Allah's Scorpion

by David Hagberg

  “Bad dog, bad, bad dog,” he muttered. “Where was she headed, Commander Daniel Monroe, and why did you call me with the glad tidings? What makes you think that I care?”

  “Sir, a friend of mine works as the military attaché at our embassy in Tunis. He found out about the boat, but the chief of station there is dragging his feet, and Sixth Fleet wasn’t interested. It was a British warship on patrol in the strait that stumbled across the Libyan sub.”

  “Why’d you call me?” Rencke pressed. He brought up Russell Sterling’s file. The man had been a sub driver in a previous life.

  “Not you specifically, sir. But he wanted me to pass along this information, plus a name, to someone in the CIA who might be able to do something. And you have the reputation, sir.”

  Rencke wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. He’d missed so friggin’ much. He was so stupid. “Plus a name,” he said. “Let me guess. Rupert Graham?”

  The line was silent for a long moment. When Commander Monroe came back, he sounded subdued. “Jesus Christ,” he said softly.

  “Nope. He was the guy who walked on the water, ours sails under the water,” Rencke said. “Did the British do a track? Do they know where he was heading?”

  “Southwest, sir.”

  “Thank you,” Rencke said. “And thank your old Annapolis pal, Russell Sterling.”

  He broke the connection, and allowed his mind to go completely blank for a second or two, wiping the slate clean, as if he were rebooting a computer. When he focused again, he began typing, his fingers flying over the keyboard, his frizzy red hair pointing in every direction as if he were a mad prodigy pounding a complex melody on a concert grand piano.

  FIFTY-SIX

  KARACHI’S FISH HARBOR

  With a population of ten million and growing, Pakistan’s principal seaport was considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on the planet. More murders, kidnappings, rapes, beatings, thefts, and incidents of street crime and gang violence happened here 24/7 than anywhere else. And only in postwar Baghdad had there been more suicide bombings than in Karachi.

  It was bin Laden and al-Quaida. President Musharraf ’s government publicly opposed the terrorists so that it could continue to receive much-needed financial aid from the United States, while an overwhelming majority of the people supported the jihad.

  Downtown was bright and modern; tall steel and glass skyscrapers rose from wide boulevards such as M. A. Jinnah Road, named after the father of modern Pakistan, and Raja Ghazanarfar Street, which passed the Saddar Bazaar, the city’s main and most colorful shopping center.

  But elsewhere, Karachi was mostly a city of incredibly filthy and dangerous slums that coexisted with mosques of delicacy and beauty and museums of exquisite Islamic antiquity. Along the harbor’s West Wharf with its fishing fleets, textile and carpet manufacturers and exporters, tanneries and leather works, was the worst slum of all, known as Fish Harbor.

  From here, in the middle of cardboard and tarpaper shacks, jumbled rows of rusted-out shipping containers, and the occasional compound of hovels protected behind tall razor-wire-topped concrete block walls, the downtown lights cast an eerie otherworldly glow.

  McGarvey, driving a small, dark Fiat he’d rented through the hotel concierge, pulled up and parked in the deeper shadows behind a large warehouse, locked up and dark for the night. He was below the rail line and Mauripur Road, which was the main truck thoroughfare for the commercial district. It was past midnight, and from where he sat, wishing for the first time in a long while that he hadn’t quit smoking, he had a clear sightline to a walled compound at the end of the filthy street.

  He picked up his sat phone tracker from the seat beside him, and entered three twos and then the pound key. It was the code for the microscopic GPS chip implanted in al-Turabi. Within a second or two the nearest Keyhole satellite picked up the signal and fixed its location within a couple of meters. Overlaid on the sat phone’s screen was an electronic street map covering an area two hundred meters on a side. The red dot showing al-Turabi’s current location was inside the compound at the end of the block.

  It was difficult to believe that bin Laden would actually take refuge in a place like this. But then the man had lived in caves in Afghanistan that were nothing from the outside, while inside they were reasonably well heated and ventilated and more or less comfortable. If this compound were a semipermanent home for the Saudi billionaire, it could very well be fitted out in luxury.

  He rolled down the window and held his breath for a long moment to listen. In the far distance there was a siren, but here except for the muffled sound of an electric motor running—perhaps a generator or an air conditioner—the night was almost perfectly still.

  Something was wrong.

  Just beyond the compound, an open field sloped up to a reinforced embankment on which was one of the railroad spurs that serviced a long line of sprawling brick warehouses. The field was jammed with shacks and shipping containers, home to at least five hundred families, possibly more. A ditch serving as an open sewer ran down the slope and emptied onto the paved road in front of the compound. A thin stream of sewage trickled to a wide iron grate and disappeared, probably to end up emptying directly into the harbor about three blocks away.

  There was the stench of a squatters’ slum, but there were no lights, no sounds, no movement. It was as if the entire village within the city had been deserted.

  Or as if the people were cowering in their hovels, afraid of something. McGarvey switched off the Fiat’s engine, but before he got out he removed the lens from the dome light and took out the bulb. He pocketed the car keys and the GPS tracker, then screwed the silencer on the threaded muzzle of his Walther PPK.

  He had changed to dark sneakers, black jeans, and a lightweight dark pullover before he’d left the hotel, and now, keeping to the shadows as he worked his way down the street, he was nearly invisible.

  Gloria showing up in Karachi had come as an unpleasant surprise that nagged at him like a dull toothache. She had no idea how badly she had jeopardized the mission. The moment he’d seen her at the hotel, he’d almost decided on the spot to back away, return to Washington, and start the search for bin Laden all over again.

  Damned near every woman who’d ever been involved with him had gotten herself killed sooner or later. They’d all thought that they were in love with him, while none of them had the faintest idea what that might mean in terms of their own safety.

  Even Gloria, who was a trained field officer, had no idea what she had gotten herself into, or the danger she posed. McGarvey no longer had an absolute freedom of movement. No matter what happened now he was bound to look out for her; he was handicapped because of her and he didn’t like it.

  But the prize he’d come for was worth everything. If he could get next to bin Laden for even one moment it would be enough. The man would die. And with him would die the one question for which McGarvey had never gotten a satisfactory answer. Why?

  He’d come face-to-face with the man several years ago in Afghanistan, and although they’d spoken the same language, spoken about the same issues, McGarvey had not been able to get a real handle on the man.

  Bin Laden wasn’t some West Bank fanatic, or a religious zealot, or a man with a grudge against the West, which made understanding him all but impossible. The CIA had supported him and his mujahideen in the Afghan war against the Russians. But near the end of that struggle, it was as if a switch had flipped inside bin Laden’s head. One day he was America’s ally and the next we had become Satan, and he had declared a jihad not only against the West, but against Israel and anyone who supported her, and against the members of the Saudi royal family who had sold their people and Islam to the West for the sake of oil without sharing the money with al-Quaida.

  There are no innocents in this struggle, he’d told McGarvey. Infidels, men, women, children, it did not matter. They would all die.

  At the end of the warehouse, McGarvey held up for a moment. Across from
an open area that led back to the loading docks, the burned-out wrecks of two cars had been pushed off the side of the road, and were piled in a tangled heap. Twenty meters farther, the wall of the compound rose five meters from the street, the coils of razor wire at the top glinting in the stray light. A set of sturdy-looking double doors, wide enough to admit a car or even a small truck, seemed to be the only way into the compound from this side. From where he stood, he could just make out the roofs of three buildings behind the wall, on one of which was a small satellite dish. Electric wires snaked down from a power pole at the corner.

  He looked back the way he had come, and then searched the slum village that covered the sloping field. The stench of human waste was nearly overpowering, but there was no noise, and the silence raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

  Taking the GPS tracker out of his pocket, he keyed the three twos and the pound symbol. Within a couple of seconds the display showed al-Turabi’s signal still inside the compound.

  It did not necessarily mean that bin Laden was here. But al-Turabi was a top lieutenant, and this is where he had come as soon as he had escaped from Camp Delta.

  If bin Laden wasn’t here, he was probably very close, and al-Turabi was the key to finding him.

  McGarvey pocketed the GPS tracker, checked his pistol, and then leaned up against the brick wall to wait for an opportunity to get inside the compound to present itself to him.

  PEARL CONTINENTAL

  Gloria Ibenez was beside herself with worry. She stood at the window of the tenth-floor suite, looking down at the modern city, its skyscrapers lit in mosaic patterns. Somewhere below a siren was wailing, and twenty minutes ago she’d thought she’d heard gunfire somewhere in the distance.

  She had promised Kirk that she would not leave the room until morning. If he hadn’t returned by then she was to go immediately to the U.S. Consulate General on Abdullah Haroon Road, which was just a few blocks from the hotel. Dave Coddington, the CIA chief of station there, would be able to help her. If McGarvey had been successful in killing bin Laden, the backlash would be immediate and very big. No American in Pakistan would be safe.

  Under no circumstances was she to use the telephone. The opposition would almost certainly be monitoring calls from the hotel, and if they found out that she was alone and vulnerable she would become a target.

  “You’re here, and there’s nothing I can do about it now,” he’d told her, his tone harsh. “If we’re to have a chance of surviving, you need to keep a low profile.”

  She nodded her understanding, loving, his eyes and the set of his mouth even when he was angry.

  And here and now, more than five thousand miles from home, she could put the notion of McGarvey’s wife in a back compartment of her head. She didn’t have to think about the other woman in Kirk’s life; it was only her waiting for him in his hotel room, only her who had come to Pakistan to help him, only her who cared enough to be at his side, and only her who truly understood what he was, and loved him all the more for it.

  A telephone burred softly, bringing Gloria out of her thoughts. She turned away from the window as the phone rang again. It was McGarvey’s satellite phone in his overnight bag in the closet.

  She got to it on the fourth ring. “Yes?”

  “Oh wow, Gloria,” Rencke gushed. “Where’s Mac?”

  “He’s going after the man, but I don’t know where that is. He told me to stay here.”

  “Why are you in Karachi? How’d you get there?”

  “I booked a flight with my own money,” she said defiantly. “I wanted to help.”

  There was no telling how Kirk would react when he found out that she lied about Otto’s help. But she would cross that bridge when she came to it. “Is there something wrong?”

  Rencke didn’t answer at first.

  “Otto?” she prompted. She was becoming alarmed.

  “He shoulda taken the phone with him,” Rencke said distantly, as if he were doing something else while thinking out loud. “But I shoulda seen it before. Bad dog, bad dog.”

  “For God’s sake, tell me what’s wrong.”

  “He’s running into a trap,” Rencke told her breathlessly. “The GPS chip hasn’t moved in thirty-six hours. Not one meter. Al-Turabi is probably dead, and they might know about the chip somehow.”

  “Where is he?” Gloria demanded.

  “Fish Harbor. I’ll send the map to your sat phone display. But you gotta stop him.”

  Gloria was putting on her sneakers, the phone cradled under her chin. “We’ll have to get out of Karachi,” she told Rencke. “If they’ve set a trap for him, it means they know why he’s here. Even if I can get to him before he tries to make the hit there’s no place he’d be safe in Pakistan.”

  “I’m working on it,” Rencke said. “But keep this phone with you.” He had another thought. “Are you armed? Do you have a weapon?”

  “No,” Gloria said tightly.

  “Just get him outta there,” Rencke said.

  The map came up on the sat phone’s display. She saved it, broke the connection, then picked up the hotel phone and called the front desk.

  “Good evening, Mrs. McGarvey,” the clerk answered pleasantly.

  “I need a car out front right now,” Gloria said.

  “Madam, at this hour that will be difficult—”

  “Now!” Gloria shrilled, and she slammed the phone down.

  She hurriedly went through McGarvey’s luggage, finding his kit of money and passports, but no weapons, or anything else that couldn’t be left behind. If she could get to him in time, and pull him out of Fish Harbor, they would not be returning to the hotel, and she didn’t want to leave anything incriminating behind.

  The lobby was practically deserted at this hour. Two women in maid’s uniforms were emptying ashtrays, cleaning tables, and polishing furniture and accessories, while an old man vacuumed the large Persian carpets. There were no hotel guests except for Gloria, who went directly across to the registration counter, where a young man in a smart blue blazer was just getting off the phone.

  “Did you get me a car?” Gloria demanded.

  “Yes, of course, Mrs. McGarvey. It will be delivered in front very soon. It is coming from the airport.”

  “Fine,” Gloria said. She turned on her heel and stormed across the lobby to the broad automatic doors. There was no bellman on duty this late, and very little traffic on the street. The night air was warm and humid with a mix of unusual odors. Maybe frying fish, she thought, but rancid.

  She had been stupid to let him go on his own without backup. It was one of the lessons they’d drummed into her head at the Farm. In these types of operations rely on your partner, and make sure that he can rely on you. Be there.

  At the very least she should have arranged for another car and followed him. She’d lost a husband, and then a partner because she hadn’t kept her eye on the ball. She had failed both of them. She wasn’t about to fail again.

  A dark blue battered Toyota van came up the street at a high rate of speed and at the last minute swerved into the hotel’s driveway. For an insane second Gloria thought that it was what the stupid hotel clerk had rented for her, but then she realized that she was probably in trouble and she stepped back.

  The driver screeched to a halt, the side door crashed open, and three men, balaclavas covering their faces, leaped out and rushed her.

  She had a split instant to see that only one of the three was armed, a Kalashnikov held tightly against his chest, and make a decision. They were here to kidnap her, not kill her, which gave her the momentary advantage.

  She moved away from the man on her right, and stepped directly toward the armed kidnapper, who’d expected her to try to run away, not attack.

  He started to bring his rifle around, but Gloria stiff-armed him to the throat with her fist, driving him backwards, nearly off his feet, and crushing his windpipe.

  The man on her left spun around and grabbed her by the neck, pulling her
back. But she snatched the rifle and swung the butt stock under her arm, connecting solidly with the kidnapper’s ribs. He released his hold and fell to his knees.

  The third man had pulled up short and was reaching in his jacket, when Gloria brought the rifle around, switched the safety catch off, and brought her finger to the trigger.

  “Don’t,” she warned.

  He yanked what might have been a boxy Glock pistol out of his jacket and started to aim it at Gloria, when she pulled off a single round, hitting him in the middle of the chest, the rifle bucking strongly in her arms, the noise shockingly loud under the hotel driveway canopy.

  The kidnapper was slammed backwards off his feet, and even before he hit the pavement Gloria turned toward the van. She reached the open door in a couple of steps at the same time the driver realized that the kidnapping had failed, and he turned back to the wheel to drive away.

  “Get out of the van!” Gloria screeched.

  The driver looked over his shoulder, directly into the muzzle of the AK-47 Gloria was pointing at him.

  “Get out of the van!” Gloria shouted again. “Now!”

  The driver shoved open his door, leaped out of the van, and headed down the long driveway in a dead run.

  Before he reached the street, Gloria had climbed inside the van, scrambled up to the driver’s seat, and laid the Kalashnikov on the hump between the seats. She slammed the Toyota in gear and burned rubber down the driveway and out to the street, passing the frightened driver who looked over his shoulder as she raced by.

  I’m on my way, darling, Gloria thought, as she turned the corner at the end of the block and headed toward Fish Harbor.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  It was after two in the afternoon in Washington when Dick Adkins arrived at the White House. After he signed in, and his attaché case was scanned, he was escorted back to the Oval Office by the president’s chief of staff, Cal Beckett.