Joshua's Hammer

by David Hagberg

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe he’d still listen to you if you could reach him.”

  McGarvey looked at his daughter with a sudden overwhelming love and fear. He’d gotten inside bin Laden’s skin for a few minutes up there in his mountain cave. Or at least he thought he had. But just now, just at this moment, looking at his daughter, he was sure that he really understood bin Laden. Understood a father’s anguish.

  “If his people had killed you I wouldn’t listen to him,” McGarvey said softly. “He’s coming after us now with everything he has. And it’s going to hurt.”

  Fanaticism is a monster that could tear a society apart, Voltaire wrote two hundred fifty years ago, and it was just as true now as it had been then. “The fanatic is under the influence of a madness which is constantly goading him on.”

  A daughter’s death at the hands of the infidels was the ultimate goad.

  CIA Headquarters

  McGarvey walked into his office a few minutes before eight. His daughter accompanied him. Now that he was back and he had found out about Sarah’s death, he had an unreasoning fear for Elizabeth’s safety even here in the building. His secretary wasn’t here yet, and he had a full plate so he could justify keeping her by his side, even though her job was in Rencke’s section.

  He took off the blue jacket the air force had loaned him, tossed it on the couch and went to his desk, which was loaded with memos, telephone messages and mail.

  “Get your mother on the phone, would you?” McGarvey asked his daughter. “And then have Otto come up.”

  “Do you want some coffee, Dad?” Elizabeth asked, a secret smile on her lips.

  “When you get a chance.” McGarvey turned on his computer, and as it was coming on-line he called Adkins’s office next door. “I’m back.”

  “You’re supposed to be in the hospital.”

  “Thanks, I’m glad to be back too,” McGarvey said with a chuckle. An outside line on his phone console began to blink, and Elizabeth motioned to him that it was her mother. “I want a meeting at eleven in the main auditorium with all our DO and DI department heads, the FBI’s counterterrorism people, INS, State, the DoD, Defense Intelligence, the bomb people over at the ATF, Doug Brand—the new chief of Interpol—and anyone else you can think of.”

  “He’s coming after us.”

  “No doubt about it, Dick,” McGarvey said. “As soon as you set that up come on over, we have some work to do.”

  “Will do,” Adkins said. “It is good to have you here, Mac, as long as you don’t push yourself.”

  “Yeah, right,” McGarvey said. He broke the connection, and before he picked up the outside line he asked Elizabeth to call Dave Whittaker up. Whittaker was the DO’s Area Divisions chief in charge of all the foreign desks at Langley as well as all the Agency’s bases and stations worldwide. He punched the button for the outside line. “Hi, Katy.”

  “Welcome home, darling,” Kathleen said. “How are you?” Her voice was soft and wonderful. McGarvey couldn’t help but smile.

  “I’m a little battered and bruised, but it’s nothing life-threatening, so you can stop worrying about me.”

  “I worry about you even when you’re in my arms,” Kathleen said. “Are you going to be able to get out of there sometime in the near future?”

  “Tonight. And that’s a promise.”

  “Shall I wait supper?”

  “I might be late.”

  Now Kathleen laughed. “What’s new,” she said. “I’ll start something around eight.”

  Rencke walked in, his red hair flying all over the place, his eyes red and puffy. It looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week, but he was excited.

  “Gotta go, Katy,” McGarvey said. “Love ya.”

  “I know,” Kathleen said, and McGarvey broke the connection. He’d never understood that response before, but now he did, and it felt great.

  “Oh, wow, Mac, am I ever glad to see you,” Rencke gushed. “Big time.” He hopped from one foot to the other, as he did whenever he was happy.

  “I’m glad to see you too, pal,” McGarvey said. “But you look worse than I do. When’s the last time you got any sleep?”

  Rencke completely ignored the question. “We’ve wiped out bin Laden’s daughter, and guess what? That makes him one motivated dude.”

  “He’s also very well informed,” McGarvey said. He told Rencke about the meeting with bin Laden in the cave, including the fact they knew all about the GPS chip. “He could have an informer somewhere inside the NRO.”

  “Hackers,” Rencke said dreamily. He was making connections. His eyes went to the computer on McGarvey’s side desk. “The Taliban phoned Riyadh Ops and told them to send the C-130 an hour early or not at all,” he said softly. “And when it was taxiing away from the terminal they came after it.” Rencke focused on McGarvey. “Don’t you see, Mac, they were expecting you, and they’d been asked to stop you. By bin Laden. He’s into everything. He has connections everywhere because he’s rich, ya know?”

  “We have to stop them from getting into our system,” McGarvey said.

  “I’ll work on it,” Rencke replied absently. He came around behind McGarvey’s desk and studied the menu displayed on the computer. “Have you logged in yet?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if they’re in the system there’s no use letting them know that you’ve survived and that you’re back to work.” Rencke shut off the computer and went back to the front of desk where he stood like a schoolboy who has just done a tough problem on the blackboard. “It might give us a small advantage,” he said.

  “Good point,” McGarvey agreed. “Has there been any word from bin Laden or his people about the raid?”

  “Not so much as a peep,” Elizabeth said. “I have a half-dozen search engines going on the Net, but we’ve come up empty-handed so far.” Elizabeth looked perplexed. “But I don’t get it, Dad. You’d think he would want to get the maximum mileage from his daughter’s death. I mean guys like that usually take advantage of anything that comes their way. Something like the evil empire killing innocent women and children. Something. Anything.”

  “Would bin Laden know for certain that we knew his daughter had been killed?” McGarvey asked.

  “He could know our satellite schedule,” Rencke said. “But if we don’t issue an apology, something he might expect us to do, there’s no way for him to know for sure.”

  McGarvey turned back to his daughter. “Do you mention her death in your search engines?”

  Elizabeth shook her head uncertainly. “No.”

  “Okay, that’s one piece of information we won’t put out,” McGarvey said.

  Understanding dawned on Elizabeth’s face. “He figures that if we know that we killed his daughter, we’ll also know that he’s going to come after us.”

  “Something like that,” McGarvey said tiredly.

  “But, Dad, that makes us the same as him,” Elizabeth protested. “He’s going to use his daughter’s death to give himself an advantage over us. And now we’re going to do the same thing.”

  “That’s right, Liz,” McGarvey said, liking it even less than she did. But he had traveled with Sarah, eaten with her, talked to her, had even saved her from rape. “Have we come up with anything new on the Russian weapon?”

  “No, and we probably won’t,” Rencke said. “The Bolshies are running scared and they’re covering up now, ’cause they know the score.”

  “Did you get into the old Lubyanka mainframe?”

  “It was easy green,” Rencke said. “But there wasn’t much. They’re not even talking about it amongst themselves.” He got a wistful look on his face that was almost comical in its intensity. Someone who didn’t know him would believe that he had lost his mind or had zoned out. But then he smiled shyly. “I figured there had to be something, ya know. So I snooped around their out-station files, and you’ll never guess what I came up with.” Rencke looked around for someone to guess, but then shrugged. “T
here was a military trial yesterday. A captain and a colonel were found guilty of theft and dereliction of duty. Pretty common these days. But they were executed. Lined up in front of a wall and shot dead, big time. And guess where all this took place.”

  “Tajikistan,” McGarvey said.

  “Yeah,” Rencke replied. “Yavan Depot, right where the weapon came from. Which means we’re not going to get diddly from the Russkies. They’re going to deny everything. We are definitely on our own, kimo sabe.”

  “The bomb is on its way,” McGarvey said.

  “You can bet the farm on it.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  M/V Margo

  I told you that we should have waited a few days,” First Officer Joseph Green said. Captain George Panagiotopolous glanced over at the pissant little man standing in front of the radar. The storm was going to be a good one, he could not deny that, but it wasn’t a typhoon. He’d sailed through those by whatever name they were called—hurricane, anticyclone, extratropical storm—in four different oceans. Rough, dangerous, uncomfortable, but not impossible for a ship like the Margo.

  He walked over to the bank of ship’s phones and called his deck officer/loadmaster Lazlo Schumatz in his quarters. “This is Panagiotopolous, it looks like we’re going to get that weather sooner than expected. Are you ready?”

  “The deck cargo is secure, and Heiddi’s section should be finished in the holds in about an hour. Do you want me to go down there?”

  “It might not hurt,” the captain said.

  “What are we in for?”

  Panagiotopolous glanced again at Green, who was staring intently out the windows across the cluttered cargo deck toward the bows, which were already beginning to rise and fall with the action of the increasing waves. “We’re in for a force eight, maybe a nine.”

  Schumatz laughed. “Thirty-five to forty-five knot winds, and you call me? What, is Green quaking in his boots again?”

  The captain was a great respecter of rank. He didn’t hold with disrespect. “Maybe you should double check the deck cargo as well, especially before it gets any rougher,” he said.

  “As you wish.”

  “Thank you.” The captain hung up the phone and followed Green’s gaze out the bridge windows. The Margo was a tight ship. With an overall length of 654 feet and a beam of ninety-six, she could transport nearly one thousand containers in her seven holds and lashed to her cargo deck. A pair of Sulzer diesels could push her through the seas at sixteen knots, and since her 1978 launch from the Cockerill Yards in Hoboken, New Jersey, she had never been in a collision or any serious accident at sea. She’d been retrofitted with new hatches and bow thrusters at Tampa Marine Yards in Florida in 1985, and had undergone a complete rebuild in 1996. But now they wanted her back for a second overhaul even though it was too soon, and there was not enough wrong with her to pull her out of service for the two months it would take. But it was the owners’ decision and there was no arguing with them.

  They would sail up the Red Sea, transit the Suez Canal, cross the Med, and then head out across the Atlantic to the Port of New York where they would unload their cargo. From there it would be Tampa, and after that it was up to the owners. Everything was up to the owners, always. Panagiotopolous had been at sea for most of his life, and he understood the score. His job was to sail the boats, and leave the business and the politics to others. Not his reponsibility.

  Green turned and gave the captain a bleak look. He was just a kid and he was frightened. But he was also the principal stock holder’s son, so he had to be treated with respect. And he did have his first officer’s papers.

  “These kinds of storms are confidence-builders,” the captain said, not unkindly. “Once you’ve gone through forty-five knots, and you see that you and your ship have done just fine, why then forty-five knots will never present a problem again.”

  “But fifty knots will,” Green said, relaxing a little. “What’s the biggest storm you’ve been in?”

  “I’ll tell you about it sometime over a beer,” Panagiotopolous said. He had his own upper limit like all men did.

  “How big?”

  The helmsman was studying the binnacle compass even though they were on autopilot. But he was listening.

  “A hundred sixty knots,” the captain said quietly. He grinned. “And I was pissing in my pants.”

  Green looked nervously out the window. “In other words this is no problem.”

  “Something like that.”

  CIA Headquarters

  General Roland Murphy appeared as if he hadn’t slept in a week, but unlike Rencke who looked like a wild man, Murphy looked ill. The skin hung on his jowls and neck, and his complexion was pasty. McGarvey was shocked by his appearance. He’d never seen him this way. The rumor was that Murphy was going to retire in six months, but McGarvey had to genuinely wonder if the man was going to make it that long. The general had worked for the CIA almost as long as McGarvey had been involved with the Company. During that time they had never been friends, but they’d maintained a mutual respect. They each were the best at what they did, which was one of the reasons why Murphy had gotten behind McGarvey’s appointment as DDO last year, a move that stunned some people and angered others, and why it had gone through without a hitch. But he seemed to have greatly diminished in the week or so that McGarvey had been gone. Both of them had been beaten up by the mission.

  He got up from behind his desk and extended his hand. “Welcome home, Kirk. I’m glad to see you in one piece.”

  McGarvey took his hand and was happy that the general’s grip had not weakened. “Thanks, but I would rather have come home to a better set of circumstances.”

  “Partly my fault, I’m afraid,” Murphy’s face fell. “When you went off the air we thought you were dead and bin Laden was playing games with us.”

  “Dennis Berndt’s idea?”

  Murphy nodded. “Everyone’s except Otto’s.” He motioned for McGarvey to take a seat, and then he slumped back down in his chair. “I assume that you’ve already been briefed about bin Laden’s daughter.”

  “I got the high points on the way in from Andrews.”

  “A terrible business.”

  McGarvey nodded, there was nothing else to say about it. “I’ve called a National Threat Assessment meeting for eleven.”

  “That’s cutting everyone a little short, isn’t it?” Murphy said, glancing at the desk clock. It was a little before 10: 00 A.M. “The President wants to see you.”

  “He’ll have to wait until this afternoon,” McGarvey said, and before Murphy could object he went on. “The bomb is on its way here, General. We don’t know how it’s coming, where it’s coming or even when it’s coming, but we have to deal with the problem. The sooner we get to it the greater our chances for success are going to be.”

  “Which are?”

  “I don’t know,” McGarvey said tiredly. “But the advantage is definitely his.”

  Murphy took a memo out of a file folder and passed it across the desk. It was on White House stationery and was signed by Haynes. “You’re going to be asked to assassinate bin Laden.”

  McGarvey read the note and passed it back. “At least this is one President who’s not afraid to take responsibility,” he said. “But he’s too late by at least six months, which is about how long it would take to pull off something like that—if it could be done at all.” McGarvey’s headache was coming back, and he passed a hand over his eyes. “Those days are gone, thank God.” He shook his head. “But even if we could push a little red button right this instant, and bin Laden would suddenly cease to exist, the bomb would still come here.”

  “Not without his orders.”

  “He’s gone to ground now. He set the machinery in motion, and even he might not be able to stop it even if he wanted to.”

  Some of Murphy’s spark came back. He’d personally seen just about everything that could happen in the shadow world, and he still controlled the largest and most powerful intel
ligence agency in the world. “Okay, how do we proceed?”

  “We’re going to tighten our border controls to start with. We’re putting tracers on all of bin Laden’s known associates and business connections here in the States and everywhere else. We’ve got the word out to be on the lookout for a special package. Something that’ll be getting more attention than whatever it’s disguised to look like should be getting. And we’re watching the possible routes. It started out in Tajikistan and had to have been transported overland through the mountains into Afghanistan. Assuming it’s on the move again it either has to be taken east to Pakistan or west to Iran. We have people on the ground who will be moved into positions to watch the roads, the trains, the planes and the ships.”

  “What’s your best guess?”

  “Best guess or worst fear?” McGarvey asked. “Because the worstcase scenario would be the simplest. They load the bomb on a commercial airliner, and as it approaches either New York City or Washington it goes off.”

  “Security at every international airport around the world will have to be tightened. Just like after Lockerbie.”

  “Maybe it’ll go by ship to Hamburg, then by truck to Frankfurt and from there by air to Washington,” McGarvey said. “Or any other combination you’d like to dream up.”

  “I see your point.”

  “Maybe it’ll stay in Tehran for a month, or maybe in Paris or London or Marseilles or Tripoli, and then when our security measures start to loosen up, which they will, it’ll be moved again. Leapfrogged here.”

  “Does he have a timetable?”

  “That’s a possibility we’re going to have to consider. Could be he’s going to hit us on the Fourth of July, or maybe Labor Day; maybe Thanksgiving or Christmas.” McGarvey shook his head again. “Do you want to try for Lincoln’s birthday?”

  Murphy sighed deeply. “If we had held back on the missile attack we could have avoided all of this.”

  “Maybe,” McGarvey said. “He might have been stalling for time after all. Kept us talking while he moved the bomb into place.”