Locked On

33

On a frigid October night in Makhachkala, Dagestan, fifty-five fighters of Jamaat Shariat met in a low-ceilinged basement with Suleiman Murshidov, the elderly spiritual leader of their organization. The men were aged between seventeen and forty-seven, and together they possessed hundreds of years of experience in urban warfare.

These men had been handpicked by operational commanders, and five of their number were cell leaders themselves. It had been explained to them that they would be sent to a foreign base for training, and then they would embark on an operation that would change the course of history.

To a man they thought their operation would involve a hostage situation, likely in Moscow, with their ultimate goal being the repatriation of their commander, Israpil Nabiyev.

They were only half right.

None of these grizzled fighters knew the clean-shaven man with Murshidov and his sons. To them he looked like a politician, not a rebel, so when Abu Dagestani explained that he would be their leader for their operation, they were stunned.

Georgi Safronov spoke passionately to the fifty-five men in the basement; he explained that their ultimate goal would be revealed to them in due time, but for now they would all be flying in a cargo plane to Quetta, Pakistan, from where they would venture northward to a camp. There, he explained, they would undergo three weeks of intense training by the best Muslim fighters in the world, men with more operational experience in the past decade than even their brothers in nearby Chechnya.

All fifty-five men were pleased to learn this, but it was hard for them to look at Safronov as their leader.

Suleiman Murshidov saw this, and he’d expected it, so he spoke again to the group, promised them all that Georgi was Dagestani, and his plan and his sacrifice would do more for the North Caucasus in the next two months than Jamaat Shariat could do without him in the next fifty years.

After a final prayer, the fifty-five men loaded into minibuses and headed toward the airport.

Georgi Safronov wanted to travel with them, but this was deemed too dangerous by General Ijaz, his Pakistani partner in this endeavor. No, Safronov would fly commercial to Peshawar, under documents made by Pakistani intelligence, and there he would be picked up by Ijaz and his men and flown directly to the camp near Miran Shah.

At the camp, Georgi was expected to train with the other men. He would not be as skilled with a weapon, as physically fit, or as battle-hardened in his heart. But he would learn, he would strengthen, and he would toughen.

He hoped he would earn the respect of the men who’d lived their adult lives resisting the Russians in and around Makhachkala. No, they would never look at him like they did Israpil Nabiyev. But they would obey Abu Dagestani and follow Safronov’s orders. And if he could learn the martial skills in Pakistan that would be necessary during their struggles ahead, Safronov thought that perhaps they would see him as a true commander, not just a sympathizer of their cause with a plan.

Jack Ryan Jr. parked his yellow Hummer in front of Melanie Kraft’s address a few minutes after seven. She lived on Princess Street in Alexandria, right up the road from the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee, near the former home of George and Martha Washington, on a portion of the street that was still paved with pre — Revolutionary War cobblestones. Ryan looked around at the beautiful old homes, surprised that a government employee in her mid-twenties could afford to live here.

He found her door and understood. Melanie lived at the address of a beautiful brick Georgian home, yes, but she lived in a carriage house in the back through the garden. They were still pretty nice digs, but he saw from the outside that her place was just larger than a one-car garage.

She invited him in, and he confirmed that the apartment was, indeed, tiny, but she kept it neat.

“I love your place.”

Melanie smiled. “Thank you. I love it, too. I’d never be able to afford it without help.”

“Help?”

“An old professor of mine from AU is married to a real estate guy; they own the home. It was built in 1794. She rents the carriage house to me for about what I’d pay for a regular apartment around here. It’s tiny, but it’s all I need.”

Jack glanced over at a card table in the corner. On top of it sat a MacBook Pro and a massive stack of books, notebooks, and loose printed pages. Some of the books, Ryan noticed, were printed in Arabic script.

“Is that NCTC south?” he asked with a smile.

She chuckled, but quickly grabbed her coat and her purse and headed for the door. “Shall we?”

Jack figured that was it for the grand tour, but other than the bathroom, he could see it all from where he stood, anyway. He followed her out the door and into the cool evening.

It was a ten-minute stroll to King Street, and they chatted about the old buildings as they walked. There were a lot of other people out, walking to and from dinner at this hour on a Saturday night.

They stepped into the restaurant and were led to a romantic table for two overlooking the street. As they settled in with their menus, Jack asked, “Have you been here before?”

“Honestly, no. I hate to admit it, but I don’t eat out much. Twenty-five-cent wing night at Murphy’s is a big time splurge for me.”

“Nothing wrong with wings.”

Jack ordered a bottle of pinot noir, and they perused the menu while they chatted.

“So you were at Georgetown.” Melanie said it as a statement.

Ryan smiled. “Do you know that because Mary Pat told you, because you Googled me, or because you are in the CIA and you know everything?”

She blushed slightly. “I was at AU. I saw you a few times at things around town. You were a year ahead of me, I think. You were hard to miss with that big Secret Service guy around you all the time.”

“Mike Brennan. He was a second dad to me. Great guy, but he scared off a lot of people. He’s my excuse for having a boring social life in college.”

“Good excuse. I’m sure being a celebrity has its drawbacks.”

“I’m not a celebrity. Nobody recognizes me. My parents had money, but I sure as hell wasn’t raised with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had a summer job through high school and college, I even worked construction for a while.”

Melanie said, “I was just talking about the trappings associated with being famous. I wasn’t suggesting you don’t deserve to be successful.”

“Sorry,” said Jack. “I’ve had to defend myself more than once on that front.”

“I understand. You want to be accepted for your own talents, not for who your parents are.”

“You are very perceptive,” Jack said.

“I’m an analyst.” She smiled. “I analyze.”

“Maybe we should both analyze the menus before the waiter comes back.”

Melanie’s smile widened. “Uh-oh. Somebody is trying to change the subject.”

“Damn right.” They both laughed now.

The wine came, Jack tasted it, and the waiter poured for them both.

“To Mary Pat.”

“To Mary Pat.” They clinked their wineglasses and smiled at each other.

“So,” Jack asked, “tell me about CIA?”

“What do you want to know?”

“More than you can tell me.” He thought for a moment.

“Have you spent any time overseas?”

“You mean with the Agency?”

“Yes.”

“I have.”

“Where?” He caught himself. “Sorry. You can’t tell me where, can you?”

“Sorry,” she said with a shrug. Jack saw that although she’d lived the life of an intelligence analyst for only a couple of years, she was comfortable with secrets.

“Do you speak a foreign language?”

“Yes.”

Jack started to ask her if that was classified, too, but she filled him in.

“Level-three Masri — Egyptian Arabic — level-two French, level-one Spanish. Nothing to write home about.”

“How many levels are there?”

“Sorry, Jack. I don’t get out much.” She laughed at herself. “I don’t have many conversations with people outside government service. It’s called the ILR scale. Interagency Language Roundtable. There are five levels of proficiency. Level three means, basically, that I have normal rate of speech function in the language, but I make small mistakes that don’t affect the comprehension of a listener native in the language I am speaking.”

“And level one?”

“It means I’m sloppy.” She laughed again. “What can I say? I learned Arabic living in Cairo, and I learned Spanish in college. Nothing quite like needing to speak a language to get fed to promote the learning of it.”

“Cairo?”

“Yes. Dad was an Air Force attaché; we spent five years in Egypt when I was in high school, and two more in Pakistan.”

“How was that?”

“I loved it. It was tough moving around as a kid, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Plus I learned Arabic, which has proven very helpful.”

Jack nodded. “I guess in your line of work it is.” He liked this girl. She did not put on airs at all, she neither tried to be overly sexy or a know-it-all. She was obviously highly intelligent, but she was self-deprecating about it at the same time.

And she was very sexy, and it was all natural.

He did notice, more than once, that she seemed to direct the focus of the conversation back on him.

“So,” she said with a playful smile. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess you don’t live in a four-hundred-square-foot carriage house subsidized by your ex-professor.”

“I’ve got an apartment in Columbia. It’s near work. And near my parents in Baltimore. What about your family?”

The waiter brought their salads, and Melanie began talking about the restaurant. Jack wondered if she just possessed one of those minds that had a tendency to branch off into different subjects during conversations, or if she was trying to avoid the subject of her family. He couldn’t tell which it was, but he let it go.

They meandered back to the subject of Jack’s work. He explained his work at Hendley Associates in the most boring general terms imaginable, not entirely lies, but his explanation was rife with holes and secrets.

“So,” she asked. “When your dad becomes President again, you will have a Secret Service detail following you around wherever you go. Is that going to cause problems around your office?”

You have no idea, Jack thought to himself. He smiled. “Nothing I’m not used to. I became great friends with guys on my detail.”

“Still. Didn’t it get stifling?”

Jack wanted to put on a cool face, but he stopped himself. She was asking him an honest question. She deserved a straight answer. “Actually, yes. It was tough. I’m not looking forward to that. If my dad becomes President, I’ll talk to him and my mom. I live a pretty low-profile life. I am going to refuse protection.”

“Is that safe?”

“Yeah, sure. I’m not worried.” He smiled over his wineglass. “Don’t they teach you CIA folks how to kill a man with a spoon?”

“Something like that.”

“Great. You can watch my back.”

“You couldn’t afford me,” she said with a laugh. Dinner was excellent; the conversation was fun and it flowed except for when Jack tried to probe Melanie once again about her family. She stayed as tight-lipped about her family as she did about CIA.

They strolled home together after ten; the streets had thinned of foot traffic, and a cold wind blew in from the Potomac.

Jack walked her up the drive toward the door of her tiny apartment.

“I had fun,” Melanie said.

“Me, too. Can we do it again soon?”

“Of course.” They got to the door. “Listen, Jack. I’d better get this out of the way. I don’t kiss on the first date.”

Ryan smiled. “Neither do I.” He extended a hand, which she took slowly, careful to keep the astonishment and embarrassment off her face.

“Have a great night. You’ll be hearing from me.”

“I hope so.”

Nigel Embling’s house was in the center of Peshawar, not far from the massive and ancient Bala Hisar Fort, which, with its ninety-foot ramparted walls, commands the high ground of the city and lands around it.

The city bustled with activity, but Embling’s home was quiet and clean, an idyllic oasis of plants and flowers, the sound of tinkling fountains in the courtyard, and the smell of old books and furniture polish in the very British study on the second floor.

Embling sat next to Driscoll at a wide table in his study. Across from them, thirty-five-year-old Major Mohammed al Darkur wore Western civilian clothing, a pair of brown slacks with a black button-down shirt. Al Darkur had come alone to Embling’s to meet a man he assumed was an officer in the CIA. He’d done his best to establish the bona fides of the man he had been introduced to as “Sam,” but Driscoll had deflected his questions about other CIA officers that al Darkur had run into while working with the ISI.

This worked to Driscoll’s benefit. The CIA was, as far as al Darkur was concerned, too supportive of elements in Pakistani intelligence. Elements that al Darkur knew were actively working against them. He found the CIA and America by extension to be naive and too ready to put its trust in those who paid lip service to the shared values between the two organizations.

The fact that Sam appeared to be working outside the lines of American intelligence already entrenched in Pakistan, and the fact that Sam seemed to hold suspicions against al Darkur himself, only increased the Pakistani major’s opinion of the man.

Embling said, “I’ve done my best to look into this Rehan fellow. He’s a bloody mystery.”

Sam agreed. “We are trying on our end, as well. He’s done a great job of covering his tracks in his career. It looks like he just materialized as a high-level PDF officer working for the ISI.”

“Not easy to do in the PDF. That lot loves their ceremony, always getting photographed and awarded this or that trinket for one thing or another. They learned pomp and circumstance from we English, and I can say with just a wee bit of pride that we show military off like no other.”

“But no pictures of Rehan?”

“A few, but years and years ago, when he was a young officer. Otherwise he’s a bloody shadow.”

“But not anymore. What has changed?”

“That’s what Mohammed and I are trying to find out.”

Al Darkur said, “The said, only reason I can think is that he is being groomed for something. Lieutenant general, head of the ISI, perhaps even head of the PDF someday. I believe he is working on a coup, but certainly he is too unknown to take the reins of government himself. He seems to have spent his entire career as a spy, which is not common for military officers. Most serving in ISI are just sent there for a few years. They are not professional spies but professional soldiers. I myself was a commando with the Seventh Battalion, Special Services Group, before coming to ISI. But Riaz Rehan seems to be the exact opposite. He spent a few odd years as a lieutenant and captain in the regular PDF, in the Azad Kashmir Regiment, but since then he seems to have had some role with Inter-Services Intelligence, although they have kept that quite secret, even from the rest of the ISI.”

“Is he a beard?” asked Driscoll, referring to an Islamist within their ranks.

“Only by association do I know that to be true. His benefactors at the head of the Army and intelligence services are most definitely Islamists, though Rehan never turns up at any mosque, or on any list of attendees of the secret meetings the beards are always having. I’ve had prisoners of the hostile jihadist groups in my custody, and I’ve asked them, quite aggressively, I must admit, if they knew Rehan from JIM. I am convinced none of them do.”

Driscoll sighed. “So. What is the next step?”

Now al Darkur brightened a little. “I have two pieces of information, one of which your people can help me with.”

“Great.”

“First, my sources have discovered that General Rehan, in addition to his office at our headquarters in Islamabad, is also working out of a safe house in Dubai.”

Driscoll cocked his head. “Dubai?”

“Yes. It is the financial hub of the Middle East, and his department most likely does banking for its foreign operations there, but that in itself would be no reason for him to work there. I think he and his cadre of upper-level employees go there to plot against Pakistan itself.”

“Interesting.”

“In my position in the Joint Intelligence Bureau I do not have the reach or assets to investigate him outside of our borders. I thought maybe your organization, with its near infinite reach, might like to see what he is doing in Dubai.”

“I’ll pass it up the chain of command, but I am reasonably sure they will want to look into this safe house of his.”

“Excellent.”

“And the other piece of information?”

“This other avenue I will be able to look into with my own assets. There is an operation I have recently learned about that involves Rehan’s department and the Haqqani network. You are, I am certain, familiar with Haqqani?”

Driscoll nodded. “Jalaluddin Haqqani. His forces run large patches of the borderland of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He’s tied with the Taliban, runs a network many thousands strong, and has killed hundreds of our soldiers in Afghanistan, as well as hundreds more locals in bombings, rocket and mortar attacks, kidnappings for ransom, et cetera, et cetera.”

Al Darkur nodded. “Jalaluddin is an old man, so his son, Siraj, is leading the organization now, but otherwise you have it right. I have a prisoner in custody, a courier in the Haqqani network, who I captured in Peshawar after he met with an ISI lieutenant who is a known supporter of the Islamists. He has told my interrogators that the ISI is working with Haqqani network fighters at a camp of theirs near Miran Shah.”

“Working on what?”

“This courier does not know, but he does know they are expecting a foreign force there at the camp, and the ISI and Haqqani men will train these outsiders.”

“URC? Al-Qaeda?”

“He does not know. I, however, intend to find out who they are and what they are doing.”

“How will you do that?”

“I will go myself, the day after tomorrow, and I will watch the road to the camp. We have a base in Miran Shah, of course, but Haqqani’s people know about it. They lob in an occasional mortar shell, but otherwise they go on about their business. But we also have some safe houses around town, mostly to the south. Siraj Haqqani’s forces know of some of them, so we do not use them anymore, but my agents have secured a location on the Boya — Miran Shah road, and this happens to be near where the prisoner says this training camp is located.”

“Great. When do we leave?”

“We, Sam?” asked al Darkur with raised eyebrows.

Embling broke in. “Don’t be daft, lad.”

Sam shrugged. “I’d like to see this for myself. No offense. I’ll tell my office about Dubai, but I’m here. Might as well come along with you, if you’ll have me.”

“It will not be safe. It is Miran Shah; there are no Americans there, I can promise you that. I will be heading down with a handpicked crew of Zarrar Special Service commandos, men I trust implicitly. If you come, I can promise you that myself and my men will be in as much danger as you, so you will benefit from our desire for self-protection.”

This made Driscoll smile. “Works for me.”

Embling didn’t like it at all, but Sam had made up his mind.

Twenty minutes later, Driscoll sat on the cool rooftop veranda of Embling’s house, drinking tea with one hand and holding a satellite phone with the other. The device, like all Hendley Associates sat phones, was equipped with a chip that held an NSA type-1 encryption package that made it secure. Only the person on the other end of the line would be able to hear Driscoll.

Sam Granger answered on the other end.

“Sam, it’s Sam here.”

“What’s the word?”

“The ISI contact seems solid. Not going to promise anything, but we may have a lead on Rehan and his activities.” Driscoll told Granger about the Dubai safe house.

“That is incredible, if true.”

“Might be worth sending the guys over,” Sam Driscoll suggested.

“You don’t want to go yourself?” asked Granger, somewhat surprised.

“I’m going with the major and a team of his SSG guys to North Waziristan for a little SR.”

“SR?”

“Strategic reconnaissance.”

“In Haqqani territory?”

“Roger that. But I’ll be with friendlies. Should be okay.”

There was a pause in the connection. “Sam, you are the one whose neck is on the line, and I know you’re not reckless. But still… you will be in the belly of the beast, so to speak, will you not?”

“I will be as safe as the SSG men around me. They seem like they have their heads screwed on straight. Plus, we need to know what the ISI is up to at this camp. Any proof of Rehan or his people there is going to be critically important if we need to leak this guy to the intelligence community at a later date. I’m going to do my best to get pictures and shoot them back to you.”

Granger said, “I don’t know if Hendley will like this.”

“Let’s ask forgiveness instead of permission.”

“Like I said, it’s your neck.”

“Roger that. I’ll be in touch when I get back to Pesh. Don’t stress if you don’t hear from me for a while, it may be a week or two.”

“I understand. Good luck.”

The city of Miran Shah is the capital of North Waziristan, which lies within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of western Pakistan, not far from the Afghan border. The area is not under the control of the Pakistani government in Islamabad, though there is a small and often harassed Pakistani Defense Force base here.

The town and the region, including areas reaching far past the irrelevant Afghan border to the west, are under the control of the Haqqani network, a massive insurgent group that is closely allied with the Taliban.

Jalaluddin Haqqani fought the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s and became a warlord of increasing power and scope. His sons followed in their father’s footsteps, and they had a hand in virtually every aspect of life here in North Waziristan that was not snuffed out by American unmanned aerial vehicles that patrolled the sky above, waiting to be cleared hot for a missile launch.

Their international reach, their dozens of covert insurgent camps, and their close ties with the Pakistani intelligence service made the Haqqani family a natural partner of Riaz Rehan throughout the years. He had used their territory and facilities to train fighters and operatives for missions in India and Afghanistan, and he had reached out to them again recently, asking for their assistance in training a large cell of foreign fighters for a mission.

The Haqqani leadership accepted the request of Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous to send the men, and Rehan himself came along to oversee the initial phases of the training.

Though he had no military or insurgent training whatsoever, Russian rocket entrepreneur Georgi Safronov was the leader of the unit of Jamaat Shariat forces who arrived at the Haqqani camp near Boya, west of Miran Shah, in the third week of October. With him was the man he knew as General Ijaz, as well as his unit of fifty-five Dagestani rebels. The huge force of foreigners was outfitted by the Haqqani forces and billeted in a large cave complex dug into the walls of a hillside.

Much of the training itself took place inside the man-made caves and under corrugated tin roofs painted to look like dirt and farmland so as not to attract the attention of U.S. drones, but some team tactics training did take place in fields and on hillsides. The UAVs were not invisible; specially trained spotters were posted to keep an eye out for America’s “eyes in the sky.” But the UAVs were stealthy enough that Rehan himself ordered the Haqqani network to place absolute priority, not on the quality of the training of the foreigners, but on maintaining the security of the operation.

Rehan did not really care if the Dagestani insurgents had the talents necessary to take over and hold a space launch facility in Kazakhstan. No, he was instead interested only in their ability to succeed in a mission here in Pakistan that they would need to undertake to gain control of the two nuclear weapons. If they lost half their number while executing this mission, it was of no great concern to Rehan.

His only concern was that the world learned that nuclear bombs had been stolen out from under the Pakistanis’ noses by foreign terrorists. He felt certain that this would lead to the disintegration of the Pakistani government within days or weeks.

The Haqqani network took Rehan’s order to ramp up security seriously. They sent spies into the villages and neighborhoods between Miran Shah and Boya, keeping an eye out for anyone interested in the movement of men and material. Little happened in North Waziristan without Haqqani knowing about it, but now there was virtually nothing that could avoid detection by the powerful force.

The Pashtun fighters found the Dagestani fighters to be quite good with their weapons and extremely motivated individuals. But they lacked unit cohesion and this was something that Haqqani’s people had developed by necessity in the decade they had been fighting coalition forces over the border.

The only member of the unit who did not know how to handle a gun, or handle himself in any physical sense, was their leader. Safronov had adopted the nom de guerre Magomed Dagestani, Mohammed the Dagestani, but although he now possessed a name that conveyed his intent, he lacked any martial abilities to back it up. But he was smart and motivated to learn, so slowly the Taliban in the cave complex taught him how to use handguns and rifles and grenade launchers and knives, and by the end of the first week he had come a long way.

Rehan was in and out of the camp, splitting time between his home in Dubai, his office in Islamabad, and the cave complex. All the while, Rehan encouraged the Dagestanis to stay motivated for the hard work ahead and Safronov to stay strong and committed to the action.