In the darkness, he tugged with his left thumb and middle and index fingers at the final upside-down magazine in his military belt. Freeing it from its holster, he inserted it into the Desert Eagle, dropped the slide catch, and chambered a round.
Knees bent, his back pressed against the bark, Gorman slowly peeked around the trunk, but to his surprise he only saw one figure.
What the hell?
As he aimed the Magnum at its center of mass, probing the forest around the silhouette’s flanks, he heard a noise behind him. But he never got a chance to turn around.
The blow to the side of his face made him drop the pistol, and the kick from an unseen boot to his solar plexus bent him over.
Falling on his side, Gorman coughed, feeling the urge to vomit as three figures loomed over him, clutching AK-47s.
He stared at his executioners in silent defiance as more of Harwich’s words echoed in his mind.
When you’re in-country you’re only one decision away from starring in your own YouTube video.
But the men didn’t seem to be in a cinematic mood as they pointed their muzzles at his head.
So this is how it ends, he thought, before multiple reports whipped the woods, thundering in his ears.
He cringed, shrinking back, hands shielding his face, his body tensing for the impacts that never came.
Momentarily confused, taking a deep breath, he looked up, probing the darkness.
The men had fallen, their limp bulks littering the ground by his feet. In their place stood the tall woman in the black shalwar kameez, whom he had seen minutes ago talking to the al Qaeda soldiers. She kept her feet spread apart for balance, hands clutching a dark pistol, her features still veiled by the dupatta. Behind her stood two men holding MP5s and dressed in the black tactical gear of Pakistan’s Special Service Group.
Gunfire erupted on the street, mixed with shouts and the sound of engines roaring and tires screeching. Everyone, Gorman included, turned toward the racket, made by a mix of AK-47s and MP5s.
The woman looked at the SSG pair and tilted her head toward the street.
The operators took off while she approached Gorman, clutching her weapon, which he recognized as a 9mm Beretta 92FS. Gazing in both directions and behind her, the woman took a knee in front of him.
The face now materialized as a she pulled back the headscarf, dark hair falling to her shoulders, framing high cheekbones on a narrow face. Her catlike brown eyes glinted with recognition, and Gorman remembered that Sunday reception at the American embassy a month ago. His mouth recalled the taste of the bottle of Maker’s Mark she had brought, along with a proposal for cooperation between the CIA and her agency, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. Gorman had agreed to think about it and let her know when he might be ready to have a follow-up conversation. Finkle had squashed the idea.
“Hiya, Mr. Gorman,” ISI officer Maryam Gadai said in her British accent. “We meet again.”
As Gorman quickly came around, breaking her stare to peer at his dead would-be assassins, and while the firefight intensified in the street, Maryam added, “Do you fancy another chat?”
16
Tribal Warfare
SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Nasseer Niaz moved through the predawn darkness like a shadow, swiftly and quietly, with practiced ease, the cool, dry air filling his lungs. Perspiration filmed his body, sticking to his dark khet partug, the combination tunic and pants made of cotton that he wore beneath a charcoal nylon vest keeping grenades and extra ammunition within easy reach.
Turning his sweaty, bearded face to the sky as a light breeze swept down the mountain, refreshing him, Nasseer briefly closed his eyes, thanking Allah for this simple pleasure.
His younger and much larger brother, Hassan, followed closely, holding a weathered AK-47, as did the rest of his small band of warriors.
But not Nasseer.
Although of average height and quite slim, he operated the intimidating twenty-pound Russian PK machine gun. He also carried another twenty pounds of 7.62 × 54mm cartridges in twenty-five-round connectable aluminum belt lengths. For this mission, Nasseer had linked four segments to create a continuous hundred-round belt inserted into the PK’s right-side feedway, wearing the rest of the five-foot-long belt wrapped over his shoulders bandolier style.
Nasseer was the group’s leader, but more than that, he was Shinwari, from a Pashtun tribe numbering four hundred thousand that had declared war on the Taliban for the atrocities committed by its regime in the 1990s—among them, the murder of Nasseer’s parents.
His mission tonight: steal weapons and explosives from an enclave rumored to be also holding three captured Canadian soldiers from an ambush the day before.
He paused when reaching the edge of the forest, wincing in pain as another molar fell to neglect in the back of his mouth. Clenching his jaw, Nasseer dropped to one knee by the waist-high vegetation leading to the small clearing, aiming the Kalashnikov machine gun at the pair of armed men by the fissure-like entrance to a cave formed in a towering rocky outcrop.
The guards, AK-47s slung behind their backs, knelt by the remnants of the prior night’s fire, which was barely glowing orange by the side of the cavern, palms facing the dying embers, trying to absorb what remained of their rising heat. Off to the right, Nasseer spotted a set of four rectangular solar panels connected to wires bundled into a thick cable running along the side of the rocky wall, disappearing inside the cave.
Nasseer ran the tip of his tongue over the latest abscessed tooth while assessing the enemy, swallowing the bitter taste that told him an infection had set in, which also explained his swollen neck glands.
It will have to come out, like the other ones, he thought, grimacing at the reason he’d lost so much weight in the last two years, after his dental problems began.
Pointing three fingers to his right and then to his left, he prompted his well-trained team to split, to spread along the edge of the woods while Hassan stayed put, kneeling next to his brother.
Nasseer crawled to the edge of the brush before extending the PK’s integrated bipod that was hinged to the front of the weapon, resting it softly on the ground, the muzzle parting knee-high blades of tall grass. He uncoiled the ammunition belt off his chest and piled it to the right of the forty-seven-inch-long weapon before settling behind it in the brush.
Pressing the skeletonized buttstock against his right shoulder, right hand on the pistol grip, he sank his left elbow on the ground while spreading his legs behind him for balance and recoil support, ankles flat on the ground, toes pointing outward.
He tilted his head slightly to align his right eye with the square-notched rear-tangent iron sight and the front sight assembly near the end of the long barrel. Then, slowly, he shifted the weapon to bring the rightmost guard into the center of his sights.
Hassan crept by him, resting his elbows on the ground while aiming his AK-47 at the cave.
Swallowing a mouthful of tangy saliva, Nasseer flexed his shooting finger off the trigger casing and touched the trigger. Deciding that his team had had enough time to reach their respective vantage points, he squeezed.
The PK thundered against his shoulder as the feed mechanism pulled the rimmed cartridges from the back of the ammunition belt, dropping them into the feedway, allowing the bolt to strip and feed the rounds into the chamber for firing.
He released only a short burst, five or six rounds, easing off the trigger when the guard’s midriff exploded. Nasseer shifted his aim to the left, catching the second guard still crouched over the fire, staring at his dead comrade in apparent shock, and ripped through the guard’s head and shoulders with a follow-up volley.
The man collapsed over the sizzling coals, kicking up a cloud of glowing ashes.
His team rushed onto the kill zone but remained clear of the entrance while Nasseer paused, centering the sights in the middle of the dark and wide natural fissure in the rock formation. Almost ten feet wide at th
e base, it gradually narrowed as it rose to a height of almost twenty feet.
Seconds ticked in his head as he waited patiently, familiar with Taliban tactics. Smoke wafted from beneath the guard crumpled over the embers, coiling across the camp, the smell of burned fabric and flesh tickling Nasseer’s nostrils.
Nasseer grinned. The fanatical Taliban soldiers didn’t disappoint, streaming out of the cave to make their stand, screaming and shooting blindly. He picked them off easily, unleashing quick bursts while Hassan also fired his AK-47. Within seconds seven men lay dead by the entrance to the cave.
Nasseer looked over at Hassan and nodded. His brother stood, giving the signal for the team in the clearing. Two men immediately jumped into action, rushing to the entrance, leaping over dead bodies, and tossing a pair of old Russian Model 1914 concussion grenades before retreating.
Two blasts later and three more insurgents stumbled outside, also firing blindly. Nasseer also took them out with single shots, before one of his men went inside the cave and exited a moment later, giving the “all clear” signal.
Nasseer picked up the Kalashnikov machine gun, slung the remaining belt over his shoulders, and approached the entrance, stepping over the dead Taliban. Before going inside, he ordered four men to perimeter duty in case the gunfire drew enemy forces in the area.
The interior was damp and murky, smelling of body odor, gunpowder, and something else he couldn’t place. Several flickering oil lamps hung along the left wall, washing the interior in dim yellow light.
Nasseer eyed the stash of weapons lining the left wall, mostly AK-47s, assorted ammunition and grenades, plus several IEDs. But his attention shifted to long tables along the right wall. The first three were packed with IED hardware in various states of assembly, plus two explosive vests wired to handheld detonators—dead man’s triggers.
He exhaled, thanking Allah that the Russian grenades had not set off any secondary explosions, with so much volatile material. Or that the surviving fanatics had not blown themselves up, especially given the contents of the last table: a pair of laptops tethered by long wires to cell phones hanging by the entrance to maximize reception. Three car batteries provided the necessary electricity through a DC/AC power inverter. The solar panels outside fed the hardware during the day while also charging the batteries for night operations. It was very simple and also very efficient, easy to move around.
He cruised past the weapons, explosives, and computer gear, guided by what he now recognized as the coppery smell of blood. And that’s where he found them. Two soldiers, boys really, much younger than Hassan, hanging by their wrists from hooks hammered into the rock wall, their entrails, genitals, and eyeballs piled below them among pools of coagulated blood.
“We are too late, brother,” said Hassan, stepping up to him. “The Ba’i wanted them alive.”
Nasseer frowned. “I thought there were supposed to be three soldiers, not two,”
“That is true.”
They ventured deeper in the cave, weapons ready, following a slight bend in the hideout, the coppery smell of blood pungent.
They found her tied to a table just beyond a makeshift kitchen and several cots.
“What in Allah’s name have they done this time?” Hassan mumbled, while Nasseer simply looked at the bloody mess the Taliban had made of a girl not older than his youngest sister back in—
The woman suddenly shifted on the table, trembling, eyes gouged, her front teeth and tongue missing, as she coughed up blood and tissue.
“She’s alive!” Hassan shouted.
“Cut her loose. Hurry,” Nasseer said, rushing to her side as she writhed in pain, dropping her hands to her mangled groin the moment Hassan sliced off her restraints.
One of his men produced a blanket, wrapping the woman in it before placing her in one of the cots. They did what they could for her, but the internal damage had been extreme, and she bled out in minutes.
And mercifully so, Nasseer thought, before turning to Hassan, who was visibly shaken. “We’re taking all three with us. They still have value, as do the computers and phones.”
Hassan steeled himself and gave the order. The Shinwari cut down the dead soldiers and carried them outside along with the woman, before gathering the computer hardware.
“What about weapons and ammo?”
“Take anything we can carry.”
“And the rest?”
Nasseer contemplated the large cache of explosives. “Torch it.”
17
The Enemy of My Enemy
INTER-SERVICES INTELLIGENCE HEADQUARTERS. ISLAMABAD. PAKISTAN.
“We lost them right … “here,” Gorman said, pressing an ice pack against a throbbing cheekbone while stabbing at the map spread out on the large conference table, where the now familiar Damin-i-koh snaked northwest of the capital, toward Haripur. “Bastards changed vehicles before we could reposition surveillance. Our best guess is that they were making a run for the border … here … or here.” He shifted his index finger northwest of Haripur, the starting point of the legendary Khyber Pass, a dangerous mountain pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the heart of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. FATA was controlled by a number of warring Pashtun tribes, and it was also a mecca for opium smugglers.
“Surveillance? As in American drones inside Pakistani airspace?” mumbled Maryam with amusement, while sitting across from him in a basement conference center. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t bloody hear that.”
“Who said anything about drones? I said surveillance, though I thought you and I were past that,” he replied.
Maryam twisted her lips at him. She had shed the shalwar kameez along with the dupatta and just wore tight black jeans, a black T-shirt, and one hell of an admonishing stare, which Gorman found quite irresistible. In his years running ops for the Agency, he had yet to come across someone like Maryam, figuring that beautiful female operatives were the stuff of novels and movies.
But then again, the Pakistanis were legendary for training women for the sole purpose of honey-trapping guys like him. So while Maryam had indeed saved his life—and while she certainly looked like she’d just stepped out of a South Asian beauty pageant—the trained operative in him called for caution. He was, after all, deep inside ISI land, surrounded by hidden cameras. Anything he said could be used to blackmail him in the future.
“But in the spirit of interagency cooperation,” he added, “I had my people position two Predators circling the Afghan side of the mountain pass, just east of Jalalabad. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“I don’t believe in luck, Mr. Gorman.”
“Well, I was damn lucky you showed up when you did. And please, call me Bill.”
Gorman and Maryam had made it back to the street after their unscheduled but quite fortunate rendezvous in the woods. The place had resembled a battle zone, with Taliban and SSG operators sprawled everywhere. One of the vans was long gone, along with the surviving Taliban soldiers, plus one Dr. Ali Khan, professor emeritus of nuclear engineering and board member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. That was the name Karen Barns had claimed belonged to the owner of the residence, when Gorman returned to the RAV4, where his satellite radio had survived the fusillade that had rendered the Toyota undriveable.
“Yes,” Maryam said. “About that … Bill. How did you say you happened to be there?”
“I didn’t. How did you happen to be there?” he replied, setting down the ice pack and massaging the side of his face.
Maryam sat back, crossed her arms, and hissed, “Bugger. Are we going to play more bloody games? This is why those cheeky bastards are winning.”
And that was precisely the question, of course. How much could he really confide in a member of an intelligence organization that had been at odds with the CIA for as far back as Gorman could remember? Finkle’s reply, when Gorman had asked the question following that embassy encounter with Maryam, had been zero. Nada. Zip. And that was part of the reason why th
ey were inside ISI headquarters and not inside the vault at the U.S. embassy. He’d figured that it was safer to come here than to bring an ISI officer inside CIA sacred ground.
But Gorman had also learned from Harwich, long ago, that Agency rules were more like operational parameters. They were not meant to be broken. But if the situation required it, they could certainly be …
Tested?
Nodding to himself, he decided to do a little tit-for-tat tradecraft test and see how far he could get.
“Are you harboring the big boss of those … what did you call them?… ‘cheeky bastards’ somewhere in Pakistan?” he asked.
Maryam just stared at him.
“All right,” he added. “Then tell me, why would they kidnap a guy whose expertise is in building nuclear bombs?”
More silence.
Raising his brows and lifting his hands, palms up, Gorman said, “Now who’s playing games? Are we doing this or not?”
At her continued silence, Gorman stood and said, “Appreciate the save, Maryam. Really. I owe you one. But I’ve got work to—”
“I was there because we got a tip.”
He remained standing. “A tip?”
She motioned for him to sit down. “Please, Bill.”
Gorman complied, slowly, resting his forearms on the conference table. “I’m all ears.”
Maryam looked up at the clock on the wall, which probably hid a wide-angle high-definition camera and a microphone, before locking her gaze on Gorman and saying, “I handle an asset in the cartel … goes by Zameer. He signaled last night that our … cheeky bastards needed safe passage into Afghanistan for one of our nuclear scientists in Islamabad. They will be assisted by Adnan Zubaydah, one of the drug cartel bosses controlling the Khyber Pass.”
Leaning forward, Gorman said, “You expect me to believe that the ISI gets word that the Taliban is after one of your esteemed nuclear scientists and all it sent for his protection was—”
“Zameer didn’t give us a name, Bill. There are over twenty nuclear scientists living in this city, many working at the university, like Dr. Khan. So we had to divide our forces, and did so very carefully to avoid telegraphing our presence. I was assigned to Dr. Khan eight hours earlier, and as soon as I spotted the vans, I ringed our team. The plan, however, was to follow them, not to intercept.”
Without Fear Page 13