That, of course, had been an overstatement of his accomplishments, but he was widely regarded as one of the best in the business.
Though clearly “old school,” he was one of the newsroom dinosaurs who had successfully transitioned into the new media age. Art understood the importance of the Internet for journalism and he also, though reluctantly, sometimes played the pundit on cable news. The only news program he did like and never minded appearing on was “Meet the Press.”
He read a story about anti-Muslim backlash in Minnesota, where an Egyptian college student was berated by fellow female students as a terrorist and had her head scarf ripped off. Art expected that it would not be the last such story he would be seeing over the next few days.
About ten hours had passed since the attack and there was no end to his day in sight. He would grab a quick dinner before finishing up the paper’s lead article. This was the kind of story that gave traditional newspapers the creeps. What if the terrorist would get caught after tomorrow’s issue had gone to print? By the time people would get their Post, they would already have better and newer information from television news and the Internet. A gut feeling told the veteran reporter that this would not happen. There appeared to be no sign of al-Zaid, which Art found disconcerting, to say the least. Everybody in the country was looking for this kid. How could he just disappear?
The reporter grabbed his Blackberry, certain that the short dinner he had planned would be interrupted by breaking news of some kind or an editor who needed him for some reason or another. He headed for the exit, estimating that he would have no more than 20 minutes to eat. He would be right. Shortly after ordering his sandwich, an FBI source called to let Art know that Hassan al-Zaid’s parents had been located.
Wednesday, 9:56 pm ET
Luxor, Egypt -- “You must be mistaken,” Dr. Farouk al-Zaid said for at least the tenth time, shaking his head and clutching his wife Delek’s hand. However, his voice lacked the conviction it had at the beginning of the interrogation. “There is an error of some sort, some kind of misunderstanding. Hassan is a good kid. He was just at the wrong place and somehow you now think he was involved in this.”
Hassan al-Zaid's parents were sitting side-by-side in uncomfortable metal chairs in a community room of a Nile River cruise ship. The interview was being securely broadcast to the FBI via a camera sitting atop the table that separated the couple from several U.S. officials. The al-Zaids were groggy, frightened and unguarded, the perfect circumstances to get honest answers. An hour into the interrogation it appeared to those on the scene and those watching from Washington that the couple did not know anything about the plot or had any idea where their son might have escaped to after carrying it out.
Farouk, usually a tall and proud man, sat slouched over, sweat pouring down his face and he repeatedly put his head in his hands. He had worked hard to give his wife and only child the best life possible after moving to the United States to attend medical school and becoming a doctor. Now, he had a feeling that his life's work was for naught, not wanting it to be true. He had some of the same dark features that Stevenson had observed in Hassan, but his complexion was ashen now, with only his thick, black mustache giving his face some color.
His wife Delek, normally a beautiful woman, had fallen apart even more. She had been crying almost nonstop for the past 45 minutes, at times sobbing uncontrollably. Her eyes were red and broken, her face covered by long strands of black hair. The sobs kept shaking her body and she was holding on to her husband as everything else in her life appeared to be slipping away.
A check of Hassan’s credit card purchases earlier in the day revealed that he had booked a cruise up the Nile for his parents. The discovery had unleashed a flurry of activity. During the interview, the al-Zaids said the trip had been a present from their son – telling the questioners that it was his way of thanking them for putting him through college after he lost his soccer scholarship. The two had left for the cruise a week ago and were scheduled to be out of the country for four more days.
Stevenson had been informed of their discovery when it was 5:00 pm in Washington and 11:00 pm in Cairo. At about the same time, several U.S. officials were also alerted and a plan of action was formed. The Egyptian government was notified and asked to cooperate and assist the Americans in their mission to find Hassan al-Zaid’s parents. They eagerly agreed, not wanting to appear in any was as though they were standing in the way of a terrorism investigation. The government in Cairo dispatched two military helicopters with Egyptian security forces to the embassy. The aircraft were met by U.S. officials, who boarded and took off toward Luxor, where the cruise ship was docked. The captain had been notified of the helicopter’s arrival and also provided background information about his ship. There was no television on board and passengers also did not have Internet access, making it entirely reasonable, especially in light of the time difference, that the al-Zaid’s had not yet heard about the attack.
Shortly after 3:00 am, the helicopters had landed and the entire delegation boarded the ship and was taken to the cabin. With the Egyptian security forces standing by with drawn weapons, Farouk and Delek al-Zaid had been woken up and taken to the community room. They were frightened and confused.
At first, the U.S. military attaché to Egypt, who led the interview, had tried to ascertain whether the al-Zaids were aware of the Washington attack and asked question about why they were in Egypt to probe for inconsistencies. When Hassan’s father became belligerent and threatened legal action, the attaché pulled out some pictures showing the remains of the bus, the picture taken of Hassan and news stories describing him as the lead suspect.
The al-Zaids reacted with shock and disbelief, claiming repeatedly that there must have been a mistake.
“Do you really think I would fly out here as a representative of the United States of America at this hour unless I was certain that this was not a mistake?” the military attaché asked.
Though both of Hassan’s parents steadfastly maintained that a completely logical explanation would be found, it was clear that their confidence was shaken. Still, the enormity of the accusation did not allow them to admit to anybody, other than possibly themselves, that their son could have been involved, though they became visibly scared and confused.
The al-Zaids agreed to fly back to Cairo for another interview and then be taken to the United States. Though the consensus was that they had not been aware of the attack, or that they were the greatest pair of actors the seasoned interrogators had ever encountered, it had also been decided that they would be taken to Cairo – even without their agreement. Fortunately, their decision to cooperate in any way possible eliminated the potential headaches that could have resulted from forcefully removing two American citizens from another country.
At 5:00 am Egyptian time and 11:00 pm in Washington, the helicopters were on their way back to Cairo with Hassan’s parents on board.
***
Bogotá, Colombia -- Far away from Cairo and Washington, Hassan al-Zaid allowed his mind to truly rest for the first time since waking up. For now he could stop running. The past twelve hours of his escape had gone just about exactly as planned. He again went over everything, trying to figure out if mistakes had been made but was unable to come up with any.
His trip to the Bahamas as Canadian citizen Ibrahim Afsani, one of the three fake identities he had obtained, was his second to the island in a week. His escape had been meticulously planned and quite costly.
Six days ago, he had flown from Washington to Toronto, using his actual passport. From there, he had traveled to Bogotá, Colombia, using a French passport and the name Mohammad Abussi, and then on to Nassau. He used that identity to check into a hotel not far from the airport at the beach.
Hassan had then flown to Freeport, the closest Bahamian city to Florida, and left the island via a fishing boat, giving the captain $5,000 in cash to smuggle him back into the United States. The Bahamian fisherman, thinking he was dealing with an illegal immigr
ant, had not asked too many questions and just pocketed the cash. It was a low-risk maneuver for Hassan al-Zaid, because he could at any time produce his real American passport and claim he was just out on a fishing trip.
Back in the U.S., he returned to Woodbridge, having his parent’s house to himself after sending them off to the Nile cruise. He needed the house empty as he was finishing up his preparations and made sure that all parts of the plan were in place.
After he reached the relative safety of Nassau and discarded his Canadian identity, he flew to Bogotá, using his French passport. There was nothing suspicious about Mohammad Abussi, especially since the computerized log showed that he had arrived in the Bahamas six days ago from Colombia. He seemed just like any of the hundreds of thousands of people who came through Nassau's airport each year looking for a good time in the Bahamas.
The countries he used for his escape had been carefully chosen for their traditionally lax immigration and customs policies. In addition, cash ruled everything there and Hassan had brought plenty, just in case there was any trouble. Coming from a wealthy family, he had a sizable savings account, which he emptied a week ago. In addition, he had accumulated as many credit cards as possible over the past two years and, after the last monthly billing cycle, he had begun maxing out all of them. He knew that, one way or another, he would never pay another bill but had to wait until the last moment before accumulating debt in order not to be flagged. The “convenience checks” that credit card companies routinely sent to their customers had, in fact, been very useful for him. He had cashed many of them and, all in all, still had $35,000 after all of his expenses.
In total, making it safely to Bogotá had cost him another $30,000 and two of his identities. It was not safe anymore to use Mohammad Abussi. His last passport was the one that would have to get him to his final destination. It identified him as an Algerian national by the name of Yusuf Ramza. He was raised speaking both English and Arabic and had learned French in high school and college. His language skills were good enough to allow him to pass as a French citizen to a non-native speaker or as a French Canadian. Hassan felt most comfortable using the passport of a country in which Arabic was spoken, along with French. He was confident that his identity as an Algerian student would hold up.
As he made his way to a hotel in downtown Bogotá, nobody had given him as much as a second look, even though a recent picture of him was shown every few minutes on televisions showing CNN. A hat and dark sunglasses was the entire disguise he needed here. Besides, nobody expected him to be in Colombia. All eyes were turned to the United States.
He had reached his hotel shortly before 10:00 pm local time after making one stop, and now he was stretched out on his bed with his adrenalin pumping. He was excited about having made it this far without complications. A backup plan had been in place but it was better to not have to resort to it.
His next flight would not leave for a few hours, so he hoped to get some rest. He would need all of his physical and mental abilities over the next few days. Still, before going to bed he turned on CNN to get the most recent information on the status of the investigation. He watched a recap of the day’s events, including the video of him getting off the bus. It was fascinating to him to watch something play out on television screens around the globe that he had been planning for so long.
For the past four years, he had dedicated his life to the cause. He had given up friends and teammates, lost his scholarship and spent all of his free time plotting, training and preparing. School really had only been an afterthought in his life, especially in his senior year when all of the pieces of the plan had come together.
Hassan al-Zaid knew that the law enforcement apparatus of the most powerful government in the world was sparing no expense to hunt him down. He also knew that just about everybody in his home country, including people he cared about, hated him. That didn't matter to him now. Instead, he felt a great sense of relief that everything had worked out just as planned. A million things could have gone wrong but they did not.
After half an hour of watching the news and learning how much his pursuers knew, he turned off the TV. Just before he willed himself to sleep, he thought of the people he had seen on the bus before he deposited the backpack and got off. He felt no regret.
***
Andan, Pakistan – Just as Hassan al-Zaid fell asleep in Colombia, half a world away, as-Sirat leader Omar Bashir got his first look at the man who had joined him as the most wanted person on earth. He was sitting in his favorite chair, sipping on ginger tea and enjoying some dried fruit.
It was morning already in the mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The two countries shared a border of more than 1,300 miles and, despite all of its might, the U.S.’s powerful arm had not been able to extend its reach to Waziristan. As-Sirat had its headquarters here, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.
Though Omar Bashir had learned of the Washington attack shortly after it happened, he was just now looking at news footage. In order to not elicit suspicion, no satellite dishes were allowed in Andan. The small town was basically a front operation for as-Sirat. With American drones and other means of electronic surveillance presenting many challenges, numerous precautions had to be taken in order not to arouse suspicion. Andan was not a big town but it was built on top and near several coal mines that had long been exploited and abandoned. Now, the system of caves and tunnels housed not only Omar Bashir and several of his deputies and bodyguards but also dozens of as-Sirat fighters at a time. The town, which consisted of about 50 buildings, was now known for its dyeing operation and it provided a front that allowed the terrorist group to receive supplies and to move its fighters to other parts of Pakistan or across the border into Afghanistan.
As-Sirat members and their supporters had gone to great lengths to not draw attention to Andan. The town had no landlines and cellphones were prohibited so that the group would not be vulnerable to electronic spying. The tunnels received most of their power from generators to not alert anybody looking at whether the town’s energy consumption matched its assumed population. There were a couple of satellite phones but those were only to be used in emergencies.
The measures put into place had kept the as-Sirat leaders safe for years now. There was little worry about the locals giving up the headquarters’ location. They were fiercely loyal to as-Sirat and deeply anti-American. In addition, they knew that anybody in Andan not killed during a U.S. attack would certainly be murdered by as-Sirat supporters later. Though many people knew about Andan's role and Omar Bashir's whereabouts, none of them would sell the as-Sirat leaders to the despised enemy, not for a buck, or a $25 million reward or for the entire wealth of America.
As an additional layer of protection, Pakistani security forces were saturated with as-Sirat sympathizers who would get in touch with the group if a raid was planned. Knowing all of this, Omar Bashir believed that there would always be time to disappear into the nearby mountain ranges if the Americans would ever figure out where he was. The group had numerous hideouts in the area that would be nearly impossible to find for the Americans.
All things considered, life was not so bad for the as-Sirat members in Andan. A major downside to the security precautions was that the group was largely cut off from direct communication, such as phones, Internet and TV. For the most part, messengers were used to relay information. Every morning, a courier brought video tapes of the previous day’s newscasts along with copies of several international newspapers and magazines to Andan.
Before becoming the most wanted terrorist in the world, Omar Bashir, the offspring of a rich family from the United Arab Emirates, had been an executive at his father’s media conglomerate. It was during that time that he not only learned to promote himself but also how the media could be manipulated to do one’s bidding. He was a tall, telegenic man who took great care of his appearance, even in his hideout below Andan. Omar Bashir also had the kind of voice that spoke with t
he passion and urgency to make people listen. He used it to try to ensnare impressionable young men into the swelling ranks of “The Path.”
When he had begun to fight the United States and its allies, he had used his knowledge of the communications business to find recruits, raise money and to fight the message machine of his enemies. He accomplished his goals with a fairly sophisticated public relations operation. While he was under no illusion that he could change the minds of his enemies, his efforts were aimed at poor and disenchanted young Muslim men.
As-Sirat sought to capitalize on poor economic conditions in Middle Eastern countries and Omar Bashir each day was on the lookout for the kind of news he could use for his propaganda. That included United States air strikes that caused civilian deaths, just about any action Israel took against the Palestinian people, efforts to give women more rights in Muslim countries and anything else he could spin into showing that the western world was oppressing the true followers of the Quran.
The generators below Andan also powered an array of media equipment, such as cameras, a video editing booth and a makeshift sound studio in which the numerous messages of Omar Bashir and his deputies were recorded. In order to not steal his own thunder, the as-Sirat leader relied mostly on written and audio messages and only sent out videos on special occasions.
After studying the CNN footage from the previous day and printouts from news stories on the attack for more than two hours, Omar Bashir sat quietly in his private quarters. He was delighted that America had been struck, even though this might delay his own plans to attack the United States within its own borders. As-Sirat had been largely laying low in Europe and America, opting to go for a major attack instead of smaller ones like car bombs or simply acquiring assault weapons and killing as many people as possible in shopping malls or kindergartens, which had been considered as alternatives.
The group was in the final stages of planning and carrying out a large-scale attack on a U.S. nuclear power plant – a strike that would make 9/11 appear small.