The Prisoner's Wife (3 page)

*   *   *

Outside the gate, the mustachioed chauffeur had turned the Lexus around. He stood by the car, bending his head, speaking to the veiled woman within.

“Your enemies, and your dead. Keep them close,” Abbasi said to Shawn. “I believe in that.” He stood by the slate-roofed summerhouse, scanning the walled garden. “So peaceful.” He considered his host. “Your face. You lost a fight?”

“That was last week,” Shawn said. “Skinny drunk kid. Thought I could teach him a lesson. I was wrong.”

Abbasi said, “We all get old. You attacked one of your colleagues, did you not?” Shawn nodded. “Suspended from active service, I hear. No longer an American spy.”

“They call it extended leave. I behave, take anger management class, they let me back.”

Abbasi covered his mouth, disguising what might have been amusement. “You think?” His attention elsewhere, he asked how Mr. Maguire spent his time.

“You'll laugh,” Shawn said. “It amuses people. What I ask myself these days—what I try getting my head around—is, what the hell was I doing out there? Last twenty-some years.”

“What you were doing as a spy?”

Shawn nodded. “I mean, I know what I actually did, minute by minute, most days. Unless I was drunk. What I don't know is
why.
Why they told me to do whatever I did. Why I did it.”

“Protecting America from its enemies, were you not? So Mr. McCord would say.”

“Yeah,” said Shawn, “right. It's what I tell myself. It's what I try believing.”

He opened a bottle and poured two glasses of sparkling water. Abbasi, an observant Muslim, did not touch alcohol.

“My turn for a question, Mr. Abbasi. You employ people. A lot of people. Import-export, it's what I hear.”

“In the past tense. I did employ. Like its owner, business is not what it was.”

“I seem to remember offices, AfPak, Morocco, Kandahar, Miami. Am I right?”

“Sadly, Afghanistan, no longer. Nor Florida. But still, we are in Islamabad. Tenuously, in Fes. Also Peshawar, on the AfPak border. As you call it.”

“So why? Why would you need me?”

“I have a problem,” Abbasi said, looking around him. “A problem with your people. CIA, Office of Special Plans, CIFA—one or all. I never know. A problem with my people, too. My Pakistani, would you say, compatriots?” He pointed to a table and chairs midway across the lawn. “Might we sit over there?”

Shawn stood, moving out of the summerhouse. A cloud of white doves spread high through still air, planing and gliding in leaderless synchrony.

“I don't believe this. You're worried about bugs? Here? An English village? Do you want to pat me down?”

“If you would not mind. To be sure you do not wear a wire.” Ayub Abbasi ran his hands over Shawn's body. “You are very fit.”

“For your age,” Shawn said. “That's usually how the sentence ends these days. I'm fifty-one. I lose fights.”

“I know your age,” Abbasi said. “I read the file. You are fifty-three. You still attract women.”

“That,” Shawn said, “I'm seriously trying to give up.” He unpacked a new box of shells.

Abbasi eyed the rifle and the pear tree. “I know that you trained as a sniper. I had not realized you were such a shot.”

Without looking down, Shawn reloaded the M-24. “I used to be good. Trying to get back there.”

“For your own amusement? Or some other reason?” Abbasi seated himself at a wrought-iron table set on a mower-striped lawn. “You may know I also worked for your agency. Your former agency.”

“CIA?”

“Indeed. I was, as you say, on the payroll. Liaison between America and Pakistan.”

“Not Pakistan as such,” Shawn said. “Liaison with Inter-Services Intelligence, is my guess. ISI was always the target. Always the problem.”

“For our purposes,” Abbasi said, “and your purposes, ISI is Pakistan. You know, we all know, they are not just a spy service. Invisible Soldiers Incorporated, we call them. They take the dollars your Congress sends. They run my country, and much of Afghanistan, of course. Taliban is their creation. As is the drug trade.” Abbasi smoothed his lightly oiled hair. “Sadly, now, those invisible soldiers wish to kill me.”

“What can I tell you?” Shawn said. “I'm not a bodyguard.” He glanced toward his sheep field. “These days, I'm a shepherd.”

Abbasi made a dismissive gesture. “If I were hiring a bodyguard, I would not be here. You have heard of Nashida Noon?”

Shawn searched his now-fallible memory.

“I know the name. Prime minister of Pakistan, right?”

“She was, three years ago. Next month, she will be again, if our president fails to rig the election. He has a problem, poor man. A dilemma. When she takes power, Nashida will dismiss the invisible soldiers. Dismantle ISI.”

“She'll try.”

“She will try. If she succeeds, our president loses the people who keep him in power.”

Shawn watched Martha's Persian cat, Miss Mop, climb a tree, tailing a squirrel. “You're telling me this because?”

“Because I had some papers, some items—e-mails between ISI and your CIA—which would help Nashida do what she plans.” Abbasi looked around the deserted garden. “You have heard of Darius Osmani?”

Losing its hold on a branch, the cat fell into long grass. Shawn stood, to see if it was hurt.

“Quick change of subject there,” he said. “Osmani.” He thought for a moment. “Again, I know the name. I believe we had a file on him; not much in it. Memory's not so good, these days. Would you like lunch?”

Abbasi shook his head. “In five minutes, five or ten, I should leave. Osmani is, he claims, a research scientist. An archaeologist; a paleobotanist. Somehow, for some reason, he was among a group of Taliban fighters who overran the U.S. base outside Kandahar. These people also invaded my office. They took documents. None of them could read those papers.”

“Except Osmani?”

“Except Osmani. Iranian. Graduate of the
grandes écoles.
Now, I very much need to know what Osmani knows. I need those documents. They are my insurance against being tried in my country. Or yours.”

Shawn spent a few moments thinking this through. Unhurt, the cat skittered crabwise across the lawn.

“Mr. Abbasi, be serious. No one's about to put you on trial. Not in America. Even in Gitmo. We still have court records. Documents, no documents, either way, you'd be an embarrassing guy if you started talking.”

From the arm of Shawn's chair hung a twist of paper on a string. On its hind legs, the cat reached up, paws batting the paper Shawn swung above it. Left, right, left, right came little cat blows. Back in his boxing days, Shawn would have given a lot to hit that fast.

“Remember Noriega? Dictator of Panama? When I was young,” Abbasi said, “in those far-off days, I worked for Manuel. He was a son of a bitch but, as you people say, he was your son of a bitch. As we know, he, too, was on your payroll. George H. W. Bush, director of the CIA, put him there. The Agency knew Noriega was in the drug business, of course they knew—they protected the trade—but still, Manuel was useful. Arms go one way, drugs the other. So, as I say, all is okay. Until Congress outlaws the contras. Until George H. W. Bush becomes president. Until the canal must be returned to Panama. Suddenly, Noriega is no longer useful. What happens? America invades Panama. Thousands killed. Manuel is captured and tried. What comes out in court? Nothing. Do we hear of CIA drug-running? Not a word. CIA supporting Noriega? Paying Noriega? Of course not. Simply, he is a bad guy. Lock him up, throw away the key.”

Shawn scooped up the little cat and cradled it on his lap. “He was a bad guy.”

“Indeed he was. And President Bush, your forty-first president, the accomplice? The man who paid Manuel? Kept him in power?”

On Shawn's knee, the cat stretched upward, claws out, clutching at azure-winged dragonflies. “Okay,” he said. “Point taken. You don't want to go to trial. Or jail. You want me to find this Osmani guy. You want your papers back. Why would you think I can do that?”

“Because,” Abbasi said, “you have friends. In the world there are two databases containing a great deal of useful knowledge about these things. One belongs to Mossad, the other to your friends in American intelligence.”

“Main Core?”

“Indeed. Main Core. I have no contacts in Mossad. They would not help me if I had. However, I know you, and you know people—”

“—who can access Main Core?” Shawn paused. “I do. One or two.”

“Something else I know,” Abbasi said. “You need money. A lot of money.”

“Last time I looked,” Shawn said, “it was illegal for U.S. agents to work for a foreign power. I take your cash, I'm out of intel for good.”

Abbasi smiled. “Some would say you are already. There are many paths in life. Roads less traveled. Of course, there is also the question—do you have other ways of paying the rent?”

Shawn shook his head. He glanced back at the bundles of bills in the summerhouse. “Serious money. How do you know I won't take it and run?”

“You have many faults,” Abbasi said. “I have never heard dishonesty was one of them.” He made a comprehensive gesture, taking in house and garden. “Also, as they say in movies, we know where you live.” His tone changed. “There is something else. When he was not riding shotgun with the Taliban, Osmani claims he was conducting an archaeological dig in Afghanistan. Excavating cellars in Ghorid ruins, somewhere on the Turquoise Mountain. Near Chist, I think. Now, whether he was doing that or not, he claims he found something of interest.”

“Claims how?”

“He called me from Paris. Before your colleagues picked him up. Some time ago.” From his diary Abbasi took a handwritten note. “Osmani wanted money for information. A great deal of money. There you have the phone number. The address, in the
quatrième.
” Abbasi paused. “I had a second call, from the same number. This time, it was his wife.”

Shawn paid attention.

“Is that surprising?” Abbasi asked, noting the reaction. “The man has a wife?”

“It's a lead,” Shawn said. “It's interesting. So tell me. What's Osmani claim he found? What does he believe you'll pay for?”

“A small nuclear device, a semiportable device, built under the direction of Dr. Qadir Khan. You do know of Dr. Khan?”

Shawn said, “I worked on his proliferation file. He's a problem for us.”

“While for us, for Pakistan, a national hero.”

“Well,” Shawn said, “you got my attention. If I do take your money, where do I start?”

 

4

WEST SUSSEX, 1:15
P.M.
, 18 MAY 2004

In early-afternoon heat, an olive-skinned man stood sweating in an ancient English beech wood, overlooking the rectory of Felbourne village. He was dressed in what he hoped would pass for pheasant-shooting garb: green multipocketed Barbour jacket, tweed cap, trousers tucked into thick woolen socks, and soft-leather ankle boots. He carried a borrowed shotgun and, for quite other reasons, a nine-mil Beretta in a shoulder holster.

Uncomfortable in these clothes, and this place, the watcher wiped perspiration from his eyes. He had never shot a pheasant; had never, to his knowledge, seen a pheasant. Resting the shotgun against the trunk of a beech, he raised binoculars, focusing on Ayub Abbasi, who sat at ease on a lawn where woodland ended and the rectory grounds began. Abbasi was on more than one American watch list, which raised, in the watcher's mind, several questions. Among them, the puzzle of what the Pakistani might be doing here, talking with the blacklisted CIA agent Shawn Maguire.

*   *   *

The couple on the lawn were too far away for the watcher to hear their conversation. He knew, though, that Abbasi would, at some point, be kidnapped and questioned. In the watcher's experience most of the Agency's guests—even those initially reluctant to talk—eventually answered whatever questions their interrogators asked.

The watcher's reflection was interrupted at that moment by shouted greetings. Lowering his binoculars he saw, coming through the trees, a heavyset man dressed in shooting clothes similar to his own, though more worn.

To his dog the hunter said, “Sit, boy. Sit. Stay.” Then, to the watcher, “Any luck, young man? Got a bird?”

The watcher, reluctant to speak, shook his head.

“Nothing down there,” said the hunter, nodding toward the margin of the wood. “American chappie's place.” He pointed in the opposite direction, to where woodland opened onto acres of crops. “Watch this. Take a bet—dogs'll put one up.”

The hunter spoke incomprehensible words to the dog. Head down, nose to ground, it dashed for the nearest field. Moments later, in a whirr of wings, two dun-colored birds rose in arcing flight.

“What'd I say?” called the hunter. “Go!”

The hunter and the watcher fired at the same time, the watcher's shot passing dangerously close to the hunter. Lowering his gun, the man turned to stare at the watcher.

“My God,” he said. “My God—could've killed me.” He pointed to the watcher's double-barreled gun. “Tell me something, son. You ever used that thing?”

 

5

SUSSEX, EARLY AFTERNOON, 18 MAY 2004

Two shots came in rapid succession, and a high, clattering bird call.

Abbasi stood, tipping his chair. Then he knelt, bending low on the lawn, as if in prayer.

Shawn extended a hand to help him up. “Shotgun,” he said. “My neighbor Justin, shooting birds.”

Abbasi dusted his clothes and righted his chair. “You are sure?”

“I don't have many areas of expertise,” Shawn said. “Weaponry's one of them.”

Abbasi sat back in his chair, breathing slowly. “I forget,” he said, when he could speak, “about the English. The things they shoot.” After a time he raised his head, scenting the air. “Jasmine. You know, do you, the men you call Moors built palaces to match their gardens—not the other way around?” He shed his jacket, showing the gold links fastening his shirtsleeves. “Returning to business, Mr. Maguire, you know that Dr. Khan, in my country, created nuclear weapons for other Islamists? Including, perhaps, al Qaeda.”