The Midnight House Read online

  “Asif ’s an actual cousin? Or more like a good friend? ”

  “You’ve reached the limits of my knowledge, George. He was introduced to my men as a cousin. We didn’t perform a DNA test.”

  “And he’s part of Ansar Muhammad? ”

  “Based on what I’m about to show you, it seems likely.”

  “What about the other guy? Batman? ”

  “We don’t know. Probably a driver.”

  Khan handed across a third photo, this one focused on the Mitsubishi’s cargo compartment, which was filled with oil drums and plastic sacks. A fourth photo focused on the sacks, which were stamped “Highest-Quality Nitrogen Fertilizer.” Khan didn’t have to explain further. Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil were the basic ingredients for truck bombs.

  “These were taken where? ”

  “Peshawar.” Khan lifted his eyebrows, as if to say Where else? “Two days ago. My men learned that Asif Ali would be at a restaurant. They followed him, took these photos. Dumb luck.”

  “Your men learned how? ”

  “The usual way. A friend of a friend of an enemy.”

  “That like a cousin? ” This from Maggs.

  “I’d like some details on the sourcing,” Fezcko said.

  Khan lifted his shoulders a fraction of an inch: Too bad.

  “Where’s the truck now? ”

  “Approximately fifteen hundred meters”—about a mile—“from here. It arrived yesterday. I had hoped that bin Zari or someone at his level might visit the operation in person. But I think now that moment has passed. And I think we ought to move quickly.”

  Fezcko understood. The ISI was so ridden with Qaeda sympathizers that it was only a matter of time before the terrorists learned that Khan and his men were tracking them. Most likely very little time.

  “Heck of a nice truck. Shame to blow it up. You know the target?”

  “We’re all targets, George. Terrorism hurts us all.” Khan moved his lips, pretending to smile. “Roderick White arrives tomorrow for meetings with our president. He seems a likely candidate.”

  Fezcko rubbed his forehead, wishing his going-away party had been some other night. How had he forgotten that Sir Roderick White, the British foreign minister, was coming to Islamabad? “That sounds ambitious.”

  “You know our friends are optimists. And even if they don’t reach him, they know that whatever they do will get extra attention tomorrow.”

  “Maybe they’ll have help to get through a checkpoint or two.” Fezcko didn’t have to specify that the help would be coming from inside the ISI. “Who else knows about this, Nawiz? ”

  “Omar is the only one I’ve told.” Omar Gul, an assistant director in the ISI’s Counter-Terror Division. Sometimes known at Langley as the “Counting on Terror” Division. The CIA viewed Gul as the only reliable officer in the top ranks of the ISI, not least because he’d survived three assassination attempts in four years, the last of which had cost him his right eye.

  Fezcko saw why Khan was so anxious to move. “You want to do this now. Get them out before the sun comes up. You and Omar are the only ones who know. Tomorrow, the next day, you come back on that truck, a big show. It’s empty, and you tell your buddies that the bad guys disappeared.”

  Khan nodded.

  “Then whatever we get from them, maybe even some names inside your shop, nobody knows but you.”

  Another nod.

  The plan was at least one step past risky. Maybe all the way to stupid. Renditions usually required approval from senior-level officials on both sides. Now Khan wanted to grab two men on the fly. They weren’t in some village on the North-West Frontier, either. They were five miles from the Pakistani parliament. If something went wrong, if they got caught tonight, the Pakistani government wouldn’t be able to ignore what had happened. Khan would go to jail. There would be anti-American riots.

  If anyone but Khan had made the offer, Fezcko would have rejected it outright for fear of a trap. But he trusted Khan. And the deal was tempting. Anything they could do to clean up the ISI would be valuable.

  “We don’t have a plane in country,” Fezcko said, trying to buy time. “Where will we keep them? ”

  “Here.”

  “No problem getting them out? ”

  “Not if you get a jet in today to Faisalabad.” A city about 150 miles south of Islamabad.

  Fezcko nodded at Maggs. They stepped to the other side of the room. “Thoughts? ” Fezcko murmured.

  “Nothing you don’t know.”

  “Too good to be true? Setup? ”

  “Not from him. You know my rule.”

  Maggs’s rule was that you couldn’t trust anyone in the ISI until he’d taken a bullet next to you. It was a good rule. And just like that, Fezcko decided. “All right,” he yelled over the generator to Khan. “We’re in. Let me see about that G-five.” And some authorization, he didn’t add. For this operation, winks and nods wouldn’t do. He wanted explicit approval, in writing.

  Behind the building, he called Orton on his sat phone.

  “I was hoping it wouldn’t be you,” Orton said.

  “Am I interrupting you, Josh? Gotta pick up the kids from soccer practice? Maybe a manicure? ”

  “Just tell me.”

  Fezcko did.

  “Tricky,” Orton said. “If the ISI isn’t going to know about it, we’re going to have to keep this one quiet. There’s only one place for them to go. And that takes special authorization. Have to call the Pentagon.”

  “No excuses,” Fezcko said. “Yes or no.” He hung up.

  WHILE THEY WAITED, they grabbed body armor and M-4s from the Nissan and suited up. Khan and his men did the same, though their own gear was less fancy, vests and AK-47s. When they were done, Khan’s squad packed into a windowless white van tucked behind the building and rolled off. Fezcko and Maggs and Leslie followed in the Nissan.

  The Mitsubishi truck was easy to find, parked beside a Toyota 4Runner in front of a two-story concrete house in a district that mixed residential and light manufacturing. The house had a strangely Art Deco look, lime-green with a white roof. It belonged in Miami, not Islamabad, though Fezcko had seen similar color schemes in Pakistan before. Splashy paint jobs grabbed attention from cracked ceilings and leaky pipes. The house seemed deserted, no lights or movement inside. There were walls along the property lot but none in front.

  They rolled by without slowing. To the west, the city petered out. A mile down, Khan’s van parked behind a tall brick warehouse. Khan stepped out, tapped a cigarette out of the flat silver case he carried. He lit up, dragged deeply, exhaled twin jets of smoke from his nostrils.

  “You blow any harder you’ll have liftoff,” Maggs said.

  “Let me guess,” Khan said. “Marines smoke three cigarettes at once. Because one at a time wouldn’t be manly enough.”

  Fezcko laughed. “Now you’re getting it, Nawiz.”

  “So that’s the place,” Maggs said.

  Khan nodded.

  “Anybody watching it?”

  “My men installed a PTD”—a presence tracking device, also known as a bug—“on the truck in Peshawar. Two of my men are monitoring it.” Khan tilted his head toward the second floor of the warehouse, where a cigarette glowed behind a window. “The truck hasn’t moved since they arrived yesterday.”

  “Who owns the house? ” Fezcko said.

  “Property records show it belongs to a family that lives in Karachi. We don’t know if they’re connected or if they even know it’s being used.”

  Khan unrolled an oversized map, a street-by-street grid of the district. The map’s corners rolled up, and Khan’s men grabbed bricks to weigh it down.

  “High-tech,” Fezcko said.

  “My Predators are in the shop.” Khan circled the target house in red Magic Marker, and for fifteen minutes he walked his squad and Fezcko through the raid. The plan was simple, based on simple assumptions: that the doors of the house wouldn’t be reinforced or booby-trapped, and th
at they would be facing at most four men inside. Khan’s squad would handle the main assault, breaking through the front door and firing gas grenades to flush out the men. Fezcko’s team would circle the house, wait for the jihadis to escape through the back door. If they didn’t come out in sixty seconds, Fezcko and Maggs would go in the back.

  When Khan was done, Fezcko pulled him aside.

  “Too many guesses, Nawiz. If this gets ugly, we’re underpowered. No radios. Layout’s a mystery. This is how you get hurt.”

  Khan wrapped an arm around Fezcko’s shoulders, put his face to the American’s ear as if he planned to whisper a declaration of love eternal. “Are you walking, George? Taking your ball and going home? Tell me now so I don’t waste more time. We have to do this before the sun comes up. Go on back to Langley. Another American hero.”

  In the cool night air, Fezcko felt himself flush. A cheap shot, sure, but there was truth behind it. His tour here was done. Khan’s would never be over. He pushed Khan off, less than a shove but more than a friendly tap, and walked away. The soft, brown mud of the parking lot sucked at his boots, and he tried not to wonder whether the soil was a metaphor for the quagmire of the endless war on terror. He stood behind a corner of the warehouse and called Langley. “Anything yet?”

  “The good news is the plane’s in the air,” Orton said. “The bad news is that the DDO’s not happy. But I have a conditional okay.”

  “Conditional on what? ”

  “On your certifying that there’s imminent risk of attack.”

  The message from Langley was clear: Right back atcha. You want to play cowboy, go ahead, but don’t expect us to cover your ass from eleven time zones away on an hour’s notice. “Can you say career ender? ” Fezcko mumbled into the night.

  “What? ” Orton said.

  “I said put it in writing. My name.”

  “George—”

  “Whatever you have to do. Do it.” Fezcko hung up, barely resisting the urge to smash the Iridium handset into the mud.

  THE RAID WENT BAD before they even reached the house.

  When Fezcko nodded to Khan, they pulled on their gas masks and grabbed their gear and rolled out east over the rough asphalt at eighty miles an hour. The house waited for them, still and silent.

  Then the lights inside flickered on. Fezcko felt as if he’d been punched. He wondered if they should abort, but it wasn’t his call. Anyway, letting the guys in the house get to the truck would be a very bad idea.

  Khan’s van swung off the road and stopped a few yards from the front door. The van doors opened, and Khan’s squad jumped out. The two biggest men carried a knocker, a thick steel pipe with handles attached.

  Khan’s men sprinted for the house, Khan hobbling behind on his bad leg. Then the stuttering recoil of an automatic rifle sounded from the roof and the officer in front of Khan stumbled down.

  “So much for surprising them,” Fezcko murmured inside his mask. Adrenaline had burned through the last of the scotch in his blood. He felt alert and ready. Alive. He’d have a story for the grandkids at least. I ever tell you about my last night in Pakistan? Assuming he survived, of course. He slipped out of the Nissan, knelt behind the door. Rounds smashed into the window, and Fezcko was glad for the car’s armor. Where’s the shooter? Find the shooter. Based on the angle, the guy was on the right side of the roof, close to the corner.

  Fezcko leaned around the door, raised his M-4, fired a four-shot burst at the front corner of the roof, trying to push the guy back. In the brief calm that followed, the wounded ISI agent pushed himself up and hopped toward the safety of the van.

  Khan’s men smashed the knocker into the front door. It shook but held. Fezcko wondered if it was reinforced.

  Now the men inside the house were firing jihadi specials, long bursts on full automatic that tore through the night and shattered the front windows. The racket sounded impressive, but the shots were basically unaimed, and Khan’s men stayed cool. Again they rammed the knocker into the door. This time it gave a couple of inches. Now they had a rhythm going, bang, bang, bang, a horizontal drumming—

  The door twisted sideways and gave. Fezcko caught a brief glimpse of a green-painted room inside, before the lights went out. Khan and his men huddled around the front door.

  Fezcko lifted his mask. “Stay here,” he yelled to Leslie. “Watch the front door, make sure nobody gets out this way. Take out the shooter on the roof if you can.”

  “But—”

  “Stay. That’s an order.” He looked at Maggs. “Back door!” he yelled. He lowered his mask and sprinted along the side of the house, keeping his head down. A window exploded over his head. He half dove, half fell, grunting as he banged an elbow against the side of the house. Clods of dirt covered the plastic face shield of his mask. Rounds thudded into the wall above him and shards of concrete cascaded down. How many guys were in there, anyway? Did they have grenades?

  Fezcko grabbed for the CS grenade on his belt, pulled the pin. He lifted the handle and tossed it through the steel bars of the blown-out window above his head. If things got worse, they would have to forget taking anyone alive and just smoke the place. Maggs ran by, doubled over but somehow staying on his feet. Fezcko wiped off his face shield and scuttled after him.

  Inside the house, men shouted at one another in Pashto. A man yelled “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!” and a long burst from an AK ripped through the night.

  The left-rear corner of the house had a square notch cut into it, offering cover from the side and back walls. Fezcko hid in the notch and peeked around the corner. The rear of the house was unpainted and unfinished. The property sloped down from front to back, so the back door was a couple feet off the ground. There were no stairs. Anyone inside would have to jump out. But for now, the back door was closed. Beside the door, thick plastic sheeting covered a window frame. As Fezcko watched, rifle fire tore apart the plastic and a trail of CS gas leaked out. Someone coughed viciously, stopped, and then coughed again steadily.

  Then the back door swung open. A man peeked out. Not one of Khan’s squad. A jihadi. He leaned forward, craned his head left and right, but Fezcko and Maggs were hidden in the notch and he didn’t see them. He jumped out, stumbled, righted himself, and began to run across the back lot. He was barefoot and wore a jean jacket and sweatpants. No gun, as far as Fezcko could tell.

  Maggs stepped out and raised his rifle. Fezcko pushed it aside.

  “Alive.” They sprinted after him.

  The jihadi ran for a gate at the back-left corner of the wall. He tugged it frantically as Maggs and Fezcko closed on him. Locked. He tried to climb over, but he was big and slow. Maggs jumped up, tugged him down, threw him onto his stomach. Fezcko put a knee on his shoulders and pushed his head down into the dirt. Maggs pulled his arms behind his back and cuffed them. Then Maggs straddled his legs and cuffed his ankles together.

  “Hog-tie? ” Maggs said.

  “Do it.”

  Maggs pulled off his belt, thick black leather, and ran it between the two sets of cuffs and tied it so the prisoner was on his belly with his legs and arms leashed together. Fezcko gave the guy a quick dose of CS in the eyes. He howled at them in Arabic and blinked furiously. Tears streamed down his cheek. Given enough time, he might figure out a way to slip off the belt. But even then he’d have his arms and legs cuffed. And with his eyes on fire, he’d have a tough time going anywhere.

  SO THEY LEFT HIM in the corner, yelling, and ran to the house and took up positions by the back door. The door was swinging free. Fezcko grabbed it and pinned it against the outside wall and peeked inside. He couldn’t see anyone, just construction materials, wood and bricks and cartons of tiles. Then the quiet scraping of a man trying not to cough. He seemed to be on the left side, hidden behind a half-finished wall.

  Maggs sent a CS grenade skittering into the room like a duckpin bowling ball. White smoke filled the room like dry ice rolling onto the dance floor at a sweet sixteen, and the coughing started again, h
arder this time. Maggs pointed into the room and then at himself: I’m going in. Cover me. Fezcko held up three fingers, two, one. He swung his rifle into the doorway and fired three shots into the darkness.

  Maggs levered himself up, jumped inside, ran for the coughing man. As he did, four shots, small-caliber, echoed inside the room. Maggs shouted in pain, the exclamation muffled through his mask, and thumped down.

  Fezcko double-checked the seal on his mask, jumped inside. A round crashed into the wall beside him. Damn it. He dropped to the floor, tried to get oriented through the smoke. He could hear the guy coughing but not see him. Maddening.

  He crawled across the room and lay next to Maggs, who pointed at his right leg. Blood puddled underneath the calf. Maggs made a snapping motion with his hands, indicating that the shot had broken his fibula, or his knee, Fezcko couldn’t tell. Fezcko pointed toward the door—Let’s go; we’ll wait him out—but Maggs shook his head.

  Then something dark flew out of the white smoke, twirling toward them—

  Grenade—

  Fezcko tried to squirm away—

  And realized he was looking at a pistol. The gun clattered at his feet. He grabbed it, racked the slide, checked the clip. Empty.

  A man stood up, wraithlike through the smoke, hands in the air. Maggs raised his M-4 and was about to shoot, but Fezcko pushed the gun down. The man coughed violently, his body shaking with each breath. He stepped toward them slowly, one hesitant foot after the next. He was surrendering. Either that or trying to get close enough to them to blow a suicide-bomb belt. But the belts were thick and obvious, and this guy was wearing only a T-shirt. So Fezcko let him get within five feet and then popped up and grabbed him.