It was a way out for them, a real future, and a way to his salvation for the sins he’d committed since leaving Jidda.
At the camp his eyes had been completely opened for the first time; he’d finally been told the reason he’d been nurtured since boyhood. He was to become an al-Quaeda operative, a tool in the jihad against the West. He had a purpose.
And it was at the camp one evening, when a helicopter bearing the Syrian army markings brought General Mohamed Asif Tur, the Pakistani ISI officer who’d been behind his training, and Brian DeCamp with whom he would go on a mission.
Where General Tur was a dark, completely intense man who seemed to be in constant motion even when he was seated at a table, DeCamp was fair-skinned and calm. Achmed remembered his first impression of the former South African as a man who might have known all the secrets of the world, and had accepted everything, including his place in it. DeCamp was timeless, and that impression had not changed for Achmed during the thirty days in the desert, or at their last meeting in Damascus before he’d flown to London under the Forcier identity and from there to New York.
General Tur had taken Achmed aside that first night at the sprawling training camp, which appeared from the air to look like a Syrian army basic training center, and assured him that although Brian DeCamp was not a believer, neither was he an infidel in the ordinary sense of the word.
“This man is our friend,” the general had said. “He is an expert at what he does, so pay special attention to him.”
“An expert at what, sir?” Achmed had asked, but the general had smiled, not offended by the question.
“He will explain that to you, along with everything you will do together. Trust him, as I trust you. And may you go with Allah.”
“And you,” Achmed had replied.
All through his days at the training base, learning about weapons and explosives from DeCamp, who in turn learned about nuclear power stations from him, Achmed had asked himself the same question each night before sleep: I’m not angry. Why?
A deep anger seemed to lie just under DeCamp’s calm exterior, General Tur was a man at war, and his handler from Peshawar was angry with the West, as were all of the al-Quaeda — financed kids at the university. Achmed thought it was the way he should feel. He’d accepted al-Quaeda’s message about the evils of the infidels, but that had simply been at an intellectual level.
But it wasn’t until he’d arrived here that he truly understood the nature of what Kubansky had branded as
And ironically he’d learned almost all of that from Kubansky.
He closed his eyes again and he could see the hills and mountains behind his town; he could hear his mother’s gentle voice instructing his sisters on their duties and responsibilities; he could hear his father and brother talking as they came down the street from the fields where the hired boy would remain with the flock for the night, and they sounded happy; and he could see the schoolroom so well that he could count the cracks in the walls, in the ceiling, and the swirls of dirt on the floor, and hear his teacher’s voice calling his name.
But something was wrong, and Achmed’s heart missed a beat, and he opened his eyes.
“Tom, Mr. Strasser wants to talk to you.”
He didn’t know who was speaking, and the voice was loud but distorted and it came from above, behind the observation window.
“Will you listen?”
And then Achmed saw the tiny camera head poking out from behind the blinds and he knew immediately what it was because similar remote video cameras were used to inspect the inside of reactor chambers.
It was time.
He smiled and took a deep breath and leaned backward.
SIXTEEN
Gail had finished her telephone call and came back as Wager, holding a bullhorn against the glass, was trying to talk Forcier down. McGarvey, watching the image on the computer monitor saw the sudden look of religious ecstasy on the young engineer’s face and he knew what was about to happen.
“Down!” he shouted, and he turned and shoved Gail to the floor as a tremendous explosion blew out the observation window, cutting Wager to pieces and throwing Strasser back off his feet.
The tinkling of the falling glass raining down on them seemed to last forever, and McGarvey had been in this sort of a situation before so that he knew to keep his head down, his face shielded until it stopped.
“No one move!” he shouted.
Someone was swearing and McGarvey thought it was Townsend, the plant manager, and then it was over, and he looked up.
Strasser was sitting down against the opposite wall, a thin trickle of blood oozing from a cut on his chin. He seemed dazed, but his face and especially his eyes seemed to be okay.
“See to your engineer,” he told Gail, and he went to Wager, but it was no use. The man was lying on his back a few feet from Strasser, his left foot folded under his right leg, the entire front half of his face and skull missing, splattered against the wall behind him. The force of the blast had driven the bullhorn into his head, followed by glass shrapnel. He wouldn’t have felt a thing.
McGarvey turned to Bennet who was down on his knees, blood streaming from dozens of wounds on his face, neck, and chest, fragments of glass sticking out of his eyes. “Can you move?”
“Yes. How bad is it?”
“You’re not going to die,” McGarvey said. “No arteries were hit.”
“What about my eyes?”
“I don’t know.”
Townsend wasn’t hurt, but he was so angry he was clenching and unclenching his fists, and he was shaking, muttering something under his breath.
“Get out of here,” McGarvey told him, helping Bennet to his feet. “And take him with you.”
Townsend came out of his daze. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You’ll be needed to get this place put back together and organized. We’re expendable, you’re not. Now, get the fuck out of here. Out of the damage path as fast as you can.”
Gail had helped Strasser to his feet, and she was staring at Wager’s devastated body, her mouth tight, a hard look in her eyes.
“He’s right, Bob,” Strasser said. He was a little shaky on his feet.
McGarvey handed Bennet to Gail, and went to the blasted open window, not bothering to see if Townsend would really leave because he didn’t give a damn.
The control room was in better shape than he expected it would be. Most of the force of the blast had been directed outward and upward. The son of a bitch had aimed his chest at the observation window meaning to kill at least the one trying to talk to him. As a result, his body, parts of which were splattered across the control desk for reactor one, had partially shielded the control panels behind him. The Semtex and LED counters were still in place, counting past 54:30.
Strasser joined him.
“Do you see anything obviously unfixable?” McGarvey asked the engineer.
“Just the explosives on the coolant and scram panels.”
“I’ll get you inside so you can take a closer look. Maybe he forgot something.”
“How?” Strasser asked.
