The Operative Read online

  And walk away from the fish tank.

  The petite woman with short dark hair and Asian eyes approached room 306 of the Baltimore Hilton. There was a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door handle. She ignored it and swiped her key card, entering the large, modern room with its panoramic view of the city’s Inner Harbor.

  The harbor had come a long way since its taxpayer-paid restoration in the early eighties. Much like Times Square, prostitutes and crackheads were “relocated” or arrested, and their tainted syringes and condoms, which clung to the grates of gutters, were finally cleaned out. Warehouses, crack dens, rotting fuel tankers, and out-of-favor dog tracks were replaced by new shopping malls, fine dining, a world-class aquarium, and a new convention center. These improvements helped draw other corporate entities back into the suddenly decorous setting, bringing tourists and families back into the historic marina and closer to its famous “star-spangled” Fort McHenry. And thanks in part to hometown hero Cal Ripken, Jr.—and his just over 2,000 consecutive played games record, which was quickly sneaking up on record holder Lou Gehrig’s 2,130 games—the Baltimore Orioles got their new brick Camden Yards stadium in the early nineties, nearly completing the once-sagging city’s late twentieth-century facelift.

  But somehow, unlike Midtown Manhattan’s redo, no matter how many distractions and special events tried to cover up Baltimore’s seamy history, echoes still hummed from the still neglected canneries lining the shore, from years upon years of painfully obtained sugarcane and oysters-turned-mother-of-pearl that were toiled through and exported by gifted, poorly paid women who needed pennies for provisions and by skilled slaves who sorely needed their autonomy liberated, as is memorialized in the often sightseer-slighted Museum of Industry.

  The woman put away her key card as the door clicked shut behind her, went to the dresser, and opened the second dresser drawer from the bottom. She withdrew a black, satchel-style photographer’s bag, pulled it up by the strap, and hefted it over her shoulder. With its bulky contents, it weighed between 5 and 6 pounds, which was substantial but not heavy enough to make carrying it difficult.

  She wore a sleeveless champagne-colored blouse and black Capri pants with a damask rose printed on the right outer thigh, and had a wireless mobile headset on her right ear. She also wore trendy sixteen-button gloves. In her line of work, she thought, women had two advantages: they could get close to men of influence, and it was easy not to leave fingerprints.

  My line of work, twenty-one year-old Jasni Osman reflected bitterly.

  Three years ago, the gifted gymnast was training for the Singapore Youth Olympics. All she had ever wanted was to express herself in movement, revel in the joy of being free. Then her eldest brother, Yusuf, a journalist, was arrested for what the ruling People’s Action Party termed radical activities and sentenced to thirty years in prison. He suggested from his prison cell that she could help him by attending a meeting of Jamaah Anshorut Tauhid at a local mosque. Although she had to pray apart from the men, in keeping with strict tradition, the organization’s religious instructors fully welcomed her as a daughter of Islam, instructing her on the lies and deceit of their government’s rulers and the hateful imperialism of their masters, the United States.

  Seven months later she was arrested in a raid on a JAT camp at Aceh, Indonesia, accused of being a courier of illegal funds. Her captors were American agents, and she vividly recalled the terrible place to which she was brought in Jakarta, the suffocating torture by the CIA, the brutal sodomy committed by the BIN, the state’s fearful Badan Intelijen Negara. Before her arrest, she had been interested only in bringing down the PAP and freeing her brother. Now she wanted jihad against all oppressors of the Muslim people.

  Captivity and restraint were unthinkable to Jasni. It took repeated assaults from the BIN, in her cell, for Jasni to locate and steal the key to the restraints of the waterboard. After a near drowning the Americans left her—and she escaped, using her flexibility to hide and then to cling to the underside of the very nondescript scout vehicle they were using to hunt her. She returned to the mosque, committed to jihad, and was assigned by JAT leader Al Su’al to Alef, the group responsible for bringing bloodshed to the American homeland.

  Today she would honor all those who had helped her on her journey—and her brother, who was still languishing in that filthy prison.

  Before leaving the room, she slipped two fingers into the front change pocket of her Capris, extracted a red glass marble. She held it for a moment, enjoying its smooth, cool exterior and the strange heart that seemed to beat within. A sense of well-being permeated her, and she reluctantly put it in the drawer. Then she pushed the drawer shut, adjusted the satchel so it hung more comfortably on her shoulder, and bowed her head.

  Oh, Allah, I will infiltrate the enemy and kill them without fear of death.

  Jasni Osman left the room and went downstairs. Soon afterward a young male stepped from the elevator. Wearing a navy blue sports jacket and dark trousers, he used his key card to enter the room and took his specified package from the dresser.

  It was shortly after 5:00 p.m. when he dropped his colored marble in the drawer and exited.

  The order to strike would come over the headset exactly thirteen minutes later.

  Colin Dearborn frowned as he got on the fast-food line at the rear of the convention center. Almost fifteen bucks for a chili dog, a side—chips or fries or a paper cup of slaw—and a Coke was nuts. The disorganized mass of customers, paying more attention to their cell phones than to the lines, and the glacially slow service didn’t help.

  Faced with the prospect of languishing there awhile, Colin slid his smartphone from his pants pocket to tweet his displeasure. As a contributing editor to the Cavalier, UVA’s student newspaper, he’d been an enthusiastic champion of fully integrating the grid into its content delivery model. While he wasn’t among the hard-core geeks who insisted print journalism was dead, it had clearly become the lowest-growth segment of a broader information market.

  He opened his Twitter application and thought a moment, smoothing his chin beard between his thumb and forefinger. Getting his message across in 140 characters or less was an enjoyable challenge. In a sense it was like composing a haiku; you had to be super clear and tight with your writing.

  His thumbs rapidly flurried over his touch pad as he typed: #Food vendors// This is a career fair. We r here looking 4 #JOBS//. #Affordable // hot dogs wanted. Lower prices, plz

  Finishing the update, Colin scrolled down his timeline to check the responses to his earlier tweets and smiled to see one his aunt had pecked out minutes before: On way from aquarium w/RK. Bringing u jellyfish burger. Lettuce, tomato, fries. Pick tentacles w/stingers out b4 you eat.

  Colin considered calling her the old-fashioned way so he could ask her to bring something to eat, but he figured he might miss her, anyway. He’d turned the volume down on his phone so it wouldn’t sound in the middle of the interviews he had been conducting with company recruiters and potential employees, all of which would be used to write his story for the school paper.

  Closing the app, he put the phone back into his pocket and realized the line in front of him had shortened while he’d stood there tweeting. It was still another ten minutes before he reached the cashier and five more before somebody gave him his order in one of those cardboard carrying trays that resembled egg crates.

  Colin eased from the roiling mass of customers to look for a table, saw one on his left, and rushed over, holding his tray in front of him. A woman in a huggy tan-colored blouse and loose-fitting Capri pants with a big stuffed photographer’s satchel on her shoulder stood directly between him and the table. He noticed her partly because she was very attractive, and also because she seemed strangely oblivious to the hustle and bustle around her—neither recruiter nor job seeker.

  Reporter?

  He was squeezing past the woman when she abruptly turned, banging her satchel into his elbow so hard that his soda cup tipped over sideways. Ha
lting in his tracks, Colin tried to catch it with one hand but was too late. It had spilled over everything else on the tray, drenching his chili dog and fries in a foaming puddle of Coke.

  Colin’s angry eyes snapped up at the woman. She was oblivious to their collision, and it was then that he saw the earpiece of a Bluetooth headset on one side of her face and realized she must be listening to somebody over the phone.

  “Pay attention, idiot!” he shouted after her.

  People around him turned to see what was up as the woman made her way through the crowd as if he wasn’t there.

  Colin looked back down at his flooded tray. Frowning, he walked over to a row of trash bins on one side of the dining area. He shook off the soggy hot dog and gulped it down, then dumped his fries into the bin labeled FOOD and the tray into one that said RECYCLABLES. Turning, he saw that the table he’d been approaching was still unoccupied and headed for an empty seat. He needed a couple of minutes to chill—and post another status update. People: if you MUST carry a bag or backpack in crowded places, plz b aware of ur turn radius AND the people around you.

  Colin put away the phone and looked around. Another thing about those bags, was anyone even scanning the oversize monstrosities? He’d seen guards in the center’s Pratt Street lobby, but he was pretty sure they didn’t have metal detectors at the door. Also, he hadn’t noticed any security checks whatsoever over at the skyway entrance from the Hilton Hotel.

  You can check on all that later, write it up as a sidebar, he thought as he eyed a bag of chips someone had left behind on another table. Scooting over and grabbing it, he felt slightly redeemed, as if the universe had regained a little bit of balance.

  Tearing open the bag and snacking down happily, Colin left the food area, his eyes actively searching for the woman so he could return the nudge and even the scales a little more.

  From the start, Julie Harper had realized that agreeing to cochair the planning committee and deliver the keynote speech for tonight’s advanced nursing conference was a recipe for trouble. No one had forced her to micromanage the entire agenda. As her husband, Jon, had sweetly reminded her before they left the house, “Most of this is none of your goddamn business.”

  She didn’t disagree. But in a town where image was everything and spies and saboteurs were everywhere, where a social disaster was also a political disaster, hands-on was the only way to be. Jon knew that, too. After three decades of marriage—most of that spent in Washington—he had come to rely on his wife to have his back like this.

  What was it that the former first lady had told her? “You have to host to be seen. You have to host well to matter.”

  The Baltimore Convention Center contracted out to a professional catering service that set the course list and handled the food preparation for all its banquets. Even if you paid their fee and chose not to use the food, no one else got in the door. She was assured they knew their business and wouldn’t need her input, but that would make this conference no different from every other conference.

  That was not “hosting well.”

  So she fretted, even as H hour approached. Was the coquilles Saint-Jacques really the best choice for a seafood entrée? They had assured her it would be, but she’d insisted they use only a high-quality imported Gruyère in the recipe. She’d paid for the upgrade out of pocket. Or rather, her husband did. He hated to see her upset because of something that money could fix. And what about their wine pairing? Did they have a white varietal, something textured and flowery like Esprit de Beaucastel Blanc? As for the poultry offering, Julie had requested—and paid for—a substitution for the caterer’s chicken Kiev. She wanted a lighter alternative. Lemon chicken, for example, was a reliable crowd pleaser. And what about the vegetarians or, God help her, the vegans? Asparagus with plum tomato casserole was the expensive solution.

  Even now, as she greeted guests in the lobby outside the ballroom, standing near a table covered with name tags, Julie was mentally reviewing the seating chart, wondering if it was wise to segregate the Tea Party affiliates from the Democrats. It was a coin toss as to which was worse, a perceived snub or a political catfight.

  “... introduce you to Dr. José Colon.”

  Julie started slightly and glanced at Donna Palmer, the director of pediatric nursing at Sloan-Kettering in New York and nominally her assistant coordinator for the event. Beside her, a young man stood in the hall, his hand extended.

  “Good Lord!” Julie exclaimed. “Am I really looking at Helen Colon’s little boy?”

  “You are.” He smiled. “Mom has spoken often of you over the years, Ms. Harper.”

  “What a dear she is! I haven’t seen her since our Mayo Clinic days.” Julie was suddenly choked up—pressure waiting for an emotional trigger like this. “How is your mother?”

  “Very well,” he said. “Mom does in-homes for an insurance company. She told me I have to take pictures of us together, but you’re busy. I’ll find you later?”

  “Please do,” she replied. She almost called him back to take the photo now—Carpe diem, she thought—but he had moved on.

  Donna ushered over a man and a young girl. She turned to them and smiled. “Mr. Reed Bishop and his daughter Laura,” Donna said.

  Julie took their hands, one in each of her own. Her eyes were beginning to glisten. The whole thing was more emotional than she had expected.

  “Your wife’s trust fund,” she said to Bishop, “your mother”—she smiled at Laura—“has been a lifesaver for our organization.”

  “Caregiving was her passion,” Bishop said. “I couldn’t think of a better way to honor her.”

  “Thank you,” Julie said. She looked at the slender girl with strawberry blond hair. “Are you going to be a nurse?” she asked.

  Laura Bishop nodded. “I’m getting my dad to stop smoking.”

  Reed Bishop smiled awkwardly under Julie’s playful scowl. The words secondhand smoke all but floated above her head.

  “That’s a very noble goal,” Julie said. “I’m sure your dad means to help.”

  “Every bloody inch of the way,” he said.

  Another round of thank-yous and the Bishops moved on. Julie looked past Donna at the next arrival. As she was shaking the hand of Connecticut senator Victoria Bundonis, she noticed a man standing just inside the door. He looked to be in his late twenties. He was wearing a navy blue sports jacket and dark trousers and carried an expensive-looking hard-shell briefcase. What caught her eye was his posture—slack and loose limbed, his eyes lowered. As she watched, he was visibly swaying on his feet.

  As the senator moved on, Julie took Donna by her elbow and pointed from her waist. “Do you know him?”

  Donna glanced briefly at the man. “No. It appears as if he spent too much time dodging the afternoon heat in the hotel’s cocktail lounge.”

  “I don’t know. Looks to me like he’s dancing to his iPod. See the earbud?”

  “I do now.” Donna was reaching for her cell phone. “Should I call security?”

  “No. They’ll stick out.”

  “Aren’t they supposed to?” Donna asked.

  One of the things Julie insisted on was that her guests not be inconvenienced with security checks. Between herself and Donna, they knew almost every one of the 250 people who were attending. To search them would have been insulting. Still, this merited watching.

  “Wait until everyone is inside and chatting,” Julie said.

  The women resumed welcoming new arrivals.

  Glancing at his watch, the man with the briefcase finally came over. His blue wristband meant he’d paid over two thousand dollars to attend the dinner. Donna put out her hand as he approached.

  “Good evening,” she said. “I’m Donna Palmer, your cohost, and this is Ms. Julie Harper.”

  He bowed in a slightly courtly fashion but said nothing.

  “The name tags are in alphabetical order,” Donna went on. “If you’d like, you can check your briefcase at the counter behind the table.”


  “Thank you,” he said as he scanned the table for the plastic tag.

  Julie couldn’t place the accent. It sounded Israeli, and he had what looked like a deep Mediterranean tan. As he reached for the tag, she noted that his name was Michael Lohani. It meant nothing. She exchanged looks with Donna, who shrugged. The name wasn’t familiar to her, either. It was then that Julie saw the way he held his briefcase against his side, his fingers tightly clenched around its handle, his shoulder dropped low, as though it were quite heavy.

  He moved ahead with a weak smile. Julie turned casually to watch. He didn’t check his briefcase but went right to the ushers at the door.

  “Okay, something’s not right,” Julie said to Donna. “Call security.”

  Zuhair Khan Afridi paused in the tiled, narrow court outside the Hilton’s Eutaw Street entrance, his hand closing around the marble deep inside his trouser pocket, rolling the smooth glass ball between his fingertips. Silently, without moving his mouth, bowing only slightly, reverently at the knees, he repeated the affirmations he’d learned at the camp where his mind and body were healed and he received his instruction as a mujahid. The words had helped to dispel the painful recollections of his treatment by the American CIA: the blindfolded trips by plane, helicopter, and van; the interrogations and repeated water tortures; the rats in his tiny cell.

  He had waited out these final hours at an afternoon baseball game, reviewing the plan in his head as he gathered himself for his task. Zuhair had paid no attention to the game until shortly before he left Camden Yards, when people suddenly began exiting the ballpark.

  Had someone identified him and given an alert? Was the stadium being evacuated? That was when he realized the visiting Boston Red Sox had a large 10–0 lead in the eighth inning, and that people were leaving.

  Zuhair wore an Orioles baseball cap and jersey outside his baggy chinos, aware he would be inconspicuous enough disguised as one of the many who had come to cheer the home team. He departed with the others, confident that his somber mood would be perceived as nothing more than the disappointment of a fan.