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The next morning, before breakfast, she sent a text message to the cell phone number she had been given for General Malik, saying that she had arrived. She described herself as Mr. Hoffman’s friend. Thirty minutes later, the phone rang and it was the general himself, inviting her to pay a visit later that morning.

“Gentle lady,” he said solicitously, “I will send a car to the Marriott at ten o’clock to pick you up.”

“How do you know I’m at the Marriott?” Marx hadn’t told him where she was staying, and she was supposed to be traveling under clean cover.

“Please, madam, this is my country. There is very little here that I do not know. Let us not get off to a bad start before we have even met.”

Marx said that she would be ready at ten. She knew then for a certainty that she was in danger. Her identity had been compromised within hours of her entry into Pakistan, and she had no good way to protect herself. If she tried to leave the country now, the ISI could stop her; if she tried to seek protection in the U.S. Embassy compound, the ISI could block her way. The Pakistanis could arrest her anytime they wanted. Her security was in the hands of someone she didn’t know and had little reason to trust.

The general’s Land Cruiser arrived at ten o’clock as promised. When Marx emerged from behind the security wall, the driver jumped out of the vehicle and opened the passenger door. She was dressed in a cloak and scarf in deference to local sensibilities, but the driver seemed to know who she was by her appearance. Was there anyone in Pakistan who didn’t know that she was coming?

Marx wished she could leave a trail of bread crumbs to find her way back home, as in the children’s fairy tale. The moment she entered the car, she was effectively General Malik’s prisoner.

They headed south on Ataturk Road, in the direction of the ISI’s headquarters in Aabpara. But rather than turning right on the Kashmir Highway toward the office, the driver continued south into Shakarparian Park, a lush expanse of green that bordered the city center. He left the main avenue for a gravel road that wound through a grove of trees and came to a security checkpoint, where a guard waved him through. The Toyota stopped at the road’s end at a guesthouse on the banks of a large body of water, which Marx knew from her maps must be Rawal Lake.

In the heat of midmorning, nothing was stirring. The surface of the water was smooth as glass, and the air was thick. The trees were barely green, more a light tan, their leaves baked like chips in the oven. Even the birds had gone silent. The driver escorted Marx to the guesthouse and opened the door, beckoning her to take a seat on the couch. The room was cooled by a noisy window box that throbbed and rattled against the heat. The driver brought a cool drink from the pantry and set it before the guest. Then he retreated out the door and locked it from the outside.

Marx waited for more than an hour before the general arrived. She searched for something to read and found only one book, The Defense and Foreign Affairs Handbook on Pakistan. She opened to the first page: “Pakistan is, indeed, a nation on the edge. Many of the critical challenges facing Pakistan today, however, are not of its own making.” It was America’s fault, India’s fault, somebody’s fault. She put the book aside.

She debated calling Cyril Hoffman to tell him where she was, but decided against it. The call would surely be monitored, and there was nothing Hoffman could do now, in any event. It was easier simply to admit that she was helpless.

Rain clouds gathered, and there was a brief shower, the raindrops falling straight down into the water on this windless day, perforating the surface of the lake with tiny dots. The shower ended as quickly as it had begun, and in an instant the bright sun returned. It was like being in a terrarium. Her hair felt wet and matted against her neck; she pinned up her ponytail so that it formed a bun.

General Malik arrived just after noon, accompanied by an aide carrying a laptop computer. The general was a courtly man, trim in his uniform, handsomer than Marx had expected. The aide placed the laptop on a table at the far end of the room; he plugged it into the wall, powered it on and then disappeared out the door.

“I am so very sorry to be late,” began the general. “It must appear that this was a deliberate slight, but I assure you it was not intentional. I was talking with Cyril Hoffman, to be quite frank with you.”

Marx nodded but said nothing. It was always a mistake to be ingratiating, especially for a woman. Better to let the general say what he wanted. When she didn’t answer, the general arched his thick black eyebrows curiously and then continued.

“I was talking with Cyril about you, as a matter of fact. I am a bit worried, you see.”

Marx kept her silence for another moment, but she needed to understand what he was telling her.

“Why are you worried, General? Here I am, ready to do business.”

“Because I think it is possible that others know you are here in Pakistan. To be more specific, madam, I am concerned that your presence here is known to the Tawhid organization that is responsible for the deaths of the other American intelligence officers.”

Marx studied him. This clipped and controlled man was famous for his dexterity at lying, but in this case she thought he was being truthful.

“How could they possibly know I am here? You must have told them.”

“Certainly not, madam. That is why I called Cyril. I wanted to inform him of this danger, you see, and to assure him that I had played no role in disclosing the fact of your visit. No, I am sorry to say that they learned of your travel quite on their own. That is the problem, you know. They have found you out.”

“How can you be sure they know, if you didn’t tell them yourself?”

“Please, Miss Marx. Do not let us trifle with each other. I know because it is my job to discover the secrets of these miscreants. I have agents among them. I overhear their conversations. I watch and listen. And I am telling you, with the greatest of regret, that based on this intelligence I am quite certain that they are aware of your travel to Pakistan.”

“Can you control them? Can you keep them from harming me?”

“ Achaah! ” He tapped his forehead with his hand. “That is what you Americans can never understand. To know is not to control.”

Marx thought a long moment. She didn’t want to be panicked or rushed. She watched the general’s eyes. They were dark brown, with a sparkle of light at the center. It was an intelligent face, if not quite an honest one.

“I believe you, General,” she said.

“Thank you.”

The tightness in his cheeks eased. He tried to smile.

“So I must ask you,” she continued, “how do they know that I am here? What is this methodology that allows them to monitor our movements? Mr. Hoffman told me that you have ideas about how they are targeting our officers. He said that it involves our financial networks. He said you would help. That’s why I came. Now the matter is a little more personal. I am quite in your protection.”

“You touch me, madam.” He put his hand on his heart. “Come, sit down with me at the computer and I will explain what I can.”

He gestured for her to join him at the table at the far end of the bungalow, where the screen of the laptop was glowing faintly. She rose and followed him across the room. He removed a small object from the pocket of his uniform. It was a computer flash drive. He fumbled with the drive, attempting to insert it in the USB port at the back of the machine.

“I am not very good at this, I am afraid. That is the problem with being a general. There is always someone younger and cleverer to do such things for me.”

Eventually he got the drive in place. He sat down at the computer and manipulated the mouse until he had clicked open the file from the external drive. A four-line Excel spreadsheet came up on the screen.