Running the Maze (33 page)

Lieutenant Farooq was recovering from the shock of the napalm attack, and leaning against his Humvee, smoking a cigarette, while his superiors processed his new information. He looked around to satisfy himself that everyone was in position and the road was blocked. Nobody would leave or enter the area at his end until they could assess what was going on. The fires were out in the valley, but smoke still rose like thick mist from the earth.

He heard a high-pitched whine in the heavens, no louder than wind whistling through trees, and for the second time that morning, his world erupted.

The B-52 bombs hammered down just far enough away to give Farooq a chance to actually see the explosions blossom in towering spouts of earth and dirt before the sound reached his ears and the concussions slammed him. He staggered and fell, and his men again dove for protection. The vehicles rocked on their suspensions and the 153 bombs strolled along, punching the ground and gouging out craters in ragged, side-by-side lines that stretched more than a mile. A dust cloud rose like a curtain and drifted toward the soldiers. Farooq’s ears were ringing, his jaw was sore from gritting his teeth, and he pulled a scarf across his nose and mouth so he could breathe.

He had never experienced anything like this. What was it? He had never even seen the planes that dropped the bombs, and looking up now, he still could not find them. Rising to a knee, he pulled his binoculars to his eyes and was finally able to spy the flight of three bombers disappearing on a steady northward course. Turning back to the damage, the young officer realized the target had once again been the valley, which was now twisted and pulverized. After being scoured by napalm and crunched by bombs, it was a no-man’s-land. The bridge was still untouched, but he doubted that would be the case very long. He reached again for his radio to alert his superiors, knowing that they still would not believe that the Americans were actually attacking in Pakistan with a full military strike, not with unmanned drones or a team of special operations soldiers, but in force, with the heavy, frontline weapons that had been in use since the Cold War. If they didn’t believe him, he would invite them to come and see for themselves, for he knew this party was just starting.

Even as the shaky lieutenant was updating his report, he heard the throaty sound of a multiengine airplane approaching and saw an AC-130 coming up the valley, low and slow and ominous. “Now a Spectre gunship is coming in,” he yelled. “It’s going after the bridge.”

The lumbering plane climbed for some altitude and banked to the right as the sensors precisely computed the target and the side-firing gunners opened up, raining 40 mm and booming 105 mm cannon fire. As the aircraft flew past the bridge, left to right, the shells started at one end and walked all the way across, tearing up the surface and destroying almost every vehicle and piece of equipment on it. It made three passes before departing, leaving the surface in smoking ruin.

Farooq had fallen speechless. The voice on the radio was calling for him to answer, but words failed him. The destruction he had witnessed in the past few minutes was beyond imagination. He heard someone yelling, “Lieutenant! Lieutenant!” in his face and felt someone shaking him hard, but Farooq was too dazed to answer until his platoon sergeant finally slapped him and poured water onto his face.

“Helicopters, sir,” the sergeant shouted. “I hear helicopters.”

THE OVAL OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

S
ECRETARY OF
S
TATE
M
ARK
Grayson was the youngest son of a judge in Oregon, and both of his brothers were lawyers. It had been pounded into his head during family dinners for as long as he could remember that there are two sides to every story, even when pictures and witnesses and evidence pointed to a slam-dunk conviction of an accused person. Presumed innocence was the foundation of the American system of justice. Now he was seated on a sofa across from the president of the United States, having to accuse one of his own trusted advisers of treason, based on flimsy, circumstantial evidence gathered by the national intelligence community. They had been wrong before.

The president had come up from the Situation Room, where he had been monitoring the attack in Pakistan, because Secretary Grayson had said he had a matter that needed his urgent and immediate attention. The president listened to Grayson and to Andy Moore of the CIA with an expression of disbelief.

“Let me be certain that I understand you, Mark,” he said. “A senior diplomat, the head of the Bureau of American-Islamic Affairs, a man who had cleared the most stringent background checks, actually has been working with a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying the United States? Is that even possible?”

Grayson thought he saw the president’s eternal air of absolute confidence deflating. “I’m afraid so, sir. The intel community has been onto him for a couple of days. There’s no doubt in my mind that Bill Curtis has for some time been aiding the New Muslim Order and its leader, Commander Kahn. Unbelievable and unproven, but an apparent fact.”

The president slid his half-glasses down his long nose and read the one-page report again. He asked the CIA briefer, “You’re sure about this one, Andy?”

“Yes, sir. We had hacked the e-mails of Mohammed Javid Bhatti, a Pakistani at the UN, who is his main contact. Bhatti received an encoded message a few hours ago from Pakistan, and we back-tracked it to the security chief of the New Muslim Order, a man named Ayman al-Masri. Bhatti passed it on, word for word, to Curtis.”

“What did the message say?”

“We’re still breaking it down, sir, but one of our specialists in Pakistan has been questioning that prisoner picked up during the raid on the bridge, the guy who built it, and he confirms the bridge was to be a haven for Commander Kahn. He repeatedly coughed up Bill Curtis’s name as an old friend. If the bridge was being built for the New Muslim Order, and the e-mail is directly from the NMO, then Mr. Curtis has some explaining to do.”

“You bet he does.” The president laid the report on a small table, took off his glasses, folded them and put them in his shirt pocket, then looked at his watch. Almost midnight. “I remember once a long time ago when I actually wanted this job, even went out and campaigned for it. I don’t know if I would do it again. Your recommendation on the Curtis situation, Mr. Secretary?”

“We should take him into custody immediately and quietly,” said Grayson. “Do it under Homeland Security provisions and declare him an enemy combatant, so the case will be under a military tribunal. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the burden will be on Curtis to earn our trust. At present, although he is an American citizen, he cannot have an open trial in a public courtroom.”

The president looked steadily at both Grayson and the CIA man, Moore. “Well, Mark, it looks like you’ve got to take on the Pakistani complaints after all. Our guys are kicking butt over there on that bridge. It is hard to imagine having a mole this high in the government. Good job digging this guy out. Go get Curtis, and find him a cot in Guantánamo.”

“Yes, sir.” Grayson sat back, glad that his part of this meeting was done.

The White House chief of staff picked up the ball. “One more thing, sir. We have to consider that Curtis may be orchestrating some kind of high profile strike against the Mars mission. The Pentagon, Homeland Security, and NASA are already on it.”

The president closed his eyes and pushed his head back against his tall chair, stunned. “How long do we have before the
America
launch?”

“About seventy hours, sir. No need to scrub it until we find out more. There are always threats before a mission, and this one is from a man who is already known to be mentally unstable. We will stay on it. Meanwhile, security is being increased at the Cape. If there is any confirmation, we will stop the mission. Best for now to keep this information under wraps, and just stay alert.”

30

THE BRIDGE

H
AD
M
OHAMMAD AL
-A
TTAS BEEN
in his control room to steer the battle, the American aircraft would never have gotten close. Part of his design was to funnel such attacks into killing corridors protected by his automated shield of missiles, fast-firing cannon, clouds of masking electronics, jamming, directed electromagnetic pulses, and pinpoint fire control. Effective aerial attacks would have been almost impossible, and extremely heavy losses to the attackers would have been certain. However, there was no genius in the control chair to orchestrate the elaborate automated defense systems, nor were there troops around to maintain the computers and service the weapons. With much of the interior badly damaged, the bridge now stood empty and vulnerable. It had been on the edge of being fully operational, but now it had already ceased being a threat. Instead of being an impenetrable anchor for an imagined chain of virtual fortresses, it had reverted to a useless pile of rocks.

Lima Company (Reinforced), out of the 3rd Battalion, 7th Regiment, 1st Division of the United States Marine Corps, landed on the long, wide level bridge in a carefully timed series of deliveries by a covey of tilt-rotor Ospreys. AH-1Z Viper helicopter gunships flew figure-eight patterns to provide low overhead cover, and fighters orbited at ten thousand feet. Not a shot had to be fired as the squads charged out of the Ospreys and established a perimeter defense.

The only people around were a halted small military convoy of trucks and Humvees some three klicks away on the eastern approach road, and a pair of Vipers hovered at each end of it.

Company commander Captain Richard Mendoza was able to report back to Kandahar that the bridge was secure within five minutes of the first boot hitting the ground.

“Lieutenant Connelly, get the engineers and ordnance teams down into those tunnels. I want to drop this span and be out of here as soon as possible,” Mendoza ordered.

“Aye, aye, Skipper,” Connelly said, then passed the orders to the waiting sergeants. Men immediately began to disappear underground.

“Ever see such a chunk of chopped-up real estate, Captain?” asked Gunnery Sergeant Hale Dinsmore, looking out over the destroyed valley below them.

“I have not, Gunnery Sergeant, and we are going to make this bridge look just as attractive. What are the Vipers saying about that convoy?”

“Pakistan army, sir. Just sittin’ there. The Snakes are all over ’em.”

“If they move, light ’em up.”

“Yes, sir.”

*   *   *

L
IEUTENANT
F
AROOQ HAD NO
intention of moving, and in fact had ordered his men to stack their weapons in the beds of the trucks and leave the Humvee machine-gun positions empty. The radio link back to headquarters, he decided, had been damaged by the B-52 strike, which meant that he could make on-the-spot commands. His sergeant agreed the radio was inoperative and turned it off. Farooq then had his platoon brew tea and make themselves comfortable along the road for a while, walking around in the open, presenting no threat that could ignite a fight. At the pace the Americans were moving on this violent morning, their operation would not take much longer.

Helping make his choices easier were the two Viper attack helicopters that hung noisily a hundred feet above the roadbed, hemming the vehicles into place as carefully as dogs herd sheep. The stubby wings of the narrow helos held pods of 70 mm rockets, while 20 mm Gatlings were mounted beneath the noses. After what he had already witnessed, Farooq understood that on this day, it would not be a smart thing to get in the way of the Americans.

His sergeant brought him a canteen cup of hot tea, and the lieutenant blew on the liquid a few times before taking a sip, trying with all his might to maintain a sense of dignity. The pilot of one of those Vipers was staring at him through tinted goggles. Farooq smoothly raised his tin cup in a silent salute. The pilot nodded ever so slightly.

We understand each other,
the lieutenant concluded, and he climbed atop his Humvee to watch the show. He felt almost privileged to be an observer at this demonstration of unlimited firepower.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

T
HE ARREST
OF
U
NDERSECRETARY
William Curtis was assigned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with Special Agent David Hunt in charge, and his orders were to carry out the apprehension with utmost care. To ensure radio silence and avoid tipping off the media, the D.C. Metropolitan Police were not alerted, nor were any Virginia law enforcement authorities. The Secret Service detail guarding the vice president’s residence on Observatory Circle was incorporated into the plan, since the FBI would be hitting the nearby BAIA office. As soon as the arrest was accomplished, the FBI was to turn Curtis over to the CIA for some serious questioning.

Hunt put two-agent teams to each corner of the BAIA property, then went up to the front door himself. He rang the bell, and a bewildered security guard opened up, his face dropping when Hunt flashed his creds and two more agents walked past with their guns drawn.

“Is Undersecretary Curtis here?” asked Hunt.

“No, sir,” said the guard, a bald giant who worked for a private security company contracted to provide overnight protection for a number of government buildings. “The place is empty, except for me and the two housekeepers who are asleep upstairs. Want me to call them?”