Soldier of God (42 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Soldier of God
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Khalil had just reached the communications room with the video disk of Kathleen McGarvey’s statement when al-Kaseem, out of breath and with an angry scowl on his bland features, caught up with him. Khalil thought the man looked ill, on the verge of a stroke.
Definitely the wrong sort to head up Saudi intelligence’s U.S. operations.
“I just got off the satellite phone with Prince Muhamed,” al-Kaseem practically shouted. “A friend of McGarvey’s is holding Princess Sofia and the children at gunpoint outside Lucerne.”
Khalil considered this news for a moment, then shrugged. “If they die, they will become martyrs.”
Al-Kaseem’s eyes widened. “You cold bastard, you don’t know what you’ve started.”
“I know very well.”
“I demand that you leave immediately.”
“You don’t have that authority,” Khalil told him, contemptuously. “But in any event you’ll get your wish soon. Less than forty-eight hours.”
Al-Kaseem threw up his hands, a very rude gesture for an Arab. “The situation here will not last that long, you idiot.”
The man had gone too far. Khalil shoved him up against the wall, pulled out his stiletto, and brought the blade to al-Kaseem’s face, the razor-sharp point less than an inch from the intelligence chief’s left eye.
“I find your lack of respect and bad manners irritating.”
Al-Kaseem was not cowed. “McGarvey called Prince Muhamed a few minutes ago. Offered to trade his wife for the princess and the children.”
It was something new. Khalil had not thought men of McGarvey’s ilk were capable of such interesting, and certainly logical, acts, not with all their foolish talk about innocents. “What else did he tell the prince?”
“He said he was coming after you. No one else need get hurt, except for you.” Al-Kaseem reached up and eased the stiletto blade away from his face. “He’s very close, because he promised Prince Muhamed that the princess and children would be released in two hours.”
They were in the third-story corridor on the southwest side of the building, directly below the west-facing satellite dish on the roof. Khalil cocked an ear to listen. The building seemed quieter than it had earlier in the day. Al-Kaseem was watching him, a mixture of disgust and even contempt in his eyes.
“If he finds out where you are, he’ll come after you,” al-Kaseem said.
“I think he already has it figured out,” Khalil said. “How many people are left in the building besides us?”
“Everyone’s here. We’ve just suspended most operations until the situation is resolved.”
Khalil nodded toward the door to the communications room. “Have you shut down the satellite feed as well?”
“Not yet,” al-Kaseem said.
“Good, I have a video to send.” Khalil released his hold on the chief of station, then sheathed his stiletto.
“What video? Where are you sending it?”
“You’ll see,” Khalil said. He opened the communication center’s door with an electronic key card and went in.
The equipment-filled room was small, not much larger than a master bedroom in a large house. Two technicians were seated at computer terminals, the monitors blank. They looked up, surprised. The communications and computer center was the most classified section of the building, and very few people were authorized entry. Khalil wasn’t one of them.
One of the technicians reached for a pistol in a drawer, when al-Kaseem came in and waved him off. “He’s here on my authorization.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said.
“In fact, I want both of you to leave us. Get a cup of tea. We’ll only be a few minutes.”
The two men got up and left.
Al-Kaseem held out his hand for the video disk. “I assume this is McGarvey’s wife. Where are you sending it?”
“Al Jazeera,” Khalil said.
Al-Kaseem shook his head. “I’ll say it again: You’re a cold bastard. You’ll get us all killed. If McGarvey can’t get to you today, he won’t ever stop once he sees whatever it is you’ve made her say.”
“In two days it won’t matter,” Khalil said.
Al-Kaseem gave him a hard look. “You and the woman need to be long gone from here before then. I
will
take this to Crown Prince Abdullah. There is much more at stake here than you can know. Political stakes.”
Khalil gave the disk to al-Kaseem, who put it in the CD tray of one of the computers, brought that drive up, and double-clicked the Video icon. The image showed Kathleen, dressed in the same type of cotton pajamas that the Afghani and Iraqi prisoners of war had been made to wear, seated on the edge of a narrow cot, her hands folded together in her lap.
The camera zoomed forward, her face filling the screen. She had been beaten. Her eyes were already blackening, and the right side of her jaw was red and swollen. For all that, al-Kaseem thought she was a strikingly handsome woman, for whom her husband would commit murder.
“My name is Kathleen McGarvey, and I have a message for all the mothers and fathers of all the children in the great Satan nation, the United States.”
“How long is this recording?” al-Kaseem asked.
“Two minutes. It was enough.”
“Another blow for freedom will soon be struck against our children, but it need not happen. President Haynes must go before the United Nations today, and make the following declarations before the world. All U.S. and allied forces will make immediate preparations to leave Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Korea. In addition, all U.S. military forces, as well as all Christians, must immediately leave the Arabian Peninsula.”
“That will never happen as long as they need our oil,” al-Kaseem said. “No matter how many blows are struck against them. They learned their lesson from Vietnam.”
A faint smile crossed Khalil’s lips. He sincerely hoped that the demands were not met in his lifetime. This struggle was the very thing he had been born for. The only thing for which he lived. Without it he would be nothing.
“It is no different than in 1776 when the valiant American freedom fighters forced their oppressive masters off the land,”
Kathleen continued.
“And today America and England are partners.”
Watching the video, Khalil was struck again by the woman’s strength, and once again he resolved to bring her back to the Saudi desert with him, no matter how impossible that idea was. He wanted first to kill her husband, and then he wanted to spend time with this woman. He wanted to teach her humility. He wanted to see her crawl on her knees to him, to beg his forgiveness, to grovel like an animal in the dust in front of him. He smiled inwardly. She would wash his feet before each prayer, and then prepare and serve his meals.
Her death, he decided, would be a particularly fruitful event.
Kathleen continued to read the words that Khalil had written for her, but he was no longer listening. There had to be a way to get her out of the country
before
the attacks, because afterward the U.S. borders would be sealed tight. The only other alternative was to find a place inside the country where he could be safe until the initial furor died down. Oklahoma City, perhaps. There was a very active al-Quaida cell there.
Al-Kaseem was looking at him. “If you order me to send this video to Al Jazeera, I’ll do it. But then you will have to leave within twenty-four hours.”
Khalil decided not to kill the man yet. But it was going to give him pleasure when he did. The chief of station had lived for too long in the West. He had practically become one of them.
“Send it,” Khalil said. “I’ll leave tonight.”
Al-Kaseem hesitated for a moment, his jaw set, but then he nodded. “As you wish.” He sat down at the computer, brought up the Internet, went to the Al Jazeera Web site, and attached the video file. He glanced up at Khalil, then turned back and hit the Send Now icon.
At that moment there was a small explosion somewhere directly below them.
“McGarvey,” the chief of station said. “He’s here already. The embassy attack was just a ruse.”
Khalil headed for the door. “No one is to kill him. He’s mine.”
“What shall we do?” al-Kaseem demanded.
“Let him find his wife, of course.”
Dennis Berndt had attended numerous National Security Council meetings and other crisis gatherings, but never before had he seen a roomful of people with so much fear, anger, and confusion on their faces.
Herb Weissman was the first to arrive at the White House from his office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, followed by Dick Adkins from Langley, Frank Hoover from downtown, and Crawford Anderson, from his office in the Old Executive Office Building. He was chief of DC operations for Homeland Security.
They gathered in the basement situation room, and Berndt was in charge until the president, running late, came down with his chief of staff.
“We need to figure out what we can do, and we don’t have much time to come up with a recommendation,” Berndt told them. There had been no need to go over the specifics with any of them; they were all in the loop. They’d had the better part of an hour to ponder the facts.
“Has anybody located McGarvey?” Weissman asked. “Fred Rudolph is in charge over at the embassy. As of fifteen minutes ago McGarvey had not surfaced, and his daughter isn’t talking.” He glanced at Adkins. “It’s your surveillance teams over there who started all this, for God’s sake. They won’t back down.”
“They won’t until Mac’s wife is released,” Adkins said.
“If they’re ordered, will they disobey?” Berndt asked, although he expected that he already knew the answer. All of them in the room did. As young as she was, Elizabeth Van Buren had already gained the reputation
as a tough, capable field officer who in many respects was following in her father’s footsteps. It was possible that if she continued on her present path, she would someday become deputy director of operations, a position no other woman had ever risen to.
“Frankly, I wouldn’t want to give the order, Dennis.”
Berndt was instantly angry. “We’re in a no-win situation here, Dick. If the president orders them to stand down and they refuse, they would be subject to arrest. All of them.”
Adkins shook his head. “You know better than that.”
“I wouldn’t care to send my people to do it,” Weissman said. “Somebody could get hurt, and anyway we’d be playing right into the Saudis’ hands. If they’ve got McGarvey’s wife over there, they don’t have a moral or diplomatic leg to stand on. If we start fighting among ourselves, they can claim anything they want.” He looked around the table. “Hell, they could even admit they have her, but are concerned about her safety.” He smiled ironically. “Fact is, she might be in the safest place in Washington right now.”
The others agreed. “Which leaves us with McGarvey, because we sure as hell can’t storm into somebody’s embassy with the National Guard, guns drawn, and demand they turn over someone they may or may not be holding prisoner,” Berndt said. “Where is he, Dick?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Well, somebody does,” President Haynes said, entering the room. He moved fast, reaching the center chair around the table and sitting down before everyone else could get to their feet. He was clearly seething with anger.
“Mr. President, we were just—”
“Never mind that for the moment,” Haynes said. He fixed each of them with a baleful look. “I’m late because Crown Prince Abdullah finally called me about two situations. The one at the embassy angers him the most.” The president’s jaw tightened. “The son of a bitch actually threatened to cut off oil shipments to us for thirty days if I didn’t do something immediately.”
Berndt had been afraid of just this from the moment he’d been informed about the developing situation at the Saudi Embassy. As the president’s adviser on national security affairs, he should have been in on the call.
Haynes anticipated Berndt’s concern. “I was just leaving the Oval Office when his call came through. Sorry, Dennis, you were already down
here and there was no time to get you back upstairs.” The president seemed to look inward for a moment, as if he was girding himself for some difficult decisions. “He flatly denied that Kathleen McGarvey was being held prisoner at the embassy.” The president looked pointedly at Adkins. “He gave me his word, Dick.” Haynes shook his head. “I couldn’t very well call him a liar.”
“No, Mr. President,” Adkins said.
Thank God for that much, Berndt thought. “I don’t believe that Saudi Arabia can afford to cut off our oil, Mr. President. They’re in desperate need of money, and our surveilling their embassy, no matter how vigorously, would not give them sufficient cause.”
“Exactly,” the president shot back. “But there was a second situation he wanted to know about, the one that puzzles him most, happening at this moment outside Lucerne. A Swiss federal cop by the name of Liese Fuelm has taken Prince Salman’s wife and four children hostage in their own home.” Again he directed his attention to Adkins. “Does that name ring any bells?”
Adkins nodded. “Kirk knows her.”
It was obviously the answer Haynes expected to hear. “Despite my warning, he’s directing a full-scale assault on the prince, who, so far as I know, is at the embassy now, and on his family in Switzerland. A neutral country.”
“The Saudis kidnapped McGarvey’s wife, Mr. President,” Berndt suggested, as gingerly as he could. “In his mind he has cause.”
“Do you know this for a fact, Dennis?” the president demanded.
“I got it from Otto Rencke, his special projects director, who got it from Mac’s daughter,” Berndt said. “She was in Georgetown when they grabbed her mother. The kidnappers told her that they would keep Mrs. McGarvey for two days, and nothing would happen to her if Mac backed off. They drove off in a cable television van, which the DC police spotted entering the Saudi Embassy parking garage beneath the building.”
“We’re using that as our operational timetable, Mr. President,” Anderson, the Homeland Security DC chief said, but the president held up a hand, cutting him off. “I know who can reach him,” Haynes said.
Berndt knew as well. “He might have his hands full,” he said.
But Haynes was having none of it. “Get Rencke on the speakerphone
now,” he ordered. “I’m going to end this standoff so that we can concentrate on stopping the bastards from hitting us again.”
Which was exactly what McGarvey was trying to do,
Berndt thought. But he didn’t give voice to it.
“We’ve got forty-eight hours, give or take,” the president said. “We ought to be able to find them by then.” It was wishful thinking.
Using the president’s telephone console, Berndt dialed the emergency number Rencke had left for him. It was answered on the first ring.
“Oh wow, Mr. Berndt, am I glad you called. I’ve got some good dope on the Saudis. I’m following their financial trails. At least one line of money goes from several Swiss accounts into one in Trinidad. And you’ll never guess who the payer and the payee are. You’ll never guess, not in a zillion years!”
Berndt looked at the president, who nodded for him to go ahead. “No, Mr. Rencke, who?” he asked.
“The Swiss accounts belong to none other than our old friend Prince Abdul Salman,” Rencke gushed, excitedly, “and the Trinidad account belongs to him as well.” Rencke laughed. “But do you guys want to hear the kicker, Mr. President, do ya?”
Berndt looked at the president again. Rencke was a frightening man. Somehow he was able to trace a supposedly untraceable telephone circuit to the console in the White House situation room. The president was very likely to be there in this time of national crisis.
“Yes, Mr. Rencke, I would like to hear the kicker,” Haynes said.
“A businessman by the name of Thomas Isherwood arrived at the Juneau airport from Vancouver two days before Shaw almost went down. He took a cab to an air charter company where he had booked a flight to a fishing resort on Kuiu Island on the Inside Passage.” Rencke suddenly dropped the little-boy enthusiasm from his voice. Now he was a professional intelligence officer passing crucial information to the president of the United States. “He was supposed to stay for a week, fishing with friends. But when the charter pilot flew back for the pickup, no one was there.” Rencke paused for a second. “No one alive. The resort owner, his wife, and his daughter had all been gunned down.”
“We know most of that, Otto,” Adkins said. “What else have you come up with?”
“Oh wow, Mr. Adkins. Guess where Thomas Isherwood was from? Port of Spain, Trinidad.”
No one said anything.
“Do you get it, Mr. President? Saudi royal family money—Prince Salman’s money—has been transferred on a regular basis to Trinidad. The man traveling from Trinidad to Juneau via Vancouver was the terrorist Khalil. And at that very same moment Prince Salman himself was in Vancouver, supposedly on business.” Rencke laughed. “Bingo!”
“Good work, Mr. Rencke,” Haynes said. “I’ll want you to carry your investigation as far as you can. In the meantime I want to speak with Mr. McGarvey. I suspect that you know where he is at the moment.”
“But Mr. President, there can’t be any doubt that Khalil and the prince are the same guy. Gosh—”
“It’s an order, Mr. Rencke,” the president said. “I’m trying to save lives—his, his wife’s, and possibly a lot of innocent Americans. The attack is coming in less than two days. We don’t have much time to stop it.”
“No, sir, we do not,” Rencke said. “But it’s too late to reach Mac.”
Berndt’s stomach did a slow roll. “Why, Otto?” he asked. “Why is it too late?”
“He’s already inside.”
“That’s impossible,” Weissman sputtered. “We’re watching the place along with your people.”
“Nevertheless it’s true,” Rencke said. “I saw him go in just a couple of minutes—” Rencke stopped in midsentence.
For a moment Berndt thought that they’d lost the connection. But sounds were coming from the speakerphone. A woman’s voice perhaps, and then a man’s. But Berndt couldn’t make out any of the words.
“Otto?” Berndt prompted.
Still there was nothing.
“Mr. Rencke,” Haynes said.
“Power up your monitor, Mr. President; I’ll send you something that I’ve just picked up from one of our satellite intercept programs,” Rencke said. His voice sounded strangled, as if he had swallowed something bad.
A flat-panel computer monitor in front of the president’s position was already on, the image of some Hawaiian beach on its screen wallpaper.
Haynes turned it so that the others could see the screen. “Go ahead, Mr. Rencke; we’re ready.”
The image of a battered Kathleen McGarvey came up. Dressed in what looked like cotton pajamas, she was sitting on the edge of a cot. Her face was bruised, and it was obvious she had been beaten. But she seemed to be alert and even defiant.
God help the sorry bastard who did this when McGarvey finds out,
Berndt thought. He shuddered.
“My name is Kathleen McGarvey, and I have a message for all the mothers and fathers of all the children in the great Satan nation, the United States.”
“Where did it come from?” Adkins asked.
“It’s from a Saudi intel transmitter here in town,” Rencke said.
“Where did they send it?” Berndt asked.
“Al Jazeera’s main studio in Doha,” Rencke said. He was choked up, as they all were, watching McGarvey’s wife read from a prepared statement.
Her eyes were flitting all over the place, and Berndt suspected she was trying to tell them something, but for the life of him he didn’t know what it might be. “Otto, is she trying to signal us?”
“It looks like it, but it ain’t Morse code,” Rencke said over her voice. “But I’m on it.” The telephone connection was broken.
“There’s not a damned thing we can do now, except storm the embassy,” the president said, his eyes glued to the monitor. “And we definitely can’t do that.”

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