Tom Clancy - Locked On

Riaz Rehan was not worried about the major’s investigation into him. On the contrary, he saw it as incredibly good fortune that the man and his associate had come to Dubai.

Because while confronting the meddlesome major and his foreign ally in Pakistan could have been problematic for the low-profile ISI general, here in Dubai, Riaz Rehan could, quite literally, get away with murder.

Embling and al Darkur took a private car to their apartment at the incredible Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. They were in town to meet with members of The Campus, but for security reasons Gerry Hendley had forbade his operators from giving either Embling or his suspicious ISI informant any information about where they were staying while in Dubai, so al Darkur himself had made arrangements for accommodations. The massive needle-like skyscraper with 163 inhabitable floors (and a forty-three-story spire topping that) was a quick and easy place for them to find quarters. Embling and al Darkur shared a two-bedroom flat on the 108th floor.

Mohammed did not trust most of the ISI any more than did Gerry Hendley. He had used a personal credit card and handled details of the trip on a computer at an Internet café in Peshawar, lest his own organization get wind of his travel plans.

Once settled in at their flat, Embling called a number Hendley had given him. It connected him to the satellite phone of one of the two Campus operators he had met the year before in Peshawar, the forty-something-year-old Mexican-American who went by the name Domingo.

They made arrangements to meet at Embling’s place at the Burj Khalifa as soon as possible.

At the same moment Rehan and company’s Pakistan International Airlines flight from Islamabad landed at Dubai International Airport, Jack Ryan, Dom Caruso, and Domingo Chavez stood in an elevator in the Burj Khalifa. The elevators at the world’s tallest building are, not coincidentally, the world’s fastest, and they jetted the three Americans higher into the gargantuan tower at over forty-five miles an hour. They were let into the apartment and found themselves in a large open room with a sunken sitting area in front of floor-to-ceiling views of the Persian Gulf from an altitude nearly that of the top of the Empire State Building.

Nigel Embling stood in tÀthehe modern living room full of dark wood and metal and glass, in front of the incredible panoramic view. He was a big Englishman with thin snow-white hair and a bushy beard. He wore a slightly rumpled blazer over an open-neck button-down shirt and brown slacks.

“My dear friend Domingo,” said Embling with an air of sympathy. “Before we get into the other disaster that has befallen your organization, I must tell you how sorry I am to hear about this affair involving John Clark.”

Chavez shrugged. “Me, too. It will get straightened out.”

“I’m certain of it.”

“Just don’t believe everything you hear,” Ding added.

Embling waved his hand. “I haven’t heard one bloody thing that doesn’t sound like just another day at the office for a man in Mr. Clark’s profession. I may be old and soft, but I haven’t forgotten the way of the world.”

Chavez just nodded and said, “May I present my associates? Jack and Dominic.”

“Mr. Embling,” Jack said as he shook the older man’s hand.

Of course the Englishman recognized the son of the former and presumed future President of the United States, but he gave off no hint of his making the connection.

He then walked the three Americans over to the only other inhabitant of the apartment, a physically fit cinnamon-skinned Pakistani in shirtsleeves and black jeans.

They were surprised to learn this was the ISI major. “Mohammed al Darkur, at your service.” The attractive man held out a hand to Chavez, but Chavez did not extend his own.

All three of the Campus operators held this man personally responsible for the loss of their friend. While Hendley had been careful not to tip his hat to Embling that he had his suspicions, Domingo Chavez was not about to play nice to the son of a bitch who likely got his colleague killed in the wilds of Pakistan’s lawless tribal region.

“Tell me, Major al Darkur, why I shouldn’t bash your head against the wall?”

Al Darkur was taken aback, but Embling interjected, “Domingo, please understand. You have little reason to trust him, but I hope you have somewhat more reason to trust me. I have made it my mission in the past months to check the major out, and he is one of the good guys, I assure you.”

Dom Caruso addressed the older Englishman: “Well, I don’t know you, and I definitely don’t know this asshole, but I know what the ISI has been doing for the past thirty years, so I’m not going to trust this bastard until we get our man back.”

Ryan did not get a chance to echo the sentiment before the Pakistani replied, “I completely understand your point of view, gentlemen. I have come today to ask you to give me just a few days to work with my contacts in the region. If Mr. Sam is being held by the Haqqani network, I will pull every string I can to either get him released or else get an operation launched to rescue him.”

“You were with him when he was taken?” asked Chavez.

“I was, indeed. He fought very bravely.”

“I heard it was a hell of a fight.”

“Many killed on both sides,” al Darkur admitted.

“Can’t help but notice that you look none the worse for wear.”

“IÀ

“Where are you hit? Bullet wounds? Shrapnel?”

Mohammed al Darkur reddened as his eyes lowered. “It was a chaotic situation. I was not injured seriously, but men on my left and right died.”

Chavez snorted. “Listen, Major. I don’t trust you, my organization doesn’t trust you, but we do trust Mr. Embling. We think it’s possible that you have managed to charm him somehow, but don’t think your trip here is going to charm us. We will respond favorably to results, not promises. If you and your colleagues can find our man, we want that information immediately.”

“And you shall have it, I promise. I have people working on that, just as I have men looking into the Haqqani — ISI connection.”

“Again. Results are what impress me.”

“Understood. I do have one question, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I understand you are in Dubai to monitor General Rehan. Is the rest of your team monitoring him now?”

There was no “rest of” Chavez’s team, but he did not say this. Instead he replied, “Trust me, when he comes to Dubai, we will be on him.”

Now Mohammed al Darkur’s eyebrows rose. “My information is that he arrived in Dubai this morning. I assumed I would help you translate any conversations he has at his safe house.”

Chavez looked to Caruso and Ryan. Their passive monitoring devices were dormant in the air ducts of the Rehan compound. If their target was here in Dubai, then they needed to return to the Kempinski and begin the surveillance.

Ding nodded slowly. “We have translators. My team will know it as soon as Rehan gets to his place.”

Al Darkur seemed satisfied by this, and soon Chavez left the apartment with Caruso and Ryan.

In front of the elevators, Jack said, “If Rehan is here, we could already have missed something important.”

Chavez said, “Yeah. You guys hustle back to the bungalow and get on it. I need to head over to the airport and meet the plane to pick up the equipment, but first I’m going to get Embling away from the major and debrief him thoroughly. I’ll see you guys back at the place in a few hours.”

Chavez spent three hours in discussions in the 108th-floor flat. The first hour was exclusively in a room with Nigel Embling. The British expat spent the vast majority of that time going over everything he had learned about Mohammed al Darkur in the past month and a half. Embling’s other contacts within the PDF had convinced him that neither the 7th Battalion of the Special Services Group, called the Zarrar commandos, with whom al Darkur was aligned, nor the Joint Intelligence Bureau, to which al Darkur had been assigned in the ISI, was overrun or heavily influenced by Islamist radicals, as were many sectors of the PDF. Further, al Darkur’s own actions leading an SSG unit against terrorist groups in the Swat Valley and Chitral had won him commendations that would have made him a target of the “beards” in the PDF.