A century ago, he reflected. A completely different lifetime, because in those days he’d had legitimacy, a pride in what he was doing. There had been more schooling, more promotions, new ships, new mates, new adventures.
And throughout it all, almost from the beginning had been Jillian; dear, sweet, pixie-faced Jillian whom he had loved with every fiber of his being.
He closed his eyes, a frown crossing his features. There had been two incidents during Perisher before he’d been given command of his own sub, in which the old man had taken him aside for a word in private.
Jillian had been admitted to the base hospital twice in three months; the first with cracked ribs and a lot of bruising on her arms and chest, and the second with a fractured left arm and three teeth knocked out. In both incidents she’d told the emergency room doctors that she was clumsy and had fallen down the cellar stairs.
But it wasn’t true, and although no one had believed her stories, nothing could be done. The old man had counseled Graham on anger management during times of extreme stress.
“You’ll need your wits about you if you should suddenly find yourself in a dicey situation a dozen miles off some Russian peninsula in the Barents Sea. Can’t be losing your head. Your men will be watching your every move.”
The thing was, he could no longer remember the incidents in any great detail, nor could he bring up an image of Jillian’s face in his mind. It frightened him.
But what was permanently etched in his brain was the fact that the same man who had counseled him on anger management had not sent the recall message so that Graham could get back from sea in time to be at Jillian’s side when she died.
Afterwards he’d demanded that the staff judge advocate’s office investigate. But his request had been denied. Admiral Woodrow S. B. Holmes had acted well within the responsibilities of his office by not recalling a nuclear submarine on patrol for the sake of a personal problem, no matter how high-ranking the officer was, nor how serious the problem was. The needs of the Royal Navy had to come first.
In the heart of the city’s business and banking district the Mercedes turned onto M. R. Kayani Road and two blocks later entered a secured underground parking garage that served the forty-eight-story M. A. Jinnah Commercial Centre.
Graham had only been here twice before, and he thought that it was a great irony that bin Laden had been hiding out in Pakistan’s largest city all along, when the entire world, especially the American CIA, believed he was somewhere in the mountains on the border with Afghanistan.
Five levels down the driver pulled up at an elevator, but he didn’t get out to open the car door for Graham. “You may go directly up. He is expecting you.”
“Will you wait for me?” Graham asked. The driver was looking at him in the rearview mirror.
“That will be up to him.”
“Very well,” Graham said. He let himself out of the car, got his bag, and walked across to the elevator, which automatically started up. A closed-circuit camera mounted near the ceiling was trained on him. Security in this building was very tight because of all the wealthy business tenants. No one who didn’t belong here got in or out. Ever.
But an even more delicious irony was that a small international investments company on the tenth floor that handled money transactions for the Afghanistan heroin trade was, in fact, a front for a CIA special mission station. Only a very few people in Pakistan’s secret intelligence service knew about it, or its purpose, which was to find and eliminate Afghanistan’s drug overlords as well as the handlers along the pipeline to the United States.
The elevator came to a halt on the twenty-fifth floor and Graham stepped out into a plushly carpeted entry hall, across which was a single door. An old man in Western dress was there.
“Good evening, Captain Graham,” the old man said. He was one of bin Laden’s inner circle, though Graham had never been told his name.
“Will I be staying here tonight, or have hotel arrangements been made for me?”
“You will remain here, with us, for the time being,” the old man said. He was frail and his voice was pleasantly soft, but there was no warmth in his eyes or his manner. “Come with me.”
Graham followed the old man into the suite of offices and living spaces, down a long corridor to a small room in approximately the center of the building. Furnished only with an Oriental rug and a small television set on a tiny round table, the space was lit by a single small-wattage bulb that hung from the ceiling. There were no woven hangings, pictures, or any other adornments on the walls, nor were there windows. This was the inner sanctum, where bin Laden prayed five times per day, where he watched CNN, once in the morning and once each evening, and where he held the most secret of his meetings.
“Wait here,” the old man said, and he withdrew.
Graham dropped his garment bag in the corner, slipped off his shoes, and sat cross-legged on the edge of the rug.
Both times he’d been called to this place he’d met with bin Laden in this room, but never before had he stayed in the building for more than an hour. All of his other planning sessions with the man had been conducted via encrypted e-mail or encrypted satellite phone or, once in person, at the training camp in the Syrian Desert.
And at each meeting bin Laden had greeted him like an old friend, a long-lost brother. Graham suspected that this time it would be different. The mission had failed and he knew that he would be blamed, though he strongly suspected that the leak had come from someone here in Pakistan, or more likely someone from the Syrian training camp.
There was a twenty-five-million-dollar bounty on bin Laden’s head, but no one who knew the man’s real location would ever reveal it. He would not live to collect the money, let alone spend it. But feeding the American authorities information about al-Quaida missions was becoming a high-stakes cottage industry. In practical terms it meant that only a very select few men were allowed to know the whole picture of any mission.
Graham decided that if nothing else happened he would find the traitor and personally slit his throat.
A clean-shaven bin Laden, dressed in khaki slacks and a white long-sleeved shirt, entered the room. Graham started to get to his feet, but bin Laden waved him back. “It is good that you have returned unharmed. You may consider yourself lucky.”
“Who was he?”
Bin Laden sat down on the rug and faced Graham. “His name is Kirk McGarvey.”
Graham allowed a look of wonder to cross his face. “He was the director of the CIA.”
“Yes, but more than that he is an assassin.”
“The Americans no longer do that sort of thing ….”
“You’re a submarine commander, not an intelligence officer, so your error is understandable,” bin Laden said mildly. “And now you are the second man to come to me a failure against McGarvey.”
“Where is the other?”
“He tried again and died,” bin Laden said.
“I’m not so easy to kill,” Graham said, irritated.
“I sincerely hope not. But McGarvey is not your problem. You will remain here until he is eliminated.”
Graham’s anger spiked. He sat forward. “I want him,” he said sharply.
Bin Laden was unmoved. “If he sees you again he will kill you,” he said. “I don’t want that to happen. I have another use for you.”
“What?”
“In due time, my friend. Do not let your anger and impatience get the better of you. Not if you wish to continue your jihad against the godless men who abused your trust so harshly.”
“You said it was a mission more suited to my training,” Graham said. “Can you at least tell me if it involves a submarine?”