bargaining chip. He’d known that negotiating could not succeed. And he’d begun to work out a plan that he’d sincerely hoped he would never have to implement. Nevertheless he had started putting things in place in the U.S.” renewing old contacts there and in London, Paris and Berlin. Phone calls, promises, threats. The only surprise now was going after McGarvey’s daughter. It would present certain problems.
“Will you do it?” bin Laden asked again.
“Yes.”
A new, even more intense light came into bin Laden’s eyes. “Then there will be the final act of retribution,” he said softly. “Joshua’s hammer.”
When the realization had come to him that they would use the nuclear weapon in some way to strike against America, Bahmad had gone searching for the right target at the right time. An air burst over Washington during a joint session of Congress would certainly never be forgotten so long as there was a civilized world. Nor would it be forgotten if the bomb were to be detonated in front of the White House, killing the President and his staff. An air burst over the financial center in New York would disrupt the Americans’ capitalist hold on the world, as an airburst over a small Midwestern town would disrupt the average American’s feelings of safety and invulnerability; the bomb at the Murrah Federal Building had done just that to the nation, though on a much smaller scale. But he came finally to the notion that what would strike the most fear in Amer icons’ hearts would be an attack on what was most precious and sacred to them: their children. He had not foreseen Sarah’s death, nor had he envisioned going after McGarvey’s daughter. But he had come up with a plan to do the one thing that would not be forgotten in a thousand years. Thinking about the plan he had devised, he could see that there was a certain symmetry between it and what bin Laden had ordered him to do. Sarah had been murdered by the Americans. In retaliation bin Laden wanted McGarvey’s daughter assassinated, and he was now ready to use the nuclear weapon.
“This will be very expensive,” Bahmad said. “Not only in terms of money, but in terms of men.”
“This will be my last blow. Time is running out for me.” Bin Laden gave him a sad, knowing smile. “But I think you already guessed.”
“Cancer?”
Bin Laden nodded. “Unless there is a miracle I have one year.” He looked at Sarah’s shrouded body. “I want America to feel the same pain I am feeling at this moment.”
“If we do this thing your name will not be respected,” Bahmad warned. “You will be vilified not only in the West, but among Muslims as well.”
Bin Laden’s gaze hardened. “But I will be remembered.”
“Indeed you will.”
Bin Laden thought about it for a long time, and when he looked up once more his resolve was as clear on his face as his pain. “How do we proceed?”
“Give me a minute and I will show you.” Bahmad got up and went to his sleeping quarters off the operations center near the back of the cave. He lit one of the gas lamps and went to a four-drawer file cabinet, which he unlocked. The room was austere, only the bare rock floor, a small cot, a writing table and the file cabinet. There was nothing on the walls, no photographs or pictures; no rugs or vases, nothing to mark that anyone had lived here on and off for more than a year. But since Beirut, Bahmad had been a man who carried all of his decorations and mementoes in his brain.
He took a thick manila envelope out of the top drawer and relocked the file cabinet. He’d been an avid reader for a long time, a habit he had developed in England working for the SIS. Part of his job had been to read all the newspapers, journals and magazines coming out of the Middle East, and read transcripts from television and radio broadcasts, as well as from intercepted military and diplomatic traffic. He’d developed an insatiable appetite for news of what was going on in the world. Here in the mountains it had been fantastically difficult to keep abreast of what was happening in the outside world, but he had managed to have a weekly package of newspapers and magazines from around the world brought up here. And he consumed all the international news as it was presented, with different spins in the major newspapers of a dozen different countries. He had time to think, to plan, to let his mind soar wherever it would; to make connections where seemingly there were none; to make associations where none were apparent; and to draw out scenarios based on what he had learned.
Holding the envelope containing his planning details, he wondered why he had taken this notion as far as he had. Most of his ideas were just that, nothing but ideas. Way too fantastically difficult or even horrible to consider. But this idea had stuck with him, for some reason, and the operation would be his very last. With bin Laden dead, however, Bahmad would be set financially for the rest of his life. If he could pull this last thing off and get away, he had the numbers for a dozen of bin Laden’s secret offshore bank accounts worth somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred million dollars. Enough to last any man a lifetime in luxury. And with bin Laden gone there would be no one to come after him.
Returning to the main chamber where bin Laden was waiting, Bahmad stopped a moment in the corridor. One last time he asked himself if he should go through with this. The idea was so monstrous that it had taken even his breath away when it had come to him. But years of hate had burned out whatever conscience he’d ever had. Yasir Arafat had fed into it, used it, just as bin Laden had, so that now even the bizarre seemed ordinary to him. Human life did not mean to him now what it had when he was a child.
The problem, he thought, walking into the main chamber, would be fitting the plan with Elizabeth McGarvey’s assassination. For that he would need a diversion, and even before he sat down beside bin Laden it came to him; the entire thing in perfect detail, and he smiled. It would only take a few more phone calls and a transfer of some funds to the proper accounts.
“I see that you have already given this some thought,” bin Laden said.
“Yes, I have.” Bahmad opened the envelope and took out several articles that he had clipped from the New York Times, Washington Post and San Francisco Examiner three months ago. He handed them to bin Laden.
“I will read these later—”.bin Laden said, but then a photograph of a pretty young woman in the lead article caught his attention. He drew a sudden, sharp breath and looked up, a sense of wonder on his face.
“She would be the target,” Bahmad said.
Bin Laden’s mind was racing a thousand miles per hour. “But not the President?”
“Not necessarily.”
“Not the President,” bin Laden said forcefully. He studied the photograph. “I want him to feel the same grief I am feeling. A father’s grief when his daughter is killed in front of his eyes. It must be done that way.”
“The target will be Deborah Haynes, the President’s daughter.”
Bin Laden sat back and closed his eyes. “You would use a nuclear weapon to kill one person?”
“No, there would be many others. Perhaps two thousand, probably even more than that.”
“Tell me.”
“The President’s daughter is mildly retarded, which makes the fact of her innocence without argument. America loves her as they love their President. Every father can have sympathy for the family. For what they will go through. But America is also very proud of her. Besides being beautiful, she is talented. She is a gymnast and a longdistance runner.”
Bin Laden opened his eyes. “I didn’t know that.”
“Three months from now, in September, Deborah Haynes is going to take part in the International Special Olympics in San Francisco. After the opening ceremonies in Candlestick Park, she, and perhaps as many as fifteen hundred other handicapped runners, is going to compete in a half-marathon. From the park she’ll cross the Golden Gate Bridge and head to Sausalito, but she’ll never get that far. Joshua’s Hammer will be aboard a ship passing beneath the bridge. At the moment Deborah Haynes is in the middle of the bridge the bomb will explode.”
For just a moment a touch of sanity crossed bin Laden’s face and he looked away, his eyes coming to rest on his daughter’s shrouded body.
“There’ll be no going back to the old ways for any of us,” Bahmad warned.
“It will be no mere footnote in the history books,” bin Laden said softly. “Unlike Sarah’s murder.” He turned back. “Where will you go afterwards?”
“I have a place in mind,” Bahmad said. The money he already had would be sufficient to gain him the safe haven. And once he had raided bin Laden’s accounts, he would buy a large ranch inland. He’d thought about raising horses, perhaps even sugarcane. Legitimate pursuits. He would never be able to travel again, but then with what he had in mind there would be no need. He would trade his career as a terrorist for one of a gentleman farmer.
“When we leave here we will never see or hear from each other again.”
