The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel (27 page)

October 14, 2003

T
he United States Government will “meeting” you to death…and nothing is ever solved
,
Jericho felt like announcing to those in the room. Defying the desire to fidget, yawn, or slouch as others around her occasionally did, she sat upright in her chair, viewing the presentation on the screen. Her heels were off, but no one would see that. Working with her analysts was sheer pleasure compared to the tedium she was presently enduring.

Yet even Jericho’s ego wasn’t immune to the rungs of the career ladder. She fought such aspirations intensely, grateful that her time at sea with women and men who protected the country were the best years of her life. Long forgotten was the drudgery, replaced only by fond memories and awe as the massive powered steel maiden sliced through the water, directed by the veins of human energy coursing within the superstructure.

When her mission as the Chief Security Officer for the Naval Security Group ended, so did the wanderlust. At first she denied the hormonal clock inside, then she grudgingly conceded to its tinnient reality. Fear gripped her at the thought of coming home. She had her parents and a brother, but no real roots or friends except for those in the navy. Uncomfortable with the notion of a desk job, she considered continuing her graduate studies at the Naval Academy.

Jericho tried dating both civilian men and officers. Of the handful she had known intimately—she was deceptively charitable as to the number—none was willing to compete with her devotion to duty. One night she spoke about her patriotism to an F/A 18 Hornet pilot on their communal pillow.

“I fight for forty percent of Americans,
”
he said unabashedly, “
the rest of them I’d just as soon strafe.
”

Resigned to her frustration when she found out he was married, she stopped trying altogether and closed the gates.

Cottrell Herndon first learned of Jericho when she became a midshipman at Annapolis. Leaving the University of Wisconsin after her freshman year, she started again, excelling to the head of her class. Impressed by her leadership style and critical thinking, he requested the new ensign be under his command. After Herndon moved on, she stayed for another tour. Jericho called him when she got back to the States.

“How ‘bout lunch with the old man?”
he asked right away.

Out of uniform, they met at an Annapolis restaurant overlooking the Severn River. They laughed and told tales, sharing a bottle of wine—her first in many months.

“Lainey,”
the admiral said,
“there’s a good position for you available at the Annex
.
”

“A land job?”

He leaned forward so no one would hear.

“The Office of Naval Research needs someone to get its projects running with the Directorate of Science and Technology. You’ll drive things at the DST that’ll keep you out front…and it suits your stubborn need for independence.”

The opportunity would move her career forward, plus she could live in Alexandria with its views of Washington across the Potomac. That excited her too.

“I appreciate your confidence, Admiral.”

With a grin, he said,
“You’ll love it…and you can—”

“Let me guess…spend time with clean-shaven marines?”

“Never would-a thought it,”
he grinned again.

“Admiral, I can take care of myself, you know.”

“Cottrell, please, when we’re away from the shop. Cotty
would be even better.
”

“Oh, I couldn’t!”
To Jericho, respect of rank was imperative.

“Yes, you can…”

Afraid he might take her refusal as a personal insult, she conceded.

“Okay…Cotty…I accept.”

The deal was validated with a handshake and a toast. Jericho got a mortgage on a townhouse and commuted to work near the Pentagon.

The charitable, breezy lunch was a world apart from what happened two years later on a bright September Tuesday.

The admiral called her the next morning. The conversation became encrypted after the first hello.

“As you can guess…all those sons of bitches want to go nuclear, and not for electricity.”
His resigned anger echoed in her ear.
“We need to redirect our tactical understanding toward the Middle East, not Russia. Elaine…I know you’re doing good things with DST, but now, as the new director of the NGA, I need your expertise and am putting you in for a transfer.”

Jericho changed jobs in one day—leaving behind whatever morsels remained in a life she couldn’t build. Her only mission was clear: protect the country. Nothing else mattered.

Unaccustomed to daydreaming, Jericho hadn’t heard Richard Fields’s opening remarks. Crossing her legs, she took a sip of cooling tea and unwrapped one of the small hard candies from the glass dish waiting a slight reach beyond her briefing papers.

“We’ve learned from interviewing the ship’s cook named
Nidal
, that three men—Jamil Sayyaf, we talked about him last time;
Hamid
, a Somali; and Nidal—came into our country apparently hunting for some male R and R
.
The port gate security logs confirm their entrance.” He scratched his head. “We’ve learned from Nidal about the additional man who boarded in Houston.”

Everyone in the room was still, wanting to hear more.

“His name is
Barif Ali
,” said Richard. “Middle Eastern. Claimed to grow up here. Immigrant parents, blah, blah. Spoke Arabic. Hung out with Sayyaf.”

“Scrub more information on him?” asked Rushworth.

“No threat signature,” Richard said. “A clean skin.”

Another one with no background…
Jericho knew such invisible recruits were an ever-present concern.

“Continue,” said Rushworth.

“According to Nidal, the shore party connected with Ali, who claimed to be waiting for a crewman they’d never heard of, but miraculously they all hooked up.”

“Never in a million years will I believe that was a chance encounter,” said the FBI liaison.

“Me, neither,” said Cottrell Herndon.

“Especially when,” added Fields, “according to crew interviews, it turns out that Ali and Sayyaf were pals aboard—”

“So it was a ploy to fool the other two.” Rushworth cut him off.

“While ashore”—Fields inaugurated his next comment with a smile—“Ali took them to a nearby strip club called
Puss ‘n Boots
. We’re going to check it out. There’s a neon-breasted cowgirl in front dancing around a—”

“Don’t endow us with any more details, Richard,” said Rushworth amid the snickers. Her pencil clinked them to silence. “Just find out what you can.”

“We could be on that as soon as this weekend, Madame Chair.”

There were more snickers.

“Ahem…” Rushworth took a sip of water.

“Ali was quiet and reserved, almost gentle, but also a determined fellow. Might be enough for a forensic psychological evaluation …”

Fields looked at his notes.

“A strong deckhand—did more than his fair share of heavy lifting. Also spent time exercising,
while
reading the Koran.” His smile grew. “An unusual approach to piety. What else can I tell you?”

He squinted. “Ali could bone a chicken incredibly fast.
That’s
a useful skill to impress one of your future wives…”

Rushworth cleared her throat again.

“Ha! Here…” His controlled smile stayed intact. “Should mention…Ali came aboard with a Pakistani passport, don’t know whether it was stolen or maybe counterfeit, but the first mate said he got a new one in Trinidad, issued…Lebanese. Don’t have anything more on that yet.”

This is no incidental tourist taking a junket.
Jericho’s curiosity blended with irritation.

Rushworth said, “So let me understand this: Houston Port Security never checked his old passport? Abrams, you have an answer?”

The ICE representative appeared tentative. “Normally…we don’t pay attention to departing freighter crews.”

“I didn’t know that.” Her words chilled the room. “That’s idiotic,” she said. “Is it the Nuclear Committee’s task to show every deficiency in national security?”

ICE continued. “We’ve mined
Barif Ali
. There’s nothing.”

Jericho knew the problem. None of the hundreds of databases was linked. Each needed to be queried individually, but low-level security clearances prevented many analysts from data sharing. Ninety-five percent of all intelligence was never correlated.

“Did you include the modifiers
hardworking
and
religious
?” someone asked.

There was laughter. Even Rushworth smiled—an aberration from her usual phlegmatic self.

“No editorializing.” Her severity returned. “Continue, Richard.”

“His bunk and storage drawers were searched. No fingerprints, which I guess isn’t surprising. The few items of clothing—blue jeans, Tshirts—had been recently laundered. A hair specimen found in the jean’s pocket is currently undergoing DNA analysis.”

“I’m trying to expedite that,” interrupted the FBI officer. “Working on his biometrics with the crew. Had to get authorization to send a team over, but they’re there now.”

“Keep me informed on that,” said Fields, looking at Rushworth as if they were ready to reveal a shared secret. “So our agents walked the deck. They said there was no way anybody, let alone three men, even drunk, could go overboard, based on meteorological and oceanographic data.”

On the screen Fields projected the image of the torso hanging from the stern. “We’ve enhanced this.” The red laser pointer jiggled on the silhouette. “Look.”

Jericho had seen it before.

“This is a backpack. In Houston the security guard did remember a man who fit the description of Ali was carrying one.” Jericho was still. “Madame Chair, it’s known that Ali and the captain didn’t get along, and somehow, without the crew noticing, he must have figured out a way to throw the captain overboard. The Somali too.”

“So the working hypothesis is this had something to do with Sayyaf and the cargo?” asked Rushworth.

“That’s my estimate.” Fields pointed to the backpack again. “And this…is Ali trying to get off the ship.”

Jericho’s expression never changed, but she recalled Sorenson’s words weeks earlier when he saw the same image for the first time.

Holy shit!

Karachi October 24, 2003

“N
o.” Morgan added a smile for good measure.

The market vendor brought the mango shake closer to his mouth, insisting he taste it, but Morgan firmly declined the offer. The mango shake he drank on his first day left a poignant impression that had begun with a gurgle in stomach, reaching the other orifice by afternoon. When he wasn’t crumpled on the grubby sheet covering the sagging mattress, he was spewing diarrhea into a toilet that barely flushed. Hobbling back to bed, the salmonella toxin would peak again, reviving the nightmare of Caroline suspended in space, her hand never able to grab his in time. Even as he sat on the porcelain spewing slime, the vision remained, smothering him with dread.

The next morning, after the desk clerk bought him some antibiotics, bismuth, and tea, Morgan felt well enough to stand under the corroded nozzle in the shower, worshiping the feel of tepid water.

The weeks since had been uneventful for Morgan’s stomach as the ounce of opium-laced bismuth plugged him every morning before he headed out to explore Karachi. Taking tea in cafes throughout the city, he eavesdropped on conversations, enjoying the distinctive gliding tones as the Karachiites pronounced vowels. He listened to the khutbahs (sermons) at the mosques, bartered with the street vendors, and argued local politics with everyone. Much of what he heard and said was in English, some in Arabic, and he even began to decipher and use bits of Pashto.

Wherever he went, the smell of wood smoke and fires cooking lamb, fish, or offal parts greeted him from the crisscrossed alleys and markets. He’d stop to taste the cuisine and enjoy the company of men sitting near piles of rugs, spice jars, and mountains of shoes. Returning to the hostel often late in the evening, he’d smell his armpits and his stool in the commode. He reeked of curry, onions, and coriander. That was his intent. He no longer smelled like a foreigner.

As his understanding of the cultural archeology expanded, Morgan ventured closer to the crowded ghettos where the peons, craftsmen, and servants lived in tenements, and gangs of unskilled men from the tribal territories would leave to work day and night. Those who remained watched for trespassers, guarding neighborhoods where the police did not come—and the law was Sharia justice.

One morning Morgan looked in the mirror at his mangy hair. His beard overflowed his cupped hand—improper by custom.

“Time for a haircut and trim,” he said. “Perfect. It’s Friday.”

A visit to a ghetto barbershop would give Morgan a measure of how he was adapting in his character. The experience could be dangerous, possibly treacherous—all the better.

On the drooping bed, Morgan placed the satchel in his lap and gently ran his fingers along the gray rope woven in a serpentine pattern over a sturdy fabric shell. The bag contained everything he owned. When he slept, he put his leg through the strap. When he was out, it was always over a shoulder.

A man tried to yank the satchel away once as Morgan stood on a busy sidewalk. He looked into the thief’s eyes, and asked in terse English if he wished to be castrated. The man stepped back into the crowd and was gone.

Morgan unzipped the satchel and placed the revolver, bullets, clothes, passport, and Koran beside him. A fingernail picked at a thread inside. Created by a tailor in Berwyn, the secure thick lining was quilted and had numerous sealed little pouches. One split open. Acquired months earlier from numerous Chicago banks, a pleat of well-aged rupees went into Morgan’s pocket. The satchel contained enough cash to get him wherever he needed to go, buy what he needed to buy, or bribe whomever he needed to bribe. There was plenty.

He put everything back inside the satchel and left the hostel.

Morgan got out of the tonga and stepped over a crack in the pavement, knowing the minuscule boundary marked the demarcation of two distinct worlds. He briefly looked around. He was already being scrutinized, his every movement suspect.

A distant woman standing on a crumbling curb drew her headscarf higher across her face. Her act of modesty was an ominous warning that visitors were not welcome.

In respect, Morgan lowered his gaze and kept walking, counting his heartbeats.

Normal—almost slow. Then he smiled.