SIALKOT
Randall Craig stood beneath a broad, aging acacia to the rear of the house, smoking one of Said Qureshi’s English cigarettes. The procedure had gone as well as could be expected, and some of his tension was starting to fade. The nicotine was definitely helping with that, he thought, though the fear was as strong as ever. Before, he had been primarily concerned with saving the secretary of state’s life. Now that he had helped Qureshi to accomplish that task, he found his thoughts returning to the strongest, most basic of all human instincts. Namely, self-preservation.
The urge to run was intense. His legs were as taut as compressed springs, and the adrenaline was pumping through his veins like gasoline; he felt as if he could fly across the gently sloping field and lose himself in the bracken before the guards could react. It was just past ten on a moonless night, and the stars overhead were largely blocked from view by fast-moving clouds, billowing black clumps against the charcoal sky. Across the distant fields, where the terrain rose into the gentle Kashmiri foothills, he could see a column of lights snaking along a winding road. Dozens, if not hundreds, of lights. The sound of diesel engines was a distant, constant rumble. Qureshi had told him they were in Sialkot, and that the city was home to a major Pakistani army base. He guessed that the vehicles were moving toward the battlefields to the north. Before long, they would switch to infrared to conceal their locations, to guard against the IAF bombers patrolling the skies over the Kashmir Valley. Craig let his gaze drift over the fields, weighing the possibilities. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t work; it was at least 200 feet to the nearest line of trees, and he would have to cross a waist-high fence of tightly strung wire to get there. He was standing at the end of the garden, as far away from the guards as he thought he could get without rousing their suspicion. There were two of them, he knew, and both were armed. Not with the stubby submachine guns the interior guards were carrying, but with long-barreled rifles. He didn’t doubt for a second that both weapons were mounted with night-vision scopes; if he tried to run, he wouldn’t get more than 20 meters. It was too much to chance. He was willing to take a risk when he made a break for freedom, but only a calculated risk; he wasn’t prepared to throw his life away. Not if there was a better alternative. As he stared down the sloping hill, searching in vain for clumps of vegetation that might provide him with enough cover to reach the fence, he felt a presence behind him. Turning suddenly, he was startled to see a man standing less than 10 feet to his rear. His features were not discernable in the low light, but he was tall, and his head was wrapped in some kind of cloth. Not a turban exactly, but something similar . . . a kaffiyeh, maybe. As Craig stared at him, the man took a few steps forward, his teeth flashing white in a brilliant, friendly smile.
“Dr. Craig?” The man drew closer, and Craig could see that he was dressed in long, flowing robes, quite unlike the slacks and shirts that Mengal and his guards had been wearing. The man, with his long, hawkish nose, thick black beard, and piercing hazel eyes, looked more suited to the desert than the Kashmiri foothills of northern Pakistan. Stranger still were his Western-style running shoes, the toes of which protruded from the bottom edge of his robes. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you. I only wanted to congratulate you on your fine work this evening. The secretary owes you her life.”
The man spoke with an accent that Craig could not place; it was completely different from anything he’d heard before, though his English was word perfect. The man was moving closer now, standing too close, and he seemed to radiate a kind of commanding energy. Craig felt a spark of revelation, accompanied by a little fear. He suddenly realized who this was. He had to be the man Qureshi had mentioned earlier, the man he knew only as the Algerian. What was it he had said . . . ?
One of them is the devil himself.
“Doctor, do you know who I am?”
Craig took a shifting step back and shook his head. “No.”
The Algerian moved forward again; he was so close that Craig could smell his breath. He caught a hint of the same mint tea he had been offered earlier. “Are you sure?” the man persisted. A strange half smile was wedged into place on his gaunt, weathered face. “You’ve never seen me before?”
Craig couldn’t think through the terror that seized him, but he was certain he’d never seen this face before. He felt a sudden anger cutting through the fear, and this time he summoned his strength, took an aggressive step forward, and squared his shoulders.
“I said I haven’t,” he snarled, jabbing a finger into the man’s chest.
“You speak English, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” Amari Saifi smiled mildly, apparently unswayed by the pointless show of defiance. “A benefit of my army service. In fact, I once trained with some of your countrymen, though I suppose you’d find that hard to believe.”
A sudden noise caught Craig’s attention, and he turned to look up at the house. A Mitsubishi box truck had pulled up to the side of the trellis, and a number of guards were walking out to meet it, the exterior lights coming on. As Craig watched, a man opened the doors to the rear, climbed up, and began handing items down to the waiting hands. Craig recognized most of the equipment immediately: a pair of portable halogen lamps, a collapsible aluminum tripod, a bulky black case that might have contained a camera. The Algerian, following his eyes, turned to examine the scene. Another slow smile spread over his face. “So,” he said, sounding pleased.
“It would appear we’re almost ready. We just have to wait for our star to recover. Another fifteen or sixteen hours, perhaps. I find it so hard to be patient after all this time. Don’t you agree?”
“What are you talking about? What do you mean, your ‘star’?”
“Fitzgerald, of course.” The man turned his calm gaze on Craig and smiled again. “An unwilling star, perhaps, but a star nonetheless, and she is only the main attraction.”
“What do you mean?” Craig repeated, but he didn’t really need to ask. Somewhere, deep down, he already knew.
Saifi put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. This time there was nothing friendly about it. “Doctor, you didn’t think you were brought here for just one reason, did you? You’ve performed admirably so far, but your work is far from done. You’re going to be famous, my friend . . . more famous than you ever dreamed possible.”
It hit him then, what was going to happen. It was everything he’d seen in the news over the past few years, the grainy images out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Karachi, a city less than 900 miles from his current location. It was what had happened to Daniel Pearl and so many others, and though he’d never seen the footage, he could see and hear it all in his mind: the masked men standing on either side of an Islamic flag; the resigned look in the eyes of the victim; the voice reading out the demands that would never be met; the blade coming down in a sweeping, glittering arc. . . .
The decision to act was not a conscious one, but he found himself moving forward, reaching out for the Algerian’s throat, eyes fixed on the sensitive bundle of nerves beneath the chin. He heard the shouts rising up from the back of the house, the sound of legs swishing through the damp, knee-high grass on the hill, but it was all meaningless background noise; he was entirely focused on killing the man in front of him. The Algerian moved to the left and raised an arm to ward off the attack, but he didn’t fight back, and Craig—having missed with his first strike—turned to mount a second attack. He launched himself forward, head down, and felt his shoulder connect with the man’s midsection, the air coming out of the Algerian’s lungs in a great rush. He felt a moment of profound satisfaction before the first of the soldiers arrived. Suddenly, his head exploded with pain, a heavy blow landing exactly where he’d been hit before, and he slumped to the ground.
Despite the overwhelming odds he was facing, he tried to hold on, knowing this might be his last chance to resist. It just wasn’t working; the black sea was moving in with incredible speed, and the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness was the sound of the Algerian’s laughter. To Craig’s ears, it sounded like a harsh, grating tear, as if the laughter itself was ripping a hole in the still night air. And then he was gone.