“Good afternoon, again, Madam President,” Walt Page said.
“We’re not getting as much help from our satellite resources as I’d hoped we would. We think that the Pakistanis are moving some of their nuclear weapons around the country.”
“We’re sure of it.”
“I want to know where they’re being taken and why,” Miller said. “Especially the possibility that one of them may have been snatched from Quetta. Because if the Taliban gets their hands on even one of the things, everything changes out there.”
“Ross has someone in the area and he’s sent them to take a look at the SUV,” Page said. Ross Austin, a former SEAL, was the CIA’s chief of station in Islamabad. “We know that it was a rental from the Quetta airport. Possibly by the ISI.”
Miller sat forward. “Son of a bitch,” she said softly, but Page and everyone in the Situation Room with her caught it. “Is someone over there working with the Taliban again? Could this be a double-cross?”
“At this point I’d believe anything. Ross is running a full-court press on the issue. Every asset he has in Islamabad and Rawalpindi are working the streets. Not only that but they’re looking for Dave Haaris.”
“Are we sure that the Taliban have him?” Kalley asked.
“Yes, nothing’s changed to this point,” Page said. “But no demands have been made.”
“Thank you, Walter,” Miller said. “Keep me posted.”
“Madam President, perhaps it’s time to alert our nuclear response teams.”
“That’s the issue we’re working now.”
“Yes, Madam President,” Page said.
Miller cut the image. “Get me a Punjabi translator on the line, and telephone President Barazani.”
Chief of Staff Broderick got on it and within a few seconds a young woman who’d been born, raised and educated in Pakistan before immigrating to the U.S. to get her master’s in Middle Eastern languages from Columbia came on a split screen. She had been put on standby for just this occasion.
Moments later a man’s image appeared on the other half of the screen. “Madam President,” he said in English. “President Barazani has been expecting your call, but he begs your indulgence. He is meeting with his advisers on how best to handle the issue at hand. But he is most keen to talk to you.”
“I’ll wait for his call,” Miller said. The connection was broken, and she thanked her translator. “Don’t go far, we may still need you.”
“Yes, Madam President,” the young woman said.
Miller turned to her advisers. “Alert our nuclear response teams. I want them to be ready to go airborne the instant I give the word.”
SEVEN
President Barazani’s private secretary brought Haaris to the top floor and down the broad marble-tiled corridor to the anteroom. The palace felt almost deserted and was quiet except for the noise of the mob outside. Despite the warm early morning, fifty-five-gallon oil drums had been filled with trash and were burning down on the street. The flames sent odd flickers through the windows that played on the walls and ceilings.
“I’ll just leave you here, sir. The president waits inside for you.”
“Thank you,” Haaris said.
President Barazani stood at the bullet-proof French doors looking directly out across Constitution Avenue. His hands were clasped behind his back, his shoulders hunched, his head bowed. His jacket was draped over the back of his desk chair, and the armpits of his white shirt were stained with sweat, though his office was air-conditioned.
He was a different man from the student Haaris remembered at Eton. Then Farid to his friends, F to Haaris’s D, he was a hell-raiser. They both had been heavy drinkers and gamblers. Haaris had little money in those days, so F had bankrolled him. Of course it never mattered, because they always lost and yet they always had fun, usually ending up with a couple of whores just before dawn.
When Barazani’s parents — his father was a major general in the army and his mother traced her lineage back to royalty — had enough of their son’s antics and sharply reduced his allowance, Haaris had taken up the slack. He convinced his uncle that Barazani would one day be an important man in Pakistan — and therefore a good friend to cultivate. Anyway, his uncle had no children, and had heart problems; his money would probably go to his nephew. So why not spend a little of it now?
The logic was good enough for his uncle, who opened the financial spigot; not full flow, but enough so that Haaris could bankroll Barazani. And they had become fast friends who’d never completely lost touch with each other.
The president turned and nodded, a sad smile on his lips. He had already lost his country and he knew it. His entire range of emotions was written in deep lines on his brows, in the way he stood favoring his left knee, which he’d hurt in a rugby match, and in his general physical condition. Haaris estimated that Barazani had lost at least twenty kilos since the last time they’d met, the year before, in Washington. He looked ill.
“So here you are at last, an American spy come to offer his advice,” Barazani said in English.
“An old friend come to help where he can,” Haaris replied. He dropped his bag on the floor and crossed the room and they embraced.
“Maybe too late. But I understand the necessity of the ruse of your kidnapping. Was it your idea?”
“The ISI helped, of course.”
“No doubt you and Rajput have become close over the past couple of years, but take some advice. Hasan Rajput is no friend of ours.”
“Especially not you,” Haaris replied, and Barazani smiled and nodded.
“But then he’s still a valuable asset. Let’s sit down so you can tell me exactly why you have gone to such lengths to get to me.”
They sat in a pair of easy chairs at a low table with a brandy service between them. Barazani poured them drinks. The room was large, the high ceilings hand-painted with a sunrise and clouds to the east, and a sunset and a few faint stars and a crescent moon to the west. The odor of incense hung softly on the air, none of the smoke from down on the street reaching this far yet. The large desk was littered with papers and file folders, most of them stamped with “Most Secret,” orange diagonal stripes on the covers. Barazani was a busy man. Unlike Nero when Rome burned he had not been fiddling, he was trying to save his country.
The noise of the crowd had grown since Haaris had arrived, as he’d hoped it would. He needed as large an audience as possible.
“We’re worried about your nuclear weapons. There’s a fear — justified, I think — that one or more of them might fall into the hands of the Taliban. So my first job here is to get your assurances that your security systems are firmly in place.”
“Your president telephoned me a few minutes ago, probably to ask me that very question. I didn’t take her call, I wanted to talk to you first. We may have a problem. At this point I’m told that four of them have gone missing.”
Haaris suppressed a smile. “My God,” he said. “Rajput said nothing about it. Who has them, hopefully not the Taliban?”
“As I said, General Rajput is no friend. At this point all I know is that they may be missing, but who has them is still in question. But if it is Taliban it’s not likely they have the technical knowledge to explode the things. There is that.”
“The North Koreans would be willing to help.”
“We’re watching for just that. Currently there are seventeen North Koreans in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Karachi. They are here as businessmen, but we’re keeping a very close eye on their movements.”