But he also disliked the man due to what he was prepared to do, even though it served Quraishi’s own interests. Quraishi simply couldn’t understand a man who was willing to betray his own people.
But then again, Quraishi told himself, he hadn’t been entirely honest about what was happening and — to be fair — Richards really did believe that what he was doing would ultimately benefit America’s homeland security and make his country a safer place.
Unable to help himself, Quraishi smiled at how wrong the man was.
Quraishi was inordinately pleased with how his plans were progressing; the martyrs had been prepared, and his beloved al-Hazmi was getting ready to escort them to the correct airlines for their specially selected flights. His scientific staff had been continually monitoring wind patterns and had made complex and — they assured him — quite accurate dispersal projections. The locations chosen for his team of martyrs had been decided upon after long consideration of a multitude of factors — total population, transport links and ease of egress to other areas, climate patterns, air density and barometric pressure, availability of emergency services and the ability of local hospital systems to cope with sudden demands, casualty estimates, number of expected fatalities, and a hundred other topics of interest. But now all decisions were made, and everything was in place, ready for the actual operation itself; and Quraishi would soon know if their projections were correct.
According to Richards, the US government had no idea whatsoever what was really going on. Apparently, there was some suspicion that a weapon developed in North Korea was on the loose somewhere, but nobody yet knew what it was, or who had it, or where it was headed.
Richards claimed that there was a rumor of Jemaah Islamiyah’s involvement, but — due to his own efforts, and those of Clark Mason, the Secretary of State — these leads were not being pursued as rigorously as some members of the National Security Council would like.
In a way, Quraishi pitied Richards; the man thought he was doing the right thing, thought that he was helping his nation. He knew that people would die, that sacrifices would have to be made, but that it was for the greater good of the American people.
He was going to be upset when he realized the truth, Quraishi thought as he sipped at his tea; very upset indeed.
Richards was nursing a sore head, a result of a too much alcohol the night before. Sure, Riyadh was as tee-total as the rest of the country, but a guy at his hotel had managed to find the wild side of the city, and Richards had tagged along. It turned out if you had enough money, people here could be quite reasonable.
Richards looked at the man sat across from him, wishing that he had some painkillers; his head really did hurt like a son of a bitch.
He had to admit that he didn’t much like the man he was here to see; but at the same time, Richards knew that he held the key to America’s future security.
Quraishi was the leader of Arabian Islamic Jihad, a group which was about to launch a serious attack on American soil; an attack which Richards was going to allow to go ahead.
The problem, as he saw it, was that the US government was drastically underfunding its homeland security program. In the aftermath of 9/11, money for national defense had been inexhaustible; at last what the country actually needed, in Richards’ opinion. He had been a Captain in the 39th Armor Regiment at the time, and the ensuing years had been good ones for the military, which saw its first real investment since the heady heights of the Cold War.
But al-Qaeda’s horrific attack, which had left nearly three thousand dead, had happened nearly twenty years ago now, and two decades had slowed the American defense machinery to a snail’s crawl. Budgets were being slashed, weapons systems culled, regiments disbanded. But, Richards knew, the threat was still there. It was always there.
What was needed, Richards knew, was a fresh attack on US soil; so long as the American people felt safe, there would be no pressure on the politicians to increase budgets to the correct levels. Government finance was never proactive, always reactive. Money would never be spent on preventing a crisis; the norm was for a crisis to occur, and then for the money to be spent. Completely backwards thinking in Richards’ opinion, but that was Washington for you.
Richards knew that what he needed was a new attack on America, from a new group which could be as feared as al-Qaeda had once been. And he believed that Quraishi and Arabian Islamic Jihad could well be that group, and the Lion’s planned attack could be the catalyst to get back his funding.
Richards wasn’t psychotic; he didn’t want the deaths of American citizens on his hands. But better the devil you know, he’d thought when he’d first entered discussions with his old friend Quraishi. If an unknown group launched an attack, he would simply never know what damage could be inflicted. But with Quraishi in charge, he was assured that fatalities would be limited to just a few thousand. It was a terrible thing to be burdened with, but Richards accepted the fact that America had lived through such an attack before, and had emerged even stronger; it was a number that could be tolerated, if it meant that her security would be improved immeasurably as a result.
He didn’t know exactly what was in the North Korean crate, only that it was a dirty bomb of some kind, a combination of radioactive material and conventional explosives. Such a device was nowhere near as devastating as a nuclear explosion, and indeed such dirty bombs were not even considered weapons of mass destruction in most circles, but as weapons of mass disruption; it wasn’t the number of fatalities which would be the key factor, but the psychological impact of nuclear fallout and the spread of radiation. There would be mass panic and terror, and the clean-up would require considerable expense and cause untold economic damage, but the number of actual deaths would be relatively negligible. And this was the beauty of the plan Quraishi had described to him; the terror and fear that would result from the attack would be enough to force politicians to raise budgets massively in order to appease the terrified population; so when a real attack came, they would be ready for it.
Could he live with the deaths of a couple of thousand Americans?
Yes he could, and he had decided this a long time ago. You couldn’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, and that was really all that was happening here. And after all, it wasn’t as if it hadn’t happened before; elements of the US and British governments had prior knowledge about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor but had allowed it to go ahead in order to force America into World War II; Kennedy had been seriously considering a Defense Department plan to shoot down an American airliner so that it could be blamed on Cuba and thus justify an invasion; and American intelligence was warned about the 9/11 attacks in advance. That was just how things worked, Richards knew.
And so Richards had supplied Quraishi with information, and tried to protect his organization from discovery, also helping to muddy the waters of the current investigation. He just hoped that the outcome would be worth the risk.
‘You have been most helpful,’ Quraishi said gratefully. ‘And I think we will both find benefits from the events to come.’ There was a pause as he sipped his jasmine tea, then he looked back across the desk at his American colleague. ‘Is there anything else?’
Richards paused; there was something. But was it worth bothering Quraishi with at this late stage? Finally though, he nodded his head.