Allah's Scorpion

SIXTY-SEVEN

Dick Adkins was ten minutes late for his 9:00 A.M. briefing to the president, and an impatient Dennis Berndt met him at the west entrance for the walk down the connecting corridor to the Oval Office. “Well?”

“He did it,” the DCI said.

Berndt heaved the first sigh of relief in ten days. “Thank God.”

Don Hamel and his National Intelligence apparatus had been purposely kept out of the loop on the McGarvey — bin Laden operation, to give the intelligence community plausible deniability. It meant that if something went wrong, the blame would not fall on the White House. But Adkins was bringing good news, and Berndt figured they had dodged the bullet for the second time in as many weeks. First the Panama Canal, and now the submarine.

“It was right where he said it would be,” Adkins said, with a little awe in his voice. He shook his head. “I worked with the man for years, Dennis. I was his assistant DCI for the couple of years he ran the show. I know the mechanics of what he does. But I still haven’t a clue how he pulls it off.”

“He’s never been afraid of stepping up to the plate.”

President Haynes, his jacket off, tie loose, was sitting at his desk, talking on the telephone, while his staff came and went, depositing files and other paperwork in front of him. He was working Congress to get enough votes for passage of his controversial energy bill, and neither he nor anyone else seemed very happy.

“He needs this lift,” Berndt said.

The president looked up and waved them in.

“There were some problems,” Adkins cautioned as he and Berndt entered the Oval Office.

“Good morning, Mr. Director,” the president’s secretary said, going out.

“Morning,” he mumbled.

“Casualties?” Berndt asked.

“One of our people was killed, but there are a lot of dead bodies at the bottom of the York River we’re trying to get to. Plus a big mess. Could be an ecological disaster.”

The president finished his call, and ordered everyone except Berndt and Adkins out. When the door was closed he came around his desk. “What ecological disaster?”

“The sub was where McGarvey figured it would be, and he and a SEAL team managed to stop the attack, but the boat was badly damaged,” Adkins said. “The Coast Guard is on site to evaluate the situation, but at the very least there’s a significant diesel oil spill into the river. The media is already down there wanting to know what’s going on. Problem is that nobody other than us and McGarvey’s team has the answers.”

“What about nuclear weapons?” the president asked.

“At least one, possibly more,” Adkins reported. “Mac thinks there’s a good chance we’ll also be facing a nuclear materials spill, which we had to warn the Coast Guard about.”

The president turned and looked out the thick Lexan windows toward the Rose Garden. “Were any of our people injured?” he asked.

“One of the SEAL team members was shot to death,” Adkins said.

“How about the terrorists?”

“We’ve recovered three bodies so far, but everyone aboard the sub is dead,” Adkins said. He glanced at Berndt who had a strong feeling what was coming next.

“What about Graham?”

“Somebody escaped from the sub, got past Mac and the others, and stole the Special Operations boat the SEAL team borrowed from the navy.”

The president turned back. “Was it Graham?”

Adkins shrugged. “Unknown, Mr. President,” he said.

“How’d Mac and the SEAL team get back to the Farm?” Berndt asked. “It’s a long swim.”

“His daughter and son-in-law run the facility. Mac and the others swam ashore just above Yorktown and used a cell phone to call for help. They were picked up in a van and brought back to Camp Peary. It was the middle of the night and apparently no one saw a thing. That’s national parkland along the river there.”

“What about the boat?” Berndt asked.

“A Matthews County Sheriff’s deputy found it abandoned at a commercial dock between Newport News and Hampton.”

The president was surprised. “That’s just across from the navy base.”

“I think McGarvey was right about the Brit all along,” Berndt said, not surprised at all. “He did the same thing in Panama, abandoning his crew when the mission fell apart. By the time anybody realized he was gone he’d made his escape.”

“Well, unless he has help, he won’t get out of the country,” the president said.

“Don’t count on it, sir,” Adkins said. “The man has been ahead of us every step of the way.”

“But only one step,” the president said. “McGarvey’s stopped him twice.”

“There’ll be a third time, unless we get to bin Laden first,” Berndt said. He could feel it in his bones. No matter what else they would have to face in the near term, bin Laden was the key.

“I agree,” President Haynes said. “Will McGarvey go back to Pakistan and finish the job?”

“Mr. President, I don’t think any power on earth could stop him,” Adkins replied.

SIXTY-EIGHT

McGarvey got off the phone with Adkins a few minutes before ten, and walked across the compound from the BOQ to the five-bed field hospital housed in a World War II — style Quonset hut. It was operations as normal at the training camp, and so far no one had taken undue notice of him or the SEAL team that Todd had rescued early this morning.

A doctor had come down from Bethesda to tend to MacKeever’s and Ercoli’s concussion injuries. They’d started to swim aft toward the escape trunk hatch when the bow section of the boat had exploded. It was the only reason they’d survived. Both men had sustained damage to their ears and eyes, and Ercoli’s left hip and knee had been severely dislocated.

But that small bit of luck was nothing against Terri Jackson’s death and the growing probability that it was Graham who had escaped from the sub, sabotaged the escape trunk, and had made off with the SOC. The Coast Guard had found a small inflatable with Libyan navy markings drifting downriver. Whoever had locked out of the submarine had probably intended to use it to make their escape, but had seized the opportunity of taking the SEALs’ boat. The entire operation had Graham’s signature written all over it.

“The boat was found near Newport News,” Adkins had told him.

“Get an FBI team down there right away to look for trace evidence,” McGarvey suggested.

“The county cops found it tied up at a sightseeing dock, and from what I understand they found no evidence of a crime so they turned it over to the navy. Figured someone on base had gotten drunk and took it for a joy ride.”

“Get Puckett to run interference for Jackson and his people. I have a feeling they’re going to be in a tight spot as soon as they report in.”

“How’s Jackson taking it?” Adkins asked.

“I don’t know, Dick,” McGarvey said. He could put himself in Jackson’s shoes, he’d almost lost Katy on more than one occasion, but the man had become a blank slate from the moment McGarvey had brought Terri’s body back to the control room. There’d been no rage, no tears, no blame. Jackson had carried on as a fire-team leader, making sure that MacKeever and Ercoli were well taken care of, and then retreated with Dillon to write the end-of-mission report.

Nor had he been able to get a read on Dillon or the other two. They had pulled together as a unit, them against everyone else, including McGarvey.

“Well, you’d better keep them isolated for now,” Adkins said. “The Coast Guard has taken over just downriver from you, and they’re stonewalling the media. Won’t be long before some wise guy realizes that the Farm is less than five miles away, and they come knocking at our door.”

“I’ll give Todd and Liz the heads-up, but any minute now the navy is going to get real interested in talking to Jackson and Dillon.”

“I’ll talk to Puckett right away,” Adkins said. “In the meantime, the Bureau has put out an APB on Graham, but I have a feeling it’s already too late.”

“If it was Graham, and I’m betting it was, he had his escape worked out before he ever set foot on that submarine,” McGarvey said, but then stopped. The last word had caught in his throat. Suddenly he had it. He knew how Graham meant to escape and where he was going. “We might get lucky this time, as long as nobody gets in his way,” McGarvey added, not really believing it, or wanting it.

He needed Graham to escape. It was the only way now to get to bin Laden. The Brit was going to trade his life for the al-Quaida leader’s.

“How about you?” Adkins asked, apparently not catching the change in McGarvey’s voice. “The president sends his thanks.”

“And he wants to know if I’m going back to Pakistan to finish the job.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m coming up to the Building this afternoon,” McGarvey said. “Have Gloria Ibenez meet me in Otto’s office, and we’ll work it out.”

“It?” Adkins asked.

“I’m going after bin Laden again,” McGarvey said.

“I see,” Adkins had said, and he’d sounded like a man caught up in the middle of something that terrified him. “Do you know where he’s hiding?”

“No, but I know how to find out.”

Dillon was alone, nursing a cup of coffee in the break room, when McGarvey went in and sat down across from him.

“How’s FX?”

Dillon shook his head. “I thought I knew him pretty well, but I just don’t know. At any minute I expect him to blow sky-high. I would. But there’s nothing.”

“I don’t think I’d care to be around any of them when it hits home,” McGarvey said.

“I know what you mean,” Dillon said.

“The boat was found downriver near Newport News, apparently in good shape, but there was no sign of Graham,” McGarvey said.

“He won’t get far on foot, will he?”

“He had it all planned ahead of time. By now I expect he’s either out of the country or on his way out.”

“The FBI will at least cover the airports, for God’s sake,” Dillon said. He was having a hard time believing what he was hearing. “They know what he looks like, don’t they? A man like that can’t just waltz onto an airplane and fly away. That’s one of the reasons Homeland Security was created.”

McGarvey shook his head. It never ceased to amaze him just how naïve most Americans really were. Even after 9/11. “You can’t imagine how easy it is for a pro,” he said.

Dillon looked away.

“Anyway, I have to get back to Washington, but I want you guys to lay low here for the time being. Admiral Puckett will send for you when the time is right.”

Dillon turned back. “We’re all sorry about Terri, but no one thinks it was your fault.”

“Thanks,” McGarvey replied, but he didn’t know what else to say. Her death was, in his mind, his fault. He should have been better at covering her back.

A tall man with longish blond hair, a crumpled but stylish linen suit, and thick glasses presented his British diplomatic passport and the return portion of his first-class ticket on Lufthansa’s noon flight to Berlin to one of the security officers at the international departures lounge.

The airport was busy this morning. Arriving by cab from the city, Graham had spotted the extra security measures that had obviously been only recently put into place. A dozen Virginia Highway Patrol and Loudon County radio cars were stationed along the departing passengers unloading area, and the deputies were scrutinizing the faces of every white male who entered the terminal.

Maintaining a neutral expression, Graham got out of the cab and marched directly past one of the cops, who gave him a once-over with no sign of recognition.

Inside, there were more police, and several National Guard troops with bomb-sniffing dogs where passengers were checking their bags.

Walking down the corridor to the international lounge, Graham was able to see that airliners pulled up to jetways were being guarded by other National Guard and law enforcement officers.

Yet he’d been allowed to walk past them all without a question. Homeland Security was an even bigger joke than he thought it would be. America’s borders had always been even more porous than those of Canada and Great Britain. Security had always been one of the more serious faults of a free and open democracy. But it amazed him how little had actually changed in the United States after 9/11.

They still didn’t get it. Only one man did, and thinking about McGarvey gave him almost as terrible an empty feeling in his chest as missing Jillian did.

The day of reckoning would come. He had twice underestimated McGarvey, and there would not be a third time, because for Graham there was no longer a jihad. The next time they met, Graham would kill him.

And arranging such a meeting would be as simple as offering the former DCI exactly what he wanted.

“Good morning, Sir Thomas,” the security officer said, looking up from the passport photograph into Graham’s eyes that were now blue. “Do you have any other baggage?”

“No, just this one,” Graham said. His passport identified him as Sir Thomas Means, the third assistant to the British ambassador to Germany. “Just popped over for a day and a wake-up. Have to get back into the fray, you know.”

The security officer handed back the passport, while a second officer passed Graham’s overnight bag through a hazardous materials scanner. Since he was traveling under diplomatic papers his luggage could not be searched unless something showed up on the scanner.

It did not. Nor did anything on his body set off the security arch when he walked through it.

“Have a good flight, sir,” the officer said, as Graham collected his bag.

“Thank you, I will,” Graham said, smiling, and he sauntered across to the bar to have a glass of wine, despite the hour, and wait for his flight to be called.

SIXTY-NINE

Just after lunch Gloria Ibenez took the elevator up to Rencke’s office across the corridor from the Watch. He’d phoned her around eleven to tell her that McGarvey would be coming to the Building in a few hours and wanted to talk to her. Since then her stomach had been aflutter with anticipation.

Despite his repeated denials of her and despite the obvious fact that he was happily married, she was in love with him. And for the past few days she had been miserable because, although he had protected her from Howard McCann, he’d been avoiding her.

Until now.

The pass around her neck did not authorize entry into Rencke’s inner sanctum, so she had to be buzzed in. He was seated in front of one of the several wide-screen monitors that were arrayed in a broad U formation. Some of them displayed satellite images of what looked like a large city, a seaport, which Gloria recognized as Karachi, and the slum section of Fish Harbor where bin Laden was supposedly hiding in the compound. A series of figures and mathematical equations crossed the screen directly in front of Rencke, his fingers racing over the keyboard. The background was lavender.

“Oh, wow, Mac just came through the gate,” he said without looking up.

His office was a mess; classified files, photographs, and maps covered the small conference table in the middle of the room and were stacked on chairs and in piles on the floor along with empty plastic Twinkie packages and empty cartons of cream. Despite his marriage to Louise Horn, who’d tried to change his horrible eating habits, he reverted to his old ways whenever he had the bit in his teeth, as he apparently had now.

“What does he want with me?” Gloria asked, perching on the edge of the conference table to Rencke’s left.

“Unless I’m way off base, I think he’s going back to badland to finish the job, and I think he’s going to ask you to tag along again.”

Gloria lost her breath for a moment. She could almost feel Kirk’s arms around her, smell his scent. It was a good, safe feeling. Comfortable, but exciting. “Will Mr. McCann sign off on the assignment?”

Rencke chuckled. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” he said without missing a keystroke or looking away from the monitor.

“I meant that I want to have a career here after this assignment,” she said. She couldn’t think of any other job she’d rather have.

“I don’t think that’s gonna be a problem either,” Rencke said. He suddenly stopped typing, but it took several seconds for the equations and diagrams to catch up. When they did, the background color deepened sharply.

“What is it?” she asked.

Rencke turned to her. “It’s a threat assessment. They failed again because of Mac, and now they’re going to drop everything to find him and kill him.”

“Did he find the submarine?”

Rencke nodded. “Last night. Actually early this morning. That part’s a nonissue now, except that Graham managed to escape.”

As irrational as it was, being left out of anything McGarvey was involved with stung. “Why didn’t someone tell me? Maybe I could have helped.”

“It was Mac’s call,” Rencke said. His bemused genius persona was gone, replaced now by someone who seemed genuinely concerned about her. “Look, you’re in love with Mac. Well, so are a lot of us. You’re not the first, and I suspect you won’t be the last.”

Gloria lowered her eyes, but she refused to cry. “It hurts.”

“I know,” Rencke replied gently. “But Mrs. M is the sun and the moon to him, and you’d better come to terms with it or you’re going to be miserable for the rest of your life.” He smiled. “You’re a pretty girl. You could probably get just about any guy you wanted.”

“I want him.”

“I know,” Rencke said. He glanced up at a small black-and-white closed-circuit monitor that showed a half-dozen pictures-in-picture from various cameras in the building. McGarvey was just getting on an elevator in the executive parking garage. “He’s on his way up, so you’re going to have to make up your mind now. You’re going to love him and try to seduce him away from his wife, or you’re going to love him and help him.”

There was no real choice, of course, but it hurt all the more knowing she could never have him. She nodded. “Whatever he wants.”

A couple of minutes later, Rencke buzzed McGarvey in.

“I’m going after bin Laden again, and I’m going to need your help.”

“Me too?” Gloria asked.

McGarvey nodded. “Especially you.”

On the way back to the safe house McGarvey played over in his mind the instructions he had given to Rencke and Gloria, which were going to put them in harm’s way no matter if he were right or wrong. Otto had agreed that his plan gave them the best shot at finding bin Laden and eliminating him. Gloria, on the other hand, would have agreed to anything.

They both were relying on his judgment, and he had based his plan on one very narrow — and on the surface, unlikely — possibility, which depended on Graham making his escape from the United States.

Traffic was heavy on the Beltway as he got off at Connecticut Avenue and headed south. But the summer afternoon was warm and beautiful, and Washington was in its quiet mode. Yet McGarvey couldn’t shake the feeling of impending disaster.

Some rough beast was slinking its way toward us, and would strike again unless it could be stopped soon.

It was exactly what he had to explain to Katy. He needed to make her understand that it would be impossible for them to go to Florida until this challenge was met once and for all. Even though he had promised time and again to finally get out of the business, he couldn’t walk away now even if his marriage depended on it.

He was going to kill bin Laden and nothing on earth was going to stop him.

He parked in the driveway and Katy came from the kitchen as he walked through the front door. He’d called early this morning to tell her that he was okay, but she pulled up short the moment she saw his face. She raised a hand to her mouth.

“It’s still not finished, is it?” she said, her voice small.

“One last thing, sweetheart.”

She turned away and made to go back into the kitchen, but he caught up with her and took her in his arms.

“One last thing, I promise,” he told her. “But it has to be done.”

She looked into his eyes. “Bin Laden?”

He nodded.

“When?”

“In the morning,” McGarvey said. Katy wanted to pull away in anger, but he held her all the tighter until she calmed down a little. “I can’t walk away from it, no matter how much I’d like to.”

She considered what he was telling her, but then shook her head. “You like it. You always have.”

“It’s my job—”

“No, goddammit, you love it!” she screeched. “You did when you went to Chile, that time just before you walked out, and nothing has changed.” She slapped his chest with the flat of her hand. “You love it, goddammit.”

“It’s something that needs doing, and I’ve always been the one to do it,” McGarvey told his wife. “But I’ve never loved it.”

“Yes—”

“I’ve killed people, Katy.”

“I’ve seen you in action,” she said bitterly.

He released his hold on her and let her step back, a heavy bitterness descending upon him like a death shroud. “I’m sorry, Katy. But you’re wrong, I’ve never enjoyed it.” He turned to go, but this time it was she who stopped him, and she fell weeping into his arms.

“Oh, Kirk, I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He held her, his heart still impossibly heavy for this and for all the other times he had driven her half-crazy with fear and anger. It had never been her fault, it had always been his.

“You should never have married her in the first place,” his sister had told him years ago after he’d sold their parents’ ranch in Kansas. She’d despised him for doing it, and every chance she had of hurting him, she took it. “You’ll end up destroying the poor girl.”

There’d been no answer to his sister’s charge then, nor was there one now. Except that he loved his wife with every fiber of his being, and he always had.

“I know, Katy,” he said softly. “It’ll turn out okay. Promise.”

SEVENTY

It was nearly noon by the time McGarvey and Gloria cleared customs and walked out of the terminal to find a cab. This time they had flown commercial, Delta from Washington and Emirates from Dubai, and with layovers it had taken the better part of two days to get here.

Rencke had assured them that neither Karachi police nor Pakistani ISI had warrants for their arrests following their last trip here, even though both Mac and Gloria had been involved in incidents in which blood had been shed.

McGarvey wanted their arrival to be as transparent as possible. He wanted anyone who was the least bit interested in his movements to know he was here.

And the two-day travel delay getting here had given Rencke extra time to make all the necessary arrangements.

There would be only one very narrow window of opportunity between the time that Graham made contact and when the Pakistani government sat up and took notice that something was going down. They wouldn’t have a second chance.

Joe Bernstein, the CIA’s contract cabbie, was waiting for them. He took their bags without a word and hustled them back to his taxi. Five minutes later, they had cleared the airport and were heading into the city on Shahrah-e-Faisal Road, the weekday traffic very heavy.

“I did not expect to see you back so soon,” he said, glancing at them in the rearview mirror. “I don’t think this is a very safe place for you right now.”

“It won’t be safe for anyone seen with me,” McGarvey said. “Maybe you shouldn’t have picked us up.”

“Your son-in-law is a friend,” Bernstein replied. He chuckled. “Anyway you’re an open secret now. Best show in town. I wouldn’t miss it for all the poppies in Afghanistan.”

“Did you talk to Todd?”

“No, but Otto and I had a long and fruitful conversation,” Bernstein said. “I’m to be the bagman.” He chuckled again. “I’ll admit that all that money will be a real temptation.”

“That’s what we’re hoping,” McGarvey said.

On the long flight over, McGarvey had gone over all the details of the operation with Gloria, so that she knew exactly what she would have to do.

The details had also been worked out with a reluctant Dave Coddington, who was the Company’s Karachi chief of station. There was a lot at stake this time, not the least of which was five million U.S. in cash, as a down payment on the twenty-five-million-dollar reward for the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden. In the five years the reward had been offered, there’d been no authentic takers.

This time, however, McGarvey was betting that someone would finally come forward with information that would lead to bin Laden. It would be a trap, of course, to lure McGarvey to a place where he could be killed. Bin Laden would be nowhere near, but his mujahideen would be.

“You’ll be gambling with five million of Uncle’s money, and if you lose it there’ll be some people seriously pissed off at you,” Rencke had offered.

“Won’t be the first time,” McGarvey said.

“We could give them counterfeit money,” Gloria suggested.

“None of our people would take the deal seriously,” McGarvey told her. “The word would get out.”

“You’re talking about leaks,” Gloria said. “In Karachi? I know Coddington, he’s a good guy.”

“I’m sure he is,” McGarvey said. “But are you willing to bet your life that his shop is airtight? We’re talking about five million cash. A lot of people are going to want a piece of the action.”

“What if we do lose the money?” she asked.

McGarvey had shrugged. “The Company can afford it.”

Bernstein glanced over his shoulder. “From what I heard, Coddington had a hell of a time coming up with that much cash in such a short time. And the word is already out on the street. It’s like somebody tossed a big boulder into a small pond.”

“Any takers yet?” McGarvey asked.

“No, but our guys are in place and ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

“It’ll happen tonight,” McGarvey said.

“How can you be so sure?” Bernstein asked.

“Because I’m here. And as soon as they find out that I am, they’ll move.”

Once they were checked in at the Pearl Continental and their bags were brought up to their tenth-floor executive suite, Gloria ordered lunch from room service while McGarvey used his sat phone to call Rencke.

The number rang once in Rencke’s office before it was automatically rolled over to his sat phone. “You’re in place?”

“We just checked in,” McGarvey said. “Where are you?”

“On the move,” Rencke said. “The opposition knows you’re there. A half hour ago just about every al-Quaida Web site went quiet. Not so much as a symbol. The sites are all blank, and I haven’t been able to get into any of them, which means their computers were disconnected.”

“They knew that we would be looking. That’s good.”

“That’s very good, kimo sabe. Now we just have to wait until they take the bait.”

“How about you?” McGarvey asked.

“No matter what happens, I’ll be at this number until it’s over.”

SEVENTY-ONE

The entire twenty-fifth floor of the M. A. Jinnah commercial tower was in darkness. Osama bin Laden walked to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out at the city. Below, the streets were alive with activity. And out there somewhere Kirk McGarvey was coming.

Bin Laden had no fear, although he did have a great deal of respect for the American’s abilities. They had first come face-to-face in Afghanistan before 9/11, and every day since then he regretted with everything in his soul that he’d not killed the man when he’d had the chance. McGarvey had thwarted nearly every al-Quaida initiative, except for the attacks of 9/11, and now the assassin was here.

But this time McGarvey would surely die, because an al-Quaida traitor would accept the reward money that the Americans were offering and a trap so exquisitely believable for them would be set.

Kamal Tayyhib, bin Laden’s chief bodyguard, knocked softly at the open door. “Contact has been made, Imam.”

“Have the Americans agreed to the meeting?” bin Laden asked, without turning away from the window.

“Yes, and our people are in place.”

Bin Laden nodded. “Very well. But under no circumstances must the American deliverymen come to any harm.”

“It will be as you have ordered,” Tayyhib promised. “But what of the money? It would be of inestimable assistance to the jihad.”

Bin Laden smiled inwardly. In the early days of the struggle, money had been of no concern, because he was a rich man. And later, after most of his personal fortune was gone, some of the very Saudi princes he vowed to depose had supported him and the cause. “Destroy it,” he said softly.

“But surely that’s not necessary, Imam.”

Bin Laden turned around, an infinite patience welling up in his chest. “Has my double arrived at the compound?”

Tayyhib wanted to press the point. Five million dollars was a great deal of money. At the very least it could be used to finance the continuing struggle in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Or it could be sent to the West Bank to help support the families impoverished by the Jews. But he lowered his eyes. “He arrived two hours ago.”

“Has Colonel Sarwar been notified?” Obaid Sarwar was the chief liaison among Pakistani intelligence, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, and the U.S.Consul General here in Karachi. He was also a strong supporter of al-Quaida and the jihad. Pakistan was walking a narrow line between appearing to be hunting the jihadists while all the while secretly supporting them.

“Yes. He promises to give us forty-eight hours. If McGarvey hasn’t made his move by then, the ISI will ask the Americans to help raid the compound. But of course by then no one will be there.”

“McGarvey will take the bait,” bin Laden said.

“If he’s as smart as you say he is, won’t he suspect a trap?”

Bin Laden smiled. “He’ll be certain that it’s a trap. But that won’t stop him. He’ll do it tonight. I’m sure of it. And then he will be dead.”

Tayyhib nodded respectfully. “As you say, Imam.”

“Now leave me,” bin Laden ordered, his voice as soft as a breeze in a field of grass. “But do not go far, I want to know the moment the handover takes place.”

“Yes, Sayyid,” Tayyhib said. It was a term of deep religious respect, most often used for descendants of Mohammed himself.

“Not Sayyid,” bin Laden corrected, although he was secretly pleased. “Imam will do.”

He turned back to the window as his chief bodyguard withdrew, and turned his mind to a second problem, that of Rupert Graham and what had to be done with the man who’d become a serious liability to the jihad.

“You should let me make the handover,” Joe Bernstein insisted.

He was at the wheel of a consulate red Mercedes 300 diesel sedan, parked in the rear of a tall concrete apartment building on the outskirts of the city across the Lyarl River. It was after nine in the evening, and it had started to rain a half hour ago. Before it had been hot and muggy. Now it was hot and steamy, and Bernstein’s filthy white shirt was plastered to his back.

“This is my money and my operation,” David Coddington said from the backseat.

It came down to a matter of trust, Bernstein thought. Five million dollars was a lot of money to let walk out the door. But it rankled, because he had given four dangerous years of his life to Company operations here and up in Islamabad. More than once he could have sold his services to Indian intelligence. Word on the street was that they paid twice as much as the CIA for items of interest. But he’d been loyal the entire time.

“We could run into some serious shit. It wasn’t such a good idea to drive out here all alone.”

“They’ll want the money,” Coddington replied in his maddeningly calm voice. “But if they get a decent look at your face you’ll be worthless to us on the street.” The COS patted Bernstein on the shoulder. “This could be the big one. If we can bag bin Laden we’ll all go home heroes.”

There were lights on in some of the apartments, and the parking lot was more than half-filled with decent-looking cars, most of them Fiats, VWs, and a few small Mercedes, plus a plain white windowless van, but Bernstein had parked in darkness near the trash Dumpsters. Their instructions, which they had received at the consulate’s primary contact telephone, had been very specific. No more than two people would be used to deliver the money. They would not be armed. And they would park directly beneath the one inoperable light stanchion in this lot no later than 9:10 P.M. It was that time now.

Headlights flashed around the corner of the building, and moments later a battered green Toyota pickup truck came into view and parked twenty meters away to the right of the white van.

“I can only see the driver,” Bernstein said.

The pickup’s headlights went out.

“Maybe it’s not our man,” Coddington suggested, and Bernstein could hear the first hint of tension in his voice.

“He’s just sitting there.”

“Can you tell if his engine is running?”

“No,” Bernstein replied. Suddenly he didn’t like the setup. They were boxed in back here. The only way out took them directly past the Toyota. He looked over his shoulder. A broad ditch, half-filled with water, separated the rear of the parking lot from the access road to another apartment block a couple hundred meters away. From there they could probably reach Chakiwarl Road. But if they got stuck in the ditch, they would be out of luck.

“I think we should get out of here,” he said.

The driver got out of the pickup truck.

“Hold on,” Coddington said. “This is it.”

The driver made no move to come across the parking lot, but he was staring at them. He was dressed in baggy dark trousers, a light shirt, and baseball cap. He was holding something about the size of a book in his hand. It did not look like a weapon.

“I’m going over,” Coddington said. “If this falls apart call for backup right away.”

“If it falls apart you’ll be dead,” Bernstein said. “Let him come to us.”

“No,” Coddington said. He got out of the car with the big aluminum case containing the five million and headed across the parking lot.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Bernstein swore. The hair at the nape of his neck was standing on end. He reached under the seat, brought out his 9mm Beretta, and switched the safety to the off position.

Coddington reached the pickup truck and for a minute or two nothing seemed to be happening. But then the informant handed the book, or whatever it was, to Coddington, who gave the man the aluminum case.

“Come on,” Bernstein murmured.

Coddington waited until the driver laid the aluminum case on the pavement and opened it, then turned around and headed back.

Bernstein tightened his grip on the pistol. If it went bad, it would be right now. He kept his eye on the informant, watching for the man to pull out a weapon, but it didn’t happen.

Coddington reached the car and climbed in the backseat. “Fish Harbor,” he said triumphantly. “Bin Laden’s at Fish Harbor in a compound. Now get us the hell out of here.”

Bernstein dropped the car in gear and started toward the exit, when four men armed with Kalashnikov rifles leaped out of the white van, and opened fire on the informant.

“Son of a bitch,” Coddington swore.

Bernstein floored it, spun the car around, and headed for the ditch. “Hang on!” he shouted.

A big explosion lit up the night behind them, and then the car, still accelerating, slammed into the ditch, the shocks bottoming out, the rear end fishtailing wildly, water and mud flying everywhere.

For just a moment it seemed as if they were going to be bogged down, but then they were rocketing up the other side and Bernstein hauled the heavy car down the access road toward the next apartment building.

“Are they coming after us?” he demanded.

“No!” Coddington shouted. “Christ, they shot him, and then tossed a bomb or something right on top of his body.”

The access road crossed behind the apartment block, and opened two hundred meters later back on Chakiwarl Road. There was no traffic and speeding away Bernstein checked his rearview mirror to make sure that they were not being followed.

“What about the money?” he asked.

“Gone,” Coddington said. “It proves that he wasn’t lying.”

“Yeah, doesn’t it now,” Bernstein replied. “But why didn’t they stop us?”

“Because you were too goddamned fast for them,” Coddington said. He was hyper. “And now we’ve got the bastard.”

“When are you going to let McGarvey know?”

“Right now,” Coddington said, pulling out his cell phone.

SEVENTY-TWO

It was 9:15 P.M. The afternoon had dragged for McGarvey and Gloria after Coddington’s initial call that contact had been made and the handover would take place sometime after nine o’clock. The bait had been taken, and now a major portion of the puzzle would be solved by al-Quaida’s reaction.

McGarvey had tried to warn the chief of station to bring plenty of backup in case he found himself in the middle of a firefight, or at the very least to insist on a rendezvous site somewhere very public. But he’d been told that this part of the mission would be strictly a local CIA operation.

He was in the bathroom, splashing water on his face, when his cell phone rang. He dried off and walked back into the bedroom to answer the phone on the third ring. Gloria stood at the window, an expectant look on her face.

“Yes?”

“We made the handover,” Coddington said. He was excited, all out of breath as if he had just run up a flight of stairs. “He’s at a compound in Fish Harbor. We’ve got the bastard now. This time we’ve really got him.”

“Listen to me, David. He’s not there, but the CIA is going to act as if they believe he is—”

“No, goddammit, you listen to me!” Coddington shouted. “They gave me a videotape. And that’s not all. Right after the handover we came under attack. The informant was killed and the money destroyed.”

McGarvey glanced at Gloria, who was staring at him, trying to gauge what was going on.

“Christ, they figured out someone was coming for the money, and where the handover was going to take place, and they were waiting for us,” Coddington said.

“Did they fire at your car?” McGarvey asked.

“No,” Coddington said. “We got out of there too fast.”

It never ceased to amaze McGarvey how people could believe what they wanted to believe, tossing out any fact that didn’t fit. The problem was especially bad in the intelligence community that was tasked with trying to come up with the right facts to fit whatever the current administration’s position was.

These were bright people, many of them even brilliant. But they were very often blinded by their own set of preconceived notions, and by a general bureaucratic malaise that seemed to affect nearly everyone the moment they got anywhere near Washington, D.C. Every single agency had its own unique culture, the primary driving force of which was nothing more than the survival of the agency.

In any given situation, if a piece of intelligence information promoted the agency’s survival, then it was branded as fact, whether it was true or not.

“That’s good news,” McGarvey said. “You might want to contact the ISI right away. If bin Laden is actually at the compound, he’ll probably try to get out of there tonight, so you’ll have to move fast.”

“That’s what I thought,” Coddington said. “But what about you?”

“We’ll backstop you in case you’re too late,” McGarvey said.

The COS was silent for a moment. It wasn’t the answer he’d expected. “That’s a good idea,” he said.

“Yeah, good luck.”

McGarvey broke the connection. “Bin Laden is not at the Fish Harbor compound. It’s a setup.”

“It’s just what you figured,” Gloria said. “So what’s next?”

“Get dressed. We’re going to the lounge for a drink.”

Pakistan was a Muslim nation, and alcohol was forbidden except in special circumstances. In most hotels, guests could order beer, wine, and liquor, night or day, but only to drink in their rooms. And major hotels usually provided a concierge floor of executive suites, generally reserved for foreign, non-Muslim visitors. A cocktail lounge was one of the perks.

A half-dozen businessmen and two women were seated at the bar and at tables in the small, tastefully modern lounge when McGarvey and Gloria walked in. Tall windows on two sides looked out on the city, and at the governor’s palatial mansion next door. A man in a tuxedo was playing American standards on a piano. The lighting was subdued.

They took a table in a corner from where they could watch the door and the bar. A cocktail waiter came and took their order, a cognac neat for McGarvey and a dark rum neat for Gloria, and when he left, Rupert Graham walked in the door and went to the bar.

McGarvey stiffened imperceptibly. He had suspected that Graham was the one who’d escaped from the sub and made off with the SOC, just as he suspected that Graham was here in Karachi and knew that McGarvey had come here too.

He’d even suspected that sooner or later the Brit would make contact to suggest a trade; bin Laden’s whereabouts, something McGarvey wanted to know, for a head start so that Graham could lose himself somewhere not only away from Western authorities, but from al-Quaida. He’d almost lost his life twice in the past weeks; first in Panama and second five miles downriver from the Farm. He would want some breathing room.

Or at least that’s what he wanted everyone to believe.

But McGarvey hadn’t counted on the man actually showing up in person. He’d expected a telephone call or perhaps a messenger to suggest a meeting somewhere safe for both of them, though he’d known that Graham had the balls to come here like this.

It would be so easy to get up as if he and Gloria were leaving, pull out his pistol, and as they passed behind Graham, put a bullet into the man’s head. In the confusion he and Gloria could make their way out of the hotel, and depend again on Otto to get them out of the country.

McGarvey smiled. Graham would be dead, but it would leave bin Laden’s whereabouts still a mystery.

“What’s so funny?” Gloria asked.

McGarvey nodded toward Graham at the bar. “It’s him.”

Gloria nearly came out of her seat, but McGarvey reached out and laid a hand on her arm. “Easy. He’s here to talk, not shoot. So we’ll talk to him.”

Their waiter brought the drinks, and as soon as he’d gone, Graham got up from the bar, a glass of what looked to be champagne in hand, and sauntered back to their table. He was dressed in a conservative dark blazer, with club tie and gray slacks, his grooming perfect, his manner supremely confident.

McGarvey pulled out his pistol and held it under the table on his lap, the safety catch in the off position.

Gloria noticed, but she held her cool.

“Mr. McGarvey, we meet again,” the Brit said pleasantly. “May I join you and Ms. Ibenez?”

“No,” McGarvey said harshly, but without raising his voice. “What do you want?”

A momentary flash of anger passed across Graham’s eyes. But he recovered nicely and smiled. “Why, to talk, same as you.”

“No,” McGarvey said. “I’m here to kill you and bin Laden. At the moment I have a pistol aimed at you from under the table. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you here and now.”

“Unsporting, old—”

“Has anyone taken notice of us?” McGarvey asked Gloria.

She looked past Graham at the other patrons, and shook her head. “No.” “Get your purse, we’re leaving now.”

“Wait,” Graham said, the first hint of uncertainty creeping into his demeanor. “Bin Laden’s not at Fish Harbor.”

“I know that.”

“But you don’t know where he’s hiding.”

“Somewhere here in the city.”

“So right,” Graham said. “I’ll tell you where he is, and you’ll give me forty-eight hours to make my escape.”

“You could have escaped after Norfolk,” McGarvey said. “Yet you came back here, practically led me here. Why?”

“Looking over my shoulder for you is bad enough. But looking over my shoulder for al-Quaida as well is too much.” Graham managed another tight smile. “Besides, you may get killed trying to get out of Pakistan. The man does have his supporters. I might bag myself a twofer.”

“Okay,” McGarvey said. “Where is he?”

Graham laughed. “What do you take me for?”

“A traitor,” McGarvey said matter-of-factly. “A coward. A fucking rabid dog. Shall I go on?”

Graham held himself in check, the strain obvious in his eyes, which narrowed slightly. “Perhaps you should kill me now, while you have the chance,” he said, his voice soft. “Because sooner or later I will kill you.”

“It’s a thought,” McGarvey replied. He raised his pistol. “But I want bin Laden first.”

Graham nodded. “And I’ll give him to you.”

“How and when?”

“Tonight. Two A.M. I’ll meet you downstairs in the lobby.”

“And take me to him?”

Graham shook his head. “No, of course not. I’ll tell you where he’s hiding — and you’re right, he’s here in the city. You’ll suspect it’s a trap, so I’ll remain here with Ms. Ibenez. We can hold each other hostage. When you return, having got what you came for, I’ll walk out of the hotel and you’ll give me a forty-eight-hour head start.”

“What makes you think that I won’t just kill you?” McGarvey asked.

“You’re an American, and your sense of honor and fair play is nearly as strong as a Brit’s. If you give your word, you’ll keep it.”

McGarvey said nothing.

“Well?”

“You have my word,” McGarvey said.

“I’ll see you at two,” Graham said. He started to leave, but then turned back. “I do have connections, you know. If I find that you’ve involved the Company with anything other than the Fish Harbor operation I’ll put out the word why you’re here. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough.”

Graham walked away, setting his champagne glass on the bar before he left the lounge.

“It’ll be a trap,” Gloria said.

“Yup,” McGarvey said. He put his gun away, took out his sat phone, and speed-dialed Rencke’s number. It took a few seconds to acquire, but Otto answered on the first ring.

“Yes?”

“He’s here in the hotel. He just left the lounge.”

“I’m on it.”

Graham’s new driver, Tony Sampson, leaned up against the right fender of the Mercedes S500 sedan parked in front of the Pearl Continental Hotel, smoking a cigarette as he waited for his boss. He’d been a British SAS sergeant until he was arrested for smuggling drugs out of Afghanistan. He’d come to bin Laden’s attention, who had him rescued from a convoy transporting him to the airbase at Bagram for transport back to England, and brought him here to work with Graham.

This was a pisshole of a city and a pisshole of a country, but it was better than Afghanistan and decidedly better than England. Anyway, Sampson had always thought of himself as a man of opportunity. And already he could see any number of possibilities working for Graham. For the moment, then, he was the loyal soldier.

A drunk in rumpled jeans and a filthy, torn sweatshirt stumbled across the busy Club Road, horns blaring, traffic flowing around him.

Sampson looked over his shoulder in time to see the man collapse on the pavement right behind the Mercedes. “Bleedin’ Christ,” he muttered. He tossed his cigarette away and went around to the rear of the car.

The drunk had his hands on the molded rear bumper and was awkwardly trying to pull himself to his feet.

“Here, what the fuck do you think you’re all about,” Sampson said. He grabbed the man’s arm, hauled him to his feet, and shoved him away. “Get the fuck out of here before I start breaking bones.”

“Entschuldigen, mein herr,” Rencke said, bleary-eyed.

“Fucking Kraut,” Sampson said. “Cops catch you drunk, you’ll be going to jail before you can say bitte.”

Rencke turned and walked away, leaving Sampson with an odd feeling that something hadn’t been quite right about the encounter.

SEVENTY-THREE

Graham emerged from the hotel in a hurry and climbed into the backseat of the black Mercedes. He was torn in two directions; his intense need to kill Kirk McGarvey, and the elemental instinct of survival. Bin Laden and his fanatical al-Quaida mujahideen were right in the middle of both forces. No matter whatever else went down in the next few hours, he needed bin Laden, McGarvey, and the Ibenez woman to be dead.

Afterwards he would make his way out of Pakistan to someplace neutral, where he would have time to figure out what would be next for him.

“Where do you want to go, sir?” Sampson asked.

“Back to bin Laden,” Graham said, looking at the bellmen at the front doors. “But we’ll be leaving again in a few hours, so stay on your toes.”

“Yes, sir,” Sampson said, and he pulled out into traffic.

“And, Tony, make bloody well sure that we’re not followed.”

Sampson glanced in the rearview mirror. “Is that a possibility tonight, sir?”

“Oh, yes,” Graham said. “A very real possibility. I don’t want you to take anything for granted. Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course, sir.”

Graham sat back and closed his eyes, trying hard to bring up an image of Jillian in his mind’s eye. But it was impossible tonight as it had been for some weeks. His head was filled with nothing more than thoughts of revenge; getting back at all the bastards of the world who had forced him to take a path he’d never wanted. Admiral Holmes, Osama bin Laden, and Kirk McGarvey; all men cut of the same rotten cloth.

The admiral, who had given the order that Graham was not to be recalled from patrol, had died of cancer a few years ago, so he was out of Graham’s reach. But bin Laden and McGarvey would come together this night in a dance of death that Graham had choreographed to the last detail.

“Will it be the Pakis or the CIA?” Sampson asked.

Graham opened his eyes. “Is someone on our tail now?”

“No, sir. I’d just like to know who the opposition is, that’s all.”

Sampson was new, and Graham didn’t know if he should be trusted, despite bin Laden’s opinion. But he’d seen the man’s SAS record, which looked good, and his question now was a valid one.

“Probably the CIA,” he said. “I don’t think they’ve involved the local cops or the ISI yet.”

“Yes, sir,” Sampson said. He’d passed the National Tourist Office but instead of turning left on Abdullah Haroon Road, he’d headed straight across to Shahrah-e-Faisal toward the airport.

This route would take them well away from the city center, and the M. A. Jinnah Commercial Centre, but once they were on the airport road outside of the city with sparse traffic at this hour of the evening, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to follow them undetected. As soon as they were clear, Sampson would double back into the city center.

Graham laid his head back and closed his eyes again, content for the moment to let his driver make the decisions. He’d been continuously on the go, it seemed, since Cabimas, with McGarvey right there over his shoulder the entire time. He was weary, and he wanted to be done with the entire business; McGarvey, al-Quaida, the jihad.

He’d come up with a notion for continuing the fight on his own, but over the past few days, with his thoughts focused almost exclusively on McGarvey and bin Laden, another idea had begun to niggle at the back of his mind: Why? Why bother going on, when nothing he’d ever done or ever could, would bring his wife back from the grave?

Jillian was dead, and that was more of an immutable truth than all the gods, Jahweh, Christ, and Allah included. Every man, woman, and child on earth was some religion’s infidel. Killing them all wouldn’t bring back his wife.

Graham let his mind drift to the Panama Canal operation where he’d come face-to-face with McGarvey, then to the York River where once again McGarvey had shown up, and finally tonight at the hotel where the arrogant bastard had been waiting with his girlfriend.

He could not simply walk away as he had in Panama and the York River. Not again tonight.

“We’re clear,” Sampson said.

Graham opened his eyes. They were back downtown. “You’re certain?” he asked, sitting up.

“Yes, sir.”

A couple of blocks later they turned onto A. R. Kayani Road, and entered the underground parking garage of the M. A. Jinnah Commercial Centre. The steel mesh security gate opened for them with a code card. Sampson drove all the way down to the fifth level where he pulled up at the private elevator for the twenty-fifth floor.

“I want you back here at one thirty,” Graham told his driver. “We have a lot to do this morning, and I’m going to need your help.”

Sampson nodded tightly, and Graham got out of the car and took the elevator up to the twenty-fifth floor.

Sometime after two this morning, when McGarvey showed up, the security system for entry to the parking garage would be disabled, as would the closed-circuit television cameras protecting bin Laden’s lair, and his personal bodyguards would be sent on a wild-goose chase.

McGarvey would make it far enough to kill bin Laden, but he wouldn’t leave the building alive. Because by then his girlfriend would be dead, and Graham and Sampson would be waiting in the parking garage for him to descend from the twenty-fifth floor.

“What the hell kept you?” McGarvey asked, letting Rencke into the hotel room.

“Trying to keep myself from being arrested,” Rencke said, going directly across to the desk and setting up his laptop computer to the WiFi network.

“Did you get the tracker attached?”

“Yeah, that was a piece of cake,” Rencke said. He brought up a GPS program that displayed a map of downtown Karachi on the monitor. “But I had to bug out for a while. It was probably one of the bellmen who spotted me behind Graham’s car and called the cops. Before I could make it around back, they were all over the place.”

“Did you get back here clean?” McGarvey asked.

“I think so,” Rencke said.

Gloria was at the window looking down at the street. “It’s quiet,” she said.

Rencke had come over to Riyadh on the Aurora, and from there on a diplomatic passport flying a Gulfstream bizjet. He had stationed himself across the street from the hotel with a laptop and WiFi equipment that could hack into the hotel’s switchboard as well as McGarvey’s cell phone and sat phone. If and when Graham made the phone call Rencke could trace it. But he was also in a position to attach a tracking device to Graham’s car in case the man showed up in person.

“I never thought he’d have the guts to face you,” Rencke said, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

“What’s the tracker’s range?” McGarvey asked. He tried to keep himself in check. They were close now, and he could almost feel bin Laden’s presence.

“It’s uplinked to one of our Jupiters. Anywhere on earth from eighty degrees north to eighty south.”

The map display shifted to a much narrower area of downtown within just a few blocks from the hotel. A small red dot appeared near the center of the display, a blinking cursor next to it.

“The unit’s shielded,” Rencke called out.

McGarvey was looking over Otto’s shoulder. “Have we lost him?”

“I don’t think so.” Rencke centered the search area directly adjacent to the red dot and cursor, which showed the last location within one meter where the uplink was lost. He overlaid the street map with a satellite view of that specific downtown block which showed a tall building on A. R. Kayani Street.

“Underground parking?” McGarvey asked.

“Probably,” Rencke said absently. He brought up a Principal Places of Interest directory, and overlaid it on the double display. “Bingo,” he said, looking up. He clicked on the building, and an info box popped up with M. A. Jinnah Commercial Centre, an address, and a brief description.

“Can you get more?” McGarvey asked. He looked up. Gloria was watching him from the window, her eyes bright. She was excited for him, and yet it was obvious she was a little frightened. If they had actually found out where bin Laden was hiding, it meant McGarvey would be going after him sometime before two this morning when Graham was supposed to come back to the hotel. Almost anything could happen.

“I don’t know if they’ve gone digital yet,” Rencke mumbled, his fingers once again flying over the keyboard. The street map overlaid with the satellite image disappeared and a logo that looked like the Masons’ symbol came up with an Arabic inscription around a compass rose. “City Engineer’s office,” Rencke said.

He pulled up an Arabic-to-English translation program, went to the City Engineer’s home page, and from there, a directory of major buildings and structures within the city proper. Scrolling down a dozen pages, he came to the M.A. Jinnah Commercial Centre. He looked up with a big grin. “Am I good, or what, kimo sabe?”

“You’re good,” McGarvey agreed.

Rencke clicked on the blueprint icon. A page came up asking for a password. He took a CD from his laptop bag, loaded it, and a few seconds later an enable icon came up onscreen. He clicked on it and his program bypassed the password block. Moments later a directory of blueprint pages came up. “Okay, if he’s in there, he wouldn’t have his name painted on the door. How do you want to do this?”

“Floor by floor. First let’s see what we can eliminate.”

Gloria came over to watch. “This could take a while,” she said. “We’ve only got a little more than three hours before Graham comes back.”

“It’ll be something obvious,” McGarvey said. “Something you can look at a thousand times and still not see.”

Rencke started with the ground floor that housed a security post at the front entrance, as well as a monitoring command post. A large atrium was bounded by shops, a travel agency, a storefront banking service, rest rooms, and a first-aid station. At the rear of the building were the service entrances and loading docks.

The second floor contained mostly attorneys’ offices, along with a small consulting service that apparently helped promote foreign investments, especially those from eastern Europe.

The third, fourth, and fifth floors were taken up by something called PHI Telecommunications Co., LLC, the sixth and seventh by Hassan Aly Publications, and the eighth through eleventh, businesses that were involved with port of Karachi operations and the shipping industry.

There were other consulting firms, doctors’ offices, financial advisers, and investment counselors, plus a number of other businesses whose purposes couldn’t be guessed from their names. One of them, Amin House, which took up more than half of the twentieth floor, looked promising. Rencke minimized the City Engineer’s site, and pulled up the City Directory, which listed Amin House as the private investment service center for Naimat Amin, who apparently was a Pakistani multimillionaire.

Rencke looked up. “It’s a possibility,” he said. “Bin Laden could be using it as a conduit for funds from his Saudi Arabian pals.”

“So far as I know most of that money is going through Prague,” McGarvey said. “But if we don’t find anything else, we’ll come back to it.”

Fifteen minutes later they came to the twenty-fifth floor, and Rencke sat up. There was no listing for the entire floor. The twenty-fourth contained an investment house, as did the twenty-sixth, but the twenty-fifth was blank.

There was no other information in any of the building’s directories, or in the City Directory, Karachi Utilities, or Karachi City District Taxing Authority. The twenty-fifth floor simply did not exist.

“He’s there,” McGarvey said.

“How can you be so sure?” Gloria asked.

Rencke was going through the directory for the remaining twenty-three floors, and when he was finished he looked up. “If bin Laden is in that building, he’s on the twenty-fifth. How’re you going to get through security? They know you’re here, and if Graham is setting you up you could be walking into a trap.”

“Not until two,” McGarvey said. He pulled out his cell phone.

“Who’re you calling?” Rencke asked.

“Joe Bernstein. I’m going to need a few things.”

SEVENTY-FOUR

It was one in the morning. Osama bin Laden sat alone in his sanctuary, a well-worn copy of the Qur’an open to Al-Nisa in chapter four to his right, and the Kalashnikov rifle he’d taken from the hands of a dead Russian soldier in Afghanistan to his left.

If they turn away from Allah, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them.

He was weary from the long struggle, especially after the attacks on Manhattan and Washington, which hadn’t really worked the way they’d hoped. The American people had not risen up against their government as they had to end the war in Vietnam.

His engineering advisers had been correct about bringing down the World Trade Center towers, but his political advisers had been wrong about everything else.

He had been wrong then about the aftermath of the attacks, as he was now about Rupert Graham, his infidel sword, his Allah’s scorpion. His man at the Pearl Continental had telephoned him an hour ago with the disturbing news that Graham had met with Kirk McGarvey and a woman presumed either to be his wife or perhaps a mistress. The meeting in the tenth-floor lounge had been brief, and what had been said was unknown, but immediately after Graham walked off, McGarvey and the woman had returned to their hotel room.

Possibly the most disturbing news was an event that occurred in front of the hotel when a man, apparently intoxicated, had an encounter with Graham’s driver. An hour later, the same man showed up at the hotel and had gone directly to McGarvey’s suite.

The CIA had some devilishly clever people working for it, and some of the technology they were able to come up with was truly frightening, making secure cell phone use impossible, and even the Internet unsafe.

It was only a matter of time before the infidels found him. Even with the help of a number of key ministers in the Pakistani government and its intelligence service, the ISI, that he been getting all along, the U.S. government’s financial and military aid packages to Musharraf were siren songs, impossible to resist.

So far McGarvey had not taken the Fish Harbor bait, even though he had approached the compound on his earlier visit, but the CIA had already contacted Colonel Obaid Sarwar, who was chief of ISI operations in the Karachi region, with the information it had purchased for five million dollars.

His time here in Karachi was running out. But before he left he hoped to solve the most vexing problem he’d ever faced. McGarvey.

Someone knocked softly at the door.

“Come,” he said, and he looked up as Graham’s driver, Tony Sampson, came in. The man was extremely ill at ease, nevertheless he rudely looked bin Laden in the eye.

“You were right, sir, it’s there where you said it might be.”

Bin Laden nodded. So it would begin and end tonight. “You did not disturb it?”

“No, sir, I left it under the bumper where the bugger must have put it.” Sampson looked away for just a moment. “I swear to God I’m sorry. I should have known …”

There was no doubt which god the infidel was swearing to, but before this night was over, he too would be joining his maker, though on which hand he would be seated would certainly come as a horrible shock.

“Where is Captain Graham at this moment?”

“I don’t know, sir. But he asked me to be ready to leave by one thirty.”

“Find him, please, and tell him that I wish to speak to him.”

“Yes, sir,” Sampson said and he turned to leave, but bin Laden stopped him.

“Sergeant, are you armed?”

“Not at the moment, sir. Not up here.”

“Get your pistol. You may be needing it this evening.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was a few minutes after one when the blue and white Toyota van that Joe Bernstein was driving pulled up and parked on A. R. Kayani Road, directly in front of the main entrance to the soaring M. A. Jinnah Commercial Centre front plaza. There was very little traffic at this hour, only the occasional truck or cab; in fact the entire sprawling city seemed to be asleep, or at the very least holding its breath in anticipation of something happening.

McGarvey and Rencke sat in the back, waiting for Bernstein to give them the all-clear. They’d agreed that they wouldn’t go in until the street was totally free of innocent bystanders. Too many Pakistani civilians had already been killed by the U.S. military trying to run down and wipe out al-Quaida leaders. McGarvey did not want to add more bodies to the carnage.

Gloria was parked at the end of the block across from the building’s underground parking entrance in a Fiat she had rented from the hotel. She wasn’t going inside with them, despite her best arguments. In the end she understood that she would be more valuable helping Bernstein as a backup in case they had to get out in a hurry, or if for some reason they got stuck inside.

It had taken Bernstein the better part of two hours to gather the uniforms and equipment McGarvey had requested, and make it back to the Pearl, and now they were on the verge of running out of time. Graham had promised to return to the hotel at two, which meant he would probably be leaving the building within the next half hour or forty-five minutes. If he got to the hotel and found that McGarvey and Gloria had gone, he might guess something had gone wrong and warn bin Laden.

But bin Laden almost certainly knew that McGarvey was here in the city, so he would be on his guard in any event.

A garbage truck lumbered by, and moments later Bernstein turned back to them. “Okay, it’s clear now,” he said.

Rencke’s eyes were round, but he was determined. He wasn’t a field officer, but over the past few days he’d learned enough Urdu, which was Pakistan’s major language, to give them a slight edge when they first entered the building. He had darkened his face and hands, and wore a cap to hide his long, out-of-control frizzy hair. The slight disguise wouldn’t hold up much beyond a first impression, but hopefully it would be enough, combined with a few phrases in Urdu, to give them the time to take control of the building’s security people before an alarm was sounded.

“Ready?” McGarvey asked him.

Rencke nodded. “Let’s do it.”

“If everything goes okay we should be out of there in fifteen minutes,” McGarvey told Bernstein. “If it’s much longer than that, it’ll mean we ran into trouble. Get word to Coddington.”

“Good luck,” Bernstein said.

McGarvey slid the side door open, grabbed the black nylon bag with the equipment Bernstein had brought, and jumped out of the van, Rencke right behind him. They were both dressed in dark slacks and windbreakers with the ISI logo across the back.

Rencke closed the door and together he and McGarvey crossed the broad plaza in front of the tower. The automatic glass doors were locked, but the night service door was equipped with a card reader.

Two guards in uniform were stationed behind a counter in the middle of the atrium lobby. They stood up and watched nervously as McGarvey held up a red ISI identification booklet while Rencke swiped a universal keycard through the reader and the door buzzed open.

Rencke slipped inside first, and held up his ISI booklet as he walked to the security desk. “Good evening,” he said in Urdu.

One of the security officers had a hand on a telephone, the other had unsnapped the restraining strap on the pistol holstered at his side. They both were suspicious.

One of them said something in Urdu, and Rencke laughed.

“Of course I will explain,” he replied.

McGarvey pulled out his pistol, stepped to the side, and pointed it at the guards.

“You will surely reach Paradise this very evening unless you cooperate fully with us,” Rencke told them.

The one guard started to pick up the telephone, but McGarvey gestured at him with the pistol, and the man backed off.

“We mean you no harm, brothers,” Rencke said. “I promise this in Allah’s name.”

The one guard carefully moved his gun hand away from his pistol.

Rencke pocketed his ISI booklet and went around behind the counter. “Get down on the floor, please,” he said. When they complied, he bound their hands and feet with plastic wire ties, and duct-taped their mouths and eyes.

McGarvey holstered his pistol and came around the counter with Rencke, who took just a moment to figure out the control panel for the building’s monitoring system. A bank of six television screens plus a flat panel monitor for the computer were laid out just beneath the lip of the countertop.

Rencke brought up the directory to see if there were any closed-circuit television cameras on the twenty-fifth floor, but if there were any they did not show up in the file.

“Try the parking garage,” McGarvey said. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one was coming.

Rencke brought up the five underground levels one at a time. Most of them were free of parked cars, but a half-dozen were parked on the lowest level, including Graham’s Mercedes. “Bingo.”

McGarvey moved closer as a man stepped out of the deeper shadows across from an elevator. He was dressed in loose trousers, a dark shirt, a light-colored long vest, and he was armed with the boxy Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun, fitted with a suppressor.

A moment later the elevator door opened and a man dressed in dark slacks and a dark pullover came out. A second armed guard stepped out from behind the Mercedes and said something.

“The guy from the elevator is Graham’s driver,” Rencke said. He looked up. “Could be they’re expecting trouble.”

“Can you find out what floor that elevator came from?”

Rencke brought up the building’s elevator panel. “Twenty-five,” he said triumphantly. “You were right.”

McGarvey keyed his lapel mike. “Gloria, set?”

“Set,” she said in his earpiece.

“Joe?”

“Set.”

“I’m going in,” McGarvey radioed. Their communications units were encrypted, so there was little chance that their transmissions had been monitored. Nevertheless he watched the guards in the subbasement for any sort of a reaction. But one of them laughed, and the other lit a cigarette.

They might have been planning for trouble, but they weren’t expecting anything immediate.

“Can you lock down just that elevator?” McGarvey asked.

“No problem,” Rencke said. He entered a few commands into the computer, and a small red tab popped up beneath the elevator command display. “If they want to get back to the twenty-fifth floor they’ll have to use the stairs.”

McGarvey hefted his nylon bag, and nodded toward the main elevators across the atrium. “Those still work?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going up to the twenty-sixth floor,” McGarvey said. “Once I’m there lock these elevators down too. I don’t want anyone sneaking up behind me.”

“You got it,” Rencke said. “And Mac? Good luck. Okay?”

“If anything goes wrong, call Gloria and get the hell out of here,” McGarvey said, and he stepped out from around the counter and sprinted across the atrium.

Graham hesitated for a moment at the end of the long corridor that led back to bin Laden’s prayer sanctuary and held his breath to listen. But the building was deathly still. The hair at the nape of his neck bristled, and his gut was tight, though he didn’t exactly know why.

Something was coming; something was about to happen. The air was pregnant with possibilities.

He had sent Sampson down to the garage to wait for him until it was time to meet with McGarvey, and he had delayed answering bin Laden’s summons for as long as possible. Something had been odd about his driver since shortly after they’d returned from the Pearl, and when the man had relayed bin Laden’s order ten minutes ago, Graham had been sure the bastard was hiding something.

In the meantime all but a handful of the mujahideen usually up here had been sent over to the Fish Harbor compound on a show of force guarding the bin Laden double. Depending upon how quickly ISI reacted, the imposter would either be allowed to get out and make a run for the mountains, or he and his freedom fighters and whoever managed to get inside the compound would all be destroyed in a series of powerful suicide bombs.

It was a ruse they had used before. The CIA was convinced that bin Laden and most of his key lieutenants were hiding in the mountains along the border with Afghanistan. It was a fiction that the Pakistani government was willing to maintain for the gullible Americans.

All but one American.

Around the corner, Graham used a house phone to call Sampson. “Get the car ready, we’re leaving in a few minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” Sampson said. “But there’s something wrong with the elevator. Do you have it locked?”

For just an instant it made no sense to Graham, but then all of a sudden he had it. McGarvey was already here. Somehow the son of a bitch had followed them from the hotel.

“Get the car ready, but send the others up here.”

“How?” Sampson demanded.

“The west stairwell, you idiot!” Graham bellowed. “McGarvey is here.” He slammed down the phone, checked the load on his Steyr, and started to the east stairwell.

Bin Laden came to the door of his prayer room. He was dressed now in his traditional Arab garb of headdress and flowing white robes. “Captain Graham,” he called.

Graham stopped in his tracks and turned back, the pistol hidden at his side behind his leg.

“I would like a word with you about Mr. McGarvey,” bin Laden said. He was flanked by his two mujahideen personal bodyguards, armed with Kalashnikov rifles.

“What about him?”

“There is a possibility that he traced you here after your meeting this evening,” bin Laden said, his voice soft as if he were talking to a schoolboy. He stepped aside. “Please join me. We’ll have tea and discuss how you will deal with this problem. And with your next assignment.”

“First let me fetch something from my room,” Graham said.

“If it’s your weapon you’re after, you will not be needing it. I have sent for help.”

“Okay,” Graham said, but he spun on his heel and ducked around the corner before bin Laden’s bodyguards could react.

At the end of the corridor, he tore open the stairwell door just as the first of the two mujahideen opened fire from the end of the corridor, but by then he was racing down the stairs, taking them three at a time.

He had no idea how McGarvey had found this place, but with a little bit of luck the bastard would be coming through the garage, that by now was unguarded except for Sampson, whose pistol’s firing pin was missing.

He wanted McGarvey dead, but first he wanted the American to kill bin Laden, because the worldwide repercussions would be so great that no one from the CIA or al-Quaida would bother looking for one British ex-pat.

SEVENTY-FIVE

Stepping off the elevator on the twenty-sixth floor, McGarvey heard the brief burst of automatic weapons fire directly below. It was a single Kalashnikov and very close, no more than one or two floors down, which at least meant that Otto wasn’t involved.

He stopped in his tracks for just a moment, to wait for more gunfire, but the building fell silent again; no screams, no shouts, nothing.

He could think of any number of possibilities, not the least of which involved Graham, who might have outlived his usefulness to al-Quaida. He keyed his lapel mike as he crossed the corridor to a pair of highly polished oak doors. The brass plaque on the wall identified the offices as MI-RANI TRADING COMPANY: KARACHI, BERLIN, PARIS, LONDON.

“Otto, I’m on twenty-sixth, somebody’s shooting just below me.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Rencke radioed back. “But you’re going to have company. Two guys from the garage are on their way up the stairs. The only one left is Graham’s driver, and it looks as if he’s getting set to get out of there. He found the tracker and destroyed it. What do you want me to do?”

“Graham’s probably on his way down. Make sure Gloria and Bernstein have the heads-up. But tell them to be careful.”

“I read you,” Bernstein radioed.

The channel was silent for a moment. “Gloria?” McGarvey radioed.

There was no answer.

“Check on her, Joe,” McGarvey ordered.

“You got it.”

“Otto, I want you to shut down the main elevators. If you don’t hear from me sooner, turn them back on in ten minutes and get the hell out of the building.” McGarvey set his bag down, and using the same universal card key Rencke had used downstairs, unlocked the door and let himself in.

“It’s done,” Rencke radioed.

“I’m in, shut down the alarm system for the entire floor.”

“Stand by,” Rencke said.

The anteroom was large and expensively decorated with ornately framed seascapes on the walls, several tall plants, and a tasteful grouping of dark wine leather furniture on an Oriental rug facing a receptionist’s desk.

“Done,” Rencke radioed.

“Start the clock now,” McGarvey said. He crossed to the door beyond the reception room, let himself into a plushly carpeted corridor, and hurried to the palatial office at the end. This one was at the rear of the building, opposite from the M. R. Kayani Road’s main entrance, and was furnished like the reception room with massive, dark leather and oak furniture, including a very large executive’s desk and credenza in front of tall glass windows.

He opened the nylon bag on the desk, took out a Kevlar vest and black jumpsuit, and quickly pulled them on. Next he donned a rappelling harness with caribiners, and stuffed his zippered pockets with several small blocks of Semtex plastic explosive and pencil fuses, three spare magazines of ammunition for his 9 mm Walther pistol and three for a Heckler & Koch M8 short-barrelled carbine, and several H & W E182 flash-bang grenades, plus an evidence kit.

Next he took out a 150-foot coil of nylon rope from the bag, and quickly tied a double loop around the massive desk, which would serve as an anchor, and then swept the credenza clear of a stack of files, a half-dozen books held in place by heavy stone bookends, and a water carafe and several glasses on a silver tray.

He attached two suction cup window glass handholds onto the window, and then using a battery-powered glass cutter, removed a four-foot-round section from the window, careful to make sure that the lower edge was below the top of the credenza so that the sharp glass would not cut the rope.

He set the heavy piece of windowpane aside, the warm, humid night air wafting in on a light breeze, the sound of a siren in the distance. He slung the M8 carbine over his shoulder, then threaded the rope through the snap rings attached to his harness, paid the long end out the window, climbed up on the credenza, and slipped backwards through the hole in the glass.

Balancing 250 feet above the city, his feet on the window ledge at the floor level, McGarvey paused for just a moment to take stock. The two guards from the basement were on their way up to the twenty-fifth floor because Rencke’s GPS tracker had been found. They knew someone was coming, and they would be getting ready to spring their trap.

But they couldn’t know yet from what direction the attack would come.

McGarvey gingerly rappelled down a few feet to a point where he could lean over and look into the window below. The room was mostly in darkness except for a dim light spilling through a partially open door. From what little he could make out there were bare mattresses scattered on the floor, and perhaps knapsacks and other things piled here and there. The room was being used as a dormitory for bin Laden’s mujahideen. For the moment, however, it was empty, which was a bit of luck.

He lowered himself the rest of the way down, and then holding that position, took out a small block of Semtex, which he plastered to the center of the window. He inserted one of the pencil fuses, set it for ten seconds, then scrambled twenty feet to the left, beyond the edge of the glass.

The plastique blew with a small, sharp bang, spraying shards of glass inside the room as well as outward into the night air like a million diamonds suspended for just a second until they began to rain down onto the backstreet below.

The countdown had just begun.

McGarvey unslung the M8, switched the safety catch to the off position, and kicked away from the side of the building, swinging in a short arc to fly through the shattered window into the dormitory.

As he landed inside, a dark figure flung open the door and raised a Kalashnikov rifle. McGarvey fired a short burst from the hip with one hand, stitching two shots into the mujahideen’s chest, slamming the man off his feet back into the corridor.

He disengaged himself from the rope, then threw off the rappelling harness, and crossed the room to the door. Someone was shouting something in Arabic, and at least two people were coming up the hall.

McGarvey pulled out a flash-bang grenade, pulled the pin, waited for just a couple seconds, and then tossed it around the door frame out into the corridor.

Someone shouted a warning just as the grenade went off with an eye-searing flash of intense light and a tremendous bang.

McGarvey stuck the carbine around the corner and sprayed the corridor. Pulling back, he ejected the spent magazine, popped in another one, and rolled left through the door.

Three mujahideen were down, blood splattered on the walls and ceiling, and pooling up beneath two of the bodies. The third man, blood pumping from a neck wound, had grappled a pistol out of his tunic and was raising it.

“Don’t,” McGarvey warned, but the man managed to pull the hammer back. McGarvey shot him in the head, killing him instantly, then sprinted down the corridor.

There was no way to know how many of bin Laden’s freedom fighters had been holed up with him, but the dormitory room had mattresses for at least ten. By now they knew that they were under assault, and if bin Laden were actually here right now, they would have called for help, and would be barricading themselves somewhere. Or they would be trying to make a run for it. Either way there were probably other well-armed, well-motivated men up here perfectly willing to give their lives for the cause.

But there’d been gunfire, so there’d already been some sort of trouble here tonight.

The end of the corridor opened to a large room decorated only with prayer rugs facing a raised platform on which lounging pillows were piled. McGarvey held up around the corner, waiting for someone else to show up. But the building had fallen deathly silent.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one was coming up behind him, then, girding himself, stepped around the corner and zigzagged his way across the big prayer room to a pair of doors, one of them partially ajar.

He looked through in time to see a mujahideen just a few feet away down a short corridor, a Kalashnikov pointed at the door. A second armed man was waiting farther down the corridor at an open door, he too held a Kalashnikov in the ready-fire position.

McGarvey fell back, away from the doors, an instant before the nearest freedom fighter opened fire, the 7.62mm rounds slamming through the door, fragments hitting McGarvey in his right hip, and left arm, causing him to lose his grip on the carbine, and two striking him in the chest, shoving him backwards off his feet.

The Kevlar vest had saved his life, but the wind had been knocked out of him, and a wave of dizziness and nausea washed over him. For just a moment he saw spots and jagged bolts of black lightning in front of his face.

He managed to pull out his pistol and push the safety catch to the off position, as the half-destroyed door slowly opened and the mujahideen extended the Kalashnikov around the corner. A moment later the freedom fighter ducked his head through the opening and McGarvey fired one shot, catching the man in the middle of the forehead.

The man’s head snapped back and his legs collapsed under him.

McGarvey scrambled away from the doorway as the second mujahideen opened fire from the end of the corridor, bullet fragments and pieces from the door flying all around him.

At six hundred rounds per minute, it took only a few seconds for the rifle to run out of ammunition.

Despite his injuries, McGarvey scrambled to the open door in time to see the mujahideen at the end of the corridor slam a fresh magazine into the weapon. The man looked up as McGarvey fired three shots, two catching him in the chest, and the third in the throat, shoving him backwards into the room.

The building fell silent again. McGarvey braced himself against the door frame as he cocked his head to listen. But there was nothing. No sounds to indicate that anyone else was alive up here.

Rencke and Gloria were not to initiate radio contact, lest it be a distraction at a critical time. And for a few seconds McGarvey felt a tremendous wave of loneliness and depression wash over him. Everything, every person and place he knew and loved seemed to be a million miles away, completely inaccessible. He had been in situations like these countless times in his career, so this was nothing new — coming out of the night, an assassin stalking his prey — but there’d never been anything glamorous or exciting about what he did.

He lowered his head and closed his eyes for just a moment. He wanted to think about Katy, bring a picture of her face into his mind’s eye, but he shoved that thought away. He could not afford the distraction, not until this business was over.

Pushing away from the door frame, McGarvey hobbled slowly down the corridor, stepping over the body of the first mujahideen, careful to keep out of the blood that was soaking into the carpeting.

All of his senses were alert for the slightest sign that he was walking into a trap. He stopped a few feet from the open door. The second mujahideen was lying on his back beneath a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. His rifle was on the floor within reach beside him, but he posed no further threat. He was obviously dead.

McGarvey went the rest of the way, holding up just at the threshold before he leaned forward to see inside, and he almost fired his pistol on instinct alone.

A clean-shaven Osama bin Laden, dressed in white robes, sitting cross-legged on a large prayer rug, an open Qur’an lying on his lap, his Kalashnikov propped against the wall behind him, looked up, and smiled sadly. “Good morning, Mr. McGarvey,” he said softly. “It seems as if Allah has intertwined our destinies against all odds.”

McGarvey peered around the corner to make sure no one else was in the room before he stepped through the doorway, over the mujahideen’s body.

“Congratulations for a job well done. You have been a formidable opponent.”

McGarvey glanced over his shoulder. It wouldn’t take the two men from the parking garage much longer to get up here. It was something bin Laden probably knew, so he was stalling for time.

“I presume that you mean to take me away so that I can stand trial,” bin Laden said. He seemed to be amused. “So that a mockery will be made of me before the entire world.”

“No,” McGarvey said softly, not sure if bin Laden had heard him. By now the Pakistani authorities had probably been alerted to the explosion and the gunfire up here, and were likely on their way.

“In any event I would welcome a public trial,” bin Laden said, a smug expression on his long face. “Your lawyers will not be able to prove a thing against me, because in Allah’s eyes, I am innocent.”

McGarvey keyed his communications unit. “Otto, unlock the main elevators, and get ready to move. I think we’ll be having company any minute.”

“Will do,” Rencke radioed back.

“As an innocent man I have nothing to fear from your American justice,” bin Laden said.

McGarvey shook his head. He didn’t know if there was any clear definition of what evil was. Soldiers opposing each other on a battlefield couldn’t be included. But if any man fit the notion of evil, bin Laden was one. “Wrong answer,” McGarvey said, with great difficulty. “Just before 9/11 you told me that no one was innocent in this war. That includes you.” He raised his pistol.

The smile faded from bin Laden’s lips. “The money to fund the jihad comes from Saudi Arabia.”

“I know.”

“I can give you the names, and—”

“I don’t care,” McGarvey said. He squeezed off a shot, striking the terrorist leader in the middle of the forehead, driving him backwards, the Qur’an sliding off his lap.

Bin Laden was dead and the war was over. Or at least it was for him.

McGarvey went the rest of the way into the room, and unloaded his pistol, one careful shot after the other, into bin Laden’s face, his neck, and his chest.

For several long seconds he stood over the terrorist leader’s body, a tremendous sense of sadness coming over him. It had been the same after every kill. He could remember all the faces of his victims. Now bin Laden’s would be added to his nightmares.

He ejected the spent magazine from his pistol, pocketed it, and loaded a fresh one into the handle, cycling a round into the firing chamber.

Next he took a cotton swab and small plastic Baggie from one of his pockets, dabbed some blood from bin Laden’s head wound, and sealed the cotton swab in the Baggie.

They would want proof.

He took one last long look at bin Laden’s lifeless body, then turned and sprinted down the corridor toward the main elevators at the front of the building, the wound in his hip getting steadily worse with each step.

He keyed his radio. “I’m heading to the elevators.”

“Hustle, kimo sabe,” Rencke replied. “I’m picking up chatter on the local ISI channel. They’re on their way here. And Graham showed up in the parking garage five minutes ago. He and his driver are gone.”

“I’ll be with you in two minutes,” McGarvey radioed. “What about Gloria?”

“I can’t raise her,” Otto said. “The main elevators are unlocked.”

“How about Joe?”

“Nothing from him either.”

“Christ,” McGarvey muttered. He went through the large prayer room and took the corridor in the opposite direction from the dormitory. At the far end, a plain steel door opened to a small lobby across which were two elevators, one of the cars standing open.

He was in a quandary if he should go back and take out the two mujahideen coming up the stairs, which would delay the authorities finding bin Laden’s body, or just leave now. But they were not worth the risk or the extra time.

He stepped aboard the elevator and punched the button for the ground floor. Something was wrong on the street out front, and the hairs stood up on the nape of his neck as the doors closed and the car started down.

But Otto would have warned Bernstein and Gloria that trouble was coming their way. They would have been prepared.

It was an express elevator and it took less than one minute to reach the ground floor. McGarvey stepped to one side and raised his pistol as the doors opened. But except for Rencke and the two trussed-up guards behind the security console, the atrium lobby was empty.

“Shut down all the elevators!” McGarvey shouted, hobbling across the lobby. “We’re getting out of here right now.”

Before McGarvey reached the main doors, Rencke had locked down the elevators and was right behind him, his pistol in hand.

Outside, the night air was warm, and extremely humid. In the not too far distance they could hear a lot of sirens, but there was no traffic here for the moment. The blue and white Toyota van that Bernstein was driving was still parked across the street, and Gloria’s Fiat hadn’t moved from the end of the block across from the entrance to the building’s underground garage. There was no sign of Graham’s Mercedes, or that there’d been any trouble. But if he’d emerged from the garage he would have driven directly past Gloria.

McGarvey hurried across the broad plaza and then across the street where he approached the driver’s side door of the van from the rear, and looked inside. The window was down and Bernstein was slumped over, blood all over the seat from a gunshot wound in the back of his head. There was no doubt he was dead.

“What do we do?” Rencke asked, his voice still steady despite the fact that he was not a trained field officer.

“We have to leave him,” McGarvey said tersely, and he headed as fast as his legs would carry him back to Gloria’s Fiat, sick at heart by what he thought he would find. Somehow Graham had managed to get past her and take Bernstein unawares. Christ, he had warned them both about the bastard.

Gloria was also slumped over the seat, blood matting the hair on the left side of her head, but she was starting to come around and trying to sit up. “What happened?” she stammered.

The sirens were very close now.

McGarvey pocketed his pistol, tore open the door, and helped Gloria to sit up and slide over the gearshift lever to the passenger side. He got behind the wheel and as soon as Rencke was in the backseat, started the engine and took off. Just as they were turning the corner at the end of the block, McGarvey looked in the rearview mirror in time to see three pickup trucks filled with armed men pulling up in front of the building. They were bin Laden’s security forces, responding to a call for help.

How it would play out between them and the Pakistani intelligence officers who were closing in was anyone’s guess, but McGarvey was certain that the ISI had been cooperating with bin Laden and al-Quaida all along.

“Call your people at the airport and tell them that we’re on our way,” McGarvey told Rencke.

“Already did. The jet will be ready and cleared for takeoff when we get there,” Rencke said. He gave his handkerchief to Gloria to stanch the blood seeping from a gash in the side of her head.

“What happened?” McGarvey asked her.

Her eyes were slightly crossed, the pupils dilated. She had probably suffered a concussion. She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. She seemed to pull herself together a little. “What’s going on? Did you get him?”

Something niggled at the back of McGarvey’s head, but he nodded. “He’s dead, and we’re on our way out.”

Gloria closed her eyes. “Thank God, darling,” she said. “I was desperately worried about you getting away alive.” She opened her eyes again, and managed a smile. “Let’s go home now, okay?”