'Correct,' Periglas said.

Another voice came on. 'Is that Agent Grange?' It was Fouad Al-Husam. He did not sound happy. 'We were expecting American Muslim soldiers.'

'This is Grange. No military. We're sending agents to direct and render a.s.sistance.'

'What sort of a.s.sistance?' Fouad asked. 'Without Muslims, we will do well enough on our own. There is no need to-'

'It's already been decided,' Grange said. 'Is that understood, Agent Al-Husam?'

A few seconds later, 'Are your papers in order?'

'All in order,' Grange said.

'There are three of us here with a Saudi driver and a minibus. Ten of our agents are already in Mina. They report the main ma.s.s of pilgrims are expected at Arafat in five hours. They will return tomorrow to Mina by way of the Jamarat. That could be the best time for pathogen release.'

'Agreed,' Grange said. 'We have to intercept before eighteen hundred hours GMT.'

Rebecca faced William across the narrow aisle. The helicopter was eerily quiet. 'He's been with his Jannies for how long now, and we're supposed to fit right in, without an introduction?'

Grange said, 'He knows William and respects both of you. He'll smooth it over with the others, if there's a problem.'

'And how are we supposed to help, exactly?' William asked.

'However we can,' Grange said. 'My guess, someone in Washington doesn't trust our Muslims to get the job done.'

'The ol' FUBAR,' Birnbaum called back cheerily. 'Plan B with a vengeance.'

The whisper bird changed its subtle hum and pitched forward.

'Drop in five,' Higashi announced.

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT.

Desert, East of Mina.

'It is not fard fard, to go on Hajj when there is so much danger,' Amir said.

'What I read, if a few pilgrims die, bandits get them or whatever, it's OK. Historically, some danger is inevitable, so it's fard fard.' Mahmud stood beside Fouad and watched the lights in the west. They had parked the minibus on a back road leading up and out into an empty, rocky waste of low hills. They were far enough away they could not hear Mecca, but in the dusk they could see its green and orange glow-the lights from the Grand Mosque catching the dust rising from all the trucks, cabs, and cars, forming a low haze in the dry air. The wind in the desert valleys had settled and it was still hot, in the eighties.

'Only G.o.d would have told someone to build a city down there,' Hasim said.

They were not particularly profane, the young former Iraqis put in his care; but they had too much energy and American att.i.tudes, and so they hid their piety under a layer of banter. Fouad understood. Six years ago he had been like them-unable to believe his good luck at being in America and not Egypt, and yet- His body and his soul had craved this part of the world. Coming back to Iraq and then to the Hijaz had awakened a deep nostalgia, reminding him of his childhood in the dry air of Egypt. There had been less fear, more variety, more wealth and distraction in America, but also there had been less life. life.

They were still in exile, thirsting.

For them, Hajj was out of the question. They had come to the Hijaz in the wrong frame of mind, with all the wrong intentions-they could not be pilgrims. Yet for every Muslim, even those inclined to an American sense of profanity and joking, simply seeing those lights, knowing how close they were to the House of G.o.d, to the Black Stone, to the beautifully and newly woven black and gold Kiswah Kiswah that shrouded the that shrouded the Kaabah... Kaabah...

What they were about to do-allowing infidels into the Holy City-was necessary to save this sacred place, so that they could return when it was proper, when their time had come to stand before G.o.d and shed their earthly confusions with maximum spiritual benefit.

A black aircraft came up over the distant hummock with a sound like an angry wasp-and nothing more. As it approached, all five watched in alert silence, American boys pleased by this marvel.

Fouad stepped down from the b.u.mper of the minibus. Through the windshield, he saw the silhouette of Daoud Ab'dul Jabar Al-Husseini, a rumpled, discouraged-looking man in his sixties, rousing from a pre-dawn nap. Al-Husseini had once occupied a high rank in the Saudi Secret Police. He had probably been a strong man, a pious man, a harsh man not above tormenting other men and their wives in the service of the Wahhabis. Now his eyes were haunted by the privileges and stability he had seen blowing away, the end of a good, cruel dream.

Al-Husseini opened the bus's front door and jumped down heavily to the hard-packed roadbed. He rubbed his nose, then blew it into his fingers and wiped them on his pants. He had become an unkempt, dirty man. 'So they're here,' he said. 'It will soon be over, one way or the other.'

The whisper bird circled their position swiftly, little louder than a car but blowing up sand in a thin cloud around the minibus and across the road. The lights of Mecca dimmed.

Then it dropped spindly legs with round pads and set down on the sand twenty meters from the road like a moon lander.

Three people stepped down.

's.h.i.t,' Al-Husseini said in English. 'They brought a woman? I hope they have excellent papers. These are no more Muslims than I am a Jew.'

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE.

The Red Sea U.S.S. Heinlein.

The chief working beside Jane Rowland was named Hugh Dalrymple. He was quick and businesslike as he took control of various midges that had reported interesting results. The video transmitted by the small flying craft was surprisingly clear, the colors almost too vivid-altered to enhance contrast and salient detail. Living things seemed to glow with an inner light in the pre-dawn darkness. Sleeping pilgrims laid out in rows and uneven clumps in the streets of Mina, lying on thin pads or blankets or prayer rugs, or just on the ground in their two towels, stood out like flames against the gray sand and packed dirt and black asphalt. Soldiers and security police had become scarce in the last few hours.

Not a few of the pilgrims that looked asleep were not glowing; they had died in the night.

Wearing the ship's heavier gogs and zooming with Dalrymple through the crowded, noisy streets for the last two hours was taking its toll on Jane; she was almost dreaming awake-the ship's strong coffee was not keeping her focused...The whisper bird had yet to report that it had disembarked its pa.s.sengers...

'A person of interest,' Dalrymple announced, and nudged her gently with his elbow.

'Midge thinks we have a westerner,' Captain Periglas said from the bridge of the Heinlein Heinlein. The midge had been circling at fifty feet over a crowded overpa.s.s. Cars and trucks and buses moved in a steady stream, as they had all night, crossing over a pseudopod of tents that had pushed through the formal boundaries of the tent city-if anything could be considered controlled and formal in Mecca now.

'I'm skimming now, sir,' Dalrymple said.

The midge descended on a tall, lone man with dirt-colored hair and a staggering, weaving stride. He wasn't wearing ihram ihram; he had on flopping socks, boots, shorts and a torn khaki shirt. Cars brushed close, one knocking him with a mirror and spinning him to his knees; buses moved to within a few inches as he stood again and weaved across the lanes. It seemed he'd be struck down at any moment, but there was something charmed about his uneven gait. He glanced up at the sky, face crinkled in a puzzled frown, as if aware he was being watched. He seemed to be listening to something or someone.

Dalrymple dropped the midge to within a few feet of the man. They had a quick close-up, full on, of the mottled face, filthy with sweat, dirt, and dried blood. His eyes were startling in the darker, stained face, staring, childlike and clear.

Green and blue.

Jane paralleled Lawrence Winter's FBI portrait in their gogs. Except for the eyes, the emaciated face was only vaguely recognizable. But Jane was certain. 'That's him,' she said. 'We've found Winter. What in the h.e.l.l is he doing?'

'Looks pretty out of it,' Dalrymple said.

Birnbaum, the pilot of the whisper bird, broke in and reported he disembarked all pa.s.sengers. 'Wind is one or two knots. Standing off at five klicks and setting out biosensors,' he said.

A red glow flicked on in the upper right corner of Jane's vision. Frequencies and satellite positions scrolled below the light. Then, beeps and whoops of digital decoding-somewhere in the ship's electronic mind, complicated decrypt was being performed. Within seconds, as she held her breath, she heard...

A phone wheedling.

The phone, according to the display, was in the Kiryat Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem.

The numbers matched.

'Yigal Silverstein is phoning his girl,' Jane announced. She was wide awake now like a dog on point.

'Wonderful,' Dalrymple said.

The midge rose to ten meters above the wandering man on the overpa.s.s.

'Oh, Christ,' Periglas said. Jane could see it coming as well. She wanted to turn away, but the image in the gogs followed her head.

A speeding bus, spying a gap in a neighboring lane, had zipped from behind a truck whose bed was thick with pilgrims. Pilgrims leaned inboard where they hung from the slats to avoid being knocked free. The bus accelerated, honking madly- And the man with one blue eye and one green eye, with dirty hair and b.l.o.o.d.y face, vanished under its hood and tires. The bus did not even slow. Three more cars rolled over the tumbling pile of meat and rags, lurching on their shocks like kiddy b.u.mper toys.

'Suspect is down,' Dalrymple said.

'He's gone,' Periglas said.

Jane closed her eyes. For some reason, no time to guess why, former Special Agent Winter had been cut loose to wander and die.

CHAPTER SEVENTY.

Mina.

Through the open window of the minibus, William felt the wind shift. In a few minutes, it might be just right for an opening salvo of fireworks. He scanned the gray skies. Al-Husseini was driving over the hard-packed dirt trail, not really a road. The minibus was bucking and complaining like a donkey. They were all listening to Dalrymple explain what had just been seen on the overpa.s.s.

'Was it Winter?' Rebecca asked.

'We think so,' Jane said. 'We'll replay-'

'No time,' Fouad said. 'What else do you have for us?'

'Agent Rowland has picked up one of our settlers,' Dalrymple said.

'He's on a cell with his fiancee in Jerusalem,' Jane said. 'According to our translator, he's sitting in the back of a truck and he's not a happy terrorist. Something about having diarrhea.'

'Let me hear his voice, if he is still talking,' Fouad said. 'I need to hear this man who wants to kill so many Muslims.'

Dillinger interrupted from Washington, DC. 'Mr. Al-Husseini, we show you coming up on a gated service road outside the tent city.'

'Yes, as I have told you,' Al-Husseini said. 'The gates will be open. I know the guards. That is your point of entry. Papers will be checked. I a.s.sume-'

'Fouad, on short acquaintance, do you trust Mr. Al-Husseini?' Dillinger asked.

The two men in the front of the minibus exchanged dark glances. Fouad looked away and grinned. 'He is an individual with many fine traits,' he said. 'What more can I say?'

Al-Husseini smirked. 'We are all excellent individuals.'

The gate was simple but effective, an opening cut through long straight kilometers of chain link fencing that had been coiled back and staked down. Five armed men in black berets and olive-green uniforms, trim and professional, stood around a sand-colored military truck open to the early dawn light. They waved their automatic weapons and Al-Husseini pulled to the left and stopped.

Fouad leaned over to listen to the conversation. Al-Husseini spoke rapidly and softly to a thin man with a full black beard. A packet of money was exchanged. The thin man riffled through the bills, then waved the barrel of his gun.

'He will not need to check our papers,' Al-Husseini informed them. 'I used to be his superior officer. He works now for the provisionals-for Iraqis and Yemenis, so I hear. A true pig among pigs, just like me.'

'We've lost the settler's cell signal,' Jane said. 'We think they were still in Mecca, however. They haven't moved out to Mina.'

'There will be time,' Fouad said. 'The pilgrims are going to Arafat. They'll return to Mina after sunset.'

'We should park and drink bottled water,' Al-Husseini said. 'Patience is all.'

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE.

Arafat, Mina.

Having prayed at the Mount of Mercy, where Adam and Eve had found each other after being expelled from Paradise, and where Mohammed (peace be upon him) had delivered his final sermon, pilgrims flowed back toward Mina. Three stone and masonry pillars representing all the temptations of the devil lay in a straight line within the confines of a huge twostory structure that could provide access to thousands at once-yet still, this was the most dangerous moment of the Hajj. Pilgrims, exalted and exhausted from their prayer vigil at the Mount of Mercy, having searched deep within their hearts, having confronted their darkest selves and found G.o.d's mercy and forgiveness, had departed at sunset toward Muzdalifa to gather their forty-nine pebbles, then stumbled and stalked toward their final task in such numbers that the crush, even in good times, times of order and control, had left dozens and even hundreds dead. Now there was little or no control. Soldiers and would-be police kept back, standing in groups or sitting on their cars or trucks, rifles slung or raised to the dark sky, dark eyes watching with helpless bemus.e.m.e.nt. They were surrounded by a sea of human beings clad in towels or long, modest dresses, moving in one direction and with one intention: to rid themselves of the last vestiges of evil and complete their Hajj.

Fouad had instructed Al-Husseini to pull over to the side of the road just north of the King Khalid Overpa.s.s. The wind was blowing gently from the southeast. Thousands of cars, trucks, and buses swarmed out of Arafat along all the available roadways, chugging all manner of exhaust fumes. Cook stoves gasped plumes of oily smoke that coalesced into a ragged blanket over Mina, and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of sacrificial sheep-already underway-added an invisible tang of blood.

The OSMOs were overwhelmed.

Fouad listened to the irritated chatter of security frequencies. All was confusion, even in the electronic caverns of the Navy ship sailing off the coast, but he was still in contact with most of his team.

They might as well be blind. Within the hour, Fouad was sure, the settlers would launch their fireworks. From the minibus, they would look up to see the starbursts and know they had failed. They would share in the fate of all the faithful pa.s.sing below them.

Yet G.o.d was merciful.

William sat by a middle window, scanning the hordes and the traffic. Rebecca sat in the seat opposite, communicating directly with Jane Rowland on the Heinlein Heinlein. They had not recovered the settler's phone signal. Someone in Mecca was jamming across a wide spread of frequencies. The jamming could be penetrated but it would take time.

'They're on to something,' Amir told Fouad as they listened. 'Someone high up thinks there's going to be trouble.'