“What can I do about it?” asked General Malik, with a shrug. “I am not a member of the Ikwan Al-Tawhid. I am not shooting any Americans. I am a victim, not a perpetrator.”
Cyril Hoffman wagged his finger at the man across the table. “But you know. Of course you do. That’s your job, and you’re good at it. You know the people who are doing the killing, and I have a feeling that you even know how they are doing it. They are getting information that helps them track the movements of people in this new organization that I was talking about. We’ve been looking for the leak, and we haven’t found it yet. But I’ll bet that you have.”
“You give us far too much credit, my friend. We are the ISI, not MI6 or the Mossad. And if you say that we are running the Tawhid, that is a lie, sir. A most despicable lie.” He pounded the table.
General Malik was protesting more heatedly than was necessary, or wise. For in the silence that followed his retort, Cyril Hoffman was able to look into his eyes and, in the uncanny way that Hoffman had, to read from his expressions a narrative.
“You can’t fool me, brother. I see that little smile under your mustache, Mohammed. I see that twinkle in your eye. You’ve got something. Yes, you do. And we need it. I will be frank with you, even though that’s not my nature. This could get dangerous if we don’t find a way to work together. I need you to help me out. Tell me what you know.”
The Pakistani did not answer at first. He was never a man to rush.
“Let us eat something, shall we?” he said.
General Malik reached for the plate of beef carpaccio, and slowly ate one of the paper-thin slices of meat, savoring the taste while he contemplated the situation. He helped himself to some foie gras, too, putting a generous lump on a piece of toast and chewing it, bite by bite.
Hoffman buttered his bread. He tried not to let his impatience show.
The Pakistani finished his little snack and dabbed at his mouth with his napkin.
“You’re right, of course. We do know a bit about the Tawhid, as you would expect. And you are also correct that we know something of how they are doing their targeting.”
“That’s my man. Come on, now. Tell me. You came here to say it. You know you did.”
“It involves banks. We just obtained some computer material that we took off a Tawhid courier. But I will be honest, I do not understand it. I have been trying to find the computer genius who put it together, but frankly, I have failed. I have been nervous about the material. It could be misused. So I have been sitting on it. But perhaps I could have one of my analysts take another look.”
Hoffman buttered his bread some more and then put it aside. He took a sip of the fine red wine. He was searching for different possibilities, but he kept coming back to the thought of Sophie Marx at the hedge fund in London. She was the one working this problem, and she was the most likely to crack the code that Malik had described.
“What if I sent someone to help you?” asked Hoffman. “She’s one of our best counterintelligence officers, and she is the person on our end who has been trying to understand the leak of information about our man in Karachi, and now the others. She’s smart, and she knows how to keep her mouth shut.”
“What is the name of this wonder woman, please?”
“Sophie Marx.”
General Malik took out his fountain pen and wrote her name in small, precise script in a black notebook he kept in the pocket of his blazer.
“You won’t find a whole lot about her in your files, or anyone else’s,” said Hoffman. “But if you asked the right people, you would discover that this young woman ran a very professional operation in Beirut that opened up to us Hezbollah’s communications network. She recruited a woman in one of the Lebanese telecommunications companies, and a man in the Ministry of Telecommunications. It was quite dangerous. We think very highly of her.”
“What would be the understanding, in the event that I were to receive her?”
“She would help you analyze this targeting information. She would investigate it. And then she would use the information to protect our people from further attacks.”
“She would uncover Al-Tawhid’s network of informants, in other words.”
“Well, sure, if that’s what it is. She would help you take them down. Or we’d take them down ourselves, if that’s easier.”
The general helped himself to another tasty glob of foie gras. He had barely touched his wine, up until now, but he took a healthy drink.
“What is in it for us, Cyril? I am sorry to be crass. But this is a human business, after all. In exchange for giving you this very important piece of intelligence, what do I get in return?”
“Well, now, fair question, entirely legitimate. First, you avert an open break with the United States of America, which despite its puny political leadership is still the strongest country on earth and can make life very difficult for countries it doesn’t like. Second, you have my promise that I will stop the covert action that has been undertaken against Pakistan. Stop it, cold. And if I don’t, you are free to go public with whatever the hell you want, and take me down, along with a lot of other people.”
“That’s very nice, but not tangible, Cyril. There are people in Pakistan who would argue that I am betraying an ally, which is Al-Tawhid, to assist an enemy, which is the United States. As you know, I am a moderate man, and I find that sort of thinking abhorrent, but there we are.”
“Look, my friend, if Al-Tawhid is in a position to kill our officers, they can kill China’s and Russia’s-and even your own ISI men. I don’t know what this secret surveillance capability is, but if they can use it against us, they can use it against anybody. That’s dangerous-but especially to you, brother, dear. So we will be doing you a big favor.”
“I am warming to this idea. But I still do not see a benefit for us commensurate with what we are giving up.”
“Hey, Mohammed, we’re talking about the fate of the world, and you’re haggling as if we’re in the spice bazaar. But that’s okay, because I love you. So let me say this about that: America would be very grateful for this help. I know that you would never ask me for any personal reward. But I would feel compelled to offer you one, in the quietest way possible. This rogue operation has been generating billions of dollars. And when we shut it down, some of it is going to fall off the truck. Do you follow me?”
General Malik smoothed the hairs of his mustache and patted his lips with his napkin, even though he had eaten little.
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he said.
Cyril Hoffman smiled. “Forgive me, even for mentioning it.”
“Why don’t you send this woman, Miss Marx, to me in Islamabad? Have her contact me on my personal phone when she arrives. We will see what is possible. More than that, I cannot promise.”
They finished the appetizers and the wine. Hoffman was going to order the main course, but General Malik said that he needed to get back to his plane and go home. People would ask questions if he were late in returning. So Hoffman ordered a jolly dinner and instructed the waiter that it should be sent up to his room, where he ate it while watching Fashion TV.
27
When Cyril Hoffman’s Gulfstream jet landed at RAF Mildenhall for what was supposed to be a refueling stop, he went to the distinguished visitors’ lounge and called Sophie Marx on her cell phone. It was morning in London, and she was at the office in Mayfair starting a day of investigation. The caller’s number was unfamiliar to her and she didn’t answer at first; the only person who called on this phone normally was Jeff Gertz. But when a second call came in immediately from the same number, she answered it.