Give my best to Emma.
George”
Wahed read the message twice. The text had been composed in Pakistan by an as-Sirat member whose native language was English and who received his instructions directly from Omar Bashir. Just in case this type of communication would find its way into America's surveillance net, they did not want to be tripped up by using poor grammar. Wahed read the message a third time, just to be sure, and then deleted the draft and emptied the trash. Then he deleted all Internet cookies, cache and browsing history. Lastly, he emptied the trash again. Confident that his presence had been erased, he left the Internet cafe.
It looked like the operation would be pushed back. He was disappointed but also understood the need to be careful. Success was more important than speed. Still, he had waited many years for a moment that was now so close and he wished that he would not have to wait any longer than he had to.
He did not have to respond. The fact that the message was deleted next time the account was checked from Pakistan would be answer enough.
Shareef Wahed made his way back to the car and drove toward the campus of Michigan State University. He had lived there for several years now, studying nuclear physics. The university had an outstanding program in that field and it was a bonus for him to be close to the large Muslim population of Detroit and the proximity to Canada was also a plus. It might allow him to flee the United States should his cover ever be blown.
He had grown up in Jordan and began his studies there before joining as-Sirat. After proving himself during his training in Afghanistan, Omar Bashir had selected him for the current mission.
Though he only stood at 5'4”, Shareef Wahed was carrying the heavy burden of the hopes of as-Sirat's leaders on his slender shoulders. He was to oversee the greatest strike in history, an attack that was sure to plunge America into chaos.
Shareef Wahed entered the United States on a student visa and now, several years later, he was close to his doctorate degree in nuclear physics. He suspected there were some others like him, just waiting in the U.S. for their time to strike.
During his time in America, he had been a model citizen but, in order to avoid suspicion, a poor Muslim. To keep his cover as a moderate believer of Islam, he would occasionally have a drink and did not partake in all of the daily prayers. He was forced to curse his as-Sirat brothers when the subject of terrorism was raised and, when he became an American citizen a year ago, had to pledge allegiance to the great enemy. He could not wear the traditional clothing he liked or even grow a beard. Instead he had to attend basketball games and cheer for the Spartans. Occasionally, he had even accompanied the people who thought they were his friends to Christian church services.
“You will be forced to live the life of an infidel,” Omar Bashir had told Wahed before he left Afghanistan many years ago. “It will require great strength to do things you do not want to do. But you have to become one of them to defeat the Americans. Allah willing, you will be rewarded for your sacrifices in paradise.”
His leader had also joked that his life in America might turn him against his brothers.
“Maybe you will grow fat eating cheeseburgers and take a blond wife who will not wear a burka and insist on driving and working,” Omar Bashir had said.
That concern, even though it was only voiced as a joke, was unnecessary. If anything, Wahed's hatred of America and the infidels only deepened. He loathed the country and its people. Fat and arrogant, they stood by as his brothers were oppressed. They pretended to believe in a God, but the country was clearly the most godless place on earth.
Throughout pretending to be someone he was not and despising all of the people he studied and socialized with, the thing that motivated Shareef Wahed was that one day, he would lead proud fighters in a mission of unrivaled magnitude, give his life for the cause and Allah would forgive him for not being able to be a dutiful Muslim all these years. That day was now close. The time until the attack was not measured anymore in years or even months. Instead it was now just weeks away and soon it would be merely days.
His dark eyes sparkled when he thought of the prospect. Then he looked at the speedometer of his car. He was traveling a couple of miles above the speed limit and immediately slowed down. Though he was now a U.S. citizen, he aimed to never attract any attention. Who knows what could happen.
While most of his communication was done through the e-mail system, he had met a couple of times during conferences abroad with other as-Sirat members who would also play a role in the plot. It had felt so good to see one of his brothers and discuss the plan. Soon, the first fighters would arrive and make their way to Chicago where they would meet up before the attack on the Braidwood nuclear power plant. At least two other men with knowledge of nuclear power plants would join the attack though he did not know their names yet. That way, they could accomplish the task of overriding the automatic security systems and hopefully get the core to melt down. If that did not work, they would try to release as much radioactive material as possible. In any case, casualties should be enormous, with the wind carrying death to Chicago.
***
Chris Stevenson returned to his office following another press conference. The task of briefing the media had again fallen to the FBI director, but at least this time he got backup from Homeland Security Secretary Alicia DeBerg.
A man used to success, Stevenson had looked weary at the podium, a fact that was not lost on his packed audience of reporters and made its way into several of their articles.
“Stevenson appeared tired and frustrated at a press conference that saw two top officials get grilled over the security lapses that allowed Hassan al-Zaid to flee the country,” the Associated Press said in its story.
The FBI director had announced that evidence suggested that the suspect managed to leave the country. It was little more than confirmation of something that had become clear when a planeload of agents had taken off from Washington to fly to Nassau.
Following the announcement, he and DeBerg had been quizzed by reporters over how a 21-year-old had been able to foil the entire U.S. law enforcement and homeland security apparatus.
With no good answers, both officials had grown somewhat frustrated with the questions, leading to an increasingly tense press conference.
DeBerg took the brunt of the criticism, having to defend the decision not to close Dulles Airport after the attack. The fact was that she had wanted all Washington area airports closed but was overruled by the president, who decided that only Reagan National would be shut down right after the explosion. Obviously, as a Cabinet member, DeBerg deflected all blame from the commander-in-chief throughout the press conference.
“In a situation like this, we have to constantly weigh the level of the threat with the inconvenience to public life and the disruption of commerce. What terrorists want to accomplish is to interrupt our life and to scare us. We felt it was best to immediately establish a wide perimeter around Washington and placed great confidence in our airport security,” DeBerg had said. “I would like to remind you that there has not been an airline incident in quite some time. While it is truly unfortunate that the suspect has eluded us so far and while it is easy to second guess our decisions after the fact, we took what we believed to be the best course of action for the country at the time.”
The entire press conference led to a series of stinging headlines such as “Sweeney administration rattled” and “Homeland Security under fire.”
Reporters had resorted to writing such stories because there was very little news to report, apart from that the intelligence community would play a greater role in the search for Hassan al-Zaid because he was now out of the country. While any threat to homeland security usually led to a large bump in the approval rating of a sitting president, flash polls and online surveys showed that the country was clearly unhappy with the bungled response.
***
President Sweeney's visit to the mosque on Massachusetts Avenu
e had been largely uneventful. A few people had protested outside the security perimeter, holding signs with disparaging comments about Islam, but all in all it had been a good event. The network coverage had been highly favorable, as his advisers thought it would be. However, Sweeney knew that this was not about polling numbers or his popularity.
During the short drive back to the White House, he reflected on what he viewed to be one of his most important tasks in the coming days. He had to do everything he could to keep the country together and prevent the rift between Muslims and other Americans from widening.
The motorcade streaked by some cheering tourists. It was important for the president to be seen out and about, not hidden away at an undisclosed location. Sweeney had to show the country that there was nothing to be afraid of.
In the few minutes it had taken to get back home, it had gotten visibly darker. That meant little to the president, who knew that he would have to keep working for hours. It would be another long night for him.
***
Alan ended the day zero for three with regard to being able to discuss his literary aspirations during his television appearances. He was on his way home after the last taping, an MSNBC show featuring top newsmakers. Alan was sitting in the back of the town car that was taking him home to Virginia, contemplating the roller coaster ride of the past 36 hours. It also began to dawn on him that his 15 minutes of fame were over. He had been a novelty right after the attack – the guy who saw the bombing happen and walked away unscathed. But, of course, he had very little else to contribute. So after recounting that split second in which he saw the explosion, there was really nothing else he could say, apart from praising the quick response of the military. On all three shows, he was asked if he had done anything differently the previous day, something that might have delayed him and therefore saved his life. But there really was nothing, making him an utterly boring talk show guest after he gave his brief eye-witness account of the attack.
Things on the set of “The View” had been crazy. After engaging him in conversation for a few minutes to get him to recount his story, the hosts had spent the rest of the time fighting, with one of them arguing that the Sweeney administration had made the country vulnerable by cutting back homeland security funds and relaxing several other policies that, according to the president, had infringed on people's civil liberties. The other hosts had reacted vocally and a shouting match erupted.
Alan had taken the advice of Art Kempner, who had warned him to stay out of any kind of political arguments while on the air. This, the reporter had cautioned, would only lead to trouble. There were already enough Washington Post reporters who frequented the airwaves and were only too happy to voice their political views, a fact Art despised. He believed that his sole responsibility was to report the facts and dig for stories that might otherwise go untold. Sadly, with reporters wanting to get their names and faces out there, Art's view was quickly becoming a minority opinion.
Alan had heeded the advice. The veteran reporter had not steered him wrong yet and was the main reason why Alan had almost doubled his yearly salary in a span of two days. So while his short time in the spotlight might be over, he had at least cashed in.
As a sign of gratitude, Alan had invited the reporter to a dinner that he had put together to celebrate “Stayin' Alive,” according to the evite he sent out to some friends.
“It's just the theme of the evening,” he had told Art with a wink. The hippieish copy editor and the Pulitzer Prize winner had found out that they very much enjoyed talking to each other despite all of their differences. “You don't have to show up in 70s clothing. I also invited some of my best friends. I'll have to warn you, though. Most of them are avid conspiracy theorists and they will probably have endless questions for you or suggestions of things you should cover.”
To the reporter, this actually sounded like a nice break after two busy days and he had accepted, though he rejected Alan's offer to buy him “a new TV or a Playstation” for helping him get the appearance fees.
“I couldn't work a Playstation if my life depended on it,” Art had said. “It was my pleasure to help and you are an enjoyable young man. I'll gladly come to dinner and I'm even looking forward to your conspiracy theorist friends, but there is no need to make a fuss about me helping you.”
So the dinner was set at Alan's favorite Mexican place in the shopping area of Shirlington, just about five minutes from the Pentagon. It would be his first chance to catch up with some of his buddies after the whirlwind of excitement from the previous days. That, it appeared, would now be over.
Alan turned to the driver, who had left him alone to his thoughts after a couple of attempts to start small talk had failed.
“What do you do when your 15 minutes of fame are over?” he asked.
“Man, you should be happy about it,” the driver responded. “Who wants to put up with all that hassle? Whenever I drive a celebrity, people always put cameras in their faces and don't give 'em a moment of peace and quiet. Not much of a life if you ask me.”
“I suppose you have a point,” Alan responded.
The car pulled up in front of his apartment building. Alan pulled out a ten and handed it to the chauffeur.
“Thanks, man,” the driver said. “See, I'm happy you're not a big shot. Those assholes never tip. You have yourself a good night.”
***
Though the DNI had practically lived in his office since the attack, it was necessary for McClintock to make an appearance at the cocktail party in Georgetown. It was the typical “Inside the Beltway” gathering of administration officials, ambassadors, lobbyists, lawmakers and their staffers, other “famous for DC types” and, of course, a couple of gossip reporters who had finagled their way to an invite.
Washington's rich and famous always liked to get their names into the news as having hosted a party that had attracted other rich and famous Washingtonians. In this case, a DC socialite, who never even thought twice about postponing the event in light of the national tragedy that had taken place the day before, was pleased to see that her gathering had attracted one of the men of the hour and that the DNI was making an appearance despite his obvious obligations to the country.
McClintock politely declined all requests to comment on the crisis and instead withdrew to a corner of the room to talk business with a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. Between hors d’oeuvres and his customary pink lemonade, the subject of the attack came up in that conversation and the DNI, a little too loudly, offered his own commentary on the situation.
“I tell you what,” the grizzled intelligence veteran confided to the Mississippi Republican. “When they find this kid, I hope they give me a few hours with him in a locked room with no cameras. I’ll make Abu Ghraib look like spring break for him.”
A gossip reporter for the congressional publication The Hill was well within earshot of the remark and, within the hour, thehill.com splashed across its website what McClintock had said. Minutes later, the Drudge Report linked to the article, also displaying the full quote.
It was picked up by the cable news networks and widely interpreted as yet another sign that the administration was rattled by its own failures.
Several pundits predicted that heads would soon begin to roll. It was part of politics. When things went bad, somebody had to take the fall and speculation began who it would be. In this case, the FBI Director and Homeland Security Secretary DeBerg were emerging as the early favorites.
***
Stevenson had just concluded the last of the meetings he had scheduled well into the evening and was in the process of going over the day's events with his chief of staff when his office phone rang. The display showed an internal number.
“Please give me some good news,” Stevenson said in answering. He listened intently before interrupting the speaker, Deputy FBI Director Aaron Slattery.
“No, Aaron, you must have misunderstood. I said: 'Please give me some good news,' not:
'Why don't you add another headache to everything that is going on',” he said -- a feeble attempt at humor that was nevertheless rewarded with a chuckle from his deputy. “Listen, I'm still in my office, why don't you swing by so that we can discuss it. I'll see you in a bit.”
He hung up the phone and immediately picked it back up and punched the speed dial number for the White House.
“This is FBI Director Stevenson,” he said. “Who is still there?”
Fortunately, the White House chief of staff was also still at work.
“Farouk al-Zaid had a mild heart attack,” Stevenson told her. “As you might know, he and his wife have been placed in voluntary protective custody in one of our facilities in Virginia. That is where they were when it happened.
“I don't need to tell you that this already looks pretty bad for us and it would look even worse if something serious were to happen to him. From what it sounds, though, they caught it right away and might actually have saved Mr. al-Zaid's life. But try to explain that to people who already hate us. They will believe that we tortured him to get information or something.”
“Do you think I need to tell the president about this now?” the chief of staff asked.
“He's been quite insistent on wanting to be kept in the loop on any development, so I'd go ahead and tell him,” Stevenson replied, just as Deputy FBI Director Aaron Slattery entered his office. “My deputy just arrived, so I should have additional information shortly, just in case the president wants to know more. I doubt it, in this case, but better to tell him too much than too little.”
The FBI Director hung up the phone, looked at Slattery and took out his wallet. He removed a $20 bill and put it on his desk.
“Seriously Aaron, I'll give you $20 bucks if you give me some good news,” he said with a weak smile. “God knows I could use some.”
“Well, I guess the good news is that you can keep your twenty,” Slattery responded and the two top FBI officials shared a brief laugh.
“Actually,” Slattery added, “This could have been a lot worse. The doctors said that, because we had a medical team on site, we prevented a more serious problem. Mr. al-Zaid should be just fine in a few days. He'll have top doctors and nurses with him 24/7 and no expense will be spared to make sure he gets better.”