“Okay, drop back, Manik. Walland, cross the street and get in front of her. Get over there quick…Let her see you moving. I’ll move in behind, and you can shift to Manik’s current position, Mark. Got it?”
Both men reported back in the affirmative. Owen was watching carefully as he approached the sidewalk, checking and discarding each passing face. Bukhari came into view, and he caught her profile for a few brief seconds: a large nose, sallow skin, a full face, with rosy red lips turned down at the corners. She wasn’t wearing a head scarf, and her clothes were very American: jeans, a short-sleeve T-shirt, and Nike running shoes. She was wearing earbuds and had what looked like an iPhone in a carrier clipped to her belt. If only her father could see her now, Owen thought, biting back a smile. Her style of dress only seemed to reinforce his earlier thoughts, and the iPhone clinched it; anyone this in love with U.S. culture wasn’t likely to be involved with the abduction of one of America’s most beloved public figures. More to the point, Bukhari was young, and she had just completed a difficult program at a very prestigious school. It would be a lot to risk for a man she barely knew.
Owen stepped onto the sidewalk, moved slowly until Bukhari had built a lead of about 10 meters, and then let the crowd carry him forward. Momentarily taking his eyes off the target, he lifted his cell phone, looked at the screen, and frowned involuntarily. Once again, he found himself wondering why the hell Kealey had yet to make contact. There was no excuse for it; according to his latest information, Kealey and Naomi Kharmai should have landed several hours earlier.
Goddamnit, Ryan, Owen thought angrily as he slipped the phone back into his pocket, returning his gaze to Tahira Bukhari. If you fuck this up, I’ll fuck you up, and that’s a promise.
In Cartagena, Naomi woke to the sound of rain falling outside her second-story window. She shifted her feet to the floor and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. Then she stood and walked into the adjoining bathroom. Splashing her face with cold water, she looked up and examined her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked terrible, but that was only to be expected, and it could have been worse. Should have been worse, she thought. Her hair was askew, and the skin around her red-rimmed eyes was puffy and bruised, which was strange, considering how hard she’d slept. Staring into the mirror, she traced her scar with her forefinger, following it down from her right cheekbone to the hinge of her jaw. Not for the first time, she found herself thinking that she deserved the disfiguring mark.
Drying her face on a hand towel, she wandered back into the bedroom, pulled on a robe, then walked over to the balcony. Stepping outside, she took in a deep breath of the clean morning air, then felt a sudden surge of overwhelming guilt.
What am I doing? she thought to herself, a wave of depression washing over her. I don’t deserve this. I shouldn’t even be here. I should be dead like the others. Dead like the people I killed.
Hot tears sprang to her eyes, but she didn’t make an effort to wipe them away. Instead, she turned and went inside, glancing at the bedside clock on her way to the hall. Freezing in her tracks, she did a double take, her mouth falling open. She wiped her eyes to make sure the numbers weren’t blurred, but they stayed the same. The clock said 7:00 AM, which meant that she’d been asleep for nearly…nineteen hours.
Nineteen hours? She briefly wondered how that was possible, but she already knew the answer. Her eyes darted to her bag, which was lying at the foot of the bed. On receiving it the day before, she’d found that her pills were still buried inside. She didn’t know if Ryan had checked the bag, but she didn’t think he had; if he’d found them, he wouldn’t have let her keep them. She could dimly remember taking a few of them, shortly after he’d confronted her the previous day. A handful, maybe, but it must have been some handful, she realized, to keep her under for nineteen hours.
Reaching the door, she undid the latch, pulled it open, and stepped into the hall. As she made her way downstairs, she could hear noise in the kitchen, and she entered the room a moment later. Élise Machado was standing at the counter, still in her bedclothes, pouring grinds into the top of a coffee machine. She smiled at Naomi, then caught the younger woman’s expression and frowned, a concerned look coming over her face.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Has something happened?”
“Where’s Ryan? Where’s your daughter?”
“They’re gone. They left yesterday.” Élise looked confused. “I thought you knew….”
Naomi was stunned. What was going on here? “What do you mean, ‘they left’?” she sputtered, grabbing the door frame for support. “Where did they go?”
The older woman shook her head apologetically, obviously unsettled by Naomi’s reaction. “I really don’t know. They didn’t say much…just said good-bye and left in the car my husband gave them.”
“And where is he?” Naomi managed. “Your husband, I mean?”
“He went out to collect something. He said he’d be back in a few hours. Why?”
Naomi shook her head in disbelief. How could Ryan do this? Why would he just leave without telling her? More to the point, why had he taken Pétain, and where were they going?
After looking around blankly for a few seconds, she thought of another question. “What about my phone? Did Ryan take it with him?”
“You mean that bulky black thing? The one with the antennae?”
“Yes. Did he take it?”
Élise seemed to think for a moment, then slowly shook her head. “No, I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure.”
Naomi closed her eyes and shook her head. Catching the gesture, Élise asked if anything was wrong.
“No,” Naomi replied, but she could tell her voice was distant, not her own. “I’m fine. I’m…going upstairs to take a shower. I’ll be back in a little bit.”
Élise nodded uncertainly. She offered a tentative smile, then gestured toward the dripping machine. “Would you like some coffee first?”
“No,” Naomi replied sharply. Catching herself, she tried for a more conciliatory tone. “I mean, no, thank you. I’m sorry. I just…”
She turned abruptly, not bothering to finish her sentence, leaving Élise Machado staring after her. She stalked down the hall and began climbing the stairs. Halfway up, she paused, placing a hand on the rail to steady herself. Then she pressed the other to her forehead, closing her eyes. She felt light-headed all of a sudden, as if all the energy had been drained from her body. She assumed it was partly due to the pills she had taken the day before, but part of it, she knew, was also anger. Blinding, deep-seated anger of a kind she rarely experienced. It was suddenly clear what had taken place. Harper must have called with additional background on Benazir Mengal, and instead of telling her, instead of trying to wake her up, Ryan had snuck off with Pétain to follow it up himself. Clearly, he had taken it upon himself to push her out of the search for Fitzgerald and the other hostages.
Clearly, he had decided she was no longer capable.
And the worst part of all, Naomi realized, was that he was probably right.
Once she was back in her room, she straightened the covers on the bed, then lay down on her back, staring up at the ceiling. For nearly an hour, she did nothing more than lie there—staring up, listening to the rain, waiting for some kind of insight. Finally, the tears came. She didn’t try to stop them, and she didn’t make a sound the whole time, even as they formed a puddle behind her head, then soaked into the bedspread. She wasn’t thinking about anything, and she didn’t have to prompt them; the tears simply came of their own accord. It was almost as if her body was purging itself of everything that had happened. Everything from Madrid to New York City the year before, but she knew it would take a lot more than one moment of weakness to fully release the guilt that was weighing her down. In fact, she couldn’t think of a single solution; there was just no way she could ever forgive herself for the things she had done.
At the same time, she knew she could not continue down the path she was on. She ha
d always thought of herself as a strong person, but the past ten months had shown her just how weak she could be. She could see that now. She had tried to numb her sorrow and guilt instead of facing it head-on, and it just wasn’t going to work anymore. For the first time since she’d arrived in Spain, Naomi realized just how badly she wanted to find Fitzgerald and the other hostages. She didn’t know if doing so would earn her some kind of reprieve from her past actions, but it was the best—and only—option she could see. At the very least, finding them would mean doing the right thing, and that was reason enough; it had been a long time since she could claim even that much.
After lying there for another twenty minutes, she sat up, her gaze falling on the foot of the bed. Getting to her feet, she went to the end of the bed and knelt by her bag. Unzipping it, she dug out the Baggie containing the last of her pills.
She was almost entranced by the tiny white tablets; they seemed to call out to her. The pull was so hard to resist, but it had always been that way. When she’d first been prescribed the morphine, she had genuinely needed it. The pain on the right side of her face had been intense, which was understandable, given the severity of the wound. It had been so bad that the doctors had initially anticipated minor nerve damage. In time they were proven wrong, but no one had ever questioned the serious nature of the injury. As the weeks went by, her physician began reducing the dosage, but Naomi had not been able to adjust as quickly; she’d needed the pills just as much as she had at the start. Eventually, he’d cut her off completely, and she’d been forced to find outside channels. An old friend had reluctantly come through for her and would continue to do so if Naomi asked her. For now, she still had two dozen of the little white pills, more than enough to keep her going until she got back to the States.
And she could still go back, she knew. She could leave now if she wanted. She could catch a taxi to the airport, fly back to Washington, and go back to hating herself and her life, just as she’d been doing for the past ten months. Or she could put a halt to the slide right now.
Only if she did, if she made the decision to stop things now, she had to be sure. Because by doing the right thing, she’d be entering her own personal hell for at least the next four to five days, and maybe much longer.
Clutching the Baggie in her right fist, she took a deep breath and steeled her resolve. Then she went into the bathroom and tipped the Baggie upside down over the bowl. Her breathing quickened as each pill plopped into the water, but she forced herself to keep going, her limbs trembling with the mental effort it took to destroy her synthetic relief, her only real retreat from reality. When the Baggie was completely empty, she flushed the toilet, her stomach clenching as the swirling water carried them all away.
Lowering the lid, she sat down, propped her elbows on her knees, and lowered her face into her waiting hands. She had a vague idea of what was coming over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The next two days would mark the worst of it, but she had made her decision. Besides, she no longer had a choice; the pills were gone, so she had to see it through.
Shifting gears, she started to think about her next move. The first thing was to get in touch with Harper, and she had to do it before the withdrawal symptoms came on. Harper wasn’t an idiot, and it was just as Ryan had suspected; the deputy DCI knew damn well what she was into, and he would be able to tell—even over the phone—if she was off the morphine.
Naomi wasn’t an idiot, either. She knew that Harper had placed her in Ryan’s path to draw him back, to get him involved in the op. She had been unwilling to admit this earlier, even to herself, but now she was done pretending. At the same time, she knew that she could contribute, that she was much, much more than a simple pawn. She didn’t know where Kealey had gone, but her gut was telling her he was en route to Pakistan, if he wasn’t already there. In that place, her help would prove invaluable. She spoke fluent Punjabi and passable Urdu, she knew the culture and customs, and she could blend into the local population. Ryan may not know it now, but he needed her, and despite the anger she was currently feeling, she would forgive him for the shit he had pulled the previous day if it meant she could be involved. She had to do it; she knew that now. Not for him, and not for the people who’d died at her hand, but for herself.
A sound from the next room startled her from her reverie. She lifted her head, listening hard, then jumped up and ran into the bedroom. Dashing out to the balcony, she looked down and saw Javier Machado’s E-type Jaguar rolling up the driveway, to the right of the garden.
Moving back to the bed, she threw off her robe and began to dress quickly. Despite what the immediate future held for her, she felt suddenly energized. Machado would know where her encrypted sat phone was, and once she had it, she could call Harper and get things moving. For the first time in nearly a year, she felt sure about what she was doing, and that felt better than she would have ever believed.
CHAPTER 32
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
It was just after 8:00 in the morning as Harper walked into the DCI’s office on the seventh floor of the Old Headquarters Building. The OHB was part of the sprawling campus that made up the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, home to the Memorial Wall and to an impressive library with 26,000 volumes, which, unfortunately for the general public, was open only to Agency employees. There was a day-care center on the ground floor, along with a cafeteria and a small gymnasium. In short, the OHB had all the amenities of most modern U.S. corporations. Like the employees of those corporations, however, the people who worked for the Agency rarely had time to enjoy such luxuries. This was especially true in times of crisis, and the Agency—along with the rest of the U.S. intelligence apparatus—had been running on crisis mode for four days, ever since the abduction of the secretary of state in Rawalpindi.
This being the case, it was fitting that the director looked as tired as the people who worked for him, Harper thought. Robert Andrews was seated behind his heavy, hand-carved desk, his sleeves rolled up, a telephone receiver wedged between his ear and shoulder. He was looking over a sheaf of documents as he talked, and, glancing up for an instant, waved Harper into a seat. A few minutes later, he ended the call with a series of terse instructions, then slammed the receiver down and glared at his deputy.
“So,” he began, his fingers drumming out an uneven rhythm on his desk, “what’s the situation? What’s going on in Pakistan?”
Harper sighed inwardly as he considered where to begin. He’d received Kharmai’s call at home nearly six hours earlier, at 2:15 in the morning. Once he was awake enough to hear what she was saying, he’d jumped out of bed and moved into his study, where he proceeded to get all the facts from her. The general situation appeared pretty clear; Kealey had disobeyed a direct order by taking Pétain to Islamabad instead of Kharmai. And that was assuming he’d even flown into Islamabad, as instructed; at this point, he could be anywhere. To make matters worse, he had yet to make contact with Owen and the rest of his team.
Harper relayed all of this to Andrews. The full explanation took about five minutes, during which time the director didn’t utter a word. When Harper was done, Andrews ran a hand over his face, then cast a long glance out the west-facing windows.
“Why hasn’t Kealey made contact?” he finally asked, shifting his gaze back to Harper.
Harper shrugged. “There’s no way to know. Maybe he picked up some surveillance when he arrived. Maybe he shook it, and he’s waiting to make sure he’s clean. It could be anything.”
“And why did he leave Kharmai behind? Why take Pétain? From what I’ve read, it seems that Kharmai would be far more valuable in that situation.”
“That’s a fair assessment. As far as I can tell, Pétain is more of a liability to operational security than an asset, at least in this situation. I don’t know why he brought her.”
Andrews mulled over that for a moment, then nodded his agreement. It was one of the things that Harper had noticed about the DCI. Since taking the reins of the Ag
ency two and a half years prior, Andrews had mellowed substantially. There had been a time when he’d been quick to express his dissatisfaction with the pace of the Agency and the endless dissemination of information that intelligence work required, but he had since learned to control his temper. In the end, the man’s change in demeanor didn’t really affect day-to-day operations, thought it certainly made for a more relaxed work environment, at least in normal circumstances. Of course, the current situation was anything but, and the public dissemination of Amari Saifi’s demands had only made things worse.
“I know the basics about her father, but Pétain is a mystery to me. There has to be some reason Kealey would want her along, though…What’s her background?”
Harper had anticipated this question, and he’d taken the time to read up on the young operative. “Marissa Pétain was born in 1981 in Paris, the second child of Javier Machado and Élise Pétain. Her father was stationed at our embassy at the time, but Élise and her daughters stayed in France when Machado was transferred to Rabat in ’84. Pétain attended the American School of Paris from ’85 to ’99, during which time she became fluent in German, Italian, and Russian. She also has English, Spanish, and French, thanks to her parents. After graduation, she was accepted to Marquette. She immigrated to the States in ’99, by which time her father had already retired from the Agency. Pétain did a BS in information systems at Marquette, then went on to earn master’s degrees in mathematics and psychology…She picked up both of those at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.”
The Invisible (Ryan Kealey) Page 28
