Bahmad, his attention on the starboard stairwell, had flattened himself against the bulkhead and was creeping forward.
McGarvey stepped out into the corridor and raised his pistol. The ship started to spin, but then steadied down. Bahmad turned, a surprised look on his face. He brought the MAC 10 around, but he was too late and he knew it.
“You lose,” McGarvey said softly, and he squeezed off two shots, the first catching bin Laden’s chief of staff in his chest, driving him backward, and the second under his jaw, the bullet spiraling upward into his brain.
Elizabeth raced up the narrow stairs that had replaced the elevator inside this tower, taking them two at a time. Her radio was useless in here because of all the steel, though she could faintly hear the sirens and sounds of pandemonium out on the bridge deck below. There would be time later to chastise herself for allowing the President’s daughter to slip away, and for the SWAT shooter who had left the tower door unlocked to get reamed. For now she had to concentrate on finding the girl, getting her the hell out of here and off the bridge before it was too late.
She stopped and cocked an ear to listen. Somewhere far above she could hear footfalls on the metal stairs.
“Deborah,” she shouted, and she listened again. The footsteps stopped. The stairwell was only very dimly lit, casting ominous shadows on the honeycombed interior of the tower. There were a million places for someone to hide in here forever.
“Liz,” Todd shouted from below, his voice booming in the stairwell.
“Stay back,” Elizabeth warned.
“The chopper’s on its way. Hurry.”
Elizabeth turned and looked up the stairwell. There were no footsteps now. Deborah was crouched up there somewhere. Frightened. Not knowing who to trust or what to do.
“Deb, it’s me, Liz,” Elizabeth shouted, starting up. “I’m coming up to talk to you. This is really important, so stay right where you are. Please.”
McGarvey reached the port rail, blood streaming from his wounds, everything dancing crazily in front of his eyes as if he was in the middle of an earthquake. He could make out the Harrier jet a few hundred feet aft of the ship and the Sea King helicopter hovering about the same distance straight out. But he couldn’t tell if the Margo had stopped, though it seemed to him that it had.
The bomb was on the pilot boat heading straight for the bridge and nobody but him knew about it. Even if they did now, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do. Sinking the boat wouldn’t help. When the bomb went off it would vaporize tons of water into a radioactive deluge. Nor would taking the boat in tow and heading it out to sea work. There simply wasn’t enough time.
“Goddamnit!”
The gate was open, the boarding ladder deployed. McGarvey looked down and spotted the inflatable, its motor idling. The procedure for shutting down the Russian nuclear devices couldn’t be much different than that for deactivating the American bombs. Or at least it shouldn’t be, but he had no other choice. Liz was on that bridge.
He scrambled down the ladder nearly falling several times. His legs threatened to buckle under him, his right hip where he had taken a hit was nearly useless and his vision kept fading in and out.
The Sea King slid in closer to see what he was doing, but its rotor wash became so strong it threatened to blow the dinghy over, and the pilot backed off.
McGarvey didn’t bother to look up or wave, it was hard enough keeping in focus as it was. He managed to untie the painter with fingers as thick as sausages, climb aboard, throw the motor into gear and take off.
This is exactly how bin Laden envisioned the scenario would unfold. McGarvey had seen it in the man’s eyes. Television viewers from all over the world would witness the United States being brought to its knees. The most powerful nation on earth was unable to protect itself. They would see the helicopters, the police, the military and the Coast Guard ships surrounding the bridge and the runners. And then the bright flash.
When he cleared the Margo’s huge flaring bows, McGarvey turned directly toward the bridge. The Coast Guard cutter Escanaba a hundred yards out now was bearing down on him, the Sea King had taken up position about fifty yards over his left shoulder and an outgoing tide raised a four-foot chop in the Gate that threatened to flip the dinghy over backward.
He couldn’t see the pilot boat yet, but it was in the channel and it wasn’t going very fast. He’d seen that from the air. He twisted the outboard’s throttle all the way open and the dinghy shot ahead, leaping over the waves, nearly throwing him out each time it came down.
The President’s daughter was huddled on the stairs, her knees up to her chin, her eyes wide with fright. When Elizabeth reached her the girl was shivering almost uncontrollably, tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Hey, take it easy, Deb,” Elizabeth told her. She sat down just below the girl and took her hands, her palms were cold and sweaty.
“They’re going to kill me and my dad,” Deborah whimpered.
“Don’t be silly. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“Yes, they are. I heard my dad talking about them. They’re all rotten bastards.”
“That’s why you’ve got us, Deb,” Elizabeth said, keeping her voice calm and gentle. The girl was on the verge of hysteria. “We’re not going to let anyone come near you.”
“What about my dad?”
“He and your mom are okay. They’re waiting for you to catch up.” Elizabeth smiled warmly. “Unless you want to stay here in the dark.” Deborah shook her head, her movements tiny and birdlike. “The bastards won’t hurt me if I come with you?” “I promise,” Elizabeth said. “But maybe you’d better not call them that anymore.” She got up and helped Deborah to her feet. * “That’s what my dad says they are.”
“I know, but that’s just the way dads talk sometimes. It’s not the way girls are supposed to talk.”
Deborah managed a little smile. “Okay,” she said.
“All right then, let’s do it.”
Elizabeth started down the stairs, the President’s daughter clinging tightly to her arm, conscious that they had just about run out of time.
McGarvey spotted the pilot boat a couple of hundred yards from the center span of the bridge, but it took another five minutes to catch up with it. There were still thousands of people up on the bridge, flashing lights, sirens and someone issuing instructions over a bullhorn. Even from here he could see and hear the mass confusion. People were getting hurt up there right now.
He could see someone at the helm of the slowly moving pilot boat. Until he got closer he thought that Bahmad had a partner after all. But as he came up from behind he saw that the helmsman was probably dead. Blood covered the back of his head and neck, and his body swayed back and forth with an unnatural looseness.
Bahmad had been the consummate professional. He’d planned for every contingency, even for McGarvey to show up in the middle of his operation. Even for his own death.
The terrorist had sent a corpse to deliver the bomb.
McGarvey came up on the pilot boat’s port quarter and matched speeds. He grabbed the rail with his tree hand and held there for a couple of seconds. The chop here where the Golden Gate was at its narrowest was the worst, the waves short and very steep.
He waited until the pilot boat’s rail dipped, and then as it started to come back up, he let go of the outboard’s throttle and heaved himself up an dover with both hands, landing in the pilot boat’s open deck well with a painful thump, cracking his head against the opposite coaming.
A million points of light burst inside of his head, and an overwhelming wave of nausea incapacitated him for several seconds. When he was able to raise up on his hands and knees the boat was spinning around in tight circles like a roller coaster going through an endless series of corkscrews.
He was conscious that they were very close to the bridge now. If Bahmad’s timing was correct the bomb would ignite as they passed under the center span.
