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Five
LOS ANGELES
The Qantas 747-400 floated downward, flaps extended, its four powerful General Electric engines throttled almost all the way back. The tarmac at LAX shimmered in the May heat as planes maneuvered to and from the gates picking up and disgorging passengers. From the air it looked like absolute chaos to Imtaz Zubair. In the upper business-class cabin he closed his eyes and silently muttered the wordAlhumdulillah over and over to himself. The phrase meant,Praise be to God, and was part of atasbihs, or Muslim rosary. They had taken his beads away from him, so he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as if he was holding the well-worn, dark wooden instrument of prayer in his hand. They had told him to show no signs of his faith in public until he had completed his mission, but he could not help himself.
Zubair was a wreck, a ball of frayed nerves with a stomach full of bubbling acid that had resulted in a scorching pyrosis. Even though he was a man of science, he hated flying. His education was rooted in the comforting, ordered logic of mathematics and physics, but it failed him here. Wing mass created lift, engines provided thrust, and planes flew. It was all proven theory, and it was applied thousands of times all over the world every day, but the scientist still fretted. He couldn't accept it, and so he tucked it away deep down with all of his other phobias.
When one of his bosses had told him once that he needed to seek therapy, Zubair had been deeply offended. He was a genius; he knew things, sensed things that very few people could even attempt to grasp. Who was to say that his phobias weren't simply caused by a heightened sense of awareness and a deep understanding of the universe and his relationship with Allah? Zubair suspected things. He talked to God and looked into the future. His role in the battle for his religion was one of great importance. He'd never discussed this with his fellow scientists, for they were too one-dimensional. Religion was a farce to them, a way for simple people to cope with their mundane lives. But not to Zubair; science was proof to him that his God existed. Such magnificence could only have been created by his God.
The touchdown was so gentle that Zubair didn't even realize they were on the ground until the front landing gear was rolling along the tarmac, and the large plane began to slow. He opened his eyes and looked out the window, relieved they were out of the sky. With a smile on his face he muttered a quick prayer of thanks. Unfortunately, his calm didn't last long. As the plane neared its gate, Zubair's smile vanished and his thoughts turned to his next obstacle.
Imtaz Zubair's native country had forsaken him, so he had returned the favor. A math prodigy, Zubair was educated at Pakistan's finest schools and then sent on to Canada and China for his postgraduate work. He was on the path to greatness. Even Dr. A. Q. Khan, the man who had developed and tested Pakistan's first nuclear bomb, had told him that he was the brightest star of his generation of Pakistani scientists. Zubair thought his skills alone would carry him to his chosen field, but they had not.
He found that politics and family connections were more important, and that his deep devotion to his religion created jealousy among his peers. He did not deny the fact that he lacked even the most basic social skills, but to his mind genius was what mattered, not one's ability to politic. Still, they had all turned against him and conspired to deny him his dream of working with Dr. Khan.
He'd still held out hope that his personal relationship with Dr. Khan would carry the day, but those hopes died the day General Musharraf and his band of military officers seized power in a bloodless coup. Musharraf was a secular pig and a lapdog of the Americans. Bowing to pressure from his patrons, Musharraf set about to cleanse true believers from the Pakistani nuclear scientific community.
Zubair had been one of the first to go, exiled to the dreadful Chasnupp nuclear power plant in Central Pakistan, where he was worked like a dog seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week. With his dreams dashed he grew increasingly bitter. He was near his breaking point when providence intervened. A messenger from Allah traveled to the remote region for the sole purpose of contacting him. He was leaving his ramshackle mosque one Friday afternoon when the robed visitor had come to him as if he were the angel Gabriel himself. Allah had a mission of great importance for Zubair, and he was to leave with the stranger immediately.
It had been the beginning of a pilgrimage that had taken him to Iran and the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan, and a poisonous desert, and then on to Southeast Asia, Australia, and now America. He was not a worldly man, but as with all of the difficulties in his life, the stresses of travel had brought him closer to Allah. He had witnessed firsthand the decadence of the secular world, and it comforted him that his cause was just.
The plane rolled to a stop, and almost instantly Zubair felt the resumption of his stomach's volcanic action. A film of sweat appeared on his forehead and upper lip. The scientist mopped his brow and then his upper lip with a handkerchief. He felt naked without his mustache, but they had made him shave that also. They wanted him to assimilate, to blend in as much as possible. His hair was cut short and styled for the first time in his life. His glasses had been replaced with contacts, and they had purchased for him a new set of clothes and expensive Tumi luggage in Australia.
The passengers began standing, opening compartments and gathering their things. Afraid to move and give away his nervousness, Zubair was in no hurry. Once most of the other passengers were gone, he retrieved his computer bag and made his way down the narrow stairs to the main body of the plane. He half expected to see a group of men in suits waiting for him, but thankfully there were none. He'd been warned that the Americans had gotten much better at intercepting people who were trying to illegally enter their country.
Two female flight attendants with whorish makeup and skirts that were far too short stood by the door. They thanked him for flying Qantas. Despite what his trainers had told him, Zubair ignored the women, refusing to look them in the eye. Fortunately for him his diminutive stature made him seem shy rather than hostile. Zubair was just five and a half feet tall, and weighed a svelte 142 pounds. With his mustache shaved he easily passed for someone five to ten ye
ars younger than his twenty-nine years.
He stepped into the Jetway, joining the stampede for baggage claim and customs and sandwiched between the business-class and economy customers. The stress of the situation and the heat of the enclosed Jetway triggered the scientist's sweat glands, sending them into overdrive. Within seconds salty perspiration dampened every inch of his skin.
Zubair felt trapped, as if he was on a conveyor belt headed toward his own execution. There was no turning back. Passengers continued to pour off the plane, pushing forward, moving through the confined tunnel toward U.S. Customs agents who would ask probing questions. Zubair suddenly wished he had taken the sedative that they had given him to calm his nerves. He had thrown the pills away at the Sydney airport. Allah would never approve of him taking a mood-altering drug. Now he desperately wished he'd kept the little pills, just to get him through this part.
They left the Jetway and at least for a moment things got better. The extra space and cooler air of the terminal felt less confining. The stampede of people continued down a set of stairs to a boxed-in area where they began to cue up in multiple lines to present passports and port of entry/declaration forms to U.S. Customs agents. Zubair got in one of the lines being handled by a man. As long as he had the choice he would not deal with a woman.
When it was his turn he stepped up to the counter, his wheeled black carry-on bag in tow, and handed the agent his passport and paperwork. The man eyed the passport first, flipping through several pages to see where the visitor had been over the past few years.
"First time to America?"
"Yes," Zubair answered with his accented English.
"How long have you been an Australian citizen?"
"Three years."
"And your occupation?" The agent flipped through the paperwork for verification.
"I'm a computer programmer."
"Purpose of your visit?" the man asked in a no-nonsense tone.
Zubair couldn't believe his luck. So far the man hadn't even bothered to look at him. "I'm here for business."
"Traveling alone?"
"Yes."
The agent stamped the passport and handed it back to Zubair, for the first time giving him a good look and noticing the beads of perspiration on his upper lip and forehead. "Are you feeling all right?"