Weapons of Mass Deception

CHAPTER 9

The waters of the Persian Gulf lapped gently against the pilings of the dock.

Rafiq breathed through his mouth to avoid the stink of the waterfront, a nasty blend of dead fish, human sewage, and rotting seaweed. The edges of the moon were fuzzy from the humidity in the air. He eyed the ship tied up next to them on the pier.

A breakbulk freighter was what Hashem had called it, meaning the vessel carried cargo that wasn’t loaded in standard shipping containers. Rafiq guessed the vessel was 150 feet long, with a white, winged bridge that stood like a giant cross over the cluttered deck. In the shadows under the prow of the ship he could make out the name painted on the hull: Lumba. Hashem had said it was the Malay word for “dolphin.”

This is where I’ll spend the next three months of my life.

Rafiq kept his face still, but inside his mind churned. He was a rising star in Hezbollah. They needed him, he needed them — it was a symbiotic relationship that suited him just fine.

It was his Hezbollah brothers who had taken a lost, fatherless fourteen-year-old boy and taught him how to belong, gave him something to believe in. He often wondered about the depth of his religious belief. He said the words, he made the required motions, but what he really loved — what he really believed in — was the violence. The planning, the watching, the execution of the raid, the way the shock waves from the explosions would tickle his flesh, the way the AK-47 kicked in his hands when bullets sang out… it was better than any woman he’d ever had.

That was why he chose Hezbollah. He adjusted his trousers, glad for the poor lighting of the dock. Just the thought of his last raid made him hard.

“Rafiq?” Hashem said, his tone impatient. “Shall we have a look at the hold area?”

“Of course, brother.”

Brother—the word still sounded foreign on his tongue.

Rafiq had seen his half brother more in the last year than in the twenty years prior. He could still recall his first meeting with Hashem: he, an awkward and lonely boy of ten, and Hashem, a young man with the bearing and uniform of an Iranian military officer. This was before he’d met his Hezbollah brothers, before he’d found a home in Lebanon. He’d hung on to Hashem’s every word, wanting this strange young man to like him.

Hashem had spoken to Rafiq’s mother first, and he came full of brotherly wisdom. Stay in school, be a good boy. The meeting was awkward for both of them on so many levels that it was almost too painful to recall.

That all changed after the Hezbollah attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Rafiq was only sixteen at the time, but his role in the attack was an important one. In the intervening years, Hashem had secured a place in the Iranian Quds Force, and Rafiq had entrenched himself in Hezbollah. His small but crucial role in Khobar Towers had put him back on Hashem’s radar.

Their second meeting went very differently. Hashem showed up in civilian clothes, his quiet confidence filling the room along with the smoke from his ever-present Marlboros. There was no visit to Rafiq’s mother this time; Hashem came to see his brother only.

“I understand you had a hand in Khobar,” Hashem said, firing up a cigarette, his eyes never leaving Rafiq’s. He tapped out another and extended the pack toward Rafiq, who shook his head. Hashem did not offer to stop smoking.

“I did my part,” Rafiq replied with a smug smile.

“You did.” Hashem nodded and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. “We see an excellent future for you.”

Rafiq noted that his brother remained vague about the parameters of the future. He inclined his head. “I am happy to serve our cause in any way I can.”

“I’m glad to hear that, brother.”

Brother. That was the first time Hashem had ever addressed him that way, and Rafiq felt as if a great hand was squeezing his chest. He coughed to cover up the sudden rush of emotion. “I will do my duty.”

“Good.” Hashem ground out the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “I want you to go to America.”

The air rushed out of Rafiq’s lungs. “America? Why? What can I do there?” The warm glow after being called “brother” became a hot pulse of anger.

Hashem reached behind his back and laid a knife on the white tablecloth. The detailing on the blade caught the light, making the metal seem to move, and the ivory handle glowed. “Because you have skill, Rafiq. You are a weapon in our fight against the West, but you are a small knife in this fight. With the right training, you can become a sword — perhaps the finest, deadliest weapon this world has ever seen.” Hashem’s eyes grew bright and he carved the air with his hands as he spun out his analogy. Rafiq suspected this was simply an intelligence officer tactic, designed to boost his ego, but because it was Hashem, Rafiq allowed it to work.

“So you will send me to New York? Or Washington, DC? So I can scout out our next target?” Rafiq asked.

Hashem shook his head. He tapped out another cigarette, and held it between his thumb and forefinger as he pointed it at Rafiq. “No, you will stay as far away from any of those cities as possible. You will live in their heartland, the Midwest, and you will go to university. I have selected a small liberal arts college, a place where the elite all over the world send their children. These are future congressmen and diplomats. I want you to know them, know how they think, how they talk, how they act. I want you to become one of them.”

Rafiq got to his feet and paced the room. “No. What you ask is too much. Four years? How can I leave my home for that long?”

“It will be more like five years.”

“Five, then! Even worse.”

Hashem stood, his cigarette still unlit between his fingers. “Brother, please sit.” He drew both of them fresh cups of tea and sat back across from Rafiq. “The Americans would say you are a big fish in a small pond, a light that shines brightly against weaker flames. You could be the greatest fighter in a generation, but you need to complete your training.”

“Maybe I could go next year—” Rafiq began.

“No!” Hashem said, slapping his hand on the table. “It must be now, before you come under suspicion from the Americans. With this last operation…” He shook his head. “It must be now.”

Rafiq was quiet, sipping his tea to buy time. The logic of his brother’s plan was unassailable. Even he had felt it, had seen the hesitation of the older fighters when he spoke, their lack of understanding about how their actions would look on the world stage. His brother had seen the same thing, Rafiq was sure of it. He swallowed hard and nodded at Hashem. “I will do it.”

“Good.” Hashem fired up his cigarette in celebration. He laid a briefcase on the table and snapped the lid open. He drew out a large envelope and slid it across the table to Rafiq. “You have been accepted to Carleton College in Minnesota, USA. In this package you will find everything you need: passport, money, bank account details, everything.”

Rafiq flipped open the cover of the worn Canadian passport. His picture stared back at him, along with his new name: Ralf Faber. He looked up at Hashem. “What is my course of study?”

Hashem smiled. “International relations.”

“Rafiq, please, we must hurry.”

Hashem’s hand appeared on his elbow, guiding him toward the steep gangplank that connected the deck of the ship to the pier. The steel rang hollow under his feet and he stubbed his toe on the inch-high treads that ran across the path.

The captain, a short Malay with more gums than teeth in his smile, scrambled ahead of them. He wore a holed tank top and cutoff shorts, and thick yellow toenails poked out from worn sandals. He turned when they reached the deck.

“This way, boss,” he called with another gummy grin. His jaws worked rhythmically on a wad of something and he spat over the side of the ship.

Rafiq stepped onto the deck of the Lumba. Even with it tied to the pier, he felt a tremble beneath his feet, as if the floor was moving. His stomach quivered.

Three months…

“This way, this way. You come, you come.” The little captain hopped between open spots on the deck, while Rafiq and Hashem picked their way along with more care. They had discussed the option of using a large container ship to transport their cargo across the ocean, but the threat of detection from a radiation monitor in a large port was too high. No, they needed anonymity of the kind afforded them by one of the thousands of smaller, ancient breakbulk freighters that plied the seas running odd lots of loose, or “broken,” cargo between ports too small to handle the mega container ships.

“Come, come,” the Malay captain called again. He passed through the dim outline of a door and shot down a steep staircase with the agility of a monkey coming down a tree. The captain placed his hands on the bright steel rails that bracketed the narrow steps and, lifting his feet, slid to the bottom. He grinned up at them. “You try.”

Hashem went down the steps first, his feet ringing on the steel treads. Rafiq hesitated at the top. A thick smell drifted up to him, a fog of diesel fuel, fetid seawater, and unwashed bodies. He swallowed hard before following Hashem down into the hold.

The staircase, or “ladder,” as the crew called it, made three hairpin turns before they reached the bottom, the smell intensifying at each level. The little captain waited at the base of the steps with Hashem. He spat into the space behind the stairs.

“I show you the lock room,” he said, moving away again in his bandy-legged gait. They conversed in English, the only language the three of them had in common, although Rafiq had his doubts about the captain’s real grasp of the language.

They moved forward in the ship — at least, Rafiq thought it was forward; it was hard to tell when they were belowdecks. The passageway was not even large enough for two men to pass shoulder to shoulder, and the steel walls seemed to close in about him as they walked deeper into the ship. He could hear a faint clanking of metal on metal overhead, like some distant Morse code.

The hallway dead-ended at a massive watertight door with a large wheel in the center. The captain moved a long handle and spun the wheel, then pulled the heavy door open and latched it on a hook in the wall. He entered the room, flipping on a light switch. A lone bulb in a protective cage against the ceiling cast a harsh light on the space, a cube of metal walls, maybe fifteen feet across. Save a foot-square ventilation grating and an ancient black telephone hanging on the wall, there was nothing else in the space.

“This is perfect,” Hashem said. He pointed to the door. “Lockable from the inside, one entrance in or out.”

Rafiq said nothing. He was feeling claustrophobic just looking into the room, and he could only imagine how the space heaved when this tiny boat was at sea…

Three months.

Hashem turned to the captain. “Perfect. We need to have an armed man in this space at all times. Understand?”

The captain’s eyes narrowed in his nut-brown face. “Armed? What this mean?”

Hashem made a pretend gun out of his thumb and forefinger. “Armed. Guns. Man with gun stay here all the time with our cargo.”

The captain’s greasy hair swung as he shook his head. “Not possible. Nobody down here at sea. Nobody allowed.” His eyes stayed slitted and he gave Hashem a broad smile as he spoke. He spat on the deck in the room, leaving a blotch of moisture on the painted metal plates.

Rafiq closed his eyes. The man wanted more money — let Hashem handle that. He nodded to his brother and pointed up to indicate he was going topside. Hashem waved him away.

Even the horrible-smelling dockside air seemed fresh after the stench of the hold. Rafiq struggled to get his stomach under control as he made his way back to the pier.

Jamil and Farid, the pair guarding the cargo, might have been twins. They were squat and powerfully built, with thinning hair and full beards, and both held their AK-47s with an ease that spoke of long practice. He nodded to Jamil and received a grunt in return. Hashem had said to bring his best fighters. Unfortunately, fighting skills and personality rarely came in the same package. This would be a long couple of months.

The wooden box was about the size of a coffee table. It was heavy, but a pair of men could lift it if they needed to. He mentally measured the narrow end and decided it would fit through the watertight door of the special hold.

Hashem joined them, smiling and bouncing on the balls of his feet. He handed Rafiq a large triangular key on a braided lanyard. “It is done. Here is the only key to the special hold. The little bastard held me out for more money, but you and your men have access to the hold twenty-four hours a day.” He unslung a leather bag from his shoulder and passed it to Rafiq. “There’s money — I paid Sing Wat, the captain, half already, in dollars. He gets the rest when you reach your destination, and there’s plenty for bribes… or entertainment for the men.”

Hashem stepped aside to let the dock workers fix a sling onto the cargo. He and Rafiq watched as the wooden box swung high into the air, stabilized for a second, then moved over the deck and lowered into the hold.

Hashem lit a cigarette. In the light, it looked to Rafiq like his hands were shaking. His voice was low and urgent when he spoke again. “There is a new phone in the bag as well, and the codebook for our communications. I can’t stress how important this mission is, brother. You hold our future in your hands.”

“How long, Hashem?”

The tip of his brother’s cigarette glowed a fierce orange, and he blew out a long stream of smoke before he answered. “Years. Maybe never, who knows. Our strength is our patience. When they think they’ve won, you will be there to light a fire the likes of which the world has not seen in many decades.”

Rafiq kept his face very still so as not to betray the feelings that roiled his insides. Years… years of his life spent waiting, for what? He looked up at the deck of the ship where Captain Sing was waving to him. His stomach clenched.

But first he needed to make it through the next couple of months.