"Which way to Mecca?" Rafi asked.
Mustafa had to think about that for a second, divining the direct line to Mecca and to the city's centerpiece, the Kaaba stone, the very center of the Islamic universe, to which they directed the Salat, verses from the Holy Koran said five times per day, recited from the knees.
"That way," he said, pointing southeast, on a line that transected northern Africa on its way to that holiest of Holy Places.
Rafi unrolled his prayer rug, and went to his knees. He was late in his prayers, but he had not forgotten his religious duty.
For his own part, Mustafa whispered to himself, "lest it be forgotten," in the hope that Allah would forgive him in his current state of fatigue. But was not Allah infinitely merciful? And besides, this was hardly a great sin. Mustafa removed his socks, and lay back in the bed, where sleep found him in less than a minute.
In the next room over, Abdullah finished his own Salat, and then plugged his computer into the side of the telephone. He dialed up an 800 number and heard the warbling screech as his computer linked up with the network. In another few seconds, he learned that he had mail. Three letters, plus the usual trash. The e-mails he downloaded and saved, and then he logged off, having been online a mere fifteen seconds, another security measure they'd all been briefed on.
What abdullah didn't know was that one of the four accounts had been intercepted and partially decrypted by the National Security Agency. When his account — identified only by a partial word and some numbers — tapped into Saeed's, it was also identified, but only as a recipient, not an originator.
Saeed's team had been the first to arrive at its destination of Colorado Springs, Colorado — the city was identified only by a code name — and was comfortably camped out in a motel ten kilometers from its objective. Sabawi, the Iraqi, was in Des Moines, Iowa, and Mehdi in Provo, Utah. Both of those teams were also in place and ready for the operation to commence. Less than thirty-six hours to execute their mission.
He'd let Mustafa do the replies. The reply was, in fact, already programmed: "190, 2" designating the 190th verse of the Second Sura. Not exactly a battle cry, but rather an affirmation of the Faith that had brought them here. The meaning was: Proceed with your mission.
Brian and Dominic were watching the History Channel on their cable system, something about Hitler and the Holocaust. It had been studied so much you'd think it'd defy efforts to find something new, yet somehow historians managed every so often. Some of it was probably because of the voluminous records the Germans had left behind in the Hartz Mountain caves, which would probably be the subject of scholarly study for the next few centuries, as people continued to try to discern the thought processes of the human monsters who'd first envisioned and then committed such crimes.
"Brian," Dominic asked, "what do you make of this stuff?"
"One pistol shot could have prevented it, I suppose. Problem is, nobody can see that far into the future — not even gypsy fortune-tellers. Hell, Adolf whacked a bunch of them, too. Why didn't they get the hell out of town?"
"You know, Hitler lived most of his life with only one bodyguard. In Berlin, he lived in a second-floor apartment, with a downstairs entrance, right? He had one SS troop, probably not even a sergeant, guarding the door. Pop him, open the door, go upstairs, and waste the motherfucker. Would have saved a lot of lives, bro," Dominic concluded, reaching for his white wine.
"Damn. You sure about that?"
"The Secret Service teaches that. They send one of their instructors down to Quantico to lecture every class on security issues. The fact surprised us, too. A lot of questions on it. The guy said you could walk right past the SS guard on your way to the liquor store, like. Easy hit, man. Easier'n hell. The thinking is that Adolf thought he was immortal, that there wasn't a bullet anywhere with his name on it. Hey, we had a President whacked on a train platform waiting for his train to arrive. Which one was it? Chester Arthur, I think. McKinley got shot by a guy who walked right up to him with a bandage around his hand. I guess people were a little careless back then."
"Damn. It'd make our job a lot easier, but I'd still prefer a rifle from five hundred meters or so."
"No sense of adventure, Aldo?"
"Ain't nobody paying me enough money to play kamikaze, Enzo. No future in that, y'know?"
"What about those suicide bombers over in the Mideast?"
"Different culture, man. Don't you remember from second grade? You can't commit suicide because it's a mortal sin and you can't go to confession after. Sister Frances Mary made that pretty clear, I thought."
Dominic laughed. "Damn, haven't thought of her in a while, but she always thought you were the cat's ass."
"That's 'cause I didn't screw around in class like you did."
"What about in the Marines?"
"Screwing around? The sergeants took care of that before it came to my attention. Nobody messed with Gunny Sullivan, not even Colonel Winston." He looked at the TV for another minute or so. "You know, Enzo, maybe there are times when one bullet can prevent a lot of grief. That Hitler needed his ticket punched. But even trained military officers couldn't bring it off."
"The guy who placed the bomb just assumed that everybody in the building had to be dead, without going back inside to make sure. They say it every day in the FBI Academy, bro — assumptions are the mother of all fuckups."
"You want to make sure, yeah. Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice."
"Amen," Dominic agreed.
It had gotten to the point that Jack Ryan, Jr., woke up to the morning news on NPR expecting to hear about something dreadful. He guessed that came from seeing so much raw intelligence information, but without the judgment to know what was hot and what was not.
But though he did not know all that much, what he did know was more than a little worrying. He'd become fixated by Uda bin Sali — probably because Sali was the only "player" he knew much about. And that had to be because Sali was his personal case study. He had to figure this bird out, because if he didn't he'd be… encouraged to seek other employment…? He hadn't seen that possibility until now, which by itself did not speak well for his future in the spook business. Of course, his father had taken a long time to find something he was good at — nine years, in fact, after graduating Boston College — and he himself had not yet lived one whole year past his Georgetown sheepskin. So, would he make the grade at The Campus? He was about the youngest person there. Even the secretary pool was composed of women older than he was. Damn, that was an entirely new thought.
Sali was a test for him, and probably a very important one. Did that mean that Tony Wills already had Sali figured out, and he was off chasing data already fully analyzed? Or did it mean that he had to make his case and sell it after he'd reached his own conclusions? It was a big thought for standing in front of the bathroom mirror with his Norelco. This wasn't school anymore. A failing grade here meant failing — life? No, not that bad, but not good, either. Something to think about with coffee and CNN in the kitchen.
For breakfast, Zuhayr walked up the hill, where he purchased two dozen doughnuts and four large coffees. America was such a crazy country. So many natural riches — trees, rivers, magnificent roads, incredible prosperity — but all in the service of idolaters. And here he was, drinking their coffee and eating their doughnuts. Truly, the world was mad, and if it ran on any plan at all, it was Allah's Own Plan, and not something even for the Faithful to understand. They just had to obey that which was written. On returning to the motel, he found both TVs tuned in to the news — CNN, the global news network — the Jewish-oriented one, that is. Such a pity that no Americans watched Al-Jazeera, which at least tried to speak to Arabs, though to his eyes it had already caught the American disease.