by Simon Conway
“Gentlemen, we can no longer turn a blind eye to what is going on in distant lands,” Winthrop continued. “We have entered a new era in history, a time of consequences. And it has fallen upon us, a chosen few, to bear the ark of the liberties of the world. An obligation rests upon us, not to go back on those that sacrificed their lives in the Twin Towers and in the Pentagon, but to see this thing through, to see it through to the end and make good on their sacrifice. Nothing less than the liberation and salvation of the world depends on it.”
Jonah was watching Nor out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to be studying the giant display that spread across several free-standing partitions, and served as Winthrop’s backdrop. It was known as the spiderweb, and it was the hyperactive nephew of Monteith’s collage. Nor had told him that Jabotinsky and Scholem had brought it down from DC, panel by panel, over several weeks, after they’d been stripped of their Pentagon security clearance. The rumor was that the CIA and the FBI had mounted a concerted operation to have them thrown out of the Pentagon and they’d been forced to proceed covertly here in Nevada. Which didn’t mean to say that they weren’t listened to back in the Pentagon; Scholem liked to say how Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz had once spent forty-five minutes in front of the display. It was a mass of linkages and associations, spaghetti lines in marker pen and cotton thread. It depicted the 9/11 attacks as a multi-headed conspiracy carried out by al-Qaeda but assisted by Hezbollah, financed by the Saudis and sponsored by Saddam. It cast the Salman Pak training facility south of Baghdad as the nexus of an international family of terrorist organizations, including Abu Nidal, Hamas, Ansar al-Islam and Jund al-Sham. The spaghetti lines from Abu Nidal led to Lebanon and from there to al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. It showed an expressway from Tora Bora in Afghanistan to the Ansar al-Islam enclave in northern Iraq. It was, in Jonah’s view, a dangerous exercise in wishful thinking. Abu Nidal was defunct. Ansar al-Islam was bitterly opposed to Saddam’s Baathist regime. And the idea that Hezbollah Shiites were in league with Saudi Sunnis was utterly nonsensical.
“The Eschatos program was established specifically in the face of new and apocalyptic threats,” Winthrop explained. “Our mandate is to identify and infiltrate enemy structures, and to act preemptively to interdict them. We’re a red team unit, a black ops team. Our first job is to know our enemy, to understand his means and his methods.”
He gestured to Jabotinsky, who took up the baton. He sprang out of his seat and strode back and forth in front of the spiderweb brandishing an electronic pointer in his hand, like a college professor in front of a blackboard. “Between 1996 and 2001 al-Qaeda acted like a venture capitalist firm, sponsoring projects submitted by a variety of groups or individuals from Morocco to Malaysia. However, in the weeks following 9/11 over a hundred million dollars of assets in operational accounts linked to al-Qaeda members and in clandestine feeder accounts of associated charities and companies were seized. We believed erroneously that we had interrupted their capacity to continue funding large-scale projects. However, our enemy has proved more resourceful than we expected …”
Winthrop held up a hand, stopping him mid-flow, and said, “Tell us about the diamonds, Nor.”
Jabotinsky returned to his seat. After a pause, Nor rose to his feet and approached the spiderweb. He stood before it and faced the audience.
“In early 2001 I was approached in Jalalabad by a senior official in al-Qaeda, one of the Egyptians close to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s chief lieutenant. I was asked to travel to Tora Bora, where I met with al-Zawahiri.”
Nor tapped a photograph of Zawahiri on the wall, a grainy black-and-white enlargement that showed a man in white glasses and a turban, with a broad, meaty face and fleshy lips. Nor lingered for a moment with his finger on the photograph and then continued, and Jonah wondered whether he was the only one to note the mocking echo of Winthrop’s sermon about the chosen few in his softly spoken words: “Zawahiri told me that when the umma, the worldwide community of Muslims, goes astray, God sends an individual or small group of people to rescue it from perdition and restore it to the path of truth. I was invited to join an elite band prepared to sacrifice their lives in order to bring victory to those ambitions and principles as described by Sheikh Osama Bin Laden. I was told that a mighty blow was about to be struck against the Crusaders and that I would be a crucial element in ensuring the survival of al-Qaeda when the Americans and their client states responded. Zawahiri told me that he was expecting an American invasion, and that, like the Soviets before them, the Americans would be swallowed up by Afghanistan and it would bring their empire to its knees.”
“Go on,” Winthrop urged, impatiently.
“I was offered and accepted a job providing close protection for the transport of twenty million dollars in cash from the United Arab Emirates to Sierra Leone, where the money would be traded for rough diamonds, about two months’ output of the Kenema lode,” Nor explained. “The twenty million dollars was given into my possession at the Dubai Islamic Bank and I traveled with it to Liberia. I was escorted from the bank in Dubai by an al-Qaeda operative named Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. I was always escorted. I was never left alone with the money. In Liberia, we met up with a Lebanese diamond broker called Aziz Nassour and we travelled together to Kenema in Sierra Leone, where we handed the money over in exchange for the diamonds. The stones were carried back out through Liberia and transported by private jet to Bombay for polishing and cutting. My task was complete on arrival in Bombay. I was paid and I returned to Afghanistan.”
“And then?” demanded Winthrop.
“I was approached again. I was invited to join a select group of international couriers who were tasked with carrying the diamonds. I was told that there were twenty couriers, each one with a Western passport and a capacity to move freely across continents. I was not introduced to any of my fellow couriers, nor was I given any further clues as to their identity. However, I was told that we were going to be dispersed across Afghanistan in twelve different locations, but with instructions to flee overseas in the event of an invasion and regroup in the Ansar al-Islam enclave in northern Iraq. After my briefing and taking receipt of the diamonds, I was sent to Kunduz in the north of Afghanistan, where I joined a number of other Arabs and Pakistani ISI intelligence advisers. It was at that stage that it became clear to me that the ISI were aware of the existence of the diamonds and likely to seize them if given the opportunity. For that reason, I chose not to escape on the air corridor set up during the siege. I was subsequently captured by Dostum’s Uzbeks. You know the rest of the story.”
“Describe to us the purpose of the stones,” Winthrop said.
“I was told that they are intended to finance one-off, out-of-the-blue spectacular events.”
“So called black swans,” Scholem called out, from the front row.
“World-changing events,” Winthrop added. He nodded to Scholem, who took over from Nor in front of the spiderweb. Scholem was small, with an impish quality that suggested an excess of zeal. “As before, groups and individuals are invited to submit proposals to al-Qaeda for terrorist attacks. When a project has been approved by a panel headed by al-Qaeda’s Director of External Operations and a budget decided, a courier is mobilized,” he explained. “The courier carries an agreed quantity of diamonds to London. The diamonds are sold at the sight market at De Beers. Cut and polished stones are untraceable, so there is nothing to alert De Beers to their source as conflict diamonds or their role in financing terrorist attacks. The cash generated from the sale is dispersed to the selected group or individual through the informal Hawala banking system, without financial or governmental scrutiny or accountability.”
“There are known to be a number of British-based Hawala traders located in London, Birmingham, Halifax, Cardiff, etc., with ties to international extremist groups,” Jabotinsky told them. “The way it works, the courier deposits the agreed funds with the trader and the trader then makes a call to a counterpart overseas, who is in t
ouch with the selected terrorist group, and the counterpart makes a withdrawal, passing the funds to the terrorists. The system is a network that operates on the basis of trust and word of mouth. Codes and cell phones are changed constantly. It’s almost impossible to monitor.”
“As expected, the September eleventh attacks provoked an American invasion and the couriers were spread to the four winds,” Winthrop said. “We believe that they are now regrouping in northern Iraq and that al-Qaeda has already reasserted control over a substantial quantity of the diamonds. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous that is. The September eleventh attacks are estimated to have cost al-Qaeda less than half a million dollars. Between them the couriers are carrying the funds for a further forty attacks on a similar scale. Let me repeat that: forty 9/11attacks. We should all be very frightened.”
“What are you going to do about it?” Pakravan called out.
“We’re going to infiltrate the courier network and unmask the operations that they fund. We’re going to identify each and every courier and we’re going to follow the lines of communication all the way up to the al-Qaeda leadership and down to the terrorist groups on the ground. We’re going to seize the funds and eliminate the terrorists. To do that, we have to get in close. We have to identify the couriers. We have to have eyes and ears inside the Ansar al-Islam enclave. That’s where Nor comes in. We’re going to fill him back up with al-Qaeda diamonds and send him in to blow the operation wide open.”
And suddenly all eyes were on Nor, who stood before them with the spiderweb as his backdrop. He ducked his head and smiled shyly. You should get an Oscar, Jonah thought, this is your greatest performance.
There was more to come. A desert conversion.
Nor knelt in the dusk beneath a flaming pink sky. Pastor Bob drew himself up in magisterial fashion with the Bible in one hand and the other resting on the crown of Nor’s head.
“Dear God, I believe in you and need you in my life,” repeated Nor, with his eyes firmly shut. “Have mercy on me as a sinner. Lord Jesus, as best I know how, I want to follow you. Cleanse me of my sins and come into my life as my savior and Lord.”
“Amen,” shouted Pastor Bob. “Jesus has come to live within your heart. Your sins are forgotten … you are saved … you have received eternal life … you are now the Child of God … the Holy Spirit abides within you … You have become a new person. Your life begins here.”
He beamed at Winthrop, who was grinning like an overgrown boy. “God has chosen to move within Nor’s heart …”
Later Pakravan’s team of instructors arranged a barbecue and Winthrop insisted on manning the grill. He basted huge slabs of steak in honey and lemon juice while Pakravan poured cranberry juice for the Iraqis. In Winthrop’s presence, Nor was transformed into a conspiracy theorist, an advocate of the school of thought that had the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta visiting the Iraqi intelligence cell office in Prague in April 2001.
“Of course it’s credible,” Nor exclaimed, “moving the Sheikh’s money was getting more and more difficult.” He had also taken to calling Bin Laden the Sheikh in company. “But Saddam had readily available and freshly laundered funds. It was a marriage of convenience. Saddam and the Sheikh might be opposite ends of the spectrum—a secular Baathist and a fanatical Islamist—but there was something in it for both sides: state sponsorship with its considerable resources on one side and the global reach of a worldwide jihadi network on the other.”
Clearly, this kind of talk was a big hit with Winthrop, who waved his tongs to punctuate a point. “There’s no way the attack could have been carried out solely by a ragtag bunch of terrorists plotting in Afghanistan. It needed a state sponsor. That’s what needs to be seen, but it is what the CIA in its incompetence is unable to see. You can’t expect evidence to verify the connection because both parties to the pact have hidden the ties so well. That’s what I keep telling people: when operational security is good, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In fact, it’s the opposite—the less evidence there is the greater the likelihood that something is going on.”
“Absolutely,” Nor told him, his wide eyes shining. Only Jonah could see the mocking laughter that lurked behind the lopsided grin.
“The end times are coming, Jonah,” Winthrop told him, by the dying light of the embers of the barbecue, “and I for one am looking forward to seeing them come. But for that to happen Jerusalem and the Holy Land have to belong to the Jews again. That’s what it says in the Bible—isn’t that right, Pastor Bob?”
“The end is coming,” Pastor Bob agreed, “that’s why things are such a mess.”
“There’s just no way for it to happen without bloodshed,” Winthrop continued, “without a certain amount of destruction. Muslims will have to die. I regret that. I don’t have anything against Muslims other than that they are wrong on a fundamental level. Some of my best friends are Muslims. Pakravan prays to Mecca every day. I don’t hate him. These Iraqis here in the desert are working hard every day because they want their freedoms. I respect them. The American people are prepared to sacrifice Christian blood for Iraqi freedom. It’s just what is written, is all.”
Winthrop left with Pastor Bob and the Murids at first light. As the helicopter took off and sheared away, Jonah turned to Nor. “Was Atta really in Prague?” he asked.
“Yeah, yeah,” Nor laughed contemptuously, “and Elvis was there too.”
“And the diamond couriers? Do they even exist?”
Nor grinned. “You’ll see.”
Jonah shook his head. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I’m doing what spies do the world over,” Nor replied, “I’m elaborating and embellishing.”
“You’re lying.”
“Come on! It’s all lies. All of it! Every speck. These guys aren’t interested in the truth. Despite all their talk of venture capitalism, they can’t bear the idea that al-Qaeda is an independent force with its own finances. It’s doesn’t fit their world view. They just want an unbeatable excuse to do the wrong thing. They want an excuse to invade Iraq.”
“And you mean to give it to them?”
Nor shrugged. “I don’t see that I have much choice.”
Nor was put back into play in September 2002 and he was monitored every step of the way. To get him close to where he started, Winthrop called on the help of certain Colombian acquaintances. Nor was flown by light plane from a jungle airstrip in Brazil to the African narco-state Guinea Bissau, landing at a former Soviet air base near a village called Kuffar, on a route most recently utilized for the transport of cocaine.
From Guinea Bissau, Nor crossed into Guinea Conakry and from there to Mali, where he established contact with a representative of al-Qaeda in the Maghreb. They knew about his escape from the Dark Prison. He was already a legend across the western desert. He joined the “terrorist underground,” and was transported overland by a combination of truck, bus and train to Khartoum in Sudan. From Khartoum he flew to Istanbul and from there to Diyarbakir near the Iraqi border. He changed taxis in Silopi and crossed into Kurdish controlled Iraq. It was the beginning of 2003. He was carrying a gutful of diamonds and a GPS tracker.
Winthrop and Jonah took a less prosaic route. Together with the Murids they crossed into Iraq in January, traveling in a convoy of Toyota Super Saloons with a detail of Skorpion bodyguards from the Anabasis program. They followed the tracker’s route to Sulaymaniyah, where Winthrop met with Kurdish leaders to discuss the imminent invasion. He was upbeat. Saddam’s regime was approaching its endgame and the tracker showed Nor crossing into the Ansar al-Islam enclave.
The world was about to begin a new chapter.
Then it all began to unravel. The tracker was on the move again, heading east out of the enclave toward Iran. On February 6, 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed a plenary session of the United Nations Security Council. As well as insisting that Saddam was in possession of biological weapons and was working to obtain key components to pro
duce nuclear weapons, Powell used the existence of the Ansar al-Islam enclave to draw a direct connection between intelligence agents of Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda operatives offered safe haven after the fall of Afghanistan. The following day the tracker crossed the border to the Iranian town of Marivan.
Winthrop moved the convoy to the Iranian border. They camped on the line separating Kurdish Peshmerga on one side and the Iranian Republican Guard on the other. After a couple of uncomfortable nights sleeping in the cars, the Iranians sent a runner across the line with a message: “Are you Winthrop?”
The following morning the tracker switched direction and came toward them. An Iranian customs official carried it across the border and handed it to Winthrop in a brown envelope together with a handwritten letter that said: So long and thanks for the stones.
Jonah expected Winthrop to explode. But he didn’t. He just walked back to the Toyota, climbed inside and announced that they were going back to Turkey immediately. And Jonah could have sworn that for the briefest moment he saw the ghost of a smile on Winthrop’s face.
PARIAH
February–March 2003
Jonah and Alex were in the Tower restaurant on the roof of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh on the night in February 2003 that the historic section of the old town known as the Cowgate caught fire. They were drinking champagne—Veuve Cliquot, the widow—which Alex had demanded. The old town was in flames behind his head.
“You were warned that this would happen.” Alex lifted his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. He surveyed the abandoned tables and empty bar, the wash of spinning blue light against the far wall. He did a sudden double-take and spun around in his chair.
“What the fuck is going on out there?” he demanded, loudly.
Spectators glanced back from the glass wall.
“The Cowgate’s on fire,” Jonah explained.
Alex seemed insulted. “Does anything mundane ever happen to you?”