Alex Berenson - The Midnight House

To the worst place in the world.”

“The worst place in the world.”

George Fezcko and Dwayne Maggs raised their glasses and drank. The going-away party was over. One by one, the ops had said their good-byes and disappeared. Only Fezcko and Maggs were left. Fezcko, the guest of honor, leaving Pakistan after four years as deputy chief of station. And Maggs, his best friend at the agency.

The clock on the wall said 1:30, and they’d been drinking since dinner, but Fezcko felt solid. Maggs had gotten hold of a half-dozen Omaha steaks and two racks of ribs. The meat had soaked up most of the scotch in Fezcko’s belly.

Though not all. Fezcko put his head against the cool wood of the conference table and hummed tunelessly: “ ‘We few, we ragged few, we motley crew. ’ ” He trailed off. He couldn’t remember the rest of the song, or even if there was a rest of the song.

“Mötley Crüe,” Maggs said. “Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap.”

“That’s AC/DC.”

“Marine recon, too.”

“Why does it always go back to the marines? By now everyone in this country knows you’re a jarhead. All one hundred fifty million.” Fezcko tapped Maggs on the forehead. “Tattoo it right there. The few, the proud, the stupid.”

“You wish you coulda been a marine,” Maggs said. “Berkeley boy. You wouldn’t have made it through the first week of basic. Eaten up and spat out.”

Maggs was the station’s director of security. He was short and wide and strong, arms as big as an average man’s legs. Fezcko had thinning curly hair and wild black eyes. In college he’d played bass for a band that had almost broken out. They shouldn’t have gotten along. But they did.

“A marine? I wish I coulda been Tom Brady.”

“The Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Land of the free, home of the suicide bomber. Bet you miss it already,” Maggs said.

“What’s not to miss? The earthquakes. The weather. The fifteen pounds I put on ’cause it’s too hot to run outside.” Fezcko poked at the belly he’d gained.

“Can’t blame Paki for that. That gym in the basement is pretty good. As you’d know if you ever visited.”

“I like to run outside.”

“How about the women? Those beautiful Paki women.”

Fezcko sipped his scotch. “Black-and-blue with the ugly stick,” he said. “I never should have let Marci divorce me. Maybe if our security officers didn’t lock us in the embassy all the time, maybe then we’d find out what those burqas are hiding. Can’t even go down the block to the Marriott for a going-away party. It’s a Marriott, for God’s sake.”

Indeed, because of the risk of terrorist attacks, the agency barred employees in Pakistan from gathering at hotels and restaurants. Maggs had refused to make an exception, even tonight.

“Don’t mind getting you killed, but there’s got to be a reason,” Maggs said. “You know better than me, they aim for that Marriott once a month. I know who you’re gonna miss. The army and the ISI”—the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, the Pakistani secret police. Between them the two services more or less ran Pakistan.

“The army and the ISI. The ISI and the army. I’ll tell you something about the ISI and the army.”

“Yeah. Give me the speech. With feeling. Like I haven’t heard it a hundred times before.”

“The Egyptians, the Saudis, when they lie to you, they do it with a smile. Pour you tea, tell a story that takes an hour, and when they’re done you’re about ready to fall for whatever they’re spinning. These guys, they just yell, like if I give you this nonsense at high volume it won’t sound so ridiculous. They aren’t all bad, maybe, but most of ’em. ”

“Remember when they won that cricket match and almost burned down Karachi? ”

Fezcko looked into his glass. “You really think Paki’s the worst place in the world? ”

“Somalia’s bad.”

“Worse than this? ”

“Hotter. And blacker.”

“You think you can say that just ’cause you’re black? Insult your African cousins? ”

Maggs smirked. “I can say it because I’m a marine.”

“Let’s drink to Somalia, then,” Fezcko said. “The even-worse worst place in the world.”

“Somalia. See you there.”

“Three years. It’ll be like that movie with the French chick—”

“I always knew you were gay, George—”

Fezcko struggled for the memory lurking in his alcohol-fogged brain. “Ethan Hawke. Julie Something—”

“Gayer by the second.”

“ Before Sunrise, ” Fezcko said triumphantly.

AND THEN HIS PAGER buzzed.

He pulled it off his waist, squinted at it. The scotch had blurred his eyes, and he didn’t recognize the numbers. Then he did. 36963. Code for “call me now” from Nawiz Khan, a division chief for the ISI. Fezcko slid the pager across the table to Maggs.

“Nawiz? ” Maggs said. “Wants to wish you good-bye.”

Fezcko didn’t trust the ISI, but he did trust Khan, since a blown raid in Peshawar two years back. He and Khan had had to shoot their way out of an apartment. Khan took a round in the left thigh that night. He still favored the leg.

Fezcko stood, feeling the steak and the ribs twist in his gut, and headed down the hall, shielding his eyes from the fluorescent lights. He touched his thumb to the fingerprint reader beside the door of his office. Inside, he sat down heavily on the edge of his desk and called Khan.

Who answered after a single ring.

“Fezcko,” Khan said, somehow making the name sound glamorous. The years he’d spent at university in London had given him a soft English accent.

“Nawiz?”

“May I speak freely? ”

“You asking if this line is secure? Yeah, it’s secure.”

“Also if you are as drunk as you sound.”

Fezcko laughed. “Not quite. Though it’s been a long night.”

“It has been a long night for me as well, George. But I have something you will want to see.”

“Something or someone? ”

“Both.”

“Big?”

“If you’re asking me, am I in line for your fifty million dollars”—the CIA’s reward for the capture of Osama bin Laden—“the answer is no. But my friend, I wouldn’t have called at this hour if this wasn’t worth your while. You may want to let your CT team know as well.”

CT was agency lingo for the practice known publicly as extraordinary rendition. The letters stood for “collection and transfer,” snatching suspected terrorists from their home countries and holding them in American custody.

“My CT team,” Fezcko said. “That’s me and Maggs. As you know.”

“My men will make the arrest, then. And I will give them to you as a going-away present.”

“ ‘ Them’? What are you doing to me, Nawiz? ”

“The question you should be asking me is what am I doing for you?”

“We gonna need a G-five for this? ” A Gulfstream V jet, capable of carrying a dozen passengers halfway around the world without re-fueling, and thus the preferred method of transport for renditions.

“I think so. These men, it’s best if they leave Pakistan.”