security guards in the lobby, and then split into two groups. Four used the stairs to begin going floor to floor, room to room, to shoot anyone they encountered. The other four burst into a banquet hall and sprayed automatic fire on a wedding reception.
Eighty-three innocents were killed before the eight LeT operatives were hunted down by the Rapid Action Force of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force.
The project manager of the entire assault had been Riaz Rehan, he and his top men worked out of a safe house in Karachi, used voice-over Internet phones attached to encrypted computers in order to stay in touch with the teams of men to help them maximize the lethality of their actions. Three times during the evening, Rehan, known to the terrorists in India as Mansoor, prayed with individual cell members before the men stormed into the guns of police. He had explained to all forty-seven Lashkar men that the entire operation, the entire future of Pakistan, hinged on them not being taken alive.
All forty-seven did as they were told.
Riaz Rehan had deliberately crafted this operation so that it would appear incredibly intricate and over the heads of the leadership of Lashkar, as he wanted the Indians to see evidence of a Pakistani conspiracy against them. This worked as he knew it would, and by daylight on October 30 the Indian government had ordered its military at full alert. Indian prime minister Priyanka Pandiyan and Pakistani president Haroon Zahid both spent the morning huddled with their military leaders and cabinet ministers, and by noon Pakistan had heightened the readiness of its own military in case India took advantage of the confusion of the attacks to reach over the border in retaliation.
Riaz Rehan could not have been more pleased with how events unfolded, because Operation Saker had required such a response to go forward.
Once the India attacks were complete, Rehan and his officers and staff headed to Dubai to avoid the scrutiny of the factions of the non-Islamists in the ISI.
55
The United Arab Emirates was a nation based on commerc>
These men also possessed influence in all facets of the government, spies in the corridors of power, informants in every bastion of life in the Emirates. If Rehan sought information about anyone or anything in the UAE, it was his for the asking.
Which is how he learned that Major Mohammed al Darkur and a British expatriate traveling under a Dutch passport would be landing at Dubai International Airport at 9:36 p.m.
Rehan and his contingent of security and plain-clothed ISI officers were due to arrive in Dubai early the following morning, so the Pakistani general assumed al Darkur and the English spy were in town to get information on him. Clearly al Darkur’s operation in Miran Shah, an op that coincided with his training of the Jamaat Shariat troops at the Haqqani camp, indicated that the young major was investigating Rehan. There was no reason he would show up here, now, unless it involved some further interest in the JIM Directorate.
Riaz Rehan was not worried about the major’s investigation into him. On the contrary, he saw it as incredibly good fortune that the man and his associate had come to Dubai.
Because while confronting the meddlesome major and his foreign ally in Pakistan could have been problematic for the low-profile ISI general, here in Dubai, Riaz Rehan could, quite literally, get away with murder.
Embling and al Darkur took a private car to their apartment at the incredible Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. They were in town to meet with members of The Campus, but for security reasons Gerry Hendley had forbade his operators from giving either Embling or his suspicious ISI informant any information about where they were staying while in Dubai, so al Darkur himself had made arrangements for accommodations. The massive needle-like skyscraper with 163 inhabitable floors (and a forty-three-story spire topping that) was a quick and easy place for them to find quarters. Embling and al Darkur shared a two-bedroom flat on the 108th floor.
Mohammed did not trust most of the ISI any more than did Gerry Hendley. He had used a personal credit card and handled details of the trip on a computer at an Internet cafe in Peshawar, lest his own organization get wind of his travel plans.
Once settled in at their flat, Embling called a number Hendley had given him. It connected him to the satellite phone of one of the two Campus operators he had met the year before in Peshawar, the forty-something-year-old Mexican-American who went by the name Domingo.
They made arrangements to meet at Embling’s place at the Burj Khalifa as soon as possible.
At the same moment Rehan and company’s Pakistan International Airlines flight from Islamabad landed at Dubai International Airport, Jack Ryan, Dom Caruso, and Domingo Chavez stood in an elevator in the Burj Khalifa. The elevators at the world’s tallest building are, not coincidentally, the world’s fastest, and they jetted the three Americans higher into the gargantuan tower at over forty-five miles an hour. They were let into the apartment and found themselves in a large open room with a sunken sitting area in front of floor-to-ceiling views of the Persian Gulf from an altitude nearly that of the top of the Empire State Building.
Nigel Embling stood in tAthehe modern living room full of dark wood and metal and glass, in front of the incredible panoramic view. He was a big Englishman with thin snow-white hair and a bushy beard. He wore a slightly rumpled blazer over an open-neck button-down shirt and brown slacks.
“My dear friend Domingo,” said Embling with an air of sympathy. “Before we get into the other disaster that has befallen your organization, I must tell you how sorry I am to hear about this affair involving John Clark.”
Chavez shrugged. “Me, too. It will get straightened out.”
“I’m certain of it.”
“Just don’t believe everything you hear,” Ding added.
Embling waved his hand. “I haven’t heard one bloody thing that doesn’t sound like just another day at the office for a man in Mr. Clark’s profession. I may be old and soft, but I haven’t forgotten the way of the world.”
Chavez just nodded and said, “May I present my associates? Jack and Dominic.”
“Mr. Embling,” Jack said as he shook the older man’s hand.
Of course the Englishman recognized the son of the former and presumed future President of the United States, but he gave off no hint of his making the connection.
He then walked the three Americans over to the only other inhabitant of the apartment, a physically fit cinnamon-skinned Pakistani in shirtsleeves and black jeans.
They were surprised to learn this was the ISI major. “Mohammed al Darkur, at your service.” The attractive man held out a hand to Chavez, but Chavez did not extend his own.
All three of the Campus operators held this man personally responsible for the loss of their friend. While Hendley had been careful not to tip his hat to Embling that he had his suspicions, Domingo Chavez was not about to play nice to the son of a bitch who likely got his colleague killed in the wilds of Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.
“Tell me, Major al Darkur, why I shouldn’t bash your head against the wall?”
Al Darkur was taken aback, but Embling interjected, “Domingo, please understand. You have little reason to trust him, but I hope you have somewhat more reason to trust me. I have made it my mission in the past months to check the major out, and he is one of the good guys, I assure you.”
Dom Caruso addressed the older Englishman: “Well, I don’t know you, and I definitely don’t know this asshole, but I know what the ISI has been doing for the past thirty years, so I’m not going to trust this bastard until
