Retribution (9781429922593) (17 page)

He glanced at Musharraf in the rearview mirror. “There may be some trouble at the border crossing, Mr. President. Are you armed?”

“No. Should I be?”

Musharraf had had a distinguished career in the military, even winning the Imtiazi Sanad medal for gallantry because of his battlefield conduct in the second Kashmir war of 1965. He was an officer who, when given an order to hold his position, did so no matter the odds. After that he'd joined the Special Service Group, which was Pakistan's elite special forces unit, where he again showed his bravery under fire.

“Yes, sir,” Naisir said, and he handed back his 9mm Steyr GB pistol as they came around the last switchback, less than fifty yards from the gate. “It's possible that someone is waiting to assassinate you.”

“What do you propose?”

“I'm not going to stop until we reach the border. If need be we'll shoot our way across the summit.”

“It won't do your career much good,” Musharraf said. He rolled down the windows on both sides.

Naisir got back on the walkie-talkie. “I'm not stopping for the summit.”

Brahami didn't answer.

“Sergeant, copy?”

They were coming up on the gate. No one was anywhere in sight. The trucks and a few cars, sitting idly off the side of the road, were surreal in the harsh overhead lights.

Naisir picked up the 9mm Ingram MAC 10 from beside him on the seat and turned the cocking handle ninety degrees to unlock the bolt; then he slammed the pedal to the floor and the Range Rover surged ahead.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at the same moment the pickup truck went up in a fireball, almost certainly hit by an RPG fired from above and to the right, the explosion completely destroying it.

Four men armed with AK-47s, dressed in the leggings and long shirts of Taliban fighters, came around from behind the gate and stood shoulder to shoulder in the middle of the road.

Musharraf started firing, one measured shot at a time, hitting two of the Taliban shooters as Naisir closed the distance to less than ten yards, holding on to the steering wheel with his right hand, while firing out the window with his left.

The men opened fire, blowing out the Range Rover's windshield but directing their aim at Musharraf, who weaved and ducked as he continue to fire his pistol one shot at a time.

At the last possible moment, with only one of the Taliban left standing, Naisir plowed into him, his body slamming up onto the hood of the SUV, still alive but bleeding heavily from wounds in his forehead and neck.

Naisir tapped the brakes hard. The Taliban rocketed off the hood, and Naisir ran over his body, the Range Rover nearly rocking out of control, until they were on the other side and descending into the valley toward the border crossing.

*   *   *

Three days later, Naisir reported as ordered to Colonel Ahmed's office. He had been relieved from duty without explanation the morning he'd returned from Jalalabad, and he had remained confined to his quarters in the bachelor officer's wing at the school.

“You exceeded your orders, Lieutenant,” Ahmed shouted. “And in doing so you got the three men under your command shot to death.”

“It was an RPG, Colonel, fired I'm certain by Taliban forces—the same ones who attacked my vehicle in an attempt to assassinate President Musharraf.”

“It does not matter who attacked. What matters is that you violated two sovereign borders—ours and Afghanistan's. And now we have the Americans breathing down our backs once again.”

“What would you have had me do, Colonel? Die on the highway?”

“It would have been for the best,” Ahmed blurted angrily before he realized what he was saying.

“I was ordered to get the president safely out of Pakistan, which I did. I'll accept a court-martial on the issue, sir.”

“Get out of my sight, Lieutenant.”

“No, sir. Not until my position has been clarified. Am I to be returned to my unit and be allowed to finish my degree, or am I to be discharged from the service? I have a right to know which, sir.”

Ahmed sat back and toyed with a thin file folder on the desk on front of him. “If you wish to resign you will be allowed to do so. Without prejudice.”

“I do not wish to resign.”

“You are relieved of your present position and will devote yourself to completing your education, at which time—if you graduate—you will be assigned to Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous, at the rank of captain.”

Naisir held himself in check. That directorate of the ISI was responsible for espionage operations, including offensive intel missions in other countries. The crème de la crème.

Brilliant careers could be made in the field, but men's careers could also come to fiery ends.

Problem officers were sent to that directorate, where they either shone like bright stars or crashed like meteors.

Naisir understood the risks, but he could not foresee what was to happen in the coming years. Then again, no one could.

“Thank you, Colonel,” he said, forcing his expression to remain neutral.

Ahmed hand him the file folder. “Your orders, Lieutenant. And don't be so quick to thank me; you may change your mind before long.”

 

PART

TWO

Ten Days Later

 

TWENTY-SEVEN

Pam Schlueter's Alitalia flight from Rome landed at Tehran's IKA—Imam Khomeini International Airport—at four thirty in the afternoon local and she was among the first out of the first-class exit, thoroughly discouraged and angry, mostly with herself.

She carried only one overnight bag, which passed through customs as did her Danish passport in the name of Inga Paulson without bother. Fifteen minutes after landing she was waiting with a few others at the taxi queue, though she'd half expected Naisir to pick her up or at least send someone.

He hadn't sounded happy when she'd telephoned him with the news, but he agreed that it would be best if they met.

“I'm coming to Islamabad,” she told him.

“That would not be a very good idea. The situation here is becoming unstable. Your presence would not help.”

“Unstable?”

“There are some in the government who believe that it might have been a mistake hiring you. There've been some back-burner feelers from Washington about certain recent events.”

“I'd imagined there would be,” Pam told him. “It's why we need to talk face-to-face. No bullshit now, because the mission has changed.”

“Perhaps the mission has become untenable for the time being.”

“It's worse than that.”

“Come to Tehran, if you must. I have friends there. Book a room at the Esteghlal Hotel.”

“Tomorrow,” Pam had told him. “Under the name Inga Paulson, Danish passport.”

“We'll have an early dinner, and you can leave first thing in the morning. Come alone.”

“You too.”

“And, Ms. Schlueter, I'll want the truth about everything.”

“So will I, Major.”

*   *   *

The hotel was located in the northern section of the city, facing the foothills of the Alborz Mountains, which formed a natural barrier between the capital and the Caspian Sea. She wore a head covering to hide her short-cropped graying hair, but unlike in some Muslim countries she did not have to cover her face.

She paid the indifferent cabbie well, and inside at the desk she paid for her suite with an Amex platinum card, which she loved doing. Most of her life, including when she was married, she'd lived on a budget. Especially in Germany, in the first few years of her organization, she lived frugally. Now that she finally had serious money, she was enjoying herself. And she meant to continue to do so.

She refused the services of a bellman and went up to her suite on her own. The sitting room on the tenth floor looked out over the hills, which were dotted with the homes of the more affluent Tehranians, all of them sporting more than one satellite dish, not only for television signals but for connections with Wi-Fi networks. The hotel was first class even by international standards. Surprisingly, the minibar, which needed the room key to access, was stocked with beer, wine, and several liquors in addition to mixers, bottled water, and soft drinks.

She opened a Heineken and turned on the flat-screen television; the channels included the BBC and CNN in English and Deutsche Welle in German. She turned to CNN and watched for a half hour to see if there was any mention of the assassinations, but there was nothing. She got the feeling that the CNN broadcast was censored.

The phone rang. It was Naisir and he sounded rushed.

“I'm here,” he said. “Let's talk before dinner.”

“As you wish.”

*   *   *

Pam actually knew very little about Naisir, except that he was a major in a directorate of the ISI that dealt with special projects outside of Pakistan, mostly in the West, especially Europe and the United States. When she had first approached the ISI about her project, she'd been immediately sent to meet with him, and his had been a sympathetic ear. He'd understood exactly what she wanted to do, why she wanted to do it, and the benefit it would have for his country. But he had his doubts.

“You're new at this,” he had said. “You've not done much.”

“But what we've done, we've done well. You would not have been directed to meet with me otherwise. And now we've come to the next step.”

“Yes, assassination on a much larger scale. Twenty-four of them, to be exact. But why, Ms. Schlueter? Not simply for money. What is your motivation?”

“Why not money?”

“You have greater zeal than that,” Naisir had said. “A passion for revenge, I think. Your ex-husband? Is he that much of a thorn in your side?”

Pam remembered the spike in her anger. She'd wanted to lash out at the bastard, but she'd controlled her temper. She'd shrugged. “The money is sufficient for our purposes, wouldn't you agree? I will provide you a service, for which I will get paid well and for which your government will be able to claim no knowledge. In fact I suspect it will be to your benefit to denounce the acts.”

Naisir had actually smiled. “But not too loudly, because no one would believe it wasn't something we wanted. Retribution.”

Pam had let it hang there for several beats. Naisir wore a gold wedding band, and she had the urge to ask him if his was a more successful marriage than hers had been, but she refrained. “Yes,” she said. “Retribution. Do we have an agreement?”

“Of course. But let me caution you that if unseen circumstances should arise, you will deal with them on your own.”

“I might ask for intelligence.”

“That would be possible, but we could not provide any overt assistance. You must understand that would be a condition.”

“Of course,” she assured him.

*   *   *

The doorbell rang and Pam got up to answer it. Naisir, dressed in a Western business suit, the collar of his white shirt open, no tie, a four- or five-day shadow on his face, walked in.

“You came in clean?” he asked.

“As far as I know.”

“Do you have another one of those?” he asked, indicating the beer.

“Of course,” he said. She got him the beer and they sat across from each other at the coffee table.

He took a drink. “What do you want?”

“McGarvey has become priority one,” she said.

“I warned you.”

“Yes, you did. In the meantime your retribution has to go on hold until we can deal with him.”

“What happened?” he asked.

She explained about the Norfolk operation and McGarvey's call from Steffen Engel's cell phone. “I immediately recalled my other operators and told them to get the hell out of there.”

“Where are they now?”

“Back in Berlin, where they will stand by until I give them their next assignment.”

Naisir thought about it for a long moment. “He knows who you are.”

“It's possible, but there was nothing on Steffen's cell phone that could have led directly to me. It was a prepaid phone—they all were.”

“What about your Herr Engel? If he's not dead, can he be made to talk?”

“Not likely.”

“Actually, what I'm asking is, how much of our arrangement is he aware of?”

“If you mean does he know your name? No, he does not.”

“Would you be willing to stake your life on it?”

“Yes,” Pam said without hesitation, even though she knew that she wasn't sure. Steffen, like the others, was a professional who had his own contacts. Anything was possible.

“What is it that you want of me?” Naisir asked.

“That you understand the delay for the primary objective, that your offer of two million for McGarvey still stands, and that if you learn anything that might be useful to me you will let me know.”

“Yes, to all of it.”

“Then we will kill Mr. McGarvey before we proceed any further.”

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

Coming home, Rawalpindi Airport was always a crush, though this time Naisir had not checked a bag, and his ISI-issued diplomatic passport parted the waters as usual. He hadn't logged his trip, so he hadn't signed out with his office nor would he have to sign back in. In fact he'd taken yesterday and today off, his first in several months, to try to figure out what might be coming up behind him and what his options were.

The cab ride back up to Islamabad was choked with traffic as usual, but although the two cities just ten kilometers apart were called twins, they were nothing like each other. Rawalpindi was filthy; by comparison, Islamabad was showroom-clean. Rawalpindi was where the ordinary people lived and worked, while Islamabad was were the government functionaries did their thing. The embassies were here, along with the diplomats and their families. All the government buildings were also grouped in the restricted sections of the city; the Parliament, the Secretariat, the Interior Ministry, the Supreme Court, the state bank, and the ISI.