Joshua`s Hammer (18 page)

"I'll give you a shot of antibiotics against a possible infection, but when you get back to Washington have someone look at this."

That was nothing but a circular argument. He considered asking bin Laden to give back his satellite phone, or at the very least let him use the communications equipment here to call the White House. But the man was crazy, and there was no telling how he might react to such a request, especially since McGarvey had come here with the GPS chip implanted in his body. The U.S. military knew the exact position of this camp, and McGarvey might confirm that bin Laden was here and go ahead with the attack.

His only chance now was to get out of the camp as soon as possible and hope that his escorts brought his telephone with them. Short of that he would have to make it back to Kabul and somehow find a way to call Washington.

The doctor finished closing the small wound. He bandaged it, cleaned up the blood, gave McGarvey a shot and helped him sit up.

"When can I expect your bill?"

The doctor gave McGarvey an owlish look from behind thick glasses. He didn't see the humor. He took off his gloves, tossed them in a bucket and handed McGarvey his sweater.

"Bin Laden is sick, isn't he," McGarvey said. He carefully pulled on his sweater, the simple effort causing sweat to pop out on his forehead.

The doctor turned his back to McGarvey, took the bandana off his head and began untying his gown at the back.

"I think he might be dying," McGarvey pressed. "What is it? Cancer?"

The doctor turned on him. "Don't push your luck," he warned. "All your fancy gadgets and satellites and military hardware won't save you if he wants you dead. This is Afghanistan, Mr. McGarvey, and you have no idea what that really means."

"Are you giving our guest a geography lesson, Dr. Nosair?" bin Laden said from the doorway. He came in with the two mujahedeen who had escorted McGarvey from the cave. If anything his face looked even sallower than before, and it wasn't just because of the kerosene light. The effort of coming down the hill had visibly tired him.

"The sooner this man is gone from here, the better I'll feel," Dr. Nosair said.

"Is he fit to travel?"

The doctor gave McGarvey a critical look. "I've seen our men march for three days with untended bullet wounds. This operation was nothing by comparison. When the anesthetic wears off he'll be in some discomfort, but it shouldn't slow him down much."

Bin Laden held out his hand. The doctor picked up the chip and gave it to him. "To an Afghani farmer this is magic," bin Laden said, studying the device. "It may well be, because now the satellites believe that I am Mr. McGarvey." He pocketed the chip and smiled at McGarvey. "And you have suddenly become one of us. A nonentity."

"What now?" McGarvey asked.

"The good doctor is right, of course. The sooner you are away from here the better we will all feel. You'll leave immediately, back the same way you came."

"Do we have a deal?"

"I think that we have the beginning of an agreement," bin Laden said. "When President Haynes announces in the United Nations the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the Arabian Peninsula, the retraction of the bounty on my head, and the opening of negotiations with the Saudi government for the repatriation of my family, the first steps will have been taken. We will see it as a sign of good faith."

"What about the rest of it?"

"If all of that comes to pass you have my word that I will make no further moves against the West." Bin Laden was suddenly stern. "But only under those conditions, make that perfectly clear to your President."

"It still leaves the most important reason I came here," McGarvey said evenly. He was thinking of Alien and his family. The bastard was still bargaining for lives, and he was enjoying it "When the announcement is made, we will talk again about that and about another matter. You have my word on that as well."

"Don't make the mistake of underestimating us. If you go back on your word we will come after you personally with everything in our power."

Bin Laden smiled benignly. "I am not afraid of death, Mr. McGarvey, are you?"

"I'm respectful of it."

Bin Laden gave him a long, appraising look. "In sha'Allah" he said, and he turned to go.

"We want the other three men responsible for the attack on Alien Trumble and his family. That's going to be a part of the deal."

"I'll think about it. But now it's time for you to leave. I'll be waiting for your President's reply. Tell him not to delay."

McGarvey looked at his watch as he emerged from the crude hospital, and he was surprised to see that it was only a few minutes after 10:00 P.M. After all that had happened he'd only been in the camp for a couple of hours. The anesthetic would wear off soon, but for now he felt okay except for the lack of sleep, proper food and the dull ache that seemed to have settled somewhere just below his left shoulder. He'd been in and out of so many hospitals in his career that he knew what to expect, and he knew how his body was going to react, how much strength he had in reserve, how fast he could move and when to husband his strength so that he'd have something left if and when he needed it. Which was going to have to be very soon if he was going to stop the missile attack.

Hash and Farid, packs slung over their shoulders along with their Kalashnikovs, waited in the darkness. Mohammed, also carrying a pack and a rifle, stood a few feet away, the same crazy look as before on his broad peasant's face. They were to be his escorts back to the Rover parked in the village, and then back to Kabul. But whatever instructions bin Laden had given them about McGarvey's safe passage were going to be ignored by Mohammed. McGarvey could see it in the man's eyes. Mohammed was obviously itching to get out of the camp where somewhere in the mountains there would be an accident.

McGarvey glanced up at the entrance to the cave in the hillside. Bin Laden had the nuclear bomb hidden somewhere, perhaps even here. That was the only consideration now; getting it back.

"Who has my things?" he asked.

Mohammed raised his pack a couple of inches off his shoulder, but said nothing. His eyes were wild.

"We'll go now, mista Hash said.

"I want to see my things first," McGarvey said. "I don't trust this bastard. He looks like a thief."

Hash said something, and Mohammed opened the bundle and dumped the contents in the dust. McGarvey's pistol and spare magazine of ammunition were wrapped in an old rag, but the laptop computer and telephone were missing.

"Where are the rest of my things?"

"The computer stays here. Ali has it," Hash said apologetically.

"What about my telephone?"

Mohammed took it out of his pocket, then laughed uproariously. "I'll give it back to you in Kabul, you'll see."

Hash and Farid in the lead, with Mohammed bringing up the rear, they headed single file through the seemingly deserted camp. But as before McGarvey could feel dozens of pairs of eyes watching from all around. There was no sign that they were getting ready to break camp and go to ground somewhere else, but that could happen as soon as he got out of sight, and it would only take them a couple of hours to bug out.

They crossed the shallow stream at the far side of the camp and started up the steep switchbacks to the crest of the hill two hundred feet above. McGarvey climbed slowly, stumbling from time to time as if he was having a great deal of difficulty. The only way he was going to get his phone back was to kill Mohammed. And with three-to-one odds he needed every advantage he could get, including instilling a false sense of security in them.

Halfway up, McGarvey stopped to catch his breath. He looked down the way they had come, and across the camp to the facing hill. For a second he thought he might be seeing the glow from the tip of a cigarette about where he figured the cave entrance might be. But then it was gone, though he could well imagine that bin Laden himself, or perhaps the man called Ali, was there watching him leave. Ali fit the general description that Trumble had given them of the man sitting silently in the corner at the Khartoum meeting. And bin Laden had been respectful of his opinions. Perhaps he was bin Laden's chief of staff. It was a possibility.

They reached the top of the hill twenty minutes later, and McGarvey stopped again for a minute to catch his breath. The moon was just coming up over the distant mountains, casting a malevolent orange glow on the snow covered peaks. The doctor was correct about one thing; this was Afghanistan, and no one in the West had any real idea what that meant. The entire country was in chaos; the pressures of the modern world with its dazzling technologies clashing with the centuries-old insular traditions that had either defeated or swallowed every invader ever to cross the Khyber Pass. Even the Russians, with their brutality in the field, had failed to conquer the Afghanis. And there was a lot of doubt that the Taliban, with their fanatical interpretation of the Qoran, would be successful either. A strange place. A fitting place for a man such as bin Laden with his jihad and hatreds.

"Ready?" Hash asked respectfully.

"Yeah," McGarvey said, and they started down the narrow, rocky path when a dark figure suddenly materialized out of the shadows behind some boulders.

Hash and Farid pulled up short and reached for their rifles when the figure said something in Persian, and scrambled up onto the path. It was Sarah.

"I'm coming part of the way with you," she said in English.

"Your father will forbid this," Mohammed told her, angrily.

"Very well. We will wait here until you return to camp and tell him."

"I will use the radio--"

"That is forbidden except for an emergency," Sarah warned sharply. "Or do you wish to disobey not only me, but my father too?"

Mohammed was fuming, but after a beat he shook his head. Maybe there would be two accidents, McGarvey thought. And he wondered if bin Laden knew just how unstable their situation was here.

Sarah carried a short-stock version of the AK-47 slung over her shoulder, the muzzle pointed to the ground. But she had no pack. She fell in beside McGarvey and for the first half-mile or so they moved through the night in silence.

A light breeze had come up, and although it was very cold McGarvey was sweating. The lidocaine had completely worn off and besides the ache beneath his shoulder, there was a very sharp pain in his side from the incision. It was like a toothache, only worse, and he could not completely put it out of his mind. That, and Mohammed's presence at his back, made him edgy. The clock was still running.

"I'd like to ask you a favor," McGarvey said, finally breaking the silence.

Sarah gave him a quizzical look. "What?"

"Mohammed has my things, I would like to have them back."

She shrugged. "When you get back to Kabul. He's been told."

"I'd like them now."

"No," she said. "I have my orders too. We all do. You will have to wait until Kabul." She looked into his face. "I'm sorry Mr. McGarvey. I know about the electronic device that you brought with you. Its significance was explained to me. And it was explained that you must not communicate with your people until you are a long way from here. I think we will be moving from this camp. It will make us all feel better. Safer. Do you understand?"

McGarvey nodded. "We want the killing to finally stop."

"Then I hope you are able to convince your President of this when you get home."

They walked for a long time in silence, the night bitterly cold. McGarvey settled down, concentrating on the march because there was nothing else he could do for the moment.

"Now that you have met my father, what do you think?" Sarah asked innocently at one point.

The path had dipped below the crest of the hill that overlooked the camp, and it started back up again, the slope gentle at first, but steadily rising. What few trees were here were stunted and gnarled in the thin topsoil. At this altitude they were just below the treeline. McGarvey took a long time to answer. Bin Laden was a monster, but to Sarah he was her father.

"I think that he's getting tired of hiding here in the mountains," McGarvey said. "He wants to go home."

"Wouldn't you?" She smiled wistfully. At that moment she looked like a tomboy, and McGarvey was reminded of his own Liz at that age. "Was the operation painful?" she asked.

"A little, but I'll live. What did your father say about the--incident?"

Sarah stole a glance over her shoulder. Mohammed was far enough back so that he was out of earshot if they spoke softly. "He didn't say anything. I think he is disappointed." It was a very tough admission for her to make.

But it wasn't your fault. If that's what the Qoran is teaching you it's all wrong. "The Taliban are fanatics. But do you suppose they would condone what he tried to do to you?"

"Probably. But sometimes it gets confusing."

"Welcome to the club," McGarvey said. He felt sorry for her, and he wondered about her mother, and her father's other wives and all the siblings. Dinner at the bin Ladens' would be quite a spectacle, if such mixed eating arrangements were possible in a fundamentalist's household.

She looked at him questioningly. "Club?"

"I meant it's the same for everybody. Nobody has all the answers, especially not young people."

She picked up on that with eagerness. "Tell me more about your daughter. Aren't you afraid for her safety because of all the violence in America?"

McGarvey stifled a laugh. "The newspapers have some of it wrong. They like to exaggerate." He swept his arm around the wild mountain scenery. "This isn't exactly a safe haven. And for you Kabul must be even worse."

The comment hurt her. She lowered her eyes. "We don't choose to stay here."

"If you could leave Afghanistan where would you like to go? Riyadh? You have family there."

"London," she said without hesitation. "I'd like to go to school there. My English is good enough, I think."

"Your English is very good."

"I would like to study in school in London, and in the evenings I would go out to see plays, and attend grand openings, and eat in restaurants with my friends. On the weekends we might go driving in the country, maybe go swimming where it's permitted. I would like to see the ocean, and the English Channel. Maybe we could go to Paris through the tunnel on a very fast train." She half closed her eyes happy for that moment. "We wouldn't always eat at McDonald's, there are other places. Places where I might be able to wear a dress, makeup, nylons. And there would be magazines, and television." She smiled. "And movies." She gave McGarvey an excited look. "Does your daughter do all of that?"