Bashir knew he was running in circles now. He’d been arguing with himself for three days, the same words and phrases chasing each other through his head. Hiroshima. Abu Ghraib. Radiation poisoning. Crusaders. Leukemia. Hiroshima—again, but this time as an argument for giving the Americans a taste of their own medicine.
More than anything, Bashir wished he could talk to his uncle Ayman’s friends in the Muslim Brotherhood. They were wise men, honest and pious, not prone to excess, and deeply knowledgeable about the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet. If even one of them approved this mission Bashir wouldn’t have worried. But he couldn’t ask them what they thought. And he couldn’t raise any of his doubts with Nasiji or Yusuf. Whatever had happened to Nasiji’s family in Iraq, and Bashir knew only the outlines of the story, it had erased any reservations Nasiji might once have had. As for Yusuf. Yusuf was a perfect jihadi. He would kill until he was killed and expect heaven as his reward.
No, talking about this with Nasiji and Yusuf wouldn’t be wise. That left him with Thalia, but Thalia was a child. He would have to figure this out for himself. In the meantime, he saw no alternative but to keep working on the bomb.
“BASHIR!” NASIJI SAID SHARPLY. “It was ready five minutes ago. How much longer are you planning to stir it?”
Bashir pulled himself from Hiroshima and focused on the forge. Distracted by his thoughts, he’d been stirring the steel with a tungsten carbide pole to improve its consistency. Now it was ready to be poured.
“Of course, Sayyid.”
Bashir set aside the pole and grabbed a set of tungsten tongs. He reached down into the furnace and squeezed the tongs tightly around the pot. Waves of heat blasted under his face shield and gloves.
Nasiji wrapped a second set of tongs around the pot. “Careful, Doctor. No spills. One hundred kilos”—220 pounds—“of this stuff might itch a bit.”
“Yes,” Bashir said, thinking of the charred skin he’d seen on the Hiroshima burn victims. “On three. One. Two. Three.”
They lifted the pot and took three steps to a spherical mold eighteen inches in diameter, made of high-purity ceramic. A second, smaller mold fit inside the first, to create the space for the artillery tube and the uranium plug. Bashir had sintered the molds — fused them from a powder of ceramic particles — in the vacuum furnace the day before.
“We pour on three. One. Two. Three.”
Slowly they poured the steel into the mold, their fourth pour so far. When they were done the mold was about half full. The tamper would be finished by late that afternoon. Once it had cooled, Bashir would cast the two pieces of the explosive pit — the narrow cylinder that fit inside the tamper and the larger piece, shaped like a pipe, that they fired at the cylinder and slid over it. The two shapes were relatively simple, but making sure they fit together smoothly was crucial. Before he cast the pit out of uranium, he planned to take a practice run using a steel ingot. Once he’d finished the pieces of the dummy steel pit, they would weld the steel cylinder into the tamper, then weld the muzzle of the recoilless rifle into the hole at the top of the sphere.
Once the muzzle had been attached, probably no later than tomorrow afternoon, they would fire a water glass at the plug, a test to make sure the two pieces fit together properly and that the barrel of the rifle wouldn’t explode from the stress. Nasiji had insisted on the practice test. They could make another tamper easily, he said. And Bashir hadn’t objected. Anything to give him more time.
THAT NIGHT NASIJI AND YUSUF left to check their e-mail accounts, something they’d done every couple of days since they arrived, never going to the same Internet café, or even the same town, twice. When they came home, Nasiji was smiling.
“I need you to put together a second mold, Bashir,” he said. “One that has space for a beryllium reflector. It’s easy: it fits between the uranium pit and the tamper. I’ll show you the design.”
“We’re getting the beryllium, then?”
“No guarantees. But it’s promising. Our contact says he’s received ten kilos of it and thinks the rest will come soon.”
“When will we know?”
“You’ll know when I tell you.”
TWO DAYS LATER, while Bashir tinkered with the design of the molds, Nasiji and Yusuf drove to Rochester and came back with a Sony digital video camera, a tripod, and even a spotlight. Then they disappeared into the basement. Bashir asked them what they were doing, but Nasiji was oddly coy. “My second career,” he said. “With Yusuf as the producer.”
The next morning, Nasiji called Bashir downstairs. The camera and spotlight were set in front of an Iraqi flag.
“I didn’t want to tell you beforehand,” he said. “I wanted you to see it with fresh eyes.” With a theatrical flourish, he flipped open the laptop and started the media player.
The video opened with Nasiji, sitting cross-legged in front of an Iraqi flag, red and white and green. He was dressed in Western clothes — jeans and a blue button-down shirt. He sat on the floor, a dagger sheathed on his hip, a beatific smile on his face, looking like a yoga instructor from hell.
“My name is Sayyid Nasiji. I was born in Baghdad, Iraq. With my own eyes, I have seen the destruction the Americans have brought to Iraq. With my own eyes, I have seen the bodies of my father and mother and sister and brothers. I represent the Army of the Believers,” he said in Arabic. “For many years we have waited for this day. We and all true Muslims. Now we have brought the wrath of Allah on the kaffirs. The shortest path to freedom is the path that sheds blood far and wide. And we are not afraid of blood.”
Nasiji drew the dagger that was on his hip and scraped the blade across a cutting stone. Scrape. Scrape. Tiny sparks flew off the edge of the knife.
“America thought we could only use knives and guns. America thought we could not make the special weapon, that we hadn’t the technology. And I cannot lie. Anyone who tries to build such a weapon faces great difficulties. So you may ask, where did this bomb come from?”
A new image filled the screen: Grigory, sitting on a couch, a black sheet as background. The video that Yusuf had filmed in Russia, two nights before he killed Grigory and Tajid.
“My name is Grigory Farzadov,” he said in Russian. “I am an engineer at the Mayak nuclear weapons plant in Ozersk, Russia.” Grigory held up his plant security identification and his Russian passport. As he spoke, the camera’s focus tightened on his identification. “Several months ago I was approached by a group of men who told me that they wanted to steal a nuclear bomb and asked for my help. Naturally, I reported this action to my supervisor, Garry Pliakov. He is deputy manager of operations at Mayak. A week later, Garry told me that he wanted me to help the smugglers steal the bomb. He told me I was to provide the smugglers the codes to activate the weapon. I asked him why we should take this action. He told me that President Medvedev himself had made the decision and I was not to question it. He told me that if I did not do as I was told, I would be tried for treason. Naturally, I did not argue. I still do not understand why, but we have given the men the bomb.”
“Do you think Grigory is lying?” Nasiji said.
Then an image of the warhead, lying on its side on the dirt floor of the stable. The camera focused on the Cyrillic lettering atop the warhead.
“There is your answer,” Nasiji said. “This bomb comes from Russia. The Russian government gave it to us. Could we have broken into the Mayak plant ourselves? Could we have discovered the codes ourselves? Of course not. We were given this bomb. And the Russians, they knew where we planned to use it. Remember this, America, when you are deciding what to do next. Now, I do not know why the Russians gave us this weapon. Probably they intend to attack you for themselves and are using us as a mask. Probably they didn’t expect that we would expose them this way.
“But we want you to understand what’s happened, America. We want you to know that it isn’t just Muslims who are finished with you. It’s Russians, Chinese, everyone. Everyone sees how you rule the world. Everyone
wants you to pull back your armies and let us live in peace. This explosion is divine retribution for all the evil that you have committed. Do not forget your sins, America. Remember that we Muslims want to live in peace with you. We have blown up this bomb because you’ve given us no choice. You must decide what action to take next. But do not retaliate. Understand this lesson and make peace with the world.”
Nasiji stood and raised the dagger, holding the tip to his neck.
“You can never stop us, America. For a thousand years, we have died for Islam. If we must, we will die for a thousand more. Nothing frightens us. Now, please, take this moment to change your path.”
He pressed the knife into his neck, drew a single drop of blood. He pointed the blade directly at the camera.
“Allahu Akbar.”
Nasiji stopped the playback. “That’s it. I’m planning to put your names in, too. Let the world see who we are. And if you want to make your own statements, we might consider that. Though I think it works better this way. One voice, yes?”
“Genius,” Yusuf said.
“Bashir,” Nasiji said, a kid fishing for compliments. “What do you think? Maybe I ought to use a plain black background instead of the Iraqi flag. I don’t want them to think Iraq is their only sin.”
BASHIR COULDN’T TAKE his eyes off the screen, the final image, Nasiji leaning forward, staring into the camera, the dagger held high in his hand. A madman. Or worse. Nasiji’s black eyes seemed to glow red as coals. An illusion of the camera, the spotlight on his face. Had to be.
“Will it work?” Bashir said.
“Probably they won’t believe it,” Nasiji said. “They’ll say I’m lying, trying to get them to attack Russia. But it’s worth trying. I’m hoping we’ll be done in time to set this gadget of ours off at the big speech, the State of the Union—”
“But that’s hardly a week away—” A week? This was all going to happen within a week?
“I know. I don’t think we can get the beryllium by then, and if we don’t have it we’ll wait. The beryllium’s the only way we can be sure we’ll get a full detonation. But if we can, imagine it. The whole American government is there. President, vice president, the Congress, the Supreme Court, all of them. All gone.”
“But the security must be enormous.”
“Yes, but they can’t close down all of Washington. And their security, it’s designed against a truck bomb. Not one of these. If we succeed, the generals will be the only ones left. And they’ll want to strike back. Quickly. And if they think we’re telling the truth, they’ll have no choice. They’ll fire all their missiles at Russia. The Russians will fire all their missiles back. The end of the United States of America. Russia, too. Every city will be gone. The two countries that hate Muslims the most, wiped away. The Crusaders, beaten forever.”
And a hundred million people will die, Bashir didn’t say. More. Two hundred million. Three hundred million. More. A number so large it couldn’t be counted, couldn’t even be imagined.
“Sayyid,” he said. “I want the Americans to suffer. But this. will Allah smile on this?”
“Losing your nerve?”
“Not at all. But isn’t there anyone we can talk with, ask for guidance?”
“All these years, they’ve given us war. All these years, Muslims have been dying. We must destroy them, Bashir. Nothing less.”
“God willing,” Yusuf said.
“You’re right,” Bashir said. He wished he could be as sure as he sounded, as sure as Nasiji and Yusuf. “Anyway, I think you ought to have a black flag. Yusuf and I aren’t Iraqi, and Iraq isn’t their only sin. As you say.”
“I’ll redo it.”
“Then what?”
“When we’re ready, just before we go, we’ll send copies to CNN and Al Jazeera and a few other places. We’ll upload it to our own Web sites, too, in case they won’t run it. But we’ll have to time it right, so it isn’t posted until afterward.”
“And if we can’t get the beryllium in time?”
“We’ll wait. No State of the Union. But we’ll still destroy the White House, kill the president, blow up the middle of Washington. And when they see the video, they’ll know who to blame. I’m only sorry we won’t be around to see it.”
THAT NIGHT, Bashir lay beside Thalia, unable to sleep. When he closed his eyes, he saw Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the charred wooden houses and corpses in the streets, terrified even in death by what they’d seen. He wished he’d never looked.
“What’s wrong, Doctor?” Thalia said quietly to him in Arabic. Doctor. He loved to hear her call him that. But tonight the word cut him. Doctors were meant to save lives.
“Nothing, my wife. Now sleep.”
“Bashir, tell me. And then we’ll both sleep.”
Bashir wondered if he could tell her. But why not? She was his wife, after all. “Yusuf and Sayyid, you know, this thing we’re making in the stable, it’s a bomb. A special bomb. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“You did?”
“Yes, my husband. I know I’m not very smart, but the things you and Sayyid were saying, I figured it out.”
“A big bomb. It will kill a lot of people.”
Thalia squeezed his hand. “How many?”
“I don’t know. But many.”
“Here? In America?”
“Yes.”
“So it would be kaffirs.” Her voice had a girlish excitement that surprised him.
“Muslims, too. It won’t discriminate. And Nasiji has a plan. He’s hoping to start a big war between the United States and Russia. If it works, there could be hundreds more bombs like this. Even thousands, maybe. Does that bother you?”
“No.” And Bashir’s surprise became astonishment as his wife slid her hand down his stomach and reached for him, something she’d never done unbidden before. Bashir couldn’t think of anything to say, and so he lay silent as she stroked him hard and then straddled his legs and guided him into her, all the while whispering, “No no no.”
PART FOUR
27
The mission could be explained in three words. Accomplishing it required a lot more effort.
Find a ship.
A ship that had departed Hamburg on New Year’s Eve, supposedly bound for West Africa, but had never arrived. A ship that was somewhere in the North Atlantic, unless it was in the Caribbean, or the Pacific, or docked, or even scuttled. A ship that was thoroughly anonymous, not a supertanker or a yacht but a midsize freighter like tens of thousands of others around the world. A ship that was called the Juno, unless its name had been changed. A ship that carried no visible weapons but still needed to be approached cautiously. Most of all, a ship that had to be found quickly, so its hold could be searched with Geiger counters, its crew questioned, and its captain put in a rubber room and subjected to every interrogation technique that the dark wizards of the CIA had ever invented.
The task was formidable, even with the National Security Agency and the navy making it their highest priority. Nonetheless, this was the kind of problem the United States knew how to solve, a technical puzzle that could be cracked with pure effort and brainpower. For once, no need to win hearts and minds in Baghdad or Kabul. Just find that damn freighter. Around NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, through the Atlantic Fleet command in Norfolk, the order went out. By yesterday, if possible.
Photographs of the Juno, along with its engineering specifications — height, length, displacement, and the shape of its superstructure — were sent to every American and British naval vessel in the Atlantic. Within twelve hours, the Atlantic Fleet had posted frigates outside the major East Coast harbors, from Miami to Portland, Maine. Meanwhile, Coast Guard cutters visited every ship that had docked in the last two weeks and that matched, or almost matched, the Juno’s specs.
At the same time, the Atlantic Fleet command ordered destroyers and cruisers to run alongside the main sea lanes that crossed the North Atlantic, in case the Juno was still somewhere en route or
sailing back to Europe. The Royal Navy sent its own flotilla west. In three days, the vessels identified every ship that fit the Juno’s profile. Impressive work, especially considering the winter weather and the fact that the sun shone for barely eight hours a day on the main route between London and New York.
Impressive, but fruitless. The navy’s efforts came up empty. The Juno wasn’t on the sea lanes between Europe and the United States. And it wasn’t docked in any port anywhere in the United States, Canada, Britain, or Western Europe.
MEANWHILE, the NSA’s Advanced Keyhole satellites were searching the rest of the Atlantic. The satellites could capture ships in great detail, down to their names and the foot-square patches of rust on their hulls. They could also take photographs that covered several square miles and captured dozens of boats at once.
But they had a problem. They couldn’t do both, not at the same time. The camera capable of both super-wide and super-fine resolution hadn’t been invented yet. And from Greenland to South America, the Atlantic covered more than forty million square miles. Even if the satellites photographed it in one-square-mile chunks, they would need forty million images to cover it.
To work around the problem, two dozen software engineers spent a long night at Fort Meade writing code. By morning, they’d created an application that turned the agency’s face-recognition software into a crude boat-recognition program. The software couldn’t find the Juno. But it could rule out in real time ninety-five percent of the boats spotted by the satellites as too big, too small, or the wrong shape.
The other five percent were classified as possibles and photographed again at one-meter resolution. Those images were then reviewed by the NSA’s analysts, who eliminated any ship that appeared significantly different from the original photographs of the Juno, on the theory that the Juno could not have had time to undergo major structural work since leaving Hamburg.
The Silent Man jw-3 Page 28