Chapter Seventeen
Monday, February 29, 1988
Islamabad
“You’ll need to step on the gas with this,” Watson said, his arms folded on his desk in front of him. “I’ve just had a call with the director this morning. He’s pleased the rescue operation went the way it did, but he told me again we can’t afford to backpedal. We need to deliver urgently.”
“Did you brief him on exactly what happened in Hani?” Johnson asked. “Surely it’s damn obvious we’re pulling out all the stops on this one.”
“Yes. He knows. But he’s under serious political pressure.”
Johnson glanced around Watson’s office. On the wall behind his desk, a green Stinger tube was mounted on a plaque; it was from one of the first few Stingers that the CIA had supplied to mujahideen in Afghanistan and had been used to bring down a H
