Authors: David Hagberg

Soldier of God (22 page)

BOOK: Soldier of God

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A man said something, and Prince Salman replied. “
Shukran
.”

“The first was one of the security people, I think,” Ziegler said.

“He welcomed the prince home, and Salman thanked him,” Hoenecker translated.

Salman entered his apartment, and Ziegler made sure that the computer stayed with him. Salman sighed deeply, as any man might after returning home from a tiring trip. He went into the bathroom where he relieved himself, then washed his hands before going across to his office, which occupied a very large room overlooking the lake toward the towns of Weggis and Brunnen on the far shore.

There were no sounds for a long time, perhaps three minutes. Liese imagined that the prince was standing in front of the windows looking out across the lake. A dozen small sailboats were in the middle of a club race, and their colorful spinnakers looked like exotic birds skimming the surface of the water.

Someone knocked once at the corridor door, and the computer picked up the steps of one of the guards, who set two items down, perhaps on a stand or possibly a low table. It was the luggage. The man called out to the prince.

“Shall I unpack for you, sir?” Hoenecker translated.

“La’,”
the prince replied. No.

The guard left. A half minute later the computer picked up the first of a series of soft tones, and immediately a box dropped down on a monitor showing that the prince was using a cell phone to make a call. Their sensors were picking it off the Lucerne-west-seven tower a few kilometers north.

The first three digits were 966, the country code for Saudia Arabia; the second two were 01, the area code for Riyadh; and the final seven were the phone number itself. As the call went through and the connection was made, the computer searched its databases for an identification, but came up blank.

After two rings a man answered.
“Ahlan!”
Hello.

“Good afternoon, cousin, I trust Allah that you are well.” Hoenecker translated Salman’s words.

“I am very well, praise God. And thou art well?”

“I’m back in Lucerne, but I will be in Monaco on Friday.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know yet,” Salman said. “It will depend on the events of the coming week. Afterward I might have to go to Washington.”

The prince’s cousin in Riyadh was silent for a moment, and Liese was worried that somehow he had detected that the call was being monitored. “We live again in a dangerous period.”

“’Aywa,”
Salman replied. Yes.

Again there was a longish silence. When Salman’s cousin spoke, he sounded sad, as if he was resigned to the likelihood that something bad was going to happen and there was nothing he could do about it. “Go with God.”

“You as well.”

The connection was broken, and Gertner clapped his hands in delight. “That’s it then.”

Liese was suddenly angry. “Their conversation proved nothing.”

“For once I agree with you,
Liebchen.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“The prince is merely half of the equation. Your Mr. McGarvey is the other half.” He looked to the other officers to make sure they got his point. “Would anyone care to hazard a guess where Mr. McGarvey will be three days from now?”

“You’re crazy,” Liese said, her stomach hollow now with fear. “Kirk McGarvey is anything but a traitor.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

McGarvey got home at seven on the dot, because he’d promised Katy he’d be home on time, despite the work left to be done. The CIA was on a 24/7 emergency footing now until the latest bin Laden threat was dealt with. Everyone was putting in long hours. After tonight that would include the DCI.

All the way in from Langley, McGarvey was lost in his thoughts in the backseat of the armored limousine. Even though he was distracted, he was aware that traffic on the Beltway was sparse compared to what it normally was at this hour on a weekday. The president would be on television at eight, and the uncertain nation was at home waiting by their TV sets, as they had been after the 9/11 attacks and every other disaster.

Otto’s theory that Khalil and the Saudi multimillionaire deal maker Prince Abdul Salman were the same man would answer a number of questions about how the Saudis funneled money into organizations such as al-Quaida, and why they were doing it when bin Laden was targeting his own country as well as the U.S. It was just possible that the Salman branch of the royal family wanted to take the crown. The prince was using al-Quaida and bin Laden’s name to act as a kingmaker.

All afternoon McGarvey had been trying to pick the idea apart; find its inconsistencies, the impossibilities; find out that when the prince was attending some public function, Khalil could be positively placed elsewhere. So far, Otto’s search had produced nothing but the opposite, though proving that the two men were never seen at the same time did not prove they were the same person.

Security at McGarvey’s house was obvious but not blatant. A van with silvered windows was parked at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, a second van was parked at the curb across the street from the house, and as the limo approached the driveway Julien checked with the detail inside to make sure it was safe to come in.

“Is everything okay?” McGarvey asked.

“Yes, it is, Mr. Director,” Julien said, pulling into the driveway. He stopped. “Just one moment, sir.” He took the MAC-10 submachine gun from its bracket in front of the center console and got out of the limo. He was speaking to someone via radio as he did a three-sixty, looking for something or someone who shouldn’t be there. But the neighborhood could have been abandoned.

He came back and opened the door, and McGarvey got out.

“Will you be needing me tonight?” Julien asked.

“Not unless something comes up,” McGarvey told him. “Wish your wife happy birthday from me.”

Julien looked startled for just a moment, but then he grinned. “Your secretary is a sharp lady.”

“That she is,” McGarvey said. “See you in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.”

McGarvey let himself into the house, resetting the code on the security keypad in the front hall. One of his stern rules was that any security detail inside was to be as unobtrusive as possible. They were CIA Office of Security experts, not upstairs maids or butlers.

There were no sounds.

For just an instant McGarvey thought about reaching for his pistol. He’d drawn a 9mm version of the Walther PPK from the armory to replace the one that had gone down with the
Spirit
. It was comfortable in the quick-draw holster beneath his jacket at the small of his back.

But then one of the security officers appeared at the head of the stairs. “Everything okay, then, Mr. McGarvey?” he asked. He looked like a Marine—young, square jaw, short hair, a big Heckler & Koch SOCOM pistol in a shoulder holster.

“Just fine. Where’s my wife?”

“Downstairs, sir.”

“Here,” Kathleen said, from McGarvey’s right. She was in the study at the front windows, an odd expression on her face. She’d evidently seen Julien get out of the limo and do a three-sixty with his weapon before letting Mac get out.

The guard melted away, and McGarvey went to Katy and took her in his arms. “Get any sleep?”

“Couple of hours,” she said. She was shivering, but it wasn’t from cold. “Should you be at work?”

“Yes, but my people are working on the problem. We’ve got a shot at stopping them.”

She pulled away and searched his eyes to make sure he was telling the truth. She was just like the rest of the country, looking to someone in charge to tell her that everything would be okay. “Honest Injun?”

McGarvey smiled at her. “Been thinking about Otto?”

“I asked Louise and him to come for dinner tonight. She’s working, but he’ll try. Do you mind terribly?”

McGarvey knew that Katy wanted to gather her family around her, as
any mother would when her world was being threatened. “No,” he said. “It’s probably a good idea anyway, because it’s going to get hectic after the president’s speech tonight.”

“Do you know what he’s going to say?”

McGarvey had a fair idea what Haynes was going to tell the nation, but he wasn’t at all sure it would do any good.

“Is he going to tell us not to worry?” Katy asked, breathlessly. “We won’t have to endure another 9/11?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.”

Her lips compressed.

“He’s going to say that everything possible is being done. This time bin Laden and his people are not going to get away. No matter what it takes, we will get them.”

“That means you,” Katy said.

McGarvey nodded. The president was going to say a lot more than that. He was going to tell the American people that a lot of their civil liberties would have to be curtailed until all the bad guys were destroyed. What he wouldn’t tell them was how many of those rights, such as Miranda, speedy trials, writs of habeas corpus, search and seizure, wiretapping, mail intercepts, or computer monitoring without court orders, would be waived. Nor would he be able to say how long the Constitution would be all but suspended.

Desperate measures for desperate times.

And who was to say that if some of those measures had been put in place before 9/11 the attacks might have been prevented?

The CIA, under his watch, had been asleep at the switch. In no small measure 9/11 had been as much McGarvey’s fault as anyone’s.

Katy smiled. “Bourbon and water, one rock, will be on the kitchen counter as soon as you grab a quick shower.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Liese straightened up from where she’d been leaning against the porch rail at the side of the veranda as Gertner came from around back. She’d come out to get some air, away from the stifling man-smells. “Has the prince made another telephone call?”

“No. It would appear that he is settling in for a day with his wife and kiddies,” Gertner said. “Domestic bliss and all of that.”

“There’s something to be said for that,” Liese replied. Her parents were divorced when she was a child. She went to live with her father, who was a drunk and a womanizer, but he was a respected barrister so he was very busy and spent little time at home. Liese had been forced to endure a miserable, lonely childhood. Mac had a wife and child, Gertner had his family, and even the prince was married. “You want to speak to me?”

“We have half of the equation. Now we need the other half.”

Liese looked across the lake. All the little sailboats were heading back to their docks a few kilometers away at the yacht club in Horw. “He’s in Washington, a national hero. Waiting there like everyone for the president’s speech.”

“But not us. We have other work to do, and we have less than seventy-two hours in which to prepare.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t think that I have to spell it out for you like a schoolmaster for his student. The prince is leaving for Monaco in three days, where he will remain for some already predetermined time, after which he may have to go to Washington.”

“Go ahead and spell it out for me, sir.”

Gertner ignored her sarcastic tone. “The prince came back to make certain that his family was secure, and to get himself noticed. Out in the open. Nice and tidy. He’ll do the same in Monaco. Play his role as international playboy in plain view of the entire world. At some point, while
he is there gambling and womanizing, al-Quaida will make its strike, after which his presence will be required in Washington to once again make certain that nothing stands in the way of U.S.-Saudi relations.”

“The same as he did in September 2001,” Liese said. She’d read the prince’s file that Gertner had sent down.

“September fifteenth. He was in Paris on the eleventh. And so was Mr. McGarvey.”

Liese looked out across the lake again. There were only a few gailycolored spinnakers up now; the rest had been doused. The crews would have a party tonight. Prizes would be handed out. Some of them would get too drunk to drive, but they would be important men, and the traffic cops would look the other way. It was so damned unfair. The entire bloody world was so damned unfair. She turned back. “What do you want me to do, Captain?”

The expression on Gertner’s face softened for just a second. Almost, Liese thought, as if he had a soul. “I think you know,
Liebchen
. I’ll give your Mr. McGarvey twenty-four hours to telephone you about the prince. After that, if he hasn’t called, you will place another telephone call to him. At his home. We need to know when he will be coming to Monaco.”

“Why should I do that?” She looked up. “Is that an order?” she asked defiantly.

“If you wish it to be,” Gertner said. “But you will call him because you
must
. Heavens, you are in love with the man.”

BOOK: Soldier of God

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