by Andy McNab
The Yes Man told me they were being sent from AM Net Café. It was on the corner of Flower Street and Jadayi Sulh, two shops in from the junction opposite the Emergency Surgical Centre for War Victims.
There was no welcome pack in the room and no courtesy map, no bus trips on offer to see the sights or visits to the ballet. One day I guessed there'd be guided tours of bin Laden's caves and the glorious poppy fields in bloom, but not yet.
There was a PDF map of the city on the desktop. I'd try to correlate the main routes with satellite imagery. It was important to know exactly where I was, and exactly where I was going – there was absolutely no room for fuck-ups.
I could have used the Firm's satellite imagery to study the location, but Google Earth was just as good for the detail I needed.
The street map itself wasn't detailed enough to give street names, but the sat imagery was good.
I found the café. It was only about a K and a half away, but I was going to need to burn the routes there and back firmly into my memory. I switched between the PDF and Google Earth and soon had my bearings.
I found a bottle of water among all the mock-tails in the minibar and went back to the laptop. This was a dry country. If you wanted alcohol, you had to smuggle in your own – or go to a place like the Gandamack Lodge.
It was next on my list. I'd have to check all Dom's known locations to find out where the fuck he was by Saturday morning. Even if the cash was handed over, he was still going to get a round in the back of the head. And if I discovered he'd killed Pete, I wanted it to be me who pulled the trigger.
The Gandamack Lodge had opened in the days following the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, when a glut of news crews found themselves with nowhere to stay. It very quickly became a Mecca for journalists. That, in turn, made it a Mecca for another breed of war veteran, the fixer.
I checked Google Earth again. It wasn't easy to work out where exactly it was on the map when all I had to work with was an address that read: 'Next to the UNHCR building and just up from DHL'.
This wasn't unusual. I'd worked in plenty of cities where the directions were just as vague. Phrases like 'round the corner from' or 'at the back of' keep cropping up. My favourite had been in Jalalabad. One address had been 'street number two, second alleyway, house fifteen, four doors left'.
I thought I'd worked out which building I was looking for. UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) was marked on the PDF, but I still wanted a decent local map. I wasn't going out there on the streets without one. TV Hill stuck out like a sore thumb, but Kabul was a city of three million people. That was a fuck of a lot of streets and alleyways.
I closed down the laptop. The Firm's disk would close itself down automatically and go hide somewhere in the main drive. It would also be defended against interrogation by sniffer devices, which could read a hard disk from a few metres away. Targets of industrial espionage can have their hard drive downloaded while they're checking in at an airport without having a clue that it's happening. Even the new biometric passports aren't immune. IDs are routinely stolen this way, especially by people-traffickers.
I sparked up the personal mobile and a text was waiting. Kate had sent Basma's mobile number.
I highlighted and hit send. It rang four times. It was answered, but whoever was at the other end didn't speak.
'Hello, Basma? My name is Nick.' I could hear rustling and distant traffic.
'Basma, I'm a friend of Dominik Condratowicz.'
'Where did you get this number?' The voice was female, and spoke perfect Home Counties English.
'I need to see you. It's about Dom. He's in trouble and I think you can help. I know he's there. I was with him when you phoned a couple of days back. Where are you?'
There was no hesitation this time. 'Do not call me again.'
The line went dead.
I stored her number, and closed down to save the battery.
The laptop and the Firm's mobile went into the room safe, and my two passports, cash, room card, RBS card and, of course, my Thierry Henrys went down between my socks and my Timberlands.
I'd bought a black nylon bum-bag at Heathrow at the same time as the phone. I went to the bathroom and padded it out with the flannel and half a roll of toilet paper, then fixed it round my waist so the pouch was on my right hip and protruded from under my T-shirt. The personal mobile went into the pocket of my jeans.
I switched on the TV. I looked back as I hung the Do Not Disturb sign outside, and the first face I saw on the screen was the grey-haired bloke with the beard.
48
'A map? You don't need a map, sir.'
They didn't have any at Reception either. No one who stayed at the Serena had ever asked for one. Maps implied walking or giving a driver directions. The manager said no Westerner should go round Kabul on foot or without a driver and escort.
He pointed me in the direction of the pastry shop and asked me to wait there while they tried to track one down. He was sorry I couldn't have Magreb again but he was needed in the kitchen. Was I sure I didn't want him to organize a convoy with one of the security companies? It would only take an hour or two.
'Thanks, but I'm quite sure.'
I headed for the pastry shop and ordered a coffee. An Afghani in a suit walked past with three women, two of them in the old-style American desert camouflage, one in the new. The talk was about contracts. I half listened, but my attention was diverted by the black woman in the old-style stuff. Her stomach was so pronounced she had to be at least six months gone. It was bizarre to see someone pregnant in uniform.
I picked up the Afghan Times to stop me lifting the Tubigrip and picking at the scab. My arm still hurt, but not so much that I was constantly thinking about it.
A story about an Italian and his Afghan interpreter who'd been kidnapped off the street a week ago dominated the front page. The Taliban had got hold of them. Their demands weren't met, so they cut off their heads. The bodies had been found on wasteground to the south of the city. The newspaper urged Westerners not to travel anywhere without an armed guard.
The three American women returned, carrying the same little boxes with pink ribbon I'd seen before. The ribbons were soon undone and the boxes opened. They munched pastries. Maybe she wasn't pregnant after all; maybe it was just big-time wheat intolerance.
Eventually the manager arrived with a map. One of the bellhops had been sent out to a local bookshop to buy it.
I studied it as I finished my coffee. It showed all the embassies, hospitals and main mosques, and the ministry of this and the ministry of that. It sort of correlated with what I remembered of the satellite imagery, but I didn't know which had been produced first. The map still showed this hotel as the Kabul, so it was at least a year old. It didn't really matter. It would still get me to AM Net and the Gandamack.
I slipped it into the empty Bergen, which I threw over my shoulder as I headed for the door.
Two businessmen in suits exited in front of me. Both carried briefcases and dripped with sweat as they waddled towards the 4x4 two-ship waiting in the courtyard. Their BG watched as they climbed aboard the rear vehicle. Then he took the front right of the lead wagon, and they were ready to go.
I walked towards the pedestrian door at the left of the main gates. I couldn't waste time waiting for Magreb to finish work and certainly didn't want a security company to send a convoy. I had to get on.
The guard from the Hiace sprang out of the guardhouse. He lifted his upturned hand. 'No Magreb? No car?'
I smiled and shook his hand. 'It's OK, I know where I'm going. It's just round the corner.'
I overrode him with my happy face, and machine-gun English that he didn't understand. I just hoped I'd done it without pissing him off. I might be running back in about five minutes and needing that AK of his to spread the good news.
49
I turned left. I knew that the road soon bent round to the right, towards a roundabout. The second right after that would have
me heading north into the diplomatic quarter. The Internet café was close to the Iranian embassy.
I was facing south. The sun was on my right. It had maybe two and a half, three hours' burning time left.
The air was hot but not sticky. Without humidity to damp it down, dust was king. Every vehicle carried a thick layer. A little kid of five or six scrawled a message on a door panel with his finger.
Traffic was heavy and slow-moving in both directions. The pavements were clogged and pedestrians spilled on to the road. People dressed in grey, white and brown wove in and out between the cars.
I passed the big mosque I'd seen from the cab. Its twin towers were sheathed in scaffolding. There was a big regeneration programme under way. The signs stuck to the railings explained that some nice Italians had signed the cheque.
The two-ship passed me, and the businessmen swivelled and stared. I gave them a glare back that said, 'Yeah, that's right, I'm walking.' What else could I do? Like Basra, Kabul wasn't exactly a hail-a-cab sort of place for foreigners. At least I kept control of where I was going – and by the look of things I'd be quicker on foot anyway. I needed to recce the café in daylight.
I kept my head up and strode along as if I belonged there, trying not to make myself look like a target. The traffic on the road skirting the mosque was at a standstill. I guessed it was a tailback from the drunken-sailor roundabout, but then I heard shouts and screams, amplified over the speaker system. Fuck, here we go – a mad mullah sparking everyone up on a demo, hatred for the West, that sort of shit. Why couldn't he have waited an hour?
I was against the clock here. I'd have to keep going. AM Net was one of only three known locations for Dom – I needed to find out how it would look when I came back in the morning and waited for whoever was sending the emails; I didn't need to know how it looked at dark o'clock when everyone had gone home. I also didn't want to be on the streets at night, sticking out even more like a sore thumb than I already was. If I turned the corner to find a mob, I'd just have to leg it.
Books were stacked by the hundred against walls and railings. Guys in suits and local get-up, and women, some in burqas, flicked through the pages. Nobody seemed perturbed by the noise of the demo. Stalls sold newspapers with headlines and pictures of their war in both English and Pashtun. Kabul used to be the capital of the Mughal Empire. These boys had been playing war for five hundred years.
I reached the roundabout. A bunch of drunken-sailor policemen stood in the middle of the mound. One of them yelled into a microphone and gesticulated at vehicles like a TV evangelist on speed. Behind him, a huge PA system was mounted on the roof of their green Toyota.
A guy selling olives tried to grab me. He dipped a glass into a big drum and dragged some out for me, but I brushed him off without breaking my stride.
I didn't know if it was kicking-out time in offices or some kind of public holiday, but there were thousands on the streets. The traffic was chaos, and the drunken sailors just added to it. It would have been suicide to cross now to take the right I wanted.
There was a metal pedestrian bridge just short of the junction. A poster stretched along almost the whole of its span. A smiling granddad type with a shiny bald head and perfect white teeth offered a free mountain bike in two languages to anyone who just said no to drugs.
The bottom of the steps was seething with newspaper, fruit and tea stalls. I pushed past and took the steel stairs two at a time, bobbing left and right to avoid people in the tunnel created by the roof and the hoardings that lined the sides.
I reached the far end and was about to come down. A woman laden with shopping bags laboured up the last couple of steps. I did my bit and waited for her to pass. While I waited, I looked down at the pavement.
Three guys in Gunga Din gear were staring up at me, checking me out. Their faces were gaunt and creased, a lot harder than anyone else's round here. Each had a little flower in his waistcoat, and that was the big giveaway. They were Taliban, down from the hills for a few days' R&R after shooting at ISAF or cutting off some Italian heads.
They watched me with total hatred in their eyes. Those boys wanted to rip me apart.
I was committed. There was nothing I could do but keep going down. If I turned and ran they'd come after me. I had to front this out.
Both hands shot to my hip. I unzipped the bum-bag with my left and jammed the right inside. My fingers closed round the padding as if it was a pistol grip.
They muttered to each other and exchanged a quick glance under their cowpats.
Two of the traffic cops stepped into the frame as I was about halfway down. They seemed interested in finding out what the three were getting sparked up about.
The cops looked at me, then at each other. At that point they also spotted the small flowers and turned on their heels.
Fuck it. I got about three-quarters of the way towards the cowpats and flicked my left hand to wave them back. 'Fuck off! Fuck off!'
People who'd been making their way up the stairs melted to either side. The ones right at the bottom decided they'd gone off the idea altogether.
'Fuck off! Fuck off!'
Three sets of eyes locked on to mine, but I kept coming. They looked at each other again, suddenly unsure what to do. This was the OK Corral, Kabul-style.
They edged back a step or two.
I had to keep the initiative. 'Fuck off! Out of my fucking way!'
They were close enough to spit at me, and they did. They growled what I guessed were obscenities.
I pointed at each one in turn. 'Fuck – off – now!'
I moved past them and on to the pavement. The two policemen were standing under the bridge, eyes fixed on the very interesting summits of TV Hill.
I leapt the barrier and ran like a man possessed against the flow of traffic.
Horns honked. Angry fists waved. My sunglasses bounced up and down on my chest as I pumped my arms.
I dodged, wove and jinked round vehicles. Drivers went ballistic. A chorus of shouts went up behind me.
Fuck 'em. I was making distance. That was all that mattered.
50
Up ahead, the street broadened into a wide avenue bordered by imposing buildings hidden behind high walls. Their tops bristled with security lights and concertinas of razor wire. Plywood huts jutted on to the pavement. Guards sat outside on plastic chairs.
A three-ship Humvee patrol was speeding down the road towards me. I jumped back on to the pavement. The pedestrian traffic had thinned and the Taliban hadn't followed. They wouldn't come up this far into the embassy area. There was too much security.
The centre Hummer towed a trailerload of suitcases and camouflage-pattern day sacks. The gunner on its .50 cal jerked his thumb at the rear of his vehicle, shouted and screamed at the traffic behind. As they passed, I could see a big red sign dangling beneath him. Judging by the way he waved his arms, it said something like Fuck off, suicide-bombers. The Corollas and orange-and-whites didn't take the slightest bit of notice.
I slowed to walking pace to get my breath back. My arm throbbed. I began to see one or two more white faces, but they were all in vehicles.
On my right, a big set of gates swung open and two black Cadillac Escalade SUVs surged on to the pavement. Both had a big antenna on the roof. I couldn't tell what nationality they were. There weren't any flags flying on any of the buildings, no ID to show which embassy was which.
The two guys in the front wagon glanced through their wraparounds at the dickhead in the T-shirt and Timberlands, then studied the heavy traffic carefully before driving straight across all the lanes. The Highway Code didn't seem to apply to them.
