Living Stones (5 page)

Robert noticed Ali’s upper body filling out, and then his own arms and torso looked more powerful than he had ever seen them. His beard grew a bit scraggly. He would get rid of it on the way home.

They still had morning calisthenics, but the second leg of their training concentrated on chemistry and the production and handling of explosives. The leader ushered Dre and Salor into a large room in a concrete block building several hundred meters from the main camp. Filled with glassware, bunsen burners, and scales sitting on concrete counters, it reminded Robert of his chemistry lab in high school, even the smells of chemicals.

“This lab is far from camp for safety reasons. We have never had
an explosion and we don’t want one now, so pay close attention. You are going to learn to work with concentrated nitric acid and hexamine to make RDX. That’s the explosive used commonly by armies and our brothers around the world. It produces a blast more powerful than TNT.” The leader continued, pointing to each of the terms on the blackboard.

Later the IMU men would join them. They would not participate in the chemical creation of RDX, but just learn how to use it. Except they did learn to add the plasticizer, making pliable the final product, C-4.

The next five weeks flew by for Robert as he became more comfortable both with the procedures the leader had outlined and the lab. Finally the day came for testing the students’ C-4 cocktails. Robert had formed his bomb into several bricks, which he stacked just like those in a brick wall. Ali had shaped his into triangles to make a circle of C-4 explosives. The five students, with their detonators, cords, and timers, set off with their leader. They placed all of the bombs and detonators into separate padded boxes, which fit into an underfloor compartment of the leader’s Land Rover and drove away.

Robert looked at Ali. “I know this stuff needs detonators to explode, but I still wonder if all this bouncing on the road will set it off.”

“It might,” Ali chuckled. “I’m looking forward to the seventy young ladies.”

With his friends waving him across the border, the leader drove back into Pakistan. After going several kilometers toward Quetta, he turned onto a faint two-rut path heading west and drove overland for what seemed like forever to Robert.

The hills hid them, and the barren, arid land was uninhabited and
remote as Robert could imagine. They finally stopped and carried all the boxes and detonator cords for a quarter-mile to cliffs rising one hundred meters out of the desert. In their shadow the students set out their bombs against the rock walls about seventy-five meters apart. The men placed detonators into one of their bricks of C-4, connected the cords with the timers, and set each timer to trigger at the time prescribed by their leader. Then they all walked back to the Land Rover and stood behind it.

Robert’s heart pounded as he awaited the first explosion. The blast came with a force that shattered the cliff above, showering large rocks far out into the desert. He felt a compression wave against his chest and an explosive roar echoed in his head. Each succeeding blast proved equally dramatic, including his own, number four. The cliff cracked just above the fireball and released an avalanche of large rocks that crashed down with a deafening rumble. Finally Ali’s went off with a shock wave and intense crack that echoed off the cliff and shot rocks upward over the top of the cliff.

With ears ringing, they all beamed and shook hands at the most unusual graduation Robert had ever imagined. He would actually become a jihadist.

Salor became Robert again as they returned to Quetta. But where and how could he ever acquire the equipment and material he had used to make such a successful bomb? He would have to depend on Imam Jabril to guide him. That remained in his head on the long flight back to Seattle. Robert experienced no trouble getting through customs in New York. Neither did Ali a day later, who explained he had gone to visit his cousins in Karachi.

Robert and Ali wasted no time making arrangements to visit Imam Jabril.

“Hamid in Quetta returns your greetings and asked about you,” Robert began.

“Good man, Hamid.” The imam smiled, but still looked fierce under his dark eyebrows. He led them out to the backyard without explanation. They sat on plastic chairs under a large tree, continuing the conversation. The imam had several questions for both Robert and Ali, who related their experiences in the Afghanistan camp.

“But graduation provided the highlight of the trip, Imam.” Ali beamed. “You should have been there. With five students setting off five bombs, the sky nearly fell in! We became real jihadists in the desert of northern Baluchistan.”

A long discussion covered many ideas, including, as Robert expected, the difficulty of acquiring bomb-making equipment and material.

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives registers and controls RDX and even the chemicals to make it,” the imam explained. He smirked with a mischievous look. “But I may have a
possible source of bomb material for you.”

Robert’s heart raced as his eyebrows shot upward. The imam explained that he could put Robert and Ali in touch with a person in Butte, Montana, who worked in the explosive department of a large mining company there. “They use C-4 in their open-pit mining operations. Some shipments of material actually contain a bit more C-4 than their paperwork shows. Their shipments also include detonators, detonator cords, and timers. My friend has been able to collect some of this extra C-4 and accessories over time, and I just learned that he has enough hidden away now to make a powerful bomb.”

Robert with Ali noted the distance from Seattle to Butte, Montana. Six hundred miles. “Should take less than twelve hours.”

Ali had never traveled in a red Corvette let alone one with the top down. He seemed to revel in the experience as they cruised through the warm wheat fields of Eastern Washington. Robert glanced at his friend, who smiled as though they were enjoying a Sunday afternoon drive.

Guided by the security measures they learned in Pakistan, they made contact with the imam’s friend without even knowing his name or seeing his face. They paid for and then found the materials as directed in a note. The C-4 and accessories lay in a flat box hidden under a large box behind a bulldozer. Robert’s mind whirred as they spent the night at a motel in Butte.

“Man, that’s incredible!” Robert said, shaking his head as they headed toward the western Montana mountains. “Really, too easy. I couldn’t imagine, you know, how we’d ever get the chemicals and lab equipment along with a place to put everything together without arousing suspicion.”

“All six bricks of C-4 look just like what we created in Afghanistan,” Ali remarked. “They should make for quite a blast. Where are you thinking of putting them?”

Robert had considered this for a long time, discussing target selection with his Afghan leader as well as Imam Jabril. He wanted to make a statement to the U.S. government and to American Jews
to quit bankrolling the Israeli government in their oppression of the Palestinians. But more than that, he wanted America to stop dominating Muslim lands, including the two countries they had just left—and Iraq. He believed his choice would shake up the establishment in the West. His act must speak to the world. “I’m putting the bomb in a synagogue to make my point.”

“Awesome! Will it to go off with lots of Jews in the synagogue?”

“No, Ali. You can’t blame the little people. I’m just after the leaders and the rich. I hate ’em. If there is a rabbi or two that gets in the way, well that’s OK. It’s not my fault. It’s the U.S. government who caused it. So I think it would be best to have it go off maybe like an hour before their Sabbath service on a Friday afternoon.”

“Do you have a synagogue in mind?”

“Yeah, there’s one just north of the university. People around there see lots of students from many parts of the world carrying backpacks, you know, and I wouldn’t arouse suspicion carrying a student backpack. Like, I’d wear a hoodie anyway. The synagogue would be open just before people come.”

“So when do you think you would do it?”

“I’ll need to scout the territory. But I think within ten days. Maybe the second Friday of May.”

Ali and Robert stashed the C-4 and accessories in a rarely used room in the basement of their house. Concrete, dank, musty smelling, and dark. No windows. Perfect place, Robert decided. On Wednesday they chatted after dinner when the others had left.

“Are you still planning on a couple of days from now?”

“Yeah. I checked out the synagogue last Friday. I didn’t see anybody around at five p.m. in the main auditorium or the vestibule just inside the front door. I’m thinking I can get the detonator and cord into the C-4 bricks and tie them together. I’ll carry it ready to go in my backpack. Then I’ll just have to activate the timer for five thirty and, you know, it’ll be a breeze.” He shrugged his shoulders. “The whole thing will be hidden in the backpack sitting out of sight in the corner of the vestibule behind a bookcase.”

“Aren’t you scared?”

“Yeah, I am, but I’m also determined. It’ll echo around the world and be heard by the leaders I want to get to. I’ll teach ’em a lesson!”

“How will you get away from the synagogue without raising questions?”

“I’ll just walk down the street. I want to be close by when it goes off, but maybe a block away so I can see the results. It should at least blow the front off the synagogue, and maybe bring the whole building down.”

“Cool! Do you need me to pick you up in your car?”

“No, it’ll be better to be on foot and just be one of the startled people who come running to see what happened. I’ll hang back from the crowd, you know, and disperse with them when the police barriers go up.”

“Sounds like you have the bases all covered. So Friday at five-thirty it is!”

“Right, Ali. I’m ready!” It suddenly hit him. He would actually do it. An explosion that would reverberate around the world.

Ali rose from the table, shaking his head. “I can hardly believe you really are going to be the next jihadist in America after 9/11. Allahu Akbar!”

The campus burst with color in the Seattle spring. Following an afternoon lab session, Ashley approached Najid, who seemed to be adjusting very well to his teaching role in the zoology lab. He stopped collecting a few dissecting instruments left on the black soapstone counters as he chatted with several students who had stayed behind. She waited as they finished their conversation and left.

“Hi, Najid. How about going to the HUB for some tea?”

“Sounds good. You know, no one has explained why it is called ‘the HUB.’ ”

“It stands for Husky Union Building, I think. You know the meaning of Husky?”

“Is it a dog from Alaska?”

“Yeah. We call it a mascot . . . um . . . it’s hard to explain. Every college has one, usually an animal, like the Texas Longhorns. Uh . . . longhorns are cattle with big long things on their heads. You probably have them in Israel.”

“I’ve never seen one.”

“I’ll show you a picture sometime. Anyway, let’s walk to the HUB.
It’s so pretty with the red and purple rhododendrons in bloom.”