The Lion

The driver unlocked the doors as Khalil pushed aside the man holding the rear door handle. Khalil opened the door and jumped in the rear, pulling the door shut as Rasheed moved away from the curb.

The taxi gathered speed as it moved into the traffic of the avenue.

Rasheed asked in Arabic, "What has happened there?"

Khalil replied, "A fire." He looked at his watch and said to Rasheed, "The Brooklyn-Battery Tu

Asad Khalil sat back and looked out the window. He said to himself, "And now for Mr. Corey."

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Rasheed drove his taxi through the long Brooklyn-Battery Tu

Asad Khalil made a cell phone call, spoke for a few seconds, then hung up and said to Rasheed, "Rector Street."

Rasheed continued on for a minute, then turned into the narrow one-way street. Parked on the short and quiet street, near the large Battery Parking Garage, was a tractor-trailer, and Khalil said, "Wait here."

Khalil exited the taxi and walked toward the large truck.

Painted on the side of the long trailer was CARLINO MASONRY SUPPLIES with an address and phone number in Weehawken, New Jersey. This company, Khalil was told, existed, but this was not one of their vehicles, and what was inside was not masonry supplies.

Khalil approached the tractor, and he saw the face of a man looking at him in the large sideview mirror. Khalil held up his right hand and made a fist.

The door opened, and Khalil climbed up the step and swung into the rear compartment of the big cab.

This large windowless compartment appeared to be a sleeping area, and also in this compartment was a burly man with a crew cut, dressed in jeans and a green T-shirt with the masonry company's logo on the front. In the driver's seat was another man, wearing a baseball cap, and in the right front seat was the man who had opened the door for him, who also wore a cap, jeans, and a blue team shirt that said "Mets."

These three men, Khalil understood, were European Muslims, Bosnians, and they had all fought in the war against the Christian Serbs, so they were not strangers to danger or killing. They all claimed to have lost relatives in the massacres, and they had undertaken this mission, according to Khalil's Al Qaeda contact in New York, not for the money-which Khalil knew was substantial-but as mujahideen in the holy war against the infidels.

Khalil was not so sure of their motives, and he would have preferred to be meeting Arabic speakers whom he could fully trust. But this part of his mission-the part that would end his visit here in mass destruction and death-was controlled by others, who felt that these Western-looking men were well suited for what needed to be done.

Each man introduced himself in English by his first name, and these were strange-sounding names to Asad Khalil-not good Arabic names, but names that he thought were some corruption of the Turkish language.

Khalil said to them, "You may call me Malik," using the name of his spiritual advisor in Libya-a name that meant "master," or even sometimes "angel," though these men would not know or appreciate that.

The driver, Edis, said to him, "We were stopped at the entrance to the Holland Tu

Khalil did not reply nor did he want to know more-they had obviously gotten through the tu

Edis continued, "The policeman asked to see my license, and it was good that I had gone to school to obtain a commercial driver's license for a vehicle of this size."

Again, Khalil did not respond.

Edis glanced back at Khalil and told him, "Two policemen made us open the doors." He paused, then said, "But all they could see were the stacked bags of cement, and they did not look further." He added, "They are lazy."

The man in the passenger seat, Tarik, corrected Edis and said, "We are good bluffers."

Khalil did not recognize that word, but he recognized their motives in telling him this-they wanted approval, or more likely more money, or perhaps another job.

Khalil had no way of knowing if they had actually been stopped, and what he did not see with his own eyes he did not believe. In fact, he trusted these three men even less now; he did not fully trust even Arabs who came to live in the West, and he felt less favorable toward these three who were Europeans and had most probably been corrupted by their Christian neighbors.

In any case, they would be dead in a few hours.

Khalil said, "Tell me what you have here."

Tarik in the passenger seat replied, "We have fertilizer." He laughed, and the other two men laughed with him. Khalil did not laugh, and the men became quiet. None of them particularly enjoyed working with the Arabs. The Arabs were almost without humor, and they did not enjoy a drink or a cigarette, as the Bosnian Muslims did, and they treated their women-all women-very badly.

Khalil asked again, "What do you have?"

Tarik replied, this time in a flat tone of voice, "Ammonium nitrate fertilizer, liquid nitromethane, diesel fuel, and Tovex Blastrite gel. It is all mixed in fifty-five-gallon drums-eighty-eight of them-and half the drums are co

Khalil asked, "And how do you know you have not aroused suspicion with these purchases? Or were they stolen?"

It was Edis who replied, "Everything was purchased." He said to Khalil, "All of these chemicals are legal for their intended use, and they were purchased in small quantities by others who had legitimate uses for them, and then resold to us at a criminal price." He smiled and said, "What is not legal is mixing them together."

Bojan and Tarik allowed themselves a small smile, but they did not laugh. Edis added, "Or attaching blasting caps to the mixture and blowing it up."

Even Khalil smiled, so Edis also added, "The most expensive ingredient at today's prices was the diesel fuel."

Bojan and Tarik laughed, and Edis said to Khalil, "The Arabs are going to bankrupt this country with these oil prices."

The three Bosnians all laughed, and Khalil thought they were idiots-but useful idiots who had apparently accomplished their task. Khalil said, however, "The FBI are not like the police in most countries. They do not make an arrest when they see an illegal activity. They watch, and wait, and keep watching until they are certain they know everyone and everything there is to know. They have been known to wait for years before making mass arrests-sometimes only hours before an operation is to begin."

None of the men replied, but then Tarik said, "They would not have waited this long-for all they know, this truck can be detonated in seconds."

Khalil again nodded. There was some truth to that.

Edis reassured their Arab friend, "Since September 11, the authorities have kept better track of certain chemicals, but with the proper authorizations for legitimate use, and in small quantities-and with patience-one can amass the ingredients for a very large bomb."

Khalil asked, "How large is this?"

Tarik, who seemed to be the expert, answered, "Behind us is 45,000 pounds of explosive." He wasn't sure the Arab understood, so he added, "As a comparison, the bomb that was detonated in Oklahoma City was only 4,800 pounds in a small truck. And that bomb created a crater that was ten meters wide and three meters deep, and it destroyed or damaged over three hundred buildings and killed 168 people."

Khalil nodded, though he knew nothing of that explosion, and he wondered who had set it and why.

Tarik continued, "The explosion that will result from this quantity of chemicals will be the equivalent of 50,000 pounds of TNT." He added, "This explosion, if it was detonated in midtown Manhattan, would cause death and destruction for a mile in all directions, and it would be heard and felt for over a hundred miles."