Thor's Haven

by Richard S Young

  He reached the rear of the van and furtively studied the reflection of the driver inside from the wing mirror. He didn’t recognise him as someone he should know. Daniel waited for the driver to draw his next intake of nicotine from the cigarette, and as he did so, Daniel slid along the side of the van to the open window. In a flash, the hard edge of the outside of Daniel’s left palm caught the unsuspecting driver in the throat, right on the larynx. With the driver now choking and gasping for air and completely disorientated from this sudden assault, Daniel reached through the open window and dragged the man out of the van. A solitary punch to the dent located between the left and right collar bone at the base of the man’s neck knocked him out cold. There was no point in adding to the body count thought Daniel, so he roughly dragged the unconscious figure across the car park and then over to a darkened grassy area, placed him in a recovery position before searching him for identification and other clues as to why he was so interested in Daniel. His search revealed nothing of interest apart from the fact that this man also had the strange cross-shaped tattoo with the numbers on the inside of his right forearm. Just like before with the body on his hotel room floor, Daniel photographed the tattoo and the man’s face for later identification purposes.

  Having unbuckled the man’s trousers and pulled them down to his ankles, he then removed the laces from the man’s boots. Daniel proceeded to bind the unconscious man’s hand and legs behind him and connected the bootlace ties to each other at thigh level. He then rolled him under a bush, tore a strip of material from the man’s shirt and stuffed it into his mouth as a gag. The boot-lace ties wouldn’t hold the man for long when he regained consciousness, but they would sufficiently delay his escape and then warning whoever he was working for. Pulling the trousers down to the ankles and inserting the gag were just means to inconvenience him further and keep him quiet.

  Headlights burned brightly in the car park as a large vehicle entered into it. From the cover of the bushes, Daniel recognised it as Rifat’s landrover and stepped out and waved at him. Rifat jumped out the landrover and rushed towards his friend.

  “What’s going on Daniel? The police airwaves are screaming with a description of you and that you are wanted for a double murder in India and earlier this evening you’ve crossed over the border into Pakistan with me. An Interpol Red Notice, an international alert, has been issued for your arrest. I’ve to report to my headquarters in Islamabad first thing in the morning to explain what my connections are with you and I know that Rama is getting questioned by the Indian Kashmiri Criminal Investigation Department but relax, he’ll be fine with them. He’ll tell them exactly what happened and why we were officially over the border visiting him. Don’t worry about Rama and don’t you worry about me because ISI will believe whatever I tell them, but you should be concerned. I’m going to have some difficulty in ‘disappearing’ you out of Pakistan because a white face, and especially one wanted for a double murder will really stick out here.”

  “How about a quadruple murder?” sighed Daniel. “There are two dead men lying on the floor of my hotel room and there’s nearly a fifth body with ‘svinebundet’ over there” and pointed at the shape under the bushes.

  Rifat walked briskly over to the bushes and inspected the unconscious body. “Svinebundet? What does that mean?”

  Daniel laughed as he realised he had spoken to Rifat in his native tongue. “Sorry. It’s Danish for ‘trussed like a pig’. I suppose you don’t see many of them around here?”

  “You’d be surprised Daniel. There’s a real pig problem in Islamabad. The city is surrounded by forested hills and ravines with differing wildlife. Driven by hunger, herds of wild pigs descend on the city and forage in gardens, bins and rubbish dumps. They cause untold damage because they feed on anything from grass and plants to small animals to everyday rubbish. On their way to these urban feeding grounds, the pigs cause traffic accidents and also send many of the locals hurrying for cover. Some Islamabad residents have reportedly been injured or even killed by belligerent hogs. Pigs are ‘haram’ – forbidden in Islam as they are regarded as dirty and unfit for human consumption.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  “Thousands of pigs get killed every year as we try to stem the tide of them invading the city. It is a real problem for the authorities. You said that there were two dead bodies in your room?”

  Daniel explained what had happened since Rifat had dropped him off at the hotel only 40 minutes previously. Rifat just nodded and started walking over to the van, tugged the side door open and started rummaging amongst the contents on the floor of the vehicle. There were four holdalls containing weapons and ammunition, ropes, clothing, laptops, mobile telephones, short wave radios, headsets and documentation. Amongst the documentation were photographs of Rifat, Daniel and Rama. Rifat distinguished that the background of the Rozabal Tomb was clearly identifiable in some of the photographs, while in the others, he recognised the street that Jnyandeep Medhansh lived in. He called Daniel over and showed him the photographs and the four holdalls.

  “Those photographs were only taken yesterday Daniel. That’s the Rozabal Tomb in those and that’s outside Jnyandeep Medhansh’s house” and handed them to Daniel to look at. But Daniel had become distracted by the sight of a fifth holdall attached to a clamp and suspended from the inside roof of the van. He pulled the holdall free from its clamp and opened it up. Inside was a Barrett XM500 sniper rifle. Daniel blew a long whistle in surprise, reached for some loose cloth and used it to lift the rifle from the bag. As he studied the rifle, he glanced inside the holdall to see what attachments there were for it. He placed the rifle on the floor and used the cloth to extract a Leupold Mark 4 sniper-scope, various cartons of differing ammunition, a detachable box magazine, an attachable bipod mount and a suppressor attachment.

  “Rifat, I don’t know who these guys are but this here is one serious bit of hardware that they possess. That’s a Barrett XM500 semi-automatic sniper rifle that only the special-forces of specific countries utilise. The rifle can be used against human targets but this is really an anti-materiel weapon for attacking specific targets such as armoured vehicles, stationary aircraft, missile launchers, radar equipment, small watercraft, communications equipment and the like from a long distance away. It has a 10 round magazine and because of its range and capability, an enemy can be attacked and defeated before they have even realised that they are even under fire. Those types of ammunition rounds are designed to go straight through metal, brick and concrete and cause serious destruction and disablement or are for explosive effect. They tend to disintegrate on impact with their targets and don’t leave a ballistic trace. I’ve used this weapon before in Afghanistan and Somalia, so I know what it can do and what it is for.

  Rifat just zipped the bags shut, grabbed the one with the weapons and ammunition with his left hand, nudged Daniel with his right, nodded at the Barrett and suggested “Take that if you need it, but we have to get moving. The police are almost here and we don’t really want to be around when they arrive.”

  Daniel re-packed the Barrett away and then slung the bag over his shoulder and followed Rifat to his car. As he got into the landrover, he noticed the rear seats had been folded down and a large shape occupied the space. The shape was covered with a blanket and there was a petrol and oil aroma within the vehicle.

  “What’s in the back?” as he thumbed in the direction to his rear. Rifat just grinned.

  “Just one of my precious Fireblades. I think you might be using it later.”

  05.10am – 11th April, present day.

  Inter-Service Intelligence Headquarters – Aabpara, Islamabad, Islamabad Capital Territory, Pakistan

  The Islamabad Capital Territory comprises of a mixture of both urban and rural areas: The Islamabad Rural area consists of 23 Union Councils featuring a total of 133 villages, while the Islamabad Urban area is overseen by 27 Union Councils and each of th
ese individual council areas is divided up into sectors. The Inter-Services Intelligence Headquarters are based in the district of Aabpara which fall under the jurisdiction of Union Council No.27, but while Aabpara is designated as a commercial zone located at the south west part of Sector G-6 along the Khayaban-e-Suharwardy Road, the ISI headquarters complex is situated within a large area of land deemed to be regarded as greenbelt.

  The complex consists of various modern buildings separated by lawns and fountains with the entrance next to a private hospital. There are no signs indicating its existence and the only clues are the armed plainclothes officers who direct any visitors through a chicane of barriers, soldiers and sniffer dogs. The appearance of the complex resembles that of a private business campus with neatly tended gardens, smooth lawns and fountains with sprinkling water, utterly belying the location of the top intelligence agency in the world.

  Rifat and Daniel had talked about various scenarios and possibilities during the two hour drive to Islamabad from Mirpur. Both men had agreed that the murders of Ynyandeep Medhansh and his granddaughter were somehow linked to the white stone and something called Belibasta. The two bodies in Daniel’s hotel room and the unconscious third left in the bushes of the hotel car park only confirmed that something untoward and sinister was definitely now afoot. Whatever it was, Daniel had now become a person of interest to unknown adversaries as well as the various law enforcement agencies of two neighbouring countries. Rifat had proposed that Daniel got himself out of Pakistan as soon as humanly possible and the only way to do that un-noticed was going to have to be achieved by some very devious means. The agreed plan, albeit a work-in-progress, was for the two of them to head to the ISI headquarters, get relevant information about any freight trains heading towards the Afghanistan border and then travelling to the nearest rail depot and hiding Daniel on board a rail wagon, and one that could also hold the Fireblade motorcycle. If Daniel could somehow get himself as near as possible to the Afghanistan border, he could slip out of Pakistan astride a motorcycle that would transport him to some sort of safety. Once he was over the border into Afghanistan, it was then going to be up to Daniel what he did next. But Daniel was going to need an awful lot of luck on his side to get himself out of Pakistan in the first place. Rifat’s knowledge and experience through his position as a local covert ISI operative were essential for the plan to work. As they drove to the rail depot, Rifat explained all the technicalities of the situation ahead to Daniel.

  “The border area that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan is called the Durand Line, an international border that the British created in the late 1890s, but because of little governmental control for nearly five decades, it has now become one of the most dangerous places in the world. Most of this Durand Line runs through mountainous territory and crossing the border is often only practical by using numerous passes through the mountains. But most of these border crossings have been unchecked for years and the locals have got used to going back and forth unchallenged, and it is very common for them to be carrying weapons such as assault rifles and explosives. When you add all the illegal stuff that goes on because of the continued armed conflict over on the Afghan side of the border, monitoring the Durand Line has become a nightmare. You have this constant stream of peoples back and forth and most of them are moving the serious stuff like weapons and narcotics that have to be controlled, but then there’s also a significant movement of lumber, copper, vehicles, gemstones, electronics and ordinary consumer goods for black market profiteering, and that’s even harder to keep on top of.

  America decided to created a barbed wire fence deterrent for much of the Durand Line, and in 2011, introduced a biometric system at the various controlled border crossings aimed at improving the worsening security situation and also blocking the infiltration of insurgents into Afghanistan. Meanwhile, back in 2016, Pakistan completed the digging of 1,100 km of trenches along our side of the border to check the movement of any terrorists and smugglers into Pakistan from Afghanistan.

  It all sounds very good in principle and looks like a sensible introduction of measures to improve the region, but it has been beset with real problems that have existed for years before any of the recent developments had been dreamt of. First of all, the Taliban refused to recognise the Durand Line as the internationally agreed border demarcation and insisted that there shall be no borders between Muslim countries.

  When the Taliban government was removed from power in 2001, the newly appointed Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, refused to accept the Durand Line, and despite all of the constant pressure that comes from Islamabad, the present Afghanistan government will not endorse the Durand Line as its agreed international border with Pakistan. No Afghan government has ever recognised the Durand Line as its border since the days of 1947 and the Indian partition that led to the creation of Pakistan, and that is the main cause of a lot of the problems we now face on the ground.”

  Daniel thanked Rifat for the explanation and while they made their way to Islamabad, they had discussed what would be the necessary information that they would have to have to hand to set their plan in motion. Finding out about the freight train times from Rawalpindi, the nearest and viable railway station to Islamabad, and where and when the freight trains headed to the nearest Afghan border railway station was the pressing matter but there was also identifying the location of the various military forces over the border in Afghanistan.

  It was all very well attempting to get into the country, but once Daniel managed to get there, he was going to be faced with a country that was still experiencing civil unrest and lawlessness wherever you looked. It was imperative for Daniel to know where any of the NATO and coalition forces were operating and where he could ‘surrender’ himself to them once he was in Afghanistan.

  And to find out that type of necessary information, Rifat had to go inside the ISI headquarters and discreetly check with some of his colleagues in the Military Intelligence unit who devised all the daily initiatives against counterinsurgency (COIN) operations, such as identifying and eliminating any sleeper cells that were of concern, locating the whereabouts of foreign military agents and observing the operations of any other anti-Pakistani elements functioning from the safety of the neighbouring countries.

  For Daniel, the waiting inside the landrover for Rifat to return was becoming intolerable. His Pakistani friend had been away for twenty minutes, and although it was still dark, dawn was due to break in half an hour at 05:42. Daniel could only remain inconspicuous wearing a hoody top and a baseball hat for so long as his distinct white features would eventually be noticed by someone, and when that happened, his liberty, and possibly his life, would be over. He really needed Rifat to hurry up but as he sat low down in the passenger seat, he hoped and prayed that Rifat wasn’t selling him out to the authorities and he was minutes away from being apprehended for the two murders in India that he knew nothing of until only a few hours earlier when Rifat had told him, and two other deaths back in Mirpur.

  Daniel ripped a piece of paper from the notebook that was sticking out of the dashboard in front of him and began to write on it when he caught sight of Rifat leaving the main building complex and walking towards him and the landrover. He had two large envelopes in his left hand and he gave them to Daniel as he got into the driver’s seat, switched on the ignition and turned the vehicle around to the exit.

  “Apologies for the delay in getting back to you but that took a bit longer than I anticipated. I’ve got the details of today’s freight train times from Rawalpindi to Peshawar. There’s a freight train bound to leave from Rawalpindi for Peshawar at 5.59am. If we leave now, we can get to the freight yard in about 15 minutes. Rawalpindi is only 22 kilometres away and at this time of the morning there’s little or no traffic on the road. We’ll get you on board a railway wagon with the Fireblade and all you have to do then is just drive your way out of Peshawar to Torkham and then on to the Afghanistan border crossing. That’s the
only bit of your journey that I am worried about and you travelling along the 55 kilometres of the National 5 highway to Torkham. You won’t get noticed because the crash helmet will hide your European features, but the motorcycle might draw attention to you because it is not a legal vehicle to drive on Pakistani roads.