The Faithful Spy

She knew how it was. Most Arab names could be transliterated into English a dozen ways. Mohammed Abdul Lattif. Mohamad Abdullattif. Mohamed Abdullatif. Muhammad Abdul Laitef. The NSA hadn’t found a foolproof way to cover all the possible translations without making the list too big to be useful. Making matters worse, all the agencies had built separate watch lists over the years. Melding them into a master list was a top priority for the threat center. But the project, like so much else in the terror war, had not gone smoothly. The agencies had different secrecy classifications, different thresholds for inclusion. Some used photographs and fingerprints when available, others didn’t. So far only about half the names on the lists had been combined. Again Shafer wagged his finger at her. “Anyone jump out?”

“I’m looking,” she said. Jim Bates. nope. Edward Faro. not likely.

What went unsaid was the fact that the government’s various divisions, including the CIA, didn’t want to share everything they had. Like the fact that the agency was paying close attention to several guys who were confidential informants for the FBI. If the snitches’ names wound up on a combined list, the Feebs might accidentally-on-purpose tell them that they’d been targeted. The history of tension between the two agencies ran so deep that even terrorism couldn’t make it go away entirely.

In darker moments, Exley wondered if the watch list itself wasn’t simply bureaucratic ass covering. After all, what hijacker or suicide bomber would be dumb enough to book a ticket under his own name? Except that the 9/11 boys had done just that. Al Qaeda wasn’t always brilliant either.

She focused on the list. Yusuf Hazalia. he was probably getting some dirty looks about now. David Kim. not unless he was North Korean. Mohammed al-Nerzi. She stopped.

“Al-Nerzi. That rings a bell,” she said.

“The computers picked him too,” Shafer said.

“Didn’t the Egyptians arrest a guy named al-Nerzi a year or so ago? Said he was planning to take out a Nile tourist cruise. His name wasn’t Mohammed, though. Aziz. Aziz al-Nerzi.”

“I’ll have someone call the Mukhabarat”—the Egyptian secret service—“and find out if they’re related.” Either way, Mohammed al-Nerzi would have some questions to answer when the plane landed. If the plane landed.

“There was one more matching name who was supposed to be on the plane, but he didn’t show up,” Shafer said. “Didn’t cancel either. No explanation.”

“How long’s it been in the air?” Exley said.

“Took off from Heathrow at noon London time. About seven hours ago.”

“So it’s scheduled to land—”

“At Dulles. Forty-five minutes. F-16s are escorting it in.”

“Dulles? Why haven’t we ordered it down already?”

“An emergency landing? We decided against it. There’s no date specified. Just the flight number.”

“Oh, just the flight number.”

“That’s why we scrambled the jets. Why I called you.”

Her voice rose a little. “F-16s won’t do the people on that plane much good if it’s a bomb.”

The truth was that the fighters wouldn’t do the passengers much good in a hijacking either, she thought. The jets were there to stop the White House from getting turned into firewood, not to save the plane. They would shoot it down if they had to. If you were on United Airlines 919, those fighters were nothing but bad news.

“If they’d wanted to blow it, they’d have blown it already. Over the Atlantic where we couldn’t find the pieces. It’s a hijacking if it’s anything.”

“Then there should be at least five hijackers on board, Ellis. And they should be in first class, not all over the plane. It’s a bombing if it’s anything. Maybe they’re planning to blow it on the approach. You know, just for a change of pace—”

“The agency doesn’t want to disrupt commercial aviation without a good reason.”

“This isn’t a good reason?”

Shafer sighed. “Do I have to spell it out for you, Jen? When that plane lands on time at Dulles, it’ll get thirty seconds on CNN—

fighter jets escorting a plane in. It happens. An emergency landing? Much bigger deal. Especially in New York. The airlines have told the White House that their bookings drop whenever that happens. They’re begging us not to overreact. Not saying I agree. That’s just how it is.”

“How much will their bookings drop if that plane blows up?”

“It’s not my decision.”

“You could get it down if you wanted to.”

“This time.”

This time. Shafer’s influence was real, but it wasn’t infinite. His prescience about September 11 still protected him, but he was no longer invulnerable. In the wake of the 9-11 Commission report, many of the agency’s most senior officials had resigned. Their replacements considered Shafer a relic. Plenty of them would be happy to see him screw up. He wasn’t a team player. He was too smart. He could make them look bad.