Authors: Gary Haynes
In the Situation Room at the White House, the President of the United States, the fifty-year-old Robert Simmons, a Nebraskan with the lean body of a marathon runner and swept-back greying hair, had already convened a meeting. He sat on a swivel chair at the head of a mahogany table surrounded by two tiers of curved computer terminals. The pensive faces of the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command – JSOC – and Deputy Director Houseman peered out from separate flat-panel videoconference screens.
Those members of the National Security Council who’d been in DC, including the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Advisor and the vice president, had joined the commander-in-chief here. It was 03:05 in the capital and everyone present had been woken from their sleep as soon as the crisis had begun.
The basement room was an intelligence management centre used to conduct secure communications. The president watched a CNN news report on a TV monitor, showing the aftermath of the secretary’s abduction in Islamabad, the dishevelled female reporter’s voice cracking with emotion as she spoke. She stood in front of a chaotic scene: black smoke belched from the remnants of a building, the blaze being tackled by three fire crews. The LED lights of ambulances and police cars flickered. Sirens wailed. The dead and injured were still being carried away on stretchers. People were crying and shouting, while others simply sat on the kerb, dazed and bloodied.
“
The Pakistan military, which formed a provisional government after a bloodless coup eleven months ago, are blaming the Leopards of Islam, the Pakistani Shia terrorist organization, for the attack and the kidnapping of the US Secretary of State, Linda Carlyle,” the reporter said. “The Leopards, who carried out an assassination attempt on the Pakistani President in Washington DC on March 10th this year, killing thirty people in the capital, have remained silent. But a source at the US Embassy here in Islamabad has revealed that a threat against the secretary’s life was made to the embassy by a man claiming to represent the Leopards less than two hours before this latest outrage. There is mounting speculation that the secretary may have been kidnapped in order to facilitate the release of twelve Pakistani men alleged to have taken part in the March 10th atrocity, who are currently in US protective custody at an unspecified location prior to their trial for multiple counts of murder and the attempt on the Pakistani President’s life.”
“Turn it off, Angie,” the president said.
The flat-screen cut to black.
“God only knows what she’s suffering,” he said.
“I hate to say this, Mr President, but she could be dead already,” the Secretary of Defense said, preferring to be formal in such circumstances, the fingers of his right hand propping up his ample head as he rested his elbow on the table.
“Don’t you think I know that, Jack; and how the hell did that reporter know the secretary received a death threat this morning?”
“The caller spoke to the switchboard operator, Mr President,” Deputy Director Houseman said, his hard features filling the screen, highlighting the mottling on his cheeks and hawk’s nose.
“I’m aware of that also. Find out for sure. What are the chances the Leopards are to blame?”
“Without any intelligence reports to go on, I’d say about sixty per cent, sir,” Houseman replied.
“They’d do it just to humiliate us. I don’t want the Bureau of Diplomatic Security dealing with this. The CIA will assume operational control. I will personally oversee matters from here.”
“Mr President, the White House is on high alert, but I’d prefer it if you boarded Air Force One, at least for the next few hours,” the secretary said, shuffling uneasily in his chair now, his forty-eight-inch waist spilling over his pants.
“That isn’t going to happen, Jack,” the president replied.
The secretary rubbed his flabby neck before shaking his head.
“I want the Joint Chief and the Under-Secretary back home today. I want the embassy closed in forty-eight hours. Is that clear, Bill?”
“Understood, Mr President,” Houseman said from the screen.
“Closing the embassy might not be the best move,” the secretary said.
“I don’t want another US citizen killed over there. The DS has taken a beating. The country will be seeing quite enough coffins draped in the flag. Quite enough.”
The president took soundings from each of the assembled group. At this stage, no one was able to come up with a coherent plan. Any plan, in fact.
“We have replays, Mr President,” a defence advisor said, sitting in the second row of chairs behind the table. “On terminal two.”
The president and the others watched in silence as the images of the kidnapping unfolded. The smoke obscured the view as it was intended to. The drone operators, fully trained pilots at Creech Air Force Base, had focused on the secretary being bundled down the alley. But the Pakistani police helicopter exploding into a white flash hadn’t helped, and in any event it was impossible to make out which of the five cars that had sped off from underneath the overhangs and awnings had been used to carry her.
“They parked there purposely. They knew we’d have Linda covered,” the Secretary of Defense said.
The president knew that drones could track insurgents with lasers to pinpoint them for pursuing Special Forces on the ground. But one of the few times he’d felt the multibillion-dollar technology would earn its keep, it had been rendered useless by a simple yet very effective diversionary tactic.
“Goddamn it, Jack. This is awful. I want everyone we have on this. Everyone, do you understand?”
“All leave has been cancelled for the FBI at the Hoover Building until further notice. The CIA at Langley and the NSA at Fort Meade, too,” he replied.
“Mr President,” Houseman said.
“Yes, Bill.”
“I should point out that we have no evidence to date that the secretary was taken in a car. She could’ve disappeared into one of the buildings. The cars coulda been decoys.”
“Either way, find her. Just find her,” the president said. “I want thirty-minute progress reports for the next twelve hours. And I mean
progress
.”
“Yes, Mr President,” Houseman said, his voice sombre.
The room fell silent again. The president stood up, followed by the assembled men and women. “I think we should pray now,” he said, bowing his head, knowing the Secretary of State was a deeply religious woman.
Truth be told, he didn’t know what else to say at this juncture. But he felt that a moment of reflection would, at least, assist a sharpening of minds. A resolve to follow every possible lead, legal or otherwise.
Tom was slumped forward in a grey, blow-moulded plastic chair. His head was in his hands, his elbows resting on a Formica table centimetres from an untouched cup of coffee. The interview room at the embassy was no more than twice the size of a suit closet; stuffy and windowless.
He’d been questioned by a fresh-faced counterterrorism agent who’d looked as if he’d belonged to a college fraternity for tiddlywinks. Tom recounted the attack outside the hospital, sucking in air to calm himself. The kid repeated the questions too often for his liking, as if he were trying to trip him up. Tom didn’t have anything to hide. What he’d done was standard procedure, although he felt sick to his stomach. If the lead agent had to neutralize a threat, the support agents took his or her place. He’d acted professionally at all times, even though he’d failed. But when the kid had said that he’d recommend a psychological report be obtained, Tom had felt like punching the wall.
After the debriefing, he’d cleaned up in a restroom as best he’d been able. He’d put ointment on his forehead to heal the splinter wound, and checked his multiple bruises, which were deep-red blemishes covering a quarter of his body. He’d noticed that his angular features had hardened, the long shifts and many time-zone changes ageing him. But there was something else in the olive-skinned reflection that stared back from the restroom mirror: guilt at escaping almost without injury. He’d learned that all of the MSD agents were dead or seriously wounded. A total of twenty-three locals had died, another sixty-eight needing surgery of some sort. A third of the Pakistani police deployed there had died also.
Apart from the carnage, the secretary’s GPS tracking devices weren’t working. She could be anywhere, and as yet no one had a clue. He didn’t even know if she was still alive. No ransom demand had been made. Jennings had been right. It was a disaster.
After changing into a sports jacket and fawn-coloured slacks, he’d returned to the interview room as ordered.
Still slouched in the chair, he awaited another round of questions. He fingered a small wooden Buddha he kept in his breast pocket. It wasn’t a good-luck charm, but rather the symbol of a personal philosophy he’d cultivated over time.
Get it together, he thought. Just get it together and take it from there. He resolved to stop being so maudlin and see if at least he could do something positive to help find her. No, scratch that, he thought. I have to find her. He’d made a promise and he wasn’t going to renege on it. But how? In truth, he had no idea where to start. Then it struck him. The guy he’d shot on the roof had to have been found and recovered. If he was still alive, that might be something. And the two people who assaulted him might have been found by now. He’d been told that the man had escaped in the confusion. He already knew the woman had. But they were known. They were on a list.
He heard the door open. A man with massive hands sat in the chair opposite him, struggled to get comfortable in the confined space.
“They build this place for midgets?” he said.
Tom looked up. It was Dan Crane, a near-legendary CIA operative. Crane smiled, the skin on his wide face crinkling around his robin’s-egg-blue eyes.
“You look like shit,” he said.
“You don’t want to know what I feel like.”
“I can guess.”
Tom had come across Crane when he had spent two years in New Delhi, protecting the US embassy eight years ago. He’d seen him a couple of times since; once in DC and another at Langley when he’d been guarding the secretary. Crane had a reputation for sardonic humour of the un-PC variety, but he knew the Middle East and South Asia better than anyone else in the agency. He spoke five languages and had an encyclopaedic mind. He’d been held hostage by Hezbollah for three months back in the late eighties. He still had the remnants of scars on his neck and hands, off-white blemishes that looked like skin grafts. Tom didn’t want to think about where else he might have scars. His fame had been assured after he’d overseen the analysts who’d pinpointed bin Laden in Abbottabad. That also meant that he could get away with a lot of things that for others would’ve led to a reprimand, or worse. Crane was an offbeat kind of guy to say the least.
“So they all got away. Even the sonofabitch you say you shot on the roof and the one who fired the Stinger,” Crane said, waving his hand through the air.
“Wait, the man on the roof was incapable of walking. How the hell did he disappear?” Tom asked, straightening up.
Crane held up his hands. “You tell me?”
“You don’t believe me?” Tom wondered if Crane had been sent to do what the kid hadn’t had the experience or guile to accomplish: make him say something to incriminate himself.
“I didn’t say that. I just said he wasn’t there when the command centre asked the police to pick him up.”
“What about the man and the woman in the official line-up? They were all supposed to be vetted.”
“They were,” Crane said. “The Pakistani police raided their houses. Guess what? They weren’t there. Now, let’s go through it again.”
Jesus Christ, Tom thought. Back to square one.
Tom was questioned for a further fifteen minutes. Crane nodded his approval for most of the time, and never once lost his temper or even appeared irritated. When he finished, he looked genuinely sympathetic.
“That’s it. Same as I told the kid,” Tom said.
“Don’t beat yourself up too bad. The guys on the Kennedy detail let it affect their whole lives, even though everyone knows they did all they could. Now it’s home for you. There’s a flight taking the Under-Secretary of Defense and some brass back at fifteen hundred. You’ll be on it.”
“I wanna stay. Help out.”
Crane sighed. “It’s outta the DS’s hands. POTUS’s orders,” he said, using the acronym for the president. “It’s down to the spooks now.”
“She’s still my responsibility. I got a week left as head of the detail. A guy like you can understand that.”
“It’s not up to me. Besides, you’re probably still in shock. And don’t assume you know what makes me tick. You don’t,” Crane said, pushing the chair back against the wall, attempting to ride it.
“Whatever. But I’m not leaving.”
“You disobeying a direct order from POTUS?”
“He’s at the top of the food chain. He don’t concern himself with cleaner fish.”
Crane raised his thick eyebrows. “Wow, you got some self-esteem issues there, Tom. You gonna sprout gills?”
Tom smiled, weakly.
“Seriously, you’ll get through this. You’re a nice guy, Tom. Go home.”
They batted the issue around for a further five minutes. Finally, Crane agreed to pass it by Deputy Director Houseman, who was staying behind to coordinate matters on the ground.
“Appreciate it,” Tom said.
Crane struggled to get his bulk out of the chair. “Interview rooms for midgets. Jesus. They’ll be ordering us to carry stepladders next so they can climb up and feel less intimated.”
“Technically they’re called dwarves. Back home they like to be called little people. And they are the same as you and me,” Tom said.
“I’m joking with ya. You know that, right?”
“Sure I do,” Tom said.
“I know they’re the same. They just come up to your goddamned waist.”
Tom rubbed his temple and sighed. Crane was smart, but he was a jerk, too. He glanced up. “So come on. How do you figure that guy on the roof disappeared?”
Crane was looking serious, his eyes narrowing. “He was evidence. I guess the Leopards had some plainclothes guys on the ground, who cleaned up before the Pakistani cops got there.”
“Yeah. Sure they did.”
“A conspiracy theorist, huh. Well, it won’t come as any surprise to you when I say that if the deputy director lets you stay, don’t trust anybody. You hear me, Tom?”
Tom thought for a moment. “That include you?”