86

We sat in the back of the cab in our burqas, me playing the big, ugly sister. There wouldn’t have been a lot to talk about even if we’d both sounded local. We were on the outskirts of the city, in the glow of cheap orange streetlights and what looked like a shanty town thrown together with cardboard, wriggly tin, mud and straw. Dogs skulked and pissed on the pavement. Kids in rags played in the doorways.

Agnetha wore a plain band of gold on the third finger of her right hand. In Russia, that meant she was married. If she’d worn it on the same finger of the left, it would have sent a clear signal that she was divorced or widowed. Either her husband was at home doing a little light housework or she wanted people like me to stop bothering her.

It hadn’t taken us long to get out of the minaret and sneak past the drivers. They were now focused on the Iranian answer to Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. All we could hear was canned laughter, punctuated from time to time by giggles beneath the blankets.

The square was teeming again as women poured out of the mosque. We dusted ourselves down as best we could before taking our places in the crowd. We headed up to the main and jumped into a taxi – a Peugeot 305 with a sunroof, air-conditioning and a nice blue digital dash. Just right for the ladies.

Agnetha gave directions. Her Arabic was really good. These lads weren’t Arabs, but they understood her. After all, their religion was inseparable from the language. They’d known it since they were kids.

I felt my eyes beginning to droop in the comfort of the rear seat and the cocoon-like security of the burqa. I shook myself awake and tried to make sense of the M3C/Iran/Taliban triangle.

The Taliban had the drugs and the cash to pay for the weapons.

It didn’t add up.

Why did Altun need the gold?

Why would a guy who was so high up the food chain organize a robbery and use a Russian plane to cart away the proceeds? Why would the mullahs turn a blind eye? They weren’t that mad.

And then I realized that the deal wasn’t being brokered by the Iranians at all. Agnetha was wrong. They had nothing to do with it.

So what was Altun up to? And why did he need the gold?

I was going round in circles. I had to cut away. The answer didn’t matter. It didn’t do anything for me right now, and it couldn’t affect what I was going to do.