Rising Tiger: A Thriller (94)

While unnecessary, Harvath had hit him right between the eyes with that one. The look on the man’s face told him everything he needed to know about how the rest of their conversation was going to unfold.

“If I help you, what happens to me? Who else knows what you know?”

Harvath was honest with him. “Only one other person. But it’s someone I trust. And you can, too. If you cooperate, and if it leads us to Durrani, we’ll bury everything back where we found it. You’ve led a good life, Amit. You have a chance to do the right thing. I wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have absolute confidence that your Wasim Younis is who we say he is.”

“But you could be wrong. He could look like the guy you’re searching for. Their names could have been mixed up in some database somewhere, right? I mean, that’s a possibility. Isn’t it?”

“Amit, look at me,” said Harvath, his tone icy. “I don’t get sent halfway around the world on maybes or possibilities. My people don’t traffic in mistaken identities. Your colleague Wasim is the person I’m looking for. He is a killer.”





CHAPTER 60


Gupta had warned against moving too quickly. He wanted to work with police, establish a cordon, and send in a crack team from Special Group, RAW’s special forces unit. Raj had sided with Asha and Harvath.

There simply wasn’t enough time to wait. They knew where Durrani was at this very moment. A chance like this might not come again. They would be foolish not to jump on it.

Durrani was in the volatile, Muslim-majority area of Delhi’s North East district known as Jafrabad—recently ground zero for a massive, six-day riot where fifty-three people had been killed, including a policeman and an intelligence officer. Gupta wasn’t wrong to have wanted to proceed with caution.

The whole district was a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames at even the mere mention of the word spark. One wrong move and they could send the city into chaos.

Harvath wasn’t surprised that Jafrabad was where Durrani had set himself up. The best place to hide a needle was in a haystack full of them.

What did surprise Harvath, however, was that a man like Durrani had allowed himself a piece of discernable routine. In tradecraft, it was considered something to avoid at all costs.

Of course, plenty of spies broke that rule, for various reasons, such as picking up or dropping off kids at school, taking night classes at a university to get closer to a target, or hitting the gym at the same time as a potential asset in order to develop rapport.

But Durrani wasn’t breaking the rule for family—he didn’t have one—nor did he appear to be doing it in service of his mission. It was an ideological position he had taken.

During the riot, two-thirds of the people killed had been Muslims. They were shot, stabbed, slashed, beaten, and set on fire. Sure, he could easily hide among them, in their neighborhood, but he wanted to do more than that. He had wanted to help them learn how to defend themselves.

According to Amit, Durrani taught a Friday morning martial arts class at a dojo in Jafrabad. The Universal Relief Initiative encouraged a flex schedule, so management had no trouble with employees moving their hours around as long as they put in their forty a week and didn’t miss key meetings.

A question that had always plagued Amit was, if he had been there—could he have successfully protected his sister? He wore that insecurity like a badge of shame.

On a mission trip, in the wake of a typhoon striking Myanmar, he and Durrani had shared a room together. They had discussed their interests and hobbies.

Amit had talked about his love of science, Durrani his love of martial arts. One thing led to another and an invitation was extended to the Friday class. Amit accepted and ended up training with Durrani for several months, before switching to a different dojo, closer to his apartment.

Now the only time he interacted with the man was through work. That injected a potential problem into Harvath’s plan.

They needed Amit to identify the dojo, which meant he was going to have to come along. But if Durrani spotted him in a car with two other people, he was absolutely going to run.

In fact, Harvath was pretty sure that just seeing Asha would be enough to make him rabbit. There was no question in his mind that the ISI operative had assembled a dossier before hiring Sayed to go after her. Durrani knew what she looked like. Hers wasn’t a face that a man easily forgot.

That brought Harvath to his own face. A Gora in Jafrabad was going to stick out worse than a sore thumb.

In short, none of them could afford to be seen by Durrani. This whole thing would be like eating an elephant—an expression, Harvath realized, that probably wasn’t too terribly popular in India. Nevertheless, they were going to have to tackle this job one bite at a time.

The first bite involved convincing Amit to come along. He had strongly resisted, but when Harvath, who could be quite persuasive, made it clear that this wasn’t an either/or situation, the man gave in. He also agreed to turn over his cell phone. Until they were done with him, Harvath was not going to trust him or turn his back on him. Not for a second.

Asha pulled the car Raj had arranged for them around and they exited the café. Amit sat in front. Harvath sat in back, where he could keep an eye on everything.

Morning traffic in Delhi sucked. It made Los Angeles look like nothing but free-flowing carpool lanes.

To her credit, Asha maneuvered through it quite well. When she was able to open it up, she opened it up. When she could “safely” blow a light without causing an accident or drawing any immediate police attention, she did so.