“Good.” The military helicopter had a computer terminal at the communications officer’s station, so Baris swiveled his chair over to his computer terminal and logged on. His usual list of daily intelligence, status, and situation reports started popping up on the screen. “Our first task is to get you to safety. I.. .”

“I must go back to the presidential palace,” Susan repeated. “I must bury my husband first.”

“Your life is in great danger if you go back,” Baris warned her.

“I have no choice. If the conspirators want to kill me before or during the funeral, so be it—I will become Egypt’s second martyr. My last duty to my husband is to help lead his nation forward beyond their grief.” She smiled at her friend. “But I don’t want you exposing yourself in a vain attempt to stop any attack if it should come. I want you out of sight, watching, as you do best. Leave me your best and most trusted aides. I think I’ll be all right until after the funeral. After that... we will do what we must do. Let’s go to Alexandria. Can you find a secure place for us there?”

“The Naval Academy on Abu Qir Bay east of Alexandria—the commandant is an old friend, and he can ensure your safety and security. It’s isolated enough to keep us out of sight, but they have helicopter and fast armed patrol vessel facilities in case we must make a quick escape from Khan’s goons. Your apartment is less than a kilometer away.” But as he scanned the daily reports, he came across a shocking one and read it quickly. Susan noticed his eyebrows lifting higher and higher with each sentence. “What in hell . .. ?”

“What is it, General?”

“Some sort of base-wide emergency happening at Mersa Matruh as we speak,” Baris replied, reading the report with growing surprise. “Listen to this, Susan: On the night before the attack at the mosque, there was an attack against an isolated rocket base in Libya, including possible chemical and nuclear material discharge.”

“I remember. Kamal was briefed shortly after it happened. We mobilized our border forces, but otherwise did not want to make it appear we were in any way involved.”

“That’s correct,” Baris said. “A few hours later, there were a series of attacks by unidentified warplanes, presumed to be Libyan, against several civilian commercial vessels in the Mediterranean. We were told they were some kind of retaliatory attacks, the Libyans trying to find where the commandos that attacked their base came from. A total of seven lifeboats filled with sixty-three men and women evacuated from one of the ships, a Lithuanian-flagged salvage vessel, and were picked up by our guided missile frigate El Arish out of Mersa Matruh.”

“That seems like a very large crew for a salvage vessel. What else? Has the crew been interrogated? Who are they?”