“Exactly who is doing this?”
“People in the SS Directorate personally loyal to me.”
The ISI’s SS Directorate’s prime function was to monitor terrorist activities throughout Pakistan. It was one of the divisions inside the spy agency that Haaris had not been able to penetrate, and one that General Rajput had assured him was of little or no interest to the Americans. Of course, the general was playing both ends against the middle.
“You’ll need to talk to President Miller and reassure her that you are in control of the nuclear arsenal.”
“It would be a lie.”
“Of course, but without that assurance she’ll almost certainly send in our Nuclear Energy Support Team to disable as many of your weapons as our people can get to.”
“That would not be so easy as the bin Laden raid.”
“No one thinks it would be. Certain of our people on her staff and in the Pentagon believe that the losses we would suffer are worth reducing the risk of your weapons falling into the wrong hands.”
“Which may already have occurred,” Barazani said. “But why are you here? What you are telling me makes you a traitor. And just what is it that you are telling me? What’s the U.S. strategy?”
“You need to look at the bigger picture, Farid. If the Taliban has gotten its hands on some nuclear weapons, Pakistan is finished. If President Miller does order our Nuclear Energy Support Team to neutralize what weapons they can reach, Pakistan will be doubly vulnerable — from the Taliban and also from India, which could very well mount a preemptive nuclear strike knowing that you could not retaliate.” Haaris waved his hand toward the French doors. “Then there are the people who demand that something be done.”
“A camera has been set up outside, and my image will be shown on the Jumbotron screen at the head of the front stairs. But what do I tell them? I was waiting for something substantive from you.”
“What they want to hear.”
“What are you telling me, David?” Barazani asked. “That I should step down? Who would take my place? Who would want to, except for the military, or maybe Rajput himself? What are you saying?”
“More to the point, what is the mob on Constitution Avenue demanding?”
“They’re a mob.”
“Pakistanis.”
“Directed by the Taliban.”
Haaris nodded.
Barazani looked like a trapped man. His eyes were wide and he breathed through his mouth. His face was wet. “Is this the message you have brought me from Washington?”
“Not exactly,” Haaris said. “I have something more specific.”
“What?”
Haaris got up and went to his bag. His back to Barazani he broke the diplomatic seal and took out a Glock 29 subcompact pistol, a suppressor attached to the muzzle. He turned around, walked directly back to Barazani, who reared back, and shot the president of Pakistan in the middle of the forehead.
EIGHT
President Barazani lay slumped to the left in his chair. Only a small amount of blood had leaked out of the wound in his forehead and dribbled into his left eye. Haaris felt the carotid artery, but there was no pulse.
The anteroom was empty, the door to the corridor closed. Getting a one-kilogram brick of Semtex and a contact exploder from his bag, he molded the plastic explosive to the outer door and set the fuse. When someone opened the door the Semtex would explode, killing anyone in the corridor within a few meters of the door.
He closed the inner door and molded a second brick of Semtex and an exploder to it.
From his bag he took the trousers, long shirt and kaffiyeh he’d worn in from the airport and put them on over his khaki slacks and white shirt.
Stuffing the pistol in his belt, he inserted the SIM card into his cell phone and called Rajput, getting him on the first ring.
“This is Haaris. I managed to get away from the bastards.”
“My God, David, are you hurt?”
“No, but I’m on foot about five miles from the airport. I need to get to my airplane.”
“The city is a mess. A big crowd has gathered in front of the Aiwan. They’re calling for Barazani to come out and speak to them. But the coward is hiding in his office.”
“He has to do it, General. There’s no other way out for Pakistan.” Haaris let some desperation into his tone. “Can’t he see that?”
“It’s our problem now, David. You’ve done all that you could. We’ll send someone to take you to your airplane and out of the country. Just hold tight.”
Haaris shut off his phone and removed the SIM card.
He took the voice-altering device out of his bag and strapped it around his neck, centering the electronic package just beneath his Adam’s apple, and readjusted the kaffiyeh to cover it and all but his eyes.
The remote control for the outside camera was lying on the small table next to Barazani’s body. Haaris pocketed it, and finally he pulled a razor-sharp machete from his bag and went back to the president of Pakistan.
“Now it is time, my old friend, for you to actually do something worthwhile for your country,” he said.
He swung the blade with all of his might, easily severing the flesh of Barazani’s neck and cutting through the top of the spinal column. The president’s head fell backward, thumping onto the floor behind the chair and rolling a meter or so before coming to rest on its right side.
Haaris wiped the machete on Barazani’s shirt and laid it aside before he switched on the outside camera, picked up the severed head by its hair and walked to the door.
The radio in Lieutenant Jura’s car came to life. “Special unit one.”
He answered it. “Unit one.”
“Get out of there right now. The situation is about to go explosive.”
The only one who could use this channel was the directorate’s dispatcher, under the personal control of General Rajput.
“What about my passenger? He’s still inside.”
“He’s no longer your concern. Leave now, Lieutenant. That is an order.”
“Roger,” Jura said. He started the car and headed back past the residences to the rear gate. He had no idea what was going on, but he was relieved to be out of it. All hell was about to break loose; it was thick in the air and at this moment, he could think only of himself, and the hell with the bloody Americans.
As he approached the gate, he could hear a helicopter coming in from the south, but then three armed guards came out of the darkness and blocked the driveway.
“Halt,” one of them shouted.
For some inexplicable reason the iron gate stood open just beyond the guards.
“Stop now!” the guard shouted.
Jura slammed the gas pedal to the floor and the Fiat surged forward, striking one of the guards before the others opened fire.
Haaris switched on the voice-altering device, opened the French doors and walked out onto the balcony. At the balustrade he raised Barazani’s head to show the crowd.
For a seeming eternity the mob fell almost silent. In the distance to the south the ISI helicopter was arriving. The time for long speeches was past.
“This man was an instrument of our enemies in the West,” Haaris shouted in Punjabi, the language that nearly 50 percent of the people spoke.
“But we have friends with us now. The Students.” He used the Pashto word for “students” which was taliban. “Our only way to liberation is with them. They will help guide us when the Americans attack, which they will very soon, possibly even before dawn. But we will not allow another Abbottabad. The shame will not be ours to bear.”
The crowd reacted with a low, ugly roar that slowly rose to cheers.
“I have come here to guide you. I am not a Student, but follow me, I will show you the way.”