From Act I, Chapter 3
. . . Usman called a number in Baton Rouge, a number he got from his mother. Oddly enough, this was a few days into Tariq Khosa's first trip to America since his fellowship in 1987, the year he and his family lived in Seattle. He didn't have a cell phone--the number Usman called was a Louisiana State Police barracks where Tariq and thirty other senior law enforcement officials from Pakistan were housed for a two-week seminar, given by FBI trainers, on managing emergencies, both natural and manmade. Their schedule for the morning of 9/11 read, "Hijacking Plot Simulation," and the two-dozen-plus Pakistanis, in causal attire, milled about their meeting room that morning, downing coffee and donuts, and started their morning's work, talking about crisis management for hijackings.
A state trooper burst into the room and told them that the Trade Center had been hit. Everyone flowed out into the lobby and gathered before a television set, thinking it was all a simulation. "These Americans are incredibly clever," one of Tariq's colleagues said, until another one ran to an open computer, checked the Internet, and raced back in, wide-eyed. It's real. Moments later, the second plane hit, and soon the Pakistanis joined hands with the FBI agents and Louisiana state policeman, cops from across the world, comforting one another, watching every officer's worst moment. The next morning, thirty Pakistani officers gathered in a brief ceremony, standing at attention in a moment of silence and saluting their American colleagues with tears in their eyes.
It was three days later before an Amtrak delivered Tariq to New London, Connecticut, and a taxicab to Usman's dorm. "Are we okay, my boy?" he said, filling the doorway. Usman leapt into his father's arms, "Oh God, dad, I can't believe you're here." They talked without sparing breath for hours, Tariq telling of his experiences on 9/11--of the kinships formed in Louisiana--and Usman telling of the moment in the student center, and the sensations that were racing through him. a father and son, far from home. That night, a law enforcement chief from Pakistan slept in a Connecticut dorm room with his son, in a world gone mad.
When they emerged the next morning, an amazing thing happened. Tariq Khosa--who had a day before his flight from Boston's Logan Airport to Lahore--held a revolving tutorial in the dormitory. Some of the kids had heard about what Usman's father did for a living; others heard that day. And they crowded into the dorm's lounge area and asked him questions. "Who are the Taliban?" "Are there radicals in Pakistan?" "Do terrorists usually stage many attacks in a row?"
Tariq explained it all--including the way the United States and the Saudis funded the mujahideen to challenge the Soviets, and how Pakistani intelligence officials helped build them into today's Taliban, how there were currently extremist elements in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and how Tariq and his men chased these violent radicals into the no-man's-land between the two countries. Usman looked on with pride. The Khosas, he thought. Just look at the Khosas now.
Because, in fact, it was their world--violent, tribal, and faith-based, with its vast history and aching heart--that had now come to America. . . .
Tariq Khosa is Usman's father and a top-ranking law enforcement official in Pakistan. He has served as the number two official at Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency and inspector general of Pakistan's Balochistan province, a position he was removed from in the fall of 2007 for his unwillingness to help Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf rig an election. Within the influential Khosa family, in The Way of the World, we see many of the political and religious conflicts of the modern Muslim world play out.
