John Weisman - Direct Action

“How unique?”

“You know how hard it is to build a miniature explosive device.”

“Of course.” It was true. For all the current hysteria about bombs, Tom knew it was incredibly difficult to make a sophisticated explosive device that was simultaneously powerful and small. Sure, you could use dynamite, C4, RDX, or nitro in a car bomb. But none of those could be miniaturized. You could make a shoe bomb out of Semtex. But there wasn’t a lot of Semtex around these days. Vaclav Havel, God bless him, had quickly destroyed most of the Soviet-era Czechoslovak stocks after he’d become president of the Czech Republic. Besides, what Semtex there was could be detected by the latest generation of explosives-detection sniffers. To be able to create a truly undetectable, miniature IED-that was something. Tom was intrigued. “Has this Ben Said done it?”

The Iranian dismissed Tom’s question with a flick of his hand. “No one knows who he is. No one fit the pieces together.” Shahristani lit a fresh Dunhill and gave Tom a Cheshire cat smirk. “Except me.”

Tom was going to have to wait for his answer. He focused on Shahristani. “Go on.”

The Iranian exhaled smoke through his nose. “Ben Said’s legend began in August of 1978. He was not even twenty, as best I can tell. But it was his bomb design that assassinated the Englishman Lord Louis Mountbatten by blowing up his fishing boat at Mullaghmore in County Sligo. He taught the Lebanese how to perfect car bombs, making them twice as lethal. He has worked with the Chechens. And with Islamists. The sneakers worn by Richard Reid, the British Islamist shoe bomber who frequented the Fins-bury Park mosque in London, were of Ben Said’s design.”

“But Reid’s shoe bomb didn’t work.”

“That was because of time constraints. Al-Qa’ida insisted on using prototypes. The fusing hadn’t been perfected. If they’d waited six more weeks, Reid wouldn’t have needed matches or a lighter. He would have yanked on one of his shoelaces and the plane would have been brought down.”

The Iranian knocked the ash off his cigarette. “For the Chechens, he is rumored to have designed explosives so small Black Widows can wear them onto aircraft.”

“How does he get them past security?”

“I am told he has reformulated Semtex into something twice as powerful and absolutely undetectable. It is time-consuming, dangerous, and he can make only small batches. But with this new formula, he can make bombs the size and shape of tampons. The fuse is self-contained. The bomber goes to the rearmost lavatory, removes the weapon from her privates, sets the fuse, and flushes the IED down the toilet. It’s impossible to retrieve and at cruising altitude the explosion is capable of blowing the tail off the aircraft.”

“Incredible.”

“In 2001, a Wahabist imam in Saudi Arabia paid Ben Said a million dollars to reconfigure the exploding vests used by Palestinian suicide bombers, making them smaller and lighter-and thus less identifiable and more deadly. The French have been on his case since 1995, when Ben Said was hired by GIA-Groupe Islamique Armé. He provided GIA with three bombs, which Algerian Islamists set off in the Paris metro. DST has a thick file. The British, too. And Israel. But no one has ever been able to pinpoint him.”

“So whoever he is, he is a shadow.”

Shahristani nodded in agreement. “A ghost, a wraith.” He indicated the photograph lying on the tablecloth. “It’s altogether possible you are looking at the only surveillance picture of Ben Said that exists.”

Tom squinted at the picture. Ben Said was the taller of the two men. He didn’t look like your typical Hollywood assassin. No muscular build, chiseled profile, or catlike bearing. What Tom saw was a slightly pudgy, clean-shaven man of about forty or so with a square face and a full head of longish dark hair combed straight back. His double-breasted sport coat was open and flapping as he walked, revealing dark trousers held up by a wide belt with an oversize oval buckle. “Who took this? Is it from a credible source?”

“Thomas, please .” Shahristani gave him a sly smile. “Sources and methods, dear boy.” He paused, then stared into Tom’s eyes. “I took the picture, Thomas. And verified who was in it.”

“How?”

“I discovered Ben Said’s safe house.”

“When did you do this, Shahram?”

“Just over two months ago. In August.”

Tom turned his attention back to the photograph. Two steps behind Ben Said was a shorter, older man, also clean-shaven, with a round face, a prominent, Roman-like nose, and gray hair.

“Who’s the number two?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Shahram-”

The Iranian’s expression was grim. “It is Imad Mugniyah, Thomas. Imad Mugniyah. After Usama Bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist. The man with a twenty-five-million-dollar bounty on his head.”

“ WHAT ?” TOM WAS INCREDULOUS.“Impossible.” There were only two surveillance photographs of Imad Mugniyah in existence. Tom had copies of both, and this guy was not the man in those pictures. Tom had pinned one of the Mugniyah pictures to the wall of his cubicle at CTC so he could stare at it every single day he went to work. He tapped the photo. “This isn’t Imad Mugniyah.”

“It is. He, too, has had plastic surgery.”

That was news. “When?”

“Most recently, two years ago.”

“We heard nothing about it-not a whisper.”

“Why would you?” Shahristani said dismissively. “You have no agents in the Seppah. You have penetrated no one into Hezbollah-in fact, your CIA officers are still forbidden to operate in West Beirut. Forbidden -it is insanity. And you have no agents inside the Palestinian terror networks, either.”

“That’s because I work for a private company.”

“You know what I’m saying.” The Iranian’s dark eyes flashed at Tom. “I am telling you the truth. Imad Mugniyah himself killed your three Americans. There were three kilos of Ben Said’s precious new plastique-virtually his entire supply from what I can tell-planted on the motorcade route and detonated using a cell phone. The explosives were sent by Tariq Ben Said on an Air France flight from Paris.”

“Impossible.”

“Not impossible. I told you: Ben Said has been working for years to fabricate a form of plastique that gives off no scent. He’s obviously done it, because the explosive was shipped right under the Israelis’ noses, using a European mule. The plastique was concealed in a suitcase on the September tenth Air France flight to Tel Aviv. That same day, Imad Mugniyah took a train to Rome. The next day he flew Alitalia to Cairo, and he slipped through the Rafah tunnels on the twelfth.” The Iranian saw Tom’s incredulous expression and made a dismissive gesture. “Ben Said himself arrived in Israel the last week of September-just before the Jewish holidays.”

“From where?”

“Paris.”

“Israel is a hard target, Shahram. Why would Ben Said risk exposing himself?”

“The stakes were very high, Thomas. There was a lot of money involved. Ben Said’s presence was Imad Mugniyah’s way of proving to Arafat that Iran and al-Qa’ida are willing to put aside religious differences in order to wage jihad against Israel and the West.”

“Why do they need Arafat?”

“Because Arafat has something both Imad Mugniyah and Tariq Ben Said lack: he has an organization that enjoys diplomatic status and is favorably received in the European capitals.” Shahristani made a sour face. “The Europeans are fools. No-worse. They are petit bourgeois who want to keep their thirty-hour work weeks, their full pensions, their government subsidies, and their full bellies, and if paying off terrorists helps them, then so be it.” He rapped his knuckles on the tablecloth. “Europe’s comfortable lifestyle makes it blind to the truth.”