Jihad

CHAPTER 127

Tommy Karr pushed the baseball cap back on his hat and surveyed the tarmac next to the terminal at Stewart International Airport. Small planes generally lined up along the terminal’s eastern end, filling a small number of slots. Marid Dabir’s plane would be directed to the slot at the extreme south. Ordinarily passengers disembarked into a large room where they could pick up their baggage. Special dividers had been brought in, creating a narrow hallway to control the traffic. Dabir would be seized in the hallway after he was surrounded by FBI agents dressed as airline and airport workers. Lia would be on the flight with him and would make sure they got the right man.

Assuming, of course, they had the right man to begin with.

Karr wanted to see where Dabir would end up if he managed to slip out of the plane somehow. A parking lot for rental cars was just around the comer from the gate area where they were going to bring Dabir’s plane. Hopping the fence would take all of five seconds; he’d have to put two guys on the plane side of the fence to forestall that possibility. That was in addition to the people they’d have disguised as ground crew on both sides of the plane.

A hangar across the way that was used by U.S. Marine reserve units to maintain some of their aircraft had been vacated a few hours before. Right after the plane carrying Dabir landed, a CIA Gulfstream would taxi over to the area in front of the hangar; the jet would take off a short time later — a ruse to make anyone watching think Dabir had been taken away. In fact, he would be moved to a trailer set up in one of the large C-5A hangars on the Air National Guard side of the complex, guarded by a team of FBI agents and federal marshals as well as U.S. Air Force security. Several members of the Justice Department and FBI interrogators were already there, preparing for their interrogation.

Karr checked the truck that would be used to ferry him across the base, then looked at the two vans which would carry the federal agents. The trucks were guarded by a pair of U.S. Air Force security men, who were trying to look nonchalant while holding M-16s at the ready.

“Lookin’ good,” Karr told them after circling the trucks. “Now tell me, no bullshit: Where’s the best pizza place in town?”