OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
MONDAY NIGHT
JIM HALL WAS SPREAD out comfortably aboard a Citation Bravo executive jet, the modified Cessna 550 model, sliding through the night sky at four hundred knots and thirty-five thousand feet. He had dropped the facing seat to make a bed, changed into an old Adidas tracksuit for comfort, popped five milligrams of Ambien, lowered a silk mask over his eyes, and stuck the buds of an iPod into his ears. Classical music and the drug would ease him into sleep while they crossed the pond.
The private plane was one of the ghost fleet, special aircraft owned by an Agency front company and used primarily for unique missions such as renditions and paramilitary support. The small, quick plane, with its pair of Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines mounted aft and high, had been to a lot of places, always off the record. It was still bouncing through some air pockets from a storm front that was closing across the East Coast but would rise through the clouds soon. Lauren Carson was across the aisle, wide-awake, to answer the phone if he needed to know anything.
This was style, exactly the way Hall wanted to run the final assignment of his career with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Word had spread that he was about to retire, and even before he left Langley to board the plane at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, he had detected the tattered threads of disrespect tangling around his ankles. Invisible shackles. After this, he would be nobody; another old man gone. Somebody else would become the special assistant to the deputy director of operations, and there would be a string of promotions on down the ladder. The CIA was a gigantic bureaucracy. No desk stayed empty very long.
He changed position in the seat and increased the volume of the music to mask the whine of the engines. Like many workers with a lot of years in any industry or business, Hall had become disillusioned with his profession.
The first major puncture in the balloon of faith came with the hard lesson that the shield of anonymity provided to CIA agents was neither impenetrable nor absolute. That idea was knocked for a loop when a political scandal ripped the name and face of one agent out of the shadows. The president of the United States himself had declassified the identity and thrown her to the political and media wolves. The affair actually had made Jim Hall feel a little better, because it proved that he was not the only person running a game in the dangerous jungle known as Washington, D.C. In fact, he figured that he was one of the littler fish. After he assessed how the impact of an agent being outed had spread like a virus through Langley and ruptured so much trust, he decided that it was only prudent for him to prepare for the unexpected; in other words, cover his ass.
Hall was one of the old-timers who had been chosen to help put the trust train back on track and given the rank of special assistant to the DDO. Instead of being a plum assignment, a springboard to an even better position, he viewed it as a sign that he had gone as high as he was going in the Agency. His lack of formal education was given as the reason for the blockade. He had managed to earn an associate’s degree from a community college, but that could not compare with bright men and women from the Yales and the Harvards. A lifetime of experience spent in the weeds, learning about the world and risking his life to protect the nation, could not overcome the ivy-covered walls of academia. It grated on him and made him feel inadequate: Which of them could do what he had done? None!
Nevertheless, he had set about the new job with gusto, coming out of the chill of being a spy to craft a very public persona. Jim Hall became the top CIA lobbyist on Capitol Hill, where he was a coveted source of news tidbits for the media hounds, and the go-to guy when deals needed to be struck in cloakrooms of the Capitol concerning the intelligence community and its secrets. He was amply rewarded with limos and unlimited credit cards and girls and fancy restaurants and embassy parties, seats at the Kennedy Center, status, and entrée into the corridors of power, including the White House. He even had the beautiful Lauren Carson around to carry his briefcase. Hiding in plain sight and being highly paid in many ways was a life that Hall enjoyed.
Every once in a while, for a special job, he had to return to his roots for a mission and pick up a weapon or personally guide a black operation. Then the affable Jim Hall would disappear from Washington, and Ms. Carson would explain that he was skiing at his condo at Crested Butte, or fishing in Alaska, or visiting his mother down in Palm Beach. After a few weeks, Hall would reenter the Capitol hive, cheering up everyone with risqué jokes and making his rounds of secret briefings and dropping pro-Agency propaganda to journalists. It was perfect.
Retirement would end that easy access to power and money. He could live out a full life within a protective bubble, mowing his suburban lawn and cooking bratwursts over his propane grill. That held no appeal whatsoever for Jim Hall. There was the option of becoming a real lobbyist for a defense company, but that meant that he would eventually end up as one of the old guys standing alone at the end of the bar at the National Press Club, soup stains on a wrinkled tie, hoping for a conversation about the good old days. Hall had decided to make other arrangements.
ACROSS THE NARROW AISLE, fully alert at a little desk, sat Lauren Carson. She watched Jim settle down and fall asleep so amazingly quickly, as if he had not a care in the world. An old warrior’s trait, he had explained; eat and sleep when you can because you don’t know how long it will be before the next meal or rest. His chest barely moved, and the slightly parted lips breathed in the cool cabin air.
She had been with him for six years, straight out of the training farm, and admired the tough, quirky guy with the sharp sense of humor. She had no illusions: Jim always looked out for Jim. He always had a plan, was always a couple of steps ahead of everyone else. He was also a liar and some other unsavory things, like being a professional killer, but he was, after all, a veteran field agent of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was a spy, as was she. Another major difference was that Lauren had never killed anyone, not that she objected to the possibility of having to do so.
She felt a tug of regret that it was going to all be over for him, for them, so soon. There was also a twang of guilt because his retirement also represented an opportunity for her. Finally, she would be able to leave the administrative side and take an assignment in a field office abroad to punch that necessary career ticket.
Lauren knew she was ready for field work and would prove that once again in Pakistan. She picked up a phone built into a wall holder and spoke softly to the two pilots up in the flight deck. Nothing of interest. Stay focused.
THE TWO TALIBAN FIGHTERS who were spared at the wall of the execution yard, Makhdoom Ragiq and Mohammad Sial, understood that they were living on borrowed time. They could only trust their future to the will of Allah and the whims of the Leader of the Bright Path. So far, things had worked out well, although in a very strange manner, for while they were safe and being well treated, no one shared information with them.
It was easily determined that they were being contained within a Class A prison near Peshawar, close to the Khyber Pass in the rugged northwest. In the morning light, they were pleased to be able to see the mountains from the windows of their rooms. The domed towers of the Islamia College were to the left. Most of the doors remained open at the prison, and there was plenty of tasty food served by attractive girls who also offered other pleasures.
The open doors did not mean freedom of movement. The pair were told they would remain in the prison while Muhammed Waleed completed his thoughts about how best to employ them. Waleed’s representatives also assured the fighters that they were being kept out of sight for their own safety in case of further reprisal attacks by the Americans, and their incarcerations would be brief.
They leaped to their feet when a young man in a tan Western suit, light blue shirt, and matching tie entered their rooms, wearing a small silver falcon, wings outspread, in his lapel. The hunting falcon was the symbol of the Bright Path Party. His beard barely covered his face, as if he shaved frequently.
“Ah, thank you for being here today,” the man said in a polite tone. “Please excuse my being late. You both are aware of the need for secrecy and deception in operational situations, so it would be better if you do not know my real name. I am here to represent the Wise Ones.” He dipped his head as if in modest apology, then brightened. “You may call me Selim. And please sit down and be comfortable. We have something to discuss.”
The room became still as he looked them over-wiry tribal men with smoldering dark eyes, ashamed that their beards had been trimmed and their fingernails cleaned. They were both in Western-style clothing, clearly uncomfortable. “You look perfect,” Selim said.
“I am a mountain fighter and would rather blow up a building than wear these clothes,” declared Makhdoom Ragiq. The taller, older man, with his mustache and beard cut back, displayed bad teeth within a narrow mouth when he spoke.
Selim shrugged his shoulders. “You both will soon be transferred to lodgings in Islamabad, to a place in which rough mountain fighting clothes would be too different. You have to blend into your surroundings, just as on a battlefield.”
“What do you want of us, Selim?” The second man, a short fellow with a moon face, a muscular body, and oily hair, asked the question directly and in a firm voice.
Selim responded with a further helping of praise. “You are both very valuable fighters, and the Leader and the Wise Ones were correct in recommending that I be responsible for you while the Americans are hunting you. I have agreed to keep you safe, but you will have to endure the dreadful ways of the Western world for a little while longer. Then you can go back home, back to your mountains out there, if you so wish. Do you understand?”
The two fighters looked at each other. They were true soldiers and followed orders. Someday, God willing, they would figure out how they had gone so quickly from being battlefield specialists to having to dress and act like infidel tourists. All they knew was that they were kept alive after the fiasco initiated by Fariq, that son of a whore dog. They would do the bidding of the Wise Ones without question, although it was something too complex for them to fathom.
“You brought great honor to our cause by participating in the death mission of the American. It was a daring and courageous act that struck fear into the infidels, Allah be praised. All true Muslims cheer you.” He skipped over any mention of the kidnap and Fariq.
“Thank you. But what do you want?”
“We need your services again.”
That brought a sense of swift ease to the pair of soldiers. The short man asked, “Where will we do this favor? Will we go back into Afghanistan again?”
“No,” Selim answered. “This time it will be right here in Pakistan. You will be housed in an apartment in the best part of Islamabad until you are required to act.”
“We need to train our bodies and our spirits, sir,” said Makhdoom Ragiq. “We will need details. Many details, to make our plans.”
“There is little time. You can exercise in the privacy of the apartment suite. I am personally handling the planning. Once you are in Islamabad, I shall give you the details. Tell me at that time whatever other information you need and it will be provided.”
The tall man spoke again. “And when do you want this, this operation done?”
“Very soon. Perhaps just a few days. Everything is being arranged. Rest here until I call for you with a car. We will make the trip down to Islamabad together.” Selim smiled a final time and left the room as quietly as he had entered.