Christopher Reich - Rules of Betrayal

“Knowing Balfour, he’ll have the best.”

“In that case, the surgery itself will only take a half-day. But he’ll need to rest for a few days afterward. There’s no way he can get on a plane for at least a week.”

A klaxon sounded on the ship’s internal speaker system. A man announced that chow was being served in the enlisted mess and that the movie for that night was Batman Returns. Jonathan spent a moment running over all that Connor had told him. “You said Balfour’s in the market for a surgeon. Has he chosen someone?”

Connor said yes.

An uneasy feeling took hold of Jonathan. “What’s going to happen to him?”

“He’ll be taken out of the picture,” said Connor matter-of-factly.

“Taken out of the picture?”

Connor nodded. “Obviously, we need to get him out of the way.”

“You guys just don’t get it. I can’t trade Emma’s life for his.”

Connor stared with obvious disappointment across the table. “Is that how you see us? A bunch of amoral killers willing to do anything to accomplish our objectives? You, of all people, should know how seriously we value human life.”

Jonathan didn’t miss the unspoken message. He, a civilian, had been privy to several of Division’s operations. He knew far more than any civilian should. If Division made it a policy to eliminate any and all individuals they considered a risk, he would’ve been dead a long time ago. “Yeah, maybe,” he admitted. “It’s just that I’m not too good at figuring out who has to live and who has to die.”

“You leave that part to me. Right now, you just need to do as I tell you. You good with that?”

Jonathan said that he was, but already a voice was sounding inside him, saying that Connor was holding something back. “So what happens now? How much time do we have?”

Connor checked his watch. “Jesus, where did the time get to? You’d better haul your butt upstairs to the flight deck. Your carriage is waiting.”

“Now?”

“This minute.” Frank Connor guided him out of the wardroom and down several flights of stairs, stopping at the pilots’ ready room. He barked a few orders, and an officer emerged with a flight suit and a helmet.

“Put ’em on,” said Connor. “Now.”

“Where am I going?” asked Jonathan.

“To see some friends of mine. You’ve got a lot to learn before I can send you into Balfour’s den.”

Jonathan looked at the flight suit and helmet. “Hold it a second,” he said, keeping his hands at his sides. “What about Emma? You told me she might be in danger. Isn’t this about her?”

“It certainly is. The best way you can help your wife is to finish what she started,” said Connor. “Lord Balfour was one of the last people to see Emma before Rashid tortured her. If anyone knows what happened to her, it’ll be him.”

Frank Connor stood on the flight deck, watching from the safety line as Jonathan climbed into the rear seat of the F-18/A. An airman leaned into the cockpit and tightened Jonathan’s harness and acquainted him with the plane’s features. At one point the airman pointed to something at Jonathan’s feet and then crossed his hands over each other dramatically while shaking his head, and Connor knew that Jonathan had just been advised not to pull the ejection handle except in an absolute emergency.

The airman closed the canopy and leaped down from the ladder. Farther up the deck, a flight controller waved a green flag. The pilot gave a salute. The sound of the aircraft powering up was like an industrial turbine red-lining. Connor saw Jonathan glance his way. Feeling that something was expected of him, he forced an arm up and gave a thumbs-up. It was an awkward gesture. He’d never been good at the rah-rah stuff. It wasn’t that he didn’t have much practice at it. Rather, it was that he felt it disingenuous in a business that made its home in the gray regions of the human condition, where success was measured by acts of greater or lesser evil and death was ever-present. Still, he was the director now, and it was his duty to offer encouragement. He smiled, and Jonathan nodded.

The flight controller dropped his flag. The lights on the meatball went from red to green. The F-18 shuddered, then burst from its chocks and thundered down the flight deck, shooting like an arrow into the sky. The engine glowed orange, then red. Connor watched the fighter bank hard right and assume its direction to the north. An amateur, he thought darkly. He had sent a rank amateur without a day’s training to do a professional’s work. He thought of Balfour and the men that protected him, hardened criminals all. One in particular stood out, a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Sikh named Mr. Singh who did Balfour’s dirty work. Ransom was entering a nest of vipers, and he didn’t even know it. Connor stood rooted to the spot until the plane was nothing but a gray speck. Finally it disappeared altogether, swallowed by the sky.

Connor turned and began to walk back to the Island. He had his own flight home to arrange, and he was in no condition to sit like a goddamned daredevil in the back of one of those jets. A helicopter to the nearest major airport would be fine. He walked to the hatch and stopped a step shy, a force beyond him compelling him to take a last look into the sky.

“Godspeed,” he whispered.

Midday traffic in Islamabad was no more horrendous than usual. Cars, vans, light trucks, and juggernauts, motorcycles, bicycles, tuk-tuks, and auto rickshaws clogged the broad, well-manicured boulevards of the government district, everyone vying with everyone else for the right to advance another ten meters. Horns blaring, the convoy of white Range Rovers peeled away from the curb in front of the Colonial Building and fought its way onto Kitchener Road.

“Where’s our escort?” asked Lord Balfour, checking over his shoulder for a sign of the ISI agents who had been their constant companions for the past two months.

“They haven’t been on us all day.” The driver caught Balfour’s eye in the rearview mirror and grinned. “We’re safe now, boss. No one’s coming after us.”

Balfour said nothing. The truth was the opposite. He was as safe as a wounded fish in a shark tank.

“What did the solicitor say?” asked the driver, a young man he’d brought in from the streets and trained himself. “All good, I’m sure?”

“Everything’s fine,” said Balfour, forcing a pleasant tone. “Just get us home, will you? There’s a good chap.”

“Yes, sir.” The driver smiled broadly and leaned on the horn to show he meant business.

Balfour sat back, the polite smile vanishing as he replayed the meeting from start to finish.

“The Indian police have furnished the Pakistani police with proof of your involvement in the raid,” the solicitor had begun nervously, as soon as Balfour sat down. “The serial numbers from two of the machine guns used by the terrorists in Mumbai match those on a shipping manifest that passed through your warehouses a month before the attack.”

“How the hell do they know that?”

“They possess a copy of the shipping manifest.”

“Impossible,” said Balfour, restraining himself from saying that he alone had a copy of the manifest. “But those guns could have gone anywhere in between. A month is a long time.”

“Not likely,” said the solicitor. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Balfour didn’t bother protesting. His dislike of his native government was well known. It had been a private pleasure to arm the band of fighters and point them in the direction of his homeland. The surprise came in learning how successful their attack had been. One hundred eighty killed, dozens more wounded. Mumbai, or Bombay, as he and anyone who had ever lived there still called it, held hostage for three days. A metropolis of millions paralyzed by the actions of twenty brave men. A pleasure indeed.