Whatever the Cost

1

Jeb Richards sat down in one of the chairs set around the huge table in Conference Room One, nodding greetings to his colleagues.

There had been yet another emergency meeting called, and he wondered what the hell was going on now. He shook his head, still suffering from the effects of his recent flight home from Riyadh. Couldn’t they have waited until he’d slept?

Richards wondered if it had anything to do with Quraishi and his plan to attack the US. But how would anyone have found out? No, he thought as he poured himself a glass of water from the pitcher on the table in front of him, it couldn’t be that. He smiled. No, that was still going to surprise the hell out of everybody.

And after the dirty bomb was set off, money would no longer be a problem for his department, for the next couple of decades at least.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ General Peter Olsen said, his face grim, ‘we have news that I think you are going to find disturbing, to say the least. Please hear me out, then we can discuss what we are going to do.’

There were general murmurings around the large conference table, but they were quickly silenced by the president. ‘Please,’ Ellen Abrams said with a wave of her hand, ‘go ahead.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Olsen said, before turning to the assembled group. ‘For security reasons, I won’t go into how this intelligence was developed, but suffice it to say that it is reliable.’ He took a deep breath before continuing. ‘From what we have managed to piece together so far, it appears that the Fu Yu Shan was carrying — probably without its crew’s knowledge — a crate which contained a specialized weapon. That crate was loaded on board the vessel at the port of Dalian in China, but it had arrived at Dalian airport the day before as air freight from Pyongyang, North Korea.’ He paused for emphasis, to let the message sink in. ‘We have since managed to track the origin of the crate back to a supposed political prison camp in the northern mountains known as Camp Fourteen. However, it transpires that the camp is really a development site for the weapon, and the North Korean government has been using the prisoners as experimental guinea pigs. Men, women and children,’ he said with obvious distaste.

Richards’ eyes narrowed. He knew the weapon had come from North Korea, but he’d never been told anything about human experimentation. And why would they be experimenting with humans anyway? The obvious answer, he supposed, was to see what effects the radiation would have on the people exposed to it. He swallowed some more water as he waited for Olsen to continue.

‘The weapon itself has now been identified,’ Olsen said, ‘and it is unpleasant in the extreme. It is nothing nuclear, as we first thought; rather it is a new type of bioweapon.’

Richards’ heart stopped. What the hell was Olsen talking about?

‘It functions rather like a time bomb,’ Olsen continued. ‘It can be injected into a carrier, who is completely symptom-free. This means that borders can be crossed at will, with no suspicions raised. The carrier is free to travel across the world to any location they choose. But a certain amount of time later, the biological agent implanted in their body reacts, and the symptoms begin.’

Richards’ blood was turning to ice in his veins. Where was Olsen getting this from? Could it be true? He shook his head. No; of course it couldn’t. Quraishi had been adamant about the nature of the weapon stolen from the North Koreans. It was a dirty bomb, nothing more.

Wasn’t it?

‘The basis of the weapon is reportedly an Ebola-like, flesh-eating virus,’ Olsen carried on, watching the barely contained fear on the faces of the men and women around the table. ‘At first, the skin blisters painfully, all over the body. A short time later these blisters open and the flesh literally sloughs off the victim as the air reacts to what’s inside.

‘Now,’ Olsen said with military control, ‘while obviously horrific, this in and of itself isn’t the danger of the weapon. What is far more worrying, far more damaging, is the fact that when the blisters open, spores are released into the atmosphere around the victim. Depending upon prevailing weather conditions, these spores can be transported anything up to a radius of ten square kilometers before dying. Which means that infection with this virus is a danger for anyone in the vicinity of the original host when they first exhibit the symptoms.

‘The early lack of such symptoms is also a primary danger — as well as allowing infected carriers to travel unmolested, it also means that secondary victims will not even know that they are infected, so they will continue to go about their business until they too burst out in blisters and release their own spores, infecting a new set of people. And so on, and so on.

‘If somebody is infected willingly with this bioweapon — a biological suicide bomber, if you will — and they intentionally go to an area guaranteed to have a lot of people — Times Square on a Saturday afternoon, NFL playoffs, major league baseball games, for example — then tens of thousands of secondary carriers could be infected. And then they go on their way without knowing anything has happened, and infect millions more.’

Olsen cleared his throat. ‘Such a weapon could — taking into account those who might possibly have natural immunity — all but wipe out a nation’s population within days.’ He saw the look of disbelief on the faces of those around him, and nodded his head. ‘Yes. Days. Millions would be infected without even knowing about it. And it’s one hell of an unpleasant way to go; the virus literally eats you alive from the inside.’

Richards couldn’t help himself any longer. ‘Where the hell are you getting this information?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve heard nothing about this whatsoever, and it’s appeared in none of the briefing papers from the CIA or NSA. And now we know all about it, out of nowhere?’

Abrams fielded the question. ‘It is not from ‘nowhere’, Jeb,’ she said calmly. ‘It is from sources which we can trust.’

‘On-site intelligence?’ Clark Mason interjected. ‘Have we got a recon team inside North Korea, when you assured me only recently that we did not?’

‘We have assets who have performed a close-up inspection of the camp,’ Abrams answered, ‘and have retrieved documentary evidence of the weapon’s development and usage. It will all be corroborated at the correct time. Now let’s move on, shall we?’

Richards subconsciously wiped the sweat from his brow. Could it be true? Had his old friend lied to him? Was this the weapon he was going to use? He pulled the collar away from his neck, suddenly hot. Too damned hot.

‘But why would the North Koreans develop such a weapon?’ he asked.

‘That’s a good question,’ Olsen said. ‘And luckily, we’ve also managed to get details of the North Korean plan from a major within the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which is the office responsible for foreign operations. Apparently, it is part of a ‘master-plan’ developed by the RGB on the orders of President Kim, in order to reunify the country.

‘The plan has been a long time in the coming. You remember that demonstration where those people were killed in Seoul? The one which started off the wave of Islamic terrorism in South Korea?’ Olsen saw heads nod around the table. ‘Well, it was the work of the RGB; it was their own agents who opened fire, and they’ve been fomenting Islamic trouble in the region ever since, all building towards their final move. The whole terrorist problem in South Korea was created to act as a smokescreen, so this attack could be blamed on Islamists.

‘The weapon was to have been shipped to Pakistan, where it would have been injected into a group of preselected agents, all part of a known terrorist group. The RGB has funded the group for the past few years, and they were more than willing to lend it some of their people in return.

‘These injected Islamists would then have caught planes into South Korea and made their way to several key cities, where the weapon would then have become active, killing them and releasing the spores into the atmosphere to infect millions of others.

‘South Korea would immediately become a pariah nation, closed off to the outside world until the crisis was under control, during which time — in a gesture of singularity, of brotherhood — North Korea would have extended the olive branch of peace and moved in to ‘help’ their neighbors in their time of need.

‘When the smoke cleared, President Kim and the North Korean government would have all but supplanted the southern regime, and would move its own people across the border to run its factories and businesses, replacing the people who would have been killed.

‘Before long, the once divided nation would be whole again, with Kim in complete control.

‘Of course, world opinion would have been strongly against the North’s occupation if it was known that the weapon originated from there, which was why the crate was to be shipped to the Middle East for use by a terrorist proxy. This way, the world would actually have sympathy with the northern regime, and believe that they were actually helping the south. By the time anyone learnt different — if anyone ever would learn any different — it would be too late anyway.’

‘So what’s going on now that the weapon was intercepted?’ asked Catalina dos Santos.

‘The RGB decided to go ahead with their plan anyway,’ Olsen replied, ‘but instead of using the terrorist proxy to cover their involvement, they were prepared to inject prisoners from Camp Fourteen and send them covertly over the border. The likelihood of an international backlash would of course be much higher, but it would have been better than absolute failure.

‘Luckily, these injections were stopped just in time, and the situation has been temporarily contained. But the weapon is stockpiled in quantity at Camp Fourteen, and they may well try again at some stage if we do not take immediate action.’

‘Such as?’ Mason asked. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting an attack on North Korean soil?’

‘That’s exactly what we’re suggesting,’ Abrams answered, all eyes turning to her. ‘We cannot allow that weapon to exist, and I personally back the use of B2 bombers to take out the camp.’

Richards saw the heads nodding around the table, saw his own life spinning out of control.

‘Do we have a consensus?’ Abrams asked next.

Hands went up around the table, and Richards felt his own hand rising right along with them. How could he argue against it?

Abrams nodded her head. ‘Excellent.’ She picked up the phone on the table in front of her and gave the order for the B2s to start the operation. Putting the phone down, she turned to Olsen. ‘General?’ she asked.

Olsen looked around the table, smiling. ‘Good. Thank you everyone. That’s going to take care of one of our problems at least.’

‘We’ve got more?’ asked Pat Johnson, Secretary of Defense.

Olsen nodded grimly, and Richards watched, helpless. He knew what was coming.

‘You bet your ass,’ Olsen added. ‘We’ve still got to talk about who’s got that damned crate off the Fu Yu Shan, and what the hell they’re planning on doing with it.’

2

Jake Navarone watched the two PLA captains, Liu Yingchau and Xie Wei, as they walked through the side gate into the main prison compound; Major Ho Sang-ok walked between them, concealed pistols aimed at his spine.

Navarone had been impressed with the professionalism of the Chinese military officers so far; they had done everything asked of them, and more besides. He made a mental note to report on their performance to Commander Treyborne. On the one hand, they should receive a citation of some sort for their work on the mission; on the other, it would be prudent to make a study of their own training and operational capabilities, which the US military might well have underestimated.

It had been decided that Liu and Xie would be the ones to breach the main compound, due not only to their appearance — they might not have looked North Korean exactly, but they were a lot closer than any of the other men in Bravo Troop — but also because of their familiarity with the Korean language. It wasn’t perfect, but — again — it was superior to any other person that Navarone had.

Since Navarone’s radio conversation with Treyborne, the SEALs had effectively taken complete control of the secondary compound. His explosives experts had been sent back out to wreak havoc in the eastern forest, and were still keeping the guards from the main camp occupied. Also — to Navarone’s relief — there seemed to be a reluctance for anyone to approach this side of the camp anyway. Probably due to what went on here, he supposed; nobody in their right minds would have anything to do with it. The sight of the fleshless bodies being thrown into the incinerator would, Navarone knew, haunt him for a long time to come.

Navarone’s men had secured all of the buildings within the compound, subduing people where they could, killing them silently when met with resistance.

He had then set up fire bases within the buildings overlooking the main compound, strategically placing snipers and machine gunners where they could provide covering fire and protection for the next phase of the plan.

From his observation point at the second floor window of the laboratory building, Navarone watched through his high-powered Zeiss lenses as Major Ho and the two Chinese captains — now with Korean People’s Army Ground Force uniforms taken from soldiers found in the secondary compound — were stopped at the sentry post inside the side gate.

Navarone held his breath as Major Ho spoke to the guards there, hoping beyond hope that he would keep his word and allow the safe passage of Liu and Xie into the prison camp beyond.

It was fear that drove him, Ho realized with little hint of self-recrimination. It was, after all, fear that drove everything in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. It was all he had known, his entire life. Fear drove the people under him, and fear was used on him by his own superiors.

It was now several conflicting fears which would dictate his actions. His primary fear, of course, was that the two soldiers he was sandwiched between would shoot him dead if he didn’t comply with their commands.

Another, less immediate, fear was that if the American team was successful, then — even if he survived — he was as good as dead anyway. He understood that this was the last chance for the RGB — if he failed here, both he and Lieutenant General U Chun-su would likely be executed as an example to others. The price of failure in North Korea was always high.

A part of him therefore reacted against the soldiers beside him, against the Americans who had taken over the experimentation compound. If Ho could sound the alarm, perhaps he could still salvage the operation?

But he knew that it was too late anyway. The Americans already knew of the plan — to save himself from torture, he had willingly told them everything — and they had already informed their superiors back in the United States. South Korea would be notified, and the plan would be doomed to failure as a result. World opinion would turn on North Korea even more ferociously than it already was.

He knew that bombers would be on their way to destroy this place — probably the entire damned valley — which was why the American commandos were instigating this ridiculous phase of their own operation rather than just reporting back their findings and escaping. They actually wanted to rescue the prisoners before their bombers arrived, which — in more favorable circumstances — Ho would have found hilarious. He simply did not understand the attitude of the Americans at all. Why rescue the enemy? It made no sense at all to Ho.

The leader of the commandos had seemed infuriated that there were women and children here in the camp, but Ho couldn’t see what difference it made. Enemies of the state were enemies of the state, were they not? Age and sex surely made not one iota of difference.

But, he reflected, the Americans were different. Their entire culture was different. And this was why they would ultimately lose the battle over the long term. They believed in compassion and mercy — when in war, there should be none.

The way Ho saw it though, he was out of options — if he sounded the alarm, he might succeed in the prisoners being kept where they were, and the possible capture of the American commandos. But the valley — and the weapon alongside it — would still be razed from existence. The camp guards might escape, but perhaps not. And if Ho survived the bombing, he was unlikely to survive a debriefing back in Pyongyang.

And this was why he had jumped at the commando’s offer — if he led in the two Chinese officers, got them inside the camp, and then gave certain orders, he would be extracted from the valley alongside the rest of the American troops.

He understood that he would face lengthy interrogations by US intelligence, but he was too experienced to believe in the propaganda spread by his own government; far from being tortured and killed, he would be regarded as a valuable defector, and be granted permission to live life freely after he had been bled dry of information. Certainly more freely than he had ever been allowed to live in the People’s Republic.

He would miss his wife and children of course, but he would be alive.

Alive and free.

And in the end, there was no choice at all — he merely barked his commands at the sentries, who opened the gates immediately to allow full access to the prison compound for him and the two Chinese agents who accompanied him.

Navarone breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the three men pass through the inner gates.

He hadn’t known whether the major would go through with the charade or not — a part of him was terrified that Ho would just start shouting and ruin the whole thing — but he was delighted when it looked like he would do exactly what he had promised.

Navarone knew the man had been left with few options — his plan was in tatters, the camp was going to be obliterated anyway, and at least by agreeing to follow Navarone’s demands, he was left with the possibility of survival.

He smiled as the major spoke to the two guards at the sentry post, barking orders at them; and breathed a second sigh of relief as they both turned to follow Ho and Liu further into the compound, leaving Xie Wei to man the side gate.

Navarone checked on the rest of his men, making sure they were all ready. He had snipers ready to take out the soldiers in the four corner guard towers, as well as other elements still working their evil magic over on the eastern side of the compound.

Downstairs, he also had six men disguised — as best as they could manage — as North Korean soldiers, waiting to be let into the camp by Xie Wei.

Navarone’s plan was for Major Ho to order a prisoner roll call, to bring everyone back to the huge central square. His snipers would then take out the guard towers, his men — having worked their way inside, near to other guards — would take out as many soldiers as they could, and Ho and Liu would shepherd the prisoners out of the camp through the gate manned by Xie, while Navarone’s snipers and machine gunners provided covering fire from the secondary compound.

With a large part of the guard force distracted by the activity east of the camp, Navarone hoped it would be possible for the prisoners to escape into the forested hills surrounding the valley before the bunker buster bombs were dropped by the B2s and the whole area was reduced to ashes.

Navarone’s concentration was broken by the electronic beeping of his field radio.

He picked up the handset. ‘Rattlesnake,’ he answered with the group’s operational call sign.

‘Rattlesnake, this is Command, over,’ the urgent voice of Ike Treyborne came back. ‘Please confirm that you are out of area.’

‘Negative, Command,’ Navarone said. ‘We are evacuating the area to minimize collateral damage, over.’

‘Those weren’t your orders Rattlesnake,’ Treyborne shot back, angry. ‘You need to leave the area immediately, is that understood? Cobra element is en route, ETA one hour. Please confirm, over.’

Navarone’s blood went cold in his veins. One hour? He’d calculated he had at least six hours left; long enough to free the prisoners and be long gone before the B2s arrived. ‘One hour?’ he asked in disbelief. ‘We thought six, Command. What happened?’

‘Cobra element was staged ahead, Rattlesnake, two pieces based at Whisky Papa, over.’

Despite the highly encrypted digital radio, Treyborne still used code words, never willing to trust technology. Navarone knew that Whisky Papa was the Western Pacific, and Treyborne was referring specifically to the US military base at Guam, which combined the Joint Region Marianas naval installation with Andersen Air Force Base.

Navarone’s pulse raced. Guam was only two thousand miles away from North Korea; just three hours of flight time.

‘Authorization for Cobra element has been given, Rattlesnake, do you copy? Element is already en route to your destination. You need to evacuate immediately, I repeat, immediately, do you copy? Over.’

‘Yes sir,’ Navarone answered in a shaky voice as he peered out of the window of the laboratory, saw the prisoners begin to congregate in the square.

Thousands of them.

‘I will evacuate immediately, sir,’ he said. ‘Over and out.’

He replaced the handset and breathed in deeply, exhaled slowly.

An hour would have to be enough.

3

‘So what do we know?’ dos Santos asked.

‘Okay,’ Olsen said, ‘again I can’t go into the specifics of where this intel came from, but I think we’ve got a good idea of who’s behind it. I know time is of the essence, but I’ll start at the beginning, to give you all the information.

‘We have reason to believe that Arabian Islamic Jihad is now in possession of the weapon which was heading for Pakistan. We don’t know how — perhaps due to the North Koreans’ own efforts to find Islamic proxies, maybe information flowed both ways over the years — but it transpires that the terrorists learnt of the weapon’s existence and realized how useful it could be if a real terrorist organization got their hands on it.

‘Now,’ Olsen continued, ‘they couldn’t very well just waltz right in to North Korea and steal it. And so — with what we assume must have been full foreknowledge of the RGB operation — they waited until the weapon was en route to Pakistan. Knowing the transport ship would pass through Indonesian waters, the AIJ then asked their contacts in Jemaah Islamiyah to arrange the hijacking of the Fu Yu Shan.

‘Jemaah Islamiyah then subcontracted the job to the pirate group Liang Kebangkitan, who performed the actual hijack. Arief Suprapto — the pirate leader — and his gang were allowed to keep the ship, the crew and the cargo, except for a single crate — the crate from North Korea, which was put on board at Dalian.

‘This crate found its way — via private jet — to Saudi Arabia. It’s yet to be confirmed, but it seems that funding for the AIJ has come in the most part from money unknowingly siphoned off from Saudi National Oil profits by its Vice President of Finance, Investment and Development, Abdullah al-Zayani.

‘Through al-Zayani, we’ve identified a possible candidate for the leader of Arabian Islamic Jihad. We’re just awaiting confirmation of this.’

Richards could feel all eyes in the room turning to him, their glare knowing, judging, accusing. But when he looked around, he realized he had been imagining it; all eyes were still locked on General Olsen.

But who was the person they suspected? Was it Quraishi? And if it was, what would that mean for him?

Richards’ guts stirred as he considered his options. Should he say something? Should he admit to his knowledge? If he said something now, before he was accused outright, would things go easier for him?

Or was Olsen just fishing? Maybe he had no idea who it was. Richards had never heard of this al-Zayani character before, and had no idea if he could lead US intelligence to Quraishi. And if they were sure it was Quraishi, Olsen would definitely have said something by now. Wouldn’t he?

Richards decided to take the initiative, just as he’d been taught at West Point all those years ago.

‘From my meeting with Quraishi,’ he began tentatively, ‘I’m not sure we can trust the man fully. I’ve known him for a while, but he seems to have changed. He was talking about some pretty wild things — about the House of Saud, that is. Treasonous things really.’

‘What are you saying Jeb?’ Olsen asked.

‘I just think we need to keep a close eye on him, that’s all,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t very forthcoming with information on the AIJ, and I think he knows more than he’s letting on.’

Olsen nodded his head. ‘That’s interesting Jeb, thank you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘In actual fact, that’s very helpful — Quraishi is the man at the top of our list for heading up the AIJ.’

Richards could see Olsen holding his gaze, as if checking his reaction. And once again, he wondered if anyone suspected him. But on the other hand, why would they? And he had just covered himself by selling out his old friend anyway.

‘But that information doesn’t leave this room,’ Olsen said. ‘Does everyone understand that?’

There was muttered acceptance around the table, and Olsen moved on.

‘Getting back to the weapon,’ he said. ‘As far as we can tell, it was then taken on to a safe house by a man known within the AIJ as the ‘hammer of the infidel’, an enforcer for the Lion who goes by the name of Amir al-Hazmi. A lifelong terrorist scumbag, and a real piece of work.

‘The threat, of course, is that the AIJ plan to use this weapon against the United States. We think that the safe house might be a base of operations, where people can be injected with the weapon and then sent out, possibly — probably — to America. The Lion — possibly Abd al-Aziz Quraishi — has been quite clear that he wishes to wipe out the ‘Great Satan’ once and for all — and this weapon gives him the opportunity to do just that.

‘Imagine it,’ Olsen said gravely, ‘a dozen, two dozen, suicide time bombers boarding planes to the US completely undetected, with no way to trace them, the bioweapon already ticking away inside them. They land, they move to areas with large populations, attend big public events, the time comes and’ — Olsen’s hands opened wide across the conference table — ‘boom, their skin erupts, the spores spread, infect thousands, then millions, then… well, you get the picture.

‘We’d have to close ourselves off completely to the outside world, quarantine ourselves to make sure it didn’t spread beyond our borders. Could we manage that? And what would it do to us if we could? Our economy? Our people? How long would it take for us to recover?’ Olsen sighed as he contemplated the situation. ‘Could we recover?’ He shrugged his big shoulders. ‘I just don’t know.’

The melancholy was only momentary; then his backed straightened, his shoulders squared, and he faced the men and women around the table.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said, ‘it is with no hint of overstatement that I say that this is the worst crisis we have faced as a nation since 1962. Our very existence is threatened.’

Richards’ stomach turned as he thought about what he had done; he had assisted a madman in a plan which could kill US citizens not in the low thousands as he’d been led to believe — and which he was mentally and morally able to accept — but in the tens of millions.

He sagged in his chair and made the decision to hold his tongue. What would he say anyway? Sorry everyone, I’ve known about Quraishi for years. I even know about the attack he’s been planning, but it’s okay — I only thought he was going to use a dirty nuclear bomb, not this crazy bioweapon shit.

Yeah, Richards thought, he was better off just keeping his mouth shut and hoping for the best.

‘Bullshit,’ Clark Mason said with uncharacteristic bluntness; and for the first time since the crisis began, Richards found himself wishing that his new-found friend would keep his mouth shut too. ‘Where’s all this intelligence coming from? We seem to know one hell of a lot all of a sudden.’

‘And you have a problem with this?’ President Abrams responded acidly.

Mason nodded his head vigorously. ‘I do if it means we’re violating international law. Am I right, Milt?’

Mason turned to Milt Staten, the Attorney General, who looked around edgily and shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness.

‘There’s been a presidential finding,’ Staten said almost guiltily. ‘Due to the serious threat to the primacy of the United States and the clear and present danger posed by this bioweapon, we’ve instigated emergency procedures giving us… well, more latitude in our actions abroad.’

Mason shook his head in disbelief. ‘And I’m hearing this now?’

‘There wasn’t time before,’ Abrams interjected, bringing the matter to a close. ‘You will appreciate the urgency of our situation here.’

Mason continued to shake his head but backed down, accepting the situation for what it was.

Across the room, Richards watched him, understanding what was going through the mind of the Secretary of State. The look of anger — of betrayal — that had flickered across his eyes when Staten had spoken bode ill for the Attorney General; Mason’s memory was long, and equally bitter.

And Richards also knew that Mason would be watching the unfolding events with a very close eye; if anything went wrong, he would be the first one to point the finger and try to get some political capital out of it.

Richards could almost read the man’s mind –

It’ll serve the bitch right.

But, Richards figured, that was if Quraishi’s plan didn’t wipe them all out in the first place; even Mason would be hard put to get political capital out of the situation if he was a fleshless corpse lying in a ditch with a million others.

‘At least,’ Mason said eventually, ‘tell me that you know where this al-Hazmi is, where this safe house is.’

Richards watched Olsen exchange uneasy glances with James Dorrell and Bud Shaw, before turning to Mason.

‘We’re working in it,’ he said with a confidence he obviously didn’t possess. ‘We’re working on it.’

4

Abd al-Aziz Quraishi had sensed something was wrong straight away.

Eventually — miraculously it now seemed — he had at last managed to escape from the American agent; Dan Chadwick, Mark Cole, the Asset; whoever the hell he had been.

The man had turned out to not be entirely invincible after all; the shattered remains of The Globe restaurant falling on his head had seen to that.

Quraishi himself had been escorted under armed guard from the Al Faisaliyah building, ushered into a waiting vehicle where he was ferried directly back to the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior. He was keen to get back, anxious to lambast the Air Force commander for the reckless actions of his pilots.

But then he had felt the first warning signs; a tightness in his gut, a rising of the hairs at the nape of his neck. A part of him told him to ignore it, that it was just the after effects of the adrenalin which had been coursing through his bloodstream all afternoon.

But the other side of him — more cautious, more powerful — told him that he had been discovered. He had no idea how or why — or even if he was right to think such a thing — but his instincts told him to run.

As the conscious part of his mind took over, listening intently to his inner instinct, he had started to recognize where these feelings were originating from.

There was an increased security presence at the ugly concrete building, armed personnel patrolling the corridors, checking visitors; Quraishi had been able to see them even as his car passed by the front entrance, on its way to the subterranean parking lot.

But it wasn’t just the personnel at the Ministry; it was the men who accompanied him in the car. They were as obsequious as always, but behind that façade of respect, Quraishi had sensed something else altogether, something insidious and frightening; he had sensed the magnetic attraction of predators to prey. And, he had realized with growing horror, Quraishi himself was the prey.

And so he had instructed the driver to pull over outside the front entrance, telling him that he would go straight inside that way; he was in a hurry, he’d said, and didn’t want to waste time with parking.

He could sense that the men in the car were uneasy, but had received no orders on what to do in this situation; Quraishi was a respected government figure after all, and still had power over them.

Eventually, the driver had agreed, and pulled in towards the curb. One of the guards had moved to open the door; presumably to get out and escort Quraishi inside. But before the armored car had even braked fully to a stop, Quraishi had thrown his own door open and was running, losing himself in the crowds who passed by the Ministry building; the same crowds Quraishi had observed from his fourth floor office window for years, their eyes cast down; scared by the Mabahith, disgusted by the concrete edifice which housed it.

As the crowd parted to accept him, closing round him as if with a mind of its own, Quraishi could just about see the men back at the car emptying out, guns raised, eyes scanning out for him as they reached for their radios, asking for orders; and Quraishi had known he’d done the right thing.

And now, hours later and safe at last — ensconced in an apartment in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, six hundred miles away from the dangers of Riyadh — Quraishi considered the options for his future.

Reliable colleagues had confirmed that a warrant had been made out for his arrest back at the Ministry. Apparently the Americans had information which suggested a link between himself and Arabian Islamic Jihad and — true to their corrupt, hateful form — the Saudi government had agreed to whatever the US demanded. After all, Quraishi was only a minor relative of the House of Saud, and therefore completely expendable in the face of the ongoing good relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States, and the Ministry of Interior was more than happy to offer him up on a plate if it made the Americans happy.

Quraishi wondered how the link had been made — was it through Mark Cole, the agent killed back in Riyadh? Had he told his superiors about him? Or else was it through some other means?

Quraishi shook his head as he was served a cup of jasmine tea by one of his many mistresses. He was married, but it was just for show; he considered himself personally bound to Allah alone, and would have no problem in leaving his wife and children behind. He kept mistresses as he appreciated the comforts of female company, but they too meant nothing to him.

No, he thought, it no longer mattered how he had been found out; all that mattered was the end-game.

And his recent conversation with Amir al-Hazmi had reassured Quraishi that — whatever happened to him personally — the end-game was going to be exactly what he had planned.

His beloved martyrs would spread themselves willingly throughout the most populous cities of the United States, putting themselves in a position to cause the greatest amount of havoc, and would then allow the ultimate sacrifice to be made.

Their bodies — mere vessels now for the valued North Korean bioweapon — would erupt and release their spores into the atmosphere, infecting thousands of people unwittingly, who would then go on to infect millions more.

The idea was so beautiful, so incredibly pure; almost the entire population of the United States would be wiped out in weeks.

The Great Satan annihilated in one fell swoop.

Once again he thanked Allah for the providence which had brought the Korean weapon to his attention in the first place.

It was years ago now, he remembered as he relaxed into his wicker armchair, the fan above him dissipating the worst of the evening’s heat.

He had still been with the Mabahith at the time, and it had been brought to his attention that North Korean agents had been working in the area, attempting to recruit Islamic terrorist cells.

Intrigued by what the North Koreans were doing in the Middle East, Quraishi had ordered a full-scale, yet covert, investigation. It soon became clear what they were up to; they were eager to foment trouble in South Korea, and to then blame it on Muslim extremists.

Further investigation led to Quraishi committing his own agents into North Korea, which eventually revealed some of that nation’s ultimate plan; to use a weapon in order to help unify their country, and blame it on Middle Eastern terrorists.

And when it was revealed to Quraishi what weapon was being developed there, his own plan began to appear almost unbidden in his mind.

He had already begun to establish Arabian Islamic Jihad, had started plans for terrorist actions all over the world; but when he caught wind of the North Korean bioweapon project, he put his own jobs on hold. For the most part at least — he still authorized some operations so that his men could be kept enthusiastic and well prepared. But he decided to keep the AIJ much more low-key than he had originally planned; at least until the time came for the greatest terrorist act of all time — at which stage, the name of Arabian Islamic Jihad would be remembered for the rest of human history.

He had killed many of the agents who had brought him the information; some had started to wonder why he wasn’t doing anything with the information they were supplying, and others — especially those from the General Intelligence Presidency, the government’s key foreign intelligence agency whose members Quraishi had seconded — were becoming openly suspicious of his motives.

He had denounced the men as traitors, tortured them to death in the Ministry’s basement; in fact, it was ironically his treatment of these ‘double agents’ which had resulted in his promotion from Chief of the Mabahith to Assistant Minister of Internal Security.

With full knowledge of the RGB plan to infect South Korea through the use of an Islamic terrorist proxy, it just remained for Quraishi to organize for the theft of the weapon en route to Pakistan.

And now, through the will of Allah, the weapon would have an even better use; a sacred use, one for which the people of his beloved Arabia would certainly rejoice.

For the United States and the House of Saud would fall, and Arabia would be free once more.

‘How certain are we of this?’ James Dorrell asked Bud Shaw, ensconced in a private meeting room with Pete Olsen, John Eckhart and President Abrams.

‘Sure enough to bring it to attention of all of you,’ Shaw responded acidly, before holding up his hands in apology. ‘Sorry, I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. I guess I’m tired.’

Abrams nodded in understanding. ‘We appreciate your efforts, Bud,’ she assured him. ‘Now what exactly is it that you have?’

Shaw took a breath, and then looked up. ‘We’ve given finding the AIJ safe house top priority. The weapon needs to be prepared, and it’s possible that these so-called ‘suicide time-bombers’ are still there. We’ve been cross-referencing everything we have on both Quraishi and al-Hazmi, trying to triangulate a possible location.’

‘And it looks like Quraishi is definitely the man we’re after,’ Dorrell interjected. ‘Our sources in Saudi Arabia tell us that he took off before he was brought in for questioning, he’s now officially on the run and listed as the most likely candidate for the Lion, the leader of the AIJ.’

Shaw nodded. ‘Well, we entered what we have on file for him, including voice recordings, into our system, and a little while ago, we received a hit — a conversation between Quraishi and a second man, who we believe to be Amir al-Hazmi. The conversation was in an unusual Arabian dialect, and also used code words to mask the meaning of the conversation, but our analysts believe that Quraishi was checking on the progress of his operation.’

‘Do we think the bombers are still there?’ Eckhart asked.

Shaw shrugged. ‘We can’t be sure,’ he said uneasily. ‘We traced the origin of the call to a payphone at a bus station in Riyadh. Quraishi obviously didn’t want to use a cell phone, as he would think that all his numbers would be monitored, and he probably didn’t have access to his voice modulation software — you know, the one he’s been using to change his voice when he makes those AIJ videos.’

‘You think it’s him in the videos?’ Abrams asked.

Shaw nodded. ‘Our analysts have studied the body language — now we know to compare it with Quraishi — and they’re eighty percent certain it’s the same person.’

‘Have we shared this with the Saudi authorities?’ Olsen asked.

‘We’ve told them about the pay phone location,’ Shaw said, ‘just in case they can nail Quraishi, but we’ve got to assume that he’s long gone by now.’

‘What about the other location?’ Dorrell asked with anticipation. ‘The place the call was made to?’

Shaw smiled. ‘I think we’ve got it,’ he said. ‘We managed to trace the call to Mecca, one of the world’s holiest cities and one of the reasons we get so much stick for being there in the first place. From satellite photos it seems to be a walled compound in a residential area. Rented in a private name, but we’ve traced the money back and it seems that payments are coming from accounts operated by Abdullah al-Zayani, the suspected financier of the AIJ — who we’ve still not managed to locate, by the way. It also appears on some of the other cross-checks we’ve been doing, calls that we’ve since traced between Riyadh — we suspect from Quraishi — and Amir al-Hazmi.’

‘So,’ Abrams said slowly, ‘you believe that this compound is where the weapon was taken by al-Hazmi, and where the suicide bombers are to be injected?’

‘All but certain of it,’ Shaw said.

‘Have we informed the Saudi authorities?’ Abrams asked next. ‘Can we get them to move in? Secure the place before the bombers leave?’

Dorrell shook his head. ‘I’m not sure that would be a good idea,’ he said. ‘The trouble is, the country is a mess; people work for these organizations, but often hold very different opinions and loyalties. Look at Quraishi himself, for example. We simply don’t have any idea how many people he’s got working with him in the Saudi government. If we tip them off that we know about the compound, they might contact al-Hazmi and then everyone would be gone, just like that.’ Dorrell snapped his fingers. ‘And then we’d have no chance whatsoever.’

‘Do we have anybody there?’ Abrams asked next. ‘Anyone we can trust?’

Heads turned as Olsen exhaled slowly. ‘We do have a man who’s been working with us there,’ he said uneasily. ’In an unofficial capacity, at least.’

‘Go on,’ Dorrell said.

‘Mark Cole,’ Olsen replied. ‘The Asset. He’s the one who gave us the take on al-Zayani and Quraishi in the first place.’

‘Where is he now?’ Abrams asked quietly, and she watched as Olsen’s shoulders slumped regretfully.

‘That’s the problem,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we don’t exactly know.’

5

Dorrell was back in his sixth floor office at CIA headquarters in Langley, deep in thought, when the call came.

It was Francis Stevens — although he only got patched through under a code word, Dorrell knew exactly who it was — calling from Riyadh.

Stevens was responsible for the CIA safe house in the Saudi capital. Even though Saudi Arabia had good relations with the US, sometimes precautions still needed to be taken — which was why the CIA maintained safe houses in almost every city in the world. They were havens where agents could escape to if something went wrong; secure locations where kidnapped targets could be stored and interrogated before being taken elsewhere; places where operations could be planned and staged from. Some had never been used — perhaps would never be used — while others got used far too often for comfort.

The safe house in Riyadh fell somewhere in the middle; some years saw it used frequently, others rarely. For the past few years though, it had been very quiet, and Dorrell’s instincts were immediately aroused by Stevens’ unexpected call.

‘There’s a man here,’ Stevens said.

‘Who?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Stevens said cagily. ‘He wasn’t on any of the lists I’ve got, and I wasn’t told to expect anyone.’

‘Did he use the correct protocols?’ Dorrell asked next, trying to reign in his hope.

‘In a way.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, he used code words I didn’t recognize,’ Stevens said. ‘But I checked back, and they’re ones we used to use, but years ago.’

Dorrell felt his heart skip a beat. ‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s in the reception area. Off the street, but not inside yet.’

‘Bring him in,’ Dorrell ordered. ‘Immediately. And then get him on the phone to me right away, understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ Stevens replied, and Dorrell was pleased to hear the sound of the connection being broken as the safe house manager raced to his task.

He breathed a sigh of relief, sinking into his leather chair.

The man at the front door could only be Mark Cole.

So al-Hazmi was in Mecca, Cole thought as he replaced the receiver, his conversation with Dorrell recently finished.

The voices of John Eckhart, Bud Shaw, General Olsen and President Abrams had also been patched through during a hastily-arranged conference call, and it was clear that his arrest for treason was going to be overlooked — momentarily, at least. But it was interesting that it was just this small select group that he was addressing — obviously some other members of the National Security Council might well still harbor less positive opinions about him. But for the president and her closest advisors at least, now was not the time to pursue such things.

Mecca made perfect sense, of course; it was the holiest destination in the Arabian peninsula, and Quraishi would doubtless feel that it would please Allah to launch his operation from there. The American military presence in Saudi Arabia was felt by many to be a defilement of the holy land, and it would seem poetic justice to launch the attack against the so-called ‘Great Satan’ from the nation’s holiest city.

Cole had remembered about the Riyadh CIA safe house from his days as a covert operative for the US government. Such places weren’t meant to be used by deniable operatives, but Cole had nevertheless memorized their locations and security procedures — just in case. And after escaping from the chaos surrounding the Al Faisaliyah Center, he had made his way straight there.

And although the codes he had given were years out of date, he had hoped that the CIA would be able to put two and two together and realize it was the Asset — still alive, and ready for his orders.

The information he had received from Dorrell over the secure line was terrifying — the possibility of these suicide time bombers unleashing their destructive bioweapon all over the US was almost too much to comprehend.

But there was still a chance — the bombers could still be at the safe house, and if Cole could get there in time, he might just be able to avert a catastrophe of historic proportions.

The Saudi authorities had been told about Quraishi’s involvement with the AIJ, but he had managed to escape arrest — so far, at least. Cole wondered if he would find Quraishi at the Mecca safe house, but discounted the possibility. He would probably be a thousand miles away by now, lost forever. Still, Cole hoped he would get the chance to meet the man again.

But Cole knew that it had to be first things first.

He had to get to Mecca, confront Amir al-Hazmi, and stop the suicide bombers before they left on their genocidal journey to the United States.

‘So what’s our back-up plan?’ Bud Shaw asked the small group, gathered together now in person, back in the White House Situation Room.

‘It’s tough,’ Eckhart sighed. ‘We’re going to need to get NSC approval before we can do anything on the national level.’

Dorrell nodded his head in agreement. ‘The only thing we can do is to close off the United States to all incoming visitors. If the bombers have already left, then they could be anywhere. We can’t just screen flights out of Saudi Arabia, or even the Middle East — what if they’ve flown somewhere else first, and then catch a connecting flight to the US? And we can’t just screen Arab passengers either; we have no idea what their ethnicity is, none whatsoever. They could be Arab, Oriental, Caucasian, a mix of everything, we just don’t know.’

‘And you can just imagine the havoc it would wreak, can’t you?’ said Shaw. ‘And what if they come in by car or on foot across the Canadian or Mexican borders?’ He sighed. ‘This is one hell of a shit sandwich.’

Ellen Abrams breathed out slowly. ‘I understand,’ she said, struggling to retain her legendary composure. ‘What we’ll do is convene a meeting of the NSC, put things into place. If we have to shut down all of our airports, then that’s exactly what we’ll do. If we have to check everyone coming in, then we’ll do it.’ She checked her watch. ‘Ken Jung from Fort Detrick is due here in the next ten minutes, and we have other experts en route from the FBI and the bioweapons defense division of the DOD to discuss what we can do to counter this thing. How we can identify it, how we can defeat it.’

The men around the small table murmured their approval. Fort Detrick, Maryland, was the home of the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, and Jung was their top man. Files were already being downloaded through secure connections by the SEAL team back in North Korea for analysis, and America’s top experts were hard at work on getting to grips with this new bio threat.

‘The only other thing is how we’re going to keep a lid on it,’ Eckhart said next, and there were weary sighs exchanged around the room. Everyone knew that this was another huge problem — if word about the bioweapon got out in the public domain, mass panic would ensue. And panic on such a scale was guaranteed to leave thousands dead, even if the weapon was never used.

‘We have the normal protocols in place,’ Abrams answered. ‘But if something goes wrong and the press gets wind of this, then Heaven help us.’ She looked around the table at her advisors. ‘We just have to hope and pray that Cole finds those bombers still at the safe house.’

Everybody nodded their agreement; if the bombers had already left, then the very existence of the United States was at risk.

The G-force pushed Cole back into the second pilot’s couch of the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet as it rapidly accelerated away from the runway of Riyadh Air Base.

He could feel his skin rippling underneath the flight suit as the aircraft steadily climbed into the darkening skies above the Saudi capital, the speed on the readout in front of him spiraling steadily upwards — Mach 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1 — until he could look at it no longer, speed ceasing to have meaning.

The irony of his departure from Riyadh Air Base wasn’t lost on him; it was here that the killer Apache had flown from, the helicopter that had destroyed the Al Faisaliyah Center earlier that day. But Cole was no longer a wanted man; with his new CIA-provided identification, he was now Tom Drake, US Congressman for Tennessee. And the one thing Drake wanted to do on his tour of the Middle East was experience the sensation of flying in a fast jet — a wish the Saudi Air Force was only too willing to grant.

The Saudis had recently taken delivery of their Eurofighters, and the jet that Cole was sat in was the T1 variant, a two-seat trainer rather than the normal single-seat fighter version. His pilot gave him a running commentary in perfect English as they soared across the open skies.

He’d asked the pilot back at the base if it would be possible to fly as far as Mecca, and he’d been told it was no problem — at Mach 1.1, or 810 miles per hour, the Eurofighter could still cruise without using its afterburners, and at this so-called ‘supercruise’ speed, the jet could be over Mecca in less than an hour and a half.

It was only when they were over Mecca that the problems would begin, Cole knew. He had no legitimate reason for requesting the jet to land; besides which, by the time the jet landed at an official airbase, more time would have been wasted. And he would still have to escape from a military airfield in order to locate the AIJ safe house without the knowledge of the Saudi authorities.

He sighed as he settled in for the flight, phasing out the pilot’s continuous talking as his mind focused on what lay ahead.