“Gotcha.”
“I want a new SNIE developed and on the President’s desk within twelve hours. As soon as I get out of here I’ll send you more information. The INS will have to be in the mix, because there’s no way of knowing how the bomb is going to be delivered. But every airport, seaport and border crossing will have to be watched much closer than normal, twenty-four hours a day.
“That still leaves a lot of holes, ya know,” Rencke said bleakly. “We can’t put a fence around the country, it’s too late, and it wouldn’t work anyway.”
“I know it, but we might get lucky, especially if bin Laden is alive and he makes a move.”
“That would be the wrong thing for him to do, and he’s gotta know it,” Rencke said. “If I were him I’d go to ground somewhere and keep my head down until it was over. Maybe for a long time afterward.”
“I think he’s dying, Otto. Maybe cancer.”
“We could offer him medical help.”
“He’d never take it.”
“Desperate men make desperate decisions,” Rencke said softly. “Shit, Mac, what a mess.”
“It’s going to get a lot worse,” McGarvey said. “I’ll call you from Kabul.”
McGarvey pocketed the phone then hurried over to where Hash lay in the rocks in a large pool of blood from the gaping wound in his side, and quickly searched his body. Besides a couple of magazines of ammunition there was nothing much except for a rusty knife, a waterproof tin of matches and a filthy scrap of rag he’d used for a handkerchief. No car keys.
It seemed like a long time since he had eaten anything decent and he was very tired. The wound in his side throbbed painfully. He scrambled down to the path and took it back to the rock overhang, stopping just long enough at the stream to splash some cold water on his face. The packs were lying next to the campfire, but neither of them contained the car keys. He took one of the full canteens, slung it over his shoulder then grabbed a couple of pieces of nan from one of the bundles, stuffed them in his pocket and headed around the dammed-up pool to the waterfall.
The cliff dropped about three hundred feet to the head of the steep arroyo that wound its way with the stream down to the floor of the valley. McGarvey stopped at the edge to catch his breath. The morning chill had given way to a gloriously sunny day. Down in Kabul it would be very hot, but here the mountain air was cool and sweet. But there was death all around. Rivers of blood had been shed in Afghanistan over the past thousand years or more. And there was no end in sight.
Chevy Chase Elizabeth McGarvey awoke in a cold sweat, disoriented and not exactly sure where she was for the first few moments. She’d been having the familiar dream again in which she was at a mall carrying around a bottle of perfume she wanted to buy for her mother’s birthday. But she couldn’t find a cashier. She was a teenager still in junior high school, and she had just enough money to the penny to pay for the perfume. Her mother had been on her case about spending her allowance as fast as she got it. It was something that her father would never approve of. He’d been gone long enough from their lives that she had begun to fantasize about him. Whenever she found herself in a situation she would try to think what her father would say or do. This time she had saved her money, which would make him proud, and she was buying a good bottle of perfume, which would make her mother happy. She couldn’t lose except that she couldn’t find a cashier.
She found herself at the main exit from the mall, the bottle of perfume still in her hand. For some reason she thought she might be able to find a cashier outside in the parking lot; maybe one of them coming to work. The moment she stepped outside, however, sirens began to blare, and two policemen, guns drawn, came running after her, shouting for her to stop or they would shoot. That’s when she spotted her parents. Her father had come back and he was standing in her mother’s driveway. They were having a terrific argument, and no matter what she did to get their attention they were ignoring her. She figured if she could get across the street her father would know what to do; he would straighten out the mess, give the policemen the money for the perfume and send them back to the mall. But her mother was saying something to him in that maddeningly calm voice of hers, and her father was just standing there taking it, and she knew she would never be able to reach them until it was too late, though she wanted nothing more than their love and for them to be proud of her.
The house was quiet. Elizabeth looked at the clock radio on the nightstand as it switched to 12:21 a.m.” and her heart began to slow down. She was in one of the spare bedrooms down the hall from her mother. She was safe. Nothing could hurt her here. And yet she was frightened.
She got up, used the bathroom without turning on the light, then put on a robe and went to her mother’s door. Her mouth was gummy from too much wine. She hesitated a moment, then knocked softly.
“Elizabeth?” her mother’s voice came softly from within.
“May I come in?”
“Of course, dear.”
Her mother, dressed in a bathrobe sat in one of the chairs by the window that looked out over the country club’s fifteenth fairway. The window was open. Elizabeth could smell the night grass smells from the golf course and hear the sprinkler systems at work.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Elizabeth said. She came to the window and looked outside. The sky was partly cloudy, but it was a moonless night and despite the glow of Washington’s lights she could see a lot of stars. The same stars, she thought, that her father might be seeing. But then she realized that in Afghanistan it was already morning. No stars. The thought made him seem even more distant to her.
She looked back. Her mother, her face still unlined and beautiful even without makeup, was watching her. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I,” Kathleen said. “Are you okay?”
Elizabeth sat down beside her mother. “I was having a bad dream.”
“About your father?”
“And you,” Elizabeth said shyly. She’d never told her mother about that dream.
“The shoplifting one?” her mother asked, and Elizabeth’s mouth opened. Her mother smiled gently. “Close your mouth, dear. You sometimes talk in your sleep.”
Elizabeth looked at her mother closely for the first time in a long time. There were lines at the corners of her eyes and full lips, but her eyes were clear and startlingly bright even in the starlight. There was a calmness in her expression, a peacefulness that overrode even a hint of fear. She’d been in this position before; waiting, wondering when the phone would ring with the news. Her husband was in harm’s way, and although he’d always managed to somehow survive, there was always that possibility that even his skill and luck would finally run out. She was steeling herself for it, as she had before, only this time it was different. This time she wanted him to come back. She wanted to know that he was safe and that she would have him back in her life at least for a little while until he went off again on another assignment.
Elizabeth saw all of that in her mother’s face, and understood now how much hell her mother had somehow endured over the past twenty-five years. A very large wave of love washed over her and she reached out for her mother’s hand.
Kathleen smiled gently. “A penny,” she said.
“I was just thinking that I love you and Daddy. But I never knew just how much until right now.”
Kathleen’s eyes glistened and she looked away. “Dammit.”
“It’s what he does, Mother. It’s who he is.”
Kathleen turned back, her delicate nostrils flared in a flash of anger. “He’s very, very good at it. But he’s a stupid man because he won’t admit to himself how many people are dependent on him. They’re going to suck him dry until there’s nothing left.”
The outburst left Elizabeth speechless, but her mother always had the ability to surprise her. On the surface she was nothing more than another well put together post Junior League society woman. In reality she was one of the major behind-the-scenes fund raisers for a dozen chari
ties and major organizations, among them the American Red Cross. She had the ability to mingle with the wealthy and talk them out of significant amounts of money before they realized what had hit them. She was as intelligent, well bred and knowledgeable as she was beautiful.
“It’s true,” Kathleen said. “You work in the Directorate of Operations now, so you’ve seen your father’s file, and I suppose there are stories you could tell me. But I have my own stories too. I’ve seen what the job has done to him over the past twenty-five years. I don’t think anybody knows where it will end, least of all your father.”
“He’ll never go back to teaching,” Elizabeth said with a little anger. She was afraid she was hearing her old mother now, the one who had driven her husband away.
“Don’t give me that look, Elizabeth. I’m not asking your father to quit for my sake. But he’ll destroy himself unless he can finally learn how to depend on someone other than himself.”
“He has Otto and Dick Adkins and the rest of his staff.”
Kathleen shook her head. “I mean emotionally. The difference between your father and me, is that when I get hurt I want to be surrounded by people I love. But when he’s hurt he’s like a dog who runs under the nearest porch to be alone so that he can lick his wounds.”
Elizabeth understood exactly what her mother was saying, because she’d always been torn both ways herself; wanting to run home to her mother for sympathy, while at the same time wanting to be left alone to nurse her own wounds. It was one of the messages from her dream, she supposed. She wanted to get to her father so that he could take care of the policemen chasing her, yet she could never reach him. Her subconscious was telling her to work out her own problems. How else could her father be proud of her?
They sat for a while in silence, looking out the window at the golf course. The windows on this side of the house were Lexan plastic because of the occasional stray ball. Her mother didn’t seem to mind; she’d lived here for a long time and she was a member of the club.
“Where did your father go this time?”
“Afghanistan,” Elizabeth answered without hesitation.
“Is he going after bin Laden?”
“Just to talk.”
“Is he still there? Have you heard anything yet?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Nothing yet, but he’s carrying something that allows us to know where he is at all times.”
“I thought the chip was only for field officers,” Kathleen said, but then she smiled wanly. “That was a dumb comment, I suppose.”
Elizabeth said nothing.
“How is Todd Van Buren these days? I haven’t heard anything about him lately.”
“We’re going to dinner on Friday,” Elizabeth said, feeling a sudden warm glow. Van Buren was an instructor at the CIA’s training facility in Williamsburg. He’d saved her life on a mission that had gone sour last year. Since then they’d had a slowly developing relationship. Van Buren was a little too macho and Elizabeth was a little too independent. It was something that they recognized in each other, and in themselves, and they were working on it. He was the first man Elizabeth had known who could compare to her father. They were big shoes to fill, in her estimation.
“When your father gets back to Washington invite Todd out here for dinner.” Kathleen smiled. “Unless you’re not ready for that yet.”
Elizabeth had to laugh. “It would scare him half to death, but it would be cool to see how he handled it.”
Kathleen laughed too. “I think it will frighten your father just as badly.” She studied her daughter’s face for a long moment or two. “I’m afraid for you in the business.”
“There’s hardly any kind of a job without a risk, Mother. And I’m not going to live in a cotton-lined box.”
“I don’t mean physically, though that frightens me. I’m talking about what it’s eventually going to do to you. Your father is a wonderful, kind, caring, giving man. I love him. But there’s a hard, cynical side to him because of what the CIA has made him do. Sometimes being around him is like biting on tinfoil.” Kathleen smiled sadly, and reached out and brushed a strand of hair off her daughter’s forehead. “I don’t want that for you. There’s nothing wrong with being soft and feminine. You can even accomplish it without being weak and stupid.”
“You’ve proven that, Mother,” Elizabeth said, warmly.
The telephone rang. Kathleen flinched, but then took the portable phone out of her bathrobe pocket and answered it. She’d been expecting the call. “Hello.”
Elizabeth watched her mother’s face for some sign of what kind of a call it was.
“Yes, I understand, Otto. Thank you for calling.” Kathleen’s face was perfectly neutral. “I know that you can’t go into the details, but how soon before you know when he’s out of there and safe?”
Elizabeth’s heart skipped a beat.
“Thank you,” Kathleen said. “As a matter of fact she’s here with me now. I’ll put her on.” She gave the phone to Elizabeth. “Otto’s heard from your father. He’s safe for now.”
Elizabeth took the phone. “Thanks for calling, Otto,” she said. “Is he still in-country?”
“About ten miles from bin Laden’s camp. He’s going to try to make it down to Kabul sometime tonight, and we’re sending a C-130 and some marines to pull him and some other Americans out. The White House will have to put some pressure on the Taliban government, but that can be done.”
“What’s going on? Why can’t he fly out of there commercially the same way he came in?”
“Oh, wow, Liz, I don’t know if you want to tell Mrs. M. this, but the President’s holding a news conference around eleven. Your father’s chip went off the air yesterday and the President ordered a cruise missile strike on bin Laden’s camp.”
“Goddamnit—”
“Wait, Liz. We tried to delay the strike until we were sure what was going on up there, but the White House was convinced that your father was dead, and their only option was to hit bin Laden as hard as they could.”
“But my father’s okay?”
“For now. But the Taliban are probably waiting for him to show up in Kabul, and there’s rioting all over the city. The Taliban have given all foreigners forty-eight hours to get out of there, so it’s a little confusing.”
“What about our assets on the ground?”
“We have a couple of people at the old embassy, but that’s where a lot of the rioting is concentrated. Dave Whit taker will try to reach them to see if they can do anything to help, but for now it’s up to your dad.”
Kathleen got up and went into the bathroom, leaving Elizabeth alone for the moment.
“Did we get bin Laden?”
“Nobody knows yet. There was a lot of damage, but there were survivors. The NRO is working on the updates, so we’ll just have to wait.”
“My father will be okay,” Elizabeth said, more for her own benefit than Rencke’s.
“He’s made it this far, he’ll make it the rest of the way, Liz. He’s tough.”
“That he is,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll get dressed and come in.”
“Maybe you want to stay with your mom.”
“I’ll be there in a half-hour.”
“Okay, but Dick Yemm is on his way out there, so tell Mrs. M. to sit tight for now.”
“Whose idea was that?”
“Your dad’s.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said. She broke the connection as her mother came back. They exchanged looks and that was enough.
“I’ll put on the coffee while you get dressed,” Kathleen said. “But I want you to keep me informed.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
National Reconnaissance Office Langley
There wasn’t a day went by that Major Louise Horn didn’t miss her old mentor Hubert Wight. But six months ago he’d been promoted to lieutenant colonel and reassigned to Air Force Intelligence Operations in the Pentagon. She was moved up to his old slot as chief of photographic interpretation at the
NRO’s Operations Center attached to the CIA’s headquarters (renamed the George Bush Center for Intelligence). She wished he was here right now. A lot of the down loaded satellite images she was looking at were indistinct because of a pall of smoke that still covered bin Laden’s camp. What looked like the remains of a burned-out truck in one photograph turned out to more likely be the corner of a building in the next, and perhaps a storage depot of fifty-gallon oil drums in another. His eye was always sharper than hers, and he had the uncanny ability to pick out some little detail that cleared up whatever mystery they were trying to unravel. It was unrealistic, but several times this morning she had seriously contemplated picking up the phone and asking him to drive out.
He used to have a miniature gallows and noose on his desk. Everybody knew that it signified what would happen to anyone who made a serious mistake and bounced it upstairs without double checking. Their customers, besides the air force, CIA and National Security Agency, were the President and his National Security Council. They were the big dogs, the ones who set national policy. It was a heavy responsibility that Louise was feeling this morning because she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. When he left, Wight had given her the gallows for her desk.
She was hunched over one of the big light tables in the dimly lit Interp Center above the Pit where a dozen computer terminals were arranged in semicircular tiers facing the main display. The screen, ninety feet wide and thirty feet tall, showed the real-time positions and tracks of every U.S. intelligence-gathering satellite in orbit. What those satellites looked at was controlled from the consoles.
The first series of shots they had down linked during the missile strike were clear enough to make a snap judgment. The camp had been almost totally obliterated. Based on the first look, Louise had sent out the preliminary damage assessment over her signature, complete with a dozen of the best photographs and her interpretation of them.
She stubbed out a cigarette in an overflowing ashtray and immediately lit another. Chain-smoking was a bad habit she’d been trying to break for the past year. And she had done pretty good until last night. She had graduated third in her class at the Air Force Academy. She had wanted to fly jets, but at six-five with an IQ of 160 she was too tall and too smart to be a fighter pilot. She belonged here, and she loved her job, eavesdropping on the entire world. It was a voyeur’s playground, and Louise was nothing if not curious. But what she was looking at now wasn’t squaring with her first assessment. The camp had been heavily damaged, there was no doubt about that, but there were more survivors than she had first suspected. In fact her count was already up to eighteen, and still rising, while her earlier prediction had been for only a handful.
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