The corridor gave onto a square room with a low ceiling. It took a moment for Lincoln’s eyes to become accustomed to the dimness. About thirty or so men sat around the room on straw matting, their backs against thin cushions attached to the walls. Daoud motioned Lincoln and Leroy to a spot along the near wall, then crossed the room and took a free place against the opposite wall near the figure who was clearly presiding. Lincoln set his cane on the cement floor and settled down, his bad leg stretched out in front of him, the other ankle tucked under his thigh. Next to him, Leroy sank into an awkward cross-legged position. Lincoln reached for his tin of Schimelpenicks, but a lean young Arab posed a hand gently but firmly on his wrist. Lincoln noticed that nobody in the room was smoking. He nodded and grinned at the young Arab, who turned away, expressionless.
Lincoln tried to distinguish the features of the figure across from him. The man, who looked to be in mid-thirties, was ruggedly handsome, with a stringy ash-colored beard and dark thoughtful eyes exuding an inner calm that could have easily been taken for arrogance. He was extremely tall and dressed in a collarless coarse off-white ankle-length robe with what Lincoln took to be a thick Afghan goat-hair vest over it. Bareheaded, with socks and heavy walking sandals on his feet, he sat crosslegged on the mat with a supple elegance, his back off the wall and hunched slightly forward as he read something from a sheet of paper to those within earshot, occasionally tapping the long forefinger of his right hand on a word to emphasize its importance. All Lincoln could make out was the honeyed undertone of someone who didn’t need to raise his voice to be heard.
There appeared to be some sort of queue because the two men sitting between Daoud and the figure Lincoln identified as the Saudi spoke next, raising problems that needed to be solved or providing information that needed to be weighed against what was already known. Finally Daoud’s turn came. Leaning forward, talking quietly, he spoke to the Saudi for several minutes. Once he tossed his head to indicate the two Americans sitting across the room. Only then did the Saudi’s gaze settle on the visitors. He scratched at his chest with several fingers and uttered a single word. Daoud looked over and motioned for Lincoln to approach. Leroy assumed the gesture included him and started to get up, but Daoud wagged a finger and he collapsed back into his cramped position. Leaning on his cane, Lincoln pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the Saudi and sank onto his haunches facing him. The Saudi saluted him with a palm to his heart and Lincoln mimicked the gesture. A thin man with greasy hair parted down the middle and thick spectacles slipping along his nose was sitting next to the Saudi with a lined notebook open on his lap; Lincoln took him for a secretary. The Saudi murmured something and the secretary repeated it in a loud voice. Instantly all the men sitting around the walls sprang to their feet and headed for the door. Across the room, only Leroy remained, squirming uncomfortably in a position he would never grow accustomed to. Lincoln looked from Daoud to his host and back as Daoud delivered a short speech in Arabic. The Saudi listened intently, nodding from time to time in apparent agreement, his eyes darting occasionally to Lincoln and, once, to Leroy across the room. Finally the Saudi, scratching again at his chest, started to put questions. The secretary with the greasy hair translated them into English.
“He welcomes you to Boa Vista. He asks how you arrived to here from Croatia.”
“I flew Lufthansa from Zagreb to Munich to Paris, then Air France to New York, then PanAm to São Paolo. I chartered a small plane that flew me into Foz do Iguaçú.”
When the secretary had translated this, the Saudi, never lifting his eyes from Lincoln, put another question. The secretary said, “He asks how the struggle is going in Bosnia? He asks whether the Bosnians, in the event of war, will be able to defend Sarajevo if the Serbs capture the hills overlooking the city.”
“The Serb military is by all accounts a great deal stronger than anything the Bosnians can field,” Lincoln said. “What will strengthen the Bosnians in the event of war is that they have no place to go; their backs are against Croatia, and the Croats hate them as much as the Serbs.”
“He agrees with your analysis. He tells the story of the Greek general who warned his officers not to attack a weaker force trapped in a canyon without a line of retreat available, because the weaker force would then conquer the stronger force.”
The Saudi spoke again; again the secretary translated. “He asks how you plan to accumulate large quantities of ammonium nitrate without attracting the attention of the police.”
Almost against his will Lincoln felt himself falling under the spell of the Saudi. He saw, now that he was close to him, that the skin on the Saudi’s face and neck appeared yellowish, but he assumed it was due to the low wattage of the bulbs burning in the room. He couldn’t help but like his style—no wonder young men were flocking to join his al-Qa’ida cells in Afghanistan and Yemen. Watching his unflinching eyes, Lincoln could feel the magnetic pull of his personality; the Saudi spoke softly but he carried a big stick. Seeing how uncomfortable his visitor was, the Saudi reached out to offer him a cushion. Lincoln sat on it, his game leg thrust forward, and provided an explanation that had been prepared back at Langley: His several associates would spread out across America and, pretending to represent farmers’ cooperatives in various southern and eastern states, would buy up whatever ammonium nitrate was available and truck it to New Jersey, where it would all be loaded onto a moving van. At a site to be designated, Leroy Streeter would take possession of the ammonium nitrate and pay the fee in cash.
“He asks if you are curious to know what Mr. Streeter plans to do with the ammonium nitrate.”
“I suppose he plans to explode it someplace. Tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less.”
“He asks why you could not care less.”
“I believe America has grown too rich and too fat and too insolent and needs to be taken down a peg or two.” It was clear from the secretary’s expression that he didn’t understand the expression “a peg or two.” Lincoln repeated the thought another way. “America needs to be taught a lesson in humility.”
“He asks what kinds of arms you sold in the Balkans.”
“All kinds. My clients would give me a wish list and I did my best to fill it.”
“What is it, a wish list?”
“A list of the arms and munitions that they wished to have.”
“He asks if you have limited your operations to conventional weapons.”
“My operations have been limited to selling what the Soviet military has in its stocks. Up to now I have procured almost all of the weapons and munitions from Soviet army units in East Germany. Many of the Russians I dealt with have returned to the Soviet Union and would be able to supply me with other articles from the Soviet arsenal. Do you have something particular in mind?”
“He asks whether you could supply spent plutonium or enriched uranium.”
Lincoln thought about that for a moment. “Spent plutonium or enriched-uranium waste could be obtained from nuclear power plants like the one in Chernobyl, north of Kiev in the Ukraine—”
The Saudi interrupted Lincoln and the secretary translated what he said. “He is curious why you mention Chernobyl, since its reactor exploded five years ago and the radioactive waste has been sealed under an enormous concrete sheath.”
“It was the plant’s number four reactor that exploded. Two other reactors remain in use. The radioactive waste is trucked to various nuclear disposal sites in the Soviet Union. There is another source of spent plutonium—the Soviet nuclear submarine fleet based in Archangel and Murmansk is known to be decommissioning vessels because of budgetary shortfalls. Plutonium pits are removed from the decommissioned subs and trucked to the same nuclear disposal sites. The bottom line is that there is no shortage of weapons-grade plutonium or uranium for anyone willing to run the risks involved in negotiating the acquisition. It goes without saying, very large sums of money would be required to conclude such a deal.”