Elizabeth had never run a marathon or any other big race in which she was in the middle of hundreds of runners. The experience now bordered on the surreal. Deborah was on her right and slightly ahead, and they were surrounded by a sea of white muscle shirts, arms and elbows, heads bobbing and weaving. Already she was beginning to smell sweat and running shoes and some unpleasant unwashed body odors. Some of the runners limped or hopped because of their disabilities; others took huge bounding leaps and still others ran flat-out, pushing their way through the mass of human flesh. They probably wouldn’t even last until the highway, and she was sure that their coaches had tried to drum into their heads the notion of pacing themselves. But this was the Special Olympics, and most athletes here were so enthused for the moment that they could hardly contain themselves.
The President’s daughter, however, and perhaps a hundred other runners like her who had received good training, were pacing themselves for the long haul, something over thirteen miles. For at least that much Elizabeth was grateful, although the pace Deborah was running was not going to be easy to keep up with. She would be doing the half marathon in under two hours.
Elizabeth saw the blimp overhead and the helicopters crisscrossing the sky. Somewhere still well out ahead was the presidential motorcade, lights flashing. Once they got out onto U.S. 101 there would be spectators cheering them on, and a mile and a half out, when the field would be spreading out, there would be the first of the water stations.
Somewhere in the pack behind them Todd Van Buren and whatever Secret Service agent he’d been assigned to this morning were drifting through the field on the souped-up golf cart. They were looking for any sign of trouble, and they were keeping up with Deborah.
Elizabeth resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see if she could spot them. It was hard enough keeping up without making it more difficult for herself.
She pulled up even with the President’s daughter. Deborah’s long blond hair streamed behind her, there was a thin sheen of perspiration on her face and there was a look of absolute joy, even rapture, on her sweet face.
Deborah turned and gave Elizabeth a huge grin. “Isn’t this just so cool?” she shouted. She wasn’t even breathing hard yet.
“Cool,” Elizabeth said. She caught a glimpse of the highway in the distance, and settled back for the long haul. For the very long haul, she told herself as she took several clearing breaths.
Golden Gate Bridge
McGarvey bummed a ride across the bridge from an SFPD cop. As they passed under the Marin side tower he directed the officer to pull over and he got out.
The wind was down, which would make it a lot easier on the runners. There weren’t even any whitecaps on the bay or in the Golden Gate. Directly below the bridge an eighty-two-foot Coast Guard cutter was making its turn back to the south. In the distance, at Seal Rocks Beach, McGarvey could see five big cargo ships at anchor waiting to come in after the race.
He pushed his way through the spectators sitting on beach chairs and on the curb, and went to the rail. He lit a cigarette and stared at the ships, allowing the urgency that had gripped him for the last twenty-four hours to ease up a little.
There was no other activity in the Golden Gate. Nothing moved except for the cutter. Even if the bomb was aboard one of the cargo ships, there was no time for the anchor to be pulled up and the ship to make it to the bridge by the time the runners arrived. The Coast Guard cutters would intercept it long before it got close. If need be, the Coast Guard jet that was standing by at the Oakland Airport could be scrambled.
All the bases were covered.
He turned and gazed down the length of the bridge. Thousands of people lined the roadway. Police units, their lights flashing, seemed to be everywhere. Overhead, he counted six helicopters and in the distance to the south the Met Life blimp was heading this way. It meant that the race was underway.
There were sharpshooters atop both towers in case someone tried to bull their way onto the bridge. Salted in and among the eighteen hundred runners were two dozen Secret Service agents plus Todd Van Buren and Elizabeth.
He turned again to stare at the five cargo ships. What was he missing? What were they all missing? Most of them, from the President down, didn’t really believe that an attack would come here. It was against bin Laden’s interests. Yet everyone was frightened. It was bizarre.
M/V Margo
A radio on the bridge was tuned to ESPN, and the minute by-minute commentary on the Special Olympics half marathon was being piped over the Margo’s PA system.
Bahmad had horsed the inflated twelve-foot Zodiac out of its locker on the port quarterdeck just forward of where the now-useless helicopter was lashed down, and had attached the lifting sling to the three heavy D-rings on the dinghy’s gun whale line.
The runners were off, but he had plenty of time. From everything that he’d read and knew about this type of event, a woman runner would make a full marathon in a bit over four hours. The President’s daughter was an excellent athlete so it was no stretch of the imagination to believe that she would do a half-marathon in two hours, barring any delays or accidents.
Bahmad looked up at the other container vessels in the basin. There was no movement on their decks. The crews were below eating their midday meal.
Deborah Haynes would run the thirteen miles in two hours, which meant that she would average a little more than nine minutes per mile. The middle of the Golden Gate Bridge was about nine miles from the stadium at Candlestick Park. Eighty to eighty-five minutes after the start of the race Deborah Haynes would be on the center span.
Bahmad powered the Zodiac off the deck with the hand controller, and then swung the boom out over the side of the rail. When the dinghy had stopped swinging and was clear, he quickly powered it forty feet down to the surface of the water within reach of the boarding ladder.
The pilot boat would make fifteen knots easily, and the center span of the bridge was three miles away. Allowing time for the boat to clear the Margo’s bow and make the turn, Bahmad estimated that twelve minutes after he cast off the pilot boat’s lines it would be under the bridge.
The timing could be sloppy, several minutes off either way, because of the blast radius of the nuclear device. If the pilot boat were somewhere in the vicinity of the bridge at the same time the runners were on the bridge or very near it, the President’s daughter and a lot of other people would die.
He walked aft to the stern rail where three fiberglass containers, each about the size of a large suitcase, were bracketed to the deck. Each was marked life raft eight person made in china. He undid the fasteners for the canister on the left and lifted it off its cradle. It was very heavy, more than forty kilograms. He imagined that he could feel heat coming off it, which was nonsense of course. Nevertheless he handled the container with a great deal of care as he awkwardly brought it forward to the gate. He set the package down at the head of the boarding ladder so that he could catch his breath. It wouldn’t do to drop the damn thing halfway down the ladder in the rolling swell. Not after all this. Not when he was this close.
The runners were fifteen minutes into the race on U.S. 101, and according to the ESPN commentator they were already beginning to spread out with Deborah Haynes near the lead as expected.
She would be on the center span in another sixty-five to seventy minutes. He would have to send the pilot boat off twelve minutes before then. He had nearly an hour. Twenty minutes to put the bomb in place and make the final settings. Another twenty to get his things, put them aboard the dinghy and make sure that the outboard worked. And the final fifteen minutes or so to fine-tune the timing based on the ESPN blow-by-blow.
Once the pilot boat was off he would take the dinghy around the sound end of the point, which would afford him protection from the blast. In the confusion afterward he would make his escape.
Plenty of time, he told himself, as he hefted the bomb and started down the ladder.
The Met Life Blimp Secret Serv
ice agent Hugh Gardner had seen a lot of stuff in his five-year career with the service, but he’d never seen such a mass of humanity spread out over four miles of highway as he was seeing right now. Some of the runners had given up before they had gotten out of the Candlestick Park parking lot, while others, among them the President’s daughter, were within a hundred yards or so of the lead.
“Lead One, this is Baker Seven, they’re coming up on delta,” he spoke into his lapel mike. Delta was the Mission Dolores just beyond where U.S. 101 made its jog to the west.
“Copy, Baker Seven. How’s it looking from there?”
“No problems that I can see,” Gardner replied. The view from up here was fantastic. He could see the bridge up ahead, the city and the bay to the east, including Alcatraz Island, and the outer stretches of the Golden Gate to the west, the hazy Pacific Ocean stretching off to the horizon.
He sincerely hoped that nothing would go wrong today to spoil the shear beauty of it. His fellow agents razzed him for being so overly sensitive in such a demanding job. But, as he had explained to the guys on his detail last week, the quickest, easiest and cheapest way into a woman’s knickers was reading poetry. Sensitivity, gentlemen. Try it, you’ll like it.
The Pilot Boat Bahmad unsnapped the life raft’s latches and opened the outer cover. He had a little trouble with one of the inner latches, but when it finally popped he prised up the lid to reveal the bomb’s control panel. As he huddled inside the cabin there was nothing to be seen except for the Margo’s rust-streaked hull rising like a shear cliff, and no one to see what he was doing.
He entered the activation code on the keypad and the numerical display and warning lights came to life. The impression that heat was radiating from the device was even stronger now than it had been up on the Margo’s stern, and it was just as foolish. The bomb did not leak. One last time Bahmad was struck with the notion that what he was doing could and should be stopped. Even now. There was no need to go through with this thing. No need for the killing and the suffering. No need for him to become the most hunted and the most reviled man in all of history. No need for revenge. Not his revenge for his parents and not bin Laden’s for his Sarah.
He closed his eyes. He could see Beirut as it had been when he was a child. It had been called the Paris of the Mediterranean. He could see beautiful gardens, laughing happy people, family meals. But then he could hear the Israeli jets, feel the earth-shattering pounding of their bombs, smell the burning flesh.
Bahmad opened his eyes, focused on the control pad and entered another series of codes that set the bomb’s moment of detonation fifty-five minutes from now. At that instant the bulk of the runners would be on the Golden Gate Bridge. For them there would be no pain, not like the pain his parents had suffered, not the pain that Sarah had endured. For the runners there would be a blinding flash of light and then nothing.
He entered another series of codes that activated the antitampering circuits. If anyone tried to stop the bomb it would explode immediately.
Finally his finger poised over the start button. For one moment he questioned his sanity, but then he pushed the button, closed and relatched the inner cover and closed and relatched the outer cover.
The countdown had begun.
Golden Gate Bridge
McGarvey’s cell phone rang. The number on the display was Rencke’s private office line. He’d been on the computers continuously for four days and nights. But when he had the bit in his teeth nothing could stop him.
“Have you come up with something new?” McGarvey answered.
“It’s there, and I know how it got there,” Rencke rasped. It sounded as if he was on the verge of cracking up. “From Karachi, disguised as a life raft made in China. Oh, boy, it was right there in front of me all the time. Purple—”
McGarvey gripped the phone. “Where is it, Otto? Specifically!”
“San Francisco. The coast. Came by ship, Karachi, Red Sea, the Med. It was laid up for two months in Tampa. That’s what threw me off.”
McGarvey was on the center span of the bridge. He spun around and looked out toward Seal Point, but from this angle he could only see the bows of two container ships. There were four or five of them out there. He’d spotted them earlier when he was on the Marin side. “What ship? When did it come in?” he demanded.
“The Margo, Cyprus registry, home office PKS Shipping, Ltd.” Paris. Ties to bin Laden, ya know. It all fits. It was right there.”
“Okay, calm down, Otto. When did the Margo get here? When?”
“It should be coming in right now. Went through the big ditch where it picked up a helicopter. The Coast Guard spotted her yesterday off Baja California, and I got satellite pictures this morning. It’s there, Mac. You’re probably looking right at it.”
McGarvey pushed his way through the spectators and raced across to the other side of the bridge. “How do you know that the bomb is aboard that ship?”
“It was delivered to the dock in Karachi. We got the delivery man last night. Traced it back to a flight from Peshwar. Chinese life rafts in Peshwar, Pakistan?”
The only ship moving on the bay side was the second Coast Guard cutter. No cargo vessel. At least none near enough so that if the nuclear device were to be lit off it would damage the bridge or kill anyone on it. They would have to deal with radioactive fallout, but that would come later.
“No chance that it could have come in late last night or early this morning?”
“I don’t think so, Mac. It’s gotta be right there.”
“Good work, Otto. We’ll find it.” McGarvey broke the connection. He was still missing something, goddammit. Bahmad would not have come this far to fail. He radioed Villiard at the FEMA Operations Center as he walked back across the bridge to the ocean side “Villiard,” the Secret Service agent came back.
“The bomb is aboard a Cypriot-registered cargo ship. Margo. Find out if its come into port yet, and where it is.”
Villiard was enough of a pro not to ask questions right now. “Stand by.”
Nothing was changed in the Golden Gate. The cargo ships were still parked just around the point, waiting to come into port. Delayed because of the shipping restriction.
He checked his watch. The first runners would be on the bridge in less than thirty minutes. There wasn’t enough time for one of those cargo ships to pull up anchor and get here. Villiard was back and he was excited.
“The Margo showed up about an hour ago. She’s anchored in a holding basin at Seal Point.”
“I’m on the bridge. There’re five ships out there, two that I can see right now. Neither one of them is moving. Anyway they’d never make it here in time to—” McGarvey stopped in mid-sentence as if a spike had been driven into his skull.
“You still there?”
“The bomb’s on the Margo,” but she’s also carrying a helicopter.”
“Sonofabitch.”
“Scramble the jet and tell the pilot to splash that chopper the moment her rotors start to turn. Do it now while we still have time.”
“I’ll alert the President’s detail.”
“Scramble the jet first, Jay.” McGarvey pushed through the crowd at the curb and ran out into the middle of the roadway. “I’m right in the middle of the bridge. I want a chopper down here right now to take me out to the Margo.”
“I’m on it,” Villiard replied tersely, and he was gone.
McGarvey grabbed a passing cop and had him start clearing the road for the helicopter to land.
M/V Margo Bahmad tossed his leather bag into the dinghy, then turned around and looked at the pilot boat not quite certain that he’d heard what he thought he’d heard. The radio was on, tuned to the San Francisco Harbor Control working channel. He jumped aboard and had to step over the bodies in the cabin to get to the radio, his eyes going instinctively to the bomb wedged between the driver’s seat and the bulkhead. The radio was silent for the moment. He turned down the squelch.
“Negative, she’s off
Seal Point. The Coasties, are scrambling a jet.”
“Meeks is out there, but I’ve not been able to raise him,” Bahmad stepped back, staggered by what he was hearing. They knew! Somehow they knew.
“I haven’t been able to reach him or Iglesias.”
Bahmad looked at his watch. The runners wouldn’t be on the bridge for another twenty-five minutes. The bomb was set to go off then. But if the authorities came out here they would discover the dead pilot and his driver. The bomb would go off here, killing a few people instead of thousands. He would have failed again. The thought threatened to send him over the edge.
“Maybe they have radio problems.”
As had happened many times before, the solution came to Bahmad all in one piece. He knew every step that he would have to take, including the diversion he would have to create if he was going to have the time to make his escape.
He went out to the starboard rail and yanked the six-foot whip antenna out of its mount. The radio went dead. Anyone looking when the pilot boat approached the bridge would see that the antenna was down which would explain their radio silence.
Back at the helm he started the inboard, activated the autopilot and put the transmission in forward, setting the throttle to a few hundred RPMs above idle. It would take the pilot boat at least twenty minutes, maybe a little longer to get to the bridge at that speed.
The boat strained at the line holding it to the Mar go’s boarding ladder. Bahmad had some difficulty jumping across because the pilot boat was pitching and hobby horsing pulling at its leash like a puppy dog wishing to run free. He pulled out his stiletto and cut the line. The pilot boat immediately headed away.
He pulled the dinghy over, jumped aboard, lowered the outboard, connected the gas line and pushed the starter button. It roared into life instantly.
The pilot boat still hadn’t cleared the Margo’s bow by the time Bahmad climbed out of the dinghy and raced up the boarding ladder, but he didn’t bother looking. That part of the operation was now completely out of his control.
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