“Do it now,” Graham said, perfectly understanding al-Hari’s cold logic.
“Very well. What about these canisters? We can load them aboard a couple of torpedoes set to explode a thousand meters out. Wouldn’t do any damage but the germs might rise to the surface. At the very least they’d contaminate the bay.”
Graham shook his head. “I want them to explode inside the boat without breaching the hull as soon as we lock out,” he said. “It will be a little surprise for the navy salvage crew.”
Chamran nodded. “You’re a hard man for an English.”
“It’s a hard world.”
“Insh’allah,” al-Hari said. God willing.
SIXTY-FOUR
Driving up the tree-lined road back to the CIA training facility from I-64 the next afternoon, McGarvey had the strong feeling that whatever happened in the next few days would be nothing more than a prelude to his real mission.
Whether or not they stopped Graham from unleashing whatever weapons he was bringing across the Atlantic, al-Quaida would continue the jihad against the West because it was a holy war that had been going on for more than one thousand years.
This submarine attack was only one battle. And even if it succeeded, it would be no more of a decisive blow against the West than the attacks of 9/11 had been.
Only two actions would end the war. The first would be eliminating Osama bin Laden as the quasi-holy figure he’d become across Dar al Islam. Capturing him and bringing him to trial would do no good. He would have a worldwide pulpit from which he could spread his message. Sending the U.S. military to kill him, either by ground forces, or by cruise missiles as Clinton had tried, would only make him a martyr. And Muslims loved martyrs. He would have to be assassinated, quietly and with no fanfare, inside his own lair.
It was what McGarvey did, and he knew that killing bin Laden would be the most satisfying hit he’d ever made, because the terrorist’s face in death would never haunt his dreams.
The second thing that had to be done in order to stop the jihad was to interrupt the money. Iran, Syria, and Pakistan were high on the list of prime suspects. But McGarvey was still convinced that ultimately the United States would have to deal with the Saudis, where the bulk of the money to fund thousands of Islamic terrorist organizations around the world — including al-Quaida — was being supplied. Ironically, most of that money came from oil purchases that the United States made.
Before World War II we had sold scrap metal to Japan that had been turned into bullets to kill our soldiers. Now we were sending our money to Saudi Arabia to buy oil that was being turned against us. History had repeated itself.
Last night, after he had come back from meeting with Dillon and the SEAL team, Liz and Todd were still at the house. They’d brought the baby over and it had been a wonderful respite after the tension of the past week or so.
No one asked where he’d been for dinner, but around ten when Liz and Todd bundled the baby into the car seat, McGarvey told them that he would be coming out to the Farm sometime today. But even then no questions had been asked.
Nor had Katy questioned him in bed. She was just happy about their granddaughter. “We’ll see her grow up, and maybe get married and have children of her own,” Katy said. She looked at her husband, searching for a reaction. “Won’t we?”
“We might be a little long of tooth by then,” he told her. “But if we don’t fall off our sailboat and drown, we should make it.” He smiled. “We’ll take turns pushing each other’s wheelchair. Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, and they made love, slowly and gently.
This morning McGarvey took Katy shopping and they had an early lunch in Georgetown before he dropped her back at the safe house and headed down to the Farm.
“Come back to me as soon as you can, darling,” was all she’d said to him before he left.
On the way out of town he’d telephoned Rencke at the Building for any updates on the Foxtrot’s position, but the submarine had not been spotted since the mid-Atlantic and it was still presumed that she was headed to the canal.
“Dennis Berndt called Dick this morning wanting to know what you were up to,” Rencke had said. “The prez is getting worried and he’s circling the wagons.”
“I got some navy help and they’re going to meet me at the Farm this afternoon, but for now I want the White House and Adkins kept out of the loop in case this op goes south. There’ll be plenty of blame to go around, no matter what happens.”
“I don’t think Dick wants to know, anyway he’s not been asking any questions,” Rencke said. “But Peter has got his hands full.” Peter Franza was the CIA’s chief press officer. “The Washington Post is storming the gates, wanting to know what’s going on at Gitmo. Apparently there was another leak, and the Post found out about the riot.”
“Was my name mentioned?”
“Not so far,” Rencke said. “Peter’s stonewalling them, but that won’t last much longer.”
“I’ll tell you what. Make a blind call to the managing editor at the Post and put a word in his ear about Weiss. Hint that maybe he’s under investigation for prisoner abuse.”
“Won’t Weiss come after you in the press?”
“Only if he’s innocent,” McGarvey said. “But if he’s helping al-Quaida he’ll deny the story, and then hunker down until the storm passes. Who knows, he might even try to run.”
“I’ll get on it,” Rencke had promised.
The gate guards at the entrance to the Farm were dressed in BDUs, Heckler & Koch M8s slung over their shoulders. They were expecting him, and after he showed his ID, they raised the barrier, and passed him through.
His daughter came out of the administration building when he pulled up and got out of the SUV. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Todd’s down at the hand-to-hand barn. We didn’t know what time you’d get here.”
“Let’s take a walk, sweetheart. I’ve got to ask you to put your neck on the chopping block for the next day or two.”
She had to laugh. “That’s our thing, isn’t it?”
They headed down one of the paths through the woods toward the river. “You’re going to have some company this evening, but I don’t want anything said about it by anyone. And I mean by anyone.”
“What’s up, Dad?”
“We’re going to try to catch a submarine that might just show up downriver in the next day or two.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened slightly. “We’ll lock the camp down for the duration,” she said. “What can you tell me?”
There was a lot of traffic on the surface. Sonar had forty-seven tracks in its tape recorder in the past twenty-four hours, most of which was commercial traffic inbound or outbound from New York well to the north. But they had detected no U.S. Navy warships.
“Doesn’t make sense, unless they’re laying a trap for us,” al-Hari said. It was dusk on the surface. They were running the diesel engines on snorkel to recharge the batteries. Graham called back to sonar.
“What’s the range and bearing to our nearest target?”
“Fifteen thousand meters, zero-three-zero,” Shihabi reported. “She’s a large tanker, I think, or maybe a car carrier, heading northwest.”
“Very well,” Graham said. He glanced at al-Hari. “They think we’re heading to the Panama Canal. They probably sent a carrier battle group down there to intercept us.”