“Fortunately,” the first man said, “the issue was contained. We’ll need to do a better job on operational security going forward.”

“The boss is already working on it.”

The man on the left checked his watch. “It’s almost time.”

His eyes went to the blue folder before him on the table, then to the bookcase of thick three-inch binders, containing the notes from the many years of daily conversations.

He opened and perused the contents of the folder, looking up as a tall, elderly Arab with a long gray beard and wearing a white dishdasha was escorted into the room by a security guard. The man ambled toward the table, his slippered feet shuffling across the smooth concrete floor. The guard left, and the interrogation room door automatically locked when it closed.

The Arab sat down in a chair opposite the two men.

“How are your new accommodations?” one of the men asked.

“Adequate,” the Arab replied. “We moved suddenly. Has someone discovered your deception?”

“Not at all,” the man replied. “This lovely facility became available, so we decided to move.”

“Why were you moving drugs into the facility as we left?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

The Arab smiled. “What shall we discuss today?”

One of the men pulled a picture from the blue folder and pushed it toward the Arab. “Do you recognize this woman? She goes by Khalila, but we were wondering if you could identify her for us.”

The elderly man examined the photograph, then looked up. “It has been many years, but of course I recognize her. She’s one of Najwa’s daughters.”

Both men scribbled a note about Najwa, Osama bin Laden’s first wife, confirming what they already knew.

“Do you know why she’d be working for the CIA?”

The Arab’s eyes widened slightly, then his gaze dropped to the picture again. When he looked up, his dark eyes had the expression of someone who knew far more than he was letting on.

“I doubt she is truly working for the Americans. But if she is and you’d like to know why, you’ll have to ask her.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I hope you enjoyed reading The Bin Laden Plot!

As I mentioned in the author’s note of the previous novel, Book 6 (Deep Strike) was a mini-reboot to the Trident Deception series, moving Christine from the White House to Langley and pulling Harrison from the Navy so he could play a larger role in the series. Book 6 was also the beginning of a secondary plot involving Mixell and his childhood friends Jake and Christine. As detailed at the end of Deep Strike, there was a debt to be paid, which Mixell took out on Angie.

I telegraphed her demise in a previous author’s note, mentioning that Angie stood between Jake and Christine, which needed to be resolved, and that I’m a thriller writer — I don’t write divorce court scenes. If you were upset upon Angie’s death, that’s a good thing. It means that even though she appeared in only a few chapters, you connected with the character, which is what I was hoping for.

The next novel completes the Mixell/Christine/Jake storyline with a twist. Hopefully you’ll enjoy that novel as well.

Disclaimer #1: The Dan Snyder character in The Bin Laden Plot is not the Dan Snyder who owned the Washington Commanders. I use real people’s names for most of my characters — individuals who have helped me as a writer or who have won the option to be a major character at one of my book release parties. Brenda Verbeck is one of them, and Dan Snyder is her brother, both in real life and in the book. Another example is Jason Johnson, the Pentagon Navy chief who Mixell killed. He’s my son-in-law, who wanted to be a character in the book, and I obliged.

Disclaimer #2: The details of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound in this novel have been simplified to avoid bogging down the story and to avoid areas where there are conflicting accounts of what happened. Additionally, the retelling in this novel blends fact with fiction to support the storyline. For those interested in the details, there are several unclassified and slightly different versions of the raid available via open-source documents.

Finally, the usual disclaimer: Some of the submarine tactics described in The Bin Laden Plot are generic and not accurate. For example, torpedo employment and evasion tactics are classified and cannot be accurately represented in this novel. The dialogue also isn’t 100 percent accurate. If it were, much of it would be unintelligible to the average reader. To help the story move along without getting bogged down in acronyms, technical details, and other military jargon, I simplified the dialogue and description of operations and weapon systems.

I did my best to keep everything as close to real life as possible while attempting to develop a suspenseful (and unclassified), page-turning novel. Hopefully, it all worked out and you enjoyed reading The Bin Laden Plot!

ALSO BY RICK CAMPBELL

The Trident Deception