by Henry Porter
Khan watched for a few seconds longer, steadying Jasur by holding his shoulder. He looked up the slope and decided that rather than crashing on through the wood and giving away their position, they should stay where they were. He explained in a mixture of Arabic and English, then pushed his still uncomprehending companion into the undergrowth and covered him with saplings wrenched from the loose soil. He went to find his own hiding spot about twenty paces up the hill and dug himself in, efficiently covering his legs with dirt and pulling boughs across him to hide the disturbance. Once in place, he hissed a few words of encouragement down to Jasur just as he had done a few years before when waiting in an ambush with a group of novice Mujahadin, all of them quaking in their boots.
For about fifteen minutes he heard no noise from either the road or the woods around them, but gradually the sound reached him of the soldiers slashing at the undergrowth and calling out to each other. He fastened his gaze on the bushes where Jasur was hidden, hoping that the Palestinian’s nerve would hold when the soldiers passed by. He wriggled a little and felt in his back pocket for the knife he’d picked up in Turkey. He placed it in his mouth then swept the dirt back over his chest and arms and sank into the forest floor.
The soldiers were close to them now. He estimated that one was about thirty yards above him while another, who was moving much more slowly, would eventually pass between him and Jasur. He held his breath and waited. Suddenly the uniform appeared a few yards from him. The man stopped, unzipped himself, thrust his pelvis forward and started pissing. The stream of urine glittered in the light filtering through the trees. As he neared the end he shouted up the hill to his friend, a crude joke bellowed to the forest.
Khan decided to launch himself the moment the soldier turned away. Just then, the saplings which had so artfully concealed Jasur erupted, and his head and torso appeared. The soldier was caught unawares. He turned and yelled out a single syllable of surprise. But instead of firing he struggled to zip himself up and seemed to have difficulty getting hold of the automatic which he had swung round on his back while he urinated.
He must have heard Khan behind him, the movement of earth and rush of air, but he showed no sign of it as the weight of his body was pulled back onto the knife. His shaven head came back and his eyes met Khan’s with a strange awkwardness, an embarrassment at the sudden intimacy with the man covered in dirt, not understanding that the first blow of the knife had neither punctured his heart nor severed his spinal cord, and that there would be no second blow. Khan let him sag to the ground and in an instant removed his water bottle, gun, and ammunition clips. He wagged his finger at the soldier and put it to his own lips. The soldier looked up terrified, but managed a nod.
Jasur came to his side and crouched down. They were hidden from the soldier above them who had started to call out to his companions, repeating one name. Alarm rang in his voice, which communicated itself up and down the line of soldiers and they all started calling out. Khan darted another look at the soldier and jabbed the gun at him in a way that couldn’t be misunderstood. They turned and began to climb, moving around the main thickets so as to make as little noise as possible.
A minute or two passed then all hell broke loose. The soldiers discovered their wounded companion and started up the hill, firing shots into the trees above them. The old maxim of mountain warfare came back to Khan – flight is always better than fight. Long-practised at fleeing into the mountains, he quickened his pace and blocked his mind to the pain that would come with the exertion. They went straight up for a hundred and fifty yards but soon Jasur was begging him to slow down. He had given his all in the sprint up the road. Khan put an arm round him and felt his skinny frame heaving and his heart racing. There was virtually no muscle or fat on him. He tucked his hand under Jasur’s armpit and started to haul him up the hill, the Palestinian’s breath wheezing in his ear. They went another fifty yards and scrambled over some rocks. Ahead of them the trees thinned out to the pastures where he had seen the cattle herds. Beyond these he remembered the rocky crags that he’d noticed in shadow when he was lying in the field. It meant they were steep, but it didn’t follow that they were impassable.
He turned round. Jasur, who had fallen to his knees, was silently coughing phlegm onto the rock. His eyes and nose were streaming and his skin had become grey. The medic in Khan guessed these were not tears but some kind of allergic reaction, probably caused by pollen or the leaves he’d been covered with, but when he took hold of his head and looked into his eyes, his diagnosis changed. Jasur was having an asthma attack and showed every sign of heart strain. Khan rolled him onto his back and started to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation, then pressed down rhythmically on his chest a dozen times. The Palestinian coughed again and began to breathe more easily, but his eyes showed that he knew exactly what was happening and Khan thought he’d probably experienced an attack like this before. He put his hand to the man’s pulse – more regular now – and lifted his head to give him some water from the soldier’s bottle. At that moment they heard the soldiers making their way up the hill. He dragged Jasur back across the rocks so he was out of view and then snaked forward on his stomach to look over the edge. There were four of them and further down the slope came another trio, but they had no appetite for the climb and were stopping every few feet to mop their brows and curse.
He tried the safety catch of the AK47, made sure that the magazine would come away when he needed it to, then lay flat on the rocks with his face resting on the polished wooden stock. As he waited his thoughts slipped back to the first moment of the day and he realised dully that whatever his dreams and hopes for the future, this was the way his life was cast. His fate was to be covered in grime and sweat, waiting in ambush with a murderous old gun in his hand.
Behind him Jasur uttered a dramatic series of gurgles and retches. Khan was worried for his companion but could not risk turning now. He nudged him gently on the shoulder with his boot and that seemed to quieten him. For one moment he thought the change in direction of the soldiers’ voices meant they had given up, or taken a path off to the left, but suddenly he heard them directly below him. He pulled himself forward and raised his arms so that the gun was angled downwards over the edge of the rock. After the initial burst he bobbed up and saw that he’d hit some of the first group in the legs. They fell backwards without even knowing where he was. One recovered and fired in the direction of the rocks, a long way wide of the mark. Khan sneaked another look and squeezed the trigger. This sent them tumbling from their cover down the slope. They don’t mind killing unarmed men in the open, he thought, but they’ve got no taste for real battle. He fired, changed clips and fired some more. Now there was no sign of them, although he heard one yelping like a lost puppy in the woods.
He turned and wriggled back to Jasur, lying against the rock, facing away from him. He touched him on the shoulder and said they ought to be going. Could he make it? He shook him and, feeling no life, rolled the Palestinian over.
His skin was ashen, saliva foamed at his mouth and his eyes stared without meaning at the tiny red spiders that circled on the rock surface in front of him. Khan was shocked. Bewildered. He pushed himself to his knees and shrugged, thinking that he should – no, he must – find out who this man was and one day let his family know what had become of him. He felt all over the body and eventually located a little pouch hanging from a string inside Jasur’s trousers. He flipped it open and saw some folded documents, one or two pictures, a printed prayer and an identity card. He would look at them properly later. Now he had to leave and hope that the Macedonians would bury the Palestinian.
He got up, and without looking down the hill, jogged off into the next clump of trees and made for the crags above.
CHAPTER THREE
Herrick put down the evening paper. It reported that Vice Admiral Norquist had not recovered consciousness before expiring at 5.30 a.m. this morning, May 15. He had died from heart failure during an operation to remove the bul
let that had lodged in his spine. The President of the United States issued a statement saying that the assassination of his friend and mentor was a deep personal blow to him and his family, but more than this, it was another strike against America and all good Americans should mourn his sacrifice.
Thinking that the report was less than complete, Herrick turned to her desk and the FBI watch list, a summary of essential information on every known Muslim terrorist. She found this easier to use than the British version because of its layout and concision. From left to right appear the first names of the suspect or wanted felon, followed by his aliases, date of birth, US social security number (if any), place of birth, address, phone number and email. The far right column gives a unique identity number for the suspect and, in the middle of the page, there is a column headed Function. This column is left blank in the version of the list circulated daily at 8.00 a.m. EST to banks and airlines, and copied into their computer systems so that any transaction made by one of the individuals triggers an alert. But in the thirty-four-page document lying in front of her, the FBI logged trades against the names of some of the 524 men – computer expert (trained engineer), weapons and explosive expert, strategist /trainer, banker, facilitator and communications specialist. Most were guesses and the addresses and email accounts had long been abandoned, but the list fixed the last known position of suspects and in one or two cases hinted that they were anchored to a cover, like Youssef Rahe, although his name did not appear.
She flipped through the list once more, making notes and adding to a chart she’d begun on a large sheet of drawing paper bought from a shop in Victoria that afternoon. A series of names plus lines and arrows and several brief sentences were written in her neat hand. She knew the diagram didn’t add up to much, but she found it a useful way of working through a problem, putting a thought down, discarding it and moving on. On her desk were two packets of sandwiches, a piece of fruit cake wrapped in cellophane, a bottle of water, a banana and a bar of chocolate – not a feast considering the quantities of food she put away during periods of concentration. She ate one of the sandwiches distractedly and turned to the papers propped against her computer screen and on the floor around her feet. These were printouts of web pages showing the landing and take-off times for planes that passed through Terminal Three the day before – a timetable that varied considerably from the published schedules, she noted.
She didn’t expect to prove anything conclusively; it would be enough to show that Rahe’s disappearance was important, though he clearly had no role in the shooting of Norquist. She now knew for certain that he had not got off KU102 in Kuwait. Half an hour before, a clear head-shot had arrived of the man travelling on Rahe’s passport, taken in Kuwait City airport before the individual flew on to the United Arab Emirates. By this time he had disposed of Rahe’s clothes and adopted the local white jellabah. However, the Kuwaiti Intelligence service, al-Mukhabarat, were certain it was the stand-in.
She emailed the picture to Heathrow security and asked them to go through CCTV film to see if he’d come from London or arrived on another flight. Her belief was that he’d flown into Heathrow that morning, which was why she was trying to match possible suspects’ names with passengers who had ended up in Terminal Three, a forlorn task if ever there was one. Still, she liked the solitary purpose of working late and was buoyed by the idea that while the rest of the Secret Intelligence Service was absorbed by muffled agony over the killing of Norquist, she was at least making some positive steps to unravel the events at the airport.
As she talked on the phone to a security officer named George, she looked out of the window and into the streams of traffic moving along the north bank of the Thames. Her focus drew nearer, to her reflection in the window, which she examined without reproof or anxiety. She looked good for thirty-two, although the lights made her appear haggard and – God – she had to get some new clothes!
George still had nothing for her. She put the phone down and went back to the watch list, thinking that Manila was the perfect place for the stand-in to embark. Just then she noticed a movement behind the glass panel in the office wall and saw Richard Spelling, deputy head of MI6, and his side-kick, Harry Cecil.
Before she had time to compose herself or her desk, Spelling was inside the door. ‘Mr Cecil here says you’ve got something good.’
‘That would be a bit premature of Mr Cecil,’ she said, smiling at Cecil without affection.
‘Well, you must have something if you’ve been asking favours of our friends in Kuwait City.’
‘I was checking on the man who took Rahe’s place on the Kuwait flight. As you know, I told Thames House yesterday afternoon, but I think they’re rather tied up at the moment and nobody has got back to me about it. So I thought I’d do some ground work.’ This was weak. She knew she was going way beyond her role of walk-on part in the surveillance of Rahe.
Spelling sat down on the other side of her desk and indicated to Cecil that he was dismissed. ‘I’ll say the Security Services are tied up!’ he said.
Herrick cautioned herself not to say too much. She nodded.
‘It doesn’t get much worse than the President’s special envoy being killed before his meeting with the Prime Minister. I mean, how bad does that make us look?’ He gave her a despairing look and then exhaled heavily, which caused his lips to vibrate. She didn’t like Spelling, his punchy name-dropping manner or the managerial style that someone had described as exultant decisiveness. Around the building it was said that his intelligence was sharp rather than deep and that he had none of the incorruptibility, shrewdness or ease of the outgoing Chief, Sir Robin Teckman. Spelling had won the appointment as a moderniser. There was much talk of horizontal management structures and the flow of ideas between different levels, but the evidence pointed to the opposite leaning. He was a hierarchical bureaucrat pretending to be a general.
‘What do you make of it?’ he asked. ‘The shooting, I mean.’
‘Well, I’ve been pretty busy today. I haven’t had time to catch up with the people I was working with yesterday.’
‘Yes, yes, but you have a view. You must wonder.’
‘Yes, I wonder why Admiral Norquist was on a scheduled flight and there was no security prepared and ready to meet him. It all seems a bit slapdash.’
‘And further down the time line…?’
Time line was a typical Spelling phrase. ‘You mean later on – when the shooting occurred?’ She put it as neutrally as possible. ‘It looks pretty confused.’ ‘Yes, it was certainly that.’
She remained silent. It was still his call.
‘And you don’t have any theories about where that bullet came from?’
‘Nothing apart from what I’ve read. I imagine they’ll know if they retrieved it from his body.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that will happen.’
‘So there was an exit wound. I didn’t notice that mentioned in the papers. They said it was lodged in his spine.’
‘They tend not to publish too much of that sort of thing – it’s distressing for the family.’
‘I see,’ she said, understanding that there would be no official revision of the story. Norquist had been ‘assassinated’ in an operation involving a pair of young men, traced by the registration of one of the vans to the Pakistani communities in the Midlands, and the truck driver, who was also believed to be of Asian origin. With the two men dead and the driver still missing after an escape through the undergrowth along the railway embankment, the British media happily accepted the theory of a carefully coordinated plan. The enthusiasm for this account had not been dampened by the fact that no detonator had been found attached to the drums of petrol on the lorry.
His eyes scanned her desk. He reached forward and turned one of the Terminal Three schedules towards him. ‘Now, tell me what you’re doing here, Isis.’
‘I’m trying to see what Rahe’s likely destination was yesterday. ’
‘Any ID on the man who took his pla
ce?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Could you write a side of theory backed up by a few facts? The Chief’s very interested in what happened out at Heathrow.’
She hesitated.‘You want a report on this? It’s all very preliminary…’
‘By tomorrow then. If you need help, Sarre and Dolph are around. Tell them this is for me and the Chief.’ He made for the door, but before he reached it, stopped. ‘And in your report, leave out all mention of the shooting. Just focus on the contemporaneous events at Heathrow. That’s what interests us.’
Herrick went back to the airline schedules. Out of seventy-two flights to land between 5.55 a.m. and 1.45 p.m., fifty-one had come from the United States or Canada, which she excluded for the moment because of the heightened airport security and emigration watches in North America. The remaining twenty-one flights came from places such as Abu Dhabi, Dhaka, Johannesburg, Beirut and Tehran, cities where controls were far less stringent. She guessed that most of the aircraft were wide-bodied jets, carrying an average of two hundred passengers, which meant that around four thousand people had landed at Heathrow that morning. It would be an enormous task to search all the flights for a man matching the picture, and to establish what had happened to Rahe.
