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  After another few seconds, the officer took the satellite phone from the inspector and laid it down on the counter with McGarvey’s other things. “A car and driver will take you directly to the Inter-Continental, Mr. McGarvey. Do not leave the hotel until you are given permission to do so. It is you who must understand.”

  It was the mistake McGarvey had waited for. He’d not mentioned the hotel, nor was it listed on his travel documents. Bin Laden’s reach was still in place with the Taliban religious government.

  “Yes, sir.”

  The customs inspector filled out an entry permit, inserted it in McGarvey’s passport and laid it on the counter. He and the military officer watched as McGarvey gathered his things, closed his bag and computer and headed for the turnstiles. He could feel every eye on him. But he was here in Kabul at bin Laden’s sufferance, and for the time being no one would interfere with him.

  A filthy, battered Mercedes taxi was waiting outside the terminal for him when McGarvey emerged into the glaringly bright sunlight. There wasn’t a cloud in the crystal clear blue sky. The haze he’d seen from the air was not noticeable here on the ground. It was very hot, nearly a hundred degrees, but very dry, and the air smelted like a combination of burned kerojet, diesel exhaust fumes and something else, like burning charcoal in a backyard barbecue. A dusty, ancient, foreign smell with strange undertones.

  On the drive into the city, made long because the roads were not very good, and because the young cabbie took his time, McGarvey caught his first good look at Kabul, which had been heavily damaged in the civil war and continued fighting since the Russians had left. The sprawling city, nestled in between rugged, treeless mountains was composed primarily of what looked like adobe huts and other small buildings hidden behind mud walls. They passed over the Kabul River several times, coming into the city center, but at this time of the year it was more like a muddy, dried up creek or open sewer than an actual stream. Nearly everything was old, ramshackle and run-down, even in a part of the city center he was able to see as they passed. Most of the bomb damage had not been repaired, and in some places the rubble hadn’t even been cleared from the streets and the cabbie had to maneuver around it. On either side of Bebe-Maihro Street were rat warrens of kiosks, shops and stalls along narrow dirt streets. It was Sunday afternoon, but traffic was very light, not many people out and about. McGarvey got the impression that people were hiding behind the walls of their compounds, waiting for something, or perhaps simply existing one day to the next. He’d never been to a place that seemed so cheerless, so devoid of life, so filled with dark for boding and the hairs at the nape of his neck bristled.

  Coming in he had caught a glimpse of the old U.S. embassy building, but from a block away he could not see any real damage, though he spotted a military jeep and at least two soldiers out front.

  Pushunistan Square at the city’s center seemed mostly intact, the four-story government buildings in reasonably good repair, though everything he’d seen so far that wasn’t shot up or broken was in bad need of paint or at least a good cleaning. There was more traffic here, and the parking areas in front of the buildings were filled with battered Russian cars from the seventies, a few older-model American cars and a number of Russian and Chinese jeeps.

  A few minutes later the cabbie pulled into the driveway of the Inter-Continental. He turned around and gave McGarvey a shy, warm, toothless smile. “Mista, you will pay in American dollars?”

  There was no official exchange rate between the afghani and the dollar, and in fact most of the economy now was based on what little foreign currency there was available. McGarvey handed the kid a twenty dollar bill, which seemed to make him happy. He held out another twenty.

  “Is there a decent restaurant somewhere nearby?”

  The cabbie took the question very seriously, and after a couple of seconds, he nodded and smiled again, then took the money. “This hotel has very good food. The very best You should stay here. You can get alcohol, and they have television.”

  “Right,” McGarvey said, and returned the young man’s smile. An Afghani might slit your throat because you were the enemy, but first he would make sure that you were happy and that he hadn’t offended you. Honor was just as important to them as their pride, which was intense.

  The Inter-Continental, which had been one of the only decent hotels by Western standards in Kabul, was now the only hotel for Westerners. Once upon a time it had been among the best public buildings in the city, but despite obvious attempts to keep up, the hotel was run-down and even shabby.

  The lobby was deserted, and the only clerk at the long reception desk had a long, sad face behind his thick beard, as if he were getting set at any moment to burst into tears apologizing for the sorry state of the hotel. McGarvey signed the registration slip with his own pen. His gold VISA card was refused and the clerk would only accept two hundred dollars in cash for one night, being vague about payment for the remainder of McGarvey’s stay, which was supposed to be for five nights.

  “We have a most excellent restaurant on the third floor,” the clerk said earnestly. “It is open tonight from eight until the curfew at ten.” He seemed suddenly very proud. Like the cabbie, he wanted to please. He handed McGarvey the key for 411.

  “Can I make a telephone call from my room?”

  The clerk looked at him as if he was from another planet. “Where do you wish to call?”

  “The Ministry of Security.”

  “Oh,” the clerk said, relieved, and he grinned. “In the morning you can make arrangements for your call.” But he wouldn’t be here in the morning, and the clerk knew it.

  “Are there any messages for me?”

  “No, there are no messages,” the clerk said. “Mista, why don’t you stay here in this fine hotel tonight. You will see that our hospitality is very good. You will enjoy your stay with us. Guaranteed. Eat some good food, get some good rest after your long journey. These things are very good for you.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do just that.” McGarvey picked up his bags and crossed the lobby to toe single elevator that was working. The other two had our of order signs in Arabic, French and English posted on them.

  As the door closed, McGarvey looked back at the reception desk in time to see the clerk in heated discussion with three other men, these in military uniforms, who’d evidently been waiting in back. One of them was the military officer from the airport customs hall. At the last moment the officer looked up and his eyes met McGarvey’s. Even at a distance of a hundred feet the expression on his face was clearly bleak. McGarvey might be an important guest of Osama bin Laden, who himself was a guest of the Taliban, but he wasn’t welcome.

  McGarvey’s room was small but more or less clean, although there was only one pillow on the large bed, and only one hand towel in the bathroom. But there was plenty of hot water and half a bar of very strong disinfectant soap.

  It was nearly nine o’clock by the time he had cleaned up and had a cigarette on a small balcony that looked toward the city center. Already the temperature had dropped to the high sixties, and it was still going down.

  He went downstairs to what had once been a good restaurant. Two thirds of it was blocked off by wooden screens, and none of the handful of patrons bothered looking up as he walked in and was immediately seated alone at a window table by an old man in a dirty apron who kept staring at him.

  The only items available on the menu were a stew of vegetables, lamb kebabs and the flat bread called nan. There were only two bottles of Heineken left, according to the waiter, and each cost eleven dollars for which McGarvey had to pay cash on the spot. But the beer was cool, and the food was warm, plentiful and very good.

  At ten o’clock sharp the waiters came out with the checks, and cleared the tables in a big hurry, although not everyone had finished eating. It was the law, McGarvey’s waiter explained. In any event it was time for all good and pious people to go home for their evening prayers before bed.

  Back upstairs Mc
Garvey changed into khaki trousers, a thick turtleneck sweater over a tee shirt, thick socks and desert boots. He put a few packs of cigarettes in his bush jacket and laid it over a chair, then opened his computer on the bed. He removed the six small screws from the laptop’s back panel with his penknife, and took out his Walther PPK and one spare magazine of ammunition. He resecured the back panel, cycled the weapon’s ejector slide several times to make sure it worked smoothly, reloaded the gun, and then dropped his trousers and taped the gun and spare magazine high on his inner thigh.

  When he was finished he took his cell phone out on the balcony where he lit a cigarette. Someone would be coming for him tonight, there was little doubt of it after the way the cabbie and desk clerk had treated him. The only questions were: who was coming for him, how thorough would their search be and how far up in the mountains was bin Laden’s encampment?

  He hit the speed dial, the phone took a couple of seconds to acquire the proper satellite, and the call went through. It was eleven at night here, and although the city was lit, it was mostly in darkness, as was the surrounding countryside. It was two in the afternoon in Langley. Two different worlds, McGarvey thought. One of simple insanity, and the other, more complex, but just as insane. There were no absolute truths.

  His call was answered on the first ring. “Oh, boy, am I ever glad to hear from you,” Otto gushed. “They didn’t take your phone. That’s good.”

  “I gave them the camera so they wouldn’t come away empty-handed,” McGarvey told him. It’s exactly what they figured would happen, and he had no need of the camera in any event.

  “Has anyone made contact with yon yet?”

  “No, but I think it’ll be tonight.”

  “Standby, I’m going to calibrate,” Otto said.

  Because of the curfew there was no traffic on the streets, but McGarvey was surprised that absolutely nothing was moving downtown, not even military vehicles. Otto was back a minute later.

  “You’re at the hotel. West side. Looks like twelve meters, plus or minus one, above ground level. Fourth floor?”

  “Four-eleven,” McGarvey confirmed. He rubbed his left side where he had lost one of his kidneys a few years ago in an operation that had almost cost him his life. The cavity wasn’t so empty now. Six months ago McGarvey had quietly implemented Otto’s idea of surgically implanting a small GPS homing chip, not much larger than a postage stamp including its long-life battery, in every CIA field officer’s body. The GPS chips were uplinked with the National Reconnaissance Office’s Jupiter satellite system that had been ostensibly put up to monitor military communications over India and Pakistan. But the satellites were steerable, and in fact could be positioned to receive the GPS chip signals from almost anywhere in the world. It could be seen as a provocative act from the right point of view, just like a police informant wearing a wire, but already it had proved its worth, especially in Iraq.

  In one instance infrared KH11 satellite surveillance had spotted three Special Revolutionary Guard troop trucks heading out of Baghdad at high speed toward a suspected chemical weapons development laboratory that a CIA field officer was in the process of penetrating. Word had been sent to the agent to get out, and he’d made it with more than a half hour to spare. Without the GPS chip to locate his actual position Ops would never have known where he was, and word for him to pull out would not have been sent. He would have been captured or killed.

  The chips were not meant for administrative personnel; there was a certain danger of complications from the operation because of the batteries. But McGarvey had one implanted in his side because what was good enough for his field officers was good enough for him. And despite his promises to Kathleen, and to himself, he knew deep in his soul exactly who and what he was. He was not ready to retire from the field for good, and probably never would be. It was like a narcotic, intelligence work; or, according to a number of good men who had gone before him, like a religion. You had to take it on faith that what you were doing was good and right. Once you went down that path there was no turning back. At least that’s how he’d felt then; he wasn’t as sure now.

  “How is it over there?” Otto asked.

  “Dark,” McGarvey replied. “Anything new on the shooters?”

  “They showed up in Havana, just like Rudolph thought they would, but then they disappeared, like you predicted. Chances are they’re already on their way back. The big question, kimo sabe, is where is back!” Otto hesitated a moment. “But there’s another problem coming your way.”

  “The Carl Vinson?” “Correctamundo. The battle group is already in the Gulf of Oman, though nobody is admitting it to us. Could be they’re planning an end run.” “Not until I’m out of here,” McGarvey said, wondering if he really believed that himself. “Take it to Murphy, I want my back covered.”

  “Will do,” Otto said. “But there is some good news in all this. Liz went back to Paris and started making a lot of noise, so Dick had Dave Whittaker pull her back here. They put her down in Ops.”

  “She’s not cleared for Meteor.”

  Otto chuckled, happily. “She’s the boss’s daughter, you can’t keep anything secret from her.”

  There was no use fighting the inevitable, McGarvey told himself. And there was nothing he could do about it now. “Okay, keep an eye on her.”

  “Dick Yemm is on it. “After Alien and his family, nobody is taking any chances around here.” Again Otto hesitated. “Oh, and Mac, congratulations.”

  “For what?”

  “You know,” Otto said playfully. “I think it’s great, that’s all. Just super, ya know.” He meant Mac and Katy getting back together.

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said, but he didn’t know if he meant that either. He’d always managed to keep his family and personal life in a separate, very secure compartment when he was in the field. Looking across the dark city toward the even darker, bleak mountains, he was sorry that his secret place had been reopened. He suddenly felt very vulnerable, and very much alone out here.

  “Watch yourself, Mac.”

  “Right,” McGarvey said. “You too.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Out of Kabul

  McGarvey had been on the go for two days, catching only snatches of sleep here and there, mostly on airplanes, but he didn’t feel too bad yet. It was a few minutes after midnight when “be stubbed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. He’d been sitting in the darkness by the window looking down at the deserted street since he’d gotten off the phone with Otto, trying to clear his mind of his family.

  A dark blue Volkswagen van appeared around the corner a block away, drove directly to the hotel and pulled into the driveway, disappearing under the overhang. From his position he could not see if anyone was getting out and coming into the hotel. But after a minute when the van did not drive off, he turned away from the window, switched on the bedside light, and put on his bush jacket.

  He slipped the safety chain off and opened the door. The elevator was on its way up. His bag was repacked and sitting on the bed with the laptop computer. He pulled the chair away from the window, placed it in the circle of light and sat down, crossing his legs. The first few seconds of encounters like these were always the most dangerous because no one knew what to expect. He was offering them no surprises; sitting in plain view, his hands resting on the arms of the chair, his door open. No threat, no menace, no confrontation here.

  The hotel was very quiet. He could hear the elevator arrive and the shuffling of several people coming down the hall.

  Afghani mujahedeen, warriors of God, were as a rule a kind, but trigger happy-people, made that way because of more than twenty years of continuous righting since the Russians had invaded in ‘79 and the ongoing civil war that had been raging since the Russians finally pulled out in ‘89. Be careful with them, Mac, his DO briefing team had warned him. If you make a threatening move, if you piss them off, they’re going to shoot first and beg your forgiveness later. If you don’t make it in
one piece bin Laden might throw a fit, but he won’t blame his own people, he’ll blame you, and expect that if we’re serious we’ll send somebody else who knows their customs.

  They don’t separate their religion from their politics, and they don’t understand anybody who does. So watch yourself on that score too.

  But if you show a weakness, any sign of it, they’ll jump on that too. Push them, and they’ll react violently. Make a mistake about religion, and they’ll pop off. Cower, and they’ll run you over.

  Otto had walked in on one session, and he hopped from one foot to the other. “You gotta act like you know something they don’t, just like stroking my computers, ya know. That’s the secret.”

  A husky figure dressed in Russian combat boots, baggy trousers and some sort of long, duty tunic over which he wore a long vest, appeared in the doorway. He was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle, and his face was covered by a dark balaclava. He swept his rifle left to right, then charged into the room. Two others similarly dressed appeared in the corridor behind him.

  “You Kirk McGarvey?” he demanded. His English was heavily accented, and he sounded young and angry, perhaps even frightened.

  “Yes, I am. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Okay, you stand up now, Mista CIA.”

  McGarvey got slowly to his feet, keeping his hands well away from his body. “Is bin Laden nearby, or do we have a long way to go?” One of the others in the corridor handed his companion his rifle and came into the room. A fourth, very slightly built figure came to the doorway, and stared at McGarvey, only his eyes visible behind the mask.

  “Arms out, legs out,” the unarmed mujahed ordered.

  McGarvey did as he was told, and the young man quickly frisked him. But he missed the gun and spare magazine taped to McGarvey’s thigh. He stepped back. The small one in the corridor motioned to the bag and laptop case on the bed. The mujahed quickly went through the bag, pocketing the phone and lingering for a minute at the computer, his fingers caressing the keys. He looked up. “You will show me how to use this, mista he asked diffidently.