he did remember that he had been a happy child.
Elizabeth’s VW was not parked in the driveway of her mother’s house. Of course it could have been locked away out of sight in the garage, but that didn’t matter tonight. She would come to her mother to grieve and they would both die, as would the CIA officer on guard duty.
But the timing would have to be right. For that he would need some additional help and equipment. Turning over a number of scenarios in his mind he drove by the entrance to the Chevy Chase Country Club, and as usual a plan came to him all in one piece; the moves and counter moves arranged in precise battle order like the pieces on a chessboard.
Be seen, and yet not be seen. That was the technique that had allowed him to survive so long in this business. Driving back to the yacht he was actually looking forward to the party aboard tomorrow night. In a few days he would have the people he needed in place, and Captain Walker would have arranged a summer membership for him in the Chevy Chase Country Club, the fifteenth fairway of which abutted Kathleen McGarvey’s backyard.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The four men and five horses carrying the bomb had drifted through the mountains seemingly on the wind. Traveling day and night, their leader, Mustafa Binzagar, had allowed them to stop only briefly to eat and rest. They had worked their way a hundred sixty miles down the Panjshir Valley in less than four days, and Mustafa knew that when they delivered the package their journey would be ended in more than one sense of the word. The task that bin Laden had set them to do would be over, but so would their lives in Al Qaeda be finished. There were other training camps scattered around Afghanistan, but with bin Laden gone, and no new leader to replace him, their very existence would be meaningless. During the trek they had not seen another living soul, which gave Mustafa plenty of time to think about his predicament. But he had not come up with a solution. He was nothing but a mujahed, a lowly foot soldier with nowhere to go. No family who would accept him, no friends, and now no base or purpose.
He stood at the edge of the last glacier before the border and looked down the sweeping valley into Pakistan. There was nothing to be seen in the pitch-black of the night except for an airport beacon, which because of the clear, thin mountain air reflected green and white off the glacial ice even at a distance of thirty kilometers. They had been instructed not to cross the border because they did not know the schedule of the Pakistani patrols. But he’d been given no orders beyond this point, except that they were to be met by two men who would use the words, Sarah lives in Allah’s mansion. He felt a sense of bitterness and even betrayal that in the excitement he’d forgotten to ask what came next.
Hussein al-Rajhi came up the hill from where they’d tethered the horses and made a rough camp. “There’s enough wood for a small fire if you want some tea. Or should we save it until morning? It would help if we knew when they were coming.”
“I don’t know,” Mustafa said dreamily. He had become mesmerized by the airport beacon on the horizon, and what the light represented.
“Are you sure that we have come to the correct place?”
Mustafa turned to him. “This is the tongue of the glacier, and that’s the airport at Chitral.” He took out one of his last cigarettes and lit it, cupping it in his hand so that the glowing tip would be invisible to anyone who might be watching from the valley. “Start the fire. I’m cold and I could use some tea.” He passed the cigarette to Hussein. “It won’t be long now, and we’ll be starting back.”
“Where will we go—”
“I don’t know, maybe Khost!” Mustafa said angrily. Hussein took a couple of drags and handed the cigarette back. He shot a glance toward the horses. “She was a woman beyond understanding.”
Mustafa had to smile despite his morose mood. “That she was. Even her father had no control over her.”
“But she was strong.”
Mustafa shook his head thinking about her. “She might have eventually changed except for the American. He poisoned her. Mohammed told me everything.”
Hussein nodded. He’d heard the stories too, about how the American had tried to rape her, and how Mohammed had gotten shot in the hand saving her. Infidels were beyond understanding. And in the end nothing any of them did could have saved her from the missiles. “Maybe we should stay with her. The rest of the way to Mecca.”
Mustafa looked at him shrewdly. The idea was brilliant,
and although it had never occurred to him, he felt now that it was a thought, like a word on the tip of the tongue, that would have come to him at any moment. “There might not be room for all of us on the airplane.”
“The package is very heavy. It would take two men to handle it.”
“Us?”
Hussein nodded.
Mustafa took out his pistol, checked the action and switched the safety off. Hussein did the same, and without another word they went down the hill where Is mail and Suleiman were tending to the horses. They looked up.
“Are they coming?” Is mail asked.
Mustafa raised his pistol and shot him in the face from a distance of less than two meters. Hussein, who had come up behind Suleiman, shot him in the back of the head at pointblank range. Both shots were muffled by the hillside.
Suleiman was just eighteen and very strong. His legs were still twitching when Mustafa walked over. “Finish him.”
Hussein bent over the mujahed and fired a shot directly into his temple. At that moment Mustafa fired one shot into the back of Hussein’s head, driving him forward, his body flopping down on Suleiman’s.
Such a waste, he thought. But when there was only enough food on the table for one, it naturally belonged to the strongest man. There might not be room aboard the airplane for two men, but there certainly would be for one. And the package wasn’t that heavy after all.
They were right on time for the rendezvous, but he’d not seen anyone coming up the hill from the east, so he figured he had at least a couple of hours to get his story straight about how the other three had turned around and gone, and do what was needed here.
He loaded the bodies on three horses, and led them a couple of hundred meters back the way they had come, then dumped the bodies on the ground near a large pile of rocks. He tied the horses’ reins loosely over their necks, and slapped each on the rump, sending them racing into the night. They might go for several miles before circling back, but Mustafa figured by then he’d be long gone from here.
He laid the three bodies on top of each other and then started piling rocks on them. It was a difficult job and after a few minutes he was sweating heavily, but he worked without stopping until the bodies were completely covered and the arrangement of rocks looked reasonably natural. Unless someone looked close they would miss the grave.
He headed back to the camp, lighting a cigarette, his next to the last, and let himself come down. The tough part was over. Now, no matter what happened, he had no one to worry about except himself. There was still time, he decided to make a small fire and brew some tea.
He came over the last rise above the camp and stopped short. A man dressed in a Pakistani army uniform was reloading the package on one of the horses.
Mustafa stepped back, his hand going to the pistol inside his vest, when someone came up from behind.
“We wondered where you had gotten yourself to,” a man said in Dari.
Mustafa swung around. This one wore a Pakistani army uniform with captain’s pips on his shoulder boards. He carried a pistol in a holster but made no move to draw it.
“What are you doing on this side of the border?” Mustafa foolishly asked. “This is Afghanistan.”
