by Kim Hughes
‘I know that. Barbara will be fine. I just wish you hadn’t had to…’
‘There’s a lot of things I wish I hadn’t had to do. Hit you, for example.’ He held up his arm, pointing to the tattoos. ‘I even regret some of these. But I am not the final judge in such matters.’
‘I’d throw myself on the mercy of the court if I were you.’
The younger man snarled at him. He had transitioned from benign to belligerent in a heartbeat. ‘Do not mock me, Henry. I don’t need you that much.’
Yousaf’s head flicked to one side in alarm when he heard the engine of an approaching vehicle. He waited for it to appear from the thinning mist, but it drove on past the turning for their stopover. Gears whined as the driver changed down for the climb up the hill. A delivery van or truck of some description.
‘Come on,’ said Yousaf, sullen and impatient now. ‘Let’s do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘Get it over with,’ came the hardly illuminating reply. ‘Get a move on, old man.’
Henry drained his coffee and put his cup and the food wrapper into an almost overflowing Keep Scotland Tidy bin. Then he climbed in next to Yousaf and settled back for the final leg of their journey, trying to ignore the olfactory spectre of pipe smoke that was haunting him. And the feeling that he was in the company of a madman.
The turning was as hard to find as he recalled, more or less at the apex of a bend, which meant both entering and leaving could be hazardous. However, Henry remembered and recognised the strange conifer with a profile like an old-school drawing of a witch, complete with pointed hat and hooked nose, and warned Yousaf to slow and prepare to make a left.
The track was once wide enough for a decent-sized truck, but the hedgerows on either side were overgrown, and branches scraped along the side of the Renault as he drove the half-mile to the turning circle in front of the gates.
Inverstone’s entrance was hung with signs all conveying the same message: Keep out, you’re not wanted here. There was also a symbol of a vicious dog, although Henry doubted there had been any of those around for a while. The gates were tall and, like the wall running either side of them, were topped with razor wire. There were CCTV cameras, but they were covered in cobwebs and ivy. The main obstacle to gaining entrance was the thick chain and padlock holding the two sections of the gate closed.
‘What now?’ Henry asked.
‘Ideally, I’d blow them open. But I’m a bit short on explosive.’
Yousaf got out, walked to the rear of the car and returned with a hand-held, battery-operated grinding wheel and a pair of goggles. ‘This is what every bicycle and moped thief uses.’
He set to work on a link of the chain which, after a long spark-filled five minutes, finally yielded and pinged apart. Yousaf pushed the right side of the metal gate back with some difficulty. He carried on until he had created an entrance wide enough for him to fit the Renault through.
Inverstone was a flat-fronted, grey granite Edwardian shooting lodge, with an array of stone-built annexes and some drab twentieth-century additions. There was an ornamental pond in the front, green with scum, its fountain dry. Yousaf steered the Renault around the back of the house and parked up. They got out. A weak sun had dispelled the mist and they had an uninterrupted view over the extensive grounds, all the way to the line of the double-wire fence, the evergreen woods beyond and, in the far distance, the long, steely-grey finger of the unlikely named Loch Lochy and the rugged mountains.
‘Still beautiful,’ said Yousaf.
‘Yes,’ agreed Henry. ‘Now will you finally tell me what this is about?’
‘I will. First, let us go and find my grave.’
‘What?’
Yousaf gave a mischievous smile. It didn’t pacify Henry’s fears one iota. ‘You’ll see.’
They walked over the once-manicured, now distinctly ragged lawn, crossed the overgrown ha-ha and made their way through what could have been a fashionable wild-flower meadow, but was actually a tangle of weeds. Yousaf was heading for a small copse of deciduous trees in the right-hand corner of the grounds, about a thousand yards away, and Henry found the going tough, stumbling several times.
‘I remember when this grass was short enough to practise burying IEDs. Do you, Henry?’
He said nothing. He didn’t wish to be reminded of the terrible skills they had taught in this forsaken place.
Yousaf pointed to the trees. ‘Just there. That’s where I am buried.’
‘What are you raving about, man?’ panted Henry, his patience shot, the energising effect of the bacon and coffee now forgotten.
‘Joseph Shaftab Khalid. Laid to rest here in… 1982, wasn’t it?’
They reached the treeline and Henry peered in. The thin sunlight was illuminating a carpet of brown leaf-litter that had clusters of shiny-capped mushrooms poking through.
‘I buried everything here. Passport, clothes, my driving licence… all of me.’
‘You were meant to burn it,’ said Henry crossly, as if addressing an aberrant schoolboy.
‘I know. But here lies poor Joseph, long live Yousaf Ali. Freedom fighter, scourge of the Russians, hero of the Taliban. Bomb-maker extraordinaire.’
Henry was taking the weight off his feet by leaning against a tree and Yousaf turned to face him.
‘I’m dying, Henry.’ It was so matter-of-fact that it hit Henry like an unexpected slap.
‘What do you mean?’
Now there was a slight break in Yousaf’s voice. Was it self-pity he could hear? ‘Cancer of the pancreas. It’s very quick. They looked inside.’ He unbuttoned his shirt and Henry glimpsed a livid scar. ‘It’s all over the place. Riddled, that’s the word they use, isn’t it. Such a cruel, heartless phrase. Riddled with cancer.’
‘You’ve come home to die.’
The repressed fury came back into his voice. ‘Do you know how many of us are left? The men and boys you radicalised to create Mujahideen in there?’ Yousaf asked, pointing back at the house.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What, you didn’t keep track of your protégés? How many were there altogether?’
‘Thirty? Forty? I don’t know. I didn’t run it.’
‘But it was your idea, wasn’t it? Concocted when you were out in Pakistan? Why bother flying Afghans to the UK, where they stood out like a sore thumb. Take some hotheads from the mosques in the UK, British Af-Paks, and tell them their duty was to go and fight the infidel invaders. Bring in scholars and imams to convince them. How many are left, Henry?’
Henry’s voice was thin and reedy. ‘Just you, I believe.’
‘Just me. The others?’
‘There’s a lot of ways to die out there.’
‘That’s true.’ Yousaf took his pistol from his waistband and pointed it at Henry.
‘You know, we didn’t think far enough ahead. It’s a common failing in the West. Look at Iraq.’
Henry was speaking very quietly, as if he was frightened of being overheard, and Yousaf took a step closer. It wasn’t often that Six admitted its mistakes..
‘In Afghanistan we should have thought: what happens when the Russians go? We have trained all these so-called freedom fighters… what do they do then? Well, you turned on Kabul for a civil war and eventually you turned on us. I see now we only have ourselves to blame. We are the monsters. We are the Dr Frankensteins.’
‘Yes,’ Yousaf agreed, ‘you created some of the people who ended up killing your own soldiers with your own techniques and weapons. Homegrown terrorists.’
For the first time, Henry could see the madness and sickness in Yousaf’s eyes. He flashed on his wife again, confronting the possibility of eternal separation, and thought he might throw up. Even though he didn’t believe, Henry wasn’t afraid of dying. That was pointless. Just of dying many miles away from her.
Henry tried to be calm and persuasive, as if he were a lawyer addressing a jury, presenting the facts. ‘What can I say? I’m sorry. Killing me won’
t help, though. Won’t bring back all the people who died in your explosions over the years. Won’t bring Joseph Khalid back.’
‘No. You’re right. Joseph has been dead a long time. But you are wrong about one thing. I’m not going to kill you.’ Yousaf turned the pistol round and offered it, butt first. ‘You’re going to kill me.’
THIRTY-NINE
Henry took the pistol, gripped the butt and slotted his finger through the trigger guard. He looked at it like it was an alien presence. He had been right. The man was insane. He should kill him, but he was reluctant to start this late in life. ‘I’ve never shot anyone before. Why am I doing it now?’
‘It is a sin to commit suicide. Unless one is to become a shahid.’
‘For a man like you, martyrdom is always an option.’
‘But I don’t want to take any more people with me. Not even infidels. God will deal with them. I have enough tattoos,’ he said, holding out both arms before him. ‘I found out about the cancer and I thought: God must be telling me to stop. It is time, Yousaf. Enough.’
‘Or you could just have been unlucky. There is no reason behind cancer.’
Yousaf ignored that. He had a prepared script and he wasn’t going to deviate from it. ‘If you shoot me, my old friend and now my foe, I die in warfare. That will be enough.’ He dropped down to his knees.
‘Wait,’ said Henry. ‘You said something about being able to stop the bomb.’
Yousaf nodded. ‘Where the bomb is, you will find it in here.’ He put a hand on his solar plexus.
Henry began to suspect some metaphysical trap or religious obfuscation. ‘In your heart?’
Yousaf laughed. ‘In my heart and on my liver. The last time they opened me up, I asked the doctor to use a cauterising pen. To write on my liver. You know some doctors sign their name? With a pen.’
‘I’ve heard of it. I do believe it is illegal.’
‘In this country, perhaps. Where I come from, if you ask, they will do.’
‘And so…’
‘The bomb’s location is written on my liver.’
Henry swore under his breath in disbelief. The cancer must have metastasised to his brain. ‘How?’
‘A postcode. You must kill me and cut me open to find it. Then bury me, quickly. A proper Janazah is all I ask. With the correct salah and the grave pointing towards the Qibla. Can you do this for me?’
It wasn’t much of a request. Whether the authorities would allow it was another matter. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Then kill me now.’
Henry raised the gun, his hand shaking. ‘This is madness.’
Spittle flecked his lips as Yousaf almost shouted his reply. ‘Everything that has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, that’s the real madness. Sending young men to be murdered and maimed in a country where they had no business, that was madness. Training people like me, that was an act of insanity.’
‘Perhaps it was,’ said Henry. ‘But that’s no excuse for what you’ve done. What you are doing. How do I know you are telling the truth about this writing? You could be feeding me a load of clap-trap.’
Yousaf blinked hard and Henry wondered if he was in pain. His words became more measured. ‘Because I am a coward. Yes, I am. The doctors told me I have weeks and that death will be… unpleasant. This way you help me avoid that and die at the hands of an old enemy. And I am giving you a chance to save many lives by taking one.’
Henry found the pistol was growing heavier. He let his fatigued arm drop a little. ‘I said I had never shot anyone. Have never killed a man before, either,’ he admitted.
Yousaf tutted his disbelief. ‘In your line of work? I find that hard to believe.’
‘Oh, I’ve been responsible for people dying. I have just never had to do it myself.’ Barbara had, of course. The boy in East Germany, the Greek traitor, Rory Little, the mole. But she was made of tougher stuff than he was when it came to such things.
Henry watched something change in the man. A skin sloughed, perhaps. When he spoke, all traces of the terrorist who had kidnapped him had gone. He spoke like a doctor giving a patient bad news, much as some medic must have talked to him not that many months ago.
‘Henry, this is a fast-spreading cancer. There is a good chance it will kill me before you make up your mind whether to pull that trigger. There is a phone next to the spare wheel in the car. You can call for help once we are done here. Just do it, Henry. Choose life for the many.’
The gunshot echoed mournfully between the close-packed trees. Henry’s world then became engulfed in a terrible, roaring maelstrom of sound and fury and he fell to the ground, hands covering his ears in a futile attempt to drown out the bedlam.
* * *
The dawn chorus had just fallen silent by the time the bomb-maker had finished. He stepped back and admired his handiwork. The structure he had created certainly looked convincing. He eased the steel panel over the rows of switches, peeled off his gloves and took off his mask. He pulled up the shutter and gave a start when he saw the figure standing there.
‘You said you would be ready at dawn,’ the Russian who called himself Rick said.
‘I did say that.’ He extended a hand and helped Rick up into the rear of the van, pulling the roller back down. Rick examined the wheeled trolley in silence, stroking his chin. The bomb-maker wondered how long he had been in the country. He still had an accent, but that was no longer unusual, especially in the capital. Most people would assume he was Polish. A good-looking Pole, he admitted to himself. He wore expensive-looking dark jeans and a leather blouson jacket that was a cut above the sort you found on market stalls. ‘Very good,’ he said eventually. ‘You have worked hard.’
‘And now I must go and check on my son.’
‘Oh, yes. How is he?’ It actually sounded like he cared.
The bomb-maker shook his head mournfully. ‘Not well. He needs taking care of. I shall have to do it.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Rick said. ‘I have a son myself.’
This was a surprise. The Russian never revealed personal details. ‘With you here?’
Rick laughed at that. ‘No. He lives with his mother. We are not together. I see him once, maybe twice a year.’
‘That is not enough. A boy needs a father.’
‘He has one. A good man.’ He gave a little shake of his head. ‘We all make sacrifices for our cause, eh?’
The bomb-maker knew what his own ideology was, what he hoped to achieve. He wasn’t sure what ideology drove Rick. ‘What cause is that?’ he ventured.
‘To make my country great again. Afghanistan humiliated us. Then the West helped chop us into pieces. But we will rise once more. It has already begun. But most in the West are blind to it.’ It was said matter-of-factly, devoid of the heat of fanaticism. Then, with a little more passion, Rick asked: ‘But this thing is ready? I can take it now?’
Thing? he thought. These people still had no idea about the relationship between bomber and bomb. This was no thing, it was another child, one that would function perfectly, unlike the boy. ‘Once I have secured it to the side to stop it rolling around.’ He pointed to several coils of rope. ‘It is very stable, but just in case. You don’t want to damage the casing. A dent risks tearing the rubber insulating layer. If you do that…’
‘I’ll be careful, old man. What about arming it?’
The bomb-maker removed the cover panel from the upper part of the device again and showed the rows of toggle switches. ‘You simply flip this red one up. It arms the bomb.’
‘And to disarm you flip one of them back up? But only you know which one does the job, right?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You flip one of the switches to disarm? Obviously not the red one.’
The bomb-maker feigned surprise. ‘I told you. This is a Viper. No ordinary bomb. And now, no ordinary Viper.’
Rick nodded. ‘And I am sure you have done a very good job. Just wondering how it works.’
‘
The thing about a Viper, my friend, is that once armed, those switches become useless. One of them arms it, but it does not disarm it. One of the others does, but there is no way of telling which.’
‘Really? What is the point of that?’
‘To give the bomb-disposal people something else to fret about. If they find this device, they will spend a lot of time worrying about the switches until they realise they are of no consequence. You have the rest of my money?’
‘I do. I have left it at the rear of the house. Everything we agreed.’
He was certain that would be so. The pair had been very good at keeping to their word so far. Besides, they had no way of knowing if he could set off the device prematurely, should they try and cheat him. He had warned them of that possibility when he had been recruited. Never short change the bomb-maker, or face the consequences. Not that the money was for him or his son. Later that day he would use a hawaladar or money broker to make sure the money got back home. It would enable his mother to live out her days as one of the wealthiest women in the village. The thought made him happy. That and the knowledge that it was almost over now. The end was in sight, for him and his poor son. The bomb-maker’s heartbeat quickened a little at the thought of the release to come.
‘Make no mistake, Rick,’ he said, using the name for the first time. ‘Once this bomb is armed and the timer begins its countdown, nothing can stop it. Nobody can neutralise it.’
‘Except you.’
The bomb-maker shook his head. ‘No. Not even me.’
‘Wow,’ said Rick, with admiration in his voice. ‘And the secondary device we asked for?’
‘Almost done. It will take me half an hour more to assemble. I am more familiar with the material in that one. This…’ he pointed at the silver machine, ‘was new to me.’
‘But it will work?’
‘They will both work,’ he said, offended once more.
‘Then you have done well,’ said the Russian.
The bomb-maker gave a rare smile. ‘I know.’
* * *
There was a combination of words that Riley was particularly averse to: the close proximity of ‘helicopter’ and ‘fog’ to each other in a single sentence. Choppers were never his favourite form of transport, being too reliant on complex mechanics for his liking, and choppers and fog usually came with an accompanying newspaper article about flying into hillsides or buildings. And although the flashbacks such headlines generated weren’t as strong as those of Andy the Tan, helicopters still equalled Afghan for Riley.
