We weren’t just playing tourist. I wanted the others to understand the size of the problem we were dealing with. On a quiet, crappy weather day, you can easily find a few thousand people wandering through the Red Fort or stopping by any of the other tourist attractions in town. So imagine how many people were going to be queuing up when the Games were on.
The Indians not only had to worry about the very high value sites related to the Games — the stadiums, practice fields, nearby hotels, etc. — but they had their national treasures to look after. Somebody blows himself up on the first floor of Moti Masjid (the Pearl Mosque), few people are going to say, “Gosh, good thing it wasn’t in the middle of the badminton game. What a horror show that would have been.”
But that’s the whole problem with dealing with terror defensively. You can put ten thousand troops around the White House, then “lose” if the assholes blow up a telephone booth in the bus station.
Which is why you need a Red Cell mentality. You take the game to their home field.
But enough of my soapbox. You know the speech so well by now you can give it yourself.
We went around to a few more places — Qutub Minar, Purana Qila, Jantar Mantar, Humayun’s Tomb, all various highlights of Mughal rule.
Who the hell were the Mughals?
Mughal = Mogul. They were an Islamic imperial power that ruled a lot of northern India and Pakistan from about 1526 to 1857 when the British formally extended their rule over the remaining stretches of independent India. At their height, the Mughals controlled nearly all of India — the island of Sri Lanka at the tip remained independent — Pakistan, and a good hunk of what’s now Afghanistan.
Islam’s history on the subcontinent goes back to the Islamic Caliphate, which reached Pakistan somewhere in the early eighth century. India in those days was the only place in the world where you could find diamonds, so it’s not surprising that the caliphate and its successors viewed the vast south with hungry eyes. It took centuries of on and off war before the country came under Islamic rule, but well before that, traders and businesspeople had spread the word of Allah’s great prophet into the Indian heartland. By the time the Mughals get going, a good part of the population is Muslim.
Practicing the same religion as the ruling class didn’t guarantee you a cushy job or a bright future, but it certainly didn’t hurt. However, the various forms of Hinduism remained the majority beliefs, and you had a smattering of Christianity and Judaism, mostly in the trading areas.
The result of all of this history is a pretty thick mix of religions elbowing each other. Today, Hindus account for roughly eighty percent of the population, according to the people counters at the CIA. Islam is practiced by a little over thirteen percent of the country. But in a country of 1.17 billion, thirteen percent is a humungous number.
Shunt says it’s over 152 million. I didn’t know he had that many fingers.
Only Pakistan and Indonesia have more Muslims. Neither country has anywhere near as many members of another religion. If you can’t find terrorist wannabes here, you can’t find them anywhere.
* * *
You’re yawning, and so were the boys. I brought them back to the fancy hotel and put them to bed. Then I went to check in with Captain Birla.
I found the captain at his desk, staring at a disorganized mess of papers. He’d spent the night interviewing the men who’d been on duty, then talking to various people in the government and military. He didn’t look so much tired as rattled. His skin was paler than normal, and he wasn’t very swarthy to begin with. He rubbed his eyes as I came in. I could hear his bones cracking as he unfolded himself from behind the desk.
“A terrible crisis, Commander Rick,” he said, rising. “A crisis of confidence.”
“Whose confidence?”
“Mine. One of my men must be a traitor, don’t you think?”
“It’s possible.” I couldn’t lie. “But it’s not the only possibility.”
“Someone knew that the prisoners were here,” he continued. “And that someone must have alerted the terrorists. They pulled off this operation. Very smart.”
“Very smart, that’s true.”
If I’d thought Captain Birla was a traitor, his demeanor now would have convinced me otherwise. But just because he wasn’t evil didn’t mean that he wasn’t responsible — at the end of the day, the commander has to step up and accept the blame when the shit falls through the bottom of the bucket.
“What would you do in my place?” he asked.
“Kick ass until I figured out what the hell the story was.”
Captain Birla smiled sadly.
“In India,” he said, “we do not kick ass.”
“Then it’s time to start.”
* * *
Because they had been drawn from a variety of different services and agencies, Captain Birla didn’t know his men well enough to really judge how loyal they might or might not be. There hadn’t been time yet for him to build up the team camaraderie that would make a traitor stick out like a sore thumb.
Not that the traitor would necessarily be the guy who was complaining the loudest, or flinching at the moment of attack. Those were different problems — fixable in some cases, fatal in others.
After you’ve been in the trenches for a while, good commanders develop a sixth sense about who the real assholes are: who’s going to be sharpening the combat knife and aiming for your balls at the nearest opportunity. It’s not really something you can learn on the practice field, let alone from reading dossiers.
The ability to read that kind of loyalty isn’t something you can pick up in officers’ training school either. You have to have it pounded into you. I developed it in my early days in the navy. Vietnam was my finishing school. The final exam was pass or fail — massive fail, as the kids say now, with fail equaling death.
The bureaucrats forget that, in India and everywhere else. It’s not surprising. These days the world is run by MBAs who can whip out a spreadsheet faster than Mongoose can unzip his pants. God bless them. Mathematics and Excel are no substitute, though, for the juice that burns a hole in your stomach on patrol at four in the morning.
“Already the papers have news of it,” the captain told me, pawing through the papers on his desk. “Read this.”
He pulled up a newspaper folded open to page five. Beneath the picture of the latest Bollywood superstar sunbathing on a beach was the headline “Security Scandal Brewing.”
The headline was a hell of a lot more informative than the story itself, a six-line squib that stated that the government was conducting a sweep for possible terrorists in advance of the Commonwealth Games. In the process of the sweep, several possible terrorists had been picked up but “now have been released, presenting possible dangers to the nation.”
I told Captain Birla that it might not even have anything to do with what happened the night before. After all, embroidering hearsay and rumors like that usually took a few days.
“You don’t know India,” said Captain Birla. “This would have come directly from one of the police services Minister Dharma told to look for our men. There will be more stories, angling to make themselves into a position for promotions or to bury axes in an opponent.”
“You have to start testing the security arrangements for the Games,” I said. “Press on with it.”
He gave me a rueful look. I knew what he was thinking — any unit that was criticized for having lax procedures would now be able to throw his own unit’s failures back in his face.
Our security at the gate was poor, Madam Minister? Who is making this criticism? The group that lost two important terrorists from a well-secured prison right on our doorstep?
He’d just have to deal with it.
I shared a fresh pot of Darjeeling with him, trying to buck him up. By the end of our talk, he was still pale, but a little more energetic. I’m not taking any credit. Caffeine and copious amounts of sugar tend to lift any mood.
* * *
>
Captain Birla was down in the dumps. Minister Dharma was fuming. She’d spent a large part of the night talking to various parliament members and government officials, working the phones to keep her political capital high. While undoubtedly the effort had paid off, she was a woman who didn’t like to be deprived of things she considered vital, like sleep.
“Mr. Marcinko, I am glad to see you this morning,” she said when I went over to her office. “Any news on the prisoners?”
“Nothing except for the car,” I told her.
“And how did you happen to find the vehicle?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“You are sure that it is connected to the incident?”
“It answers the description.”
“Captain Birla told me that it had been in a fire.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“You didn’t start the fire, did you?”
“No.”
“The fire destroyed any possible evidence. There were many footprints, and deep tracks in the mud.”
“I’m sure there were.”
She stared at me for a moment, as if trying to figure out if I might have been involved in helping the men escape. I’m not sure what my motive would have been.
Suddenly she smiled. It was as if the sun had broken through the clouds on Day 41 of Noah’s Flood.
“Come,” she said, rising from her desk and taking my hand. “We will have breakfast.”
Never one to resist the touch of a beautiful woman, I floated along behind her as she glided down the steps of her ministry building and levitated across the street to an old but swanky hotel. The lobby looked like a fronds-R-us showcase, with at least ten different varieties of froufrou trees in copper buckets the size of wading pools. Twelve crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, each one with enough chiseled glass to cover the exterior of every office in downtown Dubai. The floor was made of a rose-colored marble, inlaid with black amethyst and the occasional green and red ruby.
We crossed a pair of silk rugs and reached a large door guarded by two massive ceramic beasts, fantastical creatures that looked like their purpose was to scare people’s appetites away. A short man in a black suit appeared from inside. He smiled grandly and threw up his arms.
“Minister, you are here. The day is complete.”
I have no doubt he was being sincere. He motioned us inside, waving his arms as if he were cutting away a barrier. Two waiters appeared, practically pushing each other for the honor of pulling out the minister’s chair.
I got my own.
“Your guest, today?” said the maître d’.
“This is a friend of mine from America, Mr. Marcinko,” she said.
“The Rogue Warrior we have heard so much about. An honor.”
I’ll take fawning when I can get it.
“An American breakfast?” he asked.
“I’ll take coffee and some fruit.”
He bowed and disappeared without asking the minister what she wanted. Apparently her habits were so well known there was no need to.
“You are on a health kick?” she asked.
“Not particularly,” I said.
“Eating right is a wise thing. It helps you keep your strength up.”
Before I could answer, the waiters returned. One had a silver platter covered by a dome so shiny I could have shaved by it. He whisked off the top, revealing two pieces of crustless toast, dry. As he set it down, the second waiter put down a cup and a pot of tea for the minister.
“Is that your whole breakfast?” I asked.
“Like you, I try to watch what I eat. When a woman reaches a certain age.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “We’re not like you men, you know. Perpetually handsome.”
As she said this, her foot brushed up against my pants leg.
“Some women are destined to look beautiful at any age,” I told her.
“You are a charmer,” she said, picking up her tea. “But that is your reputation — you know exactly what to say to a woman to make her feel good.”
“I try.”
“It takes more than words to win a woman’s heart.”
Her foot slipped off my calf … and reached my thigh.
I felt a tingle higher up … my cell phone, vibrating with an incoming call.
I ignored the first ring.
“I believe you should answer that,” said Minister Dharma. “It might be important.”
I pulled out the phone. I’d sensed it was Karen — and I was right.
A coincidence? I think not.
“Dick, are you alone?” she asked.
“Not exactly.”
“Well, can you talk?”
I excused myself and walked back out to the lobby.
“Go ahead.”
“First of all, I miss you,” she told me.
“I miss you, too.”
There was a sigh on her end, and some warm gushy stuff that is none of your business. Then she got to the ostensible purpose of the call.
“Admiral Jones called a little while ago. He wanted to know if you were still in India.”
Admiral Jones = Director, Christians in Action (CIA).
“Doesn’t he have a whole staff of people keeping track of where I am?”
“I think he was just being polite. He seemed to know you were in Delhi.”
“What did he want?”
“There’s a station chief he wants you to talk to, Omar Mahler. He’s expecting your call.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And there’s something up with the State Department. Someone called over to the office and left a message looking for you.”
“Did you give them my sat number?”
“I wanted to check with you first.”
I’ve done more than my share of work for the Christians in Action over the past few years, thanks to my friend Ken. He was an admiral before being blackmailed into joining the agency and becoming DCI — Dedicated Chief Idiot, or Director of Central Intelligence, depending on your perspective.
Ken sipped but never swallowed the agency Kool-Aid, so he does have moments of lucidity, which may explain why he’s hired me several times. Then again, maybe that’s just proof of his insanity.
The State Department was another story. Red Cell International hasn’t worked for the men in the funny pants legs for roughly a decade. To be honest, I wasn’t exactly looking for work either. The security business, unfortunately, is recession-proof.
I exchanged a few promises with Karen, then went back into the restaurant. In my absence, my place had been taken by a prominent member of parliament. Minister Dharma introduced him as Prince Fuzziwig, or something similar, saying he was a member of the opposition.
“The loyal opposition, I hope,” he said, practically drooling on the table. He wrenched his eyes away from her — it looked as if he were uncoupling a powerful magnet — and looked at me. “You must be the famous American we have heard about, come to help us secure the Games.”
“I hope I can contribute.”
“These Games are very important to India,” said Prince Fuzziwig. “Our prestige is on the line. We have to prove to the world that we are a twenty-first-century nation.”
“I’m sure you’ll do that.”
“Many people do not have the highest opinion of India. We have to prove them wrong.”
I’m not sure how playing badminton in the Delhi heat was going to burnish India’s image, but I didn’t argue. It is somewhat amazing that grown-ups believe that a few sporting contests will establish the host country as a major international player.
The prince was flanked by a pack of staff members, most of them young men who were trying to discreetly catch a glimpse of Minister Dharma’s cleavage. Unfortunately for them it was well hidden under a wispy but strategically folded scarf. I wanted to talk to her about some of the politics Captain Birla had alluded to, but it was clear that wasn’t going to happen now. So I told her that I had a few errands to take care of and
would have to be going.
“It was so good to see you this morning,” she said, rising.
She gave me a peck on the cheek to say good-bye.
A lesser man’s knees would have buckled. As it was, I had trouble breathing normally until the fetid fumes of the street cleared my lungs.
( VI )
“The Dick Marcinko. The Rogue Warrior. Mr. Know It All. I’m surprised you could get into the building. Did you have to turn your head sideways?”
“I take it you’re Omar?”
Omar Mahler, station chief of India, bishop of India in the CIA hierarchy, scowled at me. We’d arranged to meet in my hotel lobby — knowing the size of his expense account, I figured I’d rub it in.
“We have to go someplace where we can talk,” he grumbled, not deigning to officially identify himself. Then again, he probably thought this was clever spycraft, having blurted my name to half the paparazzi in the city.
I suggested my suite.
“It’s probably bugged,” he grumbled.
It wasn’t, but I didn’t argue. We ended up taking a walk down the driveway of the hotel to the road. Anyone with a shotgun mike would have been able to hear what we said, but I knew it wasn’t going to be all that interesting. Omar’s sneer made it obvious that he was here only because his boss told him he had to be.
Most spymasters are friendly, outgoing types who can’t help but make people like them. After all, their job really comes down to making friends, then screwing them. Kind of like a banker or a used car salesman.
But every so often you run into an Omar — a sourpuss who’s sure that the world is out to personally screw him.
Maybe not the world. Maybe just me.
“So the rumor is, you fucked up,” Omar said as we walked along the road.
“How’s that?”
“You flew into Pakistan with the Gurkha squad, picked up a couple of tourists, then brought them back, figuring you’d be clever. But the tangos outthought you,” added Omar. “They got away. Who’d they bribe?”
RW16 - Domino Theory Page 9
