The Invisible (Ryan Kealey)

by Andrew Britton

  In Mengal’s mind, this was the most probable barrier to success. During his military service, he’d once attended a welcoming ceremony for President Clinton at Chaklala Air Base. He had seen the Secret Service in action. He remembered how alert they’d been, the way they moved in synchronous, rehearsed fashion. In particular, he recalled the way they had watched him with ill-concealed suspicion. It was almost as if, even then, they could see into the darkest corners of his mind. He had quickly realized they had a file on him, and since that incident, he’d come to appreciate just how thorough the Americans were. The secretary of state was protected by a different agency, Mengal knew, but her security would be just as vigilant. He couldn’t be sure, but he suspected her permanent detail was composed of at least seven men. Probably closer to ten. He had superior numbers at his disposal, but the Americans held the advantage in so many ways. The agents were trained to the point where they reacted instinctively and correctly every time, and they enjoyed access to the best weapons money could buy.

  Mengal’s men had all served under him at some point, and most had fought in the volatile Northwest Frontier Province. They were hardened combat veterans, and he was confident in their abilities. Still, there was a noticeable divide in terms of training and weaponry, a divide that could not be ignored. Then again, he had speed and surprise on his side, two essential elements of any successful ambush. Ironically, the Diplomatic Security Service also relied heavily on these elements, especially when moving a senior official in and out of hostile territory.

  And this was hostile territory, at least as far as the Americans were concerned. There could be no mistake about that. Rawalpindi was home to army headquarters and a number of lesser military complexes, and Mengal knew the area like the back of his hand. It was a key advantage. He knew what would happen in the aftermath of the attack. He knew precisely where the police would set up their emergency checkpoints, and he knew which roads they would overlook. More importantly, he knew exactly how to find the small clearing where, in twenty minutes’ time, he was scheduled to meet a pilot assigned to ISI, a man who’d once served under him at the Mountain Warfare School in Abbottabad. A man who knew the meaning of loyalty. If all went according to plan, Mengal would be onboard when the helicopter lifted off, but he wouldn’t be the only passenger.

  “General.”

  Mengal turned to his left, where one of his men was gesturing insistently toward the waiting sedan. “Of course.” The general walked to the car and slid into the passenger seat. A man was already waiting behind the wheel. “Drive.”

  CHAPTER 8

  RAWALPINDI

  Special Agent Petrina absently tugged on the credentials still clipped to his suit jacket as he glared through the windshield of the armored Suburban. It was called “forward orientation,” and it was one of the first things he’d learned at the evasive-driving course he’d attended twenty years earlier. There had been additional courses since then—for obvious reasons, DSS agents underwent constant training, even to the point of relearning fundamental tasks—but the general principles remained the same. The reason behind forward orientation was as simple as it was obvious: looking as far forward as possible allowed one to identify potential threats before they became a real hazard. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much help at the moment, as they were hardly moving at all.

  They’d been able to maintain a high rate of speed along Islamabad’s broad avenues and boulevards, but traffic had slowed dramatically over the past few minutes. The road ahead was lined with cars, and beyond, Petrina could make out iron support beams towering over the traffic. Pedestrians and people on bicycles were streaming by on either side of the motorcade, but people on foot weren’t much of a danger to the heavily armored vehicles. Petrina was more worried about the beams in the near distance, which could only belong to a small bridge. With this realization, his dark mood grew darker still. Bridges were natural choke points. Typically, they were avoided at all costs; it was a maxim of any protective detail, and it should have been caught by the advance team.

  He turned to the driver. “Why the hell did we pick this road? There have to be faster routes between the palace and the air base.”

  “It was Edsall’s call,” the driver protested, waving an angry hand at the traffic in front of them. “There are construction crews on the other routes. We didn’t have time to clear them out, and this was the best alternative.”

  “That isn’t saying much. He should have brought this to—”

  Petrina stopped talking when a clear voice sounded over his earpiece. “Mike, we’ve got a truck parked off the side of the road up ahead. It’s about two hundred feet from our position.”

  “Where’s the driver?”

  “The hood is up, and the driver appears to be checking something in the engine compartment. He looks pretty pissed. Over.”

  “Yeah, I see it,” the lead agent responded, tilting his head to see around the line of cars. The transmission was coming from the third car in the motorcade, which was already halfway over the bridge. The traffic had started to move a little, and the principal vehicle—the Suburban carrying Petrina, Fitzgerald, and Patterson—was nosing up to the bridge. “The cargo area is covered…Can you see inside from where you are?”

  “Negative, Mike. I suggest we call our escorts and ask them to check it out on foot. Over.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Petrina muttered under his breath. The whole situation was going from bad to worse in a hurry, and it was exactly why he’d suggested the use of aerial transport in the first place. Helicopters were much harder to target than vehicles on the ground, and they also had the advantage of unlimited air space. Unfortunately, the secretary of state had personally requested a vehicular motorcade, citing the fact that one had been used in India. It would have been noticed if different security measures—especially those that were obvious—were employed in different countries, and it would have set the wrong tone for the discussions at Aiwane-Sadr. Petrina could understand her reasoning, but it didn’t change the fact that they were taking a serious, unnecessary risk in the name of diplomacy.

  Still, that decision had not been his to make, and he couldn’t change it now. What happened next, on the other hand, was up to him. The last thing he wanted was to have the secretary of state’s vehicle on the bridge in the event of an attack, as they would be completely boxed in. The first two vehicles in the motorcade were marked Pakistani police cars; Petrina could see their lights flashing up ahead. The officers were armed only with handguns, and they wouldn’t be much use in the event of a well-planned attack. On the other hand, they were best prepared to deal with this particular situation. Not only did they know the language, but the driver of the truck would be more likely to cooperate with his own countrymen.

  “Okay,” he said at length. “Ask them to approach on foot, and have them perform a visual check on the cargo area. Over.”

  “Will do,” the other agent said. Petrina listened as the request was relayed to the lead cars over a secure channel. The police officers agreed a moment later. Just then, he heard the small motor kick in as the partition behind the seats came down. He turned to face the officials in the backseat.

  “What’s going on, Mike?” Fitzgerald asked. The answer became immediately clear when she looked through the windshield. “Oh, I see. Isn’t there another road we can take?”

  “I’m afraid not, ma’am.” Petrina’s voice was low and tight; he was embarrassed that he’d allowed this to happen on his watch. “The police are going to try and clear the road. It shouldn’t take too long.”

  The cars edged forward again. Up ahead, the police officers had stepped out of their vehicles and were moving toward the truck. As he watched through the windshield, Petrina inadvertently nudged an object on the floor, by his right foot. The weapon—a Heckler & Koch MP5 with a 3-round burst trigger group—was perfectly suited to his current task. It was easy to use, extremely versatile, and accurate out to 200 meters in the hands of a skilled operator. A 30-ro
und magazine was already loaded, the first round chambered. The safety was on. The weapon’s proximity afforded Petrina a small degree of comfort, but he knew it wouldn’t make much difference if the worst were to happen.

  The detail leader tried to push away his lingering doubts as the Pakistani officers finished questioning the driver. As they moved toward the back of the truck, Fitzgerald said something behind him. Petrina was turning to address her when something flashed in the corner of his eye. A split second later, the vehicle was violently rocked by a pressure wave and the deafening sound of a massive explosion. Swinging back to the front, Petrina looked on in disbelief as the shattered remains of the truck crashed to the ground, some of the burning debris landing in the trees on either side of the road.

  Most of the blast had clearly been pushed out the back of the vehicle; the officers had been killed instantly, along with the driver of the truck. Both police cars had been pushed off the road, completely gutted by the force of the explosion. As Petrina took in the devastation, he focused on the third vehicle in the motorcade. The armored Suburban had been flipped onto its side by the blast, and from the state of the vehicle, it didn’t look as if the agents inside had survived.

  Less than two seconds had elapsed, but for Mike Petrina, it felt like an eternity. He couldn’t react; all he could think about was how fast it had happened. Nothing could have prepared him for the speed of it, but as intense as it was, the shock couldn’t last. Petrina was too well trained for that. He forced himself to block out the sounds of fear and disbelief in the backseat, listening instead to the frantic traffic coming over his earpiece. “Get us out of here!” he screamed to the driver as he reached for the MP5 at his feet. There was nothing he could do with the weapon, but that didn’t stop his instinctive reaction to arm himself. A split second later, the driver threw the SUV into reverse and slammed down on the accelerator. The Suburban rocked to the right as the driver swung the wheel to the left, Petrina shouting orders over the secure channel the whole time.

  He looked out the passenger-side window to see the doors on the incapacitated SUV being pushed up and out. He was hit with a sudden wave of relief; at least two of the agents had survived. Go, he found himself willing them. Get out of there. Both agents started to climb out of the vehicle, but they never made it. A pair of projectiles streaked in from the tree line. Both burrowed into the vehicle, one after the other. The explosion that followed tore apart what remained of the Suburban in a flash of blood, orange flame, and black smoke. More rockets followed, targeting the fourth vehicle in the motorcade.

  “Let’s go!” Petrina screamed at the driver. On some level he knew he was taking his anger, fear, and frustration out on the nearest target, but he couldn’t restrain himself. “Move this fucking truck! Move!”

  The driver didn’t respond, intently focused on completing the J-turn. He slammed the SUV into drive and stamped on the accelerator, the vehicle shooting forward. Suddenly Petrina had new sight lines to focus on, and he commanded his mind to adapt, his eyes scanning back and forth for new threats.

  He didn’t have to look far. As the Suburban accelerated back in the direction they had come from, Petrina caught sight of a Nissan truck identical to the one that had just exploded. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but before he could, the truck slammed into the back of the last car in the motorcade, which was still facing south. The impact wrenched both vehicles to the side of the road. As Petrina watched in horror, more projectiles flashed in from either side of the road. Two punched into the vehicle that had just been struck, another Pakistani police car. Three additional rockets—something in Petrina’s mind screamed, RPGs, but he couldn’t be sure—tore into the 10-passenger van carrying the press pool. The first warhead penetrated the rear windshield, traveled 3 additional feet, then detonated in another cloud of fire and smoke. The second and third warheads shredded what remained of the vehicle, then lifted it into the air.

  Petrina whipped around to check on his principal. Brynn Fitzgerald was down on the floor behind the front seats. Lee Patterson was on top of her, shielding her body with his. Petrina realized that he must have told them to get down at some point, though he couldn’t recall doing so.

  Satisfied with what he saw, he turned again to face forward. The driver screamed a warning, and Petrina opened his mouth to react. He had just enough time to see something dark and small moving toward them with incredible speed. It slammed into the front grille, then punched through the radiator and into the engine block. He didn’t hear the explosion, but he saw the flash, felt the searing heat and the sense of everything collapsing around him. Then everything went black.

  For Naveed Jilani, the end didn’t come nearly as fast; in fact, he almost made it through the entire event. Despite the fear that wracked his body, he’d done exactly as Mengal instructed. He’d dropped his head and wedged it between his knees when he saw the cargo truck explode on the other side of the bridge. With his head down, he didn’t see the rocket that skipped off the pavement and hit the rear fender of his own vehicle, 4 inches to the left of the fuel tank. The resulting explosion sent shrapnel tearing through the backseat. Ghulam Mirza was killed instantly, but Jilani narrowly escaped the whistling shards of steel and fiberglass. Seconds after the deafening noise stopped, he felt a stinging pain all over his body. His eyes flew open, but it took his mind a few seconds to register what was happening. And then it hit him: he was on fire. Every square inch of his flesh was burning, his suit melting into his skin…

  He found himself wrenching off the door handle, trying to get out. He couldn’t concentrate on the task; the plastic was sticking to his hand, burning a hole right through his palm, and the screaming…The screams were just so loud; he couldn’t get them out of his mind. Jilani never had the chance to realize that the screams he was hearing were his own. He took a deep breath to let out another howl of agony, inadvertently pulling superheated air into his lungs. He managed two more breaths before his respiratory system shut down entirely. Then the noise finally stopped, and the darkness pulled him into a deep, cold sleep.

  CHAPTER 9

  ICELAND

  Ryan Kealey was seated near the back of the 14-passenger Mercedes minibus, staring absently out the window. He’d been arranging his thoughts for the last hour as the vehicle sped west on Route 1. Otherwise known as the Ring Road, the two-lane highway encircled the better part of the island, linking most of the country’s major cities in the process. The afternoon sky was overcast, dark cumulus clouds towering high over the barren, rocky soil. Everything was marked in tones of black, brown, and gray, except for the dirty white snow on the peaks to the north. A light drizzle obscured the passing terrain, the cold drops clinging to the vehicle’s windows, but even on a clear day, there wouldn’t have been much to see. At least not in this part of the country. Iceland offered some amazing sights to the perseverant, physically fit traveler, but simply taking in the scenery from a moving vehicle wasn’t enough. In order to fully appreciate the landscape, one had to be willing to venture off the main roads.

  Kealey was that kind of traveler. Over the past couple of weeks he had laid eyes on a number of natural wonders, including the multitiered waterfall at Gulfoss, the Strokkur geyser, and the chaotic ensemble of hot springs, lava fields, and rhyolite hills at Landmannalaugar. They were amazing sights, but he’d happened across them purely by accident. He would never have seen them otherwise, and in truth, he’d gotten more out of the lunarlike ice fields of the interior than he had out of the common tourist attractions. As he stared out at the passing terrain, he felt a small tinge of regret; he was sorry to be leaving so soon.

  Shifting his weight on the seat, he allowed his gaze to drift around the vehicle. Although it was the height of the tourist season, he and Naomi Kharmai were the only two passengers. She was on the seat directly across from his, her small body curled up on the warm plastic. Looking over, he could see only the top of her dark head and the left side of her body. A thick woolen sweater, posi
tioned between her hands and the right side of her face, served as a makeshift pillow, and she was snoring lightly. They had left the hotel two hours earlier. Harper had beaten them to the punch, having departed for Keflavík International at eight in the morning. The deputy DCI would have waited for the last bus, as he’d indicated to Kealey the previous night, but it hadn’t been necessary. Kealey had made his decision much sooner than anyone had the right to expect, including himself.

  Following his awkward conversation with Naomi in the bar the night before, he’d walked straight back to his room on the ground floor. He’d lain on the narrow bed for nearly an hour, staring up at the ceiling, thinking it through. Part of him wanted to go back to the bar, to change the whole course of the conversation, but the rational part of him said it wouldn’t have made a difference. So much of it didn’t make sense. Naomi’s combative attitude was something he’d seen before, but never to this extent. It was almost as if she’d relegated him to some embarrassing point in her past, along with their relationship.

  That was bad enough, but he was just as confused by her decision to train as a field operative. Kealey wasn’t sure what had brought about this unexpected decision, but that was only part of the issue. He was just as troubled—perhaps even more so—by Harper’s ready, unquestioning acceptance of her sudden transformation. And she had changed; there was no denying it. He remembered the way she had been when he first met her: strong but innocent, smart but naïve, young but wise beyond her years in so many ways. Despite having seen some horrific things in her short career, she’d managed to retain an air of youthful exuberance for longer than anyone could have expected. Now, though, it seemed as if everything she had seen and suffered through over the past couple of years had finally caught up with her. It was inevitable, Kealey knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to witness. Simply put, she had been pushed too hard for too long.