Blowback

SEVENTY-FIVE

Once the guards had left the hallway and disappeared behind the statue of Saint Nicholas, Harvath prepared to kick in the door of the Aga Khan’s chambers. At the last minute, though, he stopped himself and decided to try the handle — it was unlocked. Bringing his MP7 up to the firing position, Harvath pushed open the door with the toe of his boot and carefully stepped inside.

Just like the rest of the monastery, the Aga Khan’s rooms were sumptuously appointed. Thick velvet draperies were drawn tight against the windows while ornate chandeliers and Tiffany-style table lamps cast the room in a dim orange glow. Logs stacked upright, A-frame style, blazed in the fireplace. There was a moldy, bookish smell to the place.

At the far end of the main sitting room, which looked more like a study or a library, Harvath found the Aga Khan at a large wooden desk covered with scrolls and old pieces of papyrus. The flat-screen TV behind him was tuned to one of the twenty-four-hour cable news networks.

Dressed in a plaid button-down shirt and khaki trousers, the Aga Khan looked nothing like a stereotypical Muslim spiritual leader. He sported neither flowing robes nor a long unkempt beard. Balding and slightly overweight, his appearance was deceptively placid, more like a grandfather than a fabulously wealthy international power broker. His true character, though, came through when he lifted his head and spoke. Born in exile, the man was completely westernized, and his sharp words were pronounced with a crisp British accent. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing in here?”

Harvath knew the Aga Khan was dangerous and wasted no time taking control of the situation. Pointing the MP7 at him, he said, “I’m here to ask you a few questions. Now stand up and put your hands where I can see them.”

The Aga Khan refused to move. “Do you know who I am?” he stated.

Harvath didn’t care. All he was thinking about at this moment was the possibility of mass American casualties from the bioweapon that had been tested in the village of Asalaam and that the man sitting in front of him somehow was the key to all of it. Flicking the fire selector of his MP7 to single shot, Harvath put a silenced round through the top of the man’s leather desk chair, inches from his head. “Apparently, you’re someone who doesn’t listen very well.”

With his gold Rolex and matching cufflinks glinting in the light from his desk lamp, the Aga Khan placed his palms on the desk and pushed himself up to standing. “You’re going to pay for this,” he said as he held his hands up in the air. “I swear to you, you are going to pay.”

“Zip it,” said Harvath, motioning with his weapon for the man to take a seat in one of the leather club chairs near the fireplace. “I don’t want to hear anything out of you unless it’s in answer to one of my questions. Do you understand me?”

The Aga Khan sat down in one of the chairs, but refused to acknowledge him. Harvath fired another round, this one right between the man’s legs, which sent a clump of batting sailing through the air. Reluctantly, the Aga Khan nodded his head and murmured, “I understand.”

“Good,” said Harvath as he sat down across from him, turned on the MP7’s laser sight, and painted the man’s knee with the small red dot. “Just so we further understand each other, this is exactly where my next shot is headed.”

The Aga Khan nodded his head.

Harvath balanced the weapon on his lap and kept the laser trained on the Aga Khan’s knee as he continued. “Question number one. Why did you kidnap Emir Tokay?”

The man took a deep breath, and as he did, Harvath noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked terrible, as if he hadn’t slept in days. When he spoke, the clipped, powerful speech of a moment before was replaced with a tone of fatigue and resignation. “Why torment me? You know the reason.”

“I have my theories,” replied Harvath, “but I want to hear it from you.”

The Aga Khan looked at Harvath, too tired for games, but with no choice but to play along. “We needed him alive for the same reasons you wanted him dead, but of course you know this.”

“I can guarantee you I didn’t come all this way to kill Emir Tokay.”

The Aga Khan was confused. “You didn’t? Why not? You had all of the other scientists killed to ensure their silence.”

It was obvious the man thought Harvath was working for someone else. “I’m here because I want to make sure what happened in Asalaam never happens anywhere else.”

“Then you don’t work for him?”

“Who is him?”

“Akrep,” spat the Aga Khan, as if the name burned in his mouth. “The Scorpion.”

It was a name Harvath had never heard before. “Look, I work for the United States government. Just tell me about Tokay and what happened in Asalaam.”

The Aga Khan looked into the fireplace for a moment before responding, “I needed Tokay in order to defend my people from Akrep.”

“How? What threat does this man pose to someone like you?”

“It’s not just me. Akrep poses a threat to all Shia Muslims. I was foolish enough to believe that he had found a way to unite all Muslims, to bring them back together once again. But I should have known better. He was only using us.”

“Using you for what?”

“Money. Money for his expeditions, his grand search for the ultimate weapon that would allow the Muslim people to be on an equal, if not superior, footing in relation to the rest of the world.”

“The Muslim Institute for Science and Technology,” said Harvath.

“Exactly. The creation of which decades ago had been his idea.”

“Who is he? What is Akrep’s real name?”

“Who knows? What does it matter anyway? What I should have paid attention to was the one thing he couldn’t lie about — his history, the people from which he came. But because I didn’t, my people will truly suffer — all people will suffer. Only the Sunni will survive, and that is what he had planned all along.”

“You say he couldn’t lie about his people. Who are they?”

“They were once the greatest empire in the world. Hitler was fascinated with them and longed to achieve just a fraction of their power. Even your country has been drawn into their web without knowing it — Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, the Balkans — they all have something very special in common.”

They were all Muslim countries, but that seemed too obvious to Harvath. He reflected on the fact that all of those countries were home to very serious fundamentalist Muslim terrorist groups, almost all of which had some sort of ties to bin Laden. “Is there an al-Qaeda connection?”

The Aga Khan brushed the suggestion aside. “This goes much deeper than al-Qaeda. Akrep created al-Qaeda and could get rid of them just as easily.”

Harvath found it hard to believe that anyone could get rid of al-Qaeda, much less easily, and was about to ask how anyone could believe such a thing was possible, when suddenly his mind flashed back to the conversation he had had with Jillian Alcott just the day before. What did al-Qaeda want more than anything else? The establishment of a new Muslim caliphate. One nation, under Allah, headed by a caliph who would be the recognized leader of the entire Islamic world. “Akrep represents the hope of a new Muslim caliphate, doesn’t he?”

The Aga Khan nodded his head. “One in which, as he put it to me in the beginning, Sunni and Shia would be represented equally.”

“So what’s the web the U.S. has been drawn into? Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, the Balkans — what’s the connection?”

The Aga Khan leaned forward in his chair and said, “All of these places were once part of the greatest Muslim caliphate. A holy kingdom on earth that was unequaled in history and one which Akrep single-handedly intends to resurrect — the great Ottoman Empire.”