Andrew Britton - The Invisible

She turned to look at the approaching vehicle. “I guess you’re right.” And to Kealey’s relief, she left it at that. Walland was the man behind the wheel. He pulled up 10 feet behind the Subaru and shut down the engine. As the 4 men climbed out of the vehicle, Kealey reached into one of the holdalls and pulled out a pistol, a compact Beretta 9mm. He handed it to Pétain, along with two full magazines.

“What is this for?” she asked. She tapped the butt of the Makarov, which was tucked into the top of her linen pants, as if to remind him that she still had it.

“Just in case,” he told her.

She accepted the weapon as the rest of the team approached. Kealey zipped up the holdall he’d taken the Beretta from and got to his feet.

“Is this all of it?” Owen asked, gesturing to the six holdalls piled at Kealey’s feet.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“So we’re set?” Owen was looking past them to the unconscious form in the front of the Subaru; clearly, he was uneasy with the whole situation, and Kealey couldn’t really blame him.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Listen, I’ve got to tell you something. . . .”

Kealey briefed the other man quickly on his plan. Pétain was going to hold Fahim until they could verify that Mengal, Saifi, and Fitzgerald were all at the house in Sialkot. Then she would call his subordinates and tell them where to find him before leaving the country herself. When he was done with the short explanation, Owen nodded his agreement.

“We need to move,” Kealey told him. “Let’s get the equipment loaded.”

Owen relayed the instructions to Walland. As the former ranger shouldered two of the holdalls and moved to the second car, Owen stepped away to address Manik and Massi, leaving Kealey and Pétain alone by the back of the Subaru. They stood there in silence for nearly a minute, but neither felt any particular need to speak. The others, engaged as they were in their separate tasks, didn’t seem to notice the strangely intimate moment. For some reason, Kealey had the sudden sense that she had known all along, that on some level, at least, she knew who had been on the other end of that phone. But he couldn’t ask her, and he doubted she would have admitted to it, anyway.

“Good luck,” she said finally, glancing at him quickly. “I hope you find her.”

Kealey nodded and turned to walk to the second car, but as he reached for the handle on the passenger side, her last words seemed to echo in his head, and he suddenly found himself wondering, looking deeper into her parting statement. Who had she really been talking about? Was it Fitzgerald? He wondered if he was just imagining things, if he was reading too far into what she had just said. He could ask, of course, but what was the point? If she had known all along, would it really make a difference? No, he decided after a moment’s thought. It wouldn’t. If Naomi was really gone, the blame would rest with just one person, and it wouldn’t be Marissa Pétain. Even if she knew—or even suspected—

what had really transpired at the substation, she was not at fault. Simply put, she wasn’t responsible, and she could not be held accountable for what her father had done.

He could not help but wonder how much she really knew, but Kealey tried to remind himself that it didn’t really matter. Either way, that particular bill would be paid in full. He had already made that promise to himself, and he fully intended to keep it. Moving to the passenger door of the Toyota, he climbed into the car as Owen—who was now behind the wheel—started the engine. As they pulled away, Kealey looked in the rearview mirror and saw Pétain looking after them. He watched her as the car rolled over the uneven terrain, and for a few seconds, he thought he felt their eyes connect. Then they passed into the trees, and she disappeared from sight.

SIALKOT • SOUTHERN PORTUGAL

The nightmare was as real as anything she’d ever experienced, and seemingly endless, a sickening montage of fire, blood, and death. It had been playing on a continuous reel in her mind, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not force the images from her subconscious. They seemed to dwell there, in the deep, dark recesses of her imagination; only she knew they were not a creation. Everything she was seeing was real. At least, it had been real. Now, she was no longer sure what was real and what was false. The hours, days, or weeks of horror—she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed—had stripped her of certainty. Of hope. Of her very identity.

She didn’t know if she could trust her own thoughts. Was she still sane? It seemed that she was, at least for brief stretches of time. There were short, fleeting moments that seemed to work, times where she found herself able to focus, or at least conjure a lucid thought. But those moments never lasted more than a couple of minutes. Then her rational thoughts would slip away, just out of reach, and she’d begin the long slide back into the abyss. The tape would start again in her mind, and she’d open her mouth to scream, but all she could hear were the sounds of death and destruction: the screech and the sickening thump as the rocket tore into the car; the crack of the shot as it ripped its way through Lee Patterson’s brain, and the nameless woman’s cries for help, which she’d uttered a moment before the Algerian had fired that final, fatal bullet into her pleading face. She could see it, too—an endless display of what had to be hell, or at least the earthly equivalent.

Brynn Fitzgerald wanted it all to stop, but she knew there was no hope of reprieve. If there were any hope at all, she would have gladly endured the pain she was feeling. As it stood, she just wanted it all to end, even if that meant the end of everything. She didn’t want to die, but it seemed like the only escape. She would give anything to know that she had something to look forward to, that there was even the slightest possibility of returning to the world she had once known. If there was only a light at the end of the tunnel, she felt she could go on for as long as she had to. . . .

And suddenly, there was.

“She’s awake,” Said Qureshi announced, stepping back from the bed.

On hearing the words he’d been waiting for, Benazir Mengal moved off the wall of the surgical suite and stepped forward to see for himself. The second surgery—the pericardial window—had ended eighteen hours earlier, and Fitzgerald had been out the whole time. The pain medication, which Qureshi had been administering every couple of hours, had played a part in keeping her under, but much of the sleep was natural as her body worked to regain its strength. At Qureshi’s suggestion, Mengal had ordered a few of his men to bring a bed down from one of the second-floor rooms. They’d set it up in the suite, and once the surgeon was sure she was stable, they’d transferred Fitzgerald from the operating table to the bed. Now, as Qureshi busied himself checking the monitors, the former general leaned over the acting U.S. secretary of state. His face was less than a foot from hers as he watched intently, waiting for a sign of life. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened, and for the first time, he looked directly into the sea green eyes of the woman whose abduction he had helped orchestrate four days earlier. Their eyes locked for a few brief seconds, but Fitzgerald did not react. She seemed confused, distant, and completely unfamiliar with the man she was staring at. Mengal knew this should not surprise him; there was no way she could know who he was. Still, he felt oddly let down by the moment, which struck him as anticlimactic. Fitzgerald’s eyes drifted shut. Mengal hovered over her for a moment longer, then straightened and let out a low, disappointed grunt. Brushing past him, Qureshi approached his patient and touched her arm gently. She let out a soft groan, but otherwise, she didn’t react.