The Invisible

and jeans or khakis. Do you have a scarf? Something to cover your hair?”

“I think so. My father worked out of the embassy in Islamabad for two years in the late eighties. He brought me back some souvenirs, including a head scarf. It should be around here somewhere.”

“Find it,” Kealey said. “You’re going to need it. The idea is to attract as little attention as possible once we’re on the ground. We’ll talk about the rest on the way to the airport.”

“Okay.” She turned to walk away, and he watched her go. She was almost to the doors when she stopped and turned once more.

“Oh, and Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

She gave a half smile, her eyes sparkling, and said, “You look a thousand times better without the beard.”

It was the last thing he expected to hear, and it caught him completely off guard. He collected himself and muttered his thanks, but she had already turned away. Then she was gone, the door closing softly behind her.

Once Petain was inside, Kealey let out a long, slow breath, feeling the tension drain from his shoulders. She had struck too close to home, closer than she probably realized. For the most part, he’d been telling the truth. What had happened the year before with Vanderveen had been extremely traumatic for Naomi, but it was the other thing that had caused the most problems. The fact that she had killed an innocent person had never come to light; not even Harper knew the truth. Kealey had done everything he could to cover it up, and Naomi had reluctantly gone along with it. He suspected that the cover-up was the hardest part for her: not that she had pulled the trigger, but that she had lied about it. The cover-up probably made it more like murder than the case of mistaken identity it had actually been, Kealey suddenly realized, at least in her mind. And in the end, that was what it came down to; what she thought, and how she felt about it, was all that really mattered. With this thought in mind, he found himself looking up at the second floor, seeking out her window. There was nothing there. She must be sleeping again, he decided. He found himself moving over, scanning the rest of the windows. In the last one, he thought he saw a silhouette. It was hard to tell with the glare from the afternoon sun, but it looked as though someone was standing there, staring down at him. Then, without warning, the figure was gone. Kealey stood there for a moment, thinking about it. Then he crossed the lawn, heading toward the house, wondering what the following day would bring. For the most part, it was all up in the air. Only one thing was certain: in less than twenty hours, they were going to be in hostile territory. No matter what happened next, the stakes were about to rise dramatically, and there could be no room for error.

CHAPTER 29

SIALKOT

Randall Craig stood beneath a broad, aging acacia to the rear of the house, smoking one of Said Qureshi’s English cigarettes. The procedure had gone as well as could be expected, and some of his tension was starting to fade. The nicotine was definitely helping with that, he thought, though the fear was as strong as ever. Before, he had been primarily concerned with saving the secretary of state’s life. Now that he had helped Qureshi to accomplish that task, he found his thoughts returning to the strongest, most basic of all human instincts. Namely, self-preservation.

The urge to run was intense. His legs were as taut as compressed springs, and the adrenaline was pumping through his veins like gasoline; he felt as if he could fly across the gently sloping field and lose himself in the bracken before the guards could react. It was just past ten on a moonless night, and the stars overhead were largely blocked from view by fast-moving clouds, billowing black clumps against the charcoal sky. Across the distant fields, where the terrain rose into the gentle Kashmiri foothills, he could see a column of lights snaking along a winding road. Dozens, if not hundreds, of lights. The sound of diesel engines was a distant, constant rumble. Qureshi had told him they were in Sialkot, and that the city was home to a major Pakistani army base. He guessed that the vehicles were moving toward the battlefields to the north. Before long, they would switch to infrared to conceal their locations, to guard against the IAF bombers patrolling the skies over the Kashmir Valley. Craig let his gaze drift over the fields, weighing the possibilities. Deep down, he knew it wouldn’t work; it was at least 200 feet to the nearest line of trees, and he would have to cross a waist-high fence of tightly strung wire to get there. He was standing at the end of the garden, as far away from the guards as he thought he could get without rousing their suspicion. There were two of them, he knew, and both were armed. Not with the stubby submachine guns the interior guards were carrying, but with long-barreled rifles. He didn’t doubt for a second that both weapons were mounted with night-vision scopes; if he tried to run, he wouldn’t get more than 20 meters. It was too much to chance. He was willing to take a risk when he made a break for freedom, but only a calculated risk; he wasn’t prepared to throw his life away. Not if there was a better alternative. As he stared down the sloping hill, searching in vain for clumps of vegetation that might provide him with enough cover to reach the fence, he felt a presence behind him. Turning suddenly, he was startled to see a man standing less than 10 feet to his rear. His features were not discernable in the low light, but he was tall, and his head was wrapped in some kind of cloth. Not a turban exactly, but something similar . . . a kaffiyeh, maybe. As Craig stared at him, the man took a few steps forward, his teeth flashing white in a brilliant, friendly smile.

“Dr. Craig?” The man drew closer, and Craig could see that he was dressed in long, flowing robes, quite unlike the slacks and shirts that Mengal and his guards had been wearing. The man, with his long, hawkish nose, thick black beard, and piercing hazel eyes, looked more suited to the desert than the Kashmiri foothills of northern Pakistan. Stranger still were his Western-style running shoes, the toes of which protruded from the bottom edge of his robes. “Forgive me, I didn’t mean to startle you. I only wanted to congratulate you on your fine work this evening. The secretary owes you her life.”

The man spoke with an accent that Craig could not place; it was completely different from anything he’d heard before, though his English was word perfect. The man was moving closer now, standing too close, and he seemed to radiate a kind of commanding energy. Craig felt a spark of revelation, accompanied by a little fear. He suddenly realized who this was. He had to be the man Qureshi had mentioned earlier, the man he knew only as the Algerian. What was it he had said . . . ?

One of them is the devil himself.

“Doctor, do you know who I am?”

Craig took a shifting step back and shook his head. “No.”

The Algerian moved forward again; he was so close that Craig could smell his breath. He caught a hint of the same mint tea he had been offered earlier. “Are you sure?” the man persisted. A strange half smile was wedged into place on his gaunt, weathered face. “You’ve never seen me before?”

Craig couldn’t think through the terror that seized him, but he was certain he’d never seen this face before. He felt a sudden anger cutting through the fear, and this time he summoned his strength, took an aggressive step forward, and squared his shoulders.

“I said I haven’t,” he snarled, jabbing a finger into the man’s chest.

“You speak English, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.” Amari Saifi smiled mildly, apparently unswayed by the pointless show of defiance. “A benefit of my army service. In fact, I once trained with some of your countrymen, though I suppose you’d find that hard to believe.”

A sudden noise caught Craig’s attention, and he turned to look up at the house. A Mitsubishi box truck had pulled up to the side of the trellis, and a number of guards were walking out to meet it, the exterior lights coming on. As Craig watched, a man opened the doors to the rear, climbed up, and began handing items down to the waiting hands. Craig recognized most of the equipment immediately: a pair of portable halogen lamps, a collapsible aluminum tripod, a bulky black case that might have contained a camera. The Algerian, following his eyes, turned to examine the scene. Another slow smile spread over his face. “So,” he said, sounding pleased.

“It would appear we’re almost ready. We just have to wait for our star to recover. Another fifteen or sixteen hours, perhaps. I find it so hard to be patient after all this time. Don’t you agree?”

“What are you talking about? What do you mean, your ‘star’?”

“Fitzgerald, of course.” The man turned his calm gaze on Craig and smiled again. “An unwilling star, perhaps,