A Knife Edge

by David Rollins

  He tapped me on the helmet. My turn. I did what I'd been briefed to do—took a step and dived out into midair above a wide mesh safety net, arms and legs spread-eagled. Unlike Fester, I kept going, the hurricane wind spitting me out the far side. I hit the padding like a fastball smacking into the sweet spot of a catcher's mitt. Nice bit of demonstration flying there, Streak, I told myself as I rolled off the padding.

  I got back on my feet and adjusted the helmet a notch tighter. From across the chamber, Fester told me with hand signals to do it again, only with a little less this time. So I took a step and jumped. This time I managed to stay caught in the roaring column, my body arranged in the high-arch position as it had been trained to do so many years ago, the forces of gravity and wind resistance in balance.

  The air pressure rushing past my mouth and nose made breathing difficult, just like in a real free fall. In fact, the overall sensation was almost identical to falling through the air at terminal velocity, which is to say, it didn't feel like I was falling at all; more like lying on top of a few hundred fists pummeling away on the underside of my legs, body, and arms. I used my hands and fingertips to spin, and then altered my body position to rise and fall in the column. MFF—it was all coming back. I was having fun. Too much, apparently. Fester was gesturing at me to come on over. I noticed Major Cummins had made an appearance and was standing beside him, wearing the kind of scowl he might have worn if I'd just told him I was dating his daughter. He was in the process of biting off a fingernail which he then spat out. I landed a little less like a gooney bird in a storm the second time around. Cummins and Fester were already heading for the exit. Fester motioned at me to follow.

  Outside the chamber where it wasn't so noisy, Major Cummins shouted, “We just got word from SOCOM. There's been a change of plan.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Cummins drove me to the strip and didn't spare the horses. An Air Force C-21 executive jet from the VIP squadron was keeping its fan blades warm. The loadmaster pulled me almost bodily into the plane and we were rolling before the hatch closed. Inside, I was shown to a leather, executive-style chair. Some senator had used the plane before me and the drinks cabinet was stocked. It appeared the senator and I had a mutual friend by the name of Glen Keith, and the two of us were so damn pleased to see each other I almost forgot I was flying until the loadmaster put the cork back in the bottle.

  Less than half an hour later, I was on the ground at Andrews AFB, getting into a blue car with a driver. Forty-five minutes after that, I was being shown into a room at the Pentagon. If I were a home-delivered pizza, I'd still have been hot. The room was darkened—too dark for me to make out faces until my eyes adjusted. Up on a multitude of screens, various maps, intelligence reports, and satellite images of terrain and weather systems were being discussed. I was taken to a seat at the table and ignored by the shadows seated around it. I figured I was there to listen. The country I was here to listen about, according to all the intel up on screen, was Pakistan. Somehow, I wasn't so surprised. A woman I didn't recognize was in the middle of giving a briefing on the nuclear warheads sitting atop Pakistan's Ghauri missile, which, I learned, was theoretically capable of hitting every major population city on the Indian subcontinent. An admiral asked a question about the Chagai region of Pakistan, where previous atomic devices had been tested.

  I shifted in my seat, unable to get comfortable. Pakistan was behaving like it had a hand full of aces, and letting everyone at the table know it. The new revolutionary government in Islamabad was cocky, dangerously so. I could feel the pace accelerating like a runaway steamroller.

  I heard someone ask someone else by the name of Willard a question. I recognized the voice of the person asking as belonging to General Henry Howerton. I recognized the guy being asked the question when he stepped into the light bouncing off a screen. Willard F. Norman, Deputy Assistant Director, Directorate of Operations, CIA. He was slight, sedentary, and pear-shaped, with delicate hands that looked soft. Rumor had it he washed them a little too often. Norman looked like the kind of guy you wouldn't leave alone with your niece. His small, pale eyes were nervous. They flitted about the room like finches escaped from their cage. A thick clump of dyed brown hair above his left ear was combed over his skull and oiled enough to stick there no matter how hard the wind blew. I remembered he'd come up through CIA ranks, making a name for himself in HUMINT—spying, basically, though on whom and to what benefit were unknown and would most likely remain so for a long time to come. Whatever he'd done, it was enough to land him in a corner office at Langley.

  Willard F. Norman's voice was high-pitched and, even if he sounded like a mouse caught in a trap, he spoke with the authority of someone who knew what he was talking about, even if he didn't—a surefire way to get ahead in some parts of D.C. “These are file photos of the town of Phunal, Pakistan,” he said. The monitors rolled through a series of pictures of an ancient town, built mostly from rock, mud brick, and dung, shot in the setting sun. Discovery Channel stuff. While I'd never been to Pakistan, I'd seen plenty of towns like this one just across the border in Afghanistan, perched on a knife edge between life and death, settlements where the people had nothing in their lives except for war, a few goats, and a lot of religion. “It's roughly a hundred and fifty miles northwest of the city of Quetta, a Pashtun stronghold,” Norman said. “Phunal is of great interest to us because it's the town closest to a major nuclear weapons research facility. It's also rumored to be a local black-market weapons bazaar frequented by Taliban and al Qaeda forces bouncing in and out of Afghanistan. We think it's being run by former Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate people, the very same people who funneled weapons to the mujahidin fighting the Soviets back in the eighties.

  “It's for these reasons that we've tried damn hard to keep assets on the ground there. With the recent political upheavals, that policy seems to have been an excellent piece of foresight. As you're all aware, since the coup, Pakistan is now the world's only fundamentalist Islamic nation equipped with atomic bombs and the missiles with which to deliver them. For once we find ourselves reasonably well prepared…”

  My initial discomfort was turning into a full-blown case of the cold sweats. I was having a serious attack of the I-think-I'm-on-the-wrong-train syndrome. I didn't do this kind of shit anymore. Yet here I was, doing it. This was a JOPES, or in longhand, a joint operation and planning exercise. It was the kind of briefing I used to get back when I was an STO, jumping into the following day's headlines with lunatics like the late Sergeant Ruben Wright.

  “Recently,” Norman said, “our sources took the following series of photos of a convoy stopped in Phunal.” He let the pictures do the talking. The file snaps were replaced by more recent shots. Falling snow had replaced the gold leaf beaten into the town by the late-afternoon sun in the previous snaps. The shots showed a column of military trucks pulled to a stop outside a cluster of buildings. Maybe it was a public john and a couple of the drivers had needed to stop to take a leak. The photos kept reeling off, two a second. It played like an MTV video clip, the action jumping forward in fast motion. The photos zoomed in closer to pick out various individuals milling about the trucks. One of the men had walked a few yards away from the others. He wasn't dressed in military fatigues and parka as most of his comrades seemed to be. He was wearing the clothing of the local Pashtun—a flat-topped woolen cap called a pakool, and a kind of rough quilted jacket over his salwar kameez—the name given to the long shirt and baggy trousers worn by the men thereabouts. He removed the pakool to scratch his head and… I was suddenly looking at a very familiar pudding bowl. I blinked. Goddamn it! Professor Sean Boyle.

  On the screen, Professor Boyle was frozen, staring down the lens of the camera. The photographer would have used a very long lens—no way would Boyle have known at the time he was going to be a poster boy for Uncle Sam's security machine—but the guy's stare right into the camera was unnerving…

  And that's when it hit me. Oh, J
esus, the body in the makeshift morgue down at the Four Winds that was supposed to be the professor. I hadn't believed at the time that it really was Boyle, but I also hadn't had the nerve to carry that suspicion to its final terrible conclusion—that if Boyle's death had been faked, then someone, or some organization, had done the faking. So many people dead and injured… Pakistan had set up the explosions purely to cover Boyle's disappearing act. Whatever Boyle had, they must have been pretty damn desperate to get their hands on it.

  The residual image of the dream I'd had at Clare Selwyn's place swam before my eyes, the one of Dr. Tanaka's outstretched hand spinning in an eddy as the shark dove beside him, Boyle's wallet clenched firmly in his white fingers. Jesus, the wallet! How did it get there? Who planted it on the body?

  General Howerton's voice snapped me out of it. “Dr. Spears, if you wouldn't mind?”

  Dr. Freddie Spears. I hadn't seen her in the gloom.

  “Certainly,” Spears answered, standing. The doctor made her way around the table and an admiral held open the door for her. She flashed the general a smile as she left. I figured the briefing was about to roll into operational issues that didn't concern her. By this time, my eyes had adjusted to the low light. I was sitting at a desk only a little smaller than the state of Rhode Island, populated by a full bench of heavy hitters, one of whom was, again, the SecDef. He said, “Do we have a military option yet, Henry?”

  I was right about those operational issues.

  “Yes, Mr. Secretary,” said Howerton. “Nigel? You wanna take over?”

  I didn't know who Nigel was, and I wasn't given an introduction. He was British Army, though, and from the single crowns on his epaulettes and the sand-colored beret in front of him, an officer with the rank of major in their Special Air Service Regiment. “This is the facility itself,” the major said, pressing a button on a touch screen in front of him. The pictures up on the monitors changed. There were views of a large walled compound containing a number of buildings, followed by blueprints of one of those buildings. There was one road in. The major cleared his throat. “We, that is to say, a British construction company, built this facility for Pakistan in the mid-eighties. Because of that, we have available to us an intimate knowledge of it. This knowledge gives us a unique edge. As you may or may not be aware, we've had a number of men from the British Special Air Service Regiment Mountain Troop training in the States over the past three months, learning cooperative operational techniques with the U.S. Army and Air Force. For the past week, however, since Boyle's existence has been confirmed, this troop has been training for the specific intention of storming the Phunal facility—”

  The door to the room opened. A soldier walked in and hopped to attention. This guy I did know. We'd met.

  “Ah, Staff Sergeant Butler,” said Nigel. “Good of you to join us. You can stand easy.”

  Chris Butler removed the poker from his butt.

  “Have a seat, Staff.”

  Butler took the one next to me. He avoided eye contact.

  “Why don't you bring us up to speed, Staff? How are things progressing?”

  Butler said, “Sir, the Air Force Special Ops squadron we've been training with is confident of being able to get us into the sky over the target covertly. And, thanks to the excellent intel provided, we're confident of being able to capture and remove the target from the facility. But there are a number of variables, weather being of concern. Winter is harsh in those hills, though that could also help shield our arrival and make pursuit, once we've secured the target, more difficult. The plan is to air-drop three Ski-Doos and two team members five clicks to the south in an area that's comparatively flat and unpopulous. The attack force will continue in the aircraft, which will climb. We will then HALO down to the ridge on the high ground above the facility …” Nigel handed Butler a small laser pointer, and a shaky red dot appeared on an area up behind the high wall that surrounded the facility. “We're going to need a diversion. We'll blow the propane gas tanks here. That should make a bit of noise. In the confusion, the power will be chopped at the main junction box here. We'll cut through the wire here before the auxiliary power can be fired up, and make our way to the accommodation block here in the darkness and confusion.” As Butler spoke, the small red dot flitted over the satellite photos of the research compound. “Sir, does intelligence still have the target quartered in the block?”

  The question was addressed to Major Nigel Whoever, but the CIA boss chipped in instead. “Yes, but that's why we've had to move things forward,” said Willard F. “Assets on the ground have informed us there might be a pull out to another compound closer to Islamabad, or maybe south to Dalbandin, where the weather's a little more predictable. They've had a hell of a winter there this year.”

  “The timing change shouldn't affect our schedule adversely, sir,” said Butler. “With the target secured, we'll rendezvous with the Ski-Doo team, and then drive for the Afghanistan border. It's not far from the facility. There we'll rendezvous with U.S. Special Forces. We'll be ready to go in a couple of days, once we've had time to work in with the arresting officer.”

  “Excellent. How about your man, General? How's he coming along?” asked Nigel.

  “I don't know,” said Howerton. “Let's ask him, shall we? So, Special Agent Cooper. How does it feel to be jumping into hot water again?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Something had caught in my throat and it wasn't a chicken bone. It was the phrase, “Are you fucking kidding?” It eventually found its way out, modified a little to “I'm not sure, sir. I haven't seen the mission planning.”

  “Well, keep your ears open, Cooper, because that's what we're here to discuss,” said the SecDef. He leaned forward and looked down the table. “So what's the legal position on all this? What does JAG say?”

  The discussion moved on while I felt as if a hurricane had just passed overhead leaving me battered and bruised in its wake. A mission with Butler to snatch Boyle from a military facility in Pakistan? I dialed back into the meeting on the lawyer's summation. He was saying, “What you're suggesting here breaks U.S. law, international law, and a raft of agreements we had in place with the former government of Pakistan. This is kidnapping, and, if that's not bad enough, you're doing it on foreign soil. My advice would be to find another way.”

  “OK, so we'll just cancel the mission,” said the SecDef. This comment removed sound from the room as effectively as a drain hole sucking water from a bath.

  Silence.

  Several sets of eyes shifted around the room, searching for more dissent. A few throats were cleared. No one for a moment believed the SecDef meant it. I focused on the JAG lawyer. His face had more lines on it than a used bus ticket, and all of them were headed in the general direction of a scowl. He knew the SecDef didn't mean it, too. His hair was thick and polar-bear white, his skin newborn-baby pink. I figured he was around a year off settling into a condo, probably down in Florida, maybe Naples, someplace rich and effortless where the hired help manicured the grass with nail scissors and the mosquito population was held in check with regular aerial spraying. His recommendation to abort meant nothing that happened in this room would touch his retirement benefits if things went to shit. He'd done his job. I was having trouble concentrating. The situation seemed surreal. I thought about Boyle's wallet. I also wondered whether the JAG general personally knew the lawyer swapping body fluids with my girlfriend.

  Objection. Former girlfriend.

  Sustained.

  OK, former girlfriend.

  There were quite a few lawyers in the military these days—which said a lot about the military—so maybe not. I wondered whether the JAG general would appreciate my two-lawyers-in-the-bank joke. If not, I had others.

  “Special Agent Cooper? Cooper?”

  Howerton. He was talking, leaning across the table toward me. “Yes, sir,” I said. The hurricane had doubled back like they've been known to do on occasion. I was doing a lot of wondering. Now I was wondering
what I'd missed. A couple of the officers were standing. Butler and Nigel were in a huddle, talking about something. The JOPES was concluded.

  “Like I said, son, we don't have anyone in the OSI or the Army's Criminal Investigation Command with your particular skill set,” said Howerton. “With your time in the CCTs working with Special Forces from coalition countries, coupled with your experience working with the law… Well, you're uniquely qualified.”

  After hearing the doubts expressed by the staff judge advocate, maybe they needed someone who knew less about the law and more about how to take a fall. Nevertheless, I replied, “Yes, sir.”

  He handed me another thick envelope. “What we're talking about here, Cooper, is a snatch op. Usually, with this kind of situation, we'd offer the country development grants and low-interest loans, which, of course, would subsequently be forgiven. They'd roll the guy over to us and that'd be the end of it. But that's not possible in this case. Pakistan reminds me of Iran in 1980 when Khomeini's revolutionary guards booted out the Shah and took over the country. And just like Iran, anti-U.S. sentiment is rife. CIA says the place is high on its own revolution. Your job is to get Boyle safely back to the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The FBI, armed with a warrant issued by a U.S. federal judge, will arrest him there. All nice and legal. In the packet are your orders to Kandahar. Three days is not a lot of time to get yourself prepared for this. Rely on Staff Sergeant Butler and his men. They come highly recommended.”