The Architect of Revenge: A September 11th Novel (35 page)

Fairfax, Virginia December 2, 2003

H
alogen lights illuminated the polished table covered with laptops, coffee cups, and wrapped, inexpensive hard candies. Before the chairs were filled with her congregation, the pencil tapping began.

“Good morning,” said Priscilla Rushworth. “Let me begin by confirming the rumor,” she said through a restrained gloat, “that I have accepted the position to serve as a Deputy Director of CIA.”

Polite applause bred a monarch smile on her face.

“You can’t imagine the honor.” The woman was insufferable. “I transition to my new role by year’s end. The person who will sit here…”

As they looked at one another, the thumping in Jericho’s head intensified.

“Let’s just say the list is short.”

Rushworth’s concluding remarks grew wearisome.

“We must understand our enemies and…know their world. This rule goes back to the earliest days of espionage.”

She told the story of the Trojan Horse—for ten minutes.

“So remember: Source all evidence. Acknowledge ambiguity. Don’t assume. Provide other analysis. Strive for accuracy. Work closely with your colleagues.”

Avoid interagency jealousy, the press, and sanctimonious elected officials
, Jericho wanted to say.
And above all else…keep your pants zipped.

Rushworth concluded with the drummed mantra of the government. “We’re all in this together.”

The CIA’s report came first.

“Madame Chair, I know I speak for everyone here…Congratulations!”

Murmurs of approval lapped through the room. Perhaps they were just thrilled to be rid of her.

CIA continued. “We published yet another attack on the
Khyber Mail
. Nothing new there…but it’s disconcerting that a country with nuclear weapons can’t even protect its trains. A Gambit satellite took a look. Thought you’d enjoy seeing the handiwork of the bad guys.”

A fourteen-car train was surrounded by emergency vehicles. Passengers in line for buses were sequestered from at least two dozen body bags.

“Elaine…” Rushworth whispered to get her attention as if she was preparing to share secrets about a party the night before. She slid into the CIA’s empty chair and cupped the microphone. “Cottrell gave you a very strong recommendation.”

She moved back to her seat before the penetrating smile disappeared.

“Any questions?” asked Rushworth. “No? Good. Fine. Let’s move on, then, to Middle Eastern Nuclear…” The composed smile returned. “Commander, go ahead…please.”

With no additional evidence about the cargo containers, Jericho reviewed a series of other images and their correlated intelligence from other agencies, and concluded, “We caught this panorama in western Waziristan. An interesting place, even without a nuclear reactor.” She used a laser pointer. “Here’s a cluster of vehicles with weapons under the tarps—undoubtedly another terrorist camp. We’ve published this.”

“Can we recommend that a drone strike?” said an air force officer.

Rushworth interrupted. “We leave those decisions to State, CIA, and the Department of Defense.” Muffled blowing from the ventilation system could be heard over the silence. “Anything else, Commander?”

“Still hunting for a black and white stick…and Ali.” Jericho smiled professionally. “I’m confident they’ll show up.”

“Keep looking.” Her response was tinged with irritation.

“That concludes my report, Madame Chair.”

“Thank you.” Rushworth’s lips barely moved.

After the other members presented their reports, Rushworth said, “This committee will adjourn for ten minutes.”

In the corridor Admiral Herndon caught the arm of his favorite officer.

“Elaine, watch yourself. Priscilla can nix your appointment.”

“I’m not playing a game, Admiral. Rushworth asked a month ago and I’m reporting as instructed. We can’t destroy any camp we see. We dismiss a suspected terrorist in this country, but I’m told to hunt for a cane. Fine! Tell me my job and how to do it, and I’ll collect all the information nobody will use!”

“That’s what I like about you, Lainey. You take no prisoners. Priscilla doesn’t have much recourse anyway…and the friction’s mostly fun.”

He motioned with a hand and the two officers stepped farther down the hallway.

“There’s a bit more about the train that wasn’t shared in there.”

The admiral turned so his words were not overheard.

“Nasty thing. AKs hosed down the porters, conductors, engineers. Then two of the robbers get popped in a first-class compartment by a single shot from a .357. A few minutes later, another’s head gets split, soft-boiled-egg-like.”

“I was going to eat some yogurt in a moment, if you don’t mind,” said Jericho, trying to cover her curiosity.

“There’s amazing stopping power in those guns,” he added.

Her face maintained a detached look.

“They used grenades too. Passengers thought the world exploded!”

“Some robbery,” said Jericho.

“That’s what’s strange,” the admiral admitted. “In just a couple of minutes, a bunch of bad guys are dead and two others are racing back along the tracks…a tall man and short, thin woman. Guess there were a whole pile of motorcycles waiting’ for the thieves, and they took off on one.” He pulled out a pen and started clicking it. “Strangest yet…they didn’t steal anything.”

“Nothing which happens in that country makes any sense,” said Jericho.

Herndon dug in his coat pocket and handed her a picture.

“From a cell phone on the train. Facial recognition studies comparing it to your Mr. Ali are below threshold for a matter of confirmation.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“To make the point Priscilla just did, even though it was painful to listen to…bless her little heart.” Herndon offered his familiar chuckle.

Jericho studied the picture. “I appreciate a similarity.”

“That dog’s not going to hunt,” he laughed. “There isn’t.”

Her head tip challenged him. “Admiral, I don’t care if the algorithm’s degree of improbability was one hundred percent, the eyes are the same.”

“Elaine…I’m telling this for a reason.” He laughed again, sensing her tension.

“No one believes this could be Ali?” she asked.

He motioned her into a room.

“CIA says no.”

Her arms folded in growing frustration.

“What about the gun?” she asked.

“The man fired the Makarov, and the woman used the revolver. Colt’s made more than one in my lifetime.”

“What about the bullet fragments? Who’s the manufacturer?” she asked, checking the growing pitch in her voice.

“Getting good detective work over there ain’t happening. Elaine, even in one of those blue moons, there isn’t enough there.”

“Let me see that again,” she said, refusing to stand down.

“I’m bringing this to you to reiterate a point.” Herndon’s tone became sterner. “I thought the pig DNA thing was, well…you deserved your day with it. Hell…everybody gets bored without a little change-up.”

“Are you reprimanding me, Admiral?”

“No! No! Just don’t act all huffy to Rushworth, or even Fields. Heck, we all know that kid’s her boy. Ignore them both, or that promotion will go speeding away like quail from buckshot.” He patted her shoulder. “Your team does fantastic work. Your leadership proves I’m right in recommending you. The NGA needs your experience…and you deserve the job, but you need to stay objective. Remember—time tells all.”

“You’re right, Admiral.” Jericho manufactured a sweet smile. “I’ll put this in my scrapbook,” she said in a coy voice over her shoulder on the way to the washroom.

The blue convertible Thunderbird sped down the parkway, the November air sweeping over her face. Her officer’s cap tumbled to her feet.

“Stay there,” she barked. “He laughed at me!” Her voice carried above the radio. “Twice! Then…that
pat
!”

The more she relived their conversation, the more insulting it became.

Aye, sir
—she wanted to say to drive the point deeper into him.

“Crap! I should have taken the vacation!” Her foot jammed the accelerator. “Damn it, Herndon, you’re wrong! You’re all wrong!”

M
organ sensed Nadia was in the shack. She came closer, standing over him as he lay curled in a fetal position. He whimpered in pain. When she placed a pinch of heroin in each nostril, he rolled away so she couldn’t see. A noisy inhale through his mouth became a quiet exhale out his nose that blew most of the powder to the mat. She placed the new small vial in his hand before he rolled back wearing a faraway smirk. Hiding the pain of withdrawal, even with slow weaning, was difficult. Stopping cold was impossible.

He had tried.

The heroin was too powerful, whispering seductively at first in his ear, letting him yawn in defiance. Within a day, tears and slime from his nose grew worse. The day after that came diarrhea, then his muscles grew stiff, like rigor mortis. He couldn’t hide from her, yet Morgan fought back. He didn’t want the poison back inside, but his body insisted it did. So he let her visit, only a little at a time. He had to control it.

He would, somehow.

“Hurry,” Nadia said, nudging him.

Morgan looked at his Koran on a folded white cotton cloth. A fresh salwar kameez and raglan sweater lay near his boots and satchel. He was going somewhere today, a colder place.

As he dressed, he stretched to relax the muscles of his legs and arms, but the door banged open and two men with Kalashnikovs burst in. They bound his wrists and slipped a burlap sack over his head, sealing the bottom with twine. The gun barrels rudely ushered him down the path into the backseat of a waiting automobile.

Another man crammed beside him was praying on each panted breath. His resonance foreboding, the hurried words spoke of forgiveness and faith. Morgan sat in silence, the air inside his sack becoming stale, making him feel like shit. He slowed his breathing, trying to subordinate his body to his mind.

After an hour, the potholed ride ended.

He heard a heavy metal gate move. His car door opened.

“Barra!” a chilly tongue commanded.
Get out!
Through the bag a Kalashnikov muzzle bore into his scalp, persuading him to move.

The guns prodded him up a rocky road where Morgan counted two voices greeting his escorts. They were stationary and elevated. He kicked pebbles as he walked and heard them clang on a vehicle.

“Kollo Tamam,” said a man above him.
All okay.

After a brief silence, a radio emitted a pair of electronic clicks. Moments later, Morgan heard the same words again from the radio. The clicks repeated.

Ahead, unified male voices were celebrating midday prayers. A wave of nausea came over Morgan while he tried to assess their numbers. Silence descended as they approached.

Morgan sensed men on either side shifting to form a gap, which immediately resealed once he was inside the congregation. He and his backseat companion were shoved to the ground. The binds on their wrists were cut and they were commanded to remove their boots.

The prayers continued.

Morgan yawned inside the hood, praying the worsening symptoms of withdrawal would pass him by. He hadn’t had a hit in hours.

At the end of the prayers, both men were ordered to stand, and Morgan’s hood was yanked off. They stood inside a semicircle of rugged men and older boys dressed in desert fatigues, their weapons close by like adoring children.

A bayonet pressed in Morgan’s side, while its owner yelled, “Pay attention!”

Every noise jangled his nerves more, but Morgan knew any suggestion of disinterest would mean his death. He bit his tongue hard.

A sturdy man with a stronger face stepped forward—his leather belt holstering an automatic pistol and radio. His thick handlebar mustache and beard couldn’t hide the scars. He had to be the camp leader.

“One of you betrays us,” he said.

With his thick black-rimmed glasses, Morgan knew the man was severely nearsighted. As his words clung in the air, his finger panned between the two of them with penetrating malice. He pushed his glasses back up his nose.

A rifle butt thudded into the stomach of the man next to Morgan. He collapsed as a wet spot expanded from his crotch down both pant legs. Six men dragged him to a thick log, shackled his wrists with rope, and yanked his arms wide so his head and neck jutted forward. He screamed, pleading for his life.

Morgan saw a talwar flash. The long metal saber mirrored the noon sun as the executioner stepped out of the background. Twirling it in broad arcs to loosen his shoulder, his deep-set eyes appeared bolted on his arctic face.

“The unrighteous has been tried and found guilty of conspiring with infidels!” the leader shouted. “His prayers counted as sins!” The crowd cheered. “There is no substitute for obedience!”

He pulled off the condemned man’s hood, so his eyes faced Mecca. As a camera shuttered, the swordsman lopped off his head with a single stroke. To avoid spurting blood from the stump, he jumped back and joined in the cheers of
ALLAHU AKBAR!

The head was still rocking in front of a crooked red trail as the mustached leader grabbed its hair, lifting it high. A fine trickle of blood streamed to the ground.

The cheers grew louder.

“He atones for his betrayal! We slay him before our people forget his lies!”

Men placed the body and head on a wood plank. Both would be delivered to the family as a warning to others. The men applauded as it disappeared, then the assembly began to break up.

A young man who was barely out of his teenage years approached him. “My name is Khalil,” he said.

“I am Barif,” said Morgan. “Peace be with you.”

They shook hands and embraced.

“Exciting, wasn’t it?” asked Khalil.

“Na’am!” answered Morgan.
Exciting
was not how he truly felt. His stomach was cramping. The full-blown craving for heroin was imminent, but he had to eke out what enthusiasm he could.

“My first one!”

Khalil’s zest for such horror reassured Morgan he had been invited to the right place.

“Do not worry…There will be others!” said Khalil. “Come.” He took Morgan’s hand. “I will show where you stay.”

They entered a wood-frame cabin with an uneven floor lined with carpets. On each were folded clothes and a Koran on white cotton. Khalil pointed to a rug.

“This is yours. It slept a great martyr,” he said.

“I am not worthy.”

“We all become worthy,” Khalil said. “I’ll get you tea. Tawfik will see you after you rest.”

“As he wishes…”

When Khalil left, Morgan stepped outside to some bushes. He urinated then vomited. He found the small vial deep in his pocket and a small pinch went into his nose.

Khalil guided him down a jagged trail leading to a small home. A side entrance opened to an office. The hinges creaked as he opened the door.

“When Tawfik comes, I will leave,” he said.

They waited. Morgan absorbed what he could with a quick scan of the room. The sword that had beheaded the man two hours earlier was in its sheath, hanging on a wall.

Handwritten notes were tacked on bulletin boards; travel guides for American and European cities and piles of maps and newspapers lay on tables and a desk. A hand-crank sharpener screwed on the leading edge was neighbor to tray of pointed pencils. A radio was in a charging cradle, its status light a steady green. On a bookshelf were several English novels, the top one with a bookmark. Whoever Tawfik was, he was well educated.

Morgan saw a computer. He stepped forward slightly, bumping Khalil enough so his thigh hit the desk. The screen came on, requesting a password. That was a problem.

Through the wall Morgan heard a female voice that quieted before the connecting door handle twisted.

The man with the mustache and beard entered. He used a finger to push his glasses higher on his nose.

“Tawfik…” Khalil bowed then said to Morgan, “I will come back for you later.”

There was a blood chit stitched to his sleeve. The piece of silk offered a reward to anyone who helped the bearer get to safety. The American soldier who had worn this one probably didn’t make it home alive.

“Ekhla’a Qameesak,” Tawfik ordered, pushing his glasses up again.
Remove your shirt.

He studied Morgan’s back wounds, nodding his approval at the contusions, some of which still oozed.

“You are resilient,” said Tawfik. “Someday your wounds will smell sweet.”

“I am a servant of God,” said Morgan.

“You have proven such by taking care of Nadia.” Tawfik suddenly offered his hand. They shook warmly. “Nadia…She is becoming beautiful again, but misses Omar much.” His eyes looked up. “May God have mercy on him.”

Morgan was intrigued. The more he pondered the coincidences, he was confidant she wasn’t just a plaything.

“So she has taken care of your needs, yes?”

“Yes.” It was clear Tawfik knew about the heroin.

Morgan had accumulated two vials in his satchel, hoping the amount would be all he needed to wean himself off. The charade between pretending and wanting would be difficult to hide. He had to convince Tawfik he was hooked—that if the drug was taken away, he’d be willing to blow himself to bits just to end the misery, martyrdom be damned. But Morgan had no true interest in that graphic endpoint.

“Will there be more?” he asked in a childlike voice, planting the impression he would be obedient without flaw.

“Of course,” Tawfik said.

A deep laugh ensued, the long tufts of hair flapping from his ears. He stuck his little finger deep inside one, vigorously working it up and down to scratch an itch.

“You are here and not dead because you spoke the truth.” His stained teeth showed through the generous smile. “The other man today did not and was not so…
lucky
, as you might say.”

“Kollo Tamam,” crackled the two-way radio.

Tawfik clicked the transmit button twice. Moments later he responded again the same way.

“Nadia brought me this.”

Tawfik removed the satchel from under the desk, reached in, and removed Morgan’s Koran. He fanned the pages as though he was skimming a magazine.

“You’ve treated this with respect.”

He dropped the book back in the satchel, which he handed to Morgan.

“You will learn many things here. “You told Jamil you wish to bring fear to Chicago—and you will.”

His demeanor became more congenial.

“Before then, sometime”—he pretended to shoot a Tommy gun—“you will tell me about gangsters!”

The meeting was over.

Khalil was waiting outside for him.

“Everyone knows that as a boy in Swat he killed Taliban,” he said with admiration. “Five in one morning after prayers. A single shot to the head…like dogs.”

Morgan nodded.

“Now we kill infidels together!”

The pernicious narrative was thankfully short, but Khalil’s admiration was understandable. No doubt Tawfik earned his reputation, and shedding blood was necessary to impress weak-hearted devotees that he was in control of their lives. The bold act of picking up a severed head was to the point, and one he had likely perfected after many performances.

As they walked Morgan saw trucks resting on bald tires with shattered windows, others were loaded with tarpaulin-covered crates. A steel-walled dump truck sported a large-caliber Russian machine gun aimed down the road over the gate.

There was no sign but the message was clear: Uninvited guests not welcome.

Amidst empty ammunition and fuel cans, and thousands of soda bottles, dust-coated vehicles on tire rims provided cover for boys playing hide-and-seek with baying goats wearing tins bells. As a billy raced past, Morgan saw its likely objective: the fenced pen, several hundred feet away, would provide refuge from the chase.

The rest of the camp was lost to the boredom of the Friday afternoon. In the quiet Morgan heard the sound of soft thunder and looked into the clear sky. Contrails from American fighter jets billowed north to south.

Khalil pointed at them and said, “Afghanistan.”