The Last Man

Chapter 50
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

NADEEM Ashan had endured difficulties before, but none of them compared to what he was now going through. In the middle of dinner last night there had been a knock on the door. He had feared such an event all day, ever since a second video of Joe Rickman had been released. In it he had clearly implied that Ashan was an American agent. Ashan knew he needed to confront the lies, so he had gone directly to the director general's office to state his innocence and to offer his assistance in any way that would help disprove what was an obvious attempt at disinformation. Ashan could tell by Taj's tepid response that this was not a problem that would go away easily.

The rest of the day was businesslike. His counterparts both stopped by his office to lend their support. Durrani was confident that the accusations would be proven baseless. Lieutenant General Mahmud Nassir, the deputy director of the Internal Wing, offered his apologies that an investigation was necessary. Ashan and Nassir had never had a warm relationship, so the chilly meeting did not seem out of character.

At the sound of the knock, Ashan's heart sank. His wife had already spent much of the night crying, as she was friends with the foreign secretary's wife and had seen how he was dragged from his house. It was not a big leap to think that the same thing could happen to her husband. When he opened the door he was not surprised to see Lieutenant General Nassir, but he was surprised to see his friend Durrani.

Before Nassir could speak, Durrani stepped forward and said, "I'm here to make sure you are treated with the respect that you deserve."

Nassir remained as impassive as ever and motioned for his men to proceed. Ashan and his wife were put in separate rooms, and fortunately, Durrani went with Ashan's wife to comfort her, as she was not prepared for a lengthy interrogation. Three men plus Nassir accompanied Ashan into his study and proceeded to interrogate him for six straight hours. Despite being asked multiple times to not smoke in his house, the men ignored him. Ashan made a mental note that when this was all over he would make sure these three were punished for their brazen disrespect of his rank. Nassir, on the other hand, was hopeless.

If it weren't for Durrani, Ashan would have been a mess worrying about his wife. Shortly after ten o'clock his friend informed him that his wife had been allowed to go to bed. Ashan felt a bit of relief that they were being civilized with her, but that relief was short-lived. Durrani then informed him that Ashan's son and daughter had both been picked up for questioning. His son was a doctor in Karachi and his daughter an engineer in Islamabad. His son would be fine, but his daughter was an extremely attractive young woman, and the ISI was not known for its restraint.

Ashan looked daggers at Nassir and said, "I am innocent of these charges, and will be cleared. If my daughter or son are harmed in any way, I will make sure that your children experience the same degradation."

The threat probably had a fifty-fifty chance of working on its own, but then Durrani made sure it stuck. After unleashing a string of obscenities, he screamed a more vivid account of what he would do to Nassir's children and then threw a few threats at his three men for good measure. Of the three deputy generals, Ashan was by far the most civilized and Durrani was the least. Fearless in his attacks against Pakistan's enemies, he had a reputation for being ruthless that was well-known by the men of the Internal Wing.

Nassir promptly excused himself so he could go in the other room and make it very clear to his men that he would execute anyone who did not treat Ashan's children with absolute respect. A little less than an hour later, Nassir and his men called it a night. After Durrani's graphic description of how he would have each of them sodomized, repeatedly, the men seemed to have lost their zeal.

Ashan thanked his friend profusely for his support. Durrani stated that if things were reversed, he knew that Ashan would do the same for him. Ashan went to bed wondering if that was true. He held his wife and nervously waited for his children to call. His daughter called first and wanted to know what was going on. He told her it was all a misunderstanding and was keenly aware that the conversation was being recorded. It took almost two and a half hours for his son to call, and neither Ashan nor his wife slept while they waited. Finally, after reassuring his son that everything would be fine, Ashan fell asleep with his wife in his arms at four-twenty in the morning.

Two hours later he woke, shaved, and dressed for work. When he left the house he noted the cordon of military vehicles and wondered if he would be allowed to leave. An Army colonel approached and informed him that he would be escorting him to ISI headquarters. Ashan was gripped with an ominous feeling as he climbed into the back of the unfamiliar vehicle. In Pakistan it was a national pastime to assassinate government officials in their cars.

The drive to the office was fortunately uneventful, but the morning was not. Ashan arrived to find out that all three of his secretaries and two of his deputies had been arrested during the night. His office was crawling with Internal Wing types who were pilfering confidential files. This was more than the intelligence professional could take. He left immediately for the director general's office. Three assistants tried to stop him from entering, but Ashan pushed past. He opened the door to find Director General Taj, Durrani, and Nassir. The look on Durrani's face was not comforting.

"What's wrong?" Ashan asked.

"Please sit." Taj pointed to a spot on the couch next to Durrani.

Ashan remained standing. "There are men in my office. Men who are looking at classified files."

"I am aware of that. You need to sit." Taj pointed at the couch with his cigarette.

"Those men are not cleared to see those files," Ashan said as he sat. "It is a major breach of protocol." He looked at the other three men for some sign that they understood the enormity of the problem.

Taj looked at Nassir and gave him a sign to proceed. Nassir opened a gold file and held up a sheaf of documents. "Do you recognize these?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Give them to him so he can read them," Taj ordered.

Ashan took the pages and felt his world slipping from him. He had never seen these pages before, but he was smart enough to recognize what they were. "These are not mine."

"Then why did my men find them taped to the underside of one of your desk drawers last night?" Nassir asked.

"They are not mine. How do I know that your men didn't put them there?"

Nassir looked to Taj and shook his head in disappointment.

"Director General, you have to believe me. I am not a spy for the Americans, or anyone else, and that is not my Swiss bank account. I have never seen those documents."

"But you do have a Swiss bank account?" Nassir asked.

Durrani intervened before Ashan could answer the question. "Who doesn't have a Swiss bank account? Let's cut through all the crap. We are all intelligence professionals. Every single one of us has at least one Swiss bank account. Those sheets mean nothing."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Taj announced. "The Swiss bank account we can handle. As Akhtar said, once you rise to this level, Swiss bank accounts are part of the job. But the American clandestine officer saying that you are a CIA agent . . . that is something that is not easy to undo, even if it is a lie."

"It is a lie!" Ashan protested vehemently. "I am not a CIA agent." Looking from face to face Ashan realized that none of them believed him. Even Durrani wouldn't look at him. "Akhtar, surely you don't believe that I would sink so low?"

"You're a better man than the three of us, and I think this all a complete fabrication, but," Durrani said, looking angrily at Taj, "I have no say in the matter, and apparently we aren't going to take the time to find the truth."

It didn't sink in at first. Ashan looked at Taj with confusion. "What is he saying?"

Taj leaned forward and stabbed out his cigarette. "The president called me just before you arrived. I'm sorry, there's no other way to say this. He wants you sacked."

The words drifted over him as Ashan attempted to process the finality of it all. His jaw hung loose and he asked, "Just like that . . . after more than thirty years of honorable service?"

"This is bigger than you . . . it's bigger than us . . . it's bigger than the ISI. It's my hope that you will be proven guiltless of all charges, but the president wants action now. We need to look strong. We cannot afford to look like America's puppet."

"At least let him step down on his own," Durrani said. "Let him make a statement. We could even spin it in our favor. He could say that for the sake of clarity he is going to step down. And then he can say something about an American plot to interfere with the sovereignty of Pakistan."

Ashan was having an out-of-body experience. He watched Taj shake his head and say, "The president is adamant. He wants him fired this morning. I'm sorry it has to be this way, Nadeem. For what it's worth, I think you are a good and honorable man. I'm sorry, but you and the rest of your family will be placed under house arrest until the investigation is over."

Ashan stood, without saying a word. He suddenly felt as if he was going to be sick. He left Taj's office to find a half dozen men in uniform waiting. Arguing would be useless. If the president were involved there would be no fighting his dismissal. He did not understand how his life had been so thoroughly upended. As he walked down the hall surrounded by the men, he told himself to remain calm. There would be time to figure out what had happened, and, he hoped, to discover who was behind this.