Jack Coughlin - An Act of Treason

“So your second sniper choice is one of ours?”

“Me.” Hall looked at the director with a steady gaze. “I want to go in for this one.”

Geneen scoffed. “No, Jim. You run the op from here.”

“Bart, I will be retiring in three months. I want to go out at the top of my game, not sitting behind a desk half a world away from the action. I may be a step slower, but there is nothing wrong with my shooting skill, and I have the personal contacts over there. Besides, I helped train Kyle Swanson. We can work together almost without words. There would be no learning curve for a new partnership.”

Geneen mulled it over in silence. Hall wanted a last job that was a big task worthy of his skills and would carry the stamp of finality for a veteran agent. He deserved the chance. “Then go do it,” Geneen said, extending his hand across the table to shake with his prized operator. “Good luck, Jim. Remember. The president does not want any more collateral damage. Nor do I.”

“That will not be a problem. I’ll have a brief for you in a couple of days. It may get expensive.”

“For this one, money is no problem. If I have to blow a hole in the federal budget, so be it. I will give you the authorization.”

Hall walked away from the director’s office with his usual confident stride. Before reaching his own door, he stuck his head into the office of his deputy, Lauren Carson. “Find a Marine sniper named Kyle Swanson and get him assigned to us for temporary duty.”

She jotted the name on a pad. “All right. Where is he?”

Jim Hall was on the move again and called back over his shoulder, “Could be anywhere. Let me know when you get him.”

WAZIRISTAN

P AKISTAN SELDOM HELD Astable government for very long. Its politics held great rewards but even greater risks. Once again its people stood at the precipice of chaos. Muhammed Waleed believed it was his turn to seize power.

In the Arabian Sea port city of Karachi, street bonfires painted the sky in orange and yellow. Farther up the Indus River, the mayor of hilly Hyderabad was assassinated. Students were marching in Rawalpindi and Quetta. Public workers were striking in various cities throughout the Punjab. Order was slipping away, and the democratically elected government in Islamabad was unable to bring stability.

Muhammed Waleed had created a masterpiece of simmering chaos. He had spent years slowly weaning the competing elements of the Taliban away from their love of senseless violence in hopes of forming a permanent political movement. He decided to name his fledgling party the Bright Path, words that meant almost anything a follower wanted to believe, always viewing it as a better future. Fighting without obtaining political gain was both costly and pointless. Their extremist founders had come from the Afghans who defeated the Russians, but their days in power lasted only five years, from 1996 to 2001. During that time they accomplished little beyond having the rest of the world regard them as savages. Their downfall was inevitable, sped along by backing terror groups, mistreating their own citizens, and being unable to form a popular government.

Muhammed Waleed was determined not to make similar mistakes in Pakistan, and his support was growing almost by the day. The Muslim clerics were siding with him because of his pious religious beliefs. Al-Qaeda, far from being an ally, fell into line; Pakistan offered them benign shelter at a time when they would otherwise have no home. The warlords gave him support because he was one of them, and easily the smartest and most powerful. Young people were drawn to his magnetic speeches and sermons about how tomorrow would belong to them. The media was cultivated to present him as an exciting new face in pragmatic Islamic politics, and the Bright Path as the party of the future. Power brokers knew the dire results of openly opposing him, such as having one’s family slaughtered, and were taking a neutral position. The president of Pakistan had become almost a prisoner in his own office, and his government was weak.

The overall result was that Waleed’s Bright Path had seeped out of the traditional mountain redoubts of the tribal warlords and Taliban hideouts and was extending its control the way a rude and uninvited guest might take over a man’s home.

As much as he would like to believe that the Pakistani military was a tired machine with a skipping heart, Waleed knew that it was stronger and better equipped than ever. It was ready to defend the government, up to the unknown point at which one of the generals or colonels changed his mind and staged a coup of his own.

The vaunted secret police known as the ISI was waiting to see how it all turned out, for they would work with whoever held power.

Even for a man like Waleed, a warrior with a vision, it was difficult to imagine the power he might soon wield. A combined force of the Taliban, the Pakistani military, and the secret police, allied with al-Qaeda and other terrorism organizations, everyone fired with the zeal of Muslim fundamentalism, would present an incredible front. It would not be merely a new regional regime. A truly united Pakistan and its arsenal of Islamic bombs would be a nuclear superpower.

Waleed forced himself back to reality. It was not done yet, and many matters called for his personal attention, for the Taliban was still developing the chain of command and even a routine bureaucracy that would allow him to delegate authority. The American prisoners had fallen into his hands like apples from a tree, a gift from Allah, praise be unto his name. There must be a purpose, one that he just did not yet fully understand, although an idea was forming.

He was satisfied that he had gotten the best of the deal with Mustafa Kahn, the impudent warlord who had not immediately grasped Waleed’s wish that he surrender the prisoners without incident. So there was a bit of revenge to be had, a message to warlords less powerful than Waleed. He sighed with exasperation, for he was juggling a lot of balls and could not afford to drop a single one. He did not need this problem.

“T AKE ME TO THEM ,”Waleed said, walking from his living quarters. A pair of guards led him a quarter mile down a dusty street and into a dirt yard bordered by a mud fence. Six men were kneeling on the ground in a row, facing to the east, toward Mecca and Medina. A guard holding an AK-47 stood at each end of the row. Waleed walked down the line and patted each man’s head, giving them a fatherly touch and muttering words of comfort.

His voice was gentle and rhythmic. Waleed had long ago learned to speak just above a whisper so people had to strain to hear his words. “Which two of you slew the American soldier in Afghanistan?” he asked.

“I did, Leader,” said one in the middle, and the man kneeling next to him echoed the answer. “And I, Leader.”

“Please, stand,” Waleed said, and the guards helped the men to their feet. “Free them.” The blindfolds and wrist restraints were removed. “You did well and followed your instructions perfectly. Your obedience shines as an example to other fighters. Thank you.” He rested a hand on their shoulders, each in turn, then motioned for them to leave.

“Now, which of you is the brave Fariq, whose uncle is my friend, Mustafa Kahn of Gilgot?”

“I am Fariq, my Leader.” The man on the left end raised his head, proud that Waleed knew his family.

Muhammed Waleed tapped Fariq and a man on the other end. “Take those two and put them against the wall.” The guards jerked the men upright and forced them out of line, then shoved them to the wall until their faces were ground against hard rocks embedded in the tall fence. Waleed took the AK-47 from one of the guards and racked the bolt to be certain it was loaded. The safety was off; the firing selector was on automatic.