Allah's Scorpion

by David Hagberg

  It was a reprimand on a so-far-spotless record that Ransom had hoped would carry him at least as far as DDO.

  “I got a call from Charlie Breamer.”

  Ransom was in the act of putting on his jacket. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled it on. “Oh?” he said. “His people find something already ?”

  “The Orion they sent out yesterday picked up a mass of metal sitting on the bottom just where Captain Subandrio said his ship was sunk. One of Charlie’s boats put down an ROV on the site. That was about an hour ago. They got a positive ID. The wreck is the Distal Volente.”

  Ransom shook his head. He looked almost bemused, as if he were having some difficulty in digesting what he’d just been told. “He was telling the truth after all.”

  “Looks like it,” Sterling said. “I think we have to consider the possibility that he told the truth about the other thing. Al-Quaida has got a Foxtrot submarine and a first-rate captain.”

  “Moshe didn’t seem too worried,” Ransom said. “But that could have been an act.”

  “This should be sent to Langley,” Sterling suggested.

  “You’re right, of course,” the COS said. “First thing in the morning.”

  “I think you should call it in right now, Tony,” Sterling said.

  “Okay, assuming that the ROV took pictures, I want to see them before I do anything. This thing, if it pans out, is going to get a whole bunch of people real excited. I want to be absolutely certain that we’re all on the same page.” Ransom gathered his cell phone and put it in his pocket. “I’ll be at home. Get me the pictures and I’ll call Dave Whittaker and give him the heads-up tonight.”

  Sterling figured it was the best he was going to do, although he would stop by to see the ambassador. Maybe they could make an end run around the CIA. “What about Subandrio?”

  “Get the pictures and we’ll take care of him in the morning,” Ransom said. “What’s the going rate now? A hundred thousand?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’ll talk to Dave about that as well,” Ransom said.

  Sterling turned and was about to leave when the COS stopped him.

  “This is a CIA issue now, Russ. We’ll keep it that way. If and when the ambassador needs to be told, I will be the one doing the telling. Clear?”

  FIFTY-THREE

  KARACHI

  The GPS tracker, disguised as a nonencrypted sat phone, raised no eyebrows at the customs counter in the Jinnah International terminal, for the simple reason that so many businessmen carried the phones these days they’d become commonplace. But security was tight as it had been for a long time. McGarvey’s luggage was X-rayed, then hand-searched by customs officers, as was his body after he’d taken off his shoes and his jacket and turned out his pockets. His hefty Philippe Patek chronometer was examined by two different officials before he was allowed to put it back on his wrist.

  It was early evening when he shouldered his bag and headed across the busy concourse to the taxi ranks out front. Ostensibly he was here, under his own name, to do freelance research for the State Department’s upgrade of its Pakistan country guide blue book. He wasn’t carrying a diplomatic passport, nor did he have the credentials of a journalist, so he’d been given no preferential treatment. On the other hand he’d not become the center of anyone’s attention. So far.

  Although he thought he could feel eyes on him, people watching his every move, he’d spotted no one obvious. But if bin Laden’s people didn’t know that he had arrived in the country yet, they would certainly get the heads-up when he checked into the Pearl Continental downtown where Rencke had booked him an executive suite for ten days.

  For now he was a man apparently in no hurry, here in Pakistan to spend some of his government’s money. Islamabad might buy the fiction, though al-Quaida would certainly not.

  Bin Laden would know for certain that there was only one reason McGarvey had come back. The question was how arrogant the man had become; how much of the fiction he and his people had created about his powers had he begun to believe. Enough so that he thought he was invincible? A spider that was willing to let its prey come into the web?

  Just outside the automatic doors, McGarvey stepped to one side and held up well out of the steady stream of passengers who had just gotten off three flights that had arrived within minutes of one another, and from the mob of cabbies who descended upon them.

  The night was warm and humid, with a mélange of smells unique to this port city; burned kerojet, the sea, diesel fumes, rotting fish and garbage, and some indefinable combination of spices and unpleasant human odors.

  An older-looking, ragtag, stoop-shouldered man, wearing a dark suit coat over a dirty white shirt, baggy trousers, and flip-flops, approached from the end of the cab ranks, a green baseball cap in his left hand. “Good evening, sir. May I offer my cab into the city?” His heavily accented English was barely understandable.

  “I’ll wait until the crowd thins, thank you,” McGarvey said.

  “Yes, but my cab is clean and my rates are reasonable.”

  Rencke had arranged an initial contact, but this was Karachi and the messenger could have been compromised, though the man’s encounter key words were correct.

  “Very well,” McGarvey said, and he followed the cabbie to the far end of the cab ranks and then across four lanes of the very busy departure road.

  Police were directing traffic, but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to McGarvey, though the feeling that he was being watched continued to grow; as if someone were sighting a rifle on the back of his head.

  He tossed his bag in the backseat of the cab, and climbed in as the driver got behind the wheel. “The Pearl Continental on Club Road.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said and they headed into Karachi, merging smoothly with the rushing traffic that consisted not only of cabs and buses, but of horse-drawn carriages, human-powered rickshaws, and bicycles.

  A small leather case lay on the floor behind McGarvey’s feet. He picked it up and opened it. His pistol, two extra magazines of ammunition, a bulky encrypted satellite phone, an envelope containing ten thousand dollars cash, and another containing three passports—one U.S., one British, and a third French—had been sent over in a diplomatic pouch earlier today. The cabbie was a contract worker for the U.S. Consulate here.

  “Good flight over, sir?” the driver asked, all traces of his Pakistani accent gone, replaced by what sounded like California to McGarvey.

  “Bumpy,” McGarvey said. “Thanks for my things. Do I know you?”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. McGarvey, but I know Todd Van Buren, your son-in-law from the Farm.” The driver looked in the rearview mirror. “Name’s Joe Bernstein.”

  “Pleasure,” McGarvey said. “Anyone behind us?”

  “Thought I might have spotted the same motorbike that was parked down the block from the consulate this afternoon. But it’s gone now.”

  “How about at the airport?”

  “You came in clean, unless someone was on the same flight.”

  “It was vetted in Riyadh,” McGarvey said absently, his mind elsewhere. There should have been someone at the airport. The motorbike was a possibility, but according to Bernstein it was no longer behind them.

  “Any idea how long you’ll be here, sir?” Bernstein was asking.

  “Couple days,” McGarvey replied. They had to know he was coming.

  Bernstein handed a business card over the back of the seat. “If you need anything at arm’s length from the consulate, call me at the cab company. It’s an answering service.”

  McGarvey focused on the driver. “What’s your job here?”

  “Just a driver with big ears,” Bernstein said. “You’d be surprised what people will say in the back of a taxi. They think they’re invisible.”

  “You speak the language?”

  “Fluently. My grandmother was a Pakistani. Didn’t move to the States until she was twenty-five.”

  “Then
keep your ears open for me, Joe. I want to know if my name comes up.”

  “Will do, Mr. M. I’ll leave a message at the hotel for you. A chalk mark on the FedEx box in the lobby.”

  They rode the rest of the way into the city in silence. Once they passed the Chaukhandi Tombs and got off Hospital Road into the center of downtown, traffic seemed to increase tenfold, and everyone seemed to be moving at a frantic pace, as if they needed to get off the streets as quickly as possible lest something catch up with them. Pakistan had been a nation in turmoil from its beginning in 1947.

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of the Pearl, where a bellman came over to open the cab door for McGarvey.

  “Need anything, give me a call,” Bernstein said.

  “Could be I’ll need to get out of Dodge in a hurry.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know yet, but if the need arises it’ll be all of a sudden.”

  “I’ll work on it,” Bernstein said as the bellman opened the door.

  McGarvey got out of the cab, handed the bellman his B4 bag, and carrying the small leather case with his weapon, phone, cash, and passports, entered the hotel. The lobby was moderately busy with people checking in, and others at the hotel for dinner.

  He checked in at the desk with his own American Express card, but the clerk refused it.

  “It’s not necessary, Mr. McGarvey.Your wife has already checked in, two hours ago.”

  McGarvey was taken aback. He simply couldn’t imagine Katy being here. It made no sense. But a sudden understanding dawned on him, and his anger spiked. “Did she leave a message?”

  “Yes, sir. Mrs. McGarvey said that she would be waiting for you in the coffee shop,” the clerk said. “It’s just across the lobby to your left.” He glanced at his computer screen. “Your dinner reservations are for eight.”

  “Anything else?” McGarvey asked, holding his anger in check.

  “No, sir,” the clerk said. “Shall I have your bag taken up?”

  “Yes, please do,” McGarvey said tightly, and he took the room key card from the clerk.

  He handed the bellman ten dollars and made his way across the lobby past the piano player, and down two stairs to the nearly empty coffee shop. He spotted Gloria seated in a corner booth, and it was all he could do not to turn on his heel, retrieve his bag, and check into another hotel before he got her killed. She had no idea of the magnitude of her foolishness following him here. And he was disappointed in Otto for allowing this to happen, because without him he didn’t think she would have made it this far.

  She looked up as he approached, a big smile on her face that faded almost immediately when she saw his mood.

  He didn’t sit down. “Let’s go, dear,” he said.

  The waiter came over. “May I bring you something, sir?”

  “No,” McGarvey said. “We’re leaving.” He stepped aside for Gloria to get up, then took her elbow and propelled her out of the coffee shop and across the lobby to the elevators. He knew that he was hurting her arm, but she didn’t say anything, or try to pull away. They didn’t speak on the way up to the tenth floor, nor did he release his grip.

  No one was in the corridor when they got off the elevator. McGarvey let them into the suite, and secured the safety chain. All the lights were on, and the only sound was from a slowly moving ceiling fan, but before Gloria could say anything he motioned for her to hold her silence.

  He took his pistol out of the leather case, checked to make sure that it was ready to fire, then laid the case on the hall table before he hurriedly checked out the large sitting room, huge bedroom, two palatial bathrooms, and closets. His B4 bag was laid out on the king-size bed, and Gloria’s bag was hanging in one of the closets.

  It was possible that since Gloria’s arrival had probably been unexpected there’d been no time to plant bugs in the suite, something he’d hoped might happen. He’d planned on giving some disinformation to whoever was listening, which wasn’t likely now.

  He walked slowly back into the sitting room, where Gloria had remained in the entry hall. “What are you doing here?” he asked. He laid his pistol on the coffee table, and pulled off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the big sectional.

  “I’m your backup in case something goes wrong,” she said, coming into the sitting room. “There’s beer in the minibar.”

  “You’re leaving first thing in the morning,” he said, going to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked toward the parliament building and courthouse complex. From this vantage point it could have been any large city at night; anonymous and therefore safe.

  “Otto thought me coming over was a good idea.”

  McGarvey looked at her reflection in the dark glass. “Otto’s smart but naïve and you’re a beautiful woman, you could have convinced him of anything.”

  “I resent that,” she flared. “I’m a damned good field officer, and I don’t need to use sex to get what I want.”

  “Perhaps not, but you do try,” McGarvey said. He turned back to her. “What exactly do you think you can do for me by being here? You’re not my wife, and the opposition knows that, so they’ll have to guess that you’re a CIA agent.”

  “That’s right. If I can get them to watch me, you can make an end run.”

  “Is that what you were taught at the Farm?”

  “Sleight of hand? Yes. It works.”

  “Not in the real world,” McGarvey told her. He was tired already, and he had the rest of the night ahead of him. “I want you to stay here in the room tonight, and first thing in the morning you can take a cab out to the airport, catch the first flight out. But I don’t want you to say anything to anyone here in the hotel. As far as anyone here is concerned, you’re Mrs. McGarvey heading out to do some shopping.”

  Gloria’s eyes were suddenly bright. “Are you going out tonight?”

  McGarvey was having a hard time believing she wasn’t a complete fool. “Yes, but you’re staying put.”

  “I can help—”

  “You’d get us both killed.”

  “¡Hijo de puta!” she shouted. “I want to help you.”

  McGarvey was across the room to her in three steps. He shoved her down on the couch, his knee between her legs, and he held her there against her struggles, his face inches from hers. “I work alone,” he said harshly.

  She tried to push him away, but he was too strong.

  “You have no idea what I’m capable of doing. How easy it is for me to kill.”

  “You’re a soldier—”

  “No, goddammit. I’m an assassin. A thing that my own country can’t acknowledge. Something my wife despises. Something that if my neighbors knew would send them running away from me in absolute terror. Something that each time I recite the Pledge of Allegiance I have to skip the words ‘under God,’ because I’m not a hypocrite, too. Because of me my wife has been kidnapped, beaten, tortured, and nearly killed. My daughter was nearly killed when she was pregnant. She lost that baby and can’t have others. All because of me.”

  Gloria was looking up at him, her rage gone as quickly as it had come. “Kirk,” she said softly. “I’m in love with you.”

  McGarvey released his hold on her and got up. “Go home.”

  “I love you.”

  “Before you get me killed like you did your partner.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  SS SHEHAB

  It was shortly after ten in the evening on the surface when the Russian-built Foxtrot Class diesel-electric submarine, drifting slowly at a depth of one hundred meters, began to pick up a sharp increase in traffic. They had passed Europa Point, most commonly known as the Rock of Gibraltar, four hours ago and from their present position it was less than fifteen kilometers farther to the west before they would clear Cape Spartel on the African continent and finally be out into the open Atlantic.

  Graham stood in the passageway around the corner from the control room from where he could look over the shoulders of his two sonar operat
ors, and still issue orders to his fire control crew.

  “Are you picking up any military traffic?” he asked the Libyan operator who was even better than the Iranian officer who’d come off the DistalVolente.

  “It’s hard to tell, sir, with all the clutter up there,” Ensign Isomil answered respectfully. Ever since the incident yesterday when Graham had punished the young operator for insubordination, and had sidestepped al-Abbas’s attempt at mutiny, everyone aboard the boat had sharpened up. The transformation had occurred even sooner than Graham had hoped it would. For the first time he was beginning to think that they had more than an even chance to succeed.

  “I’m less interested in the ship types than I am if you’re hearing any active sonar. Especially at the western end of the strait.”

  The Libyan officer looked up, and shook his head. “Nothing so far, Captain. Do you think they are looking for us?”

  “It’s a possibility,” Graham said. “But once we clear Spartel we should be home free. So I want you to pay special attention to any target that might even hint at being military.”

  “That would mean they knew we didn’t scuttle our boat, and that we’re still alive,” the sonar operator said.

  Graham’s Iranian sonar man looked up as if to say that the Libyan had no idea what they were facing, and Graham nodded.

  He had his crew and now he meant to keep them sharp through the strait and all the way across the Atlantic. His Iranians knew that their chances for survival were slim, but they were fanatics for the cause, unlike the Libyans who were merely following orders. It was one of the reasons he had promoted Captain Ziyax to work as his XO rather than kill the man. It did his arrogant Iranian crew good to take orders from a Libyan, whom they considered inferior, as well as an infidel who scarcely rated any consideration.

  It was Graham’s intention to maintain the tension between them. Besides being a useful means to keep them on their toes, the mix would be interesting over the next ten days or so, before he was gone and they were all dead.