Joshua's Hammer

by David Hagberg

  The night was still, the air sweet this far out of the city. Elizabeth hesitated, frightened, at his door. She had thought long and hard about making this move. They’d been lovers for three months. But she valued her own independence, and she didn’t know how she would tell her father, let alone face her mother. But she wanted Todd on more than an occasional basis. She wanted to wake up in the morning beside him, she wanted to show him what kind of a cook she was—her father had taught her a number of French bistro recipes—and she wanted to find out what kind of a cook Todd was. She wanted to be with him when he was sad as well as happy; angry as well as content; confused as well as assured. She thought that she was falling in love with him, but before she made a commitment she wanted to be sure. Tonight, especially, she wanted to be held, to be comforted.

  The light over the stoop came on before she could ring the bell and Van Buren opened the door. His eyes lit up, and he started to say something, but then did a double take when he noticed her bags. The expression on his face was comical, and Elizabeth laughed, even though she was in a brittle mood.

  “Am I going to have to stand here all night?” she asked. “Or should I drive around the block a couple of times while you get rid of your girlfriend?”

  “Your dad’s going to kill me.” He took her hanging bag, and stepped aside so that she could come in. She gave him a peck on the cheek.

  Only the light over the leather easy chair was on, a beer on the table beside it, and a book opened on the ottoman. The Sade CD she’d bought him was playing softly. Like her, Van Buren was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt.

  She followed him into the bedroom where he hung her bag on the closet door. “I’m glad you’re here, Liz.” He was bigger than her, but he had the compact build and fluid movements of a soccer player. He was an exotic weapons and hand-to-hand combat instructor at the CIA’s training facility, and he sometimes worked special assignments for the Directorate of Operations. She loved his butt, the angles and planes of his masculine face, and especially his hands on her body. He was strong yet very gentle.

  When he turned back to her, she was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sadness, and her eyes began to fill. She felt like a complete fool, anything but a McGarvey. “Is it okay that I’m here? Are you mad at me?”

  “What’s the matter, Liz.” Van Buren was alarmed.

  “Can I stay here at least tonight?” She hated this weakness in herself. Her father despised weaknesses in people.

  “You can stay forever, if you want,” he said seriously. He took the overnight case from her and set in on a chair, then took her in his arms.

  “Don’t say that yet,” she warned. But then she couldn’t talk. She clung to him, her body wracked with sobs. She felt worse than a fool, like a sniveling idiot, but she’d been frightened about her father’s safety for so long that she couldn’t help herself. It was enough for now that she had someone to hold her. Someone other than her mother who had taken the news that her husband had gotten out with more panache than even Elizabeth thought she was capable of. This time her mother had been too strong.

  “I love you,” Van Buren said.

  She parted and looked into his face, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t making fun of her. She didn’t think she could take that right now. She felt so vulnerable, and yet she knew that she could take him apart. But he was sincere. He honestly cared, and she could see it in his eyes.

  “You called me a spoiled brat,” she said stupidly, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Yeah, and you’ve got a chip on your shoulder,” he said. “But you can be my spoiled brat if you’ll ease up a little and let me take the lead every once in a while.”

  She couldn’t help herself from laughing. She nodded. “Just don’t get any macho attitudes like ownership.”

  “Works both ways, Liz,” he said. He got out a handkerchief and wiped her cheek. She took it from him and did it herself.

  “Now, will you tell me what the hell is going on? Is it your dad? Is he okay?”

  “They’re taking him to Ramstein. He’s pretty banged up, but the docs say he’ll be fine.”

  “Christ. How’s your mother holding up?”

  “She’s dealing with it,” Elizabeth said. “I just came from there. Dick Yemm is with her, so I told her that I had to get back to work. I couldn’t stay there tonight.”

  Van Buren gave her a sympathetic look. “Are you sure about this?” he asked sincerely. “I mean if you just want to stay the night so you won’t have to be alone right now, I’d understand. I can take the couch.”

  She touched his handsome face. “It was going to happen sooner or later. The reasons are all wrong right now, at least they are for me, but I’m glad it’s sooner.”

  “So am I,” he said. He took her in his arms again, and now she was done crying. His body felt warm and strong and familiar. Comforting. Like coming home to a place you never knew how much you missed until you were there, she thought warmly.

  They kissed deeply, their hands all over each other; exploring, feeling. He picked her up and brought her to the bed. They undressed each other, and then made love, softly and passionately, even though she wanted to rush. She let him take the lead, and when they were finished she was glad she had.

  Chevy Chase

  The dark blue van obviously didn’t belong parked on the street across from Kathleen McGarvey’s country club home.

  Driving past, careful to keep his speed normal, his eyes straight ahead, Bahmad spotted a dark figure waiting behind the wheel. He had to consider the possibility that the CIA had placed a guard on the woman, which meant that they might be expecting an act of retaliation by bin Laden. It complicated his plans, but not impossibly so. Not yet. He still had time.

  At the end of the block he turned right and headed back to Constitution Avenue. The logical thing to do was return to the yacht for a few days, then sail out to Bermuda, or up to Maine and Canada, waste time conspicuously, as planned. Be seen and yet not be seen for what he really was. Get his name in the society columns, make friends, spend money. Become the wealthy international playboy, not bin Laden’s paid assassin.

  But he had promised that McGarvey’s daughter would die. The thought of killing her had a certain symmetry to it, considering Sarah’s death, and he had to admit that it excited him too. McGarvey had been an arrogant bastard. Killing his daughter and his wife would be interesting to say the least.

  Bahmad smiled his secret smile, and for a moment or two he wondered in one part of his brain if, like bin Laden, he too wasn’t losing his mind. There was a time as a child playing in the park near his house in Beirut when he’d led a life that could be considered normal. Although his memories of that time were hazy and imperfect now, he did remember that he had been a happy child.

  Elizabeth’s VW was not parked in the driveway of her mother’s house. Of course it could have been locked away out of sight in the garage, but that didn’t matter tonight. She would come to her mother to grieve and they would both die, as would the CIA officer on guard duty.

  But the timing would have to be right. For that he would need some additional help and equipment. Turning over a number of scenarios in his mind he drove by the entrance to the Chevy Chase Country Club, and as usual a plan came to him all in one piece; the moves and countermoves arranged in precise battle order like the pieces on a chessboard.

  Be seen, and yet not be seen. That was the technique that had allowed him to survive so long in this business. Driving back to the yacht he was actually looking forward to the party aboard tomorrow night. In a few days he would have the people he needed in place, and Captain Walker would have arranged a summer membership for him in the Chevy Chase Country Club, the fifteenth fairway of which abutted Kathleen McGarvey’s backyard.

  NINETEEN

  Afghanistan-Pakistan Border

  The four men and five horses carrying the bomb had drifted through the mountains seemingly on the wind. Traveling day and night, t
heir leader, Mustafa Binzagar, had allowed them to stop only briefly to eat and rest. They had worked their way a hundred sixty miles down the Panjshir Valley in less than four days, and Mustafa knew that when they delivered the package their journey would be ended in more than one sense of the word. The task that bin Laden had set them to do would be over, but so would their lives in Al Qaeda be finished. There were other training camps scattered around Afghanistan, but with bin Laden gone, and no new leader to replace him, their very existence would be meaningless. During the trek they had not seen another living soul, which gave Mustafa plenty of time to think about his predicament. But he had not come up with a solution. He was nothing but a mujahed, a lowly foot soldier with nowhere to go. No family who would accept him, no friends, and now no base or purpose.

  He stood at the edge of the last glacier before the border and looked down the sweeping valley into Pakistan. There was nothing to be seen in the pitch-black of the night except for an airport beacon, which because of the clear, thin mountain air reflected green and white off the glacial ice even at a distance of thirty kilometers. They had been instructed not to cross the border because they did not know the schedule of the Pakistani patrols. But he’d been given no orders beyond this point, except that they were to be met by two men who would use the words, Sarah lives in Allah’s mansion. He felt a sense of bitterness and even betrayal that in the excitement he’d forgotten to ask what came next.

  Hussein al-Rajhi came up the hill from where they’d tethered the horses and made a rough camp. “There’s enough wood for a small fire if you want some tea. Or should we save it until morning? It would help if we knew when they were coming.”

  “I don’t know,” Mustafa said dreamily. He had become mesmerized by the airport beacon on the horizon, and what the light represented.

  “Are you sure that we have come to the correct place?”

  Mustafa turned to him. “This is the tongue of the glacier, and that’s the airport at Chitral.” He took out one of his last cigarettes and lit it, cupping it in his hand so that the glowing tip would be invisible to anyone who might be watching from the valley. “Start the fire. I’m cold and I could use some tea.” He passed the cigarette to Hussein. “It won’t be long now, and we’ll be starting back.”

  “Where will we go—”

  “I don’t know, maybe Khost!” Mustafa said angrily.

  Hussein took a couple of drags and handed the cigarette back. He shot a glance toward the horses. “She was a woman beyond understanding.”

  Mustafa had to smile despite his morose mood. “That she was. Even her father had no control over her.”

  “But she was strong.”

  Mustafa shook his head thinking about her. “She might have eventually changed except for the American. He poisoned her. Mohammed told me everything.”

  Hussein nodded. He’d heard the stories too, about how the American had tried to rape her, and how Mohammed had gotten shot in the hand saving her. Infidels were beyond understanding. And in the end nothing any of them did could have saved her from the missiles. “Maybe we should stay with her. The rest of the way to Mecca.”

  Mustafa looked at him shrewdly. The idea was brilliant, and although it had never occured to him, he felt now that it was a thought, like a word on the tip of the tongue, that would have come to him at any moment. “There might not be room for all of us on the airplane.”

  “The package is very heavy. It would take two men to handle it.”

  “Us?”

  Hussein nodded.

  Mustafa took out his pistol, checked the action and switched the safety off. Hussein did the same, and without another word they went down the hill where Ismail and Suleiman were tending to the horses. They looked up.

  “Are they coming?” Ismail asked.

  Mustafa raised his pistol and shot him in the face from a distance of less than two meters. Hussein, who had come up behind Suleiman, shot him in the back of the head at point-blank range. Both shots were muffled by the hillside.

  Suleiman was just eighteen and very strong. His legs were still twitching when Mustafa walked over. “Finish him.”

  Hussein bent over the mujahed and fired a shot directly into his temple. At that moment Mustafa fired one shot into the back of Hussein’s head, driving him forward, his body flopping down on Suleiman’s.

  Such a waste, he thought. But when there was only enough food on the table for one, it naturally belonged to the strongest man. There might not be room aboard the airplane for two men, but there certainly would be for one. And the package wasn’t that heavy after all.

  They were right on time for the rendezvous, but he’d not seen anyone coming up the hill from the east, so he figured he had at least a couple of hours to get his story straight about how the other three had turned around and gone, and do what was needed here.

  He loaded the bodies on three horses, and led them a couple of hundred meters back the way they had come, then dumped the bodies on the ground near a large pile of rocks. He tied the horses’ reins loosely over their necks, and slapped each on the rump, sending them racing into the night. They might go for several miles before circling back, but Mustafa figured by then he’d be long gone from here.

  He laid the three bodies on top of each other and then started piling rocks on them. It was a difficult job and after a few minutes he was sweating heavily, but he worked without stopping until the bodies were completely covered and the arrangement of rocks looked reasonably natural. Unless someone looked close they would miss the grave.

  He headed back to the camp, lighting a cigarette, his next to the last, and let himself come down. The tough part was over. Now, no matter what happened, he had no one to worry about except himself. There was still time, he decided to make a small fire and brew some tea.

  He came over the last rise above the camp and stopped short. A man dressed in a Pakistani army uniform was reloading the package on one of the horses.

  Mustafa stepped back, his hand going to the pistol inside his vest, when someone came up from behind.

  “We wondered where you had gotten yourself to,” a man said in Dari.

  Mustafa swung around. This one wore a Pakistani army uniform with captain’s pips on his shoulder boards. He carried a pistol in a holster but made no move to draw it.

  “What are you doing on this side of the border?” Mustafa foolishly asked. “This is Afghanistan.”

  “We’re here on a mission of mercy.”

  Mustafa pulled out his gun. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’re here for Sarah,” the Pakistani captain said gently. “She lives in Allah’s mansion, and we’ve come to take her the rest of the way home.”

  Mustafa let the relief wash the tension from his body. He put his pistol away. “Good,” he said. “I sent the others back, I’m coming with you.”

  “There’s no room,” the captain said. “Besides, you have no papers.” He took out his pistol and shot Mustafa in the forehead, just above the bridge of his nose. “Foolish man,” he muttered half under his breath. By sending his three companions away the stupid mujahed had made a difficult task easy. Allah be praised. In three hours they would have the holy package aboard an airplane on its way to Karachi, their part of the mission completed in time for a couple hours of sleep before morning prayers.

  “Insha’Allah.”

  The White House

  It wasn’t until after four in the afternoon before Roland Murphy finally got over to the White House to brief the President. He had held off to give the NRO time to recheck their analysis, and to get some new photos from the next series of satellite passes, and for Rencke to make sure that they all understood exactly what they meant.

  The President was waiting for him in the Oval Office with his national security adviser Dennis Berndt, but no one else.

  “Bin Laden has survived,” Murphy told them without beating around the bush. He took a dozen enhanced photos out of his briefcase and spread them o
n the coffee table in front of them. Attached to the images were the computer-generated identification probabilities which were nearly at one hundred percent.

  The news did not come as a complete surprise to them. Murphy had called two days ago to alert the President to the possibility. But now that it was confirmed Berndt was his usual disdainful self.

  “What the hell took so long, General?” he demanded.

  “I wanted to make absolutely sure first. I didn’t want to go off half-cocked. We have enough problems as it is.”

  “Are you finally sure now?” Berndt smirked. “No possibility that the CIA could be wrong … again?”

  “There’s always that possibility, Dennis,” Murphy said. “But being an ass won’t help the situation.”

  Berndt started to say something, but the President held him off. “So we missed again, and now he’s going to strike back, and I think we all know what that means.” The President gave Murphy a bleak look. “At least we got McGarvey out of there. Is he going to be okay?”

  “They’re releasing him from Ramstein sometime tonight. He should be back here in the morning,” Murphy said. “But he might not have the answers either.”

  “Is he fit to return to work?”

  “I haven’t talked to him yet, Mr. President, but I can’t imagine how I could stop him from coming back. He’s going to have plenty to say.”

  “It was just plain bad luck this time,” Berndt said.

  “No, Dennis, it was poor planning,” Murphy shot back. “If we had given Mac a little more time he would have come back with the deal we sent him over there to make. As it is now there’ll be no more talking. Bin Laden has got the bomb and he’s going to use it against us.”

  “You don’t know that for sure, General,” Berndt said, still trying to slip out of any responsibility. “Could be we did the right thing. Maybe this time we put the fear of God into bin Laden and he’s going to back off. Have your people taken the time to at least give that possibility a consideration. Let’s not close any doors here.”