“Are you someplace we can come get you?” Rencke asked, all business.
“I’m still in the mountains, maybe ten or twelve miles from bin Laden’s camp. If everything goes okay I should be in Kabul sometime tonight, my time.”
“That might not be the best place right now. They’re already rioting down there. The Taliban is behind it, of course, it wouldn’t have started so fast otherwise. You’ll never make it back to the hotel.”
McGarvey glanced up the path, and stopped to listen for a moment. Had he heard something? “I don’t have any other option,” he said, deciding he hadn’t heard anything after all. It was just his nerves. “How about our old embassy? If I can get to it is there a place I can hide out?”
“That’s where the rioting is starting to concentrate. But the ambassador’s old residence is a possibility. It’s in your laptop.”
“I don’t have that anymore,” McGarvey said. “But I think I can find the place, and if there’s only the two caretakers I should be able to get in easily enough.”
“The Taliban have given all foreigners forty-eight hours to get out of Afghanistan. I’ll try to arrange something with one of the embassies. You might be able to get out with one of their staffs.”
“How about our own people? There has to be some Americans here.”
“A few UN observers, a handful of Red Crescent people and maybe a couple dozen businessmen. But they’re leaving on commercial airlines to Dubai, the same way you came in.”
“With the rioting that’s going to be dangerous for them,” McGarvey suggested. “The Taliban would have to provide an escort, something I don’t think they’ll do.” Rencke picked up on it immediately. “We can send a C-130 with a few marines to provide security. The President said he would do whatever it takes to protect our people. But the Taliban know your face, so unless you can come up with a disguise and new papers they’ll never allow you to get on that plane, marines or no marines.”
“I’ll work something out at this end,” McGarvey said. “Just get the transport aircraft here and I’ll get aboard somehow. Try Riyadh, it’ll be quicker.”
“I’m on it.”
“I’m not even going to ask why the attack was launched so fast. But what about damage assessments? How badly did we hurt them?”
“We flattened the camp, Mac. But there’re survivors, and nobody thinks any differently. When your chip went off the air they wouldn’t listen to me. Even Murphy tried to delay the attack.”
“It was Berndt.”
“Bingo,” Rencke said. “I did some checking. He worked for the Sec Def a few years ago, and guess what one of his primary responsibilities was? Final target approval for our raids into Kosovo and Serbia. He took the heat for a lot of the mistakes we made over there, and he blamed it on the Agency for giving him bad intelligence. Especially in the Chinese embassy thing.”
McGarvey knew there had been something like that in the national security adviser’s past, but he’d never had the time to look into it. In all other respects Dennis Berndt was doing a good job for a President whom the country loved and respected. It was the one issue that blinded him from doing an otherwise almost perfect job. “You’d better have Murphy get over there and brief them on what’s coming our way. Unless we killed bin Laden he’ll come after us.”
“We’re still working on that part. But we might not be able to come up with anything conclusive. If he’s alive he’ll have to show himself before we can know for sure. Either that or use his cell phone. If we get lucky and pick up one of his calls we’ll have him.”
“He has the bomb, Otto, and unless we can give him another way out he’s going to use it against us.”
“The big questions are where and when.”
“In the States and damned soon.”
“Oh, boy,” Rencke said after a moment. “Was he willing to go along with the deal?”
“I think so,” McGarvey said tiredly. “But now he’ll blame his actions on us. He’s going to claim that he tried to work with us in good faith, but that we tried to assassinate him.”
“We did,” Rencke said softly.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think that he’ll go after the President?”
“I think that’s too specific a target even for bin Laden. But he’s going to bring the bomb to the States.”
“Maybe it’s already here.”
McGarvey had given that possibility some thought. “I don’t think so. It’s just a gut feeling, but if the bomb was already there he would have been more aggressive because his position would have been stronger. Do what I want right now, or suffer the consequences right now. He never acted that way.”
“If that’s true then it gives us a little time,” Rencke said. “That’s something. What about his staff? Did you see the guy Alien told us about?”
“Yeah, his name is Ali, but I never got a look at his face, only his eyes. He knew about the chip and about our satellite schedules, so he’s well connected.”
“I’ll have something for you to look at and listen to when you get back. Maybe he’s a key.”
“Let’s hope so,” McGarvey said. “Because we need one.” The phone cut out momentarily, but then reacquired the satellite.
“Mac …?”
“I’m back. My batteries are almost flat. I want you to talk to Dick Yemm and have him keep an eye on Katy and Liz until I get back.”
“Do you think they’ll be a target?”
“I can almost guarantee it,” McGarvey replied bitterly. “Call Fred Rudolph and have the Bureau’s antiterrorism people keep their heads up. Adkins can work with him. I want all of our assets worldwide on this right now. Nothing else takes priority. And I mean nothing.”
“Gotcha.”
“I want a new SNIE developed and on the President’s desk within twelve hours. As soon as I get out of here I’ll send you more information. The INS will have to be in the mix, because there’s no way of knowing how the bomb is going to be delivered. But every airport, seaport and border crossing will have to be watched much closer than normal, twenty-four hours a day.
“That still leaves a lot of holes, ya know,” Rencke said bleakly. “We can’t put a fence around the country, it’s too late, and it wouldn’t work anyway.”
“I know it, but we might get lucky, especially if bin Laden is alive and he makes a move.”
“That would be the wrong thing for him to do, and he’s gotta know it,” Rencke said. “If I were him I’d go to ground somewhere and keep my head down until it was over. Maybe for a long time afterward.”
“I think he’s dying, Otto. Maybe cancer.”
“We could offer him medical help.”
“He’d never take it.”
“Desperate men make desperate decisions,” Rencke said softly. “Shit, Mac, what a mess.”
“It’s going to get a lot worse,” McGarvey said. “I’ll call you from Kabul.”
McGarvey pocketed the phone then hurried over to where Hash lay in the rocks in a large pool of blood from the gaping wound in his side, and quickly searched his body. Besides a couple of magazines of ammunition there was nothing much except for a rusty knife, a waterproof tin of matches and a filthy scrap of rag he’d used for a handkerchief. No car keys.
It seemed like a long time since he had eaten anything decent and he was very tired. The wound in his side throbbed painfully. He scrambled down to the path and took it back to the rock overhang, stopping just long enough at the stream to splash some cold water on his face. The packs were lying next to the campfire, but neither of them contained the car keys. He took one of the full canteens, slung it over his shoulder then grabbed a couple of pieces of nan from one of the bundles, stuffed them in his pocket and headed around the dammed-up pool to the waterfall.
The cliff dropped about three hundred feet to the head of the steep arroyo that wound its way with the stream down to the floor of the valley. McGarvey stopped at the edge to catch his breath. The morning chill had given way to a gloriously sunny day. Down in Kabul it would be very hot, but here the mountain air was cool and sweet. But there was death all around. Rivers of blood had been shed in Afghanistan over the past thousand years
