The Agent Runner

by Simon Conway

  ‘Everything has been arranged. I’ve spoken to Samantha Burns.’

  ‘And what about your father?’

  ‘That’s the beauty of the plan. You confront him with the evidence you’ve gathered. Tell him he’s a traitor to his face. Be as angry as you like. But then, and this is the genius, you relent. In recognition of his years of service you tell him you’ve decided not to blow the whistle. In return for which he must do the honourable thing. It’s time for him to retire. Not pseudo-retirement: the real thing. You tell him that in return for your silence he is to nominate you to take his position in the shadow government. You step into his shoes.’

  ‘And you’ve cooked this up with the British?’

  ‘They’re reasonable people. They very much like the idea of you. They love a boy with a chip on his shoulder.’

  ‘What about Edward Malik?’

  ‘It was a journey of discovery,’ she explained. ‘I couldn’t just present you with the facts. You’d have freaked out. You know how obstinate you can be. We had to reel you in.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘Come on, darling. You’re a realist, above all that’s what you are.’

  ‘You’re asking me to betray my country. I love my country.’

  ‘It does not love you.’

  ‘Get dressed,’ he told her, grim-faced.

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘You father is a traitor and so are you.’

  ‘Darling, you’re not thinking straight.’

  ‘We’re going to the airport.’

  ‘We’ll lose the money!’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  He’d never seen her so angry. ‘You really are a loathsome little Hindu!’

  43. Ed kills

  In Lahore it had been raining all night, a roaring downpour pounding the roof and rattling the windows in their frames, and then a couple of hours before dawn it stopped. The sudden silence brought Ed abruptly awake. He was still awake an hour later, in the creeping damp of tangled sheets, when the crack of a rifle shot echoed amongst the high walls of the cul-de-sac. He instinctively rolled out of the bed and dropped on all fours. He grabbed his watch and stared at the luminescent dial.

  Four a.m. An extended staccato of automatic fire: the window shattered, the curtains billowed and glass spilled halfway across the floor. He pulled Leyla down beside him.

  She was shaking her head. ‘What?’

  ‘We’re being attacked,’ he said, ‘stay low.’ He scrambled across the floor to the wardrobe, pulling her along behind. There was shouting from outside and the rattle of answering fire from the direction of the gate. Reaching up he pulled their coveralls off the hangers. Apart from the strobe of muzzle flashes it was almost pitch black.

  ‘Get dressed.’

  Lying on their backs, they pulled on the coveralls. Under different circumstances it might have been funny, the two them fishtailing on the floor. Their flip-flops were by the door, he thrust hers into her hands and then reached beyond her and grabbed one of the fallen hangers. He crouched by the door with his back pressed to the wall, bending the hanger, pulling it out into a diamond shape and pushing it back together, folding it into a hand-grip. He straightened the curved end and started sharpening it against the concrete floor.

  It went silent for a moment, and in his heightened sense of awareness it felt like someone had hit pause. Then there was the startling roar of a diesel engine starting up, followed by the distinctive clatter of caterpillar tracks in the cul-de-sac.

  Seconds later there was the scream of tearing metal. He guessed they’d rammed the gate. Whoever they were, they were now in the compound.

  The door was flung open. A large man with a torch rushed into the room and stopped at the foot of the bed. Before he had time to react, Ed had risen up behind him, taken two steps, reached around and put his hand over the man’s face and stabbed him in his neck. The sharpened point of the hanger went in smoothly, without resistance. The man gave a gasping exhalation and dropped the torch. He tried to raise his hands to his neck as if to pull out the hanger then fell forward onto the bed. Ed picked up the torch and pointed it at him. The man was lying face down with the hanger sticking out of his carotid artery, blood pumping out and soaking the sheet. Ed lifted his head. It was Raja Mahfouz. Ed reached into the holster at Mahfouz’s belt and took out his pistol. It was a Heckler and Koch 9mm. He made ready, pumping a shell into the chamber. He would have preferred a larger weapon but it was better than a coat hanger.

  ‘Get ready to move,’ he told Leyla.

  When she didn’t reply, Ed flicked the torch in her direction. Her face was so pale and wild looking that he wondered for a moment if she’d been hit by a stray round.

  ‘You killed him,’ she whispered.

  ‘He might have killed us,’ he replied, gently. ‘Wait here until I call for you.’

  With the gun in both hands he risked a glance out into the corridor. There was no movement. The shooting was coming from the lower levels of the house now and he got a whiff of tear gas rising in the stairwell at the closest end. Taking another glance he looked back the other way. There were three other doors, two rooms either side of his, and at the far end a narrow stairway that he assumed led up to the roof.

  He quickly crossed the corridor to the first of the doors. He went in fast, with the torch pointing from his shoulder and the gun out at arm’s length in front of him. The smell of rotten flesh made his head reel. A woman was screaming. As he pointed the torch at her he realised it was the mad old woman who had spoken to him when he first arrived. She was on the floor in the corner grabbing fistfuls of her hair with her hands. On the other side of the room a bandaged man was lying on a bed with one mangled hand raised.

  Ed ran to the window and looked out through the bars at the back of the house and the silhouette of a large tree beside the boundary wall. It was dark and there were no signs of movement or muzzle flashes. If they could get out there he might find a means of escape. He would have to move fast though: the tempo and proximity of gunfire was increasing all the time.

  He darted back out into the corridor.

  ‘Leyla!’

  She rushed into his arms, burying her face in his chest. He swung round, bringing up the pistol, pushing her against the wall, and fired at the shape at the top of the stairs: a commando in a gasmask. The bullet went into the mask’s filter, the man’s face sucked inwards by the gauge of the bullet. He toppled, falling back on to his colleagues.

  Ed turned and ran in the opposite direction, tugging Leyla along with him. They climbed up the narrow staircase and emerged onto the roof.

  ‘Stay low,’ he told her.

  They dashed through the cement columns, splashing through pools of rainwater. The body of one of the guards was lying in a dark puddle. The other was firing over the parapet. Ed ran up to him and put three bullets in him at close range. He took a quick look over the parapet. Three stories below a bulldozer had come to a halt at the foot of the steps with the crumpled gate beneath it. There were several bodies on the steps and across the compound, some in black commando uniforms. Tear gas was drifting out into the street.

  As he ducked back down, bullets hit the concrete beside him. He stuck the pistol in his waistband and picked up the dead guard’s Kalashnikov.

  They ran to the farthest side of the roof that overlooked the tree, the wall and beyond it the playing fields. Looking down, Ed saw that it was too far to jump. The only hope was the main spoil pipe. It looked like cast iron, rusty but substantial. Maybe it was strong enough to carry them. He glanced back and saw the first dark shape flitting between the columns. There was no alternative.

  ‘Over you go,’ he said, ‘Climb down the pipe. I’ll follow.’

  He raised the Kalashnikov and fired two bursts. The bolt clicked empty. He flung it away and jumped up onto the parapet. He grabbed hold of the pipe vent and swung his legs out over the drop. The pipe shifted and groaned. His feet scram
bled at the brickwork. He looked down. Leyla was descending in a barely controlled slide. He set off after her. Twice he was able to slow his descent at the junction with smaller feed pipes. He barely felt the pain in his hands.

  Arriving at the bottom he crouched against the wet ground and surveyed the terrain. His mind was racing. They were next to a row of huts and ahead of him there was an open space and the dark outline of the pipal tree by the wall. It was a huge old fig with a trunk like writhing cables and limbs that looked easily strong enough to hold their weight. They might be able to use one of the upper branches to cross the wall to the other side. How to get there? They were safe where they were, for now at least, protected by a slight overhang but if they moved they would become visible to the gunmen on the roof. Unless they stuck to the shadows cast by the row of huts.

  He looked at Leyla. She was watching him, holding her hands, bloodied from the descent, in her lap.

  ‘Ready?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  ‘I love you too,’ she replied without hesitation.

  ‘So it’s going to be fine…’

  ‘You think?’

  He drew the pistol from his waistband. ‘Come on!’

  He led her along the backs of the huts, sprinting across the space between each one. Within seconds they had arrived at the comparative safety of the wall. They moved swiftly alongside it towards the tree. Reaching it, they saw that the back of the tree was dappled with pale freshly sawn stumps. Someone had cut off all the overhanging branches.

  ‘Damn.’

  Looking around he saw a small recess in the wall with three concrete steps that led down to a metal door. It was locked and it would not budge when he put his shoulder against it. Behind him there was a lot of shouting and calling out as the gunmen moved from room to room in the house, but the firing had stopped. If he tried shooting out the lock it would immediately draw their attention.

  ‘Here,’ said a voice, in Pashto.

  With a start, Ed realised there was a small boy squatting at the top of the steps. He was wrapped in what looked like a ragged black cloak and was holding out a key in his hand. Ed took it and tried it in the lock. It worked. The door opened onto the playing fields. When he looked back to thank him he found that the boy had disappeared. There was only Leyla, with an incredulous expression on her face.

  ‘Come on.’

  They were about halfway across the pitch when they were lit up. From directly in front of them a pick-up truck switched on its rack of floodlights. They were blinded. Pinned like moths. Then he was being shouted at through a loud hailer.

  ‘Put down the weapon!’

  There was no alternative he could think of and so he flung the pistol away.

  ‘Get down on your knees and put your hands up!’

  They sank onto the soft wet grass with their hands in the air, and as they knelt there, squinting, he became aware of a man, in silhouette, approaching with his arm raised and something stick-like in his hand.

  Ed swore softly.

  When his vision adjusted, Javid Aslam Khan was standing over him. His appearance was entirely consistent with his reputation. He was ramrod-straight despite his advanced age, wearing a three-piece tweed suit and polished brogues and in one of his hands he was holding a leather-covered cane.

  ‘You think I don’t know what Burns is playing at, young fellow?’ he said, tapping Ed on the soft skin of his temple with the end of the cane. ‘She’s an insightful woman, I’ll give her that. She knew that Noman would fall into her trap. What I don’t understand about this whole foolish business is why? What was she trying to achieve?’

  ‘A different outcome,’ Ed replied.

  ‘She wanted Noman in charge?’

  Ed laughed. He remembered what Queen Bee had told him about wanting to change the choice architecture. ‘I think anyone but you.’

  44. The KSM Suite

  They flew into a storm. As the plane crossed from sea to land it was shaken by turbulence and forks of lighting stabbed the clouds. By the time they began to descend into Islamabad, half the passengers were screaming and the aisles were running with vomit. It wasn’t so much a landing as a slam-dunk. They skidded down the runway with a torrent of water running off the wings and came to a sudden halt on the taxiway.

  Staring out through his window seat Noman could see what looked like a line of army Jeeps and in front of them a huddle of soldiers in ponchos. While the engines idled, a set of steps was manoeuvred alongside the plane and about a dozen sodden corps of Military Police officers in their distinctive red berets came aboard. They marched up the aisle and stopped at Noman’s row. He was sitting with his fists clenched on his knees. This wasn’t meant to happen.

  ‘Colonel Noman Butt I am arresting you on a charge of high treason,’ the senior redcap said, and issued a Danda warning informing him of his constitutional right to protection against self-incrimination and his constitutional right to the services of a legal practitioner.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Mumayyaz said, ‘I did try to warn you.’

  #

  Khan and his colleague Farrukh from the Committee of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stood behind glass in the viewing area of the KSM Suite, named for the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was interrogated here in 2003. They were underground, in the prison complex beneath Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi, and Farrukh was wearing the uniform of a Major-General.

  The oldest cells in the complex dated back to the pre-colonial era and extensive work had been undertaken in the last decade to modernise them, adding cameras and recording equipment. And in the case of the KSM Suite, a hole had been cut in a stone wall that divided two cells and a pane of mirrored one-way glass added. It allowed visitors, Americans and representatives of other intelligence agencies, to observe interrogations anonymously.

  On the far side of the glass Mumayyaz was sitting at a metal table in a cell. She had been brought straight here from the airport and was wearing her travel clothes, a midnight blue shalwar kameez with a white silk headscarf. Her lipstick was a deep, dense red and her nails were painted to match. Tufail Hamid was sitting opposite her, with his white-gloved hands resting, palms down, on the surface.

  Tufail spoke softly. ‘Please state your name.’

  She tucked a stray lock of hair into her scarf and nodded demurely. ‘I am Mumayyaz Khan.’

  ‘Can you confirm that since 2006 you have travelled once a month to Dubai, ostensibly on a shopping expedition?’ Tufail asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can you confirm that in Dubai on your monthly trip you attended a suite in a hotel and on each occasion you received fifty thousand dollars in cash?‘

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Speak up!’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you do with the money?’

  ‘I paid it into a bank account in my name.’

  ‘Where did the money come from?’

  ‘I had no idea.’ She was crying, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I did what I was told to. That’s all. I was told there was no hope for Pakistan and one day we would have to leave the country. The money was for our future together. How could I refuse?’

  Khan removed his glasses and used a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his eyes. He resisted the urge to loosen his tie.

  ‘What is your relationship to the accused?’

  She paused, milking it for full dramatic effect. For a few seconds Khan thought he might have a heart attack.

  ‘He is my husband.’

  ‘Soon he will be her ex-husband,’ Khan explained to Farrukh, once the pounding in his chest had stopped. ‘Talaq has been pronounced and written notice has been submitted to the Union Council. I can assure you their divorce will be finalised within ninety days.’

  Farrukh nodded inscrutably.

  ‘Why did you turn him in?’ Tufail continued.

  ‘Because he admitted that he was a traitor. He had been hiding out in Lahore and now
had fled to Dubai. He confessed to everything, every sordid little detail, his unnatural relationship with Tariq Mahoon and Tariq’s wife, and how together they sold secrets to the British.’

  ‘We believe that for five years Noman used Tariq as a conduit for information, including details of assistance to our allies in Afghanistan,’ Khan explained. ‘Noman was in Abbottabad at the surveillance house the night before the Americans launched their operation against bin Laden. He may have warned Tariq of what was coming.’

  ‘He begged me to run away with him,’ Mumayyaz sobbed. ‘He asked me to withdraw the money, every last dollar, and hand it over to him.’

  ‘How did you respond?’

  ‘I refused. I told him it was out of the question. I love my country. And I love my father. I simply couldn’t.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘While he was sleeping I made a call to my father. I told him everything. Everything! I couldn’t bear the thought of Noman’s treachery and how it might bring shame on my family.’

  ‘And how did your father respond?’

  ‘He told me it was vitally important to persuade Noman to return to Pakistan. He advised me to tell my husband that, although I was not ready yet, I might agree to hand over the money in the near future. I made my case and reluctantly Noman agreed to travel back with me.’

  Farrukh was causing Khan some anxiety. Despite Mumayyaz’s performance it was a thin story and if Farrukh didn’t buy it then Khan could find himself hanging at the end of a rope. The whole thing was a mess, a bloody great mess. He would have to draw heavily on his reputation for efficiency and integrity if he was to survive.

  ‘She will have to hand over the money,’ Farrukh said eventually. ‘You can make the payment into the Army Relief Fund.’

  Although it was not unexpected, Khan was still extremely angry. More than three million dollars saved up and now lost. He was careful not to show it, though. It was imperative that he did not seem upset in front of Farrukh.

  ‘Of course,’ he agreed.

  Under different circumstances he might have left the country at the first opportunity, and even if some amongst the Joint Chiefs entertained doubts, they might have been prepared to see him depart without any fuss. After all, others had left under a similar cloud. But without the money it was out of the question. He was going to have to keep on going, outplaying his enemies, relying on his determination and fortitude.