A conspirator speaks to three others on page 205 of the new Ed McBain novel. They are all members of a cell of fundamentalist Muslim terrorists in a city that is modeled on New York. They are preparing to plant a bomb in the fictional equivalent of Carnegie Hall.

"We are teaching them that we can strike anywhere, any time," the character says. "We are telling them that they are completely vulnerable. Unless they wish to strip-search every American entering a theater, a moviehouse, a concert hall, a restaurant, a coffee shop, a supermarket, anywhere. They are at our mercy, is what we will be proving to them tomorrow night."

The novel is called "Money, Money, Money," written by Evan Hunter under the famous Ed McBain byline. It's part of the 87th Precinct series, one of the great literary accomplishments of the last half-century, with more than 50 novels stretching to the 1950s. The writing is, as always, vivid and concrete. The dialogue is fresh and often very funny. The "big, bad city" in the novel is obviously New York. The plot is complex and surprising.

But what is astonishing in this novel — written well before Sept. 11 — is that Hunter was so far ahead of the bureaucratic fools who were charged with ensuring what is called "national security."

As a novelist, he clearly had greater insight into his terrorist characters — and their capacity for murderous spectaculars — than the real-world drones at the FBI and CIA who were responsible for the greatest intelligence failure in American history.

'Killing all Americans'

On page 161: "He was enjoying the coffee ... Nikmaddu himself had worked with Osama Bin Laden on the Dhahran bombing attack in which 19 U.S. servicemen were killed. It was his own belief that only major attacks of terrorism would leave any impression at all on the forces of evil polluting the Arab world. Only desperation measures would provoke wholesale departures.

"The withdrawal of all U.S. and Western forces from Moslem countries in general and from the Arabian Peninsula in particular was the stated goal of Al Qaeda. Killing all Americans, including civilians, everywhere in the world was merely a means toward this end. ..."

On page 240: "The attack here in this city would have put only a small dent in the cash he'd carried from home. Activities elsewhere in the United States required money, too. Money was what made the world of terrorism — or, as he preferred to call it, liberation — go round. Money was both the engine and the fuel."

In the novel, there's a CIA front organization that uses drug deals to help finance its own underfunded little war against Muslim terror. This part of Hunter's tale comes from the real world, not the imagination of a man who writes splendid entertainments.

CIA & the Golden Triangle

The Contra war in Nicaragua — a campaign of state-sponsored terrorism — was financed in part with drug deals. The drug network of the Golden Triangle — Burma, Laos and Thailand — was created during the Vietnam War under the benevolent eye of the CIA. The clandestine 1980s war against the Soviets in Afghanistan led to the creation of a heroin network (including our heroic allies in Pakistan) that exists to this day. The Cold War justified everything. When the novel's CIA man is confronted by Steve Carella and the 87th squad, he snarls at the visiting detectives:

"You've got to be kidding here. The commissioner will come down on you so hard you'll wish you lived on Mars. You think we'll let a Mickey Mouse detective squad in the a-hole of the universe jeopardize everything we've been working for? Who'd stop those bastards then? Who'd stop them from poisoning our reservoirs or blowing up our trains? Who'd stop them from planting bombs in our day care centers or baseball parks? Who'd stop them from destroying this land of ours? This world of ours? This free world of ours? You? Are you the ones who'll save us? Don't make me laugh!

"You should get down on your hands and knees and praise God we exist! Because if it weren't for us, there'd be nobody! Nobody at all! They'd make it impossible to walk the streets! They'd blow up your babies in their cribs! Without us, who the hell on Earth would even try to stop them? I'm asking you. Who?"

Drugs and Terrorism

Similar furies must have driven some CIA operatives in the real world who, alas, did not manage to prevent the events of Sept. 11. Their anger must be worse now, in the aftermath of their immense failure. Now we're bombing Afghanistan almost every day. We have commandos making swift raids into Taliban territory. The CIA is working with the Northern Alliance. And we're hearing much macho talk about how our agents will have to get "down and dirty," including suggestions that we use the Russian Mafia to bring us the head of Bin Laden.

Certainly, drug money is essential fuel for Muslim fanatics. Call them narcofundamentalists. Until the bombing started, the Taliban collected money from the druggies in the form of a tax called a zakat. This was the only income of the state of Afghanistan.

The narcofundamentalists, with their direct lines to God, were clearly satisfied about the moral questions of the filthy trade. After all, heroin made from their destructive cash crop would help kill — or erode the will — of their infidel opponents. The narcofundamentalist rule, as practiced by the Taliban, resembled the rules of the old-time Mafia: sell, but don't use.

Almost certainly, our present arrangements with the Northern Alliance and the state Pakistan will guarantee the continuity of the heroin rings, including the distribution role of the Russian Mafia.

Fateful Foreshadowing

In Hunter's novel, the immediate terrorist target is modest, certainly nothing on the scale of the World Trade Center. Two months ago, even so limited a fictional scenario would have been dismissed as pure entertainment, a kind of hokum. But the novel contains lines that eerily foreshadow the coming of the world in which we now live. One fictional terrorist says to another, on the eve of destruction:

"They are very sure of themselves, these Americans."

"That will all change tomorrow night."

As it did change for all of us in the real world on a clear morning in September.