The Invisible (Ryan Kealey)

by Andrew Britton

  “She didn’t go through enough as it is?” Kealey asked tightly. She was probing, and he didn’t have the patience to deal with it. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “No.” Pétain wasn’t retreating. “It just seems that—”

  “Well, that’s what it sounds like you’re saying,” he snapped. “Let me tell you something, Marissa. What happened to her is none of your business. I’m sure you’ve read the file, and you probably remember the media coverage. The networks never managed to identify her, but there were plenty of witnesses, and they all had something to say. So you know what she went through, and you know what Vanderveen did to her. If you know all of that, why are you bringing it up? What are you asking me?”

  “It just seems like there’s something more,” she said in a low voice.

  “There isn’t. Believe me, you know everything there is to know.”

  “Okay,” she said, though it was clear she didn’t buy a word of it. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Kealey said distractedly. He pushed a hand through his hair and tried to relax. He reminded himself that she’d only been asking an innocent question, and he still had to work with her, perhaps for a long time. Besides, the strained conversation with Harper was the root cause of his bad mood; Pétain didn’t have anything to do with it.

  “Look, I’m sorry I bit your head off,” he said by way of apology. “It’s just a touchy subject.”

  “I can see that.” She gave him a tentative, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry I said anything, really. I don’t mean to be nosy. I just wanted to know.” She paused. “Look, I’m going to stick the bags in the car. I’ll see you out there.”

  He looked her up and down and shook his head. “You’d better change first. You can’t be wearing that when we land in Lahore.”

  She looked down at her outfit, frowning; Kealey could see that she didn’t understand. “You need to cover up,” he told her. “Pick a plain cotton top, something dark, and keep the sleeves down. Lose the jewelry, too. Flat heels and jeans or khakis. Do you have a scarf? Something to cover your hair?”

  “I think so. My father worked out of the embassy in Islamabad for two years in the late eighties. He brought me back some souvenirs, including a head scarf. It should be around here somewhere.”

  “Find it,” Kealey said. “You’re going to need it. The idea is to attract as little attention as possible once we’re on the ground. We’ll talk about the rest on the way to the airport.”

  “Okay.” She turned to walk away, and he watched her go. She was almost to the doors when she stopped and turned once more.

  “Oh, and Ryan?”

  “Yeah?”

  She gave a half smile, her eyes sparkling, and said, “You look a thousand times better without the beard.”

  It was the last thing he expected to hear, and it caught him completely off guard. He collected himself and muttered his thanks, but she had already turned away. Then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.

  Once Pétain was inside, Kealey let out a long, slow breath, feeling the tension drain from his shoulders. She had struck too close to home, closer than she probably realized. For the most part, he’d been telling the truth. What had happened the year before with Vanderveen had been extremely traumatic for Naomi, but it was the other thing that had caused the most problems. The fact that she had killed an innocent person had never come to light; not even Harper knew the truth. Kealey had done everything he could to cover it up, and Naomi had reluctantly gone along with it.

  He suspected that the cover-up was the hardest part for her: not that she had pulled the trigger, but that she had lied about it. The cover-up probably made it more like murder than the case of mistaken identity it had actually been, Kealey suddenly realized, at least in her mind. And in the end, that was what it came down to; what she thought, and how she felt about it, was all that really mattered.

  With this thought in mind, he found himself looking up at the second floor, seeking out her window. There was nothing there. She must be sleeping again, he decided. He found himself moving over, scanning the rest of the windows. In the last one, he thought he saw a silhouette. It was hard to tell with the glare from the afternoon sun, but it looked as though someone was standing there, staring down at him. Then, without warning, the figure was gone.

  Kealey stood there for a moment, thinking about it. Then he crossed the lawn, heading toward the house, wondering what the following day would bring. For the most part, it was all up in the air. Only one thing was certain: in less than twenty hours, they were going to be in hostile territory. No matter what happened next, the stakes were about to rise dramatically, and there could be no room for error.

  CHAPTER 29

  SIALKOT

  Randall Craig stood beneath a broad, aging acacia to the rear of the house, smoking one of Said Qureshi’s English cigarettes. The procedure had gone as well as could be expected, and some of his tension was starting to fade. The nicotine was definitely helping with that, he thought, though the fear was as strong as ever. Before, he had been primarily concerned with saving the secretary of state’s life. Now that he had helped Qureshi to accomplish that task, he found his thoughts returning to the strongest, most basic of all human instincts.

  Namely, self-preservation.

  The urge to run was intense. His legs were as taut as compressed springs, and the adrenaline was pumping through his veins like gasoline; he felt as if he could fly across the gently sloping field and lose himself in the bracken before the guards could react. It was just past ten on a moonless night, and the stars overhead were largely blocked from view by fast-moving clouds, billowing black clumps against the charcoal sky. Across the distant fields, where the terrain rose into the gentle Kashmiri foothills, he could see a column of lights snaking along a winding road. Dozens, if not hundreds, of lights. The sound of diesel engines was a distant, constant rumble. Qureshi had told him they were in Sialkot, and that the city was home to a major Pakistani army base. He guessed that the vehicles were moving toward the battlefields to the north. Before long, they would switch to infrared to conceal their locations, to guard against the IAF bombers patrolling the skies over the Kashmir Valley.

  Craig let his gaze drift over the fields, weighing the possibilities. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t work; it was at least 200 feet to the nearest line of trees, and he would have to cross a waist-high fence of tightly strung wire to get there. He was standing at the end of the garden, as far away from the guards as he thought he could get without rousing their suspicion. There were two of them, he knew, and both were armed. Not with the stubby submachine guns the interior guards were carrying, but with long-barreled rifles. He didn’t doubt for a second that both weapons were mounted with night-vision scopes; if he tried to run, he wouldn’t get more than 20 meters. It was too much to chance. He was willing to take a risk when he made a break for freedom, but only a calculated risk; he wasn’t prepared to throw his life away. Not if there was a better alternative.

  As he stared down the sloping hill, searching in vain for clumps of vegetation that might provide him with enough cover to reach the fence, he felt a presence behind him. Turning suddenly, he was startled to see a man standing less than 10 feet to his rear. His features were not discernable in the low light, but he was tall, and his head was wrapped in some kind of cloth. Not a turban exactly, but something similar…a kaffiyeh, maybe. As Craig stared at him, the man took a few steps forward, his teeth flashing white in a brilliant, friendly smile.

  “Dr. Craig?” The man drew closer, and Craig could see that he was dressed in long, flowing robes, quite unlike the slacks and shirts that Mengal and his guards had been wearing. The man, with his long, hawkish nose, thick black beard, and piercing hazel eyes, looked more suited to the desert than the Kashmiri foothills of northern Pakistan. Stranger still were his Western-style running shoes, the toes of which protruded from the bottom edge of his robes. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to st
artle you. I only wanted to congratulate you on your fine work this evening. The secretary owes you her life.”

  The man spoke with an accent that Craig could not place; it was completely different from anything he’d heard before, though his English was word perfect. The man was moving closer now, standing too close, and he seemed to radiate a kind of commanding energy. Craig felt a spark of revelation, accompanied by a little fear. He suddenly realized who this was. He had to be the man Qureshi had mentioned earlier, the man he knew only as the Algerian. What was it he had said…?

  One of them is the devil himself.

  “Doctor, do you know who I am?”

  Craig took a shifting step back and shook his head. “No.”

  The Algerian moved forward again; he was so close that Craig could smell his breath. He caught a hint of the same mint tea he had been offered earlier. “Are you sure?” the man persisted. A strange half smile was wedged into place on his gaunt, weathered face. “You’ve never seen me before?”

  Craig couldn’t think through the terror that seized him, but he was certain he’d never seen this face before. He felt a sudden anger cutting through the fear, and this time he summoned his strength, took an aggressive step forward, and squared his shoulders.

  “I said I haven’t,” he snarled, jabbing a finger into the man’s chest. “You speak English, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.” Amari Saifi smiled mildly, apparently unswayed by the pointless show of defiance. “A benefit of my army service. In fact, I once trained with some of your countrymen, though I suppose you’d find that hard to believe.”

  A sudden noise caught Craig’s attention, and he turned to look up at the house. A Mitsubishi box truck had pulled up to the side of the trellis, and a number of guards were walking out to meet it, the exterior lights coming on. As Craig watched, a man opened the doors to the rear, climbed up, and began handing items down to the waiting hands. Craig recognized most of the equipment immediately: a pair of portable halogen lamps, a collapsible aluminum tripod, a bulky black case that might have contained a camera.

  The Algerian, following his eyes, turned to examine the scene. Another slow smile spread over his face. “So,” he said, sounding pleased. “It would appear we’re almost ready. We just have to wait for our star to recover. Another fifteen or sixteen hours, perhaps. I find it so hard to be patient after all this time. Don’t you agree?”

  “What are you talking about? What do you mean, your ‘star’?”

  “Fitzgerald, of course.” The man turned his calm gaze on Craig and smiled again. “An unwilling star, perhaps, but a star nonetheless, and she is only the main attraction.”

  “What do you mean?” Craig repeated, but he didn’t really need to ask. Somewhere, deep down, he already knew.

  Saifi put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. This time there was nothing friendly about it. “Doctor, you didn’t think you were brought here for just one reason, did you? You’ve performed admirably so far, but your work is far from done. You’re going to be famous, my friend…more famous than you ever dreamed possible.”

  It hit him then, what was going to happen. It was everything he’d seen in the news over the past few years, the grainy images out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Karachi, a city less than 900 miles from his current location. It was what had happened to Daniel Pearl and so many others, and though he’d never seen the footage, he could see and hear it all in his mind: the masked men standing on either side of an Islamic flag; the resigned look in the eyes of the victim; the voice reading out the demands that would never be met; the blade coming down in a sweeping, glittering arc….

  The decision to act was not a conscious one, but he found himself moving forward, reaching out for the Algerian’s throat, eyes fixed on the sensitive bundle of nerves beneath the chin. He heard the shouts rising up from the back of the house, the sound of legs swishing through the damp, knee-high grass on the hill, but it was all meaningless background noise; he was entirely focused on killing the man in front of him. The Algerian moved to the left and raised an arm to ward off the attack, but he didn’t fight back, and Craig—having missed with his first strike—turned to mount a second attack. He launched himself forward, head down, and felt his shoulder connect with the man’s midsection, the air coming out of the Algerian’s lungs in a great rush. He felt a moment of profound satisfaction before the first of the soldiers arrived. Suddenly, his head exploded with pain, a heavy blow landing exactly where he’d been hit before, and he slumped to the ground.

  Despite the overwhelming odds he was facing, he tried to hold on, knowing this might be his last chance to resist. It just wasn’t working; the black sea was moving in with incredible speed, and the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was the sound of the Algerian’s laughter. To Craig’s ears, it sounded like a harsh, grating tear, as if the laughter itself was ripping a hole in the still night air.

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER 30

  LAHORE

  The flight had been rough, particularly the seven-hour stretch between Rome and Tashkent, the plane rocked hard by a high-pressure front building over the Black Sea. From his seat near the back of the plane, Kealey had been in a position to see Pétain jump up from her seat on numerous occasions, practically sprinting to the bathroom each time. On each occasion, she’d returned to her seat looking decidedly queasy, her face even paler than usual, one hand pressed over her mouth as if to suppress what might come up. Normally, Kealey might have been amused by her slightly theatrical gestures, but he couldn’t help but notice the attention she was drawing from the other passengers. Each time she got up to run to the front of the plane, he wanted to drag her back by the hair. They weren’t even in harm’s way yet, and she was already doing things that people would remember. He would have preferred to leave her behind, of course, but that wasn’t anything new; he’d felt that way from the moment Machado had made his proposal.

  The proposal. That was what Kealey kept coming back to. Information and a direct link to Benazir Mengal for…well, for what? What the hell did Machado want? Kealey just couldn’t figure it out, and it was driving him crazy. He couldn’t see how bringing Marissa Pétain to Pakistan would benefit her father. There had to be some ulterior motive; after all, Machado was one of the Agency’s most celebrated operatives, at least within the small circle of people who knew about the things he’d done in his thirty years with the DO. What was the man’s angle?

  Kealey was still thinking about it as the plane—a UZB Airbus A310-300—landed with a slight jolt, slowed, and began taxiing toward the main building. After a few minutes, the plane stopped moving, and the seat belt light blinked off. As the passengers sprang out of their seats to dig for their cell phones, Kealey remained seated. He preferred to wait for the other passengers to disembark before leaving the plane himself, just as he preferred to wait for everyone else to board before doing so himself. It had nothing to do with tradecraft; he simply hated waiting in lines. Especially lines that weren’t going anywhere.

  Once the last passenger walked down the aisle, Kealey stood and collected his carry-on. It contained nothing more than a change of clothes and a paperback novel, but it was better to have a carry-on than nothing at all, particularly on a long flight. It was one of the things that other passengers expected to see, and in the post-9/11 world, people—especially air travelers—had become remarkably aware of their surroundings. Not all of them, but certainly enough to justify the extra precaution.

  Making his way through the Jetway, he entered the cool expanse of the terminal. Pétain was nowhere to be found, so—taking a guess—he located the nearest women’s restroom and stood where he could see who was coming and going. Before long she emerged, spotted him, and walked over. As she approached, Kealey could see that her legs were still shaky, her face pale.

  “That was the worst flight of my life,” she groaned, adjusting the strap of her carry-on. Before they’d left Cartagena, she’d changed into beige linen pants, a
black pin-tuck blouse, and plain white tennis shoes. Her face was framed by a brightly colored head scarf, the gauzelike material patterned in shades of violet and blue. The scarf she’d managed to dig up was more colorful than Kealey would have liked, but better than nothing at all, and they’d be able to pick up something less noticeable before long. Thankfully, the loose-fitting blouse did little to flatter her shape. Kealey was still wearing the charcoal T-shirt and dark jeans he’d put on nearly eighteen hours earlier.

  “I kept thinking my stomach was empty,” Pétain was saying, “but then it would hit me again. I have no idea what was coming up…I just hope it wasn’t important, whatever it was….”

  They were making their way toward the baggage claim. Like their carry-on luggage, the bags they had checked were filled with the usual clothes and toiletries; they contained nothing that couldn’t be left behind in an emergency. The things he and Pétain needed—money and passports—would be on their bodies at all times. It was the same for the rest of the team. Paul Owen, the Delta colonel seconded to the Agency for this particular operation, had already managed to secure a sat phone for Kealey’s use. According to Harper, the phone was waiting in a locker at the railway station, just east of central Lahore. The key to the locker was taped behind the toilet in a stall at the local Pizza Hut. The restaurant was located off Shahrah-i-Quaid-i-Azam, a few kilometers southwest of the station. It would take a little running around to get the phone, but Kealey would have expected nothing less. Success, as always, hinged on precaution; it was the same for each and every operation. He wasn’t going to pick the phone up for a while, anyway; he wanted to meet with Machado’s fixer first.

  The public telephone outside the main terminal, just past the taxi stand, Machado had said. He’ll call at 1:20 pm, provided your flight arrives on time. If you don’t answer, he’ll continue calling at twenty-minute intervals. Once you pick up, he’ll provide you with additional instructions.