Joshua`s Hammer (27 page)

"Already done, General," Rencke said. "And Liz is on her way in right now. I'm putting her in the loop."

"Good idea," Murphy agreed. "If you hear anything else let me know. But we will get him out of there. And we will stop bin Laden."

"Yes, sir," Rencke said, but he didn't seem to be very convinced about the second part.

Bin Laden's Camp

"We will talk now," bin Laden said. The morning was surreal, almost like a nightmare of hell. The sky over the camp was still filled with smoke. The distant mountains, usually crisp in the clear air, were obscured. Below there was a lot of frantic activity as their remaining mujahedeen cleaned up the missile damage, buried their dead and sifted through the rubble for anything usable. Although the order to pack up and leave had not come yet, everybody knew that they could no longer stay here. If the Americans suspected that anyone had survived, which they surely did by now, they might mount another attack. Even if they didn't, however, there was little or nothing left here except for the facility

inside the cave. There were other camps, other caves that had not yet been pinpointed.

Bin Laden was numb with fatigue and grief. He wanted to run away and hide somewhere until it was time to die. His body was on fire, his left leg ached from the bone cancer eating at his hip and pelvis. Strange thoughts and visions kept popping into his head like lightning flashes, there for one brilliant split second, and then gone. He'd actually managed to do his midmorning prayers, lingering over each word, savoring each as if it were a sip of blessed ice water in the middle of the hot desert. But when he was finished he did not feel the same refreshment of spirit that he usually felt. Sarah, the light of his soul, was gone, and the only thought that allowed him to hold onto even a small portion of his sanity was that he would soon be joining her in Paradise, if indeed she was there. The Qoran said nothing about women in heaven. But Allah was just. He would not abandon her. He could not.

Bin Laden closed his eyes for just a moment, seeing the missiles raining down on them, feeling Sarah's lifeless body in his arms.

"As you wish," Bahmad said softly. He had read most of that from bin Laden's body language. He watched the struggle the man was going through with some sympathy because he had been there himself.

Sarah's body, completely wrapped in linen, lay on a prayer rug in the middle of the main chamber. When it got dark they would burn it. Bahmad was brought back to the funeral for his parents. He'd felt an impotent rage that he'd tried to quench all of his life. But now, though he wanted to feel some sadness for the girl, that part of him was already burned out. Sarah had been a wonderful girl; a daughter that he'd never had, never would have. They had talked often about life in the West, and she'd hung on everything he told her. And yet he still could not feel the loss. He could feel now was a little sympathy for the stirrings of anticipation for what might be.

Leaning heavily on his cane, bin Laden walked back from the entrance and settled wearily on the cushions in front of the brazier. A young mujahed brought him tea, and then bin Laden dismissed him and the other guard standing by. They looked nervously to Bahmad who nodded, and they went out.

"We must leave here, Osama," Bahmad said, joining him on the cushions. Bin Laden poured him a glass of tea with shaking hands.

"Soon," bin Laden said. "But for us there will be different paths."

Bin Laden"'s manner and speech were formal, which was worrisome to Bahmad. The man was coming unglued. There was a holy zeal in his eyes. He'd seen the same look in the eyes of mujahedeen about to go off on suicide missions with ten kilos of plastique strapped to their chests. "I have always followed your orders faithfully."

"Yes, you have. And now I am sending you out on one last mission."

"Are you asking me to throw away my life?"

Bin Laden shook his head. "No, my old friend. But you will have to be very clever to walk away from this one. And where you will go afterwards will be up to you. Once your assignment is completed, you will be on your own." Bin Laden managed a small, coy smile despite his obvious physical and mental pain. "I think that you miss London."

"There are some aspects of life in the West that I have enjoyed," Bahmad admitted. "But no place might be safe for me if you want me to do what I think you want."

"Are you a mind reader?"

"No, a loyal servant."

"Of me, or of the cause?" bin Laden asked sharply. He glanced at Sarah's body.

"I've never known the difference."

Bin Laden might not have heard him. "It will be another burden for her mother to bear. So many burdens, so much pain. But she understands the jihad." He looked back in anguish. "She must!"

"The most difficult pain for a mother to bear," Bahmad offered gently. He thought about his own mother who had been mercifully spared that pain, though she had endured others. Because of the West.

A silence fell between them. The hiss of the gas lanterns was the only sound to be heard. After the missile strike the quiet was almost shocking.

"Kirk McGarvey must not be allowed to leave Afghanistan alive," bin Laden said after a minute. "Have you received word from Hamed?"

"I gave him orders to kill McGarvey, but he is out of radio range now, so there is no way of knowing if he succeeded until he returns."

"What if he reaches Kabul?"

"I have made arrangements."

"There must be no mistakes."

"Not this time."

Bin Laden nodded his satisfaction. "Sarah told me that she and McGarvey spoke about his daughter. She works for the CIA."

"She also mentioned it to me. But we knew about his background."

"Her name is Elizabeth."

"Yes."

"I want you to kill her," bin Laden said in a gentle voice. "After Mr. McGarvey, she will be your first priority."

Bahmad hid his surprise. "There is no reason for that, Osama," he said carefully. "Her father came here on a dangerous mission to find you and lead the missile attack. Killing him can be viewed as an act of war. Killing his daughter will be taken as nothing more than a senseless act of vengeance."

"You had Trumble and his family killed."

"That was to send the CIA the message that we were serious. It guaranteed that someone such as McGarvey would come."

"Will you do it?" bin Laden asked simply.

"Killing her would be a criminal waste of resources. Every American law enforcement agency would go on a worldwide alert of such intensity that no place would be safe. She is an innocent--"

"There are no innocents," bin Laden raised his voice. "You will show them that. You will teach the entire world."

Bahmad lowered his eyes. Not out of deference, but because he knew what else was coming. He'd known for several months, the realization coming to him on the day he learned about the bomb, about bin Laden's illness and about the final deal bin Laden had wanted to make with the West, with the nuclear weapon as the ultimate bargaining chip. He'd known that negotiating could not succeed. And he'd begun to work out a plan that he'd sincerely hoped he would never have to implement. Nevertheless he had started putting things in place in the U.S." renewing old contacts there and in London, Paris and Berlin. Phone calls, promises, threats. The only surprise now was going after McGarvey's daughter. It would present certain problems.

"Will you do it?" bin Laden asked again.

"Yes."

A new, even more intense light came into bin Laden's eyes. "Then there will be the final act of retribution," he said softly. "Joshua's hammer."

When the realization had come to him that they would use the nuclear weapon in some way to strike against America, Bahmad had gone searching for the right target at the right time. An air burst over Washington during a joint session of Congress would certainly never be forgotten so long as there was a civilized world. Nor would it be forgotten if the bomb were to be detonated in front of the White House, killing the President and his staff. An air burst over the financial center in New York would disrupt the Americans' capitalist hold on the world, as an airburst over a small Midwestern town would disrupt the average American's feelings of safety and invulnerability; the bomb at the Murrah Federal Building had done just that to the nation, though on a much smaller scale. But he came finally to the notion that what would strike the most fear in Amer icons' hearts would be an attack on what was most precious and sacred to them: their children. He had not foreseen Sarah's death, nor had he envisioned going after McGarvey's daughter. But he had come up with a plan to do the one thing that would not be forgotten in a thousand years. Thinking about the plan he had devised, he could see that there was a certain symmetry between it and what bin Laden had ordered him to do. Sarah had been murdered by the Americans. In retaliation bin Laden wanted McGarvey's daughter assassinated, and he was now ready to use the nuclear weapon.

"This will be very expensive," Bahmad said. "Not only in terms of money, but in terms of men."

"This will be my last blow. Time is running out for me." Bin Laden gave him a sad, knowing smile. "But I think you already guessed."

"Cancer?"

Bin Laden nodded. "Unless there is a miracle I have one year." He looked at Sarah's shrouded body. "I want America to feel the same pain I am feeling at this moment."

"If we do this thing your name will not be respected," Bahmad warned. "You will be vilified not only in the West, but among Muslims as well."

Bin Laden's gaze hardened. "But I will be remembered."

"Indeed you will."

Bin Laden thought about it for a long time, and when he looked up once more his resolve was as clear on his face as his pain. "How do we proceed?"

"Give me a minute and I will show you." Bahmad got up and went to his sleeping quarters off the operations center near the back of the cave. He lit one of the gas lamps and went to a four-drawer file cabinet, which he unlocked. The room was austere, only the bare rock floor, a small cot, a writing table and the file cabinet. There was nothing on the walls, no photographs or pictures; no rugs or vases, nothing to mark that anyone had lived here on and off for more than a year. But since Beirut, Bahmad had been a man who carried all of his decorations and mementoes in his brain.

He took a thick manila envelope out of the top drawer and relocked the file cabinet. He'd been an avid reader for a long time, a habit he had developed in England working for the SIS. Part of his job had been to read all the newspapers, journals and magazines coming out of the Middle East, and read transcripts from television and radio broadcasts, as well as from intercepted military and diplomatic traffic. He'd developed an insatiable appetite for news of what was going on in the world. Here in the mountains it had been fantastically difficult to keep abreast of what was happening in the outside world, but he had managed to have a weekly package of newspapers and magazines from around the world brought up here. And he consumed all the international news as it was presented, with different spins in the major newspapers of a dozen different countries. He had time to think, to plan, to let his mind soar wherever it would; to make connections where seemingly there were none; to make associations where none were apparent; and to draw out scenarios based on what he had learned.

Holding the envelope containing his planning details, he wondered why he had taken this notion as far as he had. Most of his ideas were just that, nothing but ideas. Way too fantastically difficult or even horrible to consider. But this idea had stuck with him, for some reason, and the operation would be his very last. With bin Laden dead, however, Bahmad would be set financially for the rest of his life. If he could pull this last thing off and get away, he had the numbers for a dozen of bin Laden's secret offshore bank accounts worth somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred million dollars. Enough to last any man a lifetime in luxury. And with bin Laden gone there would be no one to come after him.

Returning to the main chamber where bin Laden was waiting, Bahmad stopped a moment in the corridor. One last time he asked himself if he should go through with this. The idea was so monstrous that it had taken even his breath away when it had come to him. But years of hate had burned out whatever conscience he'd ever had. Yasir Arafat had fed into it, used it, just as bin Laden had, so that now even the bizarre seemed ordinary to him. Human life did not mean to him now what it had when he was a child.

The problem, he thought, walking into the main chamber, would be fitting the plan with Elizabeth McGarvey's assassination. For that he would need a diversion, and even before he sat down beside bin Laden it came to him; the entire thing in perfect detail, and he smiled. It would only take a few more phone calls and a transfer of some funds to the proper accounts.

"I see that you have already given this some thought," bin Laden said.

"Yes, I have." Bahmad opened the envelope and took out several articles that he had clipped from the New York Times, Washington Post and San Francisco Examiner three months ago. He handed them to bin Laden.

"I will read these later--" .bin Laden said, but then a photograph of a pretty young woman in the lead article caught his attention. He drew a sudden, sharp breath and looked up, a sense of wonder on his face.

"She would be the target," Bahmad said.

Bin Laden's mind was racing a thousand miles per hour. "But not the President?"

"Not necessarily."

"Not the President," bin Laden said forcefully. He studied the photograph. "I want him to feel the same grief I am feeling. A father's grief when his daughter is killed in front of his eyes. It must be done that way."

"The target will be Deborah Haynes, the President's daughter."

Bin Laden sat back and closed his eyes. "You would use a nuclear weapon to kill one person?"

"No, there would be many others. Perhaps two thousand, probably even more than that."

"Tell me."

"The President's daughter is mildly retarded, which makes the fact of her innocence without argument. America loves her as they love their President. Every father can have sympathy for the family. For what they will go through. But America is also very proud of her. Besides being beautiful, she is talented. She is a gymnast and a longdistance runner."