The Fourth Horseman

by David Hagberg

  “The country is at peace, I don’t know if we can ask for more at the moment.”

  “I want you to demand that Parks be immediately released before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?” Austin asked, but it was clear to Pete he’d merely said it for Powers’s benefit, because he knew exactly what she meant.

  “He’s an embarrassment to Pakistan,” Pete said. “They’ll kill him if they haven’t already.”

  “As I said, my hands are tied,” Powers told her. “And I think it would be best for everyone concerned that you leave Pakistan as soon as possible.”

  “Travis Parks’s real name is Kirk McGarvey, Mr. Ambassador. I thought you should know that. Mr. Austin does.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  McGarvey, dressed in only a pair of filthy khaki shorts, sat alone at a small metal table bolted to the concrete floor. His left leg was shackled to a leg of the table. He had nothing on his feet, the soles of which were battered and bleeding, nor anything on his chest, which, like his back, was crisscrossed with welt marks from the repeated canings he’d suffered through the night and early morning hours.

  Oddly enough they’d left his face alone, and his eyes were clear, as was his head. Even odder was the fact they hadn’t used drugs on him. But they would, sooner or later, and he would break. His only real option at this point was to escape.

  A Pakistani man easily as large as McGarvey, dressed in an ISI uniform, walked in and said something indistinct to the guards in the corridor before the steel door was closed.

  “Good morning,” he said in good English. He took off his baseball cap and laid it on the table before he sat down across from McGarvey. “I’m a lieutenant in the security service, my name is not important for you to know at this time. What is important is that I am considered to be a proficient interrogator. Seems as if you wore out the others. They tell me that you are a man of some stamina—more than they thought possible for even an American spy.”

  “I’m a journalist,” McGarvey said.

  The officer had a large square face pitted with what had probably been childhood acne. He smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, and the fingernails on his left hand were dirty with what might have been blood.

  “As it turns out one of your own countrymen has admitted to us that you are a spy for the CIA here to gather information. We were to arrest you and then turn you over to your embassy so that you could be sent home. Unfortunately, Dr. Parks, you were shot trying to escape.”

  “You might consider setting me free after all, before I kill you.”

  “The thing is, we need a confession from you so that the repercussions of your death won’t be so difficult. We’ll turn over your body, of course, and you’ll receive a posthumous star in the lobby of your headquarters building, and memories will fade. In the meantime the situation between our countries will not change because of your being here. And do you know why?”

  “Do you have a wife and children who’ll mourn your passing, Lieutenant? Do families get pensions for soldiers who die in service of their country, or will they be left wanting?”

  “We’ll get your confession,” the lieutenant said. “I’m pretty good at what I do. I have a perfect track record.”

  “Okay, I confess that I’m a spy,” McGarvey said. “You win.”

  “Oh, but I think that you are more than just a spy. In fact, do you know what I think?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  The lieutenant’s jaw tightened but just slightly. “I think that you are an assassin. And I think you came here to kill the Messiah.”

  McGarvey didn’t think that Austin could be so stupid as to tell the ISI something like that. “I was not armed when I was arrested.”

  “Nor were you armed when you killed two of our officers yesterday, but you took one of their pistols and one of their identification wallets, which apparently you discarded somewhere along the way. We’ll find them.”

  “Then let’s get it over with, or do you mean to keep me chained to this desk while you talk me to death?”

  The lieutenant got up, his hand on the butt of the pistol holstered at his side, and looked at McGarvey for several long moments. “Interrogating you should be interesting. I sincerely hope you don’t tell me everything for a very long time.”

  He went out and told the guards to bring the prisoner to him in five minutes.

  * * *

  The interrogation chamber was at the end of a short corridor. They were in the basement of ISI headquarters, and when McGarvey had been taken into custody they had made the mistake of not blindfolding him. He knew the way out.

  One unarmed guard had removed the shackle from his leg, while the other stood aside, a Kalashnikov at the ready. The armed guard was careful not to get too close as they marched down the otherwise-deserted hall.

  The lieutenant had taken off his cap and blouse and laid them on a chair in one corner. He was filling a two-quart metal pitcher with water from a tap in the wall.

  He looked up and motioned for McGarvey to be strapped to a wooden table in the middle of the small, dungeon-like room. A car battery and a battery charger were on a metal roll-about. A long set of jumper cables fitted with ten-inch wands ending in large sponges was attached to the battery. No other equipment or furnishings besides the metal chair were in the chamber, which was harshly lit by a single electric bulb recessed behind a mesh in the ceiling.

  Blood and what looked to McGarvey like feces stained the top of the table and had dribbled down to the concrete floor.

  “This room is my favorite,” the lieutenant said. “It reminds me of a coffin.”

  McGarvey made a show of reluctantly lying down on the filthy table, forcing the armed guard to muscle him down.

  “You’re going to die here this morning,” McGarvey whispered in his ear.

  The guard was young, probably in his early twenties, and he was extremely nervous, so that when McGarvey strained at the leather straps around his arms and legs he didn’t bear down. He wanted to be anywhere but here.

  “Remember what I told you,” McGarvey whispered.

  The guard straightened and backed off.

  “Leave us now,” the lieutenant said.

  The two guards left the chamber and closed the door.

  “What did you say to the boy?”

  “That I didn’t blame him,” McGarvey said, feigning fear. “Maybe you and I can come to some kind of a deal that doesn’t involve killing me.”

  “Let’s just see how it all begins, shall we?” the lieutenant said. He got the filthy remnants of an old bath towel that had once been white from a shelf at the base of the table. “You know all about waterboarding, I’m sure. Your Congress is certainly aware of the method. They don’t think that it works. But we know better, don’t we, Dr. Parks.”

  He draped the towel over McGarvey’s face but then took it off.

  “I’ve not strapped your head down. I would like to see your control. Some of my subjects have died by thrashing around so violently they broke their necks. One poor fellow just two months ago damaged himself in such a way that he suffocated. I looked into his eyes as his face turned purple and he realized that nothing on earth or in Paradise was going to save him. He knew that he was dying, and he understood at the end that I knew it too. And that it gave me pleasure. No more talk?”

  “I don’t want to die,” McGarvey said, again feigning the first glimmerings of fear.

  “Of course not,” the lieutenant said, and he draped the towel over McGarvey’s face again.

  A CIA operative working the Calle Ocho Cuban-ex-pat neighborhood in Miami had agreed to waterboard McGarvey, who had insisted that he needed to know what it was like.

  “It’s not good, comp, not at all,” Raul Martinez had argued.

  “Do it,” Mac had insisted.

  Pete had been there as a backup in case something went wrong. And her voice had been in his ear through the entire ordeal, which had lasted less than ninety seconds but had see
med like an eternity.

  “Just relax with it, Kirk,” she had whispered as the water soaked the towel, and went into his mouth and throat, gagging him, drowning him, making it nearly impossible to think about anything except for the incredible pain, the instinct for survival kicking him against his will. He had to fight back. He had to live.

  “Go with it, Kirk. Let it happen, I’m here, you’ll be okay, I promise you, my darling. Focus on my voice. Nothing else.”

  The water flowed in and around him. He could hear his accelerating heartbeat even over the sounds of Pete’s words close in his ears. She was holding his forehead, her touch gentle, comforting, even though he could feel the muscles of his neck and chest convulsing because of his need for oxygen. One clean breath of air.

  Her voice began to fade, as did his need to breathe, and for a moment he and Katy were on their sailboat in the Bahamas at night under a billion stars, pinpricks of light that seemed to descend from above and surround him.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Pete stood at the corner window looking out across the little piece of the Red Zone she could see. The diplomatic enclave was all but deserted at this hour of the morning. Only a lone unmarked van came up Ispana Road and disappeared around the corner toward the German embassy.

  Austin had suggested that she get a few hours’ sleep, and he’d assigned her a room in the BOQ section of the building.

  “Mentioning McGarvey’s name did absolutely no good with Powers, and I think you probably knew it wouldn’t,” the chief of station had told her earlier. “He’s had history with Mac, and none of it very satisfactory. He doesn’t like mavericks.”

  “Not many people do, until they need them,” Pete said bitterly.

  “Whatever you must think, Miss Boylan, I was merely trying to protect his life.”

  “You’ve already said that.”

  “You didn’t believe me.”

  “No,” Pete said. “So now what? Are we just writing Mac off? You’re sending me home hoping the situation will all blow over? Well, it won’t, you know. I won’t let it.”

  “A military transport will take you to Ramstein, where you’ll be able to hitch a ride stateside.”

  They had been in Austin’s office, and she’d taken a step closer. Powers had left and for the moment she and Austin were alone together. “If something happens to him, I swear to God that I’ll move heaven and earth to get to you.”

  “I might take a hit, but I made the decision I thought was best for Mac and for the country.”

  “I won’t file a formal complaint, if that’s what worries you. I’ll come back here, or wherever you are, and kill you.”

  Austin seemed to slump. “Get some sleep, Miss Boylan. I’ll call Rajput first thing in the morning.”

  There was nothing left to say.

  “It’s all I can promise.”

  Pete laid her head against the relatively cool windowpane and closed her eyes. Almost instantly her throat constricted and she felt as if she were drowning. She straightened up and reared back, her eyes wide.

  It was Kirk, she could feel his breath against her cheek. She raised her right hand. She was touching his head. She felt his pain, but she also felt his strength. She knew that he wanted her.

  She grabbed her sat phone from her bag on the bed and called Otto at Langley, where it was five in the afternoon. He was still in his office.

  “Where would they have taken him?” she demanded as soon as he came on.

  “If the ISI has him, which they probably do, he’d be in a holding cell at their headquarters building. Page has been talking with Miller to see what diplomatic pressure can be brought to bear. But they already know that he works for the CIA, so there’s a real possibility he’ll go on trial and we might have to wait for that to happen before a deal can be made.”

  “No, listen to me, Otto,” she screeched. “They’re waterboarding him right now. We can’t wait.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I just know it. Where would he be if they were torturing him?”

  “The interrogation area is in the basement of the main building. Heavily guarded, of course. Constant electronic surveillance.”

  “Can you hack into their computer mainframe?”

  “I have. But there’s nothing on him, though that’s not unusual. They handle their most sensitive cases totally offline. Just paper memos and orders directly man to man.”

  “The surveillance systems. Can you shut the cameras down, maybe release any electronic door locks?”

  “I can do that easily enough.”

  “Good. I’ll let you know when, but it’ll be within the hour, hopefully sooner. In the meantime have Page go back to the president; we have to get him out of there right now. We’ll use it as a diversion.”

  “A diversion for what? You’re not going to storm the gates.”

  “Not immediately. But Mac will try to get out of there; you and I both know that’s a fact. I want to make it a little easier for him.”

  “Okay, but what can I tell the director? That you’ve had an out-of-body experience? ESP or something? You know how far that will go?”

  “They’re going to kill him. Tell us it was an accident.”

  Otto was silent.

  “Christ,” Pete said in despair.

  “I’ll scramble the mainframe in the Secretariat,” Otto said.

  “What good will that do?”

  “I’ll crash their system for sixty seconds and before I bring it back up I’ll let them know that it was brought to them courtesy of the U.S.A. Ought to get their attention.”

  “How will that help Mac?”

  “I’ll put my signature on it. They’ve got some pretty bright people over there who’ll figure out who did it, and when Haaris hears about it, it won’t take him a millisecond to figure out what we want. And as long as he doesn’t suspect that the ISI has got Mac and not some CIA contractor, he’ll order his release and expulsion from the country just to make this headache go away.”

  “Do it,” Pete said.

  “It’s going to take the better part of a half hour, so hang in there, Pete. We’ll get him out.”

  Pete used the house phone in the room to call Austin in his quarters. He finally answered after a half-dozen rings.

  “What?”

  “Meet me in your office in five minutes; we’re springing Mac.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The ISI is waterboarding him right now, and we’re going to stick it to them in such a way they’ll not only know what’s happening, but who is doing it and why.”

  She splashed some water on her face, stuck her conceal-and-carry Glock in the waistband of her jeans beneath her shirt and pocketed an extra magazine of ammunition and her sat phone. She grabbed her scarf on the way out.

  Because of the nuclear incident outside Quetta and the transition of the government and the other extraordinary events of the past days—not the least of which were the Messiah’s appearance and the Taliban’s supposed willingness to cooperate—many of the offices at the embassy were staffed even at this hour.

  Austin was on the phone in his office when she showed up.

  “She’s here now, Mr. Ambassador. But she hasn’t explained what she means or how she came by her information.”

  “I need your help,” Pete said when he put the phone down.

  “My hands are tied, I’m sorry, but you’re leaving in a few hours.”

  “They have him in the basement of the ISI’s main building, where they’re torturing him right now.”

  “How in hell do you know this?”

  “Never mind, I just do. We’re going to shut down all the electronic surveillance systems in the building as soon as I’m in place with a car and a driver who knows his way around the city and isn’t afraid to stick his neck out.”

  “If it gets that far, which it won’t, where the hell do you think you’ll go? They’ll have the airport closed up tighter than a gnat’s ass.
”

  “They’ll be too busy trying to take care of another, much bigger issue.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’re going to shut down the mainframe in the Secretariat for sixty seconds and let them know who did it, why we did it, and warn them that it could be permanent.”

  “Rencke,” Austin said angrily. He reached for the phone.

  “I would think about it for just a minute, Ross,” Pete said. “We all know what Otto can do if he’s pressed, and we also know what Kirk McGarvey is capable of.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Think what they’ve both done for our country. Are you really willing to throw all of that away?”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  The single point of light began to blossom into something much larger, almost overwhelming in McGarvey’s eyes as he slowly regained consciousness. The filthy towel was gone and he was no longer drowning. He made a great effort to control his breathing.

  “Relax,” Pete had told him what seemed like a long time ago, and yet he was sure it had been just minutes. He could almost feel her touch on his forehead.

  He turned his head to one side as the ISI lieutenant came toward him.

  “I admire your control, Dr. Parks. I didn’t do nearly as well in training. And it’s certainly nothing I’d like to go through again.”

  “May I have a drink of water,” McGarvey croaked.

  The lieutenant laughed. “That’s the paradox. You have nearly drowned, and yet your throat is terribly dry. I feel your pain, believe me. We could be brothers, Travis. Comrades in arms. Perhaps in different camps, but certainly fellow soldiers.”

  McGarvey said nothing. His awareness and strength were coming back to him, slowly, and he closed his eyes against the glare of the overhead lightbulb.

  “Sometimes the subject even becomes sleepy immediately following a session,” the lieutenant said amiably. He pinched McGarvey’s cheek.

  McGarvey took a long time opening his eyes, as if he were having trouble. “Water.”

  The lieutenant laughed. “In due time. And I even promise you’ll have a reasonably soft bed and something to eat when you wake up. But for now I need your cooperation. The truth, if you please.”