“No!” she said. “I’m coming with you. Get it through your head!”
He started to run again. In spite of the circumstances, a brief hope flickered. Maggie was with him. There was nothing he wanted more.
SIXTY
OYSTER BAY, NY, JULY 2
ABU SAYEED WAS ALREADY FLATTENED against the cottage wall when the second stand of trees ignited. He inched to the door and looked out in time to see a third group of trees go up in flames. Naif ran past him, across the courtyard, but even before had he taken up a covering position beside the garage, three shots sounded in the trees. They were loud, from a heavy gauge pistol, not Mohammed’s silenced Heckler & Koch.
Abu Sayeed looked up at the approaching blackness in the western sky and deep within it the lurid flicker of lightning. He raced mentally through his options, then pulled plastic cuffs from his pocket and tossed them to Anneliës. “Get him on the boat,” he said, his voice clipped but unhurried.
He noted the defeat in Biddle’s face as Anneliës knelt and jerked his wrists behind his back. A second later Mohammed appeared, backing out of the trees. He was breathing heavily, his shirt soaked through with rain and sweat. He squatted near the door. “I saw one man,” he said quickly. “I killed him.”
“How many others?”
Mohammed shook his head in confusion. “There are no sirens and no lights. It is most strange.”
“And the security people?”
Mohammed nodded. “Dead.”
Abu Sayeed nodded. There was no time for understanding, only for action. “To the boat!” he snapped. Mohammed turned and ran toward the opening in the hedge. Next, Abu Sayeed jerked his head and Anneliës dragged Biddle to his feet.
“Let Faith go,” Biddle pleaded as Anneliës shoved him outside. He stumbled across the courtyard like a doomed man, offering no resistance.
Abu Sayeed walked into the bedroom. He unsheathed his Russian combat knife and cut the tape that bound Wofford to the chair. He pulled Wofford roughly to his feet. “Wait there,” he commanded, shoving him out of the room.
He turned toward the woman, who raised her head and looked at him, her eyes wide with panic. He raised his submachine gun and fired. A spray of blood hit the pillow and wall as her head exploded.
He went back into the sitting room to find Wofford cowering beside the front door, a horrified look on his bruised face. Abu Sayeed barely glanced at him as he opened the flap of a leather satchel that lay on the dining table. He set the timer for ninety seconds and then went to where three backpacks leaned against the wall. He slipped one on his back, slung his machine gun over his neck and slung the other two packs along one arm. He moved to Wofford, gripped him by the back of the neck, his arm weighed down by the packs, and shoved him out the door.
With Wofford as his shield, he hurried across the courtyard to where Naif squatted in the shadows.
“Forty-five seconds,” he hissed, as he dropped the two packs. “Go.”
Naif nodded and slipped on his pack, took the other in his hand, and raced for the opening in the hedge. Abu Sayeed peered toward the burning trees, trying to pick out silhouettes. It made no sense. There should be teams of attackers. Biddle certainly hadn’t arranged this, but then who?
He started backing toward the boat, tightening his grip on Wofford’s neck. As he neared the hedge and Mohammed brought the yacht’s diesel engines rumbling to life, he thanked Allah for giving him the foresight to put the missiles back on board.
He paused in the shadows of the hedge. Naif whistled behind him, signaling that the shoreline was clear. Beside the cottage, Abu Sayeed heard a woman’s voice shouting, “Freeze! Police!”
He raised his gun over Wofford’s shoulder, caught a momentary glimpse of a silhouette, and fired a silenced burst. The woman’s handgun barked several times, the shots hitting a few feet to his right. He needed only seconds. He fired a longer burst to keep his attackers pinned.
A moment later, the charge went off. The cottage windows blew out and the roof buckled, spraying a deadly shower of broken shingles. To Abu Sayeed’s surprise, Wofford exploded out of his grasp and began running toward the ruined cottage even as shards of flying slate flew all around.
In the courtyard, where she’d been partially sheltered by the Range Rover, a woman was on her hands and knees, trying to stand. Abu Sayeed made a quick calculation then pulled the trigger. He watched Wofford pitch face down on the paving blocks, and then he dashed forward, put his foot on the woman’s back, and flattened her to the ground.
The air had become a slurry of rain and wet dust, but he could see she no longer had a weapon. Her shirt was tattered from the explosion, revealing a bulletproof vest. He placed the machine gun against her head then squinted toward the trees, looking for more attackers. He saw nothing and heard only a single voice calling, “Maggie! Maggie!”
He jerked her to her feet and put her in a throat lock. She cried out in pain, swaying limp as a rag doll, but he dragged her back to the opening in the hedge using her body as a shield. In the darkness, the voice drew closer, calling, “Maggie!”
Abu Sayeed glanced to the side, across Biddle’s acres of well-lit lawn. Flames poured from one corner of the big house, but otherwise nothing moved. “Maggie!” the voice cried out from the courtyard. Abu Sayeed loosed a burst of machine gun fire in the direction of the sound, and then grabbing the pack he had dropped, he dragged the woman across the open space to the dock. Her legs were unsteady, so that she was nearly deadweight. He considered shooting her but then heard Naif’s footsteps behind him.
“Help me get her onto the boat,” he called. They each took one of the woman’s arms and hauled her up the gangplank. Abu Sayeed threw her into the salon and tossed the extra backpack on a chair. He ordered Anneliës to find a set of cuffs for the woman in one of pouches, and then he ran out to help Naif untie the lines. As they heaved off, Mohammed reversed the engines and swung the big boat away from the dock, pointing the bow into the teeth of the squall coming from the west.
Abu Sayeed squatted against the transom and watched the shore. After a second he saw movement, a single silhouette running down the dock, framed every fifteen feet or so in the piling lights. They were picking up speed as he tried to aim, timing his shot to the yacht’s roll. He pulled the trigger as the man came into view again, then watched him spin and fall.
Abu Sayeed stood, ran through the aft salon, and climbed to the upper deck and then to the bridge. He left Mohammed at the helm, went to the radar, and set the resolution to a hundred yards, then two-fifty, then five hundred yards, looking for the blip of a big boat, a Coast Guard cutter perhaps, something with armament that could blow the Hatteras out of the water. Only, he saw nothing, just the usual yachts, fishing boats, and sailboats on their moorings.
His enemies had attacked, yet they had left the back door open. Why? He tried to think. Allah, clear my mind, he prayed as he went below to the salon. Anneliës had the woman cuffed, and he jerked her into a sitting position and struck her hard across the cheekbones. “Who do you work for?” he demanded. “FBI? CIA? Police?”
The woman blinked away tears of pain and glared back in silence. He saw fear in her eyes but also will and resolve and knew he had too little time to break her down. Where was the helicopter that ought to be overhead right now? Where was the Navy, the Coast Guard? There seemed only one plausible explanation—that in any military operation even with meticulous planning things went wrong. Tonight, something had gone wrong for his enemies. Apparently, the Americans had prepared a trap, yet thanks to Allah, someone had moved early. No doubt at this very moment, Coast Guard boats and helicopters were on their way to Biddle’s estate and a mob of government agents were gathering outside the gate.