Anit Rahal gave him a long look of appraisal before allowing the smile to curl both sides of her lips. “I prefer honesty,” she said. “You’re certainly nice-looking enough. I can spare an hour to find out if you’re smart.”
Ben, Brooke thought, would have loved this.
THREE
Three hours after the emergency meeting, Carter Grey came to Brooke’s office, his face seamed and pale. Before Carter could speak, Brooke said bluntly, “Get some rest. You can’t last this way.”
Grey shook his head. “We’ve confirmed the missing bomb through sources in the ISI. The president has started a task force. I’m taking you.”
Standing at once, Brooke went with him to the director’s conference room, ready to help if his friend stumbled. Sitting beside Grey, he took in the setting: mahogany walls; photos of former directors; the American flag beside that of the CIA. The room was equipped with secure phones, a bank of computers, televisions monitoring CNN and al Jazeera, and several teleconference screens—a nerve center in crisis. The faint metallic hum in the air, Brooke assumed, was meant to thwart surveillance.
The others were already seated at a long, burnished table. Brooke knew most on sight: Alex Coll, the president’s national security advisor; the deputy secretaries of State, Defense, and Homeland Security; the deputy director of the FBI; senior administrators from Immigration and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Among those representing the CIA were Noah Brustein; Ken Sweder of the Counterterrorism Center; Frank Svitek of Operations; senior analyst Michael Wertheimer; and, by teleconference, Carl Holt, the station chief in Islamabad.
Coll ran the meeting. Curtly nodding at the newcomers, he continued speaking to Brustein, “When the president confronted him, the prime minister swore he didn’t know. We don’t know any more than you’ve already guessed. Starting from scratch, our job is to stop whoever took the bomb from using it.”
Coll did not need to embellish this: An act of nuclear terrorism was what any president feared most. The first—and worst—fear was that the bomb was on its way to this city. Still addressing Brustein, he demanded, “How is the agency responding?”
Watching the two men, Brooke reflected on their disparity. Slender and dapper, Coll was a smart and polished infighter, with a fierce ambition to become secretary of state; Brustein cared less about himself than agency and country. “We’re calling on all our capabilities,” Brustein said. “Operations, analysis, signals intelligence, counterterrorism, key people from the Near East Division, analysts with expertise in nuclear weapons systems. Our information systems will redirect all data to a central point, so that no critical information slips through the cracks.” Pausing, he inclined his head toward Sweder. “Ken will run this day-to-day, with the assistance of Carter Grey. As to the nature of the search, we’re looking for a small group of men with a bomb you can fit in a crate. We won’t get much help from satellites. We need to depend on human intelligence: We’ve alerted our stations around the world to work every relevant source. That’s how we’ll find this bomb.”
Without comment, Coll faced Carl Hobbs of the FBI. “What if it’s coming here?”
Hobbs held out a palm, fingers ticking off his list. “We’re accelerating investigations of potential cells. We’ve alerted our counterterrorism unit. We’ve assigned anyone we can spare to checking domestic sources. We’re coordinating with the DOE’s detection team to comb wherever the bomb might be—”
Interrupting, Coll turned to Joseph Farella, deputy secretary of defense. “Any plans to go into Pakistan?”
Farella gave a sidelong glance to Francine Andrews, the poised career diplomat who had become the deputy secretary of state. “We’d need to know where it is,” Farella answered. “Otherwise we’re blind men searching for a grain of sand in a country close to nuclear war. We might well destabilize an already weak government.”
“Imagine how destabilized we’ll feel,” Coll interjected caustically, “when al Qaeda eliminates New York.” He caught himself, speaking more evenly. “You’re right, of course. But we’re less than a month from the tenth anniversary of 9/11. We have to assume this weapon is meant for America.”
Hobbs leaned forward. “That’s why we’d like CIA personnel reassigned to a joint task force under our direction. That way they can operate domestically.”
Brooke saw Brustein bridle. Ignoring Hobbs, he said to Coll, “In this last decade every successful prosecution of a terrorist started with leads from us. We can’t bring field officers back from overseas—we don’t have enough as it is. We need them to work with foreign agents and intelligence agencies.”
“Which ones do you trust?” Coll inquired sharply.
Brustein became expressionless—a method, Brooke divined, of concealing his annoyance. “There’s trust, and then there’s situational usefulness. We trust the Brits, the Germans, and the Jordanians. They’re less likely to leak, and they’ll worry the bomb is meant for them—”
“What about the Chinese and the Russians?” asked Francine Andrews. “Both of them have terrorists, and neither wants a nuclear weapon in the hands of al Qaeda or the Chechens. Going to them may be worth the risk.”
In a tone of dispassionate inquiry, Brooke asked, “What about the Iranians?”
Coll’s eyebrows shot up. “How do you know they’re not behind this?”
“I don’t. But suppose they’re not. What happens if there’s a nuclear catastrophe in the Middle East, and the Iranians get blamed for it? Or their clients, Hezbollah and Hamas? The last thing they’d want is an excuse for the Israelis to flatten them. Israel might not need much of one.”
Coll appraised him. “We don’t know each other, do we?”
“Brooke Chandler.” Brooke felt his name and face being filed away. “I work here. I also worked in Iraq and Lebanon. The experience was useful—”
“Brooke’s one of our best,” Brustein cut in. Sitting back, Brooke saw Grey smile.
“About the Israelis,” Coll asked Brustein, “what are we doing with them? Or about them?”
“As Brooke suggests,” Brustein answered, “they’re worried about Iran and groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, for whom the destruction of Israel is the Holy Grail. Their Middle East network is better than ours, and they’ll focus every resource on ensuring their own survival.”
“Nevertheless, do I divine a certain distrust between you and Mossad?”
“The Israelis,” Brustein answered coolly, “have been known to use false information to manipulate us to their own ends. If that doesn’t work, they’ll try to steal our secrets. We don’t even like having Mossad in this building.
“Fear makes them arrogant and aggressive, inclined to overrate them-selves—witness their classic blunder in the blockade of Gaza, where they end up killing eleven civilians on a boat allegedly embarked on a humanitarian mission, infuriating the entire world. In turn, they don’t think we’re as competent or serious. They also believe that anything we do will get leaked to Congress and the media.”
“Imagine that,” Grey remarked sardonically.
“In short,” Brustein continued, “the Israelis will be an immense pain in the ass. Once they get word of this, they’ll want to move their people to Langley, get everything we have, and give us as little as possible. They’ll also pressure the White House to make them equal partners in the effort.
“The bright side is that if we find the bomb, the Israelis will do whatever it takes to recover it. The danger is that they’ll try to justify any operation they think helps protect them—including against Iran. There’s an inherent conflict. Israel will want us looking out for Israel; our first obligation is protecting this country. That means we’ll read intelligence differently, and have very different priorities. The fact that we need each other won’t make that any easier.”
Coll bit his lip. “Let’s hope the prospect of a nuclear holocaust concentrates the Israeli mind. In their place, I’d be very afraid of al Qaeda destroying an American city. That would c
reate tremendous pressure for us to get out of the Middle East—reasonably or not, many voices would blame Israel. I expect the president will make that point to their prime minister. As for the rest of us, cooperation is paramount.” He glanced at Hobbs. “That means keeping the CIA overseas, and making sure the FBI works closely with the other domestic agencies. Understood?”
Under the weight of Coll’s stare, Hobbs slowly nodded. “Moving on,” Coll said to Brustein, “who in your agency briefs who in Congress? We have to get this right.”
Brustein leaned forward. “I’ll personally brief selected members of Congress: the chairmen and ranking members of the intelligence committees of the House and Senate; the majority and minority leaders of the Senate; and the Speaker, majority and minority leaders of the House. I strongly recommend we cut it off there, or else we might as well ask al Qaeda to join us.” Brustein looked around the room. “I also suggest that no one else outside this room know that a bomb is missing unless it’s absolutely essential. Including at the White House.”
Briefly, Coll looked nettled. “Whoever has the bomb,” Grey told him emphatically, “won’t say so unless and until they’ve perpetrated a tragedy that dwarfs Hiroshima. We have the same interest in keeping secret from al Qaeda whatever we know or suspect. We’re moving toward an election year—once this news gets out, there’ll be an orgy of finger pointing, and Bin Laden will have hijacked the campaign to select an American president. Beyond that, any artless or premature disclosure to the public could cause evacuations of our cities, the collapse of the stock market, and a cacophony of political recrimination that mushrooms with each rancid hour of demagoguery on talk radio and cable news.” Grey suddenly sounded tired. “It would be a test of national character. I’m not sure we can pass it anymore. I don’t relish finding out.”
The faces around the table were uniformly grave. Coll puffed his cheeks, expelling a breath. “Any argument with that?”
For a moment, Brooke hesitated. “No argument,” he said. “But I’m not sure al Qaeda will keep our secret. If I were al Qaeda, I wouldn’t wait for Congress to leak it. I would.”
Coll’s mouth became a thin line. “For what reason?”
“For all the reasons you suggest,” Grey responded quietly. “A simple announcement would damage us whether or not al Qaeda succeeds in using the bomb. We couldn’t control the Israelis. And if al Qaeda did succeed, it would magnify our sense of fear and powerlessness. Even in death, Bin Laden, not the president, would become the most powerful man in America.”
FOUR
Through the window of the earthen hut, Amer Al Zaroor watched the moon.
For the first time since he began his self-imposed isolation, the new cell phone that had awaited him buzzed. “All is quiet,” the woman’s voice said. “The baby sleeps.”
“I love you,” Al Zaroor answered quietly, and hung up—a conversation that, in his own life, he would never have.
It was as he had suspected. The Pakistanis were attempting to conceal that someone had stolen a nuclear weapon. Now he could weave his web of misdirection.
Despite the risk, five months before Bin Laden’s death, the three men had met for a final time to review Al Zaroor’s plan. As often happened, Zawahiri had laced his questions with sarcasm. “So while you sit on this bomb, a mother chicken with her egg, how do you divert our enemies?”
At the corner of Al Zaroor’s vision, Bin Laden cocked his head in an attitude of inquiry. “The Americans fear Iran,” Al Zaroor responded, “and the Zionists fear them even more. I mean to stoke those fears through a sequence of disinformation planted with the ISI, and cryptic phone messages that the Americans’ signals intelligence will no doubt intercept. Together, these snippets will suggest that the weapon is moving through Swat, then Afghanistan, toward Iran.”
Bin Laden’s eyes were grave with doubt. “The Americans will never believe we’d procure a weapon for Iran.”
Al Zaroor nodded respectfully. “They will surely doubt it, Renewer. But they know very well that the Iranians would dearly love to reverse-engineer a Pakistani bomb. For the Zionist entity, Iran is both an obsession and an excuse for their own aggression.” He looked at Zawahiri. “All I want is to create a distraction in the first few crucial days. That means inciting our enemies to think that someone other than us may be moving the weapon in a direction different than we intend. Out of Pakistan.”
As Zawahiri began to speak, Bin Laden held up a hand. With a finality that foreclosed all discussion he said, “We believe in you, Amer. Completely.”
The words that for two decades now Al Zaroor had worked to hear.
When Marwan Said first met the Renewer, transforming his path, he was barely twenty-four.
Bin Laden had summoned him to his sanctuary in Afghanistan. They sat by a campfire at night, the younger man quiet and awed. Among militia leaders in Afghanistan, Bin Laden was said to be an anomaly, combining the global vision of a revolutionary with a rare command of organizational intricacies. In the flesh, the man radiated energy and purpose. Yet he retained the aura of a poet: With his penetrant gaze came an air of calm and stillness that, for Marwan, created its own light. In a deep but gentle voice, the Renewer said, “They say you are a good fighter, Marwan. And, more than that, daring and resourceful. Such a man can choose many paths in life, some more convenient than others. What do you wish for yourself?”
Marwan composed his thoughts. “To wage jihad,” he said simply. “Not orating in mosques, but taking actions.”
Bin Laden considered him. “You are from Riyadh, I understand. Your father is a wealthy banker connected to the royal family. Your own degree is in architecture—though you dabbled a bit in philosophy.” In the glow of the fire, Marwan saw Bin Laden smile at the younger man’s surprise. “Your father,” he continued, “demands that you lead a prosperous life as his acolyte, surrounded by wives and children. What makes you aspire to a life of hardship?”
The leader’s directness encouraged Marwan to open his soul. “In the beginning,” he answered, “it was more feeling than thought. I was only fourteen—”
“You had an awakening, then?”
“Yes, but not in a mosque. On television a man was interviewing Palestinian survivors of the Zionist massacre at Sabra and Shatilah; parents who saw their sons killed, their daughters raped.” Marwan paused, surprised by the impact of memory. “Suddenly I could see the dead. For the first time it came to me that I was not just Saudi, but Arab. I felt myself quiver with anger and shame—for my people, who did nothing; for my father, whose only ‘act of courage’ was to beat his wife and children. I saw what he was, and wanted to spit in his face. I promised myself that I would become a man, not a tyrant who turns coward outside the walls of his home.”
“And so?”
Marwan bowed his head. “I went to the mosque and prayed for guidance.”
Bin Laden straightened his white robe, still gazing at Marwan. “Where you came to the attention of the Muslim Brotherhood. What did you learn from them?”
“Many things. To pray five times a day, to behave modestly with women.” He looked into Bin Laden’s eyes, seeking acceptance. “More, I learned that the Christians softened men like my father with pleasures while using money from our oil to arm the Zionists. That we bowed our heads like women because the love of Allah, and the willingness to die for jihad, had vanished from our hearts. The West has neutered us.”
Now Bin Laden’s gaze felt piercing. “That is all?”
Humiliation coursing through him, Marwan understood that his words could have come from anyone. “Not all,” he said in a tighter voice. “I saw the rubble of homes destroyed by the Zionist air force in Palestine and Lebanon, the unmarked graves of our Muslim sisters and brothers. And I dreamed that one day I would cause the tallest buildings of the Americans and Jews to become graves for their own people. An act of revenge far more eloquent than speech.”
“And more ambitious,” Bin Laden observed. “Is this why you studied
in America?”
Marwan felt himself flush. “I wished to look our enemy in the face.”
Though Bin Laden nodded, his gaze seemed more probing than before. “And what did you see there?”
Suddenly Marwan felt the weak man’s need to hide behind words. “The place where I studied, Miami, was filled with Jews who cared only for the Zionist entity. The students indulged themselves in drugs and alcohol and promiscuity, as if they were Saudi princes—”
“Saudi princes,” Bin Laden interjected tartly, “often disappoint. What about you, Marwan?”
This man could read minds, the young Saudi thought in shame. In a lower voice, he said, “I abstained from drugs and alcohol—”
“But not women.”
Marwan briefly looked away. The memory was suffocating: the girl with bleached hair, round and shameless in her nakedness, rolling on her stomach so he could use her as a man, the nausea in his own stomach after this moment of discovery and release, curdled with self-loathing. But Bin Laden’s tone was free of judgment. “How did these women make you feel?”
Marwan swallowed, then came as close to truth as he dared. “I was frightened of my own weakness. I told myself that whatever I did in America wouldn’t matter. But in my heart, I knew it would change me.”
“So you returned to Saudi Arabia and repudiated your father’s ways.”
“Yes.” Marwan’s voice gained strength. “Always I treat Sunni women with respect. But I know now that I can take no wife. When I envision martyrdom, I don’t imagine seventy virgins. I don’t think of an afterlife at all. I see the death of a single man—my death—changing the world as we know it. One does not have to live the future to be part of it.”
“And this is why you wish to follow me.”
“Yes.” Marwan closed his eyes, quoting Bin Laden from memory. “ ‘I am willing to sacrifice self and wealth for knights who never disappoint me, knights who are never deterred by death, even should the mill of war turn against them.’ You also said this: ‘Oppression and exploitation can be demolished only in a rain of bullets. The free man does not surrender to the infidel.’ ”Opening his eyes, Marwan said prayerfully, “I wish to be your knight, Renewer. Allow me to be free.”
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