The Invisible (Ryan Kealey)

by Andrew Britton

  The man with the handgun looked at her steadily for a long moment. Then, without warning, he peeled off the balaclava with his free hand.

  “Oh my God,” Fitzgerald breathed. She looked hard at the man’s face, unwilling to believe her eyes. “I know you….”

  “Yes, I can see you do.” Amari Saifi smiled gently; there was something about his voice and manner that was eerily pleasant. “Tell me, Dr. Fitzgerald…Why shouldn’t we kill this man?”

  “He’s a senior member of the Foreign Service,” she said, thinking frantically, “and he’s very wealthy. If it’s money you want, he could be useful to you. If you intend to keep me alive, it will be…You’ll have two hostages instead of one. Killing him doesn’t help you.” Her voice had been rising steadily, but it couldn’t be helped; she could no longer restrain her panic. “Don’t you see that? It doesn’t help you to kill him!”

  “It doesn’t necessarily hurt us, either, and we only came for you.” Having made his instructions clear, Saifi nodded to the man with the rifle.

  Fitzgerald howled in helpless rage and tried to pull away from her captors. At the same time, Patterson opened his mouth to speak. He didn’t manage a single word. There was a sharp crack as the 7.62mm round tore through his face, leaving a gaping wound in place of his left cheek. There was a strange moment where everything seemed to freeze, after which his lifeless body pitched forward onto the grass.

  Fitzgerald just stared in horror for a few seconds. Then it hit her like a solid blow to the chest, and she dropped to her knees, a low, sick moan rising up in her throat. She was in shock, completely numb, and she missed what happened next: the rapid approach of an unmarked van from the north, where the road was still clear; the sound of distant sirens and the steady blat of helicopter blades; the Algerian’s rapid commands carrying over the din. However, despite her semiconscious state, she couldn’t miss the needle that was jabbed forcefully into her right arm. The plunger went down, and the needle came out. Then the dark swarmed in, swallowing her in an endless black sea.

  CHAPTER 11

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  It was just after 7:20 AM Eastern Standard Time as the elevator slowed to a halt on the basement level of the West Wing. Once the doors slid open, Jonathan Harper stepped out and hung a right, making his way past a Secret Service agent and several members of the National Security Council secretariat. The men and women of the secretariat were the primary occupants of the White House Situation Room, which was actually a 5000-square-foot warren of interconnected rooms. The vast underground complex—sometimes referred to, inexplicably, as “the woodshed”—also incorporated the NSC watch center. Harper only glanced at the harried faces as he walked past, but it was clear they were operating in a state of suspended disbelief. The deputy DCI felt much the same; he was still trying to get his mind around what had transpired in Pakistan less than an hour earlier.

  He’d gotten the first call from the watch officer at Langley at 6:25. He’d been at home, eating breakfast, when the secure line buzzed in the next room. Less than ten minutes later, he was dressed and on his way out the door, but he’d barely slid into the backseat of the waiting Town Car when his BlackBerry started to vibrate. It was the White House senior duty officer, or SDO, informing him that an emergency meeting had been called by the president and was set to begin in twenty minutes’ time.

  Before he had been nominated for the post of deputy executive director, Harper had served as the CIA’s deputy director of operations (DDO). Back then his name had been classified, withheld from the media, but his current role did not allow for such ambiguities. The attempt on his life eight months earlier had only heightened the media’s interest in him, and for this reason, he and his wife had been forced to sell their brownstone on historic General’s Row, just south of Dupont Circle. After a brief search, they’d settled on a five-bedroom town house on Embassy Row. While the house itself was everything they’d been looking for, it made for a slightly longer drive to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. He’d used the time in the car to get hold of his primary advisors, who’d filled him in on what they knew. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much, and now he had to share that fact with the president.

  He was admitted to the conference room. Like the rest of the West Wing basement, the room had been extensively remodeled in 2006. The mahogany walls had been largely replaced with a specially designed, sound-absorbent fabric, and sensors built into the ceiling alerted the Secret Service to the presence of activated cell phones, which were prohibited for reasons of security. It all combined to make for a very quiet space, but never more so than today. The faces around the long mahogany table were understandably grim, but they were all recognizable, at least to anyone with a passing interest in the U.S. government.

  Flanking the president was Emily Susskind, the recently confirmed director of the FBI; also, her deputy, Harry Judd; and Kenneth Bale, the director of National Intelligence. To Bale’s left was Robert Andrews, the ample, dark-haired director of Central Intelligence. He nodded a curt hello when he caught his subordinate’s eye. The other side of the table was occupied by the undersecretary for political affairs, Elliot Greengrass; Jeremy Thayer, the national security advisor; and Stan Chavis, the president’s chief of staff.

  There was one other person in the room, seated next to DCI Andrews. He appeared more shaken than the other officials around the table, which was understandable. As assistant secretary for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and director of the Office of Foreign Missions, Gavin Dowd was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the DSS, as well as the protection of numerous State Department officials, including Brynn Fitzgerald. If blame was to be dispensed at this meeting, the sixty-year-old former prosecutor would likely receive the lion’s share.

  “Jonathan,” the president said from the head of the table. David Brenneman usually looked at least a decade younger than his fifty-four years. His short, wavy hair still held more brown than silver, and it was no secret that his open, honest features had assisted him greatly over the course of his political career. On this particular morning, though, he looked every inch his age. Harper took that as a bad sign, as the day had hardly begun. “Pull up a chair. We were just about to get started.”

  There was only one chair to be had, but Harper didn’t point this out as he sat across from Dowd. “That’s fine, sir. Please, don’t let me hold you up any longer.”

  “Very well.” The president nodded and turned to Andrews. “Bob, if you could bring everyone up to speed.”

  “Yes, sir.” The DCI used a remote to power up the NEC plasma televisions strategically placed around the room. After a few seconds, the presidential seal dissolved, and the first of several grisly images appeared. A few people winced, including Dowd, but no one looked away as Andrews began the briefing.

  “Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. As you can probably guess, what you see here is the aftermath of the attack on Secretary Fitzgerald’s motorcade. These digital photographs were taken less than twenty minutes ago. For those of you who’ve never been to Pakistan, Airport Road is several miles north of Chaklala Air Base, approximately halfway between Islamabad and Rawalpindi. It’s a fairly common route between the presidential palace and the air base. The agent who took these shots was part of the twelve-man reserve team that responded to the distress call. As most of you know, the signal is automatically broadcast once a tagged vehicle in the motorcade is incapacitated. In this case, the secretary of state’s detail leader, Mike Petrina, had time to relay an additional request for assistance. Unfortunately, the reserve team was unable to respond in time. Special Agent Petrina was killed before he could get the secretary of state clear of the area, along with six other members of the protective detail.”

  Andrews paused and cleared his throat. “I’m afraid that’s not the worst of it. It’s my unhappy duty to report that Ambassador Patterson did not survive the attack. He was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head, which, according to eyewitnesses, was inflicted at point-
blank range. These same witnesses saw armed men leaving the scene with a woman matching Secretary Fitzgerald’s description. That was about two minutes before the first police units responded. She has not been accounted for, and at this point, I think we can safely assume that she has been kidnapped.”

  The room was completely silent. Everyone knew what had taken place, but until this moment, it hadn’t really sunk in. Not for most of them, and nothing made it hit home like hearing the words aloud. Harper was slightly surprised that Gavin Dowd hadn’t been asked to provide the initial assessment—it was his bureau, after all, that was responsible for losing Fitzgerald—but that was probably the exact reason Brenneman had settled on Andrews: he wanted a concise, unbiased account. It was Bale, the director of National Intelligence, who finally broke the silence.

  “Do we have any idea how the secretary’s route was compromised?”

  “Not at this time,” Andrews said simply.

  “I take it, we’re still waiting on a claim of responsibility,” Chavis said.

  “That’s correct,” the DCI replied. “We can probably expect a claim to be made within the hour. That will give us a better picture of who we’re dealing with, as well as what kind of demands they’ll eventually make.”

  “But won’t we get the demands when the claim is made? Isn’t that the way it usually works?”

  “Not necessarily,” Harry Judd put in. He looked over at Stan Chavis, who had posed the question. “In the case of a kidnapping, it’s not unusual for days or even weeks to go by before a ransom demand is made.”

  “I understand that,” the chief of staff said dryly. “But then again, this is not a typical abduction. Time is not on their side, Harry. Whoever is responsible for this must know that we will bring the full weight of the government to bear in tracking them down.”

  “With all due respect, Stan, you couldn’t be more wrong.” Ignoring the cold look his words earned him, Andrews went on. “Let me clarify. We will do everything we can to get the secretary back, but they—whoever ‘they’ are—have the clear advantage here. They have all the time in the world. Pakistan is their turf, not ours. With enough money and the right support network, the people who carried this off can hide indefinitely. They don’t have to reveal themselves, and if they’re patient and careful, they won’t make the mistakes that get most people caught.”

  “On that note, what’s happening right now?” Brenneman asked. He looked down the length of the table. “Gavin, what are you hearing from your people on the ground?”

  “Sir, I spoke with the head of the reserve team less than fifteen minutes ago,” Dowd said. His voice was shaky, but he seemed to be in control. “They arrived shortly after the Pakistani police, and so far, they seem to be getting all the cooperation they need. They’ve secured the scene, but it’s still unclear exactly what’s going to happen with the evidence. By that, I mean it’s unclear where it will be taken, including the vehicles that were damaged and destroyed in the attack. Wherever it goes, though, our people will have access. I’ve been assured of that by the head of Inter-Services Intelligence, and I think we can take him at his word.”

  Dowd paused to check his notes. “When the incident occurred, there were a number of checkpoints already set up in the area, owing to heightened security for Secretary Fitzgerald’s visit. Since her disappearance was verified, my people have been working with the Pakistanis to firm up the perimeter. Additionally, they’ve—”

  “Firm up the perimeter?” Emily Susskind shot an angry look down the length of the table. “That’s crap, Gavin. There’s no way to secure that kind of urban area, especially not with an hour’s notice. It’s dense, highly populated, and there are roads all over the place. Hundreds of roads…too many to set up blocks on all of them.”

  “Look, I’m just telling you what I know,” Dowd replied defensively. Normally, he would have taken offense to the challenge, particularly one made by the head of another agency. Given the circumstances, though, it was hard for him to sound anything other than defeated. “They’ve already expanded the perimeter twice, based on the amount of time that’s elapsed. In all honesty, it’s not enough, but it’s hard to get things accomplished when something like this takes place on foreign soil.” He pushed out a short, shaky breath, then ran a weary hand over his face. “Look, we’re dealing with a number of serious problems here, and that’s besides the obvious. The Pakistanis are not on good terms with us at the moment, and—”

  “Stop right there,” Brenneman said from the head of the table. His expression was hard to read, but the anger was plain in his quietly menacing voice. “Gavin, are you suggesting that my position with regard to the dispute over Kashmir—the fact that I won’t interfere in the Israeli arms sale to India—is somehow related to Secretary Fitzgerald’s abduction? That it somehow precipitated this event?”

  “Sir, not at all,” Dowd said hurriedly, his round face going very pale. “That is not what I meant. I’m merely pointing out that we have to take the current tensions between their government and ours into account. We can’t afford not to. The Pakistanis may not move as fast as we would like them to, and chances are, they won’t be as accommodating when it comes to giving our people access.”

  “Actually, that’s a valid point, sir,” Susskind put in, her voice returning to a more reasonable level. She shifted her steely blue gaze toward the commander in chief. “I mean, look at what’s been happening over the past few weeks. They’ve completely stonewalled us with respect to our missing tourists. We’re talking about twelve law-abiding Americans, people with valid visas who just disappeared into thin air, and they still haven’t let us put a team on the ground.”

  “To make matters worse, we’ve just lost the single most important diplomat in the U.S. government, so breaking the ice is only going to get harder,” Harper weighed in. “And our ambassador is dead, so he’s no good to us, either. Those losses are only going to make it harder to establish a working relationship. At this point, we have to act fast, but we also have to tread carefully if we’re going to get anything done. That’s what diplomacy is all about, and we can’t afford to forget that. We’ll do more harm than good if we storm in there and start making demands.”

  With this contribution out of the way, the focus shifted toward the next speaker, but Harper felt the president’s lingering attention. He knew he’d been blunt, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d overstepped his bounds.

  “Sir, if I could make a suggestion…?”

  Harper looked at the man who’d addressed the president. Owing to the untimely death of the former secretary and Fitzgerald’s subsequent promotion, the post of deputy secretary was currently vacant. That made Elliot Greengrass the second-ranking official at the State Department. The deputy DCI knew Greengrass to be thoughtful, competent—traits he’d demonstrated in his previous roles with the NSC and as the U.S. ambassador to Greece, a position he’d held from 1997 to 2001. Nevertheless, it was unclear how effective the fifty-year-old diplomat would be in the current situation, given his lack of experience on the Asian continent.

  “Of course, Elliot,” Brenneman said. “By all means, let’s hear it.”

  “Sir, I think I should travel to Islamabad to meet with President Musharraf immediately. We’ll work to keep it lowkey, but we really need a diplomatic presence on the ground. And by that, I mean we need an envoy prepared to stay in Pakistan for the duration.”

  The president considered for a moment, then nodded his consent. “I agree. Putting an envoy in place will send a few messages. First, it will show that we’re not afraid to wade back in with both feet, and second, that we intend to play a very active role in the investigation.

  “And that falls to you, Emily,” Brenneman said, shifting his gaze once more. The forty-two-year-old Susskind was, by a slim margin, the youngest person in the room. She was also a Princeton grad, a mother of two, the seventh director of the FBI, and the first woman to hold the title. Her propensity for blunt speech frequently
put her at odds with the president and his senior advisors, as did her left-of-center politics, but everyone in the room respected her opinion, as well as her considerable influence on the Hill.

  “As I understand it,” the president continued, “the Bureau has, shall we say, a limited presence in Pakistan.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s putting it lightly, sir. We maintain small offices at the consulates in Lahore, Peshawar, and Karachi, but they’re negligible in terms of manpower. Even the main hub at the embassy in Islamabad is minimally staffed…We have less than fifty agents in the entire country, and that’s after we expanded our legal attaché program in ’99.”

  “Well, we need to change that, and sooner rather than later.” Brenneman set down his pen and studied the FBI director. “Obviously, I’ve already spoken to President Musharraf. He’s assured me that his government is committed to finding whoever was responsible, as well as to the safe recovery of Secretary Fitzgerald. In keeping with this promise, he’s agreed to allow a team of investigators into the country. They’ll be given everything they need as soon as they can get there.”

  Susskind was visibly surprised. “After all the walls he’s put up recently? He changed his mind that fast?”

  The president nodded. “As far as he’s concerned, the severity of this incident takes precedence over any diplomatic squabbling, and it has nothing to do with our missing tourists. That’s a separate issue entirely. According to him, that is.” Brenneman frowned, his forehead creasing thoughtfully. “Personally, I’m not so sure. Anyway, our team will be given full authority to conduct an extensive extraterritorial investigation. In other words, Emily, send your best, because they’re not coming home until the job is done.”

  “I understand, Mr. President.” Susskind was already jotting notes on a legal pad. “I’ll get you the names by midday.”