The man lying on the deck was the canal pilot, and Rupert Graham was making his escape off the ship courtesy of the SEAL team that had come to arrest or kill him.
McGarvey pulled out his pistol and went to the door, where he held up for a brief moment, then raced to the end of the corridor and took the stairs two at a time down to the main deck, where he held up again at the hatch.
“McGarvey at the main hatch!” he shouted.
“Come,” one of Herring’s men replied from a few feet around the corner.
McGarvey stepped outside.
The SEAL had his M8 at the ready, the butt just above his right shoulder, his shooting finger along the trigger guard. He hesitated for just a split second to make certain that he’d correctly ID’d McGarvey, then lowered the carbine. “We wondered where you went, sir.”
“Where’s Herring? We need to warn the chopper crew.”
“The boss is on his way to the engine room,” the SEAL said. “Warn the crew about what?”
“That wasn’t the canal pilot. It was the terrorist leader.”
“Are you sure, sir?” the SEAL asked.
“Just do it,” McGarvey told the young man, but it was probably too late already.
As the SEAL spoke into his lapel mike, McGarvey turned and looked in the direction the helicopter had gone. They hadn’t even thought to search the imposter.
This attack had been stopped. But there would be others if Graham and bin Laden were allowed to live.
This time, McGarvey vowed, he would finish the job.
TWENTY-TWO
Riding over to the White House from Langley in his limousine, Dick Adkins decided that he didn’t like being the director of Central Intelligence. In fact, he’d never liked the Washington power-broker game in which each White House administration wanted only the intel to support its agendas, and nothing else.
But ever since the creation of the director of National Intelligence, who was supposed to oversee all intelligence activities, the game had shifted into high gear. It was what the Company’s general counsel Carleton Patterson called the “9/11 syndrome.” No one wanted to be wrong, which meant that facts were bent and sometimes altered to fit the prevailing opinion.
Nuclear weapons in Iraq had been one of the prime examples. Another had come last year when McGarvey had been forced to resign from the CIA when he and the president had a falling out. McGarvey had wanted to go after a wealthy Saudi playboy who he thought was a top bin Laden killer. The administration wanted to protect its oil relationship with the Saudis, so the president would not believe McGarvey.
As it turned out, Mac and the president had both been right, after a fashion, but by then Mac was no longer welcome at Langley, or anywhere else in or around Washington. Going against a sitting president was not the thing to do and still expect to be welcome at the table.
And now this morning Adkins was bringing the president news that once again McGarvey had saved their asses. Coming down Constitution Avenue to 17th Street and the Ellipse, minutes away from the White House, he girded himself for what he expected would be a confrontational briefing.
Telling the truth, no matter how unpopular it was in Washington, was an ethic that Mac had instilled at the CIA.
For better or worse, tell it like it is. But whatever you do, don’t blow smoke up my ass. Don’t lie to me.
Those were McGarvey’s words, practically etched in marble over at the Building in Langley. And, for better or worse, Adkins had decided that he would tell the president the truth; the whole, unvarnished truth.
His limo was passed through the West Gate, and after he signed in and his attaché case was scanned, the president’s chief of staff Calvin Beckett was there to bring him over to the Oval Office. The former CEO of IBM seemed tense.
“He’s going to ask why you didn’t hand this to Hamel — whatever it is — instead of bringing it directly here.”
“It’s a little delicate,” Adkins said. “I didn’t want anything lost in the translation.”
Beckett smiled nervously. “You want to take the heat yourself,” he said. “Admirable, but your timing stinks. The man’s in a bad mood. He just got off the phone with Crown Prince Abdullah. The Saudis are cutting production by three percent. Oil prices are sagging, and OPEC is raising hell.”
“Four bucks a gallon for regular in L.A., and prices are sagging?”
“The United States should get in line with the rest of the world, where gas prices have always been four or five dollars a gallon,” Beckett said. “You know how it is. We’re one year out from Senate elections, and this time it’s going to be tough to hold the majority.”
“Yeah,” Adkins replied, he did know how the game was played. The Democrats were going to love this latest move by the Saudis. “He’s going to like what I’m going to tell him even less.”
“I was afraid of that.”
President Lawrence Haynes, his jacket off, his tie loose, and his shirtsleeves rolled up, stood looking out the thick Lexan windows at the Rose Garden in full bloom when Beckett rapped on the door frame. He was alone in the Oval Office, and it seemed to Adkins that he was a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and even though he could have been a lineman for the Green Bay Packers, the burden seemed too heavy.
“Mr. President, Dick is here.”
Haynes turned, and smiled the famous Haynes smile that had won him every office he’d ever campaigned for. “Good morning, Dick. I’m a little surprised to see you here this morning.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I felt that the issue was too important and the timing too tight to pass it through Don Hamel’s shop,” Adkins said. “And too delicate.”
“I see,” Haynes said. He motioned for Beckett to close the door, then called his secretary to ask Dennis Berndt, his national security adviser, to join them. “Coffee?” he asked Adkins.
“No, sir. My initial brief won’t take long, but I’ve brought over the book, which gives more details. It’s al-Quaida again.”
The president’s expression immediately darkened. “Christ,” he said softly. “Is there anything new in the search for bin Laden?”
“Nothing yet, sir,” Adkins said. “But we’ve committed considerable resources to the job.” He laid his attaché case on the coffee table, took the leatherette-bound briefing book out, and handed it across the desk to Haynes.
“What is it this time?” Beckett asked.
“They’re calling it Allah’s Scorpion—” Adkins said as Dennis Berndt walked in.
“Who are the they?” Berndt asked. He was a rumpled, tweedy man with a kind face. For the last year he had been trying to get back to academia to teach history, but the president wouldn’t let him go.
“Al-Quaida,” Adkins said. He handed a second briefing book to the national security adviser.
Like the president, Berndt’s mood instantly darkened. “Has Don Hamel seen this yet?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He was just getting to that,” Beckett said.
None of them had taken a seat, nor did the president motion for them to do so. “You have my attention,” Haynes said. “Give me the highlights.”
“Al-Quaida has planned another big attack. This time by sea again, what they called Allah’s Scorpion.”
“Called?” Berndt asked. “As in past tense?”
Adkins nodded. “For the moment. But we’re confident it’s not over. They’ll try again, in part because the kingpin of the attack we stopped managed to get away.”
The morning was nice: clear blue sky, very little haze, but the sunlight didn’t seem able to penetrate into the Oval Office.
“Continue,” Haynes prompted.