Memorial Day

Hayes gri

"The State Department has different, less immediate, concerns than I do."

The president turned his attention to the photograph and the three red circles. He could handle Musharraf if things got ugly. In fact, the general would probably thank him for keeping him out of it. "Irene, is there any direct link between these men and the financial stuff you were talking about earlier?"

"No...that is, nodirect link, sir, but we do think these accounts are controlled by either al-Qaeda sympathizers or supporters."

"Saudis?"

"Most of them."

The president's expression turned sour. The Saudis were the furthest thing in the world from a good ally, but nothing could be said publicly, and very little could be done privately, to get them to crack down on members of the royal family who funded terrorism.

"So you want to go in and grab these guys?" asked Hayes.

"That's correct, sir."

"What's your time frame?"

"Mitch is already on his way over, and he's in contact with the task force commander on the ground. The plan is to hit the village in thirty-six hours."

The president's mood remained pensive as he thought about it. "I don't know, Irene. This thing is a big gamble. A lot of people in this town will be upset that they were left out of the decision-making process."

Ke

Hayes didn't speak at first. The wordbomb could mean many things. "What type of bomb?"

She shook her head. "We don't know. That's why Mitch wants to go in with the task force and see what he can find out."

Hayes took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. "I suppose you want my approval immediately."

"That would help," answered Ke

"This isn't the first time I've been told an attack may be imminent."

"I know," Ke

With Hayes's reelection campaign starting in a few months, none of this was anything he wanted to hear. A little flap with the Pakistanis over a border raid, he could survive. A major terrorist attack and an economy in the toilet, he couldn't. In the three years since President Hayes had known Ke

He took in a deep breath and then said, "You have my approval, but tell Mitch to get in and out as quickly as possible. I'd like to be able to play this off as a border skirmish rather than a full-blown operation."

Five

LOS ANGELES

The Qantas 747-400 floated downward, flaps extended, its four powerful General Electric engines throttled almost all the way back. The tarmac at LAX shimmered in the May heat as planes maneuvered to and from the gates picking up and disgorging passengers. From the air it looked like absolute chaos to Imtaz Zubair. In the upper business-class cabin he closed his eyes and silently muttered the wordAlhumdulillah over and over to himself. The phrase meant,Praise be to God, and was part of atasbihs, or Muslim rosary. They had taken his beads away from him, so he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together as if he was holding the well-worn, dark wooden instrument of prayer in his hand. They had told him to show no signs of his faith in public until he had completed his mission, but he could not help himself.

Zubair was a wreck, a ball of frayed nerves with a stomach full of bubbling acid that had resulted in a scorching pyrosis. Even though he was a man of science, he hated flying. His education was rooted in the comforting, ordered logic of mathematics and physics, but it failed him here. Wing mass created lift, engines provided thrust, and planes flew. It was all proven theory, and it was applied thousands of times all over the world every day, but the scientist still fretted. He couldn't accept it, and so he tucked it away deep down with all of his other phobias.

When one of his bosses had told him once that he needed to seek therapy, Zubair had been deeply offended. He was a genius; he knew things, sensed things that very few people could even attempt to grasp. Who was to say that his phobias weren't simply caused by a heightened sense of awareness and a deep understanding of the universe and his relationship with Allah? Zubair suspected things. He talked to God and looked into the future. His role in the battle for his religion was one of great importance. He'd never discussed this with his fellow scientists, for they were too one-dimensional. Religion was a farce to them, a way for simple people to cope with their mundane lives. But not to Zubair; science was proof to him that his God existed. Such magnificence could only have been created by his God.

The touchdown was so gentle that Zubair didn't even realize they were on the ground until the front landing gear was rolling along the tarmac, and the large plane began to slow. He opened his eyes and looked out the window, relieved they were out of the sky. With a smile on his face he muttered a quick prayer of thanks. Unfortunately, his calm didn't last long. As the plane neared its gate, Zubair's smile vanished and his thoughts turned to his next obstacle.

Imtaz Zubair's native country had forsaken him, so he had returned the favor. A math prodigy, Zubair was educated at Pakistan's finest schools and then sent on to Canada and China for his postgraduate work. He was on the path to greatness. Even Dr. A. Q. Khan, the man who had developed and tested Pakistan's first nuclear bomb, had told him that he was the brightest star of his generation of Pakistani scientists. Zubair thought his skills alone would carry him to his chosen field, but they had not.

He found that politics and family co

He'd still held out hope that his personal relationship with Dr. Khan would carry the day, but those hopes died the day General Musharraf and his band of military officers seized power in a bloodless coup. Musharraf was a secular pig and a lapdog of the Americans. Bowing to pressure from his patrons, Musharraf set about to cleanse true believers from the Pakistani nuclear scientific community.

Zubair had been one of the first to go, exiled to the dreadful Chasnupp nuclear power plant in Central Pakistan, where he was worked like a dog seventy, sometimes eighty hours a week. With his dreams dashed he grew increasingly bitter. He was near his breaking point when providence intervened. A messenger from Allah traveled to the remote region for the sole purpose of contacting him. He was leaving his ramshackle mosque one Friday afternoon when the robed visitor had come to him as if he were the angel Gabriel himself. Allah had a mission of great importance for Zubair, and he was to leave with the stranger immediately.

It had been the begi