Khalil poured himself a whisky and carried on reading Jeff’s email. “We cannot afford these wars, and neither can we afford this redundant political system any more – in particular the fact we give away large amounts of money to the EU and countries that don’t need it anyway. In the world of the future, countries will trade with China, India and Russia, not just because they produce goods more efficiently and to a higher quality, but because they have stopped trying to force their political solutions on everyone else. Moreover they are federated states: which is what the UK will need to become in order to survive.”
Khalil pondered while Saira sang in the kitchen. He had told Jeff that he wasn’t able to do more publicity work, but Jeff still copied him into press releases and kept him on as his main business adviser. Khalil could see that some of the views espoused by Jeff and his colleagues were potentially seditious and they could never be sent as press releases. It would be suicide both for Jeff and the whole party. But Khalil had no doubt that Jeff was both cold and calculating in the extreme – that he had sent them to Khalil to see if he would leak them. Khalil knew that if they were leaked to the press then Jeff would immediately identify him as the potential weak link in the chain. It was not a position he wanted to be in. He didn’t know the man that well; maybe he would do real damage to his family. However, he suspected that wasn’t the case. But Jeff was obviously one of a number of people who no longer wanted the establishment in power and were willing to go further than anyone else. They were testing the ground around them and Khalil realised that he had to tread carefully.
He went back over the email and recalled from his own student days, when he had been interested in economic history and took part in debates, that there was a complex relationship between social, political and economic change. Nothing could ever be properly predicted, and guesswork still seemed to be the order of the day by most media pundits. ‘Who could have predicted this recession?’ He thought hard, but couldn’t remember if any of the financial journals or magazines he had read before the economic collapse of 2007 had carried articles warning people of what was about to happen. And he had been an avid reader.
Khalil finished reading the email. “We have spent over thirty billion pounds fighting terrorism (if you include the wars and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan) over the last thirty years and only a few hundred million on road safety; but there is no comparison in terms of damage to the economy. The damage to the UK from mainly young, productive people being killed on the roads is crippling, not to mention the damage to family life – well over ninety thousand families have lost someone on the roads in the last thirty years as against less than two thousand due to terrorism and war. In other words government policy is based on ‘perceived threats’ not on ‘real threats’.”
He paused and after some thought deleted both the email from Jeff and his own draft reply. He didn’t want to get involved in any more conspiracy theories. He switched off the lights and went back to his table to finish off his drink and read another chapter of the thriller he’d only been giving scant attention to recently. Saira had gone to bed.
He looked out of the study window. There was a black four-by-four parked thirty metres away not far from a streetlight. There were two men sat inside and as a car’s headlights lit the side of the road he could see the face of the driver; he was looking straight at Khalil’s study window. Five minutes later there was a knock at the door.
***
They motored up a flat riverbed – it was safer than the surrounding tracks as the insurgents couldn’t dig IEDs into riverbanks. They couldn’t be positioned close enough to have the required impact.
Cam laughed. “We’re in a Mastiff; what could possibly go wrong?”
“Shut it you sick twat,” replied Joe, laughing. In his mind was the simulated vehicle roll training they had all undergone in the in-country training period. The insurgents were now trying to knock them over into one of the canals which traversed the whole area. The training was designed so that you would have a sporting chance of getting out in the event of being upside down in a vehicle filling up with water. In reality, if a Mastiff was upside down in a canal or river you would more than likely drown. So it was better to just pray that you wouldn’t get put there in the first place.
As it was Joe, Cam and Jez had been trying to recall some of the mobile patrolling drills during the first hour of driving around but had now got used to it – trying to communicate over the background noise was too much anyway. It was just as well as they had a lot of driving to do in the coming weeks. On the roads they seemed to be leap-frogging around other vehicles and then meeting up with them again. They would then sit down in a base with the same drivers while having a coffee.
They reached a base where there were a variety of structures left over from both recent and more remote conflicts as well as the modern paraphernalia of war: ammunition containers, mortar points, tents flapping between high mud walls, old Soviet era communication towers dotted around large derelict swamp-filled areas. They thought they would have to locate a temporary site to set up a forensics area but found that an ISO container had already been designated as one.
There was no need to rush; if mistakes were made then someone else would have to go back and run the same gauntlet. Cam had made it clear that they needed to work effectively rather than quickly as that was after all what much of the technical training had been about. The trip around the five PBs in that area was mainly for checks on weapon forensics. It was obvious that this could be too much for the days allocated but it didn’t matter if they extended the period as there was far more that could be achieved out here on the ground than at a main operating base.
They finished the immediate task and moved off again. Joe could see the landscape out the back window of the vehicle; greener than he had expected as the trees would normally be covered with fine desert sand. There was well-irrigated land either side of the tracks and roads and some of the latter had new tarmac. It must have been part of some plan to regenerate the area and also cut down on places where IEDs could be located: the ground signs would be far more obvious if tarmac was dug up.
As they travelled through the villages Joe could see through the back window the top gunner of the next vehicle throwing sweets to the youngest children, all of whom waved at the convoy, as did some of the adults. He was slightly surprised at the friendly nature of the locals and wondered if the Talebs could have any influence over them. Motor scooters weaved around the armoured vehicles and the rest of the convoy of trucks carrying ISO containers. Cam joked about ‘taking out’ the scooters if they got too close, but admitted “that for all the training on vehicle drills you can’t allow for everything.”
The Mastiff stopped down the road from the entrance to a Patrol Base and they walked up to the main gate – Jez went off in the wrong direction and was immediately assailed by a load of kids wanting sweets.
“We’ll see you later,” Cam shouted after him adding for good measure, “You maniac!”
They walked into the camp through a dog’s leg, and then veered into a tented area immediately on the left past some ISO containers. The briefing was in a vaulted mud and brick construction with an interlocking brick ceiling. The walls were so thick they kept the conditions cooler in the summer and dry over the winter months.
After the briefing they had a late breakfast and noted some of the CIED team drinking coffee nearby. Cam had met some of them before and went over for a chat. Joe shovelled some porridge into himself and then they got on with the tasks in hand. It was 8.30am and the temperatures were increasing.
***
“Well, I was going to tell you, Saira’s pregnant. You were going to find out sooner or later.” Khalil was on the phone to Shakil.
“That’s great news; but how long have you known?” replied Shakil.
“A while; about a month,” Khalil lied. “The wedding is planned for a few weeks time. I hope she won’t be enormous then.”
“Wha
tever; well done. I mean on… you know…” Shakil was never very good at explaining what he actually meant.
“That’s OK, cuz; I know what you mean. I have some other good news. How would you like to come in full-time? I know you are doing other things, but I can put you on the payroll.”
“Wow; yeah, that’s big. That’s really big, Khalil.”
“Take your time and think about it. There’s no rush right now.”
“I will do, cuz. I will get back to you, but I am definitely interested. I’ll call you later. Shall I tell family and everyone about you know; or do you want to call them?”
“No it’s fine – just tell them.”
The rain continued to beat down on the windows. Khalil had been at a meeting at an office in Camden Town where a prospective client was interested in Khalil’s consultancy and what it might mean for their own IT and networking arrangements. Now he was relaxing in their corporate lounge.
Khalil had always loved the sound of seagulls on rainy mornings in London. It meant they had flown in from the coast probably due to the stormy weather. To him it automatically suggested a state of permanence, of nature adapting, as it needed to, regardless of what humans did to the world.
He relaxed with his tea and a copy of the Financial Times. However, he couldn’t stay for too long, as he wanted to get to one of the weekly meetings that Jeff chaired at the Party HQ just off Euston Road. Khalil had stopped attending them on a regular basis, but he had a good reason for attending this particular meeting as he was being contracted to install the new server. He left and made his way to the HQ building. He got there just in time.
Jeff opened the meeting with an address and carried on: “We are going to discuss the strategies in relation to foreign affairs that various governments have put forward over the years and where we think we are going as a country; or at least where we think we should be going. Conrad, could you kick off please?”
Conrad had regularly waylaid people at some of the evening bashes and Khalil recognized him as a heavy drinker. However, he now spoke clearly and lucidly: “The way I see things it wasn’t so long ago that government ministers were selling weapon systems to people like the Indonesians under Suharto; to use against democratic groups. Thousands were slaughtered or tortured, often at the hands of British-made weapons. And when one former government minister was asked what his thoughts were when he had authorized the sale of such weapons to an obviously despotic regime his reply was that he didn’t care as he rated animal life above human life. And now the media regard him as some kind of maverick hero when in reality he was just another British war criminal who revelled in selling weapons to the highest bidders regardless of the consequences.” Conrad stopped for a drink of water.
“And what precisely have the British done about such people? I will tell you; we have done absolutely nothing. We’re the problem here; we have failed to get our own house in order – we should not be selling weapons to the highest bidders. So what if our defence industries would suffer? We’re the ones who suffer in the long term, as it’s our people who have to go and sort out all the problems in all these troubled places. Are you getting the picture now - Saddam Hussein, the Taleban etcetera? It’s one big ‘Groundhog Day’. We funded them all at one stage. But we need to get that message out there especially to the middle ground voters because they are too scared that someone may upset the apple cart, when that’s exactly what we should be doing anyway. We have to break this cycle of violence.”
Khalil was surprised at the candid nature of Conrad’s exposé and he felt slightly guilty that he had underestimated such people in the past. But at the same time he had a job to do running his own business and would soon have a family to support. This affair with the Justice Party would only ever be a means of gaining contacts for his own business interests and he stopped himself from feeling any further sympathy towards their goals.
After the meeting he explained to Jeff how the new server would operate and that it wouldn’t take long to install at the local offices. All emails and documents would go through a new network loop and be checked by the main hub at the central HQ in London. It would mean that all documents could be scanned and recorded. It therefore meant that Jeff and other senior people within the party would be made aware if anyone was sending errant emails or documents out, especially to the media. Jeff was ecstatic about the new system and thanked him. He wrote the cheque there and then from the company accounts. Khalil had an immense feeling of relief having finished the work; and finally had something to show Saira.
***
The men had finished bedding in the main charges into the compound walls hidden as they were inside shelters that ran alongside the inner walls – this meant that they were protected from any aerial surveillance. Az was left with the task of setting up the circuits for each charge and he would connect the detonators last for the three charges in their separate locations. A fourth charge meant that it would be possible to take out the attacking soldiers and themselves at the same time if so required.
Only Az had control of the switches. He had managed to get hold of some decent quality electrical cable and had used small lengths of bright commercial orange detonating chord procured from Pakistan. He disliked it, as it wasn’t always easy to bed in and camouflage. However, it was still better than the inferior detonating chord he had been given in Musa Q’aleh, which usually had to have a series of knots inserted in its length in order to boost the explosive train. Only two such charges had functioned properly around that area during his short period of action there.
He now had fifteen men in total in three fire teams dotted around the compound. There were two snipers. Each sniper had a clear field of view into the nearby checkpoint. Az could direct fire into the CP from the high walls of the compound and coax the troops into an assault on their location at short range. If he succeeded and his men retreated far enough back into the complex of compounds they would then detonate the three charges.
Az sat down and took in what was happening and what it might mean. Through the now disharmonic thud of the rain there came a strange lilting sound of canned music; a simple tune he had heard before, but he couldn’t put a name to it. It was impossible to say what the odd gyrating noise actually was; it stirred up some unknown emotions within Az, and then an intangible response from deep within himself. It disturbed him so much he shut his eyes and considered how unrecognizable he had become; to himself, not anyone else. The feeling drowned with the rain and the sound subsided leaving him dejected and alone. He couldn’t carry on – all he could think about was leaving Afghanistan.
***
“Do you know what Chaodedunki toki means?” Cam asked Joe.
“Sandwich?” Joe replied.
“Do you ever stop thinking about food, mate? Have another guess.”
“Oh I don’t know, er… fish?”
“Nope - it’s explosives. And guess what the word for suicide bomber is?”
“Mad bastardos?”
“Not far off: Insani bam!”
“I suppose by that stage it’s a bit late to know the word.”
“Yep: think you’ve a point there. Dreszh may be a better one to know; it means ‘Stop!’”
It was 11.00am, the air temperature was forty-three degrees but luckily the sun-deck outside their unit office was shaded by the high Hesco walls. Cam, Joe and Jez had spent two weeks in the patrol bases before heading back to Camp Bastion, arriving the night before by road via the Danish café at MOB Price. They had got up late, dropped their laundry off and had breakfast in the NAAFI. The plan was to go over all the information gathered and do some lab work if required.
However, as they waited for the next briefing they were told by one of the corporals that they would have to re-pack their kit. They were in the frame for going to a base by helicopter leaving later that afternoon. The usual threat of being bumped off the flight was there but none of them were too bothered. They knew they could be at the helipad for hours once they g
ot there; the important thing was to take it easy in the heat. It was the usual brief - they would take their Osprey body armour, ammunition, weapons and Bergens loaded with their personal and technical kits.
“Jeez; you could cook toast on this freaking deck,” Joe said to Cam.
“This whole country may end up as toast if they don’t sort themselves out one day,” replied Cam.
At 3.00pm Cam, Joe and Jez were taken up with their gear to the helipad in a dented old pick-up driven by one of the sergeants. As it turned out the Chinook landed on time, but they were told that another unit had taken their place so they tabbed back to their tent in the dark carrying all their equipment. They were then woken up again at 4.00am to get on a small Mastiff convoy just after 5.00am that didn’t seem to be guarding much more than a few container trucks. They finally got through the gates at Camp Bastion and headed out as the sun came up.
They stopped off at a few locations en route to their final destination, a Brigade HQ in the middle of NES South. At times they swept along, driving up rivers as they had done many times before. Joe, Jez and Cam lolled in the back. Joe thought how annoying it must be for the people to have helicopters flying so low over your house all the time as well as the CLPs trundling through; ‘so much for the hearts and minds strategy.’
The Brigade HQ was on the western side of the NES South area. As soon as they stepped off the Mastiff, having helped get all the other kit off, Joe looked around. He could see trees and lots of small birds flying around. They stood and listened to the start of the RSOI brief.
The three of them then sauntered off with all their kit and a warrant officer took them around the camp. “Here’s the cookhouse… here’s the internet… here’s the Ops room!” The camp was a trove of bird life, old machinery, and half destroyed buildings. The sound of the birds was everywhere, especially the weaverbirds, tumbling and spiralling through the air above the tents, their distinctive nests forming an impressive backdrop. Bright coloured jays and red doves were also hopping from one obstacle to the next, while sparrows, swifts and swallows dogfought above their heads.
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