Joshua's Hammer

by David Hagberg

  Elizabeth waved her back, and crossed the stairhall to the door. She turned the lock and deadbolt and checked out the side window as two armed men climbed out of a van and started up the driveway.

  “What is it?” Kathleen asked calmly.

  “Trouble,” Elizabeth said, cursing herself for leaving her pistol and cell phone with her purse in the car.

  Kathleen dropped the laundry. “Is there time to go upstairs to get my phone?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll go out the back door and across the golf course. If we can reach the clubhouse we should be safe.”

  She turned on her heel and went back into the kitchen, Elizabeth right behind her as the doorbell rang.

  Bahmad looked through the tall narrow window beside the front door in time to see Elizabeth disappear down a corridor to the back of the house.

  He stepped back and shot the lock out of the door. It would not open. It took him a second to realize that there was a second lock, which took three shots to destroy before he could get inside.

  He rolled left, keeping his pistol up. Elizabeth McGarvey was a trained CIA agent, and she was probably armed. It would be stupid of him to get shot to death now by a girl.

  Aggad slipped into the hallway and rolled right, keeping his AK-47 high on his shoulder, just like the American marines were taught to do with their M-16s. Bin Laden’s soldiers were selected not necessarily because of their intelligence, but because they were professionals. Aggad was acting like one now. Not like a hothead, Bahmad thought gratefully.

  They leapfrogged down the corridor, and through the kitchen into the enclosed patio room that looked out onto the pool and across the golf course.

  Elizabeth McGarvey and her mother were running as fast as they could go up the fifteenth fairway toward the clubhouse: A foursome on the green was so intent on their game that they hadn’t noticed them yet.

  “We’ll never catch them on foot,” Aggad observed.

  Bahmad calculated the distances, but he knew that Aggad was correct. The realistic thing for them now was to get the hell out of here, ditch the van and get back to the boat. Survive to strike another day. It had been one of the techniques that had allowed him, and in fact the entire Islamic movement, to survive this long: Hit and run. Swift like the wind, and just as invisible. A method, he’d told bin Laden, that had been used by the American revolutionaries to kick the British out of the Colonies.

  But not this time.

  “What do you want to do, man?” Aggad demanded.

  “They’re heading to the clubhouse. We’ll take the van. I know a short cut.”

  Bahmad raced back through the house, and pulled up short in the driveway for just an instant. In the not-so-far distance he could hear a police siren, and then perhaps others farther away. Many others.

  Run away to fight another day, the thought crossed his mind. But he shook it off because he knew exactly what he was doing. He could see the entire operation unfolding as he wanted it to, despite the unforseen variations this morning. He had never failed before. He wasn’t going to fail this time.

  Elizabeth wished she had her gun. She could hear sirens in the distance, but she knew that it wouldn’t take long for whoever it was after them to figure out where they’d gone and come after them. One of them in the driveway had been carrying an AK-47. A one-wood out of someone’s golf bag was going to be no defense. She thought about heading directly into the woods across the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways where they could hide while her mother caught her breath. But her mother seemed to be having no trouble keeping up. It was her tennis playing, Elizabeth supposed. And she thought that her mother was right; if they could reach the club there would be people and they might be safe. At least long enough for the cops to catch up with them.

  Maryland Highway Patrol Trooper Tom Leitner was a good quarter-mile ahead of McGarvey as he turned onto Laurel Parkway. His siren was going and traffic had parted for him, but this street was deserted except for a light-colored commercial van coming toward him.

  “All units, all units in the vicinity of fifteen Laurel Parkway, Chevy Chase, shots have been reported,” the dispatcher said over the radio.

  Leitner grabbed the microphone. “Bethesda, unit 27, I’m there now. But there’s no activity. What do you have?”

  “Unit 27, Bethesda, neighbors reported several shots fired at the front of the house. Two men, possibly Caucasian, both slightly built, driving a white Capital City Cleaning van, tag number unknown, possibly involved. Use extreme caution.”

  Leitner passed the van and his gut tightened. It was the van. He jammed on his brakes and did a U-turn, his tires smoking as he spun around. The van suddenly accelerated, swerved off the road and careened across the lawn between two houses. He knew what the driver was trying to do, and he followed the van.

  “Bethesda, unit 27, I’m in pursuit of the white van, D.C. tag number tango-niner-seven-eight-eight. He’s heading north off Laurel Parkway onto the golf course. Officer requests immediate assistance.” He shot out between the two houses, raced through an opening in the trees at the back and spotted the white van heading directly up the broad, undulating fairway, golfers scattering in every direction.

  McGarvey’s phone chirped as he rounded the corner onto Laurel Parkway from Connecticut Avenue in time to see the highway patrol cruiser take off between the houses.

  “They’re heading across the golf course,” Rencke said breathlessly.

  “Who is?” McGarvey shouted.

  “Mrs. M. and Liz. The neighbors saw them. There’s a white van after them, two men. The highway patrol is right behind them.”

  “I’m right there,” McGarvey said. He hauled the Nissan over the curb and raced between the houses. “There’s a lot of trees and thick brush on the course, a million places for them to hide. I want you to get some helicopters in the air.”

  “MHP is already on it.”

  McGarvey tossed the phone aside. Everything that could be done was being done. But it was his wife and daughter out there running for their lives. He shot out through a gap in the trees and found himself on the fifteenth fairway. The van had almost reached the woods near the women’s tee about two hundred yards away, and the Maryland Highway Patrol cruiser was closing with it fast.

  Katy and Liz would be trying to make it to the clubhouse where there would be people this morning, and possibly safety. It was the only logical choice for them. He could see that the driver of the van had figured out the same thing and was heading directly toward the first fairway. But he was making a mistake. The way he was going led to a small cart path bridge over a creek that the van could not cross. They would have to double back and cross the seventeenth fairway before they could head to the clubhouse.

  He would be able to cut them off by heading directly across the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways right now.

  A long streak of flame shot out from the side door of the van, and a second later the police car exploded in a ball of flame, its roof flying fifty feet into the sky.

  Elizabeth emerged from the line of trees separating the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways, her mother right behind her, when there was an explosion behind them. RPG or LAWs rocket, something came to her from her training. She turned as a fireball rose into the pale blue sky.

  “My God,” Kathleen said.

  “That wasn’t meant for us,” Elizabeth told her mother. “Maybe the bastards had an accident.” They ran for the broad, sloping green. About seventy-five yards ahead the fairway narrowed to a cart path that crossed a small wooden bridge over a narrow creek. On the other side they could angle over to the seventeenth fairway, which folded back on the eighteenth and first, and directly to the clubhouse. Once they crossed the creek they would be home free because she didn’t think that the van could make it across on the bridge.

  She didn’t like running away though. If she had her gun she could send her mother on ahead, and wait here to ambush them. They were screwing with the McGarveys now. Of cours
e if her father and Todd were also here nothing would get past them. At the moment, however, running was their only option.

  They were nearly at the bridge when the van crashed out of the woods, skidded sideways out of control, almost tipping over on the fairway, then straightened out and headed directly toward them.

  Elizabeth could see that there was no time now to make the bridge. Their only hope was the creek itself, whose banks were five feet high. If they could make it that far they might be able to reach the safety of the woods on the opposite side of the fairway.

  “Mother, the creek,” she shouted.

  “Right behind you, dear,” Kathleen said.

  Bahmad saw what they were trying to do, and he knew with satisfaction that they would not make it that far by the time he ran them down. A supercalmness came over him. He could see everything that had to be done, and the order in which it had to be accomplished. Once the daughter and her mother were taken care of, he would drive the van to a service road on the far side of the eighteenth fairway. Aggad and Ibrahim would take it back to their rendezvous point and he would meet them tonight when he would kill them. There would be no loose ends.

  A gray SUV of some kind burst out of the woods on his right, and headed directly toward them. Bahmad could do nothing except swerve to the left, directly across the fairway and into the dense trees and underbrush.

  It was McGarvey. He got just a brief glimpse, but it was enough to recognize the man behind the wheel, and suddenly Bahmad wasn’t so sure about anything. The tide might have turned. Now it was he who was running for his life.

  McGarvey saw Katy and Liz off to his right by the edge of the creek. He had only an instant to see that they were okay, and no time to be relieved, before he had to turn his attention back to the van. He was right on top of it. As it plunged into the woods he crashed into its rear left quarter, sending it skidding out of control to the right through some thick underbrush, finally slamming to a halt against a large tree.

  He hauled the Nissan left, as he jammed on the brakes sliding to a halt finally twenty yards behind the van. He whipped off his seat belt and pulled out his pistol. But there was something wrong with his fingers, he couldn’t quite seem to switch the safety catch lever to the off position.

  A man climbed out of the van, and although the day had somehow gotten very dark, McGarvey could see that he was raising what looked like a LAWs rocket tube to his shoulder.

  It was hard to keep on track, hard to think straight. It was all he could do to relate what the man beside the van was trying to accomplish with the simple concept of danger.

  McGarvey fumbled with the door latch, his fingers like sausages at the end of his impossibly long arm. When the door swung open suddenly, he half-slipped, half-fell out of the Nissan, banging his head on the door frame as he went down.

  He was on all fours, the world spinning around him, but he still had his pistol. He had to get away. He didn’t know why, just that he had to get away from here right now! He started to crawl on all fours directly away from the Nissan and into some deeper underbrush.

  The day lit up with a tremendous flash and bang, followed by a searing hot blast of wind that picked McGarvey up and sent him crashing into the brush.

  There were shots, he could understand that, but his world was reduced to a series of brightly colored lights and images from a kaleidoscope, sliding and moving all over the place.

  “Daddy?”

  Someone was holding him up, brushing dirt and debris from his face. He thought it was Elizabeth, but then Kathleen was there too, holding him in her arms, her eyes wide and frightened.

  He heard shooting, and he understood that Liz had picked up his gun, but it didn’t matter so much this time because he was with Katy. He managed to smile up at her, before he slipped away into a dark, swirling haze.

  Bahmad walked into the clubhouse, went directly to the bar and ordered a Bombay martini, up, very dry and very cold. Most of the other members were out by the first tee trying to figure out what all the commotion was about. Explosions, gunfire, sirens; it sounded as if someone was making a movie.

  “What’s happening out there, sir?” the bartender asked as he fixed the drink.

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Bahmad said. His nerves were jumping all over the place, but by dint of an iron will he gave the appearance of bored indifference. “I was late for my tee time, I was supposed to catch up with my foursome on the second hole, and now this.” He shook his head. “But then we’re too close to D.C., what can you expect?”

  His martini came, full to the rim, and even though he was boiling over with an almost out-of-control blinding anger, he lifted his glass, took a delicate sip and replaced the glass on the bar napkin without spilling a drop.

  The first phase of the operation, attempting for absolutely no valid reason to assassinate McGarvey’s daughter, was bin Laden’s idea. Because of unforseen circumstances and because the Taliban had provided him with misinformation about McGarvey, the mission had failed. Bahmad considered himself lucky to have been able to shed his coveralls and simply walk away in the confusion, just another man dressed for golf out on the course. Aggad and Ibrahim shot dead by the young woman.

  The second phase of the operation, however, was his and his alone. He would not fail. He smiled, the first glimmers of contement and anticipation for a project coming to him.

  “Is the drink to your liking, Mr. Guthrie?” the barman asked.

  “Yes, indeed,” Bahmad replied. “It couldn’t be better.”

  DEBORAH HAYNES TWO MONTHS LATER

  Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken into the ground.

  ISAIAH 21:9

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Khartoum, Sudan

  Riding in the back of a battered Mercedes sedan from the airport, Bahmad willed himself to remain calm. This soon before an operation there was only one reason for his sudden recall; for some reason bin Laden wanted to call it off.

  In ninety-six hours Deborah Haynes and more than one thousand other handicapped runners would cross the Golden Gate Bridge at the same moment the cargo ship Margo sailed beneath the bridge with Joshua’s Hammer. The two events were coming together as surely as the sun rose and set. But if no one was there to detonate the bomb at the correct time all would be lost.

  He looked out the windows at the passing scenery as he battled his impatience. He was still nearly overwhelmed with anger and bitterness from his failure in Chevy Chase. Yet he could see with a critical eye the wild disrepair everywhere in the city; sandbagged street corners, armed patrols, some of the boys wearing uniforms others wearing the ragtag clothing of the rebel factions, and overall the atmosphere of mad confusion and extreme danger.

  It was nothing at all like what he had left in Bermuda where he’d taken Papa’s Fancy after the debacle. And certainly nothing like New York where he’d dismissed the crew ten days ago and left the yacht.

  He’d had a lot of time to think about the war he’d been waging for most of his life, and he had come to the conclusion that when this project was finished he was getting out for good.

  Bin Laden’s compound was off Sharia al-Barlaman a few blocks from the People’s Palace and about the same distance from the Blue Nile. The afternoon was very hot. A reddish-yellow haze swirled through the city, whipping around the corners of buildings and up narrow alleys, causing flags and banners to stream and snap. This was the time of year for fierce desert sandstorms. If they were big enough they even encroached into the cities themselves, like now.

  In fact little if anything of any significance had changed here in nearly one thousand years, Bahmad thought morosely. Bin Laden and the others in the various organizations in the jihad such as the Armed Islamic Movement (AIM), the Islamic Arab People’s Conference (IAPC), the Sunni’s Popular International Organization (PIO), the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Hisb’Allah, the Islamic Liberation Party and dozens more were fighting mostly with words and the occasional
terrorist bomb. Even Joshua’s Hammer, though it was a nuclear weapon and would cause a convulsive wave of fear across the United States, was only a gnat’s bite on a giant.

  The real education that every terrorist should be required to have was a complete tour of America’s industrial cities, the electronics assembly plants, the military bases, the nuclear processing facilities, assembly plants and storage depots, the electrical generating stations, the ports, the highways, the sprawling medical centers and pharmaceutical research and manufacturing conglomerates, rather than the slums and storefront mosques of a few cities in New York, New Jersey and California. Even bin Laden had no real idea what he was up against. None of them did.

  Time to get out, Bahmad told himself. Especially after Chevy Chase. That had been too close a call for him. At the end something had happened to McGarvey. He had been wounded or he had hit his head, but he was out of it, and Bahmad had started to turn back until the daughter had come to her father’s side. She had picked up his pistol and killed Aggad and Ibrahim. Against two-to-one odds she had prevailed.

  The car arrived in the anonymous neighborhood of tall stuccoed walls with red-tiled roofs behind them a few minutes after 4:00 P.M. Two solid wooden gates sprung open, and they were admitted into bin Laden’s compound just as a sleeker, newer black Mercedes S500 pulled out. Bahmad caught a brief glimpse of the lone passenger in the back seat. It was Dr. Hassan Abdullah al-Turabi, head of the National Islamic Front party, and Sudan’s attorney general. He was also bin Laden’s longtime friend and mentor, and possibly the most powerful and important man in the entire armed Islamic movement.

  The fact that he had come to bin Laden and not the other way around was significant. Something definitely big was in the wind, which was probably the reason Bahmad had been contacted through intermediaries to drop everything and come here to bin Laden’s side. It would also explain why bin Laden had not telephoned him directly by encrypted satellite phone; he hadn’t wanted to take the risk that somehow the call would be intercepted.