“For you and Mac to get there. For Schlueter to arrive. They figure that you guys will probably show up in the middle of the night, so they think they’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Do you think the cops will be here too, or maybe some muscle from the ISI?”
“No one official for now. They’ll want to keep this thing as quiet as possible while they decide what to do about the SEAL contract.”
“Now that we’re here, they can’t seriously be thinking about going ahead.”
“People have done crazier shit,” Otto said. “So watch yourself, and she’s just the guy’s wife, nothing more sinister, as far as we know.”
“As soon as you decrypt her phone calls let me know if trouble might be coming my way. Otherwise I’m just going to hold down the fort till Mac gets here.”
“Lots of stuff could go wrong, so maybe it’d be better if you waited for Mac no matter what happens.”
“I’m not going in to shoot it out with her, if that’s what you mean,” Pete said.
“That’s exactly what I meant, plus all the shit that we haven’t thought of yet,” Otto said. “One good thing on our side is that as far as I can tell there is no surveillance operation on the place. So you’re going in clean, although there might be someone else in the house with her. But I don’t think so.”
“I’ll find out,” Pete said.
She sat behind the wheel for a full minute watching the house and the neighborhood. Somewhere a dog was barking. A jet took off from the airport, which was only a couple of miles away. Nothing moved on the street, nor were there any people out and about, though she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched.
The iron gate swung open on its electric motor, which came as a surprise to Pete. She started the car, expecting to see Naisir’s wife drive out in her green Fiat convertible. When the woman didn’t come, Pete switched off the engine and walked across the street, where she stopped just at the gate.
Ayesha’s car was parked to one side in the narrow courtyard. Nothing moved, and after a couple of seconds Pete slipped inside and started across to the door.
The top of the wall was embedded with sharp spikes about eighteen inches tall set at three- or four-inch intervals, so climbing out of here would be just about impossible. For just a moment Pete thought about phoning Mac, but only the wife was inside, and as far as Otto had been able to determine the woman was not on the ISI’s payroll. Nor was she any sort of a agent for any other intelligence or law enforcement agency. She was nothing more than a housewife whose family happened to be wealthy.
Pulling her gun, Pete went the rest of the way to the door, which was unlocked. She pushed it open with the toe of her sneaker and paused for a moment to listen for any sounds from inside. But the house was quiet.
Stairs went up from a narrow vestibule. A corridor ran back to the rear of the house. She went to the second floor. Three doors led from the hallway, all of them closed.
Downstairs she paused again to listen for anything, the slightest noise that Ayesha was somewhere close. But the place remained silent, and Pete began to get a little spooked. Pointing the pistol down and away from her leg, she started along the corridor, careful to make absolutely no sound, trying to keep her breathing even, though her heart was racing.
The smart move would have been to turn around and find another way out of here till Mac arrived, but she kept telling herself that she was armed, and she’d faced worse situations working with him.
The end of the corridor opened to the right into a broad living area furnished in the Western fashion, with couches, wingback chairs, and a flat-screen LED television. Tall sliding glass doors faced a small garden backed by the rear wall that, like the one in the front, was topped with sharp metal spikes. Several small lime trees were in full bloom, but the rest of the garden looked as if it had been neglected for a long time.
Ayesha Naisir rose up from one of the wingback chairs that faced away from where Pete was standing. She was a short, slender woman with long black hair and wide dark eyes. Beautiful in an exotic way, even in jeans and a snow-white peasant blouse that revealed her bare shoulders, she smiled and stepped away from the chair, her tiny feet bare, her nails painted bright pink.
“I wondered who would show up first, you or Mr. McGarvey, though I really didn’t expect either of you until sometime tonight, or perhaps in the early morning,” she said. Her English was flawless with a hint of British accent.
“Who else is here with you?” Pete asked.
“No one, though my husband should be here soon. He called and said that he and Mr. McGarvey had a pleasant chat at the hotel, though the outcome was anything but.”
“Then I guess we’ll just sit down and have a little chat of our own while we wait for them to show up,” Pete said. She motioned toward the couch.
“It might be a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid,” Ayesha said. She came around to the coffee table in front of one of the couches and picked up what looked to Pete to be a television remote control, pushed a button, and then set it down.
Too late Pete realized it wasn’t a TV remote, but the control to close the gate.
Ayesha came forward and Pete raised the pistol.
“Are you going to shoot me?”
“If need be.”
“Then you would be in very grave trouble,” the woman said, stopping an arm’s length away.
Pete pointed the pistol at the woman’s head. “Your husband has hired a team of assassins to kill twenty-four American servicemen in the United States, along with their wives and children. They’ve already murdered two of them, so it isn’t I who am in trouble. It’s your husband and the government he represents.”
“Twenty-four soldiers who violated my country’s borders to conduct an illegal raid and murder several people.”
“Terrorists.”
“Like you, in my home with a pistol pointed at me,” Ayesha said, a little color coming to her cheeks. “Why are you here?”
“To find out the truth,” Pete shot back. “To stop the murders.”
“You’ve told me that you and Mr. McGarvey already know the truth. Go home before it is too late.”
“It’s already too late,” Pete said. She stepped forward and jammed the muzzle of the silencer into Ayesha’s forehead, just as her phone rang and someone came down the corridor.
FORTY-ONE
McGarvey ordered a car with a GPS from the concierge, who apologized, saying that it would take thirty minutes to arrive. Naisir had obviously flashed his ISI credentials to the manager, so the entire staff was on edge, though if he’d said anything negative about the two Americans, it wasn’t apparent in their attitude except that everyone was ultracareful.
He went back to their suite, where he tried to call Pete, but the phone switched to a recording that his call was being forwarded to an automatic voice message system.
Otto called at that moment. “Pete’s in trouble.”
“I just tried to call her. But her phone switched to voice mail.”
“An old Lexus showed up down the street from the safe house, and in the next pass it was in the compound and four guys were getting out.”
“Goddammit,” McGarvey said. He was afraid of something like this. “Was Naisir with them?”
“I don’t think so. These guys were a lot larger than him. But I got the car’s tag. I’m running the registration now.”
Switching the phone to speaker, he laid it on the bed and got his pistol, the silencer, the spare magazines, and the small bricks of Semtex and fuses. “I want to know when Naisir arrives.”
“The Lexus is registered to Zeeshan Manzoor Sial Import/Exports. Hang on.”
Mac holstered the pistol, put on his lightweight black blazer, and pocketed everything else. All that was left in the suite was their overnight bags, a few bits of spare clothing, and their toiletries kits. He didn’t think they’d be back for any of it.
“I’m not coming up with any ac
tual import or export license applications, but they maintain an account under that name at the Habib Bank AG Zurich in Rawalpindi. I’ve not cracked it yet, but their business credit cards are platinum. I think I’ll go to Zurich and see if it’ll be easier to get in.”
“Any connection with the ISI?”
“None that I’ve found so far. My gut feeling is these guys are the city version of the dacoits—bandits, enforcers, tough guys who originally started out in India and Myanmar. They’ll work for anyone with money—and they’ll do anything from robbing trains, to raping your neighbor’s daughter if you get into a feud.”
“Kidnapping and murder?”
“Yeah. And they have a reputation of being good at what they do.”
“What’s your confidence level?”
“That they’re dacoits? Ninety percent. I’ll have it nailed in a couple of minutes. But listen, Mac, if you go barging in there right now with the four of them on site, plus Naisir’s wife, and very likely Naisir himself within the next twenty minutes or so, there’ll be a bloodbath, and there’s no guarantee you or Pete will come out of it in one piece.”
“You’re right, but I am going to take a quick pass.”
“And then what?”
“I’m going to do exactly what they’re expecting me to do. Wait until the middle of the night and then hit them.”
The line was silent for a longish moment or two. “By then Schlueter will most likely be there. Seven-to-one odds.”
“Actually seven-to-two with Pete. And they’ll be overconfident.”
“Shit,” Otto said. “One of these days you’re going to make a mistake.”
“Not today,” McGarvey said. “Soon as Naisir shows up let me know.”
Again Otto was silent for a second or two. “No way I can talk you out of this?”
“I’m not leaving Pete there.”
“They won’t do anything to her; it’s you they want.”
“That’s right. And I’m not going to disappoint them.”
“Shit.”
* * *
The car turned out to be a chocolate-brown Mini Cooper, with the bigger engine and twin pipes, plus a portable GPS unit suction-cupped to the windshield. McGarvey plugged the address of Naisir’s house in the city into the unit. When he arrived, he parked across the street.
Traffic was thick downtown, but orderly, and the impression that he got was of a carefully managed, almost squeaky-clean city, reminiscent in some ways of a Swiss town but with an Islamic flair.
He walked across the street and rang the bell at the front gate. An older man in jeans and a white shirt buttoned at the collar answered the door.
“I’d like to speak to Major Naisir,” McGarvey said in English.
“May I ask who is calling?”
“Mr. McGarvey.”
“Yes, sir. I will tell the major that you called. Most unfortunately he is not presently at home.”
“When do you expect him or Mrs. Naisir?”
“I couldn’t say.”
* * *
He drove over to the government section, where he slowly passed the Pakistan Secretariat buildings on Constitution Avenue. Then he turned around at the bus station and passed the parliament building, the National Library, the Supreme Court, turning on Bank Road. He followed it into the diplomatic section, where he parked in front of the German embassy.
If he had picked up a tail he hadn’t spotted it, but he was pretty sure that Naisir had instructed the hotel staff to keep an eye on his activities. They would have reported the car to whatever number they had been given. In addition he’d spotted surveillance cameras on the roofs of all the government buildings, including the German embassy’s. If they were watching, they knew where he was. It was even likely that the delay in delivering the car had given the ISI time to plant a GPS tracker. Which was exactly what he wanted.
He got out of the car and sat down at a bench twenty yards away, well out of the range of any listening device that also may have been planted. He telephoned the U.S. embassy and was immediately connected with Don Simmons, the CIA’s chief of station.
“Mr. Director, I was hoping that you wouldn’t be calling me, but I’m not surprised that you have.”
When McGarvey had briefly served as the DCI, Simmons had worked as assistant COS in Cairo. They had met once at headquarters, and again in London at a joint intelligence services conference, where the topic of discussion was the Middle East, which everyone had agreed even then was on the verge of a meltdown. He’d seemed to be a no-nonsense career officer with a limited sense of humor. The work of the CIA was serious business.
“I need to get in touch with Milt Thomas.”
“I’ll not involve my staff in any clandestine operation you’ve come here for.”
“Nor am I asking for it. I’d simply like him to watch for someone coming in on an Air Berlin flight this afternoon. Routine. As far as I’m concerned he can even report it to his police contact.”
“And then what?”
“Give me a call and let me know.”
“And then what?”
“Nothing.”
Simmons hesitated, but then gave McGarvey a phone number. “If you get yourself into any trouble with the police or the ISI, you’re on your own.”
McGarvey broke the connection and phoned Thomas, who answered immediately in Punjabi.
“I need a favor,” McGarvey said.
“You’ll have to clear it with Don,” Thomas said in English.
“Already have. I want you to meet an Air Berlin flight this afternoon. See if a woman gets off, and see what she’s carrying and who, if anyone, meets her.”
“How will I know who she is?”
“I’ll send you a couple of photos from my cell phone.”
“Do I need to tail her?”
“Depends on who she meets or doesn’t meet. But listen up: be careful. This woman is very good, and if Major Naisir is the one to meet her, back off immediately.”
“I hear you,” Thomas said. “Give me the details.”
FORTY-TWO
The neighborhood around the safe house was quiet. It normally was at this hour on a weekday because there were no food or craft stalls here, no restaurants or coffee shops. Nevertheless, Naisir approached with a great deal of caution. His technical department had called with the information from the hotel about the Mini Cooper, and already the calls were filtering in from surveillance cameras in the political section of the city about the American’s presence.
“He just finished speaking with someone on his cell phone,” Sergeant Salarzai reported. He worked in Naisir’s section, and in the few months he’d been at that position he had proved to be a very capable aide. He was one of the few men in the directorate whom Naisir trusted.
“Who did he phone?”
“We don’t know. He parked in front of the German embassy and sat on a bench. It’s all we have, except that he made two calls, both of them brief.”
“Where is he now?”
“Sitting in his car in Jinnah Park not far from your house. He entered a specific address in his GPS, in Rawalpindi, but he drove to the park instead.”
Naisir had parked down the block from the safe house, and he instinctively looked in the rearview mirror. “Let me know when he moves.”
“Yes, sir. Can you tell me the operational code so that I can log my activities?”
“Later,” Naisir said. “Just keep me informed.” He phoned Ayesha.
“We have company,” she told him.
“The woman?”
“Yes. She had a gun pointed at me, but your four contractors arrived just in time. Everything here is under control. Where are you?”
“Just outside. But McGarvey will show up just as I thought he would.”
“Early?”
“I don’t think he’ll try anything until tonight.”
“I’ll open the gate for you,” Ayesha said.
By the time he got to the end of the block the gat
e had swung open; he drove inside and parked next to his wife’s Fiat and the Lexus. There wasn’t a third car, which meant the woman who’d traveled with McGarvey had come in on foot. He’d passed an Aveo parked around the corner—or at least what was left of the American compact car—it had been stripped of its wheels and just about everything else easily removable. Pakistanis were an enterprising people.
Ayesha met him at the door and they embraced. “I think the woman would have shot me,” she said.
A chill hand gripped his heart, thinking about what might have happened. “You should not have come here.”
“Nonsense. A wife’s place is in support of her husband.” She came outside and closed the door, out of earshot of the others in the house. “Whatever you think of women in general, do not underestimate the one who came with McGarvey. Even the four dacoits you hired have been unable to intimidate her, and they are very hard men.”
“What has happened?”
“She had a cell phone, so obviously she and McGarvey have talked. He knows that she’s here.”
“That’s the whole point,” Naisir said. “I want to use her as a bargaining chip; she’s of no other use to me.”
“And she knows it. She refuses to call McGarvey.”
“There are methods.”
Ayesha shook her head. “If you mean torture, I don’t think they’ll work.”
“Anyone can be made to talk.”
“Not this one, Ali.”
“What makes her so special?”
“I’d bet anything that she is in love with McGarvey. And a woman in love will endure anything for her man.”
“Including dying?”
“Yes, including dying.”
“We’ll see,” Naisir. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs in the inside bedroom.”
One of the dacoits was leaning against the wall at the foot of the stairs. He was very large for a Pakistani, towering six inches above Naisir and easily weighing two hundred pounds. His face was broad, his eyes very dark, with five days’ growth of whiskers on his face. He wore jeans and a faded dungaree shirt, a scarf around his neck, very Western. And he looked angry.
“What do I call you?” Naisir asked.
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