The Devil's Light (20 page)

That night, Aviva and Ben had come late to Raoul's, their smiles of greeting perfunctory. Anit caught this at once. “What has happened?” she asked them.

Aviva glanced at Ben. “Camp David blew up,” she said flatly. “It's done.”

Anit closed her eyes. “Now our future is in the hands of settlers and jihadists.”

In that moment, catching Ben's look of compassion, Brooke sensed the beginning of their end.

When Brooke awoke, the plane was gliding into Dulles. Images of Anit Rahal mingled with the residue of a three-scotch hangover.

He had been here before. A few hours' sleep and a shower was all it took.

Getting off the plane, Brooke thought the airport oddly muted. Then he saw a crowd gathered around a video monitor, their faces stricken, their torsos tense and still. His first and terrible thought was that someone had shot the president.

As he edged closer to the monitor, a woman turned from the screen, tears welling in her eyes. Glancing up, Brooke saw the face of Osama Bin Laden, and stopped where he was.

Though his mouth moved, his voice in Arabic was muted, covered by a stilted translation into English. “Our plan is simple,” the voice said, “its implications profound. On September 11, the tenth anniversary of our strike against America, we will destroy one of your cities with a nuclear weapon.”

On the screen, Bin Laden looked quietly commanding. “You have only one way to prevent this,” the voice continued. “To withdraw your forces from our lands, and cease your support of the entity known to blasphemers as Israel. Or else hundreds of thousands of your citizens will perish on impact, and that many more from the same poisonous sickness you inflicted on the Japanese. And yet that still will be as nothing to all the Muslims you have killed, and the further revenge we will exact from you in blood.”

A woman beside Brooke moaned. Then, beneath the translation, he began to pick up Bin Laden's voice in Arabic, the adamantine tone of a vengeful prophet. “The clash of civilizations is upon you,” he intoned, “and it will go on until the Hours.”

In a moment, reason yielding to superstition, Brooke believed that Bin Laden was still alive. That he grasped the global impact of a voice from beyond the grave.

His cell phone rang. Even before answering, he knew it was Carter Grey. “I'm on my way,” Brooke snapped.

Washington, D.C.—Kuwait—Iraq—Lebanon
August–September 2011

O
n the drive to Langley, Brooke learned from NPR that Bin Laden had succeeded brilliantly. In the hours since his announcement, the Dow was down nine hundred points and some New Yorkers interviewed on the way to work said they would leave the city. By the time Brooke parked his car, the stock market was in freefall.

Gathered in the director's conference room were several members of the president's task force, led by the national security advisor, Alex Coll. Representing the agency were Noah Brustein, Carter Grey, and the director himself, Carl Azzolino, a saturnine Washington insider selected for his political skills. When Brooke slipped into the room, Grey glanced up and then continued addressing Coll. “All of us should wonder why Bin Laden was thoughtful enough to pre-record a public warning, complete with date—”

“What are you suggesting?” Coll interrupted.

“That we consider what he's accomplished.” Grey pointed at muted TV screens showing CNN and al Jazeera. “People in major cities aren't showing up for work. Within days, we'll be conducting searches at every major port, bringing commerce to a standstill.” Turning to Coll, he demanded, “Think about it, Alex. Bin Laden has demonstrated his supernatural power without limiting al Qaeda's options. The bomb could be anywhere, ready to destroy any major city in the West.”

“Maybe so,” Coll retorted. “But if one of
our
cities disappears on September 11, Bin Laden will again be the most powerful man on earth, even dead. Americans will be paralyzed, waiting for the next city to disappear. They won't
believe in our government, our system of civil liberties, or even in our future as a democracy. No matter what, we have to keep that from happening.” Coll looked around the room. “Tonight, the president will try to reassure Americans that we can keep them safe. We cannot—absolutely cannot—refuse to believe Bin Laden.”

On al Jazeera, Bin Laden reappeared, repeating his warning to America. “So what are you proposing?” Brustein asked.

Coll glanced at Deputy Defense Secretary Joseph Farella. “First, we have to redirect our land, sea, and air defenses—dispersing troops along the border with Mexico and Canada, providing air cover for New York, Washington, and Los Angeles, and deploying nuclear search teams in major ports and cities.” He turned to Carl Hobbs of the FBI. “The bureau will exploit every source who can lead us to domestic terrorists; the CAA will restrict the use of private aircraft; ICE will stop all immigration; the coast guard will seize and search any suspicious craft. As for commercial shipping, Homeland Security will search every suspect container traceable to Pakistan or the Middle East, however ruinous that is to commerce. Preventing a nuclear disaster comes first.”

Silent, Brooke recognized that the face of the country was already changing. “You mention air security over major cities,” Grey prodded. “Is there any?”

Looking at Farella, Coll raised his eyebrows. “Not enough,” Farella conceded. “Private aviation is the black hole of national security. A small aircraft could deliver a nuclear weapon to any city in America—”

“Including D.C.?” Grey interjected.

“Especially D.C. In theory, we've got a fifteen-mile no-fly zone around the capital, enforced by surface-to-air missiles and jets at Andrews Air Force Base on a five-minute alert. But thousands of aircraft fly within fifteen miles of the White House—if one crosses the line going three hundred miles an hour, five minutes won't cut it. Truth to tell, multiple planes fly over the capital every year, and we don't spot half of them until it's over.” Farella turned to Hobbs. “Right now, al Qaeda could turn the White House into the epicenter of a nuclear blast. The surest way to stop that is to catch the airplane on the ground. Or, better yet, find the bomb.”

Plainly discomfited, Hobbs turned on Azzolino. “We don't know that this weapon is even in the country. How are we going to find out?”

Azzolino inclined his head toward Brustein. Crisply, Brustein said,
“We're training all our image and signals intelligence on major pathways to the U.S. Now that the threat is public, we can squeeze foreign intelligence agencies and sources for all potential leads. We'll focus on the modes of transfer—foreign aircraft, airports, ships, and ports. Any possible means of moving the bomb—”

“Toward America, I assume,” Coll interjected caustically. “We can't be running off to Dubai, chasing down heroin smugglers in the Middle East.”

Brooke reined in his anger. “Consult the map,” he said evenly. “There are only so many ways to move a bomb to the Gulf, and so many ports with shipping channels to America. Dubai is one. Next time a ship from Dubai shows up in New York, which happens to be tomorrow, you might want to take a look.”

Despite the gravity of the moment, Grey permitted himself a smile. Stung, Coll told Brooke, “Karachi would be more likely—”

“Only if you want to get caught,” Grey interrupted. “The Pakistani government actually functions in Karachi. I assume you've never been to the Makran coast.”

Coll did not respond. Addressing Brustein, Brooke said, “There's one other point I'd like to make.”

“Go ahead.”

Brooke faced Coll. “I appreciate all the pressure that's building—from Congress, the media, and three hundred million frightened people. But so did Osama Bin Laden. He knew perfectly well the effect his threat would have—he could have scripted the lines for everyone in this room. So he also knew that, in some measurable degree, he's reduced the chance of achieving his stated goal: the destruction of an American city on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.

“That threat carries its own magic: the power to make all of us work to the brink of exhaustion, blaming each other for any prospective failure. The nightmare driving us all will be New York City or Washington in ashes, and maybe dying in the bargain—”

“What's your point?” Coll snapped.

“You ask what the CIA can do. For a host of reasons, some political, we have only thirty-five hundred agents in the field—less than the number of meter maids in New York City. And now they'll all be focused on America.” Brooke's voice hardened. “Bin Laden didn't jeopardize his
plan because he thought we'd try to save ourselves by abandoning Israel and the Middle East. He warned us because whoever designed this plan isn't targeting America at all. The heroin in Dubai was a decoy, and this announcement is the next one. Two weeks from now, al Qaeda will level a city in Israel or Europe. And we won't have a clue until it happens.”

Across the table, Coll leaned forward, closing the space between Brooke and himself. “The ‘magic' of 9/11, as you call it, has a certain history—”

“I know it well,” Brooke interrupted. “I saw the Twin Towers go down, and not on television. So you might say I take a personal interest—”

“The towers went down,” Coll shot back, “because we ignored Bin Laden's warnings and every scrap of intelligence that should have told us that he meant what he said. Three years before September 11, Bin Laden proclaimed that his mission from God was killing Americans. That same year, your agency called off an operation intended to kill Bin Laden—”

“As I recall,” Grey put in, “the plan was more likely to kill a horde of civilians.”

“At least they wouldn't have been ours.” Coll produced a paper from his briefcase. “In May 2001, Richard Clarke sent an email to the person who then held my job, Condoleezza Rice, predicting that al Qaeda would attack us. Two hours ago, I reread it.” He paused, then quoted in a grave tone, “‘When these attacks occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.'”

“We'll wonder the same thing,” Brooke responded evenly, “when they blow up Tel Aviv.”

Coll gave him a tight smile. “I can quote another of Clarke's emails from memory. On September 4, he wrote Dr. Rice again, begging her to envision hundreds of Americans slaughtered in the next attack—the very one you witnessed. He concluded by saying that your agency had become ‘a hollow shell of words without deeds, waiting for the next big attack.'” He turned to Brustein. “While your subordinates are talking about Lebanon and Dubai, I hope the CIA is focusing on Canada and Mexico, or the possibility they'll fly this bomb from somewhere in Central America.”

Brustein's face darkened. “Bin Laden could read emails, too, and the ones you just read are public knowledge. The question is why he chose to make everyone in this room relive 9/11.”

“Another question,” Coll retorted, “is how many millions of people wonder if he is still alive.”

Grey seemed to wince, perhaps from physical pain. “You can't know for sure when he made that tape, or who may have told him to do it. For all we know it's been in the can for years, waiting for some unknown genius to steal a Pakistani bomb, then air the image of a dead man to make us wet our collective pants.”

“He should have died years ago,” Coll insisted. “We let him live too long, and now he's back to haunt us.”

On CNN, Brooke noted, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was solemnly addressing the camera. Judging from the closed captions at the bottom of the screen, he was promising to see to it that the responsible arms of government would keep America safe. “The agency will do its utmost,” Brustein told Coll. “That includes thinking clearly. The possibility of disinformation exists, and the points Carter and Brooke make are fair ones. Rather than try to shame them into silence, please consider the possibility that they're the next Richard Clarke.”

Coll hunched a little, as though feeling the weight of his responsibilities. As he gazed at the table, Brooke imagined this man staring into the abyss—a failure of will or judgment that led to a historic tragedy. “I understand,” he finally said. “But the legacy of 9/11 is the most catastrophic failure of intelligence in American history. And that will be as nothing after the destruction of Washington or New York.”

“Or Israel,” Brooke insisted quietly.

Coll stared at him fixedly. “It's not that I don't care. But we don't bear the responsibility, or the blame, if Tel Aviv ceases to exist. That's what the Mossad is for.”

In the silence that followed, Brooke thought not of Bin Laden, a dead man, but of Amer Al Zaroor as he imagined him, and how deeply this meeting would amuse his adversary.