The main deck corridor was ominously silent. McGarvey closed his eyes for just a moment to garner the last of his strength, then eased just far enough around the corner so that he could see what was going on.
Bahmad, his attention on the starboard stairwell, had flattened himself against the bulkhead and was creeping forward.
McGarvey stepped out into the corridor and raised his pistol. The ship started to spin, but then steadied down. Bahmad turned, a surprised look on his face. He brought the MAC 10 around, but he was too late and he knew it.
“You lose,” McGarvey said softly, and he squeezed off two shots, the first catching bin Laden’s chief of staff in his chest, driving him backward, and the second under his jaw, the bullet spiraling upward into his brain.
Golden Gate Bridge
Elizabeth raced up the narrow stairs that had replaced the elevator inside this tower, taking them two at a time. Her radio was useless in here because of all the steel, though she could faintly hear the sirens and sounds of pandemonium out on the bridge deck below. There would be time later to chastise herself for allowing the President’s daughter to slip away, and for the SWAT shooter who had left the tower door unlocked to get reamed. For now she had to concentrate on finding the girl, getting her the hell out of here and off the bridge before it was too late.
She stopped and cocked an ear to listen. Somewhere far above she could hear footfalls on the metal stairs.
“Deborah,” she shouted, and she listened again. The footsteps stopped. The stairwell was only very dimly lit, casting ominous shadows on the honeycombed interior of the tower. There were a million places for someone to hide in here forever.
“Liz,” Todd shouted from below, his voice booming in the stairwell.
“Stay back,” Elizabeth warned.
“The chopper’s on its way. Hurry.”
Elizabeth turned and looked up the stairwell. There were no footsteps now. Deborah was crouched up there somewhere. Frightened. Not knowing who to trust or what to do.
“Deb, it’s me, Liz,” Elizabeth shouted, starting up. “I’m coming up to talk to you. This is really important, so stay right where you are. Please.”
The Golden Gate
McGarvey reached the port rail, blood streaming from his wounds, everything dancing crazily in front of his eyes as if he was in the middle of an earthquake. He could make out the Harrier jet a few hundred feet aft of the ship and the Sea King helicopter hovering about the same distance straight out. But he couldn’t tell if the Margo had stopped, though it seemed to him that it had.
The bomb was on the pilot boat heading straight for the bridge and nobody but him knew about it. Even if they did now, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do. Sinking the boat wouldn’t help. When the bomb went off it would vaporize tons of water into a radioactive deluge. Nor would taking the boat in tow and heading it out to sea work. There simply wasn’t enough time.
“Goddamnit!”
The gate was open, the boarding ladder deployed. McGarvey looked down and spotted the inflatable, its motor idling. The procedure for shutting down the Russian nuclear devices couldn’t be much different than that for deactivating the American bombs. Or at least it shouldn’t be, but he had no other choice. Liz was on that bridge.
He scrambled down the ladder nearly falling several times. His legs threatened to buckle under him, his right hip where he had taken a hit was nearly useless and his vision kept fading in and out.
The Sea King slid in closer to see what he was doing, but its rotor wash became so strong it threatened to blow the dinghy over, and the pilot backed off.
McGarvey didn’t bother to look up or wave, it was hard enough keeping in focus as it was. He managed to untie the painter with fingers as thick as sausages, climb aboard, throw the motor into gear and take off.
This is exactly how bin Laden envisioned the scenario would unfold. McGarvey had seen it in the man’s eyes. Television viewers from all over the world would witness the United States being brought to its knees. The most powerful nation on earth was unable to protect itself. They would see the helicopters, the police, the military and the Coast Guard ships surrounding the bridge and the runners. And then the bright flash.
When he cleared the Margo’s huge flaring bows, McGarvey turned directly toward the bridge. The Coast Guard cutter Escanaba a hundred yards out now was bearing down on him, the Sea King had taken up position about fifty yards over his left shoulder and an outgoing tide raised a four-foot chop in the Gate that threatened to flip the dinghy over backward.
He couldn’t see the pilot boat yet, but it was in the channel and it wasn’t going very fast. He’d seen that from the air. He twisted the outboard’s throttle all the way open and the dinghy shot ahead, leaping over the waves, nearly throwing him out each time it came down.
Golden Gate Bridge
The President’s daughter was huddled on the stairs, her knees up to her chin, her eyes wide with fright. When Elizabeth reached her the girl was shivering almost uncontrollably, tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Hey, take it easy, Deb,” Elizabeth told her. She sat down just below the girl and took her hands, her palms were cold and sweaty.
“They’re going to kill me and my dad,” Deborah whimpered.
“Don’t be silly. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
“Yes, they are. I heard my dad talking about them. They’re all rotten bastards.”
“That’s why you’ve got us, Deb,” Elizabeth said, keeping her voice calm and gentle. The girl was on the verge of hysteria. “We’re not going to let anyone come near you.”
“What about my dad?”
“He and your mom are okay. They’re waiting for you to catch up.” Elizabeth smiled warmly. “Unless you want to stay here in the dark.” Deborah shook her head, her movements tiny and birdlike. “The bastards won’t hurt me if I come with you?” “I promise,” Elizabeth said. “But maybe you’d better not call them that anymore.” She got up and helped Deborah to her feet. * “That’s what my dad says they are.”
“I know, but that’s just the way dads talk sometimes. It’s not the way girls are supposed to talk.”
Deborah managed a little smile. “Okay,” she said.
“All right then, let’s do it.”
Elizabeth started down the stairs, the President’s daughter clinging tightly to her arm, conscious that they had just about run out of time.
The Golden Gate
McGarvey spotted the pilot boat a couple of hundred yards from the center span of the bridge, but it took another five minutes to catch up with it. There were still thousands of people up on the bridge, flashing lights, sirens and someone issuing instructions over a bullhorn. Even from here he could see and hear the mass confusion. People were getting hurt up there right now.
He could see someone at the helm of the slowly moving pilot boat. Until he got closer he thought that Bahmad had a partner after all. But as he came up from behind he saw that the helmsman was probably dead. Blood covered the back of his head and neck, and his body swayed back and forth with an unnatural looseness.
Bahmad had been the consummate professional. He’d planned for every contingency, even for McGarvey to show up in the middle of his operation. Even for his own death.
The terrorist had sent a corpse to deliver the bomb.
McGarvey came up on the pilot boat’s port quarter and matched speeds. He grabbed the rail with his tree hand and held there for a couple of seconds. The chop here where the Golden Gate was at its narrowest was the worst, the waves short and very steep.
He waited until the pilot boat’s rail dipped, and then as it started to come back up, he let go of the outboard’s throttle and heaved himself up an dover with both hands, landing in the pilot boat’s open deck well with a painful thump, cracking his head against the opposite coaming.
A million points of light burst inside of his head, and an overwhelming wave of nausea incapacitated him for several seconds. When he was able to ra
ise up on his hands and knees the boat was spinning around in tight circles like a roller coaster going through an endless series of corkscrews.
He was conscious that they were very close to the bridge now. If Bahmad’s timing was correct the bomb would ignite as they passed under the center span.
The Escanaba was practically on his stern, and the Sea King was right behind it.
No time.
McGarvey forced himself to crawl into the cabin. Besides the dead man at the helm another body lay in a bloody heap on the deck.
For another long moment McGarvey, on all fours, simply swayed with the motion of the boat. He wanted to be lulled to sleep. He wanted to go away to another safer more comfortable place.
The Escanaba blew its ship’s whistle, the sound so loud in the confines of the pilot boat’s cabin that it was almost a physical assault on his body.
McGarvey looked up out of his stupor and shook his head as he slid back into reality, into the here and now; the CD that had been playing in slow motion in his head speeded up and came into sharp focus.
The bridge was less than fifty yards away when McGarvey scrambled over to where the bomb was wedged between the helmsman’s seat and the bulkhead. He pulled it free with great difficulty, barking his knuckles and wrenching his back under the weight. He undid the latches, threw back the outer cover and undid the inner latches. One of them stuck. He desperately hammered at it with the butt of his pistol until it suddenly snapped free and he yanked the inner lid open.
The LED counter switched from 00:00:20 to 00:00:19, but McGarvey’s eyes were drawn to the matte black aluminum plate in the lower left hand corner.
He knew this device! Goddamnit, he knew it!
The counter switched from 00:00:19 to 00:00:18 then 00: 00:17.
He almost entered the ten-digit deactivation code on the keypad when he noticed that the antitamper indicator was lit and he pulled back his hand.
The LED switched to 00:00:16.
Bahmad had reprogrammed the weapon’s firing circuits with an encrypted deactivation code. Unless you knew the code anything done to the device would cause it to immediately bypass its normal sequence and fire immediately.
00:00:15.
He knew this. Rencke’s research program had included the operations manual for the firing circuits and encryption techniques. It was a quantum mathematical code in which the riddle of SchrSdinger’s cat was apparently solved. There was no single solution to the code; instead there was a series of correct answers that could, depending upon how they were entered, also be simultaneously wrong.
00:00:14.
McGarvey entered a five-digit code that opened the firing circuit.
00:00:13,
The center span of the bridge was almost on top of the pilot boat now. McGarvey looked up and could see people lining the rail staring down at him.
00:00:12.00:00:11.
He entered a ten-digit code that when activated would, if it was the correct one, return the firing circuits to the non-encrypted mode.
00:00:10.
He pressed ##, and the antitamper indicator went out. He let out the breath he’d been holding.
00:00:09.
Shutting the weapon down was accomplished with another ten-digit code, this one the simple reciprocal of the firing code. Zero was nine, one was eight, two was seven, and so on until the end when nine was zero.
00:00:08.
McGarvey drew a blank. He’d had all the other numbers, but now there was a roaring in his ears, his vision was starting to go dark and the boat was beginning to spin.
00:00:07.
The pilot boat’s bow cut into the shadow cast by the bridge.
00:00:06.
The numbers came to McGarvey all at once. He held onto the bomb case with his left hand to steady himself and entered the ten-digit code with his right.
00:00:05.
He stared at the indicator as the boat came under the center span.
The LED indicator read 00:00:04.
Slowly he sat back on his heels as the pilot boat came out of the Golden Gate Bridge’s shadow into San Francisco Bay. The LED indicator read
00:00:04.
He turned and gave the skipper of the Escanaba the thumbs-up, and she started to toot the ship’s whistle over an dover. Other ships in the bay and out in the holding basin took up the salute, as did people on the bridge. A lot of them were whistling and cheering, though McGarvey suspected that none of them knew why.
Golden Gate Bridge
People on the bridge were cheering and clapping as Elizabeth and Deborah emerged from the tower. Boats in the bay and out in the Gate were blowing their whistles, helicopters were flying all over the place, sirens were blaring, horns were honking and someone down on the approach road was still bellowing instructions over a bullhorn. Elizabeth’s radio came alive with chatter, but it was hard to make any sense of it. Everyone was talking at once, and they all seemed excited.
A greatly relieved Chenna Serafmi was holding her earpiece close and was beaming from ear to ear.
Deborah started to clap too, her tears completely forgotten, her face animated with excitement. She began to jog in place.
“You missed all the excitement,” Van Buren shouted over the din.
“What happened?” Elizabeth demanded. “Did we get them?”
“It was your dad. He did it.”
Something clutched at Elizabeth’s gut. She grabbed Van Buren’s arm. “Was he hurt? Is he okay?”
“Of course he’s okay,” Van Buren assured her. He was laughing. “He’s your dad. The man is indestructible.”
“I wish,” Elizabeth said softly.
Deborah was beside herself with excitement. “Can we run now? I want to run.”
“Later,” Chenna said. She gave Elizabeth a warm smile. “Tell your dad thanks for me,” she said.
Several other Secret Service agents had closed in on them, and a National Guard helicopter was waiting in the middle of the center span, its rotors turning.
“We’ll run later,” Chenna told the President’s daughter. “But right now your mom and dad are waiting for you.”
“Okay,” Deborah said. She grabbed Elizabeth and gave her an exuberant bear hug. “I think that you’re neat,” she said in Elizabeth’s ear. “And I hope that it’ll be a girl.”
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open, but before she could say anything Chenna and the other Secret Service agents were hustling the President’s daughter to the golf cart that would speed her to the waiting helicopter.
THE FINAL MOVES
FIVE DAYS LATER
And they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.
MARK 26:52
CHAPTER THIRTY
Khartoum, Sudan
Two canvas-covered tracks with Iranian Army markings pulled up in front of the compound just off the Sharia al-Barlaman a few blocks from the People’s Palace. The back flaps were pushed aside and two dozen armed soldiers emerged.
Lieutenant Ahmed Ghavam jumped out of the front of the lead truck and began issuing orders. This was going to be done with dignity. Papa bin Laden was a friend of the state. A friend of all Islam, and neither his name nor his person would be besmirched.
When the troops were properly lined up at the front gate, a black Mercedes sedan pulled up across the street. A huge man, with tremendous mustaches and a thick beard got out of the car and shambled across the street. He had a smile on his broad face that looked as if it had been chiseled into place.
“He’s not here,” the huge man said amiably. He wore civilian clothes that looked very comfortable, but three sizes too large even for his impressive bulk. He was Captain Bakat Zamir, chief of Khartoum Regional Operations for the ISI, the powerful Pakistani Interservice Intelligence Agency.
Like Iran, Pakistan was a friend of bin Laden’s. But the way the international climate was shaping up these days it was wise to at least pay lip service to the Great Satan in Washington, D.C.” when it suited. This
time bin Laden had gone too far. Even Dr. al-Turabi had tried to warn him, as had others in the National Islamic Front. But he was a headstrong man on a fat wa His own daughter had been killed by the infidels’ rockets. Who could blame a father for striking back?
“I suspected as much,” Lieutenant Ghavam said. “But I have my orders.”
“They are sensible orders.”
A CNN television van came around the corner at the end of the block. Both men had been expecting its arrival.
“Do you have any idea where he went?” Lieutenant Ghavam asked.
“Switzerland, perhaps. It’s a matter of his health, I believe.” The Pakistani intelligence officer shrugged. “But who knows? If he lives he will certainly strike again.”
“If he dies?”
“No one in the West will ever know for sure. Insha’Allah.”
Lieutenant Ghavam nodded. “Yes. Insha “Allah.”
Bethesda Naval Hospital
It was night. McGarvey stood at the window of his fifth floor room morosely waiting for the dawn as he stared at the sodium vapor lights in the parking lot, his hands in the pockets of his hospital robe. He was being discharged tomorrow, his bullet wounds mended, the last bleeder in his head fixed and his life back to normal. For the time being no one was gunning for him and his family.
But the job wasn’t over.
He turned and glanced at Kathleen curled up asleep in the easy chair next to the bed. She’d had the hardest time of all, waiting at home for the telephone call that her husband or her daughter or both of them were dead, all the while knowing that somebody could be coming after her again too.
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