Threat Level

by William Christie

  “Muhammad,” Jabir said, almost under his breath.

  But Beth didn’t leap at the name. As if she were totally bored, she said, “I know who you’re talking about.” Though of course she had no idea. “But if you’re going to cooperate, you’ll have to state all names for the record. It’s required.”

  “My wife and son will go free?”

  “If you’re completely truthful,” said Beth. “I give you my word. But one lie, just one, about anything, and the deal is off. I leave the room and put your wife under arrest. No second chances, no appeals.”

  Jabir nodded glumly.

  Though Beth kept her face blank, inside she was dancing. Jabir had now accepted her as his destiny, crossing over.

  “His full name,” Beth said sternly, tapping her pen on the legal pad like an impatient teacher. Any break in the mood could give Jabir a chance to wiggle off the hook.

  “Muhammad al-Sharif.”

  “His address?”

  “Fifty-one eighty-eight Michigan Avenue, Dearborn.”

  “His occupation?”

  “He owns Absolute Performance Auto Repair, on Warren Avenue.”

  “Good,” Beth said grudgingly. “Now let’s go back. How and where did you first meet?”

  “You know all this from him,” Jabir grumbled.

  Beth smacked the pad with her pen again. “How do you think I’ll know if you’re lying? Answer the question, and from now on lose the attitude.”

  Jabir all but said yes, ma’am. He named the primary Al Qaeda training camp outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. “We were introduced in 1998. October,” he added quickly.

  “By who?”

  “Abdallah Karim Nimri.”

  Beth had never heard the name, but had no intention of betraying her ignorance. “Go on.”

  “It was Nimri’s idea. He said that an American would have more freedom of action than we. He was looking into the future.”

  “And how did Nimri and al-Sharif meet?”

  “In the camp,” Jabir replied. “On entering, you were required to complete a form. They would search the forms for things that interested them.”

  “How did al-Sharif get to Afghanistan?”

  “The imam of his mosque.”

  A talent spotter, Beth thought. Find a likely recruit, see if the jihad preaching took, keep an eye on him. If he worked out, a plane ticket to a madrasa, a religious school in Pakistan. More indoctrination, more eyes on him there, like scouting a baseball prospect. Then across the border to Afghanistan, to a real training camp. Religious, military, clandestine instruction. The minor leagues. If the prospect panned out, he was fully trained and sent out into the world. Wherever he ended up, he was expected to recruit and train others. All he needed from the organization was a little cash now and then, and his orders. “Was al-Sharif born a Muslim, or did he convert?”

  “You are testing me,” Jabir said, with a sly smile.

  “Of course I am,” Beth replied. “Answer the question.”

  “He found the true faith in prison. This is why I am here now. Not even a good criminal. Years in prison.”

  People in glass houses, Beth thought. “He told you what his name was before he converted.” She phrased it as not quite a question, not quite a statement.

  “I discovered it,” said Jabir, indulging in a little boasting. “Samuel Foster.”

  “Did he grow up in Chicago?”

  “As you know. I wish to see my wife.”

  And tell her to pass on the message that the network was compromised. It might be productive to see where she took it. Later. Beth shook her head. “First things first, Jabir.” She decided to give him a little approval, so he’d keep trying for more. “You’re doing well. You want something to drink?”

  “Coke.”

  “You mean, you would like a Coke—please.”

  Chastised. “Yes, please. A Coke.”

  “I’ll have someone get it.” It wouldn’t do for him to start thinking she was going to fetch him anything. Beth closed the cover of her laptop. “Don’t touch the computer.”

  Out the door and into the observation room. And a hand out to receive Graham’s ten dollars. “Did he touch the computer?”

  “Are you kidding?” said Graham. “He’s your bitch now.”

  “That was a damn fine piece of work,” said Timmins. “We’re running down Muhammad al-Sharif right now.”

  “Let’s not go kicking in the door to his house or garage until we’re sure he’s there,” said Beth. “Or he’ll be long gone.”

  “He might have gotten the word already,” said Graham.

  “I’m just saying,” said Beth, “we already lost our chance to pick one of these guys up quietly and try to turn and play him back into the network.”

  “We’ve already been over this,” said Timmins, in his end-of-discussion tone.

  Yes, we have, Beth thought. All the undercover work and use of informers that had taken down the Mafia was out the window for terrorists. There had to be arrests, and they had to be public, to show that the bureau was really doing something. “You know, when Jabir told me about his controller, I was thinking—”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, too,” said Timmins. “The Muslim convert that special ops took out in the Philippines.”

  Reminding Beth once again that, though an FBI politician, he was not at all stupid.

  “I don’t like it,” Timmins went on. “I don’t like that a non-Arab American citizen is controlling Al Qaeda sleeper cells. I especially don’t like that I’m going to be on the phone all night with everyone in Washington once I tell Headquarters about this.”

  “To whom much is given . . .” said Beth.

  “Yeah, right,” said Timmins. “You want to partner up with someone on Jabir? Trade off so you can take a break?”

  Beth shook her head. “We’ve got the relationship now. It’s me and Jabir until he’s dry.” She didn’t mention that one wrong move might ruin everything, and she only trusted herself not to make it.

  “Suit yourself,” said Timmins. “We’re going to get a treasure trove of nuts-and-bolts operational tradecraft. I want to know who’s doing the talent spotting in the mosques, and I want him to remember everyone he ever met in the camps in Afghanistan. I’ll enjoy trading that with the CIA.”

  “You’ll get everything he has,” said Beth.

  “If I have anything to do with it,” Timmins told her, “they’ll be watching the video of that interrogation at the academy. It was beautiful, really beautiful. Big gamble—big reward.”

  Not immune to the flattery, no matter how much she pretended otherwise, Beth let her exterior crack open in the form of a pleased smile. “Thanks, Ben.”

  10

  The music was loud, and the Thai girls were all parading around in their bikinis. Each wearing a discreet number, like the starting lineup of their country’s team in the sexual Olympics.

  People used to come to the Patpong area of Bangkok strictly for the sex. But its reputation from the Vietnam War onward made it a must-see on many tourist itineraries. So now along with the usual sexual adventurers one might see couples walking through the night market along Soi Patpong 1, checking out the bars and snapping photos of the hyperaggressive barkers out in front of their establishments trying to drum up business. The German sex tourists wearing socks with their sandals could be seen alongside twenty-something backpackers and the occasional Carrie Nation–style activist trying to save the native girls from a life of sin.

  The hard-core perverts found this disillusioning and gravitated toward the Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy areas. But Patpong still thrived in its notoriety.

  Which was probably the reason the four Arabs had taken a table at the Kings Corner Club. If it was a deliberate choice, it was a good one for many reasons. The club was packed. And Kings Corner had the reputation for the prettiest bar girls, not to mention the snottiest. They knew they were hot, and therefore it was a seller’s market. All business, they wouldn�
��t sit at a table unless a customer bought them a continuous stream of very expensive nonalcoholic drinks.

  The Arabs weren’t buying, and there were plenty of other farangs who were, so the girls left them alone. It was a multinational crowd, so they didn’t stand out—not even by speaking Arabic. Arabs were regular customers of the red-light districts of Bangkok.

  For the Arabs it was better than a hotel where they might be bugged by Thai security, or someone’s apartment that might already be under surveillance.

  Abdallah Karim Nimri had already passed the other three men a CD-ROM under the table. Talat al-Rashidi was the controller for all Southeast Asia. Majed Ismail, the controller for Thailand, operated a large scrap metal company in Bangkok that shipped and received all over the region. Nabil Zaydan was the controller for the Philippines.

  “The four missiles have been shipped in a container of steel scrap from the port of Odessa in the Ukraine,” said Nimri. “They should arrive by the end of the month. All the information is on the CD.”

  “All four missiles in one shipment?” said al-Rashidi, his disapproval quite obvious.

  “If the missiles are discovered the operation is over,” said Nimri. “Four shipments, four chances of discovery.”

  The others nodded in agreement.

  “Shipped here, and not Subic Bay?” said Zaydan.

  “That was the original plan,” said Nimri. “The American disruption of our network there made the change necessary. The missiles will arrive here as scrap, and then be shipped air freight to Manila as electronic components. Is this a problem?”

  “No,” said Zaydan. “As long as they are paid, the customs search nothing. They are accustomed to me receiving shipments. And paying them. But what missiles?”

  “Russian,” said Nimri. “SA-16, the latest model. What the Russians call Igla. Needle.”

  Zaydan frowned. “I do not know this system. The American Stinger, yes. The Russian SA-7 also. But not this.”

  “Chechen brothers will operate the missiles,” said Nimri. “They will fly in separately, before the security preparations begin. You will arrange their hiding, and provide a brother to each as an assistant. A Filipino brother, familiar with Manila. The locations must be chosen within the missile range envelope. The missiles and men must be positioned before the city is closed down by security.”

  “The locations have long been chosen, in anticipation of such an operation,” said Zaydan.

  Nimri expected nothing less. Al Qaeda was known for meticulous reconnaissance. “The locations must not be listed as either rented or owned by foreigners or Muslims.”

  “Of course,” said Zaydan. “Even so, I must tell you that the security precautions make our chances very slim.”

  “There will be at least one decoy helicopter,” said Nimri. “Four locations, all missiles fired simultaneously, so the aircraft cannot evade all. There must be mobile phone communications, and there must be backup.”

  “God willing, two missiles will launch,” said Zaydan. “I cannot promise more.”

  “Prepare carefully and thoroughly,” said Nimri. “Act bravely. The rest is in God’s hands.” He passed a slip of paper to Zaydan. He would receive the money for the operation by the Hawala system. This was used by Muslims to transfer money around the world.

  In many countries, especially in the Middle East, the banking and money transfer systems were either unreliable, chaotic, or crooked. The reliable systems of Western countries were not trusted by immigrants who did not speak the language or understand the mores.

  And terrorists preferred to avoid the international banking system, especially with the increased scrutiny after 9/11.

  A Hawaldar moved money without the use of wire transfers, checks, or credit cards. Nimri had removed his operational funds, in cash, from a friendly bank in Dubai. The largest city-state in the relatively stable United Arab Emirates, a laissez-faire commercial and trading center, the banking system there attracted massive amounts of both clean and dirty money from all over the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Like the Swiss a generation earlier, the Dubai did not want to upset this profitable arrangement by asking too many questions.

  Nimri had then taken the cash to a Dubai Hawaldar. The Hawaldar would contact another of his acquaintances in the Philippines, giving him the amount and a code to confirm the recipient’s identity. Zaydan would visit the Manila Hawaldar, give him the code, and pick up the cash. No receipts, no records. Untraceable.

  The two Hawaldars would settle the debt in their own mysterious way, either by an offsetting transaction in the other direction, the payment of a debt, the purchase of equivalent goods or services, or a straight commercial banking transaction. This was done on trust, with no contracts, among the loose association of Hawaldars. Many of the same clan, tribe, or family.

  Nimri had flown from Dubai to Bangkok, picking up part of the money, in cash, from a Bangkok Hawaldar. This he would give to Ismail to pay for the Thai part of the operation. The Hawala system freed all of them from having to pass through customs with large amounts of cash in their possession. Or to rely on traceable checks or wire transfers.

  They talked awhile longer. Then Zaydan rose, embraced the others at the table, and left. Nimri then settled the details of the missile transfer with Ismail, passing him a thick envelope of high-denomination Thai baht notes.

  Now it was just Nimri and al-Rashidi at the table.

  “Many years, brother,” said Nimri over the thumping of the music.

  “Many years,” al-Rashidi replied. “And still victory eludes us.”

  “Our survival is our victory,” said Nimri. “God will reward us, in his own time.”

  “He must,” said al-Rashidi. “To make up for our leaders’ poor decisions.”

  A comment that would have sent Nimri into a rage coming from anyone else now only made him laugh. Al-Rashidi was another Egyptian, another former member of Gama’at al Islamiyya, Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Even more cosmopolitan than Nimri, which made exile from Cairo even harder. A short, squat man whose beard would never grow beyond a scattering of scraggly hairs. Cynical as only an Egyptian intellectual could be.

  Both of them had been part of the team that made the failed rocket-propelled grenade attack on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s motorcade during a state visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in June 1995. Ruthlessly hunted by Egyptian security, Islamic Jihad had been on the verge of going under. Then both Nimri and al-Rashidi had followed, though others had not, when Islamic Jihad head Ayman al-Zawahiri folded the organization into Al Qaeda, becoming Osama Bin Laden’s chief deputy in the process.

  “There was no other choice,” said Nimri. “Our money and morale were nearly exhausted.”

  “I thought so too, at the time,” said al-Rashidi. “I also thought that the way to Cairo was through America.”

  “It may yet prove to be the case.”

  “This missile operation is another piece of desperation, my brother. If we must stay silent for three years to accomplish it, even a massive success could be worse for us than many smaller failures. You know I say this to you because you are my brother.”

  “I have thought the same thing myself,” said Nimri.

  “And I hear you with an open heart. Because you are my brother, I will tell you about the part of the operation no one else knows of. I would not even tell you, my brother, but that I may require last-minute support. You are the only one I trust.”

  “Your own part?” said al-Rashidi.

  Nimri nodded.

  “I knew it,” said al-Rashidi. “You are not like Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, our great operations genius, sending others out to execute his plan and then surrendering to the Americans, crying for his life. I knew you would be involved.”

  Nimri spoke, and al-Rashidi’s eyebrows rose. “This makes me feel better about the operation. I had many doubts.”

  “But the losses, brother.”

  “Wars are not won without losses, brother. God will reward those
in his service. But you are assuming much risk.”

  “Better so than losing again, God willing,” said Nimri.

  “But now that you know my full plans, you must remove yourself to a secure location. Away from cities. But it must be a place where I can reach you, and you me.”

  Al-Rashidi thought it over. “By God, I know of such a place. And with satellites, communications are possible from anywhere. We will use the code we used in Sudan?”

  “Excellent,” said Nimri. “Now, brother, tell me truthfully. What do you think of my plan?”

  “It may not succeed,” al-Rashidi said bluntly. “But what else can we do? Act against places such as this?” He looked around the bar, scowling. “These will be the last, not the first. No matter how easy some of the brothers think they are. We must act according to our best, and allow God to pass judgment upon us. If we do not act, His verdict will be certain.”

  “These are my feelings also,” said Nimri.

  The two men embraced with great feeling, and Nimri walked out into the raucous Bangkok night.

  11

  After a mile’s worth of laps, Lee Troy pulled himself up the ladder of the outdoor Olympic-sized pool on the island of Diego Garcia.

  Ed Storey had attached his Personal Digital Assistant to a portable folding keyboard, and was typing up his after-action report. “Isn’t this a little tame for a SEAL?” he asked, as Troy toweled off. “Shouldn’t you be in the ocean?”

  “You know what you find in the lagoon of a little island a thousand miles out in the middle of the Indian Ocean?” Troy shot back. “Cone shells, stonefish, blue-ringed octopus. And that’s before your feet even leave the sand. Then we’re talking about every shark in the world. Not hanging, but hunting. I knew a second-class diver, spent a whole deployment salvaging a wreck in this lagoon, and they were out of the water every fifteen minutes. Great whites, tigers, you name it.”

  “Yeah,” Storey drawled, as if to prolong the word. “But aren’t you guys supposed to love that shit?”

  “No,” said Troy. “We just do it. And I do it when I get paid to, not for fun.”