Purpose of Evasion Page 17

  NATIONAL HARBOR | CULPEPER COUNTY

  One notable thing about the convention of the Association of Muslims in America was how much it was like every other D.C. convention. Poster boards throughout the hotel lobby directed attendees to one of the many ballrooms with appropriately historic names. A long registration table was hung with crisp white linen and displayed a long grid of nametags waiting to be claimed.

  Some attendees had driven their expensive, but not ostentatious, cars from Beltway suburbs. Others arrived by Uber, after landing at Ronald Reagan National airport. As the conference opened, they were being borne down from guest rooms by elevator. Nearly all were dressed in conservative suits from up-market men’s clothing stores.

  In a brown suit and open-collared ecru shirt, Abu Muhammad needed no nametag. His current role with the board of AMA was ex-officio, but he remained the de facto host of the annual convention. He offered introductory remarks welcoming attendees to Washington and then delivered his longer remarks as a closing address on the last day of the meeting. This year, the agenda was different. Events required it.

  He acknowledged a few friends and acquaintances as they arrived but retreated to a small conference room opposite the main ballroom, which had been modified to function as the green room for panelists and speakers. A table by the door was stocked with bottled water. A prayer mat was spread out in the center of the small room, and two others were rolled up by the wall. There were two pairs of chairs, each sandwiching a small end table. Abu Muhammad selected a chair. He had issued instructions at the door that he was not to be disturbed.

  He wrote the speech longhand, but he no longer possessed the original. He had given it to Hasan Khalifa. He reviewed a copy and wrote a word or idea in the margin to serve as cues when he spoke. As he reviewed, he remembered much of what was written verbatim. But, now that he would be the speaker, the speech needed editing. He changed specific words to reflect his own preferences. He adjusted the pace and cadence to match his own speaking style.

  An unfamiliar feeling settled in his stomach. He was nervous. The stakes of the speech would not be obvious to others until later, but he knew these words would be shown endlessly on news programs. History was not linear, not the history of the movement he represented, but someday his speech would be written about in history books. Today marked a turning point.

  It was time to speak. Abu Muhammad crossed the hall to the small waiting area behind the curtains. He could not resist the childish urge to pull the curtain aside and look at the ballroom. Hundreds were crowded around circular banquet tables, chatting. The room was full. He nodded to a young woman from the Association offices who was the convention’s logistician. In turn, she nodded to a round-bellied employee of the conference hotel, who handed her a microphone and flipped a series of switches on the audio board.

  “Sabaah al-khayr. As-salamu alaykum. Please have your seats. The program will begin shortly.”

  In less than a minute, the murmuring on the other side of the curtain was replaced by the shuffle of chairs. And then, silence. The crowd was ready. The young woman parted the curtain and Abu Muhammad walked on stage.

  ***

  Yoda was flipping through TV stations, past all the news channels with their “Attack on America” graphics, but no network was going live at the AMA meeting in National Harbor. He found C-SPAN, but a hearing of the Tax Policy Subcommittee of the House Committee on Ways and Means, in recess, took precedence. The team stared at the TV as he changed stations.

  On C-SPAN 2, they saw a podium set against a black curtain and the logo of the AMA. A man was standing at the podium, completing introductory remarks. Abu Muhammad. His voice was clear and resonant, possessed of a slight accent that reflected education in English, rather than American, schools. He offered a cursory note of sympathy for those killed in the Annapolis hotel attack.

  “Coincident with our sympathy, the community assembled here must also feel apprehension. Even as we gather, in peace, we are surrounded by the FBI.”

  A few heads in the crowd turned, scanning the room as if to ask: FBI? Where?

  “In the country we have adopted as our own, but which seems unwilling to claim us, we see violence everywhere. In city streets, between warring gangs, hundreds are murdered every year. And yet, the FBI does not infiltrate the African Methodist churches. In those same cities, violence is directed at Americans by the police departments sworn to protect them. And yet, the FBI does not suspect the chaplains of those police departments are fomenting these killings. In so-called ‘red states,’ for years the bastions of the Ku Klux Klan’s ideology of supremacy, each day brings another in a string of mass shootings. Massacres committed with readily-available guns. And yet, the FBI is not targeting the conferences and conventions of the Baptist or Pentecostal or Presbyterian or Episcopal churches.”

  Perfectly divisive. Abu Muhammad was carving up American culture by identity groups. Picking at old, unhealed wounds.

  “To our brothers and sisters in other countries, what is America any longer? Is it the country I came to? The beacon of light? The city on a hill? No. America is the destroyer of worlds. With precision-guided GPS missiles. Unmanned aircraft. Special Forces entering sovereign lands to kill sovereign citizens and skulk away under cover of darkness. Never too concerned with who has been killed, or how many, America has become Death.”

  Sami registered the allusion to the Bhagavad Gita. Quoted by Robert Oppenheimer in the moments after the first atomic blast – “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds” – the Gita was a Hindu holy book and core text of Indian philosophy. Indian. It was no secret that Pakistanis and Indians did not play well together. The implications may not have registered for the rest of Sami’s team, but he understood what his grandfather was doing. No doubt the AMA audience did, too.

  Before Sami horrified his grandfather by admitting his homosexuality, an endless string of family embarrassments resulting from Sami’s behavior confirmed that he was a disappointment. One such embarrassment came during high school, when Sami – a below average player, but avid fan of basketball – played in a Washington-area Indo-Pak 3-on-3 tournament. When Sami made the mistake of wearing the tournament t-shirt at home, his grandfather treated him to a screed, explaining that India had chosen Western secularism over Islamic orthodoxy after the fall of the British Raj.

  In 1947, the Maharajah of Kashmir targeted Muslims for ethnic cleansing and the world watched in silence as India suppressed Pakistan’s attempts at aid. In 1971, the Indian army undermined Pakistani efforts to quell an uprising of Bengalis in East Pakistan, which resulted in the dissection and creation of Bangladesh.

  Abu Muhammad hated India. He viewed the state as traitorous and the people as apostates. Yet, he had quoted one of India’s most well-known philosophical texts. The message might have been subtle for an impassive listener, but as Abu Muhammad used every wedge possible to divide Americans, he was making concessions to India’s 180 million Muslims. The Ummah was more important than any nation or historic conflict.

  Cycling through the implications of his grandfather’s words, Sami was distracted. He continued to hear the words his grandfather spoke, but he wasn’t listening.

  “Holy shit, Sami,” Yoda said, shaking Sami from his reverie. Sami assumed that Yoda had also caught the India implication.

  “It seems, therefore, to be incontrovertibly true that America is a violent country,” Abu Muhammad continued. “And yet, each time one incident of violence is perpetrated by someone with a name, or a skin tone, that appears ‘Muslim,” Abu Muhammad used air quotes, a cheap pantomime that Sami had never seen his grandfather employ before. “Our entire faith is attacked. It leads us, many of us, to conclude that there can be no such thing as an American Ummah. That the community of believers in one of the world’s great faiths can no longer find a home— “

  “In the lands of the world’s once great superpower.” It was Yoda.

  He spoke the sentence just before Abu Muhammad did.
Everyone in the room turned their eyes away from the imam on TV to the Marine cyberwarrior. Yoda opened his laptop and typed his password.

  “Holy Fuck!” He clicked once, and then again, and opened his documents tray. “Holy Fucking Fuck! Guys! Andy! Fuck!” Yoda was clicking frantically. He found the folder he wanted and opened a video file. It was one he had watched three times. He had listened to it on headphones another half dozen. He knew bits by memory.

  It was Hasan’s second recorded video. Abu Muhammad was giving the sermon meant to be released after the Tysons Corner bombing on national TV.

  ***

  Using the DVR, the team compared Abu Muhammad’s speech to the video on Yoda’s computer. They watched the two speeches back-to-back a handful of times. They showed Andy the videos juxtaposed. There was no doubt. The video that Hasan pre-recorded to be released after the second attack, when he was supposed to be out of the country, was nearly identical to the speech Abu Muhammad just delivered.

  “The portions of the speech that refer to the bombing in Tysons Corner were changed,” Yoda explained. “Somehow, it almost makes the thing worse. Instead of justifying the bombing, it turns into a screed about overreach. The FBI sweeping in on every Muslim in the country in reaction to Annapolis. But other than parts that had to be changed, it’s identical.”

  Sami agreed. He could see Andy trying to catch his eye.

  “The really clever part is the end.” Yoda clicked PLAY and Abu Muhammad’s frozen face was animated.

  “I call on the FBI, and I know that my friends in the U.S. Congress who have long supported me, and my congregation, who have received our support in return, will join me in calling for the release of relevant evidence and information, as soon as possible, to prove that the arrest of Tahir Hussein is based on something more than innuendo and what – sadly, in today’s America – is the misfortune of being a Muslim.”

  Yoda stopped the playback.

  “He’s hanging his ass way out there,” Andy said. “Maybe it’s just bluster, but we know – and we might be the only people who know - he’s right.”

  “The FBI knows,” Yoda offered. “He’s fucking smart. He’s making them put their cards on the table and they don’t have shit.”

  “The Annapolis group was a plausible cover story,” Sami said. “To hang domestic terror attacks on U.S.-born Muslims. ‘Normal’ ones. To plant the seed that any Muslim might be dangerous.”

  Confused faces looked back at Sami. Abu Muhammad didn’t seem to be supporting a thesis that Muslims were dangerous. Sami pressed on.

  “But the seed needs to be nurtured. The FBI needs to be goaded for the plan to work.”

  “It doesn’t take much for the FBI to suspect a bunch of Muslims,” Alexa responded, sharp but still bleary-eyed from her nap.

  “Agreed. That’s the easy part, right? But Muslims need to be brought along, too. That’s the hard part. The Muslims. Hasan Khalifa did his job with creating the window dressing, but he was always leaving the country. Someone has to stoke them. Fire them up. Direct their resentments. Someone has to lead a public campaign of revolt.”

  “Someone who has the cache to lead the Muslims and the profile to attract the FBI,” Emily said. “Someone who was the nexus between Rebel Creek and Hasan Khalifa.”

  Sami didn’t know if she told the others about his grandfather, but she went no further now. The implication was clear between them.

  “The mutual friend,” Sami responded.

  He stalked out of the room and toward the basement door, the one that opened down into Hasan’s cell. Alexa followed.

  “What is it Sami?” she asked.

  Sami unlocked the door and headed to the makeshift cell downstairs.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  WASHINGTON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

  The large concrete and rebar house was hidden in the hollow of two hills. The setting was not unlike the safe house in Virginia, but where the Culpeper County farmhouse was inconspicuous, this house was much larger, newer, and more imposing. There were three stories, all in poured concrete, each with small windows placed high in the walls. The place resembled nothing so much as the Abbottabad, Pakistan compound made famous as Usama bin Laden’s safe house; a resemblance that was inspirational rather than coincidental.

  In a centrally-located room on the second floor, which smelled of bleach, a small command center was set up. This too was not unlike the one now in use at the Virginia safe house. There were screens tuned to TV news. Others showed live feeds from security cameras around the house. A half dozen AK-47s hung from a tactical gun rack. In the center of the room, a kitchen island held stacks of TATP explosive packets. Wrapped in plastic and sealed with duct tape, they only needed to be transported to a plastic footlocker for delivery.

  Tom Tinker waited for the go-sign. He was also watching CPSAN2, though he had required no channel surfing. He was prepared for the broadcast. If the speech was not shown on TV, he had one of his men in the room right now. The stakes were too high to permit a technical difficulty to interfere.

  They were waiting to hear the words that Tinker told Hasan Khalifa to record. When Khalifa went silent, Tinker contacted their mutual friend. His old friend. He was told to proceed with preparations and tune into this broadcast. If he heard the line about “the American Ummah,” the plan would move forward.

  As soon as he heard the words, he grabbed the remote and clicked off the TV. Old friends though they might have been, Tinker didn’t care to hear any more of Tahir’s shit about Muslims. Or America. The basis of their alliance was the agreement that neither of them should ever have to listen to someone talk about a false God. Not in a caliphate. Not in a Christian America.

  Tom Tinker would set his country free again. But first, he needed to blow more of it up.

  TWENTY-SIX

  CULPEPER COUNTY

  Hasan was reclined on the cot, one knee bent and his head resting on a rolled blanket that was the sole luxury he earned for his cooperation with Sami’s earlier interrogation. With clear disdain, he began to speak, but Sami didn’t acknowledge the words. Even in his haste, Sami was careful not to tip his hand. He didn’t want Hasan to know that they had stopped the second attack.

  “The second video? The American Ummah. Who helped you write the speech?”

  Hasan frowned, disappointed to admit he might need help writing his sermons. He remembered his place and thought better of challenging the question’s premise.

  “That video is very important,” he said. “The most important of all. On this, like all areas of this plan, I was aided by our mutual friend.”

  Sami swallowed hard. The video was a “go” sign for another attack. There was little doubt in his mind where it would take place.

  “The mutual friend who connected you with Halif.” Halif, not Tinker. Sami didn’t want Hasan aware of any of their progress.

  “Yes, but you are not listening. You have been ignoring my construction. It has been vague, I admit, but then we are…” Hasan gestured toward the camera mounted high in the room’s corner “not alone. I was trying to be discrete, in your own best interest.”

  Sami could feel his proximity to the answer he sought but he also felt himself losing grip. He was not in the mood for Hasan’s tortuous and contrived manner of speaking. Manufactured, to sound like some fictional version of a wise, old man of Allah.

  “Why don’t you make it clear?”

  Without hesitation, Hasan responded.

  “Our mutual friend.” He enjoyed the emphasis on the first word. “Yours and mine. Abu Muhammad.”

  It was what Sami suspected. It had been possible someone sent Hasan’s video, or a transcript, to Sami’s grandfather, but now it was confirmed. Sami’s lungs filled with a deep breath.

  “When you were told to record this video, you went to Abu— “

  “Your grandfather,” Hasan interjected and looked at the camera.

  The team knew the truth now. Unless Emily had already shared what she deduced, bu
t she would not have. Yoda and Emily, already uncertain about this operation, would also be confused about their leader.

  “You went to my grandfather and told him you were working on this video— “

  Hasan interrupted again. Sami was losing control of the interrogation. “He often helped me with khutbah.” Sermons.

  The team, watching on camera upstairs, filed that additional tidbit of information away. “Often helped.” The connection between Hasan and Abu Muhammad was not as tenuous as Abu Muhammad implied in his TV interview.

  “But this time, you revealed the entire speech to him?”

  Hasan delighted in the question. Laying on his side, propped on his elbow in Sami’s direction, he reclined, placing the rolled blanket back under his neck.

  “What are you asking?”

  The words had been swimming in Sami’s thoughts for years. Since college, when he discovered the truth about his grandfather’s connection to the men who blew up the embassy and killed his parents. He asked himself the question, but he had never spoken out loud. He was afraid of the answer.

  Sami’s parents were gone, and the truth would not bring them back. It would be hard to ask the question, harder still to wait for the answer, to watch his grandfather formulate a response, to see the deception in his face. He was afraid to hear what he had never proven but always suspected, the words that made his grandfather worse than an estranged stepparent. Sami looked at Hasan and saw the thing that he feared in a new face.

  Only this wasn’t about Sami’s parents. The truth mattered.

  Still, he could not ask the question that mattered, and he tried another oblique approach.

  “Did Abu Muhammad see the entire speech?” Sami asked.

  “He wrote the speech.”

  “Then he knew about the bombings?”

  “Knew about the bombings? No, my friend, you misunderstand.”