The President viewed her for a long time before responding. "Katherine, we have not provoked anyone." His eyes fell to the table, and his voice dropped an octave. "I believe with my heart and soul that these terrorists are looking for an excuse to attack us."
Several nods and murmurs rose from around the table.
"I don't disagree," Thomason said. "But it seems to me we have another option."
"Which is?" Whitaker snapped.
"Their ultimatum doesn't expire for two more days. Why not carry out reconnaissance on the base for the next twenty-four hours. We could stop anyone from coming or going. And in the meantime, we would have more time to establish whether this indeed is The Brotherhood's base. And to ensure they are still there. By tomorrow, we would be better prepared to mount the assault."
Haldane found himself nodding along with some of the others.
"Doubtful we'll know any more in twenty-four hours than we do right now," Whitaker grunted and pounded the table once with his fist "What we might end up doing is forfeiting our only advantage---the element of surprise."
General Fischer smiled benignly at Thomason. "Got to agree with Mr. Whitaker there. Wait till tomorrow, and we might find we're closing the barn door once the horses have already left."
"If they haven't already left now," Thomason said quiedy.
The table stilled, as if collectively realizing there was no more point in debating the issue. Only one person could make the decision.
Haldane, along with everyone else at the table, turned his eyes to the President.
CHAPTER 33
HARGEYSA SOMALIA
Hazzir Kabaal had not checked the Internet since before dinner. Up until then he had checked every five minutes, anticipating some kind of response from the Americans to The Brotherhood's latest ultimatum. But during evening prayers. it came to him in the visceral form of a premonition that he was not going to hear an answer, at least not via the TV or Internet.
Turning away from his computer, Kabaal sat at his desk and read from volume six of the mammoth masterpiece
In the Shadow of the Koran
, written by Sayyid Qutb. Qutb was the father of the modern Islamist movement. His written words, as much as those spoken by Sheikh Hassan, had moved Hazzir Kabaal toward his current course of action. Lately Kabaal found less solace than before in Qutb's text One quote from the second chapter of the Koran troubled him in particular. It read: "Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. For God loveth not transgressors." If they had not yet transgressed the limits, Kabaal thought glumly, then surely Aziz's supervirus would constitute such a transgression.
After knocking at his open door, the white-coated Dr. Anwar Aziz walked in followed by Abdul Sabri in military fatigues. In addition to his handgun, he now carried a rifle slung over his shoulder.
Kabaal slipped the Qutb book into his desk and nodded to the two men. "Anwar, Abdul, welcome."
They walked up to his desk, but neither sat in the chairs in front. With eyes darting about, Aziz appeared more skittish than usual. Sabri's face was as inexpressive as ever, though he seemed somehow frostier in disposition.
"Your new virus, Dr. Aziz," Kabaal said to the scientist, "it is ready for transport?"
Aziz glanced nervously at Sabri before answering. "I believe so. We have inoculated eggs and several primate blood samples in which to carry it. Of course, I would have preferred more time and to have human serum samples but .. " His voice trailed off.
"They're here, Hazzir," Sabri said almost casually as he unshouldered his rifle and rested it against Kabaal's antique oak desk.
Kabaal squinted at Sabri. "Who is where?"
"The Americans are in Hargeysa." Sabri shrugged. "CIA, I imagine."
Kabaal sat up straighter. "How do you know this?"
"Two strangers were asking questions of the men in the bars in town," Sabri said. "They were trading drinks for information about us and our base. Who else would they be?"
Kabaal nodded. "And you think they know where we are?"
Sabri frowned as if the question struck him as idiotic. "Of course, they know."
Rather than alarm, the news brought a sense of calm to Kabaal like a feared prophecy whose realization could not match the terror of its anticipation. "But there were only two of them in Hargeysa?" Kabaal asked.
Sabri shook his head and rolled his eyes contemptuously. "It starts with two spies, and ends with the entire might of the American army falling upon us."
Kabaal folded his arms across his chest. "What are you proposing we do, Major?"
"I am not
proposing
anything, Hazzir," he said unemotionally, but his pale blue eyes were ice. "I am telling you that we are leaving. Now."
"Going where?"
"First, out of Somalia," Sabri said with a disinterested shrug. "Then to America."
"America?" Kabaal grimaced. "You would really go?"
Sabri sighed. "How else will we get Dr. Aziz's virus there?"
"So we are not waiting for our ultimatum to expire?"
Sabri stared at Kabaal coolly. "Do you believe for one moment that they would come to Hargeysa looking for us if they had any intention of complying with our demands?"
"No." Kabaal shook his head slightly and, for no reason, shuffled pieces of paper on his desk. "But I do believe in the honor of a man's word."
Sabri's thick lips broke into a spiteful smile. "With the first infected carrier you dispatched, I think you conceded some of your precious honor."
Kabaal looked up at Sabri, wondering how he had so underestimated the man behind those unreadable eyes. He nodded slowly. "Regardless, I am not going with you."
Sabri scowled in response. "What made you think that you were ever invited?"
Anwar Aziz's eyes went wide and he looked frantically over at Sabri. "But, Major ..."
Sabri shot out a hand to silence the scientist, but he never took his eyes off Kabaal.
Kabaal nodded calmly. He smiled at Sabri. "So, Major Abdul Sabri now leads The Brotherhood of One Nation?"
"Not just now," Sabri said evenly. "I have done so for a long time. Your role was to finance us. We do not need your money anymore."
Kabaal grunted a laugh. "And you, as our leader, will personally carry the Jihad to the infidel's soil?"
Sabri picked up his rifle and threw it over his shoulder. "I will do what has to be done."
"Do you even remember what the purpose of all of this was?" Kabaal asked.
Sabri stared back in stony silence.
"Islam!" Kabaal barked. "To preserve and protect our faith. We were going to use the one weapon at our disposal that the West did not have a superior answer for."
"So what has changed?" Sabri asked, beginning to pace the floor like a bored sentry.
"Everything has changed! Kabaal snapped. "Once the West saw what the virus was capable of, they were supposed to abide our request. To leave our lands. To allow us to restore leadership to the Caliphate, so the laws of Shari'ah could again prevail." He exhaled heavily. "It is clear though that the Americans will not withdraw. And if we release Anwar's new supervirus, who knows where it will end? Or if it ever will." He looked down at his desk, his fervor waning. "We--I--always understood people would have to die. But this?" He held up his palms. "The virus was supposed to make the world better for us, not to destroy it."
Sabri stopped pacing and shook his head slowly. "Hazzir Kabaal, you are a fool," he said coolly.
Kabaal swallowed the insult without replying.
"You remind me of those armchair generals I used to work for," Sabri hissed. "Sitting in your extravagant homes and offices. Drunk on too much food and power, and soft from pampering and wealth." He flicked a finger at the desk and the rugs decorating the walls. "From the safety and comfort of your palaces, you send true warriors like me out to fight your battles. And then you expect us to win on your weak-hearted terms. I have news for you,
Abu Lahab,
there is no such thing as a bloodless Jihad."
Kabaal digested Sabri's sermon with little emotion. Curious but not fearful, he asked, "What do you hope to accomplish by killing possibly millions of women and children?"
"You never have understood, have you?" Sabri said with a look that bordered on pity. "We could never achieve our cause by holding America ransom like a bunch of cowardly kidnappers. The only way we will save Islam is to empower the people to rise up and fight."
"And slaughtering leagues of women and children will accomplish that?" Kabaal asked.
Sabri nodded. "Exposing the oppressor's weakness. That is how to inspire an uprising."
Kabaal chuckled softly. "And Major Abdul Sabri will be known as the prophet who inspired the people?"
Sabri's eyes narrowed. "I will be remembered long after you are forgotten," he said in a near whisper.
The two men stared at each other while Anwar Aziz shifted nervously from foot to foot and mopped at his sweaty brow.
Finally, Sabri's face broke into a gentler smile. "But you can serve The Brotherhood for one more important purpose, Hazzir."
"Oh?" Kabaal said. "How is that?"
Sabri patted the rifle across his chest. "M16-2A. It is the U.S. Army's standard assault rifle." He lifted it off his shoulder. "A beautiful piece of machinery actually. Fires 5.56-mm bullets. Again, standard U.S. Army issue."
"So it will look like I died at American hands. Clever." Kabaal nodded. "What will you tell the others?"
"The truth." Sabri shrugged. "That you shrank in the face of battle. That you were prepared to betray us at the moment of need."
Kabaal looked over to Aziz. "Will the men believe that?"
"I ... I ... don't know, Abu ..." the fat microbiologist stuttered in a fit of nervous twitches.
"Don't concern yourself, Hazzir," Sabri said soothingly. "It won't matter for much longer."
"To me or them?" Kabaal asked.
"Either."
Kabaal felt overcome with a vague unsettled emotion that verged on regret. He was not afraid to face divine judgment, but he no longer assumed that Paradise awaited him.
"Stand, Hazzir," Sabri instructed. "And walk away from the desk."
Kabaal rose from the chair and took three steps from his desk to the wall, standing in front of his favorite Turkish rug. He stopped and looked from the terror-struck face of Aziz to the placid face of Sabri. "God is great," Kabaal said.
Sabri pointed the rifle at him.
At the same moment as Kabaal heard three muffled pops, he fell painlessly back against the rug behind him as if a gust of wind had blown him. Sabri's face faded away, replaced by that of his own father as a young man. His father was speaking to him, but the words were muffled as if spoken underwater.
The sound grew quiet. The room darkened.
It looked nothing like Paradise.
CHAPTER 34
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A Northeaster had swept through D.C., bringing with it a record pre-Christmas cold snap. Bundled up in jackets, gloves, and hats, Haldane and Savard ran the two blocks from her office to the Starbucks, partly out of hurry, but mainly to get out of the bitter chill.
They stepped into the coffee shop just after 8:00 A.M. Huddling at a table inside, Duncan McLeod still wore his hat and gloves. "Shite, for the first time in my life, I miss balmy old Scotland in December!" he said as they approached.
Haldane mustered a smile, but he was still preoccupied. The memories of the NSC critical incident meeting of an hour earlier reverberated in his mind, and he couldn't shake the video images of the looming Operation Antiseptic.
Noah and Gwen made space on the table for all their winter gear before pulling up two chairs. As was their recent custom, McLeod had already bought coffees. He handed them the extra-large-sized cups.
Gwen hoisted her cup off the table and held it up. "Who can drink one of these?"
"I wanted to give you the option of soaking your feet in them, if need be." McLeod shrugged. He looked from Savard to Haldane. "So? What's the big news?"
Noah glanced at Gwen, wondering how McLeod knew anything since they were both sworn to secrecy. "What news, Duncan?"
McLeod squinted at Haldane. "The meeting this morning ! When I rang you at home, Anna told me you were called out to some urgent predawn get-together."
Haldane put his coffee cup down. "Listen, Duncan ..." he began awkwardly.
McLeod slammed down his cup. "Oh, no, Haldane! After all this, you're not going to leave me out of the loop now?"
"This comes from on high. National security issues and all that." Gwen held up her palms helplessly. "We have no choice in the matter."