“You know, we got to get you back in the office more, woman,” Scott said, impressed.
“No one better,” she said with a grin.
After rewinding the DVR one more time, he turned to James, who was busy peeling the cracked and faded sun off the Utopia 1977 Ra tour T-shirt his dad was wearing. “Look at the TV, little dude-a-mus,” Scott said. “It’s Uncle Riley.”
“He’s not interested, my dear.”
“He needs to be. Come on, watch this, buddy.”
Scott tried to direct James toward the screen by shaking a grenade-shaped rattle in front of it—a baby gift from the guys on the ops team.
Finally satisfied that James was facing in the right direction, he slowed the recording to half speed and began his own description of the action.
And when the handset began its descent into the tub, Scott became very serious and whispered into his child’s ear, “That, dear boy, is your Uncle Riley. Do you know what he’s doing? He’s sticking it to the man. Learn well, my son. Learn well.”
“Kid doesn’t stand a chance,” Tara said with a sigh, then fell back into the couch.
Sunday, September 11, 3:15 p.m. EDT
Washington, DC
Majid Alavi’s hand struck hard against the man’s face, the pop caused by his cupped palm echoing through the warehouse. The man spun a quarter-turn but didn’t go to the ground. Two more pops sounded, then a voice said, “Again.”
Stubble scratched across Alavi’s palm as another connection was made. The man dropped to his knees. Alavi slid his hand back and forth on his jeans trying to erase the tactile sensation of the hit.
“Again.”
This time the man was left sprawled out on the dusty concrete. Alavi looked around and saw that one of the others was also laid out, while a third was raising himself up from a squatted position—defiance was on his face.
“Very good,” said Saifullah. He stood on a small platform set against one wall of the overheated warehouse. He looked every bit the Islamic cleric with his robe, his taqiyah, and his salt-and-pepper beard tight on his face.
But there was something unusual about him—something hard to nail down that separated him from most of the imams you might find in American mosques. Most believed it had to do with his eyes. Some said they were empty, soulless. Others that they were filled with rage and vengeance for centuries of oppression. Still others said they could see the fires of hell burning in them. One thing they all agreed on was that life was better when Saifullah was looking at someone else rather than at you.
The cleric continued, “You all know the words of the Koran where Allah states, ‘Let there arise from among you a small group of people, inviting to all that is good. They enjoin the good, forbid the evil, and it is they who attain success!’
“You are that people! You have been called out, and you have answered the call! May the strength of our benevolent God be upon you!”
Murmurs of approval spread through the twenty-four men, each handpicked for the mission. Majid Alavi made sure his face showed the gravity of the blessing Saifullah was pronouncing over them. But inside, he was smiling. In fact, he was more than smiling; he was exulting! After all this time, after all the preparation, finally he was to fulfill the destiny prepared for him long ago, before time began.
“As our passage says, to attain success we must forbid the evil! These men did not do that! Thus, they had to be reminded of the need for purity in all our thoughts and all our actions!”
Deep down, Alavi had to admit that he didn’t feel that the infractions of these three men merited the punishment they received. After all, two of them were now bloodied simply for having been found with fast-food wrappers in their cars. “A lack of physical discipline,” Saifullah had pronounced.
The third, the one who stared defiantly, had been an hour late for his rendezvous. When asked what had happened, he refused to give a reason. Even now, ten hours later, no one knew what had delayed his arrival. That one probably does deserve the discipline; these others, not so much.
When Saifullah had pronounced the punishments, all three men submitted willingly. And Alavi, second in command to Saifullah and one of three members trained outside of the US, took his place as an enforcer.
“What say you now?” Saifullah asked the three men.
The first two dropped to their knees and placed their foreheads on the ground. “We throw ourselves upon the mercy of Allah,” they said in unison, as they had been taught.
However, the third man—Quraishi, Alavi thought his name was—dropped only to one knee and mouthed the formulaic words. I wish he had been mine. There would not be that much defiance left in him still. He is a man who bears watching.
Saifullah accepted the men’s apologies with a nod, and then continued while Alavi and the others joined the rest of the group cross-legged on the floor. “We must keep a sharp edge to this team. We must shed the last vestiges of this decadent culture from our souls. We must separate ourselves out, so that we can do what our weak sisters cannot.
“There is no denying that many of our fellow Muslims have softened. They feel guilt at our successes, shame at what Allah has accomplished through the glorious actions of the shahid who have gone before us. They forget that if anyone is ashamed of Allah in this life, Allah will be ashamed of them in the next!”
Again, a murmur of approval swept through Saifullah’s audience. Alavi nodded. Sweat trickled in beads down his neck, and he could feel the moisture spreading on his back, giving him a little relief from the wet heat of the musty building.
“We are doing the work of Allah, and we must remember that he will accept nothing from us except our best! We live to serve! We live to die!”
With that, Saifullah turned and left the stage. Around him, the men stood to go. However, Alavi remained seated processing the cleric’s words. There was something about them that seemed different—a little off. Maybe it was just that the way Saifullah spoke was so different from what he had heard among the mullahs during his six-month training in Somalia.
His message has been Americanized, Alavi thought. That’s what it is! Phrases like “sharp edge” and “team” and “nothing but our best”—you don’t hear those in the Middle East. The brilliance of Saifullah is that he is coming at us as both a coach and a spiritual leader. He knows who we are. He knows what will motivate a squadron of warriors who happened to have had the misfortune of growing up in America.
Alavi looked around at the men of his team. They had arrived last night and early this morning, coming from places as diverse as Dearborn and Dallas, San Diego and Seattle, Memphis and Miami. All ready to fight. All ready to die.
No two stories were exactly the same as to how these men had metamorphosed from American boys to jihadists. Yet each probably had similar elements: some level of poverty, experiences of discrimination, a lack of hope for bettering their circumstances, and a radical mentor to piece everything together.
The beginning of Alavi’s turn toward radicalism occurred quite unexpectedly. He was a fairly happy eleven-year-old, living in a moderate Muslim family in Mishawaka, Indiana. He played third base on his little league team and was two-year school spelling bee champion for his grade.
Then, on this very day all those years ago, the planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and Alavi’s life changed. He was on the school bus when the first plane hit. After arriving at school, his class followed the events throughout the morning, everyone stunned, including Alavi.
Then came lunch break. Alavi was throwing the baseball with his best friend, just as he did every day at lunch. They were trying to distract themselves the best they could from the events on the East Coast. Suddenly, he was surrounded by six other boys.
“Hey, raghead, you must be cheering the guys on those planes,” one boy said, giving the young Alavi a push.
“We don’t even know who flew those planes,” Alavi shot back. “It could have been anyone!”
“Yeah rig
ht. Everyone knows it was some camel jockey, just like you,” another said, also giving a push. “Look around you. Everyone else is all crying and stuff, and you’re here playing ball like nothing happened.”
“No, like he knew it was going to happen,” a third said from behind, giving young Majid’s head a hard push forward.
“Knock it off,” Alavi’s buddy said, trying to elbow his way into the circle. But he was yanked backward by a couple of onlookers and shoved to the rear of the growing crowd.
“So, come on, raghead,” the first boy taunted. “How’d it feel to see your cousins crashing those planes? Huh? How does it feel to know your family killed all those people?”
Alavi knew he was in trouble but couldn’t find a way out. Panic welled up inside him as words continued to be said and he continued to be pushed. Then came the first punch. After that, it was a free-for-all. By the time a recess aide got there, Alavi was on the ground, a bloody mess.
But I didn’t cry! No matter what they threw at me, I didn’t cry, he remembered with pride, even this many years later.
The boys were suspended for three days, but Alavi never went back to that school. Not that he didn’t want to. But the principal of the school was concerned for his safety, so she recommended he study at home.
Then, a week after the attack, Alavi’s dad was unexpectedly laid off from his job as manager of a clothing retailer. The higher-ups had cited a history of poor store performance, but Mr. Alavi knew that sales had actually been up that year. The rumor around corporate was that there had been customer complaints about having a man with an Arabic name running the store, and some had vowed not to return.
After scrambling for employment for a month—there weren’t a lot of “Muslim Wanted: Apply Within” signs around the Mishawaka area at that time—Mr. Alavi found a job through his sister at a factory in Michigan. So the whole Alavi family—Dad, Mom, Majid, and his little brother, Hatim—packed up and moved to Dearborn.
The positive side of the move was that Dearborn was thick with people just like themselves—Arab background, moderate Muslim. The negative side was that a junior assembler in a factory didn’t make near the same kind of money as a manager of a clothing store. Typically, the Alavi family spent the final few days of each month eating rice and curds until the paycheck came and they could start the cycle again.
America! The great melting pot where everyone is welcome—as long as you have white skin and are a Christian, Alavi thought, letting his tongue dance in the gap where one of his upper left bicuspids had been until that morning on the playground.
America! Where they stick their noses into everyone else’s business, then cry when that nose gets hit! America! The great imperialist that commands smaller nations by feeding them foreign aid, then forcing them to do their bidding like a pimp running a crack whore! America! Who, like an old plantation owner, is too fat and lazy to do any work on their own, so instead they exploit the slave nations of the world to do their work for them! They import everything, and the only thing they export is the moral filth of their culture!
Alavi stood and moved across the warehouse to where his cot was, one of eight in the small area belonging to the squadron he would command. He sat down and began dismantling his Glock 21 .45 for a cleaning, carefully laying out each piece on an olive green blanket. Well, we are the wake-up call! We are retribution! We are the Vandals to this modern-day empire! And before they know what hits them, Rome is going to get sacked!
Sunday, September 11, 3:30 p.m. EDT
Cleveland, Ohio
The gold coin twinkled as it spun between Riley’s thumb and index finger. Although it was still the fourth quarter of the game, he was showered and dressed and sitting in front of his locker. Word of what was now being referred to as the Gatorade Incident had spread quickly. Within three minutes, Coach Medley had come to the bench where he was sitting and told him in no uncertain terms that he was no longer welcome on the sidelines. Riley was all too happy to oblige.
He flicked the coin again with his right index finger and watched it spin. The walk back to the tunnel had been interesting. It was the first time all day that he had been cheered. Even the Dog Pound was giving it up for him. All the random comments had eventually coalesced into a resounding chant of “Phone Boy, Phone Boy, Phone Boy” that had spread throughout the stadium. He had smiled and waved to the crowd before going under the seats, knowing that on a day like today, he could use all the friends he could get.
Riley flicked the coin again. This time it went bouncing across the carpet. He jumped up after it, stopping its roll with a stomp of his foot. After picking it up, he sat down at his locker and examined it. The reverse side had the Statue of Liberty on it and made it clear that the coin’s value was one dollar. On the obverse side was a picture of a president. Zachary Taylor, he read, 12th President, 1849–50. I know there’s a story to that short tenure, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what it is.
Placing the coin back between his thumb and index finger, he spun it again. The only positive thing to come out of the situation so far was that he was no longer wired for sound. Mike Novinger from HBO had removed his mic so that he could shower. When he came back out, he fully expected to have the mic replaced. But Novinger didn’t approach him. Even the cameras kept a respectful distance. The only explanation he could think of was that Bellefeuille had demanded they back off.
As he sat there, Riley entertained himself with thinking of all the things he wished he had said—all the comebacks he could have nailed Bellefeuille with, all the zingers that would have rocked the man back on his heels. Why am I always so good thirty minutes after the fact? I desperately need to take a course at the Scott Ross School of Witty Repartee.
Suddenly, the activity around him began to increase. The rising scramble of the Warriors locker-room minions told him that the game was just about at an end. He craned his neck so that he could check out the big screen that was hanging on the wall above and to the left of him. Sure enough, there was 1:03 left and the Bulldogs were going to kneel it out.
Riley pocketed the coin and prepared to meet the press onslaught. Lord, help me to not do anything even more stupid than what I’ve already done today.
The doors burst open, and his teammates began filing in. Riley kept his head down, not wanting to put anyone in an awkward position. In the PFL, the doghouse is a lonely place to be. Most players try to shy away from demonstrating any support, in case it could be perceived as choosing sides against the ownership.
Add to that the lousy performance not just from Riley but from the whole team, and he didn’t expect a whole lot of post-game banter.
As the foul-smelling men moved past him, a dirty cleat kicked up against his Merrell; then a small paper cup dropped to the ground. Looking up, Riley saw it was Don Bernier, who just kept walking without acknowledging him. He fished the cup from the floor, wondering what his friend was up to. It didn’t take long to figure out. On the inside of the green Gatorade cup, Bernier had used a grease pencil to draw an angry face with a phone to his ear and smoke curling up the sides.
Riley laughed to himself as he balled up the cup, destroying the evidence. Then, after thinking a moment, he unwrinkled the waxy paper, folded it into thirds, and slid it into his pocket. You never know when you might need to remember that you’re not alone.
Minutes later, the press was let in. Almost everyone beelined to Riley.
“What made you do it?”
“What was Bellefeuille saying to you?”
“Have you apologized?”
“Are you going to be suspended?”
Hmmm, suspended? Hadn’t thought of that.
Putting up his hands to silence the questions, Riley began a response that he had been mentally rehearsing. “Listen, what I did out there was—”
“I’m sorry, folks, but Riley won’t be taking questions right now,” said Jonny Wiens, the Warriors’ head of public relations, pushing his way through the mass of reporters.
“Come on,” Pro Football Weekly’s Gus Verdant protested, “you can’t cut him off. He was just answering.”
With a professionalism that only experience can bring, Wiens brushed off the protests. “Again, I’m sorry. Riley will be available sometime this week for comment. For now, he’s needed elsewhere. All right?”
Groans and curses answered Wiens as he took Riley by the arm and pulled him away. Riley followed easily. He didn’t really care where he was being led. He was just happy it was away from the press.
The two men walked past the lockers, Wiens keeping his hand on Riley’s arm. Ahhh, heading out to freedom, Riley thought as they moved toward the exit.
But just before they reached the rear doors, Wiens stopped. He pulled Riley around so that his back was to a wall that appeared to have been hastily covered with a Washington Warriors banner.
“Listen, Riley,” Wiens began in a low voice, poking his finger in Riley’s chest, “I just wanted to get you away from them so we could talk.”
“I know Bellefeuille’s probably through the roof with this thing, but he—”
Wiens threw his hands up in the air and shook his head violently. “That’s where you’re wrong. Sure, Mr. Bellefeuille’s seriously ticked at you, but he’s loving the whole situation.”
“Loving it?” Riley said, confused. “I’m not sure I’m following—”
“Oh, come on, Riley,” Wiens said very loudly, again throwing up his hands. He stepped away for a few moments like he was trying to regain his composure. When he came back, his finger was in Riley’s face.
“Think about it,” Wiens said quietly. His face was turning a dark red, and beads of sweat were rolling down his face. “This is a boon for Bellefeuille. His face will be everywhere. People from all over the world will be hitting the Warriors website. He couldn’t have asked for a better PR gimmick.”
Nothing was making any sense. The incongruity between Wiens’s words and his actions was getting to be too much. Riley grabbed Wiens’s finger. “First of all, get your finger out of my face! Second, what’s with the . . . wait a second. The banner, the lighting . . .”
Inside Threat Page 5