Night of the Cobra

by Jack Coughlin

“Of course,” Atkins said. “Blame it on the other guy.”

  13

  THE STOREFRONT

  THE COBRA DID NOT look in mirrors. The bizarre reflection lurking there reminded him of the night twenty years ago when he had lost the most important fight of his life. His left eye was blinded and was now no more than a milky orb. A deep white scar ran from mouth to jawline, and the badly stitched lip twisted at an awkward angle. Another big scar tracked in front of his right ear, and the hair had never fully regrown over the damaged area of his scalp. The Swanson Marine and the old woman and the kid had beaten the hell out of him, and when the tale of the wild attack followed him onto the operating table, no one in the American emergency medical tent at the Mogadishu airport had been gentle.

  They had kept him alive, but barely, and weeks later, under heavy guard, he was thrown into an overcrowded prison hole in Kenya to either rot or heal. There never was a trial.

  Every day since he began to recover, he had touched his deformed face; each time he did, his thoughts raced to inflicting revenge on the Swanson Marine. Allah the Most Merciful would not let his loyal follower Omar Jama become a martyr before that debt was repaid in full. The first weeks and months were a healing hell, but the Cobra overcame his pain and worked toward the day when he would again be free.

  Al Qaeda had saved him. The Cobra would never forget that. General Aidid had sent money, but it was al Qaeda that made the difference. It was a relatively new organization that established itself with daring attacks such as a truck bomb that wobbled the giant World Trade Center in New York in 1993, Omar Jama’s first year in captivity. He had learned that news when the al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, began sending emissaries into African prisons to recruit men who could help in his war on America. Several of them brought back stories of an exceptional fighter languishing in Kenya. He was known as the Cobra.

  Bin Laden was intrigued by the tales. Al Qaeda would need leaders in the future to expand the holy war and keep it going forever. People with money and influence began visiting the special prisoner in Kenya. Doctors tended his body while imams tended his soul, the guards eased up, and his food and living conditions improved.

  Omar Jama almost burst with pride on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda stunned America by hijacking four commercial airliners and crashing into both towers of the World Trade Center in New York and a side of the Pentagon in Washington. With that strike, his patron, bin Laden, changed the world forever. The United States responded to the 9/11 attack by invading Afghanistan, then spun off to invade Iraq.

  Eventually, the visitors from al Qaeda deemed him healthy and motivated enough to rejoin the fight. After ten years in Kenya’s filthy system, guards were bribed, and the Cobra simply walked away. He arrived in Pakistan in late 2003, a man who had been totally bred for this new kind of war called terrorism, although it was not in the cause he truly wanted. Omar Jama would fight battles all over the Middle East, where he rose to be a leader, an organizer, and a tactician.

  In 2005, Osama bin Laden gave Omar Jama a private audience and was pleased with his creation. The Cobra pleaded to go off and fight his own war. Somalia was still aflame, he said, and he would bring it beneath the al Qaeda boot to create a center where Americans would fear to venture. The jihad of bin Laden would conquer an entire nation.

  The lean and bearded leader with piercing eyes agreed with the dream, although he stalled: the time was not yet right. The Cobra would be needed in Iraq and Afghanistan for the immediate future. To temper the disappointment, Osama dispatched him on a rest period, during which he would meet the man who had actually supplied the funding during the Cobra’s prison years.

  * * *

  FAISAL BIN TURKI BIN Naif had proved invaluable in the final development of the Cobra. The extraordinarily rich outcast prince of the House of Saud, which ruled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, lived on a Greek island and was delighted when Omar Jama came for their initial visit. The Somali flung broad possibilities for terrorism into the air like strings of firecrackers, idea after idea after idea. It was marvelous entertainment. The renegade Saudi agreed to provide seed money for a new enterprise. A million U.S. dollars up front would tide the Cobra over during his final duties in Iraq and Afghanistan, during which time Faisal would persuade Osama to grant permission to send the man out on his own. Another nine million dollars would be waiting as a line of credit, to be drawn upon so the violent dreams of Omar Jama could become reality.

  That changed in 2011, when U.S. SEALs killed bin Laden, and the Cobra decided that all debts to al Qaeda had been paid in full. His attention returned to Somalia, which the United States had left in the hands of the United Nations and other African armies. The U.N. could not handle the job on its own, America was busy elsewhere, and Somalia had dropped into total chaos. The biggest industry was piracy, and a new wave of fighters had emerged to engage the foreign troops. They were overwhelmingly young and vicious and had grown up hearing stories about the famous warrior from the old days, the man called Cobra. But he was not just a historical figure, and when he appeared among them, the youngsters knew their leader had arrived.

  He smelled great opportunity. Someone needed to dream big, just as Osama bin Laden had done, and jump over the little wars in the mountains and the sands of the Middle East. The Cobra wanted to leave a historic mark of his own, and nothing would accomplish that goal better than another major strike within the United States. Then he could come back and tame Somalia and spread revolution throughout Africa.

  He decided to start his revolution in the unlikely state of Minnesota, a metropolis in the center of the United States. It was not something he did by chance. The largest enclave of Somali refugees in America had located in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. His soldiers would be almost invisible there.

  Months passed as he laid it out, keeping the details in his head or strictly compartmentalizing them, for the American intelligence services had ears everywhere. As General Aidid had once advised, the Cobra then set out to travel the world and find the right people to help.

  He was particularly rigorous in his own intelligence-gathering efforts, for he had a secondary mission that had gnawed at him for many years. When he flew from California to Minnesota, he knew the addresses of the Somali woman from the Irish clinic, of her policeman son, and the places where the Swanson Marine lived. Eventually, he would visit them all, and one by one, he would kill them all.

  SUNDAY

  MID-JANUARY, 2014

  MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA

  A lanky Somali man named Hassan Abdi had earned the Cobra’s trust in the streets of Mogadishu, when they were both very young militiamen. When Omar was taken prisoner, Hassan’s wealthy father stepped in to prevent the same fate from befalling his own son, dispatching Hassan to Europe to be educated. Fate had brought the friends back together once again in Somalia, and although Hassan was the one with a college degree, he fell under the magnetic spell of the rough Omar, the one with the dreams. An agreement was struck to go forward together. Since the Cobra’s presence tended to frighten strangers, Hassan would conduct the business conversations. He was the front man.

  For a base in Minneapolis, Hassan arranged a one-year rental agreement for office space in a small shopping center, where he established a trading brokerage called Hassan Investments. The name was emblazoned with gold lettering in both English and Arabic on the single wide window, which was darkly tinted. Neat long brown drapes covered the window, and just behind the cloth was a set of vertical blinds that were never opened. That was the front of the building, which one entered through a stubby weatherproof mud room. The office had three cheap plastic chairs and a desk with a computer that was linked to the stock, futures, and commodity markets. Charts flowed across the screen in warm colors.

  Behind a separating wall in the rear was an apartment that was a quickie mishmash of Home Depot and Bed Bath & Beyond, a cramped lair that would serve as the Cobra’s temporary home and help him remain out of sight. Al
though it was small, the apartment was much better than the prison cell in Kenya or the mountain camps of Waziristan. Omar Jama would not be staying there long anyway, for it was almost time to launch the operation, and after that there would be plenty of time to warm up and stretch out back in Africa.

  For Hassan Abdi to label his front company an investment business was a stretch. Resettled Somalis earned little money. Many still worked in the commercial chicken factories in Marshall and Faribault that had employed the first waves of refugees, while others depended on public welfare and private charities for subsistence. Overall, the resettlement had gone well, and a middle class had emerged. The people who had lost everything already in their lifetimes were not financial risk-takers. Hassan had earned a series 7 broker’s license and could talk the arcane language of finance. He was not a pushy salesman, because he did not really care if he sold anything. It was only a cover.

  If somebody actually wanted to deal a stock or two, Hassan would make the transaction through an online brokerage in his own account and produce an impressive-looking statement. Like his friend and superior, the Cobra, he was not here to make money as a market trader.

  On a Sunday evening, two weeks after they arrived in Minneapolis, a bearded man came to the office, and Hassan ushered him inside, made sure the lock was turned and the curtains were drawn, then took him to the rear.

  The Cobra rose to greet the visitor, and, although they had never met, they shared a warm hug and traditional greetings.

  “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest), said Omar Jama.

  “Wa’laikum asalam wa rahmattullah wa barakatuhu” (Peace and blessings be upon you), replied the visitor.

  In the heartland of America, the two terrorists embraced. One was al Qaeda. The other was al Shabaab.

  * * *

  SPECIAL AGENT LUCKY SHARIF of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was using four cars to track the dirty little white Chevrolet Malibu driven by Mohammed Ahmed when it left the Islamic Center mosque after maghrib, the evening prayers. The four-person FBI team flowed in a diamond formation around the subject vehicle—front, rear, and both sides—and stayed in contact by radio.

  Ahmed had been a person of interest to the bureau since the previous year, when Islamic terrorists attacked the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 21, 2013. The bloody assault had lasted several days and left several hundred people dead and wounded. Eventually, three of the attackers were traced back to the Minnesota mosque, and Mohammed Ahmed was the suspected recruiter. With the gigantic Mall USA located in nearby Bloomington, FBI and local police were extremely nervous that the man from the mosque might have similar ambitions for an attack closer to home. They were certain he was al Qaeda.

  They knew everything about him, which wasn’t much. Ahmed, a resettled Somali, earned a subsistence living as a janitor, wore thrift-store clothes, drove a clunker, was maxed out on a credit card, had less than two hundred dollars to his name, owed money to almost everyone who knew him, and—the only remarkable thing about him—had a long and shaggy gray and white beard. He believed America had failed him, because he could not admit that he had failed himself. The man was steeped in holy words and sacred custom, but too shallow for serious study or organization. The FBI concluded that he was not anyone with real juice but might lead them to a bigger catch.

  The trail car slowed when Ahmed arrived at the strip mall, and when he got out, it slid into a parking place at the front of a convenience store on the corner.

  “Hard to believe that hairy dude persuaded those boys to go become martyrs,” said Special Agent Janna Ecklund from the passenger seat. “I mean, really: ‘Come on, boy, we will give you an AK-47 absolutely free if you promise to go get killed.’ Keep an eye on the door, and I’ll get us a couple of coffees.”

  “I’ll have a Diet Coke instead of coffee,” said Sharif. “As a recruiter, he probably framed the pitch better than you, Janna. After all, he did sign them up.”

  Janna got out of the car. She was six feet tall with a thick mane of white-blonde hair that was covered by a pull-down watch cap. She rolled her shoulders, straightened her down jacket to cover the badge and pistol, then went inside. A coffee urn was on a flat counter in the rear, next to a cabinet of stale and crusty donuts and a rotisserie that was rolling a half-dozen sizzling hot dogs. What was coffee without a donut? She grabbed two of the sugared snacks, pulled a Diet Coke from the cooler for Lucky, fixed the coffee, and paid the young man at the register. He was a good-sized kid with linebacker muscles, pink skin, fair and fine hair, and a zoned-out look on his face due to the tunes chiming in his ears. The head bounced in tempo. An older man sat close by, watching the boy through disapproving eyes. No terrorists in here, thought Janna. Just another immigrant family, old-line Swedes, making a living on the tundra of Minnesota. Her people. Guy looks just like my grandfather. “Tack så mycket” (Thanks a lot), Janna said. The old Viking’s face lit up.

  She balanced his cargo on one palm and walked back to the car. Sharif took the soda can and a donut. “Thanks. I’m trying to keep my blood sugar high.”

  “So what would have been the right sales pitch for those boys, Lucky? How do you get a kid in America to prance off on a suicide mission?” Ecklund took a good gulp of coffee and looked over to the doorway of Hassan Investments. Nothing but a dim overhead light showed at the entrance.

  “You give them something to fight for, not just some undefined injustice to fight against. They already have plenty of martyr volunteers in the refugee camps, so they don’t really need to put these out-of-shape kids into the battle at all. They get off on having an American involved. Don’t try to apply logic to an illogical situation.”

  “Too bad they all couldn’t turn out like you, Lucky,” said Ecklund, chewing a donut and sipping some coffee.

  “I had a lot of help. Modern kids here in the States have to survive among urban gangs and dropouts and drug dealers and tweakers and broken dreams and social media. They’re really just waiting for someone to tell them what to do. That janitor filled that need.”

  Janna looked surprised. “Our guy? Mohammed Ahmed? For real?”

  Lucky gestured toward the office they were watching. “It’s a little late for a janitor with no money to be discussing his portfolio with a financial professional, and on a weekend, yet. Send a text back to the field office, Janna. Let’s get all over this new guy on the block, Hassan Investments.”

  SUNDAY

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  General Middleton was wrong. It did not take a full week for Kyle Swanson to become bored with civilian life. A few days were more than enough, and he had an entire lifetime yet to go. Marty Atkins had promised he would not have to endure basic training again, but time had been required to acquaint Kyle with the intricacies of his new employer. It was, after all, the Central Intelligence Agency. Some of it was dull, like the endless briefings. Of more interest were the locations and contents of emergency lockers available to Clandestine Service agents. An operator on the run almost anywhere in the world could access guns, false papers, cash, and safe hideouts if he or she knew where to look. Strongpoints had been established and maintained for almost a half century.

  Closing out his marine life had turned out to be just as difficult, for the government demanded completion of paperwork, which would be filed away electronically and in hard copies, too, and never looked at again. The CIA provided private shooting ranges that Kyle used to break the endless paperwork.

  “Do you want me to send you some color swatches?” Lady Pat asked during one of her increasingly frequent calls from London. She had hired a designer to prepare the Washington office.

  “I don’t know from colors. Whatever. Nothing girlie.”

  “What about the carpet? Any preferences there?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll put that down as something basic and utilitarian, with a nice big Persian rug centered before an antique desk. Maybe a Berber, just as we have done in Jeff’s office.�
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  “I’m going to hang up before I puke.”

  “You really must talk to Diana about it. She is just a wonderful interior designer, and she really wants to meet you so she can match up the office to your personality. That reminds me. When you get to London, we shall hand you over to the tailor for some decent suits and shoes.” Pat was probably thinking about a basic blue suit in the five-thousand-dollar range. “When are you going to get here?”

  Kyle was not eager to jump the Atlantic, because he looked at the trip as his unofficial entrance into middle age, and he wasn’t ready for that yet. But he did not want to hang around here, either, having already said both his good-byes and hellos. He needed some time. “Pat, I will be over in a few weeks. I have to wrap up a few more things because it is hell to get two government agencies to speak the same language over something as common as a minor personnel matter like me. The marines want to know where to electronically deposit my retirement check, and the agency is giving me the whole series of vaccine shots. It never ends.”

  She let the conversation fall dead for about fifteen seconds. “I think you’re just stalling. You have to leave the marines. You got fired.”

  “No. I retired, and I’m not looking back. I just need to take a rest, Pat. So before I come over to England, I’m heading up to Minnesota for a few days on the way out. We’re working up a surprise party for Deqo Sharif’s birthday next Sunday, a week from now. She’s turning seventy-five. I talked to Lucky about it last night.”

  That got Lady Pat centered again. She really enjoyed the company of Deqo, a strong woman who survived the Somali holocaust and raised her grandson alone to become an American FBI agent. “Well. That’s good. Let me know the details so Jeff and I can send her some flowers. That should be a fun party. She deserves it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve almost decided to go with an eggplant drapery treatment, with sheers, of course, for your office. And a subdued hand-painted silk wallpaper. If you don’t make a decision, then Diana and I will.”