Two terrorists in a fast inflatable packed with TNT roared through the flotilla of supply boats, rammed itself between the hull and the quay and blew itself up. Due to the compression between the hull and the concrete, a huge hole was torn. Inside the vessel, seventeen sailors died and thirty-nine were injured.
Devereaux had studied terror, its creation and infliction. He knew that whether imposed by the state or a non-governmental source, it always divides into five levels.
At the top are the plotters, the planners, the authorizers, the inspirers. Next come the enablers, the facilitators, without whom no plan can work. They are in charge of recruiting, training, funding, supply. Third come the doers: those deprived of normal moral thought, who push the Zyklon-B pellets into the gas chambers, plant the bomb, pull the triggers. At slot four are the active collaborators: those who guide the killers, denounce the neighbour, reveal the hiding place, betray the one-time school friend. At the bottom are the broad masses: bovine, stupid, saluting the tyrant, garlanding the murderers.
In the terror against the West in general, and the USA in particular, A1 Qaeda fulfilled the first two functions. Neither UBL nor his ideological Number Two, the Egyptian Ayman Kawaheri, nor his Ops chief, Mohamed Atef, nor his international emissary, Abu Zubaydah, would ever need to plant a bomb or drive a truck.
The mosque-schools, the madrassas, would provide a stream of teenage fanatics, already impregnated with a deep hatred of the whole world that was not fundamentalist, plus a garbled version of a few distorted extracts of the Koran. To them could be added a few more mature converts, tricked into thinking that mass murder guaranteed Koranic paradise.
A1 Qaeda would then simply devise, recruit, train, equip, direct, fund and watch.
On his way back in the limousine from his blazing row with Colin Fleming, Devereaux once again examined the morality of what he was doing. Yes, the disgusting Serb had killed one American. Somewhere out there was a man who had killed fifty, and more to come.
He recalled Father Dominic Xavier who had taxed him with a moral problem.
‘A man is coming at you, with intent to kill you. He has a knife. His total reach is four feet. You have the right of self-defence. You have no shield, but you have a spear. Its reach is nine feet. Do you lunge, or wait?’
He would put pupil against pupil, each tasked to argue the opposite viewpoint. Devereaux never hesitated. The greater good against the lesser evil. Had the man with the spear sought the fight? No. Then he was entitled to lunge. Not counter-strike; that came after surviving the initial strike. But preemptive strike. In the case of UBL he had no qualms. To protect his country Devereaux would kill; and no matter how appalling the allies he had to call in aid. Fleming was wrong. He needed Zilic.
For Paul Devereaux there was an abiding enigma about his own country and its place in the world’s affections, and he believed he had resolved it.
About 1945, just before he was born, and for the next decade through the Korean War and the start of the Cold War, the USA was not simply the richest and most militarily powerful country in the world; it was also the most loved, admired and respected.
After fifty years the first two qualities remained. The USA was stronger and richer than ever, the only remaining superpower, apparently mistress of all she surveyed.
And, through great swathes of the world, black Africa, Islam, left-wing Europe, loathed with a passion. What had gone wrong? It was a quandary that defied Capitol Hill and the media.
Devereaux knew his country was far from perfect; it made mistakes, often far too many. But it was in its heart as well-meaning as any and better than most. As a world traveller, he had seen a lot of that ‘most’ in near vision. Much of it was deeply ugly.
Most Americans could not comprehend the metamorphosis between 1951 and 2001, so they pretended it had not happened, accepting the Third World’s polite mask for its inner feeling.
Had not Uncle Sam tried to preach democracy against tyranny? Had he not given away at least a trillion dollars in aid? Had he not picked up the hundred billion dollars a year defence tab for Western Europe for five decades? What justified the hate-you-hate-you demonstrations, the sacked embassies, the burnt flags, the vicious placards?
It was an old British spymaster who explained it to him in a London Club in the late Sixties as Vietnam became nastier and nastier and the riots erupted.
‘My dear boy, if you were weak you would not be hated. If you were poor you would not be hated. You are not hated despite the trillion dollars; you are hated because of the trillion dollars.’
The old mandarin gestured towards Grosvenor Square, where left-wing politicians and bearded students were massing to stone the embassy.
‘The hatred of your country is not because it attacks theirs; it is because it keeps theirs safe. Never seek popularity. You can have supremacy or be loved but never both. What is felt towards you is ten per cent genuine disagreement and ninety per cent envy.
‘Never forget two things. No man can ever forgive his protector. There is no loathing that any man harbours more intense than that towards his benefactor.’
The old spy was long dead, but Devereaux had seen the truth of his cynicism in half a hundred capitals. Like it or not, his country was the most powerful in the world. Once the Romans had that dubious honour. They had responded to the hatred with ruthless force of arms.
A hundred years ago the British Empire had been the rooster. They had responded to the hatred with languid contempt. Now the Americans had it, and they racked their consciences to ask where they had gone wrong. The Jesuit scholar and secret agent had long made up his mind. In defence of his country he would do what he believed had to be done, and one day go to his Maker and ask forgiveness. Until then the America-haters could take a long walk off a short jetty.
When he arrived at his office Kevin McBride was waiting for him and his face was gloomy.
‘Our friend has been in touch,’ he said. ‘In a rage and a panic. He thinks he is being stalked.’
Devereaux thought, not of the complainant, but of Fleming at the FBI.
‘Damn the man,’ he said. ‘Damn and blast him to hell. I never thought he’d do it, and certainly not that fast.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Peninsula