Bokhari paused and turned to Fitzgerald. “Do you have anything to add?”
“No, that’s all.” Fitzgerald appeared slightly shaken, but she offered a tight smile and extended her hand, which the foreign minister took. “Thank you for having me, Mr. Bokhari.”
“Thank you for coming, Madam Secretary.”
The press pool erupted in a flurry of questions as both speakers turned away from the crowd and walked to the rear of the room, where a member of Bokhari’s entourage was waiting to open the door. As Fitzgerald followed the minister through, Petrina closed the distance between them smoothly and adjusted the Motorola microphone/receiver system positioned in his right ear, which allowed him to communicate without the use of a PTT (press to talk) button. He was a little shocked by what had just transpired, as it was rare to hear such vitriolic remarks in a public forum, but he couldn’t dwell on the minister’s words. He still had a job to do, and he wouldn’t relax until the secretary was back on the plane and cruising at 35,000 feet. Brynn Fitzgerald’s first official trip as secretary of state had just come to a close.
“Edsall, this is Petrina. The briefing just finished. Where do we stand?”
There was a crackle of static over his earpiece, then the reply. “We’re right on schedule. The flight plan is filed, and the plane is fueled up and ready to go. The route is in order.”
“Chase cars?”
“They’re in position. We’re waiting on you, over.”
“Good,” Petrina replied. He glanced over and saw that Fitzgerald was engaging in a few last-minute pleasantries with a member of the Pakistani Secretariat. “She’s finishing up in here. It could be ten. It could be twenty. I’ll let you know. For the moment, just have everyone hold their positions.”
“Got it, boss.”
Fifteen minutes later, Fitzgerald stepped out into the hazy afternoon air. The cameras were still rolling, the press pool having moved to the bottom of the stairs. The motorcade was waiting a few steps beyond the assembled journalists. The acting secretary of state smiled in her practiced way—she’d gotten the hang of that already—and turned toward the foreign minister, shaking hands with him one last time. Standing at Fitzgerald’s side was the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Lee Patterson.
Patterson was a twenty-year veteran of the Foreign Service and a career diplomat. The tall, patrician Bostonian was one of the better-known members of the diplomatic community, as he’d inherited a substantial fortune several years earlier. His 1 percent stake in Texas Instruments alone was worth nearly twenty-one million dollars, making him one of the wealthiest public servants in the world. Once the last polite farewells were out of the way, they descended the stairs side by side, surrounded by members of Fitzgerald’s permanent detail. As the head of that detail, Special Agent Mike Petrina walked directly behind the acting secretary of state, his watchful eyes shielded by a pair of black Ray-Bans.
As soon as they hit street level, the doors were pulled open on the waiting vehicles. Petrina waited until Fitzgerald and Patterson had climbed into the rear seat. Then he shut the door after them and climbed into the front.
“All set, ma’am?” he asked over his shoulder.
The secretary of state broke off from her animated conversation with the ambassador. “Yes, we’re ready to go, Mike.”
“Would you like me to…?”
She knew what he was asking. “If you don’t mind.”
Petrina pushed a button to raise the partition behind the front seats, giving the officials some privacy. Although the secretary of state had the same controls at her disposal, she always waited for Petrina to suggest their use. Fitzgerald’s unfailing courtesy was just one of the reasons he had come to not only respect, but genuinely like the acting secretary of state.
Turning to the driver, he said, “Let’s keep the speed above sixty once we hit the main road.”
The driver nodded once as Petrina relayed the instruction to the lead vehicles. Then he waited for the cars ahead to pull out of the compound. Soon they had left the presidential palace behind and were streaking down Constitution Avenue, toward Chaklala Air Base, where the State Department’s Boeing 757 was fueled and waiting. Formerly part of the U.S. Air Force’s fleet, the plane had been specially recon-figured to meet the secretary of state’s needs. Essentially, it was a less elaborate version of Air Force One, but for anyone accustomed to flying coach, the soft leather seats and surplus of legroom would have seemed impossibly luxurious.
Petrina leaned back in his seat, ran a hand over his shorn scalp, and tried to relax. They had been in Pakistan for less than twenty-four hours, but his nerves had been stretched taut the whole time. Few countries could top the Islamic republic when it came to anti-American sentiment, and that attitude was largely responsible for the extreme security measures that had surrounded Fitzgerald’s first official visit. For starters, the press pool had been supplied with a false time of arrival; instead of arriving at midday, the secretary of state’s plane had landed the previous night under cover of darkness, with the running lights off and the interior shades drawn. A number of false convoys had been dispatched from the airport several minutes before Fitzgerald made the short trip to the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad, and police checkpoints had been set up throughout the city.
Everything that could be done to ensure the secretary of state’s safety had been put into effect, but Petrina knew he’d feel more secure when they reached the air base, and he’d feel even better once they were wheels up. Judging by the elevated voices drifting through the thin partition, the person he was currently charged with protecting felt exactly the same way.
“Lee, what the hell just happened in there?” Brynn Fitzgerald demanded. She angrily brushed some lint from the sleeve of her navy pantsuit as she glared at the man sitting next to her. She knew that Petrina and the driver could probably hear every word through the thin partition, but she was beyond caring. “I thought you said they had tempered their position on this.”
“Well, that’s the impression I got when I met with the chief of protocol last week. He assured me that—”
“I don’t care what he told you.” The acting secretary of state strained to keep her voice at a reasonable level. “I was just blindsided in front of the pool, not to mention the foreign correspondents. Do you realize how bad that’s going to look when it airs? The president is going to be furious.”
Lee Patterson sighed and looked out his window, doing his best to avoid her incriminating gaze. “I don’t know what to tell you, Brynn. They obviously reconsidered their stance. Kashmir is an incredibly sensitive issue for them, okay? For all intents and purposes, they’ve been fighting over that land since 1947, and the recent military buildup is just part of the problem. There’s also a lot of posturing going on right now, and there was no way the Pakistanis were going to pass up the opportunity to make a powerful statement with you in the room. If you’ll recall,” he continued carefully, “I told you the press briefing was a bad idea when we spoke on Friday, but you—”
“Lee, we both know it wasn’t an option. I had to go on record with both sides. Otherwise, we might as well have canceled the whole trip.” Fitzgerald pushed out a short breath between pursed lips, then swept a strand of errant hair away from her face. “Look, I know it wasn’t your fault, but now that it’s done, we have to engage in some serious damage control. Any suggestions?”
Patterson turned slightly in his seat to face her as he gathered his thoughts. They had known each other for many years, but he’d never seen her as stressed as she was now. They’d first met as