For Katy. For the woman and child they’d tossed off the cruise ship. For 9/11. For every other horror men like bin Laden and his fanatical followers had done and were threatening to do.
Payback time started now.
SIXTY-FOUR
Khalil had just reached the communications room with the video disk of Kathleen McGarvey’s statement when al-Kaseem, out of breath and with an angry scowl on his bland features, caught up with him. Khalil thought the man looked ill, on the verge of a stroke.
Definitely the wrong sort to head up Saudi intelligence’s U.S. operations.
“I just got off the satellite phone with Prince Muhamed,” al-Kaseem practically shouted. “A friend of McGarvey’s is holding Princess Sofia and the children at gunpoint outside Lucerne.”
Khalil considered this news for a moment, then shrugged. “If they die, they will become martyrs.”
Al-Kaseem’s eyes widened. “You cold bastard, you don’t know what you’ve started.”
“I know very well.”
“I demand that you leave immediately.”
“You don’t have that authority,” Khalil told him, contemptuously. “But in any event you’ll get your wish soon. Less than forty-eight hours.”
Al-Kaseem threw up his hands, a very rude gesture for an Arab. “The situation here will not last that long, you idiot.”
The man had gone too far. Khalil shoved him up against the wall, pulled out his stiletto, and brought the blade to al-Kaseem’s face, the razor-sharp point less than an inch from the intelligence chief’s left eye. “I find your lack of respect and bad manners irritating.”
Al-Kaseem was not cowed. “McGarvey called Prince Muhamed a few minutes ago. Offered to trade his wife for the princess and the children.”
It was something new. Khalil had not thought men of McGarvey’s ilk were capable of such interesting, and certainly logical, acts, not with all their foolish talk about innocents. “What else did he tell the prince?”
“He said he was coming after you. No one else need get hurt, except for you.” Al-Kaseem reached up and eased the stiletto blade away from his face. “He’s very close, because he promised Prince Muhamed that the princess and children would be released in two hours.”
They were in the third-story corridor on the southwest side of the building, directly below the west-facing satellite dish on the roof. Khalil cocked an ear to listen. The building seemed quieter than it had earlier in the day. Al-Kaseem was watching him, a mixture of disgust and even contempt in his eyes.
“If he finds out where you are, he’ll come after you,” al-Kaseem said.
“I think he already has it figured out,” Khalil said. “How many people are left in the building besides us?”
“Everyone’s here. We’ve just suspended most operations until the situation is resolved.”
Khalil nodded toward the door to the communications room. “Have you shut down the satellite feed as well?”
“Not yet,” al-Kaseem said.
“Good, I have a video to send.” Khalil released his hold on the chief of station, then sheathed his stiletto.
“What video? Where are you sending it?”
“You’ll see,” Khalil said. He opened the communication center’s door with an electronic key card and went in.
The equipment-filled room was small, not much larger than a master bedroom in a large house. Two technicians were seated at computer terminals, the monitors blank. They looked up, surprised. The communications and computer center was the most classified section of the building, and very few people were authorized entry. Khalil wasn’t one of them.
One of the technicians reached for a pistol in a drawer, when al-Kaseem came in and waved him off. “He’s here on my authorization.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said.
“In fact, I want both of you to leave us. Get a cup of tea. We’ll only be a few minutes.”
The two men got up and left.
Al-Kaseem held out his hand for the video disk. “I assume this is McGarvey’s wife. Where are you sending it?”
“Al Jazeera,” Khalil said.
Al-Kaseem shook his head. “I’ll say it again: You’re a cold bastard. You’ll get us all killed. If McGarvey can’t get to you today, he won’t ever stop once he sees whatever it is you’ve made her say.”
“In two days it won’t matter,” Khalil said.
Al-Kaseem gave him a hard look. “You and the woman need to be long gone from here before then. I will take this to Crown Prince Abdullah. There is much more at stake here than you can know. Political stakes.”
Khalil gave the disk to al-Kaseem, who put it in the CD tray of one of the computers, brought that drive up, and double-clicked the Video icon. The image showed Kathleen, dressed in the same type of cotton pajamas that the Afghani and Iraqi prisoners of war had been made to wear, seated on the edge of a narrow cot, her hands folded together in her lap.
The camera zoomed forward, her face filling the screen. She had been beaten. Her eyes were already blackening, and the right side of her jaw was red and swollen. For all that, al-Kaseem thought she was a strikingly handsome woman, for whom her husband would commit murder.
“My name is Kathleen McGarvey, and I have a message for all the mothers and fathers of all the children in the great Satan nation, the United States.”
“How long is this recording?” al-Kaseem asked.
“Two minutes. It was enough.”
“Another blow for freedom will soon be struck against our children, but it need not happen. President Haynes must go before the United Nations today, and make the following declarations before the world. All U.S. and allied forces will make immediate preparations to leave Afghanistan, Iraq, and South Korea. In addition, all U.S. military forces, as well as all Christians, must immediately leave the Arabian Peninsula.”
“That will never happen as long as they need our oil,” al-Kaseem said. “No matter how many blows are struck against them. They learned their lesson from Vietnam.”
A faint smile crossed Khalil’s lips. He sincerely hoped that the demands were not met in his lifetime. This struggle was the very thing he had been born for. The only thing for which he lived. Without it he would be nothing.
“It is no different than in 1776 when the valiant American freedom fighters forced their oppressive masters off the land,” Kathleen continued. “And today America and England are partners.”
Watching the video, Khalil was struck again by the woman’s strength, and once again he resolved to bring her back to the Saudi desert with him, no matter how impossible that idea was. He wanted first to kill her husband, and then he wanted to spend time with this woman. He wanted to teach her humility. He wanted to see her crawl on her knees to him, to beg his forgiveness, to grovel like an animal in the dust in front of him. He smiled inwardly. She would wash his feet before each prayer, and then prepare and serve his meals.
Her death, he decided, would be a particularly fruitful event.
Kathleen continued to read the words that Khalil had written for her, but he was no longer listening. There had to be a way to get her out of the country before the attacks, because afterward the U.S. borders would be sealed tight. The only other alternative was to find a place inside the country where he could be safe until the initial furor died down. Oklahoma City, perhaps. There was a very active al-Quaida cell there.
Al-Kaseem was looking at him. “If you order me to send this video to Al Jazeera, I’ll do it. But then you will have to leave within twenty-four hours.”