by Ben Coes
And now, at risk of being discovered, who could he talk to? The answer was no one. He was utterly alone. The question wasn’t would they catch him. The question was when. Should he set the bomb off now, himself, as he was instructed to do if they got close? Should he hang himself so that he became just another anonymous suicide, an immigrant, dangling from a beam in the ceiling? This was what they were taught: Don’t run. Commit suicide. You will still be a martyr. To run is to get caught, to admit guilt. There cannot be suspicion.
Neqq knew he was part of an elite group. He knew the name of its leader. He was a legend, a hero. He wasn’t supposed to know his name. But he did: Alexander.
Neqq didn’t know how many others there were in total who had come out of the madrasah, but in his class alone there were six men. They didn’t know why Imam had chosen them. He certainly wasn’t the smartest, or the most faithful. But he never complained. He never questioned. He’d thought about it a lot all these years; why him? Why Barush, his best friend, why was he left behind? The others who were selected with him? They were the quiet ones. The ones who didn’t argue, didn’t complain when one night dinner wasn’t there because Imam didn’t have the money to pay for food. They were not even allowed to say good-bye to their parents. That was probably what hurt the most.
From the madrasah, they had driven in a convoy to Karachi, then took the plane with Russian writing on the side to Kenya. It was Neqq’s first time on a plane. From the remote airstrip in Kenya, they drove on a yellow bus for five hours into the desert. The camp was plain, large, spreading out in all directions as far as you could see. Tents. Obstacle course. The rat-a-tat of the firing range on the hill. It was called Al Nar, the Fire. There was a long, sloping rock against which they had strung tents for shelter. Every day, there were courses for learning how to shoot, how to fight. They learned explosives. This is what they learned: the material is like clay. You can throw it against the wall, even run it over. You can even eat it in small amounts; your body will pass it without harm. But if you charge it with two negative ions at the same time—a special detonator called a T7.4—that soft material will make the world come down around you.
They showed it once. They set off an amount the size of a baseball. They set it off nearly a mile in the distance. The explosion rocked the ground, even from so far away. The next day they climbed into the crater and it was still warm. The crater was more than four hundred feet across.
That was why he was there. They all knew that the day they set off the explosion.
They spent five months in Kenya, sweating like dogs, starving, learning how to kill, learning how to set the explosives, understanding what it meant to be a cell. One day, someone smarter than he decided they were ready. They went back to Kenya, then sailed to Marbella, in southern Spain, aboard a dilapidated schooner. They flew from Gibraltar to Canada, to different cities in Canada. He was sent to Montreal. There, he stayed in an apartment near McGill University for more than six months, waiting. He was forbidden from going to a mosque, forbidden from communicating with any of the others, even if he ran into them in the street. The letter came one day in May. In it was a Canadian passport, a bus ticket, a key to a locker in the Des Moines, Iowa, train station. He remembered laughing because he was so happy to be finally going somewhere, doing something. Laughing because he didn’t know where Des Moines, or Iowa for that matter, even was. Two days on the bus to Iowa. In the train station, the locker contained eight cashier’s checks, each for $10,000. In the locker, a glossy brochure showed the Port of Long Beach, California: “America’s Gateway to the East.” The biggest port in the United States. The busiest port in the United States. He knew then what was next. Finally, there was a phone number on a piece of paper. He knew he was to call when he arrived and had a place to stay. In one respect, he remembered thinking, it was by far the most important item in the locker. If he lost that number, he would lose his connection, his purpose, forever. He remembered thinking it would have been easy to simply walk away. To take the money and walk away. Perhaps that was how they tested them? Perhaps they knew that some would walk, and those that did, they wanted no part of, for they would not last, would not have the fortitude to do what was next. He committed the number to memory. Even this day, he awoke repeating the number as if in a reverie, repeating it like a song that will not leave your head.
He called the number and gave his new address. After that, every month or so, a box with a check in it arrived, and a care package with cookies, toothpaste, other things. But the only thing that mattered was the toothpaste. That was what everything was all about. And every month, when the package came, Neqq cashed the check. He ate the cookies if they weren’t stale yet. Most important, the reason for the care package, the reason for it all, was the toothpaste. He opened the toothpaste and sniffed; the smell was mild, like a faint whiff of gasoline. Octanitrocubane.
He looked one last time at himself in the mirror of the restroom. They’ll torture it out of me, he thought. I’m not strong enough.
Neqq leaned back and turned the water off. He reached out and grabbed a paper towel and dried his hands. He left the bathroom and walked back to the warehouse floor. His shift would begin in fifteen minutes. He smelled the smell he’d grown to love, a combination of sea salt from the ocean water just beyond the warehouse doors, and the smell of oil, spilling now and then from the big container ships.
Perhaps they aren’t closing in, he thought as he walked across the warehouse floor, past pallet upon pallet of stacked cargo—rolls of paper, lumber, anything you can imagine could be made in China—looking up at the ceilings more than six stories in the sky. I’m driving myself crazy. Imagining everything.
Still, Mr. Sargent kept staring at him. Mr. Sargent was the general manager of the intermodal facility, Union Pacific’s massive warehouse, loading dock, and container storage area. Here, America’s largest railroad took inbound freight, mostly containers coming out of the Far East, and removed them from the big container ships. They stacked them somewhere in the 3,200-acre outdoor storage area. The gigantic container ships would arrive weighted down like they were about to sink, stacked high with thousands of the forty-foot containers. Overhead gantry cranes on the docks lifted the containers up one by one and moved them from the ship like an assembly line, efficiently and quickly, to the dock staging area. There they were placed on chassis attached to trucks. The drivers shuttled the containers to the large storage area, where the drivers were directed about the mazelike network of sections, organized methodically by type of cargo, the date they were to be shipped, and end destination. Neqq drove a reach stacker. He was there to grab the heavy containers off the truck chassis and place them down on the ground or on top of other containers.
The warehouse was at the edge of the container area, right along the docks. They needed a warehouse for the break-bulk shipments—cargo that wasn’t in containers, but rather was on pallets and needed to be sheltered from the elements. The warehouse was also where the workers’ lockers were, the bathroom, cafeteria. They even had a gym there.
It was hard to believe the hunk of material in the bottom of Neqq’s locker could destroy the building, a large section of the container field, and most of the docks at the port. But it could. It would. Soon, it would.
He checked that morning, first thing. Every Tuesday. It was all in place now: the octanitrocubane, the detonator. He’d wedged the last pieces into place a few months ago. The detonator had arrived more than three years ago. It was in a box, disguised as a children’s toy, part of an erector set. The toy had even been wrapped so that it looked new. But Neqq knew exactly how to tell the detonator parts from the pieces of the toy. It took him almost an entire weekend to assemble the complicated thing. But when he tied off the last wire and soldered it to the cellular antenna, he knew it was perfect. That next week, he’d brought it to work. He set it in the explosive material beneath the foot joist in his locker just after lunch that Tuesday. There it had sat for nearly two years now. It
had long since been buried by more octanitrocubane, sent in the toothpaste tubes. There it all waited. Waited for someone, somewhere, to set off the detonation. Neqq knew how to detonate the bomb, if he had to. But he was supposed to wait for the detonation. Wait, unless he knew they were getting close. Should I set it off? he asked himself.
Neqq knew the odds were one in three he would be there when it was set off. He worked an eight-hour shift. One in three. He always thought about that. Did he want to be there? If he wasn’t, would they come looking for him? Would he stay in Long Beach? In California? America? He had always thought he wanted to be there. It would be easier in so many ways. No one would look for him then. But recently, he’d begun to think about his family. They didn’t even know he was alive. Imagine walking into the little home, just outside the town center. “Mama,” he would say to his mother. He knew she would cry when she saw him at the door. The thought nearly brought tears to his eyes as he imagined it.
He stood at the edge of the building and stared. In front of him, he could see eleven reach stackers just rumbling to life as he and the other drivers got ready for their shift. To the left, the warehouse was filled for as far as you could see.
To his right, through the six-story warehouse doors, he saw a big container ship coming in. He could see a couple of crew members at the front of the ship. He stepped to the end of the dock and stood next to one of the big yellow steel ballast ties. One of the men, an Asian man, waved to him. Neqq waved back. Sometimes, he would dream about climbing aboard one of the container ships, going on an adventure, getting away from the inevitability of it all. But then he would remember his place. His duty. Jihad.
Beyond the ship was the ocean, just now beginning to shimmer in the morning light. How much longer would he stare at the ocean? When would Alexander press the button and make it all go away?
“What are you looking at?” Mr. Sargent said.
“The boat, sir,” said Neqq. “I’m always amazed.”
“What country are you from?” asked Mr. Sargent.
“I think we’ve talked about this before, sir. Canada. I’m from Montreal. You asked me this before.”
“Canada,” said Mr. Sargent as he stared at Neqq. Neqq became uncomfortable. He felt cool sweat come into his armpits. “O Canada,” sang Mr. Sargent, eyeing Neqq severely. “We stand on guard for thee.”
Neqq grinned nervously.
“Get back to work. There’s containers to off-load.”
Neqq walked quickly back to the number six reach stacker and climbed up into the cab. He found his safety helmet. He took the silver key from the overhead visor and placed it in the ignition, then pressed the small red button to the left of the transmission and felt the massive million-dollar piece of machinery come to life.
It must come soon, he thought. If Mr. Sargent searched his locker, if he truly ripped it up, he would be lost. They would lock him up, interrogate him. Could he survive the torture? Should he commit suicide tonight?
His mind raced as he moved the gear into drive. It had been so long now. It was time. He did what he always did at moments like these, repeating the Sharia. He drifted into the focus of his work, driving the big machine out through the warehouse portal to the container field.
31
FORTUNA’S ESTATE
FURTHER LANE
EAST HAMPTON, NEW YORK
Fortuna gunned the engine of the black Aston Martin Vanquish S as he made his way out Route 27 through Long Island. He had left Manhattan late and thus avoided much of the traffic to the Hamptons. It was nearly nine o’clock at night. He could’ve gone to Chelsea Piers and taken a helicopter out to his estate, but he wanted to drive instead. The two-hour drive would give him the chance to clear his mind.
Dewey Andreas ate away at Fortuna like a cancer. Try as he might, the thought of the survivor, the man who’d killed and likely interrogated Esco, grew like an abscess with each passing hour. Buck still hadn’t called, which couldn’t be a good sign. In frustration, Fortuna had called Buck, several times now, and still he hadn’t responded. Fortuna slammed his fist down on the dark wood of the steering wheel.
The road was black in darkness as he finished the final miles before getting to his estate. A fresh snowstorm left a white parchment on either side of the roadway. He probably was going too fast for the conditions. A patch of black ice would have sent the $280,000 vehicle flying into a snowbank or a tree. At north of eighty miles per hour, and with no seat belt on, it would be fatal. But Fortuna found it hard to care. He liked the speed. He cruised through Southampton, Water Mill, and Bridgehampton. The streets of the towns were decorated for the holidays. Couples walked along the sidewalks, bundled up in bright-colored ski parkas and long overcoats, coming from one of the town’s restaurants.
A week before Christmas, the village of East Hampton was festooned with lights and decorations. The shops in town alternated between the family-owned institutions, meat markets, candy stores, and coffeehouses that had been there for decades, and the newer entrants to the area, like J.Crew, Burberry, Tiffany’s, and Starbucks, that came with the ubiquitous wealth. Less than a mile beyond the small village, he took a right onto Egypt Lane, then a left on Further Lane. A mile ahead were the stone pillars to his estate. He took a right at the big elm tree, through the unmarked stone pillars. He’d removed the small sign that said EAGLE ROCK, the name given to the estate when it was built in 1908 by one of Henry Clay Frick’s sons. He’d found it pretentious.
At the push of a button on the dashboard, the black steel of the large gate swung inward and he pulled the Aston Martin down the long driveway that led to his seaside mansion. Fortuna had bought the house a week before his twenty-eighth birthday. At the time, it had cost him $18 million. He knew he’d make a lot more money in his career; the cost hadn’t even raised his eyebrows.
The driveway bent left, then straightened and dipped along a sleek and thin path of pebble stone, bordered on each side by the monotony of white slat horse fence. The driveway went for nearly a quarter mile, descending toward the water past tennis courts, the pool house, and pool, now covered. The house itself was a stunning shingle-style mansion that rambled along Long Island Sound’s blue-watered edge, surrounded by wide manicured lawns, sculpted boxwoods, and beech trees, all now blanketed in snow.
Fortuna climbed out of the car and walked to the front door. As he stepped onto the slate steps, the door opened.
“Good evening, Alex,” a woman said. Celia Rosemont, Fortuna’s caretaker at the estate, was a plain-looking woman, in her fifties, neatly attired in a gray sweater. “How was your trip?”
“Good,” he lied, presenting his usual calm and confident exterior. “How are you?”
“Great. Can I get you something?”
“Yes. A glass of wine. Open a bottle of Silver Oak, please. I don’t care what year.”
“Are you hungry? Can I have Jessica make you something?”
“Yes. Surprise me. No seafood though. Maybe a steak, pasta, whatever. I’ll be in my office.”
Fortuna walked through the entrance hall, through the living room, into a small door in the back of the room. Inside, a fireplace in the center of the back wall glowed with orange flames. Above the white marble mantel hung a Picasso oil of two boys playing with a ball. To the left, a large tan, custom-made sofa and two chairs surrounded a table with magazines laid neatly out on top of it. To the right, a large mahogany table sat to the side. On top of the table, a large flat computer screen stood, the only object, other than a keyboard, atop the big table.
Fortuna walked to the desk and sat down. He opened the cabinet behind the chair and turned on the computer.
Entering a series of passwords in a succession of screens gained him entry into a highly secure network.
He spent the next half hour looking at the performance of the three hedge funds, Kallivar, PBX, and Passwood-Regent. All showed similar growth in net asset value, as he expected they would. Each suffered losses in the investments in KKB an
d Anson Energy. Those losses, in total, amounted to approximately $660 million. But those were the only losses in a two-day period of unbelievable financial performance.
All told, in two days, at least on paper, Fortuna’s three hedge funds had created more than $17 billion in new wealth. Fortuna now controlled nearly $27 billion in assets. And values would likely climb higher as the smoke cleared and tensions dissipated.
Of course the government would ultimately come to question the suspicious trades and accumulation of wealth, but for the moment, they had their hands full, investigating the attacks. Soon, they’d have much more to worry about. And by the time they focused on Fortuna, he’d be gone.
Next, Fortuna skimmed media coverage of the funeral of Nicholas Anson, then coverage of the destruction of Savage Island Project and Capitana. According to the pundits, Al-Qaeda took top honors as suspect of choice.
Celia entered the office and placed a wineglass down in front of him. “Jessica is whipping up steak au poivre.”
“Great.” Fortuna took a sip from the wineglass.
“Would you like a salad?”
“Please.” He didn’t look up from the screen.
Celia walked to the door to leave. “You received a phone call,” she said, turning around.
Fortuna’s back stiffened. “Oh?”
“He said it was urgent. Wouldn’t leave his name. He was a bit abrupt, actually. Said you would know who it was.”
“Got it.”
As soon as Celia left, Alex picked up his phone. There were two phone lines to the estate; the main phone line, which was used throughout the house, and a single phone with a separate line and an expensive array of tap detection and encrypting technology, which was the one he now used. He dialed the same number he’d tried five times in the past four hours.
