Bad Faith

30

“So everyone is clear about their responsibilities for tomorrow’s event?”

Nadya Malovo asked her question in Chechen and then looked at each of the three men sitting across the table from her in the dimly lit basement of a run-down house occupying the middle of a trashed neighborhood in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant.

“All are ready for the glorious attack,” one man replied, also in Chechen, while a second typed a reply into the laptop computer in front of him and then pressed a button to send his message.

Malovo looked down at the laptop in front of her as the second man’s message appeared. “We will move into place at the sound of the explosions,” the message read, “and wait for you there.” She smiled and nodded.

Although the four had been speaking for fifteen minutes, the real conversation was being carried out on the laptops. Sometimes Malovo would ask a question out loud and the first man would give a carefully scripted answer, while the other typed out what she really wanted to know. Sometimes she would ask a question aloud for the first man as well as type another on her laptop to send to the second man.

She found it humorous that she and the second man were “chatting” on Facebook. The reason for the subterfuge waited in a utility company van parked down the street from the house. Inside the van, federal agents listened in on the spoken conversation with directional microphones that she’d been assured would capture every word-a device she’d anticipated and used to her benefit.

Two of the men across from her were longtime associates, ex-Russian military special forces and now paid assassins. Both spoke Chechen and English flawlessly, the former helpful when trying to pass as Islamic terrorists from the breakaway Muslim country of Chechnya. With a big payoff looming, she knew they could be trusted and she respected their skills.

The third man, the traitor, she felt nothing but scorn for, but she needed him and so turned on the charm. “Are you okay, my friend?” she typed, and then smiled in a way that had melted harder hearts than the one this little man possessed.

The man licked his thin lips nervously but smiled and nodded. “I’ll be ready,” he typed.

“So what will you be wearing for Halloween?” Malovo said aloud.

The first man laughed. “Why, we will be dressed as terrorists,” he said, reading from the script. “We hope the infidels will appreciate the irony.”

The second man didn’t bother to type. She already knew the real answer.

“How many mujahideen?” she asked aloud.

As instructed, the first man hesitated before answering her, as though suspicious of the question. “Enough,” he said. “We have spread out so in case one group is discovered, there will be more to carry out the glorious mission. They will wait for your signal and then begin the attack. You will be on the northwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street.”

“Yes,” Malovo replied. “Dressed as Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Little Red Riding Hood?” the first man asked in English, as if he didn’t understand the description.

“Yes, a fairy tale,” Malovo replied. “A hooded red cape, carrying a basket. I will be standing with a man dressed as a wolf. Never mind … it is part of the fairy tale.”

“Who is this ‘wolf’?” the first man asked suspiciously.

“One of our benefactors,” Malovo replied. “He wishes to observe the event firsthand. I vouch for him, and remember we are all working for Allah’s glory.”

“Praise be to Allah,” the man replied.

Finished with the conversation, Malovo got up and climbed the stairs from the basement into the kitchen, where a half-dozen young black men pieced together suicide vests. “Allahu akbar, Ajmaani,” said one of the men nearby, who was stuffing ball bearings into the pockets and lining of one of the vests.

“Allahu akbar,” Malovo replied. “It appears that you are almost ready for martyrdom!”

“Yes,” the man answered. He pointed to boxes stacked next to the kitchen door. “We will be wolves among the sheep.”

“Um, yes, a wonderful blow for Allah,” Malovo said. “Remember, at my signal, rush the float with the enemy Karp on board.”

“How will we know him? Will he be wearing a costume?”

“He is the grand marshal and will be on the last float. A tall man, but I do not know how he will be dressed. Now make your peace with Allah, and someday soon, we will all meet again in paradise.”