cameras was waiting. They all filmed the American woman escorting the body and later talking to the victim’s wife, who had rushed to the hospital from her home in I-9, near the railway station.
Sergeant Asif died of blood loss an hour after he arrived at the hospital. A detail of ISI officers, who had found Marx in the family waiting lounge with Sergeant Asif’s wife, now pulled her away and escorted her out the back door.
Among the millions of Pakistanis who watched the television images that evening was a research professor at the National University of Science and Technology. He didn’t pay much attention to the newscast at first. The reporters were describing it as one more terrorist attack in Pakistan’s long war, and speculating that it must be anti-American because it had taken place at the Marriott Hotel.
The professor suddenly took notice when the cameras showed the American woman who had accompanied the victim. His contacts had described the CIA operative who had arrived at the airport the day before. He knew that the target had survived the bombing at the Marriott. What surprised him was that she had accompanied the Pakistani sergeant to the hospital, and tried to comfort his widow.
The professor was confused. That image did not fit within his template of vengeance. He tried to put out of his mind the television picture of the American woman embracing the Pakistani widow as if she were her sister, but the image persisted.
Marx reached Cyril Hoffman two hours after the bombing, after the ISI had finally pried her away from the hospital.
“Somebody tried to kill me,” she said. But Hoffman already knew that. He’d received a call from General Malik thirty minutes before.
“No more heroics,” Hoffman said. “We are getting you out of there now, before you go out in a box.”
Hoffman had already discussed with the Pakistani general the procedures by which Marx would leave the country. An ISI convoy would take her to the military side of Islamabad Airport, where she would be held in a secure VIP area. Then she would be driven in an armored car to the Emirates plane as it was about to leave.
“Won’t that blow my cover?” she asked.
“I hate to break this to you, Sophie, but there’s nothing left of it.”
“I got what I came after,” she said. “That’s something, anyway.”
“What’s the short version?” asked Hoffman.
“We’re screwed. I’ll send you the details by cable. Have you told my boss?”
“Yes. I thought I really must. He was not pleased. He had some rather sharp words for me about your unauthorized trip. I believe the word ‘betrayal’ was used.”
All the anger that Marx had been feeling toward Gertz suddenly broke the surface. She looked around. Nobody seemed to be listening, but it didn’t matter.
“Oh, yeah? Well, fuck him. Tell him I said so.”
Hoffman laughed, a high-pitched chortle. “Now, now. Chin up, my dear. Get on that plane and don’t talk to strangers. Watch a nice in-flight movie, why don’t you. Have a beverage. And for heaven’s sake, be careful.”
She composed her message for Hoffman while she waited at Islamabad Airport to board the flight. She sent it in her funny name, to his, as an encrypted email: To: Marcus Crabtree From: Doris Finn Here’s the bad news: 1. The Hit Parade’s network is compromised by Hostile Network (HN) that has used the public name Ikwan Al-Tawhid but is guided by a computer expert identified as “the professor.” 2. The Hit Parade’s financial transfers are being monitored by HN, in part by tracing SWIFT and IBAN account numbers. HN has a source at SWIFT HQ facilitating this analysis of financial flows. 3. The Hit Parade’s credit-card and travel records have been accessed by HN, using data-mining and probably also human sources, identity unknown. 4. The Hit Parade’s use of Alphabet Capital as a financial hub to coordinate money flows has been discovered by HN, probably prior to kidnapping of Howard Egan. 5. Identity of alleged HN agent in the SWIFT network: JOSEPH SABAH, Belgian national; residence Avenue George Bergmann 127, Watermael District, Brussels; cellular telephone 32-400-555-268. 6. Request operational support when I arrive in Brussels. Recommend we take immediate action ref: item 5. Here’s the good news: 1. There isn’t any. Finn
Marx did one more thing, once she was in her seat on the plane. She called Thomas Perkins in London. He didn’t pick up the first time. Rather than leave a message, she called twice more. The third time he answered.
“It’s me,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t say. But I’m coming home. It got a bit nasty out here.”
“That doesn’t sound good. Can I come get you? Send the G5 or something?”
“No. I’m fine. I called to warn you about something. Alphabet is in trouble. You need to send your employees home for a few days. It’s not safe. I can’t explain now.”
“It’s a little late for that, sweetheart. The trouble has already arrived.”
She froze. In her mind for an instant was the image of the trading floor in Mayfair, ravaged by the shrapnel of a suicide bomb.
“What do you mean? Tell me nothing terrible has happened.”
“Pretty goddamn terrible, as far as I’m concerned. We had a visit from the Serious Fraud Office this morning. They cordoned off the place: files, computers, the whole lot. We had to shut down trading. I sent the employees home, told them not to come in tomorrow.”
“Good,” she said.
“No. It’s a disaster. And I don’t understand why it’s happening. Is this what you were talking about? Is this the work of your friends?”
They were closing the door of the plane. The flight attendant was telling her, in the usual insistent way, to turn off her cell phone.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Just go home, and stay home.”
“What’s happening?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated.
The flight attendant had called the purser, who was wagging his finger at Marx. She said goodbye as the plane rolled back from the gate.
30
When the Dubai flight landed at Brussels Airport, Sophie Marx was met by two security officers from the U.S. Embassy. They spotted her as she cleared customs and wordlessly flanked her on either side. She was happy to see them, though they were not exactly invisible. They had that overtrained look of security officers: big burly arms, and thick around the chest as refrigerators. The driver was waiting in the arrivals lane; when they were all seated in the armored Mercedes, the two security officers introduced themselves, Ted and Luis, or at least those were their work names. They were both from the station; they said that a team from Joint Special Operations Command was waiting at the rendezvous.
“How was the flight?” asked Ted. From bellhops to bodyguards, that was always the first question people seemed to ask any traveler. Marx said that the flight had been fine.
“I gather some folks are after you,” said Luis.
“So it seems. But you never know until the bomb goes off.”
“And you don’t know then, either, if it’s a good bomb,” said Ted. “It’s just lights out.”
Marx closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept well for days, and she dozed off as the Mercedes rolled toward the city. It was nice to have these big American men watching over her.
The meeting point was an apartment at the Citadines, a residence hotel off the Avenue Louise in the center of town. It was early morning, and the city was just coming to life, the sidewalks beginning to fill with gray civil servants heading to their jobs at the European Commission. As Marx emerged from the limousine, a frail beggar woman thrust forward her child and pleaded for money. Marx dropped into the cup some Pakistani rupees, which was all she had in her pockets, and the woman cursed her in a strange dialect.
