Kumar was the CEO of both companies, and to Yousseff’s chagrin, he was profoundly successful at both ventures. This created a paradox—it’s difficult to launder huge sums of excess cash through already successful companies without attracting unwanted scrutiny from various government agencies. Kumar ploughed the excess money into research and development, and PWS and KDDE products became sought after and highly successful. At the huge KDDE yards along the harbor, various experimental craft were constantly being built or developed. If some novel piece of technology was required, PWS in California would produce it, and large sums of money would be transferred from one company to another. While Pakistan doesn’t have a long stretch of ocean frontage, it’s a seafaring nation with a sophisticated Navy and Coast Guard. Occasionally the Navy sought to create unique or novel craft, and KDDE, with the decades of copious bribes that Yousseff had faithfully paid to all levels of government, would land the contract. Jimmy, with his flair for anything marine and his devil-may-care attitude about risk, was KDDE’s go-to test captain.
Kumar, now the fugitive former CEO of both companies, knew Jimmy well, and had fashioned an ingenious plot by which he, Richard, and Zak would be able to exit Pakistan, notwithstanding the microscopic scrutiny of the nation’s entire security apparatus.
They were about half a mile north of the Native Jetty traffic circle when two police cars came, seemingly out of nowhere, and began to crowd the small Ford in which they were driving. Both activated their lights and sirens. One was nudging the Ford from behind; the second was mere inches from the driver’s side.
“Shit,” cursed Richard, hitting the accelerator. “Where the hell did they come from?”
Zak looked around. “Rich, there’s more than just these two. There’s three or four of these cops. Somehow they made us. Outrun them.”
“Can’t do it, Zak. This is only a small Ford, and I think there are a couple more PCs up ahead. I think we’ve driven into a trap here.” Richard accelerated but the PC in front of him slowed and they were boxed.
Richard attempted to move inside but the PC hemming off his access did not move. There was a scraping of fenders but no give. He veered to the outside but the ground was beginning to drop away as they approached the Jinnah Flyover. He accelerated again and attempted to power through the PC blocking ahead of him but, while bumper connected with bumper, the small Ford Fusion was not able to move the heavier PC out of the way.
The driver’s side PC made a quick move toward him, with the rear passenger side connecting with the front driver-side fender, forcing the vehicle abruptly to the edge of the highway. The front passenger wheel caught a low steel barrier at the same time that Richard again depressed the gas pedal. The tire caught the barrier and pulled the Ford sharply to the road’s edge, causing it to become airborne and sending it careening off Mauripur Road. The car did a perfect 360-degree barrel roll in the process and landed on the railway tracks below. Fortunately the drop-off at that point was less than twenty feet, and the vehicle landed on all four wheels, shattering the windows and blowing all four tires. The car bounced across several sets of tracks. Both axles broke. The abused Ford Focus came to a rest beside a stationary line of boxcars.
The dust and noise settled but the sounds of sirens in the air was pervasive.
“You guys all right?” said Richard, attempting to reorient himself.
“Nothing busted,” Zak rasped. Kumar seemed fine but remained mute.
“They’re coming along Dockyard Road,” said Richard. “We’ve got to run for it.” His door was jammed shut and he exited through the blown-out window. “That way.”
In scrambling to get out of the vehicle, they found themselves directly in front of the Port Grand Promenade, a busy Karachi tourist attraction. An ancient bridge, the Napier Mole Bridge, had been shut to traffic and rebuilt as a 1,500-foot-long promenade, replete with restaurants, bars, and various tourist attractions. The bridge extended over the entire harbor, and from a distance, had the appearance of a festive cruise ship, with multicolored lights and thousands of laughing and partying pedestrians. There was a smell of curry and french fries and salt permeating the air. The sound of laughter and bands, pop music mixed with traditional Pakistani songs, created a party atmosphere. The cooing of thousands of seagulls that made the promenade their feeding ground, the distant sound of traffic, waves striking the bridge supports, speedboats, and various harbor craft all added to the unique attraction. This stood in stark contrast to the gravity of their situation.
The three ran onto the promenade. They were midway when they realized the hopelessness of their position. All of the restaurants faced toward the west, and the pedestrian walkway was on the west side. There was no public promenade behind the restaurants.
“Richard, it’s a fucking bridge,” snapped Zak, ignoring the tourists and the liveliness of the place. “All they need to do is block both ends.”
“They’ve already done that, Zak.” Richard pointed to red-and-blue flashing lights at the south end of the promenade. Many of the restaurants had roof-level patios, and they were on one of them. “North end, south end. We’re trapped.”
“Okay, Richard. They are going to shoot to kill. If Kumar here can change the world balance of power just by opening his mouth—”
“I know,” said Richard. “Any suggestions, Kumar?”
“We need to be on the south end of this bridge, and about half a mile along the shore. That is where the KDDE yards begin.”
“I know,” said Zak. “How do we get there?”
“Zak, I think I know how they found us,” Richard said. “Your arm has some kind of GPS transmitter embedded in it. Has to in order to be able to connect to a military-grade comm-link. They’ve found us by tracking you.”
“That means we jump, guys,” said Zak, looking at the water thirty feet below them. “The water will short out the GPS transmitter, if that’s what it is they’re tracking. The water will short out any electronic gizmos in the arm. They will lose the blip on their cell phones.”
“As if they need a blip to catch—”
“Behind here,” said Richard, pointing to a narrow walkway behind one of the restaurants and the eastern face of the bridge. “Down here, jump. Now. Get under the bridge.” Kumar was hesitant, but Richard swept him up in one arm and jumped.
The water was not cold, and Richard and Kumar were able swimmers. Zak, robbed of a forearm, was able to make do. Richard shooed Zak and Kumar underneath the Port Grand Promenade and out of sight. Away from the jangle and lights of the main promenade, no one had witnessed the move. Richard’s prediction was correct—as soon as Zak’s arm hit the water, much of the internal circuitry, including the GPS transmitter, fried. Zak dropped off the radar screen.
“We’ve got to get under the railway bridge,” Richard said. “You can see from here that the pylons are much closer together. They might not think of looking there first.” The promenade was, in fact, the middle of a cluster of three bridges: the eastern bridge being the Native Jetty Bridge, which was the normal traffic viaduct from one side of the harbor to the other; the center bridge was the Port Grand itself; and the western bridge was a railway trestle with spaces to permit smaller seafaring traffic passage.
“We have no chance, Rich,” said Zak, shaking his head and wiping the salt water out of his eyes. “There are a thousand cops on the Port Grand, and it won’t take them long to figure out we’re down here.”
“We have one thing in our favor. That blip on everyone’s cell phone or computer screen just disappeared. That will confuse them. That might give us a couple of minutes. Now we’re fifty feet from the railway bridge. We’ve been through worse than this. Let’s go.”
The three were able to move between the piers and piles so as to maneuver underneath the promenade to its western side, and then make their way to the railway bridge. This bridge rested on a forest of steel columns and cross members that in turn rested on twenty steel and concrete piers that spanned the shallow inner Ka
rachi Harbor. There were many cross members and further columns and supports between a complex substructure of piers and abutments. The whole structure consisted of a series of low trestles, and at high tide, the foundation of the superstructure was only three or four feet above the water’s surface. Fortunately it was high tide. The low support sills rested on enormous wide-flange H beams that stretched from one concrete pier to the next. Each flange was some two feet wide and provided a lane along which an individual, crawling on elbows and knees, could negotiate the bridge with the only obstacles being the various cross members and the piers themselves. Kumar was able to scamper around each steel obstacle as though he were a fifteen-year-old; Richard was somewhat more awkward but was able to circumnavigate the various sills, diagonals, and other components of the long and complex trestle. Zak, with his impaired balance and absence of a forearm, had much more difficulty, but he was also able to move from sill to sill and pier to pier.
Within minutes of the three making the leap, the Port Grand was shut down and police began to search from both ends toward the middle. Some witnesses thought they had seen someone jump or fall, but it took another fifteen minutes to notify the Coast Guard and harbor patrol, and fifteen minutes after that for a cutter to be dispatched to the three bridges area. By then Richard and his crew had reached the south side of the harbor. Various watercraft were brought in, but the three fugitives stood just minutes ahead of the search.
Soaking wet, pig-filthy, and covered with slime, Zak turned to Richard. “I think being shot was the preferable solution,” he grumbled.
Richard shook his head. “You Air Force guys always were such pansies.” He turned to Kumar, who was beginning to shiver slightly. “What’s the safest route to KDDE?”
“Our premises start about 800 yards southwest of this bridge,” Kumar replied. “They probably have the place under surveillance. If we follow Napier Mole Road, we will almost certainly be caught, or even if we go through any of the industrial roads or alleyways, we will be captured. I grew up on these docks. My father was a welder here and I know every inch of this place. The entire waterfront is artificially constructed and rests on piers, extending at least twenty or thirty feet inland from the water’s edge. We can easily get in there, and we should be able to come up on the dockside of KDDE. Once inside those buildings, we should be okay for a while. You see by those industrial lights there,” he motioned to acres of sodium halogen industrial lighting following the gentle curve of the harbor. “That’s KDDE. Now there are going to be a few problems,” he added, stepping off a catwalk onto a slime-covered mud bar.
“I can’t wait to hear this one,” Zak muttered, wiping tracks of mud and slime off his shirt. There was a sudden skittering sound behind one of the rotting posts.
“Rats,” said Kumar. “Lots and lots of rats.”
“That’s it,” deadpanned Richard. “I’m turning myself in.”
26
In Guantanamo, Dan Alexander screamed for lawyers, judges, and connected political friends. He boiled and raged and attempted to cajole and bribe for days. All he received were smirks and headshakes, but he did get three square meals a day and was given a copy of the Koran to read. He was told in which direction Mecca lay. Then, on day four, when he had become convinced that he had landed in a Kafka novel, two men from Washington, DC, received permission to see the ranting prisoner. George and Turbee had arrived.
George did most of the talking. Turbee was quaking in his shoes, sick with the thought that what he was doing was criminal. Dan Alexander was in a pitiable state. He had not shaved in days and had lost weight. His eyes were bloodshot and he had huge black circles beneath them. He was in the midst of withdrawal from various chemical substances.
“You two,” breathed Dan. “I should have known that you were involved in this. Let me out now and I will let you live.”
“No, no,” George said with a broad smile. “That’s not how it works.
Here are our terms. Please listen carefully.”
Dan was about to snarl a retort, but George clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Tut, tut,” said George. “You need to listen carefully. First you need to lay off Turbee here. You almost got him killed, and your lack of respect is horrendous. And you need to become TTIC’s strongest proponent. You have all of the political connections with the White House and the House and Senate.” George was enjoying the delicious role, and even Turbee smiled a bit.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” Dan said, his incarceration not yet robbing him of his brittle edge.
“Shoosh,” said George. “We haven’t quite finished yet.”
“Yes,” added Turbee. “We have more.”
“Fuck off,” snapped Dan, but with less intensity as Turbee again disappeared behind George.
“Now with that fancy CJ report and all, okay, it says what it says but you leave Turbee the hell alone. It’s a free country and we can put up any website we damn well want to so long as we don’t do it on government time or with government property. Got that?”
“And if I don’t?”
“There’s more,” Turbee said. “You need to let George finish.” Turbee was emboldened, but still stood somewhat behind George.
George went through a laundry list of grievances.
“And if I don’t?” retorted Dan.
“Danno, you have no idea what we can do,” said George, improvising some. “Your assets will not become just temporarily inaccessible, but they will disappear. Your electronic identity will evaporate. You will cease to exist. And the intelligence community will not stuff your spoiled ass into a nice tropical country club like Guantanamo. No, Dan. You will end up in a place like Uzbekistan or some central African dictatorship at the hands of one of those CIA surrogate outfits. Those are rough places, Dan. You could easily loose an appendage or testicle or two. You will end up inside a bottomless pit, wondering after a while who you are or when the nightmare you’re in will end, if it ever does. Got that?”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Danno, we hold the keys to get you out of here, right now. You can get on a plane and head back to DC within the hour. But you leave Turbee alone, or this particular problem that you have right now will expand exponentially.”
At length Dan gave in, and did indeed head back to Washington with his credit cards and corporate structures reinstituted. He gave Turbee a baleful glare before they parted company.
George was elated with victory as they flew back to Washington. Turbee wasn’t so sure. “I don’t care what you say, George. Dan’s whole worldview is that ‘mine is bigger than yours.’ He’s lived his whole life that way. Say what you want about throwing him into some dungeon in Uzbekistan. He is going to find some way to get even. I just can’t play that game.”
“Don’t worry, Turb. He’s been tuned up,” George replied, laughing.
As it would turn out, Turbee had the more correct prognosis.
27
Ten o’clock in Courtroom 401 came like a freight train. Leon had ice in his eyes and Dana was weighed down by briefs and volumes of law. Her long brown hair had a messy tangle to it and her jaw had a warlike clench. The prosecution team was coldly eyeing her as though she were a party favor to be unwrapped and discarded. Even the jurors had an angry air about them as they filed into the jury box. The public gallery was stacked, and an overflow room had been set aside for the less fortunate. The customary court attendees—the court reporter, the court clerk, and the sheriffs—were looking grim.
Archambault had seen Dana huddle up with Lee Pen-Garrett in an isolated corner of the cafeteria, and mentioned as much to McSheffrey. Sheff was not impressed. Nothing good could come of this. Little Puppy was becoming a nuisance. Lee was probably telling Dana to just continue throwing garbage into the trial just to confuse the jury.
“Order in the court,” bellowed the clerk.
Inspector Inderjit “Indy” Singh was on the stand. He had concluded his testimony in chief the previous day.
&nbs
p; “Cross-examination, Ms. Wittenberg?”
“Yes m’lord,” said Dana, the quiver back in her voice, and her tongue again feeling like sand. She had the thirty-seven binders, each one containing references to the thirty-seven undisclosed documents that Turbee’s skill and supercomputers had identified. She had a total of fifteen sets of copies— twelve for the jury, one for the witness, one for the judge, one for McSheffrey, et al., and one for herself. This represented 555 binders, which, with one-inch spines, was almost fifty feet of binders. Blankstein deFijter had refused to assist, calling the venture idiotic. She bound them herself the night before and had Chris and one of the sheriffs line them up against one wall of the courtroom. She’d also scripted the questions she was planning to ask Inspector Singh. Judge Mordecai just shook his head when he saw the volume of material that had been dragged into court.
Of course, Dana being Dana, one of the volumes on counsel table slipped out of the bundle she was carrying under her arm, and when she reached to pick it up, all other fifteen volumes and then her computer fell to the floor.
The bottom assembly of the computer detached, and various bits of electronic pieces rolled across the floor. There were snickers from the jury and smirks from the prosecutors. Judge Mordecai rolled his eyes.
“Wittenberg, will you cut with the theatrics and just start your crossexamination? We’re too busy to have you crawl around the floor looking for whatever you just dropped there.”
“Yes, of course, my lord,” she responded, sounding somewhat muffled from underneath the counsel table.
It took a few more minutes for Dana to reassemble the injured volume and hand it up to the clerk, with Judge Mordecai drumming his fingers against the bench nonstop. It was 10:10 before things were rolling again.
“Mr. Singh,” Dana began, handing the first binder to the witness, “can you tell us what these seventeen documents are?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Indy carefully. “These are emails and memoranda that I had prepared during the course of the development of the case.”
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