by Gary Haynes
“She’s a feisty one, I’ll give her that,” he said with a distinct British accent.
“Let go of me,” she said, her sense of confusion tangible.
He raised a huge fist and, almost casually, punched her on the jaw. The impact caused an explosion of white light behind her eyes. Her legs buckled; her head swam. Hanging from the grip still on her arm, she felt cold and nauseous. A second later, she sensed vaguely that he was dragging her back towards the open doorway she’d escaped from.
Inside the cell, she was forced onto her back. Still dulled by the blow, she saw a hypodermic syringe through a watery haze, a gnarled thumb on the plunger, the needle oozing a bubble of the drug from its bevel. Her left foot was held up, her shoe tugged off. She felt fingers dig into her trembling skin with a fierceness her lack of struggling didn’t warrant. Blinking erratically, she glimpsed the man who’d punched her administer the drug. He did so via the soft area of skin just below and to the right of her ankle bone. She sensed the quick prick of the needle.
And then she felt no fear, no disenchantment, or dread, as her world was bathed in calm.
47.
Reaching Fresh Pond, Lester eased off the gas and took a tight left off Concorde onto a track of stabilized aggregate leading into Lusitania Field. A half-acre area of meadow with tall grasses and wild flowers, which was obscured from any prying eyes staring out of the buildings that bordered nearby Wheeler Street by thick hardwood woodland. Tom lurched to the side, hitting Lester on the shoulder. He knew the plan they’d agreed wasn’t great, but it was all they had, and he couldn’t take the risk of having a tail on him when he went after Mahmood.
Lester swung the VW halfway off the track after hitting the loop around the meadow. Slowing down, Tom opened the door and jumped out, rolling onto the damp earth and drawing the SIG. A DAK meant a cartridge could be carried safely in the chamber, but he’d checked it beforehand just to be sure. He’d left the suppressor in the van. He’d told Lester that the muzzle blast would scare the driver and give him an initial advantage. He watched his friend pull away, the rubber kicking up mud and grit.
At the bailout point, Tom low-crawled behind some thistle, hearing the SUV as it approached the bend. He felt the stagnant water seep into his jeans and shirt, thinking that he’d become a target for a number of unknown pursuers on two continents already, and worrying that he’d gotten Lester into something that was beyond his ken.
Three seconds later, the Lexus came into view, its xenon headlights piercing through the darkness. It did a wheelspin around the bend, the rear tyres cutting semi-circular grooves into the narrow track before powering on. Tom raised his SIG, deciding to go for a tyre rather than the front windshield, worrying that it could be an FBI agent or a CIA operative. He just didn’t know.
He shot out the driver-side front tyre, the SIG bucking in his hand and the spent case somersaulting to his right. He heard the tyre burst, glimpsed the flayed rubber dragging on the ground as the front end of the vehicle sagged down a couple of notches. The exposed wheel dug into the stony surface as a cloud of burnt rubber smoke spewed out from the damage.
The Lexus veered off to the left, out of control, and came to a jolting stop in the damp meadow. He waited. No movement. He figured the driver had injured himself; maybe even knocked himself out. He raised himself up and moved forward slowly, pointing the SIG before him.
As he reached the edge of the track he crouched down again, half hidden behind a swath of rye grass, uncertain of how to proceed. He couldn’t see into the car, because it was as black as hell here, the moon covered by scudding clouds. Seeing the driver’s door swing open suddenly, he dipped and rolled. He raised his head and saw the man lurch out, the back of his ball cap the only thing visible. Tom watched him squat down, using the door as cover.
Tom leapt up, and sprinted to the left as a shot rang out, the bright flash followed by the bullet that pinged past his right ear. He felt the cold air part between the round and his skin, the sensation causing him to smart. He flung himself to the dirt, letting off five rounds, conscious that he was in the open. The DAK’s double-action design allowed rapid and devastating firepower, the bullets penetrating the metal door with ease. But no one fell; no cry emitted from the driver.
He’s moved, Tom thought. And I’m exposed. He dug deep and pushed himself up, duck-walking forward as a half-muffled blast came from the far right. He heard a groan, the sound of a body falling. A second round was discharged, followed by a concerned shout. It was Lester’s voice. He saw his head emerge from behind a clump of yellow-headed tansy plants, his SIG in his hand. His friend broke into a sprint toward the Lexus.
“No! Lester, no! Let it go!” Tom barked, racing over to meet him at the car.
Breathing heavily, Tom met Lester by the car’s trunk.
“He was gonna cap ya.”
Lester’s face was fierce-looking, his eyes two slits, his jaw muscles flexed. Tom loomed over the man who was face down in the mud, a body length from the trunk. Blood was oozing from the exit wounds in his back. As Lester picked up the man’s handgun lying a few centimetres from his twitching fingers, Tom bent down and turned the body over.
“Guess what, it’s a SIG,” Lester said.
Tom looked into the contorted face, blood and spittle running from the man’s lips. “Jesus Christ.”
“You know him, Tom?”
“It’s Steve Coombs. A member of my detail.”
“Say what?”
Tom straightened up and stepped back, a jolt of disbelief hitting him like a lump hammer. He grasped his forehead. It was the last person he’d expected to see. He shook his head, feeling dizzy.
“Tom!” Lester shouted.
Tom looked at his friend. Unlike him, he was focused.
“Do what you have to do,” he said.
Tom forced himself to act. Despite the shock, he needed answers. He crouched back down, his mind beginning to join the dots. He grabbed the back of Coombs’s head, eased it up.
“The tracking device—did you tell them? Did ya?”
“Yeah,” Coombs said, faintly.
Coombs groped for the silver crucifix he always wore around his neck. Tom pulled it out from his shirt and laid it over Coombs’s fingers. He figured once a Catholic always a Catholic, and it was confession time.
“Thanks, Tom,” he wheezed.
“My photo; was it you? The cellphone? Did you know that CIA woman? The terrorist who disappeared on the roof in Islamabad; that you, too?”
“Me, yeah. Forgive me … Tom.”
“And the bugging of the room at the Ariana?”
“I …” He groaned and spat blood.
“Where is she? Where?”
“Father, forgive me,” Coombs said, fingering the crucifix.
“Where is she?”
“I can’t breathe,” Coombs said as a croaky sigh emitted from his purple lips.
“Where?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know, Tom. I’m… Forgive me, Lord.”
Coombs strained to lift the crucifix to his lips. Then his head flopped to the side, his bloodshot eyes staring blankly into the night.
Tom shook him. “Where, you sonofabitch? Where?”
He felt Lester’s hand on his shoulder. “He’s gone, Tom. He’s gone.”
48.
After Tom had flipped the Lexus’ trunk, they hauled the body up, using a green tarp that Lester had fetched from his van. Tom didn’t want to give an early-morning dog-walker a heart attack, so he locked it. He hid his growing concern as best he could, but he knew that Crane’s words were ringing true: don’t trust anyone. Apart from that major obstacle, he still didn’t know where Mahmood lived, and he had less than two days to find the secretary if her captors were intent on carrying out their horrendous threat. In truth, he didn’t have any reason to doubt it, especially after what had just happened. But part of him still couldn’t believe it. Coombs had been a stand-up guy.
As they walked along the track to
the parked van an owl broke from the branch of a beech tree, twisting in flight to avoid them. Lester ducked down and drew his SIG.
“Easy, man,” Tom said.
“Never did like the country.”
“We ain’t in the country.”
“I can’t see a building, I’m in the country,” Lester said, holstering his SIG.
He unzipped one of the outer pockets of his windbreaker and took out a cell that he’d taken from Coombs’s corpse. He handed it to Tom, who began searching the call and email history. There wasn’t anything of significance. He figured Coombs had been smart enough to delete anything incriminatory and had probably used at least a couple of disposables for his traitorous comms in any event. There was no way that Coombs could’ve been working alone. But for now, it suited him to let any accomplices think that he and Lester had been killed, since that could give them some time before another assassin came looking for them. He took out his own smartphone, transferred his contacts list to his spare cell, and smashed it under foot before gathering up the pieces. He would dump it later. He’d keep the untraceable disposable he’d bought at the airport for now.
“You okay, Tom?” Lester said, before quickening his pace towards his van, which was parked on the southernmost part of the circular track, opposite the windswept edge of the vast lake.
Tom waved him on, taking a moment to process what had just happened.
He’d worked with Coombs for six years and he found himself questioning his own judgment. He couldn’t make out how he hadn’t got an inkling of his true nature. The man’s duplicity staggered him. It struck him that the world he had entered was many times more corrupt and complicated than he’d first imagined. It was capable of turning a federal special agent, a sworn law-enforcement officer, as all DS agents were, into a traitor. But at least he didn’t have to worry about any repercussions over his death, and there was nothing more to be done about it, at least for the next couple of days.
By the time Tom reached the van, Lester already had the engine ticking over, the headlights on. As he climbed in he asked Lester to head back the way they’d come.
“I’m covered for this, right, Tom?” Lester asked.
“It was self-defence. Besides, I pulled the trigger and you were lying in the grass.”
“Get outta here. A man starts making up stories ‘bout a thing like this and he makes mistakes that gets him life in the sore-ass house,” Lester said, driving along the loop to the straight portion of the track that led up to Concorde Avenue.
“The sore-ass house?”
“Well, that’s what my momma called jail to keep us boys on the straight and narrow.”
“Your momma called it that?”
“Yeah. What?”
“Nothing. But this one’s real simple, Lester. As I said, I pulled the trigger.”
As Lester headed back to the densely residential streets of Cambridge Tom still felt miserable. He just couldn’t figure it out. But then he recalled the motorcyclist high on drugs in Islamabad. He hadn’t seen anyone on the roof that Coombs had been firing at, nor did he have a ballistic report on the bullet that’d killed the boy. Coombs could’ve been the shooter; could’ve been the person who’d taken a pop at him, too, for all he knew. He wondered who else might be involved; how high the conspiracy might reach. But he had to put all that to the back of his mind and focus now. Coombs had admitted his sins.
When they got to Inman Square at the intersection of Cambridge and Hampshire Streets, Tom asked Lester to pull over. He took out his disposable cell. He rang Carrie, his ex-girlfriend, who still worked at the DS’s investigative department, which concentrated its resources on uncovering incidences of passport and visa fraud. They’d dated for over two years, but his constant travelling had been too much for her, which was why she’d said she couldn’t continue dating someone she saw less than her dentist. Still, when they’d parted, there’d been no hard feelings between them.
When she answered, he asked her a favour, saying he was worried about a guy from Pakistan, and asked her to check that everything was kosher as soon as she got into work. He needed Mahmood’s address, suspecting that he lived off campus. Maybe even close by. But he gave her Mahmood’s alias, hoping that Khan hadn’t put him on a false scent. She asked him if he was okay, and he said he hadn’t been hurt in Islamabad, but that this was very important, so he’d appreciate it if she went to work early tomorrow morning. She said that not everyone was a workaholic, but that she’d do as he’d asked.
Tom slipped out of the van into the half-light of the nearby streetlights and changed out of his mud-ridden clothes. He put on a fresh pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, and zipped up a waterproof jacket that had been rolled up in his holdall. He climbed back into the passenger seat.
“Now what?” Lester asked.
“I have to do something alone.”
“I ain’t gonna get all preachy on ya, Tom, cuz, hell, I ain’t no saint myself. But if you’re planning what I think you is, there won’t be any self-defence plea. You’ll get life in federal supermax, and that’s hard time.”
Thirty minutes later, Lester reluctantly picked up the keys for the rental car at an all-night office. It was a metallic-silver Ford Focus that looked and smelled brand-new and wouldn’t draw any adverse attention. He handed Tom a small backpack, which he said contained the other items he’d requested by email en route from Kabul, together with a piece of paper with the address of the lock-up.
Tom drove off and parked up in a rest stop in Cambridge. If things didn’t go well, the last thing he wanted was to alert Hasni to the fact that he had Lester on board. Hasni had the kind of reach that could end up with his friend being found hung up on a meat hook in a slaughterhouse.
But thinking that Coombs might have been in cahoots with the ISI and had passed on that information already, he closed his eyes and did his best to zone out.
49.
Jarrod Ripley, a CIA paramilitary operations officer in the Agency’s National Clandestine Service, sat in the first of three civilian open-top SUVs. He was five-nine and appeared slim when dressed. But his muscles were like weaved steel and he could bench twice his body weight. Like his fellow operatives, he had a thick moustache, his being dyed rook-black, as was his hair.
Deputy Director Houseman had called him a little under four hours ago and had said that he should implement Urgent Restoration as fast as possible. After receiving all the necessary encrypted details, satellite imagery and drone feeds via a secure laptop, he now knew that Lyric was in an abandoned watchtower on the coast a mile west of Karachi.
But due to the lack of detailed intel and need for speed, the mission was as basic as it was dangerous. Use covert means to get in. Leave with the secretary alive. Transport her to the US Consulate there. Bottom line, if he screwed up, the US would be sending Reaper drones over the Iranian border, followed by the 82nd Airborne Division. Then God only knew what the outcome would be. Ripley figured that this was the most important mission of his life.
The sun was blazing, even though it was only mid-morning, a heat haze hanging a metre from the parched ground. The SUVs raced up a hard-packed dirt track towards the dilapidated stone structure. Ripley and his men wore the black polo shirts and matching ball caps of the Elite Punjab Police – a counterterrorist quick-response force – and were armed with the MP5A3 sub-machineguns and Glock handguns the police used.
The watchtower’s original doors had been replaced by a rusted gate that resembled a portcullis. The first SUV skidded to a stop a few metres from it, sending up a fine dust cloud. They’d agreed to go in fast and confident and overpower the guards before they had a chance of spotting they were Americans. But there appeared to be no resistance. Something that Ripley put down to the garb they’d kitted themselves out in. The SUV’s doors swung open and Ripley and four other CIA paramilitaries jumped out, aiming their weapons at the top of the wall and the tower’s tall flat roof as they crouched down.
A small wooden door o
pened to the right of the gate. An old man edged out, his face streaked with deep lines. He held up his skinny arms, although he appeared to be unable to straighten them fully. Despite his emaciated state and unthreatening demeanour, one of the operatives ordered him to lie flat on the ground. He did so as quickly as his worn-out body allowed, his bones creaking.
Ripley didn’t have a problem with that. The Pakistani was an old coot, but he could have a suicide vest under his shirt. A body-borne IED, typically six kilograms of C4 studded with two hundred or so ball-bearings that could reduce the pride of the Special Operations Group to something resembling lumps of Swiss cheese.
As it turned out, he didn’t have anything more unpleasant under his shirt than a visible ribcage, and Ripley ordered his men to search the abandoned watchtower thoroughly.
After the hour-long exercise, the result was a distinct lack of any signs of occupation, save for a small room with an oil lamp, a floor mattress and a half-eaten plate of near-rancid food. That done, Ripley squatted down beside the old man, who was in the habit of breaking into a toothless grin for no apparent reason. Ripley spoke Urdu fluently and, after making some small talk, questioned him in a friendly manner. He said the room was his. He was the caretaker. The watchtower was going to be demolished by a construction company and he had been employed to make sure no squatters occupied it in the interim. They were going to build a luxury hotel here. No one had been here for weeks.
Leaving the man in the room with two paramilitaries, Ripley walked out into a dark stairwell and rang Houseman on a secure satphone. After telling him what had happened, Houseman ordered him to question the caretaker “more robustly”. Ripley sighed. He’d done things to men he wasn’t proud of. But at least when he woke up in sweat at night, he could tell himself that the majority were murdering jihadists. This was something different. And when Houseman said “more robustly”, it was a euphemism. It meant be a real sadistic sonofabitch. The White House had officially banned waterboarding, but at times like this the suits simply developed something akin to a collective amnesia.
