by Clancy, Tom
“Will you need anything else?” Samantha asked.
“Not right now,” he replied and clicked off.
Friday hooked the cell phone to his belt. He would call his new boss later, when he had something solid to report. He looked around. There were no Black Cat Commandos here. Maybe that was significant, maybe it was not. Their absence might have been a territorial issue. Or maybe the NSG had been unable to stop the terrorists and the problem had been turned over to the SFF. Perhaps a former SFF officer had been named to a high government post. Appointments like that routinely led to reorganizations.
Of course, there was always the possibility that this was not routine. What kind of exceptional circumstances would lead to a department being shut out of an investigation? That would certainly happen if security were an issue. Friday wondered if the NSG might have been compromised by Pakistani operatives. Or maybe the SFF had made it look as though the Black Cats had been penetrated. Because budgets were tighter there was even more interagency rivalry here than there was in the United States.
Friday turned around slowly. There were several two- and three-story-high buildings around the market. However, those would not have been good vantage points for the terrorists. If they had needed to use the remote detonators, the carts with their high banners, awnings, and umbrellas might have blocked the line of sight. If there had been any cookedfood stands in the way smoke might also have obscured their vision. Besides, the terrorists would also have had the problem of renting rooms. There was a danger in leaving a paper trail, like the terrorists who charged the van they used to attack the World Trade Center in New York. And only amateur terrorists paid cash for a room. That was a red flag that usually sent landlords right to the police. Not even the greediest landlord wanted someone who might be a bomb maker living in their building.
Besides, there was no need to hide here. It would have been easy for a terrorist to remain anonymous in this busy marketplace day after day to case the targets, plant the explosives, and watch the site today. But Friday did wonder one thing. Why did the police station and the temple blow up at the same time while the bus did not explode until several seconds later? It was extremely likely that they were related attacks. It could have been that the timers were slightly out-of-synch. Or maybe there was another reason.
Friday continued walking to where the bus had been parked. Traffic had been diverted from Route 1A to other streets. He was able to stand in the broad avenue and look back at the site. This road was the most direct way out of here. It fed any number of roads. Pursuit would have been extremely difficult even if the police knew the individual or kind of vehicle they were looking for. He found the line-of-sight spot that would have been the ideal place to stand in case the timer failed. It was on the curb, near where the bus was parked. It was about four hundred yards from the target, which was near the maximum range for most remote detonators. Obviously, if a terrorist were waiting there for the blast, he would not have wanted the bus to blow up yet. He would have waited until after the temple explosion then moved a safe distance away. The bus explosion would have been scheduled to give him time to get away. Or else he had triggered the blast himself using the same remote he would have used on the temple.
But that still did not tell him why there were two separate explosions for the police station and temple. One large explosion would have brought both structures down.
Friday started back toward the other end of the market. When he got back to his room he would call the NSA. The market attack itself did not bother him. He did not really give a damn who ended up being in charge here. What concerned him were the Black Cats. These people would have access to intelligence about him and Striker once they went into the mountains. If there was even a possibility that the NSG was leaking, he wanted to make sure they were kept out of the circuit.
FOURTEEN
Kargil, Kashmir Wednesday, 7:00 P.M.
As his motorcycle sped through the foothills of the Himalayas, Ishaq Fazeli wished he had one thing above all. He had left Apu’s farm without eating dinner and he was hungry. But he did not want food. He had been driving with his mouth open—a bad habit—and his tongue was dry. But he did not want water. What he wanted most was a helmet.
As the lightweight Royal Endfield Bullet sped through the mountain pass, small, flat rocks spit from under the slender wheels. Whenever the roadway narrowed, as it did now, and Ishaq passed too close to the mountainside, the sharp-edged pebbles came back at him like bullets. He would even settle for a turban if he had the material to make one and the time to stop. Instead, Ishaq adjusted to driving with his face turned slightly to the left. As long as the pebbles did not hit his eyes he would be all right. And if they did he would be philosophical about it. He would still have his left eye. Growing up in the west, near the Khyber Pass, he had learned long ago that the mountains of the subcontinent were not for the weak.
For one thing, even during a short two-hour ride like this, the weather changes quickly. Brutal sunshine can give way to a snow squall within minutes. Sleet can turn to thick fog even quicker. Travelers who are unprepared can freeze or dehydrate or lose their way before reaching safety. Sunshine, wind, precipitation, heat and cold from fissures, caverns, and lofty tors—all rush madly around the immutable peaks, clashing and warring in unpredictable ways. In that respect the mountains reminded Ishaq of the ancient caliphs. They too were towering and imperious, answering only to Allah.
For another thing, the foothills of the Himalayas are extremely difficult to negotiate on foot, let alone on a motorcycle. The mountain range is relatively young and the slopes are still sharp and steep. Here, in Kashmir, the few paths one finds were originally made by the British in 1845 at the onset of the Anglo-Sikh Wars. Queen Victoria’s elite mountain forces used the routes, known as “cuts,” to flank enemy troops that were encamped in lower elevations. Too narrow for trucks, cars, and artillery, and too precarious for horses and other pack animals, the cuts fell into disuse at the time of the First World War and remained largely untraveled until the Pakistanis rediscovered them in 1947. While the Indians used helicopters to move men and matériel through the region, the Pakistanis preferred these slower, more secretive paths. The cuts peaked at around eight thousand feet, where the temperatures were too low at night and the air too cold to support simple bedroll camps or sustained marches.
Not that the hazards or the discomfort mattered to Ishaq right now. He had a mission to accomplish and a leader to serve. Nothing would get in the way of that. Not precipitous falls, or the hornetlike pebbles that wanted to send him there, or the sudden drop in the temperature.
Fortunately, the motorcycle performed as heroically as its reputation. More than a year before, Ishaq had taken the Royal Endfield Bullet from behind an army barracks. It was a beautiful machine. It was not one of the prized vintage bikes from the 1950s, made when the British company first set up its factory in India. But the machine was standard equipment of local military and police units. As such, it did not attract undue attention. And there were tactical advantages as well. Like all the Royal Endfield Bullets, the distinctive red-and-black motorcycle got exceptional mileage and had a maximum speed of nearly eighty miles an hour. The bike was durable and the 22 bhp engine was relatively quiet. At just under four hundred pounds the bike also caused very little stress on the cliffside portions of the road. And the low noise output was important as he made his way up into the foothills, where loud sounds could cause rock slides.
Ishaq saw small numbers carved in the side of the mountain. They indicated that the elevation was four thousand feet. The Free Kashmir Militiaman was behind schedule. He pushed the bike a little faster. The wind rushed at him, causing his cheeks to flutter. The noise they made sounded almost like the motorcycle engine. By the grace of the Prophet he and the machine had become one. He smiled at the ways of Allah.
Section 2E was near the high midpoint of the cuts. Pakistani troops had spent years mapping this region. When they retreated from
Kargil, the troops left a large cache of weapons, explosives, clothes, passports, and medical supplies in a cave at the high point of the sector. Sharab and her team frequently retreated to the spot to replenish their stores.
Ishaq had kept an eye on his watch as he pushed higher into the hills. He did not want to keep Sharab waiting. That was not because their leader was intolerant or impatient but because he wanted to be there for her—whenever, wherever, and for whatever reason she needed him. A political professor with no prior field experience, Sharab’s dedication and tactical ingenuity had quickly earned the respect and complete devotion of every member of the team. Ishaq was also a little bit in love with her, although he was careful not to let that show. He did not want her thinking that was the only reason he was with her. She liked to work with patriots, not admirers. Yet Ishaq often wondered if the leaders of the Free Kashmir Militia had asked her to lead this group because she was a woman. When ancient physicians used to cauterize the wounds of warriors it took five or more men to restrain the injured man—or one woman. For love of Sharab or fear of shaming their manhood, there was nothing the men in her cell would refuse to do.
A .38 Smith & Wesson was snug in a holster under his wool sweater. The handgun came to the FKM via the Karachi Airport security police, which had bought nearly one thousand of the weapons from the United States almost thirty years before. The weight of the loaded gun felt good against his ribs. Ishaq’s faith taught him that it was only through the Prophet and Allah that a man became strong. Ishaq believed that, passionately. Prayer and the Koran gave him strength. But there was also something empowering about having a weapon at your side. Religion was a satisfying meal that carried a man through the day. The Smith & Wesson was a snack that got him through the moment.
The road became bumpier due to recent rockfall from a cliff. The outside corners were also more precarious. To make things worse, a cool drizzle began. It nicked his face like windblown sand. But despite all this he pushed the motorcycle even harder. If the rain kept up and had a chance to freeze, the cut would become brutally slick. He also had to watch out for hares and other animals. Hitting one could cause him to skid. Still, he could not slow down. Not if he were going to reach the zone in time. They always met up here after a mission but never with such urgency. First, Sharab usually liked to go back to whatever house or hut or barn they had occupied in order to have a final talk with their host. She wanted to make sure that whoever she left behind understood that they would remain alive only as long as they remained silent. Some of the team members did not agree with her charity, especially when they were Hindus like Apu and his granddaughter. But Sharab did not want to turn the people against her. To her, whether they were Muslim or not, most of these farmers, shepherds, and factory workers were already Pakistani. She did not want to kill innocent countrymen, present or future.
The skies were dark and Ishaq flipped on his headlights. A powerful lamp illuminated the road almost two hundred yards ahead. That was barely enough visibility to allow him to keep moving at his current pace. Curves came up so suddenly that he nearly went off the cut twice. Every now and then he slowed for just a moment to keep from feeling like he could fly. That was a very real delusion at this height and these speeds. He also took that time to glance back. He wanted to make sure he was not being followed. With the hum of the engine echoing off the crags and valleys, the sputtering of his cheeks, and the knocking of the thrown pebbles, Ishaq would not necessarily hear the roar of a pursuing vehicle or helicopter. He had warned Apu to stay in the house and he had cut the telephone line. But still—one never knew how a man would react when a family member was in captivity.
Ishaq saw another roadside marker. He was at forty-five hundred feet now. He did not know exactly how far Sharab and the team would be able to go in the van. They were coming up another cut. Maybe they could get to five thousand feet before the road became too narrow to accommodate the truck. The roads joined a few hundred feet ahead. When he arrived, he would either see their tire treads or else wait for them at the cave. He hoped they were already there. He was anxious to know what had happened, what had gone wrong.
He prayed it was nothing that might keep them from him. If for some reason the others did not show up within twenty-four hours, Ishaq’s standing orders were to get to the cave and set up the radio he carried in his small equipment case. Then he was to call the FKM base in Abbottabad, across the border in Pakistan. They would tell him what to do. That meant either he would be advised to wait for replacements or attempt to return home for a debriefing.
If it came to that, Ishaq hoped they would tell him to wait. Going home would mean climbing the mountains to the Siachin Glacier. Or else he would have to attempt to make his way across the line of control. His chances of surviving the trip were not good. FKM command might just as well order him to shoot himself at the cave.
As Ishaq neared the point where the two cuts converged he saw the truck. It was parked in the middle of the road. The flatbed was covered with an earth-tone tarp they carried and the cab was hidden beneath scrub. A smile fought a losing battle against the wind. He was glad they had made it. But that changed when his headlights found the team about two hundred yards ahead. As one they turned and crouched, ready to fire.
“No, it’s Ishaq!” he cried. “It’s Ishaq!”
They lowered their weapons and continued ahead without waiting for their teammate. Sharab was in front with the girl. Nanda was being urged forward at gunpoint.
That was not like Sharab.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
FIFTEEN
Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 10:51 A.M.
Bob Herbert was usually a pretty happy man.
To begin with, Herbert loved his work. He had a good team working beside him. He was able to give Op-Center personnel the kind of heads-up intelligence he and his wife never had in Lebanon. He was also happy with himself. He was not a Washington bureaucrat. He put truthfulness above diplomacy and the well-being of the NCMC above the advancement of Bob Herbert. That meant he could sleep at night. He had the respect of the people who mattered, like Paul Hood and Mike Rodgers.
But Bob Herbert was not happy right now.
Hank Lewis had phoned from the NSA to say that the latest information e-mailed from Ron Friday was being processed by decryption personnel. It would be forwarded to Herbert within minutes. While Herbert waited for the intel he did something he had been meaning to do since the Striker recon mission was okayed by the CIOC. He pulled up Ron Friday’s NSA file on his computer. Until now, Herbert and his team had been too busy helping Mike Rodgers and Striker prepare for the mission to do anything else.
Herbert did not like what he saw in Ron Friday’s dossier. Or rather, what he did not see there.
As a crisis management center, Op-Center did not keep a full range of military maps and intelligence in what they called their “hot box.” The only files that were reviewed and updated on a four-times-daily basis were situations and places where American personnel or interests were directly involved or affected. Kashmir was certainly a crisis zone. But if it exploded, it was not a spot with which Op-Center would automatically be involved. In fact, that was the reason Striker had been asked to go into the region and look for Pakistani nuclear weapons. Pakistani intelligence would not be expecting them.
Ron Friday was a very late addition to the mission. His participation had been requested over the weekend by Satya Shankar, minister of state, Department of Atomic Energy. Officially, one of Shankar’s duties was the sale of nuclear technology to developing nations. Unofficially, he was responsible for helping the military keep track of nuclear technology within enemy states. Shankar and Friday had worked together once before, when Shankar was joint secretary, Exploration, of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Friday had been called in by a European oil concern to assess legal issues involving drilling in disputed territory between Great Indian Desert in the Rajasthan Province of India and the Thar Desert in Pa
kistan. Shankar had obviously been impressed by the attorney.
Since Op-Center was stuck with Friday, reading his file had not been a high priority for Herbert. Especially since the CIOC had already okayed Friday based on his Blue Shield rating. That meant Ron Friday was cleared to take part in the most sensitive fieldwork in foreign countries. Red Shield meant that an agent was trusted by the foreign government. White Shield meant that he was trusted by his own government, that there was no evidence of double-agent activity. Yellow Shield meant that he had been revealed to be a double agent and was being used by his government to put out disinformation, often without his knowledge or occasionally with his cooperation in exchange for clemency. Blue Shield meant he was trusted by both nations.
What the Red, White, and Blue rankings really meant was that no data had ever come up to suggest the agent was corrupt. That was usually good enough for a project overseer to rubber-stamp an individual for a mission. Especially an overseer who was new on the job and overworked, like Hank Lewis at the National Security Agency. But the Shield system was not infallible. It could simply mean that the agent had been too careful to be caught. Or that he had someone on the inside who kept his file clean.
Friday’s file was extremely skimpy. It contained very few field reports from Azerbaijan, where he had most recently been stationed at the United States embassy in Baku as an aide to Deputy Ambassador Dorothy Williamson. There were zero communications at all from him during the recent crisis in the former Soviet Republic. That was unusual. Herbert had a look at the files of the two CIA operatives who had been stationed at the embassy. They were full of daily reports. Coincidentally, perhaps, both of those men were killed.
Friday’s thin file and his apparent silence during the crisis was troubling. One of his superiors at the NSA, Jack Fenwick, was the man who had hired the terrorist known as the Harpooner to precipitate the Caspian Sea confrontation between Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia. Herbert had not read all the postmortems about the situation. There had not been time. But Friday’s silence before and during the showdown led Herbert to wonder: was he really inactive or were his reports made directly to someone who destroyed them?
