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  Derek cocked an eyebrow. “This is a dangerous country. Men in Afghanistan carry AK47s the way men in the United States wear neckties.”

  “I don’t believe you,” bin Laden said. “I believe you are with the U.S. Army or the Central Intelligence Agency.”

  “I’m not. I’m—”

  “Why were you walking alone?”

  “I was separated from my team. There was some sort of battle going on at Zin.”

  The one-eyed man said something in what Derek suspected was Arabic. Osama bin Laden seemed to listen closely. Finally he said, “Mullah Omar says you are an infidel.”

  Derek reflected that he had very little training during his military SERE classes on what to do in a situation like this. SERE stood for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. He had been taught survival skills in the desert, in the jungle, in the mountains, in the cold and snow, in the water. He had been taught how to escape. He had been taught how to behave during interrogations. He had even undergone training in responses to sexual assault during captivity.

  He had not been taught how to respond to being called an infidel by a Muslim religious leader.

  Carefully, he said, “An infidel is traditionally defined as someone without faith. I am not an infidel.”

  “What is your faith?” Osama bin Laden asked. Khan looked impatient.

  “A Christian,” Derek said, understanding, unfortunately, that this might be the wrong answer.

  Osama bin Laden spoke with Mullah Omar for a moment, who responded. After the exchange, Osama bin Laden looked at Khan. “What was the name of the organization your two intruders claimed they were with?”

  Khan spat out, “The International Health Alliance.”

  Bin Laden turned to study Derek. “A man and a woman. Do you know them?”

  Derek shrugged. “Maybe. What were their names?”

  “Johnston and Shoshan.”

  With a shake of his head, Derek said, “No. I was with two other men. John Clark and Gunter Schwartz. John’s Canadian. Gunter is German. They’re both physicians. We were at the WHO refugee camp. We were called to check out some patients at Zin. We just got there and somebody attacked and started shooting. We got separated. I started walking, but I got turned around.”

  “You are a doctor?” Bin Laden asked.

  “A professor. A scientist. I run laboratory tests. My job is to see if there are pollutants in the food and water supplies. Sometimes there are.” He told them about how the pesticides and fertilizers were poisoning the well at Garha. They seemed to believe what he was saying. Conveniently, it was the truth.

  He didn’t know if the Mullah spoke English. When the conversation went on in English for any length of time, the man seemed to lose interest.

  Osama bin Laden turned and spoke to Mullah Omar. The conversation went on for a while. The Mullah seemed angry, but then again, everything the Mullah said seemed angry. Osama bin Laden always seemed calm and pleasant. So much so that Derek didn’t trust it. He suspected Osama bin Laden was the scary one of the three, the chess player planning a dozen moves ahead in whatever game he thought he was participating in.

  Finally the Sheik turned back to Derek. “You will test our water supply.”

  “I would be glad to.”

  Osama bin Laden nodded and gestured at Khan. “He will take you to the well.”

  “Of course.”

  Khan got to his feet. Derek followed. Osama bin Laden handed Derek his rucksack. Derek considered asking for his weapon back, but decided not to push his luck. The Mullah stared at him with his one eye with unhidden malevolence.

  Making a half-bow, Derek thanked them for their hospitality, and followed Khan out of the house. The Arab who manned the door bowed them silently out of the house.

  All in all, thought Derek, an unnerving experience that could have gone far worse.

  THE VILLAGE’S PUMP was not far from the main house. Like Zin, this one was an electric pump. Taking out the chemical test kit, Derek had Khan run the water for a minute, then performed a test on the water. Glancing around, he saw an area just outside of the village where boxes and crates on pallets were being stored. Derek very much wanted to get a look at those.

  The water had some contamination, but not too bad. Derek showed the test tube to Khan and said, “There’s some chemical contamination. It might be from pesticides or fertilizers or perhaps you have diesel or other chemicals stored? The containers may be leaking.”

  Khan glared at him. Derek had the distinct feeling Khan didn’t buy his story. The man’s English was also fairly rudimentary. The man just seemed to seethe. Derek wondered if Khan knew that all his men back at his camp were dead, or if he had just not heard from them.

  “Yes? Let’s go.” Derek pointed toward the fields of maize. “Let’s start over there.” It wasn’t the direction he really wanted to go, but he wanted Khan to get over his obvious suspicion.

  They traipsed through the village. Villagers looked at them, but didn’t say much. All the women Derek saw wore the strictest form of Muslim clothing, a burkha. Women in heavy blue robes, everything of their faces covered except their eyes, which peered through mesh. Like blue ghosts.

  In the field of maize, which was choked with mud and standing puddles, Derek took a couple soil samples. These tests indicated stronger evidence of chemical contamination, although nothing like he’d seen in Garha. He pointed to a shed at one corner of the field and went over to it. Inside were barrels of pesticide. They were rusty and leaking.

  Derek checked the labels. Illegal in the U.S., but used all over the world. He said to Khan, “These might be leaking into your ground water. They need better barrels. Or they should be moved to a site downhill from the well.”

  Khan grunted that he understood. Striding off toward where he had seen the crates and pallets, Derek was stopped by Khan, who gripped his arm and shook his head. “No. We do not go there.”

  Derek scanned around the village. The sun was actually starting to burn through the mist. “Why?”

  Without warning Khan punched Derek, staggering him. Derek went with it, falling to the ground. Before Derek could respond, the man had a handgun aimed in Derek’s face. “You were with the man and the woman. I know this. Something happened to my people. I think you had something to do with this. If it were not for the Sheik and the Mullah, I would kill you now and be done with it.”

  Hands out to his sides, Derek said, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  Khan leaned toward him. “You lie.”

  Derek shook his head. “No, I’m not lying. And I’m standing up now.”

  The muj took a step back, but didn’t level his gun. Derek rolled to his feet. Khan waved the gun in his face.

  Derek snapped it from his hand and pointed it in Khan’s face. The muj scowled at him, eyes wide. “I’m not in the military now, Khan, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t use to be. I may be a scientist, but it doesn’t mean I won’t shoot you. Now let’s go take a walk over there. You’ve got contaminants in your water supply here. Over at Gorha it was going to kill everyone in the village eventually if they didn’t do something. Let’s make sure that’s not happening here.”

  Khan spat at Derek’s feet. Derek kicked the man in the balls. He went down in a heap. Derek took off Khan’s AK47, kicked him in the ribs for good measure, and strode off toward the crates. Life’s all about choices, he thought, wondering if he was making the right one.

  As he approached the pallets and crates, Khan had gotten to his feet and was shouting in Pashto and running toward him.

  Should have hit him harder, Derek thought.

  Derek recognized the crates as having RPGs and AK47s in them. He wasn’t overly concerned about that. From what he’d seen of Afghanistan post-Russian occupation, there were enough AK47s and RPGs just lying around for every man, woman and child to be fully armed well into the next century. Four pallets, however, contained barrels that were labeled in Cyrillic, which didn’t mean a
nything to him. It was also labeled with: C11H26NO2PS.

  “Shit.” Derek counted the barrels. Twelve barrels.

  Khan showed up with three muj. Apparently he wasn’t going to let his humiliation get in the way of his duty. The three muj held AK47s, which they pointed at Derek.

  The Arab door-holder who apparently acted as Osama bin Laden’s front desk, strode toward them, robes flowing around him. In a clear voice he shouted, “What is the problem? What is the meaning of this?”

  Derek gestured toward the barrels. “If your men shoot me, it’s almost guaranteed that a bullet will hit one of these barrels. If that happens, they, you, and everybody else in this whole village will die almost instantly. I suggest you have them put their guns away.”

  The Arab scowled at him, then said something sharply in what Derek thought was either Farsi or Pashto. He was fairly certain it wasn’t Arabic. The men all lowered their rifles.

  “Do you know what this is?” Derek demanded. “Because it sure isn’t pesticide or fertilizer.”

  The Arab’s eyes glittered darkly. “Who are you, Derek Stillwater, that you know so much about this?”

  “I’m a professor of biochemistry and I know the chemical formula for VX gas. And you’ve got enough VX gas in these barrels to more than wipe out London, Paris, New York, and Washington DC, or even Riyadh. I also know that if you screw up with it you’ll get a lot of your own people killed.”

  “Khan, take him back to his cell.”

  Derek leaned against one of the barrels. He pointed the handgun he’s stolen from Khan at it. “No.”

  The Arab said, “I believe you’re bluffing.”

  Derek waved at Khan and the three muj with the rifles and said, “Tell them what happens if I shoot a hole in this barrel.”

  “What are you talking about?” Khan demanded.

  “These barrels contain VX nerve gas. It’s in a liquid form. A single drop on your skin will kill you in seconds. If you breathe it, it will kill just as fast. You’ll start to sweat. You’ll start to twitch. Your nose will run. Then you won’t be able to breathe and all the muscles in your body will contract so hard you might even break your back. And then you’ll die.”

  Khan’s eyes went wide. He looked at the Arab and said something to him. The Arab said something back. The Arab looked annoyed. Khan looked pissed. Derek suspected that the Arab knew all about VX gas and that Khan didn’t.

  And then something exploded on the other side of the village. Blinking, Derek realized that the building where he had been kept hostage was in flames. Villagers started running toward the fire and the explosion.

  The Arab spun on his heels, then sprinted toward the house where bin Laden and Omar were. The three extra muj seemed confused, but that didn’t last long. Another small explosion occurred a hundred yards or so from the first. Gunfire chattered.

  They ran toward the gunfire.

  Khan said, “I’m not done with you, infidel!”

  Raising the handgun, Derek shot him in the face. “Yeah,” he said. “But I’m done with you.”

  17

  DEREK COULD DO THE SMART thing – get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

  Or he could do the right thing – destroy the VX gas without killing everybody in the village.

  He didn’t have much time. He didn’t know what was going on, but the attack on the village wasn’t going away. There were a couple smaller explosions – Derek thought they sounded like grenades or RPGs – and gunfire.

  A pry bar was lying alongside one of the crates. He tore the crate open to find a stash of RPGs. He took as many of the rockets as he could handle and began laying them around the barrels of VX gas. A part of his mind paid attention to the wind. A light breeze was blowing down the mountains, over the village. If the VX went off and wasn’t incinerated, the wind would blow the deadly gas through part of the village.

  He didn’t have a satisfactory solution. But Noa and Jim had told him that Osama bin Laden was arming his little band of mercenaries in the Sudan. Putting two and two together, he thought OBL was looking for something nasty like VX gas to use … for what?

  Whatever it was, he didn’t want this guy and his buddy, Mullah Omar, to have something as ugly as VX gas.

  It was a questionable moral distinction, killing someone with bombs and bullets versus killing them with poison gas or biological agents. The biggest concern Derek had about biological warfare was it couldn’t be controlled.

  His biggest worry about something like VX gas was you stuck it in a thermos and walked into a subway or a hotel or an office building and you could kill hundreds and thousands of people. It was the devil in a jar, Pandora’s box, a whole lot of death in a very small package.

  Derek had stacked dozens of grenades and rockets around the barrels of VX. He really wished he had some C4.

  Now what?

  Grabbing an RPG launcher and extra rockets, he studied the village behind him. All of the men had run to the far side of the village. The women, as far as he could tell, were hiding in their houses.

  Except bin Laden, the Arab, and Mullah Omar. They stood at the front of their house, AK47s in their hands, looking around.

  Then bin Laden noticed him standing there. He raised his rifle toward Derek.

  Instantly, Derek spun, aimed the RPG and fired.

  All three of the men launched themselves into the house. The RPG hit the ground a dozen feet in front of the door and exploded, leaving a crater in the ground, but hurting no one.

  A woman appeared in a burkha, carrying a rifle. He shouted at her to leave. She kept coming. Derek pointed the RPG at her. She said, “It’s me, Noa.”

  He ran to her. “Where’s Jim?”

  “He’s bringing the cavalry. Where’s bin Laden?”

  Derek pointed at the house. “There. We need to get everybody as far from the village as possible. I’m blowing the VX, but I don’t want to kill everybody.”

  “I’ve got to get bin Laden.”

  “Did you hear me?” he demanded.

  Ignoring him, Noa ran toward the house, a wraith in blue.

  Dammit! He sprinted in the opposite direction, toward another house. Bursting in the front door, he found several women and children cowering. “You’ve got to leave! Now! Leave!”

  They stared at him, unresponsive. Derek leapt over, grabbed a woman by the arm and dragged her to the door. She fought him, but he pulled her anyway. Once he got her out the door, he pointed toward the highest point, upwind. “Go! Run! Take everyone!”

  The others in the house were gathering around him, hitting him with their fists. “Aor!” he shouted, the word for fire. “Aor! Aor! Aor!”

  They stopped hitting him, confused.

  He thought of the few other words he knew in Pashto. Then it hit him. “Dzghélem! Dzghélem!” Run! Run!

  The eyes in the burkhas grew wide. Still uncertain. “Dzghélem!”

  And one more word. “Khatarnaak!” Dangerous!

  “Dzghélem! Khatarnaak!” Then he fired the AK47 into the air. They ran. As they ran, they shouted. Other women appeared and started running. Good.

  He heard the helicopter.

  Derek sprinted in the direction he had last seen Noa go. As he approached the building, the Arab came out holding Noa as a shield, a gun to her head. Derek raised his AK47. “Let her go!”

  Behind the Arab appeared bin Laden and Omar. The Sheik held a bloody rag to his arm. He said, “So, you are CIA, after all.”

  “Let her go or I’ll kill you all.”

  The sound of the helicopter grew louder. Derek figured it was the Sheik’s ride out of town. Time was ticking down.

  The helicopter roared overhead, spun around, and hovered. With a roar its Yak-B Gatling gun fired, tearing through the village, ripping through the muj.

  Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar started. Apparently this wasn’t part of their plan.

  Noa twisted out of the Arab’s grasp, snapping the gun from his hand. Spinning, she fired it three
times into his chest.

  Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar were slow to react. Noa turned toward them, gun up.

  The Sheik fired off rounds that caught Noa and lifted her off her feet.

  Derek hit the ground, rolling, bringing his own AK to bear, firing at bin Laden and Mullah Omar, but the two men were sprinting for cover behind the house. Derek ran to Noa, crouched next to her prone body. She was alive. Tearing at the burkha, he saw three gunshot wounds. Two in the abdomen. One in the chest. She moaned. Dark blood soaked the blue burkha. Her hair fell around her face.

  “Are they dead?” she whispered.

  “No. Shut up. Who’s in the chopper?”

  “The general.”

  He nodded, dropped the rucksack and pulled out the first aid kit. Not much left in there. Duct tape. Two packs of QuikClot. A few bandages.

  He poured the QuikClot into the wounds. Laid the few bandages he had left over them, then sealed them with Duct tape. Crude.

  Noa had passed out. Heart racing, he pressed his bloody fingers against her throat, felt her pulse. Good. Still alive.

  The helicopter roared overhead, finally landing nearby. Derek crouched over Noa, protecting her from the sand and dust and grit blown up by the rotors.

  Johnston jumped from the chopper and raced over to him. “She alive?”

  “Yes, for now. Let’s get out of here.”

  Together they carried the Israeli to the helicopter. Once inside, Derek dropped into the co-pilot seat next to the pilot, who was a weather-beaten Slavik guy with thinning red hair and skin the texture of rhino hide. A cigarette hung from his thin lips. “You pay, yes?”

  Derek donned earphones and a microphone. “Yes. Get us to Kabul or the refugee camp. You got a bomb or missile on this thing?”

  The pilot looked at Johnston, who knelt next to Noa. “Answer him,” Johnston shouted.

  “Two AT-2 Swatters. Cost you extra.”

  “We should only need one. Get us up in the air.”

  And off they went. Derek pointed to the barrels below. “Hit it with the missile. Think you can do that?”

  “Piece cake.” He puffed on his cigarette, a half-inch of ash dangling off the end. “Cost extra.”