Retribution (9781429922593) (25 page)

“Any connection with the ISI?”

“None that I've found so far. My gut feeling is these guys are the city version of the dacoits—bandits, enforcers, tough guys who originally started out in India and Myanmar. They'll work for anyone with money—and they'll do anything from robbing trains, to raping your neighbor's daughter if you get into a feud.”

“Kidnapping and murder?”

“Yeah. And they have a reputation of being good at what they do.”

“What's your confidence level?”

“That they're dacoits? Ninety percent. I'll have it nailed in a couple of minutes. But listen, Mac, if you go barging in there right now with the four of them on site, plus Naisir's wife, and very likely Naisir himself within the next twenty minutes or so, there'll be a bloodbath, and there's no guarantee you or Pete will come out of it in one piece.”

“You're right, but I am going to take a quick pass.”

“And then what?”

“I'm going to do exactly what they're expecting me to do. Wait until the middle of the night and then hit them.”

The line was silent for a longish moment or two. “By then Schlueter will most likely be there. Seven-to-one odds.”

“Actually seven-to-two with Pete. And they'll be overconfident.”

“Shit,” Otto said. “One of these days you're going to make a mistake.”

“Not today,” McGarvey said. “Soon as Naisir shows up let me know.”

Again Otto was silent for a second or two. “No way I can talk you out of this?”

“I'm not leaving Pete there.”

“They won't do anything to her; it's you they want.”

“That's right. And I'm not going to disappoint them.”

“Shit.”

*   *   *

The car turned out to be a chocolate-brown Mini Cooper, with the bigger engine and twin pipes, plus a portable GPS unit suction-cupped to the windshield. McGarvey plugged the address of Naisir's house in the city into the unit. When he arrived, he parked across the street.

Traffic was thick downtown, but orderly, and the impression that he got was of a carefully managed, almost squeaky-clean city, reminiscent in some ways of a Swiss town but with an Islamic flair.

He walked across the street and rang the bell at the front gate. An older man in jeans and a white shirt buttoned at the collar answered the door.

“I'd like to speak to Major Naisir,” McGarvey said in English.

“May I ask who is calling?”

“Mr. McGarvey.”

“Yes, sir. I will tell the major that you called. Most unfortunately he is not presently at home.”

“When do you expect him or Mrs. Naisir?”

“I couldn't say.”

*   *   *

He drove over to the government section, where he slowly passed the Pakistan Secretariat buildings on Constitution Avenue. Then he turned around at the bus station and passed the parliament building, the National Library, the Supreme Court, turning on Bank Road. He followed it into the diplomatic section, where he parked in front of the German embassy.

If he had picked up a tail he hadn't spotted it, but he was pretty sure that Naisir had instructed the hotel staff to keep an eye on his activities. They would have reported the car to whatever number they had been given. In addition he'd spotted surveillance cameras on the roofs of all the government buildings, including the German embassy's. If they were watching, they knew where he was. It was even likely that the delay in delivering the car had given the ISI time to plant a GPS tracker. Which was exactly what he wanted.

He got out of the car and sat down at a bench twenty yards away, well out of the range of any listening device that also may have been planted. He telephoned the U.S. embassy and was immediately connected with Don Simmons, the CIA's chief of station.

“Mr. Director, I was hoping that you wouldn't be calling me, but I'm not surprised that you have.”

When McGarvey had briefly served as the DCI, Simmons had worked as assistant COS in Cairo. They had met once at headquarters, and again in London at a joint intelligence services conference, where the topic of discussion was the Middle East, which everyone had agreed even then was on the verge of a meltdown. He'd seemed to be a no-nonsense career officer with a limited sense of humor. The work of the CIA was serious business.

“I need to get in touch with Milt Thomas.”

“I'll not involve my staff in any clandestine operation you've come here for.”

“Nor am I asking for it. I'd simply like him to watch for someone coming in on an Air Berlin flight this afternoon. Routine. As far as I'm concerned he can even report it to his police contact.”

“And then what?”

“Give me a call and let me know.”

“And then what?”

“Nothing.”

Simmons hesitated, but then gave McGarvey a phone number. “If you get yourself into any trouble with the police or the ISI, you're on your own.”

McGarvey broke the connection and phoned Thomas, who answered immediately in Punjabi.

“I need a favor,” McGarvey said.

“You'll have to clear it with Don,” Thomas said in English.

“Already have. I want you to meet an Air Berlin flight this afternoon. See if a woman gets off, and see what she's carrying and who, if anyone, meets her.”

“How will I know who she is?”

“I'll send you a couple of photos from my cell phone.”

“Do I need to tail her?”

“Depends on who she meets or doesn't meet. But listen up: be careful. This woman is very good, and if Major Naisir is the one to meet her, back off immediately.”

“I hear you,” Thomas said. “Give me the details.”

 

FORTY-TWO

The neighborhood around the safe house was quiet. It normally was at this hour on a weekday because there were no food or craft stalls here, no restaurants or coffee shops. Nevertheless, Naisir approached with a great deal of caution. His technical department had called with the information from the hotel about the Mini Cooper, and already the calls were filtering in from surveillance cameras in the political section of the city about the American's presence.

“He just finished speaking with someone on his cell phone,” Sergeant Salarzai reported. He worked in Naisir's section, and in the few months he'd been at that position he had proved to be a very capable aide. He was one of the few men in the directorate whom Naisir trusted.

“Who did he phone?”

“We don't know. He parked in front of the German embassy and sat on a bench. It's all we have, except that he made two calls, both of them brief.”

“Where is he now?”

“Sitting in his car in Jinnah Park not far from your house. He entered a specific address in his GPS, in Rawalpindi, but he drove to the park instead.”

Naisir had parked down the block from the safe house, and he instinctively looked in the rearview mirror. “Let me know when he moves.”

“Yes, sir. Can you tell me the operational code so that I can log my activities?”

“Later,” Naisir said. “Just keep me informed.” He phoned Ayesha.

“We have company,” she told him.

“The woman?”

“Yes. She had a gun pointed at me, but your four contractors arrived just in time. Everything here is under control. Where are you?”

“Just outside. But McGarvey will show up just as I thought he would.”

“Early?”

“I don't think he'll try anything until tonight.”

“I'll open the gate for you,” Ayesha said.

By the time he got to the end of the block the gate had swung open; he drove inside and parked next to his wife's Fiat and the Lexus. There wasn't a third car, which meant the woman who'd traveled with McGarvey had come in on foot. He'd passed an Aveo parked around the corner—or at least what was left of the American compact car—it had been stripped of its wheels and just about everything else easily removable. Pakistanis were an enterprising people.

Ayesha met him at the door and they embraced. “I think the woman would have shot me,” she said.

A chill hand gripped his heart, thinking about what might have happened. “You should not have come here.”

“Nonsense. A wife's place is in support of her husband.” She came outside and closed the door, out of earshot of the others in the house. “Whatever you think of women in general, do not underestimate the one who came with McGarvey. Even the four dacoits you hired have been unable to intimidate her, and they are very hard men.”

“What has happened?”

“She had a cell phone, so obviously she and McGarvey have talked. He knows that she's here.”

“That's the whole point,” Naisir said. “I want to use her as a bargaining chip; she's of no other use to me.”

“And she knows it. She refuses to call McGarvey.”

“There are methods.”

Ayesha shook her head. “If you mean torture, I don't think they'll work.”

“Anyone can be made to talk.”

“Not this one, Ali.”

“What makes her so special?”

“I'd bet anything that she is in love with McGarvey. And a woman in love will endure anything for her man.”

“Including dying?”

“Yes, including dying.”

“We'll see,” Naisir. “Where is she?”

“Upstairs in the inside bedroom.”

One of the dacoits was leaning against the wall at the foot of the stairs. He was very large for a Pakistani, towering six inches above Naisir and easily weighing two hundred pounds. His face was broad, his eyes very dark, with five days' growth of whiskers on his face. He wore jeans and a faded dungaree shirt, a scarf around his neck, very Western. And he looked angry.

“What do I call you?” Naisir asked.

“Sipra will do.”

“Where are the others?”

“Jat and Mashud Khel are upstairs watching the front and rear approaches, and Swati is in the living room waiting to begin.”

“Probably nothing will happen until sometime tonight. In the meantime I may have another job of work for you. Something perhaps a bit more pleasant.”

The dacoit shrugged indifferently.

“Give me just a minute with her, then bring up her cell phone and two glasses of brandy,” Naisir told his wife.

“Don't forget what I told you.”

“Not to worry. We're just going to have a nice chat,” Naisir said, and he went upstairs to the bedroom whose door was closed. It was the one room on the second floor without a window, used occasionally for interrogations. Knocking once, he went in.

Pete was sitting on the floor, her back propped against a wall. She looked up but said nothing.

“The bed would be more comfortable,” Naisir told her.

“I hate bedbugs. Filthy creatures. Just like this shit hole of a country.”

Naisir didn't bother reacting. “What do I call you?”

“Doris Sampson; it's the name on my passport. Or ma'am.”

“You came in with Kirk McGarvey, both of you under false passports. For that you could be arrested and put on trial.”

“Please do.”

“First I would like you to phone Mr. McGarvey and tell him your situation. I'd like to sit down and have a serious conversation with him.”

“No.”

“Just one brief phone call.”

“No.”

Ayesha came in with the phone and two snifters of brandy.

Naisir held out the phone to Pete, but she refused to take it. He handed her a brandy, which she took. She then poured it on the floor and handed the glass back.

“Have Sipra come up here,” he told his wife.

She went out in the corridor and called for the dacoit to come upstairs.

“A simple telephone call, and we will leave you alone. You have my word.”

Pete looked up at him, a small smile on her lips.

Sipra showed up, very large in the doorway. Naisir handed him the cell phone. “I want her to call Mr. McGarvey. If she refuses, rape her. Maybe she'll change her mind after all.”

Pete jumped up. “Wait,” she said.

Naisir looked at her indifferently. “No,” he said, and he walked out.

 

FORTY-THREE

McGarvey parked at the bus station a couple of blocks from Naisir's safe house. He picked up the portable GPS unit and tossed it in the back of a pickup truck as it passed by, then went over to the taxi queue and climbed in the backseat of a cab.

“Where may I take you, sir,” the driver asked politely in English.

“I'm not sure of the address but I think it's close,” McGarvey said, and he gave him the directions he'd taken from the GPS.

It was after lunch already, and although McGarvey hadn't eaten since last night, he wasn't hungry, thinking about Pete. She was a well-trained capable officer, but her specialty was interrogation, not field work. He found that he was beginning to admire her, even though he was worried about her safety.

Just as they passed the safe house the gate opened. A Mercedes shot out of the compound and drove off in the opposite direction, Naisir at the wheel.

Around the corner, they came to a narrow garbage-strewn alley that snaked its way between a dozen buildings to the rear of the safe house. The lane was far too narrow for the cab, and they passed it.

“I think I got the wrong directions. Take me back to the bus station, please,” McGarvey said.

“Can you say the house number?” the driver asked.

“No. I was just given directions.”

Back at the bus station, McGarvey paid the driver and walked around the corner to a bustling tea shop, where he got a table on the sidewalk and ordered sweet tea. Ten minutes later his phone vibrated. It was Milt Thomas.

“The woman came in early,” he said. “I was waiting to pick up another fare when I spotted her coming out of the terminal. For just a second I thought that I might be able to pick her up, but she just got into a Mercedes that was waiting for her.”