He shrugged, drawing his cheap coat tightly about him to keep the chill out. His circumstances might be severe but his spirit was not. He fancied himself a warrior, a mover of worlds and shaker of universes; he burned with zeal and urgency. He glanced about, checking for his FBI monitors. Sometimes they were there, sometimes they were not. Maybe they weren’t even FBI, as he was on every Western terrorist watch list, mainly for his propensity to write angry essays in a small number of Somali-language community newspapers, such as his most recent, “Allah Demands Harshness, Yet Pity, in Attacking Homosexual Deviation,” drawn from several Koranic sources yet given a certain modernistic oomph by the imam’s relentless prose style and his merciful conclusion that the deviates should be defenestrated, not stoned. So much easier on everyone, including the transgressors, for whom he was not without compassion.
Tonight was a rare treat. Not only was the reverend blessedly absent, but as well there appeared to be no federal agents about. You could tell them because their sedans were inevitably dark in color, without American frill, and held two rather doughy-looking white men who appeared wracked with boredom. They followed at a respectful distance and sometimes they accompanied him all the way home and sometimes not, depending on who knew what indicators that suggested tonight would not be the night he blew up America.
So he had a free night. He checked his watch, saw that he still had an hour before his last prayers were expected, thought about this or that temptation-a small glass of wine, a trip through the pages of the latest Hustler, a rerun of the 9-11 video as Al Jazeera had reported it-but decided that tonight would be a pure and consecrated devotion.
He unlocked his Ford Tempo and climbed in, turned on the engine, waited for the moisture to clear from the windshield, and pulled into traffic, checking the mirrors to see if on either side of Bedford anybody pulled out behind him. No one did. However, in his own back seat, someone rose directly behind him and sat back, relaxed.
The imam’s gut clenched. You always had this fear in America that some crazed follower of a maniac like the reverend would take it in hand to blow away Islam in the form of the imam, as if the imam himself were plotting to blow up America, although of course that was on his to-do list. He cursed his stupidity for not checking the back seat. He was at war, he had to be alert. He prayed to Allah that this was not his death. And then he heard an American voice say, “If you’re worried about the FBI, they’re not here tonight. They only come on odd-numbered days in odd-numbered months and even-numbered days in even months. On the odd months, the shift is the last twelve hours of the day, the evens the first twelve hours. It used to be 24/7 but, you know… budget cutbacks.”
The imam swallowed drily.
“Who are you?” he asked, licking his lips. “Are you from the Reverend Hobart?”
“Not exactly.”
“Who, sir? Please.”
“Don’t turn around. Drive to your home, the usual route. The car is bugged, but I’ve momentarily diverted their penetration.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ve hacked into their computer net and examined their operating orders and their technical capacities. To get the car bugged, they hacked into the new MyFord Touch wireless connection. This lets them hear everything in the car, see out the rear window, track via GPS, turn it on and off, everything. I wrote an iPhone app to control the car and switched the FBI views to another vehicle. Currently, they’re watching a soccer mom deliver her kids to practice. They think it’s some kind of anomaly. So I will talk while you drive. You will park in your garage. Now listen hard and well and remember what I tell you.”
“Are you of the Faith?”
“Shut up. Listen. My faith is of no importance and you would not understand it anyway. Accept my aid, consider me a messenger from your God, but for now, shut up and listen.”
The imam swallowed again and kept his eyes straight ahead.
“I want to hurt them. Badly. Why? None of your beeswax, holy man. Maybe just because I love rock and roll. But I need gunmen. I want twelve Somali jihadis smuggled into Canada and held in a safe house near the border in mid-November. They should be true believers of low intelligence and profound impulses toward religious obedience. True believers, the seventy-two virgins, all that horseshit. If blooded, so much the better.”
“It’s impossible,” said the imam.
“I told you, nothing’s impossible. You have connections with half a dozen refugee organizations. As well, you have contacts with Hizbul Islam in Mogadishu, and the general will provide you what you need if you can convince him. And you will convince him.”
“What is this all about?”
“America, that is, America, the Mall. You know the place? A hideous vulgarity a dozen or so miles out of town in Indian Falls. Busy, busy, busy. It will be jammed on the day after Thanksgiving. Your gunmen will unjam it.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible. I will provide weapons and access and plans. I will take over the mall security system. We will give them a lesson they will never forget to the glory of your God and mine. Your job is to get the men, hold them, and deliver them at a certain moment. The plan is not sophisticated and will require no rehearsal. These fellows will simply walk down a hallway, shooting. Then they will hold hostages for a short while. That’s all. None of them will survive; it is a martyr’s mission. I invite you to join me in death and glory. Together, we will punish them for their sins, and for the murder of the Holy Warrior in his bed.”
“It costs money and permission. You cannot do such a thing without finances and a judgment from higher councils. We must examine to make sure such a course is correct and consider the political consequences. Ours is not simple nihilism but political policy.”
“Bullshit. Listen to these rules and commit to them, or this will all go away and you will burn in your hell for eternity. No e-mails. E-mail has been penetrated. No phone calls, also penetrated. Nothing written. No Facebook or Twitter or any stupid teenaged thing that you guys always give yourself away on. Nothing amateur. There must be no physical or electronic acknowledgment of the planned event, no records. Everything recorded can be recovered. The imam himself must not deviate from his routine of the past few months except to handle communications with the great General Hassan Dahir Aweys in Somalia, solely by satellite phone, which will be provided. But he should contact no other units, no Al-Qaeda cells, nothing, as all communications must be presumed penetrated. He must never ask permission. Everything must be local and person to person, guaranteed by a handshake and mutual obedience to your faith.”
The imam hardly knew what to say. Was this a dream, a phantom, a movie? But then he had an image of America, the Mall, consumed in flame, riven with blood, heaped with bodies of dogs, the smoke blowing its acrid perfume, an American blazing in the heart of middle America, and he was profoundly moved. The Holy Warrior avenged.
The imam arrived at his prosaic two-bedroom house in his prosaic neighborhood.
He pulled into his garage.
“Get out quickly, go inside, and say or write nothing. Cling exactly to your routine. Here is an envelope with ten thousand cash, to support your activities. It must never be banked because banks raise alarms. They are not on your side. Make plans to go to Somalia within the month to find and arrange for the boys. Nothing on paper, nothing by phone, nothing by e-mail. Be hard, disciplined, focused, and I will give you glory you haven’t even dreamed of.”
“Is this a trick? Are you an agent provocateur? Have you been sent here to gull me into a mistake? What is-”
“You want proof, is that it? You don’t trust the white kid? You think I’m on some kind of prank or working for the assholes of five-oh? Hmm, what can I do to convince you?”