Joshuas Hammer km-8

by David Hagberg

  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.”

  National Security Agency

  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?”

  “Just a partial, ma’am. But we have an area trace on the originating signal. It looks like it came from right here in the D.C. area. But it was masked, so that’s about the best we can do.”

  “I want to hear this myself. I’m on my way.” Ritter unplugged her headset and went back to Morgan’s console. At thirty-two Ritter was the single mother of twin eight-year old girls. She’d joined the navy right out of college, and because she was overweight, and in her own estimation not all that pretty, she had decided to make the navy a career. It was a good choice because she was very intelligent, yet good with detail, and she was very dedicated, in part because she figured she’d never get married and she needed to support her girls and her mother, who was their nanny. The world was tough, but as she imagined her movie star hero Kathy Bates would say: A woman’s gotta do what she’s gotta do.

  Morgan’s console was the third from the end. He was temporarily offline, his monitor showing the signal and content processing programs at work chewing on it.

  “What do we have, Mark?” Ritter plugged her headset in. Morgan looked up and gave her a smile. Although he was eight years younger than her, she thought that he was devastatingly handsome. The problem was he knew it.

  “Vorep gives it a ninety-seven percent bin Laden.” Morgan hit the replay button. “What we have so far from the machine translation will come up in the box.”

  There was silence at first, then a series of tones as the signal made its way through the telephone exchange in Rome. “Ahlan, wa sahlan,” a young man’s voice came over her headset. “Hello,” the single word came up in the box on the monitor.

  Ritter pressed her headset a little tighter, and listened to the rest of the conversation, which lasted just one minute and three seconds. Both men sounded as if they were under extreme stress, she read that part easily.

  “Okay, it looks as if we’ve bagged bin Laden, but who is Bahmad? And what happened to the translation program near the end?”

  “Vorep has nothing on Bahmad, and it’d be my guess that they switched to a local dialect that we don’t have.” Besides being good looking, Morgan was brilliant. His father was a special agent with the FBI, and with less than six months to go on his enlistment a number of companies were beginning to make him offers. As his release date got closer the NSA would offer him a deal as well. Like a lot of civilians working for the agency, he would be doing the same job only making four or five times as much money as the navy paid him. Ritter was afraid, however, that if she quit the navy hoping for better pay, which she needed, no one would make the offer.

  “Replay the second half,”
she said.

  Morgan ran the last part of the telephone conversation again, and this time Ritter could hear the change in dialects, though the translation program was still running a blank. “Try Russian,” she said.

  Morgan switched languages with a couple of keystrokes. This time the computer came up with a number of words; some like water buffalo and barn animals that didn’t seem to make any sense in the context, but others, like daughter, package, enroute and timetable, that did.

  “Okay, this looks like what the CIA wanted,” Ritter announced, straightening up. “I’ll take it from here and get it over to Langley. In the meantime I want you to clear your board and stick with the Rome exchange.” She gave him a warm smile. “Good job, Mark, but keep your eyes open, I have a feeling that this is just the beginning.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Morgan replied. He said it like Ritter had told him something so obvious it was stupid.

  Ritter caught the inflection. He was a little shit, and one of these days someone was going to bring him down a notch for his own good. But that didn’t change the fact he was cute.

  Chevy Chase

  “Do you think that bin Laden will accept the President’s apology?” Kathleen asked after breakfast.

  “He might,” McGarvey said, putting on his jacket. He came over and kissed her on the cheek. “What would you think about getting out of Washington for a while?”

  “Would you come with me?” She looked up at him, knowing full well what his answer would be. He shook his head. “Do you think that he’ll send someone to harm Elizabeth because of what we did to his daughter?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Fine.” Her old attitude of disgust showed on her face, but then she softened. She was working at it. “In that case she’s right where she belongs, by her father’s side. And me leaving town wouldn’t do a thing to help.”

  “It won’t always be like this—”

  Kathleen laughed softly. “You’ve said that before. Tell me something new.”

  “I love you.”

  “That’s better.” She reached up and kissed him. “Maybe we can do something this weekend.”

  “Check the movies, see what’s playing,” McGarvey said. He got his car keys and left the house. It was a few minutes after eight and the morning was warm and muggy, it was going to be a hot day. He waved at the security officer in the van across the street and was about to get into his car when Elizabeth pulled up in her bright yellow VW, a big smile on her round, pretty face.

  She jumped out of her car, came over and gave her father a kiss. “Morning, daddy. How’s Mother?”

  “Fine. Are you just getting off work?”

  She nodded. “But I got Otto to promise to get a couple of hours of rest, and I came over to pick up a few of my things.”

  “Anything new?”

  Her face darkened. “Nothing yet, but Otto won’t give up. I think he’d work himself to death if somebody wasn’t there to watch out for him.”

  “I’ll make sure he gets some sleep this morning. Why don’t you go home and do the same yourself, you look as though you could use it. If something comes up I’ll give you a call.”

  She suddenly looked embarrassed. “I won’t be there,” she said.

  “Are you staying here?”

  “I’ve moved in with Todd.” She girded herself for a storm, but McGarvey just gave his daughter a smile.

  “He’s a good man. Don’t give him a hard time, he doesn’t deserve it.”

  Elizabeth’s jaw dropped open. “Dad?”

  McGarvey laughed. “Good luck breaking the news to your mother though.”

  CIA Headquarters

  Rencke was lying on top of his conference table, which was strewn with notes, computer printouts, files and photographs. He’d managed to catch only a half-hour of rest when the call to his office number rolled over to the cell phone in his pocket. He had his computer tied to his phone as well. If one of his search engines came up with something it would automatically notify him. But this was a human call, the ring was different.

  He answered it without sitting up or opening his eyes. “Yes?” He hadn’t slept in four days, and he felt gritty.

  “Otto, this is Johanna at Fort Meade. I have something for you. A call from a man named Bahmad to Osama bin Laden through what looks like a relay service provider in Rome.”

  Rencke sat straight up as if his tailbone had been plugged into a light socket. “When?” “Just a few minutes ago. We don’t know where bin Laden is located, but the originating call came from somewhere in the D.C. area.”

  Rencke held the phone in the crook of his neck, pulled his laptop over and brought up the NSA’s mainframe. “What were they speaking, Johanna? Arabic, English, Russian? What?”

  “Egyptian Arabic at first, but then they switched to another dialect, probably northern Afghani. The Russian translator program picked out a few words. But when I tried using a blend — Russian and Arabic — the program just locked up.”

  “I’ve got your console, do you have a password?”

  “Just a sec, I’ll download the file.”

  The screen split in three. On the left the Arabic text came up. In the middle the same text came up in the Western alphabet. And on the right the incomplete translation came up.

  Rencke was having trouble focusing, having a hard time accepting what he was seeing on the screen. Almost never did the thing they were looking for drop out of the sky into their laps. Most of the time it was a guessing game. But not this time. Daughter, enroute, package, timetable. The message could not have been plainer.

  “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?”

  Chevy Chase Country Club

  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.