The Invisible

by Andrew Britton

  Kealey resisted the urge to lose his temper, reminding himself that he’d be taking similar precautions if he were in the other man’s shoes. At the same time, the fixer had to know that time was an issue.

  “You understand that this is time sensitive, right? We don’t have all day to—”

  “I understand perfectly.” The voice was clipped, impatient. “If you want to get to Mengal quickly, you will do as I say. These precautions are for my benefit, not yours.”

  “Fine.” Kealey glanced up and saw that Pétain was fidgeting, clearly anxious to know what was going on. “We’re moving now.”

  The other man ended the call without a word. Kealey dropped the phone back onto the hook, grabbed Pétain’s elbow, and began guiding her toward the curb. There was a line of taxis, and the vehicles were facing the other direction; he’d forgotten that they drove on the left in Pakistan. There was a short line of people waiting at the taxi stand, but it looked like the queue was moving quickly; they wouldn’t have to wait more than a couple of minutes. There was no one around to overhear them, so as they walked toward the taxi stand, Kealey repeated what the fixer had said. When he was done, Pétain looked uncertain.

  “You said it was Harper who dug this guy up?” she asked.

  “No, I said his name came through the Agency. Harper didn’t have anything to do with it, other than passing the name on to us.”

  “But you don’t know his name,” Pétain said. Kealey looked at her, momentarily caught off guard. “Or if you do, it’s news to me. You haven’t mentioned it once.”

  “Didn’t I? His name is Khan,” Kealey said, saying the first name that popped into his head. Where the hell did I hear that? he wondered briefly. Then it came to him; A. Q. Khan was the renowned scientist and metallurgical engineer who had almost single-handedly turned Pakistan into a nuclear power back in 1976. Kealey remembered seeing the name in Newsweek. “We’re going to meet him now.”

  “Can we trust him?”

  Kealey debated the question, and when he looked at her, his smile was gone. “I don’t see that we have a choice.”

  CHAPTER 31

  PUNJAB PROVINCE, PAKISTAN

  The house that belonged to the first target sat on the other side of a large square in the small town of Sharakpur Sharif. The square was strewn with unsteady-looking wooden structures, all of which were loaded with racks of clothing, cell phones, televisions, head scarves, fruits and vegetables, and just about anything else a person might wish to purchase. A number of potential customers were browsing the stands, while a man with white eyebrows as thick as his beard swept the pavement with a whisk broom, oblivious to the people moving around him. Metal pylons erupted around a camerashaped ad for Fuji Film, another for Kodak, and a cluster of fading eucalyptus trees. Fortunately, the open space was not crowded; from his seat near a small tea stand, the American had an acceptable view of the squat, whitewashed, two-story house that sat on the southeastern edge of the square. As he sat watching the house, the American took a sip from his bottle of water and checked his watch. He was not surprised to see he had been in place for just over thirty minutes. He had moved his position around the square four times over the past two hours. It felt like he had been sitting there much longer than half an hour, and he knew how long he might still have to wait. Still, he was used to the long periods of inactivity that came with fieldwork, just as he was always prepared for the sudden burst of activity—as well as the danger—that might present itself at any moment. Such was the nature of his profession, and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Owen was a man well suited to his line of work.

  At the reasonably young age of forty-two, Owen had the gaunt face and tired eyes of a man years older, a man who might have recently undergone some tragic personal event, such as recurrent cancer or the loss of a child. In reality, these physical attributes were an indirect result of his chosen occupation. More specifically, they were brought on by the things he had seen in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sarajevo, where he had worked in conjunction with SFOR, the multinational peacekeeping force dispatched to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the mid-to-late nineties. During his twenty years of army service, Owen had been exposed to countless horrors, including rape, murder, and genocide, but he’d also had the privilege of commanding—

  in his opinion, at least—the finest soldiers in the world. It had been a difficult trade-off to make, but he had never regretted his choice of profession.

  That wasn’t to say he didn’t regret some of the associations he had forged in that time. For several years, Ryan Kealey had been one of the men under Owen’s command—first at Fort Carson, Colorado, where they both served with the 10th Special Forces Group—then at Fort Bragg, where they served with the 3rd SFG. At first, Owen had been impressed with Kealey’s ability to lead troops and make fast, effective tactical decisions, both in training and in combat. For this reason, he had pushed to put the young first lieutenant on the fast track for promotion, but before his efforts could yield results, Kealey had made the first of two grievous errors, effectively ending his own career before it could really get started. The first incident occurred in Sarajevo, during the last few months of the Bosnian War. In September of 1995, Kealey had been implicated in the murder of a Serbian warlord, a man by the name of Stojanovic, who had raped and killed a thirteen-year-old girl. The particulars of the case were not a factor. It didn’t matter that Stojanovic had gotten what he’d deserved, and it didn’t matter that the case against Kealey was circumstantial at best; it only mattered that the entire incident threatened to make an already volatile situation worse. Perhaps more importantly, if it had come to light, it would have reflected poorly on the U.S. Army and the troops it had committed to the NATO multinational force. As a result, Kealey was not subjected to a court-martial. Instead, he was eased out in the fall of 2001, but not before a disastrous operation in Syria that nearly cost him his life, not to mention the tattered remains of his career. Nevertheless, Kealey remained a highly trained operator, and it wasn’t long before he found a new home at the CIA, an agency he had already worked for on multiple occasions.

  Owen had also been recruited by the Agency for a few covert operations around the world, most notably in Somalia, where he had played a minor role in the Battle of Mogadishu and the events leading up to that disastrous conflict. Following Kealey’s dismissal from the army, they had operated together on several occasions: Kealey as an independent contractor of sorts, Owen as an active-duty officer on TDY (temporary duty) assignment to the Agency. The first two operations had come off without a hitch, but it was the third, a meeting with a former general of the Republican Guard in Iraq the previous year, that had decisively changed the Delta colonel’s opinion of his former subordinate, and not in a positive way. Owen had been watching the house for two hours, shifting position every twenty minutes or so. Three other operatives, Mark Walland included, were watching the house as well; Walland was on a mobile route throughout the square, while the other two were in static positions on the other side of the house. The building belonged to Tahira Bukhari, a twenty-four-year-old Pakistani who had just returned from the United States, where she’d been training at the University of Virginia’s School of Nursing. What had brought Bukhari to the forefront of the investigation was her father, an army officer who had served with Benazir Mengal for nearly fifteen years. In effect, Colonel Amir Fariq Bukhari had served as Mengal’s aidede-camp for the duration of his career. During that time, he’d amassed nearly three hundred thousand dollars, which he’d left to his daughter prior to his death in 2005. The source of the money, which was presently sitting in Tahira Bukhari’s Citibank account, could not be traced, though the general assumption at Langley was that her father had come into the money through Mengal’s illicit activities, which included cross-border smuggling and illegal arms sales to Kashmiri militants. That kind of money could create a lasting loyalty, and if Bukhari knew where it had come from, it was reasoned, then she might be the person for Mengal to turn to. The only
obstacle was her training; if Fitzgerald’s injuries were, in fact, life threatening, a licensed nurse would be able to do only so much. Nevertheless, the decision was made at Langley to add Bukhari to the list, which explained why Owen and the rest of the team were watching her house. Owen’s cell phone began ringing on the cast-iron table. He snatched it up, hit the TALK button, and lifted it to his ear. “What’s happening?”

  It was Walland. “She’s on the move. She just left the house and turned left. It looks like she’s going to stay on foot . . . .She’s heading north right now.”

  “Okay. Call Massi and Manik and let them know. We’re switching to alternate comms.”

  “Will do.”

  “Who’s driving?” Owen asked. The CIA station chief in Islamabad had already procured a car for them, an old Toyota four-door sedan, in addition to supplying the Motorola earpieces and lip mics they would use to communicate while on the move. He had also provided cell phones of the pay-and-go variety, which rendered them all but untraceable. He had supplied it all gladly and would have done more without being prompted by Langley. During their brief discussion the previous day, it had become clear to Owen that the station chief and Lee Patterson, the late ambassador to Pakistan, had been good friends.

  “Massi will wait by the car . . . We can call him up if she hails a taxi.”

  Owen nodded to himself; they were already fairly certain that Bukhari didn’t own a car, but they couldn’t afford to take the risk. Like in many Pakistani towns and cities, it was easier to get around in Sharakpur Sharif in taxis and rickshaws than in one’s own vehicle. Bukhari had left the house once before since they’d started the surveillance. She’d only walked down to the café for a pastry and a cup of coffee, but it was enough time to get a positive ID. Given the fact that they still had three other people to look at, they couldn’t afford to waste time following the wrong person, and they certainly couldn’t risk letting her slip through the coverage.

  Owen stood, nodded his thanks to the proprietor of the tea stand, and began making his way through the throngs of shoppers. He mulled things over as he walked, listening to the traffic coming over his earpiece. Personally, he didn’t think that Bukhari was involved. For one thing, her house was in a clamorous residential area, and Sharakpur Sharif was a fairly small town. A foreigner being brought in on a stretcher would definitely earn her some unwanted attention, so it seemed unlikely.

  At the same time, Owen wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. It was the reason he had lobbied so hard for this assignment, despite the fact that he had to work with Kealey. Unlike many of the other prominent figures in the U.S. government, Brynn Fitzgerald commanded his deep respect. In part, he thought, it was probably because she wasn’t really a politician. The vast majority of her years in government service had been spent behind the scenes, which was something that Owen could definitely relate to. At the same time, she had made an irrefutable difference. In short, she was one of the few people in Washington for whom Owen would gladly risk his life. The crowd ahead began to clear; the road was just beyond. There was a sputter of radio traffic, and Owen quickly adjusted his fleshcolored earpiece.

  “Owen, this is Walland . . . What’s your twenty?”

  “Just coming into the main road from the east,” Owen murmured. It was one of the first things he had learned about communicating over a radio net; people had a tendency to talk too loud, which rendered the words inaudible on the other end. It was a common problem, especially in a firefight, when clear communication over the net could mean the difference between life and death. That didn’t mean that he was always disciplined when it came to radio procedure. U.S. Special Forces operators were a different breed. They operated outside the lines, and unlike the regular army, they tended to refer to each other by name, as opposed to rank. In an operational detachment, it wasn’t unusual for a staff sergeant to refer to a first sergeant by his first name, just as it wasn’t unusual for operators to leave out the unnecessary radio jargon, such as adding “over” at the end of every transmission. In a small, cohesive unit, all that did was slow things down.

  “She’s approaching from your right,” said Mark Walland, a former army ranger and a four-year veteran of the Special Activities Division, the paramilitary branch of the CIA. “You want to take point?”

  Walland was asking if Owen wanted to take a position forward of Bukhari. The trick to good surveillance was to form a sort of mobile, shifting perimeter around the target. Sometimes a specific operator might stay 20 to 30 feet ahead of the target; other times, he might drop back and take up the rear. One man stayed back with the car at all times, in case the target caught on or otherwise moved unexpectedly.

  “You right behind her, Walland?”

  “Ten meters back, same side of the street.”

  “What about you, Manik?”

  “I’m on the other side, moving parallel.” The speaker was Husain Manik, an eight-year veteran of the Operations Directorate. A native of the Maldive Islands, Manik had immigrated to the States at the age of twenty-four. He’d joined the Agency after earning his master’s in electrical engineering at MIT. Owen had yet to figure out why the man was stuck on surveillance, unless he spent most of that time developing new tools for the watchers. Perhaps he wanted to see what his tools were used for in the field, or perhaps he just fit the physical profile needed for this particular job. Either way, he seemed to know his business, and Owen was glad to have him along.

  “Okay, drop back, Manik. Walland, cross the street and get in front of her. Get over there quick . . . Let her see you moving. I’ll move in behind, and you can shift to Manik’s current position, Mark. Got it?”

  Both men reported back in the affirmative. Owen was watching carefully as he approached the sidewalk, checking and discarding each passing face. Bukhari came into view, and he caught her profile for a few brief seconds: a large nose, sallow skin, a full face, with rosy red lips turned down at the corners. She wasn’t wearing a head scarf, and her clothes were very American: jeans, a short-sleeve T-shirt, and Nike running shoes. She was wearing earbuds and had what looked like an iPhone in a carrier clipped to her belt.If only her father could see her now, Owen thought, biting back a smile. Her style of dress only seemed to reinforce his earlier thoughts, and the iPhone clinched it; anyone this in love with U.S. culture wasn’t likely to be involved with the abduction of one of America’s most beloved public figures. More to the point, Bukhari was young, and she had just completed a difficult program at a very prestigious school. It would be a lot to risk for a man she barely knew.

  Owen stepped onto the sidewalk, moved slowly until Bukhari had built a lead of about 10 meters, and then let the crowd carry him forward. Momentarily taking his eyes off the target, he lifted his cell phone, looked at the screen, and frowned involuntarily. Once again, he found himself wondering why the hell Kealey had yet to make contact. There was no excuse for it; according to his latest information, Kealey and Naomi Kharmai should have landed several hours earlier.

  Goddamnit, Ryan, Owen thought angrily as he slipped the phone back into his pocket, returning his gaze to Tahira Bukhari.If you fuck this up, I’ll fuck you up, and that’s a promise. In Cartagena, Naomi woke to the sound of rain falling outside her second-story window. She shifted her feet to the floor and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Then she stood and walked into the adjoining bathroom. Splashing her face with cold water, she looked up and examined her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked terrible, but that was only to be expected, and it could have been worse. Should have been worse, she thought. Her hair was askew, and the skin around her red-rimmed eyes was puffy and bruised, which was strange, considering how hard she’d slept. Staring into the mirror, she traced her scar with her forefinger, following it down from her right cheekbone to the hinge of her jaw. Not for the first time, she found herself thinking that she deserved the disfiguring mark. Drying her face on a hand towel, she wandered back into the bedroom, pulled on a robe, then walked ove
r to the balcony. Stepping outside, she took in a deep breath of the clean morning air, then felt a sudden surge of overwhelming guilt.

  What am I doing? she thought to herself, a wave of depression washing over her.I don’t deserve this. I shouldn’t even be here. I should be dead like the others. Dead like the people I killed. Hot tears sprang to her eyes, but she didn’t make an effort to wipe them away. Instead, she turned and went inside, glancing at the bedside clock on her way to the hall. Freezing in her tracks, she did a double take, her mouth falling open. She wiped her eyes to make sure the numbers weren’t blurred, but they stayed the same. The clock said 7:00 AM, which meant that she’d been asleep for nearly . . . nineteen hours.

  Nineteen hours? She briefly wondered how that was possible, but she already knew the answer. Her eyes darted to her bag, which was lying at the foot of the bed. On receiving it the day before, she’d found that her pills were still buried inside. She didn’t know if Ryan had checked the bag, but she didn’t think he had; if he’d found them, he wouldn’t have let her keep them. She could dimly remember taking a few of them, shortly after he’d confronted her the previous day. A handful, maybe, but it must have been some handful, she realized, to keep her under for nineteen hours. Reaching the door, she undid the latch, pulled it open, and stepped into the hall. As she made her way downstairs, she could hear noise in the kitchen, and she entered the room a moment later. Élise Machado was standing at the counter, still in her bedclothes, pouring grinds into the top of a coffee machine. She smiled at Naomi, then caught the younger woman’s expression and frowned, a concerned look coming over her face.