Page 38 of Rising Tiger

China was Pakistan’s largest trading partner and lavished the country with massive investments, including the over $62 million worth of upgrades to Pakistan’s infrastructure, economy, transportation networks, and energy sector, via a program known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor—Beijing’s biggest overseas investment, which fell under its global Belt and Road Initiative.

Islamabad loved the money and expertise that the Chinese provided. They also loved that China hated India as much as Pakistan hated India. It was a match made in heaven. In exchange for Beijing’s largesse,Pakistan not only looked the other way when it came to the ethnic genocide of Uyghur Muslims, but actively spied on them in the northern regions of Pakistan and fed the intelligence to the Chinese.

It wasn’t lost on Beijing that the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor was viewed by Islamabad as Pakistan’s economic lifeline—and so China did what they did in every nation where they had gotten an investment foothold: they pushed for everything they could get in return. This went double for help in undermining and weakening India.

Beijing referred to the arrangement as a strategic intelligence partnership—a relatively benign-sounding title. What it was, in fact, was China being granted access to, and the ability to task, Pakistani intelligence operatives inside India.

In any other scenario, this would have been untenable—the geopolitical equivalent of bobbing for hand grenades. Pakistan was running Chinese operations against India. Whatever went wrong would not only blow back on China, but on Pakistan as well. Islamabad didn’t have a choice. Pakistan was simply too desperate for Beijing’s cash to say no.

It was via this “relationship” that Yang had been made aware of Durrani. The more he had dug into the ISI operative, the more he knew he wanted to recruit him. He was not only extremely talented, he also had some very dark, very compromising things in his past that would make him easier to control.

Yang wanted a full debrief on the downing of the helicopter, but then he wanted to get down to more important business—how the next attack would unfold.

For that, he had something very special in mind.

CHAPTER 22

JAIPUR

When Harvath stepped off the aircraft, Vijay Chabra—ex–Indian Police Service officer and current U.S. Embassy Foreign Service National/Investigator—was on the tarmac waiting for him. Harvath liked him the minute he laid eyes on him.

The man had swagger. He looked like he had been frozen in the middle of a stylish, 1980s Bollywood action movie and brought back to life.

He was fit for his age, which Harvath pegged to be somewhere in his mid-sixties. He was tall, with his hair parted on the left side, and he had a thick, almost porn-star-style mustache that must have been dyed, as it was such a dark shade of black.

He wore khaki trousers and a linen safari jacket, belted at the waist. His leather shoes were highly polished and he wore a gold signet ring on the pinky finger of his left hand. Capping it all off, he wore a gold watch, and a fashionable pair of dark, gold-rimmed sunglasses hung from his shirt at the neck.

From top to bottom, the confident Vijay Chabra radiated a powerful “Fuck you” vibe. This was a man who got things done.

“Welcome to India,” he said as the two met at the bottom of the airstairs and shook hands.

“I wish it was under better circumstances,” said Harvath. “I appreciate you coming to meet me, Mr. Chabra.”

“Only my mother-in-law calls meMr. Chabra,” he said with a grin. “Please call me Vijay.”

Harvath laughed at that one. “And you can call me Joe,” he offered. The name in the passport that had been created for him was Joseph John Sampson.

When Harvath took an alias, he liked to base it upon the name of someone from the OSS. “Jumping Joe” Savoldi, codename “Sampson,” was one such man.

Famed for his language and hand-to-hand combat skills, he had been a highly lethal and highly successful covert operative during World War II.

“You don’t look like an investigator,” said Vijay. “You look more military to me. Maybe I should call you GI Joe.”

“You can call me anything you like,” Harvath replied with another smile. “But as someone who spent a little time in the Navy, maybe you can come up with something better thanGIJoe.”

“I knew it,” the man replied. “I amalwaysright about these things. What’s your middle name?”

“John.”

“Then I’ll call you JJ. It’s perfect. Vijay and JJ. There, it’s settled. End of that piece of business. Now, the next item for discussion. You just got off a very long flight. Have you eaten?”

“No,” Harvath answered. “I have not.”

“Do you mind a working dinner?”

“No, I don’t mind. What are you thinking?”

“You and I are at the same hotel,” Vijay said. “You can check in, get cleaned up, and then we’ll retrace Mr. Ritter’s last steps. And if you don’t find it too off-putting, we could even eat in the same restaurant.”

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