by Parker Bilal
It was fifteen years since the car that held his wife and young daughter had gone over the side of a bridge. In his dream, he was always the one in the car drowning. Yet he hadn’t been in the car with them. They drowned. He lived. It was a simple equation, but one he had never grown used to.
A moment’s silence fell. Makana had the impression he didn’t need to go into details; Winslow knew more than he was letting on.
‘Let me come to the point, I represent Her Majesty’s government.’
‘Which part of her government would that be?’
‘The part that doesn’t like to announce itself.’
‘Meaning the Secret Intelligence Services?’
‘I’m what they call a consultant these days. It sounds less … threatening.’ Marcus Winslow reached into his jacket to produce a packet of Benson & Hedges, along with a slim gold lighter with which he lit one. He blew the rich aroma into the air. Makana drew on his Cleopatra, feeling the acrid smoke bite at the back of his throat. Humility, the ancients believed, was the route to invincibility.
‘They send for me when they have something of a delicate nature to deal with. Personal skills. These days very sadly lacking.’
‘And that’s why you’ve come to me?’
‘Quite.’ Marcus Winslow flashed a brief smile. Not cold, but not superior either. ‘I’m told you are quite skilled at what you do.’
‘That depends on who you’ve been talking to.’
‘I understand you operate as a kind of private investigator.’
‘Something like that.’ Makana took a moment to study his cigarette. ‘You don’t have some kind of identification on you, by any chance?’
‘Forgive me.’
Winslow produced a passport and a leather wallet from his pocket. He laid them on the table before getting to his feet and walking over to the railings. The passport carried a photograph that identified him as Marcus Richard Winslow. The wallet was embossed with a stamp that showed a lion and a unicorn. Inside, the same logo appeared on an inset medallion and the words Semper Occultus on a banner at the bottom. The card marked Secret Intelligence Services carried no picture, just a number. Makana set them down again. If they were fakes they were well done, but he couldn’t count himself an expert. Everything about the man, from the cut of his clothes to his soft loafers, spoke of someone at home in unfamiliar settings. He wasn’t trying to make an impression; this was the way he was.
‘What I am going to tell you is confidential. I’m not asking you to sign anything silly at this stage because I believe we must build trust between us.’
‘I’m listening.’
Makana shut off the flame, lifted the pot off the little stove and poured the dark coffee into two small white china cups. He set them on a brass tray alongside a green plastic sugar bowl.
‘We have rather a delicate situation on our hands, and we need your help.’
‘You have my full attention.’
Marcus Winslow sat down again and took a moment to taste the coffee. He smiled approvingly before setting the cup down carefully on the low table, picking up the passport and wallet in the same smooth movement. He tucked them away in his jacket as he spoke.
‘Does the name Abu Hilal mean anything to you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’ Makana sipped his coffee and lit another cigarette. He had a feeling this was going to be a long story.
‘I don’t blame you. Men like him pop out of the woodwork at an alarming rate. Impossible to keep track of all of them. Still, this one is a little closer to home, a known associate of Daud Bolad, whom I believe you have had dealings with.’
Makana had come face to face with Bolad some eight years ago, while he was working on a missing-persons case, looking for a football player named Adil Romario. His inquiries had brought him in touch with Bolad, and he still recalled the moment he had first set eyes on the strange one-armed man, crouched over him in the basement of an abandoned building. Makana had always counted himself lucky to have got away from that encounter in one piece, and he knew that Bolad was the kind of person who never really went away, not fully, not until they were dead. There was always a chance they might surprise you one day, quite out of the blue.
‘Abu Hilal was born Sayf al-Din Ahmed Khayr. A Jordanian small-time petty crook who progressed from burglary and car theft via armed robbery, with the occasional rape thrown in. A real charmer. He was too young to fight in Afghanistan but he did pop up briefly with the Arab Brigades in the Balkans in the 1990s, which is where he met Bolad. He came into his own of course after we invaded Iraq in 2003.’ The Englishman gave a weary sigh. ‘Our very own finishing school for terrorists.’
‘He was part of the insurgency?’
‘Abu Hilal, as he became known around then, had military experience. He knew how to run a low-key guerrilla force. He knew about IEDs and all the rest of it. He ran a tough ship and he was respected. The Americans put a price of ten million dollars on his head, which turned him into a star overnight. Nothing like a wanted sign to provide kudos.’
A grey heron landed gracefully on the railing of the balcony and surveyed the river.
‘I take it nobody ever collected the reward?’
‘The Americans came close, close enough to force him underground. He disappeared. People thought perhaps he was dead. Or maybe he’d retired or gone abroad. Instead, it turns out that Abu Hilal had morphed into a very dangerous animal indeed.’ Winslow finished his coffee and set the little cup down. ‘His wife and children were killed in a drone strike on his home. That made it personal. It wasn’t about fighting to liberate Iraq from foreign invaders any more, it was about restoring Islam, about cleansing the world. He got religion, in a big way, started making speeches about the end of time, the Day of Judgement.’
It was Makana’s turn to sigh. So far, so familiar. ‘A monster of your own making.’
‘It’s become a speciality of ours, you might say.’ Winslow’s voice was heavy with irony. He looked like a man who had been fighting battles on so many fronts that he no longer remembered what the war was all about. Makana was intrigued. Winslow seemed to read his mind.
‘You’re wondering where you come into all of this.’
‘Well, I admit I’m curious.’
‘Understandably.’ Winslow smiled. ‘I shall try to get to the point, and I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that all of this is confidential.’
‘Of course.’
‘Some months ago we picked up intel from one of our sources in Damascus that Abu Hilal was looking for a specialist.’
‘What kind of specialist?’
‘The kind that can make chemical nerve agents. Sarin gas to be precise.’ Winslow lit another cigarette. He tapped the lighter against his knee. ‘I don’t have to tell you how dangerous a nerve agent would be in the hands of a man like Abu Hilal. This is our worst nightmare, or as close to it as we would want to get.’
‘You said he was looking for a specialist.’
‘Well, that’s where the second part of this story begins.’ Winslow paused for a moment to draw on his cigarette. He seemed to be studying Makana. ‘Could I trouble you for another cup of coffee?’
‘Certainly.’
Makana collected the cups and went over to the counter to start to prepare a fresh pot. Behind him, he heard Winslow get to his feet. Over his shoulder he watched him walk to the railing and look out across the river. The heron was long gone. Makana rinsed out the pot, refilled it and spooned in the coffee. He struck a match and set the pot on the flame. Winslow began talking again.
‘Three days ago the British Consulate in Istanbul received a phone call from a man who claimed he had been abducted and brought to Turkey against his will. The man gave his name as Ayman Nizari.’ Winslow exhaled, frowning at the deck. ‘There was a chemical weapons expert by that name working for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. You may have heard of the Anfal campaign.’
Makana had heard of al-Anfal, a genocidal plan to decimate the Kurd
ish population in northern Iraq in the closing stages of the Iraq–Iran war. The name came from a chapter in the Quran describing a decisive victory in early Muslim history. According to legend, angels intervened on the side of the Prophet’s followers, ensuring their victory.
‘You think this man is connected to Abu Hilal?’
‘We believe that Abu Hilal was trying to recruit Nizari’s services.’
‘You have this man now?’
‘No. The consulate’s intelligence man is something of a dim light. He couldn’t persuade Nizari to come in, or to give him much more information. All we know is that Nizari claims he was abducted in Spain, in Marbella to be exact, by what he believes was a Mossad team. We can’t verify this. We can’t go to the Israelis without revealing what we know. We want Nizari for ourselves. If they get him, he could disappear for ever, and that would put paid to our chances of getting hold of Abu Hilal.’
‘Forgive me,’ said Makana, ‘but I was under the impression you were allies.’
Winslow sighed heavily. ‘On paper, of course, we’re all on the same side. In practice, we have our own agendas.’
The coffee was coming to the boil. Makana turned down the heat.
‘I have a couple of questions.’
‘By all means.’
‘Assuming his story is correct, why would the Israelis take Nizari to Istanbul? And secondly, how did he manage to make a phone call?’
‘The second question is easier to answer. According to Nizari there was a collision. The vehicle they were travelling in was struck and in the confusion he managed to get away. We’re trying to confirm the details. As for why they took him to Istanbul, we can only speculate.’
Winslow came across the room to take the cup of coffee Makana was offering. He took a sip and set it down on the table before retrieving the briefcase he had brought with him. It was an old leather case, like the kind schoolteachers used to carry. He unclipped the brass fastening and pulled out a slim laptop that he set on the kitchen counter.
‘We believe Nizari was planning to sell his skills to Abu Hilal. A meeting was set up on neutral ground, by an intermediary. From what little information Nizari gave us we were able to piece together his movements before his abduction. We found this.’
Winslow tapped the computer a few times and a fuzzy black and white image appeared on the screen. Another touch and the video began to play. The film had been shot from a high angle, a security camera close to the ceiling, Makana guessed.
‘This is Marbella in Spain. The Cherry Beach club, frequented by Arab men and Eurotrash with money to burn who lounge around in the sun drinking champagne at a thousand euros a bottle to wash down the exorbitantly priced sushi.’
‘Sounds like an unlikely place to find a terrorist with religious inclinations.’
‘That’s what made it so perfect.’ Winslow sipped his coffee and set down the cup. ‘Girls in bikinis dancing on tables, pouring bubbly over one another. You get the general idea.’
It wasn’t exactly Makana’s area of expertise.
The scene was the terrace of a restaurant on a sunny afternoon. There were a number of tables set around a low circular stage where two girls in what looked like the kind of feather headdresses that Indians wore in cowboy films, and not much else, were gyrating to the sound of what might have been considered music in some parts but to Makana sounded like a washing machine filled with assorted horseshoes.
Female waiting staff wearing a minimum of clothing tottered about on high heels between the tables. The clientele appeared to be made up of overweight Europeans, largely men, some young, many middle-aged, and all of them determined to make a spectacle of themselves. They whooped and cheered, grabbed at the waitresses as they went by and poured alcohol down their throats. To Makana it was as close to an image of hell as you would ever want to come. Winslow drew his attention to a corner table where three men sat, one with his back to the camera.
‘The one on the right is our middleman, a Spaniard by the name of Miko Santamaria. He has his fat fingers in every pie you can think of – human trafficking, drugs, along with an impressive list of contacts in any branch of the mafia you care to name. Albanians, Kosovans, Bosnians . . .’
‘Which one’s the scientist?’
‘The man on the left side.’
Makana leaned closer to study the grainy image. Ayman Nizari was a balding man of about sixty. He was quite overweight and had a greying moustache. The polo shirt he wore had large sweat stains under the arms. His puffy face wore the look of a small child who has been let loose in a toy store. He didn’t know which way to look and he certainly didn’t seem to notice that the waitress kept refilling his glass. Two of the dancers sashayed up and, climbing first onto a chair, stepped up onto the table. They were wearing tiny bikinis and the obligatory feather headdresses. As they began to dance the portly Spaniard encouraged them by clapping his hands and throwing his head back and laughing. The scientist’s eyes blinked guiltily behind his glasses. He looked like a cat caught with a bird between its teeth.
‘Who is the third man?’ Makana indicated the man with his back to the camera.
‘We don’t know. He’s the first one to leave. It’s possible that he’s another local fixer, a contact of Santamaria. It’s also possible that he’s connected to Abu Hilal.’
‘The Israelis didn’t grab him?’
‘It’s a loose end. Either he evaded them, or he was dismissed as unimportant. We simply don’t know enough as yet.’
Winslow clicked the keyboard and the image jumped to a later time. The music was, incredibly, even louder now. The light had changed. It was evening. The Spaniard and the scientist were alone. The third man had gone. Miko Santamaria was leaning towards the Iraqi, who was holding his head in his hands. Drunk or despairing, it wasn’t clear which. A waitress was also leaning over him. She was different from the one who had been serving them earlier. She appeared to have fallen into the swimming pool. She was blonde and wore shorts and a wet T-shirt that was knotted to expose her navel. They watched the Iraqi reaching for his glass and managing to knock it over. The waitress was all smiles as she cleared up the mess. Ayman Nizari was helped to his feet. He had trouble walking. The waitress led him out of shot of the camera, his arm around her shoulders, her arm around his waist.
‘And that’s all we have. No records of Ayman Nizari on a commercial flight from Marbella to Istanbul. They must have used a false name. Probably they got him out by land or by sea. We simply don’t know.’
‘And the waitress?’
‘Yes, we thought she looked interesting. Nadia Razvan. On paper a German national of Romanian origin, but her papers were false. She’d been working at the club for a couple of days. Nobody knew anything about her. Apparently this is not unusual; there’s a rapid turnover of staff.’ Winslow closed the laptop and slipped it back into the leather briefcase.
‘What about your Spanish middleman?’
‘Miko Santamaria claims he has no idea what happened. We had the local authorities pick him up for questioning, but he denies everything, claims that Nizari was a friend of a business associate who asked Miko to show him a good time.’
‘Tell me again about Istanbul. Why did Nizari contact the consulate? What exactly did he want?’
‘He says he wants to help us. He can lead us to Abu Hilal.’
‘And in return?’
‘In return, he would like sanctuary. He’s afraid of the Israelis, scared they will kill him as soon as they get a chance. He wants protection, and for that he is willing to help us to lay a trap for Abu Hilal.’
‘It sounds almost too perfect,’ said Makana.
‘Nizari is a wanted man. Saddam Hussein’s murder of Kurdish civilians is a war crime. He could be prosecuted.’
‘That didn’t stop him trying to sell his talents to the highest bidder.’
Winslow shrugged. ‘He’s poor. He’s spent the last twenty years living undercover. And there’s another factor: his wife is
ill. Cancer. That’s the reason he risked travelling to Spain. She needs treatment. That would also be part of the deal.’
‘It’s a high price, wouldn’t you say?’
‘To catch one of the most dangerous terrorist masterminds out there?’ Winslow shook his head. ‘For that I would throw in the keys to Buckingham Palace.’
‘So, just to be clear, right now you have no idea where he actually is.’
‘We’re pretty sure that he’s still in Istanbul. We don’t think he has any travel documents. He probably doesn’t have much money. As far as we know he has no contacts there. We don’t know who’s holding him, or where he is staying.’ Winslow leaned on the railing and tapped ash into the river. ‘What we do know is that he’s not going to turn himself in to anyone but you.’
‘Me?’ For the first time in the conversation Makana felt genuine surprise.
‘You.’
Makana joined Winslow at the railings. A gust of wind from the river ruffled the Englishman’s thinning hair.
‘When things went bad for Saddam Hussein in 2003 our friend found himself persona non grata. He had nowhere to turn. Iran would have been an obvious choice, but since he had been responsible for the nerve agents that had made martyrs of so many of them in the Iran–Iraq war that option didn’t hold much water. Instead he crossed the Red Sea and found refuge in your home country, Sudan. One of the only places in the world that would give him shelter. During his time in Khartoum our man found himself some new friends. One of them was an old friend of yours. A retired police superintendent.’
‘Chief Haroun?’ Winslow nodded. Makana said nothing. It was a name Makana hadn’t heard spoken in years. In his early days as an investigator, it was Haroun’s faith in Makana’s abilities that eventually led to him being promoted to head the Criminal Investigations Department. Haroun was a larger-than-life, unconventional man. He scared most people, but found some kind of bond with Makana. They had become friends, spending time together with their families. The chief’s wife was a distant relation of Makana’s wife, Muna, and so they were almost family. Looking back on that time was like recalling a lost empire.
