The Towers

by David Poyer

  She’d shivered, and asked no more questions.

  They had a new on-scene commander. Roderigo Caraño was an FBI SSA, supervisory special agent, with a crim background but no CI or CT experience. He’d flown in from Washington with two New York Police Department agents to augment the investigative element. Insisted on full briefings from her and Doanelson, then started issuing orders. Order One: No agent was to leave the compound without full security. An understandable precaution if you wanted to keep your butt papered, but not the way to get the job done. In her humble opinion.

  And now it was Thursday again. A workshop day, and she’d missed quite a few. Her students thirsted after English as if the language itself meant a better life. Their existences in Sana’a—even that of the relatively wealthy women—were so limited. How could she leave them without one of the few windows they’d ever had? But Doanelson had warned her not to go out alone. Tim Benefiel had asked her not to, when she told him where she was going. He’d offered to go along. To a mosque? She didn’t think so. Better to walk inconspicuously than travel in a convoy. The only way, under Force Protection Condition Delta, she could officially venture into the city.

  She stood looking at the gate. Go? Or stay?

  She whispered a du’a, and nodded at her admirer to unlock the gate.

  * * *

  THE sun had declined above the earth-and-cream teeth of the city, the truncated, narrow, rammed-earth buildings like skyscrapers sketched by a child. She walked quickly, hidden in the crowd, along the embankment on the west side of town. Below shone the dark asphalt of a road laid at the bottom of what had once been a wadi, a dry streambed. Cars hissed by, the small European and Japanese types the Yemenis imported, each with windows open and radio on. She crossed by a footbridge, her leather slippers clapping, the cars murmuring beneath, motorbikes buzzing, the warm wind breathing in her face. At each corner of the stairs leading down the ammonia musk of urine welled up. The shaft of the minaret rose, bright orange light outlining each stage like a rocket being groomed for ascent. Behind it lifted the dark, jagged outline of the mountains.

  At the bottom of the stair she stepped to the side and stood concealed in shadow. Waited, fingers brushing the butt of her SIG. She needed a toilet, badly, badly. Oh, dear. The prescription did not seem to be working. Men stood motionless in brightly-lit arched doorways. Were they watching her? They did not seem to be looking her way. Others sat with legs crossed, smoking and sipping coffee beneath rippling plastic awnings. A boy careened past on a bike, shouting to playmates strung behind.

  She stepped from the alcove and hiked with cloth swishing toward the mosque. A truck with a defective muffler crackled past, trailing choking exhaust. Men sauntered in pairs, holding hands. Music welled from open-air storefronts beneath a massive billboard displaying, once again, the opaque and cunning features of President Ali Abdullah Saleh Al-batel. She stopped to check out Indian and Pakistani tapes and videocassettes. Many seemed to be religious, but vacancies on these shelves suggested certain offerings had hastily been removed. She moved on and fingered a colorful scarf. Turned her head; but the street behind was empty, save for two women lingering at a display of plastic shoes. One’s face was covered, the other not, a fresh teenage girl with heavy, dark eyebrows.

  “They are from Iran. Very fine fabric, very low price.”

  “How much?” she said, but her accent must not have been quite right because his gaze came up from the scarf to her face. A fluent gesture: Make me an offer. She replaced it and strode on, coughing in the dust and exhaust.

  At the mosque a squatting old man waved her in. She stepped out of her slippers and set them in one of the wooden boxes. Washed her feet in a tiled trough. But the carpets were covered with sitting men listening to the imam; a funeral was in progress. She turned aside and went downstairs to the restroom. Feeling a bit better, face washed, she padded down the corridor to the bare, undecorated room where she held her class. Five women glanced up as she let herself in, and she relaxed, smiling. Unwrapping her covering, she seated herself cross-legged before them.

  * * *

  AN hour later she stood from Isha devotion, the funeral party having left. Feeling the peace of prayer but also a little creaky in the knees as she straightened, with some effort, from the sujud prostration. Apparently women prayed at home in the Old Town, because she was the only female in the mosque.

  She stretched discreetly and wandered toward the exit, unwilling to leave the transcendent, empty quiet. The class had gone well. Making progress, but they were so fucking shy. “Good morning, Miss Ar-Rahim.” “Is this seat taken?” “I am very pleased to meet you.” “Where are you from? Are you from Saudi Arabia?” Next time, she had to bring something printed, so they could review at home. Or tapes; surely the Public Affairs Section had something she could check out.

  She found her braided-leather slippers in the box and leaned one-legged against a wall to slip them on. Her students departed, holding hands, chattering until they hit the gate, then falling silent as black-shrouded ghosts. The street was brightly lit with hot-yellow sodium-vapor lamps. Compared to most of the Mideast, Sana’a sparkled. Not like Egypt, Ashaara, Djibouti. She shivered, remembering that last hellhole: the warped, diseased beggars, jaws grinding, their poverty and ignorance drugged with qat; the endless, choking dust. Here the souks were still busy. The farms produced. People worked. The schools weren’t great but they were still open. People trusted each other. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, Yemen was dragging itself upward.

  Women in black were out sweeping the streets. Children wove and shrieked among them, playing tag. She pushed herself briskly out the gate. Turned right, striding along. Remembering to stay alert, despite this sense of peace. Down the street a truck idled, the exhaust rising in blue clouds.

  She’d almost reached it when she remembered her purse. Her nice carpetbag purse. Left in the classroom. At least her sidearm wasn’t in it, but everything else was: official passport, badge, Mace. Better get your mind back on the job, Aisha-girl. She wheeled and turned back, puffing at her absentmindedness.

  The blast enveloped her in orange fire, a soundless impetus that launched her like the thrust of a carrier’s catapult. Time slowed as she tumbled, impelled in dreamlike flight.

  She got her hands up to cushion her crash into the steel grille of a shop, then crumpled to the cobbles, ears ringing. She couldn’t hear a thing over the bells in her head. Heat penetrated the cloth and Kevlar on her back. She pushed up to her knees facing the street. The SIG, safety off, pointed trembling in both hands.

  Over the sights: a smoking crater, ruined storefronts, scattered, burning bundles of rolled cloth. The smashed wall of a house. A twisted, burning mass of steel and springs that must be the remains of the truck. The metal shell of its tank was bent outward like the hull of a popped kernel of corn.

  Then flames roared, sound at last penetrating the ringing in her skull. Above that, screams. A blackened figure danced past, beating at fire that fed on shriveling skin. The light standard above where the truck had been parked still vibrated like a plucked string, bent upward from the blast. A column of expiring flame and greasy, brownish, petroleum-smelling smoke filled the street and blew hotly into her face. Burning fuel, burning cloth, burning flesh. Cold horror crawled her skin.

  She lurched up and forced herself to trot awkwardly, encumbered by vest and clothing, pistol still extended, toward the carcass of the truck. Pools of lambent fluid drained over the cobblestones, flickering, then bursting into full flame in leaping orange glares. She shied between them as they grew into great leaping pyres and emerged at last from the flame-swept area in a combat crouch, sweeping the street beyond with the muzzle of the SIG.

  A metallic-green, four-door sedan was pulling out farther down the street, heading toward the sunken road. Faces in the backseat turned to stare. A short black tube withdrew into the car even as she took a stance and aimed. Fifty yards. Center of mass hold. But civilians beyond were running i
n both directions, some toward the flames, others away. She started to take up on the trigger.

  Then released it. She couldn’t clearly say she knew what the black tube had been. Or if they were connected to the bomb. But what did she have? “Some Robbers Are Happy When Caught”—S-R-A-H-W-C. Sex, race, age, height, weight, hair, eye color? She photographed the car in her mind. Light green, squarish, left rear bumper crumpled as if rear-ended. A dark smear on the right-side passenger door. Three twentyish, dark-haired men in the backseat. She squinted, trying to make out the plates. There were no plates.

  The sedan vanished. She lowered the pistol as horns honked, as a distant siren brayed against the stars. Put it away and bent to beat with her hands at one of the sweeping women, who was moaning as flames devoured black wool. Neighbors were running out, alarm and fear stamped into shocked eyes above stubbled beards. The same anguished horror she’d seen in so many faces, in many different countries. That she’d seen on television too: the expressions of Americans fleeing an ocher cloud speeding to consume them in the streets of their greatest city.

  The face, not of terror, but of its victims.

  * * *

  THE general’s, much later that night. After the calls, the meetings, the dressing of her knees where she’d cut them. The silence of the ornate office. On one side of the table herself, Caraño—the new SSA, swarthy, black-mustached, and bulky in the vest he wore even indoors—and Doanelson, now junior in the FBI stovepipe. The embassy security officer should’ve been there, but wasn’t. On the other side: Al-Safani, Gamish, and a quiet, dark-skinned man in civilian clothes and rep tie, introduced as “Mr. Abdulilah, who is very close to the president.”

  Aisha sat too shaken to say much as Al-Safani went over what they knew in a colorless voice. The tally was eleven dead; twenty-three injured; seven shops damaged; windows blown out all along the street. “Some of the dead were children,” he said. “There would not have been nearly as many save for the funeral passing by, and a children’s group from the mosque. There is speculation the attack was aimed at the funeral. The deceased was a politician of a former regime.”

  “Do you really think that?” Doanelson spluttered. The FBI man was in his trademark scuffed black oxfords, gray polyester, and white, button-down shirt, but now his holster hung heavy with a big stainless automatic. “They attacked a funeral with an antitank rocket—a Chinese Type 69, based on the pistol grip. That’s the official theory? Some dead politician?”

  “Not necessarily,” Gamish said after a long moment, during which Al-Safani glanced his way.

  Caraño cleared his throat. As far as she’d seen, he had even less Arabic than Doanelson. The mustache was okay, but his bullying scowl wasn’t going to work with Arabs. Nor the way he tapped a finger on the table like an irritated headmaster. “Your president bought Type 69s from North Korea. Some went to your organization. Then they disappeared. The man you took into custody—Abu-Hamid Al-Nashiri—made threats against foreign leaders.”

  “If you mean the House of Saud, we have close ties with Saudi intelligence.” Gamish did not look intimidated. “This is an Arab concern. No reason for American involvement.”

  “The king travels in an armored limousine. The Saudis asked for Al-Nashiri’s arrest. Where is Al-Nashiri now?”

  The old man who’d slapped her, accused her of being a traitor to Islam. The one who’d been seen before his arrest drinking tea in a café in Sana’a with the same PSO colonel sitting across from them. Gamish seemed to weigh his answer. Finally he said, “He was released. After cooperating, and undertaking not to resume his activities.”

  Caraño slammed his palm on the table. “Released?” He let the word hang. “Released?”

  “He is still under surveillance,” Al-Safani offered, but without much conviction.

  “I see. And now those same rockets blow up a gas truck just as our agent’s passing.” The SSA glowered at her. “True, she shouldn’t have been exposing herself. But she was the target.”

  “That’s not certain,” Benefiel put in. She looked at him; who’d suddenly appointed the junior agent her protector? She narrowed her eyes but he avoided her gaze.

  The security officer came in, excusing himself, greeted everyone, and took a chair at the foot of the table, between the two delegations. After the usual preliminaries he said with marked respect to the so-far-silent Mr. Abdulilah, whose coal-black eyes had flickered like dark fires as he followed the exchanges, “We would be very grateful, sir, if you would share your view of the situation. And your intentions; how you plan to bring those responsible to justice.”

  The civilian looked at his fingernails. He said distantly, “There is no claim of responsibility.”

  “Actually, sir, there is.” Al-Safani cleared his throat. “It came up half an hour ago on their Web site.”

  “On their Web site?” said Gamish in Arabic. “And it says what?”

  “A new organization calling itself Al Qaeda in Yemen. Retaliation for the arrest of their Yemeni and Egyptian brothers. It hails the brothers who carried out the heroic attack.”

  “What’s he saying?” Caraño broke in.

  Aisha winced; you didn’t interrupt a government minister. “Pardon me, sir,” she said to Abdulilah. Then, to the senior agent: “He’s describing something that just appeared on the Web.”

  When they returned to English, both the general and the civilian minister looked somber. The embassy official took over. “With all respect, Minister. Your president wants the electronic package. Weapons. Transportation aid. And all those the United States will be happy to provide. But you must understand the situation has changed. Our own president has said, ‘Those who are not with us are against us.’ You can’t continue to protect these people and also expect our help. In fact, I will be frank. There has been discussion about classifying your government as a supporter and harborer of terror.”

  “This would not be accurate, or fair,” Abdulilah said. For the first time he looked concerned.

  “It might help if you could be more transparent with us.”

  She cleared her throat and sat forward. The security officer looked expectant. “Yes—Agent Ar-Rahim?”

  “May I shift to Arabic? Thank you.” She got the minister to at least flick his eyes to hers for a fraction of a second. A woman, a black woman, and an American, lecturing him. Of course he’d hate it. But he had to get this message. The security officer had phrased it as a threat. Politely put, but a threat nonetheless. Fall in line, or take your place with our enemies.

  It would be better if he understood it a different way.

  “Sa’adatuka, we understand the difficulty your president faces. That aiding us may seem to be acting against Islam. But let me ask this. The men who detonated this explosion in your streets? Killing children returning from school, old people returning from a funeral. Were they acting justly, according to the Book?”

  Neither answered. So she did, for them. “Anyone who kills innocents in the name of God is an oppressor. Not jihadi but irhabi. Not martyrs but mufsidun. Murderers and evildoers, who corrupt the body of the Faithful. Servants of Shaitan, not of God.

  “Minister. General.” She shifted to the plural form, both to denote respect and to increase the formality of the warning. “Please do not make the mistake of thinking these are the enemies only of America, or of Israel, or of the house of Saud. They are your enemies too. Remember how Al-Nashiri argued. ‘No leadership other than the commander of the faithful—power comes from God, not law—the government is apostate and no true Muslim can obey it.’ If they prevail, there will be more bombings. Many more; and they will turn against those in power, as they have in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan. They seek your power for themselves, to remake the land in their unholy image. Those who want to teach and build will depart. There will be no employment for your young men, so they too will join those who preach violence.

  “In the end will remain only dust, and madmen, and killing without end. Yemen will bec
ome another Somalia. That is the vision they have for you.”

  Abdulilah, whoever he was, played with his pencil, standing it up on the eraser, then letting it topple. Glancing at the security officer, she saw he, at least, had followed what she’d said, although the non-Arabic-speaking Americans looked baffled.

  The minister said in English, in a soft, flat, almost dead voice, “And what is it you would have our president do?”

  Caraño said angrily, “Get serious. Commit the PSO to rooting out Al Qaeda. You know who its members are.”

  The security officer said more gently, “Treat them as enemies of the state, instead of allies against the Saudis.”

  Abdulilah turned palms upward. “You argue well. Especially you … woman. I will take your words to the president. But I say this. You think we know everything. In truth, we may know less than you think. If we could lay hands on these people, we would certainly do so. But it’s not that simple.”

  “Make the effort,” she said, and this time both Caraño and the embassy official backed her up, nodding. “Or face the consequences. Not just from us. From them too.”

  * * *

  DOANELSON sulked the whole ride back. Aisha stared out at the passing streets. No one was out. The terror was starting here too. She kept rubbing her arms. She felt cold. Remembering again and again how close she’d been to the swelling hull of the tanker truck. How easily she might have been right beside it when the rocket had pierced it and detonated.