“Right.”
“Why do you stay?” Chavez asked.
“It’s my home.”
A few minutes later Chavez said, “Back to the Hayatabad… What I’m wondering is who
“And a good question it is,” Embling said. “Though it’s a subjective measure the three big players here-the URC, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Sipah-e-Sahaba, formerly Anjuman-are generally clustered around the Peshawar cantonment-the Old City-and the Saddar area. The closer to the cantonment they are, the more dominant they are. The URC currently holds that title.”
“As luck would have it, we’re primarily interested in those areas,” Clark said.
“Imagine that.” A smile from Embling. “My house is just outside the cantonment, near Balahisar Fort. We’ll have a spot of lunch and talk shop.”
Embling’s houseboy-a term Clark had trouble wrapping his head around, despite knowing it was common here-Mahmood served them a lunch of
“What’s the boy’s story?” Clark asked.
“His family was killed during that bad business following the Bhutto assassination. He’ll be going to Harrow in Middlesex next year.”
“That’s a good thing you’re doing, Nigel,” Chavez said. “You don’t have any-”
“No.” Curt.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to stick my nose in your business.”
“No apology necessary. I lost my wife in ’79, when the Soviets invaded. Wrong place, wrong time. Who’s for tea?” Once he’d poured everyone a cup, he said, “What’s it going to be, gentlemen? Person, place, or thing? What you’re after, I mean.”
“For starters, a place. Places, plural, actually,” Clark replied. From his briefcase he pulled out a digitally enhanced copy of the Baedeker’s map, then pushed aside the cups and saucers and unfolded it on the table. “If you look close-”
“Dead letter drops,” Embling interrupted. He saw Clark’s and Chavez’s astonished expressions and smiled. “In the ancient days of espionage, gentlemen, dead drops were our bread and butter. Three-dot cluster for drop-off; four for pickup?”
“Reverse that.”
“How recent is this map?”
“No idea.”
“So we have no way of knowing whether the drops are still active. Where did you-”
“In the mountains,” Chavez replied.
“A dark and dank place, I’m guessing. The previous owners-were they present?”
Clark nodded. “And did their damnedest to destroy it.”
“That’s a point in our favor. Unless I’m off the mark, the three-dot clusters aren’t intended so much as a pickup location as they are a pickup signal.”
“Our thought as well,” Clark replied.
“Is your interest in what’s being dropped off and picked up, or who’s doing either or both?”
“The who.”
“And do you know the signal?”
“No.”
“Well, in all probability, that’s the least of our worries.”
Chavez asked, “How so?”
“We’re not so much interested in the signal’s correctness as we are in identifying who takes an interest in it. In that case, we’ll have to chose our location carefully.” Embling went silent, clicking his tongue and staring at the map. “Here’s my suggestion: We take the afternoon on doing a little recce-”
“Come again?” This from Chavez.
“Reconnaissance.”
“Must have missed that over there.”
“We spent a little time at Hereford,” Clark explained to Embling.
“There’s a grim-faced bunch,” Embling replied. “Nice to see you haven’t lost your smiles. Okay, then, we’ll get you gentlemen comfortable with the territory, then start laying bait tomorrow. Otherwise, I fear we’ll run out of daylight today.”
While the majority of the drops were well outside the cantonment, they decided to concentrate on the four within the Old City, first driving around its perimeter, roughly following the wall that enclosed the cantonment until the mid-’50s. “Used to be sixteen gates here along the wall, complete with turrets and ramparts for archers,” Embling said, pointing out the passenger window. “In fact, in Persian,
Clark liked Embling, partially because during his Rainbow tour he’d come to understand the British mind-set a little better, and partially because he was a genuine character-emphasis on the former. Given the way Embling waxed on about Peshawar, Clark half wondered if the man had been born a hundred years too late. Nigel Embling would have been right at home during Britain’s rule of the area.
Embling found a parking space near Lady Reading Hospital, and they got out and walked west into the Old City. The streets of the cantonment buzzed with activity: bodies, moving elbow to elbow, darted in and out of alleys and beneath canvas awnings; on overhanging balconies, children peeked curiously through wrought-iron bars. The scent of roasted meat and strong tobacco filled the air, along with an overlapping babble of voices speaking in Urdu, Punjabi, and Pashto.
After a few minutes walking, they entered a large square. “Chowk Yadgaar,” Embling announced. “All the drop-offs are within a half-mile of the square.”
“Probably chose it for the crowds,” Chavez said. “Hard to be seen, easy to get lost.”
“Another astute observation, young Domingo,” Embling said.
“I have my days.”
Clark said, “Let’s split up and check ’em out. Meet back here in an hour.” They decided who would take which, then parted company.
They regrouped and compared notes. Two of the spots-one in a small courtyard between the jeweler’s bazaar and the Mahabbat Khan mosque, and one in an alley near the site of the Kohati Gate-showed the faintest traces of a single chalk mark, the gold standard for dead-drop pickup signals since the Cold War. Chalk weathered well and was easily dismissed as a child’s doodling. Clark got out his map, and Embling checked the two locations. “Kohati Gate,” he said. “Easiest to surveil, and closest exit out of the cantonment.”
“Done,” Clark said.
“It’s early yet,” Embling said. “How do you chaps feel about cricket?”
46
NOT WANTING TO RISK being seen placing the pickup mark, Clark and Chavez woke well before sunrise the next morning to find Embling already up, making coffee and putting together a cooler of rations for the day. So armed, they set out for the cantonment, this time in Embling’s other car, a shabby blue 2002 Honda City, and arrived at Chowk Yadgaar fifteen minutes later, where they split up in the predawn gloom-Clark and Chavez taking a walk to refamiliarize themselves with the area and to test the new earpiece/mic/push-to-talk
