The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage

by Francesca Salerno

  “Mahmood, I am famished, and I trust you, and I’m also eager for a lesson in Peshawar cuisine, so lead on, and I will follow you anywhere.” She took his arm by the elbow and they started back toward Cinema Road.

  “This hole-in-the-wall is called Jalil Kabab and it is famous for what we call a chappali kabab. This is what I would call a Pakistani version of the American hamburger, only we were eating these thousands of years ago and they are more tasty than the fare at your fast food joints.”

  “So it must be made from beef?”

  “Yes, beef, which is an expensive meat here in Pakistan, where lamb is the staple. Chappali kabab is made from ground beef, just like a hamburger. Chappali comes from a Pashto word that means ‘flat’ and so the meat is flattened into a disk, as a meat patty, just as you do it. Most kabab shops overcook them but Jalil Kabab makes them as a delicate dish, slightly underdone, just right. And then there are countless toppings, as you will see. Someday I would like to open such a shop in a big American city. I know it would be a huge success.”

  “I’m getting the feeling that you are trying to say that Peshawar invented the hamburger,” Kate said.

  “Oh, I would never claim that! But you will see for yourself. Remember—we have been eating chappali kababs in this part of the world since long before the Romans conquered North Africa.”

  At Cinema Road, they turned right, heading north. Bala Hisar Fort took up two city blocks. It was a building with massively thick walls made of dark red clay, the battlements towering 90 feet or more above the street.

  “This hill is the twin of that on which the Mohabbat Khan Mosque is built, a matched pair, and the fort is even older than the mosque. Until the recent building boom here because of overpopulation, the Fort was outside the walls of the Old City, but new construction has covered the distance between the warren of streets inside the wall and the fort itself,” Mahmood said. “The fort is still a military headquarters, still used. It is home to the Frontier Corps, who have been here since 1949.”

  They crossed traffic-choked streets to reach Jinnah Park and soon reached Jalil Kabab. Both ordered their chappali kababs with a topping of hardboiled egg served between two pieces of flat oven-baked naan, leavened bread. It looked for all the world like a very large hamburger with too-thin buns.

  “Delicious,” Kate pronounced, “better than any American fast food. Maybe almost as good as burgers cooked on a home grill with Omaha beef.”

  “And you see the resemblance,” Mahmood said. “A pre-historic hamburger, can you deny it?”

  They both laughed. Kate was as happy as she had been in a long, long time.

  ***

  “So now that we’ve had a wonderful lunch and I’ve confessed to snooping in ISI business, can you tell me what you were doing at the mosque?” Kate was wiping her hands on a paper napkin. She had eaten her kabab with her fingers. She tried to speak in a low voice, but she could barely hear herself, the restaurant and street outside were so crowded and so noisy.

  “I fear that I am as impatient as you are and as I was getting restless in the office and not eager to explain myself to my superiors in Islamabad and Rawalpindi. I too wanted to wander around like an ordinary pedestrian.”

  “Are you personally checking the drop?”

  “No, not me. I’m too conspicuous and far too old for grunt work of that sort, though I did it today just for fun, and because I was in the area. There was nothing there.”

  Kate told Mahmood about her conversation with Alice Carulla, and the various possible destinations for the bomb.

  “My worst fear personally would be a target in Israel,” Mahmood said. “That would be the end of Pakistan, whether the Israelis retaliated or not.”

  “You mean the public reaction?”

  “I mean the fact that it would surely become public knowledge in the press that the route the bomb took was through Pakistan. That would be inexplicable—and unforgivable. It would be the end of Pakistan as an international player. Even if it could be conclusively proved that the device itself was of Russian origin, we would never recover from the fact that Al Qaeda was involved and that Karachi was the port of departure for the device.”

  “I’m not as convinced as Alice is that Israel is the target.”

  “There is always the possibility of Suez in Egypt,” Mahmood conceded. “Al-Zawahiri has plenty of scores to settle in that country, even now that the players have changed at the top.”

  “You know, I was thinking this morning that there is an alternative way to try to corral Yasser al-Greeb,” Kate said.

  “A different message in the drop?”

  “Something more provocative. For example, we could mention that Nippon Yoku-Maru was about to be boarded, to spook him.”

  “But wouldn’t that show our hand?” Mahmood asked.

  “We may not have a choice. Think about it. If Al-Greeb feels his project is going well, why would he risk contact with the ISI or you? And remember, too, that he may be with the cargo at sea and not available in Peshawar.”

  “So you’re saying that if we told him we knew about the bomb and what occurred in Karachi and Bharuch, he would have no choice but to contact us.”

  “Potentially, yes. Or, if not that, he might change his plans in such a way as to reveal himself to us. We would be throwing a new variable into his calculations, a monkey-wrench. He might do something different.”

  “But it involves giving him valuable information without any guarantee of a return.”

  “That’s the risk,” Kate agreed. “Well, it was worth a thought. I suppose we should report back to Mort and tell him that we have no results today.”

  “I had the feeling that it was Olof Wheatley and not Mort who was keen on setting up a meeting with Al-Greeb,” Mahmood said.

  “That’s very true,” Kate said. “I don’t think Mort can comprehend the idea of actually negotiating with Al Qaeda directly. It’s not something in our playbook and, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, Olof Wheatley doesn’t quite trust you. Not after Mort’s kidnapping. He probably doesn’t think you’ll really share Al-Greeb with us.”

  “Yes, I do understand that. Although, in this country, meeting with people like Yasser al-Greeb is not much different than meeting with the Saudi or Jordanian intelligence services. We see them as people, not monsters.”

  “Why did ISI kidnap Mort Feldman?” Kate felt she had gotten close enough to Mahmood to ask questions now that she might not have considered asking a week or two earlier.

  “It was not a decision taken in any kind of organized or even logical way,” Mahmood said. “And I repeat to you what I have already told Mr. Wheatley, that I had no part in it. But in the days after Sheikh Osama was killed, emotions ran very high here, and someone at a senior level made a very bad mistake.”

  “You could have just PNG’d him you know.”

  “To many in Pakistan, America is far more sinister an enemy here than Al Qaeda is perceived to be in Washington. What you did with OBL was a poorly thought out emotional response. It got good press in America but nowhere else.”

  “But it sent a clear message didn’t it? Don’t fuck with the United States. I suppose there were days when CIA could have made a decision like that, to kill someone, all by ourselves. But we are so much under the microscope now. CIA is a bureaucracy. Taking initiative does not result in career advancement.”

  When they left Jalil Kabab, Mahmood told Kate that the area was so congested with major streets where crossing was a life-threatening adventure that walking was probably not the best way to travel, so he stepped into the road to order a pedi-taxi. Before he could find one, he managed to flag down a ching-chee, a kind of three-wheeled motorcycle with a sturdy rickshaw at the rear. Mahmood was elated.

  “These are new in Pakistan,” he said with childish delight. “I have always wanted to ride in one, but you know, I have my own driver for official business so I have never had the chance.”

  “I know, a private chauffeur, what a
handicap,” Kate said.

  “I believe these are imported from China,” Mahmood said, oblivious to her sarcasm. “Some of them have gas-powered engines instead of petrol. This is Pakistan’s effort to be more ‘green’.”

  “Not as green as a donkey cart,” Kate said, pointing to one. “They are truly green, they eat plants.”

  “So true. Donkey carts are simple to operate also. No garage mechanics necessary, or petrol.”

  Mahmood directed the ching-chee to the corner of Mall Road and Michni Road, about equidistant from the American Consulate and ISI headquarters. That way the driver would see neither building. That is where they got out.

  ***

  Kate walked the distance from Michni Road back to the U.S. mission, recognizing that her trip to the Mohabbat Khan Mosque had not been worth the risk. Even walking alone in Peshawar was dangerous, especially near the Consulate. In 2010, terrorists had raked security checkpoints outside the building with gunfire, killing one of the local guards. One could never tell when the next outbreak of violence might begin. Kate entered the Consulate through a rear entrance, where security officers knew she was out in disguise. They let her quietly back in.

  At her borrowed desk, Kate called Mort Feldman in Islamabad to discuss with him her idea of challenging Al-Greeb’s organization with the fact ISI had knowledge of the Russian bomb.

  “You ran it by Mahmood?” Feldman asked. There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

  “He doesn’t like giving away more information than we give him in return.”

  “I’m with him on that score—so how are you two getting along?”

  “What does that mean?” Kate said sharply. She realized that she did not feel comfortable talking about Mahmood with Mort, and that instantly bothered her.

  “What I mean is how the fuck are you getting along with Brigadier Mahmood Mahmood, the only help we have in this whole goddamn country? Is he cooperating with you or not?”

  “For sure,” Kate said carefully, “I think he welcomes the chance to work with me—with us, I mean. There are lots of things he finds hard to live with in the ISI.”

  “That’s good. ISI is mainly assholes,” Feldman said. “Had Mahmood come to the States for training earlier in his career, he could easily have become an American citizen and maybe joined our own team. He would have been invaluable. And the fit would have been much better for him personality-wise. He’s basically too decent to be comfortable in the Mafia environment of the Pakistani military.”

  “When this is over, he may not be a very popular guy here with his fellow officers,” Kate offered.

  “How well I know that. In fact, I’ve been thinking of ways we can save his bacon if the need arises. There may come a time when he is no longer welcome in Pakistan.”

  Chapter 31 — Port Said, Egypt

  Phillip Drayton accepted a tiny cup of espresso from his host.

  “Have you read Kipling?” the elderly Copt asked. Monsieur Farooq was in his seventies, a bit frail, his hair snow-white, wearing a cream linen suit and a Panama hat. His skin was the color of a ripened pear, darker than his suit, sun-drenched and almost burned, and he had tight wrinkles around alert blue eyes. There was something delicate and a little too refined about him. Drayton noticed that his fingernails were manicured and coated with clear nail polish.

  “No,” Drayton said. “I studied history and I should have read more widely, but literature took second place to biography in my reading.”

  “Rudyard Kipling was fond of Egypt and Port Said in particular,” the old man said. “You must understand, of course, that this was in the days before aero flight. In Kipling’s day, the ocean liner was the mode of travel for the rich—and those elegant trains, trains like palaces on wheels. But it was ocean travel that made Port Said the most cosmopolitan of cities, a place where everyone lived in tolerance, where rich travelers provided the financial lubrication to keep civil institutions strong.

  “Kipling said that if you lost a friend but if that friend traveled—and I’m quoting him now, ‘there are but two points on the globe where you must watch and wait and sooner or later your man will come there: the docks of London and the hotels of Port Said.’ Quite marvelous, is it not? Who else would compare Port Said in the same breath with London?”

  “Very interesting."

  “It puts your own mission in perspective.”

  The Egyptian replaced his china cup in its saucer with great delicacy. They were sitting together on an upper balcony of the elderly Christian’s 19th century wood-shingled mansion overlooking the Mediterranean. The day was clear, the air pure, the sea breeze cleansing. Though he was tired from the five-hour flight from Islamabad to Cairo, and more so by the three hours he had spent riding from Cairo to the coast in a geriatric diesel taxi that possessed neither air conditioning nor shock absorbers, Drayton felt newly energized by the crystalline blue sky, the unsullied Mediterranean salt air, and this laid-back Egyptian millionaire, so calm compared to the frenetic Mort Feldman.

  “The best way to pass time in my lovely Port Said is to look for ships entering or leaving the Canal. You can do that from this house, if you stand on the roof, or better by going to the ferry terminal. But I take it that you want me to take care of that for you?”

  “That’s what Mr. Feldman asked me to ask you, sir,” Drayton said. “He also asked me to give you this.”

  Drayton handed the Egyptian a bronze coin from the Sudan.

  “Ah, Khartoum!” the Egyptian said with delight. “Khartoum is where I worked with Mort. Do you know what this is?”

  “Mr. Feldman told me that when I gave you this coin, you would know that he had sent me, without any doubt. It was a sign you would remember, and it would give you confidence.”

  “So true, so true. This is a ten-piastre coin, minted in 1981, one tenth of a Sudanese Pound. Do you see the complex engraving here on the front? It is worth very little, but when I sent a messenger to Mort, or he to me, and the telephone was not in order, we gave the messenger such a coin to let the other know that the message was genuine.”

  “A simple but effective trick,” Drayton said.

  “Simple is always best, but I would hardly call it a trick! Tradecraft is what it was.”

  Drayton had jumped at the chance to undertake a field mission, even a small one, on his own. Farooq was a contact Feldman had made in Khartoum in the 1980s, the expatriate owner of a Sudanese gold mine. Egyptians back in those days controlled vast tracts of Sudanese wealth and industry, though most of them were not Coptic Christians. Farooq had now retired to his native Port Said, where he served on the board of directors of the Suez Canal Authority, the government agency that administered the Canal.

  “We Copts have thrived on the coast here in this Muslim land,” Farooq said. “But we need friends. We have learned lessons from the Jews, who also have learned to survive in sometimes hostile environments.”

  “I understand.”

  “As for the Canal, some 60 ships a day transit the passage, two convoys going south and one convoy going north.”

  “Our ship, if it passes through here at all, will be going from Suez to Port Said, northbound,” Drayton said.

  “Tell me more about this vessel.”

  Drayton handed Farooq a copy of the file he had developed on the Nippon Yoku-Maru back at Langley headquarters and explained that the ship possibly carried contraband arms which CIA was desirous should not pass through the Canal. He also provided a physical description of the ship that Alice Carulla had prepared.

  “Can you be more specific about the contraband?” Farooq asked.

  “No, to be honest, we are not sure ourselves what’s on board. But this is a vessel that has links to the most dangerous terrorists....”

  “Which can only mean Al Qaeda.”

  “The analysis we did was mainly a question of weighing of probabilities,” Drayton said cryptically. “We have some leads that point in dangerous directions.”

  “You mustn’t be t
oo bureaucratic with me, Mr. Drayton. I have been there before. You remember I’m sure that old maxim of Winston Churchill’s, the notion that nothing avails but perfection can be spelled ‘paralysis.’ I’m sure I don’t expect anything but a best guess from you. We both deal in estimates, not certainties.”

  “It’s hard to be specific when there is so much we don’t know, and to hint at what might be our worst case would reveal too much about how we collect information, I’m afraid.”

  “And yet you want my help?”

  “Indeed. That’s why I’m here.”

  Farooq proceeded to explain the operation of the Canal, and how carefully it was observed by all the world’s major spy agencies.