by Andy McNab
My normal clothes, the map, the Mini-Ero and mags were stuffed into my Bergen, which I'd kept on my back. The straps were loosened so it fell back and rested on the top of the bench. My arm itched and I hadn't resisted much up to now.
The young lad came back out of the target with an empty tray. I could have done with a brew right now. I eyed the two old guys selling tea on the corner at the other side of the road, under the sign pointing to AM Net. They'd sparked it up about an hour ago and were doing a brisk trade. If only . . .
Another guy went into AM Net – maybe young, I couldn't tell under the beard and cowpat.
I gripped the phone.
A knackered truck pulled up at the kerb and a gang of workers with shovels clambered out. They moved further along and started having a go at the ditches. A few had black and white shemags like mine, but all wore orange fluorescent jackets over their other gear. Health and Safety had even weaselled their way into Kabul. They should have had a look round the back of the Jock's place.
He came back out of AM Net. The Yes Man hadn't rung.
I used the phone to give the sutures another rub instead. The traffic was binding, sometimes stopping altogether and blocking my view.
It was just after half eight when I felt more vibrations in my hand.
I got my head down again but strained to keep my eyes on target. 'They online?'
'Yes . . .' He hesitated, perhaps checking monitors. 'Is it him? Do you have Dominik?'
'No.' I kept my eyes on AM Net, waiting for the sender to sign off and come out.
'The email has confirmed proof of life. The tree fell on John's BMW in the storm last winter.'
The traffic snarled in front of me again. I kept my head pressed firmly to the phone.
The Yes Man read out the reply word for word as it came up on his screen. ' "They – are – getting – impatient – please – hurry . . ."' Shit. Two trucks blocked my line of sight. I'd lost the trigger again. I cut him short. 'I don't give a fuck what's being said. Call me when the link closes down.'
'Just has.'
I closed down, too, and slipped the phone back into my pocket. I got up, resisting the temptation to run like a lunatic. I smiled goodbye to my friends and stepped off the pavement.
I squeezed between the two trucks and reached the other side by the tea stall. I checked right, then left, then back up towards the embassy, as if I was meeting a friend. There was no one but pepper-pots and kids within the time and distance anyone could have walked from AM Net.
I played phone call to the mate and glanced through the target window as I crossed Flower towards it.
I could see the old man near the window, but no one else.
I'd fucked up big-time.
66
The young lad brushed past me with another tray of tea glasses. He disappeared into a baker's as I started checking down Flower. There was fuck all else I could do.
I walked quickly down the street, head up. I was going to have to risk appearing suspicious. If I didn't find anyone who looked like a possible target I was fucked anyway.
A group of surly young guys who were probably best mates with the ones chasing me last night moved towards me, but carried on past.
It was no more than a hundred to the junction where my reception committee had been waiting. It was much busier than this stretch.
My arms were pumping now. The main was a blur of orange-and-whites.
Bodies milled on both corners, talking and smoking. Women with shopping bags wove their way through.
I stopped and looked around. One cowpat, moving across Flower in the distance, was taller, much taller than the others.
I ran.
A taxi pulled up, an old Mazda estate, and I saw him slide into the back seat. As it pulled away, I couldn't believe what I was about to do. I waved frantically at the nearest orange-and-white and did the same.
67
I jumped into the back. The driver had a white beard and black teeth, and looked about eighty. He waffled some kind of greeting. I shoved my hand into my bum-bag and dragged out a bundle of bills. 'Let's go! That taxi! Follow, follow!'
I waved my hand urgently but he seemed more interested in the stink of Marmite. I shoved a couple of tens into his gnarled brown hand. 'Let's go! Chop-chop!'
He finally pulled away. He studied me in his rear-view, which had enough beads hanging off it to decorate a mosque.
The Yes Man's mobile vibrated in my baggy pockets. Fuck him, he could wait.
I leant forward between the two front seats, eyes skinned for the Mazda. I tried to stay all smiles as I gave his bony old shoulder a friendly squeeze. 'That's it, matey, let's go get that wagon!'
I shoved another note at him.
It was just after nine. The sun was behind us. TV Hill was on the left. We were heading west.
The road narrowed. The shops petered out. Concrete, flat-roofed two-storey houses took their place. I peered through the dusty, cracked windscreen but there was no sign of the orange-and-white estate.
A vehicle pulled out of our lane up ahead and cut left across the oncoming traffic.
'There! That taxi! Follow that taxi!'
I waved my hands and tried to get him to see what I wanted. He didn't understand until I produced another ten.
The orange-and-white disappeared down a compacted-rock road. It was definitely two up. A large body sat rear right. It didn't move, didn't check behind.
I rolled down the window. The noise and heat of the outside world rushed in. 'That's it. Left, yeah? That taxi, yeah?'
He grinned knowingly as he spun the wheel to get in among the oncoming traffic. He'd probably seen that bloke with a beard pull the same stunt in a hundred Bollywood films as he fought big-time crime in downtown Delhi.
He got halfway across the road and slammed on the brakes. I pitched forward. Two gleaming white GMC suburbans, all blacked-out glass, sped towards us. Red and blue lights flashed behind radiator grilles to tell us to keep the fuck out of the way. These boys were stopping for no one.
We turned in their wake. TV Hill was now ahead. We were heading south.
I kept eyes on target. The plume of dust that billowed behind it was maybe a hundred and fifty further ahead. A gang of kids cleaning cars had to jump out of the way as we slewed across the gravel.
The orange-and-white hung another left.
'That's it, matey!'
Our car slowed. He still faced forward, but gave me a sideways glance.
'Dodgy bastard!' I jammed another ten his way and he chuckled as we picked up speed.
We followed the Mazda through the residential area, sometimes fifty behind, sometimes more. A main drag was coming up in the distance, but I could see a tailback stretching almost all the way to us. I ripped off my Bergen and grabbed the map.
TV Hill was now about a K ahead. I could clearly see the antennae farms on the two peaks. The main had to be Salang Wat. A left would take us back to the city centre. A right would take us north-west – out of the city and off the edge of the world.
We crept towards the main. The target was now about four vehicles in front.
The driver was chatting away now as if I was his long-lost brother. He smiled and sniffed the air. I could tell he was dying to ask the aftershave question.
Fuck it. I dug in the Bergen, eyes never off the target, got hold of the Marmite jar and opened it. I held it out so he could have a smell. He winced. It was official: Afghans definitely didn't like the stuff.
We rolled forward a couple of vehicle lengths. My face was covered with sweat, and that made the smell even worse. I could finally see the smouldering remains of a car bomb and the carnage it had created in the open-air market.
Italian armoured vehicles formed a partial roadblock, their .50 cals pointing every which way. Soldiers took cover in doorways while traffic cops in drunken-sailor hats shouted and pointed at the approaching traffic.
Body parts were scattered among the shattered metal and glass that surrounde
d the crater. Fire engines sprayed white foam as the larger pieces of the dead were retrieved and the injured were helped towards any available vehicle. The two Merc ambulances couldn't cope.
The market seemed to stretch all the way to the bottom of TV Hill. There it morphed into a shanty that reached most of the way to the summit. Somewhere in the sea of mud and corrugated iron lived Magreb, Mrs Magreb, and their four little boys.
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The troops were diverting traffic to the right, out of town. The tailback had formed because everybody wanted to go left.
The area had been cordoned off big-time. Hundreds of shoppers and stall-holders were being herded away from the city side of the market.
The Yes Man's mobile kicked off again just as I saw our target raise his to his ear. I let it vibrate.
The street was wide and long, with a concrete central divide. Both sides were lined with what might one day be two-storey shops. Steel reinforcing rods stuck out of the first storey, like there was some Greek-style building tax dodge going on. Dead animals hung outside one, waiting to be skinned. Sparkling alloy wheels were piled outside another. The next down sold chip rolls.
Two helicopters circled our side of TV Hill. Police and military with white lollipops swarmed everywhere, marshalling the traffic like airport ground controllers.
The Mazda was only three ahead, but with so many orange-and-whites in the queue we blended in fine.
I checked the map again. Once we'd passed the hill, the diversion had to start heading south soon or we'd be up in the mountains.
We came to a spot where armoured vehicles had shifted the concrete blocks that divided the lanes. A cop in a drunken-sailor hat fed himself a chip roll with one hand and directed the traffic with the other. Sure enough, we headed south. We'd soon be in Khushal Mena, Basma's part of town.
It cost me another ten dollars. I tried five, but it seemed to make something go wrong with the throttle cable. At least he'd learnt one word of English. As I gave him the money he beamed. 'Matey! Matey!'
More armoured vehicles and Italians loomed. Their .50 cals kept the slow-moving wagon train channelled on the southbound road. A handpainted sign pointed to the former king's palace.
The mobile kicked off once more and this time I opened it up.
'Never cut me off again! What's happening?'
'I'm following a possible.' I didn't need to tell him where I was. He had the phone tagged.
'Who is he? What is he?'
'Don't know, but looking local.'
I could see farmland through the gaps between the bombed-out buildings. The rusting wreck of a Russian armoured personnel carrier lay stranded in a field. Wizened old men shepherded brown woolly sheep against the distant backdrop of snow-capped mountains.
'Where is he going?'
'Don't know. That's why I'm following him. Soon as I do, you will too.'
The traffic was picking up speed. On cue, Matey developed accelerator problems. I threw him another ten. Only fight the battles you can win.
It wasn't long before I was seeing what was left of the palace on the southern extreme of the city. It looked like Dresden after Bomber Harris had done his stuff. There was no way of telling which lot of liberators could take the credit: the Russians, the Taliban or the B52s.
Further down the road we had the makings of a military convention. Troops sat tightly inside their armoured vehicles and Humvees, body-armoured up, all the party gear pointing out at the traffic.
I could see why. About a K away on the plain to my right lay what had to be ISAFville: row upon row of 200-metre-long tented accommodation, vehicle compounds, HESCOs, razor wire, satellite dishes, the full Monty. They probably battened down their area like this every time a bomb went off.
The target was now just two ahead but the traffic had spread out as we finally headed back towards town. I knew where we were the moment we passed the Russian embassy. I wondered if I'd see the Jock carrying bodies out to the bins, still clearing up after last night.
We were soon at the river and the diversion lifted. It took a twenty this time to keep him moving. He must have sensed the end was in sight.
We stayed behind the Mazda as it approached the market, finishing up only about five hundred metres from where we'd started. The crowd was still being held back and had turned hostile. The Italians eyed them warily from behind their sunglasses.
The Mazda stopped. I squeezed the bony shoulder. 'Stop here, matey.'
Eyes on the Mazda, I grabbed my Bergen and shoved him one last ten. He could probably afford to drive straight home and begin his retirement.
I watched the target get out and skirt the crowd. It wasn't difficult: his cowpat was still a mile above the rest. He wasn't fucking around. He knew where he was going.
I followed, head down, eyes up, locking on to the back of his hat.
We reached a large car park among the cluster of flat-roofed, baked-mud dwellings that spread on up the hill.
He put his hands into his waistcoat pockets. He was searching for something. Keys . . .
Fuck.
He opened the driver's door of a battered black flatbed.
I spun round and broke into a run. Matey was still trying to turn round. I jumped in front of his bonnet, brandishing a twenty. His grin was bigger than ever.
69
As I jumped in, the black pickup had reached the last stretch of tarmac before the hill. Both of us soon hit the dirt road and started snaking through the shanty town.
We climbed steeply, past small, square, flat-roofed shacks. The cab lurched across ruts and potholes. The other wagon kicked up a dustcloud a couple of hundred metres ahead. The city was soon below us.
As we got higher, a few brick and concrete houses jutted out of the hillside. Boys played football with bare feet. Women sat in groups on terraces carved out of the slope. Every hundred metres or so, we hit a hairpin. The cab was just inches from a sheer drop down into the valley. The road must have been built as access to the antennae farms, and these families had piggybacked off it. There was no planning permission needed. It looked like they'd just scraped out a terrace with picks and shovels and used the spoil to build with.
I'd seen rougher and dirtier shanties than this in India and South America. At least some of the kids here were running round in school uniform, the boys in blue shirts, the girls in white headscarves. And the packed mud was swept scrupulously clean. It seemed there was a whole lot more civic pride up here than I'd ever seen down in the valley.
A rusting Soviet hulk, ripped apart by the muj, overshadowed the next bend. It might have been picked clean by the buzzards. We lost sight of the black pickup for a moment, then found it again as we completed a sharp left-hander.
It was parked up alongside a two-storey rectangular house that was set back from the track by about ten metres on higher ground. It had three windows on the upper floor at the front, and one each side of the front door below. All were boarded up. No smoke curled from the chimney. No electricity cables ran in from the road and there was nobody in sight.
