James Huston - Fallout

The others rose to look at the chart over Vlad’s shoulder.

“Like what?” Brian asked, his mind spinning.

“He wanted to demonstrate his anger toward America. You did not support them after we—the Soviet Union—left Afghanistan. They turned to France for submarines and airplanes. But I believe his focus is somewhere else. He is—what do you say?—obsession…”

“Obsessed,” Crumb offered.

“Yes, obsessed with India. We have to look at India.” He grabbed a pen, measured three hundred miles from the Air Force base near Karachi, and drew an arc. His eyes darted across the chart until he recognized one area. “Chort!” he exclaimed. “Right here!” he said, pounding his finger into the chart again and again. “The Kakrapar nuclear plant! Here, in Surat! It is three hundred miles southeast of a forward-deployment airfield east of Karachi.” Vlad looked at the others. “He is trying to start a war between Pakistan and India. There is a large group of people in Pakistan that want a war with India more than anything else. They will do anything to achieve it. It is all about Kashmir. About Islam against Hinduism. Do not forget, there are many hard-line Islam with ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan who have been waiting for this moment for years. This is it!” Vlad exclaimed. “We talked about this all the time in Russia. It was big headache with the countries that border Russia on the south.” He was breathing hard, his face full of satisfaction and fear.

“He may be right,” Brian said, nodding as he scratched his head. “He may be completely right.”

Helen asked, “But how can you know all this?”

“I have flown many times with the Indian Air Force. I was part of the team that delivered the MiG-29s from Russia to India when they bought them. I have spent many days in northwestern India training the Indian Air Force pilots to fly the MiG-29. I heard all the stories of the war that will come between Pakistan and India. They both expect it. It is just a matter of when.”

“I need to pass this on to our intelligence people. They will decide whether to pass it on to India or not,” Helen said.

Vlad was already headed toward the door. “This man must be stopped. If they go to war, it will be terrible. India has publicly promised never to use nuclear weapons first, and Pakistan has refused to make the same promise.

“Believe me,” Vlad said. “The Indian Air Force is no match for the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis have more flight hours, they are better trained, and now Khan has been trained by TOPGUN instructors. They will not be able to stop him.”

“India has more airplanes,” Brian reminded Vlad.

“Yes, and poorly trained pilots. Plus the Pakistanis have F-16s and new Mirage aircraft. The Indians fly some MiG-29s, but mostly older MiG-21s and -23s. They often fly them into the ground because of poor maintenance.”

“So what now?” Stamp asked.

“I don’t know,” Vlad answered, assuming a position of leadership. “There isn’t much time. Seventy-two hours from when?” he asked Helen.

“From yesterday.”

“That means we have forty-eight hours,” Luke said. “If we warn India, and they start moving their Air Force, Pakistan will claim it as provocation.”

“Yes, yes, exactly.” Vlad nodded. “They need something much more clever than that.” He looked at Helen and Luke. “Perhaps I could call some people I know. They have certain contacts within the Indian government. They might be able to suggest something.”

Helen looked at him. She studied his face. “Call them.” She then turned to Luke. “One of our most difficult problems, of course, is confirming his identity. Pakistan continues to be outraged at the conduct of its former Air Force officer. We’re not so sure. But we need to identify him. Can you think of anything that would help us?”

“He wouldn’t let us take any pictures…”

“So you said. We went over his room for fingerprints. There weren’t any. None. Wiped completely clean. Just like the cars we found in the desert.”

“Fingerprints?” Katherine asked suddenly. “Luke, the vase!”

“What vase?”

“The Indian vase at our house!” She looked at Helen. “It’s an ornamental Paiute vase. He was fascinated by it and picked it up—”

“What is it made of?” one of the other FBI agents asked.

“Clay.”

He looked at Helen, who nodded. “We need to dust your house,” he said to Katherine. “Now.”

Renee opened her eyes to peer at the blue dial of the digital watch she always wore when not trying to look like a Pakistani woman. It was two o’clock in the morning. The knock was unmistakable and insistent. Her heart started to race. She’d never before been bothered at her apartment at night. She quickly reviewed what was in her apartment, what might implicate her in anything, but she knew it was clean. This was just where she slept. It wasn’t where she changed before going out into the city; it wasn’t where she kept her weapons, or her brown contacts, or dirty fingernails. It wasn’t where she wrote down anything in a report, or typed anything that anyone would care about, or had the computer on which she drafted e-mails. She knew she was clean. It was what allowed her to sleep at all.

She wrapped a robe around her nightgown and walked barefoot to the door. She looked through the peephole. “Yes?” she asked, turning on the light. She could see a large man standing at her door, with three others standing behind him.

“Open the door,” he demanded in Urdu.

“What? I don’t understand,” she replied in English.

“Of course you do,” he said, still in Urdu.

“What?” she said, ignoring him.

He switched to English reluctantly. “Open the door, now.”

“Why should I?” she said, implying offense. “It is two o’clock in the morning!”

“Because I have told you to! If you don’t, I will kick it in.”

“And who are you?”

“Internal Security. Open the door immediately!” The ISI. The Pakistani Secret Police, FBI, and CIA all in one.

She took her eye away from the door and looked around the room for some solution. Her chest heaved. She turned back to the door and yelled, “I am an American citizen! You have no right to enter my residence. I will go straight to the ambass—”

He stepped back and kicked.

She jumped back in time to avoid the door that tore away from the cheap frame and burst open.

“Stop!” she screamed. “You can’t do this!”

The man struck her and knocked her down on the floor, her face pressed against the hard tile. He climbed on top of her and pulled her arms behind her. The other three men entered the apartment and began tearing it apart. “You are under arrest for espionage,” the man hissed into her ear, his lips touching her hair. “Did you think we were stupid?” he then yelled, handcuffing her and pulling her to her feet.

The special agents and crime-scene technicians swarmed all over Luke and Katherine’s house: the bathrooms, the kitchen, the living room—everywhere.

Luke stood next to Helen watching as one latex-gloved FBI agent dusted the coffee table in the living room. “He wasn’t even in this room,” Luke told him.

“We do everything,” he replied.

Luke shrugged and spoke to Helen without looking at her. “Think it’s him in Pakistan?”

“We’ll know in just a few minutes.”

“How?”

“Our technician has the other prints with him.”

“Whose?”

She just watched the tech do his work.

Luke realized she wasn’t going to answer. “How’d you get them?” he asked, amazed.

Helen still didn’t reply. She reached for her cell phone, which was vibrating on her belt, and put it to her ear. “Li,” she said.