The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [107]
"Comrades, the guns must always be hidden, and the shades drawn at all times. We've come too far for foolish risks," he warned them. "This city has a police force, and do not think they are fools. We journey to Paradise at a time of our choosing, not at a time determined by an error. Remember that." And then he sat up, and removed his shoes. He thought about a shower, but he was too tired for that, and tomorrow would come soon enough.
"Which way to Mecca?" Rafi asked.
Mustafa had to think about that for a second, divining the direct line to Mecca and to the city's centerpiece, the Kaaba stone, the very center of the Islamic universe, to which they directed the Salat, verses from the Holy Koran said five times per day, recited from the knees.
"That way," he said, pointing southeast, on a line that transected northern Africa on its way to that holiest of Holy Places.
Rafi unrolled his prayer rug, and went to his knees. He was late in his prayers, but he had not forgotten his religious duty.
For his own part, Mustafa whispered to himself, "lest it be forgotten," in the hope that Allah would forgive him in his current state of fatigue. But was not Allah infinitely merciful? And besides, this was hardly a great sin. Mustafa removed his socks, and lay back in the bed, where sleep found him in less than a minute.
In the next room over, Abdullah finished his own Salat, and then plugged his computer into the side of the telephone. He dialed up an 800 number and heard the warbling screech as his computer linked up with the network. In another few seconds, he learned that he had mail. Three letters, plus the usual trash. The e-mails he downloaded and saved, and then he logged off, having been on line a mere fifteen seconds, another security measure they'd all been briefed on.
What Abdullah didn't know was that one of the four accounts had been intercepted and partially decrypted by the National Security Agency. When his account-identified only by a partial word and some numbers-tapped into Saeed's, it was also identified, but only as a recipient, not an originator.
Saeed's team had been the first to arrive at its destination of Colorado Springs, Colorado-the city was identified only by a code name-and was comfortably camped out in a motel ten kilometers from its objective. Sabawi, the Iraqi, was in Des Moines, Iowa, and Mehdi in Provo, Utah. Both of those teams were also in place and ready for the operation to commence. Less than thirty-six hours to execute their mission.
He'd let Mustafa do the replies. The reply was, in fact, already programmed: "190, 2" designating the 190th verse of the Second Sura. Not exactly a battle cry, but rather an affirmation of the Faith that had brought them here. The meaning was: Proceed with your mission.
Brian and Dominic were watching the History Channel on their cable system, something about Hitler and the Holocaust. It had been studied so much you'd think it'd defy efforts to find something new, yet somehow historians managed every so often. Some of it was probably because of the voluminous records the Germans had left behind in the Hartz Mountain caves, which would probably be the subject of scholarly study for the next few centuries, as people continued to try to discern the thought processes of the human monsters who'd first envisioned and then committed such crimes.
"Brian," Dominic asked, "what do you make of this stuff?"
"One pistol shot could have prevented it, I suppose. Problem is, nobody can see that far into the future-not even gypsy fortune-tellers. Hell, Adolf whacked a bunch of them, too. Why didn't they get the hell out of town?"
"You know, Hitler lived most of his life with only one bodyguard. In Berlin, he lived in a second-floor apartment, with a downstairs entrance, right? He had one SS troop, probably not even a sergeant, guarding the door. Pop him, open the door,