TUESDAY AFTERNOON
MINNEAPOLIS
Deqo Sharif lived alone in a small, neat house on Lake Street in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. She was going to be seventy-five years old in a few days, and looked forward to starting the final quarter of her life. Deqo planned to live to see one hundred, and no one was betting against her. If anyone could reach that impossible number, it was Deqo.
She had left Somalia with not much more than the clothes on her back and her young grandson, with their emergency departure arranged by the U.S. State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. They were placed beneath the protective umbrella of Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota, where her fluent English and nursing skill led to immediate employment with volunteer organizations. Somali newcomers were arriving by the hundreds with heart-wrenching stories of survival.
She and Lucky started off in a single room, each afraid to let the other one out of sight. Deqo slept in a narrow bed while Lucky slept on a tattered sofa in the same room. They were haunted by nightmares, but they were safe.
The man who had made it happen, Kyle Swanson, had remained with the marines in Mogadishu for several months after the Sharifs emigrated, but he never broke contact. He sent at least one letter a week, uplifting notes about what the future might hold. He never mentioned their beloved Molly Egan or the awful attack by the Cobra. Deqo could almost feel the sadness between the lines.
Then Kyle began coming to visit when he was on leave and spent hours with Lucky. The pair of them would take in movies, play ball, talk about tomorrows, and do Lucky’s homework together. As time passed, her teenage grandson grew to worship the marine sniper and wanted to be just like him. Swanson taught him how to shoot and hunt, but he and Deqo agreed that Lucky had already paid his war dues: he should reach for a different star.
Deqo’s hair turned silver, and her face today held channels of wrinkles that mapped her seven decades. Some of the back teeth ached, and her bones were giving way, her spine was bending, and she often used a cane for support when she had to walk outside in bitter weather. She accepted that she was simply getting old, but her biggest worry these days was how to properly program her cellular telephone.
She had decided not to move to Florida or Arizona or any of those sunny places. Minnesota was cold for a few months, and the lower the temperature, the sharper the wind and the nastier the pain, but it was home. All of her friends were here, and she could always get a dog or a cat for company.
Deqo had continued to work at the resettlement center, where it was believed that she knew every Somali in the Twin Cities area. Children who had been terrified little boys and girls when they arrived as refugees had become strong and vibrant teenagers or young adults. At one time or another, all of them seemed to have visited Deqo’s home, for she was everybody’s surrogate grandmother, and her life had been filled with birthdays, graduations, weddings, school plays, holiday celebrations, and football and basketball games.
And Cawelle—Lucky—had prospered with skills of which even he was unaware. In class, teachers pushed him with more difficult assignments. Outside on the fields, a natural athletic ability astonished the coaches.
By high school, Lucky was the lanky pass-catching wide receiver on the football team and a hotshot point guard in basketball. Scholarship offers came from several big-name universities, but Lucky turned them down, refusing to leave his grandmother, and went all the way through law school at the University of Minnesota. It was almost within walking distance from home. After a year clerking for a federal judge, he joined the FBI, which needed all of the insight into the Muslim world it could get. Deqo was so proud.
She puttered around the house, doing some final cleaning and food preparation. The weather people on television were saying something called a “polar vortex” had gripped the area, but she dismissed the ranting. Minnesota just being Minnesota in the wintertime.
Kyle and Lucky and sweet Janna would be coming for dinner in a little while, and she had to be ready.
THE VISIT
TUESDAY EVENING
MINNEAPOLIS
SWANSON WAS WAITING IN the hotel bar, watching the television news reports from Menomonie, when Lucky Sharif and Janna Ecklund came in, both still in the hard special agent mode. He got up, hugged Lucky, and got a cheek peck from Janna, whom he had met on several previous visits. From the first look, he realized that his friends had been over there. “You are in need of alcoholic beverages,” he said, and called for the bartender to bring glasses, ice, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon.
They sat silently in the curved banquette, watching the TV, which had gone into high gear and already had talking heads analyzing the event, until the server brought the bourbon and left them alone. There were few other people in the bar, and the booth was in the back, so the conversation could not be overheard. While they waited, Kyle noticed the body language when Janna leaned for a moment against Lucky, and Sharif’s tight face relaxed at bit. Kyle thought: Oh, Jesus. You finally gave in and really have something going with her, don’t you? Balancing Deqo and Ecklund and the FBI all at the same time. Is that hard? You poor bastard.
“So, tell me about it. Are you both okay? Was this dude really al Qaeda?”
“It was pretty grim,” said Lucky. “Except for a cook that escaped, the gunman wiped out the entire shop. We had him under surveillance, and he slipped through the net. And, yeah, he’s al Qaeda without a doubt.”
Swanson raised his glass. “Then here’s to good riddance of some bad rubbish. Was he a lone wolf, or was he carrying out an assignment?”
Janna spoke while Lucky took a drink. “One of the many things we don’t know yet.” She glanced up at the TV. “The media is going to run hard on the al Qaeda angle, so the blame game will start soon.”
Swanson looked at her tense face as she glanced over at Lucky. “Blaming exactly who?”
“Him. Lucky took the mutt down.” Her ice-blue eyes did not blink. “A hundred-yard shot, right through the face.”
Kyle had a quick memory of shooting with Lucky when he was a kid. The boy had the gift, as he had proved with the HRT. “Good. Then you did well, young Skywalker.”
“I hope the guys in the Hoover Building think so.” He poured another stiff drink and added some new ice.
“Let it go, Lucky. Nobody knows what a crazy man is going to do.”
“Damn.” Sharif slapped a big fist on the table, making it jump. Janna put her hand on his forearm. “We were all over him, and it still happened. Janna wanted to bring him in for questioning a few days ago.”
“But you were right then, too. There was no probable cause, and a lawyer would have sprung him, you would be roasted for religious profiling, and this shit probably still would have happened.” She tightened her grip.
“Drop it!” Kyle knew the symptoms. “You did what you had to do, Lucky, and now you have to walk away. Deal with it on your own time. I came up here for some fun, and you seem kind of tightly wound.”
Lucky looked at him, surprised at the stern tone, and slowly broke into a smile. He couldn’t expect Kyle Swanson to feel sorry for him. Killing an enemy was second nature to the man he admired so much.
“Yeah. Well.” He felt the smooth ride of the whiskey kick in, and an attitude adjustment took hold as he downed the second drink. “Grandma’s waiting. Let’s go and eat and not talk about trouble. There’s a basketball game on TV, and that woman loves her Timberwolves.”
Kyle agreed. “If they’re playing at home, I can get us all tickets for tomorrow night.”
“Sweet offer, man, but I don’t like her being out at night in this weather. Anyway, Janna and I will probably be busy. You know how it is.”
The dinner and reunion with Deqo had provided a great few hours of distraction, and she was unaware of the Wisconsin murders. They let it stay that way. The woman was possessed with an incredible energy that encompassed everyone around her, and her good mood was infectious. Pictures in scrapbooks
of Somalis that she had helped find new roots in America were on every available surface, and small boxes were mounded with notes, letters, and little gifts they had sent to mark her seventy-fifth birthday and retirement from the resettlement center. Several newspaper articles mentioned her. The four of them watched the Timberwolves beat the Jazz on television, and Deqo was a merciless critic of the referees.
What a life she had lived, Kyle thought, and hers had been time well spent. The coming celebration would be a special milestone for her. Despite the trials and tribulations, she had made it. Here it was 2014, they were all twenty years from Somalia, and she was still going strong.
He was back in the hotel by ten o’clock, a little bit jealous of Lucky, who would be bunking tonight with the beautiful Janna Ecklund. In the middle of the night, in the middle of Minnesota, in the middle of a snowstorm, Kyle Swanson had nobody.
TUESDAY NIGHT
The Cobra waited until the ten P.M. news was over, then swept through the cable channels before making his next move. He was stretched out back in a comfortable recliner in his tiny apartment with a blanket over his feet. The media and the law enforcement officials had fenced for hours about what happened in Wisconsin. The cops were trying to portray the slaughter as being the work of a mentally disturbed individual who had left no note, and the investigation was ongoing. They urged everyone to wait for all the evidence to be gathered before jumping to a conclusion. Leaks, however, helped reporters obtain the name of the gunman, which led to the connection to the mosque in Minneapolis, and by midnight the media was flatly declaring the killer was with al Qaeda. The final death toll was ten, plus the attacker, and the story had gone national, which brought in the nonstop chattering social media, which increased the volume of speculation from all points of view.
Omar Jama grunted with satisfaction. He had not been certain that Mohammed Ahmed really had the guts for this attack, but his al Qaeda foil had kept his nerve and done as instructed. Good for him. The ball was rolling. More days of terror would follow.
He tossed aside the blanket and went to bed with the furnace chugging away on a 75-degree setting as he tried to stay warm in this impossible climate. Before turning out the light, he looked at the city map, on which he had located the home of Deqo Sharif. It wasn’t time for that quite yet, but it would come soon. Instead, he dialed a number on his cell phone, and when a male voice answered, the Cobra ordered: “Proceed.”
LATE TUESDAY NIGHT
Abdifatah Farah understood the message. Outside of his motel room, wind chuckled through the streets and the frigid temperatures fell even lower. He slung on his heavy jacket and a rabbit-fur hat with earflaps, laced up his lined boots, and braced himself before opening the door. He was outside only long enough to turn on the engine of his loyal Toyota RAV4 and crank up the heater and defroster, and then he ran back into the room, shivering.
Middle of the night and it was around zero, with no clouds in the sky. Any warmth from the day had evaporated into the clear canopy of space. He waited ten minutes, then went back outside again and turned the little truck off. There was never a guarantee that frozen pieces of metal would work as designed at this temperature, so letting it run for a little while tonight might help it crank in the morning.
People in Minnesota seemed to be vaccinated against bad weather, and Farah was depending on that. Many would be out and about tomorrow morning, carrying on their normal lives, and traffic would be plentiful around the motel at the junction of I-35 and I-90 near the tiny town of Albert Lea, some ninety miles south of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Motels, restaurants, and service centers were located nearby to care for motorists who braved the cold highways and open spaces.
Farah, finally back inside for the night, opened the gun case that he had stowed beside the radiator of his room to keep the actions of the AR-15 rifle and the Glock 19 pistol from freezing, and checked them both. He had purchased them legally two months ago, under his own name, for he was a naturalized American citizen. He double-checked to be sure they were unloaded, then stuffed the weapons into the bed so his body heat would help keep them toasty and operational.
Before climbing between the covers himself, the young Somali propped a compact disc in a plastic sleeve beside the bathroom mirror, along with a few documents. Police would eventually discover the material and watch the final video message of Abdifatah Farah—a martyr for al Shabaab. “God is great!” was scrawled on the mirror with soap.
His heart leapt with joy as he thought about the panicky, nervous television people who talked about a Muslim terrorist who had raided an establishment in adjoining Wisconsin. They were afraid! The entire United States would be talking about it by breakfast tomorrow morning; then they would have something new to talk about. It was the turn of Abdifatah Farah to perform an act that would plant the twin black flags of fear and anger across the entire vast country. He was so keyed up with anticipation that he took two Ambien to help him sleep. He wanted to be fresh.
LOWRY HILL
WEDNESDAY MORNING
A PAIR OF FBI agents pounded on the door of Hassan Investments in the strip mall at eight o’clock in the morning. Hassan Abdi was already at the desk, in a long-sleeved white shirt and a bland tie under a heavy sweater, and looked up in surprise. He wasn’t expecting any customers this morning, or any other morning. Before getting up, he brushed a button beneath the desk to activate a blinking red light in the back rooms and warn the Cobra to remain silent because they had visitors. A video camera in the ceiling would show him what was happening in the front office.
Hassan was met by the badges of Special Agents Janna Ecklund and Cawelle Sharif. Their faces, one dark brown and the other an almost translucent white, gave away nothing.
“Are you Hassan Abdi?” asked the man.
“Yes. Please, come out of that cold.” He stood aside as they stomped a crust of moist debris from their boots and walked in. Agent Sharif took a chair, but the woman stayed near the door with her back to the wall. She unzipped her jacket and had a white turtleneck sweater beneath. He glimpsed a pistol holster.
“It is unusual for me to meet FBI agents,” said Hassan. “How can I help you?”
Lucky asked, “Do you know a man named Mohammed Ahmed?”
Abdi twisted his brows and flicked his eyes quickly to the ceiling as if in thought. “Has he done something wrong?”
“Do you know him?”
“It is a common name in our culture, as you know.”
Lucky handed a photograph to the broker. “This one.”
It jarred Hassan. The picture showed Mohammed Ahmed entering the Hassan Investments doorway. They had been watching, so he could not deny the information. “Ah,” he said. “Yes. This man. I remember him now. He was a prospective client who walked in off the street. Why are you looking for him?”
“What did you discuss?”
Hassan responded, irked that he only received questions when he asked a question. “I had met him at the mosque, where he works as a janitor. The poor fellow had only nine hundred dollars in savings and desired to invest it into some financial instrument that would magically quadruple in the stock market. I told him that it did not work that way, and advised him to keep his cash in a bank savings account that is insured by the federal government. Frankly, sir, nine hundred dollars was not enough money to interest me, or to help him.”
“How did he take that advice?” Lucky watched closely. Hassan was smooth, but seemed bothered by the questioning.
“He was disappointed, of course. I made sure not to give the impression that I was dishonoring him. I promised that when he had saved at least twenty-five hundred dollars, he should come back, and I would help him.”
“Was that it?”
“Yes, sir. Then he left. Why are you asking?”
Sharif got to the meat on the bone. “Did you know that he had connections to al Qaeda?”
Hassan’s expression turned grave. “No, I most certainly did not, and I find that accusation hard
to believe. He appeared to be sickly.”
Lucky looked over at Janna Ecklund, whose expression remained blank. He put a business card on the desk. “Okay, Mr. Hassan. Thank you for your cooperation. If you think of anything else, please call me.” The two agents zipped up their coats and left, heading for the little shop on the corner of the mall to buy some coffee.
Hassan Abdi remained seated. His heart was in his throat. Only a day after the Wisconsin massacre, the FBI had come knocking. They had been following the al Qaeda contact, and even had a picture of him coming into this very place! Were they still watching now? Did they know the Cobra was here? Hassan pretended to work, but checked the exterior security camera screen beneath his desk. He did not move until he saw the two FBI agents come out with their cups of coffee, climb into a large sports utility vehicle, and drive away. Then he dashed into the back rooms.
• • •
THE COBRA WASTED NO time in abandoning the little apartment hideaway behind the Hassan Investments storefront. If the FBI had come once, they would come again, and next time they would probably have search warrants to tear the place apart. The safe-house illusion was over. A phone call from Hassan to an intermediary had been all that was needed to temporarily relocate the Cobra beneath protection of the Somali gang culture.
Within thirty minutes of the moment that the federal agents left, a BMW X5 SUV that was the color of freshly poured champagne arrived behind the financial store with an alert Somali youngster at the wheel and a second youth in the rear acting as an armed guard. The Cobra and his right-hand man, Hassan, got in and were whisked away unseen.
The Somali Outlaws, the Somali Hot Boyz, and a half-dozen other gangs had deep roots within the immigrant community and fought for primacy throughout the urban region. Among the few things that the young thugs had in common was a willingness to use violence and the mutual recognition that the Cobra, the man from al Shabaab, was more violent than them all. While they scrapped for territory, he fought for the homeland, and they were eager to watch over and help him do his work here in America.
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