Six Seconds

29

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Africa

At dawn a muezzin climbed to the minaret of a central mosque and issued the day’s first call to prayer.

It echoed over the schools, the government buildings, the monuments and the high stone walls surrounding the luxury hotels.

It mingled with the haze of the pungent cooking fires rising from the tin-roofed shanties, jammed into the slums that nearly engulfed the capital.

His cry carried to Addis Ababa’s Mercato and its vast grid of streets overflowing with kiosks, stalls and shops, the largest market between Cairo and Johannes burg.

As his call died over Mercato, roosters crowed at the rising sun while caged chickens awaited slaughter. The smells of goats and spices blended with coffee, tea and baked bread as merchants opened stalls and shops to sell products such as vegetables, fruit, furniture, clothing, handicrafts, jewelry, DVDs and coffins.

The streets teemed with sellers, shoppers, pickpock ets, prostitutes and would-be guides hustling the faranji tourists in English, Italian, French, Arabic, Amharic and other languages as local folk, reggae and hip-hop music throbbed from radios.

African fabrics were abundant in Mercato. Block after block of tables, stalls and shops brimmed with handwoven cloths in a spectrum of traditional and modern colors. They cascaded in sheets from stall walls, spilled from shelves or teetered in towers of bolts on tables where women in burkas, or men in long robes, beards trimmed, heads covered with small caps, beck oned to shoppers.

Deep in the labyrinths of the fabric district, Amir, a soft-spoken middle-aged merchant, reflected on the market and the world.

His heart broke a bit more each day at the common cruelties he’d seen. Ragged crippled beggars slept in the street amid animal feces. Alongside them were tiny children orphaned by AIDS, flies flecking their faces, death looming like a vulture.

Yesterday, he had discovered a live newborn wrapped in bloodied newspaper. The infant girl had been abandoned in an alley next to a sewage trough crawling with rats. Two dogs stood over her, their ribs pressed against their mange, saliva dripping from their yawning jaws before Amir chased them off and urged the local women to take the child to a hospital.

As he came to his shop, Amir shifted his thoughts, for he had much on his mind.

His store was a lush jungle of colored tapestries and handmade fabrics, all of which were presided over by his sales manager, Meseret, a hardworking mother of three boys from Kechene.

“Good morning, Mr. Amir.”

His sad, tired eyes lifted into a rare smile for her. “Teferi has your tea, sir.”

He patted her shoulder and moved toward the soft clacking at the back. In the next room, a man in his thirties sat on a portion of the floor that had been recessed so he could put his legs under the pit treadle loom he was operating.

Teferi was a Doko weaver from the highlands, one of the best in Africa, a master at making every type of cloth, from simple patterns to sophisticated inlays.

The two men shared tea and quiet conversation about the new types of fabric Teferi had made according to specifications for Amir’s clients.

After tea, Amir went to the back to his small office crowded by his desk, computer, phone, filing cabinet with invoices and boxes stuffed with fabric. He pushed back heavy curtains that hid a small door.

He unlocked it and entered, locking the door behind him.

A naked bulb lit the room which, like the previous room, was choking with stock. He moved some of the clutter to uncover a massive mahogany travel chest with ornate carving. He unlocked it and lifted its lid to reveal an electronic security mechanism.

A small computer with a blinking yellow light indi cated readiness.

Amir pressed his face against a small lens on the computerized box. It beeped as it scanned his iris. He then entered an alphanumeric code on the keypad. It caused a metal shelf inside the chest to slide open, re vealing the top of a narrow stairway. Turning his shoul ders, Amir descended to the bottom, where he flipped a switch, closing the door above his head as he entered another world.

Soft green fluorescent light illuminated a clean, dry, low-ceilinged bunker, measuring three meters by four meters. Several computers, big-screen monitors and satellite phones sat on the worktable in the room’s center.

The systems were powered through hookups ex pertly hived off the nearby luxury hotel, government buildings and foreign embassies.

Addis Ababa’s elevation made it the world’s thirdhighest capital above sea level. Amir’s satellite and cellular links used microdishes and relays aligned through air vents. They had encrypters and scramblers. They were safe and strong.

He turned on his computers.

No intruder would ever see this room and live to tell about it.

Meseret and Teferi had silent panic alarms to alert Amir. They also had Glock-17 pistols under their garments. The room had a series of propane tanks that Amir could detonate remotely after he’d fled through one of three escape tunnels that surfaced elsewhere in the market.

The room was secure.

Like Meseret and Teferi, the few people Amir trusted were devoted to his philosophy and his protection.

This room is where secrets remained secret.

For few people alive knew anything of Amir’s life.

It had remained a mystery.

To the market gossips, Amir was one of hundreds of fabric merchants; a quiet, private man, rumored to be wealthy with a farm on the banks of the Blue Nile River, although no one had seen such a farm.

Then there were the stories that Amir was a Yemeni prince who had rejected his family’s wealth because of his extreme beliefs. Others said his family was from Oman, that he was an engineering student educated around the world and fluent in several languages, but that his passion for a woman had brought him to Addis.

One rumor had Amir being a former senior officer with the Saudi al-Mabahith al-Amma who was an expert at conducting covert operations without leaving a trace of evidence.

Perhaps that’s why U.S. and European intelligence agencies did not believe Amir was anything more than a myth. They were unable to confirm his location, let alone secure a photo of him. Frustrated, the Germans had nicknamed him “Desert Ghost,” the Italians called him “the Wind,” while the Americans doubted his exis tence.

But Amir was real.

In body and in the hearts of his followers. His small organization reached around the globe. Yet few of his disciples had met the man known as “the Believer.”

His wisdom and faith ran deeper than the others who came before him, such as “the Samaritan,” who’d become enamored with his fame through his televised videos and declarations.

Yes, the Samaritan and his martyrs had, in one day and in one operation, surpassed the words of a million speeches calling for action.

But the fire they had ignited was not the decisive blow.

Amir thought of the abandoned baby dying in a gutter.

No, to end the centuries of oppression and humilia tion inflicted by the godless nonbelievers, the snake that had led the crusade that stole the holy lands needed beheading.

And Amir had been preparing for that great day.

Like a patient gardener, Amir had nurtured his web of worldwide support. His funding networks, donations, blood diamonds, narcotic sales, money laundering and Internet lottery schemes ensured infinite sums of cash. His intelligence networks were impenetrable. His planning network drew upon the best minds of believ ers, physicists, chemists, nuclear researchers and engi neers.

All of them followed Amir, worshipping him as a visionary and architect.

All of them worked on refining technological ad vances to defeat the enemy. Dozens of operations had been in development. Some for years. Plane operations, naval operations, event operations, assassination plans, hostage operations, hits on pipelines, subways, cities, skyscrapers, malls or famous symbols to the narcissis tic greed of the debauched nonbelievers.

In all cases, the agents were unaware of the full scope of their mission. Cell groups responsible for certain stages were unaware of others. Different aspects were guided by lieutenants who reported to commanders who, at times, disguised as merchants, would report directly to Amir.

A few days ago he’d gone to a secret location to see the people behind a major operation that was showing promise.

The meeting was arranged north of the capital among the remote mud-road villages on the mountain hillsides where Amir had contracted a group of expert weavers. No one troubled them, for they had long been banished over fears that they held the power to issue curses.

Amir recalled how the smoke from their charcoal fires wafted over the villages where the goats wandered freely, except in the chief’s hut. It was there where Amir had met a small group of foreign brothers who’d come a great distance to brief him on their impressive new weapon.

In the cool shade of the hut, bolts of common cotton fabric sat on the thatched mat in an array of colors and patterns. Laptop computers glowed with displays of chemical and mathematic tables, formulas and calcula tions. Some of the men talked softly into secure satel lite phones.

The delegation had been led by Ali Bakarat, a spe cialist in chemical engineering from Libya, and Omar Kareem, an engineer in molecular nanotechnology from Kuwait. Amir had been dealing with them for the past year. Amid the gentle click-clack of the weavers’ looms in the hut nearby, Bakarat had placed his hands on the bolts and explained the engineering of the new material.

In some ways, Bakarat said, the engineering was similar to the advanced technology the military was using in combat wear for camouflage, thermal or nerveagent detecting capabilities.

The fabric looked, felt, smelled and responded like any common cotton weave.

But interwoven into this material was microscopic tubing that was hollow and transparent. The tubing was filled with a volatile liquid developed through a complex process. The liquid was injected with millions of nano radio receptors which floated within the tubing and were programmed to receive a coded ultra-low-frequency signal.

Once received, the signal first activated the liquid in a process that took sixty seconds, after which the new material would become an extremely powerful explo sive in proportion to its volume.

A bomb.

Detonation could happen at any point-within the next half second, or next month. But it could only be trig gered from a second radio signal which could be trans mitted from an encrypted code programmed into any device that could send a wireless signal, such as a cell or satellite phone, or camera with laser auto-focus, or a wireless laptop.

The critical quality of the new material was the fact it was undetectable by sniffer dogs, swabbing, analysis, scoping-any type of bomb detection method known.

It was an invisible bomb.

To achieve this state, the fabric must be steeped for a few hours in a special clear solution before it is tailored into any type of apparel or common item. That clear solution was en route to the U.S. west coast by ship, while bolts of the fabric had arrived in New York City’s garment district, where they awaited shipment to anywhere in the U.S.

Bakarat and Kareem would soon depart to enter the U.S., where they would oversee the final stages of the operation.

After watching their demonstration video, Amir smiled and embraced the men.

“Well done, my brothers, well done.”

Now, as Amir worked in his bunker, he glanced at his printout of the newsletter that had been posted online many months ago by the boastful priest who could not refrain from sharing advance news of a papal visit to Montana.

“It is with great joy that we can confirm the Holy Father will visit Cold Butte.”

Amir almost smiled.

The Montana project was emerging as his jewel, as the time for execution was nearly upon them. The op eration would be carried out by the widow of Baghdad.

“The Tigress.”

Her determination was profound.

A few gentle keystrokes and she appeared before him on his laptop’s screen in video recordings.

Samara.

Amir studied her ferocity as she swore her ven geance during her interview. Then he clicked to her training in the mountains along the Afghan border with Pakistan. Then he saw her in the United States.

Preparing.

Her instructions were to assimilate into American society and to get a job in her profession in the target zone. That is all she was to know until further instructions.

Other agents in local religious and professional as sociations played roles in helping her succeed at every step of the way, sponsoring her, acting as references, ex ercising influence when needed.

All of it so subtle as to be invisible.

The security cell was headed by a young group. Its agents had been outstanding, protecting the operation at every step, eliminating vulnerabilities.

“All is well,” one reported in an encrypted dispatch. “Our brothers are watching over our sister.”

Amir nodded.

Then he clicked on to other video recordings. One was a family vacationing in the wilderness. Amir watched the camera take him along a river cutting through a magnificent mountain range.

A scream rises above the river’s rush.

The video cut to a city street and news box display ing headlines about a tragic accident and the deaths of an American family. Then a cut to the surveillance images of a woman who appeared to be working in a large American bookstore.

Amir nodded, then touched one of the laptops on his table.

One not in use.

It belonged to Ray Tarver.

Amir watched another video recording.

It showed a boy eating a hamburger at a picnic table.

Logan Conlin.

He looks into the camera, refusing to smile for the person behind it.

Amir was pleased. Yes, all was well.

Soon the course of history would be forever changed. Amir sent an e-mail to Samara.

Grandmother sends her love. Her gift has arrived. Cousin will call with details…