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Andrew Britton: The Operative

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Andrew Britton The Operative

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The remaining soldiers and the missionary building were peppered with shrapnel, none very seriously, save for a young Christian volunteer who had just come to the window to pull open the shade. Shattered glass razored her face and chest, and she stumbled backward, slipping on a quick-made slick of her own blood. Rats ran quickly from behind the shattered foundation, waves of them pouring through the rubble like water. From above, a flaming kestrel dropped to the ground, its wings slapping furiously and then not at all.

The sound of the explosion faded quickly, the rain of debris stopped, and soon all that remained were sirens from a few late-model vehicles, the moans of the wounded, and the smoke that obscured the sun with an ugly charcoal film. Shopkeepers and pedestrians who ran toward the scene were silent, their ears filled with their own racing blood.


Dr. Ayesha Gillani was sitting at an open-air cafe near the market when she heard-and felt-the powerful explosion. It echoed through the crooked streets like faraway thunder. In the square, people on bicycles stopped, turned, and looked down the street as smoke followed the sounds, curling lazily from between the low buildings. Vendors ran in fright from their stands and sought cover in alleys, in shops, behind trees, anything that was far from parked vehicles. These things often happened in twos and threes.

Not this time, Dr. Gillani thought.

Though she knew that, there were things that had surprised her. The location of the blast, for one. She looked at her watch. The timing of the blast was off, as well.

It was early, too, she thought. Six thirteen. It wasn’t supposed to happen for another two minutes.

The changes were unexpected but not unwelcome. There were always variables in even the best-planned scenario. A rotating checkpoint. A mechanical malfunction. An accident. A distraction.

The important thing is he pulled the trigger, she told herself. That was the most difficult and time-consuming part of the process.

She took out her cell phone, sent a one-letter text message-S, for success — and resumed eating her n sht, a traditional Pakistani breakfast of paratha, a flatbread, as well as mangoes and Earl Grey. The tea felt much cooler than it had moments before. Or maybe it was her. The anticipation had passed. The event was history. And her confidence-of which she was the harshest critic-had been validated.

She watched as people slowly, cautiously returned to their stands. The poor, poor mice, she thought. Sunni, Shiite, Kurd, Christian, Jew-the religion or sect of the victims did not matter to her. The tribe or nationality was of absolutely no importance. All that mattered to the forty-two-year-old was that the trials were completed and the real mission could begin. The task for which she had been training herself for over twenty years. The only possible response to what she had endured.

She was about to bring lasting, eternal peace to the world.

CHAPTER 1

QUEBEC, CANADA PRESENT DAY

The silver-white Gulfstream IV charter jet was idling outside its hangar at Jean Lesage International Airport. It was nearly 11:00 a.m., and the sounds of commercial jetliners coming and going rumbled toward the cavernous building every two minutes or so.

Reed Bishop took comfort in the sound. Being in a strange airport was like going to church or McDonald’s in a foreign land: you always knew just what you were going to find. For an FBI agent, predictability of any kind was a godsend. Sights, ambient sounds, traffic patterns, personal habits. It was all part of the baseline. It helped you realize when something was off, either because it stood out or it caused a ripple effect.

So far, everything was normal. But then, there were a lot of moving parts in this operation. There was still enough time for something to go wrong.

Bishop spotted the black Mercedes as it pulled around a slow-moving catering truck and sped along the service road. He squinted his forty-three-year-old eyes to check the tag irregularity that he’d been told about before he took off. The macron, the accent over the E, ran the entire length of the letter, instead of partway. That meant the car was bona fide Canadian Security Intelligence Service. If there’d been a hijack, a substitution along the way, there was a sure way to tell. It was one less thing to worry about. The car flashed its brights. That was the second way to tell. A hijacker wouldn’t have known to do that.

The sun was hidden behind thickening gray clouds, making the sedan’s dark windows seem even more opaque, more forbidding. A chill crept along Bishop’s arms. The FBI agent spit his chewing gum to the tarmac and reached into his Windbreaker for his cigarettes, feeling a pinch of guilt. He’d promised his ten-year-old daughter he would quit by her eleventh birthday. That left him two weeks to make good on his pledge. But he’d barely managed to cut down from his usual two packs a day, and the nicotine gum only made him want it more. He’d have to SARR the habit-follow the Self-Administered Recovery Regimen, as they called outpatient work in Allison Dearborn’s deprogramming division.

He remembered when they called it “cold turkey.” It was difficult then, and it would be just as difficult however it was dressed.

Cold turkey or aversion training or hypnotherapy or whatever the hell, he would deal with it after this business was done, he promised himself. When the prisoner was airborne, he could relax a little. It had been two weeks since her capture. He’d practically lived in his small office on Pennsylvania Avenue since then. There had been arrangements to make; egos to deal with; rules to bend, rewrite, or ignore. And he still had his regular work to do, tracking the internal flow of information on top secret operations and counterespionage activities so that none of the intel went from the inside out.

He lit up, aware of others on the tarmac looking at him. Smokers had become like FBI agents, acutely aware of their surroundings and who was glaring at them. He ignored them. The SOBs were breathing jet fumes, for God’s sake. And they were Pakistani. Surely they were around smokers enough to not give a damn.

Bishop did not know the three men standing beside the jet, nor had he seen the faces hidden by their balaclavas. The Pakistanis had worn the masks since he arrived at the airfield an hour ago. Dressed in black suits, like corporate ninjas, they had gathered silently outside the hangar to await their prisoner’s arrival. Bishop was here as a representative of FBI internal affairs. He was present in case human rights watchdogs heard about what was going on. He was supposed to give the transfer a veneer of international legality.

It was all a public show, of course. He was partnered with Jessica Muloni of the CIA’s Rendition Group One-“the waterboarding people,” as they laughingly called themselves. She wasn’t here to make sure the prisoner’s rights were protected. And he wasn’t here to make sure she was held accountable. Though he was technically in charge of this operation-another of Homeland Security’s increasingly less uncommon joint, cross-jurisdictional operations-professionally and ethically he felt their captive deserved whatever Muloni and the Pakistanis had planned.

He took a deep pull of smoke, held it in his lungs for a glorious moment, then let it swirl from his nose into the morning breeze. He should have worn his leather flight jacket. It was chilly even for Canada, the sky low and overcast. The damp gusts carried the smell of pines and imminent rain from the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

They could have told me the weather before I left, he thought. He and Muloni had left Washington on a 7:00 a.m. flight. Before he headed to Dulles, the Canadians had given him details about the Mercedes, photos of the agents, satellite images of the terminal. Everything but the goddamn weather report.

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