The Survivor

CHAPTER 56

It was after midnight and Ahmed Taj was still hunched over his desk. Behind him, large windows looked out on the well-lit campus of ISI headquarters. The traffic beyond the gate was light as it always was this time of the morning and armed guards patrolled in the same pattern they always did. The familiarity of it was little more than an illusion, though. Everything had changed. Everything.

The goal he’d constructed his life around was less than twenty-four hours from being achieved and Taj knew he should be attending to the myriad last-minute details. It was impossible, though. He couldn’t tear himself away.

The ISI director clicked on another of Rickman’s files and scanned through its contents. This one had no taunting video attached, only reproductions of handwritten CIA reports from Ukraine. It seemed that a man high up in the Russian separatist movement had been lining his Swiss bank account with American dollars.

Only when his eyes could no longer focus did Taj finally slide his chair back and turn away from the screen. There were still well over a hundred files he hadn’t yet examined. What secrets did they contain? How devastating would their impact be?

Allah had provided so much more than his faithful servant could have imagined. Tomorrow, Saad Chutani would die. His last breath would mark Taj’s inevitable rise to rule Pakistan and eventually the Middle East. These files would not only accelerate his plans, but expand them in ways he never could have imagined.

Taj stood and began pacing across his dimly lit office. The scale of what he would accomplish was just beginning to settle its weight on him.

The brilliant Joe Rickman had been planning this attack for years. He’d put together files not only on the Middle East, but on China, Russia, and countless U.S. allies. There was damning intelligence on American politicians, descriptions of unsanctioned assassinations, and detailed accounts of unlawful domestic operations carried out by CIA operatives.

Taj would use this information to create a worldwide outcry for the dismantling of America’s spy network, and Carl Ferris would be the perfect tool to lead that effort. Taj now had much more than just money to offer the man. He had classified information on many of — Ferris’s political opponents. The combination of the two would almost certainly be enough to put him in the White House.

With Ferris leading America and Taj pulling his strings, the country would quickly go from the most powerful in the world to completely dysfunctional. A nation distrusted by its allies, blind to the activities of its enemies, and reviled by its people.

He returned to his desk and started a video from one of the file folders still open on-screen. He’d seen it before but the excitement in the pit of his stomach was even more intense upon the second playing.

Joe Rickman was wearing a cowboy hat and holding a beer bottle in one hand. He stared directly into the camera, eyes glistening and wild.

“Howdy, Irene. Thought we’d go for a change of pace on this one. I figured I’d help you out and tell you that I’m about to release proof that your buddy Ben Friedman at the Mossad is the one behind the destruction of Iran’s nuclear research facility a few years back. And that it was Mitch who came up with the BS cover story you fed the world. Add that to the fact that Kamal Safavi’s probably spilled everything to the ayatollah by now, and I’m thinking that Alexander’s little Iranian lovefest isn’t going so well. May I suggest a fruit basket? In my experience, those always seem to smooth things over.”

The video faded to black and Taj wiped at the perspiration building on his flushed cheeks. The temptation to give the files to a team of ISI analysts was overwhelming but impossible. It was far too sensitive to allow anyone else access to. He would have to personally sift through all of the information, cross-referencing it with the ISI’s data banks and determining how it could be used to generate the maximum impact.

There was little question that Irene Kennedy and Mitch Rapp would end up in an American prison. It was a sweet irony that two patriots who had so brilliantly defended their country would die in cages fashioned by the very people they had dedicated their lives to protecting.

These were largely trivial matters, though. The Rickman files generated far grander questions that Taj was just now daring to ask. Was there enough information to provoke a military confrontation between America and Russia? Or, even more devastating, China? Could the former Soviet bloc countries be turned away from the West? Could he gain enough sway over Middle Eastern oil producers to create an oil shock that would collapse the American economy?

Taj closed the computer files and moved them to a heavily encrypted drive that only he had access to. He stared at the progress bar as they were transferred but didn’t feel the sense of security he had hoped for. The reason was obvious. Kabir Gadai.

The younger man had been a loyal and highly competent assistant for years but he was also ambitious. Had he kept copies of the files and encryption key? Did he have designs on using them for his own benefit?

It was unlikely, but the possibility was too great to risk. After he helped Taj close his fist around Pakistan, Gadai would have to be — quietly dealt with.

Accusations of treason or bribery had the potential to reflect poorly on Taj’s fledgling administration and therefore could not be tolerated. No, an accident or perhaps even martyrdom. Gadai would become yet another inspiring symbol of the rebirth of Pakistan. A shining — example to others as the country rose to its rightful place as the world’s first Muslim superpower.