“Turbee, shut the fuck up. Johnson, get that asshole back on the line.” Dan rubbed his temples, trying desperately to think around Turbee’s laughter.
In due course Johnson did get Richard back on the line. This time Rhodes led the charge, and the interview went a bit more successfully.
“Richard, you know Zak Goldberg better than anyone. He’s given us some disconcerting information about a possible terrorist strike. I can’t go into details with you here and now, but can you tell me your view as to the reliability, the quality of Intel passed along by him?”
“Sure, that I can answer. I’ve been in this business for years. I’ve known Zak all my life. There is no one finer, none more careful. He’s doing what he’s doing right now because he is the best. If he says there’s going to be a terrorist attack, and gives you chapter and verse, then it’s going to happen, unless you stop it. Period.”
Similar validation and corroboration was being received up and down the command chain. If Goldberg said it, you could take it to the bank. This was the real deal.
3
They had been climbing since dawn. They were a small party of four on horseback, in the Sefid Koh range just northeast of Mount Sikarim. The Daka Plain lay more than 2,000 feet below them. The roofs and minarets of Jalalabad reflected the light of the rising sun, now that the early morning fog had started to burn away. The Kabul River could be seen weaving its serpentine course through the ancient city, and the view of the Hindu Kush was breathtaking. The Khyber Pass lay northeast, and the tiny village of Haft Chah, which clung to the western slopes leading to the pass itself, was just visible. The party had stopped for a few minutes to give the horses time to rest and graze on the mountain bluegrass.
Zachariah Goldberg was one of the horsemen. Zak’s father, Joe Goldberg, had been one of the CIA officers in charge of advising and assisting Afghani resistance groups in their insurgency against the Soviet invasion. It was rumored that Joe had met Osama bin Laden himself, when the villain had still been favored by the Intelligence Community. Once upon a time, bin Laden had been the enemy of the enemy, and the closest thing the US had to a friend in the area.
In the course of his journeys through the Middle East, Joe had met Zak’s mother, a stunning Pashtun woman from Kabul. Zak was a product of that union. When Afghanistan began to destabilize, Joe moved his family to Islamabad, and ultimately settled there. With Zak’s parents being stationed in Islamabad alongside Richard’s, it was natural that Zak and Richard, being of the same age and inclination, had become good friends. Their relationship had remained close, and always affectionately competitive. It was a competition in which Zak usually came out ahead. If Richard ran a seven-minute mile, Zak did it in 6.45. If Richard benched 100 pounds, Zak did 125. If Richard scored 92 percent on a physics exam, Zak scored 95 percent. Zak was slightly taller than Richard, and had the broad shoulders, clean-cut good looks, and dark-blue eyes of a born leader. Richard was younger by a couple of months, and naturally fell into a secondary role in their friendship. He never took their competitions seriously, choosing instead to look up to Zak for his talents, and enjoying the fact that they could push each other to greater and greater heights. Over time he’d come to view Zak as the older brother he’d never had, turning to him for guidance and support in times of trouble.
They’d both ended up in California in their late teens. Zak went because his parents wanted a safer and more secure environment for their son. Richard had gone to California to live with the Goldbergs when his parents were killed in a car accident. If he thought of Zak as his brother, he considered Joe and his wife to be stepparents. When they became older, there were periods when the two men saw little of each other, as Zak went to the Marines and Richard went to the Navy, but they had stayed in touch. They had always been able to count on each other, regardless of their situations or locale.
Both eventually went to the CIA, and, in one of those strange coincidences of life, both returned to the Islamabad Embassy in response to acts of terrorism against the USA. They both had the language skills and knowledge of that country that the Intelligence Community so desperately needed. Zak, who had the greater ability and promise, went undercover, first in Kabul and then in Jalalabad. He proved to be a brilliant and courageous operative who, over the years, gravitated closer and closer to important inner circles in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Richard would have followed suit, but there were growing concerns about his ability to remain cool under fire, and there were whispers about a substance-abuse problem of some kind. Now Zak hadn’t seen or heard from Richard in almost four years; his status as an undercover agent kept him from contacting anyone from home. He’d heard the rumors, before he went under. But he still considered Richard to be his brother and closest friend. He missed the man.
Since leaving traditional service and going undercover, Zak’s path had twisted and turned, leading him to now find himself with three other horsemen, standing at the fork of a rocky trail, enjoying the majestic view and sipping water from their canteens. With Zak were Yousseff, his lieutenant, Marak, and Ghullam, Marak’s right hand and protégé. The other men were speaking about the Haramosh Star, a ship that was currently concluding a refit at Karachi Drydock and Engineering, Yousseff ’s private Skunk Works. There were great plans in store for the ship. Yousseff himself was the mind behind a vast drug-fueled business enterprise and, had statistics of such things been kept, was the single largest employer in northern Afghanistan and Pakistan. The US government had been interested in his drug smuggling activities for some time, although there was no concrete information on him. Zak’s mission in this circle was to get close enough to Yousseff to bring him down.
Zak looked up, trying to figure out which way they were heading. Ahead of them, a massive cliff of granite rose vertically for almost 5,000 feet, forming a wall between Afghanistan and Pakistan. A slender crack split the granite, and through that crack wound an extremely narrow and dangerous trail — the continuation of the path they were currently on. It was a famous smuggler’s route, on which Yousseff was rumored to have grown up. The local people called this thin and treacherous cliff trail the Path of Allah. Horses had to be led through it on foot, and even then only horses that knew the route and traversed the path often made the trip safely. The path was completely invisible from the air, and did not appear on any map. Once the trail passed over the cliff, there was a climb of another 1,000 feet, over the course of half a mile, before the route’s completion. The average slope was 45 degrees. It was high mountain country, subject to extreme changes in weather. Even in August, a snowstorm could dump several feet of snow on the pass, rendering it unusable. Travel from mid-October to mid-February was impossible.
To the south, across a flinty bank of shale, the Path of Allah’s sister trail led to Mount Sikarim. There, too, the horses had to be led, the men going on foot; it was too dangerous to ride across the treacherous slope. After half a mile of shale, that path found solid land again. Twelve miles further, after a myriad of false trails, forks, and high mountain passes, lay the Sikarim caves. This was the path they would be taking today.
The others knew Zak as Shayam. He had spent quite a bit of time in the al-Qaeda training camps farther to the south, and had been involved in terrorist raids against Americans. He had distinguished himself in battle, and earned loyalty and trust, by sending his fair share of RPG’s into American camps and supply columns. He’d made a career of trying desperately for the near miss, deviating his aim just a fraction to the right or left to minimize damage. Without getting caught. But he had dealt with this eventuality with his commanding officers when he went into the field. He had to maintain his cover, no matter what the circumstances. He had even been on several missions with al-Qaeda into Iran, and was amused at the ease with which the Iranian border opened up for his grim crew. They were even supplied with weapons, apparently by the Iranian army. If he ever returned to Langley, his debriefing would take many months. When he had gone undercover, his orders had been clear, and had come from the highest levels — do what needed to be done to connect with the inner circle of the enemy. This he had done, and over the years he had drawn ever closer to the prize. More than four years undercover. More than four years away from home. Zak sighed deeply. It had been a long road. He hoped to reach the end of it soon, and go home.