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  “Right. And now you know what I’m looking for here. The anomalies that tell us something,” Rencke said. “They head north after that, past the air base, and then northwest, but very slowly now. They’re off the highway and probably off even dirt roads. They’re in the mountains.”

  “Then he goes on foot,” Murphy said.

  Rencke used the mouse to speed up the sequence until about eight hours ago. With a few keystrokes he brought up a topographic overlay so that they were seeing elevations as well as the simple north-south orientation.

  “This is bin Laden’s camp,” Rencke said. “We’ve had one satellite pass to confirm that there’re a lot more people down there than you’d expect to see in a nomad camp.” Rencke looked up. “Anyway, the only reason nomads go up into the high mountains in summer is for grazing land.” He grinned like a kid. “But they screwed up this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No goats,” Rencke said. “Lots of people, a couple of big animals, maybe camels, a couple of horses, but no goats.”

  The analysts over at the NRO had missed that one, but then Otto wasn’t working for them. “All right. In the next couple of hours Mac’s signal disappears once, reappears less than an hour later, then disappears for good. What’s your take on that sequence?”

  “Look at the overlay,” Rencke said. He sped up the sequence. The icon moved down into the valley, and then back up the hill on the other side where it disappeared. “Bin Laden’s den of iniquity. He invites Mac in for a bite to eat and a chat. But something happens in there, and Mac’s signal suddenly reappears.” Rencke looked up again. “Too soon, too soon, General, don’t ya get it?”

  “They weren’t in there for very long.”

  “Exactamundo. Bin Laden tells us he’s got a nuclear weapon and he wants to parley. But they only chat for a few minutes? Wrong answer, recruit. Something went haywire in there, and you just gotta ask yourself what that might be, ya know.”

  Rencke hit another couple of keys and the screen was suddenly split, the new half showing a pair of squiggly lines moving left to right, traces on an oscilloscope. “Okay, this is a recording of Mac’s uplink with our satellite. The top line is before he went into bin Laden’s cave, and the bottom line is when he came out.”

  Murphy studied them. “Are they different?” he asked. “Because if they are I don’t see it. They look the same to me.”

  “Did to me too, at first,” Rencke admitted. “So I put both signals through a spectrum analyzer.” He brought up a new display with two sets of signals running left to right. This time it was clear that the bottom signal was slightly different from the top one. It looked as if the spikes had shifted a tiny amount to the right.

  “It’s a phase shift, actually. But the guys downstairs are big time for sure that this wasn’t caused by low battery strength, or a component’s tolerance variation in the chip. This was an induced shift.” Rencke grinned like a kid at Christmas. “I told them to try a metal detector, like we use downstairs at the front door, on one of the test chips.” He brought up a third trace, which exactly matched the one directly above it. They were identical. “Bingo,” Rencke said. “They got wise to something, ran a metal detector over Mac, and found it.”

  Murphy looked at the screen in amazement. Rencke wasn’t afraid of taking an idea and running with it wherever it might go, unlike just about all of official Washington. He didn’t give a damn about his job, his only concern was for McGarvey’s safety. Murphy looked away from the monitor. “All you’re telling me is why they killed him, Otto. I’m sorry—”

  “Another wrong answer, recruit. That’s two in a row.” Rencke restored the map with its overlay and started the time bar again. “Okay, he moves out of the cave and down the hill into a hut.” Before Murphy could ask how he knew it was a hut, Otto pulled up a second overlay on the map. This one was a screened down image taken of the camp by one of the satellites. The position of the icon exactly matched a small building. “That picture was taken later, but the positions match up,” Rencke said. “A few minutes later the signal disappears for good.”

  “So they took him inside a building and killed him,” Murphy said.

  “No, sir. An earlier picture shows a man in a white gown entering the building. A doctor. That’s a medical hut. They took Mac in there to remove the chip. Then they destroyed it. Don’t you see? Mac is still alive.”

  Murphy let out a pent-up breath. “Is that it, Otto?”

  Rencke realized that he had not made a good case, and his expression dropped. “General, I know he’s alive. I can feel it in my gut.”

  “I understand. But that doesn’t alter the fact that we’re dealing with a madman who apparently wants to play games with us over a nuclear weapon. A man who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands of people including Alien Trumble and his wife and children.”

  “Give him a chance—”

  “I’ll present this to the President, but he’s not going to buy it, Otto. He’ll want more.”

  “But we need time, General. Goddamnit, we have to give Mac more time before we go charging in.”

  “Is there any way that you can get through to him on his satellite phone?”

  Rencke shook his head. “I tried, but he’s still got it switched to the simplex mode — send only. He’s in a position where he can’t call out, and he doesn’t want an incoming.”

  “Or he’s dead,” Murphy suggested softly.

  “He’s not,” Rencke snapped. He looked desperately over at the White House phone that connected directly with the President. “I could pull down the entire White House communications center so that the order couldn’t go out.”

  Murphy said nothing, though he suspected that Rencke was probably not exaggerating.

  “I could even get into the fleet’s command and control system so that they couldn’t so much as fart let alone launch a cruise missile.”

  “I imagine you could.”

  “I could shut down this entire town, and it’d be easier than you can possibly imagine.”

  “I’m sure of that too, Otto,” Murphy said tiredly. “I’ll try to buy us as much time as I can. But I don’t think he’ll listen to me unless you come up with something more convincing. There’s just too much at stake.”

  Rencke gave Murphy a bleak look. “Tell them not to miss. Because if they do, and bin Laden survives, he’ll come after us with a vengeance,” Murphy nodded. “Don’t say anything to his wife or daughter, okay?”

  “Yeah,” Otto replied glumly. “Whatta bummer.”

  CVN TO Carl Vinson The eastern horizon over the Arabian Sea was starting to show the first hints of a cloudless dawn when the battle group commander, Admiral Steph Earle, the Duke of Earl, put down the telephone on the bridge. He’d had a five-minute conversation with the President of the United States. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind about the mission.

  He turned to the Carl Vinson’s skipper, Captain Robert Twinning. “Final Justice is a go, Captain. You’re free to launch on your command.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” Twinning said. He reached for the growler phone.

  “Give ‘em hell, Bob,” Earle said.

  Twinning looked up and grinned. “That bastard’ll never know what hit him.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the Afghan Mountains

  They reached the first stopping point at the pool above the waterfall just as dawn reached the upper peaks. Hash and Farid, who had taken the lead, had talked in soft tones during the all night trek, but Mohammed in the rear had not uttered a single word. McGarvey had watched for an opening, but it was useless. In order to get to his phone he would have to kill all three of them. But he had needed their help to get this far. Looking around now at the somewhat familiar surroundings he was sure for the first time that he could find his way back to the Rover, and then down to Kabul from here.

  They had stopped a couple of times to eat some nan and drink cold tea, but they’d been anxious t
o get down from the snow and cold in the high passes, so they hadn’t lingered long.

  They had made good progress, and providing that the chip was still working, McGarvey figured they might even make it into Kabul before the twenty-four hours were up. He’d been counting on that up until now, because there was no other choice. Nothing would give him more satisfaction than going head-to-head with Mohammed, but he didn’t want to hurt the other two. There was no reason for it. Despite the operation and his lack of sleep he felt surprisingly good, and with the morning sun his spirits were somehow buoyed up. It might be possible after all to avert the worst disaster the U.S. ever had to face.

  “We’ll rest here for one hour,” Hash said, and Farid nodded his approval.

  “Sounds good to me,” McGarvey agreed.

  Mohammed laid down his pack and went down to the river to fill the canteens as Hash and Farid gathered some wood and started a small campfire. They worked together with a quiet efficiency at something they had done many many times before. Wherever bin Laden had recruited them from they were truly Afghani mountain men now; a fiercely proud, self-sufficient people whose strength seemed nearly boundless. They were as comfortable here as an American teenager would be at a mall back home. The cultural gap was almost beyond bridging. Yet, sitting on a rock and smoking a cigarette as he watched them work, he was struck again by the contradictions Sarah was facing, which somehow made her seem fragile. She was as tough as a woman in this culture had to be, and yet there was a tender side to her that was painful to observe. He’d seen it in her eyes when he was telling her about food and fashions in the West, and especially about his own daughter, Elizabeth. And in the way her father had so peremptorily dismissed her at the cave entrance after her ordeal. No love there, or at least no outward signs of it, and her eyes had dropped in disappointment and resignation. If it had been Liz in the same situation, McGarvey knew that he would have given her a hug, told her that she had done a terrific job, and would have taken Mohammed apart piece by piece.

  Another line from Voltaire came to him: He who is merely just is severe. Was that part of bin Laden’s ethic up here in the mountains? Was he looking so hard for a Muslim justice that he couldn’t allow himself the tender emotions of a father?

  For a time he had considered the idea that the incident at the upper pool had been staged. But he decided against it. The look of self-righteous anger on Mohammed’s face, and Sarah’s fear and shame had been genuine. No acting there. Mohammed had been trying to rape her. So why the hell hadn’t bin Laden done something about it? The cultural gap was vast, but goddammit, being a father was the same everywhere, wasn’t it?

  “How are you feeling now, mista Hash asked. The climb down to the valley wouldn’t be easy, but after that it’d get better. McGarvey had thought about that last climb all the way back from the camp. The wound in his side ached, and his left shoulder continued to give him trouble, but his legs were still fine. Fencing did that for him.

  “If we get something to eat first, I’ll be okay,” McGarvey said. “Unless you’re planning to starve me to death.”

  Mohammed, who had come back from the river, laughed uproariously. It reminded McGarvey of the wildlife films he’d see in which hyenas laughed as they circled in for the kill. Mohammed was waiting for the excuse, any excuse to go head-to-head with him.

  “We’ve got plenty of food, you’ll see,” Hash said. He gave Mohammed a nervous look. “Pretty soon you’ll be home and everything will be AA-okay.”

  Farid put two tin pots of water on the fire to boil. Into one he threw a handful of black tea, and into the other a couple of handfuls of brown rice and bits of something that might have been dried lamb or maybe fish. Almost immediately it began to smell good, and McGarvey decided that he had been gone from home way too long. Then the dark thought came to him that Alien Trumble had probably felt the same thing when he got back to Washington with his family.

  “It’s time for prayers,” Mohammed told them. He and the other two went down to the pool to wash up, and this time he took the bundle containing McGarvey’s gun with him.

  McGarvey watched them for a couple of minutes, looking for an opening, some way to separate Mohammed from the others and kill him. But at least for now that was not possible.

  He sat down on the soft sand, his back against a rock and started to put together exactly what he was going to tell Murphy to stop the attack. That came first, but when he got back to Washington he would be facing an even tougher challenge; convincing the President and his National Security Council, and especially Dennis Berndt that bin Laden did not want to use the bomb, but would if he was pushed.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and he saw the bloody GPS chip falling from the doctor’s hand. He could hear the metallic clink as it hit the edge of the bucket. Until he was back in Kabul and his telephone was returned to him, the chip was his only link with the CIA. He hoped that it hadn’t been damaged. If it had malfunctioned God only knew how the President was reacting.

  Bin Laden’s Camp Talking with McGarvey had been in some way more disturbing to Sarah than Mohammed’s nearly successful attempt to rape her. Had he succeeded he would have been sent back to Kabul, but she would have borne the brunt of her father’s rage, and that of all the mujahedeen. She should not have insisted on going to Kabul in the first place. She had no business out in the mountain wilderness alone with four men — one of them an infidel. And she should not have bared her body so wantonly. She had no modesty. She could hear the words coming from her father’s lips. It was a sentiment that would be shared by her mother and especially her younger brothers. She’d brought dishonor to the House of bin Laden, and no deed of hers could ever erase the stigma.

  It hadn’t been like this in Switzerland. She’d been watched very closely of course, but she’d been allowed to read books, attend classes with the other girls, watch television. It was wonderful. Free. Easy. Happy. Relaxed. And yet if she had known then what she would have to come back to, she wondered if she would have gone to Switzerland in the first place. Or, once she was there, if she wouldn’t have run away, to London or Paris or Rome, somewhere they could not find her. Where she could have started a new life.

  Topping the last rise above the camp at the same moment the sun appeared between a pair of snow-covered peaks far to the east, she pulled up. The return trip had taken longer because she had been lost in thought, struggling with a host of new emotions and new ideas. She’d also been delayed for a few minutes when she’d spotted someone coming up the trail toward her. She’d hidden herself in the rocks until she got a good look at the man as he passed, recognizing him as one of Ali Bahmad’s special soldiers. She had debated following him to find out what he was up to. But in the end she decided that she’d done as much as she could, and it was time to get back.

  McGarvey’s presence had been so disturbing to her because he had given life to her most secret dreams about someday leaving the mountains for good. He was the first American man she had ever met, and certainly the first Western man she’d ever spent any length of time with. He was older than her own father, and she had no romantic illusions about him, or at least not many — he had seen her naked — but he had turned her head with his easy attitude and relaxed self-confidence as completely as the most ardent suitor could ever do.

  The camp below was dark, and it struck her all at once that it was horribly dreary and isolated. Despite her strong will, and her deep faith in her religion and in her father, she began to cry. She didn’t close her eyes, nor did she wipe away her tears, she simply stood looking down into the camp and wept, her shoulders unmoving, her back ramrod straight. She couldn’t remember the last time she had cried, but it must have been when she was a little girl in Khartoum. Nor could she remember what it had felt like. But now a great sadness came over her like a thick blanket of fog falling into a deep valley, obscuring everything. She didn’t know what she was thinking at that moment; she was just feeling sad, lost, depressed, melancholic. She wanted
her mother. She wanted someone to have tea with, someone to brush out her hair and braid it, someone to listen with a sympathetic ear. But her mother had returned to Khartoum in secret two months ago and there’d been no mention of when or if she was coming back.

  McGarvey had been ready to kill Mohammed. She had seen it in his eyes, and in his deep anger. He wasn’t ashamed of her, nor had he blamed her for the attack. He had simply been a father protecting a girl. Squeezing her eyes shut she could imagine her father at the pool, see his flashing eyes on her, and on Mohammed. She could see his disappointment in her, his scorn, his anger. But at her, not Mohammed. As hard as she tried, however, she could not imagine her father doing what McGarvey had done for her. And she felt guilty for wanting such a thing. Ashamed. Sad.

  But she loved her father with every fiber of her soul. As long as he stayed here in the mountains she would remain with him. Gladly. Wherever he was, that’s where she would be. She did not feel complete except when she was at his side. Nor could she feel warm except in the glow of his approval. Which was why she was having such a terrible time of it now.

  McGarvey coming here was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. She didn’t think she would ever get over it.

  The sun began to feel warm on her face as she started down the steep switchback trail. It was almost time for morning prayers and, afterward, bed. There were moments when the five-times-daily ritual seemed too much to bear, but this morning she felt a great need for the comfort of Allah. Repeating the Sura Fatihah forty times each day was an intensely personal connection between her and God that sometimes made her forget everything except the moment. She needed that surrender now more than she had ever needed it before.

  By dint of great willpower, Osama bin Laden began to clear his mind for the morning ritual as he came into the main chamber. He felt an overpowering sense of doom and a strong, almost desperate need for the comfort of prayer. His plan had to work if he was going to be allowed to make his final trip to Mecca and then to Medina. It was the last condition he was going to impose on his enemies before he turned over the bomb, and it was an absolute.