Sacred Stone

At a separate area of the air cargo terminal, trucks were already moving the security supplies to Mecca—a complete command-and-control facility with radios and live video capabilities; one hundred thousand rounds of ammunition and tear gas in case of disturbances; one thousand portable plastic handcuffs; forty trained dogs with pens, food, and extra leashes and collars; and a dozen armored perso

The yearly hajj was a massive undertaking and the Saudi royal family footed the bill.

Al-Sheik stared at his clipboard then marked off a truck leaving the compound.

THE EMIR HAD been sipping his hot tea and listening to Cabrillo speak for nearly twenty minutes without interrupting. Finally there was silence.

“Will you allow me to indulge you with a short history of Islam?”

“By all means,” Cabrillo said.

“There are three important sites to the Islamic religion, two in Saudi Arabia, the third in Israel. The first and most sacred is the mosque of al-Haram in Mecca, where the Kaaba is located; the second is Masjid al-Nabawi, the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, which has the tomb of Muhammad. The third is Masjid al-Aqsa, in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock, the site where Muhammad ascended on a horse to speak to Allah.” The emir paused and sipped his tea, then continued.

“The Kaaba is of critical importance to Muslims; it is the spot they pray toward five times daily. It is the very beacon of our faith. Behind the sheets that hang down over the sacred site of the Kaaba, inside the building itself, is a black stone that Abraham recovered and placed there many centuries past.”

Cabrillo and Jones nodded.

“As you mentioned, the stone is widely believed to be a meteorite sent from Allah to the faithful,” the emir added.

“Could you describe the stone?” Jones asked.

The emir nodded. “I have touched it myself many times. The stone is round, approximately one foot in diameter, and black in color. If I was to guess the weight I would say about one hundred pounds, give or take.”

“Those are the approximate dimensions of the meteorite recovered in Greenland,” Cabrillo said.

The emir’s face showed alarm.

“There’s something I failed to mention, Your Excellency,” Cabrillo said. “Our scientists have reason to believe that there might be a virus contained in the Greenland meteorite that could be released if the orb is split.”

“What type of virus?” the emir asked.

“One that consumes oxygen at an alarming rate,” Cabrillo said, “creating a vacuum that sucks everything nearby into the center.”

“Armageddon,” the emir said.

“I have to get into Saudi Arabia,” Cabrillo said quickly, “to stop him.”

“That, my friend, is harder than it appears,” the emir said. “Since the Gulf War of 2003, King Abdullah and I have had a touchy relationship. My close and continued support of the United States, allowing troops and the large airfield here to be constructed, has placed a rift in our friendship—at least publicly. To appease the hard-liners in his country and to keep himself in power, he has found it necessary to publicly condemn my actions.”

“Surely if you explain the threat he will come around,” Jones said.

“I will try,” the emir said, “but at this point we only speak through intermediaries. The process is slow and tedious.”

“Will you try?” Cabrillo asked.

“Of course. But even if he did allow you to help,” the emir said, “we have another problem. And this is quite serious.”

“What is that?” Cabrillo asked.

“Only Muslims are allowed in the city of Mecca itself.”

SCOTT THOMPSON WAS drenched in a cold sweat.

Dr. Berg had just strapped what looked like a videogame headset over his eyes and adjusted the strap to fit firmly. So far, Thompson had held firm. He’d been injected with truth serum, which had not worked; grilled endlessly over the past few days; and subjected to telephone calls from family in the United States explaining what they’d been told would happen to them if he did not cooperate.

Nothing had made him talk.

Thompson had been trained for such instances and a doctrine had been drilled into his head.

He’d learned how to fight off the truth serum, been endlessly briefed on how to handle questioning, and internalized the fact that, whatever he was told, the United States would not harm i

But no one had briefed him about this.

Thompson felt Berg’s breath near his ear. “Scott,” Berg said, “you are going to see some colored lights in a minute in front of your eyes. In time these will induce epileptic-like seizures and a fierce burning that feels like nails are being driven into your brain. If you need to vomit, and you will, you probably won’t be able to move your head, so try and be careful not to inhale your own vomit. I have a nurse standing by who will vacuum out any residue. Do you understand?”

Thompson moved his head slightly.

“Now I want to give you one last chance to come clean before this starts. I want you to know we rarely use this technique because we’ve had a fair amount of patient failure with this therapy. By that I mean inducing vegetative or catatonic states and even a percentage of outright expirations. Do you understand what that means?”

Commander Gant was off to one side of the hospital suite. He could not stand to watch what was happening and motioned that he was going to leave. Berg waved as he walked out. Then he walked over to a computer terminal and entered the commands.

Thompson began to twitch and then arched his back up against the straps.

He began to flop around on the table like a fish out of water.

IT WAS 2 P.M. in Qatar, 9 A.M. in Washington, D.C., when Overholt answered his telephone. Cabrillo wasted no time.

“I’m in Qatar,” he said. “We now think that Hickman might try to strike at one of the three most important sites to Islam.”

“The Kaaba, Muhammad’s Tomb, or the Dome of the Rock,” Overholt said. “I’ve been studying.”

Overholt had spent hours yesterday with the Agency’s Islamic scholar and read pages of documents prepared by the research department.

“Well done,” Cabrillo said.

“I’ve also had the National Security Agency tracing all communication to and from Hickman for the last few weeks and finally got the results,” Overholt said. “He’s been in communication with Pieter Vanderwald—in fact, an overnight package was just sent to Saudi Arabia from one of Vanderwald’s front companies.”

“Pieter the Poisoner?” Cabrillo said.

“The same,” Overholt said.

“Somebody should take care of him,” Cabrillo said.

“I issued a directive,” Overholt replied. “A ‘wet team’ is seeking him now.”

“Have you spoken to Hanley recently?” Cabrillo asked.

“Yes,” Overholt said, “he explained what your men found at the mill in Maidenhead. We’re sure it’s some toxin Vanderwald supplied.”

“And they sprayed it on the prayer rugs,” Cabrillo said.

“I’m sure he sealed the containers, or the pilots would have been sickened on the flight from England and crashed the plane. Hickman’s crazy, but he’s not stupid. It’s once the containers are opened that we have a problem.”

“Which could be any hour now,” Cabrillo said.

Just then the fax machine in Overholt’s office started printing. He wheeled his chair over to it, lifted off the papers, rolled back to his desk and sca

“I’d say he’ll strike at the Dome of the Rock and blame the Israelis for the entire affair,” Overholt said.

“How’d you come up with that?” Cabrillo asked.

“Remember the yacht that transported the meteorite to the Faeroe Islands and was boarded by our navy guided-missile frigate?”

“Sure,” Cabrillo said.

“I sent a specialist on board from the Agency,” Overholt said. “He finally got their ringleader to talk.”