The Invisible. Andrew Britton
Also by Andrew Britton:
The Assassin
The American
THE INVISIBLE
ANDREW BRITTON
PINNACLE BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
For my grandmother, Eunice Britton
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1 ORAEFI, ICELAND
CHAPTER 2 ORAEFI
CHAPTER 3 ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 4 ORAEFI
CHAPTER 5 ISLAMABAD
CHAPTER 6 RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 7 RAWALPINDI
CHAPTER 8 RAWALPINDI
CHAPTER 9 ICELAND
CHAPTER 10 RAWALPINDI
CHAPTER 11 WASHINGTON, D.C.
CHAPTER 12 WASHINGTON, D.C.
CHAPTER 13 MADRID, SPAIN
CHAPTER 14 MADRID
CHAPTER 15 MADRID
CHAPTER 16 SIALKOT, PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 17 MADRID
CHAPTER 18 MADRID
CHAPTER 19 MADRID
CHAPTER 20 WASHINGTON, D.C.
CHAPTER 21 WASHINGTON, D.C. • LAHORE, PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 22 CARTAGENA, SPAIN
CHAPTER 23 CARTAGENA
CHAPTER 24 SIALKOT • CARTAGENA
CHAPTER 25 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 26 CARTAGENA
CHAPTER 27 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 28 CARTAGENA
CHAPTER 29 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 30 LAHORE
CHAPTER 31 PUNJAB PROVINCE, PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 32 LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
CHAPTER 33 WASHINGTON, D.C.
CHAPTER 34 NORTHERN PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 35 NORTHERN PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 36 FAISALABAD
CHAPTER 37 WASHINGTON, D.C. • NORTHERN PAKISTAN
CHAPTER 38 SIALKOT • SOUTHERN PORTUGAL
CHAPTER 39 WASHINGTON, D.C.
CHAPTER 40 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 41 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 42 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 43 WASHINGTON, D.C. • SIALKOT
CHAPTER 44 SIALKOT
CHAPTER 45 WASHINGTON, D.C.
CHAPTER 46 PUERTO SAN JULIÁN, ARGENTINA, FIVE MONTHS LATER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Linda Cashdan of The Word Process, for her editorial guidance early in “the process.” Thanks again for your input. To Erika Lease, M.D., for her invaluable contribution on the medical side of things. To Carol Fitzgerald and everyone at bookreporter.com, for designing and maintaining my Web site. To Connie Asero and everyone who participated in the Crystal Coast Book Festival. It was an extraordinary event. Thanks for letting me be part of it.
Thanks to everyone at Kensington, especially Steven Zacharius, Robin E. Cook, Laurie Parkin, Maureen Cuddy, Michaela Hamilton, and Doug Mendini, a true fixture on the trade show circuit. To Meryl Earl, who has somehow managed to get my books published in a multitude of languages, none of which I understand. To Rosemary Silva, for her outstanding work with the copyediting. Also thanks to Alex Clarke and the entire team at Penguin Books for their continued support in Australia and the U.K.
To my editor, Audrey LaFehr, for her enthusiasm, encouragement, and exceptional patience. Thanks for everything.
To my agent, Nancy Coffey, for many, many things. If I had to name them all, the acknowledgments would be longer than the book itself. So thanks for all that you do. Let’s hope this is just the third of many.
And to Dezzy Murphy and the other Irish climbers who conquered Concordia, thanks for inspiring the prologue.
An “invisible” is CIA-speak for the ultimate intelligence nightmare: a terrorist who is an ethnic native of the target country and who can cross its borders unchecked, move around the country unquestioned, and go completely unnoticed while setting up the foundation for monstrous harm.
PROLOGUE
THE KARAKORAM HIGHWAY (KKH), PAKISTAN
In Rebeka Česnik’s opinion, the view, even when seen through the cracked window of the ancient bus winding its way down from Kashgar to Islamabad, was simply magnificent. Perfect. Stunning in every conceivable way. These were the words she had used to describe every trip she’d ever taken, and her effusive comments always made her friends and relatives smile, though it had taken her quite a while—the better part of her life, in fact—to understand just why that was.
Her mother had been the one to finally let her in on the joke. That had been a few years earlier, shortly after Rebeka joined Frommer’s as a travel photographer. At the time, the observation had struck her as not only true, but slightly humorous. Even now the memory made her smile, but she couldn’t dispute her mother’s words.
It’s a good thing you took up photography instead of writing, she had said, because no matter where you go, your descriptions are always the same. Every place you visit is just as perfect as the last.
It was a true enough statement, Rebeka supposed, though she’d never really dwelled on her lack of verbal creativity. All she cared about was her traveling and her art, and to her great satisfaction, she’d been able to make a successful living with both. She’d always had the ability to pick out a unique, compelling scene, but that wasn’t enough for her. Nor was it enough to satisfy her extremely demanding employers. Instead, her goal was to pull the readers into the photograph, to draw them away from the article itself. It was a lot to aspire to, as the magazines she worked for employed some of the best writers in the business. Moreover, it was nearly impossible to capture the grandeur of the things she saw on a regular basis. Still, judging by the awards and accolades she had racked up over her short career—including the prestigious Hasselblad Award in 2006—she had managed to make her mark in an industry brimming with talent, and that was no small feat.
Rebeka had embarked on her current career after winning a regional photography contest at seventeen years of age. She’d started shooting on an amateur basis in 2002 with a secondhand Minolta Dynax 8000i. The camera had been a gift from a spoiled cousin who’d since moved on to more expensive hobbies, and she’d fallen in love with it instantly. Her love of travel, however, dated back to her childhood, and she sometimes wondered why it had taken her so long to work her two favorite hobbies into what had become a spectacular career. She had grown up on the Soča River in the Julian Alps, not far from the famed Predjama Castle, and she credited the gorgeous scenery of her childhood with sparking not only her interest in nature, but her desire to see as much of it as possible.
Since leaving Frommer’s the previous year, she had embarked on freelance assignments for Time, Newsweek,