Joshua`s Hammer (62 page)

The runners were fifteen minutes into the race on U.S. 101, and according to the ESPN commentator they were already beginning to spread out with Deborah Haynes near the lead as expected.

She would be on the center span in another sixty-five to seventy minutes. He would have to send the pilot boat off twelve minutes before then. He had nearly an hour. Twenty minutes to put the bomb in place and make the final settings. Another twenty to get his things, put them aboard the dinghy and make sure that the outboard worked. And the final fifteen minutes or so to fine-tune the timing based on the ESPN blow-by-blow.

Once the pilot boat was off he would take the dinghy around the sound end of the point, which would afford him protection from the blast. In the confusion afterward he would make his escape.

Plenty of time, he told himself, as he hefted the bomb and started down the ladder.

The Met Life Blimp Secret Service agent Hugh Gardner had seen a lot of stuff in his five-year career with the service, but he'd never seen such a mass of humanity spread out over four miles of highway as he was seeing right now. Some of the runners had given up before they had gotten out of the Candlestick Park parking lot, while others, among them the President's daughter, were within a hundred yards or so of the lead.

"Lead One, this is Baker Seven, they're coming up on delta," he spoke into his lapel mike. Delta was the Mission Dolores just beyond where U.S. 101 made its jog to the west.

"Copy, Baker Seven. How's it looking from there?"

"No problems that I can see," Gardner replied. The view from up here was fantastic. He could see the bridge up ahead, the city and the bay to the east, including Alcatraz Island, and the outer stretches of the Golden Gate to the west, the hazy Pacific Ocean stretching off to the horizon.

He sincerely hoped that nothing would go wrong today to spoil the shear beauty of it. His fellow agents razzed him for being so overly sensitive in such a demanding job. But, as he had explained to the guys on his detail last week, the quickest, easiest and cheapest way into a woman's knickers was reading poetry. Sensitivity, gentlemen. Try it, you'll like it.

The Pilot Boat Bahmad unsnapped the life raft's latches and opened the outer cover. He had a little trouble with one of the inner latches, but when it finally popped he prised up the lid to reveal the bomb's control panel. As he huddled inside the cabin there was nothing to be seen except for the Margo's rust-streaked hull rising like a shear cliff, and no one to see what he was doing.

He entered the activation code on the keypad and the numerical display and warning lights came to life. The impression that heat was radiating from the device was even stronger now than it had been up on the Margo's stern, and it was just as foolish. The bomb did not leak. One last time Bahmad was struck with the notion that what he was doing could and should be stopped. Even now. There was no need to go through with this thing. No need for the killing and the suffering. No need for him to become the most hunted and the most reviled man in all of history. No need for revenge. Not his revenge for his parents and not bin Laden's for his Sarah.

He closed his eyes. He could see Beirut as it had been when he was a child. It had been called the Paris of the Mediterranean. He could see beautiful gardens, laughing happy people, family meals. But then he could hear the Israeli jets, feel the earth-shattering pounding of their bombs, smell the burning flesh.

Bahmad opened his eyes, focused on the control pad and entered another series of codes that set the bomb's moment of detonation fifty-five minutes from now. At that instant the bulk of the runners would be on the Golden Gate Bridge. For them there would be no pain, not like the pain his parents had suffered, not the pain that Sarah had endured. For the runners there would be a blinding flash of light and then nothing.

He entered another series of codes that activated the anti-tampering circuits. If anyone tried to stop the bomb it would explode immediately.

Finally his finger poised over the start button. For one moment he questioned his sanity, but then he pushed the button, closed and relatched the inner cover and closed and relatched the outer cover.

The countdown had begun.

Golden Gate Bridge

McGarvey's cell phone rang. The number on the display was Rencke's private office line. He'd been on the computers continuously for four days and nights. But when he had the bit in his teeth nothing could stop him.

"Have you come up with something new?" McGarvey answered.

"It's there, and I know how it got there," Rencke rasped. It sounded as if he was on the verge of cracking up. "From Karachi, disguised as a life raft made in China. Oh, boy, it was right there in front of me all the time. Purple--"

McGarvey gripped the phone. "Where is it, Otto? Specifically!"

"San Francisco. The coast. Came by ship, Karachi, Red Sea, the Med. It was laid up for two months in Tampa. That's what threw me off."

McGarvey was on the center span of the bridge. He spun around and looked out toward Seal Point, but from this angle he could only see the bows of two container ships. There were four or five of them out there. He'd spotted them earlier when he was on the Marin side. "What ship? When did it come in?" he demanded.

"The Margo, Cyprus registry, home office PKS Shipping, Ltd." Paris. Ties to bin Laden, ya know. It all fits. It was right there."

"Okay, calm down, Otto. When did the Margo get here? When?"

"It should be coming in right now. Went through the big ditch where it picked up a helicopter. The Coast Guard spotted her yesterday off Baja California, and I got satellite pictures this morning. It's there, Mac. You're probably looking right at it."

McGarvey pushed his way through the spectators and raced across to the other side of the bridge. "How do you know that the bomb is aboard that ship?"

"It was delivered to the dock in Karachi. We got the delivery man last night. Traced it back to a flight from Peshwar. Chinese life rafts in Peshwar, Pakistan?"

The only ship moving on the bay side was the second Coast Guard cutter. No cargo vessel. At least none near enough so that if the nuclear device were to be lit off it would damage the bridge or kill anyone on it. They would have to deal with radioactive fallout, but that would come later.

"No chance that it could have come in late last night or early this morning?"

"I don't think so, Mac. It's gotta be right there."

"Good work, Otto. We'll find it." McGarvey broke the connection. He was still missing something, goddammit. Bahmad would not have come this far to fail. He radioed Villiard at the FEMA Operations Center as he walked back across the bridge to the ocean side "Villiard," the Secret Service agent came back.

"The bomb is aboard a Cypriot-registered cargo ship. Margo. Find out if its come into port yet, and where it is."

Villiard was enough of a pro not to ask questions right now. "Stand by."

Nothing was changed in the Golden Gate. The cargo ships were still parked just around the point, waiting to come into port. Delayed because of the shipping restriction.

He checked his watch. The first runners would be on the bridge in less than thirty minutes. There wasn't enough time for one of those cargo ships to pull up anchor and get here. Villiard was back and he was excited.

"The Margo showed up about an hour ago. She's anchored in a holding basin at Seal Point."

"I'm on the bridge. There're five ships out there, two that I can see right now. Neither one of them is moving. Anyway they'd never make it here in time to--" McGarvey stopped in mid-sentence as if a spike had been driven into his skull.

"You still there?"

"The bomb's on the Margo," but she's also carrying a helicopter."

"Sonofabitch."

"Scramble the jet and tell the pilot to splash that chopper the moment her rotors start to turn. Do it now while we still have time."

"I'll alert the President's detail."

"Scramble the jet first, Jay." McGarvey pushed through the crowd at the curb and ran out into the middle of the roadway. "I'm right in the middle of the bridge. I want a chopper down here right now to take me out to the Margo."

"I'm on it," Villiard replied tersely, and he was gone.

McGarvey grabbed a passing cop and had him start clearing the road for the helicopter to land.

M/V Margo Bahmad tossed his leather bag into the dinghy, then turned around and looked at the pilot boat not quite certain that he'd heard what he thought he'd heard. The radio was on, tuned to the San Francisco Harbor Control working channel. He jumped aboard and had to step over the bodies in the cabin to get to the radio, his eyes going instinctively to the bomb wedged between the driver's seat and the bulkhead. The radio was silent for the moment. He turned down the squelch.

"Negative, she's off Seal Point. The Coasties, are scrambling a jet."

"Meeks is out there, but I've not been able to raise him," Bahmad stepped back, staggered by what he was hearing. They knew! Somehow they knew.

"/ haven't been able to reach him or Iglesias."

Bahmad looked at his watch. The runners wouldn't be on the bridge for another twenty-five minutes. The bomb was set to go off then. But if the authorities came out here they would discover the dead pilot and his driver. The bomb would go off here, killing a few people instead of thousands. He would have failed again. The thought threatened to send him over the edge.

"Maybe they have radio problems."

As had happened many times before, the solution came to Bahmad all in one piece. He knew every step that he would have to take, including the diversion he would have to create if he was going to have the time to make his escape.

He went out to the starboard rail and yanked the six-foot whip antenna out of its mount. The radio went dead. Anyone looking when the pilot boat approached the bridge would see that the antenna was down which would explain their radio silence.

Back at the helm he started the inboard, activated the autopilot and put the transmission in forward, setting the throttle to a few hundred RPMs above idle. It would take the pilot boat at least twenty minutes, maybe a little longer to get to the bridge at that speed.

The boat strained at the line holding it to the Mar go's boarding ladder. Bahmad had some difficulty jumping across because the pilot boat was pitching and hobby horsing pulling at its leash like a puppy dog wishing to run free. He pulled out his stiletto and cut the line. The pilot boat immediately headed away.

He pulled the dinghy over, jumped aboard, lowered the outboard, connected the gas line and pushed the starter button. It roared into life instantly.

The pilot boat still hadn't cleared the Margo's bow by the time Bahmad climbed out of the dinghy and raced up the boarding ladder, but he didn't bother looking. That part of the operation was now completely out of his control.

On deck he ducked through a hatch and took the stairs two at a time up to the bridge. He hurriedly set the main autopilot to steer the same course as the pilot boat, then hit the switch to bring up the anchor.

The pilot boat would take care of itself. And just maybe when the authorities saw the Margo heading for the bridge it would keep them busy long enough for Bahmad to get clear.

Once the bomb lit off no one would be coming for him, the survivors would be far too busy trying to stay alive.

He headed down to the engine room, a smile on his plain, round face. Even in disunity there can be unity. Even in disharmony there can be harmony. And even in the face of my enemies there can be victory.

Insha'Allah.

Over the Golden Gate

"What boat is that?" McGarvey shouted over the tremendous roar of the Coast Guard's SH 3 Sea King helicopter's two turboshaft engines. The chief petty officer who was studying the container ships at anchor out ahead of them lowered his binoculars and looked where McGarvey was pointing. "That's the pilot boat," he shouted back. He took a quick look through his binoculars. "Their antenna is down." He handed his binoculars to McGarvey. "You'd better check out the Margo, sir."

McGarvey picked out the big container ship. It was the only one with a helicopter on its crowded decks. But the chopper was still tied down, and there was no activity around it. "What is it?"

"Her anchor, sir. It's up."

McGarvey switched to the bow. The anchor was definitely dripping water. It had just been pulled up. But there was no possibility that the ship would get anywhere close to the bridge in time.

He was still missing something, goddammit. But his headaches were back and it was hard to think straight.

"Tell your pilot I have to get aboard on the double, chief," McGarvey shouted. He set the glasses aside and took out his Walther to check the load and the action.

Bahmad had not planned it this way. There was something else.

The Met Life Blimp "Lead One, this is Baker Seven, they're coming up on Primary," Gardner radioed. Primary was the code name for the bridge.

"Copy, Baker Seven. Do you have Thunder in sight?"

Gardner could hear the strain in the radio operator's voice. Something was going on. "He's on the approach." Thunder was the President.

"Okay, we're closing down the race. Tell your pilot to get you on the ground right now."

"What's going on, Lead One?" Gardner asked, but there was no reply.

The ESPN reporter and pilot turned and looked at him. They'd caught the urgency in his voice.

"Problems?" the pilot asked.

"We have to get on the ground right now," Gardner said.

"What the hell are you talking about--?"

"Right fucking now," Gardner shouted. "If you want to save your life, put it down!"

FEMA Operations Center

"Flagler, Lead One," Villiard radioed to the Secret Service agent riding shotgun in the President's limousine. The Ops center was in full swing, but stopping the race without getting anyone hurt was going to be next to impossible. These were handicapped runners, some of them mentally handing capped And there were eighteen hundred of them. It would be a nightmare.