Still the prisoner did not look up or speak. The only sounds in the room came from the tinkling of his chains and the armed guard’s shuffling feet.
‘You have been away from Birmingham a long time,’ continued Martin. ‘Firstly with your trip to Pakistan to visit your relatives and then with all the other exciting journeys that you described in such detail to my British colleague when she visited you. You must miss your family. I understand they have not been to see you. Perhaps they don’t approve of your activities.’
Khan moved uneasily in his chair, then slumped forward again and said nothing.
‘I don’t suppose you care whether your parents approve or not. Who doesn’t want to rebel against their parents at your age? And I understand from the British that your father is fiercely traditional, so it wouldn’t be surprising if he disapproved of you. But what about Tahira, your sister? What does she think, do you imagine?’
At the mention of his sister’s name, Khan looked up and stared at Martin, his eyelids flickering with surprise. Martin pressed on. ‘I would have thought you would be worried about her. Though of course she is a woman, and I suppose that means she doesn’t matter to you.’
He paused and watched an expression of resentment spreading over Khan’s face.
‘I’ve noticed that your group of friends was all male. It’s almost as if you don’t like women very much . . .’ He let the implication hang in the air for a moment, then added with the trace of a sneer, ‘Though I gather your sister’s nothing special.’
Khan suddenly sat up straight in his chair, exclaiming in protest, ‘You know nothing about my sister, or me, or my friends!’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, Amir. I know a great deal about you and your family and your sister and your friends. And as I say, you and your mates don’t seem to like women very much.’
‘That’s not true,’ Khan suddenly shouted. ‘Ask Malik. He thinks my sister’s –’
Then, realising he had lost control, he shut his mouth like a trap.
‘What’s that? He fancies your sister, does he?’
Khan’s face was full of fury, and he tried to stand up. The guard moved quickly towards him but the prisoner was forced back into his chair, yanked by the chain; the prison officer went back to his post beside the door. The silence in the room was broken only by Amir Khan’s sniffing as he wept quietly.
Martin let the silence hang for a time and then he said, ‘Look, Amir, I think your sister needs you. I think she may be in some danger from these people you call your friends. From what I’ve heard, they may not be quite such good friends as you think. But there’s not much you can do to help her, sitting here in this prison. Why don’t you try being a bit more frank? You may be able to do her a lot of good if you talk a bit more truthfully about what happened to you. If you don’t, you could be here for a long time – doing no one any good.
‘There are lots of ways in which I can help you and your sister – but that means you’ve got to stop telling lies, and we all know you have been. I know, the British know, and you know. Just think about it – and if you want to talk to me again, tell the warders and I’ll come straight away.’
And with that, he stood up and nodded to the guard, who opened the heavy metal door. A warder, standing outside in the passage, came in and led Amir Khan shuffling away.
Martin left the Santé feeling reasonably satisfied. He had certainly shaken up young Amir Khan and was hopeful of hearing from him before too long. He had got one name out of him at least – Malik. He would send his report over to Thames House that afternoon and hope that the name would mean something to Liz and her colleagues.
Chapter 40
Dave Armstrong poked his head round Liz’s office door minutes after she had read the message from Martin. ‘Just the man I want to see,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard from the French. They’ve been to see Amir Khan again.’
‘Any luck?’
‘No breakthrough yet, though there may be a chink of hope. But there was something that’s got me thinking. He was needled into saying that one of his group in the mosque has a bit of a thing for his sister, Tahira.’
‘Not very pious, that.’
‘Hmm. She’s a beautiful girl. And it’s somehow comforting to know that even an extremist has human feelings.’
‘Do you know which one it is?’
‘Yes. It’s Malik, that guy who attacked me.’
Dave took this in for a moment. ‘Is that all they got out of Khan?’
‘Yes, for the moment. But it could help us a lot. Depending on Tahira, of course.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. I know what you mean.’ He thought for a minute. ‘A4 have a good sense of her routine now, so I’m sure I could set up another meeting with her pretty easily.’
‘Okay,’ Liz said without enthusiasm.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘You said she’d offered to help – and that was before this landed in our lap. If Malik is going to Pakistan, maybe she can chat him up and find out when . . . maybe find out more about this mysterious Westerner in London. This is just the kind of break we need.’
‘I suppose it is.’ But Liz’s voice still lacked enthusiasm. ‘It’s just that asking Tahira to sidle up to Malik is like asking Daniel to enter the lions’ den.’
‘That turned out Okay.’
Liz smiled. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘Of course I do. But we’ve got to take the risk.’
‘Even if it means putting Tahira in harm’s way? Look what happened to Boatman.’
‘Yes, I know. But from what I’ve seen of Tahira, I think she’s a whole lot brighter than Boatman.’ Dave was emphatic. ‘There will be many more people in danger than Tahira if we don’t do this.’
‘Yes. But we’re asking a lot of someone who’s got no experience in our line of things. It’s not as if Tahira’s an extremist we’ve managed to turn. She’s just a nice Muslim girl who works in her father’s shop, for goodness’ sake.’
Dave sat down on the other side of Liz’s desk. She looked at him and sighed. She said, ‘I know what you’re going to say. But it used to be a lot easier: there were people on one side trying to blow things up, and there was us on the other side, trying to prevent them. We didn’t use anyone to help us who wasn’t part of the fight – and who didn’t really understand the danger of helping us. In fact, we made jolly certain that they did understand.
‘It’s not that simple any more. We have to get help from anyone who offers it – we haven’t the luxury of saying, “Leave it to us, you’re not a professional so you can’t get involved.”’
‘But Tahira volunteered to help; wants to help. I’m sorry, Liz, you have no choice. You can’t say no.’
‘I know,’ she said. And later Dave’s words stayed with her, only partly allaying the anxiety she felt about asking Tahira to put herself in harm’s way.
Two days later Liz was sitting in the A4 transit van in the car park of a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Birmingham. She had driven up from London through very heavy rain and her eyes felt strained from peering through the spray thrown up by the lorries she’d overtaken on the motorway. Eventually the rain had given way to a sullen drizzle. She’d parked her car two miles away at another small group of factory outlets, and had managed to step in an enormous puddle as she’d run through the downpour to the waiting transfer vehicle that had driven her here. Now she sat with her shoes off, her sodden feet under a folding table. In another corner of the van an A4 officer called Felix sat crouched on a stool, reading the Daily Mail.
So far so good – Dave had left another note for Tahira in her father’s shop the night before, just at closing time. They knew that this was the day each week when she came here, driven by her cousin Nazir, to buy bulk quantities of supplies from Costco for her father’s shop. While she walked the aisles putting her order together, Nazir – not the sharpest knife in the drawer apparently – would cross to the other side of the overpass and visit an amusemen
t arcade, playing pinball for an hour. They were relying on Tahira to have thought up some excuse to delay him there this morning for an extra half hour, while she met Liz in the van.
Liz leaned down and felt her toes; they were still cold, but just dry enough for her to slip her shoes back on. There was a tap on the van’s back door and Felix sprang up and opened it. Liz caught a glimpse of Dave Armstrong, then another figure emerged from behind him and with his help climbed up into the van. Felix hopped out and closed the door behind him. He and Dave would watch outside from a waiting car; there were two other A4 cars parked at the front perimeter of the industrial estate, occupants ready to spring into action if needed.
‘Sit down, Tahira,’ said Liz, pointing to the chair on the other side of the table. ‘I hope you didn’t get soaked out there.’
‘No, it’s almost stopped raining.’
‘Good. We haven’t got much time, so let me tell you why I wanted to see you.’ She explained that her French colleagues had talked to Amir in prison and that he was well. It was possible he might be returned to Britain, where he would be remanded in prison while it was decided if he should face charges.
At this, Tahira’s face lit up. ‘My father wouldn’t let me go to France to see Amir,’ she said. ‘But if he comes back home, I want to visit him. Will I be allowed?’
‘Yes, but possibly not for a while. Remember, he’s been involved in an attempt to hijack a ship. That’s a very serious thing.’
‘I know,’ Tahira said, and her face grew sombre. ‘But it’s not just the ship you’re worried about, is it?’
‘No, as I told you, we’re concerned because we think he was sent to Somalia to take part in terrorist activities, after being trained in Pakistan. But what worries us most is that we’re pretty sure he was recruited here.’
‘At the mosque,’ said Tahira bitterly.
‘It seems so. And if he was recruited at the mosque, then others might have been recruited there too.’
Tahira said, ‘I promised to try and find out more about Abdi Bakri. But I’m afraid I haven’t been very successful.’
‘Don’t worry.’
‘I will keep trying.’
‘No, please don’t.’ Liz saw the puzzled look on Tahira’s face. She took a deep breath. ‘Actually, there’s something else I’d rather you did instead.’
Chapter 41
It was another gloomy day, precociously autumnal in its dankness. In Thames House Liz was writing a report of her meeting with Tahira when she became aware that someone was standing in the doorway of her office. She looked up – and groaned a secret groan. It was Geoffrey Fane. She hoped that at least he would have something interesting to tell her.
He did, though as usual he took his time getting to the point. ‘I like this new office of yours,’ he began inconsequentially, pointing out of the window. ‘I find a river view lifts the spirits on a gloomy day like this. Even on a floor this low down in the building.’
Liz suppressed a sigh, thinking of Fane’s eyrie high up in Vauxhall Cross. She said tartly, ‘I’m suited for life at this level. I wouldn’t want to develop ideas above my station.’
Fane allowed a smile to touch his lips. ‘Touché, Elizabeth. But à nos moutons. I’ve been considering this hijacking business of yours. Bruno in Athens has been speaking to our friend Berger and there’s another UCSO shipment planned for two weeks’ time. Same vessel – the Aristides – and to Kenya again. The same route as before, right by the Horn of Africa.’
‘I hope they stay a little further from shore this time.’
‘That seems to make no difference nowadays. The pirates are becoming bolder all the time. They seem perfectly willing to go miles from shore if they think there’s a sitting duck out there. And the whole point about this shipment is that we want them to think it’s a fat bird, ripe for the plucking. The ostensible manifest is mouth-watering and its value is in the millions. It’s a fake, of course, but it’s been drawn up with the utmost security, so no one in the office has any reason to believe it’s anything but legit. They may know we suspect a leak – and if this girl Maria was murdered because someone knew we’d put her in there, then they’ll know what we suspect – but I’m willing to bet they’ll still go for this shipment.’
‘You’re probably right. So what’s this thought of yours?’ She’d learned long ago in dealing with Fane that it was always best to stick firmly to the point. Otherwise, he’d lead you round and round, in a bewilderingly indirect dance. And you’d find yourself tied up in knots and agreeing to things that you’d regret later.
For once Fane was equally direct. ‘I want to put a man on board. Undercover, of course.’
Liz looked at him with a slight frown. Behind her cool grey gaze her mind was racing. What was Geoffrey Fane up to now? ‘And what would he do, your man?’
‘Find out if anyone on the ship is helping the hijackers.’
‘That seems most unlikely. If you’re right, they’d already know which ship to attack, and what it’s carrying. They don’t need anything further from someone on board the Aristides.’
‘Unless the pirates have people there to help them take control when they try and board.’
Liz thought for a moment. What Fane said made sense – there might well be an advantage to the pirates in having accomplices already on board. Or allies anyway, she thought, thinking of the crewmen who had jumped ship in Mombasa after the last hijacking attempt. And suddenly it occurred to her that this might be the whole point: men on board could certainly assist the hijackers, but more importantly, once on shore, they could stay there and join the pirates or else the forces of Al Qaeda, who might well have recruited them in the first place.
She realised, as she sat gazing blankly at Geoffrey Fane, that she hadn’t thought through the full implications of all that Peggy had discovered. She’d been distracted: by the attack on Boatman, and the urgent need to get him and his wife to safety; by the recruitment of Tahira to cultivate Malik. All of this had taken her attention off Peggy’s research.
Now, as she thought about it again, everything seemed a lot clearer. Amir Khan had attended the New Springfield Mosque. He had gone from Birmingham to Pakistan; from there he had somehow got to Athens, how or why he was still refusing to tell them. Then he had turned up with a band of pirates in Somalia. The six crewmen who had disappeared in Mombasa had, Peggy had discovered, been recruited for the Aristides in Athens, via a Pakistani company. They had false Pakistani passports but had spoken to each other in English, so were probably not Pakistanis at all. Had they come from Birmingham too? Could it be that Amir Khan was just the tip of the iceberg? Were many more British recruits heading for Somalia? She needed to think more about this idea before she shared her whole investigation with Geoffrey Fane. She’d rather talk to Peggy first, and then to Martin to see what he made of it.
Her eyes focused on Fane again and she realised he was still talking about his proposal to put someone on board the ship. But, if she was right, it was hard to see how placing a solitary undercover agent on the Aristides could do anything to foil a plot of this complexity. It was far more likely to blow the investigation and precipitate a change of plan by the plotters. She started to repeat her objections to Fane’s proposal.
He cut her off with a raised hand. ‘Hear me out, if you would, Elizabeth. If we have someone on board, with direct communications of course, he’ll be able to alert us immediately the attack takes place – if it does. We’ll have naval forces all over the area who can move in quickly – there’s not a chance the pirates will get away. Then we’ll discover what this is all about and who the leaker in UCSO is.’
The plan still seemed to Liz just the sort of John Buchan-like adventure that had filled MI6’s past history – and which, in her view, rarely achieved its objective. Her scepticism must have showed clearly on her face. Fane said earnestly, ‘I can see you’re doubtful about this, but what’s the risk?’
In the first place, somebody’s life, thou
ght Liz, looking at him and remembering what had happened to Maria, his last attempt at infiltrating an agent. The dead girl seemed to hold for him all the importance of a tax deduction – something to be written off.
Fane went on, ‘Look, the simple truth is, if we don’t take charge of this operation, the Americans will.’
‘The Americans? What have they got to do with it?’
‘Quite a lot by now.’ He was looking slightly sheepish. ‘You were right about the head of the Athens office – he’s ex-Agency. Langley has suddenly started to take an interest in what they’d previously dismissed as a parochial Greek affair. It feeds into their growing concern about Somalia.’
‘What’s that got to do with putting someone on board the Aristides?’
‘Simply this: if we don’t do it, Langley will. And I’m sure that neither of us wants that to happen.’
She didn’t answer at once. Fane was right to think that it would be disastrous for the CIA to come charging mob-handed into the case. Now was not the moment for a ‘bombs away’ approach.
But Fane’s alternative, putting a Six officer on board, was equally unpalatable to Liz. The emphasis then would be less on discovering any links between the Birmingham mosque, Al Qaeda and Somalia, and more on adventures against pirates and . . . well, ultimately, she thought cynically, furthering Fane’s own glory. No, thanks, thought Liz.
She said, ‘I agree we don’t want the Americans taking over. But I don’t think it should be one of your people on board.’
‘Why not?’ demanded Fane, looking affronted.
‘Because if anyone’s going to do this, it should be one of us.’ Before he could object, she continued, ‘If there are people on board who are in collusion with the pirates, the likelihood is that they will be British masquerading as Pakistanis.’ She told him what Peggy had found out about the six crew members who had disappeared during the Aristides’ previous voyage. She went on, ‘And we’re obviously in the strongest position to spot them. We’re already investigating the mosque in Birmingham that Amir Khan used to attend. We think that’s where he was recruited to do whatever he was sent out to Somalia to do. It may be that all this links together. Anyway, it’s in our bailiwick. So whoever we put on the Aristides should know the details of our investigation and be from this side of the river.’
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