The Invisible (Ryan Kealey)

by Andrew Britton

  Jilani had been born in 1975 in the city of Quetta, less than 100 miles from the Afghan border. His mother had died of cancer when he was ten years old, and owing to his father’s lack of funds and interest, he was sent to live with his uncle in the slums of Karachi. Syed Jilani had tried and failed at many things by the time his nephew came to know him, but from 1979 to 1984, he found a degree of success in Afghanistan, where he fought with distinction alongside the mujahideen. In the years that followed, his hatred for America became increasingly virulent, despite the fact that the West had funded and armed the Afghan fundamentalists in their extended war against the Soviet forces. Still, his feelings for the West didn’t preclude him from taking full advantage of the U.S. weapons and ammunition left over from the conflict in Afghanistan. It was a dangerous, highly illicit enterprise that required more than one set of hands, and when he first began smuggling arms from Afghanistan into neighboring Iran and Pakistan in 1997, Syed Jilani knew exactly where to turn for help.

  During his time in Afghanistan, the elder Jilani had formed lasting partnerships with men who knew how to use their positions for monetary gain. One of these contacts was an army lieutenant and a member of Inter-Services Intelligence. The only son of a construction magnate, Benazir Mengal was connected at the highest levels to Afghan warlords, Pakistani generals, and prominent figures in the emerging Taliban, and that made him the perfect man to facilitate Syed Jilani’s cross-border activities.

  Naveed was fifteen years old when he met Mengal for the first time, and he had been instantly drawn to the charismatic Pakistani soldier. The reason for his adulation was simple: Mengal was an easy man to admire. Unlike Naveed’s father and uncle, he had succeeded brilliantly in everything he’d ever tried. He was handsome, intelligent, and possessed of a natural spark that allowed him to draw people in with incredible ease. From the very start, Naveed could see how Mengal affected the people around him, including his uncle. Syed Jilani, normally brash and quick to temper, was quiet and respectful in Mengal’s presence, as were his like-minded acquaintances. In short, Ben Mengal was everything Naveed Jilani wanted to be, and he’d modeled his whole life on that principle. At least he’d tried. Whether or not he’d succeeded was another matter entirely.

  He’d tried to join the Pakistani army shortly after his eighteenth birthday, but a thorough physical had revealed a heart defect that precluded his entrance. Naveed had desperately searched for a loophole, but when it became clear that all avenues were blocked, he’d turned to his mentor for help. By that time, Mengal was a lieutenant colonel and a department head with Inter-Services Intelligence. His influence alone would have been enough to cut through the bureaucratic restrictions, but on a calm summer day in 1993, he’d met with Naveed to explain the situation. He had described the limited opportunities the army would offer, due to the younger man’s nonexistent education, and he’d proposed an alternative: a career in government service.

  Naveed could remember that conversation in its entirety. He had been hesitant at first, but Mengal had soon won him over. He made quiet, sincere promises based on his position, and in the years that followed, he’d come through in spectacular fashion. For a man of thirty-four with no university training and a limited knowledge of English, Naveed Jilani had achieved a position of remarkable influence in the Pakistani government. But Mengal’s work behind the scenes was not born of generosity, and two weeks earlier, he had asked his young friend to repay the favor.

  Naveed did not often hear from the general in person, but while the call had merely caught him off guard, the favor had left him stunned to his core. He had agreed, of course—he had long known he was incapable of refusing Ben Mengal—but the conversation, which took place in the back room of a madrassa in Peshawar, had caused him to rethink his entire association with the former army officer. The truth was, Naveed knew next to nothing about the man who had single-handedly made his career. Since that troubling meeting, he’d done his best to learn more about his benefactor, but unfortunately, that was easier said than done.

  Rumors about Mengal abounded, but few could be confirmed. It was said that his ailing father had recently disowned him, thereby depriving him of the vast fortune he was set to inherit. Naveed wasn’t sure if that was true, but he knew that Mengal had been asked to step down in the wake of 9/11. That event hadn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Since the fall of the Taliban, Mengal and his ilk had become a liability, an uneasy reminder of Musharraf’s former alliances. To make matters worse, it was widely assumed that Mengal had a direct connection to senior members of al-Qaeda, including the director himself. Those associations, whether real or imagined, had brought him to the attention of the Western intelligence services. But that had been years earlier, and since severing his links to the army and the intelligence community, he had largely gone unnoticed. From 2001 until the present day, Mengal was practically a black hole, and it was largely assumed that he had retired to a life of quiet solitude.

  Naveed Jilani did not buy into the rumor. He wasn’t an educated man, but he’d worked closely with career diplomats for the last sixteen years. He knew how to read people, and he knew better than to dismiss a man like Ben Mengal. In twenty-five years of government service, the general had built himself a reputation that stood apart from his position with the Pakistani army. He had also sewn the seeds for a number of future enterprises, none of which required the thin veneer of authority. Still, nothing could have prepared Naveed for what the older man had asked of him two weeks earlier. He still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to Mengal’s request, but in the end he had, and that was all that mattered. He had no choice now but to follow through with it. In less than twelve hours, he was going to help the general strike a blow against the West that would be felt for years to come, and there was nothing he could do to stop it—nothing he could do to extricate himself from an act that would soon place him square in the path of a vengeful nation, the most powerful on earth.

  Behind him, his wife called out softly, imploring him to come inside. Naveed took one final drag on his cigarette, then flicked the butt over the iron rail and exhaled a narrow stream of smoke. He gazed up at the clear night sky and whispered a silent prayer. He did not ask for the strength to do the right thing; he had already made his decision. Instead, he asked Allah to look over his wife and child. He asked that someday, whether it was five years from now or twenty, they might come to understand. He knew he had no right to ask such things; it had been many years since he’d set foot in a mosque, and his faith—even under the guidance of his devout uncle—had been tepid at best. Given the magnitude of the task he was facing, though, he felt sure that God would understand. Taking one last look at the empty sky, he turned and went inside, then closed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER 4

  ORAEFI

  As he stared across the room in disbelief, Ryan Kealey fought to push down a surge of rising emotions. He was doing his best to keep them in check, but it just wasn’t working. Shock, anger, relief, and confusion were all hitting him hard, but the anger was steadily winning out. It was immediately obvious that he had been kept in the dark for a reason other than the one he had settled upon a few months earlier. After much internal debate, he’d decided that the woman he was currently staring at had left him simply because she needed some time and space to herself. It was the only thing that made sense, because their relationship could not have been better. With her sudden reappearance in this particular place, though, it was all too clear how wrong he had been.

  “You knew?” he finally asked. It was a struggle to keep his voice under control. He had about a million questions to ask, but for the most part, he was still trying to figure out exactly what was happening here. “You knew where she was the whole time?”

  “It was her decision to keep it from you,” Harper explained quietly, “and she came to me in the first place. I want to emphasize that.”

  “When?” Kealey managed to ask. His gaze was locked on Naomi Kharmai. Her shoulders
seemed tense, as though she could feel his attention, but he knew it was all in his mind. There was no way she could know the conversation had turned to her. She wouldn’t be able to hear them; the small fire didn’t do much to heat the large room, and the heating system was obviously in disrepair, as it was unusually noisy. “When did she contact you?”

  “It was the first week of February. She was a wreck at the time, falling apart at the seams. If you could have seen her the day after she called, the first time I saw her, you’d know what I’m talking about. In other words, I didn’t have a choice. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Ryan. There was no way I could have turned her down, not after what she’s done for us. Not after the sacrifices she’s made.”

  Harper paused to gauge the younger man’s reaction. When Kealey remained silent, he shifted uneasily, then went on with the story.

  “She didn’t want to come to Langley. Not at first, and not as a visitor, so we met at a coffee shop in Georgetown. It was a pretty short conversation, and she did most of the talking. Basically, she wanted to come back into the fold, but she didn’t want to go back to London, and she didn’t want to return to the CTC. She wanted something else, and I made it happen.”

  “What did she want?”

  “To be completely honest, I didn’t even hesitate,” said Harper, pushing on. It was as if he hadn’t heard the question. “She was already more than qualified, and you know what I’m talking about, because you’ve seen it yourself. For one thing, she has a gift when it comes to languages. It’s amazing, really. She just soaks them up like—”

  “John, what are you trying to say?” Kealey asked, making an effort to control his rising temper. He couldn’t believe that he hadn’t been told about this earlier. “What did she want from you?”

  “Training,” the other man answered simply. “She wanted training.”

  Kealey wasn’t sure how to respond to that. As he tried to interpret the cryptic remark, Harper stood and collected his coat.

  “I’ll let her explain the rest. As for what we discussed earlier, you’re already booked on a flight tomorrow evening. It’s not binding, of course, but I always travel hopefully. Take some time to think it over, but I need your decision by noon. That’s when the last bus leaves for Keflavík. And Ryan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t go too hard on her. She could use your support.”

  Harper had paused on the way out the door to murmur a few words in her ear, but five minutes had passed since then, and Naomi still hadn’t moved. She hadn’t even glanced over her shoulder. From where he was sitting, Kealey couldn’t see her face, so he had no way of knowing what she was thinking. He could read her body language, though, and her tense, constant movements were saying a lot. She seemed to be pushing a glass back and forth in a deliberate way, as though turning something over in her mind, or deciding how best to approach their unexpected reunion.

  Unexpected on his end, Kealey corrected himself. She must have known this was coming for quite some time. He desperately wanted to jump up and walk over, but he knew it was better to let her make the first move. They hadn’t seen each other in half a year, after all, and there was no point in pushing things now.

  It was a lot to take in. Her sudden reappearance had hit him hard, and he was still trying to figure out how to react. Unfortunately, he had run out of time to think it through. Without warning, she had climbed off her stool and started across the worn carpet. A few seconds later she slipped into the seat that Harper had just vacated, folded her arms across her chest, and fixed him with a steady stare. Her mouth was set in a straight, tight line. There was nothing apologetic about the way she was looking at him; in fact, it was just the opposite. It was almost as if she were upset with him, which didn’t make sense at all.

  “Naomi,” he said slowly, shaking his head. He wasn’t sure what to say. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I haven’t seen you in months, and now you just…”

  “I know. I didn’t mean to catch you off guard. It just kind of happened that way.”

  “How have you been?”

  She opened her mouth to respond, then clamped it shut and looked away. It was a trite, obvious question, but it was the way he had asked it that made all the difference. The concern in his voice could not have been more genuine, and judging by the small frown that had crossed her face, he’d taken her by surprise. She probably expected him to be angry, Kealey realized, and on some level, he was. For the moment, though, he was just relieved to see her again.

  She was still distracted, so he took a second to look her over. The white cashmere sweater she was wearing was one of her favorites, as familiar as her snug, worn jeans and clunky heels. Her shimmering black tresses drifted around her face and over her shoulders, her bangs sweeping from left to right across her forehead. It was a slight variation on her usual style, and it served to conceal most of the pale, crooked scar that bisected her right cheek. It was the only mark on her otherwise flawless caramel-colored skin, which only made it that much more noticeable.

  Most of all, he was struck by her posture, which was hard to read. She looked aggressive and defensive all at once. Her arms remained folded across her chest, and her jaw was clenched tightly shut. It was almost as if she were daring him to question the choices she’d made since their last conversation—the choices she’d intentionally kept from him for months on end.

  Kealey couldn’t tell how much was show and how much reflected an actual change in her personality, but he didn’t think that her recent training at “The Farm”—the Agency’s main training facility near Williamsburg, Virginia—could have changed her this much. It was more likely that the trials she had gone through the previous year were really to blame. It was strange to see her this way, stripped of her innocence and naiveté. Mostly, though, it was just good to see her again, to know that she hadn’t succumbed to her inner turmoil.

  “I’ve been doing okay,” she finally responded. The words caught Kealey off guard; he’d forgotten he’d asked the question. “Better since I went through the course at Camp Peary, anyway. What did Harper tell you?”

  “Nothing, really.”

  “He must have told you something,” she pressed. “What did he say?”

  “He said you wanted to train.” Kealey hesitated. “Is that what you were doing at Peary? Training to go into the field?”

  She nodded slowly. “You may not believe this, Ryan, but it was the right decision. The best thing I could have done, really. I needed a change, but it wasn’t just that. I needed to…”

  “To what?” he asked, once it became clear she wasn’t going to finish.

  She shrugged and looked away. She was trying to project a degree of determination, but she couldn’t seem to pull it off. It was just as he’d thought; she might have changed on some level, but despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to fix what was truly wrong. It didn’t surprise him at all. From personal experience, he knew that the wounds inside—the ones that didn’t bleed and couldn’t be seen—were usually the worst, if only because there was no clear way to repair them.

  “I can’t really explain it,” Naomi said, “but trust me, it was all for the best. It wasn’t about you, by the way. That’s not why I left, but…look, that’s beside the point. I’m here because I wanted to talk to you. To tell you in person. I think I owe you that.”

  “Tell me what, exactly?”

  “That I’m ready to go back to work.” She paused for a second to gauge his reaction. “Harper offered me this assignment himself. He said I was perfectly suited for it, given the Pakistani angle. There aren’t too many people who speak Punjabi in the Clandestine Service.”

  “Surely more than one, though,” Kealey said, unable to keep the skepticism out of his voice. Although he cared about what she was saying, she had yet to bring up what mattered most, at least to him. He was trying to push down his bitterness, but he couldn’t hold it back entirely. “Interesting how you were the first person he thought of.” />
  She looked at him sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I don’t—” He stopped himself abruptly, not wanting to continue down this road. The last thing he wanted to do was start an argument. He desperately wanted to know what was going on in her mind, but he couldn’t force it out of her. If he pushed her away, she might disappear for another six months, and he didn’t think he could bear to lose her again. “I know you’re capable, Naomi. That isn’t the issue here. I just…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think you’re ready.” She started to interrupt, but he held up a hand to stop her. “Just hear me out. You’ve done more in the past couple of years than most field operatives do in ten, and you deserve the chance to do more, if that’s what you want. But you have to give it time.”

  “I have given it time.” She looked away, as though gathering her strength, then turned back to him, a hint of frustration rising to the surface. “I’ve given it nearly a year. What do you think I should do? Just quit? Harper picked me for this himself. He thinks I’m ready. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “He doesn’t think you’re ready, Naomi. That was a lie. Don’t you see what’s going on here?” He shook his head angrily, wishing he could make her understand. It was all coming up, all the frustration and pain of the past six months, and despite his best efforts, he could no longer hold it back. “It’s all bullshit. He’s just using you to get to me. I’m sure you—”