Ten days later, Hamid and Adam were summoned to Kabul.
Sitting in the back of a noisy transport plane, the translator had asked Adam for an explanation. Adam told him less than he knew, which was little enough. “Your man planted the device,” Brett Hollis had reported to him. “The voice of one of the Arabs guarding the house matches that of a known al-Qaeda operative, and his maps coincide with the area in western Pakistan where we think the rest of them are hiding. If this is a plant, whoever dreamed it up is taking a lot of chances with his people—and hanging Colonel Rehman and his Afghan friends out to dry. So we have to consider the probability that your new agent and his information are good. Or at least, as you say, that he believes it.”
Adam still felt edgy. “What should I do with the Afghan?”
“Pay him. Then you and Hamid are meeting me in Kabul.”
Adam tried to imagine why, but did not ask. And so the last part of his account to Hamid had been truthful—he had no idea what Hollis wanted with either of them. Now they sat outside Hollis’s office in the American Embassy, waiting to find out.
Trying to keep his mind blank, Adam found himself imagining Carla. It was still early morning on Martha’s Vineyard—she would be sleeping now. Her e-mails had said little about her pregnancy, so perhaps her worries had come to nothing. Another month or two, he guessed, and the baby would be safe for delivery.
Interrupting his thoughts, Hollis emerged from his office. He shook hands with Hamid, at once warm and brisk, assuring him that he would be briefed shortly. And then he motioned Adam inside his office and closed the door behind them.
The room was as Adam remembered it, windowless and sterile, like a command post in the bowels of a bunker. Though in his early forties, Hollis looked older and wearier than when Adam last had seen him, and the first sign of a belly showed over his khaki pants. The way he ran his fingers through his thinning brown hair struck Adam as a sign of nervousness, not distraction; the somber speculative look he gave Adam was too focused for that. “Keeping fit, I can see. That’s one of us.”
Adam shrugged. “The compound has treadmills and stationary bikes, so I don’t have to jog among the natives. What a joke of a death that would be.”
To Adam’s surprise, the casual remark induced a brief silence. Hollis regarded him with a studied lack of expression. Then he said, “You’ve been given an assignment from on high. ‘A mission for your sins,’ to quote Apocalypse Now.”
Adam felt a tug of apprehension. As statement, not question, he said, “They’ve planned a rescue mission. Inside Pakistan.”
“Yep. One the Pakistanis know nothing about. You know how much we trust their security services. There’s something about harboring bin Laden which makes our overlords hold a grudge.” Hollis paused for questions, then saw that Adam would ask none. “Among the other things the Pakistanis aren’t supposed to know is that we have a forward operating base near where they’re supposedly holding our POW. A targeting team, made up of specialists with spectrum scanners to transmit signals and voices back to NSA, plus special ops guys to call in a drone or go out and kill any Taliban or al-Qaeda we identify. Whatever works best. With the right preparation, they’ll go in and snatch Bowe Bergdahl.”
“Risky. And once you send them out, your forward operating post is blown.”
Hollis grimaced. “You know the reasons. We place a high priority on POWs—no leaving our boys behind, and all of that. By bringing this guy back alive, we prove our loyalty; show the bad guys that we’re better than they are; boost the morale of the American public; and, not coincidentally, bolster our own reputation. Killing bin Laden did a lot for us, and this would polish that particular apple.” Studying Adam’s expression, his case officer added, “We’re all aware of the trade-offs, Adam. We risk losing a lot of brave and highly trained guys to free a single army grunt. We’re not even sure how he got his ass captured. But once he did, he took on a value all his own.”
Hollis, Adam realized, was talking more than usual. Bluntly, he said, “You didn’t call me in to explain the moral peculiarities of this particular trade-off. Let alone to tell me secrets I don’t need to know. So what’s my job here?”
Briefly, Hollis puffed his cheeks. “They’ll go in after him at night. Your job is to facilitate the assault.”
Adam willed himself to feel nothing. “How, exactly?”
“Two nights from now, you and a guy from Seal Team 6 will cross the Pakistani border. Using a GPS, you’ll drive up into the mountains through some pretty bad terrain and locate the forward operating base. They’re holding a special piece of equipment—another ‘rock,’ this one about the size of a hockey puck. Concealed inside is an infrared beacon that transmits signals to the special ops people, pinpointing its precise location. Essential equipment to a night raid in hostile territory the Taliban and al-Qaeda know better than we do.”
Here Hollis paused again, as though hoping for another question. Through an act of will, Adam asked none. He tried to feel as little emotion as he showed.
“Using night observation equipment,” Hollis went on, “you’ll move down into the village. You’ll dress in local clothing to create a silhouette that appears innocuous to anyone who notices you, adopting the posture, gait, and mannerisms of local people—maybe carry a walking stick to suggest you’re a shepherd or an old man. Concealed beneath your shirt will be the beacon, a multiband radio attached to an ear and mouthpiece and, of course, body armor and a weapon.
“Once you’re there, you’re to find the target house without being seen by the guards, and plant the infrared beacon beneath a window. The targeting team will provide overwatch, monitoring you through their own night observation devices, ready to respond with sniper fire if you report trouble through the radio. But they won’t expose themselves unless you call them in.” Hollis’s tone became confident and reassuring. “If all goes well, you’ll get in and out. The next night our team goes in, and gets our POW out of there—followed by kudos for all. Questions?”
“None worth asking.”
His case officer’s chest moved in what might have been an inaudible sigh. “No choice but to do this, and you’re right for the job. We can’t trust an Afghan or Pakistani—they might give up the equipment, or sell out the forward operating base. Fuck this up, and we lose the beacon; our base; an entire Delta Force assault team; and, more’s the pity, the humble soldier we’re trying to bring home to mom and dad. You’re fluent in the language, and you’ve got the combat and navigational skills to pull this off.” Hollis leaned forward, his voice soft and flat. “Bottom line, people at the highest level—meaning the president—are watching. We can’t screw this up by sending the wrong guy.”
Better to get the right guy killed, Adam thought but did not say. Then he realized that the right guy—the man he had become before meeting Carla Pacelli—might not have thought this at all. “It’s what I signed up for,” he replied. “But why call in Hamid if you’re worried about Afghans? He’s got a wife and kids.”
The latent fatalism of the inquiry caused Hollis to give an arid smile. “Odds are they’ll be seeing him again. We’re not telling him a lot, and he’ll be dropping out before you get to Pakistan. And the guy who’s crossing with you enjoys this kind of thing.”