He waved at an empty chair. “What’s up?”
She hesitated then perched on the edge of the seat. “It’s probably nothing.”
“It’s never ‘nothing’ when it comes to you, Janice.”
He marveled at the fact that despite similar ages and backgrounds—children of Middle Eastern parents growing up in Detroit—Janice and his own father had turned out so differently. Doug remembered his grandfather speaking Arabic, but only with immigrants like himself; to everyone else he spoke English. Doug didn’t think his father knew more than a passing phrase or two in the language of his Lebanese forebears. And yet, Janice and his dad were alike in many ways, their outward reserve hiding inner liberalism. They even seemed to like each other the few times they’d met, and Doug wondered if she had more than a passing interest in his dad, the widower veteran.
Janice shifted uncomfortably. “Masoud’s had two visitors in the past forty-eight hours,” Janice said. “And before you ask, neither one was his lawyer.”
He shrugged. “He’s allowed visitors. Who were they?”
“Imam from the Dearborn mosque, and his uncle’s wife.”
Nearly a year and a half before, Hamid Hassan Masoud had been arrested for conspiring to smuggle explosives across the border from Windsor in a load of auto parts. Janice’s research and analysis had helped build the case against Masoud that Doug was now ready to prosecute, a case that would hopefully result in a successful conviction. Masoud was being held at the federal lock-up in Milan, Michigan, a little more than an hour’s drive away, until his trial in a few days.
“You’ve seen the transcripts?” Doug said.
“Heard them,” Janice corrected him. “You know I can’t read Arabic.”
He wouldn’t have put it past her. “And?”
“A lot of talk about the weather, how he was feeling, if he needed anything.” She paused, but Doug said nothing. “You know it’s code.”
Doug sighed, his brow furrowing “What else?”
“There’s too much chatter out there. Something’s going to happen, I know it.”
“What kind of chatter?” He straightened, vague unease coursing through him.
“For months, I’ve been cross-referencing the FBI’s list of suspects’ phone numbers obtained through Section 215 with Masoud’s known associates—family, friends—”
“Six degrees… I get it. Go on.”
“Today, more than half a dozen of those numbers got hits within ten minutes. Minneapolis, Houston, L.A., New York, Arlington, Virginia…”
Doug rubbed his chin. “What are you thinking? Masoud’s directing attacks in those places?”
Janice shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. It just seems like too much activity all of a sudden to be coincidence.”
“And our friends over on Michigan Avenue haven’t called?”
“The FBI?” She shook her head. “No one over there takes me seriously. Takes us seriously. I called them. They didn’t have time for me. Office is in a tizzy, apparently, about some hotshot coming into town from D.C. to run a counterterrorism op here.”
Doug frowned. With Masoud’s case, he’d become the resident expert in terrorism, at least the kind exported from the Middle East. For the FBI to run a counterterrorism operation without informing the US Attorney’s Office meant a serious breach of protocol and trust. He’d have to check in with Kathleen, his boss, and see if she’d heard anything.
“We’ve taken every precaution,” he said finally. “You and I have gone over the plans for transporting Masoud to the courthouse a couple of dozen times. And neither of us has given details to anyone else, so he won’t have the opportunity to speak with anyone on the way. And we both know the FBI is monitoring his calls, too.” He stopped to think. “Maybe the buzz you’re hearing has something to do with this op our friends are running.”
“Maybe.” Janice didn’t look convinced. “I think I’ll go over the background security checks on all the prison personnel involved in the transfer again. Could be someone’s vulnerable to outside persuasion, and Masoud is passing messages through that person.”
The cell phone on Doug’s desk buzzed. He glanced at the screen and saw Sally’s name come up. He held up a finger and grabbed the phone.
“Everything okay, hon’?” he said.
“I just wanted to remind you I’m headed for the doctor’s office this afternoon,” his wife said. “You do remember you’re picking up Preston at school today, right?”
“Oh, crap. I forgot.”
“Doug, this is important. I can’t cancel now.”
He pushed his irritability aside. “I’ll handle it.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said I’ll take care of it.” It sounded harsh as it came out. “I’m sorry, Sal. It’s just…”
“Work. I know. I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up in frustration, torn between the demands of his job and guilt over not being supportive enough to Sally and his young family. He knew it had been a bad idea to have another child this soon after Amy. But it wasn’t like either of them had planned it, and he certainly hadn’t taken any precautions to prevent it. It was his own damn fault. Anyway, he was happy Sally was pregnant again. Wasn’t he?
“Problems at home?” Janice said softly.
He glanced at her. “A scheduling glitch, that’s all.”
“I’d be happy to leave early and get Preston.”
He flushed. “That’s kind of you, Janice, but it’s not part of your job description. I’ll find someone. Or do it myself.”
“What about your father?”
Doug blinked. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it.
4
The #3 bus took me back to downtown Ypsi. I descended the steps to the sidewalk and started trudging toward home. After ten minutes of walking, I stopped in front of the white saltbox house I’d called home for much of my adult life and bent over, hands on knees, until I could catch my breath. I could have driven to the medical center, but the fifteen-year-old Honda in the garage had been Susan’s. Mechanically, it was in great shape—I’d seen to that. I just couldn’t bring myself to drive it, and I’d gotten so used to hoofing it or taking a bus when I needed to that I only took the car out once in a while to make sure the battery held a charge.
I raised my head and let my gaze take a stroll over the grounds and the house. Grime and the elements had weathered the paint to a psoriatic, pale gray, and the unkempt lawn and shrubs needed grooming. Even with the sun cheerily lighting the façade, the house looked sad, lonely. A gutter had come loose at one corner, and one of the steps up to the front door sagged with rot. Upkeep I’d neglected.
I straightened, the movement tightening the muscles in my lower back almost to the point of spasm. Bracing my back with a hand, I stepped gingerly up the walk until the danger seemed to pass. I let myself in, the motions of inserting the key in the lock, turning the knob and pushing the door open, wiping my feet on the mat and stooping to pick up the mail as automatic as breathing. Keys on the hall table, a glance up the stairs and into the living room, then the nine paces back to the kitchen with mail in hand to look for the wife who hasn‘t been there for the past ten years. As always, the silence slapped me in the face, bringing me up short with both surprise and pain that I thought would have faded by now.
A scratch pad on the counter under the old wall phone yielded its top sheet when I yanked hard enough. I rooted in the drawer beneath for a pencil that didn’t have a broken lead. Sitting at the wooden kitchen table that Susan had found one summer at an antiques store up north, somewhere around Charlevoix, I tried to mentally organize the list of chores and fix-it projects that needed attention. An electric bill stared at me from atop the slim stack of mail, reminding me I needed have the furnace cleaned before winter. But my thoughts strayed to my visit to the VA. I stared at the blank sheet of scrap paper. What was the point?
I shuddered, the bravado I’d displayed in Sturgis’s office
long gone, and lowered my head onto the table. No wife. Siblings I hadn’t spoken to since I’d left home at fifteen. Estranged from my own kids, too, though Doug, my oldest, had made overtures the past few years. Twenty-five years in the auto business, holding down factory jobs that helped build part of the American Dream, and nothing to show for it. Downsized during an economic contraction that nearly forced my employer at the time into bankruptcy. Just shy of full vestment in a pension, so got offered a cash-out instead. Took it because it was better than nothing, but it hadn’t lasted long after Susan had gotten sick. Bills from doctors, labs and hospitals had eaten it up faster than ovarian cancer had chewed through her from the inside out.
Now it was my turn. Maybe cancer wasn’t contagious, but I’d sensed that what Susan’s ordeal had put me through would eventually catch up to me. The stress, let alone the dark place it had put me into mentally and emotionally, would have been enough to cause some cells to misbehave and start replicating out of control. I’d found my way at least partway back from that bleak place, but the damage had been done. I wouldn’t put my family through what I’d gone through. Not that any of them likely gave a shit. For the first time since Susan’s death I actually felt like crying, but I was just too damn tired.
Until that moment I’d always thought that life was pretty sweet, despite the hardships. The good times had been good enough that by working overtime and holidays I’d managed to put a roof over our heads in a decent suburb of Detroit, keeping up the house payments after the divorce from Mary, the kids’ mother, and even paid off the mortgage early. Things had been tight when Susan and I had gotten married, but with both of us working we had plenty. Susan had managed to buy this little house on her salary long before we’d gotten married, so what I pulled in was more than enough for a meal out now and then, a road trip in the summer.
We hadn’t needed any more. We’d lived simply until Susan’s diagnosis when the constant rounds of doctor visits, tubes, wires and medical equipment had complicated things. But after one round of chemo and radiation, Susan had decided it wasn’t worth it. She’d wanted to go out as simply as she’d lived. She’d kept working, teaching grade school, until the pain got so bad that she knew her time had run out. We’d arranged in-home hospice care, and within weeks she just stopped breathing one morning before daybreak while I sat next to her bed holding her hand.
The memory of it sent a pang through the hollow pit in my stomach, and tears finally welled up in my eyes, threatening to spill over. As I reached for a paper towel, the old clamshell cell phone I kept in my pocket for emergencies rang, startling me. Unsure of what it was at first, it took me a moment to trace the sound and dig the phone out of my pocket.
“Hello?”
“Dad, it’s Doug.”
My heart raced. “What’s wrong? Is one of the kids hurt?”
“No, everything’s fine. Why would you think that?” He sounded peeved, impatient, as he often did when he spoke with me.
“Fewer people have this number than I’ve got fingers on one hand. Not likely any of them, including you, would call it unless something was wrong. Most people use the house phone.”
“Okay, okay, you’re right. Everything’s not fine. I need a favor. Are you at work? Can you get away?”
“What do you need?” Now I was the impatient one. I wasn’t about to start explaining why I wasn’t at the service station in town where I put in time as a mechanic.
“I hate to ask but could you pick up Preston from school? Sally had an ultrasound appointment I didn’t know about, and the sitter who’s watching Amy doesn’t have a car. I’d do it but something came up at the office and I—”
“Oh, for chrissakes, stop yammering. Of course I’ll get Preston. You want me to take him to the park or something, or straight home?”
“You’d take him to the park?”
“I’m not too old to push a kid on a swing. Hell, I’ll get him something to eat, too, if you want.”
“No, no, that’s okay. I mean, yes, it‘d be great if you took him to the park for an hour or so. Just until Sally gets home. But you don’t have to take him out to eat. He can get dinner at home.”
“Whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“And you’re coming to his birthday party a week from Saturday?”
“I told you I would. Go back to work. I got this.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to you later.”
5
The desert stretched out on all sides, the muted colors that ranged from tan to russet so reminiscent of home. But the cacti looked like alien creatures growing out of the rock and sand. Al-Qadir had never seen anything like them, and the forest of Saguaros that sprouted out of the rolling hills after he’d crossed the border into Arizona amazed him. He couldn’t afford distractions now, however. He forced his mind to focus on the task at hand. Going over all the details he’d labored over for the past several years.
As he’d expected, his passport had generated no suspicion at the border. All his documents had been meticulously obtained using a real, not forged, Social Security number. A false identity, stolen, true enough, but real as far as the authorities were concerned. By the time the victim found out his identity had been used fraudulently, it would be too late to stop what had already been put into motion. If all went according to plan, al-Qadir would be long gone. If not, he’d likely be dead along with countless others. So many others, in fact, 9/11 would look like a minor incident in comparison.
The hilly Saguaro forest gave way to more open, flatter terrain, mountains rising up in the distance. Another hour of driving took him past Kitt Peak to the arid, dusty outskirts of Tucson. Industrial parks slowly gave way to neighborhoods of small, single-story houses on dirt lots littered with mangy dogs lying in whatever shade they could find and auto carcasses on cinder-block pyres, baked in the sun so long their painted finish had turned to powder.
He turned onto one of those side streets and wound his way through a neighborhood past rabbles of brown-skinned, black-haired children kicking a soccer ball or rattling chain link fences with sticks. All noted his passing with wary eyes, checking both car and occupant for signs of trouble before returning to their play. He soon found the rental house that had been paid for in his name. He pulled into the carport alongside the house and carried his few belongings inside the dim interior, dropping his bag on the tile floor before walking through the rooms. The living room faced the street, the kitchen and eating area across a narrow hall leading to two small bedrooms across from each other in the back of the house.
In the kitchen, he opened cupboards until he found a glass, filled it at the sink and drank it down. Poking his fingers in the blinds covering the window, he spread the metal slats and peered out. A row of doublewide trailers on blocks marched down the other side of an alley running alongside the house. He cracked the window. Tejano music, the whirr of heat-pump fans and voices raised in argument floated through the opening along with a breath of hot air. The day had warmed considerably since early morning when he’d left Mexico. But this time of year the temperature would only reach the mid-80s. He didn’t understand why Americans insisted on refrigerating their houses in such pleasant weather.
The rest of the house was sparsely furnished, but he needed little. He retrieved the bag and sat at the little table near the kitchen. He pulled a laptop computer from the bag and took a small notebook from his pocket as it booted up. Opening it to a page of encoded numbers, he laid it next to the laptop. His excitement built, tension that was almost sexual, mounting anticipation that would eventually demand release. For now, he savored the satisfaction of all that he had accomplished in a few short years.
Recruiting “disaffected youth” in cities around the country with large Muslim populations had been fairly easy. They wanted a cause, something to believe in, someone to follow. In many cases they would have ended up in gangs, but in some not even t
he gangs wanted them due to the color of their skin or their religion or both. Al-Qadir’s contacts found them, then slowly and carefully brought them into the fold, urging them to attend mosque more regularly and listen to the teachings of the local imam. They were befriended, given the attention, encouragement and praise they so desperately craved, then invited to secret meetings in which their true indoctrination began.
Plastic minds and a not-yet-fully-formed sense of self made these young people malleable and easy to radicalize, but al-Qadir’s cell leaders taught them discipline as well. They were not the wild-eyed, bearded fanatics the West so often associated with Islamic fundamentalism. They were clean-cut, quiet, polite men and women in their late teens and early twenties seeking a greater truth. Al-Qadir, thorough his network, had promised them that and more if they put their faith in Allah, Mohammed and the Quran.
That same plasticity, that instability, caused so many of those young people to champ at the bit. Instilling them with patience and faith was his network’s most difficult job. Had it not been for the network’s intercession and teaching, many of them would have foolishly tried to travel to Syria or Turkey and try to join ISIS. Untrained and ill-prepared, most of those would have made poor foot soldiers in the Mideast. They often were stupid enough to announce their plans on social media platforms like Facebook, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs and incriminating evidence for law enforcement to follow and use to throw them in jail. Al-Qadir hated competing with ISIS for recruits, but he’d used the same social media sites to save some of these kids from themselves by drawing them in as a shepherd gathers his flock, and slowly opening their eyes to a greater truth.
Al-Qadir’s cell leaders sent the most promising candidates to a secret location in the Nevada desert, worthless land that al-Qadir’s representatives had purchased years before. There, they received intensive training in weapons, hand-to-hand combat, surveillance, explosives, and guerilla warfare. Their instructors had come from all over the globe, from warzones in Afghanistan and Iraq, with years of combat experience, and many trained by the most elite military forces in the world. Now, he had an army at his command. A small one, to be sure, but mighty. And finally, the time had come to mobilize his troops.
Stolen Identity Page 2