Chapter 1
I.
Many of the border guards in the southern republics of the Soviet Union were natives, and they had long been put upon by the Russian leaders of their political union. They had their religion crushed, their resources taken, and their independence stifled. They held decades of rage inside, and with the earthshaking changes inside the USSR over the past year, they were more than happy to let a fellow Muslim travel through a corner of their land. It didn’t hurt that he would be spending little time there, and brought gifts and cash for the guards and their families. If they were to get in trouble (and they doubted they would), there wouldn’t be much proof that they’d done anything wrong, or missed anything.
He was a bitter, angry, young man, and those are the worst sort to deal with. This man, though, had access to hard currency, and the people coming to meet him were going to want that. Their country was imploding beneath them, and soon they would likely be out of work. That sort of fear makes people desperate, but these desperate people worked on nuclear weapons, and who would miss a few low-yield weapons when their nation was frantically trying to secure its ICBMs?
He watched as the Soviet GAZ-66 made its way to their meeting point on the border with Kyrgyzstan. Technically not a border, as it was a Soviet Socialist Republic, it would be in a month, when the Soviet Union disintegrated. These men did not know that was going to happen then, but they did know it was coming. That was why they were here, to accept money from a man that, a mere three years ago, had been fighting their countrymen in Afghanistan. It was that war that helped bring about the circumstances that allowed this angry young man with money to make his way to the Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan border.
With him were several loyal veterans of the jihad in Afghanistan, who had come with him as protection. They waited in silence as the GAZ-66 came to a stop. Two Soviet guards, ethnic Kazakhs, stepped out first to verify that things were as they should be, and then three well-dressed (for Soviets, anyways) men stepped out, one of them bespectacled. He was the one who stepped forward.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” the spectacled man said. “We have looked forward to this meeting.”
“I am glad to be here,” said the angry young man. “You are facing very troubled times, it seems. I cannot say I am unhappy to see that happen, but I am pleased that it has allowed us to meet.”
“We are pleased for the assistance you are giving us, despite being an enemy of ours once,” the spectacled man replied. “We just have one condition: that what we are giving you not be used against our people or the Russians. We will still need them for many goods even after the Soviet Union breaks apart, and if they were to be attacked, they won’t hesitate to respond against us”
“I give you my word, as a believer, that these devices will not be used anywhere in the Soviet Union, or a future Russia, or the southern republics. You are not the enemy, and the Russians are no longer our enemy,” the angry young man assured them.
“Then we have a deal,” the spectacled man said. “Let us complete our transaction, as we do not have much time.”
The Afghans brought forward two suitcases, filled with a mixture of America dollars, British pounds, and some gold bars, even. The Soviets handed the Afghans five cylindrical backpacks. While on the outside they appeared to be nothing more than military carrying gear, on the inside were five weapons that represented the deadliest threat to mankind, a threat that many on the planet were considering to be on the decline. The angry young man smiled, his teeth glinting in the darkness, because he knew that those people were all wrong.
Osama bin Laden had just acquired five nuclear weapons.
The United States Director of Central Intelligence, William Webster, revealed in an interview before he resigned earlier this year that the United States has learned that the Soviet central government had begun “looking at what they need to do to be sure that the missiles do not fall into unfriendly hands, that they are moved if necessary, that the systems they have in place to prevent someone from engaging in unauthorized fire are intact and protected.” He added that this new Soviet concern “of course lowers the level of our confidence.”
-Senator Sam Nunn, statement on the Senate floor, November 13, 1991
Many of the border guards in the southern republics of the Soviet Union were natives, and they had long been put upon by the Russian leaders of their political union. They had their religion crushed, their resources taken, and their independence stifled. They held decades of rage inside, and with the earthshaking changes inside the USSR over the past year, they were more than happy to let a fellow Muslim travel through a corner of their land. It didn’t hurt that he would be spending little time there, and brought gifts and cash for the guards and their families. If they were to get in trouble (and they doubted they would), there wouldn’t be much proof that they’d done anything wrong, or missed anything.
He was a bitter, angry, young man, and those are the worst sort to deal with. This man, though, had access to hard currency, and the people coming to meet him were going to want that. Their country was imploding beneath them, and soon they would likely be out of work. That sort of fear makes people desperate, but these desperate people worked on nuclear weapons, and who would miss a few low-yield weapons when their nation was frantically trying to secure its ICBMs?
He watched as the Soviet GAZ-66 made its way to their meeting point on the border with Kyrgyzstan. Technically not a border, as it was a Soviet Socialist Republic, it would be in a month, when the Soviet Union disintegrated. These men did not know that was going to happen then, but they did know it was coming. That was why they were here, to accept money from a man that, a mere three years ago, had been fighting their countrymen in Afghanistan. It was that war that helped bring about the circumstances that allowed this angry young man with money to make his way to the Kazakhstan/Kyrgyzstan border.
With him were several loyal veterans of the jihad in Afghanistan, who had come with him as protection. They waited in silence as the GAZ-66 came to a stop. Two Soviet guards, ethnic Kazakhs, stepped out first to verify that things were as they should be, and then three well-dressed (for Soviets, anyways) men stepped out, one of them bespectacled. He was the one who stepped forward.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” the spectacled man said. “We have looked forward to this meeting.”
“I am glad to be here,” said the angry young man. “You are facing very troubled times, it seems. I cannot say I am unhappy to see that happen, but I am pleased that it has allowed us to meet.”
“We are pleased for the assistance you are giving us, despite being an enemy of ours once,” the spectacled man replied. “We just have one condition: that what we are giving you not be used against our people or the Russians. We will still need them for many goods even after the Soviet Union breaks apart, and if they were to be attacked, they won’t hesitate to respond against us”
“I give you my word, as a believer, that these devices will not be used anywhere in the Soviet Union, or a future Russia, or the southern republics. You are not the enemy, and the Russians are no longer our enemy,” the angry young man assured them.
“Then we have a deal,” the spectacled man said. “Let us complete our transaction, as we do not have much time.”
The Afghans brought forward two suitcases, filled with a mixture of America dollars, British pounds, and some gold bars, even. The Soviets handed the Afghans five cylindrical backpacks. While on the outside they appeared to be nothing more than military carrying gear, on the inside were five weapons that represented the deadliest threat to mankind, a threat that many on the planet were considering to be on the decline. The angry young man smiled, his teeth glinting in the darkness, because he knew that those people were all wrong.
Osama bin Laden had just acquired five nuclear weapons.