Soft Target (16 page)

“Sir,” came another voice, one of many, and he said, “Yes, yes, what is it?” then turned, his attention caught because he saw Jefferson outside talking to a TV reporter and he didn’t want to be criticized from within the command during the incident, and at the same time, he saw his PA hustling in, possibly with some new directive from the governor, and outside the window in the falling dark he saw reporters laughing and knew they were having a good one at his expense and—

“He wants to talk.”

—and he himself had to go to the bathroom and he hadn’t had dinner and couldn’t stay sharp without food and—

“Who wants to talk?”

“Him,”
said the tech.

Suddenly it got very quiet.

“The fellow inside?”

“Sir, it’s a call from Mall Security Command. I’ve verified it, it’s the right number, it’s from inside all right. It’s from somebody who says he represents an outfit called Brigade Mumbai. He wants to talk, he says, or at six p.m. he’ll kill six more people.”

T
he Imam, Nadifa Aba, locked the door of his storefront mosque—Masjid Al-Taqwa—on Bedford Avenue and checked for his enemies before walking to his car.

He had many enemies. Of course the FBI, but at least they kept their distance. Then the young American black men, who thought he was a fool and mocked his dignity and laughed at his prayerfulness and liked to intimidate him with fantasy violence that ended with a blow halted an inch from his nose. When he ducked, they collapsed in laughter.

But worst of all was the Reverend Reed Hobart, of the Minnescola Avenue Baptist Church of the Redeemer, who one day decided that his God had spoken to him and it was his duty to drive the non-Christians from Minnesota. The reverend had a long history of crusades and himself was probably under FBI surveillance for links to a violent antiabortion underground, but he also had a nose for publicity and for two weeks had shown up at ten each morning for four hours of nonviolent but very loud protest outside the imam’s modest mosque.

ISLAM IS THE BUNK one placard read, and GO BACK TO GOATLAND read another, and OSAMA IS TOAST, and the worst was KORAN + MATCHES = HOME COOKIN’. To see the text
desecrated like that! It filled him with rage and pain and hatred, pushing him further and further toward the violence that he felt deep in his heart. But he knew if he struck at the Reverend Hobart, with his mane of hair and his big head and his loud voice, he’d only be mocked and ridiculed. How could a believer keep his dignity in such a hellish circumstance?

But the reverend had taken the day off, and no one cursed at the imam as he walked to the car. To his right, as he passed a vacant lot, the vividly lit towers of downtown Minneapolis gleamed in the surprisingly chill August night like a nightmare. Metaphorically, of course, it was the West, hideous and tempting, all gloss, glitter, licentiousness and flesh, insolent black youth, bellowing white false holy men. He sniffed in disrespect, sending a snort of disapproving breath out into the air, purposefully not looking at the skyline of decadence, a Babylon of infidel scum.

He was a bitter man, forty-two, tall and angular like many Somalis, with bright eyes, white teeth, cheekbones like razors, and a froth of beautiful hair. He yearned for dry heat, the solitude of the desert, for quiet brightness, for the path of God’s will to be known to him, for a mission more potent than his current one, which was to enforce the Faith upon an ever-diminishing group of countrymen and observe in desolation as for every new arrival who joined, two older ones wandered off, away from the Faith, captivated by the temptation of America. Since the killing of Osama the Holy Warrior and the barbaric spectacle of celebration that ensued, the imam had been in a state of constant, fiery rage.

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?”

“You must convert to—”

“Not hardly. Oh, I know. I’ll give you a nice present. That will convince you. Would you like some delicious candy? What about a
gift certificate for Walmart? Possibly a new clock radio, one that goes ding-dong five times a day.”

The imam said nothing in the face of such blasphemy.

“Okay, my friend. Reach down under the dashboard in front of the seat to your right. There’s your present. Enjoy it in good health.”

The imam thought this was another joke. But he looked and, indeed, in the darkness of the space beneath the dashboard thought he made out a shape. He bent, and his fingers closed around some kind of green plastic garbage bag. He pulled it up to the seat, feeling its four pounds of weight. He set it down, studied the drawstrings of bright yellow plastic, and pulled it open.

It was the large, florid, and quite excited head of the Reverend Reed Hobart.

“Won’t that look great on the mantel?” said the boy as he slipped out the back and disappeared into the darkness. Then, suddenly, the dashboard display came alive and the radio blared.

Stones. “Paint It Black.”

R
ay slid the answer icon to the right and put the phone to his ear.

“This is Special Agent McElroy,” he heard.

“No,” he said, “it’s Chucklehead McElroy. Dumbbell and dope. You ever shoot down-angle, McElroy?”

“I guess not,” said McElroy.

“You have to hold low. If you hold straight on, you hit high. You owe me fifty.”

“Dollars?”

“Push-ups.”

“I’m a little busy now,” said McElroy.

“And you’re going to get busier. Put that rifle down, you’re too dangerous with it. You find me isolated targets out of visual contact with their main force and I will put them down. We’ll reduce their team one by one before they even notice it.”

“Uh, Sergeant, that’s against policy. I’d have to get some sort of higher approval on that, and to be honest, I don’t think an agent has ever acted under such a wide license. It would definitely be against our policy.”

“It’s against
your
policy. It’s not against
my
policy. My policy is stalk and kill, one-shot variety. It’s what I do. It’s all I do. I can shoot suppressed,
so noise isn’t an issue. Now I am going to move out and try and take these people down. Having you bird-dog for me from on high like my private satellite would be very helpful. Or I can do it on my own. Either way, it will happen, McElroy. You decide right now who you are with.”