by Henry Porter
Samson called O’Neill. ‘Can you give me a new position for him?’ he asked. ‘We’ve found a group and I want to know if he’s with them.’
‘Give me a moment,’ said O’Neill. Then a few seconds later he added, ‘I’ve got your position and his, and I’d guess you’re pretty much on top of him. You have to be damned careful – a train is going to pass from the north.’
Samson got out of the car and moved to where the hillside dropped onto a wooded cliff. The track was almost totally hidden by trees, and he could hear nothing above the noise of the river. There was no way to tell that trains passed at great speed beneath the trees. He crawled over a protruding shelf of turf and began his descent, keeping his body pressed to the cliff and clinging to saplings and branches to stop himself plummeting in a hail of earth and stones onto the line.
He had dropped down about ten metres when he paused to wipe his face with his shirtsleeve. He heard voices, looked down and glimpsed people walking along in the shade immediately below him. He counted eight men. Aco was right – the boy wasn’t among them. And yet the phone signal was giving this place as his exact location. He waited a few minutes and then completed the rest of the descent by sliding noiselessly down a gully of moss and earth to land on the track ballast.
He waited in the shadows with his back pressed to the rock. He called Aco, who told him in halting English that he was sure there were just eight men on this section of the track. Then he called London. The satellite phone didn’t work so he used his own cell phone. O’Neill and Okiri were watching the boy’s signal together. It was still moving along the track, approaching the bend where the river and the train line veered westwards. The signal was no more than seventy metres ahead of Samson.
The penny was beginning to drop. He stepped out on the line and raised his binoculars. The man walking second last in the group wore a dark red and yellow shirt. He had seen that A. S. Roma supporters’ shirt before – in Naji’s photograph from the orchard.
‘It’s the Libyan,’ he whispered to London. ‘The bastard’s got Naji’s phone. God knows what’s happened to the boy.’
Okiri and O’Neill absorbed this.
‘Mr Nyman’s here,’ said Okiri. ‘I think we need to involve him in this. Hold on a moment.’
Samson waited a minute, watching the men walk. Nyman’s voice came on the line. ‘We need that phone, Paul. We think there could be important evidence on it that we can’t access remotely. Can you intercept Al Kufra?
Samson was silent.
‘You there?’ demanded Nyman.
‘Yes, I’m here – I’m thinking.’
He looked up the line. The eight men had gone past a recess in the sheer embankment, where an electrical transformer was housed, and were moving slowly in the shadows on the left-hand side of the track. That gave them limited options if a train passed any time soon. The embankment was too steep to climb in a hurry and on the other side of the track there was very little space between the rail line and the river. The only way they could escape would be either to run back to the recess, climb into a tree by the river or fling themselves down in a cable trough and hope for the best. All this assumed they would have enough warning to take action. Samson suspected that if the train came from the south, they might not see it until too late, because they were facing the other way. If it came from the north, the bend would mean they wouldn’t know until the train was upon them. The only clue to the approach of a train on an electrified line was the twanging sound in the electric cables above.
‘You said there was a train due – how long before it passes?’ asked Samson.
‘The Thessaloniki service from the north is about eight minutes away, give or take. But then you’ve got another one coming from the south a few minutes later. They pass just a mile below you, where the line opens up and there are two tracks.’
‘What do we know about Al Kufra?’
‘He’s a nasty piece of work, so be careful. We think he’s headed to Italy.’
Samson dialled Vuk. ‘Have you got a gun?’
‘Of course – I tell you this many times. Now you want gun?’
‘Does Aco have a gun?’
‘Of course Aco has gun!’
‘I need you to go thirty metres up the track. You’ll see a gap in the trees. There’s a green box on the line. I want you to throw a gun down to me. Then tell Aco to start shooting ahead of the group – I need him to make a lot of noise so he frightens them. But I don’t want him to shoot any of them, you understand?’
‘Of course, mister.’
Samson started running. He reached the recess without the migrants noticing, looked up and saw Vuk. The gun landed a little distance above him and he retrieved it easily. It was a common Czech-made pistol. He checked the safety catch and stuffed it into his back pocket. At that moment he heard the snap of gunfire from Aco’s side of the river. The men froze on the line and looked around, bewildered. Then Samson stepped out into the open and started shouting in Arabic. ‘Brothers, come back. The soldiers are firing at you. Over here!’ He waved furiously. ‘You’ll be safe here.’
They looked uncertain. The five in front simply crossed the line and crouched down, close to the river. The other three, including the Libyan, began to run towards Samson with their heads down.
The Libyan arrived first at Samson’s side. He cursed and looked up the line, trying to determine the source of the gunfire. The other two – who, from their looks, he guessed were both from the Horn of Africa – were too terrified to say anything. They slumped to the ground with their bags. But the Libyan remained standing. He turned to search Samson’s face. He had rather liquid eyes, which oscillated with suspicion, a deep frown mark in the middle of his forehead, tight curly hair and pockmarked cheeks and neck. This was certainly Al Kufra. He began speaking in a harsh Maghrebi Arabic that Samson found hard to understand. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ was more or less what he said.
‘As-salaamu alaykum,’ Samson said. ‘I have come to help you and these men.’
Al Kufra didn’t hear him.
‘You will be killed by the soldiers or by the train on this line,’ said Samson. ‘We have a vehicle. If you climb this bank we can give you a ride to safety.’
Al Kufra looked Samson up and down and took in that he was carrying nothing and had none of the grime and fatigue that marked the faces of those on the road.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he repeated. ‘Why are you here?’ This time he used the Middle Eastern dialect, which had none of the Punic and Berber influences that Samson had learned about on the refresher course MI6 had sent him on in Lebanon a few years previously.
‘I’m here to help you,’ said Samson. As Al Kufra looked up the line and across the river, trying to determine where the gunfire was coming from, Samson studied him closely. He assumed that Al Kufra had killed the boy and that was why he had the phone. But when the Libyan wiped the sweat from his forehead with his right hand, something else sparked in his mind. During his sorties to the rebel- and Kurdish-held territory of Iraq and Syria, Samson had heard more than once of the commander in whose hands rested the fate of every young woman kidnapped and enslaved by Isis. It was after this commander’s disposal of Dr Aysel Hisami, in a revolting public sale, that she became unreachable. Samson just could not make the connections to buy her freedom from the man or men who owned her. He heard more than once that the commander, who was in charge of monetizing any asset IS could lay its hands on – ancient artefacts, drugs and, of course, thousands upon thousands of mostly Yazidi women – was tattooed on the right hand, between his thumb and forefinger, with three small circles. Tattoos are regarded as sinful in Islam; they are uncommon and tend to be remembered, even if the actual crime of being tattooed has been washed away by sincere repentance. That is was why the man was sometimes called ‘Thlath Dawayir’ – Three Circles. Al Kufra’s hands were filthy, but a crude tattoo of th
ree circles was clearly visible.
Samson dragged his focus back to the boy and that phone. He became aware of the jangling and singing in the overhead cables. The Thessaloniki express was approaching. He spotted the locomotive and it was no more than a few seconds before the train roared past, carriage after carriage of passengers looking dully out onto the landscape. Samson stepped back and took out the gun and levelled it at the back of Al Kufra’s head. The two men on the ground looked up, astonished, and began to scramble to their feet, ignoring Samson’s attempt at a reassuring gesture. As soon as the train had gone they were legging it up the line. It was only then that the Libyan turned and saw the gun.
His eyes widened. A vein at his temple pulsed. ‘Who are you?’ he stammered. ‘What do you want?’
‘What did you do with the boy?’
‘What boy?’
‘The boy you stole the phone from. Did you kill him, Mohammed?’
Al Kufra reeled at the use of his first name. ‘What boy? I am not this man. I am Aziz Abdul Hussain.’
‘You are Mohammed Al Kufra, a Libyan national, student of law in Rome, a former inmate of Poggioreale prison, Naples. Deported to Libya 2008. Imprisoned Abu Salim prison, Libya from 2009 to 2010. Since 2013 you have been a commander in Islamic State. We’ve been tracking you ever since you stole the phone from a boy called Naji. Did you kill him to get the phone?’
‘What you’re saying is . . . you’re crazy!’
Samson pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and pressed the home button a couple of times. Then he held the phone in front of Al Kufra’s face. ‘You know this kid? That’s the boy called Naji. Did you kill him?’
He shook his head. ‘I did not kill this boy.’
‘Why did you take his phone?’
‘He made a photograph with his camera.’
‘Right, because you are Mohammed Al Kufra and you thought the photograph would be used to identify you as a senior Daesh commander – which you are, of course. So you killed him and deleted the photograph.’
Al Kufra shook his head. ‘I did not kill the boy Naji. I could easily have killed him but I did not. I liked him. He has balls.’ He didn’t even bother to deny that he was Al Kufra. Samson could see he was struggling to compute the situation he found himself in. How had he been pinpointed to this wild part of the Macedonian rail network? How was this stranger so sure of his name? Why the hell was anyone bothering with a kid like Naji? Samson thought he was probably high on something, and that wasn’t helping his reasoning powers.
He told the Libyan to put his the hands on his head and turn round, and he began patting him down. He found a battered phone which was almost certainly Naji’s – the screen was cracked and taped at the corner. Then he took another phone from Al Kufra’s trouser pocket. This was on. He touched the screen to make sure it stayed unlocked. He told the Libyan to empty the contents of his backpack then lie face down. Spread on the ground was a phone charger, a knife – with no visible signs of blood on it – some clothes, a plastic cup, a Syrian passport using the Hussain identity, a Koran and various religious paraphernalia, a few packets of jerky, bread, tea and maps of the Balkans, a wallet with five hundred-euro notes and a few fifties, a toothbrush and shaving equipment.
‘Maybe we can help each other,’ said Samson. ‘All I want is the boy. I didn’t come after you – I don’t give a damn about you. What did you do with Naji?’
‘I didn’t kill him. That’s the truth – Allah knows my heart.’
‘How did you get here so quickly?’
‘I walked.’
‘You walked pretty fast. Why didn’t you take the train for Gevgelija? You have money.’
He didn’t answer.
‘Because you’re hunting the boy and knew he was on foot? Is that why you started out walking?’
The Libyan raised his head from the ground and strained round to look at Samson. ‘I do not hunt the boy. Why would I hunt the boy? He is nothing to me.’
Because you’re part of Al-munajil’s group – Al-munajil’s killer squad.’
‘Al-munajil?’
‘Yes, he is a famous IS commander. Everyone knows Al-munajil. He has a speech impediment and he likes to hack people to death with a machete. You’re with him, right?’
‘Al-munajil?’
‘You do business with him? Is that how you know him? You are part of his team.’
‘I do business with many brothers. Maybe I do business with him. I do not remember this man.’
The shooting had stopped. He heard a noise behind him. It was Vuk, who had found a cable attached to metal posts used by engineers to climb down to inaccessible parts of the track. It allowed an easier descent than Samson’s. Samson gave him the gun and told him to turn Al Kufra over so he could photograph him. He also took a close-up of the passport. He rolled him over again and picked up the backpack and weighed it in his hand. He felt the perforated back panel from inside and out, and realised that something had been hidden in the layers of material. Eventually he found the opening at the bottom and took out a bag of pills: he guessed there were around a thousand green triangles, each embossed with an eagle’s head. He took a picture of these, too, sent the three photos to London, then walked down the track so he could phone the Office out of earshot.
Okiri answered. ‘Yeah, that’s him – that’s Mohammed Al Kufra. Well done: you’ve got quite a catch there. What’s he say about Firefly?’
‘I think we must assume he’s dead, although he says he just wanted to delete the photograph on the phone and did not kill him. He denies he’s part of the team hunting Naji – says he doesn’t know Al-munajil. He has another phone with him. It’s unlocked. He must have used it recently. I’ll call you with it in a few moments.’
‘Great. What do you make of him?’
‘A nasty piece of work: a killer, without doubt. He’s high on something – not sure on what – probably Captagon. He has a load of pills hidden in his backpack. Ask the boss what he wants me to do. Should I hand him over to the Macedonians?’
‘We’ll get back to you on that. But I guess you need to get him off the rail line. We’ll probably want to talk to him with European friends.’
Samson returned to Vuk, who was flipping the top of his old Zippo cigarette lighter open and shut as he stood over Al Kufra with the gun. ‘You want me kill him, mister? Put bastard in river?’
Samson gave him a weary look. ‘Of course not. I want to get him up to your vehicle. He needs water. He looks dehydrated to me. We’ll need Aco’s help.’
Half an hour later they had got their captive up the embankment and, having bound his hands and feet with rope, they pushed him down in the shade of the Land Cruiser. Aco stood over him with a gun
‘What you waiting for?’ asked Vuk.
Samson didn’t respond. His phone started to vibrate in his pocket. He answered to Okiri.
‘Just to bring you up to speed,’ he said. ‘Sonia is with Naji’s family. Looks like things are going well.’
‘But, Chris, I can’t guarantee he’s alive. I don’t see the point interviewing them if he’s dead.’
‘We’re going ahead on the assumption that the boy is alive. There’s a lot of good material to be had, the boss is sure of that. On the question of what to do with Al Kufra, we have arrangements in place. You’re going to be joined by Macedonian intelligence and a French intelligence officer and our guy in Skopje – Sonny Small. We’re sensitive to the rendition issue, so they’re going by the book. Mr Nyman’s view is that Al Kufra is not part of the team, but that he himself may be on the run from Daesh. There’s information that he was skimming from the shipments going out of IS-held territory to Saudi Arabia. Your friend Mohammed had to leave in a hurry, or face certain execution. That’s another reason why we think he’s going to talk. Everyone here is really pleased about this, Paul.’
�
�You want me to wait here?’
‘Yes, they’re sending a chopper. We’ve looked at the satellite imagery. There’s a good place to land not far from where you are. They have your position. Shouldn’t be more than an hour or two. By the way, can you call me with his phone and we’ll start working on it.’
Samson did as he was asked then returned to Al Kufra. He stood looking down at him for a few seconds, knowing that it was precisely this kind of low life that had caused the death of Aysel Hisami. Then he got out the map of Macedonia, spread it in front of him and told him to trace his journey from Gevgelija and mark the position where he last saw the boy.
Al Kufra did it without hesitation, showing the exact spot where the group had been intercepted by the Macedonian security forces and giving a convincing account of what happened afterwards and how they had eventually found each other after hiding from the troops. He told Samson that he had tried to steal the phone the evening before but Naji had woken and pulled the knife. The second time he had been careful to pin him down so that Naji couldn’t move and he, Al Kufra, wouldn’t be stabbed. He stared up at Samson. ‘It would not have troubled me to kill him, but it was unnecessary. I let him live because I found the phone.’ He stopped. ‘I liked the boy’s spirit.’
‘You’re saying he’s alive?’
He nodded, then a wild look entered his eyes. He began to cough violently and eventually spat out a hoop of bloody phlegm. Aco jumped backwards and cursed him ‘He’s with the Afghans,’ said the Libyan eventually. ‘They’re walking – maybe on the rail track. That’s what they said they planned to do.’ His chest went into spasm again.
‘You have quite a problem there,’ said Samson.
‘Marad alsili,’ he replied, giving the Arabic for tuberculosis.
