Frederick Forsyth - The Kill List

He handed over to the courier every scrap of paperwork he had in the name of Carson. That would also return unseen to the States. What he got in return was a wallet of documents the Agency had spent three days preparing.

There was a passport in the name of Mr. Daniel Priest, a senior staffer with the Washington Post . It bore a valid visa from the Pakistani consulate in Washington, securing Mr. Priest entry into Pakistan. The securing of this visa would mean that the Pakistani police were aware of his coming and would be waiting. Journalists are of extreme interest to sensitive regimes.

There was a letter from the publisher of the Post , confirming that Mr. Priest was preparing a major series of articles on “Islamabad — the making of a successful modern city.” And there was a return ticket via London.

There were credit cards, a driver’s license, the usual paperwork and plastic cards to be found in the wallet of a law-abiding American citizen and senior executive, plus a confirmation that a room awaited him at the Serena Hotel, Islamabad, and that the hotel car would be waiting for him.

The Tracker knew better than to emerge from the customs hall at Islamabad International into the seething, surging chaos outside and then allow himself to be hustled into any old taxi.

The courier also handed over the stub of his boarding pass from Washington to Dubai and the unused onward ticket from Dubai to “Slammy,” as Islamabad is known in the Special Forces fraternity.

A thorough search of his room, virtually a certainty, would reveal only that Mr. Dan Priest was a legitimate foreign correspondent from Washington with a valid visa and a logical reason for being in Pakistan; further, that he intended to stay a few days and then fly home.

With the exchange of identities and “legends” completed, both men descended separately to different airline desks below to secure boarding passes for their onward flights.

It was nearly midnight, but the Tracker’s EK612 flight took off at three twenty-five a.m. He killed the time back in the lounge but was still at the departure gate with an hour to spare, then held back to size up his fellow passengers. He knew that if there were a breeze, he should stay upwind of most of them.

As he suspected, the economy-class passengers were overwhelmingly Pakistani laborers, returning after their statutory two years’ virtual forced labor on building sites. It is customary for the construction-trade gang masters to confiscate the laborer’s passport on arrival and return it only after the two-year contract is done.

During that time, the laborers live in sub-basic hovels with minimal facilities, working hard in fearsome heat for minuscule wages, some of which they try to send back home. As they crowded to the door for boarding, he caught the first whiff of stale sweat flavored with a diet of constant curry. Mercifully, the economy class and business class were soon separated, and he relaxed into upholstered comfort up front with a complement of Gulf Arab and Pakistani businessmen.

The flight was just over three hours, and the Emirates Boeing 777–300 touched down on time at 0730 local. He watched from the porthole of the taxiing airliner the military C-130 Hercules and the presidential Boeing 737 drift past.

In the passport hall he was separated from the jostling throng of Pakistanis when he joined the queue for foreigners’ passports. The new document in the name of Daniel Priest, adorned only by a few European entry and exit stamps and the Pakistani visa, was meticulously examined page by page. The questions were perfunctory and polite, easily answered. He produced proof of his reservation at the Serena. The plainclothesmen stood well back and stared.

He took his wheelie and struggled through the clamoring, pushing, shoving mass of humanity in baggage claim, aware that this was of a Teutonic order compared to the chaos outside. Pakistan does not queue.

Outside the building, the sun was shining. Thousands seemed to have come, bringing entire families, to greet the returnees from the Gulf. Tracker scanned the crowd until he spotted the name Priest on a board held by a young man in the uniform of the Serena. He made contact and was escorted to the limousine, parked in the small VIP parking lot to the right of the terminal.

Since the airport sits within the sprawl of old Rawalpindi, the road, once clear of the airport hub, turns down the Islamabad Highway and into the capital. As the Serena, the only earthquake-proof hotel in Slammy, is on the outskirts of town, the Tracker was taken by surprise as the car swerved into a short dogleg; right, left, past a barrier that would be down for visitor cars but up for the hotel’s own limousine, up a short but steep ramp and to the main entrance.

At the reception desk, he was made welcome by name and escorted to his room. There was a letter waiting for him. It bore the U.S. embassy logo. He beamed and tipped the bellhop, pretending to be unaware the counterintelligence police had bugged the room and opened the letter. It was from the press attaché at the embassy, welcoming him to Pakistan and inviting him to dinner that evening at the attaché’s home. It was signed Gerry Byrne.

He asked the hotel switchboard operator to put him through to the embassy, asked for and was patched through to Gerry Byrne and exchanged the usual pleasantries. Yes, the flight had been fine, the hotel was fine, the room was fine, and he would be delighted to come for dinner.

Gerry Byrne was also delighted. He lived in town, in zone F-7, Street 43. It was complex, so he would send a car. It would be delightful. Just a small group of friends, some American, some Pakistani.

Both men knew that there was another party to the conversation who was probably more bored than delighted. He would be seated at a console in the basement of a cluster of adobe buildings set among lawns and fountains, looking more like a university or a general hospital than the headquarters of a secret police. But that is what the complex on Khayaban-e-Suhrawardy Street looks like — the home of the ISI.

The Tracker replaced the receiver. So far, so good, he thought. He showered, shaved and changed. It was late morning. He decided on an early lunch and a nap to catch up on the lost sleep of last night. Before lunch he ordered a long, cool beer in his room and signed the declaration to confirm he was not a Muslim. Pakistan is strictly Islamic and dry, but the Serena has a license, only for guests.

The car was there on the dot of seven, an unremarkable (for a reason) four-door sedan of Japanese manufacture. There would be thousands like it on the streets of Slammy. It would attract no attention. At the wheel was an embassy-employed Pakistani driver.

The driver knew the way — up Ataturk Avenue, across Jinnah Avenue, then left along Nazimuddin Road. The Tracker knew it, too, but only because it had all been in the brief the courier from Langley had given him at the Dubai airport. Just a precaution. He spotted the ISI tail within a block of the Serena and it faithfully followed the sedan past the apartment high-rises and up Marvi Road to Street 43. So, no surprises. The Tracker did not like surprises unless they were his.

The house did not quite have the words “Government Issue” above the front door, but it might have. Pleasant, roomy enough, one of a dozen allocated to embassy staff living outside the compound. He was greeted by Gerry Byrne and his wife, Lynn, who led him through to a terrace in the back, where he was offered a drink.

It might all almost have been a suburban house in the U.S. save for a few details. Each house on Street 43 had seven-foot concrete walls around it, plus steel gates the same height. The gates had opened without any communication, as if someone had been watching from inside. The gateman was in a dark uniform, baseball-capped and with a sidearm. Just normal suburbia.