He could not help but admire the militiamen’s bravery. They were dressed in the reflective jackets of a legitimate road crew and had a Dominion Water & Power truck parked on the median, but while that might fool passing civilian drivers (or at least give them an excuse to play dumb), it would be no protection at all against a military patrol. In the early days of the insurgency, when Army snipers sat on D.C. rooftops with orders to shoot anyone carrying a shovel or a toolbox after dark, Washington utilities employees had suffered a horrible death toll. After years of entreaties from the citizenry, the capital’s defenders were a little less trigger-happy now, but out here in the Virginia suburbs it was still open season on potential saboteurs—and rather than a quick clean bullet through the head, you were likely to get a shower of explosive shells from a helicopter gunship, leaving you torn up and dying in slow agony beside your burning vehicle.
As the militiamen ran a wire from the bomb to an antenna on the back of a mile-marker post, a clatter of rotor blades echoed from the east. The militiamen didn’t stop working or even look up. More bravery, or maybe it was just fatalism: If the chopper pilot had spotted them, they were as good as martyred already. But minutes passed with no deadly hail of shells, and the sound of the rotor blades gradually faded away. Not long after that, the job was finished; the militiamen got back into the truck and drove off.
“All right.” Timothy stood up and peeled off his goggles. “Let’s do it.”
The other disciple made no move to rise. “I don’t know about this, Tim,” he said.
“There’s nothing to know. You heard the director’s orders.”
“What if that chopper comes back?”
“It won’t. You heard the director. We’re protected from on high.”
“Yeah? If the director’s so sure about that, how come he’s not here?”
A crunch of leaves as Timothy half turned towards him: “We’re doing this, Terry. You’re doing it.”
After so much time in the dark, Terry didn’t need night-vision goggles to see the expression on his companion’s face. He shuddered, trying in vain to summon up the nerve to tell Tim to go fuck himself. But there was a reason Timothy was a leader while he was only a sidekick.
“OK,” he said, ducking his head in submission. “OK.” Then: “Fuck it.”
Mustafa opened his eyes around 4 a.m., disturbed by silence. Samir had been tossing and turning most of the night, but now the other bed was empty. Mustafa got up and went to use the restroom. Samir wasn’t there either, but the toilet stall smelled strongly of vomit.
He found Samir in the deluge room, seated on the “mountaintop” beside the velociraptor skeleton. The ’raptor remained poised to leap at Noah’s ark, but Samir looked like he’d already tried that and failed: His face and neck were damp, and his hair was plastered to his skull.
“Samir?” Mustafa said. “Are you ill?”
“I suppose I am,” Samir replied, his voice thick like a sleepwalker’s. “Many would say so.”
“Do you want me to get a doctor?”
“No. It’s not that kind of sickness.” Then: “Is it time to go already?”
“Not just yet. But listen, Samir, if you’re unwell, perhaps you shouldn’t go at all. Amal and I can—”
“No!” Samir came suddenly alert, looking alarmed and then angry. “I’m not a coward!”
“All right,” said Mustafa. “I’m going to go find Colonel Yunus, to pray. Would you like to join us?”
Samir’s face had gone slack again, and he took so long answering that Mustafa became convinced that he really was still asleep. Finally Samir said: “No. If God has no time for me, I have no time for Him . . . Come get me when you’re finished.”
A covered foxhole had been dug into the hillside by some previous group of partisans, abandoned and forgotten, then rediscovered by Bar Abbas as he scouted the highway for ambush sites. He crawled inside just before dawn. Twenty other militiamen were dispersed along the top of the ridge, lying belly down in the dirt with their weapons beside them.
The foxhole’s observation slit gave a view of the Davis Pike, hazy now in the dawn mist. On the ledge of packed earth that formed the base of the slit, Bar Abbas laid out a pair of binoculars, a pack of cigarettes, a coffee thermos, and last but not least, a remote-control box.
The green lamp on the remote control lit as soon as Bar Abbas switched it on, and when he pressed the test button the lamp flashed, indicating that the detonator circuit on the IED was live. A red lamp would let Bar Abbas know if and when Samir pressed the SEND button on his cell phone. After that, he wouldn’t have to do anything; the bomb would use the cell’s GPS to decide when to detonate. But the remote control also had a second button, under a safety catch, that would allow Bar Abbas to detonate the bomb manually if the red lamp failed to light.
Bar Abbas’s own cell phone vibrated silently in his jacket. It was a text message from a confederate in the Green Zone: SARACENS WILL DEPART 0700. Assuming normal traffic, drive time from the Green Zone to this kill zone should be about thirty minutes, so he had roughly two hours to wait.
There was room in the foxhole for at least three men, but Bar Abbas had insisted on privacy. While his subordinates shivered in the open air, he poured himself coffee and took a book from a satchel at his feet. In the gray dawn half-light he studied the title and author on the book’s cover: The Osama bin Laden I Know, by Peter Bergen.
A truck rumbled by on the highway below. Bar Abbas lit a cigarette and began to read.
The four Humvees were lined up in front of the Watergate Hotel. Three of them were what the Marines called “luxury models,” with bolted-on side and rear armor plating, bulletproof windows, and an armored turret surrounding the roof-mounted .50-caliber machine gun.
Mustafa, Samir, and Amal were each assigned to one of the armored Humvees. Mustafa would ride in the lead vehicle with Lieutenant Fahd. Humvee number two was the unarmored model.
Amal was assigned to Humvee number three with Salim, Zinat, Umm Husam, and a Sergeant Faris. Zinat offered to drive, but Sergeant Faris insisted on taking the wheel himself, and since Lionesses were not allowed to operate heavy weapons except in emergencies, that put Salim on the .50-caliber. “Ah well,” Zinat said, after Umm Husam claimed the other front seat, “at least we’ll have a nice view.” She tried to show Amal how the gunner’s sling would dangle Salim’s buttocks directly before their eyes, but Amal’s attention was focused on the turret armor, which struck her as inadequate. Salim’s head and upper torso would still be exposed, especially to a shooter firing from an elevated position.
Samir was assigned to the fourth Humvee, which had a sign mounted between its taillights reading AMERICA, TAILGATE AND WE WILL KILL YOU.
They had been issued helmets and flak jackets. Samir found the body armor constricting and pointless, so he stripped it off while he had a last smoke and then, when the order came to get into the vehicles, tried to leave it behind. The Marines were looking out for him, though, and one of his Humvee-mates, Private Dimashqi, patted him on the shoulder and handed the flak jacket back to him. “I know it’s a pain in the ass,” the private said, “but we really do want to keep you safe, sir.”
“Thanks,” Samir said glumly.
Colonel Yunus came out to see them off. He made eye contact with Mustafa and pressed his palms together in front of his chest. Mustafa smiled and returned the gesture, and the colonel nodded to Lieutenant Fahd.
“OK, let’s roll,” the lieutenant said.
Their air escort, a Shaitan missile-equipped helicopter gunship, was hovering over the Kennedy Arts Center. As the Humvee convoy rounded the Arabian embassy and entered the on-ramp for the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge, the pilot dipped the chopper’s nose in acknowledgment and flew out over the Potomac ahead of them.