Third World War (30 page)

Using radar waves thrown out by the telephone signal, they could distinguish the shape of the person making the call and match it to shapes in the NSA database. It did not guarantee identification, but it was used with other evidence to try to confirm that the right target was being tracked. But as of yet, not even the NSA could determine what was being said.

As Campbell, John Burrows and twelve Ghurka special forces soldiers moved over the rugged terrain towards their target, analysts at the NSA picked out the call they were looking for. It was made from just outside the Chaklala cantonment area of Rawalpindi. The signal moved at vehicle speed along the main highway between Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Just before Constitution Avenue it stopped. Thirty seconds later, the caller dialled another number, this time to Karachi. The call lasted just over a minute, long enough for one of the cameras on the Global Hawk to pick out the moving vehicle in the traffic. Once locked on, it followed it to its destination.

Another of the Global Hawk's infrared lenses sent back images as fine as 0.25 metres in resolution. They outlined the contours of Tassudaq Qureshi's house outside Islamabad and the vehicles parked in the compound. Thermal imaging picked out the special forces commandos deployed to secure the property. Ground-penetrating radar showed the layout of the rooms inside and the image of Tasneem Qureshi in an armchair, with the television on, waiting for her husband to return home.

'Campbell's moving,' muttered West to Kozerski as, in a blur, one of the Pakistani guards disappeared from the screen. His principal advisers were in their own offices. Each was holding a meeting on an issue unconnected to the crisis in India. West had ordered them all to have viable alibis in case the political fireworks began.

On the ground, Campbell held back, while Burrows led his Ghurkas to take out the six guards on duty outside Qureshi's house. Burrows had decided the method - a knife across the throat, a hand over the mouth, two men simultaneously, and knife through the radio connection. A sniper was ready with a silenced rifle should anything go wrong.

The job was over within a minute. The bodies were pulled into the undergrowth, the Ghurkas, in replica guards uniforms, took positions throughout the grounds. Burrows, also in uniform, his face and hands blackened, a dark beret on his head, waited in the shadows, as Qureshi's Mercedes turned through the gate, crunched on to the gravel and pulled up to a halt. The driver got out, walked around the side of the car and opened the back door. Qureshi stepped out with a briefcase in his left hand and threw a cigarette on to the gravel. A light cast from inside the house dimmed as Tasneem passed across it to greet her husband at the door. Qureshi breathed the fresh hillside air deeply. The driver reversed the Mercedes to a covered but unlit part of the forecourt. Behind it was a small room which was his quarters.

As the driver stepped out of the car, a pistol muzzle was put to his head, a hand clamped over his mouth and a hypodermic needle pressed into his arm. He slumped and was gently lowered to the concrete floor.

Qureshi turned to look across at the lights of Islamabad and came face to face with Lazaro Campbell, dressed in a dark linen suit and open-neck shirt, his weapon concealed.

'We don't want to have to kill your wife,' Campbell said softly, pointing to the tiny spot revealing a sniper's infra-red sights which danced across the wall of the house towards the door that Tasneem Qureshi was about to open. 'As soon as you see her, tell her that you will be with her in a minute.'

Campbell melted back, and heard the US President's voice in his earpiece. 'So far so good, Lazaro?'

'Yes, sir,' he whispered, knowing that on a clear, cloudless night like this the movement of all the figures would be picked up by the Global Hawk - even the appearance of Tasneem Qureshi at the door.

'I'm getting some air, darling,' said Qureshi. 'I'll be inside in a moment.'

'Farrah called,' said Tasneem. 'She wants to speak to you.'

For a moment, she lingered. Campbell was worried she would step out, mobile phone in hand, insisting that father speak to daughter. Burrows was under orders not to kill her. But if she did come outside, she would have to be dealt with.

Qureshi twisted round in the gravel, his feet loud on the tiny stones. 'Please, Tasneem. I need to be alone to think. Go inside.' She obeyed, quietly closing the door without another word. Qureshi looked to his left and right, confused at the stillness around him, a realization dawning on him that his guards were nowhere to be seen. He walked out of the area of light towards the darkness of the undergrowth. The sniper's spot left the house and picked out Qureshi's chest, flitting from the area of the heart to the forehead and back, making the target well aware how close he could be to death.

'Well done,' said Campbell, emerging again so Qureshi could see him.

'What do you want?' asked Qureshi brusquely. 'And who are you?'

'Before I answer that, have you alerted any other party that we are here?'

Qureshi shook his head and waved a hand towards the bushes. 'If I had, it seems I would have written my own death warrant. Now, tell me who you are.'

'I am representing the President of the United States,' said Campbell. 'He is listening to this conversation. He is watching images of us right now as we speak. You are the military ruler of Pakistan, yet you have not yet announced it.' Campbell pulled a tiny aerial out of an earpiece and handed it to Qureshi. 'Put this on. President West wants to talk to you.'

Qureshi fumbled with the unfamiliar equipment. When it was wrapped around his ear, Campbell turned it on by remote sensor. 'Mr President, Air Vice-Marshal Qureshi is now available to speak with you.' For a moment, Qureshi's mask dropped. He hesitated before he spoke, his eyes uncertain and looking towards Campbell for more confirmation.

Then he heard the voice. 'Qureshi. This is President West here. Do you know a man called Colonel Joharie Rahman?'

Immediately, Qureshi returned to his public face. 'Mr President. What a privilege to speak to you - albeit in such strange circumstances.' He looked down at the red dot hovering over his chest.

'Answer my question, Qureshi.'

'I can't recall,' said Qureshi.

Campbell took a step back. His orders were starkly simple. If Qureshi messed around, kill him. Both Campbell and Burrows were listening across the conversation. The President would speak three words in code - enough is enough - and that would be the sniper's signal to shoot.

'Rahman knows you,' said West. 'He knows the furniture in your house. The pictures on the walls. He knows you have a World Trade Center sculpture in your living room. Because he's been in your house, Qureshi. So don't fuck with me, because he's been singing like a canary about you and everything you plan to carry out.' West let it hang there. Campbell kept his eyes on Qureshi. He had been a pilot, for God's sake. He knew about risk. Qureshi had tested both the American F-16 and the French Mirage 111 for toss-bomb attacking with a one-kiloton tactical nuclear weapon - before anyone else had tried it out. Qureshi devised how to keep the aircraft in a steep dive after releasing the bomb, so as to put as much space as possible between the pilot and the bomb. Once clear, the pilot would pull the aircraft up and avoid the impact of the nuclear explosion. Only a man with rock steady-nerves could carry out such a test.

Qureshi kept his poise, but completely changed his approach. 'Yes, Mr President. I know Colonel Rahman. We planned the coup in Brunei together. You probably know that I also ordered the assassination of President Asif Latif Khan. Khan was salting money away into bank accounts in Dubai and Luxembourg. Would you like me to give you the account numbers? Or does the CIA already have them, but has chosen to ignore them, just as long as you have your puppet in place, stealing from the country in the name of democracy?'

'Were you responsible for the attack on the Indian Parliament?' pressed West.

'I haven't finished, Mr President,' said Qureshi, letting sarcasm drip off his pronounciation of the title of the world's most powerful leader. 'You lead a nation paralysed with fear which pushes weaker nations like mine towards an abyss. So this is what I say to you. If you let me take power unhindered, I will rein in these terror groups. I will bring peace between India and Pakistan. But it will be done from a position of strength and not from fear of being an enemy of the United States.'

'Were you responsible for the attack on the Indian Parliament?' repeated West.

'I was not,' answered Qureshi, maintaining his confidence. 'The group responsible for that was nurtured under the rule of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Musharraf. Both were staunch allies of your country. If you want it stopped, listen to what I have to say.'

Briefly the sniper's dot left Qureshi's chest, flitted to the gravel and returned, signalling Campbell to switch channels to the Central Command in Florida. 'Army truck approaching three miles away, heading in your direction.'

Campbell flicked the channel back to the White House. He looked slightly to his left and picked out the moving shadow of Burrows.

'To be frank, I'm a little short on rhetoric today,' said West, 'and I'm not in a mood to make deals with dictators. I need you to mothball your nuclear weapons facilities. All terrorists must be pulled in. A complete dragnet against them. You do that, and I'll do my damnedest to help you. You have my word on that. If you don't, I can't guarantee the future of your nation. Mehta will destroy you. That's your choice, Qureshi. That's why I've chosen to speak to you like this. Either Pakistan gets taken over by India, or you mothball your nuclear arsenal.'

Campbell switched over to Central Command, so he could listen to the data sent down from the Global Hawk, together with Qureshi's reply.

'. . . identified as one armoured personnel carrier and one troop carrier truck - maybe a company of men.'

Qureshi looked down and shuffled his feet on the gravel. In the dim light thrown off from the house, Campbell identified something uneasy in his face. He switched channels.

'There are troops on the way to your house. Did you order them in?' said West.

Qureshi looked up. His face had settled now. There was a curious stillness in it which suddenly transformed him into a threat. 'Yes, Mr President. I did.'

'. . . two miles, and slowing. Curves in the road. They should be with you in three to five minutes. I suggest you get the hell out of there.'

Campbell's eyes didn't leave Qureshi's. He was trying to read the man's face. First he detected smugness; then indecision. Qureshi met Campbell's stare and shrugged: he couldn't stop them if he wanted to.

'Why don't you put your policy to the United Nations, Mr President? Get a resolution passed against us,' said Qureshi with a sigh. 'I cannot and will not make a decision on the future of Pakistan in the cross-hairs of a sniper's rifle.' He brushed his hand across the red spot in disdain.

The silence around the house was broken by the throb of a helicopter engine. It swooped in and turned sharply on itself. The green glow of the pilot's night-vision goggles was relayed back to Florida, where commanders saw what he saw - a clear patch on which to bring the aircraft down.

Campbell was on dual channel now. 'Evacuate,' came the order, cutting through the President's conversation. Burrows broke cover, running fast and clear across the courtyard to the helicopter. From the undergrowth, down from the roof and out from behind the carport shelter came the Ghurkas.

Dust blown up by the rotor blades flew into their faces. A hand moved back a curtain in Qureshi's house. Campbell alerted a sniper. Tasneem would be looking at the Ghurkas, but in the dark, and with their Asian complexions and their familiar uniforms, she would not know who they were unless her husband told her. They ran across the compound to where the helicopter skids were just brushing the flat, dry landing spot. Burrows was first there, holding on to the metal, as if he was keeping the aircraft down. He counted all twelve Ghurkas in and gave a thumbs-up to the pilot. As it lifted off, just a few feet off the ground, before heading into the gloom, Burrows ran back to the house and kicked open the door. Tasneem Qureshi managed a spurt of a scream before he silenced her.

'Take them out,' said Campbell into his mouthpiece.

Far above, unseen by anyone on the ground, the Global Hawk made a graceful curve. From underneath its sail-like wings two air-to-surface missiles sped off towards the ground, leaving a silver trail through the sky. Seconds before they reached their target, they separated to hit the armoured personnel carrier and the truck with armour-piercing high explosives. A ball of fire shot up through the night, lighting up the sparseness of the area around it. Burning debris set light to scrubland and sent cattle scampering away.

Qureshi turned first to the door hanging open in his house and the sight of his wife, held by Burrows with one hand over her mouth. Then he spun back as the roar of the two explosions rippled across to him. He lowered his eyes, checking and confirming that the red dot had gone. He put his hand against the earpiece, glaring incomprehensibly at Campbell. 'You poor fool,' he muttered. 'You don't understand.'