Authors: Christopher Reich
Worse, an American.
He wanted to vomit.
He placed a call to Ariana Afghan Airlines. “I’d like to make a reservation on a flight this morning,” he said.
“May I ask your destination?”
“Islamabad.”
“Will it be round-trip?”
“No,” said Sultan Haq. “One way only.”
He had two days to live
.
Lord Balfour bounded through the kitchen door and crossed the stone motor court. His stride was long and purposeful. In one hand he carried a mug of chai, and in the other a black leather crop. He was dressed for leisure, in linen pants and his favorite polo shirt, from the Highgrove team (on which Wills and Harry were regular players, along with their father, Prince Charles). Such was his buoyant mood that he’d permitted his hairdresser to straighten and part his coarse hair and to trim his mustache. He had a guest arriving, and guests were rare indeed, especially Europeans. And as he walked, he airily whistled the “Colonel Bogey March.” He did not look like a man at death’s door.
One half step behind followed Mr. Singh. His stride was longer and more purposeful. He did not carry a mug of chai or a leather quirt. Instead, he gripped an AK-47 assault rifle with an elongated banana clip. He was dressed for work in his everyday attire of white shalwar kameez and a Sikh’s turban. He did not whistle. He grimaced. And no one had combed his hair or straightened his beard or mustache. If they’d tried, he would have killed them.
The Range Rovers had been pulled from their bays for their daily wax and detailing. They sat in the morning sun, one next to the other, an imperial fleet of gleaming white destroyers. A team of attendants stood at attention nearby. Balfour handed his mug to Mr. Singh and, straight-backed, inspected the vehicles, circling each and pointing out areas that required attention. Seeing an errant water spot, he grabbed a chamois cloth out of an attendant’s hand and polished it himself. The punishment was a lash to the offending boy’s cheek with his crop.
Balfour inspected the interiors as well. Remnants of polish were found on the backseat of one vehicle, a trace of ash in the ashtray of another. He made it a policy to find fault. It was the only way to keep the staff on their toes. The crop flashed through the air and found its target twice more.
Finished, he called over the chief attendant. Make no mistake, he told the young Pakistani, the work was of low standard. He was lucky he didn’t have to clean the cars all over again. Balfour expected a marked improvement next time. He raised his crop, then smiled and handed the lad a $100 bill. The chief attendant bowed at the waist and spoke as he’d been taught. “Thank you, m’ lord.”
Only Balfour knew that there would be no next time. In two days he would be dead.
Leaving the motor court, he walked to the end of the drive and crossed Runnymede, the cricket pitch–sized meadow, to the stables. Currently he owned twelve horses. Six were Arabians, and too skittish for his taste. Two were Hanoverians and three Belgian Warmbloods. The last, his favorite, was a paint quarter horse named Sundance, given to him by the local CIA station chief six years ago as thanks for ferrying supplies for the United States military from Kazakhstan to Bagram. The grooms were lunging Sundance in the large ring, and Balfour stood on the railing to admire the fleet gelding.
“Will you be riding this morning, m’ lord?” the groom asked.
“Not today,” said Balfour. “But I have a guest arriving who is an accomplished rider. Have Inferno tacked up and ready tomorrow morning at ten. We may have time for a quick cross-country ride.”
Inferno was a Hanoverian charger, the stable’s sole stallion.
Balfour walked through the stable, rubbing the noses of his favorite steeds. In a month’s time, after the authorities had given up searching for him and declared him dead, the horses would be quietly shipped to the estates of several Pakistani generals with whom he’d made arrangements. He’d miss the horses dearly.
Looking across the meadow, he spotted his girls finishing their morning jog. First came the Americans, Kelly and Robin, then Anisa,
Ochsana, and Greta. Pulling up the rear as usual was Petra, the former Miss Bulgaria and runner-up in the Miss Universe contest.
“Pick up the pace,” he shouted. “Your bottom’s as big as an elephant’s.”
Women were no different from animals. They required proper exercise, feeding, and discipline. He acquired his girls from the agency in London that supplied the sultan of Brunei. Salaries ranged from $10,000 to $15,000 a month, and the usual stay was ninety days. Food, accommodation, and gowns were provided. And the women had plenty of opportunities to earn bonuses in the form of jewelry, drugs, and cash.
Petra gave up altogether and slowed to a walk. The sight incensed Balfour. He wasn’t paying her good money to turn fat and lazy. He had half a mind to use his crop on the Bulgarian laggard.
An idea came to him.
“Mr. Singh, provide our lovely Miss Bulgaria with a little motivation, if you please.”
Singh lifted the machine gun to his shoulder and fired off a two-second burst. The grass behind Miss Bulgaria erupted into the air. There was a scream, and Miss Bulgaria broke into a sprint.
“That’s more like it!” Balfour shouted. He jogged a few paces to lend moral support, but grew winded and stopped.
Returning along the path they’d come on, Balfour and Mr. Singh entered the security shack located at the entry to the motor court. Two guards sat before a multiplex of monitors broadcasting live pictures from inside and outside Blenheim. Since the ISI had pulled their protection, Balfour had upped all security measures. Visiting vehicles were to be parked thirty meters outside the front gates. A two-man team was stationed on the roof with Stinger shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles. Perimeter patrols were doubled.
“They could come at any time,” he announced, patting the guards on the shoulders. “Keep a sharp eye.”
“They” was the RAW, the Indian intelligence service, who had sworn to repatriate their most infamous son and make him stand trial
for supplying weapons to the terrorists who had stormed Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people. Rumors were swirling about a planned commando raid.
Satisfied that all was well in hand and his safety assured for the next few hours, Balfour left the security shack and walked to the maintenance building. Two guards stood by the front door. He checked both their weapons, making sure a round was chambered, the safety on, then entered the building. A second pair of guards stood by the door at the end of a long corridor. Again, he checked their weapons before opening the door.
He stepped into a large, open room with a concrete floor and high ceilings. There was no furniture, only a long steel workbench running the length of the wall. The warhead sat in a cradle hanging from chains attached to a strut in the ceiling.
“And?” asked Balfour.
The two nuclear physicists stood beside the warhead, beaming. “It works.”
“You were able to successfully arm it?”
“We were.”
“Outstanding.”
Balfour left the workshop, returned to the main wing, and climbed the stairs to his office. He motioned for Singh to shut the door, then placed a call. “Yes,” said a voice he now recognized and instantly disliked.
“Hello, Sheikh,” he said to the man he had first met as Prince Rashid’s guest at the Sharjah airfield, his newest and final client. “The carpet will be ready for delivery as promised.”
“And it is in good condition?”
“Like new.”
“I’m pleased.”
“We will make the exchange at my warehouse at the Pindi airfield tomorrow at twelve noon. The price is as discussed. Will your brother be arriving as planned?”
“Yes. And he thanks you again for the invitation to stay with you.
Regarding the exchange,” the sheikh continued, “have you made the arrangements we discussed?”
“Of course. Your brother will have no problem taking the carpet with him. I’ve seen to every contingency.”
“Very good. Until tomorrow.”
Balfour hung up. He checked his watch and grew worried. “It’s almost ten,” he said, turning to Mr. Singh. “You must leave at once. Dr. Revy’s flight arrives at noon.”
“We believe Lord Balfour to
be in possession of a nuclear weapon.”
Jonathan Ransom drank the vodka in one long draft. Seated in the first-class compartment aboard the Emirates flight, he stared out the window as the desert metropolis of Dubai rose to greet him. The spirits burned his throat wonderfully, and he closed his eyes, allowing its warmth to spread across his chest. It was his second flight in three days. Geographically, he was backtracking. Nonetheless, he had the real and discomfiting sensation of moving toward his quarry.
Until now, everything had been a rehearsal. Not just the past five days with Danni, but his entire life. The youth in conflict, the climbing to escape it, his redemption as a doctor, and his marriage to Emma, which was not a marriage at all but eight years of aiding and abetting a Russian-born, American-trained spook. All of it one long march, culminating in this moment. The birth of an operative.
“We believe Lord Balfour to be in possession of a nuclear weapon.”
Connor’s words hadn’t left his mind since he had heard them eight hours before. It was quite a step up from sorting through desk drawers to find a man’s name or searching dark closets for a few hand grenades. Before leaving he’d asked a hundred questions about why the government wasn’t pursuing this at a higher level, why Delta Force or the Navy SEALs weren’t going in instead of Jonathan, and why they didn’t just drop a bunker buster or a daisy cutter or whatever they called the bombs that obliterate everything within a mile of where they hit right smack on Balfour’s compound and be done with it. And Connor had answered firmly and with a rationale that Jonathan wholly understood: “Because we don’t have time.”
The surgeon had been called on to perform a lifesaving procedure on his nation’s behalf.
Jonathan ordered a last vodka. The stewardess, a stunning, dark-hued girl from Wales dressed in her tan Emirates uniform and red pillbox hat, bent at the knee to serve him, supplying him with a fresh dish of warm smokehouse almonds.
“Will you be staying in Dubai?” she asked.
“No,” said Jonathan. “I’m continuing on to Islamabad.”
“Pity.” She smiled, then returned to her duties.
No stewardess inquired if Frank
Connor wanted a second glass of vodka or a dish of warm smokehouse almonds. Seated alone in the darkened cabin of a borrowed Lear, Connor stuffed the last of a Baby Ruth candy bar into his mouth and washed it down with the remnants of a Diet Coke. Below, the runway lights of Dulles International Airport lit a stripe across the black Virginia countryside. The time on the ground was two a.m.
By rights he should have been exhausted. He had been on the go for thirty-six hours and hadn’t slept more than four consecutive hours in two weeks. Instead he was wide awake, as jittery as a case officer running his first Joe. It wasn’t nerves, however, that made him rush down the stairs upon landing and hurry to his car without thanking the pilot. It was a growing sense of failed responsibility, a tardy realization that he had become too cynical, too jaded by half, and that he was endangering his Joe because of it.
Connor didn’t doubt his decision to put Ransom into Balfour’s household, ready or not. There was no other choice. The job needed to be done, and Ransom was the only asset available. Even now, he gave Ransom only a 20 percent chance of uncovering information leading to the location of the WMD Emma had brought down from the mountain and identifying Balfour’s mystery buyer. Twenty percent was betting odds in Connor’s game. Mostly, though, he chastised himself for having given up on his agent. Jonathan Ransom wasn’t dead yet. He deserved Connor’s best shot.
Connor slid into the front seat of his Volvo and steered the car onto the highway toward D.C. Traffic was light, and he immediately placed a call.
“Desk officer,” said the man at the NGA.
“I need Malloy. Tell him it’s Frank Connor on the horn.”
“Hold on a sec.”
Connor tapped the wheel, thinking how he might persuade Malloy to help him out. He knew full well that two favors were one too many. Still, if he could convince Malloy to position a bird on Balfour’s estate, he just might get a picture of the warhead as it was being transited from one location to another. And that picture would be all the evidence he needed to bring in the big boys. There would be no waiting around for approval from the secretary of defense or the boys in the Situation Room. This one would go operational ten minutes after it hit the commander’s desk at CENTCOM.
At last count, Pakistan possessed over seventy nuclear missiles, and the thought that one might somehow get into the wrong hands was ever-present in military planners’ minds. A rogue WMD on Pakistani territory was a scenario that had been gamed a hundred times over. It was a not-so-well-kept secret that a Delta Force rapid reaction team was stationed permanently at a Pakistani base in Rawalpindi, not thirty minutes from Balfour’s estate, to deal with such a scenario.
“Yeah, Mr. Connor, Malloy isn’t here. Can I help you?”
“He told me he was on shift tonight.”
“He was, but he didn’t show. Actually, he missed coming in yesterday, too. He must be pretty sick, because he didn’t phone in. Sure there isn’t anything I can help you with?”
“No,” said Connor. “Thanks anyway. It was a personal matter. I’ll try him at home.”
Connor yanked the car into the right lane and took the next exit, onto the George Washington Parkway. His night vision was poor and he was preoccupied with the job at hand. Neither condition excused him from missing the late-model sedan that had been following him at a safe but obvious distance since Dulles, which now mimicked his reckless maneuver.
Connor crossed the Potomac on Chain Bridge and drove along Canal Road, the spindly, bare limbs of the oak trees spreading a skeletal canopy above him. The sedan followed. Arriving in Malloy’s
neighborhood, Connor found a place to park up the street from his home.