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fucked. Big time. And you know it. You keep catching bait fish and pretending you’re going up the food chain. We got to move faster than that. I will do what I have to do whether you help me or not.”
    â€œYou’re fucking crazy.”
    â€œSure. Crazy, and worse: I’ve got common sense. You think these assholes like Abu Seif are complicated? Unpredictable? That’s because you got to have everything approved by committee, you got to have your flow chart, you got to have salaries and pensions and bonuses, and you think they do, too.”
    â€œSpare me.”
    â€œYou know what jihad is about for these guys, Griffin?”
    â€œHoly war. Paradise.”
    â€œThink ‘glory,’ ” I said. “I don’t believe for a second that the smart ones really think when they die they’ll wake up with virgins waiting on them hand and foot. And if they do, that’s just a bonus. What they know, what they count on, is that their names are going to be up in lights—here—right on earth—and right now. Ground Zero’s not about God, it’s about Hollywood. It’s The Ten Commandments meets Independence Day, ” I said. “I’ve been inside their heads. I know that. And so should you.”
    â€œWe’re a whole lot smarter than you think,” said Griffin.
    â€œYeah? Ask those poor dead bastards in the Trade Center how smart you are.”
    â€œFuck you,” said Griffin.
    â€œYeah? You’ve been grabbing people all over the map for three years, and you didn’t know shit about that attack.”
    â€œI ain’t got all day to listen to your Power Point presentation,” said Griffin. “We know what goes on.”
    â€œTell me something, Griffin. Every intelligence service in the Middle East has spies in those camps: Egyptians, Jordanians, Algerians, Israelis, the Brits, the French, the Russians—maybe even your Agency. Right?” It was a guess, but it was obvious. Griffin just looked at me with that stare-into-space expression that comes with a security clearance. “I bet half of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards are working for ‘friendly’ services. But you didn’t have a clue what was coming ten days ago.”
    â€œAnd you are so fucking smart, you knew. Right?”
    â€œWhat I know is this. When a recruiter like Abu Seif spots a baby shark instead of a bait fish—someone who’s smart, who’s got the right look in his eye—that recruit gets tagged for a different program. The sharks get special care, special feeding, become part of a different food chain. Might not go to the camps at all. In fact, probably don’t. Who runs them ? We’ve got to find the man who handles the sharks, who knows where they swim, and who comes out to swim with them. And you can bet he’s not sipping tea with Osama these days. Because the sharks are already in America. They’re already in Europe. They’re sleepers. They don’t do anything until they get the signal. Then: BAM! And while they wait to launch the second wave of terror, and the third, and the fourth, they’re leading perfectly ordinary lives in, I don’t know, in—”
    â€œIn Kansas,” said Griffin.
    â€œCould be,” I said. “Or in Langley.” I stood up straight and arched my back in a long, yawning stretch. “You want that hard drive? Let’s find an ATM machine.”

Chapter 6
    â€œTell me something about you,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you want to know?” said Griffin.
    â€œSomething that’s true,” I said.
    We were on the edge of the park, now, and headed on foot into a collection of town houses and small hotels. I remember there was a statue of a general on horseback.
    â€œI am thirty-six years old,” said Griffin.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI was born just outside of Jackson, Mississippi.”
    â€œWhere’s your accent?”
    â€œIt finds