“President Kealty’s attorney general made the comment recently — again, it wasnurit it wasnt reported by the mainstream press, for some reason — that the FBI put Capone in prison for tax evasion, and maybe we should look into similar means to prosecute the terrorists we captured on the battlefield, because their capture was clearly not in the rule of law. Do you agree with this, President Kealty? Do you or your Justice Department know how many captured terrorists filed U.S. income tax forms last year?”
Kealty did his best to control his rage, but his face reddened under his makeup. He replied, “My opponent believes there is one type of justice for ‘us,’ and another type of justice for ‘them.’”
“If by ‘them,’ you are saying Al-Qaeda, or the Umayyad Revolutionary Council, or any one of a number of groups that mean to destroy us… then yes, that is what I believe. They deserve their day in court, a chance to defend themselves, but they do not deserve each and every right afforded the citizens of the United States.”
Mohammed al Darkur, Sam Driscoll, three ISI captains, and a dozen Zarrar commandos flew out of PAF Base Peshawar at four a.m. in a Pakistani Air Force Y-12 turboprop transport aircraft. The pilot took them to the southeast, over the mountains of Khyber and Kurram Agencies, and finally into North Waziristan.
They landed on Miran Shah’s one useful runway and were immediately shuffled by local forces into an armored personnel carrier for the ride through the dark town to the military fort.
Within seconds of entering the main gate of the base, al Darkur, Driscoll, the three captains, and two sections of soldiers piled into four heavy-duty delivery trucks with canvas-covered beds, and they rolled straight out of the rear gate of the compound. If any Haqqani network spies were watching the comings and goings of the PDF forces in town, this would throw them off the scent. There would be spies near the fort, and the ISI had developed certain countermeasures to lose any surveillance they picked up before heading out to one of their safe houses.
The four delivery trucks rolled back through town at dawn, passed the airport to the west, and separated onto different roads. Each truck pulled into a different small walled compound in a different part of the city, and the men inside the vehicles climbed out and then climbed aboard new trucks. Spotters on the roofs of the compounds watched to see if their visitors had picked up any tails and, when they deemed the streets clear of Haqqani watchers, radioed down an all clear to the new trucks. The gates were reopened by men stationed in advance at the safe house, and the new, cleansed trucks departed.
The four vehicles drove individually through the early-morning traffic toward the south, and then each vehicle, spaced five minutes or so apart, headed out of Miran Shah. Driscoll found himself in the back of the third truck; he’d been cloaked with a shawl to cover his Western features, but he peeked out of it and saw armed men walking the streets, riding on motorcycles, and peering out of walled buildings. These were exclusively Haqqani’s fighters; there were thousands, and even though the PDF had a tiny outpost here and the ISI maintained a few safe houses, Miran Shah was Haqqani’s town.
As they drove farther south, leaving the town and entering cultivated fields, Sam thought he could hear automatic weapons fire behind him. He motioned to one of the soldiers in the truck with him, trying to find out if the man knew of the source of the fire. But the young soldier just shrugged as if to say, “Yeah? Somebody is shooting, so what?”
Driscoll’s truck turned west on the Boya — Miran Shah road, and ah road,it headed along steep cliffs, made twists and turns, and climbed with a rumble in the engine that let the American operator know that the vehicle was straining under the effort. Finally, just after seven in the morning, the truck turned off the road, climbed a steep rocky path that led to a compound on a flat table on a steep hillside, and then pulled through the open front gate.
Two of the other trucks were already there, parked in a two-car garage facing the main gate. Al Darkur, two captains, and one of the two squads of security got together in the dusty courtyard and began speaking animatedly in Urdu. Driscoll had no idea what the problem was until Mohammed himself stepped over to him. “The other truck did not make it. They were hit in the center of town. One of my captains has been shot in the wrist, and a soldier was hit in the stomach. They made it back to the base, but they do not think the soldier will survive.”
“I’m sorry.”
Al Darkur patted Driscoll on the shoulder. “We made it though. Congratulations. Before I was only going to let you sit and watch while we did the work. But now I need you to help.”
“Just tell me what you need.”
“We will set up surveillance on the road. The camp is just three kilometers farther west, and everyone who goes there from the airport or the city of Miran Shah must pass on the road below us.”
The six soldiers joined with six men who were already there at the compound and formed into a low-profile security cordon, while al Darkur, Driscoll, and the two ISI captains used a window in a second-story hallway as an observation point. They set up a pair of long-range cameras and pulled mattresses off beds in other rooms so that they could keep up the surveillance with minimal breaks.
Al Darkur had one of his captains bring a large trunk into the hallway, and he set it down near Driscoll’s mattress.
“Mr. Sam,” al Darkur said in his singsong Pakistani accent. “Am I correct in assuming you had a military career before the CIA?”
“I was in the Army, yes.”
“Special Forces, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
Al Darkur smiled. “Even though you are my guest, I would feel better if you outfitted yourself in the gear my captain has here for you.”
Driscoll looked in the trunk and found an American M4 rifle with a 3.5-power Trijicon ACOG scope, an Original Special Operations Equipment chest harness with Kevlar and steel armor and eight extra magazines for the rifle, a helmet, and a utility belt with a Glock 9-millimeter pistol and extra magazines.
He looked up at the major with a wink. “I would feel better, too.” Driscoll suited up. It felt good to carry what was essentially the same rig he used in the Rangers. Once outfitted with the fighting gear, he looked up to al Darkur and gave him the thumbs-up.
Al Darkur said, “Now we drink tea, and we wait.”
35
The Sunday after the debate, Benton Thayer walked alone through the parking lot of the Chevy Chase Club, one of the oldest and finest country clubs in the greater D.C. area. Even though it was not yet noon and he was decked out for a day at the links in Hollas large plaid pants and knits and a purposefully clashing Ian Poulter tartan flat cap, Benton had just left the rest ofe his foursome after only nine holes. With the last debate out of the way, he’d taken the first half of his Sunday off for some time outside on this crisp fall day, but he needed to get back to the city and back to work. As President Edward Kealty’s campaign manager, he would have to wait until after November 6 for some R&R.
And as Benton headed for his white Lexus SUV he told himself he’d likely have a lot of free time after November 6. Not just because the election would be over, but because his man would lose, which meant his government-sector prospects in D.C. would be zilch, and his private-sector opportunities around here would be tinged by his failure to retain the Oval Office for his boss.
No self-respecting campaign manager throws in the towel publicly with three weeks until election day, and Thayer had five radio spots and nine television interviews planned for Monday, when he would confidently declare just the opposite of what he knew to be true, but the forty-three-year-old walking alone in the parking lot was no idiot. Short of Jack Ryan being caught with his pants around his ankles outside a day care, the writing was on the
