Absolutely nothing.
Ashani had been monitoring Rapp’s Farid Saeed legend and knew that the CIA officer had traveled to Kabul the previous day. What had transpired in the ensuing twenty-four hours was still a mystery. Shortly after landing, CCTV cameras showed Rapp departing the international terminal and disappearing into the hustle and bustle of Kabul.
Ashani had been unable to piece together what had happened next. While this wasn’t exactly surprising, it was disheartening. Mitch Rapp was a clandestine operative of considerable skill, with the physical and verbal aptitude to pass for many nationalities. Of course he could vanish should the need arise. The question was why. Why had the American been sufficiently intrigued to come to Kabul but not interested enough to actually meet with the Iranian who’d requested his presence?
The family showed their tickets to the gate agent and then passed down the jet bridge out of sight. Of the businessman, Ashani saw no sign. With a harried look, the gate agent unclipped the microphone attached to her podium and made the announcement Ashani had been expecting in three languages.
Final boarding call.
Ashani struggled to his feet. Specks of darkness flitted across his vision, and he almost lost his balance. Thankfully, his groping hand found the chair’s metal armrest. He took comfort in the feel of the cool metal as he waited for the vertigo to pass. He did not have long, and he would spend what time he had remaining with those he loved.
His decision made, Ashani pressed through the crowd toward the gate agent. The young woman smiled encouragingly at his unsteady progress as if she were cheering on a child’s first steps rather than the doddering strides of a dying, middle-aged man.
His pocket pulsed.
Ashani withdrew his phone with trembling fingers. It was a text message, but not from Rapp.
The sender was Ruyintan.
We need to talk.
Yes, they did.
With the foresight of one who had waged war from the shadows his entire career, Ashani knew how this would end. Traveling to Paris might buy him time with his family, but without the deal he intended to exact from Rapp, they would never be safe.
And Rapp wasn’t here.
Sighing, Ashani dropped his ticket to Paris into the trash receptacle and joined the queue for the flight to Islamabad. With shaking fingers, he texted a reply.
Coming.
CHAPTER 46
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
MIKE Nash shifted in his leather reclining seat as the Gulfstream’s engines spooled down. Fifteen hours after Irene had tasked him with conducting his first international trip in his new capacity as a CIA executive, Nash sat on the tarmac of Islamabad International Airport. For fifteen hours, Nash had war-gamed how to achieve the diplomatic and operational goals Irene had outlined ahead of his unscheduled visit.
Now, the time for planning was over.
“Ready, sir?”
Nash looked from the jet’s open doorway to his aide. Bill Thompson was both impossibly young and unabashedly eager. For some reason, these two qualities had the combined effect of making Nash feel impossibly ancient and deeply cynical. Maybe part of Nash’s poor attitude could be attributed to the fact that he wasn’t used to being called sir.
At least not anymore.
Sure, as a captain in the Marine Corps, Nash had been accustomed to the honorifics paid to his rank. Still, as more than one noncommissioned officer had helpfully pointed out when Nash had still been a wet-behind-the-ears second lieutenant, calling Nash sir and rendering him a hand salute were a tribute to the fact that he was an officer, not to him personally. Hopefully that situation would change as Nash grew into his role, but to gain the respect of the Marines he led, he’d first have to earn it. Nash had relished the challenge and thought he could hear a difference in the single-syllable word’s inflection after he’d served as a platoon commander in combat with his Marines.
That was the opposite of this.
Now Nash was a sir because he was a GS-15.
His ascent into the government’s Senior Executive Service was the equivalent of achieving flag rank in the military. Except Nash was no longer a rifle-toting Marine, a knuckle-dragging paramilitary officer, or even a cubicle-dwelling bureaucrat. No, his new incarnation had transformed Nash into something much more despised.
Senior management.
And he had his old pal Rapp to thank.
Or blame.
“Just a sec,” Nash said, powering down his laptop.
To be fair, the gig did have its share of perks. While Nash had certainly traveled on an Agency Gulfstream before, this was the first time that his rank merited a jet just for him. If a person had to fly the seven thousand or so miles from Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to Islamabad, Pakistan, a Gulfstream V was the way to make the trip. The jet was fast and its cruising altitude of fifty-plus thousand feet put the aircraft and its passengers in the smooth air above most of the turbulence.
The jet belonged to the CIA, so its interior didn’t match the opulence of the Gulfstreams favored by rock stars or tech overlords, but the supple seats, plush couch, and narrow but serviceable bed beat the hell out of flying commercial. Though he still felt grimy from wearing the same clothes for the last thirteen hours, Nash was rested and ready to begin his day of meetings. The United States might have been left off the invitation list for the Regional Stability Conference that Pakistan was hosting, but Nash’s Pakistani counterparts had assured him that the slight had been unintentional. Nash thought that was about as likely as Stan Hurley opening a florist shop once he retired.
No matter.
The ISI leadership had made up for their supposed oversight by scheduling Nash for a meeting with the president of Pakistan just hours after his arrival. Nash had shadowed Irene in enough head-of-state summits to know that this conversation was a formality and that the real talks would occur between his counterpart and him in a much smaller venue.
Even so, Nash was prepared for fireworks.
Pakistan was notionally an ally in the Global War on Terror, but it was becoming harder and harder for the US administration to ignore the nation’s double dealing. On one hand, Pakistan had legitimately aided the US after 9/11. On the other, the Pakistani army had mostly abandoned their much-hyped campaign to root terrorists out of the Federally Administered Trible Areas, or FATA, a no-man’s-land that made up much of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The divide within Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, or Inter-Services Intelligence, was even more stark. It was no secret that the Taliban came to power in large part through financial aid from the ISI and Pakistan’s Interior Ministry. Supposedly this had been part of a national strategy to use Afghanistan as a buffer against foreign incursion into Pakistan’s sphere of influence. A strategy that was officially renounced after receiving some very direct communication from Washington. Before the dust on Ground Zero had fully settled, the American president had provided his Pakistani counterpart with the lay of the world in commendably unambiguous terms—you’re either with us or against us. After seeing the rapidity and brutality with which the Americans had dealt with Al Qaeda, the choice had been easy to make.
Then.
Now, ten years later, the ground was much less firm. Though he wouldn’t confess his feelings even to Maggie, Nash knew in his heart that the effort in Afghanistan was mired in a swamp. While his CIA brothers and sisters were still ruthlessly dispatching terrorists, the American military was on a far less certain footing.
