“We did not do it, Cyril. We know nothing about it.” He spoke gravely, as people do when they are telling a most serious and important lie.
Hoffman stared unblinking into the eyes of his host.
“Heck, I never said you did.”
“Let me repeat: We did not do it. We have no contact with these people whatsoever. If you think we do, you are mistaken.”
“Well, that’s nice,” said Hoffman. He smiled. But his tone made clear that he did not believe his host. There they were, two old friends, each making statements the other was quite sure were false.
The Pakistani opened his arms, palms out, in a gesture of frustration. How could it have reached this point of impasse? He took another sip of his tea, now cold, and closed his eyes for a moment to clear his head.
“Now, Cyril, I will tell you something, because we are friends,” said the general. He spoke softly at first, but his voice gained strength.
“You are looking in the wrong place. You are making a mistake that is characteristic of your country. I am surprised to hear you make it, because you are smarter than most of your fellows, but there we are.”
“I’m listening, Mohammed. What’s the mistake?”
“You do not realize your vulnerability. You do not realize that your adversary could do to you what you have been doing to them. There is a leak, my dear. I cannot say what it is, but it is for you to discover. I am sorry. Although you have been very clever in this new covert business, whatever it is, somehow they have found you out.”
“Old Cyril is a little slow today. You better explain more.”
“I cannot, sir. That is my point. I do not know. But someone knows. That is what you must consider.”
“These riddles are giving me a headache, Mohammed. Why don’t you tell me what it is you have to say?”
“Why should I? How can I? You have just accused me, more or less, of murder. Why should I think that you will listen to anything I say?”
“Do me a favor. Just say it. Tell me how we’ve been busted. Come on, say it, goddamn it.”
The general shook his head. He did not like to hear profanity, especially in the sanctuary of his own quarters.
“I have already told you the essential fact, Cyril. They are on to you. The fact that you did not understand me illustrates the problem. You ask me for more, but there is no more. Perhaps you will think about it as you fly home. Maybe you will think about it, at greater length, when you are home. Maybe you will do something about it. I cannot say. It is not my problem. It is yours.”
The general rose. The meeting was over. He shook the American’s hand, and then, feeling that this was not enough, kissed him again on the cheeks. This time, Hoffman did not reciprocate. And it was a cold hand that he offered, for he was certain that the Pakistani, for all his fine words, had been false with him.
The Pakistani looked at his visitor, his face registering at once anger and injury.
“He’s dead, by the way, your man in Karachi. The body cannot be recovered, but I do not think you would want to see it. His passing was a blessing, under the circumstances. Our police will say that he had an accident. He went trekking. Fell off a cliff. That will save us both from embarrassment. We will put something in a coffin and send it back to London. You can worry about the rest.”
Cyril Hoffman nodded. How very like the Pakistanis, to tidy up the mess. What he thought, as he walked back into the heat of the Rawalpindi morning, was that his dear friend General Malik could not possibly know about the death of this American intelligence officer unless he was working with the people who killed him.
14
Dr. Omar al-Wazir parked his car along Scholar’s Drive and mounted the concrete steps to his office at the National University of Science and Technology. It was located west of Islamabad, in an otherwise desolate quadrant of ground off the Kashmir Highway known as H-12. It was as if the authorities wanted to quarantine science and keep it at a safe distance. The palms at the entrance were so wilted they were bent nearly double, and the potted plants that lined the walkway were just so many stalks and clods of dirt in the midsummer heat.
Dr. Omar was holding office hours today at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He was a research professor, a coveted position, since the only responsibility, other than his own work, was to supervise a few graduate students. He closed the blinds against the sun so that his office was almost dark. The whiteboard at the far end of the room, scribbled with notations and algorithms, was the only object that picked up any light.
Dr. Omar booted up his computer and waited for the screen to come alive. He didn’t do his sensitive communications here, but on another machine in the computer lab whose IP address was easier to mask. But there were puzzles he could solve in the office, too. He took off his suit jacket and put it on the hanger that hung from a hook on the door. He was neatly dressed, in a white shirt and lightweight summer suit that was the color of tobacco. His face was clean-shaven, not even a mustache, so that even with his big nose and dark complexion, he looked more Western than Pakistani.
There was a knock at Dr. Omar’s door. A young man with a scraggly beard peered into the room. His name was Tahir and he was a doctoral candidate under Dr. Omar’s supervision. His thesis topic was promising: “Traffic Analysis for Network Security using Streaming Algorithms and Learning Theory.” When it was completed, the army would probably decide to classify it, and then Tahir would be stuck, but for now he could dream.
“Excuse me, professor, I am sorry to bother you,” said the young man. He looked like he hadn’t eaten or slept in a week.
“Come in, Tahir,” said the professor, taking the student’s hand and pulling him gently into the room. “It is office hours. You are not bothering me. I belong to you today. What is it that you want?”
“I was wondering, Doctor, if you had heard from Stanford or Caltech?”
Dr. Omar had contacts in the computer-science faculties of both those schools, from his own days as prodigy in computer security. Tahir had asked for his help in arranging a postdoctoral fellowship at one of the California schools.
“I did talk to them, but I am afraid it is not good news. They cannot take you next year. They have already made commitments to people with similar research topics. Koi baat nahin, I tell you. Never mind. There will be other chances to study abroad. The university has many exchanges with China now.”
The young man shook his head sorrowfully. He did not want to go to China, but to the United States.
“What about Iowa State?” the student asked. “Or the University of Central Florida?” The National University of Science and Technology had official links with both those schools, too.
Dr. Omar laughed at the thought of little Tahir, scrawny as a she-goat, trying to make his way in the wilds of Orlando.
“We’ll try,” he said. “I don’t know anyone at either place, but I will send the abstract of your dissertation with a nice note, and you never know.”
“Thank you, professor.” The graduate student gave a little bow and backed out of the room, as if he were leaving an audience with a medieval prince.
Dr. Omar smiled as Tahir was leaving. They all wanted to go to America, these boys, even with the visa problems and the expense and everything else. The professor could understand it well enough. He had been much the same at that age, wanting to escape a world where you were bound to live with your mother until you had found a wife, who then behaved as if she were your mother, too.
Dr. Omar did not have that problem now, though it gave him no comfort. He had lost his mother nearly two years before, along with most other members of his family, and the memory was as bitter to him as if it were poison. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, the world went white again. He did not talk about it, ever, and few people even knew of it. He had one surviving sister, who had been away with her own family on that terrible day. She lived in Peshawar, where Dr. Omar visited her occasionally and sent her money to help pay for her children’s schooling.