Andrew Britton: The Invisible

“Then we’re back to why I should care.”

The deputy DCI leaned back in his seat and shook his head wearily. He looked for all the world like a guidance counselor who’d failed to get through to a wayward student. Instead of answering the younger man’s question directly, he pointed toward the other side of the room. “See that woman over there?”

Kealey turned in his seat to study the small, slender figure at the bar for the first time. He couldn’t see her face, but nevertheless, it clicked in a matter of seconds. His mind went blank, and it was like the air had been sucked right out of the room. For once, he’d been caught completely off guard.

“That’s why,” Harper said. His voice carried a hint of regret, as if he’d been pushed into something he found distasteful. “That’s why.”

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

The three-story apartment building, located in the G7/1 sector of Islamabad, was just one of many similar dwellings on Khayabane-Suharwardy, a major street that marked the southern edge of the Pakistani capital. On the third-floor balcony of the end unit, close to the point where the thoroughfare met the Sahar Road, a solitary figure lifted a cigarette to his lips with a shaking hand. As he breathed in the calming smoke, he gazed out across the lush green grass and narrow, sinuous canals of Sector H7. In the distance were the lights of the Rose and Jasmine Garden, and beyond, the dark silhouette of the sports complex. The night air was warm and still, and traffic was almost nonexistent at three in the morning. It was quiet and peaceful, a marked contrast to the constant, clamorous din of the daylight hours. Behind him, through the open patio door, his wife stirred, moaned softly in her sleep, then fell silent once more. A lifelong insomniac, Naveed Jilani frequently ventured onto the balcony to gather his thoughts and while away the early-morning hours. On this occasion, though, he wasn’t just trying to pass the time. Instead, he was completely focused on the day that lay ahead. The fear and stress had been building up for the past two weeks, and he knew he hadn’t hidden it well. He didn’t know when his wife had first caught on, but he felt sure she had sensed it right from the start. Parveen was a fine woman, a good wife, an attentive mother to their three-year-old son. She was accustomed to his dark moods, his prolonged bouts of strained silence, and she knew when to give him his space. Being the devoted wife she was, she’d sought to relieve his stress in other ways, but even her gentle touch in bed had not been enough to quell his fears. It was something he could not have explained to her. She wouldn’t have understood, and he had no desire to trouble her with the true cause of his anxiety. She wouldn’t have been able to fix it anyway, but he couldn’t fault her for that. Even in the early hours of the morning, when the regret and bitterness left their deepest impressions, Naveed couldn’t bring himself to blame her. Sometimes it seemed as if his whole life had been leading up to this point, and there was nothing that he—or anyone else—could do to change it.

Jilani had been born in 1975 in the city of Quetta, less than 100 miles from the Afghan border. His mother had died of cancer when he was ten years old, and owing to his father’s lack of funds and interest, he was sent to live with his uncle in the slums of Karachi. Syed Jilani had tried and failed at many things by the time his nephew came to know him, but from 1979 to 1984, he found a degree of success in Afghanistan, where he fought with distinction alongside the mujahideen. In the years that followed, his hatred for America became increasingly virulent, despite the fact that the West had funded and armed the Afghan fundamentalists in their extended war against the Soviet forces. Still, his feelings for the West didn’t preclude him from taking full advantage of the U.S. weapons and ammunition left over from the conflict in Afghanistan. It was a dangerous, highly illicit enterprise that required more than one set of hands, and when he first began smuggling arms from Afghanistan into neighboring Iran and Pakistan in 1997, Syed Jilani knew exactly where to turn for help. During his time in Afghanistan, the elder Jilani had formed lasting partnerships with men who knew how to use their positions for monetary gain. One of these contacts was an army lieutenant and a member of Inter-Services Intelligence. The only son of a construction magnate, Benazir Mengal was connected at the highest levels to Afghan warlords, Pakistani generals, and prominent figures in the emerging Taliban, and that made him the perfect man to facilitate Syed Jilani’s cross-border activities.

Naveed was fifteen years old when he met Mengal for the first time, and he had been instantly drawn to the charismatic Pakistani soldier. The reason for his adulation was simple: Mengal was an easy man to admire. Unlike Naveed’s father and uncle, he had succeeded brilliantly in everything he’d ever tried. He was handsome, intelligent, and possessed of a natural spark that allowed him to draw people in with incredible ease. From the very start, Naveed could see how Mengal affected the people around him, including his uncle. Syed Jilani, normally brash and quick to temper, was quiet and respectful in Mengal’s presence, as were his like-minded acquaintances. In short, Ben Mengal was everything Naveed Jilani wanted to be, and he’d modeled his whole life on that principle. At least he’d tried. Whether or not he’d succeeded was another matter entirely. He’d tried to join the Pakistani army shortly after his eighteenth birthday, but a thorough physical had revealed a heart defect that precluded his entrance. Naveed had desperately searched for a loophole, but when it became clear that all avenues were blocked, he’d turned to his mentor for help. By that time, Mengal was a lieutenant colonel and a department head with Inter-Services Intelligence. His influence alone would have been enough to cut through the bureaucratic restrictions, but on a calm summer day in 1993, he’d met with Naveed to explain the situation. He had described the limited opportunities the army would offer, due to the younger man’s nonexistent education, and he’d proposed an alternative: a career in government service.

Naveed could remember that conversation in its entirety. He had been hesitant at first, but Mengal had soon won him over. He made quiet, sincere promises based on his position, and in the years that followed, he’d come through in spectacular fashion. For a man of thirty-four with no university training and a limited knowledge of English, Naveed Jilani had achieved a position of remarkable influence in the Pakistani government. But Mengal’s work behind the scenes was not born of generosity, and two weeks earlier, he had asked his young friend to repay the favor.

Naveed did not often hear from the general in person, but while the call had merely caught him off guard, the favor had left him stunned to his core. He had agreed, of course—he had long known he was incapable of refusing Ben Mengal—but the conversation, which took place in the back room of a madrassa in Peshawar, had caused him to rethink his entire association with the former army officer. The truth was, Naveed knew next to nothing about the man who had single-handedly made his career. Since that troubling meeting, he’d done his best to learn more about his benefactor, but unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Rumors about Mengal abounded, but few could be confirmed. It was said that his ailing father had recently disowned him, thereby depriving him of the vast fortune he was set to inherit. Naveed wasn’t sure if that was true, but he knew that Mengal had been asked to step down in the wake of 9/11. That event hadn’t come as a surprise to anyone. Since the fall of the Taliban, Mengal and his ilk had become a liability, an uneasy reminder of Musharraf ’s former alliances. To make matters worse, it was widely assumed that Mengal had a direct connection to senior members of al-Qaeda, including the director himself. Those associations, whether real or imagined, had brought him to the attention of the Western intelligence services. But that had been years earlier, and since severing his links to the army and the intelligence community, he had largely gone unnoticed. From 2001 until the present day, Mengal was practically a black hole, and it was largely assumed that he had retired to a life of quiet solitude. Naveed Jilani did not buy into the rumor. He wasn’t an educated man, but he’d worked closely with career diplomats for the last sixteen years. He knew how to read people, and he knew better than to dismiss a man like Ben Mengal. In twenty-five years of government service, the general had built himself a reputation that stood apart from his position with the Pakistani army. He had also sewn the seeds for a number of future enterprises, none of which required the thin veneer of authority. Still, nothing could have prepared Naveed for what the older man had asked of him two weeks earlier. He still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to Mengal’s request, but in the end he had, and that was all that mattered. He had no choice now but to follow through with it. In less than twelve hours, he was going to help the general strike a blow against the West that would be felt for years to come, and there was nothing he could do to stop it—nothing he could do to extricate himself from an act that would soon place him square in the path of a vengeful nation, the most powerful on earth. Behind him, his wife called out softly, imploring him to come inside. Naveed took one final drag on his cigarette, then flicked the butt over the iron rail and exhaled a narrow stream of smoke. He gazed up at the clear night sky and whispered a silent prayer. He did not ask for the strength to do the right thing; he had already made his decision. Instead, he asked Allah to look over his wife and child.