He lowered his head and closed his eyes for just a moment. He wanted to think about Katy, bring a picture of her face into his mind’s eye, but he shoved that thought away. He could not afford the distraction, not until this business was over.
Pushing away from the door frame, McGarvey hobbled slowly down the corridor, stepping over the body of the first mujahideen, careful to keep out of the blood that was soaking into the carpeting.
All of his senses were alert for the slightest sign that he was walking into a trap. He stopped a few feet from the open door. The second mujahideen was lying on his back beneath a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. His rifle was on the floor within reach beside him, but he posed no further threat. He was obviously dead.
McGarvey went the rest of the way, holding up just at the threshold before he leaned forward to see inside, and he almost fired his pistol on instinct alone.
A clean-shaven Osama bin Laden, dressed in white robes, sitting cross-legged on a large prayer rug, an open Qur’an lying on his lap, his Kalashnikov propped against the wall behind him, looked up, and smiled sadly. “Good morning, Mr. McGarvey,” he said softly. “It seems as if Allah has intertwined our destinies against all odds.”
McGarvey peered around the corner to make sure no one else was in the room before he stepped through the doorway, over the mujahideen’s body.
“Congratulations for a job well done. You have been a formidable opponent.”
McGarvey glanced over his shoulder. It wouldn’t take the two men from the parking garage much longer to get up here. It was something bin Laden probably knew, so he was stalling for time.
“I presume that you mean to take me away so that I can stand trial,” bin Laden said. He seemed to be amused. “So that a mockery will be made of me before the entire world.”
“No,” McGarvey said softly, not sure if bin Laden had heard him. By now the Pakistani authorities had probably been alerted to the explosion and the gunfire up here, and were likely on their way.
“In any event I would welcome a public trial,” bin Laden said, a smug expression on his long face. “Your lawyers will not be able to prove a thing against me, because in Allah’s eyes, I am innocent.”
McGarvey keyed his communications unit. “Otto, unlock the main elevators, and get ready to move. I think we’ll be having company any minute.”
“Will do,” Rencke radioed back.
“As an innocent man I have nothing to fear from your American justice,” bin Laden said.
McGarvey shook his head. He didn’t know if there was any clear definition of what evil was. Soldiers opposing each other on a battlefield couldn’t be included. But if any man fit the notion of evil, bin Laden was one. “Wrong answer,” McGarvey said, with great difficulty. “Just before 9/11 you told me that no one was innocent in this war. That includes you.” He raised his pistol.
The smile faded from bin Laden’s lips. “The money to fund the jihad comes from Saudi Arabia.”
“I know.”
“I can give you the names, and—”
“I don’t care,” McGarvey said. He squeezed off a shot, striking the terrorist leader in the middle of the forehead, driving him backwards, the Qur’an sliding off his lap.
Bin Laden was dead and the war was over. Or at least it was for him.
McGarvey went the rest of the way into the room, and unloaded his pistol, one careful shot after the other, into bin Laden’s face, his neck, and his chest.
For several long seconds he stood over the terrorist leader’s body, a tremendous sense of sadness coming over him. It had been the same after every kill. He could remember all the faces of his victims. Now bin Laden’s would be added to his nightmares.
He ejected the spent magazine from his pistol, pocketed it, and loaded a fresh one into the handle, cycling a round into the firing chamber.
Next he took a cotton swab and small plastic Baggie from one of his pockets, dabbed some blood from bin Laden’s head wound, and sealed the cotton swab in the Baggie.
They would want proof.
He took one last long look at bin Laden’s lifeless body, then turned and sprinted down the corridor toward the main elevators at the front of the building, the wound in his hip getting steadily worse with each step.
He keyed his radio. “I’m heading to the elevators.”
“Hustle, kimo sabe,” Rencke replied. “I’m picking up chatter on the local ISI channel. They’re on their way here. And Graham showed up in the parking garage five minutes ago. He and his driver are gone.”
“I’ll be with you in two minutes,” McGarvey radioed. “What about Gloria?”
“I can’t raise her,” Otto said. “The main elevators are unlocked.”
“How about Joe?”
“Nothing from him either.”
“Christ,” McGarvey muttered. He went through the large prayer room and took the corridor in the opposite direction from the dormitory. At the far end, a plain steel door opened to a small lobby across which were two elevators, one of the cars standing open.
He was in a quandary if he should go back and take out the two mujahideen coming up the stairs, which would delay the authorities finding bin Laden’s body, or just leave now. But they were not worth the risk or the extra time.
He stepped aboard the elevator and punched the button for the ground floor. Something was wrong on the street out front, and the hairs stood up on the nape of his neck as the doors closed and the car started down.
But Otto would have warned Bernstein and Gloria that trouble was coming their way. They would have been prepared.
It was an express elevator and it took less than one minute to reach the ground floor. McGarvey stepped to one side and raised his pistol as the doors opened. But except for Rencke and the two trussed-up guards behind the security console, the atrium lobby was empty.
“Shut down all the elevators!” McGarvey shouted, hobbling across the lobby. “We’re getting out of here right now.”
Before McGarvey reached the main doors, Rencke had locked down the elevators and was right behind him, his pistol in hand.
Outside, the night air was warm, and extremely humid. In the not too far distance they could hear a lot of sirens, but there was no traffic here for the moment. The blue and white Toyota van that Bernstein was driving was still parked across the street, and Gloria’s Fiat hadn’t moved from the end of the block across from the entrance to the building’s underground garage. There was no sign of Graham’s Mercedes, or that there’d been any trouble. But if he’d emerged from the garage he would have driven directly past Gloria.
McGarvey hurried across the broad plaza and then across the street where he approached the driver’s side door of the van from the rear, and looked inside. The window was down and Bernstein was slumped over, blood all over the seat from a gunshot wound in the back of his head. There was no doubt he was dead.
“What do we do?” Rencke asked, his voice still steady despite the fact that he was not a trained field officer.
“We have to leave him,” McGarvey said tersely, and he headed as fast as his legs would carry him back to Gloria’s Fiat, sick at heart by what he thought he would find. Somehow Graham had managed to get past her and take Bernstein unawares. Christ, he had warned them both about the bastard.
Gloria was also slumped over the seat, blood matting the hair on the left side of her head, but she was starting to come around and trying to sit up. “What happened?” she stammered.
The sirens were very close now.
McGarvey pocketed his pistol, tore open the door, and helped Gloria to sit up and slide over the gearshift lever to the passenger side. He got behind the wheel and as soon as Rencke was in the backseat, started the engine and took off. Just as they were turning the corner at the end of the block, McGarvey looked in the rearview mirror in time to see three pickup trucks filled with armed men pulling up in front of the building. They were bin Laden’s security forces, responding to a call for help.