Alex Berenson: The Midnight House

“Man. You couldn’t have given me a little notice? I need an hour, make some calls.”

“And drink some coffee.”

“That, too.”

“One hour. No more.”

“One hour.”

BUT NINETY MINUTES PASSED before Fezcko and Maggs rolled out the side gate of the embassy in a black Nissan sedan. The car looked stock, but its windows were bullet-resistant and its doors were reinforced with steel plates. It wasn’t as sturdy as the armored Suburbans that the ambassador and the chief of station preferred, but it would stop an AK round and it didn’t attract attention.

In the passenger seat, Fezcko tried to rest, while his bodyguard, an ex-Ranger with the unlikely name of Leslie, drove. Maggs was in the back, playing a driving game on his iPod, his preferred method of relaxation before a mission. He seemed to have sobered up immediately. Fezcko wished he could say the same. Even after three cups of coffee, he was hardly in peak form. Before he left, he had gotten a definite maybe for a rendition from Josh Orton, the assistant chief for the Near East Section.

“I’m going to need more details,” Orton had said, from his desk seven thousand miles away at Langley.

“You think? ”

“Don’t get pissy with me, George. You know the rules.” Since 2006, the agency had become much more reluctant to authorize renditions, although they still took place.

The Nissan swung out of the Diplomatic Enclave, the high-security zone in eastern Islamabad that was home to the American embassy and other foreign missions. The night air was surprisingly cool for June. A breeze fluttered through the trees along Constitution Avenue.

After Pakistan gained independence in 1947, its military leaders decided to create a new capital city that would be easier to control than Karachi, the original capital. The result was Islamabad, a million-person city that Pakistanis called Isloo. With its boulevards, parks, and office towers, Isloo wasn’t a bad place to live, at least compared to the rest of Pakistan. The city reminded Fezcko of Charlotte, his hometown — though Charlotte didn’t have a mosque that could hold three hundred thousand worshippers.

The Nissan turned southwest on Nazimuddin Road, leaving the Diplomatic Enclave behind. Rather than giving names to the neighborhoods, Islamabad’s planners had divided the city into zones identified by numbers and letters. Sixty years later, the system had stuck. Fezcko and Maggs were headed for the I-10 zone, a lightly built area on the southwestern edge of the city.

Fezcko’s phone trilled.

“Are you standing me up? ”

“Nawiz, please. We’re on the way.” Fezcko hung up, wondering at the urgency. Khan wasn’t a nervous guy.

Ten minutes later, the Nissan pulled up outside an unfinished concrete building. A rusting white sign identified the shell as the “Future Center of the All-Pakistan Medical Commons.” As Fezcko stepped out of the Nissan, the building’s steel front door creaked open. A trim middle-aged man limped out toward him.

“ Salaam alekeim , Nawiz.”

“ Alekeim salaam .” They hugged, clapping each other tightly on the back.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were friends,” Maggs said.

“Come,” Nawiz said. “I’ll show you your going-away present.”

INSIDE, A BIG OPEN ROOM with a floor of hard-packed dirt. The air thick with dust and the stink of diesel smoke. A noisy generator powered strings of Christmas tree-sized white bulbs tacked to the walls, giving the place a strangely festive feel. In the corner opposite the generator, two men played checkers on a cheap folding table. Three more napped at their feet.

“Your crack team,” Fezcko said.

“Merely conserving their energy.” Khan handed Fezcko a long-lens photograph of a truck, a Mitsubishi ten-wheeler, the cab metallic blue with a spiffy beige stripe painted horizontally beneath the windshield. “Abu Zaineb Textile Manufacture (PVT) Ltd” was stenciled in black on the cargo compartment.

“Nice truck,” Fezcko said.

“Such insight. I see why you’ve been promoted.”

“Is Abu Zaineb Textile real? ”

“We can’t find the name. Though that’s not dispositive, you understand.”

“ ‘Dispositive,’ ” Maggs said. “Mighty big word for a Paki.”

Khan waved off Maggs and handed Fezcko another photo, this one centered on a pair of men standing beside the truck. One wore a white salwar kameez , the long tunic and pants favored by many Pakistani men. The other was younger and dressed Western-style, in jeans and a red T-shirt that, strangely, had a Batman logo stamped on its front.

“You know them? ”

Fezcko shook his head.

“This one.” Khan pointed to the man in the salwar kameez. “His name is Asif Ali. He is a cousin of Jawaruddin.”

Jawaruddin was Jawaruddin bin Zari, a thirty-four-year-old from Peshawar who was wanted for numerous terrorist attacks, including four bombings in Peshawar and the killing of two American aid workers in Karachi. He was a member of a terrorist group called Ansar Muhammad that had first turned up in 2006. In Arabic, ansar literally meant patrons, or supporters, but the word was usually translated as warriors — in this case, the warriors of Muhammad. The CIA didn’t know much about Ansar Muhammad, though the agency had picked up hints of connections between the group and the ISI. Some analysts at Langley believed the ISI was using the group to carry out anti-American attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In any case, bin Zari was a high-value target. Capturing him would be a coup for the agency, at least until his successor popped up.

“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.”