Joshua's Hammer

by David Hagberg

  Both days she’d been followed by the same van. None of the databases he’d run the tag numbers through were more specific than to list them as General Accounting Office, which could be anyone. Most likely the CIA for special domestic operations, or even the FBI’s counter-espionage division.

  He got lucky with his phone calls. The problem was watching her house until the daughter showed up without alerting the woman or her watchdogs. But the house two doors down from Kathleen McGarvey’s would be unoccupied for another two weeks. It was a break. He’d phoned each of the houses on the block and when he’d called the one at 15 Laurel Parkway a recorded announcement was kind enough to inform him that the Wheelers would be out of the country on vacation until July third.

  “I don’t understand if we’re going after the daughter, why not watch her apartment?” bin Ibrahim said.

  Bahmad glanced at him in the rearview mirror, cowering in the back with the white coveralls. “Because she has moved out and we can’t be certain when she’ll return.”

  “How do you know she will come to her mother?”

  “She’ll show up here, leave that part to me. Your only responsibility for now is to keep watch for her yellow Volkswagen and call me the instant it shows up.”

  “Then we will kill her?”

  Bahmad nodded.

  “We have no problem with that, brother, but what about afterwards? I do not want to spend the rest of my life rotting in some jail cell.”

  “Nothing will go wrong,” Bahmad said. “If you follow my orders no one in the neighborhood will even know that anything has happened until we’re long gone the same way we came in. By the time they find this van you’ll be on a plane for London, and once you get there you’ll be in the pipeline on the way home.”

  “If I see a clear shot I’m taking it,” Aggad said contentiously. He’d been in the States for five years and he was used to being his own boss.

  “You’ll get yourself caught and shot down.”

  “No way, man. I’d be long gone before the cops even got the call.”

  Bahmad looked at him in the mirror, his expression completely bland. “I’m not talking about the police, Ahmad,” he said softly. “I’m talking about me.”

  The two in the back fell silent.

  “You will do exactly as you are told if you want to get paid, and if you want to live to spend your money. Do you understand?”

  They nodded resentfully. They knew nothing about Bahmad except that he came highly placed in bin Laden’s organization. But in the few hours they’d been with him since he’d picked them up at the Greyhound bus station in Baltimore they’d come to respect if not fear him. He exuded extreme self-confidence and competence. In this business that almost always meant extreme danger to anyone who might cross him.

  The neighborhood was quiet when they backed into the driveway of the two-story Tudor. Bahmad keyed the variable frequency garage door opener, and the door came open. He backed the van inside, and while bin Ibrahim and Aggad were unloading their weapons, surveillance equipment and supplies, he defeated the house alarm system and let himself in through the kitchen.

  The house was quiet, the curtains drawn. A quick check of all the rooms revealed that the family was truly gone.

  “No lights, and stay well back from all the windows,” Bahmad instructed them.

  “We’ve done this sort of thing before,” bin Ibrahim said.

  “See that you do it well this time,” Bahmad replied. “Use the cell phone to call me as soon as the yellow Volkswagen shows up. The phone is encrypted, so it is safe.”

  “How far away will you be?” Aggad asked.

  It was a reasonable question. “Twenty minutes, twenty-five at the most.”

  “Okay, let’s hope it’s soon,” Aggad said glancing toward the living room. “I don’t want to have to deal with snoopy neighbors.”

  “No one in this neighborhood has taken any notice that we’re here,” Bahmad assured them. “It’s why we waited until the woman and her bodyguard were gone. Just keep your heads down and your eyes open.”

  “Consider it done,” Ibrahim said.

  Aboard Gulfstream VC111 En Route to the U.S.

  “It’ll be good to be home, even if it’s only for a little while,” Thomas Arnette said, returning from the head and dropping into his seat.

  “I hear you,” McGarvey forced a smile. He felt detached, as if he wasn’t connected to his body, but he had to pull himself together because they weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by a long shot.

  Arnette, who worked as a case officer for Allen Trumble and now Jeff Cook in Riyadh, had been assigned to stick with McGarvey. He was short, slender and dark with an easy, ingratiating smile that belied his sharp intelligence. He was one of Trumble’s handpicked Arab experts. Each time McGarvey had come awake in the hospital, Arnette had been there. And it was Arnette who had arranged McGarvey’s early release and this flight.

  “When do you go back?”

  Arnette smiled tightly. “I’ll check with the Middle East desk tonight, and then fly back tomorrow. Jeff is going to have his hands full, because it’s going to start getting pretty dicey. There’s anti-American riots just about everywhere, and there’s no telling when they’ll escalate to some real violence.”

  “It’s spreading from Kabul?”

  “Like wildfire,” Arnette said, giving McGarvey a critical look. “Mr. Adkins ordered us to keep you out of the loop until you got back to Langley. It was the doctors’ suggestion, actually. They wanted to give you a little time to mend.”

  “I don’t know what’s worse, imagination or the truth.”

  They were the only passengers aboard the air force VIP jet. The attendant was doing something in the galley, and the door to the flight deck was closed. “It’s a bitch, Mr. McGarvey, but whoever ordered the missile attack ought to be hung. It flat-out didn’t work.” Arnette was Georgia country, and very pragmatic. His type was rare in the CIA, or anywhere else in the government for that matter.

  “It didn’t work last time either.”

  “But we keep trying. Just like the Energizer Bunny.”

  McGarvey laughed, and a sharp stitch of pain grabbed his side. It felt as if his ribs were going to pop out of his body right through his skin. And his head was ready to explode. He winced.

  “Are you okay?” Arnette asked, concerned.

  Sweat popped out on McGarvey’s brow, but he nodded. “I’ll live, but I have to go to the head.”

  “You gonna make it on your own?”

  “Unless we hit an air pocket.” McGarvey hauled himself to his feet, spots jumping in front of his eyes. “Trouble is that I’ve spent the last few days flat on my back and I’ve stiffened up a little.”

  “That’s not what the docs said.”

  McGarvey glanced out the windows. They were finally over the Atlantic, and there was nothing to see. But they’d be in Washington in a few more hours. “Get me another brandy would you, Tom?”

  “How about something to eat?”

  “Sure. But another drink first.” McGarvey made it back to the head, and when he was inside and had the door locked, his legs began to buckle and he sat down on the toilet lid. He could see the reflection of his face in the mirror above the tiny sink, but the edges were blurry as if something was wrong with the glass. The compartment was getting dark too, but when he looked up at the light fixture he could tell that it was on.

  He tried to stand but couldn’t, and he slumped back, his head against the bulkhead. The plane was spinning around and around making him sick to his stomach. The wound in his side ached with a dull throb, and his entire body was drenched in sweat. But the worst was his head, which pounded as if someone had stuck a high-pressure air hose in his ear and was filling up his skull.

  The compartment was almost completely dark now, he couldn’t even see his own reflection, but there were flashes of lights behind his eyeballs; lightning streaks across his brain in time with sharp, piercing stabs of deep pain in
side his head.

  For several seconds it was all he could do just to sit there and hold on, his arm draped over the edge of the sink. But then the episode passed almost as quickly as it had begun. The lights came back on, the plane stopped spinning and the shooting pains inside his head faded. He released the deep breath he’d been holding and let his body sag.

  After a minute or so he got up, splashed some cold water on his face, dried off with some paper towels and went out to the main cabin and back to his seat.

  “Are you really okay, Mr. McGarvey?” Arnette asked, looking up.

  “I’ve felt better, but I don’t have much of a choice here. I’ll have a ton of shit to deal with when I get back.”

  “That you will.”

  The attendant came back with their drinks. “Dinner will be ready in about a half-hour. Steak and lobster, and I have a nice Nouveau Beaujolais that oughta go down pretty smooth.”

  “Sounds good,” Arnette said,

  When the attendant was gone, McGarvey started to raise his drink, but something Arnette had said suddenly struck him, and he put the glass down.

  “You said that Dick wanted me kept out of the loop while I was in the hospital. What’d you mean? Exactly.”

  “They didn’t want you getting upset. Besides, you were mostly out of it on pain killers.”

  “You said that our missile strike didn’t work?”

  Arnette nodded uncertainly.

  “Did bin Laden survive?”

  “Yeah,” Arnette said morosely. “There’s not a doubt in anyone’s mind that he’s going to hit back. But when, where and with what is anybody’s guess.”

  “Shit,” McGarvey said under his breath. It couldn’t have been worse news. He thought about calling Adkins, but they’d have their hands full over there, and there was nothing he could say or do now that would make any difference. He needed more information, and he needed to be there.

  He closed his eyes and willed the airplane to fly faster.

  Andrews Air Force Base

  McGarvey awoke around 6:30 A.M. with the morning sun blasting in the windows as they turned on final approach to Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington. For the first few moments he was disoriented, wondering where the hell he was, but then he remembered and his hand went to the tender spot on the side of his head.

  Dinner had been fine, but the drinks, especially the wine, had left him with a dull headache and a gummy mouth on top of his other ills.

  He sat up and peered out the window. The countryside looked neat and clean, organized and modern compared to Afghanistan. For a little while he allowed himself the luxury of enjoying the moment, something he was rarely able to do. He was always working out scenarios for himself and everyone around him. Very often they were of the worst possible kind. At the fringes of his thoughts now was the question about bin Laden and men of his ilk—the terrorists of the world. Why did they hate us so badly that they wanted to tear all this down while at the same time beating at the gates to get in? It made no sense. But he was being naive, which was especially odd for a man of his experience, and even dangerous for a man in his position. He’d never found an answer to what he considered was a very basic question. Jealousy, he’d always thought, was too easy an answer. It was possibly something that he would never know.

  “Good morning,” Arnette said, and McGarvey turned to him.

  “Hi.”

  “Are you feeling any better?”

  McGarvey managed to smile. “I’ll live, but I don’t know if that’s such a great idea. How about you?”

  Arnette shook his head. “Oh, I never sleep on airplanes,” he said. “But I usually get a lot of reading done.” He held up a paperback novel.

  The flight attendant came back with a glass of orange juice and a couple of pills. “Tylenol Extra Strength,” he said, handing them to McGarvey. “You had a rough night, I figured these might help.”

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. He took the pills and drank the juice. He’d spent a lot of bad nights, but just lately they had piled up.

  “Check your belt please, sir, we’ll be on the ground in a couple of minutes.”

  “Yeah.” McGarvey thought about the work he was facing, and the probability that they would fail. “Tell the pilot good flight.”

  “Yes, sir,” the attendant said, and he went forward to his jump seat.

  McGarvey turned back to Arnette. “You might as well ride out to Langley with me.”

  “Thanks, but Dave Whittaker said he’d be sending somebody for me, and they’re taking you out to Bethesda, the docs want to check you out.”

  “I’ve had enough hospital for this week,” McGarvey grumbled and he looked outside as they came in for a landing. There would be plenty of time for hospitals later. For the moment he had a war to fight, a war that he wasn’t at all sure they could win given the rules they had to fight by.

  The Gulfstream taxied past the terminal and parked in an empty hangar. McGarvey got up as the door was opened and the stairs lowered. Several armed air force cops surrounded the airplane even before the engines had spooled completely down. Dick Yemm was waiting with McGarvey’s limousine. It was a beautiful warm morning but muggy after the Afghani desert and mountains. McGarvey shook hands with Arnette while Yemm opened the limo’s rear passenger door.

  “Are you sure I can’t give you a lift?” McGarvey asked.

  “No, sir, my ride’ll be along shortly,” Arnette said. “You know, maybe you should consider leaving the field work to the kids next time.”

  “That’s a thought,” McGarvey said. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Hey, no sweat. It’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  McGarvey walked over to the limo and shook hands with his driver/bodyguard.

  “Welcome home, boss,” Yemm said.

  “It’s good to be back, Dick. Let’s see how fast you can get me over to Langley.”

  Yemm hesitated for a moment. “We’re supposed to take you over to Bethesda ASAP.”

  “Later,” McGarvey said tersely. He ducked down to climb in the back seat and saw Elizabeth sitting in the corner, a big smile on her face.

  “Hi, Daddy,” she said in a small voice, her excitement and concern for him barely suppressed.

  He was stopped for just a moment. “Hi, Liz,” he said. He got the rest of the way in and grunted with pain. Elizabeth reached out a hand to help him.

  “Daddy, what’s the matter?”

  “I’m still a little stiff from climbing mountains,” McGarvey said, masking his pain and sudden dizziness. “Thanks for coming out to pick me up. How’s your mother?”

  “Happy that you were coming back in one piece,” Elizabeth said looking at him critically to make sure that he was really all right. “I told her to stay home this morning because you’d have to be debriefed. She understood, but she’d like you to call her as soon as you get a chance.”

  Yemm got behind the wheel. “How about it, boss, Bethesda or Langley?”

  “My office, Dick.”

  “They wanted to check you out first,” Elizabeth said.

  “The office,” McGarvey repeated to his driver, and as they headed out, he turned his attention back to his daughter. “Okay, sweetheart, what’s the story? We have a problem, it’s written all over your face.”

  “Bin Laden survived,” Elizabeth said, girding herself. She’d always hated being the bearer of bad news. Her father’s major fault, in her estimation, was wanting to protect everybody around him no matter what the cost was to his relationship with them, even leaving them. Her biggest problem, by contrast, was wanting to make everybody around her happy while still trying to somehow juggle her fierce independence into the mix. It couldn’t always work that way, and as a child she lied a lot; varnished the truth, as her father would say. But now in the real world in which people could and did get hurt without the absolute truth, that was no longer possible.

  “Tom Arnette told me on the way over. He must have left the camp by now. Do we have
any idea where he went?”

  “He’s probably gone to ground in Khartoum, but we’re not sure yet. Otto’s working with Louise Horn over at NRO.” She smiled a little. “They’re quite a team.”

  “Bin Laden’s going to come after us and we’re going to have to be ready for him.”

  They passed through the main gate, the air force policeman snapping them a crisp salute, and then got on the Capital Beltway, the morning rush hour traffic horrendous.

  “Was it bad over there?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We could have had a deal,” McGarvey said heavily. “I think that he’s dying of cancer, and he wanted to make sure that his family would be taken care of.” He shrugged. “But he does know how to run a war, and his people are behind him one hundred percent.”

  “I went to school in Switzerland with his daughter, Sarah. What did you think of her?”

  “She’s a bright girl—” McGarvey stopped suddenly, realizing that she was trying to tell him something. “What?”

  “The NRO got some really good high-angle frames of the camp during the raid and a few minutes on either side of it. We figured that Sarah left the camp about the same time as you did, and maybe she helped escort you part of the way back.”

  “Did she get caught in the attack?”

  Elizabeth’s lips compressed, and she nodded. “She was killed.” She reached for her father’s hand and squeezed it. “I saw the file photo we have of her and remembered her from that school outside of Bern. She’s younger than me, and she was only there for a year, but I still remember her because of the bodyguards.” Liz looked away. “Now she’s dead.”

  “What’s our confidence level on this?”

  “Very high,” Elizabeth said. “We got some very good enhanced images of bin Laden with his daughter’s body in his arms.”

  “Christ,” McGarvey said shaking his head. “There’ll be no reasoning with him now.”