KBL (14 page)

The first day back in the office after New Year’s, Mr. Wade caught a glimpse of Ty’s stash. The RSO’s eyes bugged out like a cartoon character’s. He thought Ty was nuts.

“What the fuck?” Wade asked when Ty opened the rear door and showed him the pile of stuff behind the front seats.

“They want me out there. So I’m out there.”

“Yeah, like a frigging flasher. The only thing you’re missing is the raincoat.” He gave Ty a strange look. “You know those people you work for are crazy? Insane? Certifiable?”

“Tell me about it.”

“I mean, if this were State, you’d be in a grievable situation. Take it to the IG and you’d win.”

“Well, yeah—if I was at State, probably.”

“So?”

“Bottom line? Bottom line is that’s why we’re different. You guys at State work within the system. Diplomat to diplomat. You ask ‘May I?’ Me? My training manual says if I’m not breaking the laws of the country I’m assigned to, I’m not doing my job.”

“Isn’t that the training manual from the DO, or whatever they’re calling the Directorate of Operations these days? I thought you worked for the Security Division.”

“National Clandestine Service is what they call it. And I do. But occasionally—” Ty cut himself off. Wade was a friend. And helpful. But he’d been specifically instructed how far the information flow could go.

“Occasionally?”

“Occasionally our paths intersect.”

“So these days you go around introducing yourself as”—Wade’s voice dropped into a dramatic basso profundo—“Weaver, Ty Weaver, right?”

“No,
dummkopf.
I tell them, ‘White, Tim White.’ ”

Wade laughed. “Oops. Forgot about the alias.” Then he grew serious. “But listen, you know as well as I do, Paks are real uptight about snooping. Shit, every time I have to move somebody around, ISI’s crawling up my ass because I carry a weapon and a radio and I’ve got a GPS in my FAV.” His fully armored vehicle was Wade’s favorite piece of equipment. “And I’ve got diplomatic plates. What the hell do you think they’ll do when they see how you’ve pimped your ride?”

“Well,” Ty said as noncommittally as he could, “I guess we’ll find out.”

Yeah, “interesting” would be an understatement. He’d done exactly as ordered. First week of the year he’d driven right across Pakistan, almost five hundred kilometers, to the North West Frontier provinces. Stopped for lunch in Bannu. Cruised through Isha. Hit a certain bazaar on the outskirts of the rugged frontier town of Miram Shah. Got as far as Kotai Kili before ISI had the Pak National Police stop him and tell him his papers weren’t valid in the Frontier, and besides they couldn’t guarantee his safety, so he had to turn back.

But not before he’d taken hundreds of digital pictures of the locations he’d been instructed to photograph and emailed them back to the cover address Stu Kapos had given him.

Second week, he’d done the same in the greater Peshawar metropolitan area. Started with the Bala Hisar Fort, the clay-red headquarters of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary organization with ties to the Haqqani network and also, according to the intelligence data Ty had read, elements of the Taliban.

Ty had waved at the bereted sentry who binoculared him from a guard tower atop the fort’s crenellated wall. The next five days he spent in constant motion between P-war and Charsadda, taking pictures of villas, madrassas, schools, and shops, leaving a big fat wake all the way back to the consulate.

His antics made them crazy, of course. They thought he was doing targeting for Predator drone strikes. Or looking for UBL.

Just east of Peshawar, the ISI gumshoes even tried to run him off the road. They didn’t know he was a defensive driving instructor. He’d turned the tables on them—made them roll one of their pickups onto its side and forced the other into a ditch. Not a scratch on the Honda, either, except for a couple of small dings in the front fender.

But last week was the best. He drove north and east of Lahore up to the Indian border and took dozens of photos of the bunkers that the Paks were building between Narowal and Shakargarh. He shot with a 300mm lens from a quarter mile away. The soldiers were so mad some of them were actually jumping up and down by the time the local constabulary arrived. But by then he’d switched the memory cards in the Nikon, and the card he handed over held only sixty or so photos. He figured they shouldn’t go away empty-handed.

But despite all the success something nagged at him, like a piece of food stuck between his teeth.

The question—and it was a question he could not answer—was
Who was watching the watchers?

It was a serious issue. He certainly was drawing the Paks out. As of four days ago he had a permanent tail. They’d put gumshoes on him 24/7. The house he shared with Loner, Kent, and Gary was staked out. A
shwarama
vendor had suddenly appeared on C Street, right behind the American School, every day from seven until seven. In the evenings the vendor was relieved by a Mercedes that parked at the intersection of Street 2 and E Street. It was manned by two Paks, who sat and chain-smoked for twelve hours. Ty wondered where the poor guys were relieving themselves. They were probably pissing into bottles.

But he couldn’t figure out who was watching
them
.

And yet, wasn’t that what Stu Kapos had wanted? To learn ISI’s patterns, that’s what he’d said. To discover their vulnerabilities so CIA personnel could operate more efficiently in Lahore, Peshawar, Karachi, and Islamabad, where CIA maintained its bases and station.

But there was no sign of countersurveillance. None. Ty was sure of it. Because every Delta operator—and although he couldn’t confirm it, probably every other Tier One operative as well—went through an intensive course on countersurveillance and denied area operations run by CIA. So Ty knew what to look for. And he saw nothing. Not a hint. Zip. Zero. Zilch.

It occurred to him one evening, after a couple of beers with Mr. Wade, that no one was watching the watchers. That he was just out there, alone. They were running him around for no reason. They were running him because, well, he had no idea. None at all.

But that made no sense. There had to be a purpose for all this craziness. A reason HQ had pulled him off assignment and turned him into an ISI magnet.

1326 Hours

Ty checked his side mirror. The tuk-tuk was following him again, and now the motorbike had disappeared. He decided to pick up the pace. He gunned the Honda into a skiddy left turn across from the Markaz Mosque, fishtailed, then swung north. The third road was Lovers Lane. He took a quick left, then left again onto Birdwood, then left again onto a one-way street that targeted the driveway of the Royal Garden Hotel.

Glanced back.
Shit
. The tuk-tuk had stayed with him. He could make out the driver’s mustached face. The guy was holding a cell phone to his ear, steering with one hand. He was talking up a storm. Ty could see his lips jabbering.

He accelerated into the hotel’s horseshoe-shaped driveway. The tuk-tuk followed. Just ahead, a cab pulled out to pick up a fare under the portico.

Ty floored the Honda, jumped the curb and veered around the taxi, cutting it off, answering the blast of its horn with a friendly wave at the furious driver, who’d stalled out.

Ty kept going. He could still hear the driver cursing. He stuck his arm out the window and waved again as he serpentined around the hotel driveway. As he headed for the exit, he looked across the landscaped median.

The tuk-tuk was trying to reverse. Fat chance. Ty sped up, turned south on Birdwood Road, took his first left, went under the Jail Road overpass, then turned right onto the service road that ran alongside the multilane Jail Road.

It was time to end this stupidity. Just past the Mozang subway stop he’d merge into Ferozepur Road, cut through Quartaba Chowk junction onto Queen’s Road, and head north toward the consulate.

Home free. Screw ISI.

1328 Hours

He was stopped at the Quartaba Chowk intersection when the motorbike caught up to him. Ty was in the middle lane. The bike pulled alongside his right door, close enough to keep him from opening it. He could smell the engine exhaust. The driver was maybe late twenties, blue long-sleeve sport shirt, leather vest, jeans, and sandals. He kept his eyes straight ahead. The passenger was a kid in a plaid flannel shirt. Long greasy hair secured with a bandanna, jeans, and sandals. He smiled at Ty. It was a mocking, derisive, smartass smile.

Ty’s Delta Force instincts sounded an alarm. This was not right. Ty’s left hand stayed on the steering wheel. His right slid onto the butt of the Glock.

Simultaneously the kid tauntingly raised his shirt. Displaying the semiauto pistol stuck in his belt. The kid’s hand went crossdraw for the weapon just as the light changed.

The motorcycle shot ahead.

It cut off the Honda.

The kid swiveled, that smartass smile still on his face as he brought the gun up to take a shot.

Ty’s foot smashed down on the brake to keep the Honda steady. His hand brought the pistol up from under his thigh. He brought it up to eye level much faster than the kid, who was transitioning from a one- to a two-handed grip.

Ty didn’t need two hands. He got a quick sight picture and double-tapped the kid through the windshield.

Oh, fuck, that was loud
. Even with the window open, Ty’s head rang as if he’d been clubbed. He couldn’t hear anything.

He focused on the bike. The kid was down, two hits, upper center mass.

Ty put the Glock’s front sight between the driver’s shoulders and fired three more quick shots.

Now the driver went down, the bike toppling onto him.

Muzzle still on the threats, Ty reached across with his left hand and opened the Honda’s door. He exited the car, Glock in hand, his eyes moving left-right, right-left to ensure there were no more threats. No tuk-tuk with an AK-wielding driver. No backup team.

All clear. The tuk-tuk was nowhere to be seen. Incredibly, traffic was streaming around the downed bike and the Pakis on the ground.

Ty advanced on the shooter. The kid was still moving. Twitching. Gurgling.
Neutralize the threat
. Ty kicked the kid’s pistol away, then put two in his head, careful to shoot at a safe angle so his rounds wouldn’t ricochet off the pavement and come back at him.

The twitching stopped.

Suddenly there was a lot of blood. He had to report this. Had to call Wade. Had to call Loner, too. He lowered the Glock and with his left hand reached for the cell phone on his belt.

As he did so, the dead driver pushed the bike off his legs and struggled to his feet.

He turned toward Ty, screamed something in Pashto, then fled north.

Christ almighty
. Ty’s eyes scanned the street. Now cars were stopping, the drivers looking at the scene. Pedestrians were watching, too. Some had cell phones to their ears. Some were taking pictures.

Ty realized the driver was still running. He was twelve, thirteen yards away. If he got much farther he’d be in among the knot of onlookers on the near side of the intersection. Unstoppable.

Ty stuffed the cell phone in his shirt pocket, got a two-handed grip on the Glock, took a good sight picture, and fired a triple-tap at the driver. Hit him right in the lung area.

The driver’s knees buckled and he fell facedown onto the pavement. Ty walked rapidly up to where he lay and shot him twice more in the back of the head.
Second threat neutralized
.

Reflexively, he ejected the almost-empty magazine from his pistol and dropped it into his trouser pocket while simultaneously feeling for the the spare, retrieving it and ramming it firmly into the Glock’s butt until it clicked securely in place.

He heard the distinctive “hee-haw hee-haw” of sirens in the distance. Holstered his pistol, felt his heart pounding as if he were about to have a heart attack. He lay two fingers across the inside of his left wrist. His pulse was going warp speed.
Holy crap. I am so out of condition
.

He forced himself back into alertness. Scanned—moving his whole head back and forth—and breathed so he wasn’t tunnel-visioning. Amazing, he thought, there were perhaps eighty, ninety people at the intersection, but not one of them had tried either to intervene or advance on him.

Yet.

He speed-dialed Loner’s phone, and when the AWG Soldier answered, Ty said, “SITREP China Lake.” SITREP was the situation report. China Lake was the codeword for the get-me-outta-here contingency plan the four men had created.

Ty continued: “Quartaba Chowk. Cops arriving.”

Loner: “You okay? You’re shouting.”

Ty: “I’m fine. Two EKIAs. I’m fine. There’s a crowd.” He wondered if Loner could hear him, because he still could hardly hear himself. “Cops arriving. I’m okay.”

Loner: “On our way.”

“I’m okay.” Peripheral movement caused Ty to look up. A knot of Pakis was coming his way. Maybe a dozen men, maybe a few more, led by a pair of uniformed traffic wardens wielding batons. Ty ended the call. His last words: “I’m okay.”