“What are you doing? Why are you doing this, you bastard? You’re supposed to be helping us!”
The man didn’t react. Turning to Kealey, Petain gripped his arm and whispered urgently, “We’ve got to run. He’s going to kill us both. You know we can’t—”
“He’s not going to kill us,” Kealey said, his mind suddenly clearing. He felt intensely ashamed that he’d frozen, if only for a few seconds, but he couldn’t think about that now. In truth, he should never have let things get this far to begin with, but there would be plenty of time to focus on his numerous mistakes later if—and only if— they managed to survive the encounter. For now, he had to stay sharp and look for an opportunity. They might only get one, he knew, and he’d have to move fast to make the most of it. “He wouldn’t bother locking you up if he wanted us dead. Something else is happening here.”
“
“Stop talking,” Fahim commanded, his voice carrying over the sound of the surging rain. “We don’t have a lot of time. Get over there and cuff her now.”
Kealey hesitated, then grabbed Petain’s arm and began pulling her toward the transformer, the cuffs in his left hand banging against his thigh with each step. She was struggling, but not too hard. Kealey couldn’t figure out why, at first, and then it hit him; she was too confused to put up a real fight. As they neared the transformer, though, she pulled away violently, obviously trying to catch him off guard. Kealey barely managed to keep his tenuous grasp around her wrist. Realizing she was about to break loose, he swung her hard against the metal access door. As she bounced off, her breath coming out in a rush, he caught her on the rebound. Slamming her back against the door, he pressed the outer part of his right forearm across her upper chest. Moving fast, he used his weight to pin her in place. She began to struggle violently, screaming for him to stop, but Kealey started to talk in fast, low tones, and she gradually stopped struggling. Then, panting for breath, she lifted her wild, questioning eyes to his.
“You’ve got to stop,” Kealey said forcefully, once he was sure he had her attention. His face was just a few inches from hers. “I know you’re scared, but this isn’t helping. I can’t focus if you’re distracting me. Just try to stay calm, okay? I’m going to get us out of this.”
She stayed silent for a few seconds, breathing hard. Then she looked away briefly. When her eyes came back to his, Kealey saw that she was calm, but only just, and she was clearly desperate for answers.
“Ryan, what are you going to do?” she whispered urgently. “Why is this happening? I thought this guy was on our side. That’s what you told me . . . that he was here to help us.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m going to figure it out.” He removed his forearm from her chest and took a couple steps back.
“Here, give me your hand.”
She hesitated for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she held up her left arm. Taking hold of her forearm, Kealey closed one of the cuffs around her wrist, then secured the other to the curved handle in the access door. As the second cuff ratcheted into place, Petain closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, as if in denial of what was happening.
Looking down at her, Kealey was tempted to offer some words of comfort. He wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her, but they would have been empty promises, and he’d already made enough of those in his lifetime. Instead, he simply turned to face their supposed contact. It didn’t look as if Fahim had moved. He was still standing in the center of the gravel footpath, the long raincoat flapping around his legs. A satellite phone was now pressed to his left ear, but the gun was still in his right hand, aimed vaguely in Kealey’s direction. As he approached, Kealey heard a few snatches of conversation, but nothing that made sense to him. When he was about 7 feet away, the other man altered his aim, leveling the muzzle with Kealey’s chest. Kealey didn’t react visibly, but his muscles tightened, his breath coming faster, as he stared down the barrel of the semiautomatic. Fahim muttered a few more words, then lowered the receiver slightly, pressing it to his shoulder. Looking up, he said something that caught Kealey completely off guard.
“He wants to talk to you.”
For a few seconds, Kealey was left speechless, his mind racing to catch up with this strange development. “Who?” he finally asked, raising his voice to be heard. “Who the fuck are you talking to? Is that Mengal?”
The other man didn’t reply. Instead, he simply tossed over the phone. Kealey managed to catch it, and once he verified that it was still on, he lifted it to his ear. “Who is this?” he demanded, shouting over the sound of the driving rain. “What do you want?”
“I want you to listen,” Javier Machado said. His deep, cultured voice was as clear as a bell, despite the thousands of miles that separated them. “I want you to listen well, Kealey, because make no mistake, at least one life—and not necessarily yours—depends on what you do next.”
CHAPTER 35
NORTHERN PAKISTAN
“You son of a bitch,” Kealey whispered. He was only dimly aware of his surroundings. Fahim was standing nearby, the gun leveled in his direction, and the rain was streaming down his face, but everything else had faded away. Just one thing was stuck in his mind, and that was that he had missed something big. He was frantically trying to figure it out, but nothing was coming to mind, and the anger was threatening to drown out his rational thoughts. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I swear to God, I’m going to—”
“I told you to listen,” Machado snapped over the line. “Where is Marissa? Can she hear you?”
Kealey looked over, but he already knew the answer. Petain was only about 20 feet away, huddled against the transformer to which she was handcuffed, but even at that short distance, the driving rain and the thunder pounding overhead were enough to obscure anything less than a shout. “No, she can’t hear us.”
“Good.” Machado’s tone seemed to ease a little. “But we’re not going to take any chances. If you refer to me by name, you will not leave Pakistan alive. Is that understood?”
“Yes,” Kealey hissed, unable to hide his anger.
“Good,” Machado repeated. “Now, listen to me. Despite how this looks, I did not mislead you. Fahim, as you may have already guessed, was one of my Afghan agents when I was stationed in Pakistan. He was the first man I recruited in-country. He is very reliable, and he can lead you directly to Benazir Mengal. Everything I told you before was true.”
“Then why all the bullshit? Why is your daughter handcuffed to—?”
“?Callate!” Machado shouted. “I told you not to use my name!”
Kealey hadn’t done so, not in so many words, but he understood what the Spaniard was driving at. “She can’t—”
“Stop talking,” Machado said calmly. Kealey couldn’t help but lock on to the sudden shift in his tone. The man’s emotions were all over the place, but Kealey could detect an underlying, unmistakable tone of pure guilt. It was as if the Spaniard had done something wrong, something besides the obvious. Or was about to, Kealey thought.
“I’m going to instruct Fahim to help you,” Machado was saying.
“He is part of a larger network, a group he formed—with my help, of course—in 1988. At that time, they were primarily concerned with transporting funds and weapons to the mujahideen during the SovietAfghan war. Now, they’re more concerned with . . . Well, let’s just call it private enterprise.”
Kealey saw it immediately. “They’re smugglers.” Then he saw the other part. “And Mengal is their primary competition.”
“Exactly,” Machado said. “So you see, it’s in his interest to help you. His men are watching Mengal right now, and he will take you to that location once you have carried out your end of the bargain.”
“And what is my end of the bargain?”
There was a quick intake of breath on the other end of the line, and then a long pause. Kealey sensed that the older man was steeling his resolve. When he finally spoke, his voice was laced with guilt and despair, but that did nothing to lessen the shock of the words.
“I need you to shoot my daughter.”
