Clothes were thrown to him, and he struggled out of his nightshirt and into the ensemble offered by the gunmen, and then he was shoved to his staircase, down the stairs, and toward the front door.
Mahmood, Embling’s young orphaned houseboy, knelt on the floor with his face against the wall. He’d made the mistake of rushing one of the armed men who’d kicked in the front door. For his bravery Mahmood received a boot in his chin and a rifle’s butt in the back. He was then ordered to kneel and face the wall while Embling was collected from his bedroom and allowed to dress. In Urdu tinged with a phony Dutch accent, Embling shouted at the young gunners, admonishing them like children for their treatment of the boy. In the next breath, in soothing words, he told Mahmood to run along to a neighbor’s to have his bruises and scrapes seen after, and he promised the terrified boy that there was nothing to be alarmed about and that he would return straightaway.
Once outside in the dark street, he had a better idea about what was going on. Two black SUVs of the same make and model common with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate agents sat parked on the curb, and four more plain-clothed men stood in the street carrying big HK G3 rifles, a standard military-issue weapon of the Pakistani Defense Force.
Yes, Embling was certain now, he was being scooped up by the ISI, the national spy agency. It wasn’t good news by any stretch. He knew enough about their modus operandi to recognize that a predawn rousting at gunpoint likely meant a basement cell and a bit of the rough stuff at the very least. But getting picked up by the Army-run intelligence organization was a damn sight better than being kidnapped by Tehrik-i-Taliban, the Haqqani network, Al-Qaeda, the URC, Lashkar-e-Omar, the Quetta Shura Taliban, the Nadeem Commando, or any one of the other terror outfits running around armed and angry on these dangerous streets of Peshawar.
Nigel Embling was a former member of British foreign intelligence, and he knew how to talk to other intelligence officers. That he might be forced to do so while getting his knuckles broken or his head dunked in a bucket of cold water hardly appealed to him, but he knew this was preferable to dealing with a room full of jihadists who would just quickly and messily hack his head from his neck with a dull sword.
The plain-clothed riflemen on either side of Embling in the backseat of the SUV said nothing as they drove through the empty streets of the city. Embling didn’t bother to ask the men any questions. He knew he would have his only opportunity to get answers wherever it was he was going. These men were just the scoop crew. These men had been provided with a name and a picture and an address, and then they’d been sent out on this errand as if they’d been sent down to the corner market for tea and cakes. They would be here for their ability to squeeze triggers and put their boots into backsides…. They wouldn’t be sent along with the answer to any of Embling’s questions.
So he kept quiet and concentrated on their roud o bete.
The ISI’s main HQ in Peshawar is just off Khyber Road in Peshawar’s western suburbs, which would have required the SUVs to turn left onto Grand Trunk, but instead they continued on, into the northern suburbs. Embling imagined he was being taken to one of the God-knows-how-many off-site branch locations. The ISI kept a number of safe houses, simple residential flats and commercial office space, all over the city, so that they could cause more unofficial mischief than they could during an official visit to the HQ. The senior Brit expat’s suspicions were confirmed when they pulled up in front of a darkened office building, and two men with radios on their vests and Uzi submachine guns hanging from their shoulders stepped out from behind the glass door to greet the vehicles.
Without a word, some six men walked Nigel Embling across the pavement, through the doorway, and then up a narrow staircase. He was led into a dark room — he fully expected it to be a cold and stark interrogation cell, but when someone flipped on the fluorescent lighting he saw it to be a well-used small office, complete with a desk and chairs, a desktop computer, a phone, and a wall full of Pakistani military banners, emblems, and even framed photos of cricket players from the Pakistani national team.
The armed men put Embling in the chair, unlocked his handcuffs, and then left the room.
Embling looked around, surprised to be left alone in this small but not uncomfortable office. Seconds later, a man entered from behind, stepped around Embling’s chair, and slid behind the desk. He wore the tan uniform of the Pakistani Army, but his green pullover sweater covered any insignia that might have revealed information to the man sitting across from him. All Embling could discern was that the man was in his late thirties, with a short beard and mustache and a ruddy complexion. He wore narrow frameless glasses that were propped halfway down his angular nose.
“My name is Mohammed al Darkur. I am a major in the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.”
Nigel opened his mouth to ask the major why he’d been dragged from his bed and driven across town for the introduction, but al Darkur spoke again.
“And you, Nigel Embling.
Nigel laughed. “Kudos for getting right to the point, even if your information is incorrect. I am Dutch. True, my mother was from Scotland, which is technically part of the British Empire, although her family preferred to think of themselves as—”
“Your mother was from England, from Sussex,” al Darkur interrupted. “Her name was Sally, and she died in 1988. Your father’s name was Harold, and he was from London, and his death predated the death of your mother by nine years.”
Embling’s bushy eyebrows rose, but he did not speak.
“There is no use in lying. We know all about you. At different times in the past we have had you under surveillance, and we are quite aware of your affiliation with the British Secret Service.”
Embling composed himself. Chuckled again. “You really are doing this all wrong, Major Darkur. I certainly won’t tell you how to do your job, but this isn’t much of an interrogation. I believe you need to take a few lessons from some of your colleagues. I’ve sat in a few ISI dungeons in my time here as a guest of your delightful nation; I’ve been suspected of this or that by your organization since you were in nappies, I’d wager. This is how you do it. First, you are supposed to start with a little deprivation, maybe some co ma yold—”
“Does this look like an ISI dungeon?” asked al Darkur.
Embling looked around again. “No. In fact, your overlords might want to send you back for some remedial training; you can’t even get the scary environment down. Doesn’t the ISI have decorators who can help you create that perfect, claustrophobic ‘modern horror’ look?”
“Mr. Embling, this is not an interrogation room. This is my office.”
Nigel looked the man over for several seconds. Shook his head slowly. “Then you really haven’t a clue how to do your job, do you, Major al Darkur?”
The Pakistani major smiled, as if indulgent of the old man’s taunts. “You were picked up this morning because another directorate in the ISI has asked that yourself, and other suspicious expatriates like you, be brought in for interrogation. After interrogation, I am ordered to begin the process of having you expelled from the country.”
“Many. Not all, but many.”
“On what grounds would we be given the boot?”
“No grounds whatsoever. Well… I suppose I am to make up something.”
Embling did not respond. He was still gobsmacked by this information, and more so by the frank way this man was delivering it.
Al Darkur continued, “There are elements in my organization, and in the Army as a whole, who have enacted a secret military intelligence order that is only to be used in times of high internal conflict or war, in order to lessen the risk of foreign spies or agents provocateurs in our country. We are always in times of high internal conflict here, this is nothing new. And we are not at war. Therefore, their legal grounds are shaky. Still, they
Embling had no idea why this military officer, a stranger, would be telling him all this. Especially if he really did believe him to be a British spy.
“I hand-selected your case, Mr. Embling, I made sure that my men would pick you up and bring you to me.”
