The Devils Light Read online

  The two men sat together on a rock, gazing out at the expanse of valleys and mountains still capped with snow. Studying Khan, Al Zaroor saw a stringy man on whom God had wasted no fat, his look of alertness hardened by time into adamancy. For a while they spoke of old comrades and where their lives had brought them. Khan had more to say: Fortune had given him a family and a home in Karachi, his safety protected by the ISI and friends in the Pakistani military—a difference that both saddened and freed Al Zaroor. As a principle of operational security, he had nothing to lose but his life.

  At length, their talk became philosophical. “After all the years and battles,” Al Zaroor asked rhetorically, “what have you left to fear?”

  “Softness.” Khan spat the word. “Our government’s, not mine. America’s civilian puppets in Islamabad desire a truce with India. The terms will no doubt be shameful: India’s retention of Kashmir, which by rights should be a land for Muslims. There will be pressure from the West to shut us down.”

  Al Zaroor eyed him keenly. “So you’re waiting for this to happen?”

  “No,” Khan rejoined. “And you? Is the Renewer resting on his laurels, watching Iran and the Shia Hezbollah wage their tepid version of jihad?”

  The corner of Al Zaroor’s mouth flickered at the jibe. “You and I still have much in common, Ahmed. On behalf of Muslim Kashmir, you were at pains to kill Jews and Zionists in Mumbai. We want to banish the Zionist entity from Palestine. Yet matters remain as they were. That should shame us both.”

  Khan gave him a sideways look. “Bravely spoken.”

  “We’re not done yet,” Al Zaroor said flatly. “Nor, I assume, are you. But your patrons grow too circumspect. Perhaps you need an investor to help you strike again.” Al Zaroor softened his tone. “You want Pakistan to wrest Kashmir from India. The ‘normalization’ of relations between the two would utterly defeat your purpose. Despite your masterstroke in Mumbai, you did not succeed in estranging them. That calls for a shot to the heart of India.”

  Khan appeared nettled. Sardonically, he asked, “What greater act of boldness do you suggest for us?”

  “To succeed where al Qaeda failed. On September 11, we dispatched two passenger planes to destroy the World Trade Center. Another damaged the Pentagon, the seat of America’s military power. But a fourth plane was meant to level the Capitol and slaughter the senators and congressmen inside. Only a few unruly passengers thwarted us from wreaking utter psychic devastation on America, eclipsing two ruined towers filled with Jewish stockbrokers.” He paused, finishing quietly, “Imagine that the face of our attacks was Capitol Hill in ashes. Then ask yourself what the infidels of India hold closest to their hearts.”

  Considering, Khan flicked his tongue across parched lips. “And you would help finance this?”

  “We have the resources, certainly.”

  “And your reasons?” Khan paused, then added slowly, “I recall introducing you to my cousin, the general.”

  “Yes. Thank you for your courtesy.”

  Khan stared at him. “An attack of the kind you suggest would have consequences. The she-males in our civilian government would recoil; even our friends in the ISI might disapprove. The risks are considerable.”

  “As are the rewards.”

  “Perhaps. But there is also the question of methods. Do you expect us to hijack passenger planes? The martyrs of September 11 made that much more challenging.”

  Al Zaroor shrugged. “If this is a matter of airplanes, we can help you acquire your own.”

  “And fill them with explosives?”

  Al Zaroor smiled a little. “You can supply the explosives, along with the martyrs to fly them.” His tone became practical. “The Indian air force is very professional. But they have too much territory to cover, and too many sites to defend. In this they are like the Americans.”

  Eyes narrowing, Khan stared at the mountains. At length, he said, “The Americans are pushing the eunuch who masquerades as our prime minister into further talks with India. The goal is to emasculate our country, forcing it to abandon Kashmir.” Khan faced Al Zaroor squarely. “I will use my sources to explore the risks of peace. Then I will meet with you again, if only as a courtesy. Whatever else I do will be in the interests of our brothers in Kashmir.”

  In the soft glow of the television, Carter Grey lit a cigarette, his first since Brooke had arrived.

  Briefly, Anne glanced at him, then resumed watching CNN. Amid the rubble of the Indian Parliament, soldiers and emergency responders searched for survivors or the dead, giant figures on an oversized flatscreen. The images revived the most searing hours of Brooke’s life.

  “Lashkar-e-Taiba,” Grey said without turning. “This is an act of desperation.”

  Anne glanced at the cigarette burning in his hand. “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s all about Kashmir. Most Kashmiri are Muslim, but the province belongs to India. The ISI wants to change that: Within the government of Pakistan, the military intelligence service operates as a shadow state of its own. The ISI helped create LET to fight a guerrilla war in Kashmir. A potential détente between India and Pakistan would be a mortal threat to their ambitions. That’s why LET attacked Mumbai.”

  “Why didn’t the Pakistanis shut them down?”

  Stirring himself from the past, Brooke said to Anne, “The ISI won’t permit it. After Mumbai, there were a few ‘punitive’ measures, all a charade. With the ISI’s protection, LET continues to train hundreds of jihadists every year. Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal gives LET a shield; if India invades Pakistan in reprisal for the actions of LET, it runs the risk of a nuclear attack.” Turning to Grey, Brooke asked, “What odds would you quote me on reprisal now? Or nuclear war?”

  Grey watched the picture shift to thousands of Indians in New Delhi, flooding the streets to express their grief and anger. “You know the history,” he said wearily. “Before 9/11, LET hijacked an Air India flight to swap hostages for prisoners jailed by India, including an ally of Bin Laden’s. A month after 9/11, they launched a failed assault on the Parliament they’ve now destroyed. That time, only the attackers died. But both countries mobilized for war. President Bush and Colin Powell had to use every ounce of influence to head off a nuclear nightmare.”

  Anne gently took the cigarette from his hand, grinding it out. “The Mumbai attack was far worse,” she said. “Why didn’t that cause another crisis?”

  “Calculated restraint by India. But LET achieved its immediate goal—disrupting a rapprochement between India and Pakistan.” Grey glanced back at the television. “Like this one, that attack involved intricate planning and operational sophistication. The fact that LET didn’t claim credit allowed the ISI to protect its operations, using its cover as an Islamic charity. Now this.”

  In the semidarkness, Brooke forced himself to turn from the screen. “I assume this is LET’s reaction to our pressure on Pakistan to focus on the Taliban.”

  “In part. Some senior officers in the Pakistani military resent that—as does the ISI, which provides the Taliban with clandestine support and allows it to move back and forth across the border to Afghanistan to kill American soldiers. But on a deeper level, this is about who controls Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal—the civilian government or the army. Right now, the army does; the prime minister wants some say. My guess is that the army will use this opportunity to remind the civilians who decides when the arsenal gets deployed.” As he studied the images of the dead and injured on the screen, both Indians and tourists, Grey’s tone became somber. “After Mumbai, the Indians held back. But this time the bombs and missiles may be coming out of their hiding places. God help us if this tragedy goes nuclear.”

  Turning to the screen, Brooke watched an EMT carry a corpse from the wreckage of the Taj Mahal. Bowing his head, he summoned as much of a prayer as his tattered beliefs could muster.

  In Peshawar, Al Zaroor pulled aside the blind, peering into the crowded street. When he saw the car, he closed the blind, pausing
only to watch the riot beginning in Mumbai, the faces of Hindus suffused with hatred as they started hunting down Muslims. Then he switched off the television and left.

  The operation had begun.

  FIVE

  As dusk fell, Al Zaroor waited for the warrior so essential to his dream.

  Back against the thick trunk of a tree, he looked down from rolling hills at a two-lane road that ran through the verdant farmland of the Punjab. The air was hot and humid, very different from the place where he had first encountered Ismail Sharif a year before. But he still recalled the jolt of recognition: in the face of this stranger, Al Zaroor had seen his younger self.

  They sat at an outdoor café in the village of Madyan, a Taliban stronghold in the Swat, sampling pastries and drinking thick black coffee. The café was set on a green hillside sloping to a narrow river whose rushing current carried its own echo. Moved by the beauty of their surroundings, so different from the flat horizons of his homeland, Al Zaroor allowed himself a moment of serenity. Then he turned to face Sharif.

  Despite his beard, the man looked alarmingly young, with a lineless face and liquid eyes in which pride warred with a curious vulnerability. But by reputation, Sharif was a skilled tactician who had mastered the art of ambush and surprise, slaughtering government troops through swift assaults in carefully chosen terrain. According to Al Zaroor’s sources, Sharif was barely more Taliban than al Qaeda, a man impatient with inaction and devoted to God. But Sharif’s hatred of the army involved more than principle: Government soldiers had raped his sister and killed a younger brother by driving nails into his skull. The coolness with which he exacted his revenge was a tribute to self-discipline.

  For a moment, Al Zaroor looked deeply into the young man’s eyes. Then he said, “I bring greetings from Osama Bin Laden, our Renewer, and Ayman Al Zawahiri. As I do, they wish to know if you’re unafraid to die.”

  Sharif’s eyes hardened abruptly, casting his face in a new light. “I’m more prepared to kill,” he answered coldly. “Were that not so, I would not have killed so many soldiers in this land.”

  “Are you prepared to kill them in the Punjab?”

  Sharif hesitated, then shrugged. “For jihad, it does not matter where. Only who, and why.”

  Al Zaroor nodded. “The assignment comes from the Renewer himself, and is vital to our cause. It will also require great skill.”

  “What is it?”

  “On short notice, I will ask you to marshal three trucks and fifty or so crack fighters. For safety’s sake, you will bring them through Baluchistan, where the army does not go, to a site at the edge of the Punjab. There you will assault an armed convoy of Pakistani soldiers, leaving no survivors, and seize an important piece of property.”

  Sharif cocked his head. “Gold?”

  “It is gold to Osama. That is all I can tell you, my brother.”

  The young man put a finger to his lips, regarding Al Zaroor with a chill curiosity. Al Zaroor admired his self-possession—Sharif had mastered the human need to fill silence with words. At length, he said, “Describe the site.”

  “It is a road at the bottom of foothills near Multan, with ditches on both sides. The countryside is agricultural, the road lightly traveled. The convoy will come at night.”

  “How many soldiers?”

  “Also around fifty, the best the army has.”

  Silent, Sharif turned, gazing pensively into the gorge below. Then he faced Al Zaroor again. “I will want photographs of the site, an air map of its surroundings. That will help define the operation. Likely I’ll need plastic explosives, claymore mines, and rocket-propelled grenades. That requires money.”

  “You will have it.”

  “I’ll also need to recruit men. My people prefer to fight in the Swat. Punjab is not their home.”

  “It is, however, where they can strike a great blow against those who invade their lands. Those who value money over jihad will have more than they’ve ever imagined.”

  Sharif studied him. “You’re ripe with promises, brother. To what end?”

  Al Zaroor gave him a look of deep sincerity. “Only the Renewer and Zawahiri can know. This much I will say to you: Our aim is to wound our enemies on a scale beyond anything you’ve ever dreamed, or will be able to dream again. Not just the infidels in Pakistan, but the Zionists, the Americans, and the Shia. You will avenge your brother and sister a thousandfold. You might even live.”

  “I plan to,” Sharif said calmly. “We outnumber the army in the Swat. But in the Punjab the soldiers are many, and move with greater confidence. If this prize is as important as you say, an attack will bring them swarming like bees.”

  Al Zaroor sat back. He dipped his fingers in a bowl of water, removing the sticky residue of pastries. “Bring me a plan,” he said. “By the night we carry it out, I will have arranged a great distraction for the army.”

  When Brooke arose before dawn, Carter Grey was switching from channel to channel. It was reflexive: For decades, Grey had been at the center of crises, making judgments that helped to shape events. Now he took painkillers and watched CNN.

  Its focus was India. In communal prayer and protest, Indians filled the streets of major cities. The images saddened Brooke, and the next few sickened him—Hindus with guns and knives slaughtering hundreds of Muslims in Mumbai.

  “Bad to worse,” Grey said. “The Indians have bombed Pakistani army bases in Punjab. Troops on both sides have mobilized near the border, and there are rumors the Pakistani military has declared a state of nuclear alert.”

  “What’s the White House doing?”

  “What you’d expect. At our urging, the UN is meeting in emergency session. The president has asked for restraint. The secretary of state is on the way to New Delhi, then Islamabad, trying to stave off disaster.”

  Brooke’s thoughts moved quickly, the residue of a broken sleep spent arranging puzzle pieces. “Let me try something on you,” he said. “Suppose these attacks are about more than Kashmir.”

  Grey looked up. “In what way?”

  “The stakes for LET are high. There’ll be international pressure on Pakistan to shut them down; the civilian government will be forced to try. But what if this crisis results in a military coup by commanders sympathetic to Islamic extremists?” Brooke sat down. “To me, it’s at least not unimaginable that the attacks in India didn’t result from some reckless plan by LET alone, but from an agreement between LET and elements of the ISI, the army, and, conceivably, the Taliban and al Qaeda.”

  Though his eyes remained serious, Grey gave him a quizzical smile. “An all-star team of co-conspirators? It’s possible, I suppose—the ISI is like the center of a wheel with jihadist spokes. It didn’t just help create LET. The ISI supported the Taliban when they fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, and introduced its leaders to Bin Laden. Once the Soviets left, the Taliban became al Qaeda’s host and protector with the ISI’s blessing—when we tried to take out Bin Laden in a missile attack on a Taliban training camp, the ISI warned them in advance. After that the agency realized that the ISI was so riddled with jihadist sympathizers that joint operations were impossible.

  “As for LET and al Qaeda, from the beginning al Qaeda helped fund LET. When al Qaeda operatives fled Afghanistan, they hid in LET safe houses. LET operatives helped support al Qaeda’s attack on the London underground in 2005. All of which is known to senior leaders within the ISI.” Brooke sat across from his friend, regarding him intently. “Consider what happened after 9/11. When we invaded Afghanistan, Bin Laden and al Qaeda took refuge in Pakistan—along with the leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, whose presence in Quetta is an open secret. As for Bin Laden, for almost a decade we couldn’t find him, though he was hiding in plain sight. There’s too much support for al Qaeda and the Taliban within the ISI and the military—”

  “No doubt,” Grey interjected. “But the Taliban and al Qaeda aren’t synonymous. LET cares most about Kashmir; the Taliban is focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan;
al Qaeda dreams of a worldwide Islamic caliphate. Some Taliban despise Bin Laden for bringing America down on their heads.”

  “True. But LET, the Taliban, and al Qaeda are all Sunni. Their leaders know each other, and many trained together. They’re more than capable of making common cause against America or Israel.” Brooke’s tone became sharp. “When Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan with our encouragement, supposedly to stabilize civilian rule, she was assassinated in a crowd of ten thousand people. How do you suppose that happened?”

  “My best guess?” Grey said. “A joint operation of al Qaeda and the Taliban, perhaps countenanced by her enemies within the ISI. But no one knows for sure.”

  Brooke nodded in acknowledgment. “What we knew well before Bin Laden’s death is that senior leaders in the army and ISI hate America more than ever, as demonstrated once more when the ISI blew the cover of our station chief in Islamabad, forcing him to leave the country. Even moderates resent our pressure for an offensive against the Taliban, believe our buildup in Afghanistan is driving more jihadists into Pakistan, and think civilian deaths from American drone attacks have increased support for the Taliban. No matter that Pakistan is al Qaeda’s epicenter, or that our drones have killed key leaders like Bin Laden’s lieutenant Al-Masri. Our actions have tightened the operational links between the Taliban and al Qaeda, which may figure into what we’re seeing now.

  “The WikiLeaks and the Bin Laden operation made public what we’ve known for years: that the ISI is still playing a double game—ostensibly supporting our operations, yet still aiding the Taliban and, at certain levels, al Qaeda. What matters to the ISI is control, which is why they arrested the Pakistani Taliban leader who started negotiating with the Afghans without the ISI’s permission. The ISI may not mind weakening the Taliban enough to keep them at bay, while leaving them strong enough to represent the ISI’s interests in a future Afghan government once we bail out.” Brooke finished his coffee. “In the minds of the ISI and the military, the Pakistani army has a choice—focus on India and Kashmir, or fight a bloody war against the Taliban and al Qaeda. What LET may have done is bring matters to a head.”