Locked On Part 34

"I don't give a s.h.i.+t how it plays. I'm not going to mince words on this. We've got an American hero out there being hunted down like a dog. I am not going to pretend like there is anything else going on."

"But-"

Ryan snapped back, "But nothing! Now, next topic. What's next on the day's agenda?"

Arnie van Damm looked at his boss for a long time. Finally he nodded. "Why don't we take the afternoon off, Jack? Me and my people will let you and Cathy and the kids have the house to yourself. Rent a movie. Eat a pizza. You deserve it. You've been working your a.s.s off."

Jack calmed himself down. He shook his head. "You've been working harder than me. Sorry I jumped on you."

"Lots of stress in a normal campaign. This is not a normal campaign."

"No, it's not. I'm fine. Let's get back to work."

"Whatever you say, Jack."

Gerry Hendley lived alone. Since the death of his wife and children in a car accident, he had wrapped himself in his work, continuing on as a senator before leaving public service, and then taking over as the head of the most private spook shop in the world.

His work at Hendley a.s.sociates, on the white side as well as the black side, kept him occupied a good sixty hours a week, and even at home he watched the overseas markets on FBN and Bloomberg to keep his edge for the white side of his work, and he read Global Security and Foreign Affairs and Jane's and The Economist to keep up with happenings that might affect his job overseeing black ops.

Gerry had trouble sleeping, understandable due to the intense pressures of his occupation as well as the loss he had experienced in his life: most important, the loss of his family, though the death of Brian Caruso the year before and the current situation with John Clark also took a personal toll on Hendley.

Hendley coveted sleep, it was a scarce and precious commodity, so when his phone rang in the middle of the night, it filled him with anger even before his wondering about the news to come filled him with dread.

It was three-twenty a.m. when his phone rang, rousing him from his rest.

"Yeah?" He answered in a gruff and annoyed tone.

"Good morning, sir. Nigel Embling calling from Pakistan."

"Good morning."

"I'm afraid there is a problem."

"I'm listening." Hendley sat up in bed. Now the anger disappeared and the woe appeared.

"I have just learned that your man Sam is missing near Miran Shah."

Now Gerry was up and walking toward his office, heading for his desk and his computer. "What do you mean missing?"

"The unit of soldiers he was with was attacked by Haqqani network fighters several days ago. There were heavy losses on both sides, I am told. Sam and others were making their escape in a vehicle; my contact, Major al Darkur, was in the front. Your man was in the back. It is possible he fell out of the vehicle on the way to safety."

On the surface that sounded, to Gerry Hendley, like utter bulls.h.i.+t. His first inclination was to think the ISI officer Embling had put up as reliable had double-crossed his man in the field. But he did not have enough data to make that charge just yet, and he certainly needed Embling's help more than ever now, so he was careful to avoid las.h.i.+ng out with any accusations.

He'd been a senator just long enough to know how to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

"I understand. So there is no word on whether he is dead or alive?"

"My man went back to the location of the skirmish with three helicopters full of troops. The Haqqani folks had left their fallen where they lay, and several of al Darkur's men were there, as well. Sam's body was not there. The major thinks it is likely he's been taken by the enemy."

Hendley gritted his teeth. He felt that death in battle might well have been an end preferable to Driscoll than whatever the Taliban had in store for him. "What do you suggest I do on my end?"

Embling hesitated, then said, "I know very well how this looks. It looks like the major has not been truthful to us. But I've been at this long enough to know when I'm being played. I trust this young man. He has promised me that he is working to find the location of your man, and he has promised to keep me apprised of the situation several times a day. I ask you to allow me to relay this information to you as I receive it. Perhaps between the three of us we can come up with something."

Gerry did not see that he had any options. Still, he said, "I want my men to meet this major."

"I understand," replied Embling.

"They are in Dubai at the moment."

"Then we will both come to them. Until we find out how the operation in Miran Shah was compromised, I don't think it is a good idea to send anyone else here."

"I agree. You make arrangements, and I'll notify my men."

Hendley hung up, then called Sam Granger. "Sam? Gerry. We've lost another operator. I want all senior staff in the office in one hour."

Riaz Rehan's second attack on India came two weeks after the first.

While his Bangalore attack was b.l.o.o.d.y, it could be quickly and easily attributed to a single Lashkar-e-Taiba cell. And while LeT was undoubtedly a Pakistani terrorist organization and virtually everyone in the know realized it was, to one degree or another, backed by "the beards" of Pakistan's ISI, the Bangalore ma.s.sacre did not scream "ma.s.sive international conspiracy."

And that had been by Rehan's careful design. To start with a big event that opened the eyes of everyone but did not put too much direct focus on his organization. It had worked, arguably it had worked too well, but Rehan had not yet noticed any detrimental effects of the ma.s.sive body count, such as wholesale arrests of his LeT operatives.

No, everything was moving according to his plan, and now it was time to begin phase two of that plan.

The attackers came by air, land, and sea. By air, four Lashkar operatives traveling under forged Indian pa.s.sports landed at the airport in Delhi, and then met up with a four-man sleeper cell that had been there for more than a year, waiting to be activated by their ISI handlers in Pakistan.

By land, seven men successfully crossed the border overland into Jammu, and made their way to Jammu city itself, taking residence in a boardinghouse full of Muslim workers.

And by sea, four rigid-hulled inflatable boats landed at two different locations on the Indian coast. Two craft in Goa on India's west coast and two in Chennai in the east. Each boat carried eight terrorists and their equipment, meaning sixteen armed men for each location.

This put a total of forty-seven men in four different locations across the width of India, and all forty-seven men had mobile phones with store-bought encryption systems that would slow down India's intelligence and military response to the attacks themselves, though Rehan had no doubt the transmissions would eventually be decoded.

In Goa the sixteen men split into eight groups, and each group attacked a different beachside restaurant on Baga and Candolim beaches with hand grenades and Kalashnikov rifles. Before police could kill all of the attackers, 149 diners and restaurant workers were dead.

In Jammu, a city of more than four hundred thousand, the seven men who'd crossed overland from Pakistan broke into two teams. At eight p.m. the teams blew open the emergency exits at movie houses on opposite sides of the city, and then the men, three in one location and four in the other, ran through the broken doors, stood in front of the movie screens, and opened fire on the huge Friday-night theater crowds.

Forty-three Indians lost their lives at one theater, twenty-nine at the other. Between the two locations, more than two hundred people were injured.

In the ma.s.sive coastal city of Chennai, the sixteen terrorists attacked an international cricket tournament. Security for the tournament had been beefed up after the Bangalore attack, and this undoubtedly saved hundreds of lives. The sixteen terrorists were wiped out after killing twenty-two civilians and police and injuring just under sixty.

In Delhi the eight-man cell entered the Sheraton New Delhi Hotel in the Saket District Centre, killed the security guards in the lobby, and then split into two groups. Four used the stairs to begin going floor to floor, room to room, to shoot anyone they encountered. The other four burst into a banquet hall and sprayed automatic fire on a wedding reception.

Eighty-three innocents were killed before the eight LeT operatives were hunted down by the Rapid Action Force of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force.

The project manager of the entire a.s.sault had been Riaz Rehan, he and his top men worked out of a safe house in Karachi, used voice-over Internet phones attached to encrypted computers in order to stay in touch with the teams of men to help them maximize the lethality of their actions. Three times during the evening, Rehan, known to the terrorists in India as Mansoor, prayed with individual cell members before the men stormed into the guns of police. He had explained to all forty-seven Lashkar men that the entire operation, the entire future of Pakistan, hinged on them not being taken alive.

All forty-seven did as they were told.

Riaz Rehan had deliberately crafted this operation so that it would appear incredibly intricate and over the heads of the leaders.h.i.+p of Lashkar, as he wanted the Indians to see evidence of a Pakistani conspiracy against them. This worked as he knew it would, and by daylight on October 30 the Indian government had ordered its military at full alert. Indian prime minister Priyanka Pandiyan and Pakistani president Haroon Zahid both spent the morning huddled with their military leaders and cabinet ministers, and by noon Pakistan had heightened the readiness of its own military in case India took advantage of the confusion of the attacks to reach over the border in retaliation.

Riaz Rehan could not have been more pleased with how events unfolded, because Operation Saker had required such a response to go forward.

Once the India attacks were complete, Rehan and his officers and staff headed to Dubai to avoid the scrutiny of the factions of the non-Islamists in the ISI.

The United Arab Emirates was a nation based on commerce and capitalism, but it also possessed a black core of powerful Islamists, men of a darker age. Where these two phenomena met, where ancient religious barbarity and cold hard cash intertwined, was the world of the benefactors of Riaz Rehan.

These men also possessed influence in all facets of the government, spies in the corridors of power, informants in every bastion of life in the Emirates. If Rehan sought information about anyone or anything in the UAE, it was his for the asking.

Which is how he learned that Major Mohammed al Darkur and a British expatriate traveling under a Dutch pa.s.sport would be landing at Dubai International Airport at 9:36 p.m.

Rehan and his contingent of security and plain-clothed ISI officers were due to arrive in Dubai early the following morning, so the Pakistani general a.s.sumed al Darkur and the English spy were in town to get information on him. Clearly al Darkur's operation in Miran Shah, an op that coincided with his training of the Jamaat Shariat troops at the Haqqani camp, indicated that the young major was investigating Rehan. There was no reason he would show up here, now, unless it involved some further interest in the JIM Directorate.

Riaz Rehan was not worried about the major's investigation into him. On the contrary, he saw it as incredibly good fortune that the man and his a.s.sociate had come to Dubai.

Because while confronting the meddlesome major and his foreign ally in Pakistan could have been problematic for the low-profile ISI general, here in Dubai, Riaz Rehan could, quite literally, get away with murder.

Embling and al Darkur took a private car to their apartment at the incredible Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. They were in town to meet with members of The Campus, but for security reasons Gerry Hendley had forbade his operators from giving either Embling or his suspicious ISI informant any information about where they were staying while in Dubai, so al Darkur himself had made arrangements for accommodations. The ma.s.sive needle-like skysc.r.a.per with 163 inhabitable floors (and a forty-three-story spire topping that) was a quick and easy place for them to find quarters. Embling and al Darkur shared a two-bedroom flat on the 108th floor.

Mohammed did not trust most of the ISI any more than did Gerry Hendley. He had used a personal credit card and handled details of the trip on a computer at an Internet cafe in Peshawar, lest his own organization get wind of his travel plans.

Once settled in at their flat, Embling called a number Hendley had given him. It connected him to the satellite phone of one of the two Campus operators he had met the year before in Peshawar, the forty-something-year-old Mexican-American who went by the name Domingo.

They made arrangements to meet at Embling's place at the Burj Khalifa as soon as possible.

At the same moment Rehan and company's Pakistan International Airlines flight from Islamabad landed at Dubai International Airport, Jack Ryan, Dom Caruso, and Domingo Chavez stood in an elevator in the Burj Khalifa. The elevators at the world's tallest building are, not coincidentally, the world's fastest, and they jetted the three Americans higher into the gargantuan tower at over forty-five miles an hour. They were let into the apartment and found themselves in a large open room with a sunken sitting area in front of floor-to-ceiling views of the Persian Gulf from an alt.i.tude nearly that of the top of the Empire State Building.

Nigel Embling stood in the modern living room full of dark wood and metal and gla.s.s, in front of the incredible panoramic view. He was a big Englishman with thin snow-white hair and a bushy beard. He wore a slightly rumpled blazer over an open-neck b.u.t.ton-down s.h.i.+rt and brown slacks.

"My dear friend Domingo," said Embling with an air of sympathy. "Before we get into the other disaster that has befallen your organization, I must tell you how sorry I am to hear about this affair involving John Clark."

Chavez shrugged. "Me, too. It will get straightened out."

"I'm certain of it."

"Just don't believe everything you hear," Ding added.

Embling waved his hand. "I haven't heard one b.l.o.o.d.y thing that doesn't sound like just another day at the office for a man in Mr. Clark's profession. I may be old and soft, but I haven't forgotten the way of the world."

Chavez just nodded and said, "May I present my a.s.sociates? Jack and Dominic."

"Mr. Embling," Jack said as he shook the older man's hand.

Of course the Englishman recognized the son of the former and presumed future President of the United States, but he gave off no hint of his making the connection.

He then walked the three Americans over to the only other inhabitant of the apartment, a physically fit cinnamon-skinned Pakistani in s.h.i.+rtsleeves and black jeans.

They were surprised to learn this was the ISI major. "Mohammed al Darkur, at your service." The attractive man held out a hand to Chavez, but Chavez did not extend his own.

All three of the Campus operators held this man personally responsible for the loss of their friend. While Hendley had been careful not to tip his hat to Embling that he had his suspicions, Domingo Chavez was not about to play nice to the son of a b.i.t.c.h who likely got his colleague killed in the wilds of Pakistan's lawless tribal region.

"Tell me, Major al Darkur, why I shouldn't bash your head against the wall?"

Al Darkur was taken aback, but Embling interjected, "Domingo, please understand. You have little reason to trust him, but I hope you have somewhat more reason to trust me. I have made it my mission in the past months to check the major out, and he is one of the good guys, I a.s.sure you."

Dom Caruso addressed the older Englishman: "Well, I don't know you, and I definitely don't know this a.s.shole, but I know what the ISI has been doing for the past thirty years, so I'm not going to trust this b.a.s.t.a.r.d until we get our man back."

Ryan did not get a chance to echo the sentiment before the Pakistani replied, "I completely understand your point of view, gentlemen. I have come today to ask you to give me just a few days to work with my contacts in the region. If Mr. Sam is being held by the Haqqani network, I will pull every string I can to either get him released or else get an operation launched to rescue him."

"You were with him when he was taken?" asked Chavez.

"I was, indeed. He fought very bravely."

"I heard it was a h.e.l.l of a fight."

"Many killed on both sides," al Darkur admitted.

"Can't help but notice that you look none the worse for wear."

"I'm sorry?"

"Where are you hit? Bullet wounds? Shrapnel?"

Mohammed al Darkur reddened as his eyes lowered. "It was a chaotic situation. I was not injured seriously, but men on my left and right died."

Chavez snorted. "Listen, Major. I don't trust you, my organization doesn't trust you, but we do trust Mr. Embling. We think it's possible that you have managed to charm him somehow, but don't think your trip here is going to charm us. We will respond favorably to results, not promises. If you and your colleagues can find our man, we want that information immediately."

"And you shall have it, I promise. I have people working on that, just as I have men looking into the HaqqaniISI connection."

"Again. Results are what impress me."

"Understood. I do have one question, though."

"What's that?"

"I understand you are in Dubai to monitor General Rehan. Is the rest of your team monitoring him now?"

There was no "rest of" Chavez's team, but he did not say this. Instead he replied, "Trust me, when he comes to Dubai, we will be on him."