Out in the distance, the flames and flashes continued, like heat lightning that printed the clouds negative, yet the silhouettes of both ships were now gone, leaving the rest of the fuel to continue burning off.
Moore wrenched out his cell phone, but it had died. Next time he planned on being attacked by a submarine, he’d be sure to pack a waterproof version. He asked one of the villagers, a college-aged kid with a thin beard, for a phone.
“I saw the ships explode,” the kid said breathlessly.
“Me, too,” snapped Moore. “Thanks for the phone.”
“Give it to me,” called Kayani from the beach, his voice cracking, but he seemed much more lucid now. “My uncle’s a colonel in the Army. He’ll get us helicopters here within an hour. It’s the fastest way.”
“Take it, then,” said Moore. He’d read the maps, knew they were hours away by car from the nearest hospital. The rendezvous had intentionally been located opposite a rural, sparsely populated coastline.
Kayani reached his uncle, who in turn promised immediate relief. A second call to Kayani’s commanding officer would summon Coast Guard rescue craft for those still at sea, but the Pakistan Coast Guard had no air — sea rescue choppers, just Chinese-built corvettes and patrol boats that wouldn’t arrive until mid-morning. Moore turned his attention back on the surf, studying every wave, searching for the survivors.
Five minutes. Ten. Nothing. Not a soul. Between the blood and body parts strewn across the water like some ungodly stew, it was a safe bet that the sharks had come. And quickly. That, coupled with the injuries of the other survivors, may have been too much for them.
It took another half-hour before Moore spotted the first body rising up on a wave like a piece of driftwood. Many others would follow.
More than an hour passed before an Mi-17 appeared in the northwest sky, its twin turbines roaring, its rotors whomping and echoing off the hillsides. The chopper had been specifically designed by the Soviets for their war in Afghanistan and had become symbolic of that conflict: Goliaths of the sky slain by slingshots. The Pakistan Army had nearly one hundred Mi-17s in their inventory, a trivial detail Moore knew because he’d been a passenger aboard them a few times and had overheard a pilot griping about how he was stuck flying a Russian pile of junk that broke down every other flight and that the Pakistan Army had almost a hundred flying junkyards.
Slightly unnerved, Moore boarded the Mi-17 and was flown with Kayani to the Sindh Government Hospital in Liaquatabad Town, a suburb of Karachi. While en route, the flight medics administered painkillers, and Kayani’s wide-eyed grimace turned to a more peaceful stare. It was sunrise by the time they touched down.
Moore stepped out of the hospital’s elevator on the second floor and ducked into Kayani’s room. They’d been at the hospital for about an hour now. The lieutenant would have a nice battle scar to help him get laid. Both men had been severely dehydrated when they’d come ashore, and an IV drip had been jabbed in the lieutenant’s left arm.
“How are you feeling?”
Kayani reached up and touched the bandage on his head. “I still have a headache.”
“It’ll pass.”
“I couldn’t have swum back.”
Moore nodded. “You got hit hard, and you lost some blood.”
“I don’t know what to say. Thank you is not enough.”
Moore took a long pull on the bottle of water given to him by one of the nurses. “Hey, forget it.” Movement in the doorway drew Moore’s attention. That was Douglas Stone, a colleague from the Agency, who stroked his mottled gray beard and stared at Moore above the rim of his glasses. “I have to go,” Moore said.
“Mr. Fredrickson, wait.”
Moore frowned.
“Is there a way I can contact you?”
“Sure, why?”
Kayani looked to Stone and pursed his lips.
“Oh, he’s okay. A good friend.”
The lieutenant hesitated a few seconds more, then said, “I just want to thank you …somehow.”
Moore used a tablet and pen on the tray table to scribble down an e-mail address.
The lieutenant clutched the paper tightly in his palm. “I’ll be in touch.”
Moore shrugged. “Okay.”
He headed out into the hallway, turned, then marched forcefully away from Stone, speaking through his teeth. “So, Doug, tell me — just what the fuck happened?”
“I know, I know.” Stone had deployed his usual calming tone, but Moore would have none of that, not now.
“We assured the Indians that the rendezvous would be clear. They had to cross into Pakistan territorial waters. They were very concerned about that.”
“We were told the Pakistanis were taking care of everything.”
“Who dropped the ball?”
“They’re telling us their submarine commander never received any orders to remain at the pier. Somebody forgot to issue them. He made his usual patrol and thought he’d sailed into some kind of engagement. According to him, he sent out multiple challenges without response.”
Moore snickered. “Well, it’s not like we were looking for him — and when we did see him, it was already too late.”
“The commander also reported that he saw the Indians taking prisoners on their deck.”
“So he was ready to fire on his own people, too?”
“Who knows.”
Moore stopped dead in his tracks, whirled, and gaped at the man. “The only prisoner they had was our guy.”
“Hey, Max, I know where you’re coming from.”
“Let’s go swim three miles. Then you’ll know.”
Stone removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Look, it could be worse. We could be Slater and O’Hara and have to figure how to apologize to the Indians while making sure they don’t nuke Islamabad.”
“That’d be nice — because I’m headed there now.”
1 DECISIONS
Lieutenant Maqsud Kayani’s solution to repay Moore for saving his life came in the form of an invitation for an introductory meeting between Moore and Kayani’s uncle, Colonel Saadat Khodai of the Pakistan Army. Upon his arrival in Islamabad, Moore found the lieutenant’s intriguing e-mail in his inbox. Kayani’s uncle, the same man who had orchestrated their helicopter rescue, had confided in his nephew his ongoing battle with depression triggered by a crisis of personal ethics. The e-mail did not disclose the exact nature of the colonel’s crisis, but Kayani stressed that such a meeting might benefit both Moore and his uncle immeasurably.
Over several weeks of meetings and extensive verbal sparring, Moore came to suspect that Khodai could identify key Taliban sympathizers within the Army’s ranks. He drank liters of tea with the colonel, trying to convince him to disclose what he knew about the Taliban’s infiltration and exploitation of the country’s northwest tribal lands, most particularly the region known as Waziristan. The colonel was reluctant to commit, to cross the line. Moore was frustrated. It was a major stumbling block, the crux of their impasse.
The colonel was not only concerned about the possible ramifications to his family, but he now found himself up against his own deeply held personal convictions to never speak out adversely or otherwise betray his fellow officers and comrades, even though they’d broken their oath of loyalty to Pakistan and his beloved Army. His
