"Is that so?" Herbert said. "Well, mine's a little shaky right now. I don't like risking my team, my friends, to keep some Indian nabob happy."
"We aren't going to," Hood said. "We're going to protect the part of the system we've been given." He looked at his watch. "I don't know if Ron Friday betrayed his country in Baku. Even if he did it doesn't mean he's got a side bet going in India. But we still have about eighteen hours before Striker reaches India. What can we do to get more intel on Friday?"
"I can have my team look into his cell phone records and e-mail," Herbert said, "maybe get security videos from the embassy and see if anything suspicious turns up."
"Do it," Hood said.
"That may not tell us everything," Herbert said.
"We don't need everything," Hood said. "We need probable cause, something other than the possibility that Friday may have helped Fenwick. If we get that then we can go to Senator Fox and the CIOC, tell them we don't want Striker working with someone who was willing to start a war for personal gain."
"All very polite," Herbert grumped. "But we're using kid gloves on a guy who may have been a goddamned traitor."
"No," Hood said. "We're presuming he's innocent until we're sure he's not. You get me the information. I'll take care of delivering the message."
Herbert agreed, reluctantly.
As he wheeled back to his office, the intelligence chief reflected on the fact that the only thing diplomacy ever accomplished was to postpone the inevitable. But Hood was the boss and Herbert would do what he wanted.
For now.
Because, more than loyalty to Paul Hood and Op-Center, more than watching out for his own future, Herbert felt responsible for the security of Striker and the lives of his friends. The day things became so interconnected that Herbert could not do that was the day he became a pretty unhappy man. And then he would have just one more thing to do.
Hang up his spurs.
SIXTEEN
Sharab and her group left the camouflaged truck and spent the next two hours making their way to the cliff where the cave was located. Ishaq had raced ahead on his motorcycle. He went as far as he could go and then walked the rest of the way. Upon reaching the cave he collected the small, hooded lanterns they kept there and set them out for the others. The small, yellow lights helped Sharab, Samouel, Ali, and Hassan get Nanda up to the ledge below the site. The Kashmiri hostage did not try to get away but she was obviously not comfortable with the climb. The path leading to this point had been narrow with long, sheer drops. This last leg, though less than fifty feet, was almost vertical.
A fine mist drifted across the rock, hampering visibility as they made their way up. The men proceeded with Nanda between them. Sharab brought up the rear. Her right palm was badly bruised and it ached from when she had struck the dashboard earlier. Sharab rarely lost her temper but it was occasionally necessary. Like the War Steeds of the Koran, who struck fire with their hooves, she had to let her anger out in measured doses. Otherwise it would explode in its own time.
Nanda had to feel her way to the handholds that Sharab and the others had cut in the rock face over a year before. The men helped her as best they could.
Sharab had insisted on bringing the Kashmiri along, though not so they would have a hostage. Men who would blow up their own citizens would not hesitate to shoot one more if it suited them. Sharab had taken Nanda for one reason only. She had questions to ask her.
The other two blasts in the Srinagar marketplace had not been a coincidence. Someone had to have known what Sharab and her group were planning. Maybe it was a pro-Indian extremist group. More likely it was someone in the government, since it would have taken careful planning to coordinate the different explosions. Whoever it was, they had caused the additional explosions so that the Free Kashmir Militia would unwittingly take the blame for attacking Hindus.
It did not surprise Sharab that the Indians would kill their own people to turn the population against the FKM. Some governments build germ-war factories in schools and put military headquarters under hospitals. Others arrest dissidents by the wagonload or test toxins in the air and water of an unsuspecting public. Security of the many typically came before the well-being of the few. What upset Sharab was that the Indians had so effectively counterplotted against her group. The Indians had known where and when the FKM was attacking. They knew that the group always took credit for their attack within moments of the blast. The Indians made it impossible for the cell to continue. Even if the authorities did not know who the cell members were or where they lived, they had undermined the group's credibility. They would no longer be perceived as an anti-New Delhi force. They would be seen as anti-Indian, anti-Hindu.
There was nothing Sharab could do about that now. For the moment she felt safe. If the authorities had known about the cave they would have been waiting here. Once the team was armed and had collected their cold weather gear she would decide whether to stay for the night or push on. Moving through the cold, dark mountains would be dangerous. But giving the Indians a chance to track them down would be just as risky. She could not allow her group to be taken alive or dead. Even possessing their bodies would give the Indian radicals a target with which to rally the mostly moderate population.
Sharab wanted to survive for another reason, also. For the sake of future cells Sharab had to try to figure out how the Indian authorities knew what she and her team had been doing. Someone could have seen them working on the roof of the police station. But that would have led to their arrest and interrogation, not this elaborate plot. She suspected that someone had been watching them for some time. Since virtually none of the FKM's communications were by phone or computer, and no one in Pakistan knew their exact whereabouts, that someone had to have been spying from nearby.
She knew and trusted everyone on her team. Only two other people had been close to the celclass="underline" Nanda and her grandfather. Apu would have been too afraid to move against them and Sharab did not see how Nanda could have spoken with anyone else. They were watched virtually all day, every day. Still, somehow, one of them must have betrayed the group.
Ishaq was leaning from the cave about ten feet above. He reached down and helped everyone up in turn. Sharab waited while Ishaq and Ali literally hoisted Nanda inside. The rock was cool and she placed her cheek against it. She shut her eyes. Though the rock felt good, it was not home.
When she was a young girl, Sharab's favorite tale in the Koran involved the seven Sleepers of the Cave. One line in particular came to her each time she visited this place: "We made them sleep in the cave for many years, and then awakened them to find out who could best tell the length of their stay."
Sharab knew that feeling of disorientation. Cut off from all that she loved, separated from all that was familiar, time had lost its meaning. But the woman knew what the Sleepers of the Cave had learned. That the Lord God knew how long they had been at rest. If they trusted in Him they would never be lost.
Sharab had her god and she also had her country. Yet this was not how she had wanted to return to Pakistan. She had always imagined going home victorious rather than running from the enemy.
"Come on!" Samouel called down to her.
Sharab opened her eyes. She continued her climb toward the cave. The moment of peace had passed. She began getting angry again. She pulled herself inside the small cave and stood. The wind wailed around her going into the shallow cave, then whooshed past her as it circled back out. Two lanterns rocked on hooks in the low ceiling. Beneath them were stacked crates of guns, explosives, canned food, clothing, and other gear.