almost every kind of trouble a person could get into.
“Sorry to wake you, Vince,” he said into the phone.
“No problem. I was just jerking off. That’s you, Mr. Peabody, I presume?”
“ Moi-meme. ”
“Why are you at work so early?”
“I have a little problem,” said Perkins. “Something I never told you about.”
“Swell. I always like it when you go solo and exercise poor judgment. It gives me something to clean up.”
“Don’t try to be funny, Vince. This is not the moment. I have a man who has gone missing in Pakistan. His name is Howard Egan. E-G-A-N. He seems to have been kidnapped. I am going to put out a statement today here in London.”
“Why was he kidnapped, for chrissakes? And what was he doing in Pakistan? Does he really work for you?”
“Well, that’s the thing. This particular gentleman did a bit of moonlighting.”
“For whom?”
“You can guess, surely. Let us say that these people were not unknown to you in your former line of work.”
“Oh, Christ. You really are an asshole. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Complicated question. Simple answer: I wasn’t allowed to. Anyway, I didn’t, and that’s that. They want me to put out a statement and sit tight and wait for the whole thing to blow over. Does that make sense to you?”
“I don’t know. Do you have any other choice?”
“No. I want you to do something for me this morning. Call your old friends. Not the little guys, but the very biggest one you know, and tell him that I am assuming people will keep a lid on this. Tell him that if they don’t, the consequences will be extremely serious, for everybody. Ooga-booga. Scare them. You know how to do that.”
“Will they know what I’m talking about?” asked the lawyer.
“I rather think so. This is a little, um, difficult for them.”
“Are you going to tell me about this, Peabody? Because I think you should. I can fly over tonight. You need help.”
“Not now. Maybe I’ll tell you later. Right now it’s awkward. You would ask questions that I wouldn’t be able to answer.”
“Hey, level with me, my friend. Are you fucked up here?”
“No. I am the opposite of fucked up, whatever that is. I am just dandy. So long as everyone adheres to their bargains. Then I am fine. That’s all I really need you to worry about-that the dikes and levies are secure, and the floodwaters can be contained.”
“But I don’t know the details.”
“Precisely,” said Perkins. “You have grasped the point entirely. You don’t know the details, so can’t give me unnecessary advice. I have to get off the phone now so I can go home and meet one of the ‘tidy-uppers.’ You make your call, highest level, please, and deliver the appropriate, oblique warning. Then we’ll see about getting together. Want to go grouse shooting? I’ll be going up to my place in Scotland in August. Let’s do that.”
Perkins hung up without waiting for a response. He had a few more tasks to take care of, in the part of his computer system that housed the trading records. By then it was past nine a.m., and people were beginning to arrive at the office. Perkins turned off all his electronic systems, triple-locked his door behind him and kissed his secretary on the way out.
He strolled back to Ennismore Gardens at a leisurely pace. He felt easier now that he had done the housekeeping. Back at home, the representative from “Mr. Jones” was waiting in the drawing room, perched on the edge of the couch and looking most uncomfortable. Perkins apologized that he had been out taking his morning “power walk” around the Serpentine, a ritual that couldn’t be interrupted, rain or shine.
The visitor introduced himself as Rupert Ogilvy. He was a mousy-looking man, thin as a string and overmatched by his pin-striped suit. He looked like a bank clerk, which wasn’t far off. He was an administrative officer at a small support base Gertz maintained out near Heathrow. The young man proffered a business card, which Perkins didn’t bother to read because it was surely a phony.
“I have a draft statement that you might want to consider,” said young Ogilvy. He removed a piece of paper from his valise and handed it over.
The page had no letterhead or other markings. It was just two paragraphs, stating the simple and undeniable facts: An employee of Alphabet Capital named Howard Egan had disappeared while on a business trip to Pakistan to meet with clients of the firm. Alphabet Capital was requesting help from the U.S. and Pakistani governments in finding Mr. Egan and arranging his safe return.
Perkins read the document carefully and made several corrections in the margins. Then he put it in his pocket.
“Please let us know if you are making any changes,” urged Ogilvy.
Perkins laughed. The young man was sweating, even in the cool of the morning. He obviously wasn’t happy at the thought that one of his colleagues had disappeared.
“Don’t worry,” Perkins said, “and don’t tell me what to do. I’ve had enough of that from your colleagues already.”
11
When Lieutenant General Mohammed Malik was a student in America long ago, one of his military science professors had admonished the class, knowingly, with that old chestnut: “If you sup with the devil, you must use a long spoon.” How right that had seemed to everyone. But they were in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That was the land of the guileless, eternal smile. What did they know of the devil? In the unlikely event that they ever encountered the devil, they wouldn’t have supped with him, anyway, long spoon or short. They would have dropped a bomb on him.
General Malik realized when he returned home after his stint at the War College that he did not have the luxury of his American friends. The devil lived in Pakistan. It was necessary to sup with him on a daily basis simply to survive, sometimes without any utensils at all, grabbing it up with your hands.
The devil that concerned General Malik at the moment was the group of operatives that had kidnapped the American traveler, Howard Egan. Yes, he knew who they were. The Americans might not like it, but that was his job. The group in this case was called Al-Tawhid, which means “divine unity,” or, to use the more common term, “monotheism.” The general would have denied to his last breath that he or his service had any contact with these miscreants. But of course that was not true. They were well known to the ISI, and indeed had been used on occasion to do ISI business over the last few years. That was what intelligence services did. And then, if anyone criticized the contact, they lied about it. Only the Americans tried to pretend that the intelligence business was any different.
The best place to sup with these particular devils was their birthplace and home of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan on the country’s western border. General Malik knew the city well, for he had studied at the Army Staff College there as a young officer, and had returned as “chief instructor,” as the deputy commander’s position was known, before moving to the ISI.
The general flew to Quetta from Rawalpindi, this time in a lumbering Pakistani Air Force C-130. The plane was not like the gray American versions; it was painted in the colors of the desert, tan and brown, so that it was almost an airborne version of the trucks that plied the Grand Trunk Road. The general sat up top, in a comfortable seat just behind the air crew, not down below with the ordinary soldiers in their web seats slung from metal poles. Three-star generals were not soldiers anymore; they were demigods.
The plane landed at the military air base just north of the Quetta city center. As he stepped out of the C-130, General Malik saw again the austere, arid beauty of the place. The city was like the floor of a rock-hewn
