CHAPTER FOUR
Silence. No word from
the Chief’s office; not the merest hint that her report had been
discussed at the Joint Intelligence Committee, which Herrick knew
was meeting four times a day in the wake of the death of Norquist.
Even the people in anti-terrorism, who had been known to make the
odd, oblique compliment, said nothing. Dolph, Sarre and Lapping
shrugged and went back to their work. Dolph said, ‘Fuck ’em, Isis.
Next time we’ll stay in the pub.’ Sarre pondered the behaviour and
came up with the phrase ‘institutional autism’, then went off to
look at a map of Uzbekistan.
Herrick was not as
easily resigned. She didn’t understand why there was not an
immediate operation to trace the men who had darted into the glare
of Heathrow’s security system and dispersed into the dark. Anyone
could see these men had been imported into Europe for a specific
purpose, a particular act of terrorism. But the trail was growing
colder by the minute.
This just confirmed
her belief that the parts of the Secret Intelligence Service were
more decent and reasonable than its sum. She trusted colleagues
individually, but rarely the collective, which she regarded by
turns as needlessly calculating, merciless and plain
stupid.
This had been her
view since the Intelligence Officers’ New Entry Course when, like
the others in her class of a dozen, she was sent abroad on what was
presented as an actual mission. A cover story was provided, fake
credentials, a task and a deadline. Everything seemed
straightforward, but during the trip the trainees were arrested by
the local counter intelligence service, held and questioned, the
object being to test their powers of resistance and
resourcefulness.
The test is never
pleasant but Herrick knew that, like most female entrants, she had
received especially severe treatment. She was detained by the
German police and members of the BFD for a week, during which she
was questioned for long stretches at night, roughed up and deprived
of sleep, food and water. The particular harshness perhaps had
something further to do with the fact that she had followed her
father into MI6. No daddy’s girls in the Service, not unless they
could stand having a chair broken over their back by a borderline
psychopath.
Every reason to take
the Cairo posting offered to her a couple of weeks earlier and get
out of Vauxhall Cross. Egypt was one of the few Arab countries
where she could use her language and work without having to
remember at every step she was a woman. Besides, the cover job in
the embassy as political counsellor would not be too difficult to
master alongside the business of spying.
She shook herself -
she had work to do - and returned with little enthusiasm to the
investigation of Liechtenstein trusts being used to move Saudi
money to extremist clerics and mosques around Europe - a worthwhile
job perhaps, although it seemed pedestrian after her night at
Heathrow.
Khan had kept going
through the first day and, having taken care to memorise the shape
of the landscape ahead of him, walked through the night, too. By
the following morning he reckoned he had put a good distance
between himself and the security forces. He decided to rest up in
the shade. But down in the valleys he saw much more activity than
would normally be expected in the pursuit of one fugitive. He
realised they couldn’t let him leave the country with his knowledge
of the massacre of innocent men. He lay low until the early evening
and set off again in the warm twilight, eventually coming across a
village in the mountains where some kind of celebration was in full
swing. A small dance floor had been erected; strings of lights had
been hung between its four corners and a band was playing. He
guessed it was some kind of religious feast or a
wedding.
He had gone for two
days without food, sucking leaves and grass and eking out the water
in the soldier’s canteen. But he made himself wait a good
half-hour, watching a group of houses that could be approached
under cover of a wall that ran down from a ridge not far from where
he lay. He set off, moving cautiously, at every step of the way
looking back to see his best escape route. He entered two houses
but in the dark couldn’t find anything to eat. He came to a third
and felt his way to the kitchen, where he found a loaf of bread,
half a jar of nuts, some dried beef, cheese and olives. He wrapped
them in a piece of damp cloth that had covered the
bread.
An ancient voice
croaked from the room next door, making him freeze. He put his head
round the door-frame and saw an old woman sitting in a chair,
bathed in red light from an illuminated religious icon. Her head
moved from side to side and she was slashing at the air with a
stick. He realised that she must be blind. He crept over to her,
gently laid his hand on hers and with the other stroked her brow to
reassure her. Her skin was very wrinkled and cool to the touch and
momentarily he had the impression that she had woken from the dead.
He caught sight of a bottle of Metaxa brandy and a glass, which had
been placed out of her reach. He poured an inch or so, put the
glass in her hand and helped her lift it to her lips. Her wailing
suddenly stopped and she murmured something which sounded like a
blessing. Placing the bottle in his piece of cloth, he left the
house by the front door.
A couple of dogs
pursued him along the wall and he was forced to sacrifice some of
the meat, which he hacked off with his knife and chucked at them.
Then he melted into the rocks and scrub, making for the place where
he had left his belongings. He ate a little of the cheese and bread
to give him energy, but it was another hour before he found some
rocks where he could make a fire that wouldn’t be seen from below,
or indeed from any other direction. He prepared a sandwich, eating
it slowly so as not to give himself indigestion, and washed it down
with some brandy mixed with a little water. It was his first
alcohol in seven years and he knew himself well enough to watch his
consumption.
He did not stamp out
the fire straight away, but moved some flat stones into the flames
then settled down near the light to look through the Palestinian’s
pouch of documents. There were a number of identity cards with
different names. The most frequent name used was Jasur al-Jahez and
all the cards included pictures of the dead Palestinian. He noticed
that many were out of date, but felt sure that somewhere among the
mostly Arabic documentation an address would be found. When he’d
had them translated he would write to Jasur’s relatives and tell
them what had happened. The death of the man who’d fought so hard
to live had stayed with him all day and, as with his men in
Afghanistan, he felt a keen responsibility to the relatives who had
been left behind.
Some time later, he
pulled the stones from the fire and placed them in a line, digging
them in so their tops were flush with the surface of the ground.
Then he swept the embers away, buried them and laid his bed-roll
where the fire had been and along the line of warm stones. It was a
trick he’d learned during his first winter in Afghanistan. Going to
sleep by a fire was less efficient than lying on ground that had
been heated for several hours. With rocks placed in a line under
your body you stayed warm all night, or at least warm enough to go
to sleep.
Next day he woke at
dawn and packed his things quickly. He was about 700 feet above the
village and a good mile away as the crow flies. A slight haze hung
over the mountains. When he moved to look down he noticed that an
army truck had pulled up in the main square of the village and a
knot of figures were gathered round it. It could mean nothing; on
the other hand, there was every possibility that the old lady had
reported him and the missing food had lent credibility to her
story. He moved off without a second glance and decided on the
tactics he’d used the first day, of marching further than anyone
thought possible. But it was already quite hot and the one thing he
hadn’t thought to do while in the village was replenish his water
supply. He would have to save the cup or two that remained in the
canister.
Half an hour later a
helicopter appeared and circled the ground immediately above the
village. He saw troops moving up the mountainside. They were much
fitter and faster than the soldiers who had hunted him two days
before and he estimated that if he stayed where he was they would
reach him in under an hour. However, it would be suicide not to
pick his route carefully while the helicopter was so
close.
He waited under some
bushes, remembering what a Stinger missile launched from a man’s
shoulder could do to a chopper. As soon as it shifted, he sprinted
into a plantation of pines and moved rapidly up the slope, running
with the gun in one hand and the sack of possessions tied round his
back with the gun strap. He reached some open ground and decided to
make for a long shelf of rock about a hundred yards
ahead.
Something must have
attracted the pilot’s attention. The machine dipped and slewed
across the mountainside towards him. Khan dived under a clump of
bushes to his right, rolled onto his back and pushed the muzzle of
the gun through the foliage, briefly aiming it at the tail rotor as
it came into view. Instead of settling over the bushes the
helicopter passed him. He wiped the sweat that was trickling from
his brow and took a sip of water from the canister. He could see
very little, but from the rhythmic thud he judged the helicopter
was in a steady hover high over a position about a thousand yards
to the north of him.
He pulled the
shirt-sleeve across his face again, dabbed his eyes and took in the
pinpoint clarity of the day. The sun had burned away the haze and
was heating the ground so that the air was filled with the smell of
herbs.
His eyes returned to
the skyline above the shelf. One or two scrawny mountain sheep had
appeared and were looking over the ten-foot drop. They were joined
by the rest of the flock, obviously scared by the helicopter. With
one sudden movement they cascaded over the edge, many of them
landing legs akimbo or on their sides. They struggled up and
stampeded past him like a river in spate, down towards the pine
trees. They were followed by a pair of dogs and a shepherd boy who
stood on the edge of the shelf, waved a stick and shouted. Khan
noticed that he had a blanket tied across his chest and was
carrying a good many pans and bottles that made almost as much din
as the sheep bells. As the boy scrambled down, a corner of the
sack-cloth came loose and neat bunches of herbs tumbled out. He
dropped the sack and ran on after the sheep without noticing Khan’s
boots protruding from beneath the bushes.
The helicopter’s
engine was producing a more laboured note. He saw it pop into view
above, climb rapidly and drop away to his left. He caught another
noise - the unmistakable sound of automatic weapons firing and a
heavy machine gun, or even a cannon.
He scrambled up to
the rock and put his head above the parapet. About two hundred
yards away he saw a group of men moving into the open from an old
stone shelter. They didn’t seem to be in the least concerned about
the presence of the helicopter sitting above a cliff some distance
away, and were moving without haste up the scree towards a cleft in
the mountains. Several packhorses or mules followed
them.
He realised these
must be the insurgents he’d heard about from the Bulgarian truck
driver who had brought them all the way from Eastern Turkey and
left them near the town of Tetovo, West of Skopje. It was a long
way from the agreed drop-off point and they had missed their
connection, so the driver had got out a road map and showed them
that they were south of the place where the borders of Macedonia,
Kosovo and Albania meet. He told them there was a lot of trouble
because the men from the north crossed into Macedonian territory
and stirred up trouble with the local Albanian population. He had
been forced to change his route countless times by the Macedonian
patrols. Khan had only half-believed him, but here were the men he
had spoken about and they might well provide a means of getting
over the border.
Shading his eyes from
the light, he peered down the mountain to look for the soldiers. At
first there was no sign of them but then he noticed that the sheep
which had scattered into the pine plantation were now bolting from
cover. He saw a figure flash across a patch of light and realised
that the soldiers were nearly in range. They would reach him in
minutes. He had a choice. He could try to conceal himself but risk
being discovered, or he could warn the men above him about the size
of the approaching force. He opted for the latter, and jumped up,
letting off a burst in the air to gain their attention, then loosed
a full magazine into the trees without hope or desire of hitting
the soldiers. They rose to the bait and returned his fire and so
announced their presence. He turned and raced across the plateau
towards the men, shouting and waving, praying they understood he
was one of them; at least that he had earned an
audience.
This performance
brought them to a halt and even now they seemed to have time to
exchange looks and rest their hands on each other’s shoulders and
point at the man tearing across the bare plateau. He reached them
almost incapable of speech, but gestured down the mountain and said
the word soldier in as many languages as came to mind. The men
stared back at him. They were all quite short with dusty hair and
faces. Beneath the grime was two or three days of stubble and
without exception a look of undisguised suspicion. One of them
gestured he should fall in behind the column and then they moved
off again. A hundred feet up, Khan saw why they were so confident.
Hidden behind a wall of boulders was a heavy six-barrelled American
machine gun, known as a Sixpak. As soon as they passed the gun, a
young man of no more than eighteen years, with eyebrows that met in
the middle of his face and the solemn concentration of the truly
insane, opened fire, strafing the ground immediately in front of
the rock shelf and kicking up an impressive spray of pebbles and
dust. Still firing, he swung the weapon in an arc towards the
helicopter and pumped rounds in its direction, causing the pilot to
rise and feint to the left. He kept up intermittent bursts until
the men and mules passed through the opening of the rock, at which
point he gathered up the gun and ammunition belts and ran to join
them.
‘Albania,’ said the
man who was evidently their leader. ‘This Albania. Albania is shit.
And you? Who you are?’
‘Mujahadin,’ replied
Khan, thinking that this was his only recognisable credential, but
at the same time regretting that he had resorted to his past. His
name was Karim Khan now.
‘Mujahadin is shit
also,’ said the man.