by Fritz Galt
“I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
The skipper held up the VISA card he had left with the hotel receptionist. “It sure looks right to me.”
Sean hesitated, gritting his teeth. Would acknowledging his identity, particularly because of his situation as a political time bomb for the Administration, to an enemy of the United States constitute an act of treason?
If the terrorists didn’t kill him, the Feds would.
The stiletto’s point began probing his skin, leaving behind a burning sensation.
With the sharp tip less than an inch from his kidneys in the back of a veering tin can, he didn’t have much time to reason this out. The thought of bleeding to death on the floor of a taxicab in the People’s Republic of China was bad enough.
But he gave it one last effort. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. That’s not my name.”
The skipper’s bearded face wrinkled with humor and he emitted a laugh. Then he reached for his cell phone and placed a call. It took mere seconds for the connection to go through. Then the skipper let a torrent of Arabic loose. The only term Sean could identify was the name Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Wasn’t he al-Qaeda’s Number Two?
He collapsed in exhaustion, but the knife relaxed with him. He was under no threat of being knifed in the back seat of a cab. Suddenly, it became all too apparent. He was more than a terrorist’s pawn, a Westerner to behead, a passport for the skipper to climb the terrorist ladder of success. He was the mother of all hostages! He was the Chinagate witness. They wouldn’t harm him for anything.
It was the Feds who wanted him dead. And they might even put treason on the long laundry list of his existing charges.
Once Sean got his family back, where would they live? In a cave in Tora Bora? Maybe his family didn’t need him so bad. Unless they wanted to visit him in jail once a month.
The bearded skipper clicked off his phone and looked at him.
“I am now your new best friend,” he said, his thick lips fixed in a smile.
“You’re not going to use me against the president.”
“At this point, why rely on your president? He would have you rubbed out if he could.”
It might be true, but he hated it. “You know, I am trying to resist your coercion, and I’m not a willing accomplice.”
“Oh, no. I can see that.”
“Just for the record…”
“Of course not. I understand,” the man said with a clever grin.
Sean had nothing left to assuage his battered pride, other than, “At least stealing and cheating for the president is nothing compared with what you’ve probably got in mind.”
“And what is that?”
Sean gestured to the cell phone. “What you just discussed with al-Zawahiri.”
“We discussed nothing. We’ll just have to wait. Communication is very tricky, you know,” he confided.
Sean looked out the window as they left the outskirts of the city and headed up a verdant mountainside. Should he tell this man about his family? That he was on the cusp of finding them alive? A play for the man’s sympathy could only help.
“You know, I have a family,” Sean said.
“I have a family, too,” the skipper responded without feeling.
“I haven’t seen them since spring.”
“I haven’t seen mine since last year,” the skipper said. There was no sympathy to be found there.
“Someone has kidnapped them,” Sean said. “I was just trying to get to Beijing to find them.”
The skipper furrowed his brow in thought. He had a high, smooth forehead that seemed capable of thoughts beyond wicked schemes.
“I have a proposition,” the man said at last. “You work with me, and I’ll help you find your family.”
Sean tried to weigh the options. Resist the terrorists, get brutally beaten up and hope that Uncle Sam forgives him once he is finally rescued by an undercover commando raid?
Or play along with the terrorists until they slipped up and he could escape.
“You wouldn’t help me find my family.”
“You don’t know the powerful resources at our disposal,” the skipper replied cryptically. “After all, we found you.”
Sean had to concede that point. He looked out the window. They were still heading away from the port where he had swum ashore. He didn’t know where the hell they were. He was entirely at their mercy
“Okay, I’ll help you if you help me,” he said at last.
He tried to look at the situation from the skipper’s perspective. Theoretically, blackmailing the President of the United States was a no-brainer. In practice, however, working out the logistics would not be so easy. The skipper needed to establish secure lines of communication directly to the White House. Beyond that, they had to establish their credibility. Most likely that would involve sending some photographic proof of his captivity.
He closed his eyes. How could he think like a terrorist?
There was a time when he did wish great harm on somebody. When he would have derived pleasure from someone else’s fear. If he could get his hands on Core Petroleum’s chief executives, he would wring their necks as they cried out for mercy.
Oh yes, he was capable of blinding anger. His thoughts traveled back to the return plane flight to Baltimore-Washington where his rage had first surfaced.
He dwelled for a minute on his acrimonious fallout with his company that wouldn’t authorize him and his family to flee the SARS epidemic until he closed the Chinagate deal. It was a sweet deal for everybody involved and mostly above board. The U.S. Trade Representative had granted China various World Trade Organization concessions, thereby winning numerous huge contracts for American oil companies in China. That was all aboveboard. The kickback that his company had made him facilitate between the Chinese and the president’s personal offshore bank account was the illegal part.
He had been operating outside the law the moment he closed the Chinese deal with the president. But, had he not done so, his family would have risked languishing forever in SARS-ridden Beijing. His company had forced his hand.
But that had turned him into a walking time bomb for the Administration…and a potential bonanza for someone like the bearded young man. This guy could milk the president for money, concessions and an easing on the war on terrorism for years to come. He had no interest in helping Sean find his family.
Once again his thoughts turned to escape. He still had those five-hundred yuan notes in his pocket.
He eyed his door handle and fingered the latch. But the knife instantly broke through his damp shirt and penetrated his skin. He froze, his muscles tense.
So much for the terrorist being his best friend.
“How about we find my family first?”
The skipper didn’t seem in a negotiating mood. In fact, he seemed downright unfriendly.
“Or later. Whatever.”
The taxi was rocketing around slow-moving trucks that delivered goods from the mainland to the mountainous interior of the island. Where in the world were they going?
Attorney General Caleb Perkins glanced past the president around the East Room of the White House. The large, rectangular room was lined with movie posters of American idols, a departure from the room’s traditional use as a venue for formal parties, receptions and dances. Behind an arrangement of tropical ferns, a Marine quintet was softly blowing on their horns. The warm, subdued lighting put Caleb at ease and made him feel at home.
By that time next year, it would be his home, damn it.
To Caleb’s surprise, President White singled him out and drew him to a quiet corner. “I’m not in much of a party mood,” the president confided, his voice conveying anxiety.
“Why’s that?” Caleb asked. “It’s party time. You’ve successfully navigated the shoals of three years as chief executive. It’s about time you enjoyed the job.”
Was there no end to his duplicity, he wondered about himself. Like a caravan wanderin
g blindly in a sandstorm, surviving in Washington meant treading with agility on the shifting sands of loyalty. Should the president falter, Caleb would be the first to trample over his corpse and announce his candidacy. In the meantime, he would play the party stalwart and buck up the president, who, incidentally, was acting peculiar, even vulnerable, that evening.
“I doubt I’ll be around next year,” Bernard admitted, eyeing the group as if a spy might be lurking in their midst. He lowered his voice. “Is Stanley Polk making much progress against me?”
“I wouldn’t know. They haven’t requested any of our resources. I don’t know if a single agent is looking for Cooper.”
“But if one did find Cooper…”
“I’m afraid my men would have to turn him over to the special prosecutor’s office.”
Bernard nodded, looking sick.
“However, I am aware of an Agency-contracted operation beating the bushes on your behalf,” Caleb said, remembering his phone call from Harry Black. “And I am in touch with them.”
“Have they found Cooper?”
Caleb looked around the room to make sure nobody was eavesdropping.
“Slipped through their fingers,” he said.
Bernard looked like he was going to be physically sick.
At that moment, William Ford, the oily party chairman, returned with a glass of champagne for Caleb. He made no attempt to hide a broad grin on his face.
“What’s new?” Caleb asked.
“Not much,” Ford said smugly. “The president just foiled another terrorist plot. Cheers.”
“Where?” Caleb shot out.
“Oh, at the Academy Awards. It appears that some Arab journalists smuggled in a bomb to disrupt the ceremony. But our boys took care of that,” he said, smacking Bernard across the shoulders. “We won’t be hearing from that band of terrorists again.”
“Oh, really?” Caleb said. “And which band was that?”
“Apparently some arm of al-Qaeda operating here in the United States. They say Osama bin Laden was on the phone with the ransom demand. Said he wanted prisoners released from Guantánamo Bay and Saddam released.” Ford laughed, and the president laughed weakly with him.
The breezy tone in which Ford was imparting this earth shattering news made Caleb’s head spin.
“But Bernard stepped up to the plate,” Ford continued in a loud voice, “and hammered the ball out of the park.”
Mechanically, Caleb clinked champagne flutes with Ford. He took a very deep drink. It was another coup for the president’s war on terrorism. The president was a hero once more.
He walked off in a daze. Surely the president’s popularity would rise after foiling al-Qaeda once again. Worse, the press might begin to point fingers at him and the FBI for letting the terrorists infiltrate so far. He shook his head at his rapidly diminishing prospects for higher office.
His mind turned to darker alternatives, and ultimately to his phone conversation with Harry Black. His only hope lay in the Chinagate investigation succeeding. But how could he help Stanley Polk prosecute the president? Should he volunteer to assist the special prosecutor by deploying agents to find Cooper?
Trading in his glass at the beverage table, he stared hard at the president who had turned away. Was he capable of stabbing the president in the back?
“What can I get you, Mr. Attorney General?” the bartender asked.
“A rattlesnake,” he said.
Here he was searching for ways to bring down the president as the guy was successfully foiling al-Qaeda plots to secure the nation. Caleb had thought of himself as aggressive, but never disloyal.
Nevertheless, he was beginning to feel aggrieved by fate.
His eye caught an intern easing her way in a slinky cocktail dress between party guests.
“Hey, Lori,” he called out.
She winked at him. What a floozy.
Offering to help the special prosecutor would lose him his job. There had to be a more underhanded way of bringing down the president.
“Here’s your whiskey, sir.”
Caleb took a swig of the cold drink.
Lori was making her way toward him, a smile on her lips.
Aw, hell. He felt a physical rush of pleasure flooding his groin. If she needed him, he would relent.
She could bring any man to his knees.
Then, just over her shoulder he caught a glimpse of the president turning his statesmanlike profile to follow her swaying tush.
“Any man to his knees,” Caleb breathed.
Lori stopped before him, the look of a vixen on her face.
But his thoughts were elsewhere.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He could envision the president caught screwing a luscious young intern. The headlines would sink him faster than the Titanic.
What kind of soldier stabbed his own general in the back during a military campaign?
“Why the frown?” Lori asked, reaching toward him and gently massaging his temples with the tips of her fingers.
The president was still looking at them, his eyes narrow with jealousy and lust.
Suddenly Caleb had an intoxicating idea beyond that of defeating Bernard White. Stronger than winning the Presidency. It was screwing the president’s girl on Lincoln’s bed.
Then a shiny object caught his eye. He pried her long fingers away from him and examined her ring finger. She was wearing the most enormous diamond he’d ever seen.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, his voice cracking.
At that moment the president approached her from behind. Unannounced, he leaned his bushy white head of hair over her shoulder and whispered in her ear.
She giggled and turned toward him. The president’s arms fell naturally around her waist.
“Haven’t you heard?” she said, tossing Caleb a wholesome smile. “We’re engaged.”
Chapter 9
Hadi Ahmed was nearly out of breath, having hustled the entire way up the mountain pass. Mortar shells launched by the Pakistani Army were landing on the far slopes of the neighboring valley. They were nowhere close to Osama’s lair, but striking near enough to Hadi’s home village to cause alarm.
He hadn’t seen his family for over a week, and he was worried sick; but this mission was far too important to cut short. His earnings would keep his wife and three daughters fed for a year and allow him to install electricity in his humble home. His son could have those teeth pulled that were causing so much pain…
He tried to take his mind off his personal problems. He was engaged in a great jihad against the American Crusaders.
Daylight was just seeping out of the cloud-laden sky across the valley as he mounted the last few handholds up to Osama’s headquarters, the tiny cave that held so much promise for Muslims around the world.
“I have news for the venerable one,” he said between gasps for air.
Once again, the barrel of the assault rifle drew back the dusty sheepskin.
Hadi removed his Pathan hat and bent his compact frame even lower to enter. As before, a fire warmed the cave, but Hadi was already sweating from his run.
He glanced around the room and was surprised to see that there were twice as many associates seated around Allah’s right hand than before. He fell to his knees before Osama and rocked forward until his forehead touched the cave floor. The surface smelled rancid from old meat and was coated with dust. What these people needed was a woman’s touch around the place.
“I have great news for you, Allah be praised,” he began.
He looked up and saw that he had the assembly’s full attention.
“Sean Cooper is ours!”
Osama clasped his hands together and offered a short, personal prayer to Allah. When he opened his eyes, his fervor had turned to practical matters. “Does my cousin have him?”
“Yes. According to his last transmission to your deputy, he is taking the heathen sacrifice to his ship.”
A chorus of cheers aro
se from the entire group. They had clearly been primed for that moment. Their attention turned immediately to their leader, the great lion of the desert.
Hadi rested back on the seat of his pants and tried to keep his eyes from straying to the kabobs they had stacked beside the fire.
The conversation immediately lapsed into Arabic, a language with which he was unfamiliar. Perhaps they were trying to keep him from overhearing their deliberations. Yet, none of them was Afghan or Pakistani. He was in a den of foreigners, men with far greater knowledge of the world.
In the end, Osama turned directly to him, and he put aside all his wandering thoughts.
“It is Allah’s wish that my cousin leave the area immediately. He should take the sacrifice to the open sea and proceed in the direction of where he will conduct his raid. Once at sea, he will contact the lair of all evil, the White House, and demand a ransom of US$20 million. My deputy will work out the details.”
Money? So this was all about money?
“I beg to ask you, most honorable leader of Allah’s jihad,” he said, unable to stop himself. “But is all this effort just for money?”
Osama did not have to answer the question. He could have cut out Hadi’s tongue for asking it. But he didn’t. Hadi watched with awe as the great man paused to set him straight.
“Young guide,” Osama said, using the translation of Hadi’s name in English. “Money is just the beginning. Once the great heathen takes the bait, he will be ours.”
“Ours for what?”
The room looked away in silent rebuke of his insolence.
“Ours to release our martyrs in prison. Ours to flood the world with fresh jihad. Ours to tear down the secular Muslim governments of the world one by one.”
That sounded more like it. It was all for jihad.
“Thank you, my master,” Hadi said, newly inspired.
The group seemed jolted by the power of the message as well. Hadi touched his forehead to the ground once more, then quickly rose and slipped out of the cave.
A final ray of sunlight penetrated between two clouds. It was a sign of good fortune for Hadi, his family and the coming of Islam.
