But it was difficult, and maybe even impossible, for him to let go of the hate and fear and even shame that he had carried deep inside of him for so long.
He closed his eyes for a moment. The woman’s name was Lynn Larkin, and she worked for the CIA as a field agent, though her being in Afghanistan was insanity. Most of the time she hid her identity as a woman as she went from the site of one firefight to another, bringing the latest intelligence information on Russian positions and troop movements to the freedom fighters. When she was in Kabul she wore the proper clothing, and although there were rumors, no one knew for sure that Lynn Larkin, the woman in Kabul, was the same person as Lawrence Larsen, the CIA spy in the field.
It was during the battle for Charikar that bin Laden came head-to-head with her. He wanted to attack the city because he had a gut feeling that the attack would be successful. The troops he was leading had had no clearcut victories in several months, and they were beginning to question the Saudi rich kid’s abilities as a battlefield commander. The CIA, however, advised against the attack. The city was too well fortified. The Russians had secretly brought in extra troops and heavy guns over the past several days in anticipation of just such an attack.
“You’ll get yourself and your men killed if you go in there now,” the woman insisted.
She was right, and bin Laden was wrong. In the attack he’d lost eighteen out of twenty of his men, and would have been killed himself except that the woman had crawled across a hundred meters of no man’s land in the middle of the night, and half-dragged, half-carried him back to safety.
“You stupid fool,” she said, bandaging his wounds. In the fight she’d lost her hat, and her blond hair fell around her ears and forehead revealing who she was.
Bin Laden remembered the deep, deep shame he’d felt at that moment. The other two men who’d she’d brought back started to laugh, and something snapped inside of him. He pulled out his pistol and shot both of them in the head, killing them instantly.
Lynn Larkin reared back and struggled to reach her gun as bin Laden turned his pistol on her and shot her point-blank in the face.
Before morning he burned her body, and then walked twenty kilometers to the nearest enclave of freedom fighters where he told them that the CIA had betrayed them, and that the Russians weren’t their only enemy. The Americans in fact were worse.
He opened his eyes. A slight sheen of sweat dampened his forehead from the pain of his illness, and from the pain of his humiliation.
He approached the container, dragging his left leg behind him. The legend stenciled on the top cover was in English. Written below that was MADE IN CHINA. That brought a smile to his lips. Life was a matter of interpretation, he’d come to understand in the last year. It was nothing more than a mirror reflection of their everlasting existence in heaven; a wonderous gift not to be taken lightly. It was to be appreciated, to be honored. He’d sometimes seen that idea reflected in the eyes of his wives and children, but he’d never seen it so strongly and so fiercely proud as he saw it in the eyes of Sarah.
He closed his eyes again, and his lips compressed in pain. How to reconcile the jihad with her smile? How to understand Mohammed Toorak’s brutal attack on her body? Or McGarvey’s actions at the river. Believe in me and I will be your salvation. Sarah had been wrong to expose herself so wantonly. But Mohammed had twisted their religion to justify his animal lust. And McGarvey had acted … how, bin Laden asked himself. Like a father? Would he have done the same thing if it had been McGarvey’s daughter? It was a question that he could not answer, because Sarah was much more than just a daughter to him; when he looked at her it was as if he were looking into the mirror image of himself.
Of all his children she was the only one who had remained at his side without question since his name had been linked to terrorism. Even when he said publicly that all Americans should be killed whenever and wherever they could be found, she did not turn away from him. Never once had he seen a questioning look in her eyes for something he’d said or done. She was his flesh and blood by birth, but she was also his flesh and blood by word and deed, right down to the bottom of her heart and soul.
When she was twelve in Khartoum, bin Laden had called her to his sitting room to punish her. Her brother, Sa’lid had caught her reading a years-old issue of an American teen magazine called Tiger Beat, and brought the magazine to their father.
When she came into the room she bowed her head, but there was a look of defiance on her face. Bin Laden held up the magazine.
“Is this yours?” he demanded.
She raised her eyes. “Obviously,” she told him, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
For a moment a black rage threatened to blot out his sanity. But then he regained his control. “Where did you get it?”
She said nothing, but she didn’t look away.
“You will answer me.”
She shook her head.
“What did you expect to learn from this filth?” he demanded, “Tell me at least that much.”
“The truth.”
“The truth,” bin Laden muttered. He was amazed. “What truth?”
“There are no Godless heathens in that magazine. No murderers of Muslims. No Jews. Only children like me having fun—”
“Stop!” bin Laden roared. “You know nothing about the truth.” He threw down the magazine, picked up the long, whippy willow stick lying beside him and went to her. She looked up at him, no fear, only rebellion in her eyes. “You will tell me the name of the person who gave you the magazine.”
“No, Father,” she said.
Bin Laden pulled her around by the arm, and struck her in the backs of her legs with the willow stick. She took a half-step forward, but she did not cry out.
“The name,” he said, but she did not answer him, so he struck her again on the backs of the legs, and then on her buttocks, and back, and legs again. He was crazy with rage and with fear that he was losing the most precious thing in his life to the very system he had dedicated his life to destroying.
She was wearing a white chador. Bin Laden’s upraised hand stopped in midswing. There was blood on her back. He let go of her arm and stepped back, aghast at what he had done to his child. In the name of Allah, he had hurt her.
She looked up at him. “I’m not afraid of the truth, Father,” she said in a very strong voice. “Are you?”
He lowered his hand, and let the willow stick fall to the floor. “No, child, I am not afraid of the truth,” he answered. An overwhelming shame for what he had done, and tenderness for his daughter came over him. He wanted to protect her, and all he had done was cause her pain.
He held out his arms for her, and without a moment’s hesitation she came to him and he held her close.
“I’m sorry, Father,” she sobbed.
“Don’t be,” he comforted her. “But I want you to be wary of the truth—or what seems to be the truth—until you are old enough and wise enough to recognize lies for what they are.”
“Yes, Father,” she said. “I’ll try.”
Bin Laden opened his eyes. Nothing was ever more clear to him than his love for his daughter, then or now. Yet at this moment he felt as if he was seeing everything with a crystal purity, something never possible before. Years ago the infidel British philosopher Bertrand Russell said that for centuries we’ve been told that God can move mountains, and a lot of people believed it. Nowadays we say that atomic bombs can move mountains and everybody believes it.
What did he believe, bin Laden asked himself. What was the truth this time? The gates to Paradise were never more bright, but the path never more dark.
Laying his cane aside, and awkwardly holding the flashlight under his right arm, he undid the four catches at the corners of the container, removed the top cover and laid it on the floor. He unfolded the thick rubber and fabric covering, exposing an inner aluminum cover. This he unlocked with a four-digit code on a keypad. The panel swung open, revealing four metal catches, which he slid
back, releasing the top of the case. He pulled this off with some difficulty because it was heavy, and set it on the floor.
He was sure that he could feel the heat coming off the exposed mechanism now, even though he knew it was just his imagination. In this state the nuclear weapon was perfectly harmless; cool to the touch, leaking no radiation, impossible to accidentally detonate, and just as impossible to detect by any means other than disassembly.
Most of the device was shrouded by sealed covers, only some brightly colored wires came together in neatly bound thick bundles to the control mechanism, which was about the size of a hardcover book, attached to the lower right córner of the inner case. A display screen with room for twelve digits and symbols topped what appeared to be the keypad for an advanced scientific calculator. The first code activated the control circuitry. The second code determined how the weapon was to be fired: by a direct timer with as much as a thirty-six-hour delay; by a remote control device that could, depending on conditions, be effective up to five miles away; or by an incoming signal to the weapon’s on-board satellite receiver. The frequency, duration and built-in code in the remote firing signal could be determined by the weapon’s keypad.
Complicated, but exquisitely failsafe and simple. Once the weapon was activated nothing could stop it.
Bin Laden’s eyes strayed to the metal identification plate to the right of the keypad. On it was stamped the serial number and the factory where the bomb had been assembled.
The irony would have been sweet, he told himself. And this would have been only the first of many blows. But he was getting tired of the fight, and he felt a deep sense of awe and even dread standing this close to so much power He was going to have many difficulties convincing the others of his change of heart. But in time they too would come to see the wisdom of his decision.
He reassembled the bomb case, making sure that all the locks and catches were firmly in place, then picked up his cane and headed back. Deep down he felt a sense of failure, and yet he was looking forward to the new challenge. He didn’t have much time left so he would have to work hard to convince a skeptical world that all he wanted was a Muslim peace. And he would have to work even harder to control his hate, which at times threatened to block out all reason and sanity. But it could be done, because it had to be done.
The grotto was nearly a half-kilometer into the mountainside, so it took him almost ten minutes to make his way to the front chambers. It was two in the morning and everyone but a few guards were down for the night. He felt a little sorrow for his men, most of whom would have nowhere to go after he quit. Some of them would probably join the rebels in the north to fight the Taliban. But for many of them there would be nothing. They would be disappointed, even angry, but it could not be helped.
“Insha’Allah,” he murmured softly. He switched off the flashlight, pocketed it and shuffled down the final tunnel to the opening in the hillside. He needed fresh air after the confines of the cave.
The two guards outside were wrapped in blankets against the chill night air. When bin Laden appeared they started to get up, but he waved them down.
“All is quiet tonight?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” one of them replied.
They were safe here, yet bin Laden, out of long habit, studied the brilliant sky for the fast moving pinpoint of light from a satellite passing overhead, even though he knew that the next one wasn’t due for another two hours. They’d learned to time their movements by the satellite passes, and schedule their most important work for when the skies were overcast and the satellites were blind.
Someone came out from the medical hut and started up the hill. Instinctively bin Laden stepped back inside the cave, his eyes narrowing as he watched the man approach. But then he recognized it was his chief of staff and he relaxed.
Ali Bahmad, whose voice had oftentimes been the only one of reason, had surprisingly been against opening negotiations with the Americans. He predicted it would lead to more trouble than they could imagine. His predictions were disturbing, all the more so because Bahmad had worked in the West, and he knew the Western mind as well as any Muslim could.
As bin Laden watched Bahmad make his way up the hill he realized that after eight years he really didn’t know his chief of staff as well as he should. Brilliant, highly trained, capable, efficient, but as cold as the winds off the high peaks of the Hindu Kush. And yet bin Laden had seen Bahmad do so many little kindnesses for the few children in the camp, and especially for Sarah. She was smitten by him because he had lived in the West and wasn’t afraid of it like so many others here. They would sometimes sit for hours talking about London and Washington where Bahmad had once been stationed with the British Secret Intelligence Service.
Bin Laden had also listened to Bahmad play the violin; his long, delicately thin, perfectly manicured fingers caressing the strings as if they were a woman’s thighs. Yet for all his talents, including combat training, and his ruthlessness—it was he who had ordered and engineered the killings of Allen Trumble and his family—Bahmad could have passed for a shopkeeper almost anywhere in the world. His skin was pale, his English perfect, and his mannerisms Western. Quiet, mild, even studious looking, he was very short, with plain features, a round undistinguished face, balding, with a slight paunch, he posed no threat to anyone.
Born of an Egyptian mother and a Yemeni father, he was in his forties now, but he came up the hill with the grace of a gazelle, his movements like everything else about him, surprisingly swift and sure.
He’d been educated at the American University in Beirut, but after his parents had been killed in an Israeli bombing raid, he’d slipped out of the city to work with a PLO cell. After a couple of years of killing silently in the night, he came to the attention of Yasir Arafat who recognized not only his unique intelligence and special skills, but his burning drive and utter fearlessness. Bahmad was the perfect soldier.
Two years after that, he showed up suddenly at Oxford on beautifully forged papers with a solid background, where he studied for and received his degree in Middle East studies. He was recruited by British intelligence right out of school, and for a few years he worked in London as an analyst. In the late eighties he was sent to the U.S. on an exchange program to work for the CIA and National Security Agency, generating Middle East position papers for the National Security Council.
But then he resigned, and quietly slipped back to Lebanon and Arafat when he felt that some uncomfortable questions were about to be asked of him. Besides, he admitted to Arafat, he felt that he could do more for the PLO than simply pass along intelligence information.
The fact of the matter, Arafat told bin Laden, was that Bahmad wanted to kill people. He needed to kill, perhaps as a retribution for his parents’ murders.
But because of the Camp David Accords and other agreements, Arafat’s position on the West began to soften, and he no longer had need for men such as Bahmad. The feeling was mutual. It was then, after the Russians had pulled out of Afghanistan, and the Soviet Union had disintegrated, that bin Laden had quietly recruited him. Since that time Bahmad had been the mastermind behind every terrorist attack that the West blamed on bin Laden. But his planning had been so good that no Western police agency had ever been able to come up with solid proof that bin Laden had been behind any of the attacks. Nor did any Western intelligence agency know about Bahmad’s connection, or even his existence: His death had been faked in an Israeli raid in Lebanon.
Bin Laden stepped out of the cave as Bahmad reached the entrance. “You’re up late tonight.”
“So are you,” Bahmad said mildly. “Your toy is still safe?”
Bin Laden nodded. “Is everything all right?”
Bahmad glanced at the guards, his expression bland, as if he was a tailor measuring them for suits. “It’s a good thing for us that I didn’t destroy McGarvey’s satellite phone as you ordered. He’s going to need it. The transmitter we took out of his body no longer works.”
Bin Laden
’s jaw tightened. “What happened to it?”
“The stupid doctor admitted he dropped it on the floor.”
“The American monitors will believe that it has malfunctioned, either that or it’s out of range, its signal blocked. Where is the problem?”
“The problem is, Osama, that there is a third possibility they may be considering,” Bahmad said cooly. “McGarvey may have been killed, his body destroyed and the transmitter with it. But the exact location of this installation has already been pinpointed to within a couple of meters.” He shrugged. “They know exactly where you are, and for whatever the reason McGarvey is no longer a consideration for them. Do you see where I am taking this?”
“He came here to bargain with me, not lead an attack.”
Bahmad smiled slightly. “It was really quite brilliant of you to give them that serial number. It got their attention. But now they will do anything to stop you from using it. If they believe McGarvey is dead, they’ll try to kill you.”
“Send someone after McGarvey.”
“I already have. But the transmitter has been down four hours now, I think that we should leave immediately, at least until we get word that McGarvey has made his call.”
“Do you expect me to scurry off someplace else to hide?” bin Laden demanded.
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”
“I’ll go back to my quarters—”
“McGarvey’s device transmitted the exact coordinates of this very spot. Their smart bombs are accurate enough to come right down the tunnel. You would die, and the cave would be sealed for all time.”
“Send Sarah to me, we’ll talk.”
“Sarah is gone,” Bahmad said.
“Gone? Where?”
“She was worried about Mohammed, so she decided to go with them at least part of the way.”
“And you let her go?” bin Laden roared
Bahmad was unmoved. “You have very little control over your daughter, what do you expect of me?” His expression softened. “If something were to happen here tonight she’s better off away from the camp. I sent one of my men after them. He’ll get word to McGarvey and bring Sarah back here.”
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