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?”
Cabin John, Maryland
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. Has there been a response already?”
“It looks like it. This morning, about forty minutes ago, NSA picked up a telephone conversation between bin Laden and Ali Bahmad. He’s the guy from bin Laden’s cave who knew about your GPS chip, and the same one Trumble said sat in a corner without saying a word during the meeting in Khartoum.” Rencke was all out of breath, even more so than he usually was when he was excited and had the bit in his teeth. “We couldn’t get a fix on bin Laden, the call went through a service provider in Rome, but Bahmad is here in the area somewhere. We didn’t get a fix, but he’s here.”
“Who initiated the call?”
“Bahmad.”
“Do we have a translation?”
“Just a partial. They were probably using a northern Afghani dialect, and we’re trying to find someone to help out, but we got enough to know that you were right all along. The bomb is already on its way here.”
“Did they say where or how?”
“If they did, we haven’t gotten to that part yet. But NSA’s translator program got another word out of it. Daughter.”
McGarvey’s stomach did a flop. He checked the rearview mirror, then shot over to the far left lane and jammed on his brakes. He eased onto the grassy median, the Pathfinder’s rear end fishtailing in the grass and soft ground.
“Hold on a second, Otto, I’m turning around,” he shouted. He dropped the cell phone in his lap, and stomped on the gas as he careened across the broad median, judged the oncoming traffic and bumped up onto the interstate heading back to Chevy Chase.
“We know why Bahmad is here, you were right about that too,” Rencke was saying when McGarvey picked up the phone. “I shot this over to the Secret Service so they know what might be coming their way, but I can’t get ahold of Mrs. M. or Liz. The phones at the house are shut off and Liz turned off her cell phone just like you did.”
“I’m on my way back there now. Who’s pulling surveillance duty this morning?”
“Mike Larsen. I’ve already given him the heads-up.”
“Tell him that I’m on my way, and if Liz tries to leave, keep her there. Call Dick Yemm and tell him what’s happening. And then have the Chevy Chase cops head over there.”
“I’ve already done that. And I called the Maryland Highway Patrol to be on the lookout for you, and to give you the message to call here.”
A highway patrol cruiser suddenly swerved off the opposite side of the interstate and shot across the median, its lights flashing.
“They found me,” McGarvey said. “Call them now, tell them that I got the message, give them Katy’s address and tell them to go straight out there. I’ll try to keep up.”
“Standby,” Rencke said.
McGarvey was doing one hundred miles per hour, trying to be careful not to cause an accident, but his nerves were jumping all over the place, and he was afraid that his vision would go haywire at any moment. He wanted to fly. He kept seeing bin Laden’s face when they were talking about their daughters. By his own words no one was an innocent, and he would want revenge now.
Rencke came back. “They’re getting word to every unit in the vicinity, but the daughter that bin Laden talked about was probably the President’s.”
“I think you’re right, but I’m not going to take the chance.”
“Oh, shit, I didn’t mean it that way, you gotta believe me. I’m doing everything I can to protect Liz.”
“Take it easy, Otto, I know that you’re doing your best. Call State and the Bureau right away and give them whatever you can dig up on Bahmad. I think that he’s bin Laden’s chief of staff.”
“He
is, and not only that — he worked for British Intelligence about eight years ago. And he even came over here on a six-month study exchange program.” The voice suddenly clicked into place for McGarvey. He’d been back to headquarters for a couple of weeks about that time. “Christ, I think I met him once, just for a minute. Where’d you get this information?”
“Out of our own records. He was in the system all the time.”
“How about deep background, or anything else that might be useful?”
“It’s in archives. I have a runner on the way down there now to dig up what she can for us.”
The highway patrol cruiser, its lights still flashing, pulled up beside McGarvey, and the officer motioned that he was going on ahead. The Crown Victoria was a lot faster than the Nissan and it pulled away.
“As soon as you come up with something, anything at all, Otto, get it to me,” McGarvey instructed.
“If he makes another telephone call through Rome we’ll nail the bastard, guaranteed.”
Chevy Chase Bahmad drove his Mercedes directly to a parking ramp off Connecticut Avenue where he switched with the Capital City Cleaning van. He put on a pair of white coveralls over his golfing clothes, buttoning the top button. As he pulled out of the ramp and headed back to Laurel Parkway he took out his Glock 17, switched the safety off and laid it on the seat beside him.
He took care to keep a couple of miles over the speed limit to minimize attention. Traffic was heavy streaming into the city, but light in the opposite direction. When he rounded the corner onto Laurel Parkway he called the house.
“Are you ready?” he asked, when Aggad answered.
“We’re in the garage now.”
“Is the girl still there?”
“Her car is still in the driveway,” Aggad said.
Bahmad turned left toward the end of the cul-de-sac and he saw the yellow VW in Kathleen McGarvey’s driveway, the same dark blue van as before parked across the street. “Keep out of sight now, I’m going to open the garage door.”
“Okay.”
Bahmad put the phone down, hit the garage door opener then stopped across from the driveway and backed up to the garage, keeping an eye peeled for anyone getting out of the blue van. He pulled halfway into the garage, then climbed into the back and opened the rear door.
“You took your time,” Aggad grumbled. He and Ibrahim were wearing white coveralls too. They quickly loaded their weapons into the back of the van and climbed in.
“Did you leave anything behind?” Bahmad demanded.
“Nothing,” Aggad replied sullenly. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Fingerprints?”
“I said nothing.”
“Very well,” Bahmad shrugged. He climbed back into the driver’s seat as they shut the rear door, and headed down the driveway, pressing the garage door opener switch.
He rolled down his window, then picked up his pistol as he pulled up beside the CIA surveillance van. A young man inside leaned over the back of the passenger seat and then powered down the window.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Bahmad smiled, raised his pistol and fired one shot at point blank range into the man’s forehead, shoving him backward, then pulled across the street into Kathleen McGarvey’s driveway.
“Stay with the van,” he told Ibrahim. “If anyone shows up, kill them.”
Elizabeth came racing down the stairs. She’d been in the front bedroom packing her things and had happened to look out the window when Mike Larsen went down. For a split instant she was frozen, unable to believe what she was witnessing. But then her training and instincts kicked in, she dropped the overnight bag and headed out.
Her mother was just coming from the back with some socks and underwear. “These were in the dryer—”
Elizabeth waved her back, and crossed the stair hall to the door. She turned the lock and deadbolt and checked out the side window as two armed men climbed out of a van and started up the driveway.
“What is it?” Kathleen asked calmly.
“Trouble,” Elizabeth said, cursing herself for leaving her pistol and cell phone with her purse in the car.
Kathleen dropped the laundry. “Is there time to go upstairs to get my phone?”
“No.”
“Then we’ll go out the back door and across the golf course. If we can reach the clubhouse we should be safe.”
She turned on her heel and went back into the kitchen, Elizabeth right behind her as the doorbell rang.
Bahmad looked through the tall narrow window beside the front door in time to see Elizabeth disappear down a corridor to the back of the house.
He stepped back and shot the lock out of the door. It would not open. It took him a second to realize that there was a second lock, which took three shots to destroy before he could get inside.
He rolled left, keeping his pistol up. Elizabeth McGarvey was a trained CIA agent, and she was probably armed. It would be stupid of him to get shot to death now by a girl.
Aggad slipped into the hallway and rolled right, keeping his AK-47 high on his shoulder, just like the American marines were taught to do with their M-16s. Bin Laden’s soldiers were selected not necessarily because of their intelligence, but because they were professionals. Aggad was acting like one now. Not like a hothead, Bahmad thought gratefully.
They leapfrogged down the corridor, and through the kitchen into the enclosed patio room that looked out onto the pool and across the golf course.
Elizabeth McGarvey and her mother were running as fast as they could go up the fifteenth fairway toward the clubhouse: A foursome on the green was so intent on their game that they hadn’t noticed them yet.
“We’ll never catch them on foot,” Aggad observed.
Bahmad calculated the distances, but he knew that Aggad was correct. The realistic thing for them now was to get the hell out of here, ditch the van and get back to the boat. Survive to strike another day. It had been one of the techniques that had allowed him, and in fact the entire Islamic movement, to survive this long: Hit and run. Swift like the wind, and just as invisible. A method, he’d told bin Laden, that had been used by the American revolutionaries to kick the British out of the Colonies.
But not this time.
“What do you want to do, man?” Aggad demanded.
“They’re heading to the clubhouse. We’ll take the van. I know a short cut.”
Bahmad raced back through the house, and pulled up short in the driveway for just an instant. In the not-so-far distance he could hear a police siren, and then perhaps others farther away. Many others.
Run away to fight another day, the thought crossed his mind. But he shook it off because he knew exactly what he was doing. He could see the entire operation unfolding as he wanted it to, despite the unforseen variations this morning. He had never failed before. He wasn’t going to fail this time.
Elizabeth wished she had her gun. She could hear sirens in the distance, but she knew that it wouldn’t take long for whoever it was after them to figure out where they’d gone and come after them. One of them in the driveway had been carrying an AK-47. A one-wood out of someone’s golf bag was going to be no defense. She thought about heading directly into the woods across the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways where they could hide while her mother caught her breath. But her mother seemed to be having no trouble keeping up. It was her tennis playing, Elizabeth supposed. And she thought that her mother was right; if they could reach the club there would be people and they might be safe. At least long enough for the cops to catch up with them.
Maryland Highway Patrol Trooper Tom Leitner was a good quarter-mile ahead of McGarvey as he turned onto Laurel Parkway. His siren was going and traffic had parted for him, but this street was deserted except for a light-colored commercial van coming toward him.
“All units, all units in the vicinity of fifteen Laurel Park way, Chevy Chase, shots have been reported,” the dispatcher said over the radio.
Leitner grabbed
the microphone. “Bethesda, unit 27, I’m there now. But there’s no activity. What do you have?”
“Unit 27, Bethesda, neighbors reported several shots fired at the front of the house. Two men, possibly Caucasian, both slightly built, driving a white Capital City Cleaning van, tag number unknown, possibly involved. Use extreme caution.”
Leitner passed the van and his gut tightened. It was the van. He jammed on his brakes and did a U-turn, his tires smoking as he spun around. The van suddenly accelerated, swerved off the road and careened across the lawn between two houses. He knew what the driver was trying to do, and he followed the van.
“Bethesda, unit 27, I’m in pursuit of the white van, D.C. tag number tango-niner-seven-eight-eight. He’s heading north off Laurel Parkway onto the golf course. Officer requests immediate assistance.” He shot out between the two houses, raced through an opening in the trees at the back and spotted the white van heading directly up the broad, undulating fairway, golfers scattering in every direction.
McGarvey’s phone chirped as he rounded the corner onto Laurel Parkway from Connecticut Avenue in time to see the highway patrol cruiser take off between the houses.
“They’re heading across the golf course,” Rencke said breathlessly.
“Who is?” McGarvey shouted.
“Mrs. M. and Liz. The neighbors saw them. There’s a white van after them, two men. The highway patrol is right behind them.”
“I’m right there,” McGarvey said. He hauled the Nissan over the curb and raced between the houses. “There’s a lot of trees and thick brush on the course, a million places for them to hide. I want you to get some helicopters in the air.”
“MHP is already on it.”
McGarvey tossed the phone aside. Everything that could be done was being done. But it was his wife and daughter out there running for their lives. He shot out through a gap in the trees and found himself on the fifteenth fairway. The van had almost reached the woods near the women’s tee about two hundred yards away, and the Maryland Highway Patrol cruiser was closing with it fast.
Katy and Liz would be trying to make it to the clubhouse where there would be people this morning, and possibly safety. It was the only logical choice for them. He could see that the driver of the van had figured out the same thing and was heading directly toward the first fairway. But he was making a mistake. The way he was going led to a small cart path bridge over a creek that the van could not cross. They would have to double back and cross the seventeenth fairway before they could head to the clubhouse. He would be able to cut them off by heading directly across the fifteenth and sixteenth fairways right now.
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