deserved a straight answer. “Actually, yes. It was tough. I’m not looking forward to that. If my dad becomes President, I’ll talk to him and my mom. I live a pretty low-profile life. I am going to refuse protection.”
“Is that safe?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m not worried.” He smiled over his wineglass. “Don’t they teach you CIA folks how to kill a man with a spoon?”
“Something like that.”
“Great. You can watch my back.”
“You couldn’t afford me,” she said with a laugh. Dinner was excellent; the conversation was fun and it flowed except for when Jack tried to probe Melanie once again about her family. She stayed as tigstayed aht-lipped about her family as she did about CIA.
They strolled home together after ten; the streets had thinned of foot traffic, and a cold wind blew in from the Potomac.
Jack walked her up the drive toward the door of her tiny apartment.
“I had fun,” Melanie said.
“Me, too. Can we do it again soon?”
“Of course.” They got to the door. “Listen, Jack. I’d better get this out of the way. I don’t kiss on the first date.”
Ryan smiled. “Neither do I.” He extended a hand, which she took slowly, careful to keep the astonishment and embarrassment off her face.
“Have a great night. You’ll be hearing from me.”
“I hope so.”
Nigel Embling’s house was in the center of Peshawar, not far from the massive and ancient Bala Hisar Fort, which, with its ninety-foot ramparted walls, commands the high ground of the city and lands around it.
The city bustled with activity, but Embling’s home was quiet and clean, an idyllic oasis of plants and flowers, the sound of tinkling fountains in the courtyard, and the smell of old books and furniture polish in the very British study on the second floor.
Embling sat next to Driscoll at a wide table in his study. Across from them, thirty-five-year-old Major Mohammed al Darkur wore Western civilian clothing, a pair of brown slacks with a black button-down shirt. Al Darkur had come alone to Embling’s to meet a man he assumed was an officer in the CIA. He’d done his best to establish the bona fides of the man he had been introduced to as “Sam,” but Driscoll had deflected his questions about other CIA officers that al Darkur had run into while working with the ISI.
This worked to Driscoll’s benefit. The CIA was, as far as al Darkur was concerned, too supportive of elements in Pakistani intelligence. Elements that al Darkur knew were actively working against them. He found the CIA and America by extension to be naive and too ready to put its trust in those who paid lip service to the shared values between the two organizations.
The fact that Sam appeared to be working outside the lines of American intelligence already entrenched in Pakistan, and the fact that Sam seemed to hold suspicions against al Darkur himself, only increased the Pakistani major’s opinion of the man.
Embling said, “I’ve done my best to look into this Rehan fellow. He’s a bloody mystery.”
Sam agreed. “We are trying on our end, as well. He’s done a great job of covering his tracks in his career. It looks like he just materialized as a high-level PDF officer working for the ISI.”
“Not easy to do in the PDF. That lot loves their ceremony, always getting photographed and awarded this or that trinket for one thing or another. They learned pomp and circumstance from we English, and I can say with just a wee bit of pride that we show military off like no other.”
“But no pictures of Rehan?”
“A few, but years and years ago, when he was a young officer. Otherwise he’s a bloody shadow.”
“But not anymore. What has changed?”
“That’s what Mohammed and I are trying to find out.”
Al Darkur said, “The said, only reason I can think is that he is being groomed for something. Lieutenant general, head of the ISI, perhaps even head of the PDF someday. I believe he is working on a coup, but certainly he is too unknown to take the reins of government himself. He seems to have spent his entire career as a spy, which is not common for military officers. Most serving in ISI are just sent there for a few years. They are not professional spies but professional soldiers. I myself was a commando with the Seventh Battalion, Special Services Group, before coming to ISI. But Riaz Rehan seems to be the exact opposite. He spent a few odd years as a lieutenant and captain in the regular PDF, in the Azad Kashmir Regiment, but since then he seems to have had some role with Inter-Services Intelligence, although they have kept that quite secret, even from the rest of the ISI.”
“Is he a beard?” asked Driscoll, referring to an Islamist within their ranks.
“Only by association do I know that to be true. His benefactors at the head of the Army and intelligence services are most definitely Islamists, though Rehan never turns up at any mosque, or on any list of attendees of the secret meetings the beards are always having. I’ve had prisoners of the hostile jihadist groups in my custody, and I’ve asked them, quite aggressively, I must admit, if they knew Rehan from JIM. I am convinced none of them do.”
Driscoll sighed. “So. What is the next step?”
Now al Darkur brightened a little. “I have two pieces of information, one of which your people can help me with.”
“Great.”
“First, my sources have discovered that General Rehan, in addition to his office at our headquarters in Islamabad, is also working out of a safe house in Dubai.”
Driscoll cocked his head. “Dubai?”
“Yes. It is the financial hub of the Middle East, and his department most likely does banking for its foreign operations there, but that in itself would be no reason for him to work there. I think he and his cadre of upper-level employees go there to plot against Pakistan itself.”
“Interesting.”
“In my position in the Joint Intelligence Bureau I do not have the reach or assets to investigate him outside of our borders. I thought maybe your organization, with its near infinite reach, might like to see what he is doing in Dubai.”
“I’ll pass it up the chain of command, but I am reasonably sure they will want to look into this safe house of his.”
“Excellent.”
“And the other piece of information?”
“This other avenue I will be able to look into with my own assets. There is an operation I have recently learned about that involves Rehan’s department and the Haqqani network. You are, I am certain, familiar with Haqqani?”
Driscoll nodded. “Jalaluddin Haqqani. His forces run large patches of the borderland of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He’s tied with the Taliban, runs a network many thousands strong, and has killed hundreds of our soldiers in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds more locals in bombings, rocket and mortar attacks, kidnappings for ransom, et cetera, et cetera.”
Al Darkur nodded. “Jalaluddin is an old man, so his son, Siraj, is leading the organization now, but otherwise you have it right. I have a prisoner in custody, a courier in the Haqqani network, who I captured in Peshawar after he met with an ISI lieutenant who iutenant s a known supporter of the Islamists. He has told my interrogators that the ISI is working with Haqqani network fighters at a camp of theirs near Miran Shah.”
“Working on what?”
“This courier does not know, but he does know they are expecting a foreign force there at the camp, and the ISI and Haqqani men will train these outsiders.”
“URC? Al-Qaeda?”
