The Devil's Light (8 page)

For the first time, Svitek spoke. “We're working it,” he said with a trace of defensiveness, “and so's the new station chief in Islamabad. We still have our own friends in the ISI and senior command. Problem is, a lot of them are massed at the Indian border, or caught up in planning for war. And we can't start flying surveillance planes over Pakistan in the midst of a nuclear alert.”

Carter Grey, Brooke noticed, held himself carefully, the effort to keep his back straight showing in his eyes. “There's another barrier,” Grey said. “The senior Pakistani generals are absolutely consumed with India. The last thing they want is to give us an excuse to come in after their weapons. Even if the situation weren't so fraught, we don't know enough to go in uninvited.” He looked from face to face, pausing at Brustein. “If our guess is right, whoever took this weapon is smart enough to know all that. They may even hope that we do come in, throwing the country into turmoil and empowering the jihadists. So the immediate focus has to be who took the weapon, and where it may be going.”

Wertheimer put down his coffee cup. “As to who has the apocryphal missing bomb,” he told Brooke in his driest tone, “Carter says you know that, too.”

Brooke inclined his head toward Sweder. “So does Ken—better than anyone. Not the Taliban, LET, or a pack of mutineers.”

Nodding, the head of counterterrorism addressed Brustein. “Al Qaeda makes sense, Noah. We're all aware of their self-concept—Islamic warriors fighting to create a caliphate from Spain to Indonesia and, beyond that, to bend the world to their will. In his own peculiar way, Bin Laden
was a romantic. But taken on their own terms, Bin Laden and his inner circle were always extremely rational—the exact opposite of the illiterate knuckle draggers who still dominate the Taliban. Bin Laden studied economics, and Zawahiri is a physician. The rate of college graduates among al Qaeda activists is higher than that of Americans. Almost none of them, if you believe our psychologists, has significant mental pathology.

“The result is a bizarre but potent combination—an apocalyptic vision pursued with cold-eyed realism. Their plan is to wear down America and its allies by creating al Qaeda franchises throughout the Islamic and Western worlds, building an infrastructure that can stage attacks so terrifying that we'll beg for mercy. A nuclear detonation would be the ultimate strike.”

Brustein listened impassively, then turned to Grey. “What do you think, Carter?”

Grey moved in his chair, as though to relieve his back. “I'm with Ken and Brooke. The Taliban, LET, and the Chechens work within a region—they don't want to blow up their own territory, and don't have the means to strike beyond it. In contrast, we know that al Qaeda is allying with jihadist groups in key countries—that's what Brooke was uncovering in Lebanon. Al Qaeda's history is one of operational daring: not just their greatest successes—the USS
Cole
,
9/11, and the London subway attacks—but the ones we managed to interdict.” Grey looked at the others. “The general public doesn't know that al Qaeda smuggled antitank missiles from Yemen to assassinate Vice President Gore in Saudi Arabia, or put a team in Bangladesh to blow up
Air Force One
and President Clinton with a surface-to-air missile. Bombing shopping malls doesn't interest al Qaeda at all. Their goal is our complete psychic devastation.

“Take 9/11. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's first proposal to Bin Laden was to fly additional planes into iconic targets like the White House, the FBI, and the building we're in now.” Grey's tone became sardonic. “A final plane bearing KSM would touch down in Los Angeles, whereupon he would alert the media and deliver a riveting speech demanding that America transform itself. Practical man that he was, Bin Laden vetoed the press conference and scaled down the hijackings. But what al Qaeda accomplished changed the world as we know it.”

For a moment, Brooke stared out the window, frozen by an image far different from the wooded glade surrounding them. “What Osama
never dreamed,” he heard Svitek interpose, “is that after 9/11 America would go out of its way to save him. Any analyst who wasn't brain dead knew the World Trade Center was Bin Laden's work, and certainly
not
Saddam Hussein's. We had the sonofabitch on the ropes in Afghanistan, and nearly buried him in rubble at Tora Bora.” Svitek's voice held a quiet bitterness. “So what did we do? We redeployed the commandos hunting Bin Laden to find Saddam Hussein; diverted our troops and intelligence assets to Iraq; and gave al Qaeda fresh recruiting opportunities across the Muslim world. In return, Bin Laden created a Sunni–Shia civil war that turned our occupation of Iraq into a bloodbath—all for the pleasure of hanging Saddam. The term ‘crack-smoking stupid' leaps to mind.

“Between 9/11 and his death, Bin Laden built the first global terrorist organization in history—cells in over sixty countries, with sophisticated communications and financing. They've struck in London, Casablanca, Madrid, Algiers, Islamabad, New Delhi, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. They took out Benazir Bhutto. Every day they hit targets in Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan. In Afghanistan, a double agent blew up seven of our colleagues. An al Qaeda operative trained in Pakistan tried to blow up a passenger plane over Detroit, another attempted to demolish Times Square with a truckload of explosives, and more seem to be coming at us damn near every week.”

“At least Bin Laden's dead,” Sweder said flatly. “Pray his successors have less operational ability and judgment impaired by hatred. Bin Laden was special.”

Grey sat straighter, drawing attention before he spoke with quiet authority. “Alive or dead,” he said with quiet authority, “Bin Laden was a rare leader in the history of the world. He let no personal grudges cloud his thinking—early on, some of us misread him as merely spiritual, even ethereal. But Bin Laden alone had the capacity to envision and create the network we're describing. Viewed with dispassion, Osama Bin Laden was a truly exceptional man. Only a Western capital in ruins would be worthy of his memory.”

The room fell briefly silent, each man weighing his own thoughts. “For twenty years,” Sweder reminded them, “Bin Laden was obsessed with nuclear weapons. He tried to buy highly enriched uranium in South Africa, and he negotiated with Chechen separatists for a bomb they'd stolen from the Soviet arsenal. But Pakistan has always been his focus.” Ever meticulous, Sweder paused to straighten his tie. “He had links to A. Q.
Khan, the ISI, and scientists within the Pakistani nuclear program. We also know that just before 9/11, Bin Laden and Zawahiri met in Afghanistan with a leading Pakistani scientist and a prominent engineer, both of whom shared his belief that a nuclear holocaust would fulfill al Qaeda's perverted notion of the Koran. They even sat around the campfire drawing up specifications for an al Qaeda bomb. But Carter and Brooke may well be right. Why build your own when you can steal a better one off the shelf?”

Brooke turned to the group again, glancing at Wertheimer. “Michael's principal question,” he told the others, “is whether al Qaeda could motivate LET and the Taliban to help. I don't know how much al Qaeda would tell them. But a proposal that empowered jihadists, toppled the civilian government in Islamabad, and got us out of Pakistan and Afghanistan might be too seductive for its brethren to resist. As for using nuclear weapons, people with countries fear retaliation. But men in caves call them ‘war winners.'”

Wertheimer, Brooke saw, listened with new intensity. “So what's al Qaeda's plan?” he asked.

“Nuclear disaster,” Grey answered crisply. “After 9/11, al Qaeda announced its intention to kill four million Americans to balance the Muslim deaths they attribute to the U.S. and Israel. Then Bin Laden issued a fatwa openly calling for the use of nuclear weapons against the West. A Pakistani bomb would destroy an entire city. That would cause widespread death and devastation, stagger the world economy, unleash a wave of fear that could curtail our civil liberties, and create mass sentiment for withdrawal from the Middle East.” Facing Brustein, Grey concluded, “In al Qaeda's mind, such an act would command deep admiration throughout the Muslim world. With America gone, there'd be nothing but a few enfeebled Arab states between al Qaeda and Bin Laden's dream of an Islamic caliphate.”

Brustein rested his chin on steepled fingers, then faced Sweder. “Assuming that al Qaeda has its weapon, where do they plan to set it off? Your people ponder that question night and day.”

“And weekends,” Sweder answered tersely. “Our very long list starts with Washington and New York.”

A flash of doubt pierced Brooke's consciousness. But he could not yet work out why.

O
n entering his office, Brooke took out a map of the Middle East, well thumbed from his service in the region. Perhaps inevitably, his thoughts turned to the woman who had returned there, to Israel, and the year that followed their first encounter, its final day the fault line that divided him from the man he had been before.

They had met on a warm fall night in Greenwich Village. It was September 2000; Brooke was twenty-five then, headed for a master's degree from NYU in Near Eastern Studies. School came easily, and it was early in the semester. So Brooke decided to meet Ben Glazer, his closest friend since Yale, for dinner at Trattoria Spaghetto, consuming pasta and Chianti at an outdoor table while observing the usual array of eccentrics.

“After this,” Brooke informed Ben, “there's a student forum on Israel and the peace process. I thought you might be interested.”

Ben raised his eyebrows, feigning bemusement as a means of tweaking his friend. On the surface the two were opposites. Blond and athletic, Brooke carried himself with a careless ease—the legacy, Ben insisted, of “six generations of WASPs whose only tragedy was inbreeding.” By his own admission, Ben was the antithesis of aristocratic panache—short, round, bearded, and Jewish, a would-be master of the universe at an investment banking firm. But the bluff kindness at Ben's core served a humor and directness that drew men and women alike. It was Ben, not Brooke, who had the smart and beautiful fiancée. And Brooke savored his friend's impatience with euphemism and evasion, his gift for speaking
hard truths that sometimes made his listeners squirm. The fact that Brooke was unoffendable did not dishearten Ben at all.

“A disenchanted evening in the Middle East?” Ben asked in disbelief. “Why? They're crazy, all of them—Hezbollah, Hamas, the Orthodox Jewish settlers, the Arab terrorists in caves. By now you must have noticed how much these God-bit visionaries relish killing each other's kids. But sooner or later they'll start killing ours. Fanaticism has no respect for borders.”

Brooke repressed a smile, pausing to admire a tall blonde who sauntered by their table. Noting this, Ben admonished, “She looks too much like you. Diversify now, or your children will be idiots.”

Brooke gave his friend a look of amiable tolerance. “Entrapping Aviva has made you smug. As for this forum, your world is shrinking. You sit peddling derivatives on the ninety-fifth floor, never noticing the inexorable shriveling of your soul. You need a break from lusting for excessive compensation.”

Ben grinned sourly. “My father, the gravestone magnate, always said college professors lived in the ether. You'll be perfect.”

Brooke had never doubted that Ben would go with him.

The auditorium featured bright lighting and theater-style seats that, as Ben pointed out, were lacking in soft drink holders. Settling in, he remarked, “We should have rented
Lawrence of Arabia
.
”

The forum had already started. One of the two speakers, a massive Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn named Jacob Sklar, was vigorously denouncing Arafat, the Palestinians, and the peace process promoted by President Clinton. Sklar's older brother, it emerged, had emigrated to the no-man's-land at the edge of Israeli settlements on the West Bank, inspired by the biblical God who had reserved it for the Jews. As Sklar finished, Ben tartly encapsulated the man's worldview—Sklar's personal Jehovah had stuck Palestinians on a lower branch of His evolutionary tree. As the landlord of a Greater Israel that included the West Bank, God wished no Arab to be His tenant.

But it was the peace advocate who drew Brooke's attention before she said a word.

Her name was Anit Rahal, the program informed him, an Israeli taking
a junior year abroad after four years of service in the army. In an offbeat but arresting way she was extremely pretty—small and wiry, with jet-black hair, dark crescent eyes, olive skin, sharp, well-defined features, and a somewhat sardonic grin. She listened to her opponent with a stillness and concentration that, for Brooke, accented her appeal. Yet he sensed a caged energy about her. It did not surprise Brooke to learn, as he later did, that at school in Tel Aviv she had excelled in track—as a sprinter, he guessed correctly. Everything about her seemed bred for survival.

At last the moderator, a middle-aged professor, interrupted Sklar's monologue. “How do you respond, Ms. Rahal, to the assertion that Jewish dominion over the West Bank is a biblical imperative?”

“That my God has never mentioned it,” she told Sklar briskly. “You see three million Palestinians as squatters. I see them as our Siamese twins. For centuries Jews had no country; now Palestinians don't. There will be no peace until they do.”

Her English was flawless. Though Brooke noticed the stray guttural enunciation that marked Hebrew as her first language, someone with a lesser ear would have taken her for a New Yorker—she had the directness of manner to match. Leaning closer, Ben observed, “Gets to the point, doesn't she?”

Clearly, her point was not lost on Sklar. “By a ‘country' for Palestinians,” he retorted, “you must mean Greater Israel.”