God, I am going to make it!

  Clark barely noticed the finish. It was the broad stripe on the ground and the sudden stopping of movement. In a moment, the people that had surrounded her for hours now had come to a stop. A stranger wrapped her in a silver thermal blanket. Another gave her a frozen Gatorade. She inhaled it, took another, and tried to slow it down to sips.

  Clark walked toward the trees. The salt on her skin felt like a dry powder. She needed some grass and something to lean up against. She knew that if she lay down, it might be hours before she would ever get up, but who cared? Clark Ashby had finished a marathon! The New York Marathon! She was a marathoner! She would go to parties years from now. The conversation would wander around, and then she would work it in. Yes, I ran New York. Her dad would be beaming.

  She slid down at the trunk of an oak, feeling the cold, damp grass under her butt. It was a mistake. Her body would become glued to the ground. Her sweats were in a basket somewhere on the other side of the finish line. They would have to wait. Clark wasn’t moving for anything.

  A man with a Yankees cap pulled down, sunglasses, and a new beard sat down next to her on the grass. Clark pulled back from the stranger who suddenly appeared in her space and then looked up.

  “Hey. I’m proud of you.”

  Clark couldn’t get out any words.

  “William?” Tears suddenly flooded her eyes. The exhaustion, the pain, and then this.

  “Can you walk?”

  She would be stiff, especially by making the mistake of sitting down. The muscles quickly froze up after hours of constant motion.

  “I think so. The hotel is just across the park.” Despite the pain, Clark was now riding an endorphin high. She felt euphoric. William had come!

  “We’ll get you to a hot shower. I’ll get your sweats.” He smiled at her, kissed her on the forehead, and then looked into her eyes. “Your arms full, and your hair wet . . . I was neither living nor dead, and I knew nothing, looking into the heart of light . . .”

  “Who’s that?”

  “T. S. Eliot.”

  “You remembered that one just for me, didn’t you?”

  “Especially the wet hair part.”

  She laughed, then winced.

  “Oh, my God, I’m too tired to laugh!”

  Her running mate had made New York after all.

  If it weren’t for the other runners crowded into the lobby of the Carlyle, the two would have been an odd sight. Only on the weekend of the New York Marathon. Even the rich, the famous, and the well known could enter the hotel dressed in Gore-Tex and Nikes.

  They were in the elevator alone.

  “You’ll like the room,” William said.

  She nodded, resting her head on his chest. They’d made the reservation months ago. She had stayed at the Carlyle once as a child on a trip with her father. Her memory was of a palace with crystal chandeliers and fresh-cut flowers in crystal vases. She remembered the starched hand towels and the sweet soap.

  “Clark, I don’t have long.”

  The smile left her face. “How did you get here?”

  “I had the most expensive seat in transatlantic travel.” The F/A-18 jet fighter flew the Atlantic in half the time of a commercial jet. Scott hadn’t liked having to put in the request.

  The elevator opened and they walked slowly toward their room.

  “I only have a few hours.”

  “Okay.”

  “You remember Mack Dennson at the sheriff’s office?”

  “The one who had the baby last year.”

  “Yes.” He handed her a piece of paper. “You’ve got Stidham, but it could take him an hour or more to get to you. Just in case you need someone quicker who can also call in the cavalry, I want you to have Mack’s number. Put this in your cell. Put it as the first listing. He knows your number, and if he sees it, he will come. He owes me.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I just found out that this may go all the way back to Pan Am.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “It’s okay. It’s going to be fine. But like I said, we live out in the middle of nowhere. It could even take Dennson half an hour or more to get there. If it comes to that, you get out of there any way you can, you hear?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He opened the door to the room. “These men don’t play.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Danish Abad, Peshawar, Pakistan

  The side streets of Danish Abad were packed with barefoot children chasing each other, hardly noticing the men who walked down the alley near the canal. A stream of water no wider than the length of a man’s arm, the canal drizzled through a ditch cut between the mud-brick houses stacked tightly together one upon the other.

  The orphans who lived in Danish Abad knew that the canal was a necessity. A stranger would not be able to bear the overwhelming stench from it, and many of the locals would hold their hands over their nose to force themselves to breathe through their mouths as they passed by. Everything that the poor had no use for was dumped into the canal. Carcasses of dead dogs, punctured plastic jugs, and torn trash bags lined the banks. Rats were the only creatures that seemed to flourish there. They poured out of the pipes that constantly dripped green liquid into the countless tiny tributaries that fed the canal.

  Most times of year the canal seemed to be an unfortunate trash dump, but it had a purpose. In the desert, once in several years, a colossal storm would come, and with it days and days of rains. The monsoon would turn the creek and canal into a raging wall of water. In a matter of minutes, the stream would turn into a torrent that poured over the banks and ripped through the mud-brick walls, sucking the orphans of the city into it. Without the canal, everyone and everything in Danish Abad would be pulled into the churning brown water.

  The men in the alley had been here many times before, and they were being led through the maze of alleyways by a friend who had lived his entire life in the place. He had never left Danish Abad of his own choosing, and he’d returned a hero after his sole departure.

  The Pakistani Taliban controlled Danish Abad. It was described as being lawless, but it was far from lawless. The Taliban set the rules. Those who disobeyed the Taliban’s laws suffered greatly. Only the week before, two men disobeyed the directions of Zulfiqar Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Danish Abad. Their real crime was that they hid some of their profits from burglaries on the other, more affluent side of the city. But they were accused of being spies for the West. The charge was convenient and their sentence simple. Their heads were cut from their bodies with dull knives as their screams turned to gasps and pleas, then gurgles, and finally silence. They didn’t die bravely. They died like the desperate men they were.

  Yousef knew that the man who led them through the alley could be trusted. More important, he knew the village could be trusted. Especially since the release of the video. Now, even the urchin children and simple thieves, from orphans who lived in the culvert to backstreet pickpockets, knew to say nothing to outsiders about Yousef ’s arrival in Danish Abad. The law of the Taliban in Danish Abad now mandated that Yousef al-Qadi be protected at all costs.

  Yousef and Umarov took the stairs on the side of the house to the second floor. The meeting would be short. They would never meet in the same place twice. The room had no furniture to speak of. Several of the men had laptop computers. They had their prayer rugs, they would remove their sandals, and then when the call came, they would turn to Mecca and pray. Then they would sit with their legs folded and plot and plan. It was an odd clash of old and new, prayer rugs inherited from grandfathers and wireless notebooks. It was in a room like this that the World Trade Center attack had been planned.

  On the wall was a map. A black marker boxed in several provinces of eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and some of the western provinces of Pakistan. A thin thread of tribal cooperation and shared Muslim beliefs formed this state. It looked like an early colonial map of the United States. On the side of the map, a chart listed the governors and structure of each of the subterranean governments that ruled within this federation.

  Yousef now stood in front of the map. “The true and perfect state. From this we will build a Muslim world.”

  Yousef was not the only one in the room who believed, but he was, among the men, uniquely on edge. They had driven through the night and he had not slept now in more than twenty-four hours. The trip to Riyadh only added to the exhaustion. At least Danish Abad gave him refuge from the constant threat of Predator strikes when they were near the border.

  I will sleep tonight.

  “Samullah?” Yousef was speaking to Samullah Ullah, the man who had guided them through the spiderweb of alleyways. He was an officer of the Taliban. He was also a lieutenant of Al Jihad. If asked, he would say he worked with the IIRO, a charity worker helping the orphans of Danish Abad, keeping them away from the canal during the rains.

  Samullah could be trusted for another important reason. He had a particular hatred for the Americans after spending five years in Guantanamo. Eventually they had released him, convinced that he only wanted to return to his simple farmer’s life. Again, they were wrong. He had kept his Koran from Guantanamo. The children of Danish Abad revered it, touching it like the holy relic they believed it to be.

  Samullah was an asset for yet another reason. Guantanamo gave him a particular understanding of how the Americans thought.

  “Tell us what you see.”

  Samullah nodded. “The word is traveling. The tribes of the north have heard of your war with Abaidullah. They have heard of Spin Boldak.”

  “Allah be praised.”

  Yousef turned to Umarov. “It’s time we brought the battle back to American soil.” He rubbed his hands over his face in a prayer like motion. “The limp daughter of Danish Abad will change the world.”

  Umarov knew when to say nothing.

  “Samullah, your sister will serve us well.” Yousef paused. “This is good.” He smiled, suddenly reversing his thinking. “This is very good.”

  Umarov gave him a quizzical look, but still didn’t say anything.

  “Attacks on Islam. Dissent in the Saudi Council as anger grows against America. True believers everywhere are looking for someone to carry the battle flag. And, lo and behold, a London journalist is coming to meet with us in only a few days.”

  Samullah and Umarov relaxed visibly, suddenly grasping what Yousef envisioned.

  “We will have opportunity out of this chaos.” Yousef smiled at his map. “It has been a thousand years since Mahmud of Ghazni built his Islamic empire on these grounds.” Yousef took a black marker and outlined a new country that extended from the south of Iran, across Afghanistan, and into western Pakistan. “His empire was on these same lands. It was of the true faith.”

  The other men in the room stirred, clearly feeling the elation, seeing the possibility grow before their eyes.

  “As Mahmud the Great did a thousand years ago, on the foundation of the Koran, we will commence a battle cry that will cause all the tribes to unite. A holy war with a purpose!”

  The men murmured in agreement, smiles widening all around the room.

  “But first we must spread the word.”

  Loud cheers now, from all in attendance.

  “A holy fighter will rise, one who’ll rid your lands of the unbelievers. A mujahid to rid the land of unbelievers and expand the faith.”

  The men repeated his words, and then cried them again in a chant.

  And Sadik Zabara will be the one to introduce the world to the new mujahid.

  CHAPTER 26

  Riyadh

  “An inopportune time.” The secretary finished his cigarette, the last of the pack of Marlboro Gold Touch, as he thought of Yousef. He stared at the empty pack before crushing it in his hand. As he inhaled, he twisted the gold signet ring on his little finger, stopped, removed the cigarette, and crushed it in the Rolls’s ashtray.

  A nasty habit. He had picked it up as a teenager at the private school his father sent him to in Lebanon. The stretch Phantom’s windows were tinted extra dark, so as to ensure that no one would see him smoking. In Riyadh, it was forbidden. No one would question his smoking, but there would be talk. It was better to smoke behind the tinted windows.

  “What time is the meeting?”

  “Ten, sir.”

  “And what time is it?” The secretary never wore a watch.

  “Quarter ’til.”

  The secretary extended his open hand to his assistant, which meant only one thing: He needed another pack of the Marlboro Golds. They were flown in from London by the case so as to ensure that none were purchased on the open market. He didn’t need an imam preaching his name from the pulpit.

  The Rolls-Royce pulled up to the gate of the Al-Yamamah Palace. The guards came to attention, saluting, as the car passed. He lit another cigarette with his gold lighter, knowing that he had time to inhale only once or twice.

  He was fully aware of the irony of his smoking habit. The Americans will kill me. One way or the other. He didn’t care.

  The guard opened the door to the automobile. A billow of smoke escaped, but no matter. The guards always looked away.

  The gold doors to the palace were framed above in palm leaves, also made of gold. The gold’s glint reflected off the milky white marble floors. The man the secretary was expecting to meet was waiting for him just inside.

  “Al-Waleed!”

  “Cousin!”

  “Let us talk.”

  The secretary led the way for his cousin, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talai bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Al-Waleed was his younger cousin and also one of the richest of the princes of the House of Saud. He was wealthy for a good reason. Al-Waleed enjoyed the powerful backing of the secretary.

  “I understand you have received your newest airplane. Tell me about it, Al-Waleed.”

  The secretary already knew that the Airbus 380 had cost more than four hundred million. The largest aircraft in the world had been modified for bedrooms, movie theaters, and gourmet kitchens. The master bedroom was equipped with a Jacuzzi. The baggage hold was being modified so as to carry three Rolls-Royces.

  “It will be magnificent,” Al-Waleed admitted.

  “I understand that the Jacuzzi was a particular problem?”

  “Yes, the American FAA had a problem with it.”

  “And we need the American FAA?”

  “Otherwise, they will give us difficulty landing in New York.”

  “How is Prince Khalid?”

  Khalid was a member of Bay’ah Council, but he didn’t act like it. His frequenting of the bars of London and Moscow was well known. The problem was that they were not simply bars. The back rooms would hold young Russian girls, innocent and barely out of their teens. Khalid had become a liability and an embarrassment, but he was still one of the thirty-five votes. Every vote mattered.

  Enough preliminaries. The secretary had not come to discuss jet-borne Jacuzzis or perverted cousins. He had much bigger issues on his mind. He liked Al-Waleed for one important reason. The cousin never tried to play the game of politics within the House of Saud. Instead, he’d become a vehicle for family members to invest in other world economies, to pull dollars out of Saudi Arabia in order to diversify their wealth.

  Saudi Arabia remained on a dangerous course and everyone in the House of Saud knew it. The birth rate predicted a population increase to forty million within a decade. Only seven thousand of those millions were members of the House of Saud. Add to that the state’s ever-decreasing oil resources and you had a rather grim outlook, long term. Instability scarcely began to describe it.

  “What is your opinion of Yousef?” the secretary asked, well aware that Al-Waleed and others knew that he’d helped create Yousef.

  “He is getting bolder.”

  The secretary pulled his chair up close to his cousin. The smell of perfume and cigarettes exuded from Al-Waleed.

  “What is the sense of the vote?”

  “For many,” said Al-Waleed, “Yousef is an asset.”

  “Yes, yes, I know.”

  The secretary felt torn, debating the pros and cons of his connection with Yousef. The secretary’s contact with Maggie O’Donald in Doha had a purpose. She was his escape hatch, his plan B. If Yousef became uncontrollable, the CIA would take care of the problem. At the same time, his connection with Yousef was buying him some important votes. But the message had become garbled. Now Maggie lay near death in the United States. Her mind and memory were reported to be confused. If she made the wrong comment at the wrong time to the wrong people, the consequences would be devastating.

  “You walk the fence.” Al-Waleed hesitated. “But, despite many of our cousins’ rantings and ravings about the Americans, our world would be very different without them.”

  “I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Of course.”

  “You will buy my interests in Omnipol. One hundred million.”

  Al-Waleed smiled. “I always thought that was wrong for you, a man who aspired to be a politician.”

  “I know. But the king thought it important that someone he could trust would know who was doing what.” The secretary had been assigned a job. His funding of the largest independent manufacturer of plastic explosives in the world gave him the chance to see where it was going.

  If it comes down to the last vote, they can use this against me, he thought. The Council was becoming divided. Those pro West would be concerned that the world’s scrutiny would focus on a candidate who made money from selling explosives. But at the same time, he didn’t want to give up access to the information. Al-Waleed was the perfect answer.

  The manufacturer of explosives had his hand on the pulse.

  “You will buy it, you will keep it, and you will make more money.”

  The secretary was right. Al-Waleed had the gift of good fortune. If he bought it for one hundred million, it would soon be worth two hundred million.

  “Yes, it is done.”

  “Thank you, Al-Waleed. As always, my good brother, you are an asset.”