Fuse of Armageddon (6 page)

“Any pitiful last words for the world, American dog?”

Quinn’s forearm was twitching from the pain, a rapid shivering of muscles in reaction to the localized shock. He stood, forced to lean over the table because of his pinned hand.

“Sit down!” the masked Palestinian ordered, pushing the point of the scimitar against Quinn’s shoulder.

“Keep the camera rolling,” Quinn said, ignoring the scimitar. He used his good hand to work the knife back and forth and free it from the table, despite the flesh that tore against the blade of the knife.

“Did you hear me!” the masked man screamed. He thrust the tip of the scimitar harder into Quinn’s shoulder. “Sit down!”

Quinn ignored the scream too and calmly continued to work the knife loose. He expected to be ripped apart by machine gun bullets or killed with a slash of the scimitar. Better than dying in submission to Khaled Safady.

The bullets didn’t come. Nor did the sword. A second later, Quinn lifted the knife and showed it to the camera, hoping the video was running.
Give this to Safady to watch instead.

Zayat leveled the machine gun at Quinn.

“Shoot his legs!” the masked Palestinian shouted. “Safady demands he dies to the scimitar.”

Zayat hesitated, trying to understand the logic of the order.

In that moment of hesitation, Quinn threw the knife at Zayat, not expecting the action to be more than a useless act of defiance for Safady to see later. The knife flipped end over end twice, then slammed blade first into Zayat’s shoulder.

Zayat wailed and dropped the machine gun. When the gun hit the floor, it fired a short burst into the wall at the side of the room, sending small chips of plaster in all directions.

Despite the deafening echoes, the masked man was quick and stepped between Quinn and the machine gun, scimitar poised. Zayat had instinctively pulled the knife from his shoulder and began clutching at the wound.

Quinn thought of spinning and making a run for the door. Then he thought about what it would look like to Safady later on video, seeing Quinn turning his back and dying in apparent fear.

So Quinn remained square to his opponent, watching intently.

The masked Palestinian swiped the sword at Quinn’s legs. Quinn hopped back, narrowly out of range.

Another swipe forced Quinn to the edge of the table.

No choice but to tumble sideways and run or let the scimitar bite through his legs on the next swing. Immobilized, Quinn would face beheading.

The door behind Quinn burst open again, sunshine flooding the room as it had earlier. The man with the scimitar froze.

“No,” he said. “Impossible.”

A second later, from behind Quinn came another burst of machine-gun fire.

3

Khodaydad Kalay, Afghanistan • 14:46 GMT


In the dusty courtyard, Del Saxon surveyed a massive pile of pig intestines with satisfaction. Except for the trouble with Joe Patterson, the previous few hours had been as he’d expected after the arrival of the animals. Saxon had grown up on a farm. He’d expected the squealing and the acrid copper smell of blood that came as the pigs died.

Now the carcasses were completely hollow. His soldiers had done well in butchering the animals, but that was to be expected too. Most of them were farm boys; Saxon had handpicked this group. And all of them—with the exception of Joe Patterson and his unexpected demand to use the phone—were totally dedicated to the cause.

Saxon was now ready to start speaking to the prisoners through an interpreter. He made it obvious that he was holding a small digital recorder as he approached the interpreter, a small Afghan with a huge mustache.

“Everything you tell them will be on this,” he told the interpreter. “I have another interpreter who will later tell me word for word what you tell the prisoners. Understand what I’m saying here? If you don’t tell them exactly what I’m telling you to tell them, we’ll hunt you down and do to you what we did to the pigs.”

The little man’s mustache twitched. Like a rabbit, Saxon thought. Wait until he saw what was going to happen.

Saxon motioned for the little Afghan to follow and took a stance in front of all the prisoners. The soldiers stood behind him.

“I want all of you to understand clearly this process,” Saxon began. He waited for the interpreter to repeat it. All of the prisoners were listening intently.

“Some of you will die in a traditional manner—by firing squad. That includes all of you on this side.” Saxon held out his right arm and swung it away from his body. The men to that side were tribal loyalists, Taliban goons. Saxon had little emotional stake in their fates. He simply wanted them dead out of a sense of justice . . . and practicality. When the interpreter left here and explained to other villagers what had happened, the locals would know that Americans were not weak and afraid, bound by what the UN and Germany and France and Russia told them to do.

“Those on the other side—” Saxon lifted his left arm and indicated the rest—“will also die. All of you except for one.”

Saxon burned with hatred for those men. They were Muslim terrorists, non-Afghans, part of a local cell that had been captured with the help of tips from the villagers. These were men who declared loyalty to Osama bin Laden, who had declared jihad on the Christian West, who desecrated the divine Jesus with every breath they took. Hell was too good for them, even though Saxon was going to help them get there very soon.

“Those on my right,” Saxon said, “will all die at once. To bullets. Those on my left will die one at a time.”

While Saxon didn’t consider himself stupid, neither did he think he was particularly brilliant. He’d never claimed this was his idea and had been open about telling his men that he’d read the General Pershing story that circulated on the Internet following 9/11. The story was initially widely accepted as factual, and one state senator had even included a version of it on a campaign flyer. Saxon had a feeling the story was an urban legend, but that didn’t concern him. Urban legend or not, he was sure the technique would be effective.

And very, very satisfying.

“Look at those emptied pigs’ bodies,” Saxon continued. “Those of you on the left will be decapitated, and your heads will be sewn into the pigs’ bodies. What is left of your bodies will be buried with the pile of guts.”

Saxon knew that these people believed being defiled by a pig carcass would prevent them from reaching paradise.

General John Pershing had known this too. During World War I, so the story went, Pershing had tied up a bunch of Muslim terrorists in the Philippines and shot them with bullets greased with pig’s lard—all of them except for one, whom he let go to spread the word about what would happen to other Muslim terrorists. That had scared them so bad there wasn’t any more terrorism for another forty years.

Here in the southern mountains of Afghanistan, it wouldn’t take long for word to reach any other Muslim terrorist that this was their fate once Saxon and his men caught them.

“Am I understood?” Saxon asked loudly.

The interpreter was staring at him with such horror that it was obvious to Saxon this was indeed a good idea.

Saxon frowned at the interpreter and pointed at the prisoners. “Am I understood?” he repeated, gesturing for the interpreter to pass on the question, something the man did quickly.

By the reaction of the prisoners, there was no doubt he was understood. Some cursed him. Others sagged against their bindings.

Saxon turned to his soldiers. “Let’s get this started,” he barked.

Saxon let his eyes slide past Private Joe Patterson. That was a man marked for death. Unlike the holy joy Saxon took in sending the Muslim terrorists to judgment in front of God, he regretted the fact that he would have to eliminate Patterson. Still, it wasn’t a job he was going to ask anyone else to do. When a dog got into the chickens and had to be shot, a man did it himself.

Patterson’s sin was against God, against the holy war fought by the Freedom Crusaders, and that sin was betrayal of a soldier’s honor. That was a lot worse than a dog getting into chickens.

So when the time was right and Patterson’s help wasn’t needed, Saxon would take care of killing him. No different from shooting a dog. It was a shame the wife would have to pay the same price for Patterson’s sin.

Hoover Dam, Nevada • 14:49 GMT


Kate had stepped away from the cube van. She leaned against the hood of the cruiser and stared at the wedge of light that came with approaching dawn. It was three hours later in DC for that arrogant woman, probably in a suit at a desk, probably right now sipping her Starbucks and telling another guy in a suit in a nearby cubicle about some cop that she’d just pushed around.

Kate picked up her cell again and dialed the new number. She reached a switchboard for the National Counterterrorism Center.

National Counterterrorism Center.

No wonder this Ali Noyer thought she had so much juice. Kate asked for Noyer and was transferred immediately.

“Penner,” Noyer said. “You’ve got it secured?”

“Not your concern,” Kate said. “My next call is to CSI. Then the press. Then my lawyer. Then a good New York agent.”

“Look, you—”

“You’re recording this conversation, right?”

“What difference does—?”

“Good. I’ll probably talk faster than you like. You’ll be able to play it back and understand the things you’re missing first time around. CSI is going to show up and investigate this the way I want it done. You monkeys in suits have no idea what it’s like in the field.”

“O-b-s-t-r—“

“Obstruction? Good thing a cop from the sticks like me happens to have a dictionary nearby. That’s why my next call is to the press. Whatever you’re trying to cover won’t stay that way for long when they get ahold of it. They’ll give you guys a one-two punch that will knock you over like you’ve been sniffing glue for a week.”

“You might as well toss your badge in the garbage now, Katie.” Noyer’s voice dripped with condescension as she said
Katie
. “You have no idea what’s going on.”

“I don’t. But I will as I investigate, unless you try to nail me with obstruction. That’s why I call my lawyer right after the press.”

“Kiss your pension good-bye. Get ready for some jail time on top of that.”

“That’s where the New York agent comes in. The way I got it figured, a book deal should be no problem. Then I’ll hit the talk shows and tell all their viewers how the current administration is handling terrorist activities. Like that phrase?
Current administration.
Even a bozo can learn mediaspeak. Whatever the book deal brings in, along with media exposure and some time on the lecture circuit, I won’t need a pension. Someday I’ll phone you up and thank you for getting me off the force early. The thing is, I hate flies.”

“Flies. What do—?”

“Flies.” Kate had no intention of letting the woman finish a sentence. Keep her off balance. “The worst thing for me about being a cop is flies.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Sure I can. In fact, the only reason I called back to tell you all this is so that you might get excited and spill your Starbucks on your computer. Slow it down some so the computers in the sticks here can keep up.”

“Listen! This is a matter of national security. You
will
cooperate with me.”

“Tell you what,” Kate said. “Short of the president himself telling me in person, I’m going to run this my way. And by the way, call me Katie again and you’ll get what I gave the last mayor of Vegas.”

Kate ended the call and walked back to Frank.

“He ask you out again?” Frank asked. “Promise he’d change?”

“I don’t follow,” Kate said.

“I couldn’t hear the conversation, only the tone. Sounded like you were talking to your ex-husband.”

“Funny. Very funny.”

“What’s this about, Kate? You have that look in your eyes—the stubborn bulldog look. Last time I saw that, you stayed on a case for three years.”

“You really don’t want to know. That way it’s only
my
pension on the line.”

“Kate. This is me.”

Kate sighed. “Remember when rumors that the Koran was flushed down toilets at Guantánamo Bay caused riots in the Muslim world?”

“Yeah. And those cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper . . . same thing. Riots.”

“And killings. That’s why we absolutely have to keep a lid on this. If someone is hoping to start World War III, this is a good way to get there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That cross stapled to the dead man’s back?” Kate said. She pointed past the small flag. “Take a closer look. You can see it’s been cut from a small poster. The poster showed the Muslim Dome of the Rock. Make your own guesses, but whatever you do, keep them to yourself.”

Khan Yunis, Gaza Strip • 14:53 GMT


“You are a stupid, contemptible man,” Abu said to Zayat in Arabic.

Abu was middle-aged with a comfortably large belly. His three Palestinian bodyguards were young men, all armed with Israeli machine guns. The masked man with the scimitar was still in the room too, a contorted bundle of death at Quinn’s feet, where he leaned against the table, hand wrapped in a strip of cloth that he’d torn from the bottom part of his shirt.

Near the camcorder and tripod, Zayat wept openly, fingers splayed in a useless effort to stop the bleeding at his shoulder. “Mercy,” he said. “For the sake of Allah.”

“You are equally stupid and contemptible to beg. My brother is dead.” Abu spoke to Quinn. “Allah blessed both of us by giving me loose bowels today. On our way to meet you here, we make a hasty stop at a café. Smoked glass windows that hide the fact I am not inside the Mercedes. Then a gunman drives by and . . .”

Abu bowed his head. “My brother and the driver—dead. I call for more men and think of Zayat, the only other one to know we had agreed to this time and location. The one who would gain if I died this morning.”