The Last Man

Chapter 38

Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan

Headaches were rare for Kennedy. She’d already had two cups of coffee and popped two Excedrin but it didn’t matter, the nagging buzz in her left temple persisted. Trying to diagnose why it had come on wouldn’t do her any good but it wasn’t Ashan’s fault. Nadeem was a pleasant man who had been a fair partner in the War on Terror. The same, unfortunately, couldn’t be said of most of his colleagues at the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence. Maybe that was the reason for this rare headache. Ashan had picked up on it immediately. Kennedy had a reputation as unflappable. In times of calm or crisis she always maintained her composure.

The steady demeanor she was known for made her pained expression all the more obvious.

“Are you sure you are okay?” Ashan asked.

Kennedy removed her hand from her forehead and, although she was wincing in pain, said, “I’ll be fine.” She looked around the table and was not comforted by the concerned expressions on both Nash’s and Schneeman’s faces. The two deputies that Ashan had brought along seemed unfazed.

Nash leaned over and quietly offered, “Take a break. I’ll handle it until you get back.”

It was a nice offer, but one that Kennedy wasn’t about to take. “See if you can find me a couple of Excedrin or Extra-Strength Tylenol. And a bottle of water, please.” She watched Nash leave and forced herself to put on a smile. She thought Ashan might understand the monumental pressure. The Rickman problem was getting bigger every hour. After the posting of the video, she had been called by the head of every allied intelligence agency. They all wanted to know their level of exposure. It was common to share assets, especially with the British, and although the agreement might only be for one person at the Agency to know the identity of their spy, say in Budapest, it was not irrational to wonder if that person had told other colleagues at the CIA. Kennedy assured all of them that Rickman had not been read in on any of their assets. While technically correct, the statement in a more broad sense was false. God only knew what Rickman had picked up over the years.

The man’s memory was well known. He forgot nothing, which was a great advantage until he ended up in the hands of the enemy. It was very possible that Rickman knew the code names and directorates where many of these spies worked. He also knew what information had been passed along. A skilled interrogation team could take that information and over a month or so reconstruct the damage that had been done and come up with a small list of potential traitors.

Beyond the intelligence heads, Stofer had called to report that their case officers were getting deluged with extraction requests from their assets, men and women from all over Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, who had seen the coverage of the CIA clandestine officer breaking under the harsh interrogation. They were part of the game in the most real way. The Pakistani foreign minister’s residence was now surrounded by the Pakistani Army and it was reported that he was under house arrest. It was easy enough for these assets to imagine themselves in a similar situation, but for nearly all of them it would be much worse. They would be dragged from their houses, or more likely apartments, and thrown into a dark cell where they would be brutalized by men with gorilla-like forearms who reeked of cigarettes. It might sound a bit melodramatic, but for these lonely souls, who were on their own, the fear was well founded.

“Director Kennedy,” Ashan said, “on behalf of the ISI, I would like to say how sorry we are about Mr. Rickman, and if there is anything we can do to help, please ask.”

“Thank you, Nadeem. I’ve told you before, please call me Irene.”

“Of course. My apologies. I would like to assure you that we are using all of our contacts to find out who was responsible for this.”

“And how is that going?” Schneeman asked, his skepticism obvious.

Ashan had been hoping to have some piece of information to show that they were trying to cooperate. He was secretly hoping that they could lay this at the feet of the Taliban, but so far there was nothing. He did not blame the Americans. There was no denying the ISI’s involvement in the Mumbai massacre. The Americans had the recordings of the terrorists calling their ISI handler in Karachi, in the midst of the attack. Ashan reflected on that extremely uncomfortable meeting. His colleagues had spent the better part of an hour denying any involvement and then Director Kennedy put the ISI agent’s photo up on a big screen while she played the audio of the phone call.

The meeting was held at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Durrani was there as well, and had the gall to act enraged over the accusation. Kennedy let him bluster and cry foul play and when he was done with his performance she put more images up on the screen that showed the bank transfers to fund the operation as well as preliminary plans for the operation, which included a list of primary and secondary targets. The last photo was the most dramatic. It showed the ISI agent lying in a pool of his own blood, with a single bullet hole in his head.

Kennedy calmly turned to Durrani and said, “General, I’d appreciate it if rather than lie in the face of overwhelming evidence you simply kept your mouth shut, because the more you protest, the more I’m inclined to think you were directly involved in this.”

Their relationship with the CIA had been one of fits and starts. Ashan would get things moving on mutual cooperation and then Durrani and others would undermine the hard work of the Foreign Relations Wing. Over the years they had sat through innumerable meetings with their counterparts at Langley and had gotten to know them fairly well. Each side understood the other’s rosters of personnel-the power structure of the other, who ran which division or department and who outranked whom. There were others who did not attend these meetings but were known to the ISI by reputation or through surveillance. Mitch Rapp was one of those individuals.

Rapp attended the meeting after the Mumbai massacre, and although there were no formal introductions they all knew who he was. The fact that he sat immediately to Kennedy’s right was, in Ashan’s mind, a clear message. He spoke only once during the meeting. It was after Kennedy’s admonishment of Durrani and the general’s desperate gambit to deflect. Rather than heed Kennedy’s advice, Durrani continued to protest his department’s innocence and went so far as to say he was offended that Kennedy would dare make such accusations.

That was when they heard Rapp speak for the first and last time. “General, I don’t attend these meetings because I can’t deal with the bullshit. I’m not equipped to sit and listen to someone lie to my face. Especially someone who’s supposed to be an ally. We’re all professionals, and we all know what’s at stake. To a certain degree we will keep things from each other, but as allies there are some lines that we should never cross. That man up on the screen,” Rapp pointed at the photo of the dead Pakistani agent, Mawaan Rana. “We know he worked for your department and we know he helped fund and train the Islamic nut jobs that killed 164 people.” At that point Durrani tried to speak, but Rapp stopped him. “General, I’m not asking for you to confirm or deny what I just said. I don’t need you to, because I know it to be a fact. Not only do we have phone records and financial transactions, but your man Rana, confessed to me that he worked for the External Wing and that he was following official orders.”

Durrani scoffed at the accusation. “When did you speak to him?”

Rapp stared down the general and said, “Right before I put that bullet in his head.”

Rapp’s words were chilling. He didn’t speak for the rest of the meeting but he kept his predatory gaze locked on Durrani as he was going over in his mind a list of possible ways to kill the man. Ashan had never seen his friend so upset. Upon returning to Pakistan they pieced enough information together to confirm that Rapp’s claim was not false bravado. The message from the Americans was clear; if you continue to support terrorists in the mass killing of innocent civilians you, too might end up with a bullet in your head.

Ashan half expected Rapp to be here this morning and was secretly relieved that the assassin was elsewhere. “Irene, I can assure you that we are using all of our resources to find out who was behind this brazen attack.”

“I appreciate that, Nadeem. You know, of course, that the Taliban is at the top of our list.” She didn’t bother to share Rapp’s insight that the abduction was too precise to have been pulled off by the Taliban.

“As you know, I have had no dealings with them, but I have been promised that the right people are looking into the matter.”

The headache was starting a slow retreat, which came as a great relief. Kennedy considered Ashan’s remarks and then said, “Nadeem, you have been a fair partner, but there are others in the ISI who, despite our alliance, continue to work against us. This has never been acceptable, but with the abduction of Joe Rickman we have now moved into a dangerous new arena. If at any point I discover that the ISI had any hand in this, or that you are protecting the Taliban, I will be forced to react in a very serious way.”

Ashan digested her words and wondered if this was just another threat to cut off the billions of dollars in aid the Americans provided every year. “What type of reprisals are we talking about?” “An eye for an eye, Nadeem. Joe Rickman was an extremely valuable asset. Someone has launched a well-coordinated attack aimed at crippling my Clandestine Service. When I find out who was behind it, I will make them pay dearly. It might not happen immediately, but eventually, people will disappear. They will pay for this little gambit with their lives, and I will make it my goal in life to penetrate that organization and steal everything that is valuable to them, and then when I’m done, I will leave behind so much disinformation that it will sow seeds of dissent for decades to come. This organization will cease to be effective. It will be an organization afraid of its own shadows, and don’t doubt me for a second, Nadeem. I have the budget, the fortitude, and the talent to make this happen. So you can tell your cohorts like General Durrani that this is their last chance. I want Joe Rickman back, and I want him back in the next twenty-four hours or this is going to get extremely uncomfortable for everyone.”