evicting tenants and intimidating reluctant landowners into selling. In addition to making sure the right people were bribed or threatened, Durrani had also made sure that the private security force was composed of former army personnel who were entirely loyal to him. In exchange for his help, he was given his own compound, nestled on a very private palm-tree-lined lot. The compound was surrounded by ten-foot walls that protected an eightthousand- square-foot main house, two guesthouses, a pool house, and an eight-car garage with rooms for his servants and bodyguards. Durrani was filled with a sense of bliss every time he entered the gated community. Only in his beloved Pakistan could you work this hard and be rewarded with such opulence.
The cars sped down a wide, tree-lined boulevard. Unlike the rest of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, here there wasn’t a speck of garbage in sight. The gate to the compound was open and two of Durrani’s military bodyguards were standing next to the large stone columns, holding their Heckler amp; Koch G3 rifles. The vehicles sped past them and up the long private driveway. Durrani did not wait for his detail to take up their positions. This was his compound, after all, and there had to be at least one place in his life where he could feel free to move about on his own. He headed for the main house where his butler was waiting at the door.
“Good evening, General,” a small man in a white tunic and black pants greeted him. “Is there anything I can get you?”
Durrani walked past his butler without making eye contact and then stopped in the middle of the large marble foyer. “Is Vazir here?”
“Yes, General. He is in the Shahi house.”
Durrani gave a quick nod and proceeded down the hallway to the elevator. When the doors opened, he stepped inside and pressed the button for the basement. Durrani was extremely paranoid, and his job only amplified his distrustfulness, so when he was having the house built he’d had the contractor, a very good friend and business partner, put in tunnels that linked all the structures on the property. As much as possible he did not want the Americans to know what he was doing. The tunnels allowed him to stay away from the prying eyes of their satellites. Durrani had even gone so far as to have an analyst give him the known overpass times of American satellites, so he could be extra cautious. The problem was that Americans could move those satellites, and even worse, through the use of stealth drones they were finding more and more ways to spy on him.
Durrani punched in the code and opened the steel door. The corridors were nothing special, just poured eight-foot concrete walls and ceilings with caged industrial lights every twenty feet. The tunnel from the main house to the first guesthouse was 180 feet long. At the next door he took a right turn and continued down a much shorter tunnel. He punched in another code, entered the stark basement and started up the steps. By the time he reached the main floor his breathing was labored. Durrani placed one hand on the railing and patted his chest with the other.
A voice called out from the next room, “Is that you, General?”
When he spoke, Durrani was still out of breath. “Yes.” He reached for his cigarettes and lit one, before pushing off the railing and walking into the sunken living room. The theme for this particular house was clean and contemporary with lots of white. In the middle of the sunken living room were two white leather couches and two modern white leather chairs with chrome frames. The furniture rested on a large white shag rug and a white marble floor with subtle shades of gray.
Durrani did not approach the man in the dark suit. He was sitting with his legs crossed on one of the white couches, a magazine in one hand, a cigarette in the other and a bulky black pistol next to him. Vazir Kassar was one of his most trusted officers. He was also an insolent son of a bitch at times. He knew that Durrani was dying to know how things had turned out, but he was going to make him ask.
“Well?” Durrani’s eyes were wide with anticipation.
“Well, what, General?”
Durrani was suddenly irritated by the gun sitting on the couch. “Put that away. You are a guest in my house.”
“I thought I was your employee,” the dark, thin man answered in a voice that conveyed ambivalence.
“Don’t play your games with me. How did it go?”
The man remained serious. “It wasn’t easy.”
“But he’s alive?”
“Yes.” Kassar jerked his head toward the hallway. “He’s in the bedroom at the end of the hall.”
Durrani clapped his hands together and stifled a scream of joy. “You will have to tell me all the details later, but first I must see him.” Durrani hurried down the hallway, his black dress shoes clicking on the stone floor. He would have run if his lungs could have taken it. When he reached the door at the end of the hall he didn’t bother knocking.
He threw open the door and froze in disbelief. The blackout shades were not pulled, and the bright afternoon light streamed through the gauzy, white linen curtains. There, in the middle of the king size bed, filled with white pillows, white sheets, and a fluffy white feather comforter, lay a mass of purple and red flesh. The smile on Durrani’s face vanished. “Good God. What did those fools do to you?” Durrani rushed to the bedside and looked at the swollen and bruised face. “Is it you? I can’t be sure.” The monstrous face slowly turned in his direction. The man was blind. His eyes, swollen tightly shut, looked like two peaches. His lips were cut, cracked, and so puffy the top one touched his broken and deformed nose. Durrani had seen the video on the Internet and assumed that they had used makeup to exaggerate the injuries. “What happened?”
When he spoke he sounded congested. “It’s not easy to talk. I think they broke my jaw.”
Durrani’s entire being stiffened with anger. “I will kill them. I swear to you I will kill them.”
There was gruff laughter from the doorway. “I think you’re a little late for that.”
Durrani looked over his shoulder at Kassar. “How could you have let this happen?”
“It was your idea,” he said, not wanting to own any of this. “All part of your grand plan.”
“This,” Durrani said, pointing at Rickman, “was not my plan.”
“Relax, Akhtar,” Rickman said, reaching out with his left hand.
When Durrani saw the mangled and broken fingers he took a quick step back.
“I’m alive,” Rickman said. “It worked. Vazir took care of your two Taliban dupes. I’m told the entire thing was quite dramatic. Fortunately, I had passed out by then.”
“Are you in pain?” Durrani asked.
It was a relative question, or at least the pain was relative. He was not comfortable, but compared to his pain during the beatings he was at peace. “I’m okay.”
“You are no such thing. You are a bloody mess.”
“I’ll survive.”
“I’m not sure you will.” Durrani looked to Kassar again. “How could you have let this happen?”
“He insisted,” Kassar said. “You’ve told me many times my job is to follow orders. I wanted to stop sooner, but he said we had to make sure it was convincing.”
“To follow my orders.” Durrani hit himself in the chest repeatedly.
“Well, you weren’t there, General. I was following Joe’s orders.”
Durrani found Kassar’s unflappable behavior unnerving at times. Rather start yelling at him, Durrani turned his attention back to Rickman. There wasn’t an inch of his face that wasn’t bruised, swollen, or cut. “Why did you do this to yourself?”
“I didn’t… it was your Taliban flunkies. They were not very smart, by the way. Perfect for the job, really. I must compliment you.”
Durrani cracked a small smile. He had always found Rickman humorous. “It looks like they went too far.”
“It was the only way. I had to sell it.”
Durrani was dumbfounded. He knew the American was smart, but he had no idea he was so tough. “You are either the bravest man I know, or you are crazy. Which one is it?”
“I little bit of both, I suppose.” Rickman started to smile, but then had to stop because it hurt too much.
Durrani considered the bigger picture. He would have preferred not to cut this so close, but he was thankful that Rickman was alive. He had pulled off one of the greatest intelligence coups in the history of the world. “This is a great day.” He put his right hand on Rickman’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring squeeze.
Rickman moaned and Kassar said, “I think his shoulders were dislocated while they were tied above his head. I wouldn’t do that.”
