The Fourth Horseman

by David Hagberg

  Pete had put on a scarf to cover her hair, but the custom’s officer was indifferent; he didn’t even bother to check her face against the photo in her passport.

  At this time of night the airport was all but closed down and the highway into Islamabad was nearly deserted. She’d watched the replays of the satellite images from last week when this same stretch of road was a battleground: Taliban fighters seemed to be everywhere, and dozens of cars and small trucks were on fire along both sides of the highway, a few blocking the road. There had even been bodies lying in a two-hundred-meter stretch.

  Now it was quiet, the city to the west, and the Himalayan foothills beyond, sprinkled with streetlights. This was a nation finally at peace, and she almost felt like a night stalker come to do evil, something to do to break the peace, yet she knew two things: Dave Haaris did not want the peace to last and he was here to change everything, and that Mac was here, and that she loved him and that she would do everything within her power to help him even if it meant giving her own life.

  Pete turned to the Brit seated next to her. “So what’s your take on this Messiah?” she asked. She wanted some feedback, but mostly she wanted to be distracted for just a little while before she met with Austin or she didn’t know what she might do.

  He was young, probably not in his thirties, and he seemed a little flustered. “I don’t really know, ma’am.”

  “I won’t bite, and anyway, we’re allies.”

  “On the outside looking in, he seems legitimate,” the other, much older Brit sitting behind her said. “But nobody in my shop trusts him.”

  “Why’s that?” Pete asked.

  “It’s all too pat. He shows up out of the blue, lops off the head of Barazani and then supposedly goes on a walkabout with his people. Rubbish, if you ask me. The bastard is up to something, and I don’t think it’ll be good for any of us in the West.”

  “Neither do I,” Pete said, turning inward again. Getting Mac out of the Pakistanis’ custody would take the help of Austin as well as Powers, but it was afterward that worried her most. Mac wasn’t going to give up. It was one of his traits she loved most and yet feared the most.

  * * *

  They came into the city’s diplomatic enclave and to the American embassy, where their credentials were checked by a pair of marine sentries before they were allowed to drive up to the portico at the main entrance. They were met by another security officer, this one in civilian clothes, who opened the rear door for Pete.

  “Thanks for the lift, gentlemen,” she said, getting out.

  The officer closed the door for her and the Range Rover headed back to Post One.

  “Miss Day, if you’ll follow me, ma’am, Mr. Austin is expecting you.”

  Pete stopped just at the entrance to the two-story building and looked back the way she had come. “It’s quiet here,” she said. Now that she was close she tried to reach out to Mac, but she couldn’t feel him, and it disturbed her more than she wanted to admit.

  “Yes, ma’am, now. But it was busy this afternoon.”

  “Did you guys have any trouble here?”

  “Not here, but just about everywhere else. And I guess that was the spooky part, no crowds on our doorstep. We’re not used to it.”

  “I hear you,” Pete said. “But I don’t think it’ll last.”

  FIFTY

  Walt Page’s Cadillac limousine glided to a stop at the White House East Gate, where the guard, recognizing him, waved it through. Driving into the city from Langley he’d had a lot of time for thought, and nothing he had learned in the past twenty-four hours was of any comfort.

  The president had sent Mac to Pakistan but with deniability. If he got into trouble he would be cut loose. The White House simply could not afford to take a hit over the issues in Pakistan. Miller had already gone out on a limb sending her NEST people in to neutralize a fair portion of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, and so far there’d been absolutely no reaction.

  But anything else, even the smallest of incidents, could push Islamabad into some reaction, if for nothing else than to appease its people.

  And with the Messiah in the mix, actually bringing at least a temporary peace, it was as if the sword of Damocles hung over all of them. Without a doubt it was why the president’s national security adviser had ordered Ross Austin to out McGarvey. Ross understood the president’s thinking, but she’d been wrong, and he meant to convince her of just that.

  A marine was at the door, and just inside a Secret Service agent was waiting for him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Page. The president will be delayed for just a few minutes, and Miss Kalley asked if she might have a few words with you first.”

  The woman wanted a chance to explain herself, and Page was more than willing to hear her out. “I know the way,” he said.

  Kalley’s first-floor office was in the corner of the West Wing directly opposite the Oval Office. Josh Banks, her deputy NSA, whose office was next door to hers, looked up as Page passed. He had a long, hound dog face and he couldn’t conceal the fact that he was guilty of something, but he didn’t rise nor did he say anything.

  The president’s NSA looked up and smiled pleasantly when Page came around the corner. “Good afternoon, Mr. Director, it should only be a minute or so,” she said. “Anyway, I wanted to have a word with you first.”

  He closed the door and sat down. “Did the president authorize you to call Ross Austin?”

  “Directly to the point, as usual. No, she did not. But if a president had to make decisions on every single issue, our government would grind to a halt. It was my choice, considering the situation.”

  “Outing an intelligence agent in the field is a capital crime,” Page said, holding his temper in check. He’d not had many dealings with Kalley, but in the ones he’d had she seemed a bright, decisive woman, though somewhat egocentric.

  “Mr. McGarvey is not on the CIA’s payroll.”

  “You’re right, he refuses to take a paycheck. Nevertheless, he works for me, and in this instance under the president’s orders, something I mean to bring up.”

  “There’d be no profit in crossing me, Page. It’d be much easier if we could find a common ground so that we could work together for the good of the country.”

  “Nor would there be any profit in crossing Kirk McGarvey.”

  Kalley nearly came across her desk at him. “Don’t threaten me, you son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t interfere in an ongoing operation,” Page said, keeping his tone completely neutral, which was driving the NSA up the wall.

  “The situation out there is critical. The ISI has had absolutely no reaction to our incursion, nor has it allowed any news to leak to their media. Were you aware that they pulled Geo off the air again just two hours ago?” Geo was Pakistan’s leading news channel.

  “Yes, because they were getting too critical of the Messiah. They want to know who he is and where he came from.”

  “He’s brought peace for the moment. Something no one else has been able to do.”

  “Don’t be so goddamned ivory-tower naive. He has a schedule, and it’s set for less than two days from now.”

  “No reason to think it’s not benign.”

  “The man chopped off President Barazani’s head.”

  Kalley was silent for a long beat as she composed herself. “Is that what you’ve come here to tell the president?”

  “There’s more,” Page said.

  “Tell me.”

  “And the president,” Page said. “She’s expecting me.”

  * * *

  President Miller was working at her desk, her suit jacket off. She looked up when her secretary brought them in, but she wasn’t smiling.

  “I thought you would have come sooner,” she said.

  “There’ve been a number of developments,” Page said.

  Miller glanced at Kalley. “You two have spoken,” she said. “Under the circumstances I had no other choice but to withdraw Mr. McGarvey from the assignment.”r />
  “Having the ISI arrest him was the wrong choice for several reasons, Madam President.”

  “The only choice,” Miller shot back, her anger rising.

  “Something’s going to happen in less than two days’ time. We don’t know what it is, but it will possibly be a strike against the U.S. or our interests. Revenge for not only our incursion into Pakistan to assassinate bin Laden but for our strikes against their nuclear arsenal.”

  “They already tried the first, and it didn’t work,” Kalley said.

  “Because McGarvey stopped them. But there’s more. We think we know who the Messiah is, and it’s even more critical that we stop him now.”

  “Who is he?” the president asked.

  “David Haaris,” Page said, catching them completely by surprise.

  “Impossible,” Kalley said.

  “What’s your confidence level, Mr. Director?” the president asked.

  “Ninety percent, conservatively,” Page said. He told them what had happened to date, including the discovery of Haaris’s imposter in London. “McGarvey was at the Secretariat, presumably to interview Rajput, at the same time the Messiah and Mufti Fahad, the new TTP spokesman, showed up. It’s more than conceivable that Mac and the Messiah came face-to-face.”

  “If it was Haaris he would have recognized McGarvey from the start,” Kalley said.

  “Mac is traveling under false papers and a very good disguise,” Page said. “Fortunately, Ross had sense enough to out Mac’s work name and not his real ID.”

  “You’re ninety percent sure that Haaris is the Messiah, and you think he has something planned in two days, for which you don’t have a clue,” the president said. “What’s next?”

  “McGarvey’s operating as a blogger under the name of Travis Parks. Call the prime minister and remind him that we have freedom of speech and of the press, no matter how onerous it might seem to him. And assure him that Dr. Parks is not an employee of the CIA.”

  Miller swiveled her chair and looked out the bullet-proof windows at the Rose Garden for a long time. “Who else have you discussed this with?”

  “Some of my staff, but the number is small,” Page said.

  “Otto Rencke?” Kalley asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Saul?” the president asked.

  Saul Santarelli, the director of National Intelligence, was a bright man, but in Page’s estimation little more than a functionary for nothing more than another layer of bureaucracy.

  “No,” Page said.

  “Then don’t. The need-to-know list will go no further. I’ll telephone Rajput first thing in their morning and ask him to release McGarvey—Dr. Parks.”

  Page said nothing.

  “The Messiah is probably Haaris, but we don’t know if he has an agenda, so we can’t react until something happens. The next twenty-four hours will tell. But Mr. McGarvey’s orders remain the same. Kill the Messiah, whoever he is. Am I clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, Madam President,” Page said, surprised.

  FIFTY-ONE

  With the ambassador back in residence the embassy was busy. On the way upstairs Pete’s escort reminded her that they, like most of the other embassies whose staffs were returning, were on what amounted to a wartime footing.

  “A lot of it has to do with the nuclear incident near Quetta,” the young woman said. She looked as if she was just out of college. “We still don’t have many answers.”

  “Is it possible that the Taliban got their hands on one of the weapons and set it off by accident?” Pete asked.

  “God help us all, because only one went off and three are still missing.”

  “No sign of them?”

  “Not yet, but everyone’s looking.”

  Ross Austin, dressed in a light pullover sweater, jeans and deck shoes, was in the corridor just outside his office talking to a pair of marines in desert camos and bloused boots. They only carried pistols, but they wore Kevlar vests, pockets bulging with combat equipment.

  “I’ll just leave you here, ma’am,” Pete’s escort said, and she hurried down the corridor in the opposite direction.

  Austin looked up as Pete approached, then said something to the marines, who headed to the stairs.

  “Thanks for at least agreeing to talk to me instead of turning me around at the airport,” Pete told him.

  He was the perfect chief of station: of medium build, with a pleasantly plain face, an empty smile and a slightly vacant look in his soft brown eyes, completely without guile or aggression. He was a man who would never stand out in a crowded room or on a street corner in just about any city in the world. He could have been easily taken for an American businessman, a British tourist or an employee of a small Swiss bank.

  They went into his office. “Wasn’t my choice,” he told her. “Though with any luck I’ll have you on a plane out of here first thing in the morning.”

  Pete was jet-lagged and her temper rose. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

  “I was briefed by the director himself less than ten minutes ago. I know about Haaris and the imposter you burned in London, and I know what McGarvey’s real mission was.”

  “Haaris has an agenda and whatever he has planned will happen in less than two days.”

  “I’m sorry but I can’t envision Dave as the Messiah. It doesn’t fit, and from what I’m told the Company isn’t one hundred percent sure. Even Rencke can’t nail it.”

  “Then why the imposter in London?“

  “Dave has got something in mind, all right, but I suspect he simply wanted to step off the merry-go-round for a breather. He’s been going at it hammer-and-tong forever; time to take a vacation somewhere. An anonymous vacation. And I can’t say as I blame him.”

  “Tommy Boyle said just about the same thing,” Pete practically shouted.

  The office door was open and Austin went to shut it.

  “Are you guys out of your minds? Or has Haaris got something on both of you? Is it blackmail?”

  “This conversation will not continue,” Austin said angrily. “You’re on my turf now, and I don’t give a shit who says what, you’re out of here on the first flight I can arrange.”

  “Might not be your station for long. Outing a fellow agent is a capital offense. It’ll be a wonder if you don’t end up in a federal penitentiary somewhere, a lot sooner than you think.”

  “Believe what you will, Boylan, I did it for his own good, as well as for the good of this station and for American interests here.”

  Pete wanted to smash her fist into his face.

  “Hear me out,” Austin said. “McGarvey came here to assassinate the Messiah—whether he’s Dave Haaris or not—because the president was convinced that the guy is a major threat to Pakistan’s stability.”

  “What stability?”

  “Whatever your politics are, we need Pakistan, just as they need us.”

  “To help us fight the war on terrorists.”

  “Yes.”

  “Like the Taliban, whose mouthpiece, I’m told, marched up Constitution Avenue practically hand in hand with the Messiah, right into the office of the prime minister,” Pete said. “A man, I might remind you, who probably hired the German assassination squad to take out our SEAL Team Six operators last year. McGarvey stopped them, but you know this. Yet you outed Mac to this son of a bitch.”

  “I outed Travis Parks, who Rajput promised he would release to my custody this morning.”

  “Mac almost certainly killed two ISI officers who were sent to take him down after what he did at the reception yesterday. And he caused the death and disappearance of another of them. Do you honestly think that Rajput doesn’t know this? Do you honestly think that he’s going to order Mac’s release?”

  Austin just looked at her.

  “You stupid, silly bastard,” Pete said, because she couldn’t think of anything else. She was sick at heart and frantically trying to figure out a way to get Mac out of wherever he was being held or at least get w
ord to him that she was here.

  Austin looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Ambassador,” he said.

  Don Powers, in gray slacks and an open-collar shirt under a dark blue blazer, was at the open door. He didn’t look happy. He came the rest of the way in and closed it.

  “I have no real need to know the day-to-day operational details of your station except when it has an effect on what I’m trying to do here. Pakistan is in turmoil and I’m here to guide U.S. interests in the long-term. That cannot—must not—include divisiveness at any level in this embassy. Am I clear on this point, Mr. Austin?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.”

  “And you are?”

  “I’m traveling on a diplomatic passport under the name Doris Day. In reality I work for Mr. Page and I’ve just arrived from London.”

  “Your being here, I presume, has something to do with the actual identity of this man who the people are calling the Messiah.”

  “Yes, sir. I was sent to help Travis Parks.”

  “The other CIA officer that Walt presumably sent over. I can tell you, Miss Day, or whoever you really are, that Dr. Parks has made a royal mess of things and I too want him gone as soon as we can secure his release from the authorities. It’s a wonder the ISI didn’t send assassins after him.”

  “They did. But all three of them failed.”

  “How do you mean, ‘failed’?” Powers demanded, but it was clear he knew exactly what Pete was saying.

  “He was forced to defend himself. They’re dead.”

  Powers was taken aback. “Murdered? He murdered three ISI officers?”

  “It was that or lose his own life, sir,” Pete said. “Did Mr. Page explain to you who we believe the Messiah to be?”

  “My God,” Powers said. “How am I to explain this? The man actually came from Washington with me.”

  “Explain what to whom?”

  “To the legitimate government of Pakistan. To General Rajput.”

  “Are you suggesting that one of our people face criminal proceedings? You know how it will turn out.”

  “My hands are tied.”

  “What about the Messiah?”