He turned as she came outside, her body clearly outlined beneath the thin material of her nightgown. “Here,” he said, and she came across to him.
“What’s the matter, darling, can’t sleep?” she asked.
“I was thirsty.”
She sat down beside him and laid her hand on his arm. “I was dreaming about Elizabeth, but I don’t remember what it was about except that I woke up.” She looked at his eyes. “You weren’t there and I got scared all over again.”
McGarvey managed a reassuring smile, though he still wasn’t a hundred percent. “I’m here, Katy.” “Well you sound like you’re half-asleep sitting there,” she said. She took his hand. “Come on back to bed. Nobody’s going to call, and I’ve not set the alarm. In the morning I’m going to make bacon and eggs, grits and my mother’s biscuits and gravy. Damn the cholesterol, full speed ahead.”
McGarvey smiled at her. “I love you, Kathleen.” She returned his smile. “Katy,” she corrected.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nothing new had happened until the President’s speech to the nation last night. Elizabeth McGarvey had not come to her mother yet, and the only reason Bahmad could think of was that there had been a delay in releasing the news of her father’s death. The Taliban were often like that. By 8:00 a.m. the sun was already warm, and sitting on the country club’s veranda drinking a cup of coffee before his tee time, Bahmad idly gazed up the eighteenth fairway in the general direction of Kathleen McGarvey’s house, outwardly in perfect control, but inwardly seething. There could be little doubt that bin Laden had seen the President’s broadcast, nor was there any doubt in Bahmad’s mind how the man was reacting. Bin Laden would be filled with an insane rage. He would be beside himself that the President had not only mentioned Sarah by name, but that the United States had killed her. It would be viewed as an act of massive arrogance on the part of a White House that was completely indifferent to the plight of more than sixty percent of the world’s population who lived in poverty. If, as a nation, you had the money to be an active trading partner, or if you had the oil or other natural resources necessary to feed a voracious economy that placed no restrictions on the conspicuous consumption of its citizens, then you could belong to Washington’s elite club. If not, you were nothing but pond scum; interesting under a microscope, but of no consequence in the real world. Bin Laden would want to strike back and do it now rather than stick with their schedule. If he did something foolish it could jeopardize everything, especially their element of surprise.
It was midafternoon in Khartoum, the heat of the day. In bin Laden’s condition he should be resting now, but Bahmad knew better. Bin Laden would be fuming, pacing back and forth in the compound’s second-floor greeting chamber. He would stop from time to time to stride over to one of the windows, pull back the heavy drapes and look outside, half expecting to see … what? Enemy tanks coming up the street for him? Guided missiles falling out of the sky to kill the rest of his family? The guards who were constantly at his side would be nervously fingering the safety catches on their rifles wondering where the enemy that their leader was so nervous about would be striking from. Would they be strong enough to give their lives for him without hesitation? Enter the gates of Paradise with clean souls?
In another part of the house, bin Laden’s wives, especially Sarah’s mother, would be dealing with their grief in their own way. Bahmad wondered if bin Laden had talked to them, tried to console them, or if he left them on their own? It was one part of bin Laden’s life that he wasn’t sure of. They had seldom talked about family matters except that Sarah had been his pride; his light; in many respects the reason for his existence.
The President’s announcement last night meant nothing. Elizabeth McGarvey would come to her mother’s house in due course, and she would die. Then, in the early fall as planned, Deborah Haynes would die. Bahmad could see every step in perfect detail. It was like a well-crafted machine, a thing of simple beauty. But its delicate mechanisms could be easily fouled with the wrong move now.
The men he’d been talking with when he’d first arrived at the club were out on the first tee and the foursome he’d signed up with hadn’t arrived yet, leaving Bahmad temporarily alone and out of earshot of any of the other members.
He took out his cell phone and hit the speed dial button for the number of their relay provider in Rome. After one ring the call was automatically rolled over to a secret number in Khartoum. This was answered after three rings by one of bin Laden’s young assistants.
“Ahlan, wa sahlan.” Hello, he said, somewhat formally, which meant he wasn’t alone.
“This is Bahmad, I wish to speak with Osama.” Bahmad spoke in Egyptian Arabic, the universal tongue.
“Aywa.”
There was a chance that this call was being monitored by the National Security Agency. But Bahmad doubted that even the NSA had the ability to screen every single call made everyday around the entire world. The job would overwhelm even the most powerful computers. U.S. technology was fantastic, but not that good.
“You would not be calling unless there was trouble,” bin Laden said, coming on the line.
“On the contrary, everything goes well. It is trouble that I wish to avoid.” The Arabic sounded formal in Bahmad’s ears after speaking English for several days. “Didst thou see the President’s broadcast last night?”
“Yes.”
Bahmad could hear the strain in bin Laden’s voice. “You can accept the apology and I can withdraw. No harm will have been done.”
“The harm has already been done. Irreparable harm to this family. Dost thou not understand?” Bin Laden switched to a slang Arabic used in a part of northern Afghanistan. “The daughters of the infidels will die like the pigs they are!”
“Then I shall proceed as planned.”
Bin Laden hesitated, and Bahmad could hear his indecision in his silence.
“Thou must accomplish every aspect of the mission.” “I understand,” Bahmad said. “According to the timetable.”
“There can be no mistakes.”
“There will be no mistakes if we act in unison.”
“There is very little time—”
“In Paradise there will be all the time of the universe.”
Again bin Laden hesitated. He had never been a rash man. He thought out his every move, as he was doing now, for which Bahmad was grateful. “Do not disappoint me,” he finally said.
“I will not,” Bahmad replied.
“There will be no changes. The package is on its way. Do you understand?”
“Aywa.” Yes.
“Allah be with you.”
Navy Lieutenant Johanna Ritter, chief of European Surveillance Services, sat at her desk at the head of a row of a dozen computer consoles in a long, narrow, dimly lit room. Along one entire wall a floor-to-ceiling status board showed the major telecommunications hot spots serving Europe; places where telephone, radio and television signals tended to be concentrated. Satellites, telephone exchanges, radio and television network headquarters, cable television hubs. Ninety-five percent of all civilian traffic was funneled through these systems. Though thirty percent of all military traffic was handled by civilian facilities, the other seventy percent was monitored in another section of the NSA.
Lieutenant Ritter’s specific assignment was monitoring European hubs. The main telephone exchange in Rome suddenly lit up in purple on the board, which designated a hit in a special search program that had been designed for them by the CIA’s Otto Rencke.
She brought up the console on her monitor that was intercepting the signal. It was Chief Petty Officer Mark Morgan. “Mark, what’s so interesting in Rome?” “The vorep is chewing on it, Lieutenant, but it sounded like bin Laden to me.” VoReP was the Cray computer Voice Recognition Program.
“Do we have a translation yet?”
