The Fourth Horseman

by David Hagberg

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “But strap in, could be a rough ride.”

  McGarvey did as he was told. One of the operators looked back, and Mac gave him the thumbs-up. The SEAL nodded.

  Pete came out of the shadows, took a headset from a hook on the bulkhead behind her and motioned for McGarvey to do the same.

  “They have a Gulfstream standing by for us,” she said. “Are you okay?” She was shivering.

  “Medic says I’ll live, how about you?”

  “Austin’s not happy.”

  “Can’t blame him.”

  “Haaris has disappeared. So whatever was supposed to happen never did, unless it’s the Taliban riots across the city or the situation with India. Could be war. Powers left earlier this evening, along with some key embassy staffers.”

  “Any word from Rajput or anyone else in the government or military?”

  “Not that I was told, but everyone at the embassy was keeping a lid on things.”

  It couldn’t be over like this; McGarvey could feel something lurking around the corner. Haaris had not gone through all the trouble of setting himself up as the Messiah, and beheading the president and the head of the TTP, simply to foment a possible nuclear exchange with India. It wouldn’t do him any good.

  Pete stared at him. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  So what would Haaris do? What did Haaris want? Another 9/11 against the U.S.? Maybe England too? The man had terminal cancer with not many months to live, so whatever he had in mind wasn’t about his personal safety.

  What can you possibly do to a man who had absolutely nothing left to lose?

  “Hang on,” the copilot shouted back to them. “We have company.”

  They were well northwest of the city, up in the foothills, and the copilot was on the radio while the pilot dove for the deck, setting down hard in a steep-walled valley lined with big boulders and scrub brush.

  Even before the chopper was settled one of the SEAL operators jumped out, ran about ten meters past the nose and shouldered what looked to McGarvey like an American-made Stinger missile. Over the past fifteen or twenty years it had been the most common weapon in Afghanistan other than the Russian AK-47.

  There were estimated to be five hundred Stingers still operational in the field, carried by al-Qaeda, the Taliban and the Mujahideen.

  An F-16 jet fighter passed low overhead and the operator fired the missile.

  The moment it was airborne the SEAL dropped the launch system and raced back to the helicopter.

  The fighter jogged left then right and seconds later the missile struck its tailpipe and the jet exploded.

  As soon as the operator was aboard they took off again, flying low and fast.

  Pete was smiling. “You sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said to McGarvey.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  The taxi dropped Dave Haaris off in front of the Connaught’s entrance at four-thirty in the afternoon. He’d flown directly to Paris from Istanbul and from there had taken the Chunnel Eurostar to London. He was tired—in part because of the strenuous happenings of the past several days, but also in large measure due to his illness—and he wanted nothing more than to take a hot bath, order up room service and turn in early.

  But not yet. There would time enough later to rest. All the time in the world.

  He tipped the cabby well and allowed the bellman to carry his single light bag inside, where he handed his passport and Platinum Amex card to the startled clerk.

  “Mr. Haaris, we didn’t expect you back so soon, sir. Not after the bit of difficulty.”

  “What difficulty would that be?”

  The day manager came out, smiling. “No difficulty at all, Mr. Haaris. Your suite is still available.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll be expecting a friend for an early dinner this evening, Say at seven. In the meantime have a bottle of Krug sent to my room. Very cold, if you please.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Upstairs he also tipped the bellman well, and when the man was gone, he stripped and got into the shower, letting the water beat on the back of his neck for a long time. He was bruised on his legs, his right side and on both arms. Dr. Franklin had warned it would happen because of his low blood count, but Haaris had refused treatment to bring it up.

  The champagne had already been delivered. He opened it, drank down a glass, then poured another.

  In a hotel bathrobe, he checked the street out the window, but if the CIA had picked him up at St. Pancras International, the Eurostar’s terminus, they had apparently not followed him here to the hotel. Anyone who thought he was the Messiah was expecting him to be in Islamabad. In the thick of things. Wandering among his people, as he had supposedly done before. Preparing the nation for war with India, while containing the Taliban.

  He turned on the television to CNN, which was in the middle of rebroadcasting his latest speech as he held up the severed head of the mufti. The riots and bombings across Pakistan and especially in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, plus the rapidly rising tensions with India, were also the lead stories on the BCC, Al Jazeera and many of the other channels.

  Turning the sound down, he poured a third glass of champagne then got an outside line and dialed Tommy Boyle’s private number at the embassy.

  The chief of station’s secretary answered on the first ring. “Who is calling, please?”

  Boyle’s number was classified, and only a few people in London knew it; almost all of them were government officials who were aware of exactly what he was and would rather talk freely with him than be spied upon.

  “David Haaris.”

  To her credit the secretary hesitated only for a beat. “One moment, Mr. Haaris.”

  Boyle came on almost instantaneously. “David, I’m surprised to hear from you. You’re here in London again?”

  “At the Connaught. Wonder if we could have dinner tonight? We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “We certainly do.”

  “First off, I need to apologize for the little fiction with Ron Pembroke. I hope you weren’t too difficult on him. He’s an out-of-work actor.”

  “I can come over there now.”

  “I’ll meet you in the bar at six,” Haaris said. “Dinner at seven. And, Tom, hold off calling Langley. I expect by now that Marty is beside himself.”

  “Can’t promise that. But I’ll meet you at six.”

  “Good enough,” Haaris said.

  He hung up and went into the bathroom, where he threw up in the toilet, the champagne still cool at the back of his throat. For a long time he sat on the floor, his cheek against the porcelain of the bowl, his head spinning, pain raging through his body from the base of his skull all the way to his backbone and his legs.

  “Holding it together is going to become a matter of pain management,” Franklin had told him at All Saints. “If you take something for it, you’ll not be in agony.”

  Haaris had smiled faintly. “Nor will my head work properly.”

  “Only you can decide the balance.”

  Haaris got up, splashed some cold water on his face and got dressed in highly starched jeans and a white shirt with a button-down collar, plus the British-tailored black blazer. They were the last of his decent Western clothes until he could get back home.

  He got his gold watch, cell phone, wallet and other belongings and poured another glass of Krug.

  “Alcohol won’t do it either,” Franklin had warned. “In fact, in a month or so it’ll actually make things worse.”

  Haaris had managed to smile. “There’s always pot.”

  Franklin had returned the smile. “That’ll work, for a while.”

  But for now good wine was the more civilized of his limited options.

  * * *

  Tommy Boyle, tall, thin, lots of angles to his features, walked into the bar at precisely six o’clock. He had been assistant deputy director of operations at Langley when Haaris had first started working for the Company. It was he who�
�d helped start up the Pakistan Desk. And it was he who’d been best man at Haaris’s wedding.

  Haaris half rose to greet him and they shook hands.

  “How’d Marty take it?”

  “Not well,” Boyle said. The waiter came and he ordered a martini. “You?”

  Haaris held up his champagne glass. He was on his second bottle of Krug, but it was having no effect on him yet.

  “Have you been paying attention to the situation in Pakistan?” Boyle asked.

  “I’ve taken a look at CNN and Al Jazeera.”

  “Where the hell were you? What were you up to?”

  “Paris for a day or two, and then Istanbul,” Haaris said. “Interesting city.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Getting past Deborah.”

  Boyle looked away for a moment. “I’m truly sorry about her. Last I heard the police were still looking for her murderer.” He shook his head. “Why the imposter?”

  “I wanted a few days on my own. If I had stayed here, you know and I know that I would have been recalled to Langley to help straighten out the mess the White House, State Department and Pentagon created. But it was too late. Nothing I could have done, then or now.”

  Boyle’s drink came and he knocked back half of it before the waiter left.

  “Another, sir?”

  “No,” Boyle said, and when the man was gone he shook his head again. “What’s your take on the Messiah?”

  “I told them that it would be absolutely necessary for someone like him to show up, religious plus secular; but I also warned them that at the very least he would be unpredictable and probably impossible to control.”

  “Any idea who he is?”

  “He was born in Pakistan—the Punjabi accent comes out even though he’s done something with his voice. It’s not natural. But I suspect that he was probably educated right here in England. You might have your people do a search at least for body types matching his.”

  “We’re already on it. What else?”

  “Have Rencke gear up one of his programs for a voice analysis. Might come up with a clue that could help.”

  “I’m told he started that right after the Messiah’s first speech.”

  “Barazani was a good man but totally ineffective, and from what I saw Rajput isn’t doing such a hot job as PM. I assume that he and Miller are talking.”

  “He’s disappeared.”

  “Who’s running the bloody country? The military?”

  “For now. But everyone is waiting for the Messiah to show up again and tell them what to do.”

  Haaris lowered his eyes for a second. This meeting was going almost exactly as he thought it would. All that was left was for Boyle to drop the other shoe. He looked up. “What aren’t you telling me, Tom?”

  “I’ve been ordered to have a couple of my guys escort you back to Langley. Technically, you’re under arrest.”

  “On what charge? Desertion of duty because my wife was murdered, and I’m told that I have terminal cancer?”

  “Shit. They think that you are the Messiah.”

  Haaris hid the smile of triumph by throwing his head back and laughing out loud, the effort combined with the champagne making his stomach roil all over again. “It’ll be good to get back to work.”

  SIXTY-FIVE

  The Gulfstream heading west was chasing the sun, and the assistant sec def’s aircraft landed in Germany at Ramstein for refueling well before dawn. On Pete’s insistence McGarvey had managed to catch a few hours’ rest, not waking until they took off.

  Pete was sound asleep in the seat across the aisle from his, a blanket covering her. Fishbine and one of his assistants were deep in discussion in seats facing each other near the front of the cabin.

  McGarvey got up, adjusted Pete’s blanket and went forward to the two men.

  Fishbine looked up. He seemed pleased. “Good morning, Mr. Director, how are you feeling?”

  “Fine. Thanks for the lift.”

  Fishbine motioned for him to have a seat. The attendant, a young navy chief, came back with a coffee. “This might help,” he said. The coffee was laced with brandy.

  “Outstanding,” McGarvey said. “Maybe you could rustle up a sandwich or something. I haven’t had much to eat in the past couple of days.”

  “Eggs Benedict and hash browns in ten minutes, sir.”

  “There’re some perks to the job,” Fishbine said. He motioned for his assistant, a navy lieutenant in ODUs, to leave them.

  “I didn’t know that you were in Afghanistan,” McGarvey said.

  “Wasn’t made public. I came over to take a closer look after our raids last week and to check if there’d been anything new on the nuclear incident outside Quetta. But I didn’t learn a damned thing. Wasted trip. Means just like you I’m heading home to a shit storm.”

  “You were military liaison to the Company when I was DCI,” McGarvey said, suddenly remembering the name. “We’ve survived shit storms before.”

  “Indeed,” the assistant sec def said. “Miss Boylan briefed me on something you went through. What’s your take on the situation?”

  “I actually got to meet with the Messiah for just a few minutes. I was undercover as a journalist.”

  “Good disguise, I would never have recognized you. Did you get anything from him?”

  “Nothing worthwhile, except he and the PM knew that I was CIA and considered me enough of a threat to have the ISI arrest and interrogate me.”

  Fishbine glanced back at Pete, who was still asleep. “She said that you escaped.”

  “Didn’t have much of a choice; they were going to kill me.”

  “The Messiah beheaded the TTP’s mouthpiece and disappeared. And last I heard General Rajput was assassinated and the military took over. But the entire country is falling into civil war and India is doing some serious saber rattling. So what happens next? A nuclear exchange, maybe even all-out war?”

  “That’ll probably depend on the Messiah.”

  “What if the son of a bitch wanted this all along? What if he’s got a hard-on for all Pakis and just came over to stir the pot? He’s sitting somewhere safe now, sipping a mai tai, surrounded by beautiful naked women. His idea of Paradise. Fiddling while Rome burns.”

  The thought was startling and it caught McGarvey somewhat off guard. “It might be just as simple as that, Mr. Secretary.”

  “Well, we sure as hell aren’t going to put boots on the ground. I just hope that Miller has enough moxie to hold the Indians at bay, and that the Pakistani army can keep the remainder of their nukes out of the hands of the Taliban.”

  “Four were taken from Quetta.”

  “What?”

  “Four tactical weapons, all of them mated, went missing from Quetta. One of them was detonated, leaves three at large, and almost certainly in the hands of the Taliban or one of their factions.”

  “Yeah, ain’t it a bitch?” Fishbine said softly.

  Fishbine went aft to the compact communications center in its own compartment.

  Five minutes later McGarvey’s breakfast arrived, along with a bottle of water and a refill on his coffee and brandy. When he was finished the assistant sec def still had not returned, and Pete had not awakened.

  It was just possible that Fishbine’s explanation was correct. Perhaps Haaris had merely shown up in Pakistan to stir the pot; maybe his mission had simply been to lead his country of birth first into a civil war and then into an all-out nuclear war with India.

  But why? Where was his personal gain? Simply revenge for being mistreated? But that hadn’t been the case in Pakistan, and in any event, he’d been taken to England by an uncle and had led a privileged life there that had continued when he moved to the States and become a U.S. citizen. His position at the CIA was top level, and he was even a regular at the White House.

  A man of his education, intelligence and charm could well have eventually become the CIA’s director or even the director of National Intelligence. Except for his
illness.

  What was so important to him that he was willing to spend his last few months doing it?

  McGarvey went back to his seat, strapped in and went to sleep again.

  * * *

  Pete woke him. “We’re about forty minutes out of Andrews; how are you feeling?”

  “Glad to be getting home,” McGarvey said, gathering himself. “But still no answers.”

  “I talked to Otto. He and Louise are coming out to pick us up; they’re bringing fresh clothes and a razor for you. Nothing much I can do about my hair, though.”

  “You look good to me.”

  Pete grinned. “Thanks.”

  “Actually, when it comes to your hair—”

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Pete said.

  McGarvey went to the head and splashed some water on his face. His eyes were a little bloodshot and it was obvious he’d been under some sort of duress recently. But except for his uncertainty about Haaris’s plans he felt in good shape.

  Pete had a cup of the chief’s coffee for him.

  Fishbine came back to them. “I talked to Bill, and he’s taking what you said over to the White House.” William Spencer was the secretary of defense. “I don’t mind admitting that he was just as concerned as I am that the Taliban might have the nukes. We thought it was a possibility, but you seem to think it’s a fact.”

  * * *

  Otto and Louise came aboard as soon as the pilot taxied over to a hangar, shut down the engines and the chief opened the hatch and lowered the stairs. They brought clothes, even underwear, and something for Pete to use in her hair that didn’t require a shower.

  Mac let Pete use the head first.

  “Haaris showed up in London,” Otto said. He was perched on the armrest of the seat across from McGarvey. “Denied he was the Messiah, claimed he was in Paris and Istanbul recovering from his wife’s murder, and told Boyle that he was ready to get back to work.”

  Nothing surprised McGarvey any longer. “Where is he now?”

  “About one hour out. Boyle put him under arrest, at Marty’s insistence, and sent a couple of embassy types with him. Page and just about everyone else is on Campus, not only because of the situation in Pakistan but because both you and Haaris are back. The president wants to meet with both of you ASAP.”