Lana welcomed the young woman, who rolled her modest-size suitcase into the entryway, turned, and then hugged her as naturally as if she had known Lana all her life. It made Lana feel good about her decision.
She led Tanesa into the living room, where Emma was still standing, stiffly, Lana thought.
But Emma brightened when she saw Tanesa, who reached out and took Emma’s hand in both of hers.
“You are some kind of beautiful, girl. You take after your mom, don’t you?”
Emma blushed. Lana hadn’t seen that in a while, either. The two young women started talking right away.
Sensing that everything was as settled as it could be, Lana said good-bye, kissed Emma, and ducked out.
She handed her carry-on bag to the driver and climbed into the backseat, looking at the pair still chatting away near the window. Then Emma signaled Tanesa to the stairs, presumably for a tour of the house.
If Lana could read Emma at all, which was a challenge these days, to be sure, she thought her daughter liked the idea of having a young African American living with her. In fact, Lana would have bet that Emma found the idea pretty damn cool, especially compared to the starchy Irene.
The NSA car ferried Lana directly to Andrews for a military flight to Riyadh. Deputy Director Holmes did not want Lana or Agent Candace Anders on the same plane with each other, or on the flight with Ruhi Mancur; other agents were seeing to his safety en route. Both women would be traveling with diplomatic cover to the emirate of all emirates.
Lana looked out as they drove past the big blue chevron-shaped sign for the air base. In minutes, they were approaching the terminal from which she would depart. She imagined that she’d be issued a onesie flight suit, walk up a wide cargo ramp at the rear of the plane, and strap herself into a bare-bones military cargo carrier, as she had once done for an unscheduled trip to Colombia. Instead, they passed through a guarded gate and drove up to a Bombardier Global Express jet.
An airman loaded Lana’s bag while she thanked her driver. She stepped aboard, looked around, and smiled: There would be no funky onesie this time. With its pale blue carpeting and buttery, cocoa-colored leather seats, the interior of the Bombardier might have been luxurious enough to satisfy the Saudi royal family. Clearly, the military’s top brass knew how to fly in comfort. Then again, she reminded herself, the Pentagon was the last bastion of loose money.
Seating was arranged much like a series of living rooms. Directly in front of her, a long couch was fixed to one wall, and a set of what appeared to be plush recliners sat in an arc facing the couch. A male flight attendant led Lana to one of them and explained the controls; it converted into a bed.
The U.S. ambassador to Yemen, sporting hair transplants that looked like they’d been implanted by a drunken cosmetologist, looked up from his perch on the couch and smiled, before promptly returning to his laptop.
What’s he doing on this flight?
She knew better than to ask.
Lana opened her own device, pleased to find Internet service so readily available. The envoy might have noticed her smile. He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to worry about cyberattackers messing around with the controls in here. This thing usually carries around four-star generals. Nothing can penetrate it.”
Nothing? You think so? If virtual hands had commandeered nuclear missiles, then nothing was impenetrable, least of all a military jet.
Lana indulged him with an appreciative nod, taking comfort in knowing that her own cover was secure, for surely the envoy would never have served up such techno-tripe if he knew to whom he was speaking.
The flight attendant asked if she wanted a drink. Lana ordered a glass of red wine, a good merlot, if they had it, and wondered about the attendant’s real role. He looked much too rugged to play the waiter.
She used an elaborate code, committed to memory, to log on to her computer and access the files that had occupied her of late — an online Islamist magazine that had defied her best efforts to hack it open so she could hack it to pieces. She and Holmes and others in the intelligence community strongly suspected that deep beneath the online magazine’s cover, the site was a center for terrorist command and communications.
Not that they weren’t producing articles for open consumption. On her screen at that very moment was a headline for the issue’s lead story: “How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” The English was stilted, but the step-by-step instructions appeared painfully precise and accurate.
Intelligence analysts credited the late Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born-and-educated promoter of Islamist terrorism, with having encouraged Yemeni Al Qaeda to publish the magazine. It was called Inspire, of all things. Building a bomb in your mother’s kitchen? Inspiring? To some, it appeared: The Boston Marathon bombers might well have used that very “recipe.”
Lana took solace in knowing that al-Awlaki would never oversee the writing of another headline, or the delivery of another inflammatory speech for unbalanced believers everywhere.
Ruhi felt the landing gear clunk into place and looked down at the King Khalid International Airport. The desert glare made him squint. Even so, he couldn’t miss the dome of the massive mosque at the heart of the facility. He recalled a prior visit when a cousin — not Ahmed, thankfully — dragged him to the prayer center that could hold five thousand worshippers inside, and another five thousand in the plaza outside. On that occasion, there had been fewer than fifty people in the mosque.
“But you should see it during Ramadan,” his cousin had said, eyes growing large as the dome. “So many people that you’re scared for them. For yourself.”
“Why?” Ruhi had asked.
“Terrorists. Bombs. The perfect place to kill so many loyal Saudis.”
That had been another stark reminder that all was not well in the House of Saud. Ruhi stared out the window now, wondering how much longer the royal family would be able to rule this fiefdom.
He saw the plane near the runway, spotted the shadow of the wing on the tarmac, and felt the slightest bump. The passengers clapped. It sounded dutiful to him. He didn’t bother. Neither did he thank Allah; but he saw enough lips moving under enough head scarves to know that many of his fellow passengers were offering their gratitude to God. It appeared no less obligatory than the applause.
Off in the distance he spotted the Royal Terminal, where heads of state and some seven thousand Saudi princes planted their feet first upon coming back to the kingdom. Just seeing those perks riled Ruhi up all over again. How long did the royal members of the lucky sperm club who passed through that luxurious terminal think they could withstand the pressures of the Arab Spring? A country with a king who actually ruled his subjects? Bad enough the Brits and other Europeans had royal families for ceremonial purposes, facile reminders of colonial power now as shuttered as the eyes of the dead. But Saudi Arabia, his homeland, remained rooted in a world that should have been shelved centuries ago. Only the most downtrodden believers could accept the theological rot necessary to support such a system.
Better chill, he advised himself as he headed toward the plane’s exit. You don’t want to be trudging into passport control with the proverbial chip on your shoulder. You’ve already got a cousin the Saudi secret police would love to club to death. The last Ruhi heard, Ahmed had fled to Yemen, on the emirate’s southern and most porous border. Yemen was the destination for scores of Saudi Islamists who wanted more, not less, fundamentalism in their faith.
Ruhi handed his filled-out entry forms to a flight attendant. The man scarcely glanced at him. Ruhi thought his ball cap and beard were ample disguise — at least to the casual observer. A little scruffy today, a little scruffier tomorrow.