by Henry Porter
‘Okay,’ she said, apparently placated. ‘Shall we go back inside? I haven’t seen enough to write anything sensible yet. By the way, who’s the man with the bag of nuts?’
‘He’s a doctor,’ Gibbons drawled. ‘He’s looking after the welfare of the suspect.’
When she went in, The Doctor was perched on the interview table offering Khan a pistachio nut. Relief spread over Khan’s face as he saw Isis and his eyes leapt in hope, but then The Doctor leaned across and said something to him. When she saw him again his expression was blank and compliant.
She took her place as the questions about Hamas resumed, most of which Khan refused to answer, at one stage saying that he might as well be questioned about Colombia. An hour passed and although the sun was sinking outside, the room remained stifling. Suddenly Isis jumped up and left the room, this time to the sniggers of the two Albanians and The Doctor. Franc followed her out looking angry.
‘You’re yanking my chain,’ she said. ‘You’re not interested in Hamas. In fact, I think this whole session has been arranged for my benefit. You’re taking the interrogation up a blind alley so I don’t get anything.’ She stopped and looked at his glistening, fleshy face. ‘I’ll let you into a secret, Mr Franc. I am not here on some kind of training programme. There are literally hundreds of CIA and SIS officers engaged in a secret operation in London and all over Europe – one vast intelligence operation. I am here as part of that. Do you understand? So let’s forget this Hamas business. It’s a load of shite, and you know it. When I go back in, you steer the questions to the matter in hand.’
For a moment Franc was taken aback by her vehemence, but then he stretched and wiped his forehead. ‘You’re quite a spitfire, Miss Herrick, I’ll grant you that. But you got to understand that this is not my interrogation. The man is in Albanian custody! We are here as their guests, for chrissake.’
‘I don’t give a fuck,’ she hissed. ‘If you want me to keep you out of my report, you will go back to the line of questioning you were pursuing in the transcripts.’ With this, she turned and walked into the room again.
Evidently much of their exchange had been overheard. The Albanians were barely able to contain themselves and the other two Americans were smirking. Amidst all this brutal jollity, Khan looked even more pathetic. Suddenly he rose from his chair, but the restraints on his feet held him and he lurched onto the table. ‘They’re torturing me,’ he shouted. ‘This man, they call him The Doctor, he is the torturer. Tell him to show you the plastic bag he suffocated me with.’ One of the Albanians was now at Khan’s side, forcing him down and trying to clamp his jaw shut, but Khan ducked from his grip and continued shouting. ‘Everyone here is tortured and brutalised. Is that what you want? Is that the policy of the British and American governments? Get me out of here and I will tell you anything you want.’ He was silenced by The Doctor, who had got behind him and slipped a large forearm around his neck, locking it into the crook of his other arm. Khan coughed and slumped to the chair, staring at Herrick.
‘Stop that,’ Herrick screamed. ‘Stop that now.’ But the Americans were already leading her from the room. ‘My government does not condone this,’ she said out in the corridor.
‘Nobody gives a damn what the British government thinks,’ said Franc, physically handing her to Gibbons. ‘Get her out of here, Lance, and make sure she doesn’t come tomorrow.’ He turned and went back into the room.
As the door opened she caught a glimpse of Khan, the whites of his eyes shining in the shadow cast by The Doctor’s form.
It was dusk outside. The clouds above were mottled with the last rays of the sun and in the east the mountains were brushed with a dirty pink. The noise of the hot, swarming capital came to Herrick’s ears like a roar.
Gibbons pushed her into the Toyota and climbed into the driving seat. ‘You have some fucking balls,’ he said, starting the engine. ‘This is the way it is, you know! The way it has to be with these people.’
‘What? Torture?’
‘Hell, that’s not torture. He’s been slapped around a little. That’s all.’ His lips pouted downwards with a kind of patronising disgust.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! The man is going to be tortured because you can’t get the answers you want. Has it occurred to you that he doesn’t have anything else to tell you?’
They went a few hundred yards, swerving to avoid the worst of the potholes and the kids running into the street with iced drinks and cigarettes. Then, in a quieter spot, Gibbons pulled up and swivelled round in his seat, one arm hooked around the steering wheel. ‘I know this is tough, but it is the only way. We have a man who could be part of a plot to kill thousands of people. We have learned our lesson about these guys. We have to fight fire with fire and be every bit as ruthless and cruel as they are, because we’re here in this shitty little country, charged by the American people to protect them – at the very least, to give them warnings of terrorist attacks. How the hell do you think we’re going to do that? Huh? I mean, like we treat Khan nicely when al-Qaeda’s going to blow up this fuel tanker or drop a truckload of nuclear waste in DC, so he tells us? Get real, Isis. We’re in a different kind of war now. We got to respond with all available means and, hell, if that entails one of the murderous little bastards being hung from a beam for intensive questions, I for one don’t give a shit. What matters is that we get the result and protect our people. It’s the same with the British. You think the average Brit cares a damn what happens to some Paki terrorist thousands of miles away? Of course he doesn’t. He wants you to go out and get the answers and prevent these people from destroying his liberty and way of life. That’s your job. It’s as simple as that, and if you don’t have the stomach for it, you should find yourself another line of work. This is the way it is from here on in, Isis. A long, cruel war between civilisations.’
‘Civilisation,’ she said, without looking at him, ‘is exactly what this is about. That’s what we’re fighting for, the standard that says torture is wrong. There is nothing more absolute than the absolute wrong of what you’re doing to that man. Don’t you see that?’
‘Don’t be so fucking pious. You think this is an exclusively American vice? Give me a break, Isis. You Brits have been torturing people all over the goddam empire for a couple of hundred years. Hey, you even used those methods on your own citizens in Northern Ireland – bags over the head, sleep privation, beatings. And as long as the people were safe, they didn’t want to know about it.’
She exhaled heavily. ‘Torture and internment didn’t stop the IRA. In fact, there’s a good argument that the Peace Process only happened once those things had been abandoned. I didn’t say we were perfect, but I know that if we start pulling people’s fingernails out now we lose a sense of what we’re fighting for.’
‘The moral high ground, et cetera, et cetera.’ He lit a cheroot and blew a stream of smoke through the crack in the window. ‘You know about the guy who planned to crash a dozen airliners into the Pacific? He was arrested in the Philippines and after intensive interrogation he told them what was going down, and the whole goddam cell was detained. Maybe they broke a few bones on the way, but what’s that compared to the people they saved, the vast numbers of Americans who aren’t grieving because some nut says their lives offend the Prophet’s teaching? You know what? We should go further. Every time they attack us, we should go after them, take the fight to every goddam mosque, every meeting held by every crummy imam and ayatollah, and if they don’t get the point with a few smarts, we’ll show what a little instant sunshine can do. It’s about power, and using that power to dissuade.’ He swept his hand at the street and the teeming life ahead of them on the Boulevard of National Heroes. The evening volta had begun, a procession of people walking up and down in the dusk, admiring each other’s babies in a formal ritual found all over southern Europe. It seemed to speak of an ordered civil society. ‘The only reason I can park up and talk to you is because those people know this is a US Embassy car and ins
ide there’s a guy with Lieutenant-Colonel Uziel Gal’s finest invention on his lap.’ He touched the sub-machine gun through the knapsack. ‘Otherwise they’d strip the car and take you away.’
‘What happens if you torture that man and get the wrong answers? What if you’re asking the wrong questions?’
He smiled. ‘ We are not going to be hurting anyone. We don’t have any control over what happens in the state prisons here. It’s like Colombia’s baby brother. Everyone’s corrupt, the gangsters are running the politicians, the police, the judges – everything. They sell their neighbours’ children into sex slavery and when the kids get pregnant the gangs take the baby and put it to work for a living in the arms of some beggar. America doesn’t run Albania, Isis. We got a toehold in the heart of darkness, that’s all, and we use it to try to protect our own people.’ He paused. ‘We should have a drink back at your hotel and talk some more about this. There’re things you should understand.’
Her first instinct was to say no, but then she thought there was every possibility of Gibbons getting drunk and talking about Khan. Besides, she wanted to see Khan again and she would need Gibbons to get her in.
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘Yeah, why not?’
They passed through the lobby, Herrick drawing sullen, hungry looks from the knot of bodyguards, and went to the bar where Gibbons ordered whisky and a Diet Coke which he drank separately, downing each in one before Herrick had touched her glass of Albanian white. Another full glass of whisky followed and they went to the terrace and sat down, where Herrick recognised a piece of Schubert playing in the background. One or two of the evangelists were still earnestly hunched over lemonades. How odd, she thought, that in one part of town Americans were standing by as a man was tortured, while in another they were preparing a mission to convert the faithless masses. She made the point less harshly to Gibbons.
‘Before you get too self-righteous, remember the British in India – missionaries and massacres. The sub-continent was virtually enslaved to the British Raj.’ He paused and made a conciliatory gesture. ‘You’re a good person, Isis. I know your type from college. You’ve got genuine, honest to God goodness at your centre and, like all those people I knew, you believe in the healing power of liberal argument.’
She smiled a little vulnerably. ‘Well, you have to believe in something, Lance.’
‘Maybe we do, but belief doesn’t work here. You got to see this as a vacuum. Since the communists fell, every goddam religion and ideology has been trying to fill it. That’s why there’re Christian evangelists in the mountains with a Bible in one hand and a machine gun in the other, and why every kind of shady Muslim charity came here and started building mosques. But these people don’t give a shit about either of them.’ He drank the whisky, eyes patrolling the tables on the terrace. Then he clutched his belt. There was a faint buzz. ‘Hey, that’s my phone going. I better make the call.’
‘That’s fine. I have a couple of calls to make, too.’
‘Don’t you get lost,’ he said, and vanished into the gardens in a conspicuously clandestine manner.
Herrick dialled Harland’s mobile.
‘Who’s that with you?’ he asked.
‘Where are you?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Who is he?
‘The guy from the US Embassy.’
‘There are some developments,’ he said. ‘One, you can’t use the phone in the hotel, but I imagine you already knew that. Two, my charge has gone missing. Probably nothing to worry about, but I need to find him. He said the consignment you inspected this afternoon is much more important than anyone imagined. In a conference call to head office from the Embassy he blurted this out and now the MD is really interested. They’re getting back to me. Meantime, you’re to find out everything you can. Any movement of the consignment from the warehouse and they want to know about it.’
‘Just like that?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘I’ll do my best, which in the circumstances won’t be much. How’s the back?’
‘Comes and goes. Your man’s returning to the table. I’d better hang up.’
Out of the corner of her eye, in the darkened part of the terrace, she saw Harland get up from a table and walk to the dining room door, which she knew could be used to bypass the terrace. He was no longer bent double, but he was moving stiffly.
Gibbons flopped down beside her again. ‘Hell, I thought I had more whisky than that. Isis, you been sneaking my booze?’ He ordered another. ‘So where were we?’
‘What’s going to happen to Khan?’ she asked.
‘That’s all you ever ask.’
‘Well, we would like to talk to him in slightly less threatening circumstances. Maybe he would tell us more. ’
‘He’ll tell us.’
‘Then what will happen to him? Where will he be tried?’
‘Who the hell cares?’ He drank some more and looked at her with sudden sharp focus. ‘Forget about Khan. We just had word from London. I guess they told Milo Franc that you were a royal pain in the arse. They sent you here to get you out of the way. He talked to Collins, then a guy named Vigo, and he said you had no authority whatsoever. The way you threw your weight around has made Franc awful pissed. He said to tell you that you should write your report and get the hell out of Tirana. He doesn’t want to see you again.’ He laughed. ‘Hey, have another drink for chrissake, you’re making me feel awkward.’
‘Vigo spoke to Franc?’
‘Yeh, Vigo, he knows a lot of our guys at Langley.’
‘I’ll take that drink,’ she said, brightening. ‘It’s a relief not to have to go to that place. I don’t know how you stand it.’
‘Goes with the territory,’ said Gibbons in a manly, stoic way.
They drank while Herrick listened to Gibbons’ theories about the lack of car mechanics in Albania and the fact – according to him – that no one was able to read a map because the communists had banned them for forty years. She was amenable, smiled a lot, and was certainly guilty of implying that things might develop further that evening. But just past nine o’clock he leapt up and said. ‘Got to leave you, Isis. Date at the Valleys of Fire.’ He said it as if it was a film title.
‘What’s that?’
He looked down at her without a trace of humour. ‘A place where questions are asked and answers are given. I’ll check in tomorrow. Hey, why don’t we do dinner at Juvenilja?’
He navigated a pretty straight course through the tables of Tirana’s underworld and hopeful reformers, which she thought was due more to momentum than any residual balance.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Herrick left the terrace and went upstairs, trying Harland several times on the way, but his phone was either switched off or out of range. Once in her room she spread the contents of the plastic bag on the bed, and after trying various combinations, opted for jeans, red T-shirt and knitted shawl around her shoulders. She tied her hair back, put on some lipstick and blueish eyeshadow, then slipped along the corridor to the fire exit. Outside in the boulevard she merged with the volta, which was still in full flood, but quickly dumped the shawl behind a bush because she suddenly felt it made her look like a street walker. She was glad she’d chosen to wear her trainers instead of the fringed boots.
As she made her way across the broken pavement in badly lit side-streets, she realised that a woman equipped herself with one of two attitudes on the street in Tirana – a kind of brassy hauteur, or beaten-down, famished servitude. The former implied that you had protection, which was everything in a town full of northern immigrants who had brought with them the ancient clan code Kanun of Lek Dukagjin which she had been reading about that morning. The dishonouring of a woman associated with a powerful man – the very smallest slight – could result in death and endless vendetta. So she strutted her stuff until she reached the SHISK compound, where she became more discreet and circled the place, noting the infra-red camera and the number of cars parked in the street leading to t
he headquarters. In the back of her mind was her father’s advice about getting to know somewhere before attempting any kind of surveillance, and she had to admit she was woefully unprepared. If Khan was suddenly moved, she would have no way of following. The area was several degrees more sinister at night. There was no street lighting and the little light that came from the headquarters and the bar directly across the road only served to hint at what lay in the shadows. She was aware of people watching her from the darker recesses where they’d put up for the night. When one of the city’s regular blackouts came, casting the neighbourhood into total darkness, she fumbled in the canvas bag for her mobile and called Bashkin, knowing that he would still be loitering hopefully outside the main entrance of the Byron. He agreed to meet her outside a newly renovated Catholic church a couple of streets away and flash his lights twice. She hung up and was about to switch off her phone when it vibrated in her hand.
‘Yes,’ she said hurriedly.
‘It’s Dolph – Andy Dolph!’
‘Can’t talk now, Dolph. I’m really busy.’
‘Okay. Quickly then, you’ve got a message from Beirut. Your friend has news for you. She said you’d need to know straight away.’
For a moment Herrick couldn’t think what he was talking about. ‘Oh yes. Where are you?’
‘At your old desk to fill in for you. I’m sitting next to sweetie Lyne. You didn’t tell me about him, Isis.’
‘But he is sharp.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s good, but re-lent-less.’
‘Look, I’ve got to go. We’ll speak soon. And, Dolph – thanks for ringing.’
‘Be safe.’
About ten minutes later, just as the lights came back on, a pair of identical white Landcruisers with US diplomatic plates appeared in the street, crashed over the potholes and pulled up to wait for the compound gates to open. Herrick turned on her phone and dialled Harland. This time he answered.
‘There seems to be some movement and Gibbons mentioned he was going to the Valley of Fires, wherever that is. The people from the US Embassy are here. Two cars. Maybe something is happening.’
