Thomas laughed. “Are you kidding? The place is a fortress.” He phoned Otto. “I have her. Anything new yet?”
“Let me talk to him,” Pete said.
Thomas handed the phone back, then made a U-turn and headed for the bridge.
“How are we going to get him out of there?” she asked.
“I’m working on it,” Otto said. He sounded busy. “I turned the surveillance system back on as soon as he cleared the hallway in the basement. Right now he’s in the service stairwell on his way up to the second floor. He got to the sally port exit, when half a dozen prisoners were brought in and started up the stairs right behind him. He had nowhere else to go.”
“With the surveillance system on they’ll spot him.”
“With it off they would lock down the entire compound. And as long as he keeps his face away from the cameras — which he’s done so far — he’s just another ISI officer in a very busy building. The ISI is on emergency footing because of the Messiah thing — the media has started calling it a velvet revolution — but the entire compound is crawling with people.”
“Someone is bound to spot him as an imposter. He has to get out of there right now.”
“I have no way of contacting him, but he knows the layout of the place; he’s seen live satellite images and has to figure that the only way out is the rear of the building. To the east, north and south are major roads, already starting to get busy, so his only real option is west.”
“On foot,” Pete said. “Even in an ISI uniform he’d attract attention and he wouldn’t get very far. He’ll know that.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Which is the least busy of the three roads?”
“The west service road. It’s where he was brought in. It’s the gate used mostly for incoming prisoners and outgoing bodies.”
“That’s how he’s getting out. He’s going to steal a car or truck and if he isn’t waved through he’ll crash the gate, and we’re going to be there to pick him up.”
“Then what?” Otto demanded. He didn’t seem the least bit alarmed. They’d all get worried later.
“I don’t know, but Milt and I will figure something out,” Pete said. “Anything changes, keep us posted. In the meantime, where’s Haaris?”
“He’s disappeared again.”
“Great, great, great.” Pete switched off. “Are you armed?” she asked Thomas.
“Of course. What’s the story?”
“The west service road gate,” she said, and she explained what she and Otto had discussed.
“Are you sure about it?”
“It’s the only option. Once he’s out, we have to pick him up before they respond in force. But I don’t know what after that. We’ll have to get under cover ASAP.”
“My house,” Thomas said without hesitation. “It’s down in Rawalpindi, maybe ten klicks from here.”
“Won’t your place be under surveillance?”
“I’m a fair-haired boy.”
“Not after this morning,” Pete said.
“I’ve been thinking lately that it’s getting time to pull the pin. You guys will have to get out, and I’ll just tag along.”
“Right,” Pete said. But she had to wonder if Mac would give up so easily. Haaris was still out there.
Thomas made another U-turn on the deserted road and headed back toward the Red Zone. “In another hour, maybe sooner, traffic is going to pick up and it won’t be long before we’re in a full-blown rush hour. Happens every A.M. and goes on all day.”
“We need to wait where we can watch the service road and yet not attract any attention,” Pete said.
“The Rose and Jasmine Garden, it’s just across the Kashmir Highway. But he’s going to have to turn south, toward us.”
Pete called Otto again and told him their plan. “Any word yet?”
“He’s in the west stairwell on the third floor. A couple of close calls, but everyone is too busy or too stressed out to see him for anything other than an ISI lieutenant.”
“It won’t hold.”
“No. And there’s still no way I can get word to him.”
“But you can tell us when he gets out and which direction he’s taken,” Pete said.
“His chances are slim.”
Pete laughed, and it sounded like false bravado in her ears. “We’re talking about Mac.”
Thomas got off the highway and worked his way through the park, finding a narrow road that looped back to the southwest and then north, finally connecting with a tree-lined lane that became the west service road across the Kashmir and Kayaban highways, which ran parallel to each other. He doused the lights and parked.
Pete got out of the car and Milt handed her a pair of Chinese-made binoculars, which she used to scope the walls of the ISI compound and its main building, which rose up into the early morning sky like some squat ziggurat from an ancient time.
She reached out to feel him, but he wasn’t there, and she was suddenly very cold and very frightened.
FIFTY-SIX
McGarvey, the Beretta in hand, opened the door to the fourth floor and peered out. This part of the building seemed to be empty; all the lights in the corridor were on and many of the office doors were open, but no one was here. This was the executive floor, and McGarvey had half expected to see Rajput busy at his desk. But the prime minister’s office was locked, and listening at the door Mac couldn’t hear a thing.
The lights on the security cameras were back on, indicating they were active, so he kept his face averted as he hurried down the corridor and ducked into an office twenty feet down from Rajput’s, and closed the door.
A pair of file cabinets stood along one wall, and in the middle of the fairly small room was a plain desk with a computer and a telephone, but nothing else. The drawers were locked and there were no files or anything else that might have indicated who worked here or what their job might have been.
Two windows looked down at the roof one floor below, and beyond that a driveway that passed an open field and through a thick stand of trees to the rear gate that opened onto a service road, if his memory served. Before he’d headed over on the ambassador’s aircraft, he’d taken the time to study the layout of the Secretariat compound as well as the Aiwan. He’d considered it a possibility that he might have to take the fight either here or to the Presidential Palace and he needed to know his way around. Especially if he was in a hurry.
Laying the pistol on the desk he ignored the computer, which would almost certainly be password protected, and picked up the phone. Getting a dial tone he entered the international code for France, and then Otto’s personal relay number, which was only ever used if an agent was in trouble and on the run and needed to call home without alerting his pursuers that he was calling the States, and certainly not the CIA.
If there was a central switchboard or a monitoring system of some sort, it wouldn’t take long for someone to notice that a call was being placed from an office that was supposed to be empty, and either listen in or send a security officer to investigate.
Otto answered on the first ring. “Yes.”
“Me,” McGarvey said.
“West service road gate,” Otto said. “Head south, you’ll be met.”
The line went dead.
There was no lock on the door, so McGarvey wedged a chair against the handle, and holstering the pistol went to the windows, which like those at the CIA were double-paned and likely flooded with white noise. But unlike at the CIA the windows were not sealed; unlatched, they swung open.
The building was constructed like a ziggurat, each lower floor jutting out from the one above. McGarvey climbed out and hung full length for just a moment before he dropped the fifteen feet or so to the roof below. Looking over his shoulder as he ran, he tried to spot someone watching him from a window, or perhaps from the roof above, which bristled with antennas and satellite dishes. And he half expected to come under fire.