yet nothing but cursory questions on their intentions.

Jalal was a Berber from the Rif Mountains of Morocco, a land where the people fought for survival every single day, and through their trials, they’d found a method of success. The Rif had grown into one of the highest marijuana-producing regions of the world. When it came to Europe, forget about Mexico. If you wanted dope on the Continent, it originated in the Rif, and the trade was handed down from father to son in the hardscrabble life carved out of the rocks of the mountains.

The two couples in front of him were on a hashish tour, Jalal was sure. He was, after all, a primary conduit feeding the trade. At least he had been, before he’d found the true cause of his life. He still dabbled, but not nearly as much as he had in the past.

He listened to the questions and was disgusted at the lack of attention. The man simply rubber-stamped their passports and let them through. It was further proof of why his action was needed. Nobody could fight the West when one hand was in the pocket of those same people. The fight had to be pure, which is what he had become.

He presented his passport and, unsurprisingly, was subject to much more scrutiny. He answered the questions, hiding his anger, and had his passport stamped, then returned to his seat in the back, fuming.

The ride from the Iberian Peninsula was relatively short, no more than a couple of hours even with the berthing and unloading time, and soon Jalal could see the new Mediterranean port of Tangier slowly growing outside of his window.

It was located about thirty kilometers from Tangier itself, and built in the time Jalal had been gone. He had never seen it before, but he’d been told it was a better place to use for infiltration. The port was four times the size of the aging one inside Tangier and, as such, strained the authorities’ ability to maintain security. With so much going on, there would be little chance that Jalal would be stopped and interrogated a second time.

The boat began docking procedures, and he climbed out to the deck with everyone else, watching the trucks and cargo vans parked underneath the passenger area preparing to disembark. The heat of the deck, greasy and steaming, began to settle, and he wondered if they would be forced to wait until the vehicles had left. He would not.

He saw a signal from the woman manning the gangplank, and the passengers began shuffling forward, most with roll-aboards, but some with gigantic garbage bags full of whatever they’d found on the Continent. One lady, clearly cresting eighty years old, was struggling with an oversize suitcase as the others passed her by, rushing to get off.

Underneath her hijab, he could clearly see her pain as she tried to muscle her baggage onto the cleated stairs. She was knocked aside by other passengers too impatient to wait. He stepped forward and, speaking Arabic, said, “May I help you?”

She looked at him gratefully and nodded. He hoisted the bag and turned to the narrow iron stairwell, and was promptly bumped aside by someone else. He dropped the bag and hammered the man who’d done it, throwing him into the steel wall of the ship. The man looked at him in surprise, not saying a word. They stared at each other for a split second, and the man retreated down the stairs. The line following him stopped. Jalal looked at them and said, “Will nobody help her? Is this what we’ve become?”

Everyone glanced away. He carried her bag down, then returned to help her navigate the stairs, no other passenger daring to venture forward. She reached the bottom and said, “Thank you, I’ve been blessed. Thank you.”

He nodded and shouldered his small backpack, following the flow of people off the ferry and toward a bus. He showed his passport one more time, the man checking only to make sure he had his stamps, and, after a ten-minute ride to the new terminal, was hailing a taxi to the city.

After forty minutes of bouncing on the winding blacktop of the coast road, the windows rolled down to offset the stifling heat, they reached the outskirts of the sprawling port city of Tangier. Jalal marveled at how much it had changed. He had read how the city was rivaling Casablanca as a commercial hub, but he hadn’t translated that in his mind.

He asked how much longer and was told about ten minutes. They wound past the old port—much smaller than the monstrosity built on the coast thirty kilometers away—and finally turned inland to the teeming city. The cabby went through a traffic circle, then left the main road, entering a zigzag of streets, the walls closing in on a lane barely wide enough for two cars. Eventually, he stopped and pointed at an American flag, saying, “American Legation.”

Jalal nodded and asked how much. The man told him, and Jalal asked if he would take euros. The driver agreed and gave a new amount. Jalal paid, spending the final bit of euros he had and knowing he was being wildly overcharged. He didn’t care; it wasn’t his money.

He took his small backpack and walked up the white stairs, passing through an arch with the United States’ Great Seal. He ignored it, and the museum it represented—the first American delegation to Morocco, formed here even before the nomenclature of “embassy” had been created. He passed by the door, disregarding the guard out front, and wondered if the Sheik had found a safe house at this location because he thought it was the most secure, or because he thought it humorous.

He wound down a brightly colored pedestrian lane, the walls close enough to touch with outstretched arms, passing an attractive woman headed the other way. One who was wearing Western clothing, with no hint of her Moroccan heritage. Clearly, some other things had changed here as well. Some things he intended to reverse.

After three turns in the alleys he stopped in front of an apartment labeled with the number twenty-four. He withdrew a key and was mildly surprised that it worked.

He entered, seeing a small flat with a kitchenette and a separate bedroom/bathroom combination. On a table next to the stove was an envelope.

He opened it, finding instructions for his meeting today, along with a set of car keys and a bundle of Moroccan dirham currency, the bill on top having writing on it in Arabic.

Not even bothering to explore the apartment, he left, retracing his steps until he was back on the street, the Great Seal behind him. He read the instructions and walked south down rue de la Plage. He made a right turn and saw his landmark—a century-old Spanish theater called Cervantes, crumbling and decrepit, with boards over the windows and an iron gate outside. He was surprised at the state of the building. When he’d last visited Tangier, it had been operational, a symbol of the multiculturalism of Morocco. But that had been years ago, and truthfully, his family couldn’t have afforded the price of admission even then.

Lining the street in front were cars parked in parallel and a man wearing a reflective vest studiously helping someone park. Jalal waited until the man was through, then handed him the hundred-dirham note with the Arabic instructions. Initially surprised at the amount of money, the man read the bill and nodded, leading the way to a Toyota Land Cruiser wedged between two other cars. Jalal thanked him, handing him another bill as he entered the car. The man guided him out, and in short order, Jalal himself was battling the traffic in Tangier.

He headed north, forgoing the main arteries out of the city. He threaded through the winding streets until he hit a single ribbon of highway going southwest, now out of the city. Once again he paralleled the coast, only this time on the Atlantic instead of the Mediterranean.

He passed through a forest maintained by the monarchy, the trees interrupted every so often with gigantic homes—palaces, really. One would think, given his bitter upbringing, that they would cause Jalal some umbrage, but they gave him no concern, as he knew who owned them: the same people who had taught him the true meaning of Islam. The Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia.

Over the last two centuries, Morocco had seen colonization by the Spaniards, the French, and finally the Arabs, and through it all the Berbers had been the bastard children, discriminated against no matter who was in power. Eking out a living in the Rif Mountains, Jalal’s heritage was one of sorrow, with the Berbers’ language erased, their society and tribes marginalized. Moroccan law even forbade their families from anointing their children with traditional Berber names.

Jalal knew none of this when he and his cousins set out for Spain to make their fortune so many years ago. Barely able to read and write, he had no knowledge of anything religious—most certainly not the rabid brand he now professed. That all changed in the immigrant neighborhood of Lavapiés in Madrid, Spain. Struggling to survive, Jalal and his cousins had been befriended by an imam from Saudi Arabia—one of the many the kingdom sent out to proselytize to the Arab diaspora. There, in a living room mosque, hidden from view of the authorities, they learned the true reason for their hardships and began to embrace Islam as it was meant to be. Pure, without the equivocation of the Takfiri or the outright apostasy of the unbeliever.

It was there, in that small makeshift mosque, that Jalal had met the holy warriors who would strike a terrific blow in 2004. Moroccans like himself, they blew up the main Madrid train station, killing nearly two hundred infidels. While others lamented the attack, Jalal and his cousins, led by the imam, silently cheered.

The mosque held another milestone in Jalal’s life. It was there, six years ago, that he was first introduced to a Saudi Arabian called the Sheik.