The Fourth Horseman (28 page)

“They already tried the first, and it didn’t work,” Kalley said.

“Because McGarvey stopped them. But there’s more. We think we know who the Messiah is, and it’s even more critical that we stop him now.”

“Who is he?” the president asked.

“David Haaris,” Page said, catching them completely by surprise.

“Impossible,” Kalley said.

“What’s your confidence level, Mr. Director?” the president asked.

“Ninety percent, conservatively,” Page said. He told them what had happened to date, including the discovery of Haaris’s imposter in London. “McGarvey was at the Secretariat, presumably to interview Rajput, at the same time the Messiah and Mufti Fahad, the new TTP spokesman, showed up. It’s more than conceivable that Mac and the Messiah came face-to-face.”

“If it was Haaris he would have recognized McGarvey from the start,” Kalley said.

“Mac is traveling under false papers and a very good disguise,” Page said. “Fortunately, Ross had sense enough to out Mac’s work name and not his real ID.”

“You’re ninety percent sure that Haaris is the Messiah, and you think he has something planned in two days, for which you don’t have a clue,” the president said. “What’s next?”

“McGarvey’s operating as a blogger under the name of Travis Parks. Call the prime minister and remind him that we have freedom of speech and of the press, no matter how onerous it might seem to him. And assure him that Dr. Parks is not an employee of the CIA.”

Miller swiveled her chair and looked out the bullet-proof windows at the Rose Garden for a long time. “Who else have you discussed this with?”

“Some of my staff, but the number is small,” Page said.

“Otto Rencke?” Kalley asked.

“Yes.”

“Saul?” the president asked.

Saul Santarelli, the director of National Intelligence, was a bright man, but in Page’s estimation little more than a functionary for nothing more than another layer of bureaucracy.

“No,” Page said.

“Then don’t. The need-to-know list will go no further. I’ll telephone Rajput first thing in their morning and ask him to release McGarvey—Dr. Parks.”

Page said nothing.

“The Messiah is probably Haaris, but we don’t know if he has an agenda, so we can’t react until something happens. The next twenty-four hours will tell. But Mr. McGarvey’s orders remain the same. Kill the Messiah, whoever he is. Am I clear?”

“Perfectly clear, Madam President,” Page said, surprised.

FIFTY-ONE

With the ambassador back in residence the embassy was busy. On the way upstairs Pete’s escort reminded her that they, like most of the other embassies whose staffs were returning, were on what amounted to a wartime footing.

“A lot of it has to do with the nuclear incident near Quetta,” the young woman said. She looked as if she was just out of college. “We still don’t have many answers.”

“Is it possible that the Taliban got their hands on one of the weapons and set it off by accident?” Pete asked.

“God help us all, because only one went off and three are still missing.”

“No sign of them?”

“Not yet, but everyone’s looking.”

Ross Austin, dressed in a light pullover sweater, jeans and deck shoes, was in the corridor just outside his office talking to a pair of marines in desert camos and bloused boots. They only carried pistols, but they wore Kevlar vests, pockets bulging with combat equipment.

“I’ll just leave you here, ma’am,” Pete’s escort said, and she hurried down the corridor in the opposite direction.

Austin looked up as Pete approached, then said something to the marines, who headed to the stairs.

“Thanks for at least agreeing to talk to me instead of turning me around at the airport,” Pete told him.

He was the perfect chief of station: of medium build, with a pleasantly plain face, an empty smile and a slightly vacant look in his soft brown eyes, completely without guile or aggression. He was a man who would never stand out in a crowded room or on a street corner in just about any city in the world. He could have been easily taken for an American businessman, a British tourist or an employee of a small Swiss bank.

They went into his office. “Wasn’t my choice,” he told her. “Though with any luck I’ll have you on a plane out of here first thing in the morning.”

Pete was jet-lagged and her temper rose. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“I was briefed by the director himself less than ten minutes ago. I know about Haaris and the imposter you burned in London, and I know what McGarvey’s real mission was.”

“Haaris has an agenda and whatever he has planned will happen in less than two days.”

“I’m sorry but I can’t envision Dave as the Messiah. It doesn’t fit, and from what I’m told the Company isn’t one hundred percent sure. Even Rencke can’t nail it.”

“Then why the imposter in London?“

“Dave has got something in mind, all right, but I suspect he simply wanted to step off the merry-go-round for a breather. He’s been going at it hammer-and-tong forever; time to take a vacation somewhere. An anonymous vacation. And I can’t say as I blame him.”

“Tommy Boyle said just about the same thing,” Pete practically shouted.

The office door was open and Austin went to shut it.

“Are you guys out of your minds? Or has Haaris got something on both of you? Is it blackmail?”

“This conversation will not continue,” Austin said angrily. “You’re on my turf now, and I don’t give a shit who says what, you’re out of here on the first flight I can arrange.”

“Might not be your station for long. Outing a fellow agent is a capital offense. It’ll be a wonder if you don’t end up in a federal penitentiary somewhere, a lot sooner than you think.”

“Believe what you will, Boylan, I did it for his own good, as well as for the good of this station and for American interests here.”

Pete wanted to smash her fist into his face.

“Hear me out,” Austin said. “McGarvey came here to assassinate the Messiah—whether he’s Dave Haaris or not—because the president was convinced that the guy is a major threat to Pakistan’s stability.”

“What stability?”

“Whatever your politics are, we need Pakistan, just as they need us.”

“To help us fight the war on terrorists.”

“Yes.”

“Like the Taliban, whose mouthpiece, I’m told, marched up Constitution Avenue practically hand in hand with the Messiah, right into the office of the prime minister,” Pete said. “A man, I might remind you, who probably hired the German assassination squad to take out our SEAL Team Six operators last year. McGarvey stopped them, but you know this. Yet you outed Mac to this son of a bitch.”

“I outed Travis Parks, who Rajput promised he would release to my custody this morning.”

“Mac almost certainly killed two ISI officers who were sent to take him down after what he did at the reception yesterday. And he caused the death and disappearance of another of them. Do you honestly think that Rajput doesn’t know this? Do you honestly think that he’s going to order Mac’s release?”

Austin just looked at her.

“You stupid, silly bastard,” Pete said, because she couldn’t think of anything else. She was sick at heart and frantically trying to figure out a way to get Mac out of wherever he was being held or at least get word to him that she was here.

Austin looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Ambassador,” he said.

Don Powers, in gray slacks and an open-collar shirt under a dark blue blazer, was at the open door. He didn’t look happy. He came the rest of the way in and closed it.

“I have no real need to know the day-to-day operational details of your station except when it has an effect on what I’m trying to do here. Pakistan is in turmoil and I’m here to guide U.S. interests in the long-term. That cannot—must not—include divisiveness at any level in this embassy. Am I clear on this point, Mr. Austin?”

“Perfectly clear, sir.”

“And you are?”

“I’m traveling on a diplomatic passport under the name Doris Day. In reality I work for Mr. Page and I’ve just arrived from London.”

“Your being here, I presume, has something to do with the actual identity of this man who the people are calling the Messiah.”

“Yes, sir. I was sent to help Travis Parks.”

“The other CIA officer that Walt presumably sent over. I can tell you, Miss Day, or whoever you really are, that Dr. Parks has made a royal mess of things and I too want him gone as soon as we can secure his release from the authorities. It’s a wonder the ISI didn’t send assassins after him.”

“They did. But all three of them failed.”

“How do you mean, ‘failed’?” Powers demanded, but it was clear he knew exactly what Pete was saying.

“He was forced to defend himself. They’re dead.”

Powers was taken aback. “Murdered? He murdered three ISI officers?”

“It was that or lose his own life, sir,” Pete said. “Did Mr. Page explain to you who we believe the Messiah to be?”

“My God,” Powers said. “How am I to explain this? The man actually came from Washington with me.”

“Explain what to whom?”

“To the legitimate government of Pakistan. To General Rajput.”

“Are you suggesting that one of our people face criminal proceedings? You know how it will turn out.”

“My hands are tied.”

“What about the Messiah?”

“The country is at peace, I don’t know if we can ask for more at the moment.”

“I want you to demand that Parks be immediately released before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what?” Austin asked, but it was clear to Pete he’d merely said it for Powers’s benefit, because he knew exactly what she meant.

“He’s an embarrassment to Pakistan,” Pete said. “They’ll kill him if they haven’t already.”

“As I said, my hands are tied,” Powers told her. “And I think it would be best for everyone concerned that you leave Pakistan as soon as possible.”

“Travis Parks’s real name is Kirk McGarvey, Mr. Ambassador. I thought you should know that. Mr. Austin does.”

FIFTY-TWO

McGarvey, dressed in only a pair of filthy khaki shorts, sat alone at a small metal table bolted to the concrete floor. His left leg was shackled to a leg of the table. He had nothing on his feet, the soles of which were battered and bleeding, nor anything on his chest, which, like his back, was crisscrossed with welt marks from the repeated canings he’d suffered through the night and early morning hours.

Oddly enough they’d left his face alone, and his eyes were clear, as was his head. Even odder was the fact they hadn’t used drugs on him. But they would, sooner or later, and he would break. His only real option at this point was to escape.

A Pakistani man easily as large as McGarvey, dressed in an ISI uniform, walked in and said something indistinct to the guards in the corridor before the steel door was closed.

“Good morning,” he said in good English. He took off his baseball cap and laid it on the table before he sat down across from McGarvey. “I’m a lieutenant in the security service, my name is not important for you to know at this time. What is important is that I am considered to be a proficient interrogator. Seems as if you wore out the others. They tell me that you are a man of some stamina—more than they thought possible for even an American spy.”

“I’m a journalist,” McGarvey said.

The officer had a large square face pitted with what had probably been childhood acne. He smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, and the fingernails on his left hand were dirty with what might have been blood.

“As it turns out one of your own countrymen has admitted to us that you are a spy for the CIA here to gather information. We were to arrest you and then turn you over to your embassy so that you could be sent home. Unfortunately, Dr. Parks, you were shot trying to escape.”

“You might consider setting me free after all, before I kill you.”

“The thing is, we need a confession from you so that the repercussions of your death won’t be so difficult. We’ll turn over your body, of course, and you’ll receive a posthumous star in the lobby of your headquarters building, and memories will fade. In the meantime the situation between our countries will not change because of your being here. And do you know why?”

“Do you have a wife and children who’ll mourn your passing, Lieutenant? Do families get pensions for soldiers who die in service of their country, or will they be left wanting?”

“We’ll get your confession,” the lieutenant said. “I’m pretty good at what I do. I have a perfect track record.”

“Okay, I confess that I’m a spy,” McGarvey said. “You win.”

“Oh, but I think that you are more than just a spy. In fact, do you know what I think?”

“I’m all ears.”

The lieutenant’s jaw tightened but just slightly. “I think that you are an assassin. And I think you came here to kill the Messiah.”

McGarvey didn’t think that Austin could be so stupid as to tell the ISI something like that. “I was not armed when I was arrested.”

“Nor were you armed when you killed two of our officers yesterday, but you took one of their pistols and one of their identification wallets, which apparently you discarded somewhere along the way. We’ll find them.”

“Then let’s get it over with, or do you mean to keep me chained to this desk while you talk me to death?”

The lieutenant got up, his hand on the butt of the pistol holstered at his side, and looked at McGarvey for several long moments. “Interrogating you should be interesting. I sincerely hope you don’t tell me everything for a very long time.”

He went out and told the guards to bring the prisoner to him in five minutes.

*   *   *

The interrogation chamber was at the end of a short corridor. They were in the basement of ISI headquarters, and when McGarvey had been taken into custody they had made the mistake of not blindfolding him. He knew the way out.

One unarmed guard had removed the shackle from his leg, while the other stood aside, a Kalashnikov at the ready. The armed guard was careful not to get too close as they marched down the otherwise-deserted hall.

The lieutenant had taken off his cap and blouse and laid them on a chair in one corner. He was filling a two-quart metal pitcher with water from a tap in the wall.