would either be in his backpack at the camp by the pool, or with him in a pocket. If he could make it down to the Rover he would find something to pop the ignition lock and hot-wire the starter.
Farid jumped up and fired a burst into the hill to the west of McGarvey. An instant later Hash fired another sustained burst walking his shots east. McGarvey had to duck down and cover his head as the shots hammered the rocks directly below him. Too late he realized that they knew where he was hiding and they were pinning him down. He looked over his shoulder when a rifle muzzle was jammed into the side of his head.
The firing from below suddenly ceased and Mohammed laughed wildly. Blood dripped from the filthy bandage on his wounded hand, and his face was cut up from flying rock chips. “I warned him about you,” he shouted triumphantly. “But he wouldn’t listen.” He stepped back a little, the rifle never wavering from McGarvey’s head. “Put your gun down. Get to your feet.”
McGarvey carefully laid his gun on a flat rock and got up, spreading his hands out to either side, letting a calmness come over him. Mohammed’s eyes were red and they kept flicking from McGarvey to the path below. He held the Kalashnikov in a white-knuckled death grip. His clothing was dirty and ripped from his climb up the hill over the rocks. The butt of his pistol had worked itself half out of his vest, the hammer snagged on the corner of a pocket. If he tried to pull it out in a hurry it would catch. “So now what? Are you going to take me back to bin Laden?”
“You’re not going to leave this place alive.”
“That would be a very big mistake—”
“You didn’t come here to talk,” Mohammed shouted.
“That’s not true.”
“Where else did your missiles hit, mista Mohammed demanded. He was working himself up.
“I don’t know,” McGarvey replied calmly.
“Liar,” Mohammed snarled. “Come up here now,” he called down to Hash and Farid.
McGarvey figured he had only a couple of minutes before the other two got up here and then the odds against him would be impossible. He smiled. “I’ll tell you what, Mohammed. If you turn around right now and get the hell out of here I won’t kill you.”
Mohammed was surprised and then enraged. He poked the rifle muzzle sharply into McGarvey’s chest. It was a mistake.
“Just go, and you’ll live to fight another day,” McGarvey said, in an infuriatingly relaxed tone. “But if you poke me again I will kill you. For Sarah.”
The mujahed’s face turned purple. “Slut,” he shouted wildly. He pulled the rifle back, his left hand on the stock, his wounded right hand near the trigger guard, and he swung the heavy butt at McGarvey’s head. McGarvey ducked the blow and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, knocking him off his feet. McGarvey yanked the Kalashnikov out of Mohammed’s hands and spun around.
Hash and Farid were halfway up the hill, aware that something was happening above them, but not quite sure what it was. McGarvey fired a couple of rounds over their heads, and they hit the ground, scrambling for cover. Mohammed was clawing for his pistol. McGarvey turned back to him. “You can still leave here alive.”
Mohammed got the pistol out of his pocket, fumbled for the hammer and raised it. McGarvey shot him once, the bullet plowing into his forehead.
Not necessary, McGarvey thought with disgust. Yet this was one killing he knew that he would never regret.
Hash and Farid started firing wildly up the hill, the bullets whining off the rocks all over the place. McGarvey dropped down into the protection of the depression and waited until they stopped shooting.
“Mohammed is dead,” he called down to them. He got his pistol and stuffed it in his belt. “I didn’t order the missile strike, and I mean you no harm now.” He ejected the Kalashnikov’s magazine and checked the rounds. There was one in the chamber and seven in the clip. “Go back and tell bin Laden that we can still work a deal. The missiles were a mistake. My government thought I was dead.”
McGarvey checked over the rim of the depression. One of the mujahedeen was directly below him, the other had moved back about fifteen or twenty yards to the east. They were trying to box him in, get him in a crossfire. Whatever their previous orders had been they meant to kill him now.
He popped up and fired three shots at the man crouched behind the rocks below him. The other one jumped out of hiding and started up the hill. McGarvey calmly switched aim and squeezed off two shots, the second catching the man in the side, knocking him down. “Goddamnit,” he muttered, pulling back. It was senseless.
A silence fell over the defile again, and except for the burbling stream there were no sounds.
“It’s only you now,” McGarvey called out. He crawled over to Mohammed’s body, took the PSM pistol, then crawled back to the rim. “We can stay here and fight it out, or you can go back to the camp.”
“I can’t do that, mista It was Farid. McGarvey recognized the voice, and he sounded frightened.
“Yes, you can,” McGarvey said. He checked the load in Mohammed’s pistol. There was one in the chamber, and eight in the magazine. “I didn’t want to shoot Hash, but I had no other choice.”
“You brought the missiles.”
“No, I didn’t. My government made a mistake. I was sent here to stop the killing, and we can still do that if you tell bin Laden that I’ll make it right when I get back to Washington. Something like this won’t happen again. You can give him my word.”
“Liar,” Farid shouted, and he fired several rounds up the hill.
“Shit,” McGarvey said. He rose up and emptied the Kalashnikov on the rocks where the mujahed was hiding then ducked back. “Sooner or later one of us is going to get lucky,” McGarvey said. He laid the rifle aside and picked up the Russian pistol. “Since I have the high ground it’ll probably be me.”
The defile was silent again.
A minute later McGarvey cautiously rose up so that he could see where Farid was hiding. Nothing moved. He rose a little higher, but he still couldn’t see any sign of the mujahed down there.
“Farid,” he called.
There was no answer.
He swept his eyes across the rocks and path. Hash was still lying where he’d gone down, but to the west McGarvey was just in time to see Farid keeping low and moving fast then disappear over the crest of a hill.
McGarvey lowered the pistol and allowed himself to come down. Now it begins, he told himself morosely as he stared at the empty path back to bin Laden’s camp and listened to the pleasant sounds of the stream.
Bin Laden’s Camp Bin Laden, with his daughter’s bloody body in his arms, her long dark hair hanging loose, made his way slowly through the camp. His two dozen remaining mujahedeen parted respectfully for him as he passed, then gathered behind him in a funeral march.
As the procession started up the hill Ali Bahmad, dressed for travel in khakis, came back to the cave entrance, a two way radio held loosely in his left hand. He glanced into the sky to the east. An unmanned reconnaissance drone had passed over the camp fifteen minutes ago to assess the damage the missile strike had caused, and at this moment the CIA’s spy satellites were looking down on them, passing their high-resolution real- time images back to Washington. Bahmad had once even stood in the National Reconnaissance Office’s operations center, and had been shown a tiny part of what the machines were capable of. It was nothing short of miraculous.
At the bottom of the hill bin Laden stopped to gather his strength for the climb. Although he clearly needed help no one came forward out of respect for him. This was a task meant only for a grieving father, and his followers had more love for him at this moment then they’d ever had before. The experience was almost religious, Bahmad could see it in the way they stood, heads up but in silence.
A pall of smoke hung over the valley, and flames still rose from a dozen fires, including the one at the fuel dump, which would probably burn all day and into the night. The drone had come in low enough to get clear pictures of everything not under cover, and the satellites were capable of very sharp infrared imaging. The Americans knew what damage their strike had caused, and more importantly who had survived.
Bahmad had warned Osama that this might happen. He had advised either using the bomb as it was intended to be used, or get rid of it. “But don’t try to bargain with him,” he’d cautioned. “Once they know that you have it they won’t stop until you’re dead and the bomb is either destroyed or in their possession.”
Time to leave now, he told himself. Not only from this camp, but perhaps from these mountains and even from the jihad. Bahmad had toyed with the notion of slipping away ever since bin Laden’s agents had gotten their
