The aroma of home

Dashing back to her cottage to drop off her backpack full of books -- with increased security, a backpack would make access to Ford Island much tougher, Joe Matsuo told her and her friend Jennifer Hira -- Fatima bin Laden smelled the unmistakable aroma of grilling lamb kebabs and baking baklava wafting across from the neighbor's house.

"That's Mrs. Hamzad," Mrs. Lop Chong, her landlord, had explained when Fatima asked. "She has a Middle Eastern catering company."

Fatima tossed the backpack inside, thinking Mrs. Hamzad's cooking smelled so good, she wished she wasn't supposed to hide her Arabness on this mission. She was Fatima San Marcos, a simple Filipina from Davao.

Hurrying back to Joe's yellow Camaro convertible, where Joe and Jen were laughing together about something, Fatima noticed a young man of obvious Arab descent carrying a cooler out to a taxi cab, Mrs. Hamzad a step behind. She used a taxi to make deliveries, Mrs. Lop Chong said. Not that she was niele or anything.

Fatima stepped into the back of the Camaro, unaware that the taxi driver had stopped in his tracks and was staring at her.

"That," he said in Arabic, "is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

"She rents next door," Mrs. Hamzad replied. "Student from the Philippines. Nice girl." She wasn't niele either.

So that's the cover, Awad the cabbie thought. She looked Filipino. But that was definitely the girl in the photo Osama bin Laden himself e-mailed to him -- with the promise that if Awad found her and ensured her success on her mission, Osama would endorse him as a husband for his beautiful niece.

The Camaro's engine rumbled to life.

"Mrs. Hamzad, lots of hungry customers waiting for me."

"Go with Allah, bless his name," she said.

Surely he did. For immediately Awad lost the bright yellow car, only to spot it moments later entering the H-3 near the Marine base. All cars should be so easy to spot. Keeping at a distance, always shielded by at least one other vehicle, Awad followed the yellow car to the stadium exit, close enough now to get a license number. He didn't know Fatima's mission, but he smiled when the yellow car turned toward the Ford Island bridge.

Awad pulled into the Arizona Memorial parking lot, already beginning to imagine the glory of their wedding night, and fired off an e-mail that would be passed along anonymously until it reached Osama with the good news.

And then he was off to deliver Mrs. Hamzad's precious morsels to fellow Muslims who had no glimmer that he was al-Qaeda. Nor did the good Mrs. Hamzad. Some things must be held secret, for the sake of the mission, and the innocent. But even if they did not know, even if they disagreed with Osama's tactics, as many did, still Awad fought for all Islam.