She grabbed her sat phone from her bag on the bed and called Otto at Langley, where it was five in the afternoon. He was still in his office.
“Where would they have taken him?” she demanded as soon as he came on.
“If the ISI has him, which they probably do, he’d be in a holding cell at their headquarters building. Page has been talking with Miller to see what diplomatic pressure can be brought to bear. But they already know that he works for the CIA, so there’s a real possibility he’ll go on trial and we might have to wait for that to happen before a deal can be made.”
“No, listen to me, Otto,” she screeched. “They’re waterboarding him right now. We can’t wait.”
“How do you know this?”
“I just know it. Where would he be if they were torturing him?”
“The interrogation area is in the basement of the main building. Heavily guarded, of course. Constant electronic surveillance.”
“Can you hack into their computer mainframe?”
“I have. But there’s nothing on him, though that’s not unusual. They handle their most sensitive cases totally offline. Just paper memos and orders directly man to man.”
“The surveillance systems. Can you shut the cameras down, maybe release any electronic door locks?”
“I can do that easily enough.”
“Good. I’ll let you know when, but it’ll be within the hour, hopefully sooner. In the meantime have Page go back to the president; we have to get him out of there right now. We’ll use it as a diversion.”
“A diversion for what? You’re not going to storm the gates.”
“Not immediately. But Mac will try to get out of there; you and I both know that’s a fact. I want to make it a little easier for him.”
“Okay, but what can I tell the director? That you’ve had an out-of-body experience? ESP or something? You know how far that will go?”
“They’re going to kill him. Tell us it was an accident.”
Otto was silent.
“Christ,” Pete said in despair.
“I’ll scramble the mainframe in the Secretariat,” Otto said.
“What good will that do?”
“I’ll crash their system for sixty seconds and before I bring it back up I’ll let them know that it was brought to them courtesy of the U.S.A. Ought to get their attention.”
“How will that help Mac?”
“I’ll put my signature on it. They’ve got some pretty bright people over there who’ll figure out who did it, and when Haaris hears about it, it won’t take him a millisecond to figure out what we want. And as long as he doesn’t suspect that the ISI has got Mac and not some CIA contractor, he’ll order his release and expulsion from the country just to make this headache go away.”
“Do it,” Pete said.
“It’s going to take the better part of a half hour, so hang in there, Pete. We’ll get him out.”
Pete used the house phone in the room to call Austin in his quarters. He finally answered after a half-dozen rings.
“What?”
“Meet me in your office in five minutes; we’re springing Mac.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The ISI is waterboarding him right now, and we’re going to stick it to them in such a way they’ll not only know what’s happening, but who is doing it and why.”
She splashed some water on her face, stuck her conceal-and-carry Glock in the waistband of her jeans beneath her shirt and pocketed an extra magazine of ammunition and her sat phone. She grabbed her scarf on the way out.
Because of the nuclear incident outside Quetta and the transition of the government and the other extraordinary events of the past days — not the least of which were the Messiah’s appearance and the Taliban’s supposed willingness to cooperate — many of the offices at the embassy were staffed even at this hour.
Austin was on the phone in his office when she showed up.
“She’s here now, Mr. Ambassador. But she hasn’t explained what she means or how she came by her information.”
“I need your help,” Pete said when he put the phone down.
“My hands are tied, I’m sorry, but you’re leaving in a few hours.”
“They have him in the basement of the ISI’s main building, where they’re torturing him right now.”
“How in hell do you know this?”
“Never mind, I just do. We’re going to shut down all the electronic surveillance systems in the building as soon as I’m in place with a car and a driver who knows his way around the city and isn’t afraid to stick his neck out.”
“If it gets that far, which it won’t, where the hell do you think you’ll go? They’ll have the airport closed up tighter than a gnat’s ass.”
“They’ll be too busy trying to take care of another, much bigger issue.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to shut down the mainframe in the Secretariat for sixty seconds and let them know who did it, why we did it, and warn them that it could be permanent.”
“Rencke,” Austin said angrily. He reached for the phone.
“I would think about it for just a minute, Ross,” Pete said. “We all know what Otto can do if he’s pressed, and we also know what Kirk McGarvey is capable of.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Think what they’ve both done for our country. Are you really willing to throw all of that away?”
FIFTY-FOUR
The single point of light began to blossom into something much larger, almost overwhelming in McGarvey’s eyes as he slowly regained consciousness. The filthy towel was gone and he was no longer drowning. He made a great effort to control his breathing.
“Relax,” Pete had told him what seemed like a long time ago, and yet he was sure it had been just minutes. He could almost feel her touch on his forehead.
He turned his head to one side as the ISI lieutenant came toward him.
“I admire your control, Dr. Parks. I didn’t do nearly as well in training. And it’s certainly nothing I’d like to go through again.”
“May I have a drink of water,” McGarvey croaked.
The lieutenant laughed. “That’s the paradox. You have nearly drowned, and yet your throat is terribly dry. I feel your pain, believe me. We could be brothers, Travis. Comrades in arms. Perhaps in different camps, but certainly fellow soldiers.”
McGarvey said nothing. His awareness and strength were coming back to him, slowly, and he closed his eyes against the glare of the overhead lightbulb.
“Sometimes the subject even becomes sleepy immediately following a session,” the lieutenant said amiably. He pinched McGarvey’s cheek.
McGarvey took a long time opening his eyes, as if he were having trouble. “Water.”
The lieutenant laughed. “In due time. And I even promise you’ll have a reasonably soft bed and something to eat when you wake up. But for now I need your cooperation. The truth, if you please.”
The straps, especially the one at his left wrist, were loose. He blinked several times. “I’m a journalist.”
“Yes, I’ve read some of your blogs. And you were quite right about many things. The problem we’re having is that no one ever heard of you until a few days ago. It’s as if you were invented out of whole cloth, I believe is the correct expression. Something the CIA is certainly capable of doing. So let’s start there, shall we? Of course your name isn’t Travis Parks. What is it, please?”
“Parks,” McGarvey whispered.
“We can do better than that.”
McGarvey let his eyes flutter. “Davis,” he said softly.
“What’s your social security number, Mr. Davis?” the lieutenant asked.
McGarvey shook his head.