“It’s a goddamned act of war,” Susan Kalley said.
“It’s a move toward self-defense, according to Gauas Kar,” the president said. Mammohn Singh was Indian’s prime minister. “And I can’t say that if I were in his shoes I wouldn’t do the same thing.”
“How about Rajput?” Page asked.
“He won’t return my calls.”
“Don Powers is still over there, and he can’t get through either,” Secretary of State John Fay said.
“We don’t know what it means, but since the Messiah’s beheading of the TTP’s mufti and declaring India as Pakistan’s primary enemy, the Pakistan military has only raised its threat level to DEFCON Three,” the admiral said.
“It could mean they’re sending India — and us — a message,” Page said. He actually wished that Dave Haaris was here to help them sort through the situation.
“What’s that?” Miller asked.
“The Messiah does not speak for Pakistan.”
“You’re talking about a break in their relationship?” Kalley asked.
“My people think it could be a partial explanation for the rioting. Our embassy has been surrounded, but Austin said it looked to him like the military wasn’t trying to keep them bottled up. Instead it looked as if they had thrown up a protective barrier,” Page replied.
“Two nuclear powers on the brink and your people have zeroed in on the Pakistani army’s effort to protect our embassy?” Kalley exclaimed.
Her question didn’t deserve an answer. Page said nothing.
“Have you been in touch with Mr. McGarvey since the Messiah’s speech?” the president asked.
“Not directly, but he’s evidently in a safe place somewhere in the city, until we can get a SEAL Team Six squad to pick him up, along with another of our agents who managed to get to the embassy.”
One of the tanks on the flat screen pulled up in front of the Aiwan, its main gun pointed toward the rioters on Jinnah Avenue.
“If they don’t calm down soon this could turn out worse than Cairo,” Fay said.
“You said they arrested McGarvey, and yet he’s someplace safe in Islamabad?” Kalley asked. “It means that somehow he managed to escape.”
“That’s what I understand.”
“I’ve read his file, Walt. I know what this guy has done in the past. It’s why the president hired him to do the job over there.”
“Which he warned against.”
“Yes, unintended consequences,” Kalley said. “How many people has he killed this time?”
“I don’t have that number,” Page said. “He’ll be debriefed when he gets back.”
“More than one?” the president’s national security adviser pressed.
“I don’t know,” Page repeated. “The point is, we’re not going to leave him there. We sent him to do a job and he took it on to the best of his abilities, no matter how disagreeable he thought it was. Well, it didn’t work.”
“The man was facing the entire ISI,” the admiral said. “The fact that he managed to sidestep the bastards has to count for something.”
“Get him out of there, priority one,” Miller said.
“Thank you,” Page replied.
“But he stays out of politics,” Miller said with a slight smile. “It’s not his game.”
Saul Santarelli’s tall, lean frame appeared in the doorway. “Sorry I’m late, Madam President.” He was chief of National Intelligence. The agency had been created after 9/11 to do what the CIA had been designed to do — and had been doing — since after World War II. He was dark-skinned, with short-cropped steel-gray hair and the nearly constant look on his face as if he had the weight of America’s security on his shoulders, and his shoulders alone. He was a politician, not an intelligence officer.
Page and he did not get along.
“Are you up to date?” Miller asked.
Santarelli took his place and handed a leather-bound briefing book across the table. “My people put it together and I looked through it on the way over.” He glanced at Page. “Good stuff from your Watch, but I was surprised to see that McGarvey was in the game over there. I’d not been briefed on his mission.”
“No,” Page said. “Unless I’m needed here, Madam President, I’ll see to retrieving my people.”
“I want to talk to him the moment he gets back,” Miller said. “I want to personally thank him for what he tried to do for me, despite the overwhelming odds.”
Page glanced at the flat-screen monitor. The second tank had taken up position a half a block south of the first, its main gun pointed straight down Constitution Avenue. No one except McGarvey had seen anything like this coming their way.
“Be careful of what you wish for, you might just get it,” he sometimes warned. Unintended consequences. Blowback.
Page got to his feet. “Thank you, Madam President.”
SIXTY-THREE
Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert Fishbine was at the end of an unannounced visit to the U.S. training base at Jalalabad, and the moment he was appraised of the situation with McGarvey and Pete he ordered his Gulfstream held until they showed up. He and his two assistants had been ordered back to DC. That was shortly before midnight.
“What time can we expect the team to get them up here?” he asked the navy lieutenant commander in charge of the SEAL Team Six presence, which had been reduced to almost nothing after the nuclear-neutralizing incursion into Pakistan.
“They’re making the pickups now. Should be an hour out, unless they run into trouble, sir.”
“We’ll wait.”
“We were told that your orders said now, sir. Your aircraft and crew are standing by.”
“We’ve developed an unexplained problem with one of the engines,” Fishbine said. He’d worked as a military liaison to the CIA during the brief period when McGarvey was the DCI. He didn’t know the man well, but what he did know was all positive.
“Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant Commander said, grinning.
The assistant sec def had served in the marines as an enlisted man, until he’d retired and completed his law degree at Northwestern. The president had appointed him to the Department of Defense two years earlier, and it was broadly accepted that he would take over the top spot soon because he was a decisive man who wasn’t afraid of making decisions.
“Have they been hurt?”
“Unknown at this point, but there is a medic aboard the chopper.”
The battery on McGarvey’s cell phone was almost completely dead. For the last couple of hours he’d stood at the fifth-floor window of Judith Anderson’s apartment looking down Luqman Hakeem Road toward the Al Habib Market.
Here the neighborhood was quiet, but elsewhere across the city, especially to the northwest toward the Red Section, there had been a lot of gunfire, several explosions and a couple of what sounded like tank rounds.
Television service across all the channels had been shut down. And since around eight traffic had dried up, and even the building had quieted down.
The cell phone switched on and rang once. It was Otto.
“They have Pete, and the chopper is less than five minutes from you. But the ISI apparently got a tip where you were. At least three troop trucks are about the same distance away. It’ll be close. They’re going to have to fast-rope down and pick you up on the roof. Go!”
McGarvey pocketed the phone, left the apartment and hurried to the stairwell at the end of the corridor.
An older man came out of one of the other apartments and immediately started to shout something.