The Night Circus - ANTHEA

EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 13
The Pashtun tribesman known as “al-Qaeda’s tailor” lived in a house near the village of
Datta Khel in North Waziristan, where he made a living making suicide vests. One morning
in mid-December he sat at his antique sewing machine to fill yet another order, this
one very different from the vests he usually made.
The man was celebrated for his ingeniously simple designs that were both reliable and
cheap, two key selling points for a terrorist organization that waged suicide bombings on
an industrial scale. He started with a sturdy cotton vest, often surplus military gear from
the local bazaar, and attached thick straps so it could be secured snugly against the torso.
He added fabric pouches and then stuffed them with packets of white acetone peroxide
powder, an explosive popular in Pakistan’s tribal region because it can be cooked up at
home using common ingredients. Next came the shrapnel layer, which consisted of hundreds
of nails or other bits of metal glued to sheets of thick, adhesive-backed paper or
cloth. Finally, he would insert blasting caps in the powder and attach them to wires that
ran to a small 9-volt battery and a cheap detonator switch. The latter item he sewed into
a separate pouch that closed with a zipper. That, he explained, was to prevent excitable
young martyrs-to-be from blowing themselves up too quickly. An extra second or two
of fumbling with the zipper would remind the bomber to move in closer to his target to
ensure the maximum possible carnage.
On this day, a group of young Pakistani recruits, some of them tapped as future suicide
bombers, gathered to admire the vest-maker as he worked. One of them took photos
with his cell phone as the man reached into his explosives chest and pulled out a surprise:
not the usual bags of powder, but doughy sticks of a far more powerful military explosive
called C4. He kneaded the sticks to flatten them, and began to pack them into a row of
13 fabric pouches he had sewn into the outside of the vest. Next he dipped a paintbrush
into a bucket of industrial adhesive and slathered the white goo over a large square of
sturdy cotton. The man then patiently studded the sheet with metal bits, piece by piece
and row by row, alternating marble-sized steel ball bearings with nails and scrap and,
finally, some shiny twisted pieces that would have been recognizable to any American
who happened to be in the room: children’s jacks.
Among the spectators, there had been lively discussions about the man who would likely
wear the special vest. Most speculation centered on the young foreigner who the recruits
called Abu Leila, using the Arab practice of referring to adult men by the name of their
oldest child and the word “Abu,” or “father of.” But Leila’s father wasn’t nearly so certain.
When he left for Pakistan, Humam al-Balawi imagined himself a mujahideen, a holy warrior,
fighting and maybe even dying in a righteous struggle against the enemies of God.
What he hadn’t pictured for himself was a suicide vest. The one in the tailor’s shop in
Datta Khel was still coming together, row after metal-studded row, but there was still
time. In the coming days, Balawi would try his best to make sure that the vest would end
up belonging to someone else. Anyone but him.
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