“What?” Kinkaid replied, annoyed by the interruption.
“Remember when I said he might be living in the same places as the old guys did?”
“Same kinds of places?”
“I’m wondering whether he’s gone back to the identical places where the original Sheikh lived.”
Kinkaid stared at Sami. “Could he?”
“I don’t know. I just thought of it. We should do some work to locate them, and get some imagery.”
“Where are they?”
“One is Alamut.”
“What?”
“The only one I know of for sure is Alamut. It’s a mountain fortress that is almost completely inaccessible.”
Kinkaid looked around the room wondering what everyone else was wondering. “Where is it?”
“Western Iran.”
“Iran?”
“Yeah.”
Kinkaid hesitated, not liking this information at all. “You realize the implications if these guys are in Iran?”
“Makes it harder.”
“Uh, yeah. Of all the guys that you don’t want to dick with, those would probably be at the top of the list. They have no sense of humor at all.”
“It’s a long shot. I doubt he’s using Alamut anyway.”
“We’ve got to find out. You know the location?”
“I can get you a picture.”
“You got a latitude and longitude for our satellites to look?”
“I’ll have it to you by this afternoon.”
“Do it.”
The Sheikh was extremely pleased. They had performed better than he had hoped. They had not yet had even one casualty, and had inflicted on the world a mass panic and concern for the future for not only the Middle East but for all Americans worldwide. The Sheikh sat in his dark, stone room inside the fortress. He was surrounded by those who had grown up yielding their will to his. He operated with a group of men around him, his staff, although he didn’t call it that. There were six or seven near his age — forty-five — whom he thought had enough wisdom to manage the men underneath them.
He worked closely with his inner circle, on a daily basis. They sat around him now. No one spoke. They were reveling in the glory of their success, and their newfound world fame. The Sheikh finally broke the silence. “Allah has been very good to us. We have succeeded in everything we have tried.” The group nodded, agreeing with his sentiments. “But the war has just now begun. The United States has declared war against us. That is fair and just, as we have already declared a Jihad against them. By doing this, they have given us even greater recognition and power than we ever could have hoped for. No country has ever done this to one man before, this declaration of war that the West does. They have recognized me as their threat, large enough for their entire government to declare war against me. A larger threat, one must assume, than Korea, and Vietnam, and Iraq. This is a great honor and a great sign that they are afraid.
“But they do not understand us. They do not know who we are, or what it is that we hope to achieve. They do not understand that we have already achieved much of what we hoped to achieve. From this point, it can only get better. We must execute the rest of our plan to draw the entire region of Palestine into the bath of fire that we will create to eradicate the Jews, America’s puppets. The PLO has gone soft, all for the pitiful Gaza Strip and part of the West Bank. Although they are our brothers, they have failed.
“Now the Americans have, as I told you they would, walked directly into our trap. They have obligated themselves to come into our land. But they don’t know where we are.”
The youngest of the inner circle had been listening closely. His face showed concern. “They will find us. They almost succeeded in killing you at Dar al Ahmar.”
“That was my error. I deviated from my rules to help a member of my extended family. It will not happen again. Our circles are tight. Our intelligence is good. We have those in the right places who tell us the things that we need to know. Our locations have not been discovered. But we must now execute our plan. If I am right, the Americans will attack, and when they do, they will attack our protectors, who also hate us.”
He reached down to the table in front of him and picked up a cup of strong coffee. He drank from it. “Then the bath of fire will truly begin.”
Woods, Wink, and Pritch stood in CVIC and stared at the charts of the Middle East that covered an entire corkboard wall. Other aircrews were poring over the same charts, checking out the latest intelligence now represented by marks for SAM sites, navigation points, outlines, and other points of interest. Woods spoke to Pritch without looking at her. “This would be a lot easier if we knew where we were going.”
“Yes, sir. We’re working it.”
“We who?”
“Your entire intelligence community at your service, sir.”
Woods winced. “The same professionals who didn’t know this guy existed a month ago.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll find him.”
Woods didn’t respond. “Can’t even plan anything. No route.”
“Think of it as a challenge, sir—”
“Quit saying ‘sir’ all the time.”
“Yes, sir. At this point all we can do is become familiar with the area.” She put her hands on her hips as she gazed at the charts. “I think it’s helpful to chart the SAM sites, for example. I’m in the process right now of updating Syria and Lebanon, and particularly the Bekáa Valley.”
Woods’s face showed his surprise. “You think we’re going to the Bekáa Valley?”
“I don’t know,” Pritch replied. “A lot of things seem to happen in the Bekáa.”
“This guy have any ties there we know about?”
“Not directly. But as you recall, Dar al Ahmar is in the southeast part of the Bekáa. They’re trying to figure out all this guy’s ties around the world.” She looked around to see if anyone was listening to their conversation, as if it made some sort of a difference.
She continued. “The FBI is working with the CIA to try to find out where this guy has his money, his contacts, his false documents, any people in place in the United States, anywhere they can find anything. They’re pulling out all the stops. Plus the usual analysis, imagery, you name it. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“I guess that’s good.”
“It’s good unless you’re him. I would bet that we find him, and pretty quickly. Think of how much easier it is to look for someone than to be looked for. It’s a lot easier to shine a flashlight into the dark than to try to be invisible when someone else shines his light.”
“You got that right.” Woods returned his attention to the charts. He studied the Bekáa Valley. “If he’s there, he’ll be under a SAM umbrella on the way in and on the way out.”
“Looks that way.”
“What are his ties to Lebanon? What was he doing in Dar al Ahmar in the first place?”
Big strode quickly into CVIC. He saw Woods and came to where he and Pritch were standing. “Hey,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Just checking out the charts. Trying to break the code on where we’ll be going,” Woods replied.
“Sure,” Big said, studying the charts. “Hell, Pritch, these charts make it look like there are more SAM sites than people. What is up with that?”
“We’re working the problem, sir—”
“Shit, Pritch,” Big said. “We’ve already declared war! You telling me we don’t even have a target? We’re going to look stupid again. For once in their lives the politicians step up to the plate, and Intel can’t get their shit together to find out where the target is?”
“We’re trying, sir.”
Big was getting frustrated. “You buying this preplanning a hundred routes?” he said to Woods.