Crawford quickly stepped in, pulled the man's hands down, and pointed a flashlight into his face.

Though the captive's face was smeared with blood and grime, Jason immediately recognized him. Confirmation brought both rage and relief.

'Holy f.u.c.k,' Camel said in astonishment. 'Is that ...?'

'That's him,' Jason replied.

'Look who we have here. Fahim Al-Zahrani. Mr Jihad himself,' Crawford said, full of glee. He snapped off the light, put his hands on his hips, and stepped up to the Arab. 'As salaam alaik.u.m, a.s.shole.'

The dour prisoner didn't reply, glaring defiantly at the colonel.

Confirmation of the prisoner's ident.i.ty rippled through the ranks. The excited marines began gathering at the bottom of the slope, whooping.

'Another p.u.s.s.y a.s.s terrorist pulled out from another hole,' Crawford said. 'Like a bunch of f.u.c.king gophers. Have the medic clean him up,' he told the marines. 'Make him look presentable. We've got to take some pictures to send back to Washington.'

From a neighbouring mountaintop to the south, the vigilant watcher - one of the dozen scouts sent to locate the besieged convoy - peered through a night-vision monocular and anxiously waited for the two marines who'd gone into the cave to reappear.

It had been almost seven hours since his lieutenant received the distress call from blessed brother Fahim Al-Zahrani's aide. With all the gunfire in the background, the message had been difficult to understand. However, the critical points had been successfully conveyed by the aide: an ambush was under way, many had already been killed and urgent a.s.sistance was needed. As to the convoy's precise location, however, the aide had been far from clear. Perhaps Al-Zahrani's men had been disoriented with the redundant landmarks of this foreign country. Or maybe the local Al-Qaeda contact designated to navigate the convoy through the terrain had been killed at the onset of the firefight. Nonetheless, the aide had only been able to estimate that the attack had taken place four or five kilometres northwest of the intended rendezvous point.

The true locale was eleven kilometres to the northwest.

By the time the watcher had spotted the stranded trucks on the roadway, an American marine platoon had already arrived. The Americans were highly focused on clearing debris from a cave at the foot of the mountain that overlooked the roadway. Creeping in close to the encampment, the watcher had overheard them saying that five men remained trapped inside the cave. And he was hopeful that the intensity of the effort meant that Allah, in His bountiful grace, might have spared brother Al-Zahrani.

As the marines came out from the cave, the watcher's heart raced when he saw that they'd dragged a prisoner out with them. He tightened the monocular's zoom. Though the moon shone brightly from above, he strained to make out the prisoner's face. Then the platoon leader briefly shined a flashlight on the prisoner. The moment the captive's face came into view, the watcher's instant elation quickly gave way to terror. Our leader has been captured!

The watcher scrambled up over the ridge, his legs shaking coltishly beneath him, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Since the marines routinely monitored radio communication, he was forced to use a more discreet signal to alert the rescue team. In the pale moonlight, he could see the trucks parked in the valley below. He stood high up on the outcropping designated as the signal relay spot. Then he pulled a plastic glow stick out from under his tunic, cracked it, and continuously waved the luminescent green tube side to side in wide arcs.

43.

Central to Crawford's encampment were two Compact All-weather Mobile Shelter Systems, or CAMSSs - barn-shaped, military-grade tents ten-and-a-half feet high at the eaves, twenty feet wide, thirty-two feet long, which four men could a.s.semble in less than thirty minutes.

The first tent served the dual role of central command and billeting Crawford (not that he did much sleeping) and his staff sergeant.

Normally, the second tent stored boxed rations, and accommodated ten sleeping mats, used on rotation by the platoon detail. But Crawford had ordered the marines to clear out the sleeping area so that the s.p.a.ce could be used for Fahim Al-Zahrani's temporary detainment.

The prisoner sat on an empty munitions crate, his hands bound tight with a nylon double-loop security strap. A second strap looped snugly around his ankles. Two marines with M-16s stood to either side of him.

The company medic, Lance Corporal Jeremy Levin - a scrawny 31-year-old bachelor, family pract.i.tioner, and reservist from Detroit who was five months into his third tour in Iraq - sat on a crate facing Al-Zahrani. He'd already flushed the wound on Al-Zahrani's hand with Betadine and cleaned the prisoner's face with sanitizing wipes. But he was concerned by Al-Zahrani's condition: clammy complexion, despondency and wheezing. So he immediately began a medical exam.

He inserted an otoscope in Al-Zahrani's left ear, which was perforated, then the right ear, which was leaking blood and clear fluid.

Crawford was watching over his shoulder. Jason and Hazo stood behind him.

'Hey a.s.shole,' Crawford said loudly to Al-Zahrani. 'I know you speak English. Just want to let you know that I think the Geneva Convention is a load of camel s.h.i.t. So don't expect me to respect your civil liberties.'

'The right ear shows severe tympanic perforation too,' the medic reported, peering through the otoscope.

'So both his eardrums are blown out?' Jason said.

'I'm afraid so. He must have been very close to the explosion.'

'Not close enough,' Crawford grunted.

'Unless he reads lips, Colonel, he won't understand a word you're saying,' Levin said. He cleaned the otoscope with a sanitizing wipe and put it back in the carrying case. Next he retrieved the opthalmoscope, flicked on its tiny light, and moved close to examine Al-Zahrani's unblinking, blank eyes. 'Pupils are responding just fine ... no apparent neurological damage. Doesn't appear that he's in shock.'

'So he's just pretending to be mute?' Crawford asked.

'I'm sure he's a bit overwhelmed, Colonel,' the medic replied curtly as he went back to the case for an aural digital thermometer. He took the temperature in both ears and made a sour face. 'Hmm. He seems to be running a high fever. That could explain the apathy.'

'You telling me he caught a cold?' Crawford said.

'More than a cold,' Levin replied coolly.

Apathy was an understatement, thought Jason. The world's premier terrorist seemed lifeless. His dark, emotionless gaze remained fixed on the ground. What could he be thinking? Was he humiliated or afraid? Jason wanted him to fight ... wanted him to react. He wanted to choke the life out of him.

Levin swabbed some mucus out from Al-Zahrani's dripping nostril. 'Not sure if this is due to the dust he inhaled, or if it's something else. I'll test him for the flu, just in case.'

Crawford backed up a step. 'If this son of a b.i.t.c.h gets me sick ...'

'I'm sure you'll be just fine,' the medic said, cracking open a plastic vial and sealing the swab stick in it.

'If Mexican pigs caused a problem, imagine what this one could be carrying,' Crawford said.

'Muslims aren't permitted to handle swine,' Levin reminded him. Next he wrapped a pressure cuff around Al-Zahrani's left arm, put the earbuds of a stethoscope in his own ears, and used the rubber bulb to inflate the cuff. Everyone remained silent as he a.s.sessed the patient's vitals. 'Given all the excitement, his blood pressure is awfully low.' He placed the stethoscope's chest-piece over Al-Zahrani's heart and listened intently. He moved it to the ribs and monitored the pulmonary functions. 'He's got a lot of obstruction in there. Lots of fluid. Probably inhaled a lot of dust.'

Not as much dust as the innocent civilians who'd been at Ground Zero, thought Jason, trying to reconcile how men like this were capable of evil on such a grand scale.

The medic removed the stethoscope, picked up Al-Zahrani's limp hand and studied the deep, ragged puncture wounds. Already, it seemed to appear worse than only minutes ago.

'What do you think happened to his hand?' Jason asked.

'Probably caught some shrapnel, or a ricochet. Could be a wound he already had. Not sure. But I don't like how the tissue looks - this discoloration and swelling.' He rolled up the sleeve of Al-Zahrani's tunic, turned the arm over, and traced his gloved finger along the protruding, dark veins in the wrist and forearm. 'Seems he's got a nasty infection. I'll give him some antibiotics ... some ibuprofen for the fever.'

'Why don't you boil some tea for him while you're at it?' Crawford barked.

The medic's face twisted in a knot.

Jason spoke for the medic: 'If Washington wants to interrogate him, he won't be very useful if he's dead.'

'You mean he might not be worth ten million?' Crawford jabbed.

Jason was fast losing patience. 'The Department of Defense's bounty specifies "dead or alive",' he replied tartly. 'I don't have a preference. But for the sake of all parties, I'm sure we'd agree that "alive" would be preferred.'

'You and your boys get to keep that money, isn't that right, Yaeger?'

'That's right. It's part of our incentive plan. Keeps us all motivated. So yeah, the money will be ours to keep.'

'Must be a nice bonus,' Crawford huffed. 'You and your rag-head buddies can retire to Thailand and have hookers suck your b.a.l.l.s dry till the day you die. How about the Kurd?' he said, thumbing at Hazo, who stood close to the door. 'You gonna cut him in on this?'

'Absolutely. He's part of our team.'

'Two million apiece.' Crawford looked over to Hazo and whistled.

'Tax-free,' Jason said, to rub it in. The veins on Crawford's forehead instantly bulged, looked ready to pop.

'You're a disgrace, Yaeger.' The colonel's words seethed with loathing. 'Nothing but a sellout. And just remember that it was the US marines who pulled that c.o.c.ksucker out from the cave. That's the story everyone here knows. So I wouldn't suggest spending your money just yet.'

'I've already sent plenty of video and pictures back to my office ... make a nice doc.u.mentary about the six-month manhunt that led us all here. Not to mention all the thrilling images of my unit's ambush, which feature this guy's ugly mug all over them,' he said, pointing to Al-Zahrani. 'Funny thing is, there aren't any marines in those shots. So don't you worry about us,' Jason said, grinning smugly.

And GSC's home office was equally keen to cash in on the bounty since its contract with the Department of Defense included a sliding scale of bonus payments for terrorism's most wanted targets. At the top of that list, Al-Zahrani fetched a 50-million-dollar kicker. There was even a chance that a few million more could still be had from the four militants yet to be extracted from the cave. After Lillian saw the pictures Jason had transmitted to her e-mail, she'd been fully behind Jason's requests - even commissioned a private jet to take Flaherty to Vegas. The almighty dollar was still a potent motivator. Though financial enticements didn't factor well into the military's strict moral code, they worked wonders in the enterprising private sector.

Levin pulled a blood-filled syringe out from a thick vein snaking up Al-Zahrani's forearm. 'We'll need to lay him down.'

Crawford took a few seconds to decompress before saying, 'Fine. Set up a cot for him. But you be sure to hang an American flag next to him. Remind him that he's ours now. When you're done, I want you to set up a video camera in here too.' He turned his attention back to Jason, who still wore a smug grin. 'All right, Yaeger. Time for you and your boys to earn your money. This c.o.c.ksucker may not be able to hear us, but his hands are working just fine. So we'll do this with writing.' He pointed to Hazo and said, 'He stays with me, just in case Al-Zahrani decides to scribble some Arabic. You speak Arabic, isn't that right, Haji?'

Hazo nodded. 'I do, Colonel.'

'Of course you do. You're no millionaire yet, so go fetch a pen and paper. We've got work to do.'

Hazo paced to the other side of the tent and began rummaging.

'In the meantime, Yaeger, we've got another G.o.dd.a.m.n tunnel to unclog. Four more gophers to pull out ... and G.o.d knows what else. And we still need to figure out what in h.e.l.l blew up in that cave. Wrangle up your boys and get working on that. I'll have Staff Sergeant Richards help you.'

'I'd prefer to a.s.sist you in questioning the prisoner, sir.'

'Don't wet your panties, Yaeger. We both know he's not going to give us anything useful. If he does, your Kurd can fill you in later.'

Jason knew that Crawford was right on both points. 'Fine. But now that we've confirmed his ident.i.ty' - he tilted his head to the prisoner - 'I need your a.s.surance that backup is on the way. We can't risk losing him now.'

'Don't cry ... You'll get your money-'

'I'm not worried about the money money, Crawford!' Jason snapped. 'For Christ's sake! We've just captured Fahim Al-Zahrani! And up in those mountains, I saw someone who might well have already called for help to try to set him free. As far as I see it, the entire f.u.c.king battalion should be here!' He s.n.a.t.c.hed the sat-com off the colonel's belt and held it up. 'Make the f.u.c.king call to General Ashford ... or I will will,' he threatened.

The two guards exchanged nervous glances. Even Al-Zahrani took interest.

Crawford's baleful eyes went wide. 'I don't take kindly to insubordination, soldier,' he hissed through clamped teeth.

Jason stepped closer, so that his nose practically touched the colonel's. 'I don't take kindly to incompetence,' he rebuffed confidently. 'f.u.c.k this up and you'll be facing a s.h.i.t storm in front of a military tribunal. Plenty of men here are witness to how you're handling this. I'm hugely hugely interested in the success of this mission. Lots of innocent lives depend on it. Need I remind you, sir, interested in the success of this mission. Lots of innocent lives depend on it. Need I remind you, sir, that that is why we're all here.' is why we're all here.'

Without breaking eye contact, Crawford plucked his phone from Jason's hand. He c.o.c.ked his head sideways. 'That'll be all, Sergeant.'

'Make the call,' Jason repeated. He took two steps back and paused. Before he turned to leave, he added, 'And just so we're clear, Crawford: I'm not your soldier.'

44.

Though Jason wasn't fond of Crawford's leadership style, he had to admit that the colonel's platoon was a well-oiled machine. In less than fifteen minutes after relaying Crawford's command to Staff Sergeant Nolan Richards, a human chain of twenty marines outfitted with respirators stretched through the cave's pa.s.sages and began ferrying out the blast debris. Camel, Jam and Meat joined them. The remainder of Crawford's platoon went about securing the camp.

With Crawford focused on interrogating Al-Zahrani and the platoon set to work, Jason was intent on having a closer look at the cave's burial chamber. He grabbed a flashlight and filed past the marines lined up in the entry tunnel. At the T, he split right from the marines and moved swiftly through the winding pa.s.sage.

Drawing lessons from the PackBot's earlier exploration, he tried to avoid the tunnel branches that led to dead ends. But the further he progressed into the mountain, nothing differentiated one pa.s.sage from the next. Twice he forked off down pa.s.sages terminating in solid rock and had to backtrack. Each time, he pulled out his knife and sc.r.a.ped an 'X' into the wall on either side of the pa.s.sage.

Along the way, he managed to locate one of the surveillance cameras the bot had detected in the ceiling. Surprisingly, there was no visible wiring. Surrounded on all sides by rock, wireless signals would be near impossible. So where did the wiring run to? He didn't have time to investigate the matter. He had to keep moving before Richards came looking for him.

The subterranean atmosphere was completely disorienting; the air cool and loamy, thin on oxygen. It felt as if the earth had swallowed him whole. Imagining Al-Zahrani groping through the pitch black with no hope of escape gave Jason bitter satisfaction. It was hard to believe that after so many months chasing ghosts, the A-list madman was now their prisoner - bound like an animal.

Over the past months, the intelligence Jason's unit had pieced together through monitoring chatter and milking informants had pointed to a band of heavily armed operatives moving furtively from south to north, bouncing from one safe house to the next. Certainly cause for concern. But none of the intel even remotely suggested that Fahim Al-Zahrani might be among the group.

That was how the dirty business of counter-terrorism functioned: for every truth there were provocative rumours. Like the claim made by an informant in Baghdad which suggested that these phantom operatives had acquired two Soviet suitcase-sized nuclear weapons (over sixty of which were still unaccounted for after the fall of the Motherland) and were planning to erase Jerusalem and Washington DC from the map.

Accepting 'intelligence' at face value was anything but smart. 'Nothin' but a bunch of drama queens,' Meat had once said.

The tedious process of sifting good information from bad information had persistently put Jason's unit one step behind their quarry. Only when Jason moved on to more aggressive tactics did a clearer picture begin to take shape. Case in point: the tips extracted from a former Ba'ath Party lieutenant who'd sung like a canary after only one night of sleep-deprivation in a brightly lit windowless room with Britney Spears's 'Oops! I Did It Again' playing in a loop at blaring volume. Among other t.i.tbits, Britney got him to confess that he'd helped arrange transport for the quarry, from Mosul to Kirkuk, and that travelling with the group were senior Al-Qaeda members seeking safe pa.s.sage to Iran. All true. Thanks, Britney.

From there, Hazo's contacts in Kirkuk pointed them to a local imam who'd been rumoured to have briefly hosted a number of unsavoury guests. Enter bright lights, Britney Spears and one sleepless night and the imam had provided detailed descriptions for the four-wheel-drive vehicles he'd procured for the operatives. Shortly after Jason requested aerial surveillance support from one of the Predator drones flying reconnaissance rounds over the northern plain, the caravan had been spotted heading east towards the Zagros Mountains. An hour later Jason's unit had staged a hasty ambush.

Now Jason was certain that the only contraband the Arabs aimed to smuggle over the mountains was far more ominous than plutonium: it had been Fahim Al-Zahrani himself. And Jason still feared that Al-Zahrani was plotting an escape. Crawford had better call for backup, he thought.

Finally, the pa.s.sage widened and yielded to the cave.

At the opening, Jason paused and moved the light beam left to right. All along the walls the bone piles were stacked high - a circle of death.

What happened to these people? Jason wondered as he paced forward and shone the light on the skeletal remains. There had to be thousands of skeletons stashed unceremoniously in this cave. This was definitely not a modern ma.s.s grave, like Crawford wanted to believe. But it certainly was evidence of a large-scale burial. There was no telling if the bodies had been buried at the same time.

Working the cave counterclockwise, he walked the perimeter while using the light to scan the bones. Every few feet, something would catch his eye and he'd paused to examine the remains and hunt for clues. Even if these bones came from victims of an ancient war or genocide, there'd be signs of trauma - broken bones, cleaved limbs, gouges left behind by sharp blades. But there was nothing extraordinary about anything he was seeing.

Conversely, modern genocide wasn't about torture: its focus was annihilation - speed and efficiency. It wasn't uncommon for dozens or hundreds to be gunned down en ma.s.se by automatic weapons. Or if ammunition was slim, the modern executioner might opt to work his way along a line-up and deliver single-round headshots. Like Saddam's henchmen had done to Hazo's dad. There was no evidence of that here. Not one bullet hole. Even if shots had been delivered to the torso, once the flesh decomposed, the slugs would drop out from the bones.

Furthermore, the lack of clothing or personal effects strongly countermanded Crawford's chemical-weapons hypothesis. Not to mention that not a trace of flesh remained on these bones. That pointed to an event long, long ago. Well before Kurds were victimized by Saddam and his Ba'ath Party goons.

There definitely was a story to be found in these bones. But what could it be?

The bot sonar hadn't picked up any other exit tunnels branching out from this cave. Seeing how the bones were piled so high, however, Jason wondered if the sonar signal had been obstructed. Maybe there was something to be found behind behind the bones? There was only one way to determine if that was the case. the bones? There was only one way to determine if that was the case.

'They're only bones,' he told himself. 'Nothing but bones.'