So everything seemed in hand until an email arrived with a blank risk assessment form attached.
“Should never tell them anything,” she muttered to herself as she typed her entries. In the box marked “Perceived Risks” she typed: “car bomb, kidnap and diarrhoea”. In the box marked “Mitigation Strategies” she keyed in: “prayer”. They never read the bloody things anyway. When spies have to fill in health and safety forms, she thought, you might as well fly the white flag. And then she giggled, recalling that her boss, she had reliably been informed, had used the same phrase when Human Resources told him that the new MI6 officer in Peshawar was to be a single mother. But then Roger Keane LVO was by no means a modern man. He lived in constant hope of an offer of early retirement at which point he would never again have to leave the home counties.
Natasha slowed down, took a deep breath and walked into the room looking Afridi straight in the eye.
“Hallo, Afridi Sahib, what a pleasure!”
“All mine,” he said standing up and trying to be gallant in the Western style but not quite managing.
Aftab Afridi, she thought, came mainly for the whisky, which he drank with remarkable speed. But also for a bit of understated flirting. Enough for him to enjoy; not too much to frighten him off. He came round to her house in Peshawar every couple of weeks, but this was an unscheduled visit.
“Bit of gossip for you,” Aftab Afridi sat down in a plush nylon armchair of the heavy local style, as she poured him a hefty Scotch.
“Don’t tease!” she’d replied, kicking off her shoes and handing him the drink.
She made a little leap into her own chair in which she sat cross-legged.
“Some big shot was in Jalalabad today. He flew in an unmarked plane from Dera Chamak, Baluchistan. Three men: one tall, red cloak, grey hair; one young; one plump. Stayed for 45 minutes and left.”
“Who did they meet?”
“That’s the odd thing – nobody it seems.”
“Who told you?” she tried to deflect attention from the question by sipping her drink.
“A friend,” he smiled. And then: “a cousin!”
“I should have known,” she smiled back. “Drugs?”
“How can it be if they met no one?”
Tilting her head, she flicked a loose strand of her long black hair behind her ear and parted her lips. “Do any Baluch have an interest in the tribal clashes up there?”
“Can’t see how they could have.”
“Maybe one of theirs has been kidnapped. On the Kabul road, maybe?”
“I would have heard.”
Natasha Knight leant back in her chair arching her back. “So a mystery, Mr Afridi. Well I like mysteries. Come on! I think you need a top-up.”
*****
When the colonel later discussed the recruitment of Jasir Khan with the Brig, he saw that after Jalalabad, all that remained was to close the deal. And for that they met, on the sheikh’s instruction, at the monthly trial held in the outer perimeter of the sheikh’s fort. Jaz, always in local clothes now, sat on one side of the sheikh, the colonel with dark patches of sweat under his armpits, on the other. Jaz wore a purple turban with dashes of white, in part to shield him from the sun, but he also wrapped it around his face to protect him from the gaze of curious tribesman who had come in from outlying villages and who were wondering who was sitting next to the sheikh at such a young age. Before them, dug into the sun-burnt soil, stretched 21 feet of glowing embers producing a curling heat haze rising several feet into the air.
“They look like coals but they are actually hard wood,” the sheikh, unusually enervated, explained to the colonel. Jaz having seen the trials many times as a boy needed no explanation. He knew exactly what was going to happen.
“See that man there?” the sheikh pointed at a wizened, slightly hunched man with grey hair. The colonel estimated his age at 65 and then correcting the figure to allow for the poverty and privations the average Chamaki endured decided he was probably in his early 50s.
The colonel: “Got him.”
“Well that man over there,” the sheikh pointed to his right, “the young one on his own. With the blue turban ...”
“Got him,” the colonel said.
“... accused the old one of stealing his goat and selling it. The old man denies it. I heard the case a couple of weeks ago and to be honest I could not decide. Both have lied to me in the past. So I’ve ordered a trial by fire. Then we’ll know who is telling the truth. It’s the only one this month.” He sounded a bit disappointed.
The accused was now having his feet washed in goat’s blood as a mullah read to him from the Qur’an. A crowd of onlookers gathered around. They were all men, many sporting moustaches that curled upwards at the end - in pointed contrast to the downcast set of their lips. Their dark eyes were edged by black eyeliner and on their heads sat incongruously jolly skullcaps decorated with brightly coloured embroidery and shiny plastic sequins. Some of the men held hands. Most had blankets wrapped around their shoulders to keep out the dust and heat.
The sheikh turned to Jaz. “While we wait there is something I want to discuss with you. My people have been looking into your brother’s death. We have found something.”
“What?” Jaz wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it.
“A helmet. It seems one of the Americans was injured and left it behind.”
The mullah had finished his incantations and the old man was bragging to the crowd of onlookers that he would reach the other side of the burning embers with no blisters on his feet. They all knew the rule: blisters signalled guilt.
“The helmet has a camera. It can transmit pictures back to the Americans via satellite. But the images are also saved on a drive inside the helmet. Do you remember Ravi?”
Jaz nodded.
“It was probably after you left, but he became very good with computers. I sent him to Karachi for a couple of years to get trained up. It’s all beyond me but it seems there is nothing he can’t do. I want to show you what he found in the helmet.”
The old man was preparing himself now; his cockiness had given way to concentration.
“Bet he has tough feet. Probably works with no shoes on doesn’t he?” the colonel offered.
“Doesn’t make any difference,” the sheikh said sitting forward in his seat. “I have been doing this for over 40 years and it’s never failed to identify the guilty.”
“But how would you know if they are guilty or ...”
The rhythmic clapping of the crowd cut off the colonel’s objection. The old man hopped from one foot to the other and then strode out on the embers.
“Steady paces now! No running,” boomed the sheikh.
With an almost jaunty air the man placed one after the other on the red-hot wood as if he were on a brisk walk to Friday prayers. “One, two, three, four ...” the crowd chanted, and then a cheer as he reached the other end.
The old man fell to the ground, lying on his back and thrusting his feet into the air.
The mullah produced a bowl of water and splashed it on the soles of the old man’s feet, rubbing them clean. The accuser drew nearer to see fair play.
The mullah bent down smelling the feet to confirm his impression.
“Burnt and blistered!” he declared to cheers from the crowd and a victorious grin from the accuser.
“You see,” said the sheikh, lifting himself from his chair and turning to the colonel, “guilty.” And then turning to the crowd, “Imprison him until he pays back twice the value of the goat.” But by that time many of the people were already wandering off.
He looked at Jaz: “Follow me.”
They walked through the poppy plantation toward the ridge on which Mahmud had been killed.
Above them on the ridge stood a man silhouetted against the sun his Kalashnikov pointing in air. His loose cotton clothes flapped about his body in the hot dessert breeze.
“Your brother died near here,” the sheikh told Jaz, “he must h
ave been running from your home.”
Towards the cave, thought Jaz. He was trying to hide. But what had he done wrong? Why him?
As they moved up the slope Jaz could see a television with an orange electric cable leading to a small generator. It seemed out of place amidst the sand and rock in the bright sun.
“Ravi has put the images on a disc and we can watch it here,” the sheikh explained. “I wanted to understand what happened so the TV is in the place where I believe the soldier with the helmet was standing. You can work it out from the pictures.”
The colonel, sweating, had caught up with them now.
“First let’s go to the place where your brother was lying when he was found.” The sheikh led Jaz by the hand to a slightly higher spot. “Here.”
Jaz looked down and this time the soil was stained red. Then he reached down and picked up a pair of sunglasses. “I gave these to him,” tears welling up.
The colonel watched and wondered. The glasses had been in full view. Was it really possible no one had seen them and picked them up? He looked at the sheikh and thought he detected a small smile flash across his lips. You manipulative sod, the colonel thought - and not without a touch of admiration.
The sheikh led Jaz back to the TV. “As you will see, Jaz, Mahmud died very bravely. You can be proud of him.”
With a circular motion of his right hand the sheikh signalled to Ravi who was standing by the TV that he should play the disc. Jaz put his face close to the screen, squinting not wanting to miss any details.
The black and white images, pale in the sunlight, were jerky. At one moment they flicked up to the sky and then back to the ground. Then an American voice off camera was shouting: “Scott, Stein, just below the ridge. He is armed.”
The soldier must have looked up and down because the picture scanned the ridge up and down and then a shot rang out, and there was Mahmud limping, in the centre of the frame, running towards the screen firing his Kalashnikov. A cry now as landscape flashed by and then, nothing but blue sky. “I’m hit! He fucking hit me!” Then the sound of moaning and short panicky breaths.
“Mahmud shot him,” the sheikh explained.
From a lower vantage point the picture showed Mahmud on the floor. An American in military fatigues was running up the hill towards him. And then he took out his gun, shot Mahmud in the chest. Jaz watched as one of the soldiers peeled back Mahmud’s eyelids and then seemed to photograph them. And then he produced a pair of pliers.
Jaz moaned unable to speak.
“What on earth...” the colonel began, his voice cracking with a combination of grief and astonishment. “The bloody bastards, I’ve never seen the like.”
“It must be some kind of trophy,” the sheikh said.
Jaz turned away and vomited into the sand, the yellow bile forming tiny rivulets. More shots rang out from the TV. The sheikh seized the moment: “Stand up Jaz, and look at me.”
Jaz rose to his feet.
“This was a cruel death,” the sheikh was holding one of Jaz’s shoulders now, “but it’s better to see a man die than be humiliated. And he did die well. You know, for the sake of honour and all we hold dear, it should be avenged. Jasir look at me. If anyone strikes a Baluch he will be killed in return – either now or later. Will you avenge your brother’s death?”
And Jaz replied without hesitation: “Of course, just tell me what to do.”
Reluctantly the colonel nodded his approval.
Chapter Five
“As a rule of thumb, you should not expect bouquets of flowers from us in return for mutilated corpses.” -- Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, Baluch tribal leader, 2010
10:30, 6th October, Fort Chamak, Baluchistan
They moved into the fort the next day, the colonel making just one request. “Was rather hoping not to miss the cricket ... Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Starts today.”
“Television,” the sheikh muttered, waving his hand at a servant. “Do the needful.” The man left at just short of running pace. “Tea,” the sheikh suggested.
As the two men sauntered towards the gardens, staff shot off in various, unpredictable directions in the hope of anticipating their needs: a chair in case the colonel wouldn’t want to sit on the ground; green tea and, for the sheikh, McVitie’s digestives. On a china plate. When they reached the lawn, the colonel lowered himself into the chair with a slight groan as he rubbed his lower back.
There was silence as the sheikh sipped his tea. And then: “Colonel, you are not a religious man.”
“Well I am not a fundo if that’s what you mean. You know full well I don’t pray five times a day. By any means.” Unnerved by the sheikh’s tranquillity, he kept talking. “But not in the infidel class. Don’t think so anyway. At least I hope not.”
“Colonel, I would like to request your help. I may have plans for Jaz and I would like your blessing.”
At last, the colonel thought, we’ve reached the heart of it. As a servant approached tentatively, the sheikh flicked the fingers of his right hand. Retreating backwards the servant narrowly missed a rose bed.
“I am not asking you to do this for Allah. Nor Baluchistan. Nor even the Chamakis.”
“Should hope not. I do still have some faith in Pakistan. God knows why!”
“I know.” The sheikh responded with the tone of an exasperated parent trying to understand the whims of a child with too vivid an imagination.
“Look, I really don’t care for these suicide bombers,” the sheikh said. “There’s a madrassah just north of here, I could take you there. The mullah running it tells me that if you give him two months, he can persuade any 14-year-old to do it.”
“I can believe it.”
“I asked him: ‘Should we really be killing our boys?’ I asked him that.”
“And?”
“He said they were watching us from paradise. I told him they should be too busy with the virgins for that.”
The colonel’s belly wobbled as he laughed.
The sheikh said: “About a month ago they drove a boy to Rawalpindi, strapped him up with a suicide vest ready and left him on the road side saying: ‘Attack the army!’ It was the first time he’d seen a city. He wandered around for a couple of hours looking for a target and eventually saw a car with a flag on it. So he rushed up and pulled the cord. He killed the Algerian ambassador’s chauffeur.”
Again the colonel shook his head. “Who no doubt was a Muslim.”
“I think you will agree,” the sheikh concluded, “it’s no way to run a war.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Another servant approached, more confident than the last one. He was bearing a tray with bowls of dates and raisons. The sheikh’s eyes momentarily glanced at the table where he wanted them placed.
“I don’t expect you to believe in what I believe in, Colonel. Nor am I asking you to do this for the sake of our friendship.”
“Very well,” the colonel said acknowledging the point.
“But your nephew,” the sheikh went on, “as Baluch honour demands, must take revenge and I can help him achieve that. My aim is different. My role is to protect the Chamakis and our way of life. Our traditions. I used to think I was born at the wrong time. The biggest thing my father had to worry about was when one of our neighbouring tribes – the Mallis normally – came and stole something. Women most often. But sometimes even goats.”
The colonel grimaced but did not interrupt.
“But I have had the Russians, the Americans, the Pakistanis and the Iranians. And God knows who else is coming.”
“But what’s that to do with Jaz?”
The sheikh carried on as if the colonel hadn’t spoken.
“I have been thinking that I was bound to fail. How could I combat such forces. Armies the like of which the world has never seen. That I would leave the Chamakis less independent than at the time of my father’s death. But lately I have seen a way through. You see, the Americans are not my biggest problem. The real threat
is television, mobility.”
The sheikh looked at the colonel who was frowning.
“I’ll give you an example. There is a family here in Dera Chamak that has opened a restaurant.”
The colonel opened his palms. “And?”
“But we Chamakis never pay for food. If we need food our neighbours give it to us. It’s always been that way. I don’t want a restaurant here. It contradicts our traditions.”
“Close it down then.”
“And wait for someone else to try? And have them all complaining that I am preventing them making a living. No, I have to go deeper than that.”
“Meaning?”
“The Americans are not my problem. They are my opportunity. The war in Afghanistan has helped me get things back to normal here.”
“Well they did say they would bomb us back to the stone age,” the colonel laughed.
The sheikh, expressionless, looked the colonel in the eye.
“Still don’t see what all this has to do with Jaz.”
“Our interests coincide Colonel. He needs revenge. I need mayhem all around me because only then can I restore order here.”
“Look. Mahmud was a son to me. And Jaz too. But now Jaz is the only one left. He’s his own man now and must do as he sees fit. I have no problem with that. Anyway I could not stop him. Or you come to that. And God knows those bastards in the West have got it coming. But I want one assurance. That you will do everything in your power to ensure he survives this. That he walks away alive. Even if it means you have to find someone else and start again.”
TARGET BRITAIN: a political thriller Page 7
