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tried to tell the sablehaired lady with the piercing eyes what the people in Algiers had shown me.
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    chapter 4
    Conversations with a Warrior
    Each culture, country, or city is its own vortex of energy—a swirling funnel of collective past and current beliefs, emotions, intentions, and values. Los Angeles is the vortex of the cinema and television industry. Washington, D.C., is a political vortex. At 9:30 A.M. on Saturday, January 27, 1996, I put the final touches on my makeup, fastened my money belt around my waist, and rode the elevator down to the lobby to meet Fateh, my guide. I was about to go on a day tour of Algiers, the capital of Algeria and
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    the world capital and vortex of terrorism.
    The sixties—that tumultuous, memorable time of President John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Vietnam War—gave birth to many forms of political and personal expression. Peace movements, demonstrations, and rallies became popular forms of social protest, powerful tactics to effect change in democracies. But the sixties also gave birth to the underside— the darker side — of speaking out for a cause. That octopus of terror, the international terrorist network, simultaneously began to stretch its tentacles around the globe. Its members were not only willing to die for their cause; they were primed to kill for it, deliberately using coldblooded tactics that would send shock waves of terror to the masses, making victims of them, too.
    The first waves were sent around the world in 1968, when terrorists hijacked an Israeli airplane, then forced its pilot to fly to Algiers.
    Over the ensuing years, the tentacles of terror reached closer and closer to home. In 1972, terrorists attacked Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. In 1976, we watched Israeli commandos perform their daring and brilliant rescue raid on Entebbe. In 1986, the United States bombed Algeria's neighbor, Libya, hoping to destroy its leader, Muammar alQaddafi. In December 1988, as Pan Am flight 103 passed over Lockerbie, Scotland, on its way Page 43
    from London to New York, a bomb exploded, killing 270 people. Of them, 187 were Americans.
    By the early nineties, the shock waves from world terrorism had reached Stillwater, Minnesota, where I lived at the time. A rash of pipe bombings and bomb threats, coupled with the Persian Gulf War and a national FBI terrorism alert, had me and many others looking over our shoulders. One afternoon, my son, Shane, asked me to take him and a group of friends to a basketball game at a local sports arena. "No," I had said. "It's not safe. It's a target. Choose something else."
    In February 1993, terrorists bombed the World Trade Center in New York City. On April 19, 1995, a bomb exploded outside the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a structure housing a daycare center. This time 169 people were killed. Of them, 19 were children.
    Over the years, as bomb threats continued to increase, the United States had responded with increased security measures. The most noticeable change occurred at airports. Travelers in the United States could no longer simply check in and board a plane. They had to show photo identification. They had to answer questions. "Did you pack your luggage? Did anyone give you anything to transport?" We as a nation began to react to terrorism with subtle antiterrorist tactics. Now I was groomed, prepped, and ready for a drive by the terrorist training camps in the foothills of Algiers—
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    one of the places contemporary terrorism had begun.
    Fateh was waiting for me in the lobby. He scanned my appearance and approved. My instincts had been right on this trip. It had been easy to follow his instructions of the night before, to dress in unAmerican garb. I had brought only one extra set of clothing with me. I wore a dark, loosefitting sweater and pants. With my short dark hair and olive skin, I felt almost invisible in this cultural mix of French, Arabian, and Berber heritage.
    Fateh