than he thought it would. He tried jogging, but after a hundred yards or so he was winded because of the altitude, and he felt a very sharp, painful stitch at his side, so that he had to slow down. The feeling he’d had at the top of the cliff that someone was behind him — perhaps Farid had turned around and come back after all — had finally faded. He stopped several times to look back, but each time he saw nothing. No movement of any kind. He could have been on a deserted planet.
As he walked he thought about Sarah. If she had taken her time getting back to the camp she would have missed the attack. But if she had hurried she would have been caught in the middle of it. Then her only hope would have been to get inside the cave. Either way if she had survived it would have been a terrible blow for her. Everything her father had taught her about Americans would have been proven true. They were not to be trusted, their word was as godless as their society.
However badly we hurt them up there, the surviving mujahedeen would be tending to their wounded. McGarvey knew from the last time bin Laden had been hit that his people would be gone from that location within twenty four hours.
But they would be sending someone for him. Of that he had little doubt. And if they came he would have to kill them. The time for negotiating had passed.
He spotted the outlying stubble of the abandoned cornfields, and the outlines of the bombed-out buildings in the village, and he picked up the pace again. It was possible that there was another, faster path down from bin Laden’s camp; the route they had taken might have been only for his benefit. Even now he thought that he would have a hard time retracing his steps. Every arroyo looked almost exactly the same from the valley floor as every other one.
With darkness coming he angled to the west up into the hills above the valley. He reached a spot from where he could look down into the village, and held up. Nothing moved below. From where he crouched in the scrub brush he could make out the barn where they had parked the Rover, and even a bit of the camo netting. On the other side of the village he could see the wide stream meandering down the valley. And above him, at the crest of the hills, there was nothing.
He settled down to wait until it was completely dark, his back against the trunk of a short, gnarled tree. If someone was down there now, the advantage would be theirs until nightfall. He wanted a cigarette, but the breeze was at his back and would carry the smoke down into the village.
Instead, he ate a piece of nan and drank some water. The little bit of food helped, but every bone in his body ached, and one of the stitches from his operation had opened and the wound was seeping blood.
This mission could have succeeded if the missile attack hadn’t been carried out. Yet from the President’s point of view there wasn’t any other choice, especially with Berndt constantly in his ear. When the chip went off the air they had to assume the worse, that McGarvey was dead. Now, if bin Laden had survived, the battle was going to be on his terms, and it would very likely end in disaster.
He toyed with doing the totally unexpected. If he turned around now and headed back up to bin Laden’s camp he might possibly make it before daybreak. But even if the camp hadn’t been dismantled and abandoned by then, actually finding bin Laden and putting a bullet in his brain would be next to impossible. McGarvey had turned the problem over in his head, trying to come up with a scenario that made sense in which he could get back there, find bin Laden, kill him and then get free again. But each time he came up against several brick walls, not the least of which was his exhaustion. Spending the night and the entire day hidden in the mountains before he went in wouldn’t do much good either. Without supplies his condition would worsen.
He drifted off, thinking about Katy and Liz waiting for him back in Washington. They would be worried, because Otto couldn’t keep a secret from Liz, and she in turn would have told her mother what was going on. But it was no good thinking about them for now. One step at a time. It was all he could do.
He woke twenty minutes later, the night almost pitch black except for the starlight. He was deeply chilled and it took several seconds before he could loosen his muscles enough to simply stand up.
The village was nothing but indistinct shadows and angles. As he picked his way down the hill he took out his gun, and by feel made sure the action still worked smoothly and the safety catch was off.
He reached the cornfields ten minutes later, still stiff and cold despite the exertion. When he got to the first building to the north of the barn where the Rover was parked, he stopped in the deeper shadows to watch and listen. The only sounds were the gurgling of the nearby stream and the wind in the hills above him. It would only take a minute or so to pop the car’s ignition switch and hot-wire it. If he didn’t run into any trouble on the way out of the mountains he figured he could reach the Taliban checkpoint near the airport before dawn. From there it would be anyone’s guess what he might encounter. But if he got that far he would have at least a chance of getting out of the country.
He slipped around the side of the building and worked his way through the nibble, holding up every ten yards or so to watch and listen. It was quiet. It did not look as if the camouflage netting covering the car had been disturbed. It was going to be good to sit on a soft seat with back support and the car’s heater for a change. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this cold or strung out.
Farid came out of the barn, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, and nervously lit a cigarette.
McGarvey held perfectly still in the darkness, his stiff, aching muscles totally forgotten for the moment. There was another route back after all and Farid had taken it. But had he returned alone? McGarvey didn’t think that Farid would have had time to return to the camp and then get back here, even if there was a shortcut. The only other possibility was that someone else had started out after him.
If that were the case then this was a trap. But McGarvey wondered if he was simply being paranoid. Rather than face bin Laden’s wrath for failing, Farid may have decided to come back on his own hoping to get a jump on McGarvey when he showed up at the car. But he had to assume the worst.
After a few minutes Farid tossed the cigarette away and went back into the barn.
McGarvey stepped out of the deeper shadows and hurried to the rear of the building, taking care not to stumble on the loose rocks, bricks and pieces of wood lying everywhere. Most of the back wall of the barn was gone. Farid had climbed up on a pile of rubble and was looking toward the north, the same direction McGarvey had come from. Had he been standing there earlier there was a good possibility he’d seen McGarvey coming in.
It was very dark back here. An entire army of mujahedeen could be hidden in the village and they would be invisible.
McGarvey stepped inside the barn and ducked down behind the Rover. Flattening himself on the dirt floor he looked under the car. He could see the rubble pile that Farid was standing on, but so far as he could tell no one was crouched waiting on the other side.
He got up and crept to the back of the car, and checked outside. There was nothing there. But he knew that it was distinctly possible that this was a setup. The problem was that he could not stay here all night waiting for something to develop.
He moved to the other side of the Rover, then keeping his eye on Farid, he took several steps closer and raised his pistol. “You should not have come back,” he said softly.
Farid spun around, a guilty look on his face. But he did not look frightened, nor did he try to reach for his rifle. His eyes flicked to something behind McGarvey.
All that took only a split second. It was a trap.
McGarvey jumped up on the hood of the Rover and rolled to the other side of the car as a burst from a Kalashnikov rifle raked the floor where he’d been standing.
He hit the dirt floor on his right shoulder, brought his gun around and fired two quick shots at Farid’s retreating figure as the mujahed disappeared around the corner outside.
Whoever had fired from the door had come from the other side of the barn. He was moving cautiously around the back of the Rover. McGarvey looked under the car, saw a pair of boots and fired, hitting the man in the ankle.
McGarvey jumped up as the mujahed cried out in pain. The man was staggering backward, trying to keep his balance while he tried to bring his rifle to bear. McGarvey rushed around the back of the car, batted the rifle aside with his free hand, and crashed into the mujahed, sending them both sprawling to the ground outside the barn.
McGarvey jammed the muzzle of his pistol in the mujahed’s throat just below his chin. If he pulled the trigger the bullet would crash into the man’s brain, and he knew it. His struggles stopped immediately.
“How many others did you bring with you?” McGarvey looked up to make sure that Farid hadn’t come around
