by Tom Clancy
Gerry did not see that he had any options. Still, he said, “I want my men to meet this major.”
“I understand,” replied Embling.
“They are in Dubai at the moment.”
“Then we will both come to them. Until we find out how the operation in Miran Shah was compromised, I don’t think it is a good idea to send anyone else here.”
“I agree. You make arrangements, and I’ll notify my men.”
Hendley hung up, then called Sam Granger. “Sam? Gerry. We’ve lost another operator. I want all senior staff in the office in one hour.”
Riaz Rehan’s second attack on India came two weeks after the first.
While his Bangalore attack was bloody, it could be quickly and easily attributed to a single Lashkar-e-Taiba cell. And while LeT was undoubtedly a Pakistani terrorist organization and virtually everyone in the know realized it was, to one degree or another, backed by “the beards” of Pakistan’s ISI, the Bangalore massacre did not scream “massive international conspiracy.”
And that had been by Rehan’s careful design. To start with a big event that opened the eyes of everyone but did not put too much direct focus on his organization. It had worked, arguably it had worked too well, but Rehan had not yet noticed any detrimental effects of the massive body count, such as wholesale arrests of his LeT operatives.
No, everything was moving according to his plan, and now it was time to begin phase two of that plan.
The attackers came by air, land, and sea. By air, four Lashkar operatives traveling under forged Indian passports landed at the airport in Delhi, and then met up with a four-man sleeper cell that had been there for more than a year, waiting to be activated by their ISI handlers in Pakistan.
By land, seven men successfully crossed the border overland into Jammu, and made their way to Jammu city itself, taking residence in a boardinghouse full of Muslim workers.
And by sea, four rigid-hulled inflatable boats landed at two different locations on the Indian coast. Two craft in Goa on India’s west coast and two in Chennai in the east. Each boat carried eight terrorists and their equipment, meaning sixteen armed men for each location.
This put a total of forty-seven men in four different locations across the width of India, and all forty-seven men had mobile phones with store-bought encryption systems that would slow down India’s intelligence and military response to the attacks themselves, though Rehan hailed no doubt the transmissions would eventually be decoded.
In Goa the sixteen men split into eight groups, and each group attacked a different beachside restaurant on Baga and Candolim beaches with hand grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Before police could kill all of the attackers, 149 diners and restaurant workers were dead.
In Jammu, a city of more than four hundred thousand, the seven men who’d crossed overland from Pakistan broke into two teams. At eight p.m. the teams blew open the emergency exits at movie houses on opposite sides of the city, and then the men, three in one location and four in the other, ran through the broken doors, stood in front of the movie screens, and opened fire on the huge Friday-night theater crowds.
Forty-three Indians lost their lives at one theater, twenty-nine at the other. Between the two locations, more than two hundred people were injured.
In the massive coastal city of Chennai, the sixteen terrorists attacked an international cricket tournament. Security for the tournament had been beefed up after the Bangalore attack, and this undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives. The sixteen terrorists were wiped out after killing twenty-two civilians and police and injuring just under sixty.
In Delhi the eight-man cell entered the Sheraton New Delhi Hotel in the Saket District Centre, killed the security guards in the lobby, and then split into two groups. Four used the stairs to begin going floor to floor, room to room, to shoot anyone they encountered. The other four burst into a banquet hall and sprayed automatic fire on a wedding reception.
Eighty-three innocents were killed before the eight LeT operatives were hunted down by the Rapid Action Force of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force.
The project manager of the entire assault had been Riaz Rehan, he and his top men worked out of a safe house in Karachi, used voice-over Internet phones attached to encrypted computers in order to stay in touch with the teams of men to help them maximize the lethality of their actions. Three times during the evening, Rehan, known to the terrorists in India as Mansoor, prayed with individual cell members before the men stormed into the guns of police. He had explained to all forty-seven Lashkar men that the entire operation, the entire future of Pakistan, hinged on them not being taken alive.
All forty-seven did as they were told.
Riaz Rehan had deliberately crafted this operation so that it would appear incredibly intricate and over the heads of the leadership of Lashkar, as he wanted the Indians to see evidence of a Pakistani conspiracy against them. This worked as he knew it would, and by daylight on October 30 the Indian government had ordered its military at full alert. Indian prime minister Priyanka Pandiyan and Pakistani president Haroon Zahid both spent the morning huddled with their military leaders and cabinet ministers, and by noon Pakistan had heightened the readiness of its own military in case India took advantage of the confusion of the attacks to reach over the border in retaliation.
Riaz Rehan could not have been more pleased with how events unfolded, because Operation Saker had required such a response to go forward.
Once the India attacks were complete, Rehan and his officers and staff headed to Dubai to avoid the scrutiny of the factions of the non-Islamists in the ISI.
55
The United Arab Emirates was a nation based on commerc>
These men also possessed influence in all facets of the government, spies in the corridors of power, informants in every bastion of life in the Emirates. If Rehan sought information about anyone or anything in the UAE, it was his for the asking.
Which is how he learned that Major Mohammed al Darkur and a British expatriate traveling under a Dutch passport would be landing at Dubai International Airport at 9:36 p.m.
Rehan and his contingent of security and plain-clothed ISI officers were due to arrive in Dubai early the following morning, so the Pakistani general assumed al Darkur and the English spy were in town to get information on him. Clearly al Darkur’s operation in Miran Shah, an op that coincided with his training of the Jamaat Shariat troops at the Haqqani camp, indicated that the young major was investigating Rehan. There was no reason he would show up here, now, unless it involved some further interest in the JIM Directorate.
Riaz Rehan was not worried about the major’s investigation into him. On the contrary, he saw it as incredibly good fortune that the man and his associate had come to Dubai.
Because while confronting the meddlesome major and his foreign ally in Pakistan could have been problematic for the low-profile ISI general, here in Dubai, Riaz Rehan could, quite literally, get away with murder.
Embling and al Darkur took a private car to their apartment at the incredible Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. They were in town to meet with members of The Campus, but for security reasons Gerry Hendley had forbade his operators from giving either Embling or his suspicious ISI informant any information about where they were staying while in Dubai, so al Darkur himself had made arrangements for accommodations. The massive needle-like skyscraper with 163 inhabitable floors (and a forty-three-story spire topping that) was a quick and easy place for them to find quarters. Embling and al Darkur shared a two-bedroom flat on the 108th floor.
Mohammed did not trust most of the ISI any more than did Gerry Hendley. He had used a personal credit card and handled details of the trip on a computer at an Internet café in Peshawar, lest his own organization get wind of his travel plans.
Once settled in at their flat, Embling called a number Hendley had given him. It connected him to the satellite phone of one of the two Campus operators he had met the year before in Peshawar, the f
orty-something-year-old Mexican-American who went by the name Domingo.
They made arrangements to meet at Embling’s place at the Burj Khalifa as soon as possible.
At the same moment Rehan and company’s Pakistan International Airlines flight from Islamabad landed at Dubai International Airport, Jack Ryan, Dom Caruso, and Domingo Chavez stood in an elevator in the Burj Khalifa. The elevators at the world’s tallest building are, not coincidentally, the world’s fastest, and they jetted the three Americans higher into the gargantuan tower at over forty-five miles an hour. They were let into the apartment and found themselves in a large open room with a sunken sitting area in front of floor-to-ceiling views of the Persian Gulf from an altitude nearly that of the top of the Empire State Building.
Nigel Embling stood in tÀthehe modern living room full of dark wood and metal and glass, in front of the incredible panoramic view. He was a big Englishman with thin snow-white hair and a bushy beard. He wore a slightly rumpled blazer over an open-neck button-down shirt and brown slacks.
“My dear friend Domingo,” said Embling with an air of sympathy. “Before we get into the other disaster that has befallen your organization, I must tell you how sorry I am to hear about this affair involving John Clark.”
Chavez shrugged. “Me, too. It will get straightened out.”
“I’m certain of it.”
“Just don’t believe everything you hear,” Ding added.
Embling waved his hand. “I haven’t heard one bloody thing that doesn’t sound like just another day at the office for a man in Mr. Clark’s profession. I may be old and soft, but I haven’t forgotten the way of the world.”
Chavez just nodded and said, “May I present my associates? Jack and Dominic.”
“Mr. Embling,” Jack said as he shook the older man’s hand.
Of course the Englishman recognized the son of the former and presumed future President of the United States, but he gave off no hint of his making the connection.
He then walked the three Americans over to the only other inhabitant of the apartment, a physically fit cinnamon-skinned Pakistani in shirtsleeves and black jeans.
They were surprised to learn this was the ISI major. “Mohammed al Darkur, at your service.” The attractive man held out a hand to Chavez, but Chavez did not extend his own.
All three of the Campus operators held this man personally responsible for the loss of their friend. While Hendley had been careful not to tip his hat to Embling that he had his suspicions, Domingo Chavez was not about to play nice to the son of a bitch who likely got his colleague killed in the wilds of Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
“Tell me, Major al Darkur, why I shouldn’t bash your head against the wall?”
Al Darkur was taken aback, but Embling interjected, “Domingo, please understand. You have little reason to trust him, but I hope you have somewhat more reason to trust me. I have made it my mission in the past months to check the major out, and he is one of the good guys, I assure you.”
Dom Caruso addressed the older Englishman: “Well, I don’t know you, and I definitely don’t know this asshole, but I know what the ISI has been doing for the past thirty years, so I’m not going to trust this bastard until we get our man back.”
Ryan did not get a chance to echo the sentiment before the Pakistani replied, “I completely understand your point of view, gentlemen. I have come today to ask you to give me just a few days to work with my contacts in the region. If Mr. Sam is being held by the Haqqani network, I will pull every string I can to either get him released or else get an operation launched to rescue him.”
“You were with him when he was taken?” asked Chavez.
“I was, indeed. He fought very bravely.”
“I heard it was a hell of a fight.”
“Many killed on both sides,” al Darkur admitted.
“Can’t help but notice that you look none the worse for wear.”
“IÀ
“Where are you hit? Bullet wounds? Shrapnel?”
Mohammed al Darkur reddened as his eyes lowered. “It was a chaotic situation. I was not injured seriously, but men on my left and right died.”
Chavez snorted. “Listen, Major. I don’t trust you, my organization doesn’t trust you, but we do trust Mr. Embling. We think it’s possible that you have managed to charm him somehow, but don’t think your trip here is going to charm us. We will respond favorably to results, not promises. If you and your colleagues can find our man, we want that information immediately.”
“And you shall have it, I promise. I have people working on that, just as I have men looking into the Haqqani — ISI connection.”
“Again. Results are what impress me.”
“Understood. I do have one question, though.”
“What’s that?”
“I understand you are in Dubai to monitor General Rehan. Is the rest of your team monitoring him now?”
There was no “rest of” Chavez’s team, but he did not say this. Instead he replied, “Trust me, when he comes to Dubai, we will be on him.”
Now Mohammed al Darkur’s eyebrows rose. “My information is that he arrived in Dubai this morning. I assumed I would help you translate any conversations he has at his safe house.”
Chavez looked to Caruso and Ryan. Their passive monitoring devices were dormant in the air ducts of the Rehan compound. If their target was here in Dubai, then they needed to return to the Kempinski and begin the surveillance.
Ding nodded slowly. “We have translators. My team will know it as soon as Rehan gets to his place.”
Al Darkur seemed satisfied by this, and soon Chavez left the apartment with Caruso and Ryan.
In front of the elevators, Jack said, “If Rehan is here, we could already have missed something important.”
Chavez said, “Yeah. You guys hustle back to the bungalow and get on it. I need to head over to the airport and meet the plane to pick up the equipment, but first I’m going to get Embling away from the major and debrief him thoroughly. I’ll see you guys back at the place in a few hours.”
Chavez spent three hours in discussions in the 108th-floor flat. The first hour was exclusively in a room with Nigel Embling. The British expat spent the vast majority of that time going over everything he had learned about Mohammed al Darkur in the past month and a half. Embling’s other contacts within the PDF had convinced him that neither the 7th Battalion of the Special Services Group, called the Zarrar commandos, with whom al Darkur was aligned, nor the Joint Intelligence Bureau, to which al Darkur had been assigned in the ISI, was overrun or heavily influenced by Islamist radicals, as were many sectors of the PDF. Further, al Darkur’s own actions leading an SSG unit against terrorist groups in the Swat Valley and Chitral had won him commendations that would have made him a target of the “beards” in the PDF.
Last, Embling assured Ding Chavez that he himself had been in the room when Sam Driscoll insisted on going along on the Miran Shah operation. Major al Darkur had been against the American’s participation, and had only reluctantly allowed him to go.
It took the full hour, but finally ChaÀ Amvez was convinced. He spent two more hours talking to al Darkur about the operation on which Sam disappeared, and he quizzed him on his staff and the contacts he claimed to be shaking down to get information on the missing American’s whereabouts. Finally, sometime around noon, Chavez left the men in their apartment and headed to the airport to pick up the sniper rifle and other gear sent in on the Gulfstream.
Ryan and Caruso returned to their bungalow at the Kempinski Hotel & Residences and activated their passive surveillance equipment across the water, and all three cameras came to life. There was definite activity in the house, though at first none of their cameras revealed Rehan to be present. While they waited and watched the feeds from the cameras and listened to various men speaking Urdu stroll through the entry hall and great room, they called Rick Bell. It was just past two a.m. in Maryland, but Rick promised that he, a technical analyst,
and an Urdu-speaking translator would be on station at Hendley Associates within forty-five minutes. Ryan and Caruso recorded all received image and audio captures until then, and they fed them on for analysis.
It was after eleven a.m. Dubai time, some two hours after Dom and Jack arrived back at the bungalow, when a flurry of excitement appeared to take over the guard force in the house. Men tightened their ties and took up positions in the corners of the rooms, more men appeared through the front door carrying luggage, and finally a big man with a trim beard came through the front door. One by one he greeted all the guards standing there with a kiss on the cheek and a handshake, and then he and another man, who seemed to be a high-level officer, entered the great room. The men were deep in conversation.
Caruso said, “The big guy is Rehan. Looks about the same as he did in Cairo back in September.”
“I’ll e-mail Bell and let him know you have confirmed Rehan.”
“I should have shot that fucker back then.”
Ryan thought that over. His concerns about Sam in Waziristan and Clark in Europe were eating him up, and he knew it was even worse for his cousin. A year earlier, Dominic’s twin brother had been killed in a Campus operation in Libya. The thought of losing two more operators must have weighed extra-heavy on Caruso.
“We’re going to get Sam back, Dom.”
Dominic nodded distractedly as he watched the feed.
“And Clark will either fix his own situation, or he’ll hang out until my dad takes office, and Dad will look after him.”
“There’s going to be a lot of pressure on your dad not to get involved.”
Jack sniffed. “Dad would take a bullet in the chest for John Clark. A few bleeding-heart congressmen aren’t going to stop him.”
Dom chuckled, and they discussed it no further.
Soon Dominic called Ryan over from where he had been sitting in the bedroom, peering through the spotting scope at Rehan’s safe house. “Hey. Looks like everyone is heading back out.”