Alex Berenson - The Faithful Spy

“We’ve set up an e-mail account for you — SmoothJohnny1234@ gmail.com,” Omar said. “All one word.”

“Smooth Johnny?” Wells said. “I’m not so sure about that, Omar.” He laughed as naturally as he could. Best to get on the guy’s good side. “And then?”

“Then you move to Atlanta,” Zawahiri said.

“And wait. It may be a few months. Practice your shooting,” Khadri said. “Get a job. Keep out of the mosques. Blend in. It shouldn’t be hard.”

“Can’t you tell me more?”

Khadri shook his head. “In time, Jalal.”

“Good luck,” Zawahiri said.

Wells hoped his face didn’t betray his fury. They had shoved him to the edge of a thousand-foot drop, made him see his own death. And he had passed their test. So he was alive, with five grand in his pocket and a ride to Hong Kong. But they still didn’t trust him enough to tell him what they had planned.

Fine, Wells thought. In time. He tapped his chest. “I won’t fail you, Mujahid,” he said. “Salaam alaikum.”

“Alaikum salaam.”

Zawahiri and Khadri stood to leave. At the door, Khadri turned and looked at Wells. “ Alaikum salaam, John. How does it feel to be going home?”

“Home?” Wells said. “I wish I knew.”

THE LITTLE GIRL in 35A saw them first. Angela Smart, of Reston, Virginia, flying home with her family from a spring break trip to see her grandparents in London. Angela was glad the trip was almost over. She missed her friends, and Josie and Richard — her grands — were nice, but they smelled funny. She looked out the window again and wondered when they’d be home. When she asked her dad, who was in the seat behind her, he just said, “Not far now, Smurfette,” and snorted like he’d said something funny. She didn’t even know who Smurfette was. Her dad was goofy sometimes.

At least she had a window seat. The empty blue sky was beautiful; maybe she would be a pilot when she grew up. Being up here all the time would be fun. Then she saw it, a speck in the sky at the edge of the horizon. She pressed her face to her window. Was it? It was. A plane. Two planes, far away but coming closer. They looked like little darts with wings. She nudged her mother, sleeping next to her in 35B.

“Stop it, Angela,” Deirdre Smart muttered.

The darts were definitely getting bigger. Angela poked her mother again. “Mommy. Look.”

“What?”

“Look.”

Deirdre opened her eyes. She was annoyed, Angela could see. “What, Angela?”

“Outside.” Angela pointed.

Her mother looked. “Oh good Lord,” she said.

She grabbed Angela’s hand.

“Is something wrong, Mommy?”

“No, dear. Everything’s fine.”

The big jet’s speakers crackled to life. “From the flight deck, this is Captain Hamilton. You may have noticed that we have some company to the left and right. Those are F-16s, the pride of the United States Air Force. They’ll be riding with us into Dulles. No reason to be alarmed.” The captain sounded utterly confident, as if fighter jets escorted his flights home all the time. He clicked off for a moment, then clicked back on.

“However, I am going to have to ask you to remain in your seats the rest of the flight. No exceptions. Not for any reason. And please turn off all your laptops, CDs, any electronic equipment. If you’re in the bathroom now, please finish your business and return to your seat. If you do notice any of your fellow passengers using electronic devices or doing anything that seems…unusual, don’t hesitate to signal the flight attendants. I appreciate your cooperation. We’ve got a little weather coming up, but we should be on the ground in an hour and forty-five minutes.”

“Unusual? What the fuck does that mean?” Angela heard someone behind them say.

DEIRDRE SMART SQUIRMED in her seat and craned her neck to see her fellow passengers. Most of them were doing exactly what she was, eyeing one another warily. Had anyone on the plane struck her as “unusual”? Obviously that guy with the beard and the robe across the cabin. But no terrorist would dress that way, right? He’d get so much attention. Unless he figured that the security guys would think that too. A double cross. Whatever you called it. How was she supposed to know? It wasn’t her job to look for terrorists, for God’s sake.

I don’t want to live this way, Deirdre thought. I want to be able to take my kids to see my parents without worrying if we’re going to get blown to bits at thirty-five thousand feet. She figured she was like most people. In the years since September 11, her fears of terrorism had faded. Sure, she knew the bad guys were out there. Once in a while, like when she went through security checks at the airport, or watched 24, she thought about the possibility of another attack. But she didn’t really expect one, not in America, and certainly not in the Virginia suburbs.

Now she was flooded by the feeling of powerlessness that had overtaken her on September 11. My family never did anything to any of you, she thought. Why are you trying to hurt me? She supposed that feeling of fear was what they wanted, what they lived for. She’d read somewhere that when planes blew up in the air the force of the wind tore your whole body apart. A second of awful pain. Or maybe they’d be alive the whole way down, until they hit the ocean and got pulverized into shark bait.

Deirdre looked out the window at the fighters shadowing their jet. Dear God, I know we haven’t been going to church every Sunday, she thought. But if You get us through this we will. We’ll give more to charity…. She stopped herself. This was no way to pray. Prayer wasn’t about making deals with God. She remembered what her pastor had said two weeks before: We pray to celebrate God’s majesty and our faith in Him. Not to negotiate. Fine. She wouldn’t negotiate. She began to murmur to herself. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He leads me down into green pastures…

“Mommy,” her daughter whimpered. “I’m scared.” Angela was crying. “I don’t know why, but I’m scared.”

“Hold my hand, baby,” Deirdre said. “We’ll be home soon.”

DAVID MADE A nifty move, sliding the ball between his defender’s legs and carving himself a slice of open field. As the defense closed in on the void he’d created, he passed the ball off and cut toward the goal for a return pass. Perfect, Jennifer Exley thought. Her son was nine, and the best player in the Arlington junior league. At least she thought so, based on her limited experience as a soccer mom. She admitted she might be biased.

“Great play, David!” she yelled, feeling like a real mother for the first time in a while. He shot her a quick look, embarrassed and proud.

Her pager and cellphone went off simultaneously. A bad sign.

“Jennifer?” It was Ellis Shafer. A very bad sign. “I need you.”

“Fuck, Ellis.” Another Saturday with David and Jessica spoiled. Another pathetic call to Randy and his fiancée, asking them if they could take the kids on a weekend when she was supposed to have custody.

“It’s a priority, Jennifer.” That word meant something. Shafer shouldn’t even have used it on a nonsecure line.

“Just let me call my husband—”

“Ex-husband?”

“Thank you, Ellis. I’d forgotten about the divorce. David’s playing soccer. Lemme see if Randy can pick him up.”

“We’ll get the goons”—the internal CIA security officers—“to babysit if we have to. Just get in here.”

“Such a charmer, Ellis.”

“See you soon.” He hung up.

“I love you too, honey,” she said to the dead line. Cheers erupted around her. David ran down the field, his skinny arms over his head, hooting, as the other team’s goalie sheepishly fished the ball from the net. “Did you see it, Mom? Did you see me score?”