The Pakistan Conspiracy, A Novel Of Espionage Read Online Free Page B

several officers’ messes he could have picked in Islamabad. He sought absolute privacy. Mahmood wanted to be briefed unofficially on the blowback from CIA’s Bin Laden operation earlier in the week, all the unvarnished ISI intelligence gossip Akram could provide. That kind of conversation was not one to be held in an officers’ mess.
     
    Akram, 40, was a stocky man with a receding hairline and a mustache not unlike Mahmood’s, though he lacked his boss’s dash and flair. To the extent that he trusted anybody, Brigadier Mahmood trusted his chief of staff.
     
    “You can imagine the pressure General Pasha has been under since Monday,” Akram began. He spoke in low tones at the corner table in the main banquet hall. “The National Assembly has scheduled a session with him in camera next week, where he will be asked to choose between two equally dreadful propositions: that he was incompetent and did not have a clue that OBL was in Abbottabad, ditto the American invasion; or that he did know of OBL’s presence and also of the invasion, and was complicit in permitting it. So the politicians insist that he brand himself either an idiot or a traitor.”
     
    Mahmood chucked mirthlessly. “It is not credible to me that the Army knew anything about Sheikh Osama,” Mahmood protested. “Why would we risk destroying the work of a lifetime by sheltering him? Clearly, if someone knew where he was, we would have protected him properly and thus prevented his capture. Or we would have killed him ourselves, quietly dispatching him without fuss.”
     
    “There are theories being floated behind closed doors,” Akram said. “Three seem to be getting the most bandwidth: First is that the Army and ISI were totally unaware of the Sheikh’s presence in Pakistan with several of his wives and children, living a lifestyle that would be the envy of most Pakistanis.”
     
    “Humiliating though it may be, I do believe that is the correct one,” Mahmood said.
     
    “The other two are that the ISI did indeed know where the Sheikh had hid himself and provided him with the house and protection.”
     
    “Rubbish!” Mahmood exploded. People at neighboring tables glanced over.
     
    “The third idea is the most intriguing and the most convoluted.” Akram smoothed his mustache theatrically, first left and then right, with his index finger. “This theory holds that while the ISI knew where the Sheikh was hiding and took part in his abduction and death, it decided to portray this wholly as an American operation to avert riots by all who regard Bin Laden as a hero.”
     
    “That’s the most preposterous of all,” insisted Mahmood, whispering now. “Clearly, the Army might wish to disassociate itself from the killing of a famous jihadi warrior. But surely we in the ISI would have anticipated the situation now playing out? That we are being made to look incompetent? It would have been far easier to expel Bin Laden to Afghanistan, or to kill him quietly ourselves.”
     
    “Perhaps that is what we should have done,” said Akram.
     
    “I am certain no one in the Army knew anything about this. The proof is the very disaster that has befallen us. Who in the Army leadership would have deliberately allowed us to be humiliated like this?”
     
    “Only the Indians and perhaps the Americans would wish it,” agreed Akram.
     
    “Which suggests that we need to do what we can to find out if the Americans have anyone else in their sights. They might attempt another victory by killing Ayman al-Zawahiri or Mullah Omar.”
     
    “We could find them faster than anyone else,” Colonel Akram said.
     
    “I think perhaps we can,” Mahmood agreed. “And I am quite certain that we should try.”
     
    ***
     
    Finishing a modest lunch, Brigadier Mahmood left Colonel Akram and asked his driver to take him up the road to the Serena Hotel, Islamabad’s most posh and most expensive.
     
    The lobby was empty. Mahmood’s steps echoed in the vast open