Anwar, the younger man directly to bin Laden’s right, said, “Not the destruction of lives, but the destruction of a way of life.”

“A people.” Bin Laden returned his hands to the folds of his robe. “We must lead them like the dogs they are, manipulate them through their weakness. Their existence is an affront to all that is good in the universe. We need a single target of supreme consequence. A strike that will break the soul of the Western demon. Our enemy has raised its heavy shield in anticipation, inviting us to strike it directly, like fools.” Bin Laden sat up, seeing clearly as though visited by a bolt of divine inspiration. “Instead, we will feint to expose their vulnerability—and then strike deeply and cleanly. Remember, a strike to the ankle is just as fatal as one to the throat. For the giant still falls.”

Part 3

May 2011

Ramstein Air Base, Germany

Chapter 9

Airman third class Donnie Boyle had been in Mortuary Affairs ever since he finished basic training the year before. He had bargained with the recruiter in Boston and gotten an assignment to Germany, but at the time he had no idea this kind of job even existed.

At first, handling the dead gave him the same evil dream night after night. In it, the mangled parts he unloaded off aircraft from Iraq and Afghanistan reassembled themselves into men and women, sat up, and asked him if they could bum a cigarette. He always told them he didn’t smoke, which he didn’t, whereupon the bodies came apart again and sank down into a pool of greenish liquid.

Boyle got over the dreams in about a month, but he still hated the job. It ate away at him like an ulcer. Two or three times a week, a giant C-17 Globemaster touched down bearing a load of brushed aluminum coffins. Each was draped with an American or English or Australian flag. Long before Boyle got to Ramstein, they had discontinued the arrival ceremonies with Class A uniforms, bands, and salutes. It had gotten to be too much to bear for everyone involved. Now they unloaded the planes with a forklift. A forklift. But respectfully.

From the runway apron, the dead were transported by flatbed truck into a refrigerated hangar. That was where the forensic specialists took over. After the deliveries, Boyle and the other guys who worked on the ramp helped open the coffins. You never knew what you were going to get. Inside could be anything from what looked like a man or woman taking a nap, to something resembling a large, burned pot roast, to anything in between. Sometimes, there was so little left—no dog tags or labeled uniform—they could not positively identify the dead soldier in Kabul or Baghdad.

The main task in Ramstein was figuring out who had died for his or her country. Because everybody assigned to Mortuary Affairs already had top secret security clearance, it was easy to pull out Boyle with two other guys when the contents from bin Laden’s house arrived. The assignment orders were UFN—Until Further Notice. Word was it would be three days, tops.

Three days away from the coffins. It was a stone gift.

The first load from Pakistan came in on a white Gulfstream jet with no markings at all, not even a tail number. The crew did not disembark. The jet sat dark on the airfield, way across at one of the grass-covered humps where they used to store nukes.

Within the hour, a camo Marine Corps C-130 touched down and taxied over to the Gulfstream. Boyle and the others rode a cart out to facilitate the offload into the bunker.

From the outside, the bunker looked like a World War II ruin. They entered through a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot storage locker with piles of broken machinery and aluminum sheeting all over the floor. At the far end of the clutter, a steel door opened into a ten-by-ten-foot air lock. On the side walls of the chamber, white Gen-Nex painters’ coveralls, tie-on face masks, and booties hung on hooks. Boyle suited up, pulling blue latex gloves from a box on the door rack. Tedious work, but so was popping open coffins.

No forklifts here. Boyle and the other two men worked like movers, slogging through a long day toting sealed crates, taped cardboard boxes, steel picnic coolers, and an endless number of bags of rocks and dirt. Every time they went inside, they had to suit up; every time they went out, they had to shed the coveralls, masks, gloves, and booties.

The room beyond the air lock was not what he had expected from looking at the grass bunker outside. It was a clean, brightly lit compartment, about fifty feet by fifty feet, with computer stations in the center and deep wall racks set against white-enameled tin walls. To Boyle’s mind it resembled a morgue for possessions.

Perpendicular to the storage racks were metal tables, each with its own laptop computer and tray of instruments. Scalpels, scissors, tongs, piles of plastic bags, magnifying glasses, tins and vials of liquid, a dissection microscope. The interior was air-conditioned to sixty-four degrees Fahrenheit. The artificially cold air scratched his throat, and the steady hum of the blowers gave him the sensation of being airborne or underwater.

Two guards in field armor and battle hats stood watch, each wielding an M16, making radio checks into their boom mics once every fifteen minutes. The offload took eight hours. Afterward, the airplanes refueled and taxied away, made a running turn into their takeoffs, and disappeared into the rainy night over Germany.

An officer showed up while Boyle and the others were finishing the last of the Gatorade. His orders to them were to forget what they had just done. In the morning, they would be needed to run errands to and from the bunker. The officer didn’t say for whom.

Chapter 10

Without question, what you people are about to examine here represents the greatest intelligence haul in history,” said Dennis Geeseman.

He stood at the squadron commander’s briefing podium, a thick file tucked beneath his arm, facing four men and two women sitting apart from each other on black leather recliners in the pilots’ ready room. It was just after midnight. Geeseman hadn’t slept in thirty hours, but the task invigorated him and he was cruising on adrenaline—just like the old days. He looked crisp in his blue suit, white shirt, and lavender tie. He was the ranking FBI agent on the evidence strike team of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. He was in charge.

“Okay, quick intros.” Geeseman opened his file on the podium, lifting out the top sheet, reading from it. “Ellen Bonner from Bureau forensics.”

Geeseman paused to find a hand raised, a woman in her mid-thirties wearing loose traveling clothes in the front row.

“Special Agent Bonner will handle DNA extraction and preliminary categorization of organic and nonorganic samples. Phil Elliott from the Defense Intelligence Agency?”

Elliott half stood and waved his hand. He had small, smart eyes.

“Elliott will take the hard copy from the household effects, evaluate, read, and extract whatever might connect the dots. Jeanne Cadogan from Central Intelligence Science and Technology will pick apart the household items.”

The only other woman present, Cadogan neither stood nor raised her hand.

“Clothing, cookware, and anything else that might establish ties to other locations and persons,” continued Geeseman. “Jerry Fisk from . . .”

“Jeremy,” Fisk said, interrupting him.

“Jeremy Fisk,” Geeseman corrected himself, giving his head a slight who-gives-a-shit tilt to the left. “NYPD Intel Division. He’ll be available to Phil and Jeanne for translation. He will also scan everything for names already linked to ongoing investigations in New York and London. He’s worked in both cities, the two hottest targets, as everybody here already knows. And last but not least, Barry Rosofsky and Devon Pearl.”