Prepared For Rage

Hugh had followed her to London, where he had signed on with the Knightsbridge Institute, an extremely well-funded global think tank which produced ruthlessly researched papers on subjects ranging from China 's embrace of the free market to the military preparedness of Dakar to the economic impact on Central and South America of the legalization of drugs in America. The Institute was known for having the best resources available on every possible global topic whether it be speculation or reality. Patrick faced up to the fact that this was going to cost him. "I've got the Middle East desk, Hugh."

"What happened to Harvey Moskowitz?"

"Retired last year."

"His idea?"

"No."

"Figures. If you're going to screw up, first thing you have to do is get rid of anyone who might have a clue." A pause. "I was an Asia desk man myself, Patrick."

"I know, but you've moved onward and upward. I need your help on a little project."

There was a smile in Hugh's voice when he replied. "I don't think the U.S. government can afford me."

"If we can afford the Mossad, we can afford you."

"What?"

"It's a long story. Let me run my topic by you first," Patrick said. "I'm tracking a terrorist calling himself Isa."

"Head of Abdullah," Hugh said immediately, and Patrick could hear keys clicking in the background, "formerly of the Zarqawi group, believed to have formed his own group after Zarqawi's death, responsible for the bus bombing in Baghdad in, what was it, December oh-five. That Isa?"

"That's the one."

"Never heard of him."

It surprised a laugh out of Patrick. "Very fu

"Yeah, I heard about just missing al-Zawahiri. Bad luck." That blown operation had been all over the front pages for weeks now. "You think you got another mole at Langley?"

"That, or bin Laden's intel is better than ours."

Which wouldn't be hard, both of them thought and Rincon charitably didn't say. "What do you need, Patrick?"

"Anything you've got on him. Anything you can get on him until he's either dead or my beck-and-call boy in Gitmo."

"All right. I'll put together a package and send it over. Along with a rate schedule."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Payable upon delivery, Patrick. You sure the new man will go for that?"

Patrick thought back to Kallendorf's first briefing. "The new man will go for anything that gets results."

AFGHANISTAN, DECEMBER 2006

"Never doubt that they are looking for him, master. It is only a matter of time. They will find him, and they will interrogate him, and he will tell them everything he knows about us."

"Do you tell me that he will betray us? Has Isa ever proved himself disloyal, in all his years of service?"

Ansar covered his slip smoothly. "Not of his own will, master, certainly. But it is well known by those who know that no man can long bear torture without offering everything he has to make it stop."

"He could lie."

"He could." Ansar let his response lie there without elaboration. It needed none, and he knew it.

The old man meditated on this intelligence, so long that the rest of them wondered if he'd fallen asleep.

At last he stirred. A frail hand came up to comb his beard. "Is there tea?"

There was a brief hiatus in the discussion while hot mint tea in thick glasses was brought on a silver tray carried by a thin boy with curious eyes. He served the old man first, and set the tray on the rug in the middle of the circle of men. He retreated to the door and loitered there, hoping to remain. He was frustrated in this when he intercepted a dismissive scowl, and slunk out.

The wooden door closed with not quite a slam, raising a rectangular puff of dust from the mud brick walls surrounding it. The dust caught in the single ray of thin winter sunshine streaming in through the window and hung motionless in the still air. The old man coughed, and sipped his tea. It brought color to his pale, drawn cheeks. "Zarqawi trusted him."

They exchanged glances. "He did," one of them said, "but, and forgive me, master, as we all know, Zarqawi Musab al-Zarqawi was ruled more by his instincts than by his intellect. It is entirely possible that he was… deceived."

"Still, Ansar, in how many years, did Isa ever fail him?"

"Then who betrayed Zarqawi?" the first speaker said bluntly.

"You think it was Isa?"

"I do," Ansar said firmly. He may have had doubts but this was about power. There was no room for uncertainties in this argument. The old man was in poor health. After the first attacks that had toppled the government, after the American forces' attention had been redirected to Iraq, he had never been in any real danger of apprehension, but a life lived on the run, even with the resources the old man had, was wearing on the individual. And on his organization.

The old man meditated over his tea, the veins in his hands standing out beneath the soft folds of crepe skin. His thin body looked lost in the folds of his robes. "How did they find out about the bus bombing in Baghdad?"

They exchanged glances. "He told them, master."

"After, yes." The old man sipped his tea. "Of course, it is natural to wish to take credit for a blow dealt on behalf of the one true God. Allahu akbar."

"Allahu akbar," came in a soft murmur in reply.

"But someone told them of the attack before it happened. They were waiting for him. They nearly caught him. The bus was a target of opportunity, not the intended one. And even then, I don't think he would have told, had credit not been given wrongly to al-Zawahiri."

There was silence. Into it the old man said, his voice a gentle thread of sound, "It was the last time they have gotten close to him." He sipped tea. "I notice also that we have not heard from him directly since Zarqawi died. Is this not so?"

Uncertain glances were exchanged.

"Almost six months," the old man said.

There was a murmur of agreement. Ansar said boldly, "All the more reason to find him, master. I say this not out of distrust or a wish to punish, only to discover information. If he is pla

The old man shifted on his pillows. Courteously, Ansar leaned over and put a hand to his elbow to help him, and received equally courteous thanks.

When the old man spoke again his voice was thready but perfectly audible. "I have a wish to see Isa again, to speak with him, to take counsel of him."

Ansar could say only, "Yes, master."

"And if he should somehow have become convinced that I would no longer greet him as brother, that my arms are no longer open to embrace him…" The old man let his voice trail away.

Ansar leaned in to catch the fading words, and for the first time since they had entered the room, the old man's eyes opened. He looked at Ansar with a cold, clear, steady gaze that entirely belied the air of frailty that clung to him.

"And, Ansar," he said, that bare thread of sound somehow infused with a sudden menace, "if I thought that Isa had been betrayed to the infidel, I would spare no effort to discover the traitor in our midst."

In spite of the chill mountain air that penetrated the room, Ansar found himself sweating. There was only one answer. "Yes, master."

The old man nodded once and gave a dismissive wave. "Leave me."

They filed out, their robes sweeping the dirt floor of the house as they went. Outside, the pale December sunshine filtered down through the steep sides of the valley, an inconsequential and transient warmth. It was a tiny village, the houses built around a spring-fed pool. Above the village was a long, man-made cave that had once been home to a Buddhist shrine, the figures and paintings long since destroyed by the mullahs. The road that led to the village was wide enough for a motorcycle and no more. The road, the houses, the sparse vegetation, the rocky outcroppings of tor and crag, all were covered with a thick layer of snow, the top of which had frozen into a hard crust of ice. From the direction of the spring they heard the chop of an ax. A woman covered in black from head to toe came out with a tray of feed, and hens gathered round her skirts, clucking. There was no other sound.