Locked On Part 10

Yes, Embling was certain now, he was being scooped up by the ISI, the national spy agency. It wasn't good news by any stretch. He knew enough about their modus operandi to recognize that a predawn rousting at gunpoint likely meant a bas.e.m.e.nt cell and a bit of the rough stuff at the very least. But getting picked up by the Army-run intelligence organization was a d.a.m.n sight better than being kidnapped by Tehrik-i-Taliban, the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda, the URC, Lashkar-e-Omar, the Quetta Shura Taliban, the Nadeem Commando, or any one of the other terror outfits running around armed and angry on these dangerous streets of Peshawar.

Nigel Embling was a former member of British foreign intelligence, and he knew how to talk to other intelligence officers. That he might be forced to do so while getting his knuckles broken or his head dunked in a bucket of cold water hardly appealed to him, but he knew this was preferable to dealing with a room full of jihadists who would just quickly and messily hack his head from his neck with a dull sword.

The plain-clothed riflemen on either side of Embling in the backseat of the SUV said nothing as they drove through the empty streets of the city. Embling didn't bother to ask the men any questions. He knew he would have his only opportunity to get answers wherever it was he was going. These men were just the scoop crew. These men had been provided with a name and a picture and an address, and then they'd been sent out on this errand as if they'd been sent down to the corner market for tea and cakes. They would be here for their ability to squeeze triggers and put their boots into backsides.... They wouldn't be sent along with the answer to any of Embling's questions.

So he kept quiet and concentrated on their route.

The ISI's main HQ in Peshawar is just off Khyber Road in Peshawar's western suburbs, which would have required the SUVs to turn left onto Grand Trunk, but instead they continued on, into the northern suburbs. Embling imagined he was being taken to one of the G.o.d-knows-how-many off-site branch locations. The ISI kept a number of safe houses, simple residential flats and commercial office s.p.a.ce, all over the city, so that they could cause more unofficial mischief than they could during an official visit to the HQ. The senior Brit expat's suspicions were confirmed when they pulled up in front of a darkened office building, and two men with radios on their vests and Uzi submachine guns hanging from their shoulders stepped out from behind the gla.s.s door to greet the vehicles.

Without a word, some six men walked Nigel Embling across the pavement, through the doorway, and then up a narrow staircase. He was led into a dark room-he fully expected it to be a cold and stark interrogation cell, but when someone flipped on the fluorescent lighting he saw it to be a well-used small office, complete with a desk and chairs, a desktop computer, a phone, and a wall full of Pakistani military banners, emblems, and even framed photos of cricket players from the Pakistani national team.

The armed men put Embling in the chair, unlocked his handcuffs, and then left the room.

Embling looked around, surprised to be left alone in this small but not uncomfortable office. Seconds later, a man entered from behind, stepped around Embling's chair, and slid behind the desk. He wore the tan uniform of the Pakistani Army, but his green pullover sweater covered any insignia that might have revealed information to the man sitting across from him. All Embling could discern was that the man was in his late thirties, with a short beard and mustache and a ruddy complexion. He wore narrow frameless gla.s.ses that were propped halfway down his angular nose.

"My name is Mohammed al Darkur. I am a major in the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate."

Nigel opened his mouth to ask the major why he'd been dragged from his bed and driven across town for the introduction, but al Darkur spoke again.

"And you, Nigel Embling. You are a British spy."

Nigel laughed. "Kudos for getting right to the point, even if your information is incorrect. I am Dutch. True, my mother was from Scotland, which is technically part of the British Empire, although her family preferred to think of themselves as-"

"Your mother was from England, from Suss.e.x," al Darkur interrupted. "Her name was Sally, and she died in 1988. Your father's name was Harold, and he was from London, and his death predated the death of your mother by nine years."

Embling's bushy eyebrows rose, but he did not speak.

"There is no use in lying. We know all about you. At different times in the past we have had you under surveillance, and we are quite aware of your affiliation with the British Secret Service."

Embling composed himself. Chuckled again. "You really are doing this all wrong, Major Darkur. I certainly won't tell you how to do your job, but this isn't much of an interrogation. I believe you need to take a few lessons from some of your colleagues. I've sat in a few ISI dungeons in my time here as a guest of your delightful nation; I've been suspected of this or that by your organization since you were in nappies, I'd wager. This is how you do it. First, you are supposed to start with a little deprivation, maybe some cold-"

"Does this look like an ISI dungeon?" asked al Darkur.

Embling looked around again. "No. In fact, your overlords might want to send you back for some remedial training; you can't even get the scary environment down. Doesn't the ISI have decorators who can help you create that perfect, claustrophobic 'modern horror' look?"

"Mr. Embling, this is not an interrogation room. This is my office."

Nigel looked the man over for several seconds. Shook his head slowly. "Then you really haven't a clue how to do your job, do you, Major al Darkur?"

The Pakistani major smiled, as if indulgent of the old man's taunts. "You were picked up this morning because another directorate in the ISI has asked that yourself, and other suspicious expatriates like you, be brought in for interrogation. After interrogation, I am ordered to begin the process of having you expelled from the country."

Wow, thought Embling. What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l is going on? "Not just me? All expatriates?"

"Many. Not all, but many."

"On what grounds would we be given the boot?"

"No grounds whatsoever. Well . . . I suppose I am to make up something."

Embling did not respond. He was still gobsmacked by this information, and more so by the frank way this man was delivering it.

Al Darkur continued, "There are elements in my organization, and in the Army as a whole, who have enacted a secret military intelligence order that is only to be used in times of high internal conflict or war, in order to lessen the risk of foreign spies or agents provocateurs in our country. We are always in times of high internal conflict here, this is nothing new. And we are not at war. Therefore, their legal grounds are shaky. Still, they are getting away with it. Our civilian government is not aware of the scope or the focus paid to this operation, and this gives me great pause." Al Darkur hesitated for a long moment. Twice he began to speak but stopped himself. Finally he said, "This new edict, and other things that have been going on in my organization over the last months, have given me reason to suspect some of my high-ranking colleagues of planning a coup against our civilian leaders.h.i.+p."

Embling had no idea why this military officer, a stranger, would be telling him all this. Especially if he really did believe him to be a British spy.

"I hand-selected your case, Mr. Embling, I made sure that my men would pick you up and bring you to me."

"What on earth for?"

"Because I would like to offer my services to your nation. It is a difficult time in my country. And there are forces in my organization that are making it more difficult. I believe the United Kingdom can help those of us who . . . shall I say, do not want the type of change that many in the ISI are seeking."

Embling looked across the desk at the man for a long time. He then said, "If this is legitimate, then I must ask. Of all places, why are we doing this here?"

Al Darkur smiled a handsome smile now. He spoke in an attractive lilting cadence. "Mr. Embling. My office is the one environment in this country where I can be absolutely sure no one is listening in on our conversation. It is not that this room is not bugged, of course it is. But it is bugged for my benefit, and I can control the erase function on the recorder."

Embling smiled. He loved nothing more than clever practicality. "What division do you work for?"

"JIB.".

"I'm sorry, I don't recognize the acronym."

"Yes you do, Mr. Embling. I can show you my file on your a.s.sociations with other members of the ISI in the past."

The Brit shrugged. He decided to drop the pretense of ignorance. "Joint Intelligence Bureau," he said. "Very well."

"My duties take me into the FATA." The Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a sort of no-man's-land of territory along the border with Afghanistan and Iran, where the Taliban and other organizations provided the only real law. "I work with most of the government-sponsored militias there. The Khyber Rifles. The Chitral Scouts, the Kurram Militia."

"I see. And the department that is working to have me kicked out of the country?"

"The order has come through normal channels, but I believe this action is being initiated by General Riaz Rehan, the head of Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous Division. JIM is responsible for foreign espionage operations."

Embling knew what JIM was responsible for, but he allowed al Darkur to tell him. The Englishman's fertile brain raced through the possibilities of this encounter. He did not want to admit to anything, but he d.a.m.n well wanted more intelligence about the situation. "Major. I am at a loss here. I am not an English agent, but were I an English agent, I would hardly want to involve myself in the middle of the nasty infighting that goes on, as a matter of course, in the Pakistani intelligence community. If you have some quarrel with Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous, that's your problem, not Britain's."

"It is your problem, because your nation has picked sides, and they have chosen poorly. Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous, Rehan's directorate, has been given a great deal of support by the UK, as well as the Americans. They have charmed and fooled your politicians, and I can prove it. If you can provide me the back channel access to your leaders.h.i.+p, then I will make my case, and your agency will learn a valuable lesson about trusting anyone in JIM."

"Major al Darkur, please remember. I never said I worked with British intelligence."

"No, you didn't. I said that."

"Indeed. I am an old man. Retired from the import/ export field."

Al Darkur smiled. "Then I think you need to come out of retirement, maybe export some intelligence out of Pakistan that might be useful to your nation. You could import some a.s.sistance from MI6 that might be useful to my country. I a.s.sure you that your nation has never had an a.s.set in Pakistani intelligence as well placed as myself, with as much incentive to work for our joint interests as myself."

"And what about me? If I am given the boot from Pakistan, I won't be much help."

"I can delay your departure for months. Today was just the initial interview. I will drag my feet through every phase of the process after this."

Embling nodded. "Major, I just have to ask. If you are so sure your organization is rife with informants for General Rehan, how is it you are able to trust all these men working for you?"

Al Darkur smiled again. "Before I was ISI I was in SSG, Special Services Group. These men are also SSG. Commandos from Zarrar Company, counterterrorism operators. My former unit."

"And they are loyal to you?"

Al Darkur shrugged. "They are loyal to the concept of not getting blown to bits by a roadside bomb. I share their allegiance to that concept myself."

"As do I, Major." Embling reached out and shook the major's hand. "So nice to find common ground with a new friend." It was a polite thing to say, but neither man in this room trusted the other so early in such a risky relations.h.i.+p.

Two hours later, Nigel Embling sat at home, drank tea at his desk, and drummed his fingers on a well-worn leather blotter.

His morning had been interesting, to say the least. From a dead sleep to a pitch from a highly placed intelligence a.s.set. It was enough to make his head spin.

Houseboy Mahmood, sporting a nasty purple-and-red gash on his head, brought his employer a plate with slices of suji ka, a coconut flour, yogurt, and semolina-based pastry. He'd brought it home from the neighbor's house when Embling was returned by the SUVs from ISI. Embling took a sweet cake and bit into it, but he remained lost in thought.

"Thanks, lad. Why don't you go play football with your mates this afternoon? You've had a long day already."

"Thank you, Mr. Nigel."

"Thank you, my young friend, for being brave this morning. You and your mates will inherit this country someday soon, and I should think they will need a good and brave man like you will turn out to be."

Mahmood did not understand what his employer was talking about, but he did understand that he had the afternoon free to kick the soccer ball in the street with his friends.

As his houseboy left him alone in his study, Embling ate his cakes and drank his tea, his mind filled with worry. Worry about the potential for him to be expelled, for the dangers of high-level infighting in the Pakistani Army's spy service, for the work that he would need to do to check out this Major al Darkur to see if he was, in fact, who he said he was, and not affiliated with any of the naughtier elements roaming around.

As worrisome as all this was, the chief concern of Embling's right now was supremely practical. It appeared, to him, as if he'd just recruited an agent to spy on behalf of a nation that he did not represent.

He'd had no direct working relations.h.i.+p with London for years, though a few of the graybeards working at Legoland, the nickname of London's SIS headquarters on the Thames, gave him a call from time to time to check up on this or that.

Once, the year before, they'd actually pa.s.sed his name off to an American organization that he'd helped with a small matter here in Peshawar. The Yanks who'd arrived had been top-notch, some of the sharpest field operators he'd ever worked with. What were their names? Yes, John Clark and Ding Chavez.

As Embling finished the last of his mid-morning snack and wiped his fingers clean with a napkin, he decided he could, if this al Darkur chap checked out, run a very unusual version of the "false flag." He could operate al Darkur as an agent without Embling actually revealing to al Darkur that he had no one, officially speaking, to pa.s.s his intelligence up the chain to.

And then, when Embling had something important, something solid, Embling would find a customer for his product.

The big Englishman sipped the rest of his tea and smiled at the audacity of his new plan. It was ridiculous, really.

But why on earth not?

Jack Ryan Sr. stepped over to a full-length mirror on the wall between two sets of lockers. Tonight's presidential debate at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University was being held in the Emerson Physical Education Center to accommodate the huge crowd. It was also known as the Veale Center, and Ryan had no trouble picturing this venue hosting a basketball game. Around him on the walls of the locker room that had been converted into a dressing room for the presidential candidate, big Spartan silhouettes looked back at him. The adjacent bathroom set aside for Ryan's needs had a dozen showers.

He'd needed none. He'd showered at the hotel.

Tonight's debate was the second of three scheduled between himself and Kealty, and this was the one of the three Jack had insisted on. Just one moderator asking questions of the two men, seated at a table. Almost like a friendly conversation. It was to be less formal, less stiff. Kealty had objected at first, saying it was also less presidential, but Jack had held firm, and the backroom dealing of Jack's campaign manager, Arnie van Damm, had won the day.

The theme of tonight's debate would be foreign affairs, and Jack knew he had Kealty beat on the subject. The polls said so, so Arnie agreed, too. But Jack was not relaxed. He looked into the mirror again and took another sip of water.

He liked these all-too-brief moments of solitude. Cathy had just left the dressing room; right now she would be finding her seat in the front row. Her last words to him before leaving chimed in his ears as he looked at himself in the mirror.

"Good luck, Jack. And don't forget your happy face."

Along with Arnie and his speechwriter Callie Weston, Cathy had been his closest confidante on this campaign. She did not get into policy discussions very often, unless the subject of health care came up, but she had watched her husband closely during his hundreds of television appearances, and she gave him her opinions on how he conveyed himself to the public.

Cathy considered herself supremely qualified for the role. No one in the world knew Jack Ryan better than she did. She could look into his eyes or listen to the sound of his voice and know everything about his mood, his energy, even whether or not he'd snuck an afternoon cup of coffee that she did not permit when they were traveling together.

Normally Jack did great in front of a camera. He was natural, not stiff at all; he came off just like the man he was. A decent, intelligent guy who was, at the same time, strong-willed and motivated.

But occasionally Cathy saw things that she did not think helped him get his point across. Of particular concern to her was the fact that, in her opinion, whenever he talked about one of Kealty's policies or comments that he did not agree with-which was essentially everything that came out of Kealty's White House-Jack's face had a tendency to turn dark.

Cathy had recently sat in bed with her husband on one of the almost nonexistent nights that found him taking a quick break at home from the campaign trail. For nearly an hour she held the remote control for the flat-screen TV on the wall. That would have been h.e.l.l enough for Jack Ryan, even if his mug was not on all the programs that she had recorded and flipped through. That was murderous for a guy who never liked seeing his face or hearing his voice on television. But Cathy was unrelenting; she used their TiVo, cycled from one press conference to the next, from lofty sit-down interviews with major network anchors all the way to impromptu exchanges with high school reporters while walking through shopping malls.

In each clip she showed him, every time a Kealty policy was brought up, Jack Ryan's face changed. It wasn't a sneer, and for that Jack felt he should get a d.a.m.n medal, as incensed as he was by, literally, every last decision of importance by the Kealty administration. But Cathy was right, Jack could not deny it. Whenever an interviewer brought up a Kealty policy, Jack's eyes narrowed slightly, his jaw tightened just perceptibly, and often his head shook back and forth, just once, as if to say "No!"

Cathy had tracked back for a moment to show Jack at a barbecue in Fort Worth, with a paper plate of brisket and corn on the cob in one hand and an iced tea in the other. A C-SPAN camera crew following him picked up an exchange where a middle-aged woman mentioned Kealty's recent push for more regulation on the oil and gas industries.

While the woman relayed the hards.h.i.+ps her family was enduring, Jack's jaw tightened and he shook his head. There was empathy relayed in his body language, but only after his initial recoil of anger. His first reaction, that first flash of rage, locked into a still frame when Cathy pressed the pause b.u.t.ton, was unmistakable.

As they sat in bed together Jack Ryan tried to lighten the moment. "I think I deserve partial credit on that one for not tossing up the baked beans I'd just eaten. I mean, we were talking about increasing red tape and bureaucracy on business in this economy."

Cathy smiled, shook her head. "Partial credit isn't going to get you the highest office in the land this time, Jack. You are winning, but you haven't won yet."

Jack nodded. Chastened. "I know. I'll work on it, I promise."

And now, in the locker room at Case Western Reserve, Jack worked on it. He tried out his happy face on the empty room, while thinking back to that poor woman's family unable to find work in an environment that stifled the entire industry in which she sought employment.

Chin up, a slight nod, eyes relaxed, no squinting.

Ugh, Jack thought. Feels unnatural.

He sighed. He realized, not for the first time, that if it feels unnatural, then that means Cathy was right, and he had been making faces ever since he'd thrown his hat into the ring.

He worried now that debating foreign policy in person with Ed Kealty would be a tremendous challenge to his self-control.

Jack spent one more moment practicing the happy face. Thought about Cathy watching this debate from the audience.

He smiled unnaturally at the mirror. Did it again. A third time.

The fourth smile on his lips was real. He almost laughed. He couldn't help it. A grown man making faces into a mirror.

He snorted out a laugh now. Politics, when you drilled right down into it, was ultimately so G.o.dd.a.m.n ridiculous.

Jack Ryan Sr. shook his head and stepped to the door. One more long sigh, one more affirmation to himself that he could pull off the happy face, and then he turned the k.n.o.b.

Outside in the hall, his people began moving. Andrea Price-O'Day stepped up to his shoulder. The rest of his security team formed in a diamond around him for the walk to the stage.