The Invisible (Ryan Kealey)

by Andrew Britton

  A brief silence fell over the room. Before the president could respond, Lawrence Hayden stepped in to offer the usual diplomatic platitudes. “Mr. Ambassador, safeguarding the relationship between our two countries is one of this administration’s highest priorities. I can assure you that the FBI and a number of other federal agencies will be…”

  Harper didn’t hear anything after that. In his mind, he saw a door closing on the young operative, and he felt a sense of deep, genuine regret. He would fight for her, but in the end, it wouldn’t make a difference. Naomi Kharmai’s career at the Central Intelligence Agency had just come to a very unfortunate, all-too-sudden end.

  The discussion ended a few minutes later, and the ambassador left without delay, which surprised no one. Everything that had to be said was out in the open, and there was little point in prolonging the awkward pleasantries. Surprisingly, given what had just transpired, the meeting did not stretch on. Brenneman kept them for as long as it took to make his wishes clear, if not his orders. He didn’t issue any specific instructions on how to handle Kharmai, for instance, but then, he didn’t really need to, and by keeping things vague, he was able to distance himself from the whole situation. Hayden left without a word, hung a right at the end of the main corridor, and disappeared from sight. Harper waited directly outside the Oval Office, along with a group of staffers who were waiting for an audience with the president. When Andrews stepped out a moment later, having been briefly detained by Brenneman, Harper tilted his head toward the Roosevelt Room, which was still vacant. Andrews, catching the hint, walked in after him.

  “What do you think?” Harper asked, once the door was closed.

  Andrews, who was standing with his hands on his hips, shrugged and exhaled forcefully. “They definitely know that we were involved in Madrid.”

  “That’s the impression I got as well. They can’t prove that she’s with the Agency, though, or Vázquez would have said as much.”

  “He’s an arrogant little prick,” Andrews said, scowling.

  “I agree, but that doesn’t change a thing,” Harper pointed out. “He may be a prick, but he happens to be holding all the cards.”

  “That’s an exaggeration, but I see your point. We’ve got to move fast on this. What do you suggest?”

  “We need to be careful getting her out,” Harper said absently. “Maybe Machado can help us with that. Portugal’s probably the best bet. That’s a very porous border, and it offers the best chance for success. Morocco’s another possibility. There’s a lot of border security on the southern tip of Spain, but it’s entirely focused on keeping people out. She might be able to slip out that way.”

  Andrews considered the options for a minute, then said, “I agree. Get Machado involved. See what he recommends, and then get back to me. The president is going to want an update soon, and we better have something to tell him.”

  “Fine. I’ll get on it.”

  CHAPTER 34

  NORTHERN PAKISTAN

  Kealey stared out the rear window of the fast-moving sedan. The scenery passed by in a dull, meaningless blur, the trees and buildings shrouded in gray, muted by the building storm to the east. As the Subaru clattered over a parallel set of railroad tracks, Kealey stretched his neck from side to side, trying to relieve the aching pain in his shoulders. The fifteen-hour flight had been bad enough, but there had been no time to stop and catch their breath. They had left the airport three hours earlier, and they’d been moving nonstop. After receiving the call outside the terminal, he and Pétain had followed the contact’s instructions to the letter. They had navigated the clamorous din of the Anarkali Bazaar; the throngs of impatient, unapologetic pedestrians in Bank Square; and the surprising after-lunch rush at the Bundu Khan, which, according to a whispered aside from Pétain, was the last place a prominent American journalist kidnapped the previous year had been seen alive.

  That scrap of information, which she’d mentioned merely in passing, had been bothering Kealey for the past couple of hours. He had already noticed the suspicious, unfriendly glances that he and Pétain had been met with for much of their brief stay in the Islamic republic. He was reminded of a short trip he’d taken to South Korea back in ’93, shortly after he’d been commissioned in the U.S. Army. He’d been walking through Seoul, dressed in civilian clothes and minding his own business, when an elderly woman had started screeching at him and shaking her fist, her face contorted. Not knowing what else to do, he’d simply walked away. When he got back to Fort Carson, he’d mentioned the incident to his company commander, who’d spent some time in Korea, but the man had simply shrugged and changed the subject.

  It was just part of the region’s torn history, Kealey had decided. There was still some widespread antagonism toward the United States in South Korea, much of it based on the fact that the United States had never completely withdrawn its troops following the end of the Korean War, the “end,” in this case, being the uneasy cease-fire that was settled upon in ’53. To date, the United States still had over 30,000 troops on the Korean peninsula.

  But that situation, at least in Kealey’s mind, was very different. The Koreans had a legitimate gripe, he thought, and the incident with the old woman was the only time he’d encountered any tangible anti-American feelings in the Far East. In Pakistan, he could feel the hostility everywhere. He didn’t know how much of it was related to the political tensions between Brenneman, Musharraf, and their respective governments, but he couldn’t deny its presence.

  Feeling a movement on the warm leather seat beside him, he turned to look at Marissa Pétain. He couldn’t see her face, as she was staring out the opposite window, but he could see the tension in her shoulders and could tell that she was having the same troubling thoughts he was. In fact, Kealey realized, it was probably worse for her, as she had even less information than he did. At least he knew who had prompted this little excursion, though knowing wasn’t doing much to relieve his anxiety. He wondered how Pétain would react if he were to tell her they were only here because of her father’s connections.

  Kealey shifted his gaze to the front. The man driving was the same man who’d picked them up at the restaurant. The server, Nawaz, had taken them through the kitchen and out the back door. No one in the kitchen had given them a second look. The driver had been waiting in the narrow alley, an unregistered taxi parked nearby. He’d introduced himself as Abdul, which Kealey had dismissed immediately. “Abdul” was the equivalent of “John Smith” in the States, a completely meaningless name, and likely false. Abdul will take you to the man you’re supposed to meet, Nawaz had murmured in Kealey’s ear. He is close to the man who sent you here. You can trust him.

  Abdul’s face was visible in the rearview mirror, and Kealey studied it for a fraction of a second. For the most part, it was completely forgettable: greasy black hair; a large, hooked nose; complacent brown eyes; and thin lips. There was, however, one thing that caught Kealey’s attention. The man’s face was not that of an inner-city taxi driver, but that of a man who’d spent a great deal of time in a hostile, unforgiving climate. His skin was etched with hard lines and appeared as coarse as sandpaper. At that moment, his eyes darted up to the rearview mirror, but Kealey didn’t bother to look away. They locked eyes for a few seconds, neither of them giving anything away, and then Abdul returned his gaze to the road ahead.

  The storm was approaching fast from the east, and the driver slowed as they headed into the worsening weather. After they’d first set out from the Bundu Khan, he’d followed a fast, erratic route through the city center, obviously searching for signs of surveillance. After an hour, he’d left the city via Allama Iqbal Road, which happened to bear the same name as the airport. They flashed through rural, rolling green countryside, passing farms and a number of sparsely populated towns. Twenty minutes later, he braked sharply and swung the car onto a narrow road. Trees crowded in on either side as they rolled slowly down the road, wet leaves brushing against the windows. They emerged on the other s
ide, and Abdul brought the car to a gradual halt, the ancient brakes squealing in protest.

  “Where are we?” Pétain asked, shifting to the left so she could look out the windshield. “What are we doing here?”

  “I have to look around before I call the next man in,” the Pakistani said, ignoring her question. “Wait with the car until I call you forward.”

  Removing the keys from the ignition, Abdul got out, shut the door behind him, and started walking across a gravel parking lot. On the far side of the lot was an electrical substation, the giant transformers ringed by a 10-foot chain-link fence. Kealey followed suit, and once he was out of the car, he looked after Abdul, taking in the surroundings carefully. There were no other cars in the parking area, and no other sign of life. That gave him reason for pause, but he kept looking, taking it all in. There was a broad green field on the other side of the substation, and past that he could see the roofs of several houses and a short brick smokestack, all of it blurred by the driving rain.

  Pétain had exited the vehicle. Coming around the side, she moved close, shivered inexplicably, and stared after Abdul. “What do you think?” she asked quietly, her words almost lost in the sound of the storm.

  Kealey shook his head, trying to see all the angles. Suddenly, he wished he’d gotten in touch with Owen before linking up with Machado’s man. The Spaniard had seemed straightforward and genuine enough when he’d offered to help, but now, on hostile ground with no real means to defend himself, Kealey was starting to wish he’d reconsidered the whole thing.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said in response to her question, “but it’s like I said before…We don’t really have a choice. We aren’t setting the rules here…They are.”

  Abdul had reached a gate in the chain-link fence. As they watched from a distance, he seemed to open it without any real trouble, leaving Kealey to wonder if it had been locked to begin with. Then he slipped inside the perimeter. He passed under an A-frame structure, moved around one of the bulky gray transformers, and was gone from sight. Two minutes later, he reappeared at the gate and gestured for them to follow.

  Neither of them moved for a few seconds, and then Kealey started across the parking lot. Behind him, Pétain hurried to catch up. When they reached the gate, Abdul tilted his head inside and said, “He’s waiting for you.”

  “That’s it?” Pétain asked, a perplexed expression crossing her face. Kealey couldn’t help but wonder what she had been expecting.

  “That’s it,” the Pakistani said, his face an impassive mask. “I will wait here until you’re done. It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Fine,” Kealey said. He put a hand on Pétain’s back and pushed her gently through the opening, but she resisted and dug her heels in, firing another series of questions back in Abdul’s direction.

  “Who are we meeting?” she asked, raising her voice to be heard above the driving rain. “What’s his name? How is he connected to Mengal?”

  “Stop,” Kealey said through clenched teeth, pushing her forward a little more firmly. “We’ll find out soon enough. Just keep moving.”

  She relented, went through the gate, and fell into step beside him, shooting one last look over her shoulder at the stoic driver. “I don’t trust him,” she muttered.

  “Join the club.”

  “I’m serious, Ryan. Something isn’t right with this whole—”

  He stopped and grabbed her arm, turning her to face him. Shooting a quick glance at the gate, he saw that Abdul was already walking back toward the car. Coming back to Pétain, he found her staring up at him. Her eyes were wide and expectant, and her dark hair was plastered to her forehead, long strands clinging to her pale cheeks.

  “Marissa, listen to me,” he said in a low voice. “I happen to agree with you. I don’t want to be here, either, and I don’t feel great about this scenario. But it’s worth the risk. This guy, whoever he is, can give us Mengal’s exact location, and we need that info. We can’t afford to waste any more time. We can’t afford to screw things up, either, so do me a favor, okay? Try to relax, and stop asking questions. All that’s going to do is put this guy on edge, and that’s the last thing we need.”

  She didn’t reply for a long moment, looking up at him silently, rainwater streaming down her face. Then, finally, she nodded her consent.

  “Good,” Kealey said, “and thank you. Believe me, this will all be over soon. I’m as ready to leave as you are.”

  “Well,” she said as they continued walking through the maze of transformers, “that all depends, doesn’t it?”

  “On what?”

  “On whether or not we’re going someplace nicer.”

  Kealey smiled and shook his head, impressed despite himself. Pétain was showing remarkable poise. They were walking through a thunderstorm, soaking wet, operating illegally in a foreign country without backup of any kind, and still, she was making jokes. That was something to admire, he decided, but he pushed the thought away as they passed an elevated structure bearing a circuit switcher. A figure, slightly blurred by the rain, was standing in the middle of the gravel walkway to the right, just in front of the small control building.

  “I guess that’s him,” Pétain whispered needlessly. They walked forward, Kealey taking note of the man’s appearance. He was wearing a long raincoat, which fell just short of his knees, and a black knit cap beneath the coat’s oversized hood. The knit cap was a strange choice, Kealey thought, given the oppressive heat. The man’s slacks were tucked into the tops of his rubber boots, revealing just a swath of black fabric between the coat and the boots, both of which were olive drab in color.

  As they approached, he lifted his head and smiled out from beneath the hood. Through a gray curtain of rain, Kealey had an impression of pale green eyes, a thick black mustache, and a bulbous nose. Then the man pulled off the hood and studied them both in turn. Kealey saw that his first impression had been correct, but now he saw something else: like their driver, this man had obviously been exposed to the elements for months, if not years, at a time, his face as rough and battered as a chunk of worn granite.

  “Welcome to Pakistan,” he said, looking at them both in turn. “I apologize for the lengthy, somewhat circuitous trip, but thank you for indulging me.”

  “Who are you?” Kealey asked.

  “My name is not important, but for the purposes of our brief association, you may call me Fahim.”

  “Fahim?” Pétain murmured. She leaned in to make herself heard over the driving rain and the incessant thunder. “I thought you said his name was Khan.”

  Kealey ignored her, choosing instead to focus on what he had just heard, as well as what he could learn from it. Fahim’s English was remarkable; it was word perfect and tinged with a slight British accent. He had clearly spent a prolonged period of time in England, probably at one of the better universities, such as Cambridge, Oxford, or King’s College in London. At the same time, his physical appearance seemed to speak to a very different kind of existence. Kealey was struck by the obvious paradox, but he shook off his curiosity, remembering why they were in the Islamic republic to begin with.

  “So where is he?” he asked finally. “Where’s Mengal? We need to—”

  “Forgive me for interrupting, but there is one small matter we need to discuss before we get to business,” Fahim interjected. He raised a hand, palm out, as if to plead for their patience. “Mr. Kealey, my associate has informed me that you stopped to make a purchase in the Anarkali Bazaar. Is that correct? And before you answer, let me remind you that you were followed the entire time.”

  Kealey hesitated, then reached behind his back and under his shirt. A worn leather sheath was secured at the small of his back, hooked onto his belt and positioned horizontally. Finding the wooden grip of the 6-inch knife with his hand, he pulled it out and held it up in a nonthreatening manner.

  Fahim smiled mildly. “Toss it over here, please.”

  Kealey obliged, the knife falling onto the gravel 5 fe
et in front of the other man. He walked over, picked it up, and examined the blade.

  “Not much good, is it?” he said. “Still, I suppose it’s the best you could do on such short notice. I thought this was supposed to be a friendly meeting, Mr. Kealey, arranged by one of our common associates. I wonder why you felt the need to arm yourself.”

  “Your driver was armed,” Kealey pointed out calmly, “and I expect you are as well. You know how this works.”

  “Yes,” Fahim said, “I do know.” He turned and threw the knife with an overarm motion. It went over the fence and disappeared into a clump of bushes. When he turned back to face them, he was holding a gun in his right hand.

  “Oh no,” Pétain whispered. Kealey wanted to look over, but he couldn’t shift his gaze from the gun in the other man’s hand. He should have expected it, he thought bitterly, but he hadn’t really considered the possibility of a trap. Clearly, Machado’s man had gone over to the other side. Perhaps he even worked for Mengal directly. It didn’t really matter, Kealey thought. Not anymore. He felt rooted in place, completely helpless, and he realized, with a sense of complete self-loathing, that he had made a terrible mistake in coming to this place. “Ryan, what are we going to…”

  The rest of Pétain’s question was lost in the driving rain. She repeated it, louder this time, but Kealey couldn’t concentrate on the words. He was still focused on the other man, who was now walking toward them. When he was 5 feet away, he stopped, reached into the deep left pocket of his raincoat, and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

  He tossed them over to Kealey, who managed to catch them. Gesturing to Pétain, Fahim said, “Cuff her. One hand only, to that transformer over there.”