Locked On Part 22

"Is that safe?"

"Yeah, sure. I'm not worried." He smiled over his winegla.s.s. "Don't they teach you CIA folks how to kill a man with a spoon?"

"Something like that."

"Great. You can watch my back."

"You couldn't afford me," she said with a laugh. Dinner was excellent; the conversation was fun and it flowed except for when Jack tried to probe Melanie once again about her family. She stayed as tight-lipped about her family as she did about CIA.

They strolled home together after ten; the streets had thinned of foot traffic, and a cold wind blew in from the Potomac.

Jack walked her up the drive toward the door of her tiny apartment.

"I had fun," Melanie said.

"Me, too. Can we do it again soon?"

"Of course." They got to the door. "Listen, Jack. I'd better get this out of the way. I don't kiss on the first date."

Ryan smiled. "Neither do I." He extended a hand, which she took slowly, careful to keep the astonishment and embarra.s.sment off her face.

"Have a great night. You'll be hearing from me."

"I hope so."

Nigel Embling's house was in the center of Peshawar, not far from the ma.s.sive and ancient Bala Hisar Fort, which, with its ninety-foot ramparted walls, commands the high ground of the city and lands around it.

The city bustled with activity, but Embling's home was quiet and clean, an idyllic oasis of plants and flowers, the sound of tinkling fountains in the courtyard, and the smell of old books and furniture polish in the very British study on the second floor.

Embling sat next to Driscoll at a wide table in his study. Across from them, thirty-five-year-old Major Mohammed al Darkur wore Western civilian clothing, a pair of brown slacks with a black b.u.t.ton-down shirt. Al Darkur had come alone to Embling's to meet a man he a.s.sumed was an officer in the CIA. He'd done his best to establish the bona fides of the man he had been introduced to as "Sam," but Driscoll had deflected his questions about other CIA officers that al Darkur had run into while working with the ISI.

This worked to Driscoll's benefit. The CIA was, as far as al Darkur was concerned, too supportive of elements in Pakistani intelligence. Elements that al Darkur knew were actively working against them. He found the CIA and America by extension to be naive and too ready to put its trust in those who paid lip service to the shared values between the two organizations.

The fact that Sam appeared to be working outside the lines of American intelligence already entrenched in Pakistan, and the fact that Sam seemed to hold suspicions against al Darkur himself, only increased the Pakistani major's opinion of the man.

Embling said, "I've done my best to look into this Rehan fellow. He's a b.l.o.o.d.y mystery."

Sam agreed. "We are trying on our end, as well. He's done a great job of covering his tracks in his career. It looks like he just materialized as a high-level PDF officer working for the ISI."

"Not easy to do in the PDF. That lot loves their ceremony, always getting photographed and awarded this or that trinket for one thing or another. They learned pomp and circ.u.mstance from we English, and I can say with just a wee bit of pride that we show military off like no other."

"But no pictures of Rehan?"

"A few, but years and years ago, when he was a young officer. Otherwise he's a b.l.o.o.d.y shadow."

"But not anymore. What has changed?"

"That's what Mohammed and I are trying to find out."

Al Darkur said, "The only reason I can think is that he is being groomed for something. Lieutenant general, head of the ISI, perhaps even head of the PDF someday. I believe he is working on a coup, but certainly he is too unknown to take the reins of government himself. He seems to have spent his entire career as a spy, which is not common for military officers. Most serving in ISI are just sent there for a few years. They are not professional spies but professional soldiers. I myself was a commando with the Seventh Battalion, Special Services Group, before coming to ISI. But Riaz Rehan seems to be the exact opposite. He spent a few odd years as a lieutenant and captain in the regular PDF, in the Azad Kashmir Regiment, but since then he seems to have had some role with Inter-Services Intelligence, although they have kept that quite secret, even from the rest of the ISI."

"Is he a beard?" asked Driscoll, referring to an Islamist within their ranks.

"Only by a.s.sociation do I know that to be true. His benefactors at the head of the Army and intelligence services are most definitely Islamists, though Rehan never turns up at any mosque, or on any list of attendees of the secret meetings the beards are always having. I've had prisoners of the hostile jihadist groups in my custody, and I've asked them, quite aggressively, I must admit, if they knew Rehan from JIM. I am convinced none of them do."

Driscoll sighed. "So. What is the next step?"

Now al Darkur brightened a little. "I have two pieces of information, one of which your people can help me with."

"Great."

"First, my sources have discovered that General Rehan, in addition to his office at our headquarters in Islamabad, is also working out of a safe house in Dubai."

Driscoll c.o.c.ked his head. "Dubai?"

"Yes. It is the financial hub of the Middle East, and his department most likely does banking for its foreign operations there, but that in itself would be no reason for him to work there. I think he and his cadre of upper-level employees go there to plot against Pakistan itself."

"Interesting."

"In my position in the Joint Intelligence Bureau I do not have the reach or a.s.sets to investigate him outside of our borders. I thought maybe your organization, with its near infinite reach, might like to see what he is doing in Dubai."

"I'll pa.s.s it up the chain of command, but I am reasonably sure they will want to look into this safe house of his."

"Excellent."

"And the other piece of information?"

"This other avenue I will be able to look into with my own a.s.sets. There is an operation I have recently learned about that involves Rehan's department and the Haqqani network. You are, I am certain, familiar with Haqqani?"

Driscoll nodded. "Jalaluddin Haqqani. His forces run large patches of the borderland of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He's tied with the Taliban, runs a network many thousands strong, and has killed hundreds of our soldiers in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds more locals in bombings, rocket and mortar attacks, kidnappings for ransom, et cetera, et cetera."

Al Darkur nodded. "Jalaluddin is an old man, so his son, Siraj, is leading the organization now, but otherwise you have it right. I have a prisoner in custody, a courier in the Haqqani network, who I captured in Peshawar after he met with an ISI lieutenant who is a known supporter of the Islamists. He has told my interrogators that the ISI is working with Haqqani network fighters at a camp of theirs near Miran Shah."

"Working on what?"

"This courier does not know, but he does know they are expecting a foreign force there at the camp, and the ISI and Haqqani men will train these outsiders."

"URC? Al-Qaeda?"

"He does not know. I, however, intend to find out who they are and what they are doing."

"How will you do that?"

"I will go myself, the day after tomorrow, and I will watch the road to the camp. We have a base in Miran Shah, of course, but Haqqani's people know about it. They lob in an occasional mortar sh.e.l.l, but otherwise they go on about their business. But we also have some safe houses around town, mostly to the south. Siraj Haqqani's forces know of some of them, so we do not use them anymore, but my agents have secured a location on the BoyaMiran Shah road, and this happens to be near where the prisoner says this training camp is located."

"Great. When do we leave?"

"We, Sam?" asked al Darkur with raised eyebrows.

Embling broke in. "Don't be daft, lad."

Sam shrugged. "I'd like to see this for myself. No offense. I'll tell my office about Dubai, but I'm here. Might as well come along with you, if you'll have me."

"It will not be safe. It is Miran Shah; there are no Americans there, I can promise you that. I will be heading down with a handpicked crew of Zarrar Special Service commandos, men I trust implicitly. If you come, I can promise you that myself and my men will be in as much danger as you, so you will benefit from our desire for self-protection."

This made Driscoll smile. "Works for me."

Embling didn't like it at all, but Sam had made up his mind.

Twenty minutes later, Driscoll sat on the cool rooftop veranda of Embling's house, drinking tea with one hand and holding a satellite phone with the other. The device, like all Hendley a.s.sociates sat phones, was equipped with a chip that held an NSA type-1 encryption package that made it secure. Only the person on the other end of the line would be able to hear Driscoll.

Sam Granger answered on the other end.

"Sam, it's Sam here."

"What's the word?"

"The ISI contact seems solid. Not going to promise anything, but we may have a lead on Rehan and his activities." Driscoll told Granger about the Dubai safe house.

"That is incredible, if true."

"Might be worth sending the guys over," Sam Driscoll suggested.

"You don't want to go yourself?" asked Granger, somewhat surprised.

"I'm going with the major and a team of his SSG guys to North Waziristan for a little SR."

"SR?".

"Strategic reconnaissance."

"In Haqqani territory?"

"Roger that. But I'll be with friendlies. Should be okay."

There was a pause in the connection. "Sam, you are the one whose neck is on the line, and I know you're not reckless. But still . . . you will be in the belly of the beast, so to speak, will you not?"

"I will be as safe as the SSG men around me. They seem like they have their heads screwed on straight. Plus, we need to know what the ISI is up to at this camp. Any proof of Rehan or his people there is going to be critically important if we need to leak this guy to the intelligence community at a later date. I'm going to do my best to get pictures and shoot them back to you."

Granger said, "I don't know if Hendley will like this."

"Let's ask forgiveness instead of permission."

"Like I said, it's your neck."

"Roger that. I'll be in touch when I get back to Pesh. Don't stress if you don't hear from me for a while, it may be a week or two."

"I understand. Good luck."

The city of Miran Shah is the capital of North Waziristan, which lies within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of western Pakistan, not far from the Afghan border. The area is not under the control of the Pakistani government in Islamabad, though there is a small and often hara.s.sed Pakistani Defense Force base here.

The town and the region, including areas reaching far past the irrelevant Afghan border to the west, are under the control of the Haqqani network, a ma.s.sive insurgent group that is closely allied with the Taliban.

Jalaluddin Haqqani fought the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s and became a warlord of increasing power and scope. His sons followed in their father's footsteps, and they had a hand in virtually every aspect of life here in North Waziristan that was not snuffed out by American unmanned aerial vehicles that patrolled the sky above, waiting to be cleared hot for a missile launch.

Their international reach, their dozens of covert insurgent camps, and their close ties with the Pakistani intelligence service made the Haqqani family a natural partner of Riaz Rehan throughout the years. He had used their territory and facilities to train fighters and operatives for missions in India and Afghanistan, and he had reached out to them again recently, asking for their a.s.sistance in training a large cell of foreign fighters for a mission.

The Haqqani leadership accepted the request of Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous to send the men, and Rehan himself came along to oversee the initial phases of the training.

Though he had no military or insurgent training whatsoever, Russian rocket entrepreneur Georgi Safronov was the leader of the unit of Jamaat Shariat forces who arrived at the Haqqani camp near Boya, west of Miran Shah, in the third week of October. With him was the man he knew as General Ijaz, as well as his unit of fifty-five Dagestani rebels. The huge force of foreigners was outfitted by the Haqqani forces and billeted in a large cave complex dug into the walls of a hillside.

Much of the training itself took place inside the man-made caves and under corrugated tin roofs painted to look like dirt and farmland so as not to attract the attention of U.S. drones, but some team tactics training did take place in fields and on hillsides. The UAVs were not invisible; specially trained spotters were posted to keep an eye out for America's "eyes in the sky." But the UAVs were stealthy enough that Rehan himself ordered the Haqqani network to place absolute priority, not on the quality of the training of the foreigners, but on maintaining the security of the operation.

Rehan did not really care if the Dagestani insurgents had the talents necessary to take over and hold a s.p.a.ce launch facility in Kazakhstan. No, he was instead interested only in their ability to succeed in a mission here in Pakistan that they would need to undertake to gain control of the two nuclear weapons. If they lost half their number while executing this mission, it was of no great concern to Rehan.

His only concern was that the world learned that nuclear bombs had been stolen out from under the Pakistanis' noses by foreign terrorists. He felt certain that this would lead to the disintegration of the Pakistani government within days or weeks.

The Haqqani network took Rehan's order to ramp up security seriously. They sent spies into the villages and neighborhoods between Miran Shah and Boya, keeping an eye out for anyone interested in the movement of men and material. Little happened in North Waziristan without Haqqani knowing about it, but now there was virtually nothing that could avoid detection by the powerful force.

The Pashtun fighters found the Dagestani fighters to be quite good with their weapons and extremely motivated individuals. But they lacked unit cohesion and this was something that Haqqani's people had developed by necessity in the decade they had been fighting coalition forces over the border.

The only member of the unit who did not know how to handle a gun, or handle himself in any physical sense, was their leader. Safronov had adopted the nom de guerre Magomed Dagestani, Mohammed the Dagestani, but although he now possessed a name that conveyed his intent, he lacked any martial abilities to back it up. But he was smart and motivated to learn, so slowly the Taliban in the cave complex taught him how to use handguns and rifles and grenade launchers and knives, and by the end of the first week he had come a long way.

Rehan was in and out of the camp, splitting time between his home in Dubai, his office in Islamabad, and the cave complex. All the while, Rehan encouraged the Dagestanis to stay motivated for the hard work ahead and Safronov to stay strong and committed to the action.

The third and final presidential debate was held in Los Angeles, at the Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA. It was a more formal affair than the last encounter; this time the two men would be at lecterns in front of a panel of questioners, reporters from the big media outlets as well as one of the wire services.

It was an open forum; there was no particular theme to the event, with the idea that the biggest issues in the last three weeks of the campaign would naturally be discussed. In theory, this would lead to a few topics that would get pa.s.sionate attention from the candidates, but in actuality, other than a few questions on economic bailouts of foreign nations, China's ma.s.sive increase of military expenditures, and rising gas prices, one topic was at the forefront.

The President's decision to try Saif Yasin in the federal system got the lion's share of attention, as well as candidate Jack Ryan's vocal opposition to this.

With the subject of the Emir naturally came the subject of Pakistan. The Islamabad government had spent the past decade taking billions of dollars annually from the United States while simultaneously working at cross-purposes with American military and intelligence efforts, and the safe haven that western Pakistan had become had given much aid and comfort to the organizations that committed terrorist atrocities around the world. Kealty's plan to influence Pakistan to rehabilitate and provide real support for U.S. interests was, essentially, to double down. While he threatened to cut off aid to Islamabad unless the situation improved, covert funding and support for the ISI and PDF actually increased as the White House tried to buy off commanders and departments that held influence over strategy.

Ryan's plan, like most of his ideas when compared to Kealty's, stood in stark contrast. When asked by the AP reporter on the panel what he would do to the funding levels of the Pakistani intelligence and military services, he replied, succinctly, "Cut it. Cut it and use some of that money to support our great friends and allies in the region, India."

He'd been saying this on the campaign trail for some time, and he'd been taking a beating for it in the media. The American press spun his support for India over Pakistan as stirring up an old conflict by putting U.S. strength behind one power over another, despite Ryan's retort that Pakistan supports terrorism against the United States while India does not.

"Of course we want to put our strength behind our friends and pull support for our enemies. Pakistan does not have to be our enemy," he said into the cameras at the Pauley Pavilion, "but that has been their choice. When I return to Washington, I will turn off that spigot of support until Islamabad shows us that they can control their urges and combat Islamic terrorism in India and the West."

The CBS Washington correspondent was next, and she asked Ryan how he could possibly punish the entire nation of Pakistan for the actions of a few rogue agents in the ISI.

Ryan nodded slowly before replying. "The ISI does not have rogue agents. It is a rogue agency. My opponent says individual men or individual units are the problem. I disagree. The rogue elements of the ISI, frankly, are the ones who are on our side. The ISI and the Army are our enemy, save for a limited number of men, a limited number of units, who are our friends. We need to find these rogues and do what we can to support them in ways other than just sending billions of dollars unchecked into the coffers of the Pakistani government. That is a welfare check for the supporters of terror, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a decade-long strategy that has not produced the desired results."