State of Honour (22 page)

Hawks collapsed limply to the ground, as if his muscles had disintegrated. A pool of black-red blood formed around his lifeless face, flowing steadily from the nickel-sized hole in his cranium. Tom clenched his aching jaw, trying his best to remain calm. The bodyguards looked twitchy, their open hands hanging loose at their sides. Tom breathed shallow breaths through his swelling mouth. Things weren’t going well. He decided to improvise and offer Swiss a deal of sorts; one that didn’t depend on him trusting the Frenchman.

“I wanna speak to the secretary,” he said.

“Why would you want to do that?” Swiss asked, holstering his revolver.

“To know she’s safe, for now at least. To say I’m sorry. I never did get to tell her that. I’m sentimental that way. Then I’ll tell you all I know,” he said.

“Everything, Mr Dupree.”

Tom nodded.

Swiss took out a cellphone, and walked over to a corner of the warehouse out of earshot. The bodyguards looked nervously about. It was an isolated spot, but Swiss’s revolver wasn’t suppressed, and there was no way that they could’ve foreseen what had just happened.

A minute later, Swiss came back and put the cell to Tom’s ear.

“Ma’am.”

“Tom. Is … is that you?”

Her voice was frail, but controlled.

“I’ll keep my promise. I swear it.”

Swiss jerked the phone away, disconnecting the call. “It’s not nice to give people false hope, Mr Dupree. Now tell me.”

Tom stayed silent.

Swiss’s face didn’t react this time. He just put his cell in his breast pocket. “Call me if he decides to speak,” he said, addressing the two men who were still standing either side of Tom.

“And if he don’t?” the one to Tom’s left said.

“The fuck you think Mr Swiss is paying you for?” the heavyset bodyguard said.

Swiss began to walk away, but stopped and turned around halfway to the door. “Your friend, Steve Coombs,” he said, tapping his pocket. “He was right here. Took his blood money with a filthy grin on his face.”

Money, Tom thought. The guy had sold out for money.

Swiss left with his two bodyguards, the door banging shut behind them.

After a few seconds, one of the men moved around in front of Tom and took out a chisel with a narrow blade, filed to a point at the end. As the sound of Swiss’s car could be heard driving away he grinned.

“We get paid by the hour,” the man said. “So me and my buddy here figure we’ll make it last till morning.”

Just then, Lester appeared on the mezzanine floor above, levelling his suppressed SIG.

“Make like starfish,” he said as he began to descend the metal staircase.

They hesitated. Tom figured after the beating he’d received they’d better do as they were told quickly. Lester had a look on his face, one that he’d seen a couple of times before. He was mightily aggrieved. If they weren’t compliant soon, he’d cap them, probably feign a less-than-lethal shot to start off with before killing them outright. Lucky for them, they assumed the position without a scene.

Lester walked over to Tom, bent over him and cut his hands free with a Stanley knife. Tom rubbed his wrists and stood up.

“Thanks, man,” he said.

“No problem. That hurt?” Lester said, staring at Tom’s bloody nose.

“Not any more.”

Lester grinned, handed Tom a SIG and walked over to the two men on the ground. He knelt down and began putting flex-cuffs on them. Harshly.

Tom looked up to the mezzanine floor. Karen was standing there. “Did you get everything?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, nodding.

Tom had banked on being taken to the warehouse. Hawks would be cautious. Apart from being involved in something that could get him a life sentence in solitary, he was ex-CIA. He wouldn’t take a man anywhere to beat on him. He would have to be sure that he was in a controlled environment where there’d be no nasty surprises, like hidden CCTV cameras, a nosy cop or a vigilant security guard. The warehouse was the only building owned by ADC in the vicinity.

Tom had resolved to make his part in it as convincing as possible, and, since they would have been expecting to tackle a DS special agent, that meant he’d had to make it difficult to take him. But the road trap had been a genuine surprise.

When he’d gotten to the warehouse, he’d known he’d have to take a beating. If he’d cracked too early on, Hawks would’ve suspected something. The plan was going well for a while. Hawks had admitted his involvement. But the arrival of Swiss and two handy-looking bodyguards hadn’t figured in Tom’s plan, either. And now Hawks was dead and Swiss was gone. But at least he knew that Swiss was in on it up to his immaculate blond hair.

Karen, who had walked down from the first floor, carrying a canvas bag, strolled over to him. “Let me,” she said. She touched Tom’s nose gently with her thumb and forefinger. “You want me to fix it?”

“Sure.”

“It’ll hurt more than when he broke it.”

“Go a–”

She twisted it hard. There was a sharp crack.

“Jesus,” he said, tears forming in his eyes.

“There, there,” she said. “It looks fine.”

Lester walked over to them. “You think I shoulda tried to tackle Swiss and his bodyguards?”

“No. Too risky,” Tom said.

“That’s good, cuz Karen here had an idea,” he replied.

“You did?” Tom asked.

Karen walked over to the two bound men, crouched down beside them. As she took a couple of glass phials from the bag, she turned and smiled. She said she’d fill him in on the way out to the VW. Then she drugged them. By the time they woke up, the secretary’s fate would have been decided.

It had already been agreed that Karen would set up surveillance video cameras as evidence. When Swiss had arrived unexpectedly, she had decided to act.

Swiss’s dull-gold Range Rover had been parked beside the other car in the lot. She’d opened the chained fire door that led to the fire escape with Lester’s boltcutters, ducking down as she’d checked that nobody was standing guard. After descending the metal steps, she’d jogged over to the Range Rover. She’d taken out a couple of magnetized objects each the size of a matchbox, and placed them onto the car’s chassis: a listening bug and a location transmitter. Any onboard detection system would be rendered inert by the third object, an anti-alarm tremor field that repelled the signature probes, which she’d placed under the front, driver-side wheel arch, tilted to an angle to avoid all but the most diligent sweep by a mirror. That done, she’d run back to the fire escape and let herself in. By the time she’d settled down beside Lester behind a stack of cardboard boxes on the mezzanine floor, Swiss had been on his way out.

Karen knelt in the back of the van, her hands twiddling plastic dials on a black-box receiver, her ears covered by padded headphones. There were two large plastic suitcases, too, containing, Lester said, “kickass equipment”. He was driving back towards the Potomac, with Tom sitting beside him.

“Those bugs gonna work, Karen?” Tom asked, turning around.

“I’m on it,” she said.

“Why don’t we just get the feds to lift him? We got the evidence,” Lester said.

“We do that, the secretary could be dead in an hour. We know Swiss is in direct contact with her kidnappers. They might think he’ll cut a deal. I can’t risk that. And, more importantly, we don’t know where she is. Swiss is the only man who can lead us to her. Thanks to Karen.”

He had an idea now, too.

They stopped at a gas station to fill up. There was a convenience store to the right. The sun was still out, the highway on either side slithering into the distance like glistening eels. Karen said she fancied a candy bar. Tom put on shades, got out first and walked over to a payphone, leaving Lester to pump the gas. He didn’t want the man he was about to ring to have the number of his disposable cell. As he reached the payphone he was feeling a little apprehensive. He was about to ring his father.

They hadn’t spoken in a while and even when they had it’d tended to be a short conversation, almost businesslike. After Tom turned eighteen, his father paid for his college education and seemed genuinely pleased that he was going to be studying French literature at Florida State University. But he didn’t attend Tom’s graduation and disappeared for weeks at a time. When he tried to find out where, he always drew a blank. Even his phone number had been unobtainable.

Tom punched in the number of his father’s office at the Pentagon, which was less than a twenty-minute drive away in Arlington County. The Pentagon housed the rapidly growing Defense Intelligence Agency, the military’s primary intel-gathering and special-missions organization, which worked in tandem with the CIA. Its core collectors, or frontline operatives, were drawn from both the military and civilians. Tom had a feeling his father was something to do with the DIA, or at least was affiliated to it.

“Major General Dupont’s office,” a woman’s voice said.

“I’d like to speak with the general, please.”

“He’s in a meeting. Whom may I say called?”

“Tom Dupree. It’s a private matter.”

“He’s due out in forty minutes.”

“He’ll take my call. Please tell him it’s urgent.”

Tom watched Lester at the pump. His friend smiled and waved. Tom forced himself to wave back. Karen had ambled into the store. He could see her through the windows, scanning the shelves. Ten seconds later, he heard his father’s voice.

“My God, Tom, where are you?”

“Here in Virginia.”

“Are you okay? I’ve been trying to contact you. Nobody knew where you were.”

“I’m fine,” Tom said.

“I was worried after I saw what happened over there.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you know a guy called Peter Swiss, the CEO of ADC?” Tom asked.

“I’ve heard of him, but we’ve never met. Why?”

Tom thought that was a little strange, his father being a big shot at the Pentagon. But he left it. “Can I see you?”

“I guess. I’ll be free around six.”

“I need to see you now.”

After a long pause, his father said, “All right, Tom. I’ll organize a pass.”

“Not at the Building,” Tom said, the name its occupants used for the Pentagon.

Pentagon City was in the south-east urban district of Arlington County, near the National Cemetery. The bar they’d agreed to meet at was just off the Fashion Centre Mall complex, twenty metres up from a large apartment building called The Metropolitan at Park Row. Tom kept on his shades as he walked in. An old edition of
Friends
was on the flat-screen TV above the optics. He sat at a small, round table in the corner of the bar with a view of the door and the sidewalk. He hadn’t seen his father in two years, and guessed another two years would’ve passed by if he hadn’t called him.

A minute or two later, he saw him get out of a black limo, dressed in civilian clothes: a sharp black suit, red tie, and white shirt. He looked fit and healthy, his smooth skin belying his sixty-four years. As he pushed open the glass door Tom stood up, gave a half-hearted wave across the room. The place had emptied of the business and political types he guessed used it to power-lunch and it was too early for dinner.

His father’s handshake was firm, the eyes dark and sparkling.

“You look thin, Tom,” he said, sitting down.

Removing his shades, Tom saw the shocked look on his father’s face. Although Karen had fixed the shape of his nose, the impact of the wood had caused his eyes to swell and darken, and the outline of a bruise had already formed.

“It looked real rough over there.”

“It was,” Tom said, nodding.

“Is that where … that happened?” he asked, using two fingers to flick between his own eyes.

“Not exactly.”

The general called a waitress over and ordered a couple of black coffees without asking Tom if he wanted one.

“What can I do?”

Tom took out his cellphone and pressed the video-camera button, pushing it over to his father’s side of the table. His father watched silently, his forehead creasing in a frown. Karen had downloaded the video taken at the warehouse onto Tom’s cell. It showed just about everything that had happened, although Tom leaned over and stopped it before Swiss shot Hawks and had deleted the sound already.

“That was taken in a warehouse near Arlington County about a half-hour ago.”

“Jesus, Tom. From what I heard about Swiss, he didn’t seem the type.”

“But you’ve never met him,” Tom said.

“As I said, no.”

The waitress came over, a skinny thing with her hair in a ponytail. She placed the cups and saucers down, together with the check. “Enjoy,” she said.

“What’s this all about, Tom?” his father asked.

“The secretary.”

His father sighed before standing up. “I’m taking this to the FBI,” he said, snatching up the cellphone.

Sandri Khan had contacted his CIA handler on a couple of occasions since he’d done his little recon of Brigadier Hasni’s house with the American called Tom Dupree, and had left him to his own devices in the Blue Area of Islamabad. He’d reported that things had gone sour but that he’d escaped unscathed, utilizing flash grenades, which were designed to disorientate and disable temporarily, rather than maim or kill. Still, he’d said he had to cap two ISI men just the same. They were chasing after the American. If he hadn’t, the man would’ve been dropped by a fence. That hadn’t happened and he’d seen him scamper off to what he’d considered to be safety.

After that, Khan had made his way to one of the many safe houses that the Agency provided for its Pakistani assets and sources in Islamabad, and which were used in rotation. If any were raided by the ISI, or officers from the Intelligence Bureau or Military Intelligence, the whole set-up was changed. It had been quite a successful arrangement up until a year or so ago. But many had been arrested in the interim, most of whom were never seen again.

He sat in front of a flat-screen, checking on his emails. His Glock 17-9mm was on the table within a hand’s reach. It had three independent safeties, which made it the safest handgun in the world. The frame was made from a synthetic stronger than steel, but it was eighty-six per cent lighter. It was virtually indestructible. It was also the most accurate handgun in the world. The deadliest. He liked his Glock. He never went anywhere without it, although he was always accompanied by his three bodyguards. Their wages were paid from the significant sums that were transferred into a bank account on a regular basis by the CIA via a front IT business registered in Germany. His cover was that he worked freelance for the business, one of many outsourced services from the West. He was essentially a bridge agent, acting as a courier and a go-between. Apart from the money he kept for himself, he used the remainder to obtain intel, which he then passed on for a profit. It was a lucrative business. But he preferred to appear poor. Besides, due to the run-down locations the safe houses were situated in, it also meant that he didn’t draw any attention to himself.

He’d bought a lamb-and-lentil curry with rice and roti bread from a stand on the sidewalk that he knew sold the freshest food in the district. As he clicked open his mail he used his fingers to scoop up some meat from the thick sauce. Chewing methodically for thirty-two times, a habit he’d acquired in childhood when a bowl of plain rice was all he’d had to eat for the day, he read an email ostensibly sent from a relative in the US, but which had in fact been sent from Langley, Virginia.

The email was encrypted and informed him to lie low for a couple of days and refrain from using his cellphone to contact his handler. There was nothing remarkable about this. It often happened at sensitive times, and, even though Pakistan had a plethora of sensitive times, the abduction of the US Secretary of State had put every other covert surveillance and intel-gathering job on hold. It was, then, to be expected, he thought. He would get paid even if he did nothing for weeks, so it was with a certain degree of contentment that he shut down his computer and concentrated on his meal.

Five minutes later, he heard a muffled groan and what he took for a chair toppling over. His hand went for the Glock as the door was kicked open and five men bundled through, holding the bodyguards in front of them as human shields. Khan knew the bodyguards well. They were more like friends than employees. Looking at their terrified faces, he didn’t have the heart to shoot them to get at the men he knew to be from the ISI. Even if he did take that drastic course of action, he guessed the chances of him surviving the subsequent and inevitable firefight would be minimal. But knowing what was to come, he thought he might be better off dead. The ISI could keep someone alive for weeks, using blood transfusions and drip-fed cocktails of mild amphetamines and nutrients. Even if victims were found alive lying bound and naked by the side of the road, they were no longer any use to anyone.

He laid the Glock on the table and raised his hands, seeing the relief in the eyes of his bodyguards, their mouths clamped firmly shut by the huge hands of those who had overcome them. He wondered how they had been taken so easily, but as he was punched in the solar plexus with an uppercut he got the answer. His men were released and told to leave. They had betrayed him, he thought.

Still smarting from the blow, he had his hands cuffed and he was punched in the ear, the impact so great that he felt as if his eardrum had ruptured. He collapsed to his knees. His computer was snatched up as he was dragged from the room, two men remaining to ransack it. His cellphone would be seized and analyzed, too, although any money they found, together with his collection of watches, gold jewellery and rare coins – his pension – would be kept by those who found it. But there was his stash. In foreign banks. Nobody would find that, he told himself.

Not that he felt he had much use for it now. They would break him in time. Everyone broke in time no matter how tough they thought they were. It was, he knew, not a matter of courage or the strength of one’s mind; it was simply inevitable. Even if he could hold out for a couple of days, he would not be able to hold out longer. Theirs was a tried-and-trusted methodology of torture, and those who meted it out were proficient in it and were both highly prized and well paid.

He was pulled like a lazy dog down the narrow stairs, kicked and spat upon, a barrage of insults about his sexuality and parentage shouted out, although he only heard them in one ear now. As he reached the open front door he saw the Mercedes car in the darkness, its rear door already open, a grinning thug in the driver’s seat. He was heaved in, two muscular men squeezing onto the seat either side of him shortly afterwards.

As the car sped off they began to taunt him about what he faced, how his body would quake, his screams go unheeded. How he would beg for it to end, but it would not, and which parts of his anatomy the torturer he faced favoured and why. He gritted his teeth and even managed a closed-mouthed smile on a couple of occasions, but his eyes betrayed his true feelings. The eyes always did.

When they reached the end of Faisal Avenue, he saw the four one-hundred-metre-high minarets of the Faisal Mosque rising from an elevated piece of land, illuminated by golden lights. The mosque was shaped like a nomad’s tent and had been funded by Saudi Arabia. This, he knew, was the northernmost point of the great city, lying at the foot of the Margalla Hills, the western foothills of the Himalayas. The taunting stopped. Not even ISI operatives deemed it appropriate to say such things within sight of the National Mosque of Pakistan, the largest in South Asia.

The hills beyond were covered in pine, oak and fig trees and rose to over a mile high, the slopes dotted with little villages. For men such as Sandri Khan, they were also known for being the graveyard of hundreds of enemies of the state. Just as this thought registered a blindfold was tied tightly around his head.

His darkest fears had materialized.