Images from the journey rolled through his restless mind. America was huge, bigger than he had imagined. A three-hour train ride would have taken him halfway across the former Yugoslavia. Here, it covered only a small fraction of one coastline.
He was also unaccustomed to a country at peace. He’d bought a newspaper and several magazines at Penn Station. To his amusement and disgust, Americans seemed wrapped up in trivialities. While the world exploded around them, they argued about scandals and fashions and the latest movies. His lip curled in contempt. If this country was a giant among nations, it was a distracted, childish giant.
These people did not know what real war was. To them, it was nothing more than a video game or a sporting event. Their brief news reports of the continued fighting in Bosnia seemed utterly abstract and dispassionate. His jaw tightened. Because the Serb murderers posed no threat to America and because their victims were Muslim, the American people were content to do nothing. They would let his homeland boil in its own blood because it was too distant for them to care.
Well, Halovic thought grimly as he slid into an uneasy, nightmare-filled sleep, I will show them what war is like. I will make them bleed.
The frantic chirping of his watch alarm roused him. He opened his eyes, rolled over onto his side, and turned it off in one smooth, graceful motion. It was six o’clock in the evening. It was time to move. Time to make his most recent incarnation disappear.
Halovic levered himself off the bed. He was still weary, but he could run on willpower and adrenaline for a while longer. He showered and changed into casual clothes jeans and an open-necked shirt. He also shaved off the light blond beard and mustache that had hidden most of his face as Grunwald. Smooth-cheeked now, he shredded his old passport, plane, bus, and train tickets and flushed them down the toilet.
Back in the room, he opened his hard-sided travel bag and cut away the inner lining with a pocketknife to retrieve another set of identity papers, including a Virginia driver’s license with his picture and the name of Frank Daniels. Bulging envelopes taped next to the forged documents held cash, a lot of it. More than thirty thousand American dollars all in twenties, fifties, and hundreds.
Halovic regarded the money with cool calculation. Although he’d entered the United States unarmed, the cash in his possession was as much a weapon as any rifle. He planned to make sure that it was used wisely and not wasted just like ammunition.
The hot, humid summer air hit him as he stepped outside carrying his travel bag. He left nothing behind in his room except the key, which the cleaning staff would find in the morning.
Halovic spotted a pay phone next to a fast-food restaurant across the street. After crossing at the light, he discarded the pair of wire-frame eyeglasses he’d worn as Grunwald in a nearby trash bin. He noted the street names in passing.
At the pay phone, he dialed a number he’d memorised in Tehran. It rang once before being answered.
“This is Arlington Transport.”
“You have a pickup at Arlington Boulevard and Courthouse Road,” Halovic replied. “Near the hamburger restaurant.”
“Do you have the fare ready?” the voice asked.
“I’m from out of town. Can you take a check?”
“Yes.” There was a pause. “It will be about ten minutes. Expect a green sedan.”
“I will be waiting.” Halovic hung up. He moved further down the road and pretended to be waiting for a bus. Vehicles flowed past in a steady stream as the evening rush hour built to a climax. Though nobody paid the slightest attention to him, the ten minutes seemed to pass very slowly.
A large green car a Buick drove by the phone booth, circled back, and turned into the fast-food restaurant’s parking lot. Fighting his instinctive caution, he stood up with his bag in hand and strode up to the waiting vehicle.
The driver’s window slid down noiselessly as he approached. A face turned in his direction, but the man’s hands were hidden. Halovic knew that the Buick’s driver had a weapon ready. He approved of that’ He had no use for overconfident fools.
“I’m looking for Arlington,” he said flatly. “I’m meeting a friend there.”
“This is Arlington,” the driver replied. Halovic noted that the man’s English was heavily accented, but understandable. His face was half hidden in the shadows, and his hands were still not visible. “Your friend must be elsewhere. Perhaps he is in Alexandria?”
H[~lovic~]ghed. Sign. He spoke distinctly, careful to keep -fits hands in plain view. “Then I need a lift. I can pay you well.” Countersign.
“Get in.”
Halovic quickly walked around the front of the car and slid into the passenger side. He glanced once at the man beside him. “Drive.”
Obeying the single terse order, the driver immediately put the Buick in gear and backed out. As he signaled to turn onto the street, he said, “Fasten your seat belt, please. The local traffic regulations require it.”
Halovic complied, fumbling with the unfamiliar fittings.
Then he turned toward his associate. Khalil Yassine was a short, dark-complected man in his late twenties. Until General Amir Taleh had plucked him out of a terrorist camp he’d slated for destruction and brought him to Masegarh for further training, Yassine had been a guerrilla fighter in a radical offshoot of the
PLO
.
The Palestinian spoke in a respectful tone. “There is a residential area ahead on the left. We can lose any possible trailers in there.”
“Excellent. My name now is Daniels. So then, who exactly are you?” Halovic asked him, just as he might prompt a child to recite its catechism.
“I am George Baroody, a naturalised American citizen. I was born in Lebanon and emigrated ten years ago to escape the civil war there. I am a car mechanic, but I’ve been laid off and am looking for another job.”
Halovic arched a skeptical eyebrow. “Lebanese? Don’t the authorities keep a close eye on people from your country?”
Yassine shook his head. “They cannot. There are thousands and tens of thousands of immigrants in this region some are legal, many are not. From all parts of the world. So I stay away from politics. I don’t cause trouble. I stick to my own affairs.” He shrugged. “In effect, I am invisible.”
Halovic nodded, satisfied by the other man’s cover story. As an area leader, he’d been allowed to choose his own people, and he knew Yassine intimately. They were both the products of bitter wars fought against hopeless odds. They were both survivors of Masegarh.
As a teenager and a young man, Yassine had caused a lot of trouble for Israel and for Israeli forces in Lebanon. He knew Beirut and the Christian strongholds in southern Lebanon like the back of his hand. So his cover was a good one. He also had extensive experience with automobiles. More useful to Halovic, the Palestinian had demonstrated a remarkable talent for operating “behind the lines” in disguise.
Yassine was his driver and scout. The first cell member to arrive in the United States, he’d spent the last week securing lodgings and transportation and learning the ins and outs of the area’s roads and highways.
Halovic, as the team leader, was the second man to arrive. More were on the way, leaving Iran by differing routes. A dozen or so were assigned to infiltrate America’s eastern seaboard. Other groups were earmarked for other regions. The initial orders for all the cells were explicit: Arrive safely and undetected by the Americans. Submerge yourselves in their midst. Gather information and make plans as directed by Tehran. And then wait. Wait for the code-words that will unleash you.
Yassine turned left off the wider boulevard into an area of narrower, treelined streets, single-family homes, and sidewalks. Driving smoothly and staying well within the speed limit, he took a series of twists and turns down the quiet suburban roads to clear their tail. Anyone trying to follow them would have stood out like a sore thumb.
Halovic took his eyes off the passenger-side mirror and nodded to the Palestinian. “We’re clear.”
Yassine took them out the other side of the residential development and onto a wider, arterial street. Ten minutes’ driy
ekil
emto a small brick house with white-trimmed windows. It lay in the middle of a row of identical houses, all built beside a busy four-lane avenue. Bushes bordered a small, well-kept lawn.
Halovic nodded approvingly. The busy street would make their own comings and goings less conspicuous.
“What about the neighbors?” he asked as they pulled off the street and onto a concrete driveway beside the house. They parked behind an old Ford minivan. “Will they pose any problems?”
“I haven’t seen anyone, and I’ve been here a week,” Yassine reported. He nodded toward the houses on either side.
“They all work. Both the husbands and the wives. We will have no trouble with them.”
“Good.” Halovic got out of the car and pulled his bag out after him. The sooner they were inside, the better he would feel.
Yassine handed him a set of duplicate keys before he unlocked the front door. It opened into the living room, illuminated by a single floor lamp. It was furnished with a secondhand couch, a few chairs, and a television set. The walls were painted an unremarkable beige, and a worn brown rug covered the floor. He could see into the kitchen beyond, also furnished. A short hall led off to his right.
Halovic followed the Palestinian down the hall.
“There are three bedrooms. This is one.” Yassine gestured to a small front bedroom, sparsely furnished. He opened another door. “I have been using this one.”
It was a corner room, larger and with nicer furnishings. The driver’s tone made it clear that he would move out in a second if the team leader said the word.
“Keep it,” Halovic commanded. “I’ll only be here a few nights anyway.” Once the rest of his force began arriving, he would find other quarters. Even the busiest locals were bound to grow curious if they noticed the house was occupied by several young men.
He opened the door into what had been the third bedroom. Brightly lit by an overhead fluorescent light was now a work area. Near one wall a cheap folding table supported a brand-new laptop computer and stacks of papers, while another table next to it was covered with gunsmith’s tools and a partially disassembled pump-action shotgun. A third held power and electronics tool kits, all still sealed in their original packages.
Halovic wandered over to the first table. It was stacked high with maps, realty brochures, and classified ads. Most of the maps looked new, but he could see that Yassine had studied and marked several of them, concentrating on those showing the Washington metropolitan region.
He turned toward the silent Palestinian and nodded. “You’ve done well.”
Yassine swelled with pride. The months they’d spent together at Masegarh had taught him that the Bosnian never offered praise lightly.
Halovic tapped the computer keyboard idly. He looked up. “Do you understand this machine yet?”
Yassine lowered his eyes, clearly embarrassed. “No. It is difficult.” He shrugged. “The operating manuals are very hard to decipher.”
“Difficult or not, you will learn to use this machine,” Halovic said coldly. “Is that understood?”
“Yes.” The Palestinian stood motionless for a moment with his head slightly bowed. “It will be done.”
“Good.” Halovic strode to the second table and picked up the disassembled shotgun. He recognised it as a Remington Model 870 and nodded to himself. A good weapon at least in close quarters. Such weapons and the ammunition for them were also readily available in the United States.
A wooden rack against the wall held another Model 870, but this one had been radically modified, its barrel shortened and its stock sawed off and shaped~into a pistol grip. Hunting rifles and pistols completed the small armory. All were common makes, firing widely available ammunition.
More powerful and more sophisticated arms and armaments would come from overseas usually smuggled across America’s wide-open border with Mexico. One of the twelve-man cells dispatched by General Taleh was solely responsible for shepherding those weapons shipments to secure drops scattered across the continental United States. Once the shipments were delivered, each regional cell would break them up, moving some of the gear to safe houses and hiding the rest in separate small caches.
Halovic put the shotgun back on the table and wiped the oil off his hands. “How far away is the first drop site?”
“I estimate a three-hour drive to the southeast. Somewhere near a town called Virginia Beach.”
Halovic shrugged. The name meant nothing to him. He stabbed a finger toward the pile of maps. “Show me.”
He peered intently at the map Yassine pulled out and unfolded, orienting himself memorising the astonishingly complex network of highways and major roads that fed in and out of America’s capital city and surrounding suburbs. It was time to begin preparing in earnest for the war he would ignite.
AUGUST
18
Walker’s Landing, Virginia.
(D
MINUS
119)
Walker’s Landing was a tiny Virginia hamlet nestled against the southern bank Of the James River roughly two and a half hoors south of Washington, D.C., and west of Richmond. Surrounded by tangled woods, gloomy swamps, and small, rundown farms, it was little more than a cluster of houses and stores cantered around Route 250, a two-lane blacktop highway that crossed the river.
Sefer Halovic peered through the dirty windshield of his Buick LeSabre and nodded in satisfaction. He’d been guided to this part of Virginia by pamphlets carefully collected by Yassine and other Iranian agents. Walker’s Landing seemed perfect for his purposes. Isolated, confined, and impoverished, the place appeared a likely breeding ground for the narrow minds and festering hatreds he sought. Country villages had produced some of the most savage killers in the Bosnian war. He saw no reason why it should be any different here.
He pulled off the main road and into a gravel motel parking lot at the southern end of town. A row of ten dilapidated cinder-block bungalows surrounded the parking lot. Each had been divided into two motel rooms. A car and an old pickup were parked out in front of two of the bungalows. The rest appeared unoccupied. The building closest to the highway had a sign in one of its unwashed windows identifying it as an office.