Surface to Air

by Gérard de Villiers

  Benazir was now feverishly kicking off her boots and pulling down her trousers, leaving only a skimpy pair of panties that Amritzar promptly yanked off. He raised his hips to shed his jeans, revealing bulging red underpants.

  Once freed, his cock sprang into the air.

  “What a beautiful thing you have,” she said admiringly. “So big and hard.”

  She hadn’t yet brought herself to perform fellatio on him, as American women apparently did. In her eyes it was haram—forbidden. A man’s penis was made to enter certain openings in a woman’s body. Not her mouth.

  “Come here,” said Amritzar, pulling her over.

  Benazir obediently lay down on her belly, hips slightly raised, arms stretched out before her. Then she reached back to spread herself for him.

  Kneeling behind her, Amritzar pushed her thighs farther apart with his knee.

  Trembling, Benazir gave a small cry when he entered her. It always hurt a little at the beginning, though she was dripping wet in front. Amritzar thrust hard, plunging deep into his wife’s body. She gave a strangled shout.

  “That’s right!” she cried. “Deeper, darling.”

  Amritzar was now thrusting with all his might. Before his staring eyes floated the image of an Igla missile, as slim as a needle—which is what the word meant in Russian—and as deadly as a poison dart.

  Plastered against Benazir’s rump, he stopped for a few seconds to thank Allah for giving him so many joys in one day.

  Panting, Benazir interrupted his brief pause.

  “Don’t come yet,” she begged. “When you’ve enjoyed me, make me pregnant.”

  —

  Amritzar was chatting with one of his customers, a wholesaler from Minneapolis, when his cell phone rang. It displayed no number. When he answered, he heard a man’s voice.

  “I’ll meet you at the northwest corner of Forty-Second Street and Broadway at nine o’clock tonight.” It was Mahmud, who immediately hung up.

  It had been two weeks since their meeting, and Amritzar had given up hope of hearing from him again. He found it hard to resume his conversation with the Minneapolis businessman. All he could think of was to go to his back office, unfold his prayer rug, and thank Allah for helping him with his revenge.

  As he touched his forehead to the rug, it occurred to him that happy events never come alone. The previous night, Benazir had announced that she was pregnant. So he would be leaving a son behind if his project unfolded as planned. All of Miramshar would celebrate his exploit, and his widow would raise the child to honor his father.

  At this point he couldn’t be sure it would be a boy, of course, but he had prayed so hard, Allah could hardly refuse his wish to be a shahid who died fighting the infidel. The dearest fate for a believer.

  Amritzar hoped the next few hours would pass quickly. The fact of the meeting meant that Mahmud had found a way to get the thing Amritzar most wanted: an Igla-S surface-to-air missile.

  CHAPTER

  2

  A light rain was falling on Times Square, and the wind along Forty-Second Street drove the hurrying pedestrians to hug the walls of the buildings. Without telling his wife, Parviz Amritzar had taken the train in from New Jersey. Now chilled to the bone, he almost didn’t recognize Mahmud, who was standing with his hands stuffed in the pockets of a hooded parka.

  “We can’t stay here,” Amritzar said, as a blast of wind hit them.

  “No,” said Mahmud. “Let’s go to the Sofitel bar.”

  The hotel wasn’t too far away, and it was usually crowded, so they wouldn’t attract attention.

  Grateful for the warmth of the hotel lobby, they headed for the bar. They had to wait for a table; a lot of people seemed to have had the same idea, and come in from the cold.

  Amritzar ordered coffee, and Mahmud, tea.

  The two men looked each other over. Seeing Amritzar’s eager expression, Mahmud said quietly:

  “I think we’ll be able to help you.”

  Amritzar silently thanked Allah. He felt he was moving into a different life. Though now on tenterhooks, he had to wait for their drinks to be brought before starting the real conversation.

  Mahmud leaned close and spoke into his ear.

  “I think we can find you an Igla-S, though it won’t be easy. It’s very hard to get hold of one.”

  “But many countries bought them from Russia, and from the Soviet Union before that,” objected Amritzar. “Thousands of them.”

  Mahmud was unmoved.

  “The people who acquired Iglas guard them carefully, and nobody else has access to them.”

  “So how would you manage it?”

  “We have our sources,” said Mahmud. “Many Iglas were stolen in Libya, and the thieves sold some of them to our friends. But it’s going to take a while to get one into the United States. It would have to come by ship; in a container of fruit, for example.”

  “I understand,” said Amritzar, “but I don’t need one here.”

  Mahmud looked at him, baffled.

  “Now I can tell you the truth, brother,” Amritzar continued. “Until I was sure I could get a missile, I felt it was best that you not know the whole story. Since our last meeting, I’ve done a lot of research and have come up with a better way to strike than I first imagined. Look at this.”

  Amritzar took a press clipping from his pocket and handed it to Mahmud, who read it quickly. It was a short article from the Washington Post announcing that President Barack Obama would be making an official visit to Moscow the following month.

  “You want to launch the attack in Moscow?” Mahmud asked in disbelief, handing the clipping back.

  “Yes.”

  “Why? It just increases the risks.”

  “I know Russia a little,” Amritzar explained. “I travel there occasionally to buy Caucasian carpets. Security measures in Russia are much less strict than in the United States. I also know that many jihadists have made their way to Moscow from the North Caucasus. Last year, two women from Dagestan blew themselves up in the Moscow subway. They belonged to Jamaat Ismail, a Wahhabi movement that fights for God.”

  Mahmud seemed stunned. When he was finally able to speak, he said:

  “It’s going to be very hard to get an Igla into Russia.”

  Amritzar dismissed the concern.

  “It’s not that big a problem,” he said. “The missiles are manufactured there, and everybody knows that some Russian soldiers make money by selling military matériel to rebels in the Caucasus, even though the equipment might be used against them. I’ve read that Russian helicopters had been shot down by surface-to-air missiles that the Russians themselves sold to the Chechen boiviki. I’m sure you know our brothers there, so we ought to be able to get some missiles. Besides, I only need one.”

  Mahmud gaped at him, now completely at a loss. Finally, he said:

  “Even assuming we could get you a missile, what would you do, all alone? You don’t have any training.”

  “I’ve learned all the technical steps by heart,” said Amritzar. “It’s very simple; everything’s on the Internet. I’ve memorized the whole manual. Besides, our brothers in Chechnya or Dagestan will help me.”

  Amritzar fell silent and sipped his coffee. Around them, couples were drinking, chatting, and flirting. Mahmud shot a contemptuous look at their cocktails.

  “Look at those dogs, degrading themselves.”

  Amritzar stayed focused on his idea. Now that he’d glimpsed a successful outcome to his project, he wasn’t going to let it go.

  “Do you think you’ll be able to help me?” he asked.

  Mahmud slowly shook his head.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask. What you’re asking is extremely difficult.”

  “Why?” asked Amritzar with feigned innocence. “The Iglas are manufactured in Russia. It must be easier to get some there than to bring one to the United States.”

  While logical, the argument didn’t seem to appeal to Mahmud.

  “I�
��ll have to talk to the brothers about this,” he said, gulping the rest of his tea. “This is a big operation, and it’s going to cost a lot of money. An Igla-S sells for more than one hundred thousand dollars, and we’ll probably have to pay more.”

  “The ones that were stolen in Libya didn’t cost anything,” Amritzar pointed out. “If our brothers have them, that should make things much easier.”

  Mahmud didn’t answer. The Moscow angle of Amritzar’s project had clearly taken him aback.

  “I will be in touch,” he said.

  “I’m about to travel to Vienna to buy carpets,” said Amritzar. “I’ll be at the Hotel Zipser next week; it’s where I always stay. After that I expect to go to Russia to buy Caucasian carpets.”

  “Do you already have a visa?”

  “Yes.”

  Many Americans traveled to Russia these days, as tourists. There was nothing unusual in that. A naturalized U.S. citizen for the past seven years, Amritzar took advantage of it.

  Amritzar let Mahmud exit the Sofitel first. He felt less intimidated by the al-Qaeda man than at their last meeting, and Amritzar knew he’d piqued his interest. That wasn’t surprising. Al-Qaeda hadn’t launched any big operations since Osama bin Laden’s death. Marginalized in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was active only in politically turbulent Yemen. To reclaim its past glory, it absolutely had to launch another dramatic attack. Amritzar’s project, even if it was difficult to execute, would be a spectacular way for the movement to take center stage again.

  Amritzar ordered another cup of coffee. He didn’t feel like going home yet.

  He might be experiencing his last hours of real peace, he knew. His project, which once seemed insane, was beginning to feel achievable.

  He had read a great deal about the fundamentalist Islamic uprisings in the Caucasus, an area where people were deeply religious and hated the Russians. Moscow had imposed on Chechnya a brutal leader named Ramzan Kadyrov. He claimed to be religious but battled the boiviki rebels who wanted to create an Islamic state. To help exterminate those who wanted to break away from Russia, Moscow was flooding the country with rubles. Fortunately, a few Islamist and Wahhabi groups were still active in neighboring Dagestan, where the population was even more religious.

  Eventually Amritzar got to his feet. Leaving the bar, he saw that the rain had stopped, and he could walk to the subway. He wondered if he should take Benazir to Vienna with him, as he sometimes did. Particularly since her pregnancy would soon prevent her from traveling.

  If he got a favorable answer from Mahmud before returning home from Vienna, he would travel on to Moscow.

  Vengeance would take absolute priority in Amritzar’s life, particularly now that he could see a way of accomplishing it. At times, a little voice would tell him that he might die in the attempt, but that was an abstract fear and he didn’t give it much weight.

  A chill wind hit him as he left the Sofitel. He walked quickly to the subway station at the downtown end of Times Square, and eventually rode back to New Jersey on the PATH train.

  He prayed that Mahmud would send him news quickly.

  —

  Bruce Chanooz showed his I.D. card to the guard at the lobby of the grim high-rise in Alexandria. The Federal Bureau of Investigation occupied the entire twenty-three-story building. Chanooz tried to look self-possessed while waiting for his escort up to the counterterrorism center. This was the young agent’s first visit to the holy of holies, and he felt intimidated.

  Chanooz was assigned to the New York field office and rarely went out of state, and then only to New Jersey. He had come down to Washington by train—the most practical way to make the trip—and got off at Union Station.

  A serious-looking female agent emerged from the elevator and asked him to follow her. FBI personnel assigned to other offices weren’t allowed to move about the building by themselves.

  Security here was an absolute priority, almost an obsession. Gray hallways, doors with access codes changing weekly, and an almost artificial atmosphere.

  The two agents got off at the sixteenth floor, and Chanooz was led to an empty waiting room with curtained windows.

  The silence was total. And yet the floor housing the counterterrorism center hummed with activity. This was where all investigations against individuals who might threaten United States security were coordinated. In cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI had exclusive jurisdiction over the fight against terrorism on American soil, whether Islamic or domestic. The CIA wasn’t allowed to operate within the United States. In fact, if the agency suspected a traitor in its ranks—which sometimes happened, unfortunately—it was required to call the FBI in to investigate.

  This was humiliating, since the two federal agencies cordially despised each other.

  The door was opened by a man who looked like a younger version of Groucho Marx. He had large, yellow-tinted glasses, a huge mustache, and a shock of black hair.

  When he stretched out a hand, he gave Chanooz a dazzling smile, something not often seen among the buttoned-down FBI agents.

  “I’m Assistant Director Leslie Bryant,” he said. “As you may have heard, I head the division you work for.”

  Bryant ushered Chanooz into his nearly empty office and waved him to a seat across from his desk. Manners here were formal, but Bryant grinned again when he said:

  “I hear you’ve been doing good work, ‘Mahmud.’ ”

  CHAPTER

  3

  Bruce Chanooz looked down modestly.

  “Thank you, sir. Just doing my job.”

  The young special agent had been working for the FBI for only three years. Normally, he would have paid his dues doing scut work, but he had a skill that was invaluable to the bureau. His Pakistani father, a fabric importer in Los Angeles, had immigrated to the United States thirty years earlier, and the family spoke only Urdu at home, while using English outside.

  As a result, Chanooz was perfectly bilingual in Urdu and English.

  And ideal for the FBI’s Vanguard program.

  This was a secret program that nobody outside the bureau knew existed. A few highly placed members in the White House and Washington political circles suspected, but were careful not to say so.

  In fact the Vanguard program was the cutting edge of America’s fight against terrorism. Since the September 11 attack, the United States had become paranoid. More than anything, the country feared a repeat of the attack on the World Trade Center, which had deeply traumatized the nation.

  Increasingly drastic measures had been taken, evolving to meet the changing threats. Security checks spread at airports. Colored alerts were displayed at each United States border crossing, signaling the terror threat level. It was always red.

  The problem was that the federal agencies charged with counterterrorism—the FBI, CIA, NSA, and the Department of Homeland Security—were doing such an effective job that there hadn’t been any more terrorist attacks on United States soil.

  Just the same, the war on terror remained the keystone of White House policy, and a frightened public’s main demand. It was certainly the only point on which Republicans and Democrats agreed. To most people, the fact that months and even years had passed without any arrests of terrorists suggested that the fight was lessening.

  That was actually far from the truth.

  So at the highest levels of the FBI, the Vanguard plan was born.

  It was perfectly simple.

  The FBI collaborated on counterterrorism with the National Security Agency, which handled electronic surveillance. Using its sophisticated technology, the NSA was able to penetrate Islamist sites and retrieve messages sent and received.

  From time to time it also learned the identity of American citizens who corresponded with these inflammatory sites.

  Some were hotheads, who expressed deep hatred for America.

  That wasn’t against the law, as freedom of speech is a sacred pillar of American democracy. You can express all sorts of o
pinions on the Web, even the most outrageous ones. Insulting the president of the United States is no crime. But some of the website visitors—fanatics with no connection with al-Qaeda or other terrorist organizations—went further.

  Loners would proclaim their desire to wage international jihad, even if they were pizza deliverymen or unemployed drifters in a distant corner of the Midwest. Some wrote to Islamist sites to ask for instructions on building homemade bombs, for example. Others frankly stated their desire to attack the United States.

  Naturally, the Islamist sites never answered them, out of caution.

  Thanks to the NSA, from time to time the FBI would get names of Americans proclaiming evil intentions. The bureau could then send an undercover agent pretending to be an envoy from those sites, to see how dangerous the people were.

  Of course, the FBI would immediately identify and track them, using phone taps and surveillance to see if any steps had been taken to put the plans into effect.

  Which was never the case.

  Most of the people were amateurs, unconnected with any subversive organization, with neither financial means nor know-how. When questioned, they quickly abandoned their fantasies and quit dreaming.

  But every so often the FBI would identify a more persistent individual who had developed an actual plan of attack. This is how the bureau discovered a naturalized American of Lebanese descent named Ryan Moussaoui who was bitterly angry at the United States over massacres in Iraq.

  He had written an Islamist site with a specific project: to park a car bomb in Times Square and blow it up when two nearby movie theaters let out. Moussaoui was a car mechanic who worked in the Bronx. He was married and had two daughters, no criminal record, and no connection with any terrorist groups. That was why he was asking for help from anyone who could help with his project.

  The FBI had weighed the measures to be taken.