The Shadow Patrol

times.”

“Enemies today, friends tomorrow. Like me and you. Anyway, I’ll have you on my side, making the introductions.”

“I don’t know them. They’re on a different planet. A much heavier planet.”

“Same solar system. You can get people to vouch for you. And I hear that lately they’ve been looking for a new connection. Their buyers got stung.”

Miller had heard the same rumor. He didn’t bother to ask where the man had gotten that information. “It’s impossible.”

“No is not an option here, David. Over the years, you’ve made a whole lot of people guests of the government. Don’t you think they’d like to know who’s responsible for their change of address?”

Miller hung up. His phone rang again. He hesitated, then clicked on.

“Let me explain something to you, Daood. Something you need to understand. Are you listening?”

The man waited. Miller had never felt so powerless, not even in that windowless cell in Karachi. There he’d known that eventually they’d ask him for money and he’d pay and they’d let him out. But the man talking to him didn’t want money, and Miller had no idea how to manage him. “Yes. I’m listening,” he finally said.

“Good. So, please understand, nobody at my shop likes you. We’ve dealt with you for a long time because that’s what we do: we deal with guys like you.”

“And I’ve worked with you. I’ve helped you—”

“That’s true. You have. But you got paid in full every time. You figured you were being smart, making sure that you didn’t leave anything on the table. But the truth is that’s straight ghetto logic. Short-term thinking. Problem with playing that way is that at a moment like this, when you really need help, somebody who can help you with me, you don’t have anyone. You don’t have any favors in the bank. Not even a primary officer. Because nobody trusts you. It’s all transactional. You see?”

Miller kept his mouth shut, but he knew the guy was right.

“I’ll take that as a yes. So now, you go to anybody with this, ask about some guy named Stan and the favor he wants, nobody’s gonna care. Especially since you don’t even know my name. But I know yours. And when the word gets back to me, and I promise it will, I’ll jam you so hard you’ll wish you were back in that hole in Karachi. You don’t think I can find you? I’ll tell you where you are right now. You’re in Heathrow, waiting for a flight to O’Hare. Three-thirty p.m. You’re in seat two-A. Business class.”

Miller looked around the lounge, half expecting the man to wave to him.

“I upgraded.”

“Congratulations.”

Knowing when he was beaten was one reason Miller had survived. “I’ll try to do what you want.”

“You’ll do more than try. I’ll be in touch.” Click.

Miller couldn’t see a way out. Unless he just left everything behind, took his hundred grand in emergency cash and ditched everything, including his women. Bought a ticket to Lahore or some other Pakistani slumhole and melted away. Turned himself into Daood Maktani. He didn’t think this guy Stan would bother to chase him. He’d find some other pawn to do his work. The problem was that Miller would have to stay in Pakistan if he ran. He’d have to keep his head down, since even if the agency wasn’t actively after him, it would probably give his name to the Pakistani police. It wouldn’t even have to give a reason, just say he was an American citizen on a watch list. Miller would wind up in a crummy two-room apartment, watching his money dwindle, cut off from everything and everyone.

No. He’d take his chances, play the game. He knew how to survive.

MILLER HAD NEVER VISITED Quetta before, but he knew the place from the moment he landed. Like Peshawar, three hundred miles northeast, Quetta was old, overgrown, dirty, and filled with secrets. The cities were twins, trading and commercial centers that sat on caravan routes between Russia, India, and Africa. Today, most goods traveled by jet or ship. But Quetta and Peshawar remained true to their history. In their bazaars and mosques and mansions, smugglers, jihadis, merchants, tribal chiefs, generals, diplomats, and spies drank tea together and practiced the art of lying for fun and profit. Truths might be told in Quetta, but never on purpose.

Arranging the meeting that Stan had requested took Miller a month, every favor he had in Pakistan, and eighteen thousand dollars in “friendship payments” spread among the lesser members of the Thuwani clan. But finally he was blindfolded and tossed into the back of a van and driven into the mountains outside Quetta. He didn’t know exactly where. Geography wasn’t his strong suit, even where he could see where he was going. He was dumped inside a concrete-walled compound where four guys with AKs watched him without much love.

Hours passed before Amadullah finally arrived. He was tall, with a thick black beard. He chewed the bright green tobacco that Pashtun men favored. Miller imagined that his teeth glowed green in the dark, like a monster in a sci-fi movie.

Amadullah didn’t bother with the usual Pashtun pleasantries, offers of tea or sweets. He extracted a wad of tobacco from a gold tin and pressed it into his mouth and said through fatted lips, “What is it you want?”

Miller was so tired of having to navigate Pashtunwali codes — the baffling and sometimes contradictory set of rules that governed life in the mountains — that he actually appreciated Amadullah’s lack of respect. Without further ado, he presented the offer. Which was met as he’d expected.

“The Americans wish us to sell them drugs?”

“This man and the ones who work for him, yes.”

“And who is he?”

“He’s a CIA officer named Stan.” Miller had figured that “Stan” wouldn’t want to be identified with the CIA. But Stan had insisted that Miller mention his connection with the agency. Miller didn’t know why.

“He must think we’re fools. What we bring, they’ll take it and capture us. I should cut out your tongue for wasting my time with this.”

“You won’t have to bring him anything. He’ll send soldiers to pick it up.”

“From here.”

“In Afghanistan. The soldiers will pay the usual price to your men and then I’ll pay, too, directly to your men here. So you get double.”

“Why would he do this? Pay so much.”

“He can bring the drugs directly to Europe. On a military plane.”

“Then he sells it himself?”

“Someone there buys it from him. I don’t know who.”

“And he can take as much as I produce.”

“At first just ten kilos, make sure the arrangement works. After that, more. Maybe twenty kilos a month.” To his surprise, Miller saw that Thuwani was interested.

Thuwani spit a long stream of green tobacco onto the ground. “You say that American soldiers will pick it up.”

“After you and I choose the locations. In Kandahar and Zabul. The soldiers come on patrol to a village. Your men meet them.”

“Always the same soldiers?”

“I don’t know, but I think so.”

Amadullah stood. His calf muscles were as big as grapefruits. For such a big man, he moved quickly. He leaned over Miller, tipped a thumb under Miller’s chin to push up his head, close enough for Miller to see the creases in his green teeth. “The price is six thousand dollars a kilo. Three thousand to my men and three thousand to me.”

“That’s too much.” Pure heroin cost twenty-five hundred a kilo or less in Afghanistan.

“That’s the price.”

Considering that a kilo of heroin sold for seventy-five thousand dollars in Europe, Miller figured that “Stan,” whoever he was, would be okay with the deal. Anyway, Miller didn’t have a lot of leverage. Not surrounded by guys with AKs.

“That’s the price, then. Ten kilos okay to start?”