“Big of him, since Saudi money financed the operation,” Berndt said sharply. We had beat the bastards this time, but there would be others. He was getting too old for this. Once the dust settled, he was going to resign and return to academia. It was a decision he’d made some days ago, but now in light of the compromises that everyone was rushing to make, he found that he was sick of the business, and he didn’t know if he could or even should wait that long.
Beckett’s expression darkened. “We’ve already gone over that, Dennis. We don’t have the proof—”
“We do now,” Berndt said, holding up the Swiss file. “Salman and his wife have been pumping royal family money to Khalil for years. Couldn’t have been done without Prince Abdullah’s knowledge and at least his tacit approval.”
“You got that from Schmidt?”
“Yeah,” Berndt said, tiredly. “But they won’t do a thing except to deport Salman’s wife and children. The Saudi money is too important to them to upset the applecart by making what Schmidt called ‘wild accusations.’”
“It’s the same thing a spokesman for the Rainier family told us,” Beckett said. “And the French. It’s the real world.”
“Yes, it is.”
Beckett smiled. “The good news is that no one got hurt, except for the kid in Colorado who blew himself up. But it was close.”
Berndt really looked at Beckett, and then at the others doing their thing around the president of the United States. They were happy and excited, of course. They had dodged a bullet that would have been even larger than 9/11. But the president’s staffers were behaving as if it were they who had stopped the suicide bombers. They lived in an isolated environment here. No matter how often they traveled with or for the president around the country or around the world, they were still tethered to this one place.
“Dennis?” Beckett prompted.
“It wouldn’t have been so close if we’d listened to McGarvey in the first place.”
Beckett nodded. “And the president is willing to forgive his insubordination. There’ll be a Senate investigation, of course, but the president will stand behind him.” Beckett lowered his voice. “Maybe even give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It would put a nice cap on Mac’s career.”
“Yes, it would,” President Haynes said, finished with his phone call. He got to his feet, a warm smile on his face. “And the Saudis have agreed to cooperate with us. We’ll drop the issue of Prince Salman’s money, and in turn there’ll be no formal protests over the damage we caused at their embassy and think tank.”
Berndt was struck dumb.
“How are our Mr. McGarvey and his wife?” the president asked.
“Recovering,” Berndt said. “But what are we supposed to say to the families of the two firemen whom a Saudi citizen murdered?”
“We don’t know that he was a Saudi,” Haynes replied, mildly. “But be that as it may, those two men are heroes. They blocked Khalil’s escape long enough for McGarvey to reach him. Their families can be proud that they didn’t die in vain. And I’ll tell that to the nation this evening.”
“Yes, they were heroes,” Berndt mumbled. Beckett’s assessment of the real world politik was on the mark. This was political expediency in just about its most aggressive form. Oil for dollars. It had been all about that, even before World War II. It’s why the politicians had divided the Middle East not along ethnic or religious lines, but along oil deposits.
Haynes was watching him. “Are you okay, Dennis?”
Berndt realized that he’d been wool gathering, something he’d been doing a lot of lately. And his disappointment probably showed on his face. He nodded. “Just tired, Mr. President. It’s been a hectic few days.”
“That it has,” Haynes said. “I’m going to need you until we go on the air tonight, and then I think that you and Joyce should get away for a few days or a week. Linda and I are taking Deb out to Keystone. Maybe I’ll catch a few trout.”
“It’s not over yet,” Berndt said. “They’ll try again.” If he resigned he would be deserting his president at a very difficult time. He didn’t know if he could do that. He was torn with indecision, something that had never seemed to bother McGarvey.
“They most certainly will,” Haynes said, “which is why I’m going to form a task force to deal specifically with finding and capturing or killing al-Quaida’s top leadership anywhere in the world they choose to hide. Just like we did in Iraq. And when McGarvey recovers, I’m going to ask him to head it.”
“I don’t know if he’ll take the job—”
The famous Haynes campaign smile lit his face. “I think I’ll be able to convince him, especially if we can hand him bin Laden’s head on a platter.”
Berndt felt a little thrill in his stomach. “Do we have a new lead?”
“Weissman’s people did a quick sweep of the Saudi think tank in Georgetown before they had to let the Saudis back in. They found some credible documents pointing to a very specific area on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.”
“We’ve suspected all along that he’s been hiding out up there,” Berndt said, “but it’s a tough place to operate in without Pakistani support.”
“Well, we’ve got it now,” Beckett said. “Musharraf has agreed to let us in on an all-out manhunt.”
“Which is getting under way within the next twenty-four hours,” the president said. “This time we’ll get the bastard.”
Berndt nodded uncertainly. He didn’t share the president’s optimism, and even if we did capture or kill the man, the terrorism probably wouldn’t stop. “All we can do is try, Mr. President,” he said. That’s all any of them could do.
SEVENTY-SEVEN
Kathleen McGarvey stood at the window in her husband’s hospital room and stared out toward the city that was coming alive with the dawn. The entire nation had breathed a sigh of relief, and she could feel it.
There had been a steady stream of visitors ever since Mac had been moved down from the ICU. He was a national hero once again, and half of Washington wanted to shake his hand. But Kathleen had managed to hold most of them off. He had lost a lot of blood, especially from the knife wound in his shoulder. There would be no lasting damage other than a new set of scars, but he was still weak, and the shrapnel wounds to the bottoms of his feet were causing him a lot of pain.
Kathleen had been treated and immediately released, and since then she had not left her husband’s side. Except for a chipped tooth, a couple of broken ribs, and a lot of bruising, she’d not been seriously hurt. No damage had been done to the baby; as the Saudi doctor had told her, the bleeding had not been a result of her beating, but she’d been very frightened.
She felt her husband’s eyes on her, and she turned around.
“Good morning,” he said. He’d fallen asleep after Dick Adkins had left last night with the news that the president wanted him back, and he had not awakened the entire night.
“Good morning, darling,” Kathleen said, kissing his cheek. “How are you feeling?”
McGarvey took a moment or two to answer. “Better,” he said. “Hungry.”
For the first time since the incident he seemed to be his old self. Alert, not so groggy and disconnected around the edges. “Breakfast is in an hour, unless you want something now. I can get it from the cafeteria—”
He shook his head. “Don’t leave. I can wait.” He seemed to study her face as if he hadn’t seen it for a very long while. “How about you?”
“Sore as hell, but the baby’s going to be okay.” He had asked the same question a dozen times since he’d come out of surgery, and each time he was visibly relieved; the muscles around his mouth and eyes relaxing, he smiled. She wasn’t tired of giving him the same answer.