Direct Action by John Weisman Page B

But the name Ben Said is unknown to all of Western intelligence.”
Tom’s right index finger pulled at the skin below his right eye, indicating that he was dubious.
Shahristani continued unfazed. “Ask the Israelis. They know there is a bomber out there with a unique talent. They just have no idea who he is.”
“How unique?”
“You know how hard it is to build a miniature explosive device.”
“Of course.” It was true. For all the current hysteria about bombs, Tom knew it was incredibly difficult to make a sophisticated explosive device that was simultaneously powerful and small. Sure, you could use dynamite, C4, RDX, or nitro in a car bomb. But none of those could be miniaturized. You could make a shoe bomb out of Semtex. But there wasn’t a lot of Semtex around these days. Vaclav Havel, God bless him, had quickly destroyed most of the Soviet-era Czechoslovak stocks after he’d become president of the Czech Republic. Besides, what Semtex there was could be detected by the latest generation of explosives-detection sniffers. To be able to create a truly undetectable, miniature IED—that was something. Tom was intrigued. “Has this Ben Said done it?”
The Iranian dismissed Tom’s question with a flick of his hand. “No one knows who he is. No one fit the pieces together.” Shahristani lit a fresh Dunhill and gave Tom a Cheshire cat smirk. “Except me.”
Tom was going to have to wait for his answer. He focused on Shahristani. “Go on.”
The Iranian exhaled smoke through his nose. “Ben Said’s legend began in August of 1978. He was not even twenty, as best I can tell. But it was his bomb design that assassinated the Englishman Lord Louis Mountbatten by blowing up his fishing boat at Mullaghmore in County Sligo. He taught the Lebanese how to perfect car bombs, making them twice as lethal. He has worked with the Chechens. And with Islamists. The sneakers worn by Richard Reid, the British Islamist shoe bomber who frequented the Finsbury Park mosque in London, were of Ben Said’s design.”
“But Reid’s shoe bomb didn’t work.”
“That was because of time constraints. Al-Qa’ida insisted on using prototypes. The fusing hadn’t been perfected. If they’d waited six more weeks, Reid wouldn’t have needed matches or a lighter. He would have yanked on one of his shoelaces and the plane would have been brought down.” The Iranian knocked the ash off his cigarette. “For the Chechens, he is rumored to have designed explosives so small Black Widows can wear them onto aircraft.”
“How does he get them past security?”
“I am told he has reformulated Semtex into something twice as powerful and absolutely undetectable. It is time-consuming, dangerous, and he can make only small batches. But with this new formula, he can make bombs the size and shape of tampons. The fuse is self-contained. The bomber goes to the rearmost lavatory, removes the weapon from her privates, sets the fuse, and flushes the IED down the toilet. It’s impossible to retrieve and at cruising altitude the explosion is capable of blowing the tail off the aircraft.”
“Incredible.”
“In 2001, a Wahabist imam in Saudi Arabia paid Ben Said a million dollars to reconfigure the exploding vests used by Palestinian suicide bombers, making them smaller and lighter—and thus less identifiable and more deadly. The French have been on his case since 1995, when Ben Said was hired by GIA—Groupe Islamique Armé. He provided GIA with three bombs, which Algerian Islamists set off in the Paris metro. DST has a thick file. The British, too. And Israel. But no one has ever been able to pinpoint him.”
“So whoever he is, he is a shadow.”
Shahristani nodded in agreement. “A ghost, a wraith.” He indicated the photograph lying on the tablecloth. “It’s altogether possible you are looking at the only surveillance picture of Ben Said that exists.”
Tom squinted at the picture. Ben Said was the taller of the two men. He didn’t look