The Fourth Horseman

by David Hagberg

  “CIA like you and whoever the woman is who’s coming apparently to help you? Maybe Haaris is a rogue CIA agent. Out of control. Someone you need to stop, for whatever dark reason.”

  In the early morning light her complexion and features were fair, her blond hair tousled from sleep she looked anything but Middle Eastern. “You don’t look like an ISI operator.”

  She smiled. “What’s a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?”

  “You don’t look Pakistani. More like someone from Ohio.”

  “Close, actually. Indiana. Michigan City. My dad, brothers and uncles worked in the steel mills and were union all the way. And Catholics. The workers and the priests versus the bosses. Made for interesting dinner table discussions.”

  “But not your cup of tea.”

  “No. The men were getting screwed in the mills, and their sons were getting raped by the priests.”

  “There were other places you could have gone to. Other churches,” McGarvey said. “Why here where a girl who marries the wrong man can be stoned to death by her own father? Almost every day some sort of violence. Bombings, assassinations, coups—your own president had his head cut off.”

  “It’s a long story, which I promise to tell you if you’ll hand over your pistol.”

  “Then what?”

  “You’ll be debriefed and probably be declared persona non grata,” Judith said. “We are allies, after all.” She smiled faintly. “So, I’ll take my chances. Who is Haaris and what is he doing in Pakistan?”

  “The ISI tried to kill me.”

  “Because they thought that you were a troublemaker.”

  “Is that how your father and his friends treated troublemaking journalists in Michigan City?”

  “We have a great deal of respect for the CIA.”

  Someone was on the stairs below. McGarvey glanced out the window. A newer red Mercedes E350 was parked in front.

  At that moment Judith leaped up and was on him in two strides, shoving him aside and grabbing the pistol on the window ledge beside him, then stepping back out of the way.

  She nodded toward the door. “If you warn them, I’ll kill you.”

  McGarvey got up and took a bullet from his pocket. “You might need a few of these,” he said.

  She racked the slide, but the gun was empty.

  “That’s the second time you didn’t notice the weight; makes me wonder what kind of training they gave you.”

  “You bastard,” she screamed and she charged, swinging the butt of the pistol toward his face.

  He easily grabbed the gun, twisted it out of her grip and shoved her away. “You’ll be okay. We don’t kill prisoners.”

  “The fuck you don’t. How about renditions? How about Guantanamo? Waterboarding? Secret firing squads?”

  McGarvey opened the door for two clean-shaven men in Western suits and ties. They could have been American businessmen.

  “Who the hell are you?” Mac asked.

  “SEAL Team Six; we were told you needed an extraction,” the shorter of the two said. His hair was above his ears and neatly combed, as was the other’s.

  “Good disguise.”

  “Makes us conspicuous, for all the wrong reasons,” the operator said. “Where’s the woman?”

  McGarvey turned as Judith came full speed out of the kitchen, a butcher knife raised.

  One of the operators pulled out a silenced Beretta nine-millimeter and fired one shot, catching her in the middle of the forehead. She fell back, dead.

  “Gnarly,” he said.

  McGarvey truly hadn’t wanted it to end this way. Katy had told him more than once that he had more respect for women then a lot of them deserved. But she loved him all the more for it.

  “Take the body with you,” he said.

  “Will she be missed?”

  “She was ISI.”

  Both SEALS fired several more shots into the woman’s body.

  FORTY-THREE

  With the dawn Haaris got out of bed, dressed in his Messiah costume and donned the voice-altering device before he crossed the hall and went into the president’s office. He wasn’t hungry, which surprised him a little, because he hadn’t eaten anything substantial since London, only a light snack on the flight over. But he was thirsty.

  He found the small pantry hidden behind the rear wall. It was equipped with a wet bar and several top-shelf whiskeys, cognacs, gins and vodkas. A rack beneath the sink held a dozen or more red wines, and the cooler beside it was filled with whites.

  A small fridge contained fruit juices, bottled tea and bottled water. He got a water and crossed to the windows. He stood to one side so it would be difficult for anyone to spot him but he’d have a decent sight line down Constitution Avenue. The crowd of a few hundred when he’d arrived had grown to a thousand or more people, many of them children. He had to wonder why, unless word had gotten out that the Messiah had possibly returned. With the rising sun some of them were eating flatbread for breakfast, while men sat smoking in the beds of pickup trucks. It did not seem like an angry mob to Haaris, rather a gathering of people patiently waiting for something to happen—or for someone to show up.

  As a young student he’d learned from his teachers that the people of any nation deserved the government they had. If they were dissatisfied a revolution would occur. Sometimes the uprising took years, like in the case of the aftermath of Stalin and others in Russia, but unless it happened the people would be stuck with the likes of a Hitler, who had been replaced only by all-out war.

  Haaris turned around as he raised the bottle of water to his lips but stopped short, not immediately recognizing the bearded man in white robes standing in the doorway. But then it came to him, and he smiled.

  “The Tehreek-e-Taliban has sent you.”

  “Yes. I am Mufti Fahad. We were told that you returned to the Aiwan.”

  “Where is Shahidullah Shahid?”

  “I am his representative.”

  “Are you a scholar?” It was what the title mufti translated to.

  “Yes.”

  “Then am I to govern as a triumvirate with a prime minister and a man of learning?”

  “And us with a man of mystery the people call Messiah? But your face is clean-shaven; you do well to cover it in public, lest a false impression be made.”

  The mufti was dark-skinned with deep-set eyes under thick eyebrows. He stood with a bamboo cane in his left hand, favoring that leg as he took a step closer. He had a white lace cloth covering the top of his head.

  “We will rule in peace,” Haaris said, the words sounding pompous to him.

  “The jihad against the West will not be abandoned until sharia law is universal.”

  “Peace within our borders.”

  “The war here against our brothers is at an end for now,” the mufti said. “But we will send our fidayees back to New York and Washington to continue their work.”

  “And to London.”

  The mufti raised an eyebrow.

  “Great Britain is infidel America’s staunchest ally,” Haaris said. “When we strike it will be swift as lightning and just.”

  The mufti took a step closer. “Urge the people to join the jihad, but first study Islam, quote the Quran and then come to us; whatever your skills we shall put them to use against the infidels.”

  It was the same diatribe the Taliban had repeated over and over again, of which only since 9/11 did people in the West take notice.

  “We will train you to stand with us.”

  Haaris turned again to look out the windows. People from the side streets were joining the increasing crowd, and it seemed almost as if they were in a celebratory mood. Some of the men were dancing in the streets. And unlike previous demonstrations no one was shooting Kalashnikovs into the air.

  In came to him that the situation was unfolding just as he had planned for it to do. Despite all the variables, for which he had to deal with by hiring an imposter in London, this was working. Two days.


  He turned back. “We will go to the prime minister now to complete our government and plan for jihad against the West.”

  “The whore will not give up military aid from the U.S. It is too precious.”

  “Money that was used to equip the war against you,” Haaris said. “It ends now.”

  “You understand.”

  “I’ve always understood my people.”

  “Our people,” the mufti said.

  * * *

  Downstairs in the main reception hall, where flowers wilted in vases around the central statue of Islamic figures, and a huge chandelier hung from the high ceiling in front of massive double doors of polished oak, Haaris stopped.

  He’d been here before. A pair of ornate sofas in a corner, so large that the room did nothing to dwarf them, was where he’d sat sipping sweet tea talking with General Rajput for the first time shortly after he had conceived his plan for revenge. He remembered his first impression: the man was not particularly bright, but he was a good administrator, a decent leader, he had connections throughout the government and especially the military, but above all he was devious.

  Haaris had decided on the spot that he would make good use of the man and had begun sharing intelligence that had allowed the government to anticipate every objection the U.S. raised to its policies, especially concerning Pakistan’s movement of nuclear weapons around the country, and developing responses that if not believed were at least placating.

  Pakistan was helping the U.S. continue the war against the terrorist groups within its borders, and with staging rights for the war in Afghanistan.

  No one in Langley or especially in Washington liked the alliance, but no one was bright enough to see the liars for what they were and do something about it.

  “Thou dost not trust General Rajput,” Haaris said. The Punjabi words and grammar that had always seemed so formal, even ancient, to him had begun to sound normal. Even right.

  “We have been enemies too long for that,” the mufti replied.

  “But you must trust me.”

  “Why?”

  “Give me two days, and you will see.”

  The mufti laughed.

  “I am the Messiah,” Haaris said dramatically. “Pakistan’s savior.”

  He adjusted the scarf over his features then threw open the doors and strode outside, down the broad stairs and across the complicated green spaces, past outer buildings, prayer halls and across the circular driveway up which VIP guests of state would be driven, and past the long, narrow reflecting pool.

  The two soldiers manning the ceremonial iron gates that opened to the sidewalk and broad Constitution Avenue turned around in surprise as the first shouts of “Messiah!” came from the crowds.

  “Be careful what you aspire to,” the mufti said to his left.

  Haaris looked at him.

  “Consequences that are unintended often arise.”

  Haaris almost laughed out loud. Unintended consequences indeed. It was a CIA term, which meant, in essence, be careful what you plan for because you just might get something else—something that could jump up and bite you in the ass. And it was especially funny to him at this moment, because the comment had come from a hated enemy of the CIA to a CIA operative.

  The soldiers opened the gates and stood back to let Haaris and the mufti walk out onto the broad avenue. The crowd immediately surged forward, men touching Haaris’s shoulders, women holding their babies for him to bless with a fingertip to their foreheads.

  “Allah’s blessing be upon you, my children,” he said.

  The mob went wild, chanting, “Messiah,” over and over again, the volume rising.

  “A lasting justice is at hand for all of us.”

  FORTY-FOUR

  McGarvey wiped down the pistol he’d taken from one of the ISI officers who’d tried to kill him and put it in the woman’s hand in such a way that at least a couple of partial prints could be lifted.

  He laid it on the floor next to her blood, and as soon as the SEALs left with her body, he walked the couple of blocks up to Luqman Hakeem Road, where he got a table at a small café and ordered a coffee with milk.

  The waiter was distant, but he came back immediately with the coffee.

  It should have been the start of the morning rush hour, but the street was all but deserted of traffic, and he was the only customer.

  “Where is everybody?”

  The waiter shook his head and started to leave.

  “Do you speak English?” McGarvey asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter said.

  “Where is everybody?“

  “I do not know,” the waiter said and again walked away.

  McGarvey phoned Otto. “Something is going on, the streets where I am are all but empty.”

  “Oh, wow, Mac, the shit has started big-time now. Louise is with me. She’s brought up real-time satellite images of the Red Section, right in front of the Presidential Palace. There’s another mob there, and two figures are right in the middle of it.”

  “Haaris?”

  “We can’t tell. Austin is sending someone over to find out what’s going on, but I think that it’s a safe bet that it is Haaris as the Messsiah and he and whoever is with him are on the move.”

  “To where?”

  “Straight up Constitution Avenue toward the Secretariat.”

  “Rajput’s office,” McGarvey said. “How long will it take them to get there?”

  “It’s not far. A hundred meters or so, but the crowd is slow, they’re barely crawling. I’d say an hour, maybe longer.”

  An army jeep, a green flag on its radio antenna, its blue lights flashing, turned the corner and headed at a high rate of speed toward the apartment building where McGarvey had been staying. Two men in civilian clothes, one of them talking on a radio, who could have been the twins of the two ISI officers McGarvey had taken out.

  “A couple of ISI officers just went past me, and in a few minutes they’re going to find Judith Anderson’s blood all over the apartment, and the gun I took from one of the ISI officers I killed. Her fingerprints are on it.”

  “The SEAL operators finally showed up?”

  “Yes,” McGarvey said, and he explained everything that had happened, including her death. “They probably know that she was with me.”

  “You have to get out of there right now, Mac. I’ll arrange a military flight out for you as soon as you can get out to the airport.”

  “I want you to get me an interview with Rajput in his office.”

  “Are you nuts?”

  “I don’t care how you do it, but I want him to want to see me immediately, before Haaris and whoever’s with him—and I’m betting that it’s someone from the Taliban—get there.”

  “They’ll shoot you on sight.”

  “I don’t think so. Tell him that I know about the missing nuclear weapons at Quetta and the explosion, plus the disabling of most of their arsenal by our people. I’ll make a deal with him for an exclusive interview with the Messiah and his Taliban friend. I think that Rajput will want to know what Travis Parks knows and how he came by his information.”

  “I can’t go through the normal media channels; you’re the competition, they wouldn’t agree to help even if you offered to become a pool reporter. In that case you’d have to take along one of their cameramen. It wouldn’t work.”

  “Goddamnit, Otto, I need this. Haaris is here and on the move; this is my chance, maybe my only chance.”

  “To do what, kemo sabe, kill him with your bare hands in the prime minister of Pakistan’s office?”

  “The bastard has a plan, and if I can push him hard enough maybe he’ll give me a clue.”

  “He’s smarter than that.”

  “He’s vain. Whatever he came to do will be big, and he needs an audience.”

  Otto was silent for several beats.

  “We’re running out of time,” McGarvey said. He could feel Otto’s anguish and fear, almost like the roar of a distan
t waterfall. “This isn’t a suicide mission, there’ll be too many witnesses.”

  “Even if you get inside and interview them, once you leave you’d be a walking dead man.”

  “They’d want me to file my story first. Haaris would. And then they’d have to find me.”

  Again Otto was silent for a moment or two, but when he came back he sounded resigned. “Getting the media involved would open a can of worms nobody wants opened, especially not Page or Bill Myers.” Air Force General C. William Myers was director of the National Security Agency. “Not to mention the White House. The blowback would be immense. We need to find another way.”

  McGarvey had considered another possibility, if the situation were to come to this point. It was the main reason he’d confided his real identity to Ross Austin. But it was last-ditch. “Austin knows who I am.”

  “He’s pressed Walt to pull you out immediately.”

  “Have Page call Ross, right now, and tell him that I may have gone rogue. Have Austin convince Powers to tell Rajput that I could be another Snowden with information potentially damaging not only to the U.S. but to Pakistan’s security.”

  “Rajput will have you arrested on the spot.”

  “He’ll want to find out what I know. Putin gave Snowden asylum, maybe Rajput’ll do the same for me.”

  “That’s crazy, Mac.”

  “You’re right. But just now crazy is my only option.”

  “It was your only option from the get-go.”

  “You have about twenty minutes to make it happen,” McGarvey said, and he ended the call.

  * * *

  He sat nursing his coffee for a while, before he laid down a few coins and walked down the block until a taxi came and pulled over for him. The driver, an old man, seemed excited.

  “I do not think I can take you to Constitution Avenue, sir,” the driver said. “There are too many people. The Messiah has finally come to us, praise Allah.”

  “The Secretariat.”

  The driver stopped and looked in the rearview mirror. “You’re American. I knew it. But you must know that this is a wondrous time for all of Pakistan.”

  “The Secretariat,” McGarvey said. “They are expecting me.”

  * * *