The other was too intelligent to be drawn. "What do you say?"
Akil allowed his lip to curl. "I have believed for a long time now that our strategy has been flawed. Bodies are easily buried and soon forgotten. The psychological impact of the destruction of a national icon will be much more lasting."
Tentatively, the other man said, "And 9/11? That had no lasting impact?"
Akil shrugged. "It led eventually to the greatest recruiting tool we have ever had, the invasion of Iraq. But do you see the West withdrawing? Do you see other countries insisting on that withdrawal? I do not."
The other took a deep breath and let it out slowly, elbows clasped on his knees, hands knotted in front of him.
"But still you are troubled," Akil said. "Do you find the plan ill-conceived?"
The other man feared Akil and the question enough to give it serious thought. "No," he said. "It is simple, it takes advantage of common practices and occurrences in the region, and of existing personnel and equipment in the area. Properly executed, nothing will look out of the ordinary until the very last moment, and by then it will be too late."
"What, then?"
He hesitated. "I am only one man, one of a crew of many men. And women. If somehow they managed to stop me, if I fail, the responsibility will be mine."
Akil smiled. "You will not fail."
The man looked at him, wanting more.
"And Allah will reward you in paradise."
He looked less than convinced. Ah, a realist.
"It is good that you worry," Akil said, rising to his feet. The other man rose as well. "Not to worry would be a sin of pride, of overconfidence. If you fear that you will fail, you will work that much harder to succeed."
Akil walked him to the door. The other man paused. "Yes?" Akil said, making him ask for it.
"When am I to be paid? I wouldn't ask, but I have debts, and a family-"
"I understand," Akil said soothingly, hiding his contempt. "Check your account. You will see that half the payment was deposited today, as we agreed. The other half the day after."
"And no one will know? No one will know it was me?"
"No one," Akil said, with such certainty that the other was appeased, at least until he was out of Akil's reassuring presence.
"Will I see you again before the day?"
"You will not," Akil said gently, allowing a moment for that fact to sink in. When the other man left this room he would be truly alone, until the day. AMI smiled. "But check your email. I will write. You will not be entirely abandoned, brother."
The other man looked alarmed. "Everyone's email is filtered through intelligence. It may be seen by eyes other than my own."
"Almost certainly," AMI said. "I will be discreet. But when I write, you will know it is me."
They embraced and kissed, embraced again, and AMI felt the other man's shoulders shudder. "Be brave, brother. You will not fail me." He allowed his voice to rise just a little, as if he were taking an oath. As if he were prophesying. "We will triumph. Our brothers and sisters, our mothers and fathers, our families and our friends will look on what we have done and be proud, and in the end, Islam and the will of God will triumph over the West."
He shook the man's shoulders once, gently.
"Inshallah."
"coast guard," the immigration agent said in acknowledgment and approval at JFK.
"Semper Paratus," AMI said.
The agent smiled.
This identity was the best so far. Everyone loved the Coast Guard.
"Where have you been?"
" Turkey. Istanbul." As if the agent couldn't see that from the visa on the passport.
She was heavy and black, a middle-aged woman in a well-fitting and well-cared-for uniform, her badge and her shoes both shiny. Her expression was friendly and her voice a pleasant surprise, a low contralto. So many Americans found it necessary to shout, as if to make sure no one overlooked their presence. "Business or pleasure?"
The question was rote and the agent's interest appeared casual so he allowed himself a small joke. "In Istanbul? Always pleasure," he said. "But business got me there. A conference. IMO."
"IMO?"
"International Maritime Organization. The Coast Guard is the U.S. 's representative to the IMO."
"Ah." The agent handed back his passport and sketched a salute. He smiled and returned it with a crisp, military gesture.
He maintained that military posture all the way through the airport. Taking a series of cabs and trains, doubling back once just in case, because he was always more aware of the shape of his features and of the color of his skin in the United States, he ended at Grand Central Station, where he went into the men's room a Coast Guard officer and came out a civilian dressed in Dockers and a Gap T-shirt under a sports jacket, no tie, and deck shoes, no socks. The uniform, stripped of any identifying marks and stuffed into a plastic bag, was dropped in an alley, where, if the lurking shadows at the end of it were any indication, it would be on sale on Canal Street within the hour.
He stayed the night in a Holiday Inn in Manhattan, in the middle of a convention of high school women's soccer teams, not one of whom slept that night. Neither did he, and he was less polite than he might have been to the bank clerk the next morning when he showed his Luther King identification for the last time. The lock box contained two passports, one Canadian, one Costa Rican, and a tattered black-and-white photograph. He took all three and returned the empty box to the attendant. He'd had this lock box for long enough. He'd wait a few months and then close the account via email, leaving nothing behind that might lead even the most able bloodhound to sniff out a trail to him.
At the Fifth Avenue branch of his Bahamian bank, he transferred funds to two already existing accounts, one in Florida and one in Haiti. He ate a late breakfast at the Carnegie Deli-he was not at all reluctant to admit that one of the things the Americans did better than anyone, along with beds and showers, was breakfast-and walked down Seventh Avenue to a cybercafé, where he paid for an hour's time on a computer with Internet access. He created a Yahoo! email account-he had used Hotmail in Istanbul and Earthlink in York, he liked to spread his Internet presence around-and sent a dozen messages. There were two immediate replies, one from Yussuf. All members of the cell, traveling separately as ordered, had arrived safely at the camp. Yussuf reported no undue interest in any of them or in the camp.
He had expected nothing less but it was still good to know. Leaving the cafe he took a bus to Ground Zero to pay his respects. The hole in the ground was filled with heavy equipment moving mounds of dirt. There were barriers shielding some of the work from view. He'd read somewhere that the construction workers had found more remains recently. Good for another headline, he supposed, and therefore useful in continuing to make the existence of their enemies felt.
He blended easily into the crowds of people, many with tear-stained faces, moving slowly past the wall of photographs, reading the epitaphs of the victims pictured there.
He had other faces in his mind, of course, faces that were not represented here. Not victims, never victims. Soldiers, they were. Soldiers in a glorious army, an army of virtue and right, or so his leader would say. He smiled a little, intercepted an incredulous look, and remade his expression into something appropriately mournful.
Afterward he did some shopping, enough to fill the carry-on suitcase he also bought, because nowadays people who traveled without luggage were automatically suspect, especially in America, and that evening paid a scalper $750 for a seventh-row center seat to Jersey Boys, which he enjoyed immensely.