Mustafa stared through the glass at the man in the interrogation room. Something about you scares the men in power, he thought. It can’t be this crazy story you’re telling, so what is it? What secret are you hiding? What does Osama bin Laden not want me to know?
THE LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA
A USER-EDITED REFERENCE SOURCE
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (born March 10, 1957), a Sunni Muslim, is a senator from the state of Arabia. He is a member of the National Party of God. Since the year 2001 he has been the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
EARLY LIFE
Osama bin Laden is one of 25 sons of Mohammed bin Laden, whose Bin Laden Construction Company (now part of the Saud/Bin Laden Group) is responsible for such projects as the expansion of the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, and the restoration of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Osama was born in a suburb of the federal district of Riyadh and grew up in Jeddah, Arabia. He attended Jeddah’s elite Al Thagr School and studied economics and business administration at Jeddah University.
HOLY WARRIOR AND STATESMAN
In 1980, displeased with the Arab government’s “tepid” response to the Russian Orthodox invasion of Afghanistan, Osama left school and traveled to Peshawar, Pakistan. There along with Abdullah Azzam he founded the Afghan Services Bureau, an organization that helped deliver money, weapons, and recruits to the Afghan resistance. Desiring a more direct role in the conflict, Osama eventually established a camp within Afghanistan and became the leader of his own mujahideen unit.
Following the defeat of the Russians and the breakup of the Orthodox Union, Osama returned to Arabia a hero. In 1990 he ran for Congress, easily winning election as Jeddah’s representative in the House. He served two and a half terms, then in 1995 won his Senate seat in a special election held after the untimely death of the incumbent, Wafah al Saud.
FACTS ABOUT OSAMA BIN LADEN
·
At nearly two meters in height, he is the tallest man ever to serve in Congress.
·
He has been married five times and divorced once.
·
His personal worth is estimated at 50 million riyals.
·
An extremely religious man, he does not listen to music, attend movies, or watch any television programs other than news.
·
His relationships with both the
Party of God
and the
House of Saud
have been described as “complicated.” It is rumored that upon his return from Afghanistan, Osama initially intended to run for office as an independent candidate; only after numerous meetings with high-level party officials did he agree to join the
POG
.
·
He was an early, ardent supporter of the
War on Terror
and the
invasion of America
. He is one of very few invasion supporters not to have suffered politically as a result.
·
He is often mentioned as a potential presidential candidate; many pundits were surprised when he decided not to seek the POG nomination in 2008. When asked whether he would run for president in 2012, he said that he might, “if there still is a presidency.” Asked to explain what he meant by this statement, he replied, “The
Day of Judgment
may come at any time.”
Costello’s apartment was in one of four identical towers surrounding a dusty cul-de-sac. It was after 10 p.m. when Samir and Amal arrived, but a group of boys were still outside playing soccer. A pair of police cars were parked in front of Costello’s building, and a cop leaned against one car’s back trunk, smoking a cigarette and watching the game.
Samir pulled up beside the police cars, and he and Amal got out and showed their IDs. “Are our colleagues inside?”
“No,” the cop told them. “They cleared out twenty minutes ago. They said they were done.” His tone was accusatory, as if Samir and Amal were breaking a promise by showing up this way.
“So what are you still doing here?” Samir wanted to know.
“Securing the premises.”
Amal, only too familiar with the ways of the Baghdad PD, chuckled at this.
“We need to get into the apartment,” Samir said. “You want to take us up, or should we just ring for the super?”
“One moment,” the cop said. He stepped away, speaking quickly and softly into his walkie-talkie. A few minutes later, another policeman appeared inside the building lobby and opened the door for them.
Two more cops waited in the hall outside Costello’s apartment. A warning notice had been taped to the apartment door, and a red Homeland Security seal placed across the crack between the door and the doorframe. The seal was broken.
“ ‘Securing the premises,’ ” Samir said.
The first cop, who’d ridden up with them in the elevator, just shrugged. “They said they were done.”
“Yes, and now you’re done, too. Open this door for us and get the hell out of here.”
A whirlwind had been through Costello’s living room, yanking cushions from seats, knocking objects from shelves. A plastic date palm had been uprooted from its pot and now lay on the floor, pretending to be dead. A wooden hutch held a few DVD cases—all popped open, the discs tossed aside—but there was no player to go with them. Bolted to the wall above the hutch was a pair of reinforced bracket mounts that had, until quite recently, held a flat-screen TV.
“What do you think?” Amal said, gauging the size and spacing of the brackets. “One-and-a-half-meter widescreen?”
Samir nodded. “One of those nice plasma jobs, probably.”
Amal looked past a serve-through counter into the kitchenette. The whirlwind had been in there too, opening cabinets and dumping out cans and boxes. “I guess the microwave wasn’t worth stealing . . . So what are we looking for?”
“I don’t know,” Samir said. “But if we find a second plasma, it’s mine.”
A wooden cross hung on the wall in the apartment’s single bedroom. Samir checked the closet, finding only a few shirts and a threadbare suit. Amal peeked under the bed, then turned to the dresser—its contents had already been pawed through, but she removed each drawer in turn, checking to see if anything was taped to the backs or undersides.
Samir stepped to the window. There was a scatter of paperbacks on the sill and on the floor below it. The books were in English and German, neither of which Samir could read, but he recognized some of the covers. In addition to a Bible and what appeared to be some sort of catechism, there were several volumes of the Left Behind series and a new edition of Martin Luther’s 16th-century polemic, On the Jews and Their Lies.
“Nothing here,” Amal said. “What’ve you got?”
“Typical Christian hate literature. No secret blueprints hidden between the pages.”
They checked the bathroom next. While Amal tugged at the mirror above the sink, Samir investigated the toilet tank, known colloquially to Halal Enforcement as a “Bavarian ice chest” because of its popularity as a hiding place for bottled beer. But the tank lid was askew, and any contraband had already been taken by the cops or the federal agents who’d been here before them.
“Hey,” said Amal. “I need a tall person here.”
Concealed near the top of the mirror frame were a couple of sliding catches; when Samir pressed on them, the mirror tipped forward and came loose, revealing a hole in the wall. Inside the hole was a pistol, a banded stack of riyals, a bottle of whiskey, and a wrinkled newspaper in a plastic pouch. “One of these things is not like the others,” Samir said.