Purpose of Evasion Read online

  “We have to follow him, Lex. Just like you did to get here. You did a great job. Remember, we know where he’s going so just stay cool. Give him space. We won’t lose him.”

  “What is it Sami? What did they put in the truck?”

  “Start driving and I’ll check in with Emily and Yoda as soon as we can.” He messaged them to check in by phone as soon as it was safe.

  “Why is he taking it to the hotel?” Alexa asked.

  “He doesn’t even know it’s there.”

  “What?” Alexa was incredulous.

  “Think about it, you come back to your vehicle after getting coffee. You don’t check the trunk. The bed of the truck. You have no reason to.” Alexa pulled into traffic behind the pickup. Because regular vehicular traffic couldn’t go through the Naval Academy, they would circumnavigate. The route would add a few minutes to a trip that was less than a mile as the crow flies.

  “What is happening, Sami? What’s he doing?”

  Sami’s phone buzzed. It was Yoda.

  “Where are you?” Sami asked.

  “Back in my car, headed to the interstate. What happened?” Yoda asked.

  “I’m with Alexa. We’re tailing Karim.”

  “What the fuck, Sami?”

  “Someone delivered something during the meeting.”

  “No, they didn’t, I watched it,” Yoda replied.

  “No. Not to Karim. To the truck. Alexa saw it.”

  “Delivered what?”

  “We don’t know. Black. Bigger than a breadbox.”

  “Fuck! What did Emily get?” Yoda’s voice was level but tinged with annoyance. This was going where he predicted it would, and where none of them wanted it to.

  “I don’t know, I haven’t heard from her yet.”

  Alexa turned onto the traffic circle that wound around the Maryland State House. She was 50 yards behind Karim, and they lost sight of him as the circle turned. Sami covered the phone to speak to Alexa.

  “If you lose him, just take the exit toward the church. That’ll put you into the Church Circle.”

  “I remember.” In the frenzied premission briefing they reviewed a map. The two circles were the most memorable of Annapolis’ roads and the only roads in this section of downtown that were instantly distinguishable from ground level.

  “Good. Get on Duke of Gloucester.”

  Duke of Gloucester Street paralleled Main Street, the commercial avenue of ice cream parlors and trinket shops that ran down to the harbor. There, another traffic circle offered a split onto Compromise Street and the hotel where they assumed Karim was heading.

  Yoda was screaming on the phone. Sami brought it back to his ear. “What?”

  “…Call him, Sami! Call Andy. It’s a fucking bomb. Get out of there.”

  “He doesn’t even know he has it,” Sami said.

  “That’s bullshit! Or a guess, but- “

  “No way. If it is a bomb, he doesn’t even know they delivered it. They’re using him.”

  Alexa pointed ahead. Karim’s truck was turning left, cutting across Compromise to the hotel entrance. Sami nodded and pointed to indicate that she should follow.

  “I can pull him out.”

  The plan was only emerging in Sami’s mind as he spoke and it was half-formed, but he knew Karim. No matter how much their last meeting confirmed their estrangement, his instincts told him that his friend was not a suicide bomber. Yoda was trying to speak over him, but Sami continued.

  “I know him, OK? I should have told you guys, and I’m sorry. But I know this isn’t what it seems. I’ll talk to him and when he sees what they sprung on him, we’ll have one guy from the group--”

  “Have him? Where? You’re not thinking, man.” Yoda was pleading. “If you’re wrong, which you are, and it is a bomb, you’re dead. Even if you’re right, we can’t hold the guy, Sami. They’ll find him and you are going to get us all killed.”

  “If it’s a bomb, we won’t have to hold him long. I call Andy and then we have resources.”

  “Don’t be crazy. Get to the rendezvous point, call Andy now. Get the cavalry.”

  Yoda heard only silence from the other end of the phone. Sami had pulled it away from his ear to look at the screen. Emily was trying to call in.

  “Look, man. If he doesn’t know, then where is he driving? Why is he going to the hotel?” Yoda paused. Sami could feel his desperation through the phone. “I know you want to help this guy, but you won’t talk him out, man. Not with both of you alive.”

  “Maybe not, but maybe I can get other people out of there,” Sami spoke over Yoda’s continued protestations. “I gotta go, man. Emily’s calling in.”

  Sami switched calls. “Hey, Em. Hold on.” He looked over at Alexa. “Where did he go?”

  “He was in front of the hotel on the phone, but he went in.”

  “Where’s the truck?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sami returned to the phone. “Sorry, Emily. What did you get?”

  “Nothing much. I think Karim is as confused as we are. It was a useless meeting.”

  “Did Hasan say anything?”

  “They talked about their meeting. Hasan told Karim he wanted him to read a passage from the Qur’an during dinner. Told him to head to the hotel right away and review it for a few minutes. To text him when he looked it over. Where are you?”

  Sami ignored the question. “That’s it?”

  “You saw,” Emily said. “They were in and out in less than ten minutes. Hasan was straining to think of things to tell him, and then he couldn’t get out of there fast enough.”

  “You said Karim was confused?”

  “Yeah, at the end. You could almost hear it in his voice. Hasan told him about the meeting agenda and then he went on a tangent about the importance of family. He told Karim he should call his wife and kids before dinner. Tell them he loved them— “

  “Fuck!”

  Emily had never heard Sami curse. “What?”

  “Nothing. Go on.”

  “Sami, when will you be at the rendezvous? What’s going on?”

  “I can’t explain right now. Was that it?”

  “No. He told him to use the valet. Made a big deal of it.” Sami didn’t hear the rest. He had his hand on the door handle before he pressed END.

  He turned toward Alexa as he threw open the door. “Go find Hasan!”

  Before Alexa could respond, Sami was running across the street toward the hotel.

  ***

  Hasan was a perfectionist, and to him, nothing was as perfect as Islam. That much Karim understood. That was why Hasan asked him to early coffee, so he could be sure that Karim would get to the hotel in plenty of time to read and review for their meeting. And so, he was reading the passage.

  The command for Karim to call his wife made less sense. Why he obeyed, that made no sense at all. He just did what Hasan said. Karim trusted him. Hasan had picked the perfect one of the Council for tonight’s objective. If Karim had resisted, and it had been necessary, Hasan could have called upon the one who identified Karim in the first place. The Mutual Friend. Karim would obey him.

  After reading the passage through two times, Karim glanced at his watch. There was an hour before the rest of the Council would arrive for the meeting. It was a simple passage. Karim was wondering how long to wait before texting Hasan, and how to pass the rest of the time. Then he saw Sami.

  “As-salamu alaykum.” Sami walked over to hug his childhood friend.

  “Waʿalaykumu as-salam” was all Karim could muster, but his expression spoke volumes.

  It wasn’t just surprise, it was fear. He was not enthusiastic about the auspicious reunion of old friends, the second in the space of a week. My gay friend, an estranged Muslim, here at my meeting. What if someone sees him? What if Hasan asks about him? It was only after these thoughts ran through his mind that Karim registered how bizarre it was that Sami used the traditional Muslim greeting.

  “What are you doing here
, man?” Sami asked.

  “Me?” Karim’s eyes were darting around behind Sami. He tried to relax, told himself he had an hour before anyone would arrive for the Council meeting. “This is my side of town. What about you?”

  “Having dinner with a buddy from the military. He teaches at the Academy.” Sami tried again. He wanted to give a clear path to test Karim’s evasiveness. It wasn’t taken. “You meeting your wife?”

  “My wife? No. She’s home with the kids. It’s a meeting for the mosque.”

  As Karim spoke, his phone vibrated in his hand. It might be his wife or his children, but Sami guessed Hasan was impatient. It reminded Sami how little time they had. He needed to act. As Karim raised the phone, Sami stopped his hand.

  “There’s no meeting, Karim.”

  ***

  Outside, Black Truck Guy completed a half-mile loop around the hotel. After making his delivery near the coffee shop, he drove the same route that Alexa took minutes later and parked within sight of the hotel. When Karim pulled up, the driver watched him leave the car and complete the phone call to his wife. Only when Karim entered the hotel did Black Truck Guy text the confirmation code to his boss, the man these ragheads knew as Zechariah.

  By then, Alexa and Sami had pulled up. No one could blame them for missing the black truck from the coffee shop, the same one that Alexa had seen moments before, parked just three car lengths behind. It was a tense few moments and neither was trained for covert operations or surveillance. Black Truck Guy started his circuit just after Sami ran into the hotel.

  He and Sami had been trained by the Army at the same Basic Infantry School. A decade earlier, they had been stationed at FOBs less than twenty miles apart in the Sunni Triangle. They both learned a lot there and both were putting those lessons to use tonight. Neither had the endorsement of the government that trained them, though both were confident they were acting in its interest; perhaps even with its tacit approval.

  Black Truck Guy began a second ½-mile circuit. He would circle until his boss told him it was time.

  ***

  Sami grabbed his childhood friend by the elbow and moved him out of the hotel lobby. Down past the elevators and into a plushly-carpeted hallway, he looked for a stairwell. He knew that hotels had stairs near the emergency exit doors. Nearing the end of the hallway, he pushed Karim through a grey steel door.

  When the door slammed shut behind them, Karim shook his arm loose.

  “What are you doing?” He asked, more confused than annoyed.

  “Do you know?”

  “I have no idea, Samir--!”

  “Do you know what’s going on? With Hasan?”

  Karim started to respond, then his face registered a surprised recognition. “How do you know Hasan?”

  “Answer me.”

  As if on cue, the phone vibrated again. Both men looked down. Karim was still holding his finger inside the Qur’an to mark the page for his reading.

  “That’s him. That’s Hasan. We know him.” Karim stared back blankly. “C’mon, Karim. I’m giving you a chance I shouldn’t be. Do you know?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  Karim was telling the truth. If it had been someone else, Sami wouldn’t have been so sure, but he knew his friend. It was a gut reaction and that was why Andy put him on the operation. Still, it was only a gut reaction. Sami didn’t have time to probe any deeper. To leave alive, and stop whatever was planned next, Sami needed to act.

  “Give me your phone!” Sami reached as he spoke.

  “No!”

  Sami didn’t think Karim’s phone would detonate the bomb. It left too much to risk for Hasan. Somehow, he would need Karim to dial the number of the dummy phone wired into the bomb. What if Karim didn’t make the call? What if he got suspicious? No, Hasan’s text was for another purpose: to make sure that Karim was in the hotel. Sami felt a prick of understanding.

  “OK, but do not text him back!”

  “Sami—" Karim protested.

  “There’s a bomb. Hasan had someone place it in the bed of your truck while you were having coffee. You drove the bomb to this hotel. We have to get out, and we have to get everyone else out before he dials the number of the cell phone detonator wired into that bomb.”

  It was on the table. Breaking every rule of intelligence and covert operations, Sami just told his target everything, but it wasn’t enough. He understood Karim’s confused stare. He felt the same way until about two hours ago. Then Black Truck Guy showed up and confirmed Andy Rizzo’s worst suppositions about Hasan Khalifa.

  Sami knew how Karim felt because he had experienced the feeling once himself. When he discovered his own betrayal. The memory came to Sami as a chill that crept up his spine and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand. He lied to Karim about it once before, to save himself from admitting the truth. Maybe now he could right the wrong he had done to his friend and save them both.

  “That night, in college- “

  “No, Sami.”

  Sami had just told Karim that his truck was rigged with explosives and a friend had betrayed him, making him complicit to a terror attack. His reaction was stupor. But, as soon as Sami alluded to the night he came out of the closet, Karim reacted forcefully. It was remarkable how much this said about Islam, and America, and the men of both.

  “Do you think I trusted you because I thought you would be accepting? Because you would help me? Or even understand me?”

  “Sami— “

  “No, listen! I told you I was gay because I knew you would accept that excuse. There was something so menacing, something else eating me up so badly inside that I could not keep it secret. It would have killed me, Karim.”

  “Ok, but it’s not for me or you…” Karim struggled before settling on the explanation he sought. “It is haram.”

  “Not that! I am gay, but I only told you so I could continue hiding the truth. My grandfather, Karim. Abu Muhammad.”

  The phone vibrated one more time. Sami was at the end of his rope. He needed to tell Karim what he had hidden for so long. If he didn’t do it now, neither of them would make it out alive.

  ***

  Black Truck Guy completed his second circuit of the hotel and still, there was no response from his boss. He pulled to the side of the road before thumbing out his next message. When you are engaged in blowing up a building, you don’t want to get pulled over for texting while driving. If Sami and his team were operating with a slim margin for error, the driver’s was even narrower. He made his delivery. The package was now in place. He knew what the man who developed this plan would say, but he waited patiently, confident that time was not of the essence.

  The text he expected came through.

  MAKE ANOTHER LOOP. IF YOU DON’T HEAR BY THEN, PROCEED.

  Black Truck Guy shifted into drive and eased back into traffic. Now, or in five minutes, their mission would be complete. They were not starting the war. It had already raged for decades. They were not even the first to bring it to America. They were a long way from the beginning. But he was confident this would be the beginning of the end.

  ***

  Sami grabbed Karim with a pincer grip on the tender tissue just above the elbow and pulled him down the concrete stairs. It was a stairway like those in every hotel in the U.S., unfinished and almost cavernous in its high ceiling and lack of carpet. The faux brass sconces in the guest hallways were replaced by emergency floodlights mounted to battery boxes. The stairs wound up and down in an endless line of tubular steel railing. If Sami was correct, there would be one other common feature.

  He scanned the first landing and found nothing. They were halfway to the garage level and Karim was screaming and thrashing to break loose. Approaching the second landing, Sami saw a blue beacon. Below it, behind a clear plastic housing, was an emergency call button. Sami pulled the box free and mashed the button. A wail went up throughout the hotel.

  “Are you crazy?” Karim yelled over the shrill ec
ho in the concrete stairway.

  “We need everyone to get out of here. Let’s go.” Sami started down again.

  “Where?” Karim asked. And then, with just a second’s thought. “No!”

  “Come to the truck! I’ll show you.”

  Above them, hotel guests and staff were responding to the alarm, but laconically. Sami and Karim should have been evacuating with everyone else. Sami should have been in the lobby, pushing people out the door and yelling “Bomb!” But he didn’t just want to save people, he wanted to stop the bomb.

  He still assumed that Karim was innocent, and if that was the case then he would not be the one detonating the bomb. He hoped that when fire trucks and police cars and ambulances arrived in the next few minutes and clogged the driveway and street in front of the hotel, it would be enough to scare off whoever was activating the bomb. It was an assumption that a covert operator never would have made.

  Sami wanted to save Karim from more than just the bomb. He wanted to save Karim from whatever he had been dragged into. He also knew that Karim was his best way into Hasan’s plot. He wasn’t thinking like a covert operator. He was thinking like an intelligence analyst. Someone who wanted to collect data. To crack the case. To do that, he needed his friend to see what was in the truck.

  Sami burst through the metal door and into the subterranean parking deck, still and silent except for the hollow echo of the alarm. Karim was still lagging.

  “Come on, I don’t know how much time we have, but it’s not much.”

  Karim caught up and then they were jogging. Neither of them knew where the valet had parked the truck and Sami was scanning the lot for the truck, or a sign that marked the valet area. He saw the exit ramp ahead and he knew it would be there. On the top level, near the ramp, where the valets could access vehicles quickly. He led Karim in that direction.