The Ghost scraped down the alley in a dented and rusted rental he’d picked up in Sanaa, seeing the minaret for the grand mosque, but unable to find the entrance in the maze of side streets.
One of the oldest cities on earth, and once the capital of Yemen, Zabid had declined to a state of abject poverty, with the entire town reminding him of the refugee camps back home. Full of crumbling buildings constructed of homemade brick and mortar, all jammed together with little forethought to any overarching plan.
The drive west had been rapid on the arid desert road, with only two stops at checkpoints manned by hard men armed with AKs. He had no idea whether they were government, opposition, or simply bandits, but they let him pass. He had given himself an extra hour just for such difficulties and was pleased he had met so few. It gave him enough time to conduct a reconnaissance on the Al-Asha’ir Mosque, the location where he was told to meet the AQAP contact.
Squeezing through a gap that might or might not have been meant for vehicles, he saw the entrance to the mosque to his front. He killed the engine and waited, surveying the area. Nothing suspicious stood out. A man swatting a donkey pulling a cart, a couple of kids playing in the dirt, a lone woman clad in black carrying a bucket of water. The usual ebb and flow expected from such a town.
The mosque showed no activity. Eventually, a boy of eighteen or nineteen walked up the steps. Dressed in Western clothes consisting of jeans and a T-shirt, he held a newspaper in his right hand. The signal.
The Ghost gave him a few minutes, then followed. He found the boy in the large entrance hall, now deserted. The teennager saw him approach and waited, nervously shuffling from one foot to the other. The Ghost gave him the verbal bona fides and saw the boy visibly relax.
He said, “Khalid sends his regards and wishes to help in any way he can.”
“Good. I haven’t much time and am in need of his expertise. I require enough explosives to fit inside two shoeboxes, and I need it packaged in such a manner that I can place them in baggage for aircraft. Like the printer-cartridge bombs he made.”
“Carry-on baggage?”
“No. I’ll check the luggage holding the material.”
The boy nodded, considering, then said, “It can be done fairly easily. That is not much explosive. When do you need them? How soon are you flying?”
“I wish to leave tomorrow, but I am at your mercy.”
“It can be done.” The boy passed him a cell phone. “I’ll call you on this to tell you where to meet. It will be tonight.”
“One more thing: I require the explosives to be initiated wirelessly. Can you construct such detonators so that they will not draw attention?”
“You mean WiFi through the Internet, or by radio signal?”
“Internet. I will need at least five.”
“Easy. I can make them look like simple Western garage-door opener parts.”
“You? You will make the explosives and detonators? I thought Khalid was the expert.”
The boy smiled. “He is, but he has been teaching others. He was almost killed last year with Anwar al-Awlaki and knows he will eventually be found. I am your contact and will build your request. Don’t worry. Your detonators are simple, and you only require camouflage for the explosives, no complicated barometric timing devices or other things.”
“Fine. Build them as fast as you can. I’ll be awaiting your call. I want to drive back to Sanaa tonight.”
Eight hours later the Ghost sat in the shade of a dilapidated cafe, drinking tea and staring at the phone he had been given, willing it to ring. He was startled when it did, then surprised when the voice on the other end wasn’t his contact. He wrote down the instructions provided, paying particular attention to the directions he would need to navigate the maze of the town.