The Faithful Spy

at two a.m., weary travelers filled the arrivals hall at Miami International Airport. Omar Khadri was pleased to see that he fit in easily; everyone was his shade or darker. He joined a long line for non-U.S. citizens, carrying a black leather briefcase that held a copy of Don Quixote in Spanish to match his passport. An hour later, he was still waiting. Meanwhile, the lines for Americans moved smoothly. Khadri seethed. You show us your contempt even before we arrive, he thought. Maybe if he shouted his delight at reaching the United States, Allah’s gift to the universe, he would be jumped to the front of the line. Finally he reached an agent. She looked briefly at his passport, then at him.

“Are you here for business or pleasure, Mr. Navarro?”

“Business,” Khadri said. Definitely business.

“Where will you be staying?”

“Miami.” With a side trip to Los Angeles.

“How long?”

“Two weeks.”

She handed him his passport. “I just need a fingerprint and photo and you’ll be on your way.”

“Excuse me?” Khadri said.

“Your fingerprint and photo. It’s standard procedure.”

Khadri did not want his prints and picture on file with the United States government. As far as he knew, no intelligence service had ever taken his photograph. He was as close to anonymous as anyone could be: medium height, medium weight, straight black hair, relatively light skin for a Pakistani, and an uncanny ability to mimic accents, a great gift in his line of work. He could pass for Egyptian, Iranian, Filipino, maybe even Italian. Even so, giving up a fingerprint would lock him into using this passport every time he came to America. He much preferred being able to change names.

“Sir? That a problem for you?”

“It’s a rule?” Khadri wished he weren’t so tired. Fatigue muddied his thinking, and he felt an unexpected fear, not for himself, but for this week’s operation.

“Same for everyone, sir.” A hint of a smirk crossed the agent’s face. If you don’t like it, tough, she didn’t quite say. You can always go home.

Khadri fought down his irritation as he looked at her black face. He did not like black people, especially black Americans. This woman was a trained monkey, a combination of American arrogance and African savagery. But Khadri decided to be polite; he didn’t want the trained monkey looking too hard at his passport.

“I’ll be glad to,” he said.

The procedure took only a few seconds. He put his index finger on a digital reader and looked into a small digital camera. A few seconds later the agent’s computer beeped and she waved him on.

“Welcome to the United States.”

“Good to be here,” Khadri said.

on his flight to LAX the next morning, Khadri silently raged at himself. He should have been familiar with the new fingerprinting rules, which had been publicly announced. He couldn’t make mistakes like that. In their paranoia, Americans seemed to think that al Qaeda was an all-powerful killing machine. But Khadri knew the group’s weaknesses all too well.

True, al Qaeda was in no danger of going broke. Sheikh bin Laden had squirreled away tens of millions of dollars around the world during the 1990s, and new cash still flowed in quietly. But money alone was not enough. Al Qaeda’s biggest problem was finding good operatives. Plenty of men wanted to die for the cause. But only a handful had gotten inside the United States before America clamped down on immigration from Muslim countries. Even fewer could be trusted for difficult missions. One bad decision, a moment of panic, could destroy a plan years in the making. A flight attendant rolled her cart up. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Coffee. Two sugars and milk.” Naturally, Khadri did not drink or use drugs, but — like many devout Muslims — he had a sweet tooth and a serious coffee habit.

He sipped his coffee and wondered how history would judge him. He fully expected that one day the world would know his name, his real name. Biographers and historians would examine his life. But if they were looking for a traumatic event, something they could

“blame” for clues to his “crimes,” they would be disappointed, he thought.