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SEPTEMBER DAY By Larry Schweikart, author of the best selling, "A Patriot's History of the United States" OFFICIAL WEB SITE |
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1ST EXCERPT - From Section One - The Plot |
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CNN, August 7, 1998 Over the video of smoking embassies and the sounds of ambulances, weeping and moaning, came the superimposed CNN announcer’s voice. “We have reports that more than 200 people are dead, and as many as 5,000 wounded. Again, truck bombs today went off outside the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Sources have not identified those responsible . . . .” Nairobi, Kenya, October 1998 Colonel Wadi el-Hage sat at his desk in his first-floor apartment, busily recording his latest activities on behalf of Osama bin Laden in his personal diary. As a correspondent and secretary to al-Sharif, el-Hage kept track of African operations, and transmitted a weekly update via e-mail to bin Laden. This week’s subject was a follow-up on the successful bombing of two American embassies two months ago. Suddenly the door exploded, showering el-Hage with splinters, smoke, and cordite. The blast sent him flying out of his chair and knocked his diary 20 feet away. He wasn’t sure that he could hear anything---later he would find out he had a punctured eardrum, and the pain in his head already blinded him. Laying sideways on the floor, however, he could see the five Kenyan soldiers in uniform burst in, accompanied by a pair of Kenyan intelligence officers dressed in civilian clothes. And Americans. There were two Americans. Before el-Hage could speak, the Kenyans hit him with TASERS, then added a few well-placed kicks before the Americans instructed the Kenyan officers to cease. As the soldiers tied el-Hage’s hands behind his back with plastic cords---my arm! My arm is broken!---the American and Kenyan officers inspected his work space. His diary lay wide open on the floor, covered only by a fine dust. CIA agent Cliff Harrison carefully picked it up, and after concluding that it was safe to do so, blew the dust off. By prior agreement with the Kenyans, the two agents got first crack at whatever they found in el-Hage’s residence. Harrison placed the diary in a baggie, which he then dropped in his shoulder bag with any other evidence the team found. El-Hage, writhing on the floor, nearly blacked out. Not only was the pain in his ear and arm unbearable, but he looked down to see a large piece of wood, perhaps six inches long, sticking out of his knee joint. Then he screamed. El-Hage had been under observation for weeks. There was no question of his ties to bin Laden, or to the explosions at Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi. But to record the details of who, and where, in a diary . . . . Well, if el-Hage did not die in the interrogation that would follow, bin Laden would ensure that he never said anything else. The last thing he saw before the Kenyan soldier dragged him out of the room was the two Americans waving at him. Harrison and Agent Lonnie Jackson were partners, a duo, nicknamed “lethal weapon” by their colleagues at the Ranch, apparently only because one was white and one black. In fact, they shared almost nothing in common with the Mel Gibson’s Martin Riggs and Danny Glover’s Roger Murtaugh characters in the movies. Jackson was a 42-year-old former LA cop. He might have fit the Murtaugh role, except unlike the real-life Glover, Jackson was a lifelong Republican and put his kids through private schools in D.C. The eternally optimistic church-going Jackson was quite a contrast to the 51-year-old Harrison, who looked nothing like Mel Gibson. Already developing a paunch that protruded over his khaki slacks, Harrison could no longer even jog the Agency’s minimum, and managed to escape his last two reviews only with the help of sympathetic superiors who knew his value in the field. and although he occasionally flashed an engaging smile and a certain charisma, far too often it was obscured by his pessimism and fatalistic world view. Like Martin Riggs, though, he could be crazy when energized by the whiz of bullets or the thrill of the hunt, and he had a conspiracy streak that, when properly plied with alcohol, led him into dark tales of the Bildeburgers and Freemasons. Both agents wore colorful but dirty Hawaiian shirts and grease-stained hats---Jackson a Raiders cap, backwards, while Harrison a “crocodile hunter” bush hat---but despite the sunglasses, no one would mistake them for tourists. Their stubble and rumpled clothes might be better suited to unemployed adventurers or bush guides. Either way, it achieved their aim, which is to say that they looked far too unprofessional to be what they, in fact, were: deadly killers, and complete pros. Both spoke and read Arabic (Jackson was passable in Turkish); could forge a driver’s license or passport with basic school supplies; stitch a wound with a needle and thread; or extract a confession from a hardened operative with only a pair of pliers and a screwdriver. Harrison also hated to wait for a bunch of pencil-necked analysts in some air-conditioned office to examine the goodies. While the Kenyans continued to sweep the apartment, against all protocol, Harrison extracted the diary out of the baggie. “Bingo,” Harrison announced, thumbing through the diary. “You won’t believe this.” “I bet I will,” agreed Jackson. “The embassies are Bin Laden’s work?” Harrison nodded. “What was this guy thinking? He wrote it all down” Sometimes we give these terrorists too much credit. They certainly aren’t supermen. They make critical errors. Dumb mistakes, actually. “This is the work of AQ all right, but---there’s something else here that smells.” Jackson leaned over Harrison’s shoulder to read for himself. “He refers to some ‘joint-venture,’ but doesn’t say who with.” He looked at Harrison, who also shook his head. “Well, let’s sweep this place, but it will be hard to top this.” He turned to the Kenyan agents. “You guys know the drill. Collect any papers, computer records, physical evidence, but be careful. Watch for bombs or other booby traps. Just because we nabbed el-Hage and some items from his desk safely doesn’t mean he didn’t trip-wire the whole place. I’ll drop off a copy of what we got at your place tomorrow.” Harrison patted the shoulder bag where he had the diary as he sifted through a few loose papers on the table. “Ya know, Lon, we’ve had el-Hage on tape for more than five years, and connected him to Hamas, but never to AQ or bin Laden before.” “We have now, and I don’t like it. There is something bigger going on here” Jackson pointed out. “Yah, duh. Like two burning embassies?” “No,” Jackson said grimly. “Bigger than that.” Harrison rarely saw fear in his partner’s eyes, and the look he got from Jackson sent a chill down his spine. Peshawar, Pakistan, hours later “So, The Americans are faster than I expected. It will do them no good. We are ahead of them at every turn.” Osama bin Laden spoke to Zawahiri and Malid as he walked among the mountains, unarmed, walking stick in hand. Overconfident again, Sharif? thought Malid. “Nevertheless, Sharif, it might be best if you put yet another layer between yourself and the operations. Perhaps dispatch all future orders through a subordinate?” Bin Laden stopped and glared at Malid. “Do you think I’m a coward who can be frightened off by these infidels?” Malid returned his stony stare. “That is not what I meant and you know it. We should take reasonable precautions.” Malid had noticed bin Laden not only getting more reckless, but more bloodthirsty in the two years since they left Sudan. He no longer spoke of the Koran, or explained his actions in terms of how it advanced the cause of the Prophet. Indeed, aside from a few public pronouncements, he doesn’t mention the Prophet at all. Blood has become its own end. Bin Laden looked at Zawahiri who gave him the gentlest nod. “Very well, we shall begin to route all orders through you or Ayman. Use cell phones only, and change them every month. Never accept a call from a number you do not recognize, and if a call comes in from the same unknown number more than once, destroy the phone immediately. Both nodded, and bin Laden walked away. Although Malid had won his point, the recent embassy bombings still tore at him. In the two years after they left Sudan, Malid found it increasingly difficult to rationalize the killing of innocents, even infidel innocents. Worse, the weight of the past now sat on him even heavier because of the knowledge of what would soon happen in the future. Is there no room in the Koran for mercy, Sharif? Do you honor the Koran any longer? Aden, Yemen, October 12, 2000 From several hundred yards away, the Arleigh Burke-class U.S.S. Cole looked both serene and majestic. Without an aircraft carrier alongside to dwarf the destroyer, it was imposing, yet sleek. It sat at anchor, receiving supplies from local vendors in small boats, but the three Yemeni men glanced at it only intermittently as they quietly loaded a rubber dinghy with explosives. Fahd al-Quoso and Jamal al-Badawi gave last minute instructions to Ali al-Hada, their partner, who climbed into the boat to pilot it. They covered the explosives with tarps. Starting the engine, al-Hada shouted over the din, “You will tell my brother of my sacrifice?” Al-Badawi reassured him. “Your family will honor your name. Al-khaliph will declare you a hero, and care for your family, and Allah will welcome you into Paradise. Allah be praised.” Yet al-Badawi’s eyes betrayed him. He looked at al-Hada not with pride or with assurance of eternal rewards, but with a sadness of another young man who would not live to see his sons again. Al-Badawi had no reservations about the necessity of the task. Unlike his less sophisticated partner, al-Quoso, however, Jamal knew everything came at a cost. In this case, the cost would be al-Hada’s life. Fahd al-Quoso, a short, vile bin Laden lieutenant, wanted to leave no doubt as to al-Hada’s mission, but his pep talk was less than inspiring. “You will strike a great blow against the great Satan. We have learned our lesson with our failed attempt on the Sullivans. This boat is large enough for the explosives. Take yourself to Paradise, and send the Americans to death. They will know after today that even their great warships are not safe from al-Qaeda.” Al-Hada nodded solemnly, but for the first time it dawned on him that he, and not Fahd or Jamal, was piloting this boat to his death. How convenient, he noted, even as he threw the transmission into gear. How convenient that bin Laden himself never seems to lead one of these attacks. Hada’s brief dialogue with himself suddenly collapsed under a mass of ideological slogans and jihadist rhetoric as he, once again, convinced himself that this was “Allah’s will.” Shunting his questions aside, he obediently powered the small boat across the harbor to the Cole. Back at the dock, al-Quoso and al-Badawi follow the small craft with their eyes (it was too obvious to watch it through field glasses). After a seeming eternity, the vessel pulled alongside the Cole, with the only sign that something was coming when al-Hada did not return the Cole’s hailing. Instead, he stood praying . . . right up until the tremendous explosion next to the Cole’s hull. Their hearts swelled with pride in their accomplishment, and scarcely a thought passed about al-Hada, or his fatherless sons. Later, al-Quoso and al-Badawi learned that 17 Americans had died in the blast, which left a 40 x 40-foot gash in the side of the vessel. Allahu Akbar! Tora Bora Mountains, Afghanistan, 30 minutes later Bin Laden’s spartan headquarters building sat in an unremarkable valley near the Tora Bora Mountains. Aside from a few bunk houses and supply sheds, the only structures were a couple of training houses and some adjoining firing ranges and explosives pits. Even inside the headquarters, which more resembled a telemarketer’s office than terror central, bin Laden only had a few computers, a television or two, two ottomans and a sofa, and a large table littered with maps and postem notes. He did not use phones, unless they were cell phones. Land lines were too easy to track. He easily could have afforded his own radar unit, but to what purpose? The Americans could take it out in seconds with one of their infamous HARM missiles, and it just offered another target. No, he thought, the militaries of the world have been relying increasingly on technology. It was time to go “low-tech”---to defeat the western powers, he would not attack them at their strength---their military and economic power. He would attack their weakness. Their liberties. Their tolerance. He would use their very values against them. Allah would not be so foolish as to expose His people to such freedoms, which only lead to corruption and impure lusts. MTV indeed. The Americans will find that their most powerful warships are all but invulnerable to Russian or Chinese ships, but not from hundreds of small crafts that swim around them at every port, which are needed for supplies. Perhaps a missile cannot take out their Pentagon, but there are other, possibly deadlier, methods. He sat staring at the satellite map on his computer screen as Malid pored over research bin Laden had requested about the Pentagon and Wall Street, when one of his many cell phones beeped. Bin Laden knew who was on the other end when he answered. “Results?” he asked Quoso Al-Quoso answered with obvious pride. “The Americans cannot move the vessel. It has a huge hole in the side. Many dead.” “Did you videotape your attack?” “As you ordered. Ali al-Hada died a martyr. What do you want us to tell Sameer about his brother, or say to al-Hada’s sons?” Bin Laden snorted, “Tell them what you want. His death does not concern me. We will make a recruitment video of this blessed event. All the infidels will shudder.” Puzzled, al-Quoso questioned bin Laden. “But Ali is a hero, Khaliph. A martyr.” “Yes,” bin Laden said without conviction. “Let Allah decide his status. His death does not interest me. Tell Sameer and the boys what you wish. Just get me that video. The Americans will find this attack is just the beginning.” Malid looked at the video. Smoke pouring from the warship’s hull. Litters with red crosses on them taking wounded men off the vessel---and body bags. Many of them. That they were enemy combatants somehow did not salve his conscience, especially about Ali. Yet bin Laden cared not that he had sacrificed himself for . . . for what? Bin Laden? Islam? Certainly not for the Prophet. Malid went cold when he looked at the reaction on bin Laden’s face: a satisfied smile. Then bin Laden hit a speed dial on his phone and heard his uncle’s voice. “Yes, Sharif?” Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, with papers strewn all over his Karachi apartment, had been working all morning. “Is your plan on schedule?’” “It is. They have learned nothing since the Bojinka plot . . . .” “That failed, I will remind you . . . .” “Yes, Sharif, it failed, but the next attempt will not use bombs on planes.” “No, it will not. Let us pray it is more effective than your Bojinka plan to blow up several airliners simultaneously.” Bin Laden could not see Khalid Sheikh Mohammad break into a smile. “Oh, I assure you, Sharif. It will astound the world.” |