“Put your goggles back on and watch the sky,” Rafael ordered Nimri.
Nimri obeyed, beseeching God to keep the American helicopters away while they were so exposed.
The driver went into the river and came up behind the stalled Expedition. As the front and rear bumpers of the two SUVs came into contact, he gave it more gas.
They moved forward about a foot, then stopped. Nimri hoped the driver of the vehicle they were pushing had the intelligence to shift it into neutral.
Possibly Rafael had the same thought, because he was issuing orders into the radio.
The driver gave the Expedition more gas. They still didn’t move forward, though Nimri could feel their rear wheels digging into the streambed. If they became stuck also ...
Rafael was shouting at the driver, who eased up on the gas. He applied it again, much more lightly this time, and they moved forward a few inches.
Now Rafael’s tone was more encouraging. They made more progress, agonizingly slowly.
Nimri scanned the sky in between quick glances at their situation. The American helicopters would probably be flying without lights, as they did in Afghanistan.
Finally the front tires of the stalled vehicle went up onto dry land. But when it tilted up, the front end of their SUV dropped and slid under the stalled one’s rear bumper.
Wedged under the bumper they could no longer push, and in that nose-down position the water was dangerously close to their engine.
The driver shifted into reverse and tried to back away, but that made their front end dig deeper down into the water. And the stalled Expedition began sliding back, threatening to push them even deeper.
Rafael shouted at the driver, who quickly shifted back to drive and reestablished forward pressure.
But now they were both stuck. Nimri decided that if the Americans appeared he would leave the vehicle, no matter what he had been told, and seek cover on the Mexican side. He took another quick look away from the sky. The lead Expedition, which had already crossed, was backing down the bank. Two men got out and hooked a tow strap to the front of the stalled vehicle.
They tried to pull it out. If both vehicles in the river were locked together, Nimri doubted the towing vehicle had enough power, especially on an uphill grade. At least, God be praised, their own engine had not stalled out yet.
The towing vehicle was rocking back and forth, trying to free them. Nimri could hear the sound of grinding metal.
Then the metal screamed at a higher pitch, and the stalled Expedition popped free. The tow vehicle threw up a fountain of sand from its rear tires as it went up the bank.
Rafael shouted at the driver, and he gave it more gas. The engine died. Now they were stalled. Rafael was still shouting. Nimri watched the driver cross himself quickly and turn the key again. The engine came to life. More shouting, more gas, and they lurched out of the river.
With all that gas going into the engine they shot up the bank and sailed over the top. Touching ground again, and they were racing right for the back of the stalled Expedition. Rafael was screaming now. The driver jammed on the brakes, and they came to a stop inches from the other Expedition.
The driver crossed himself again. Rafael let his breath out in a loud rush of relief. As did Nimri. The boy beside him with the machine gun had neither moved a muscle or said a word the whole time. He’d kept scanning the sky, exactly as he’d been told.
Nimri gave thanks to God for delivering his servant once again. Now safely back in Mexico, the escorting police car reappeared and everyone turned on their headlights. Rafael collected the night vision goggles, and the Mexicans in the other vehicles crowded around the stalled Expedition, trying to get it started again.
Nimri heard it before he saw it. A helicopter coming down the river. It stayed about five hundred meters inside the American border, just above the trees. Nimri was surprised that all the navigation lights were on.
The helicopter paused and hovered opposite them. Nimri’s first impulse was to run, but none of the Mexicans did. Laughing and shouting insults, they extended their middle fingers toward the helicopter. Two unzipped their trousers and waved their penises at it, making the others laugh even louder.
Nimri didn’t join in the fun. He pulled his shirt over his head to conceal his face from the cameras he was certain were taping them. He moved closer, so Rafael could hear him say, “The auto license ...”
Rafael was laughing even louder at Nimri’s head covering. “The plates will all be different next time,” he shouted.
The helicopter stayed in position for a few minutes more, as if to show it would not be intimidated. Then it continued down the river.
The Mexicans soon gave up trying to get the stalled Expedition running again. Led by the faithful police car, they towed it back to Nuevo Laredo.
It pleased Nimri that their destination was a different garage than the one they’d set out from.
He thanked Rafael for the trip, and left the garage on another blindfolded car ride. He was used to those by now. All that he could make out was that dawn was breaking. That, and he hated Mexican pop music.
It was a long drive—he’d have to check his watch when the blindfold came off. The car finally parked, and he was taken out, stood up, and thoroughly searched. They led him across pavement, then dirt, and what felt and sounded like stone. Inside a building a television was playing loudly, and it smelled of Mexican cooking and marijuana.
Nimri was sat down, and the blindfold taken off. Experienced now, he held his hand over his eyes before he exposed them to the light.
He almost laughed. Almost. Because Persian Gulf sheiks, Las Vegas hotels, and now Mexican drug lords all seemed to have the same taste in interior design. Ornate marble floors, pillars and arches, large carved wooden furniture, and bright, bright colors.
There were the usual bodyguards hovering about. And Nimri’s companion Acmed, the al-Qaeda coordinator for Mexico, who had arranged his evening test ride. And who, from the look on his face, had spent a very anxious time waiting for its end.
In the largest chair sat one of the leaders of the Gulf Cartel, whom they called El Traca. Something about him reminded Nimri of his Chechen friend, though El Traca was much stouter than Temiraev. It wasn’t the face. El Traca actually bore a certain resemblance to Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama, though with better skin. No, it was the flat black eyes. Pitiless eyes. El Traca was wearing a silk shirt, slacks, and no socks with his shoes.
He was one of the most wanted men in Mexico, and was free because he paid the police more than the government did. The Americans had a reward on his head. Reason enough to recommend him to Nimri. And, along with the nature of his business competitors, reason enough for all the security precautions.
“Welcome to my home,” he said to Nimri.
Nimri was relieved that El Traca’s English was good enough to not require translation. In such negotiations small misunderstandings of language often had serious consequences. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
“May I offer you something to eat, drink?”
“Just water, if you please.” Nimri had learned that Mexicans always gave foreigners bottled water. But if you specifically asked for it they became insulted, as if you were implying that they were trying to make you sick.
It was brought on a silver tray and poured into a crystal glass. Nimri raised it to El Traca. “Thank you.”
“I like a man who insists on seeing with his own eyes before he does important business,” said El Traca. “My men took care of you?”
Nimri had seen this pose before. El Traca affected the languid air of a supremely powerful man who hadn’t a care in the world. But those eyes betrayed him. There was no relaxed indifference there. They bore in on the object of his attention as if prepared for a challenge. “Very well,” Nimri replied.
“You have a good time? See everything you need to see?”
“It was very interesting.”
“You see how good my
men are.”
Nimri hadn’t grown up in Cairo without learning how to get a price down. “They were good. But we were lucky.”
El Traca’s air of royalty suddenly abandoned him. “Luck! What do you mean, luck?”
“We were lucky the Border Patrol did not arrive while we were stuck in the middle of the Rio Grande,” Nimri replied calmly.
With a stab of one finger, El Traca summoned a lieutenant over to his ear. As the whispered conversation went on, Nimri looked over at Acmed, who was giving him an imploring look in return. Nimri returned nothing but scorn. Every negotiation was a bargain, in one way or another. And this was not the first dangerous, or even crazy, man he had bargained with.
Hearing the story, and having lost some face in the presence of strangers, El Traca was angry.
What he said next, Nimri thought, would guide him on how to proceed.
El Traca didn’t put his anger on display with the volume of his voice. He turned cold, staring Nimri down with those snake eyes. “You doubt our skills, why are you here? You don’t want to make a deal, go. Leave now if you like.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Nimri replied pleasantly. “I was looking for a man who hated Americans to help me.”
Since Nimri hadn’t given him anything to bounce his anger off, El Traca replied sullenly, “Of course I hate the gringos. Who doesn’t? You complain about my men, why do you want me help you?”
“I did not complain about your men. I only mentioned what happened. They were very skillful to move the vehicle out of the river before the American helicopter arrived.”
Those eyes kept evaluating. “You Arabs are very strange. First you complain, then you compliment. Then you ask if I hate the gringos, and you ask for my help. All right. I hate the gringos. But I don’t hate them enough to work for nothing.”
Nimri turned to Acmed with an expression of almost theatrical disapproval, and made sure El Traca saw him doing it. “If any of my people was disrespectful enough to suggest you work for nothing, I will shoot them myself.” He knew how these gangsters talked. Like Saudis, actually.
El Traca laughed at that. He was on top of his world, controlling millions of dollars. And just waiting for someone to either shoot him or betray him. No wonder even his laughter was mirthless and cold. It was a reminder to Nimri of what was in store if he ever became al-Qaeda operations chief.
“Spoken like a man after my own heart,” El Traca said. “Now, what do you want from me?”
“Twenty men, moved across the border, without any problems.”
“Twenty of your men?”
“I am not prepared to pay for twenty strangers.”
El Traca laughed again. “I know who you are, my friend. And I am surprised you still wish to cross the border.”
Now Nimri was puzzled. “Why not?”
El Traca motioned again, and one of his men passed Nimri a newspaper. There was something about Russia; a picture of soldiers. “I’m sorry, but I don’t read Spanish.”
El Traca said something fast and harsh, in Spanish, and his men started rushing about. One returned in a few moments with another newspaper, The Dallas Morning News.
Nimri scanned the front page with a sinking feeling of despair. Chechens holding hostages at a Russian school. How could this be? He set the paper down, trying to think. Al-Libbi. That son of a whore. Faithless, worthless, bastard son of Libyan whore.
Always plotting against him, always attempting to betray him.
Nimri’s first impulse was to call the operation off. But all attention would be on Russia. There would be heightened security alerts, of course. But they would already be in place for the election, in any case. Two months ... enough time for the Americans to relax a bit. “This means nothing to me. We were speaking of twenty men, to cross the border.”
El Traca registered first surprise, then respect. “Very well. But this is not like taking twenty farmers from Puebla across the border. Not now. One hundred thousand dollars. Per man.”
Nimri made no reaction, other than to please himself by imagining if al-Libbi had been there when the sum was mentioned. “That is very kind of you. But it will not be necessary to transport my men across the border in limousines with champagne, caviar, and women. Therefore, six hundred thousand dollars for all twenty should be sufficient.”
While he was talking El Traca had continued to stare him down. But at the end he laughed again. “I like you, my friend. But what you ask will not even pay my expenses. I am not a charity. If you want charity, go to the Church. If you want to pay six hundred thousand, go to Mara Salvatrucha. They are crazy, and not reliable. But they are cheap.”
Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, was a Salvadoran street gang that operated in many American cities in addition to Mexico. Nimri had actually considered them. And then decided against it, for precisely the reasons El Traca had mentioned. He knew the going rate across the border was $30,000–$50,000 per man. But that was an argument he did not intend to become involved in. “Some men fly first-class,” he said regretfully. “And some must fly economy, and save their money for more important things.”
El Traca considered him carefully. “Four million dollars. You want the job done right, that is what you pay.”
Nimri folded his hands together and played his card. “I understand the leader of your organization is in prison. Senor Cardenas?”
“You know this,” El Traca stated, moving him onward.
“My organization has some expertise, as you know. We would be prepared to offer our assistance in creating and executing a plan to free him.”
“And execution?” said El Traca, putting all his emphasis on the first word.
“That is correct,” said Nimri. “And for a sum of eight hundred thousand dollars, I will require transport for my men from the airport in Monterrey to Nuevo Laredo, accommodation in a safe house, your protection the entire time, then transport across the border on a date that I choose. All twenty at one time.” It was nearly three times what the entire Operation of the Blessed Tuesday, 9/11, had cost al-Qaeda. But this was 2004, not 2001, and there would be difficulties enough without stumbling blindly on foot across the desert at night.
Instead of flying into the expected rage, El Traca said, “Documents?”
“They will have their own documents when they arrive.”
Now El Traca’s stare was much less aggressive, and much more knowing. “You make a deal with me, the deal is final. You make a promise, you deliver. You understand?”
“I understand,” said Nimri.
“Then the deal is done. Only if you promise me that I will see your work on television.”
“I would not be at all surprised,” Abdallah Karim Nimri replied.
Chapter Twelve
For some strange reason Nasser Saleh felt like a little kid waiting to see the principal.
He ought to feel comfortable back at College Park. After twelve years in public schools with the name Nasser Saleh, the University of Maryland was the place he’d felt most at home.
That was really why he was there. He had to talk to someone. It never even occurred to him not to. The only question was who.
His parents would be no help. They’d tell him to do his job and stay out of trouble. His friends the same, but in a different way. He doubted whether any of them could even spell Guantánamo, let alone find it on a map. And secretly he wasn’t sure, if push came to shove, how many of them cared about anything that was being done to Arabs. The mosque? No way.
He needed someone who would understand, so he drove up to see his old professor of Arabic and faculty advisor, Dr. Jafar al-Hakan.
It wasn’t the professor’s regular office hours, but Nasser knew he always came back to his office right after lunch. That was when they’d used to talk before, and being invited to do it outside office hours felt like a privilege. It was a good memory. Now the different circumstances made him feel the way he did, sitting on the floor beside that locked door.
The
hallway was abandoned during the lunch hour, so he was able to feel the footsteps through the floor first. Catching sight of the professor, he stood up.
Seeing just another student in front of his door, the professor said with more than a little annoyance, “I’m sorry, but my office hours are ... Nasser?”
Nasser felt almost pathetically glad to be recognized. “Yes, Professor.”
As always, Professor al-Hakan was an endearingly roly-poly figure in his always rumpled suit, salt-and-pepper stubble of a beard, and double chin spilling down over his collar. “Nasser, I don’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch, Professor.”
Professor al-Hakan was pumping his hand. “Nasser, no one your age keeps in touch with anyone who isn’t a pretty girl. So I’m flattered. Do you need another letter of recommendation?”
Nasser flushed. “Actually, Professor, I need to talk with you. If you have time.”
Now he was looking at Nasser a little more closely, while unlocking his office door. “Of course. Come in, come in.”
The office was exactly as Nasser remembered it. Still a cluttered mess. Still with that weird smell of Turkish tobacco that wasn’t nearly as unpleasant as American cigarettes. The framed Arabic calligraphy on the walls. And the professor still had those same two photos on his desk. One of him shaking hands with Bill Clinton. The other doing the same with Yasser Arafat.
“Sit down, sit down. You look like you have a problem.”
Nasser moved the only chair without papers on it close to the desk. “I do have a problem, Professor.” He said it in Arabic.
The change in language caused the professor’s eyes to narrow. And to reply, also in Arabic, “Then tell me, if you wish.”
Without saying much about his job, Nasser told him about seeing the e-mail from Guantánamo.
“These things have been in the news. But you saw the reports with your own eyes?”
Nasser nodded.
“What is the FBI doing about this?”
“The agents there complain about it. But in Washington they seem to be concerned only with not being blamed.”
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