It was just before five in the evening when the phone in his room rang loudly. Zubair answered tentatively, and was both relieved and frightened to hear the voice of his handler. There had been a change of plans, and the man gave him specific instructions concerning them. Zubair tried only once to ask what had happened with the ships, but had been so severely admonished that he dared not ask again.

Now he found himself standing in this dark parking lot in a city he did not know, following the orders of a man who scared him to death. Zubair took another swig of soda and looked at the various rooms of the L-shaped motel. Only a couple of lights were on, otherwise it appeared everyone was sleeping. As instructed, the Pakistani scientist threw the rest of the soda in the garbage can and looked at the number on the key he held. As luck would have it, the room was on the second floor. Zubair extended the handle on his big suitcase and began dragging it up the stairs one step at a time. When he reached the balcony he stopped, slightly out of breath, and looked around to see if anyone was watching him.

Room 212 was at the end of the balcony. Zubair slid the key in and held his breath. Perhaps his handler would be waiting for him in the dark, or perhaps the game was up and it would be the police. He opened the door and turned on the light. The room was a far cry from the one he had just left at the Ritz, but it was still better than almost anything he'd find in his native Pakistan. The scientist closed and locked the door and then checked to make sure no one was hiding in the bathroom. Grateful to be alone and having been given no further instructions, he sat down on the bed, turned on the TV, and began to wait.

Fifty-Three

Mustafa al-Yamani waited in the shadows for more than an hour. Despite the general malaise caused by his radiation sickness, his survival instincts were as keen as they had ever been. They had to be. He had come too far, and sacrificed too much, to fail. Yet, despite his best efforts, something had gone disastrously wrong. He, too, had seen the television coverage concerning the ships. Even al-Yamani, who always planned for the worst, was shocked by the completeness with which the Americans had thwarted his plan. Intelligence disasters struck in two ways, or often a combination of both. Either you were penetrated by your adversary, or someone from within your group leaked information, wittingly or not.

Since leaving Charleston, al-Yamani had revisited this issue from every conceivable angle, and he had little doubt that there had been a leak. There was no way the Americans had penetrated al-Qaeda. It was far more plausible that someone had spoken too freely of the plan, and that their words were intercepted by American spy satellites. Al-Yamani had warned his colleagues of this possibility, but he knew that despite his best efforts they had ignored him. He was told there were finances to consider. Benefactors needed to be warned. If the plan succeeded, American investments, even abroad, would be decimated. Large amounts of money needed to be moved to safety. They had told al-Yamani that it could be done without the Americans noticing, but he had been skeptical.

Even worse, the Saudi knew all too well the inflated egos of his people. Stature was everything, and the temptation to brag to others that something big was about to happen would be very hard to resist. As a countermeasure, al-Yamani had launched a campaign of disinformation to try to mislead the Americans, but obviously something had gone wrong and the Americans had sensed that something was amiss. While following up on their suspicions, they must have captured and interrogated someone fairly high up in the organization. He saw no other way. If the Americans had intercepted all four ships, they had to be operating off of specific information.

Everything al-Yamani had put together was now in jeopardy, but at least he had been very careful to keep the mission compartmentalized. The left hand did not need to know what the right hand was doing. The Americans had dealt him a serious blow, but this operation was far from over. Al-Yamani didn't travel all the way to America with his hopes pinned on just one plan. He was a military tactician, and the best strategies were always multipronged.

After leaving Charleston, al-Yamani had driven to the airport in Columbia, South Carolina, where he had gotten rid of the Ford Taurus and picked up a rental car using a Florida driver's license and credit card. He left Columbia immediately and headed for Atlanta. On the way to Atlanta he heard that overnight the president and other leaders had been evacuated from Washington. It was later that he heard about the ships being stopped.

He had memorized the address of the trucking company his group had fronted, and when he reached Atlanta he approached the area with great caution. It was only midafternoon, and as he rolled to a stop at a light a block away, he looked to his right and paused briefly just as any normal person would have done. There was no mistaking what was going on. Police cars had the street blocked. Al-Yamani took his foot off the brake, accelerated through the intersection, and never looked back. There was nothing left to salvage. An entire year of work and the deaths of many of his brave Muslim warriors had amounted to nothing.

Al-Yamani did not let his anger get the best of him. There was no time for it. Someone had betrayed them, but he quickly resigned himself to the fact that he would never know who that person was. There wasn't enough life left in his poisoned body to go searching for those answers. No, he had come to America to die, and he was going to take with him as many infidels as possible.

It was now two in the morning on Thursday. Al-Yamani had been extravigilant in arranging this meeting with the Pakistani scientist who was crucial to his tattered but still salvageable plans. Al-Yamani had spent two hours checking the perimeter of the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead to make sure the Pakistani wasn't being watched, and then after making contact he had followed the cab from a safe distance to see if any one else might be tailing him.

As al-Yamani looked through the window of his rental car, he decided it was time. He picked up the cell phone he'd purchased earlier in the day and dialed the number. The nervous little Pakistani answered before the second ring.

"Hello."

"I want you to get rid of the large suitcase. Bring only what you need and be down by the soda machine in five minutes." Al-Yamani pressed the red button and noted the time on the clock. Four minutes later Zubair appeared outside the room with his shoulder bag and hurried along the balcony. When he reached the soda machine, al-Yamani watched for a few minutes and then started the car. He stopped in front of the hotel and rolled the window down.

"Imtaz, hurry up and get in." Al-Yamani could tell by the look on the scientist's face that he did not recognize him without his beard. "It is me, Mustafa." In a more authoritative voice he added, "Get in, you fool."

Zubair finally recognized the eyes of the man who had recruited him. He jumped in the front seat and stared at the Saudi in semi-disbelief. "You never said you were coming to America."

Al-Yamani checked the rearview mirror to see if any new cars had pulled out onto the empty street. "Very few people knew of my plans."

"What happened today?" asked the disheartened scientist. "How did they know?"

All the Saudi could do was shake his head. "I have no answers." If he thought for a second that the Pakistani had betrayed him, he would kill him, but that was impossible. Zubair knew none of the details about the four ships that had been intercepted.

"What do we do now? Do we go back?"