go ‘live.’ That’s what you want, right?”
Birk staggered from the engine room like he was drunk. Never had he misjudged a man so severely. Mr. Scum-fuck Terrorist? Is that what you called him? Ai-yi-yi.
He’d found his own Omar Hammami, whose Syrian immigrant father had married an Alabama belle. They’d given little Omar a small-town upbringing in the heart of Dixie—Bible camp, high school class president, blond girlfriend, drunken Friday night fights—but despite all the advantages that American life could offer, Omar had turned to Islam. And not just any old Islam-in-a-mini-mall-mosque, but Islam in Somalia, where sweet, baby-faced Omar became a leader and spokesman of the Al Shabaab, one of the most brutal Islamist insurgencies.
What’s with the South? Birk asked himself in his newborn panic. Could growing up around crackers actually be worse than he’d imagined?
He looked back over his shoulder. “I can help you with your message.”
The hometown boy from hell shoved the barrel of the Kalashnikov into Birk’s wattled neck. “Shut up. When I tell you to talk, talk. Otherwise, don’t say a thing.”
Birk had heard those very words before—from an executive producer of Nightly News, back when he was still being invited to the set for live tête-à-têtes with the anchor. He’d love to obey, but his rampant and torturous thirst could not be denied.
“Could you spare me a drink, you suppose, from the captain’s private reserve? I don’t expect he’s making much use of it at the moment, and I, for one, work much better when I can wet my whistle.”
Raggedy Ass whacked Birk upside the head with his rifle barrel. The correspondent yowled.
“I should kill you now and, inshallah, I will when you’re no longer needed.”
I guess that means no.
CHAPTER 17
Parvez watched the two Al Qaeda operatives drive up to the small stucco house where he had been waiting for twenty minutes. Palm trees towered over the single-story home just three miles from downtown Malé. Parvez peeked out from behind a curtain, smelling meat grilling nearby, perhaps in the small, enclosed courtyard next door. He recalled the veiled words about storms that the short Mohammed had spoken at the café. Storms only Allah could see, the taller one had added. But there would be real storms, too. That was the forecast. Electrical storms to claw the sky. They were a divine sign, coming on this most propitious day. He saw great clouds already forming off the coast.
The two Mohammeds had given him the address of the house and told him to go directly inside, but said nothing about who owned the squat one-bedroom residence. Parvez knew better than to ask about that, or about how they had obtained permission to use it. He still didn’t know the men’s real names and he doubted he ever would. But whoever they were, they would report to their leaders in Pakistan that the humble cleric in the Maldives had performed bravely.
The jihadists were driving a windowless van. Parvez assumed they had rented it using forged documents and a stolen driver’s license. They were smart to have rented a van that looked like a delivery truck.
They backed the van into the driveway, got out, and hurried through the front door. Parvez stepped forward to bless them. But they seemed impatient with his prayers, and the cleric silently forgave them, knowing they were intent on their mission.
Short Mohammed carefully laid aside a pack, the kind university students used the world over, while tall Mohammed headed into the small kitchen and threw open a cabinet. He reached deep inside it, much farther than the space appeared to allow. Parvez heard a metallic sound, like a latch, and watched the man carefully retrieve a cardboard box. When he brought it over, Parvez saw a fuse the color and shape of airline cable. He’d expected to see C-4.
“What are you using for the bomb?” Parvez asked.
“Ammonium nitrate. Nitromethane,” the shorter Mohammed said quickly.
Parvez nodded. Now he knew why they needed the van. The ANNM bomb would contain a thousand pounds or more of its murderous ingredients. Parvez smiled when he thought of how the blown-up van would become the principal item of interest in the next few days as investigators combed through the rubble of the Golden Crescent Hotel. An American veteran had used just this kind of bomb in a rental truck to attack his own people in the heart of America. Allah worked in ways as wondrous as they were mysterious.
If they were using a fuse, there would be no martyr