“What’s vorep’s confidence on bin Laden’s voice?”
“Ninety-seven percent and change.”
“Anything on the other man?”
“He’s not in our files, but he sounded a lot calmer to me than bin Laden.”
Another fact dropped into place for Rencke. He was Trumble’s quiet man in the corner; bin Laden’s chief of staff, Ali Bahmad, the one who had discovered McGarvey’s GPS chip. Now they had a complete name and a voice, they would be able to find something in the CIA’s files somewhere, he was sure of it. He blinked. “Wait,” he said. “Bahmad is here, in Washington? Did you say that?”
“Somewhere in the area. We can’t be any more precise than that.”
Rencke broke the connection and started to call McGarvey but then he shook his head and called Johanna Ritter back. “Sorry about that,” he told her when she came on.
“No problem,” she said.
“Anyway, thanks.” Rencke broke the connection again and hit the speed dial for McGarvey’s locator number. After several seconds a warbling tone indicated that he was offline. Next he tried Kathleen’s house, but evidently the phones had been switched off there too, he called the security officer in the van in front of her house.
“Yes.”
“This is Rencke in the DO. The phones are off in the house. Is Mr. McGarvey there?”
“He just left. Problem?”
“Could be. Keep your head up.”
“Yes, sir. But his daughter just got here. Do you want me to talk to her?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Rencke said. “Keep your eyes open.”
Rencke’s nerves were jumping all over the place. He didn’t want to alarm Mrs. M.” but the bomb was enroute as they figured it was, and Bahmad was already here. What was their timetable?
He tried McGarvey’s locator number again with the same result as before. He jumped off the table and started pacing and snapping his fingers. Bahmad was here. The bomb was enroute So what was going to happen in the meantime? What could happen in the meantime? Why was bin Laden’s right hand man here himself? Rencke dialed MHP, and the number was answered on the first ring.
“Maryland Highway Patrol, what is your emergency please?”
“My name is Otto Rencke. I’m calling from the Central Intelligence Agency and we need your help right now to get a message to one of our people.”
“Sir, it is a criminal act to knowingly falsify an emergency-“
“He is enroute here from an address on Laurel Parkway in Chevy Chase. He’s driving a gray, Nissan Pathfinder, D.C. tags, baker-david-mike-five-six-eight. He needs to contact his office immediately. I’ll alert our security service as well as D.C. Metro, but time is of the essence.” Rencke kept his voice calm and deliberate even though he wanted to shout. The man was just doing his job the best way he knew how. “Like I said—” “Your caller ID is coming up blank,” Rencke said patiently. “I’ll release my phone and you can verify the number I’m calling from.” He entered a four-digit code. Five seconds later the 911 dispatcher was back.
“Sorry about that, sir. I have a unit rolling. What’s his name?”
“Kirk McGarvey,” Rencke said. “And tell your people to step on it, would ya?”
The country club was starting to fill up with the morning weekday crowd. Bahmad thought of all the contingencies he had considered in his plan to kill the two women. The capture of bin Laden, the defection of one or more of the men who were carrying the bomb or who knew about it, or who were working on any of a dozen other vital elements of the mission. But he had not considered the possibility that McGarvey was alive.
He was scarcely able to believe what the fools watching Kathleen McGarvey’s house were telling him. McGarvey had been there all night, and they had not called. Their job was to wait for his daughter to show up, so that’s exactly what they had done.
They had not used their heads. They had no real idea what they were doing. They were ignorant, uneducated simpletons. Worse than that, they were stupid.
“Do you want us to make the hit now?” Aggad asked eagerly.
“Is the CIA van still parked in front of the house?”
“Yes, it’s been there all night”
McGarvey was alive and had come to his wife’s side and yet the CIA still watched her. Bahmad wondered what that could mean. Obviously they thought that his wife was still in danger. From whom?
“Was the daughter alone, or did someone come with her?”
“She was alone. What do you want us to do?”
Bob Button, one of Bahmad’s foursome came out to the patio from inside the club, spotted him and started over. With McGarvey back it changed everything. Or did it, he asked himself. Rightfully the decision to continue should be Osama’s. But making the one overseas call had been dangerous enough, making a second would be pushing the envelope.
There was no time. McGarvey could return at any moment, or the daughter could leave. Bahmad looked up as if he had just spotted Button, waved and then shook his head in disgust.
“Do nothing, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Ready your weapons. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Bahmad broke the connection, pocketed the phone and got to his feet as Button reached him. “Bad news from one of my business associates,” Bahmad apologized. “I have to make a meeting, so you’ll have to start without me.”
Button glanced uncertainly at the jam up at the starter’s hut. “I don’t think that we can get a delay.”
“I’ll only be a half-hour. I shouldn’t miss more than one or two holes, the way you gentlemen play.”
Button laughed. “Low blow. You’ll have to take a penalty.”
“A stroke a hole, and I’ll still spot you five.”
“Loaded for bear this morning, are we?”
Bahmad clapped him on the shoulder, though he wanted to rip the bastard’s heart out, and smiled. “I’ll meet you out on the course. Take my clubs with you, would you please?”
The solid night’s sleep, only interrupted once, had done him some good, McGarvey had to admit. But seeing Elizabeth this morning all bright and happy, her entire future ahead of her, made him think about Sarah bin Laden, her life cut short before it had even begun, and it made him a little morose. Traffic on I-495 heading south toward the river was heavy as usual at this time of the morning and it would get even worse once he reached the GW Parkway to Langley.
It was the United States government going to work, and that’s what got him about bin Laden. The man had taught his daughter that the United States was evil. That they were all a bunch of monsters bent on destroying the world. They were murderers, rapists, despoilers of the earth. They were out to defile Dar-Islam, the only true religion. Except that the “they” were out here on the Washington ring road with McGarvey this morning; some of them drinking coffee from McDonald’s Styrofoam cups, most of them still half asleep, a lot of them thinking about their own children, their mortgages, the upcoming weekend — soccer, swimming, Little League. Monsters, every one of them.
McGarvey picked his cell phone off the passenger seat, switched it on and pocketed it.
Now that the President had gone public with the accidental killing of Sarah bin Laden there would be an almost intolerable pressure on bin Laden not only by Iran, Iraq and the Sudan, but by himself to do something right now. The State Department had issued warnings to all embassies, especially in Islamic countries. Every CIA base, station and special interest section had been alerted to what was probably coming their way. Later today the State Department would also make an announcement to the media warning the American traveling public, and especially those Americans living and working overseas, to take special precautions.
The U.S. had been blindsided at the Khobar Barracks in Saudi Arabia, at the Trade Towers in New York City, and by the tribal problems in Somalia, but this time everyone was about as ready as could be. Every law enforcement organization and intelligence agency in the country was on full alert.
McGarvey’s cell phone chirped. He got it on the second ring. “This is McGarvey.”
“Oh, wow, Mac, where are you?” Rencke said in a rush. “On 495 outside Cabin John coming up on the river.
