by Klaus Marre
Gorsula wished he could talk to the Pentagon suit who thought it was a good idea that he remained in Afghanistan while his family laid his only uncle to rest back home. After he got back from the debriefing, he'd let out his aggression on the battered Golden Tee machine in the arcade, Gorsula thought as he stepped into the command center.
***
It was very early in the morning on the East Coast when the two men got out of their car. After an evening that had involved some beers and led to their decision to “show these ragheads,” the duo had driven from just outside of Richmond to Woodbridge. Now, they pulled a couple of gasoline canisters from the trunk of the beat up Ford Taurus. They had driven around their target a few times but had seen nothing to deter them from carrying out their plan. A couple of beers during the drive from Richmond had ensured that they were still slightly intoxicated and not once had the thought crossed their minds to turn the car around and call it a night. The stretch of Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington was known for being closely watched by the highway patrol, especially following enactment of a law that gave Virginia some of the toughest speeding penalties in the nation. Yet the two men had not aroused suspicion. They had stayed at the speed limit all night, resisting the urge to get to their destination more quickly.
They had found their target easily, thanks to media reports and Google Maps. The house they were looking for had been all over the news recently. They figured it would be empty at this hour and were not disappointed. The forensics experts had long left the site and the owners of the house were in protective custody.
The local police department had been asked to pay special attention to the al-Zaid residence but that order was disregarded. What was the point to guard the home of a terrorist when the FBI had seemingly already removed everything that was not bolted down from there? So the two cops who were supposed to check in on the residence periodically were instead enjoying an early breakfast at an all-night diner.
This allowed the two men with their gasoline canisters to make it to the home unimpeded. After breaking a glass panel in the back door, they examined the house.
“A cryin' shame that we allow anybody into this country,” the taller of the men said. They found Hassan's room, recognizing it from the videotape that they had watched repeatedly, each time with growing hatred of foreigners.
“Check it out,” the other man said as he urinated in the room, which was now largely empty after the forensic experts had completed their work. After leaving his mark, both of the men went downstairs into the living room and doused it with gasoline. Then they lit a newspaper they had found and tossed it into the room as they exited the house.
In the middle of the night, it took a long time before the fire was discovered and, with no other homes in danger, the fire fighters did not exactly kill themselves to get there quickly once they learned which house they were called on to save.
When the flames were finally extinguished, not much was left of Hassan's childhood home. By that time, the two men were already back in the Richmond area and congratulated each other on a job well done.
***
A like-minded man in Cleveland was not as fortunate. When he had stopped by an all-night convenience store to purchase cigarettes and restock his fridge with a case of Bush Light, he had initiated a confrontation with the Indian man behind the counter.
“That job you got should go to an American,” the man, who had been unemployed for six months but would not dream to work a night shift at a 7-Eleven, said.
“I am an American, sir. My parents came here long before I was born,” the clerk responded politely, hoping that his voice would not convey his fear.
“That don't make you American, you fucking terrorist,” the man said before deciding that he would teach this guy a lesson. He reached across the counter and pulled the slender man over to his side before starting to pummel him with kicks and punches. Fortunately, the clerk had managed to trigger the silent alarm and it took less than two minutes for a police cruiser to arrive on the scene and arrest the attacker.
All in all, including the arson of the al-Zaid residence and the Ohio convenience store assault, there were 35 cases of crimes committed that night by people who wanted to take action against terrorists, with the worst of them resulting in an Egyptian man having to be taken to an ER after he was attacked by a group of college students in Texas.
While all of that happened, Shareef Wahed and the other as-Sirat sleepers and sympathizers inside the United States rested peacefully in their respective homes.
Friday, 6:00 am, ET
Robert McClintock had summoned the available heads of the various U.S. intelligence agencies to his office for an early-morning meeting. Those who could not make it were teleconferenced in.
With Hassan al-Zaid out of the country, the burden of finding him was being placed more and more on the shoulders of the intelligence community.
“We're talking about a 21-year-old kid who is thumbing his nose at us,” McClintock said right after welcoming them, setting the tone for what would quickly become a tense meeting. “Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies will be the laughing stock of the world if we don't find him soon.”
Most of the attendees were not only worried about the United States looking foolish but also about their own jobs. The same people also thought that the DNI was being unfair. If they were dealing with a lone wolf attacker who had been planning his escape for many months and managed to slip out of the country, it would have been remarkable had he been found already.
On the other hand, the various intelligence officials also knew that perception was reality. What it came down to was that, if the public perceived that law enforcers and the intelligence community had failed in this case, securing the tens of billions of dollars in funding that they needed each year would be much more difficult. Some congressman in a tough reelection fight would go on a crusade against wasteful spending and say things like: “What are we spending all this money on intelligence gathering when we can't even find a college kid who killed a bus full of Americans?”
So, in addition to wanting to find Hassan al-Zaid in order to bring him to justice, there were other considerations to take into account.
Maybe it were those considerations that made McClintock unreasonably harsh, the head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research thought to himself as he listened to the DNI rant. He also believed that McClintock's tirade was not a wise move. With so many participants at this briefing, word would leak to the press that there had been a tense meeting with the various intelligence agency heads and that the DNI had lost his cool. That prediction would prove to be correct. A first account of the meeting and McClintock's blow up, written by the New York Times intelligence beat reporter, hit the web shortly after 8:00 am.
In the end, as McClintock was catching his breath, the director of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis, a longtime friend of the DNI, spoke up and said what many of his colleagues were thinking.
“Bob, you know quite well that it will be very tough to find him in short order after he made it to South America. Unless, of course, he makes a mistake. And so far, he has not been making many mistakes.”
“I don’t give a shit about the difficulties. I want you to find this little fucker no matter what it costs,” McClintock yelled, slamming his left fist on the heavy desk for emphasis. “Meeting adjourned.”
After his chief of staff had shuffled out the visitors, the Director of National Intelligence let out a deep breath. He had not enjoyed doing this and would apologize to all of the meeting participants in due time, once they learned the truth. He hoped that they would realize then that his tirade had served a purpose. It had to appear to the world that the United States was rattled. It was all part of the plan.
McClintock checked his watch, leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking of his last meeting with Hassan al-Zaid the previous week.
“May God protect you, Hassan,” he thought and said a prayer for the young man who was supposed to help him find Omar Bashir and take down as-Sirat. According to the schedule, Hassan should be arriving in Pakistan soon. It was the latest stop in a long, long journey that was coming to an end soon … one way or another.
Friday, 6:15 am ET
“Hey, Hassan, you got a call,” the Special Forces soldier said. On the day of the attack, he had been in one of the Humvees that were remote-controlling the Metro bus and preventing bystanders to get too close to the staged attack. Alan Hausman would likely have recognized him as the man who handed him a bottle of water right after they had set off the bomb.
Hassan had been wide awake for an hour now. He had finally found some sleep and the other members of the team had let him rest as much as possible. They all knew that Hassan needed his strength now that the mission was going into its final phase.
The Gulfstream V was less than 30 minutes away from landing at a small airfield near Islamabad.
Hassan went to the back of the plane where the secure phone line was installed, plunged into one of the comfortable leather chairs in front of the row of electronic devices, and took the headset that one of the team's communications specialists handed him.
“This is Hassan.”
“Hassan, this is Jack Sweeney,” the man on the other end of the line said.
“Good morning, Mr. President,” Hassan replied, sitting up straight even though his commander-in-chief was not able to see him.
“I just wanted to make sure I spoke to you one more time before you landed to wish you well. I'm sure you heard about your father. I'm so sorry about that but our best medical people are there for him and I have been assured that he is on track for a full recovery,” the president said.
“Thank you, sir,” Hassan responded. “I know everything is being done for him.”
“Normally, I would say in a situation like this that a grateful nation stands behind you,” the president said. “But we know that isn't true in your case.”
Hassan smiled as he thought of a play on words.
“Sir, I guess in my case it is more of a hateful nation than a grateful one.”
“I wish it weren't so, son. What you are doing is an exceptional act of heroism and I wish every American, instead of condemning you, knew what you are doing for your country.”
“Sir, the fact that they all hate me only means that the first phase of our plan is working. I'm not too worried about it. After all, I'm flying above Pakistan right now and the more America hates me, the safer I'll be here.”
“I guess you got a point there, still ...” Sweeney's voice trailed off before he started speaking again.
“Well, I just wanted to wish you luck again. We'll do everything here to maintain your cover for as long as possible. And when it is all over, America will be as grateful to you as I already am. Those of us in the know are wishing and praying for your safety and your success.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“No, thank you,” Sweeney said. “I hope to talk to you in the White House in a few days. God bless.”
The line went dead and Hassan headed back to his seat as the pilot announced that the plane was beginning its descent. A long journey was nearing its end.
***
It had been more than five years ago when Jim Hearst, Jr., a former CIA colleague who had become a congressman for his Virginia district and the senior Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, sought a private meeting with McClintock, who at the time was the number two man in the CIA. The purpose of the lunch was, according to Hearst, “to run a crazy idea by you.”
The two friends had met over all-you-can-eat Brazilian steak at Fogo de Chao, a restaurant halfway between Congress and the White House on Pennsylvania Ave. It was not exactly halfway but the food was excellent, so no Member of Congress ever minded making the trip.
After the obligatory pleasantries and cheese bread, the two had settled into their private room and Hearst began talking about one of his constituents, a high school senior who had come up with an idea that the lawmaker deemed to be so interesting that he felt compelled to present it to a senior intelligence official.
The lunch, scheduled for a brief 45 minutes, took more than two hours. It could have taken 10 but the restaurant was closing and McClintock had a meeting with the vice president. During the two hours, however, he listened intently to the outline of a plan that captivated him and appeared to be ridiculous one second and brilliant the very next.
“My constituent, a kid named Hassan al-Zaid, pulled me to the side after a photo-op with some of the student athletes from my district. He said he wanted to discuss a national security matter with me,” Hearst began. “I had a hole in my schedule, so I thought 'Why not?' and we started talking. He began by telling me that he was a devout Muslim and a proud American. In school, he had studied the 9-11 report and kept thinking about one of the conclusions that we were lacking human intelligence in our fight against terrorism and that electronic surveillance alone would not get the job done.”
McClintock nodded. It was true that the United States had been unable to penetrate as-Sirat or any other significant group of Islamic radicals. They normally got their recruits from Muslim countries and would immediately grow suspicious of anybody appearing to have American roots. It had been much easier to infiltrate the Soviet Union than as-Sirat. At least with the Soviets, you could offer bribes. Those types of incentives didn't matter to the Islamic fundamentalists.
Another major problem was as-Sirat's structure. New recruits would normally first be sent to one of the many camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. From there, they would go on to participate in terrorist missions or to fight the Americans in Afghanistan or Iraq. They would never get close to the leaders of the group. So even if the CIA would manage to find a person to get close to as-Sirat, they would likely not be able to do much damage to the organization as a whole. At best, they could expose a few terrorist camps with new recruits and instructors. Still, if those were destroyed, new ones would be built shortly and very small damage would have been done to the group as a whole.
For many years, the intelligence community had tried to figure out a way that would allow the U.S. to get an asset deep inside as-Sirat but hadn't managed to come up with anything. Two recent attempts to place someone at the periphery of the group had ended with the death of the CIA agents, putting on ice any further efforts to try to infiltrate as-Sirat. McClintock had been very much involved in the plans and losing two men, the last of whom had been found dragged to death and beheaded in Kabul, had troubled him deeply. He had convinced the CIA director to pull the plug on any other similar efforts. It simply could not be done.
“When reading the 9-11 report, Hassan for the first time thought about joining the CIA to use his background to try to infiltrate as-Sirat. He is a patriot and told me how much he is bothered by the bad name that terrorists are giving his religion.
“While he was pondering how he could best serve his country, he watched a movie with some friends in which a bank robber is holding hostages. In the movie, the hostages are exchanged with other people and that gave Hassan an idea. What if the people who were brought in were volunteers with terminal illnesses? It would take away the bank robber's leverage because his new hostages are as good as dead anyways and are just making their last weeks count in a meaningful way.
“Hassan told me that he came up with his plan right there. What if we staged a terrorist attack with him as a suspect as a way to give him credibility with as-Sirat? Having an American 'turn' on his country would be perceived as a great story by their PR machine,” Hearst had said, waving away a waiter. “With all the media coverage and to be above any suspicion, we would have to make that attack as real as possible. We can't just blow up an empty building or a remote-controlled plane. There need to be surveillance tapes and other evidence so that initially nobody will doubt that there really was an attack and t
hat Hassan was the perpetrator. It has to be very public. The entire world has to believe that this is the act of an as-Sirat sympathizer and we have to deliver a suspect to the media on a silver platter.
“To make it look as real as possible, with real victims and real grieving families, he suggested that we find volunteers with terminal illnesses who want to serve their country one last time and make the rest of their lives count,” the lawmaker added. “They won't be able to tell their loved ones. In exchange, their families would be taken care of for life.
“After the staged attack, we have to let him 'escape' to Pakistan or Afghanistan and make contact with as-Sirat. He'll carry some sort of hidden homing device that will allow us to track him in the hopes that he will be taken to an as-Sirat stronghold as the guy who attacked his own country and swore allegiance to the group,” Hearst said, leaning back in his chair.
“The first time I heard his idea, I thought it was interesting but could never work. I've been thinking about it ever since and, the more I do, the more I like it. I'm not even saying that it has a high rate of success or that we'll ever get much beyond the planning stage, but everything else we're doing right now in terms of trying to find Omar Bashir doesn't even get us close to him. We have tried for years and haven't had as much as a whiff of him.”
The congressman had paused, taken another cheese bread and looked at his old friend.
McClintock seized the opportunity to jump in, his voice rife with sarcasm. Though some aspects of the plan had intrigued him, he was sure that he'd eventually think of many reasons why this could never work.
“So, all we really have to do is put together a massive government operation that we have to keep secret from everybody while finding a few people who don't mind getting blown to bits? Then we have to lie to the entire country for a while. And then, if we don't find somebody more suitable for the job, we have to trust some high school senior you just met to be able to infiltrate as-Sirat and then all that is left is that we have to swoop in and get Omar Bashir?” McClintock said.