Jihad

CHAPTER 77

The Saudi customs officer flipped through Lia’s official passport briskly, his face tight with disapproval. Lia kept her mouth shut; the subjects she was trailing had arrived more than four hours earlier, and she didn’t want to give the man any excuse to turn his dislike for Americans into active though unknowing obstruction.

Finally the man handed her passport back, waving her through with a frown.

Terrence Pinchon waited for her in a white Mercedes just outside the airport building. Lia pulled open the car door and slid in without saying a word.

“How you doing, soldier?” said Pinchon.

“Been a long time since I was a soldier.”

“Time just flies when you’re having fun, huh?”

“I guess.”

“What do you think of the NSA, anyway? All that high-tech geewhiz crap get in the way of what’s real?”

“What’s real?”

Pinchon thought her remark was a joke and laughed. Lia, not in the mood to make small talk — or, more importantly, to press him on Kyrgyzstan — changed the subject.

“Where are the Saudis?”

“Al and Amin are five miles out of town, in a fancy compound with all the forbidden amenities of the West,” said Pinchon. “You sure these guys are al-Qaeda?”

“I’m sure they met with Asad.”

“Saudi intelligence claims they’re not on any watch list. And they watch everybody.”

“I’ll bet.”

“You ever been in Saudi Arabia before? Interesting place. A lot of fanatics. And half of them are in the government. Everybody’s got — what’s the old expression? bucoo bucks?”

“Money interest you?”

“Of course.”

“I didn’t think it did.”

While Pinchon laughed, Lia thought back to their days together. He wasn’t one of the people who groused about how much more “contractors” were being paid for doing next to nothing, or who talked about tripling his pay when his enlistment ended. Nor had he seemed interested in expensive things.

He did like cars and having a good time — those things were expensive. They’d spent a few days together in a nice hotel in Puerto Rico… a very nice hotel.

Where had he gotten the money for that?

Maybe he hadn’t changed — maybe he’d been a slime and a jerk all along and she’d missed it, fooled by lust into seeing what she wanted to see.

“Here we go,” Pinchon said, pulling off the road. The headlights reflected off painted stones; if it weren’t for them, the driveway would have been impossible to see, since it was nearly the same color as the surrounding desert in the dark. An Arab-looking man stood in front of large iron gates that barred the way into a walled compound. Pinchon had to show his credentials before the man would open the gates.

“Locals. Very suspicious,” he said as he pulled up in front of the low-slung house.

“How close are we?” Lia asked.

“We can see the house from the roof,” said Pinchon. “Embassy rents the place, just happened to be close by. One of the deputy secretaries in charge of serving tea or some such BS lives here. Nice spread, huh? Wait until you see the pool.”

Lia followed him inside. There were three Saudi intelligence agents and four CIA people sitting in the living room. The TV had been pulled away from the wall; wires snaked from it to a control box on the coffee table, and from there down the hall. An infrared video of the compound they were watching was on the television screen, the green shadows casting an eerie hue around the room.

“How do I get on the roof?” Lia asked.

“Down the hall, hang a right, go out the door. There’s a ladder outside. If Reisler’s snoring, give him a kick in the ribs. It always makes him turn over.”

Lia found Reisler at the eyepiece of a 1200mm Zhumell-Kepher telescope, panning it slowly across the compound where the two Saudis had gone.

“Hello,” he said, not looking over.

“What are they doing?”

“Looks like they’re in the second room from the right in the back. Can’t really tell what they’re doing. At least two other people are in there with them.” He pointed to a parabolic microphone mounted on a large stand nearby. The microphone picked up vibrations from surfaces such as windows. “Haven’t gotten much.”

“Why don’t we get closer?”

“Saudis won’t let us.”

“They’re in charge?”

“Yes and no. It’s their country.” Reisler finally looked up. “Want a peek?”

Lia bent over the eyepiece. She could see the window of the room clearly; the shades were drawn but two heads were near the bottom of the frame, bobbing every so often.

“Why can’t we hear anything?” Lia asked. “Are we too far?”

“I think they may have something against the windows, muffling any possible vibrations. And between you and me, these mikes never work as good as they do in the movies, you know?”

Lia swung the telescope down and started examining the house. In order to bug it, she’d have to get inside.

The old deliveryman ruse?

Too obvious. And she couldn’t do it; they’d seen her in Turkey.

Maybe Desk Three could cause a blackout, or mess up their phone.

Lia stood up. She pulled the satphone from her pocket with one hand and turned the com system on with the other. As she did, a pair of helicopters passed overhead from the south. They were only about fifty feet off the ground, still descending; the vibrations shook the roof. Lia turned and saw them descending toward the compound. Meanwhile, several white and light blue Saudi police cars were charging up the road in the other direction.

“The Saudis are raiding the compound,” yelled Lia as she ran to the ladder. Pinchon, cursing, met her in the backyard; they ran to the car, trailed by two of the other agents.

They were just pulling up to the roadblock when the rear of the house burst into flames. Lia stared at the red ribbon of light encircling the roof; a moment later a tremendous boom shook the air.