Free Allah's Scorpion by David Hagberg Page A

evaluate even a small percentage of it in a timely manner. And in those days there hadn’t been nearly enough communication between the CIA and most of the other intel agencies.
    “They could sail into New York Harbor and let it blow,” Rencke said. “A weekday, rush hour. They would kill a whole bunch more than twenty-seven hundred people, not to mention how badly another strike on Manhattan would demoralize the entire country.”
    “How about something to cheer us up,” Patterson said to fill the heavy silence.
    “Finding bin Laden is still the key,” Gloria said. “There’re still the three al-Quaida mujahideen hiding somewhere in Delta who might know where he’s hiding.”
    “That, and finding a crew,” Rencke said. “Especially a freelance captain willing to work for al-Quaida. Those kinds of guys gotta be in short supply.”
    “Have you come up with any names?” McCann asked.
    “I’m working on it,” Rencke said. “But you know that Gloria is right, we have to find bin Laden this time and nail him. No shit, Sherlock. It’s gotta be done.”
    “We’re working the problem,” McCann said. “We’ll go back to Guantanamo Bay as soon as the dust settles—”
    “Now,” Rencke said. “And we’re going to need some outside help.”
    “Do you think he’ll go for it?” Adkins asked. “And does anybody even know where he is?”
    “I know,” Rencke said. “And all we can do is put it to him. He’s never said no before.”
    “Will you go?” Adkins asked.
    Rencke nodded. “I’ll leave this afternoon.”
    “Who?” Gloria asked.
    Rencke smiled at her. “Mac,” he said. “Kirk McGarvey.”

SIX
     
     
    APURTO DEVLÁN, LOS MONJES ISLANDS
    On the bridge a course-change alarm sounded on the main navigation systems coordinator. It was 0818 Greenwich mean time, 0318 local, under mostly cloudy skies, with an eighteen-knot breeze off the starboard beam, and confused two-meter seas.
    “We’re coming on our mark, sir,” the AB at the electronic helm station called out softly.
    Vasquez, who’d gone off duty at ten, had come back up to the bridge, not because he mistrusted their second officer, Bill Sozansky, but because this was the critical course change to clear Punta Gallinas, the northernmost tip of South America, and take them safely out into the open Caribbean for the run southwest to the canal.
    He set his coffee down, and walked over to the starboard combined radar-course plotter display. The AB who had been looking at the radar returns stepped aside. Their current position was plotted on an electronic chart that was overlaid with a real-time image of what their radar was picking up.
    “Have I missed anything?” Sozansky asked.
    “Not a thing, Bill,” Vasquez said. “It’s your bridge, but it’s my ass if something goes wrong. I don’t think our new captain likes me.”
    Sozansky chuckled. “I don’t think he likes any of us.”
    Two large ships, probably tankers, were more than ten miles behind them and slightly to starboard, and one other was twenty-five miles ahead and already turning northeast out to sea, just passing the tiny Los Monjes island group.
    The South American headland, fifteen miles to the west, appeared as a low green line that sloped from southeast to northwest across the radar screen.
    Vasquez got a pair of binoculars from a rack and went out on the port-wing lookout. South America’s final outpost, the tiny town of Puerto Estrella, only a small dim glow on the indistinct horizon, was falling aft, leaving nothing but darkness ahead.
    The evening was warm, nevertheless Vasquez shivered. His abuela would
say that someone had just walked over his grave. He had a lot of respect for his grandmother, who had raised him from birth, and thinking about her now, dead for eight years, sent a chill of darkness into his heart. But he didn’t know why.
    Back inside the bridge that was dimly lit in red to save their night vision, Vasquez checked both combined radars, but