“We must leave here, Osama,” Bahmad said, joining him on the cushions. Bin Laden poured him a glass of tea with shaking hands.
“Soon,” bin Laden said. “But for us there will be different paths.”
Bin Laden’s manner and speech were formal, which was worrisome to Bahmad. The man was coming unglued. There was a holy zeal in his eyes. He’d seen the same look in the eyes of mujahedeen about to go off on suicide missions with ten kilos of plastique strapped to their chests. “I have always followed your orders faithfully.”
“Yes, you have. And now I am sending you out on one last mission.”
“Are you asking me to throw away my life?”
Bin Laden shook his head. “No, my old friend. But you will have to be very clever to walk away from this one. And where you will go afterwards will be up to you. Once your assignment is completed, you will be on your own.” Bin Laden managed a small, coy smile despite his obvious physical and mental pain. “I think that you miss London.”
“There are some aspects of life in the West that I have enjoyed,” Bahmad admitted. “But no place might be safe for me if you want me to do what I think you want.”
“Are you a mind reader?”
“No, a loyal servant.”
“Of me, or of the cause?” bin Laden asked sharply. He glanced at Sarah’s body.
“I’ve never known the difference.”
Bin Laden might not have heard him. “It will be another burden for her mother to bear. So many burdens, so much pain. But she understands the jihad.” He looked back in anguish. “She must!”
“The most difficult pain for a mother to bear,” Bahmad offered gently. He thought about his own mother who had been mercifully spared that pain, though she had endured others. Because of the West.
A silence fell between them. The hiss of the gas lanterns was the only sound to be heard. After the missile strike the quiet was almost shocking.
“Kirk McGarvey must not be allowed to leave Afghanistan alive,” bin Laden said after a minute. “Have you received word from Hamed?”
“I gave him orders to kill McGarvey, but he is out of radio range now, so there is no way of knowing if he succeeded until he returns.”
“What if he reaches Kabul?”
“I have made arrangements.”
“There must be no mistakes.”
“Not this time.”
Bin Laden nodded his satisfaction. “Sarah told me that she and McGarvey spoke about his daughter. She works for the CIA.”
“She also mentioned it to me. But we knew about his background.”
“Her name is Elizabeth.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to kill her,” bin Laden said in a gentle voice. “After Mr. McGarvey, she will be your first priority.”
Bahmad hid his surprise. “There is no reason for that, Osama,” he said carefully. “Her father came here on a dangerous mission to find you and lead the missile attack. Killing him can be viewed as an act of war. Killing his daughter will be taken as nothing more than a senseless act of vengeance.”
“You had Trumble and his family killed.”
“That was to send the CIA the message that we were serious. It guaranteed that someone such as McGarvey would come.”
“Will you do it?” bin Laden asked simply.
“Killing her would be a criminal waste of time and resources. Every American law enforcement agency would go on a worldwide alert of such intensity that no place would be safe. She is an innocent—”
“There are no innocents,” bin Laden raised his voice. “You will show them that. You will teach the entire world.”
Bahmad lowered his eyes. Not out of deference, but because he knew what else was coming. He’d known for several months, the realization coming to him on the day he learned about the bomb, about bin Laden’s illness and about the final deal bin Laden had wanted to make with the West, with the nuclear weapon as the ultimate bargaining chip. He’d known that negotiating could not succeed. And he’d begun to work out a plan that he’d sincerely hoped he would never have to implement. Nevertheless he had started putting things in place in the U.S., renewing old contacts there and in London, Paris and Berlin. Phone calls, promises, threats. The only surprise now was going after McGarvey’s daughter. It would present certain problems.
“Will you do it?” bin Laden asked again.
“Yes.”
A new, even more intense light came into bin Laden’s eyes. “Then there will be the final act of retribution,” he said softly. “Joshua’s hammer.”
When the realization had come to him that they would use the nuclear weapon in some way to strike against America, Bahmad had gone searching for the right target at the right time. An air burst over Washington during a joint session of Congress would certainly never be forgotten so long as there was a civilized world. Nor would it be forgotten if the bomb were to be detonated in front of the White House, killing the President and his staff. An air burst over the financial center in New York would disrupt the Americans’ capitalist hold on the world, as an airburst over a small Midwestern town would disrupt the average American’s feelings of safety and invulnerability; the bomb at the Murrah Federal Building had done just that to the nation, though on a much smaller scale. But he came finally to the notion that what would strike the most fear in Americans’ hearts would be an attack on what was most precious and sacred to them: their children. He had not foreseen Sarah’s death, nor had he envisioned going after McGarvey’s daughter. But he had come up with a plan to do the one thing that would not be forgotten in a thousand years. Thinking about the plan he had devised, he could see that there was a certain symmetry between it and what bin Laden had ordered him to do. Sarah had been murdered by the Americans. In retaliation bin Laden wanted McGarvey’s daughter assassinated, and he was now ready to use the nuclear weapon.
“This will be very expensive,” Bahmad said. “Not only in terms of money, but in terms of men.”
“This will be my last blow. Time is running out for me.” Bin Laden gave him a sad, knowing smile. “But I think you already guessed.”
“Cancer?”
Bin Laden nodded. “Unless there is a miracle I have one year.” He looked at Sarah’s shrouded body. “I want America to feel the same pain I am feeling at this moment.”
“If we do this thing your name will not be respected,” Bahmad warned. “You will be vilified not only in the West, but among Muslims as well.”
Bin Laden’s gaze hardened. “But I will be remembered.”
“Indeed you will.”
Bin Laden thought about it for a long time, and when he looked up once more his resolve was as clear on his face as his pain. “How do we proceed?”
“Give me a minute and I will show you.” Bahmad got up and went to his sleeping quarters off the operations center near the back of the cave. He lit one of the gas lamps and went to a four-drawer file cabinet, which he unlocked. The room was austere, only the bare rock floor, a small cot, a writing table and the file cabinet. There was nothing on the walls, no photographs or pictures; no rugs or vases, nothing to mark that anyone had lived here on and off for more than a year. But since Beirut, Bahmad had been a man who carried all of his decorations and mementoes in his brain.
He took a thick manila envelope out of the top drawer and relocked the file cabinet. He’d been an avid reader for a long time, a habit he had developed in England working for the SIS. Part of his job had been to read all the newspapers, journals and magazines coming out of the Middle East, and read transcripts from television and radio broadcasts, as well as from intercepted military and diplomatic traffic. He’d developed an insatiable appetite for news of what was going on in the world. Here in the mountains it had been fantastically difficult to keep abreast of what was happening in the outside world, but he had managed to have a weekly package of newspapers and magazines from around the world brought up here. And he consumed all the international news as it was presented, with differen
t spins in the major newspapers of a dozen different countries. He had time to think, to plan, to let his mind soar wherever it would; to make connections where seemingly there were none; to make associations where none were apparent; and to draw out scenarios based on what he had learned.
Holding the envelope containing his planning details, he wondered why he had taken this notion as far as he had. Most of his ideas were just that, nothing but ideas. Way too fantastically difficult or even horrible to consider. But this idea had stuck with him, for some reason, and the operation would be his very last. With bin Laden dead, however, Bahmad would be set financially for the rest of his life. If he could pull this last thing off and get away, he had the numbers for a dozen of bin Laden’s secret off-shore bank accounts worth somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred million dollars. Enough to last any man a lifetime in luxury. And with bin Laden gone there would be no one to come after him.
Returning to the main chamber where bin Laden was waiting, Bahmad stopped a moment in the corridor. One last time he asked himself if he should go through with this. The idea was so monstrous that it had taken even his breath away when it had come to him. But years of hate had burned out whatever conscience he’d ever had. Yasir Arafat had fed into it, used it, just as bin Laden had, so that now even the bizarre seemed ordinary to him. Human life did not mean to him now what it had when he was a child.
The problem, he thought, walking into the main chamber, would be fitting the plan with Elizabeth McGarvey’s assassination. For that he would need a diversion, and even before he sat down beside bin Laden it came to him; the entire thing in perfect detail, and he smiled. It would only take a few more phone calls and a transfer of some funds to the proper accounts.
“I see that you have already given this some thought,” bin Laden said.
“Yes, I have.” Bahmad opened the envelope and took out several articles that he had clipped from the New York Times, Washington Post and San Francisco Examiner three months ago. He handed them to bin Laden.
“I will read these later—” bin Laden said, but then a photograph of a pretty young woman in the lead article caught his attention. He drew a sudden, sharp breath and looked up, a sense of wonder on his face.
“She would be the target,” Bahmad said.
Bin Laden’s mind was racing a thousand miles per hour. “But not the President?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Not the President,” bin Laden said forcefully. He studied the photograph. “I want him to feel the same grief I am feeling. A father’s grief when his daughter is killed in front of his eyes. It must be done that way.”
“The target will be Deborah Haynes, the President’s daughter.”
Bin Laden sat back and closed his eyes. “You would use a nuclear weapon to kill one person?”
“No, there would be many others. Perhaps two thousand, probably even more than that.”
“Tell me.”
“The President’s daughter is mildly retarded, which makes the fact of her innocence without argument. America loves her as they love their President. Every father can have sympathy for the family. For what they will go through. But America is also very proud of her. Besides being beautiful, she is talented. She is a gymnast and a long-distance runner.”
Bin Laden opened his eyes. “I didn’t know that.”
“Three months from now, in September, Deborah Haynes is going to take part in the International Special Olympics in San Francisco. After the opening ceremonies in Candlestick Park, she, and perhaps as many as fifteen hundred other handicapped runners, is going to compete in a half-marathon. From the park she’ll cross the Golden Gate Bridge and head to Sausalito, but she’ll never get that far. Joshua’s Hammer will be aboard a ship passing beneath the bridge. At the moment Deborah Haynes is in the middle of the bridge the bomb will explode.”
For just a moment a touch of sanity crossed bin Laden’s face and he looked away, his eyes coming to rest on his daughter’s shrouded body.
“There’ll be no going back to the old ways for any of us,” Bahmad warned.
“It will be no mere footnote in the history books,” bin Laden said softly. “Unlike Sarah’s murder.” He turned back. “Where will you go afterwards?”
“I have a place in mind,” Bahmad said. The money he already had would be sufficient to gain him the safe haven. And once he had raided bin Laden’s accounts, he would buy a large ranch inland. He’d thought about raising horses, perhaps even sugarcane. Legitimate pursuits. He would never be able to travel again, but then with what he had in mind there would be no need. He would trade his career as a terrorist for one of a gentleman farmer.
“When we leave here we will never see or hear from each other again.”
“Where will you go, Osama?”
Bin Laden said nothing, and after a few moments of silence, Bahmad nodded.
“It’s just as well that I don’t know. But we need to be gone from here within the next twenty-four hours, no longer.”
“Do you have a plan for transporting the bomb to California?”
“Yes, but for that I will need your help. Four of your most trusted mujahedeen need to move it out of here, and your international connections to get me a cargo ship.”
A sudden understanding dawned in bin Laden’s eyes. “It’s why you insisted on camouflaging it in that package. It will be—”
Bahmad held up a hand. “No one must know about this except for us, Osama. Not your mujahedeen who will transport the device, and certainly not the ship captain or his crew.” He took the newspaper articles from bin Laden’s hand, and dropped them onto the live coals in the brazier. The paper flared up, and Bahmad took the rest of the planning documents, maps, photographs, notes and timetables out of the manila envelope and fed them to the fire too. Lastly he dropped the envelope into the flames. He knew everything by heart.
They watched in silence until there was nothing left but ashes, which Bahmad stirred with a small wooden-handle rake.
“Insha’Allah,” bin Laden said.
Bahmad held his piece. But no, he thought. In this instance he didn’t believe that Allah or God would play any part, because this act would be too bloody even for them.
SIXTEEN
The White House
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.” The President’s press secretary Sterling Mott stepped aside and the Washington press corps got to its feet as President Haynes strode purposefully into the map room and took his place at the podium. He’d brought no notes, and when he looked into the television cameras his manner was stern but forthright.
“Here’s a man with a clear conscience,” the AP political analyst said to the ABC newswoman seated beside him, which elicited a chuckle.
“For several years the United States has offered a five million dollar reward for the capture of the Saudi Arabian terrorist, Osama bin Laden,” the President began. “Since the bombing of a Saudi National Guard Post in Riyadh in 1996 in which five Americans were killed, bin Laden has been directly or indirectly tied to numerous other terrorist acts in which hundreds of Americans and thousands of other innocent civilians were brutally killed or injured.”
The President paused. “Dahran, Kenya, Tanzania and even New York City … bin Laden has waged his war of terror against the West—against specifically the United States and all Americans—for a very long and bloody time.
“In 1998 he made it perfectly clear to the world that it was every Muslim’s duty to kill Americans and our allies, both civilian and military, wherever and whenever possible.
“Under the banner that he calls Al Qaeda, or the Base, he has systematically recruited three kinds of people—those who were failures and had nothing else in their lives, no jobs, no families, no prospects for the future; those who love Islam but have no real idea what the Koran teaches; and finally those who know nothing but fighting and killing—professional terrorists.
“In August of 1998, President Clinton ordered missi
le strikes at bin Laden’s camps near the town of Khost in northeastern Afghanistan, and at a bin Laden-financed chemical weapons factory in Khartoum. All the targets were heavily damaged or completely destroyed, seriously affecting bin Laden’s ability to wage his war of terrorism against us.”
The President paused again to gauge the effect that his words were having.
“Although bin Laden escaped personal injury, we thought that such an attack would make him think twice about continuing what he calls his jihad—or, holy war. But we were mistaken.
“Over the past months our intelligence agencies have been engaged in what we thought was a meaningful dialogue with bin Laden. We acted in good faith, agreeing to lift the bounty on him, to negotiate with the government of Saudi Arabia for the repatriation of his family, and certain other considerations that we felt would put an end to the killings.
“Bin Laden responded in a very clear, very concise and very deadly manner. Two weeks ago, gunmen, under the direct orders of bin Laden, shot to death a State Department employee, Allen Trumble, his wife and two children along with two bystanders in the parking lot of EPCOT Center in Orlando, Florida.”
That got everybody’s attention and two dozen hands shot up, but the President held them off.
“I ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to withhold the essential facts of the attack until we were certain who was behind it. When we had concrete evidence laying the crime on bin Laden’s doorstep, we continued to withhold the announcement while we considered an appropriate response.”
A heavy silence fell over the room. All eyes and cameras were on the President.
“Yesterday, after a week-long series of meetings with my National Security Council, I ordered our armed forces to strike at bin Laden’s primary camp in the mountains of Afghanistan, eighty miles north of the capital city Kabul.”
The announcement answered the questions about anti-American rioting in Kabul that had begun this morning. Until now the White House had stonewalled the issue.
“In addition to the incident in Orlando, our intelligence services confirmed the strong likelihood that bin Laden was planning another, even more deadly attack against Americans on U.S. soil. I cannot share all the details with you at this time because of national security concerns, but we believe that if such an attack were brought against us the loss of lives would be staggering. It would be a far worse tragedy than anything bin Laden has engineered to date.”
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