Joshua's Hammer Page 52

  The Escanaba blew its ship’s whistle, the sound so loud in the confines of the pilot boat’s cabin that it was almost a physical assault on his body.

  McGarvey looked up out of his stupor and shook his head as he slid back into reality, into the here and now; the CD that had been playing in slow motion in his head speeded up and came into sharp focus.

  The bridge was less than fifty yards away when McGarvey scrambled over to where the bomb was wedged between the helmsman’s seat and the bulkhead. He pulled it free with great difficulty, barking his knuckles and wrenching his back under the weight. He undid the latches, threw back the outer cover and undid the inner latches. One of them stuck. He desperately hammered at it with the butt of his pistol until it suddenly snapped free and he yanked the inner lid open.

  The LED counter switched from 00:00:20 to 00:00:19, but McGarvey’s eyes were drawn to the matte black aluminum plate in the lower left hand corner.

  He knew this device! Goddammit, he knew it!

  The counter switched from 00:00:19 to 00:00:18 then 00: 00:17.

  He almost entered the ten-digit deactivation code on the keypad when he noticed that the antitamper indicator was lit and he pulled back his hand.

  The LED switched to 00:00:16.

  Bahmad had reprogrammed the weapon’s firing circuits with an encrypted deactivation code. Unless you knew the code anything done to the device would cause it to immediately bypass its normal sequence and fire immediately.

  00:00:15.

  He knew this. Rencke’s research program had included the operations manual for the firing circuits and encryption techniques. It was a quantum mathematical code in which the riddle of Schrödinger’s cat was apparently solved. There was no single solution to the code; instead there was a series of correct answers that could, depending upon how they were entered, also be simultaneously wrong.

  00:00:14.

  McGarvey entered a five-digit code that opened the firing circuit.

  00:00:13.

  The center span of the bridge was almost on top of the pilot boat now. McGarvey looked up and could see people lining the rail staring down at him.

  00:00:12. 00:00:11.

  He entered a ten-digit code that when activated would, if it was the correct one, return the firing circuits to the non-encrypted mode.

  00:00:10.

  He pressed ##, and the antitamper indicator went out. He let out the breath he’d been holding.

  00:00:09.

  Shutting the weapon down was accomplished with another ten-digit code, this one the simple reciprocal of the firing code. Zero was nine, one was eight, two was seven, and so on until the end when nine was zero.

  00:00:08.

  McGarvey drew a blank. He’d had all the other numbers, but now there was a roaring in his ears, his vision was starting to go dark and the boat was beginning to spin.

  00:00:07.

  The pilot boat’s bow cut into the shadow cast by the bridge.

  00:00:06.

  The numbers came to McGarvey all at once. He held onto the bomb case with his left hand to steady himself and entered the ten-digit code with his right.

  00:00:05.

  He stared at the indicator as the boat came under the center span.

  The LED indicator read 00:00:04.

  Slowly he sat back on his heels as the pilot boat came out of the Golden Gate Bridge’s shadow into San Francisco Bay. The LED indicator read 00:00:04.

  He turned and gave the skipper of the Escanaba the thumbs-up, and she started to toot the ship’s whistle over and over. Other ships in the bay and out in the holding basin took up the salute, as did people on the bridge. A lot of them were whistling and cheering, though McGarvey suspected that none of them knew why.

  Golden Gate Bridge

  People on the bridge were cheering and clapping as Elizabeth and Deborah emerged from the tower. Boats in the bay and out in the Gate were blowing their whistles, helicopters were flying all over the place, sirens were blaring, horns were honking and someone down on the approach road was still bellowing instructions over a bullhorn.

  Elizabeth’s radio came alive with chatter, but it was hard to make any sense of it. Everyone was talking at once, and they all seemed excited.

  A greatly relieved Chenna Serafini was holding her earpiece close and was beaming from ear to ear.

  Deborah started to clap too, her tears completely forgotten, her face animated with excitement. She began to jog in place.

  “You missed all the excitement,” Van Buren shouted over the din.

  “What happened?” Elizabeth demanded. “Did we get them?”

  “It was your dad. He did it.”

  Something clutched at Elizabeth’s gut. She grabbed Van Buren’s arm. “Was he hurt? Is he okay?”

  “Of course he’s okay,” Van Buren assured her. He was laughing. “He’s your dad. The man is indestructible.”

  “I wish,” Elizabeth said softly.

  Deborah was beside herself with excitement. “Can we run now? I want to run.”

  “Later,” Chenna said. She gave Elizabeth a warm smile. “Tell your dad thanks for me,” she said.

  Several other Secret Service agents had closed in on them, and a National Guard helicopter was waiting in the middle of the center span, its rotors turning.

  “We’ll run later,” Chenna told the President’s daughter. “But right now your mom and dad are waiting for you.”

  “Okay,” Deborah said. She grabbed Elizabeth and gave her an exuberant bear hug. “I think that you’re neat,” she said in Elizabeth’s ear. “And I hope that it’ll be a girl.”

  Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open, but before she could say anything Chenna and the other Secret Service agents were hustling the President’s daughter to the golf cart that would speed her to the waiting helicopter.

  THE FINAL MOVES FIVE DAYS LATER

  And they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.

  MARK 26:52

  THIRTY

  Khartoum, Sudan

  Two canvas-covered trucks with Iranian Army markings pulled up in front of the compound just off the Sharia al-Barlaman a few blocks from the People’s Palace. The back flaps were pushed aside and two dozen armed soldiers emerged.

  Lieutenant Ahmed Ghavam jumped out of the front of the lead truck and began issuing orders. This was going to be done with dignity. Papa bin Laden was a friend of the state. A friend of all Islam, and neither his name nor his person would be besmirched.

  When the troops were properly lined up at the front gate, a black Mercedes sedan pulled up across the street. A huge man, with tremendous mustaches and a thick beard got out of the car and shambled across the street. He had a smile on his broad face that looked as if it had been chiseled into place.

  “He’s not here,” the huge man said amiably. He wore civilian clothes that looked very comfortable, but three sizes too large even for his impressive bulk. He was Captain Bakat Zamir, chief of Khartoum Regional Operations for the ISI, the powerful Pakistani Interservice Intelligence Agency.

  Like Iran, Pakistan was a friend of bin Laden’s. But the way the international climate was shaping up these days it was wise to at least pay lip service to the Great Satan in Washington, D.C., when it suited. This time bin Laden had gone too far. Even Dr. al-Turabi had tried to warn him, as had others in the National Islamic Front But he was a headstrong man on a fatwa. His own daughter had been killed by the infidels’ rockets. Who could blame a father for striking back?

  “I suspected as much,” Lieutenant Ghavam said. “But I have my orders.”

  “They are sensible orders.”

  A CNN television van came around the corner at the end of the block. Both men had been expecting its arrival.

  “Do you have any idea where he went?” Lieutenant Ghavam asked.

  “Switzerland, perhaps. It’s a matter of his health, I believe.” The Pakistani intelligence officer shrugged. “But who knows? If he lives he will certainly strike again.�
�

  “If he dies?”

  “No one in the West will ever know for sure. Insha’Allah.”

  Lieutenant Ghavam nodded. “Yes. Insha’Allah.”

  Bethesda Naval Hospital

  It was night. McGarvey stood at the window of his fifth-floor room morosely waiting for the dawn as he stared at the sodium vapor lights in the parking lot, his hands in the pockets of his hospital robe. He was being discharged tomorrow, his bullet wounds mended, the last bleeder in his head fixed and his life back to normal. For the time being no one was gunning for him and his family.

  But the job wasn’t over.

  He turned and glanced at Kathleen curled up asleep in the easy chair next to the bed. She’d had the hardest time of all, waiting at home for the telephone call that her husband or her daughter or both of them were dead, all the while knowing that somebody could be coming after her again too.

  He wanted a cigarette. But it had been nearly a week since he’d been pulled off the pilot boat and hospitalized without a smoke, and he had survived so far. Maybe it was time to give it up, if for no other reason than to get Kathleen to quit. But he felt like hell mentally and physically right now. Just maybe he needed a crutch after all, because nothing was going to be the same.

  He turned back to the window and focused on his own reflection in the glass. There was only a small bandage on the side of his head, but he looked haggard. For the first time in his life he felt old. It was stupid, Kathleen would tell him. He was barely fifty and in this day and age that was definitely not old. But his career with the CIA, especially the last five or six years of it, had been tough on the body. He had the scars to prove it.

  Elizabeth and Todd had come up last night to announce that they were getting married and that she was three months pregnant. Kathleen was over the moon, but the news had the opposite effect on McGarvey. He was being terribly selfish, but he didn’t know if he could handle the responsibility of another life in his life. Part of his reaction was the painkillers he was on and everything he’d gone through over the past couple of months, but he’d seen the hurt in his daughter’s eyes when she realized that he wasn’t happy. He was going to have to make it up to her, though it seemed to him right now that he’d been making up things to the people he loved for most of his life.

  A street cop had once given him the only explanation that seemed to make any sense of his sometimes perverse moods. Cops see bad guys every day so that when they’re off duty it’s nearly impossible to see people as good. Everybody is a suspect. It can get so bad that you even begin to wonder about your own family. Selfish or not he had trouble seeing how adding. another new life into the world could do anything except complicate things.

  Otto had shown up with Louise Horn from the NRO, whom he introduced as a friend. They were going to find an apartment together to sorta share expenses. The way she had kept looking at him though made it clear that they would be sharing more than just the rent and utilities. Again McGarvey should have been happy for his friend. Kathleen was. She’d given them hugs. But what was the value of another relationship between two people in a world that seemed bent on its own destruction? Intellectually he knew that there was something terribly wrong with his way of thinking, but he couldn’t shake it. Otto hadn’t noticed, but Louise had and she’d given him a “screw you anyway” look that spoke volumes about how she really felt about her man.

  The President and First Lady had come up yesterday too. The President had been in for his annual physical so it had been fairly easy for him to see McGarvey without alerting the media or creating a security problem. McGarvey was a dangerous man to be around. And when a President met in private with the CIA’s deputy director of Operations it meant something big was up.

  The half-marathon had been stopped because a gasoline tanker anchored in the holding basin posed a hazard. It had nothing to do with a terrorist threat, and thank goodness only a few of the runners had suffered anything other than some skinned knees and twisted ankles.

  “I’m not going to give the bastard, wherever he’s hiding now, the satisfaction of knowing how close he came,” the President told McGarvey in private.

  “Or the other thing,” McGarvey said.

  The President’s lips compressed. His was a good face; honest, straightforward, without guilt. “That came as a nasty surprise.”

  “One that won’t go away.”

  “No.”

  “I want Dennis Berndt kept out of the loop this time.”

  The President flinched. “You can’t think that he had anything to do with this.”

  “No, I don’t. But I want the need-to-know list kept to an absolute minimum. At least for now.”

  “Okay,” the President agreed. At the door he turned back. “I can think of a lot easier jobs.”

  McGarvey smiled. “Me too, Mr. President.”

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Kathleen said behind him.

  He didn’t turn. “I was thinking about Liz and the baby. I was a real shit to her.”

  “Yes, you were. But she doesn’t think that you love her any less.”

  “I don’t.”

  “She desperately wants to make you proud of her,” Kathleen said. “I think she’d even throw Todd out a window if that’s what you wanted.”

  “I want her to be happy—”

  “Then tell her that, my darling. And tell Otto and Louise. They’re a part of this family now too.”

  He heard her get up and come across the room. She put her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.

  “Like it or not your family is back in your life and it’s growing. Not only that, there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Too bad for you that we all love you.”

  McGarvey finally turned around and took her in his arms and held her close. He was battered, but he wasn’t old, and even having a grandchild would not change that. He hoped in a way it would be a girl so that he would not only have Katy and Liz, but he’d have a minature version of them running around too.

  It was good about Otto and Louise because he had spent way too much time worrying about his friend’s well being. Let someone else take over that duty.

  And they had beat bin Laden. This time.

  For the rest, he had work to do figuring out what had happened to the Russian bomb from Tajikistan, and how the bomb he’d disarmed aboard the pilot boat had gotten there. The legend on the matte black aluminum tag attached to the bomb’s outer panel had been perfectly legible, even with his failing eyesight.

  PANTEX CORP.

  U.S.A.

  My Father’s Daughter

  I am my father’s daughter …

  with this armor alone,

  I am incredible.

  Protected in the shadow of wisdom,

  I grew strong of mind.

  Guided through the colors of experience,

  I grew strong of heart.

  Inquiring with forensic precision,

  I grew curious and abłe.

  Expounding into understanding,

  I grew tolerant and open.

  All my fears laid out on the table,

  I grew confident of love.

  Flaws and foibles brought to light,

  I grew to laugh easily.

  I am my father’s daughter …

  with this armor,

  I am invincible.

  —GINA HAGBERG-BALLINGER

  FICTION BY DAVID HAGBERG

  WRITING AS DAVID HAGBERG

  Twister

  The Capsule

  Last Come the Children

  Heartland

  Heroes

  Without Honor

  Countdown

  Crossfire

  Critical Mass

  Desert Fire

  High Flight

  Assassin

  White House

  Joshua’s Hammer

  Eden’s Gate

  The Kill Zone

  By Dawn’s Early Light

  Soldier of God

  All
ah’s Scorpion

  WRITING AS SEAN FLANNERY

  The Kremlin Conspiracy

  Eagles Fly

  The Trinity Factor

  The Hollow Men

  False Prophets

  Broken Idols

  Gulag

  Moscow Crossing

  The Zebra Network

  Crossed Swords

  Counterstrike

  Moving Targets

  Winner Take All

  Achilles’ Heel

  “Hagberg is famous for predicting in his novels tomorrows headlines, but where did he learn so much about Osama bin Laden? He not only predicted bin Laden’s cancer, he describes his motives, conflicts, and criminal pathology in such detail that Hagberg either was there and knew the man--0r he was helping himself to top secret bin Laden files.”—Junius Podrug, author of Presumed Guilty and

  Frost of Heaven

  “I’ve always felt that Hagberg’s McGarvey could whip James Bond, Jack Ryan, Jack Grafton and Dirk Pitt any day of the week, but what really made Joshua’s Hammer stand out was Hagberg’s portrait of Osama bin Laden. I was in awe as I read through McGarvey’s and bin Laden’s first meeting. With its accelerated tempo, nail-biting characters, and phenomenal characters, Joshua’s Hammer should fly off the shelves as fast as the best of Clancy and Coonts.”—

  R. J. Pineiro author of 01-01-00

  “David Hagberg runs in the same fast, high-tech track as Clancy and his gun-ho colleagues, with lots of war games, fancy weapons, and much male bonding.”

  —New York Daily News

  “David Hagberg is one of the more interesting writers of thrillers in the new millennium. His work rivals that of Clancy, Koontz and Cornwell. With Joshua’s Hammer, he probably surpassed these notable authors. The heart thumping story line is a chilling thriller that gets inside the heart and soul of its cast, humanizing a terrorist and CIA operative. Mister Hagberg turns the genre into his personal playing field with this realistic drama that never eases up on the throttle.”