Local time – 7:15pm, Sunday 17th June, 2011.
Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Adrenalin surged in Daniel’s veins. The aggressive little man in front of him was trembling with uncontrolled indecision. Daniel could sense the fear in the other three men, so he concentrated on the thing that was making them scared. The fourth man’s gun. When he found four people, and realised they weren’t Alex North, Joshua Petterson and two unknown oafs, it didn’t take him long to guess who these Pakistani men might be. Or what they were doing. Now he just hoped the little jumpy one would calm down enough to weigh up his options. Daniel stared right in his eyes and said nothing, his cool stare designed to elicit fear. It seemed like an age before the Pakistani holding the gun spoke. And his voice cracked.
‘Who are you?’
‘Don’t worry about who I am. You no doubt think you can take that weapon.’
‘You’re not going to stop us.’
‘Maybe not. But your PAL code will. It’s a double code. And you’ve only got one half.’ The Pakistani waved his gun, but his finger was not on the trigger. Daniel couldn’t be sure he wasn’t going to shoot, but until the finger moved, he wouldn’t react.
‘Do you have the other code?’
‘No. But I wouldn’t recommend shooting me. I know where the second code is. And judging by the black four wheel drive in the car park, the person who has it is in this building.’
‘Who has the other code? How can we believe you know where it is?’
‘I’m not going to be able to tell you where it is. But I can help you get it. If the people with the code aren’t in the building, they’re close by. I’ve been following them from the airport and their electronic device was turned off in the parking lot of this building.’ The more Daniel could tell them, the more they would trust him. He needed them to think he was on their side. And considering they had the second PAL code, no doubt having tortured it out of the Inter-Service Intelligence officer who was found almost dead in a warehouse in Islamabad that afternoon, he needed them as much as they needed him. That was the beauty of a double PAL code. The beauty and the nightmare.
‘Put your gun down and I’ll put mine down. We can be friends. We can trust each other.’ Daniel lowered his gun, holding it loosely by his side. The Pakistani didn’t move, his eyes darting around the room, looking for the people Daniel described.
‘Who are the people with the code? Who are you?’ This was a question Daniel hated being asked, as there was no safe answer. He always preferred to lie and say he was a hired bounty hunter or racketeer. But sometimes that seemed more likely to get him shot. These men were young and scared. Apart from torturing a fellow Pakistani that afternoon, they may also have been responsible for the near death of their Prime Minister and the death of two government ministers. But they didn’t look like trained operatives. They certainly weren’t old enough to be experienced guns for hire. So the likelihood was they believed they were on a mission for their country. Stupid little fucks. Caught up in the same way Alex North and her team were. If he told them he was hired to be there, they would distrust his motives and possibly kill him, expecting there to be no one to come looking for his body. But if he told them he was a Mossad agent, they would see an angry Jew standing before them. That would get him shot before he could finish the word Mossad. He had one option remaining. A half truth. And that’s what he quickly settled on.
‘I’m a CIA agent, sent to secure this weapon.’
‘So you are the ones taking our weapons. You have bought our security.’ The man’s furious voice filled the room. It was as if this news made Daniel the devil. There was a visible change in the Pakistani, his chest was puffed out and he took a step forward. Daniel, accordingly, stepped back. His heart beat fast, trying to rectify his obvious miscalculation.
‘We haven’t bought anything. We are helping your country. This weapon makes you unsafe.’
‘You are wrong. This weapon is all we have left! Without it, we are sitting ducks for your greedy nation. You’re not getting anywhere near it!’ The man’s rage climaxed and Daniel knew then, disappointedly, that he was going to be shot. A bullet would be the full stop to this man’s statement. Daniel saw the trigger finger move. He pulled his gun up and jumped sideways, letting off one round. But the Pakistani got in first, and he felt a white hot pain in his side. The last thing he saw before hitting the ground was that he had shot one of the other Pakistanis. That was small consolation.