One afternoon I was shown a picture of the Mecca in Saudi Arabia during the Haj j (the Muslim pilgrimage that every Muslim must go on if he can possibly afford it, at least once in his lifetime) . In that picture there were so many people that they just looked like those grainy little dots that cover your television screen when your satellite cable is disconnected. But all of that static was human.
"One and one-half million people," Nasser said. "They are all listening to an Imam."
"I bet it was hard to hear him," I noted. I'm so perceptive.
"You could hear every word that was said." Then he pointed to one of the little specs on the photograph. "That is me, a few years ago."
I squinted as I studied the photograph. "Geez. That's a lot of people." So many people in one place. All of them willing to sacrifice anything for what they believed in. And I'm not just talking about blowing themselves up.
No, religion in all forms has such a power over people that it cannot be denied as the greatest of all political and social motivators to impact Humanity since we left the caves. There doesn't seem to be any greater power than faith. That rather frightening truth is probably one of the reasons I was so undecided about religion. So many lives silenced over differing theologies. It's really a turn-off for me; but then, this whole thing isn't about me. I'm insignificant. Nasser was influential. He was both a religious and political force to be reckoned with. I can't recall the last time I spoke to 1.5 million people at a live venue; all of them hanging on my every word, looking for guidance. Willing to act on whatever was told of them, no matter the personal cost. That's a lot of power.
Nasser explained to me that people often know the right 'path,' but that they must sometimes be pushed to make the first step of that journey. To him, any religion - not just the Muslim faith - was a long, winding trail that has all kinds of dead-ends and pitfalls. Turns in every direction. Tests and hurdles, and struggles just for the sake of suffering. In the end, faith had to carry you across the ravine.
He created for me an image of the end times. It was a rather grim picture of all the souls that lacked faith stuck below this narrow bridge. Around them were fire and disease, pain and chaos. And among these non-believers were knives and swords and blood and teeth and screaming.
A kind of horrifying image of the last remnants of humanity decaying into death, the people ripping each other apart. Above them on that narrow crumbling bridge were the believers. Their tests were also not completed, but they were as close as one can be to Allah.
"Allah is God," Nasser said. "They are the same."
He assured me that there would be a final measurement of the way in which you had lived your life. Only then would one be granted access to that next place.
When I asked him what it would be like he answered, "Imagine passing a camel through the eye of a needle."
"What does that mean?" I asked, rather confused. He just smiled. I wanted him to think that things needed to be explained to me. As an intelligence source it would help me immensely ln the future. Patterns in dialogue, that kind of thing.
When I asked about that place—Heaven—he said that it was something that no human could explain. To try to do so would be to attempt to know the mind of Allah. And that is something that no Imam would ever be able to do. You won't find faith, he would say . . . you will find belief. I guess the rest would just take care of itself.
On occasion he would talk in these kinds of ambiguities, nearly riddles. I guess all religious types do that from time to time. Nasser was perfectly coherent most of the time.
He and I began to discuss the surah (chapters) that I had read in the Quran. I tried to read one each evening so that it would lead into our discussions. My thought process was: Start talking about the Quran, and surely some fire and lightening will come out. Then I could subtly edge the conversations into more violent directions.
Remember, the goal was usable intel. But like I keep telling you, I was an amateur and a lot of what I did was nothing more than basic psychology. I was walking a psychological tightrope of an indeterminate length. I was still waiting for him to trust me. To bring me in. The reality was tha tit might never have happened. He might never decide to trust me. He might choose, after having dealt with me, that my time on this earth was no longer needed. Perhaps I would end up as a caption in some obscure newspaper with little or no circulation. Perhaps.
Then again, he was dealing with a Legionnaire. Too dumb to know when I'm in way over my head . . . which I most certainly was.
One afternoon as the sun was starting to hide behind the high concrete walls, the concertina wire making jagged shadows across the concrete, he asked me something kind of spooky.
"Are you angry at them?"
"Who?" I replied without giving it much thought.
" . . . the Americans."
I didn't answer right off. I let the words linger for a minute or two, pushing them out of the way as we walked back and forth. I studied this man. I glanced at the sky. Looked down at the twisted metal shadows that seemed to be willing to cut me if I stepped on them. How did I get here? Who put me here? Am I alone?
And then after considering his question, I answered, "Yes."
THIRTEEN
One thing that cannot be estimated by CIA analysts, hungry intelligence agents, or nervous lawyers, is the amount of time it takes for two people to develop trust and rapport with each another. Personali ties are so complex—a mixture of nature (genetic predisposition) and nurture (what life does to an organism from the second it is born)—that attempts to predict the time frame and outcome of a relationship are inaccurate at best. Sometimes two people just hit it off.
Other times, they react like two bees in a glass jar, being constantly shaken until they decide to kill each other. And with that comes the reality that you can't assume that your spies will get close enough to their targets to produce reliable intel. Psychological profiling may help narrow down the different options; might shorten your list of potential agents for the particular operation. But nothing more. The rest is left to chance.
Over time, we began to share our histories with each other. All the tiny ones and zeros that made us who we were. It seem~d like Nasser would open up to me more and more each day. We would share various stories and details about our lives, and with each came new insights into his personality. Seemingly insignificant little bits of our lives that made us human. His life was a complicated mosaic. No longer was he just a monster, or just a terrorist. In the same respect, I was no longer just a gun-for-hire. It was a slow process, but friendships are that way. Yes, we were becoming friends.
You can't force it. Slowly, as each day went by, the suspicions and uncertainty seemed to wash off like the camouflage face paint we both used in the jungles to stay hidden. With each new piece of our former lives made available to the other, the walls of apprehension slowly lowered. We stared to become more visible to the other.
I told Nasser about my time in college, in Texas, and how it cemented in me the resolve that I had to do something bigger, more grand. I had to do something with my life that had an impact; that was above the ordinary. Back when I was in college I didn't have a direction. I studied psychology, and watched the sky, trying to imagine where my life would end up taking me. I wasn't a criminal back then. I wasn't a warrior. All I had was this strange, suffocating desire to do something grand. I could never respect myself if all I did was enter the corporate world and claw my way up to middle management, wearing one of those short-sleeved button-up shirts with a clip-on tie. Have some guy named Marty ask me about my notes from the staff meeting on recycling staples and paper clips. No, thanks. I mean, what would I tell my illegitimate grandchildren?
I had known for a long time, even before my days at UT, that I would follow the way of the gun. Maybe that makes me socially retarded; inept at living within the confines of a modern citizen's life. Perhaps I'm a bad American, not fitting the mold quite so succinctly. I am my own perfect nightmare. It is what
it is.
Nasser's story was much more interesting than mine. He had been advancing through the ranks in the Algerian Military. He was an intelligence officer, and an Inspector, which he explained as a kind of intelligence detective who operates investigations inside and outside the military community. Trust me, those lines tend to blur. He was well connected, and I assume he was being groomed for much higher things. The government in Algeria is like a powder keg, so many secret groups all working for their own goals, trying to undermine each other. You can almost see the invisible strings being used by the French and American intelligence agencies (CIA, DST, etc.) manipulating the various players.
Unlike my disdain of an average life to drive me, Nasser's decision to go against the system was due to murderous conspiracies and countless anti-muslim violence.
"All we wanted was an Arab government with the recognition of the Muslim faith and beliefs. If we have civil war, let us!"
He had to make the decision to turn against everything that he had previously loved and believed In. Nasser relived for me the phone call that he received, warning him that' they' were on their way to take him into custody. And interrogation was sure to follow. Its duration would probably be 4 or 5 days, and the end result would be that he suffered a heart attack or some other irregularity during questioning. He would cease to exist. Just an accident; hazard of the lifestyle. His family would not be compensated, and if they asked questions they would probably meet the same fate as he had. His only choice was to run. And run quickly, because . . . they were coming!
He left the country within just hours of that call, trying to cover his tracks the best he could in the short amount of time that he had at his disposal. Documents were burned, information was destroyed.
"Certainly they would have killed me," he said in his accented English. He had no options. Perhaps if he had known sooner. Perhaps if he had a system in place for an escape. If he had expected their treachery. Lots of what-ifs. Plenty of maybes. But all of it was speculation. No concrete answers as we paced the warm concrete. As I listened to his story I realized that he had no options. He was unprepared for the reality that his own government would turn against him.
In a lot of ways he was naive. For whatever reason, he felt safe in a nest of corruption. In an unstable government like that, everyone lS somebody else's puppet. It was something that I, also, had to come to terms with. Al though, in my case, not nearly the same scale. The flags of our fathers loose their luster when the thing you believe in most turns its back on you. It represents something completely different. Something cold and distant. Something lost.
After Nasser's escape from Algeria he became a militant in every sense of the word. At that point he entered what we would call al Qaeda. He made his way to Afghanistan where he learned about fighting an uphill battle against the Russians. He practiced firing bullets, and missiles, building bombs, and dropping helicopters out of the sky as if they were ducks at a shooting gallery. He learned the art of the ambush; the art of psychological warfare. He continued on carrying the torch of Jihad, 'the calling.' He operated in Bosnia, Egypt, France,
Italy, Morocco, Spain, and eventually back in Algeria. It must have been bittersweet as he secretly returned to his former home, at one point helping to develop a joint training camp for the mujahadeen and ETA (Basque Separatists, who blow up cars and senators in Spain). This camp was outside the capital of Algeria, and it produced all kind of dangerous men and women.
Within all of Nasser's physical movements you could see the echoes of war. You could see hurt and pain. An occasional wince, a slight pause in his breath, the careful way he slowly lowered himself into and out of a chair. He would limp a bit each day when we first started our walks. He had scars allover him. A bullet here, some shrapnel there. One of his field medics was probably Hannibal Lector. Different militaries throughout Europe and the middle east had been taking shots at him for two decades. Along the way he had taken some nasty hits. Close calls, as he put it. But he never felt sorry for himself.
"Not for one second will I apologize for doing the will of Allah. If I were to do that I would be nothing, no better than a selfish animal."
He never felt sorry for himself. He never complained about his plight. If he didn't like something he would be very clear in the reasons, but never did it come across as whining. He had been forced to mature in his life much quicker than I had, and the realities surrounding him were much more life threatening. I had turned away from society because I didn't like where I was heading. Nasser had turned away because they were coming to kill him.
Despite his religious beliefs and the violence that not only surrounded him, but seemed to radiate around him, I respected him as a person. He was a much more mentally tough individual than I. Any man that met Nasser would come away with the same feeling. To be able to throw everything away, over and over. To live without attachments. To only pursue that which propels you in the service of your beliefs. That is something which few people ever desire, and even fewer accomplish.
And although he was smaller, and frail, and limped as he walked, and had been shot and blown-up, and was older than a soldier should be . . . he was the toughest human I've ever met. And when you looked into his eyes and watched him speak you knew, without fail, that he would not hesitate for a second. He had already dealt with any moral dilemmas that might have hampered a lesser terrorist. Like I said before . . . he was already dead.
When times get tough, as the bullets start to fly around you, your mind goes through something called the Boyd cycle. There are four parts to this cycle. First: Observation—you see the danger around you. Second: Orientation—you figure out where you fit in the picture. Third: Decision—you choose your course of action, your maneuver. And finally, Action—you make your move. The quicker that this cycle takes place, the more efficient you are in combat. Nasser's cycle was instantaneous. A walking ghost following the path to God. Not unafraid of death, ambivalent to the concept. The journey that would lead him to salvation doesn't even give death a consideration. How do you stop a man like that? Kill him? You would just make a Martyr of him. He would become the stuff of legends and lore.
Imprison him? He will recruit from inside the prison and create a new breed of sleeker, more efficient assassins.
Appease him? How can we do that when we can't even make social security fiscally viable, we can't balance the budget, and we can't stop lying to our citizens as a general practice? Are we even mature enough to admit to ourselves that we haven't a clue how to win the 'War on Terror?'
A man like that is unstoppable. The best chance you have is to get near him. To watch him. To learn from him.
To change him? But to accomplish that you must understand why he is willing to die for what he believes. And we must be as willing to help him as we seem to be to kill him.
ONE
14
Throughout our conversations there was something that seemed to bubble just under the surface. An issue that we talked about rather indirectly, but often. I got this feeling that he was trying to tell me without being direct about it. This quiet subject was the insertion of covert units and operatives inside the United States. Some use the term 'sleepers.' The first logical questions is that of finances. How do they do it? How do they survive under the radar for so long?
Let's talk about cash. You might say, gee wiz, where do these terrorists get all their money? Okay, petty rhetoric aside, it is very interesting the lines that get drawn back and forth across the Atlantic as we trace some of their money. Nasser and I spoke often about finances. And though our conversations were more directed towards the safe harboring, procuring, and movement of such monies, there were occasions when specific information floated to the surface.
I had mentioned previously the Alkifah Refugee Center. Nasser first brought the center to my attention when we were sitting on the pavement while the sun poured down on us from the Madrid sky. We talked about the different kinds of support that he had, and I inquir
ed about American help. His posture hunched as bit as he spoke, and his voice was much quieter . . . almost at a whisper. He then outlined the nature of the A1Kifah center.
The Alkifah Refugee Center was based out of Brooklyn, New York. It was explained that the real support for the Mujahadeen in America came from there. The cover was that it was this innocuous humanitarian aid organization.
It would be classified as a Non-Governmental Organization(NGO) . And there are all sorts of loopholes in taxes, accounting, and reporting that can easily be exploited by clever accountants working for such organizations. And that is what was being done. As far as anyone knew, this was just an aid group that happened to be muslim. But it was, in fact, a much larger and more intricate set-up.
When I was in Spain, with Nasser, all I really knew was that money was funnelled in and out of the United States through this facili ty. I was told that they had been doing this for some time, and that the accounts had grown to be very large. Large enough that I was eventually told about an operation to procure a portable nuclear device. On television we always hear the term 'Sui tcase Nuke,' but that title is a bit misleading. They are not quite so small as to fit into a suitcase, however they are small enough to fit into a hollowed out 36" television set. Luckily f such devices emanate Gam. . .rna-'tlave radia)cion that can be picked up by our FORTE(Fast On-board Recording/Reconnaissance of Transient Experiments) satellites. Such radiation must be kept under several feet of lead to insulate particle emissions. So that's the good news: If they pull them out, we should be able to locate the general area within a few minutes.
Walking Ghost: Welcome to Terrorist University Page 7