The Invisible (Ryan Kealey)

by Andrew Britton

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “So we’re set?” Owen was looking past them to the unconscious form in the front of the Subaru; clearly, he was uneasy with the whole situation, and Kealey couldn’t really blame him.

  “Yeah, everything’s fine. Listen, I’ve got to tell you something….” Kealey briefed the other man quickly on his plan. Pétain was going to hold Fahim until they could verify that Mengal, Saifi, and Fitzgerald were all at the house in Sialkot. Then she would call his subordinates and tell them where to find him before leaving the country herself. When he was done with the short explanation, Owen nodded his agreement.

  “We need to move,” Kealey told him. “Let’s get the equipment loaded.”

  Owen relayed the instructions to Walland. As the former ranger shouldered two of the holdalls and moved to the second car, Owen stepped away to address Manik and Massi, leaving Kealey and Pétain alone by the back of the Subaru. They stood there in silence for nearly a minute, but neither felt any particular need to speak. The others, engaged as they were in their separate tasks, didn’t seem to notice the strangely intimate moment. For some reason, Kealey had the sudden sense that she had known all along, that on some level, at least, she knew who had been on the other end of that phone. But he couldn’t ask her, and he doubted she would have admitted to it, anyway.

  “Good luck,” she said finally, glancing at him quickly. “I hope you find her.”

  Kealey nodded and turned to walk to the second car, but as he reached for the handle on the passenger side, her last words seemed to echo in his head, and he suddenly found himself wondering, looking deeper into her parting statement.

  Who had she really been talking about? Was it Fitzgerald? He wondered if he was just imagining things, if he was reading too far into what she had just said. He could ask, of course, but what was the point? If she had known all along, would it really make a difference?

  No, he decided after a moment’s thought. It wouldn’t. If Naomi was really gone, the blame would rest with just one person, and it wouldn’t be Marissa Pétain. Even if she knew—or even suspected—what had really transpired at the substation, she was not at fault. Simply put, she wasn’t responsible, and she could not be held accountable for what her father had done.

  He could not help but wonder how much she really knew, but Kealey tried to remind himself that it didn’t really matter. Either way, that particular bill would be paid in full. He had already made that promise to himself, and he fully intended to keep it.

  Moving to the passenger door of the Toyota, he climbed into the car as Owen—who was now behind the wheel—started the engine. As they pulled away, Kealey looked in the rearview mirror and saw Pétain looking after them. He watched her as the car rolled over the uneven terrain, and for a few seconds, he thought he felt their eyes connect. Then they passed into the trees, and she disappeared from sight.

  CHAPTER 38

  SIALKOT • SOUTHERN PORTUGAL

  The nightmare was as real as anything she’d ever experienced, and seemingly endless, a sickening montage of fire, blood, and death. It had been playing on a continuous reel in her mind, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not force the images from her subconscious. They seemed to dwell there, in the deep, dark recesses of her imagination; only she knew they were not a creation. Everything she was seeing was real. At least, it had been real. Now, she was no longer sure what was real and what was false. The hours, days, or weeks of horror—she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed—had stripped her of certainty. Of hope.

  Of her very identity.

  She didn’t know if she could trust her own thoughts. Was she still sane? It seemed that she was, at least for brief stretches of time. There were short, fleeting moments that seemed to work, times where she found herself able to focus, or at least conjure a lucid thought. But those moments never lasted more than a couple of minutes. Then her rational thoughts would slip away, just out of reach, and she’d begin the long slide back into the abyss. The tape would start again in her mind, and she’d open her mouth to scream, but all she could hear were the sounds of death and destruction: the screech and the sickening thump as the rocket tore into the car; the crack of the shot as it ripped its way through Lee Patterson’s brain, and the nameless woman’s cries for help, which she’d uttered a moment before the Algerian had fired that final, fatal bullet into her pleading face. She could see it, too—an endless display of what had to be hell, or at least the earthly equivalent.

  Brynn Fitzgerald wanted it all to stop, but she knew there was no hope of reprieve. If there were any hope at all, she would have gladly endured the pain she was feeling. As it stood, she just wanted it all to end, even if that meant the end of everything. She didn’t want to die, but it seemed like the only escape. She would give anything to know that she had something to look forward to, that there was even the slightest possibility of returning to the world she had once known. If there was only a light at the end of the tunnel, she felt she could go on for as long as she had to….

  And suddenly, there was.

  “She’s awake,” Said Qureshi announced, stepping back from the bed.

  On hearing the words he’d been waiting for, Benazir Mengal moved off the wall of the surgical suite and stepped forward to see for himself. The second surgery—the pericardial window—had ended eighteen hours earlier, and Fitzgerald had been out the whole time. The pain medication, which Qureshi had been administering every couple of hours, had played a part in keeping her under, but much of the sleep was natural as her body worked to regain its strength. At Qureshi’s suggestion, Mengal had ordered a few of his men to bring a bed down from one of the second-floor rooms.

  They’d set it up in the suite, and once the surgeon was sure she was stable, they’d transferred Fitzgerald from the operating table to the bed.

  Now, as Qureshi busied himself checking the monitors, the former general leaned over the acting U.S. secretary of state. His face was less than a foot from hers as he watched intently, waiting for a sign of life. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened, and for the first time, he looked directly into the sea green eyes of the woman whose abduction he had helped orchestrate four days earlier.

  Their eyes locked for a few brief seconds, but Fitzgerald did not react. She seemed confused, distant, and completely unfamiliar with the man she was staring at. Mengal knew this should not surprise him; there was no way she could know who he was. Still, he felt oddly let down by the moment, which struck him as anticlimactic.

  Fitzgerald’s eyes drifted shut. Mengal hovered over her for a moment longer, then straightened and let out a low, disappointed grunt. Brushing past him, Qureshi approached his patient and touched her arm gently. She let out a soft groan, but otherwise, she didn’t react.

  “Ms. Fitzgerald, can you hear me?” Qureshi asked gently. “If you can hear me, please respond.”

  For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then Fitzgerald opened her eyes once more. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Finally, she managed to croak a single, unintelligible word.

  “Excuse me?” Qureshi asked. “I didn’t quite—”

  “Water,” Fitzgerald said again, finding her voice. “Please…”

  “Yes, of course,” Qureshi said hastily. He hurriedly went to the sink and filled a glass, then brought it back as Mengal looked on silently. Setting the glass on his instrument tray, Qureshi turned back to his patient. “Ms. Fitzgerald, before I give you the glass, you’re going to need to sit up. When I move you, it’s going to hurt. If the pain is too much, just tell me, and I’ll give you something for it. Do you understand?”

  She seemed to consider his words for a moment, but she didn’t acknowledge them. After an interminable pause, her eyes cleared and she said, “Where am I?”

  Qureshi hesitated, then shot a glance at Mengal, who simply nodded his permission. It didn’t make any difference if Fitzgerald knew where they were; in her current state, she was completely helpless to act on the information. “You�
��re in a town called Sialkot. It’s about an hour north of Lahore.”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Said Qureshi. I’m a surgeon, the person who treated you.” Qureshi paused for a moment. “Ms. Fitzgerald, do you know why you’re here?”

  Fitzgerald seemed to think for a moment, her eyes rolling up, as if she were trying to see the wall behind her. Then she regained focus. Hesitantly, she said, “There was an attack….”

  Qureshi waited for more, but Fitzgerald had lost her train of thought. “That’s exactly right,” he told her. “There was an attack on your motorcade in Rawalpindi. You were brought here, and I treated you for some injuries you sustained in the…incident.”

  Fitzgerald considered this for about ten seconds. Then, without warning, she tried to sit up. Immediately, she winced and cried out in pain. Qureshi quickly eased her back onto the bed. Mengal, who was standing near the foot of the bed, didn’t react at all, his hard eyes fixed on his hostage.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” Qureshi admonished her, checking to make sure that the catheter in her left arm was still in place. “Please, don’t try to move without help. I haven’t taken the chest tube out, so anytime you move suddenly, it’s going to hurt.”

  “Chest tube?” she murmured. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with the obvious question.

  “As I said, you were injured in the attack,” he told her gently. Qureshi paused, thinking about the best way to explain it. In his experience, some patients needed to hear things in layman’s terms, while others were capable of breaking down the most complicated medical jargon. He didn’t know much about Fitzgerald, but she was obviously a very astute woman; otherwise, she wouldn’t have risen to such heights in the American government. He saw no need to talk down to her.

  “You suffered a pneumothorax of the left lung,” he continued, “and a moderate hemopericardium. In other words, your lung was partially collapsed, and your heart was bruised, causing an accumulation of excessive fluid inside the pericardial sac. However,” he said quickly, seeing the alarmed look on her face, “you’re fine now. The operations—both of them—were a complete success.”

  Qureshi paused and shot a glance at his watch. She’d be complaining about the pain shortly, and he was already thinking about how much Dilaudid she would need. Probably less than a milligram, he decided, but it was too early to make the call. He’d see how she felt in an hour or so.

  “Now,” he continued, “I think you should—”

  “Enough,” Mengal growled. Surprised by the sudden outburst, the surgeon stopped and turned to stare at him. “Just give her the water. I need to talk to you outside.”

  Qureshi frowned but didn’t respond. Murmuring a few quiet words to his patient, he helped raise her into a sitting position. Fitzgerald managed the best she could, Qureshi noticed, but it was obvious from the tight look on her face that the effort had caused her a great deal of pain. When she was finally sitting upright, he handed her the water, and she drank deeply, draining the glass in a few seconds. She immediately asked for more, and Qureshi went to refill the glass. Bringing it back, he handed it to her and watched with satisfaction as she raised the glass to her lips again. Although she was clearly uncomfortable, she was alert, lucid, and coherent enough to ask the usual questions, all of which were excellent signs.

  At that moment, there was a sudden commotion outside the room, the sounds of violent squabbling in English. Fitzgerald stopped drinking and pulled the glass away from her lips, a quizzical expression coming over her face. Qureshi and Mengal both turned to look as the door burst open, revealing a tall figure framed in the doorway. Amari Saifi stormed into the room, followed closely by two protesting guards, both of whom immediately looked to Mengal, their dark faces tinged with apologetic fear.

  The Algerian stopped a few steps away from the foot of the bed. Looking down at Fitzgerald, he smiled warmly, his brown eyes glittering with the wrong kind of happiness. “So, she’s finally awake,” he said in a syrupy tone. “How do you feel, Dr. Fitzgerald? It’s good to see you’ve come back to us. We were starting to worry.”

  Qureshi looked from the Algerian to Fitzgerald and, in that fraction of a second, saw something that would stay with him for the rest of his life. Her eyes were wide and round, as if a camera flash had gone off right in her face, and her eyebrows were pinched together and raised to the edge of her reddish brown bangs. Her mouth was slack and gaping, her body completely still. Her face was a mask of pure terror. As Qureshi watched in mounting horror, the plastic glass slipped from her hand, rolled off the bed, and hit the tile floor. The second it hit the ground, Fitzgerald released a prolonged groaning sound, as if she were straining to lift an impossibly heavy load. Then her eyes rolled up into her head, and she went completely limp, her upper body slumping to the right side of the bed.

  For a few seconds, there was nothing but frozen disbelief as everyone stared at her unconscious form. Qureshi, a veteran of ER wards in Seattle and London, was the first to snap out of it.

  “Get him out of here!” he screamed, flinging a finger in the intruder’s direction. He rushed to his patient’s side as Mengal pulled the Algerian from the room, the guards babbling their apologies to the general the whole time. Qureshi could hear arguing in the hall as he rearranged Fitzgerald’s position on the bed, then quickly checked her vitals. He was relieved to see that everything was in order. Apparently, she had not suffered an aneurism or a heart attack, as he’d initially feared.

  Once he was sure she was in no immediate danger, the anger kicked in. For the first time since the general had shown up with Fitzgerald, fear was not an issue for the diminutive Pakistani surgeon. He crossed the room in five quick strides, pulled open the door, and stepped into the hall. The Algerian was nowhere in sight, but Mengal was standing a few feet away, berating the guards in rapid-fire Urdu.

  Catching sight of Qureshi, Mengal dismissed the guards and turned to face the smaller man. As the guards sulked down the hall, Qureshi stuck a finger in the general’s face and snarled, “What the hell did he think he was doing? We’re lucky she didn’t—”

  Before he knew what was happening, the words died in his throat. He felt a hand crushing his windpipe, then a sharp, bursting pain as the back of his head bounced off the plaster wall. Suddenly, Mengal’s face was less than an inch from his own, his small eyes filled with rage and contempt.

  “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”

  Qureshi couldn’t respond; he was too focused on trying to breathe. It had been less than a few seconds, but already it felt like his lungs were exploding. He began struggling involuntarily, his entire body screaming for air. His hands came up of their own free will and began clawing at Mengal’s iron grip, but it was no good. The man was just too strong.

  “You will do as you’re told, Said…nothing more, nothing less.” Mengal’s voice was low and harsh, like a shovel scraping across cement. “If you ever question me again, I’ll kill you without a moment’s hesitation. You work for me. Is that understood?”

  Qureshi nodded frantically, his chin moving against the coarse flesh of the general’s right hand. Finally, Mengal released his grip, and Qureshi slumped to the floor, choking for air.

  “Now,” the general said, shooting an idle glance at his watch as though nothing had happened. “How long will it be until the woman can move?”

  “I don’t understand,” Qureshi rasped, once he could manage the words. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s not a difficult question,” Mengal growled. “How long until she can move? Until she can walk?”

  Qureshi thought quickly, dismissing the first numbers that came to mind. He didn’t want to do anything else to incur the general’s wrath, but at the same time, he wanted to do what he could for Fitzgerald.

  “Eight hours,” he finally said. Mengal’s face darkened instantly, but Qureshi didn’t back down. He desperately wanted to escape this situation with his life, but the woman was still his patient,
and he had to speak up for her. No one else was going to do it, and the thought of putting his own welfare ahead of hers didn’t even cross his mind. “She can’t move with the chest tube in place,” Qureshi explained. “I have to take it out, but I can’t do it safely until the intrathoracic space is fully drained of excess fluid. I—”

  “I saw the tube,” Mengal snapped. “There’s nothing in it. The machine stopped draining an hour ago.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Stop talking.” The general squatted down on his haunches so they were almost eye to eye. “I want you to listen very carefully, Said. It’s been eighteen hours since the surgery, and I’m tired of waiting. I know you’ve been stalling. If you think you can trick me with your superior medical knowledge, you’re mistaken. I’ve seen every kind of injury you can imagine, and I’ve seen how they’re treated. I warn you, if you try to fool me again, you will not live to regret it.”

  Qureshi took a few shallow breaths, then gave a small, quick nod, showing he understood.

  “Now,” Mengal continued in a calmer voice, “once you take out the tube, how long until she can move?”

  This time, Qureshi didn’t even hesitate. “Four hours. She should be ambulatory in four hours.”

  “Fine. Then go take it out, and don’t give her anything else for the pain. I need her to be coherent when she wakes.”

  Qureshi muttered his agreement. Shakily, he got to his feet and, without another glance at the general, reentered the suite. He closed the door behind him, then stood motionless for a moment, thinking it through.

  As he started across the room, he realized his hands were trembling uncontrollably. It was the first time Mengal had ever verbally threatened him. It was also the first time he’d put his hands on him, though Qureshi had always known the threat was there, lurking just beneath the surface. It was not a natural relationship—he was the healer, Mengal the killer—but somehow, he’d fallen into the trap. It was the money, of course. The money and the fear of what would happen if he didn’t comply. He hadn’t done enough to sever their ties when he still had the option, and now he was paying the price.