McGarvey sipped the strong tea as bin Laden went through the Islamic ritual washing, then kneeled on a prayer rug facing southwest, and began his prayers, softly repeating the Sura Fatihah, which was the opening chapter of the Qoran, eight times.
Praise be to God, Lord of the Universe,
The Compassionate, the Merciful,
Sovereign of the Day of Judgment!
You alone we worship, and to You alone
we turn for help.
Guide us to the straight path,
The path of those whom You have favored,
Not of those who have incurred Your wrath,
Nor of those who have gone astray.
To succeed in chaining the multitudes, you must seem to wear the same fetters. The line from Voltaire ran through McGarvey’s head. Bin Laden was a common man here at this moment, but he was a major figure among Islamic fundamentalists, and had been ever since the ten-year war against the Russians. He was a Saudi rich kid, but he’d come to Afghanistan to help the freedom fighters, putting his money and his life on the line for them, and everybody loved him.
He had been bright, soft-spoken, gentle—except to the Russian invaders—even pious and helpful. But all that had changed by the time the war was over and he came back home. He had become a rabble rouser. He wanted to pull the Saudi royal family from power, install an Islamic fundamentalist government and go back to the old ways. The best ways. He wanted to get rid of all foreigners from the entire Gulf region, especially Americans, and he wasn’t afraid to tell anyone who would listen that he thought Americans should be killed whenever and wherever possible, and with any means at hand.
Watching him praying, the words gentle, McGarvey tried to fathom what had happened here to change the man so profoundly. War changed people, but not like that. Something drastic had happened to him here; something so terrible that he had changed from the son of a multibillionaire construction boss who would inherit everything to a terrorist content to live in caves and eat unleavened bread so that he could kill Americans.
The U.S. had supplied money and arms to the Afghanis, and presumably bin Laden had come in contact with some of the CIA’s field officers out here. It was a reasonable assumption. But McGarvey had found nothing in the record about any meetings; no contact sheets, no incident reports, not even a fleeting mention. It was almost as if the records had been erased or had been altered. Or as if bin Laden himself had purposely avoided contact with the CIA.
Whatever had happened out here during the war was a complete mystery that only bin Laden knew.
Though he denied it, bin Laden had been implicated in dozens of bloody incidents against Americans; the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the Khobar Barracks attack, the slaughter of fifty-eight tourists at the Valley of the Kings near Luxor and the bombing of the American-run National Guard training center in Riyadh, the capital city of his own country.
And now this. The biggest one of all. The attack everyone in the West had been holding their breath waiting for. And still McGarvey could not understand why. Where was the sonofabitch coming from?
McGarvey took a closer look at the way bin Laden was kneeling, the way he leaned forward to touch his forehead to the rug. There was something wrong with him. He moved like he was in pain. Was that it, McGarvey wondered. Was it that simple after all? Was bin Laden sick, maybe even dying?
Bin Laden got slowly to his feet with the aid of his cane, a satisfied, almost happy look on his face that was in total contrast to just a few minutes ago. His eyes looked distant, almost as if he was on drugs, and he moved very carefully. He came over and sat down on the cushions, the rifle between him and McGarvey. “It had to have been a long and dangerous trip for you,” he slurred.
“Like I said, we got your messages.” He could see that there was a pallor to bin Laden’s skin, and a slight tremble in his right hand as he picked up his tea.
“I did not order the killings of Mr. Trumble and his family. I don’t work on such a small scale.” His matter-of-fact tone was chilling, almost irrational.
“We identified one of the killers. He worked for you.”
Bin Laden dismissed it with a slight hand gesture, as if it was nothing of importance. “Trumble was a fool, and perhaps some people who believe in the jihad took it into their own hands to silence him.”
McGarvey stiffened. “I could silence you before your guards had a chance to stop me.”
Bin Laden smiled sadly. “You are not a martyr. That’s not why you came here.”
“Lives, even so few as four of them, are very precious to us.”
“Do you think that life is any less precious to me?” bin Laden replied mildly. “Do you think that I don’t weep each time blood is shed?”
“Soldiers are one thing, innocent women and children are something different.”
Bin Laden shook his head. “In this world there are no innocents,” he said blandly.
“Your daughter included?” McGarvey shot back, and he waited for a reaction. He wanted to get to the man where he lived.
Bin Laden’s face darkened, and McGarvey could see the obvious struggle he was going through to regain control. By degrees the same look of peace and contentment as before settled back into his eyes. His face relaxed, and the line of his mouth softened. “Women have a special place in our culture.”
“They do in ours too,” McGarvey said. “But I don’t think the Taliban are in complete agreement with you.”
Bin Laden seemed to think about that for a moment. “This has never been anything more than a temporary arrangement.”
His daughter was his weak point. Maybe he felt a little guilt because in a secret part of his soul he wished that Sarah was a man. And maybe even more guilt because he couldn’t provide a normal life for his family so long as he remained in hiding here in the rough mountains.
“Your daughter is a very special woman,” McGarvey said. “It took great courage for her to come for me in Kabul.”
Bin Laden shrugged, but McGarvey could see the pride in his eyes. “She is a foolish girl at times.”
“I worry about my own daughter. Sometimes she takes unnecessary chances. She’s headstrong.”
“But then you taught her to be that way. You are a headstrong man.”
“I wonder if we would worry less if they were men instead of women.”
“The worry would be no less, merely different,” bin Laden said. “This is a difficult world in which we live, difficult times. Dangerous.”
“Which is why I am here,” McGarvey replied.
Bin Laden looked at him like a snake might look at its dinner. “Perhaps it was a mistake, this meeting.”
“We’re here to avert a disaster,” McGarvey said, careful to keep his tone and manner neutral. He felt as if he was teetering on the edge of a deep abyss, the slightest misstep or wrong word would send him over the edge. “It’s time to stop the killing.”
“What then? What if we come to an agreement?”
“Your family could go home.”
“Saudi Arabia?”
“Yes.”
Bin Laden’s reaction was masked, but it was there: despair. “Not until American forces leave the Peninsula,” he said mildly.
“We’re talking about that in Washington. You know about it.”
Bin Laden became serious. “If the kingdom returned to its Islamic roots it might jeopardize your precious oil resources.” He was testing.
“We get oil from Iran, and will from Iraq once they agree to let us take a look at their weapons production facilities.” McGarvey put his tea down. “We don’t have a problem with your religion, except when you hide behind it to kill people.”
“Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama Canal.” Bin Laden watched McGarvey for a reaction. “We have our faith, Mr. McGarvey. What has driven you to ethnically cleanse your native population? Deny your blacks their rights?” He smiled disparagingly. “Ruby Ridge, Waco. The list is nearly endless. Tell me what fine principle you follow.�
�� His eyes narrowed. “Christianity?”
“The terrorist’s litany,” McGarvey said. “Okay, do you want to take them one-by-one? Are we going to compare what we did as a nation a hundred fifty years ago, knowing what we knew then, to what you’re doing now, with what you know now? The Bay of Pigs and Vietnam were colossal mistakes on our part, but putting aside your cynicism about the West, we truly believed that the Cubans and the South Vietnamese wanted their freedom from oppressive government. We lost, and look at the systems they have now.”
Bin Laden was finally beginning to come out of his stupor, and he was getting agitated. “Are you trying to bait me?” he asked. “Freedom?”
“That’s right,” McGarvey retorted. “Why else do you think I would have come up here like this? But while we’re at it let’s check out the immigration numbers to countries like the U.S., England, France and Canada compared with Iran, Iraq and Libya—all fine religious nations.” McGarvey measured distances between himself and the guards, and between himself and bin Laden’s rifle. “The Qoran is a wonderful holy book, but nobody is beating down the doors to Dar-al-Islam, especially after guys like Khomenni twisted it so out of all recognition.”
“Blasphemer,” bin Laden shouted. His guards brought their weapons up in alarm, not sure what was happening except that their boss was mad.
McGarvey girded himself to make a try for the rifle. “That’s your title,” he said. “And you earned it. Your hands are bloody with it.”
Before McGarvey could make a move bin Laden grabbed the rifle, his movements suddenly very precise, very crisp. He switched the safety off and pointed it at McGarvey’s chest, the muzzle only a few inches away. His face was filled With an insane light now. Either his lethargy had been a sham or he’d suddenly snapped out of it. There was no way of telling.
His guards jumped to their feet and pointed their rifles at McGarvey.
“Did you bring me here to kill me? Is that what all this is about? Or do you want to let your family go home? Get out of these mountains. Stop the jihad before it gets totally out of hand.” McGarvey sat forward. “Once you cross the line—the nuclear line—there’ll be no way home. Not for you, not for anyone connected with you. But we have a chance to stop the madness once and for all.”
Bin Laden regained control by degrees. But his face remained a mask of hate. “Killing you would give me more pleasure than you can imagine.” He said it so softly that only McGarvey could hear it.
“I would be replaced.”
“Not in your daughter’s heart.”
McGarvey was momentarily taken aback by the intimacy of the statement. He slowly shook his head. “No, not in my daughter’s heart,” he admitted. “But she knows that I came here to broker a peace agreement with you. If I have to die at least it will have been for a good cause.”
“A noble sentiment for a CIA assassin.”
His movements very slow, very precise, McGarvey poured two glasses of tea. He picked up one and offered it to bin Laden. “We got your message. I’m here.”
Bin Laden hesitated, not wanting to give up his anger. But finally a look of conciliation, even a hint of defeat, crossed his face. He was tired again, wan, drawn out, as if the brief outburst had sapped his strength.
He switched the safety on, casually laid the rifle aside and took the tea. “All American forces would have to immediately leave the Arabian Peninsula.”
“That would take some time, and my government would want safeguards in place against further trouble from Iraq.”
“We would deal with that situation in our own fashion.”
“It would have to be a mutual agreement.”
“Oil,” bin Laden said.
“Yes, oil,” McGarvey replied. “Your family would be allowed to return home to Saudi Arabia.”
“But not me.”
McGarvey shook his head. “We can lift the bounty from your head, but the best that we could try for would be a trial in the World Court at the Hague.”
“On what charges?” bin Laden demanded. It struck McGarvey as bizarre, almost surreal that bin Laden could ask such a question.
“International terrorism.”
“It’s war.”
“Not to the people you killed,” McGarvey said.
Bin Laden stared at him, a complex play of emotions across his lined, expressive face. “There can never be peace between us so long as your government supports Tel Aviv.”
“That’s not likely to change anytime soon, and I think you know it,” McGarvey said. “But at least there can be an agreement between us. It’s as far as we’re willing to go.”
Bin Laden smiled faintly, and stroked his beard. “Your military is already in the process of leaving Saudi Arabia. The bounty on my head is of no real consequence because the Taliban protect my interests. And my family would never agree to leave my side.”
“But you would not have to remain in hiding,” McGarvey countered. He couldn’t tell if the man was toying with him, but it was possible. This was all some macabre game to him.
“What would I have to give you in return?”
“The bomb whose serial number you gave Allen Trumble.”
Bin Laden sat calmly, not moving, waiting for McGarvey to continue.
“At first we didn’t know what the number meant, in fact it took us several days to figure out that it came from a weapon that’s missing from the Russian military depot at Dushanbe. Once we had that you had our complete attention.”
Bin Laden smiled again, almost coyly this time. “Does your President believe that I would use this device against Americans?”
“I wouldn’t be here otherwise. We would have done something else.”
“A serial number and the actual device are two different things. Having the one does not guarantee having the other. I may be lying to you.”
“We think not.”
“Perhaps I brought you here as a diversion, to give me time to place the bomb somewhere effective. My bargaining position would be stronger.”
The origin of evil has always been an abyss, the depth of which no one has been able to sound, Voltaire had written. McGarvey thought that no one in the West had any idea who bin Laden really was. We had deluded ourselves into believing that he was nothing more than another Islamic fundamentalist waging a holy war against the infidels. Just like in the thirties when we had deluded ourselves into thinking that Hitler was only interested in righting the wrongs of the Versailles Treaty, and gaining Lebensraum for his people.
“What else do you want?” McGarvey asked, keeping his voice even. Maybe Dennis Berndt and the others had been right. Maybe this was an exercise in futility that was going to get him killed.
“I can see what you are thinking, but you are wrong. I am a simple man who wants nothing more than an Islamic peace for my people.”
“Why did you give Allen Trumble the serial number? There has to be something else that you want, something other than what we’ve already talked about.”
“There is,” bin Laden said. “But it is not an impossible condition.” He pursed his lips. “It’s possible—”
A short, slightly built man, wearing the baggy trousers, long vest and head covering of a mujahed came in from the back. He waved the four soliders to their feet and came directly to bin Laden. He wore a white-and-blue striped fringed scarf over his face so that only his eyes were visible.
“We have a potential problem,” he said, looking at McGarvey. He spoke English.
“What is it?” bin Laden asked, instinctively reaching for his gun.
“I’ll show you.” He motioned for McGarvey to get to his feet. “In the center of the room.”
McGarvey hesitated. He had no idea what was going on, but he knew that he was in trouble.
The man with the scarf pulled out a gun. “If need be I’ll put one in your right knee. If you’re ever allowed to get out of here alive, the return trip would not be pleasant.”
McGarvey had the feeling that he’d heard the v
oice before. Something in the British accent, in the intonation of certain words, seemed familiar. Unlike the others who were armed with Russian weapons, this one held a Glock 17, certainly powerful enough to take off a knee.
He motioned with the pistol.
McGarvey stepped around the brazier and went to the middle of the chamber. The armed guards watched him closely.
“Spread your arms and legs,” the man ordered.
McGarvey did as he was told. “I’ve already been searched.”
“Yes, I know. I found out how you brought your gun through airport security, and past our people. Very clever.” Hash had mentioned that a man named Ali would want to inspect the laptop. This was the same man?
Ali laid his pistol down next to bin Laden, took what looked like an electronic security wand used at airports from his vest and came over to where McGarvey was standing. He found the spare magazine of ammunition in McGarvey’s bush jacket and took it. Then he slowly moved the wand over McGarvey’s entire body. Just above the belt line on McGarvey’s left side the device emitted a high-pitched squeal.
He stepped back. “Take off your jacket and sweater.”
Bin Laden and the guards watched with interest as McGarvey stripped to the waist. Coming here with the GPS chip had been a calculated risk, but Technical Services had assured him that its power was so low, its frequency so high and its bandwidth so narrow that it was virtually undetectable. They were wrong, McGarvey thought bitterly.
His torso was marked with the scars from several bullet wounds and other injuries, plus the removal of his left kidney. The expression in Ali’s eyes was unreadable, but he studied McGarvey’s body for a long beat.
“You’ve lost a few battles.”
“Some.”
Ali ran the wand over the kidney scar and the device squealed. “Even more clever.”
“What is it?” bin Laden asked softly.
“Mr. McGarvey has been fitted with a global positioning system transmitter. Surgically implanted where he once had a kidney. It’s the latest thing in the CIA.”
McGarvey measured distances between himself and the guards, and to where bin Laden was seated. If any sort of an agreement was dead, he would have to kill the man before the bomb could be delivered and set off. But the guards had kept a clear field of fire. If he made a move they could shoot him without fear of hitting their boss.
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