KBL (19 page)

He crabbed back to the rear, took Saif’s body by the collar, trying his best not to get himself all bloody, dragged him to the guard rail, then pushed him under so the body would roll down to the riverbank.

He repeated the trip thrice, with cinder blocks, then fence wire, then garbage bag. By the end of the third, he was bathed in his own sweat. It was yet another episode during which he thought it would have been
s-o-o-o
much easier with legs.

Hyperventilating, Charlie peered over the edge. The slope wasn’t too bad. There was a fair amount of vegetation. He figured he could claw his way back to the car easily enough.

He tossed the cinder blocks and wire over the guard rail. Then he shoved Saif’s corpse and watched it slide two-thirds of the way down the scrub-covered incline.

Charlie followed, the big knife stuffed in his vest. He dragged Saif to the edge of the river. Rolled the body so it was parallel with the bank.

That was when he realized that he couldn’t do what he wanted to. Sans legs, it was impossible to drag Saif far enough into the river where it would be deep enough to sink him.

But he could do the other thing.

He maneuvered the body so that he could straddle Saif’s chest. Then he unrolled the big, sharp butcher’s knife and set to work.

When he finished, he tossed the head into the river. A good throw—maybe thirty-five, forty feet. He saw the splash.

He did a quick forensics check. He was leaving behind a headless corpse with no ID. Probably not the first of its kind in this neighborhood, either. Charlie heaved the cinder blocks and the fence wire into the river. Policed the riverbank. Glanced up toward the road. The blood on the shoulder next to the guard rail would stay there. Nada he could do about it. That left nothing else to clean up.

Except himself, and the knife. He washed it first. Then he doused his hands in the cold water, rubbing his face only after they were clean. Then he soaked his vest, tunic, and trousers to get rid of the blood, wrung them out semidry, and put them back on.

He rolled the big knife back in its garbage bag, stuffed it inside his vest, and crabbed his way toward the car. On his way up the embankment, he decided not to report any of what had just happened. There was no reason to. It would just complicate matters. Charlie understood the system, be it Army or CIA: Give them a bone and they will chew on it. Don’t give them a bone, and they won’t have the opportunity.

He made it to the top, scuttled under the guard rail, and pulled himself inside the car. Only then did he give in to the fact that he was totally spent.

He put his head back and reconsidered his position. Was he doing the right thing in not reporting? Yeah, he was. But what about Saif’s ISI contacts? Had the Iraqi mentioned anything?

And if he had, would the Paks be coming after him?

Not necessarily. Charlie had seen this sort of thing in Iraq. The local services treated foreign nationals as disposables. Sure, ISI would make use of Saif, pay him well. But he wasn’t a part of their culture, or their clan. They’d use him and then forget him. Unless, of course, he had mentioned that he’d seen one of the Gitmo Infidels sitting outside a
zam-zam
shop.

But all of Charlie’s instincts told him Saif hadn’t said a word. Not to ISI or anybody else. Saif had said it himself: he wanted to kill Mr. José and do it slowly. He wanted revenge on Mr. José. It had been personal.

Personal. That was Saif’s mistake. Too bad for him.

And good for Charlie.

Time to move. Charlie adjusted the seat, maneuvered his sticks—he’d use one in his left hand to control the gas pedal and the brake—and turned the ignition key.

That’s when he remembered he hadn’t closed the trunk.

“Oh, shit,” he said out loud.

The words brought a laugh. They were the first English he’d spoken in more than a month.

As he rolled out and dragged himself toward the rear of the car, he was already thinking about where he would abandon the vehicle. Of course he was. Exhausted or not, Charlie always tried to follow the Ranger’s Rule of the Five Ps: Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

He knew a neighborhood on the southwest side of Abbottabad where he could leave it. He’d take the plates. The car would be stripped clean within twenty-four hours.

15

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
February 15, 2011, 1218 Hours Local Time

“Kate, we have a problem.” Vince Mercaldi was on his secure line to the secretary of state, who was in her limo, just departing Main State for a speech at George Washington University. “That idiot is freelancing again.”

“I know, I know.” He could hear the exasperation in her voice. “I couldn’t order him not to go to Pakistan. You can’t tell the chairman of Senate Foreign Relations not to go. Especially this chairman.”

“Understood. But all the same—”

“Vince, you and I are on the same page on this. So is the president. I spoke to the senator”—she said the word with obvious disdain—“three times yesterday, when he called to announce he was on his way. I spent this morning with the Veep trying to put a cork in the senator’s . . . mouth, and I’m going back to the White House at three-fifteen for a one-on-one with POTUS on the subject. Believe me, I’m doing everything I can. Hold on.” There was a momentary pause. Then her voice came back on the line. “Gotta run, Vince. I’ll call him between appointments and see if I can’t get him to dial it down.”

She hung up before Vince could respond. He slammed the phone back onto its cradle. It was an irritating habit of hers to end a conversation abruptly if she knew she couldn’t solve the problem. And fat chance she’d be successful at dialing
him
down.

Him
being Senator Jason Fitzpatrick Kelly III. The senior senator from Massachusetts was a former presidential hopeful, the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a self-proclaimed expert on all things diplomatic. He was famous for his collection of Hermès ties (most of them courtesy of his millionaire wife) and his monogrammed Turnbull & Asser shirts, whose French cuffs all bore the logo JFK III. As if he could stand in
that
shadow.

He had, two days ago, taken it upon himself to fly to Pakistan in order to, in his words, “do everything I can to ease the tensions between Islamabad and Washington brought on by the unfortunate Ty Weaver incident, an incident over which I was not, as I should have been as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, properly and thoroughly briefed before the fact.”

Of course he hadn’t been thoroughly briefed before the fact. The good senator was one of Washington’s most prolific leakers. Briefing him before the fact was the equivalent of telling our adversaries what our plans were.

Or, as Vince had put it to Stu Kapos and Dick Hallett at eight that morning, “That self-aggrandizing sonofabitch would sell his mother out for thirty seconds of airtime.”

And as usual, Vince noted, the good senator was going off half-cocked. He had never bothered to check with Main State or the White House on the matter of talking points. Nor had he called CIA to ask for a briefing, even though he knew, because he had been told, that Weaver worked for Langley and should therefore be protected as much as possible.

But that was as far as the information flow went. There was no way “King Jason da turd,” as Stu Kapos was fond of calling him, was going to be given any of the specifics about Ty Weaver’s real assignment.

Thus prepped, Senator Kelly flew to Pakistan. Where, not on the ground for even half an hour, he held a news conference to announce that Ty Weaver would be subject to a criminal investigation as soon as he returned to the United States.

Three hours later, at the consulate in Lahore, Kelly met with reporters and repeated the promise, emphasizing, “Mr. Weaver’s diplomatic status is, of course, up for negotiation with our good friends the Pakistanis.” With that sound bite Kelly managed to contradict not only the State Department spokesman, but also the president, who had said not twenty-four hours previously that Weaver enjoyed full diplomatic immunity and that the Pakistanis were holding him illegally.

Then, not fifteen minutes ago, Vince watched CNN go live to Islamabad, where Senator Kelly was repeating that he, for one, wasn’t sure about Weaver’s diplomatic status. That’s when Vince muted the sound and called the secretary of state.

Now Vince watched the tall, angular, carefully coiffed senator look straight into the cameras. He turned the volume up. “Once again, I must emphasize that Mr. Weaver’s status remains to be negotiated,” Kelly said. “But I also believe that now that I am on the ground here in Islamabad, my good friend the prime minister and I can come to a satisfactory solution.”

“Jeezus H.” Vince slammed his palm on the desk. The stupid sonofabitch is sending the whole mess back to square one.

Vince muted the TV. “Get Ty Weaver’s wife on the phone for me,” he barked into his intercom. At least he could reassure her that Chairman Kelly’s antics didn’t reflect the views of the U.S. government.

He pulled off his glasses and massaged his face with his hands. It was one of those pile-on days. There had been no contact with Charlie Becker for more than twenty-four hours—and no way to contact him, either. The attorney general had announced yet another investigation of CIA activities. And Senator JFK III was running his mouth overseas. Live.

Vince stared at the ceiling. Yeah, this was one of those days when a nice, quiet law practice in northern California looked pretty damn good.

16