Agency Rules - Never an Easy Day at the Office (25 page)

“We
’re ready to move out,” the driver said, looking in the rearview mirror at Kamal.

“Let
’s go,” Kamal replied, fighting the demons in his head.

The car moved out of the driveway and turned toward the F-10 market where the convoy grew. Kamal sat quietly in the back as five vehicles pulled from their parked positions and joined ahead and behind his own. Counter-surveillance, he thought to himself as the lush green of Islamabad faded away and his mind painted the picture of the barren, mountainous view to each side of the road in Timergara.
How had he gotten there?

As the cars moved along the road, he watched each of them peel off in different directions drawing any potential lurkers and watchers with them. As his vehicle moved closer to a police checkpost, Kamal
’s eyes saw the FC soldier that had checked his identification, and expected to stop, but the driver pulled straight through. He glanced back a few times seeing the same black Corolla that he was in behind him, but there were times when he glanced in the rearview mirror only to see a double-door pickup in the shadows.
Was his mind really this confused?
The car raced down the turnpike and onto the Islamabad Highway headed back towards Islamabad.
Where had he been if not the safe-house?
The car shot through the city and in the gates of ISI headquarters as Kamal’s mind returned to the reality of Islamabad.

The car pulled around to the familiar security door and stopped. Kamal entered hobbling to the elevator, not bothering to stop for the cursory security check.
The driver can take care of that
. An escort tried to board the elevator with him, but Kamal held out his hand stopping him. “I know where I’m going,” he said as the elevator doors closed between the two.

Kamal took a deep breath, trying to bring his fractured mind into focus. How would he handle a debriefing with so much confusion? He tried to collect his thoughts as the elevator moved up the floors, but found himself questioning his own version of events. Before the doors opened on the fourth floor, Kamal shifted his weight from the back wall where he was leaning and grabbed his crutch. The injuries caused him to move slower than the elevator door, forcing him to jam the crutch between them as they closed, triggering them open again. He pulled back the crutch, slotting it under his left shoulder and limped out.

Pausing at the end of the hallway, he drank in the environment, trying to settle his mind and draw all his energy for the long hobble down the corridor to the conference room, but his mind could only see the corridor in the Imam’s home. He had already passed the security door downstairs, but the ever-present cameras kept watch on anyone in the corridor. He dreaded the distance from the elevator to the conference room.
This is the longest trek I’ve had to make since the hospital
, as he put the crutch forward and swung his weight to start moving down the hall.

Traveling down the corridor, Kamal
’s forehead beaded with sweat. The exertion was more than he was accustomed to. His mind still stumbled between the Imam’s house and where he now stood.
This is the room where we waited for the evening festivities
, he thought standing outside the reinforced wooden door. That image shattered when he looked across the hall at the plaque outside another door. ‘Dr. Sara Ahmed’ read the inscription.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Should I stop and say hello?
He hovered for a moment debating, regaining some strength before continuing down the corridor.
Now isn’t the time. My mind isn’t clear enough and she will have too many questions.
Moments later, he found himself finally at the door. The guards reached for the handles to pull it open for him, but Kamal stopped them.

“Let me settle myself first,” he said, taking a handkerchief from the back pocket of his uniform pants and wiping the sweat from his face and neck. He adjusted his shirt, checking to make sure the perspiration had not bled through, looking to one of the guards for approval. The guard looked him up and down and gave him a thumbs-up signal, before snapping the door to the conference room open.

Kamal stood in the doorway feeling as naked as a newborn as silence greeted him from within. He shifted his weight to his one good leg and snapped off a salute to the officers sitting around the ornately decorated table. There were flowers at both ends with another bouquet in the center. A tea service was before each of the men around the table with a fresh setting at his assigned seat. He recognized many of the occupants of the chairs, but there were a couple of new faces that he hadn’t seen before. At least, he didn’t recall seeing before.

Lt. General Misbah Qadir pulled a cigarette from the pack of imported Dunhill's and tapped the butt on the table. Kamal tracked the movement as if in slow motion, the taps echoing in his head like gunfire. The general dropped his cigarette on the table and looked sternly at Kamal.

“Do you plan on sitting down, Captain?” he said, picking the cigarette back up between his thumb and forefinger to place it between his dry, chapped lips. Kamal was frozen in place as the lighter was raised and the flame exploded from its nib. The tip of the cigarette drank up the flame, glowing red with its heat. The general exhaled the smoke, asking, “Unless you feel strong enough to stand throughout the debrief?”

Kamal was visibly confused by the general
’s aggressive tone.
I haven’t done anything wrong, I only fought to get an asset free to save the mission
. But the tone made the hairs on Kamal’s arm stand up.
This is not going to be an easy debrief
. He squared his shoulders and limped to his place at the table.

With Kamal finally in his seat, the General sat forward and pulled a microphone towards him. He reached across the table and took a remote in his hand, pointing at the camera in the corner of the room that Kamal had noticed in his last debrief.
This time, the red light is on
.

“I now call this debrief of Captain Kamal Khan to order on this the 14th day of June, 1996. Present are Lt. Gen. Asim Junejo, Director General, Military Operations; Brigadier Ahmed Saeed, Director General, Military Intelligence; Brigadier Imtiaz Riaz, Director General, Frontier Constabulary; Major Umer Afzal, Investigator, Military Intelligence; Captain Kamal Khan, and myself, Lt. General Misbah Qadir, Director General, Inter Services Intelligence,” he said into the microphone.

“The purpose of this debriefing is to understand the actions and activities leading up to, and including, the attempted kidnapping and interrogation of a deep cover ISI operative,” he looked around the room at all the participants to see if there was anything else that needed to be added. “Gentlemen, let’s begin.”

* * *

His seat was comfortable in the first class section of the Islamabad-bound Emirates flight. He had flown by private jet to Dubai, where he spent time with his wife and children before boarding this flight. But his wife and children were forgotten when looking at the beautiful twenty-three-year-old Emirati sitting next to him. Ahdad was a journalist for Al-Jazeera traveling to Pakistan to interview the newly elected Prime Minister for her channel. They had met in a chance encounter in the Duty Free shop, reaching for the same Tom Clancy spy thriller. The interaction was quick but cordial, and he was surprised to find her in the seat next to him when she boarded.

“
Hello Dave!” she exclaimed as she slid by him into her seat, leaving the aroma of her perfume lingering in the air.

“Hello Ahdad,” he said. “I didn
’t know you would be sitting next to me. What a pleasure!”

“At least I
’ll enjoy the flight there,” she laughed, rocking her head to the side, and smiled. “Not so sure about how much I’ll enjoy Islamabad,” she said, taking her phone from her purse to check messages.

“Is this your first time to Pakistan?” Dave asked, surprised that an Emirati journalist had never been there before.

“Yes, I just completed my internship and my new boss said this would be a good experience,” she replied.

“You just completed your internship and you
’re interviewing the Prime Minister?” Dave asked, a bit stunned that such an opportunity was being given someone so new.

“No,” she laughed. “I am just there to arrange the meeting and get background for the interviewer. They don
’t waste their time with these small things,” she said with a wink.

The air hostess came around and asked them both, “Please buckle your seat belts. We are getting ready for takeoff.”

“Excuse me,” Dave called. “When we get airborne, could you bring my friend and I something to drink?”

“Yes sir,” the air hostess said over her shoulder as she walked down the aisle.

Within minutes, the flight was in the air and the air hostess returned with a pleasant smile on her face. “What can I get you to drink?”

“I
’ll have a scotch on the rocks please,” Dave said. “Ahdad, what about you?”

“I really shouldn
’t,” Ahdad said with a smile, “but what the heck, I’ll sleep better tonight. I’ll have a whiskey and coke please.”

The air hostess smiled,
“I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

“So, where are you coming from, Dave?” Ahdad asked.

“Canada via London,” said Dave.

“Oh, I love Canada!” Ahdad said smiling. “I
’ve been to Toronto, Montreal and Whistler Mountain to ski.”

“
Not Niagara?” Dave asked with a smile. “Everyone finds their way there when they visit Canada.”

“No,” she replied sheepishly. “
I don’t want to go there until I have someone to enjoy it with. But hey, that’s me. Why are you traveling to Pakistan?”

“I work for a mineral exploration company and we are looking at working with a Pakistani company to mine marble from the NWFP,”
Dave said.

“Wow! Really?” Ahdad replied. “Wouldn
’t it be expensive to transport marble from Pakistan to Canada?”

“We
’re not going to transport to Canada,” Dave said laughing. “We are looking to source it for builders in the Middle East and Europe.”

The rest of the flight was filled with small talk and flirtation from both sides. She was obviously someone who knew how to use her femininity to get what she wanted and put someone at ease. As they approached Islamabad, the captain
’s voice came across the intercom.

“Ladies and gentleman, we are just about to land at Islamabad International Airport, where the temperature is a balmy thirty-two degrees Celsius. Local time is 1:45 am. We should be at the terminal in the next fifteen minutes,” he said. “If you could all please fasten your seat belts and return your seats to an upright position, we should be all clear to land. On behalf of myself and the cabin crew, we
’d like to thank you for flying Emirates Airlines and look forward to seeing you onboard again soon. Cabin crew, please take your seats for landing.”

The cabin crew made a quick check of the passengers, made the final preparations for landing and took their seats as the plane leaned hard to its right adjusting its position for the runaway. The plane touched the ground minutes later, the wheels passing the impact of the touchdown into the cabin of the plane as it landed. True to his word, the Captain had the plane at the terminal in fifteen minutes and passengers were stepping into the aisles to collect their things from the overhead baggage compartments.

Dave rose from his seat and pulled his briefcase from the overhead compartment. With a quick smile and goodbye, he left Ahdad and made his way to the exit.
She was interesting company, but not someone that I really want to know beyond this flight
, he thought exiting the plane onto the airport tarmac and onto the waiting bus. Islamabad International wasn’t like other airports. The size of the airport was not much larger than the bus stations back home and there were no walkways into the terminals. Here, passengers exited the plane into the humid air to board buses that would take them to the terminal and immigration and passport control.

As he stepped out of the bus into Immigration, he was confronted with the passengers of two other international flights that had landed in the past twenty minutes. True to its bus station form, there were only two passport control officers to deal with over four hundred passengers, while three others stood to the side watching the lines backup with the influx of more international passengers. He stood in line, wiping the sweat from his forehead with one hand and travel documents in the other. It seemed that one of the three officers realized it would be early morning before the backlog was cleared, and there were five more international flights incoming within the next ninety minutes.

“All passengers with foreign passports, please step over to counter five,” he called. “All passengers with business visas, please step to counter four.” Another man came over and whispered something in his ear, causing him to laugh. “All those passengers with first class boarding passes, please step to counter three,” he said, as the two long lines disbursed into five much more manageable lines. Dave had found his place three people back in the first class line, waiting for the passport control officer to clear the two before him.