Retribution (9781429922593) (26 page)

“Did you recognize the driver?”

“Major Naisir,” Thomas said. “But he didn't seem happy to see her. If you want me to follow them I might be able to catch up.”

“No, but I might have another problem this evening that I'll need help with. It's something I want to keep local.”

“Outside of Langley's purview?”

“Especially Langley's, and Don's.”

“I'm all ears.”

“Naisir's got a safe house here, just around the corner from the bus station. His wife and four men we think are dacoits are already there. It's where Naisir is bringing the woman he met at the airport.”

“They're expecting a war.”

“Which I'm going to give them,” McGarvey said. “But I'm facing two problems. The first is that Pete is already there and I haven't heard from her since this morning.”

“They know that you're coming and she's the bait. I don't know if I can round up some muscle in time, or quietly, but I can come down there and help out.”

“We have to keep the CIA out of it, at least officially. But that's going to be my second problem. Once I'm done Pete and I will need to get out of the country in a big hurry, and the airport won't be an option, unless you can arrange a private charter for us.”

“There are six contractors working for Executive Solutions scheduled to fly out at midnight. I think I can hold the plane if you're later than that, and there won't be any questions. These guys have been kicked out of the country. Nobody wants them here, not us or the Pakis. So no one will be around to check papers, especially with a couple of extra people.”

“That'll work.”

“I'll pick you up, but I'll need to know where.”

“At the safe house or very nearby.” He gave the GPS directions.

“Will there be any cops or ISI muscle?”

“He's using dacoits, so I don't think he wants to involve anyone official. He's on his own here, just like Pete and I are. And I'm counting on his being overconfident in numbers.”

“One thing, Mr. Director, you're not bulletproof.”

“Never have been,” McGarvey said.

“How will I know when to come in?”

“I'll let you know, or Otto will. He has a sky bird watching the place, and he'll know when something goes down. But stay loose and no more than five minutes out.”

“There's a tea shop just around the corner from the bus station.”

“I'm there now.”

“Last question, then. How are you planning on getting inside?”

“I'm going to ring the doorbell.”

“Are you sure that you don't want some extra muscle?.”

“Other than a ride out to the airport, I want you to stay out of this. If you get involved, the CIA is involved, and the White House would come down on the entire Islamabad station like a ton of horseshit. We don't need that right now.”

“I hear you,” Thomas said.

*   *   *

Mac called Otto and brought him up to speed. “Schlueter's plane got in early and Naisir went to pick her up.”

“I wondered where he got himself to in such a hurry. Were you in the cab when he came out?”

“That was me. Anything going on at the house?”

“Everything's quiet. Too quiet. I tried to turn on Pete's phone to listen in, but they took the battery out of it. If you could get Don Simmons to send a technical team down I could have them set up some surveillance equipment in the house next door—it's empty.”

That was going to be Mac's next question, but he hadn't hoped for that kind of luck. “Which house? Which side?”

“The east side. The one with a common wall. You could get in from the roof. There's only a low barrier separating the two.”

McGarvey had spotted the house, but he'd had no way of knowing whether anyone was living there. “They'll be expecting something like that. But I'll use it as a backup route on the way out.”

“Okay, Mac, exactly how are you planning on getting in?” Otto asked.

“As soon as Naisir shows up with Schlueter, I'm going to walk over and ring the doorbell.”

“They'll kill you on sight.”

“They want to know what I know. It's why Schlueter showed up. They want me there, but they want to talk to me first.”

“Shit,” Otto said.

“If you see something going down and I haven't called, send Milt Thomas in. He's standing by to pick us up and take us out to the airport. But only if there are no cops or anyone else nosing around.”

“Shit.”

“You already said that.”

 

FORTY-FOUR

Naisir's wife had sent the big man away and then had left herself. That was fifteen minutes ago, and Pete had explored the small room, especially the ceiling tiles, looking for a way out. But the place was tight. And probably soundproof if Naisir used it for extrajudicial interrogations.

Someone came to the door and Pete sat down on the floor in the same spot as before, in time for Ayesha to come in.

“Last chance,” Naisir's wife said.

“Why did you stop him from raping me?”

“I thought that I would give you a little time to think about your situation, and then we could talk together, simply as two women.”

“Kirk knows that I'm here and he understands the situation.”

“You trust him,” Ayesha said it as a statement, not a question.

“Yes. And just so you know, he has never once in his career failed at anything.”

Ayesha smiled faintly. “Except at his marriage.”

Pete resisted the urge to get up and take the woman apart. “Someone killed his family. All of them. He'll do the same here.”

“Be that as it may,” Ayesha said. “I put the battery back in your cell phone.” She tossed it across. “Call him. Tell him that all we want to do is talk.”

“Which is why you hired at least the one dacoit.”

Ayesha shrugged. “If you know about them, then you understand the seriousness with which my husband takes the mess you created.”

“Of your husband's doing. He's paymaster for an operation to kill some of our military personnel.”

“Who violated our national borders and murdered innocent civilians.”

“Terrorists who ordered the violation of our borders and killed almost three thousand civilians—some of them Muslims,” Pete shot back. “We won't forget.”

“Neither will we.”

Pete switched the phone on but then set in on the floor. Unless the room was shielded from electronic eavesdropping, it was possible that Otto would pick up the signal.

“You will not telephone Mr. McGarvey?”

“No.”

Ayesha stared at her for a long time before she turned and left. But she did not close the door.

A moment later Sipra came in and stood watching her, a smile on his thick lips.

Pete got to her feet and circled around to the right, away from the narrow cot, toward the wooden table with two chairs.

“You had your chance,” Sipra said in heavily accented English.

“So do you. Just turn around and walk away.”

The big man laughed, the sound rumbling deep inside his chest.

She figured that she had one chance, and it was a long shot considering the difference in their sizes. She stopped and spread her hands. “Let's get it over with, pig. That is, if you think you're man enough. But then you've been kissing so much ass all your life to make a few rupees by beating up people that no woman would look twice at you.”

His complexion deepened, and he started toward her. He was surprisingly light on his feet, which was worrisome.

Pete feinted left, then right again on the balls of her feet, gliding like a boxer in a ring.

He didn't try to cut her off, instead he stopped in the middle of the room so that whichever way she moved he would only have to step forward to reduce her radius of free space.

She suddenly leaped directly at him, ducking to the left just inside his reach. Her intention was to get on his right side, beneath his hands, and slam a fist into his kidney, maybe slow him down until the opportunity to do what she wanted opened up.

It was like hitting a concrete block, and she saw his left hook coming overhand at the side of her face at the last moment. She could only rear back, throwing her head to the side as his fist landed just above her temple.

She was thrown to the floor, dazed, her stomach roiling, on the verge of vomiting, her head spinning, flashes of light in her eyes.

He ripped the waistband of her jeans open, and, grabbing her legs, he flipped her over on her stomach and pulled her pants and panties down around her ankles.

This wasn't happening! She felt completely helpless, a roaring sound filling her ears.

She looked over her shoulder, as he pulled one leg of her jeans off her ankle, and pulled his trousers down around his knees.

“No,” she cried.

As he fumbled with his underwear, she managed to scoot away from him. He grabbed for her, but she heaved herself up on his broad back, grabbed the scarf tied around his neck with both hands, and with her knees in the small of his back pulled with all of her might, twisting her right hand over her left.

He bucked, trying to dislodge her, but her fingers were locked into the scarf, like the reins of a bronco.

He tried to reach up behind his back to grab her and pull her away, but each time she managed to get out of his reach, while still holding tight to the scarf, restricting his carotid artery, stopping the blood flow to his brain.

It seemed like forever before his movements became less violent. Finally he slumped forward on his purple face.

She kept the pressure on with every ounce of her strength until he gave a last shudder. She released her grip, her fingers cramped, every muscle in her body screaming for relief.

Slowly she climbed off him, got to her feet, and pulled up her panties and jeans.

After what seemed like another eternity, her senses came back into focus like a great whooshing coming down around her head.

She checked the corridor, but no one was coming. She went back to the body and searched it, but out of some sense of caution he wasn't carrying a weapon.

Picking up her phone she called Otto, who answered even before she entered the last number.

“Are you okay?” he demanded. He sounded breathless.

“Did you hear it?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“The son of a bitch tried to rape me, so I killed him.”

“Mac's on his way. Can you get somewhere safe?”

Pete looked up as one of the other dacoits appeared in the doorway.

 

FORTY-FIVE

In his Mercedes leaving the airport Naisir was angry with Schlueter for coming back to Pakistan like this, and even more angry with himself for allowing the situation to get so out of hand.

“Why the hell did you come here?” he demanded. He glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure they hadn't picked up a tail.

“To deal with McGarvey,” Pam said. “He's still here, isn't he, or have you already taken care of the problem?”

“I met with him this morning at the hotel. He knows about my safe house, and I'm sure that he'll show up sometime tonight or early in the morning.”

“The bastard screwed up everything in Norfolk,” Pam said. She was angry too. But all of a sudden she looked at him. “How can you be so sure?”

“He brought a woman with him, and we have her now.”

“She's a CIA officer. He might cut her loose.”

“They came in as husband and wife, and my wife is sure that she's in love with him.”

Pam shook her head. “You involved your wife? What the hell were you thinking, Major? Don't you have any conception how dangerous this guy is? If and when he shows up he means to kill you. And if your wife gets in his way he'll kill her too.”

Naisir glanced in his rearview mirror again.

“Damn, you're expecting him to come up on your six. You better hope he doesn't, because I can tell you something else. He'll not only come after you; he's already put a plan in place to get out of the country afterward.”

“He won't live that long. I can guarantee that. I've hired four guys who know what they're doing.”

“Dacoits,” Pam said disparagingly. “Shopkeepers.”

“These ones are special. There's no way he's going to get around them.”

“Unless he gets to us before we reach your safe house,” Pam said. “Are you armed?”

“Of course.”

“Did you bring something for me?”

“In the glove box.”

She took out a bulky Austrian-made 9mm Steyr GB, checked that there was a round in the chamber, and checked the eighteen-round magazine to make sure it was fully loaded. The gun had been decocked so it was in its safe mode. “It'd be poetic justice to kill the bastard with this,” she said. “The American Army Special Forces used to carry it.”

“You're not going to kill him, and neither am I. We'll leave that to the dacoits, who'll also dispose of his body up north.”

“Unnecessary.”

“He was the director of the CIA, for the sake of Allah. The government of Pakistan does not kill such men. The ISI simply cannot do it, which is why I hired the dacoits. They're outlaws who don't care about the law—religious or secular.”

“You hired me to do a job because I'm not a Pakistani. Let me do this now so I can get on with the mission.”

Naisir maneuvered through traffic, his thoughts spinning in a dozen different directions, among them his future with the ISI; he'd once entertained the notion that someday he would rise far enough in rank that, along with his wife's connections, he would become the head of the agency. It was still possible, especially if such a spectacular mission as eliminating the SEAL Team Six operators who'd taken out bin Laden were to come to complete fruition. Yet that operation, if it went wrong, could doom him and Ayesha to a prison somewhere, or even an assassin's bullet, despite her family.