Empire State

by Henry Porter

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  One question stayed in Herrick’s mind on the ride back to the hotel, and when she was sitting on the balcony of her room with a packet of crisps from the minibar she said it out loud. Why would the CIA and SHISK go to such lengths to question Khan about a planned terrorist attack, then kill him without getting an answer? Even if Khan had talked in the few hours between her leaving the headquarters and seeing him taken off, that would be no reason to kill him. Surely it would be the moment for the Americans to produce him to the world’s media as evidence of another thwarted terrorist plot, a triumph of vigilance and interception to be shared with their Albanian friends. There was only one solution. Khan had not been killed.

  She phoned Harland’s room and then his mobile. There was no answer on either. She waited for half an hour, drinking a little of the whisky opened by Gibbons the night before, not really enjoying it, and gazing across the garden. Then she went to the bathroom and washed the smell of burnt rubber from her hair under the shower. This took only a few minutes and when she came out she saw that a note had been slipped under the door. ‘Rooms and phones bugged. See you at Embassy soonest.’

  She dried her hair, changed and was downstairs in less than five minutes. Bashkin was still out in the car park. ‘What is this, a twenty-four-hour watch?’ she asked him.

  He looked at her a little ruefully. ‘Mease Errique leave soon? Tomorrow Bashkin drive you to airport.’

  ‘You know my plans before I do,’ she said, climbing into the Mercedes. ‘Perhaps you could tell me what you thought of what we saw up in the hills?’

  ‘Bashkin see nothing. Bashkin asleeping.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, ‘Bashkin asleeping. But not tired enough to go home after he’s dropped me at the hotel. Who do you work for?’

  ‘For you Mease Errique.’

  ‘And for Mr Marenglen also, I shouldn’t wonder,’ she said. ‘Drive me to the British Embassy, please.’

  Harland was waiting for her just inside the Embassy gates with one of the Hereford-trained guards, who introduced himself as Steve Tyrrel.

  ‘Where the fuck did you get to?’ she said to Harland. ‘I thought you were following me. Where were you?’

  ‘We’ll talk inside.’ He gestured to a door where another armed man stood. ‘We’ve got Loz here, but I haven’t told him anything and I think we should keep it that way until we know what’s going on. There’s more to him than you could imagine.’

  They found Sammi Loz seated nonchalantly in an outer office with a cup of tea and a copy of the day’s International Herald Tribune, looking for all the world as though he was about to go out in Manhattan on a warm summer’s evening. ‘Reunions later,’ said Harland roughly as Loz got up and made an elaborate fuss over Herrick.

  As soon as the metal door of the communications room thudded behind them, Herrick gave Harland a brief account of what she had seen on the mountains. When she reached the end she said, ‘This wasn’t for real. I know that. Gibbons dropped the stuff about the Valleys of Fire like a pile of plates after he had spoken on the phone - obviously to Milo Franc. They wanted me to go up there and watch someone being thrown into the fire.’ She stopped and looked around. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any food, have you?’ Harland phoned Tyrrel and asked him to scratch something together.

  ‘Where’d you get to?’ she asked when he put the phone down.

  Harland gave her an odd, crooked smile. Now that his back was on the mend the strain had left his face. ‘I went with Steve Tyrrel. I didn’t tell you because I think the Americans are listening to our mobiles. So I had to pretend that I was following you up there. Steve had a hunch they were taking Khan out of the country and he was exactly right. Khan was driven to the airport and put on a private jet. The plane is being tracked by GCHQ and our people on Cyprus. I have no word yet as to where it’s headed but the Chief will be on as soon as he knows.’

  ‘So that’s more or less that,’ said Herrick. ‘We’ve lost our man and I can go home.’

  ‘Better hear what the Chief says,’ he said with another smile.

  Khan had known nothing after being rolled into the back of the car because a needle was plunged into his buttock. When he began to recover consciousness on the plane, all he was aware of was a raging thirst. He had been given no water during the previous day and whatever drug they’d used to knock him out had heightened the need for liquid. This blocked out his fear at finding himself on a plane, still hooded and bound, but now also with his mouth taped over and his ankles tied together. After a little while he started to explore his surroundings by moving his legs. He touched what he assumed was the seat in front of him and then angled them into the aisle and started to kick out, making as much noise as he could behind the tape. Someone stirred in front of him and he heard Lance Gibbons’ voice, then the big CIA man, Franc. He kicked some more and became aware of them consulting each other. ‘Look,’ said Gibbons. ‘Langley says he might have a capsule in his teeth.’

  ‘He would’ve used it by now,’ growled Franc.

  Khan had no idea what they were talking about and heaved his torso forward so he was almost out of the seat and in the aisle.

  ‘Hey, hey, hold still there, buddy,’ shouted Gibbons.

  The hood was removed and Gibbons’ face peered into his. Khan stared back, eyes popping and cheeks blown out.

  Gibbons examined him in the dim light of the cabin, then pulled back the tape so it hung from the corner of his mouth. When he heard what Khan wanted he grunted and fetched a clear plastic beaker of water which he lifted to his lips. He replenished it twice from a bottle before Khan’s thirst was slaked and he was able to croak thank you.

  ‘Now I’m gonna put this tape back. There’s no use you getting excited. We got a lot of flying time ahead of us and unless you want us to give you another one of those shots you’ll take a nap.’

  Khan saw that he was considering whether to replace the hood so shook his head vigorously. Gibbons hesitated, then folded the cloth and placed it on the headrest in front of him. Before returning to sprawl in his own seat he jabbed his finger in front of Khan’s face and said, ‘Now, sleep, buster.’

  Khan wasn’t reassured by the water. These tiny acts of kindness meant nothing and indeed they often seemed to foreshadow some new, unpleasant turn in his story. In all the thousands of miles he had travelled he realised he had met almost no one he could trust, except perhaps in the case of Mr Skender - the consumptive interpreter who had accepted his money and the postcard with a look of solemn obligation. He was sure that Skender had posted the message and that it had arrived in New York. Moreover he understood that the pretty young English diplomat was letting him know she had met Sammi when she mentioned The Poet. It wasn’t just chance she used that name because he caught the look in her eye as she said it. And yet she couldn’t have any idea what it meant. Loz must have told her to drop it into the conversation, knowing he would recognise it while she would remain utterly ignorant of its meaning. That was smart of Loz.

  But just as there seemed to be hope it was snatched from him. He was almost certainly on his way to Camp X-Ray, which he knew would be impregnable to all Loz’s money and cunning. He had heard enough about the place while travelling through Iran to know that no one left unless the Americans wanted it. What hope did a veteran of the jihad in Bosnia and Afghanistan have of persuading the interrogators that he was simply a soldier? He wriggled a little to ease the pain in his ribs where The Doctor had hit him. The discomfort reminded him that at least the Americans did not practise torture. They may have been prepared to leave the room while The Doctor suffocated him and pressed his thumbs into his eye sockets. But that wasn’t the same as doing it themselves. He could at least survive at Camp X-Ray and soon they would understand that he was cooperating with them and represented no threat whatsoever. Yes, he would make them understand that.

  Although the drug made his mind sluggish and he was desperate for sleep, he kept on returning to the you
ng woman. He had forgotten what a Western woman could be like and she brought back memories of his time in London. This woman was poised, intelligent and brave. It had taken courage to shout out in his defence when they tried to stop him talking.

  He managed to doze for half an hour or so but then woke to a new kind of light in the cabin. He looked to his left and saw dawn rising through the window, an orange light below the wing tip, graded through azure to a deep mauve in the stratosphere. He watched it for a while before realising with a sudden, sharp dread that the sun rising on the port side of the aeroplane could only mean one thing - they weren’t headed west for the Caribbean and Camp X-Ray, but due south.

  Harland and Herrick sent a long encrypted email to Vauxhall Cross about Khan being taken out of the country while the CIA and SHISK had set up a diversion in the mountains, then sat back to consume a meal of bananas, Marmite sandwiches, digestive biscuits and coffee, rustled up by Steve Tyrrel from the Embassy kitchen. Herrick found she couldn’t eat enough.

  At 3.00 a.m. the Chief came on the phone. The British listening station in Cyprus had picked up the unscheduled flight an hour before and noted that, having executed a wide circle over the Mediterranean, the jet turned east into Greek air space and then followed the commercial air corridor down the coast of the Mediterranean, skirting Turkey’s southern flank, Lebanon and Palestine.

  ‘They’re going to Egypt,’ said Herrick, leaning into the conference phone.

  ‘It looks like that,’ said the Chief.

  ‘It fits with today’s line of questioning,’ she said. ‘The only thing they wanted to demonstrate in front of me was that Khan was Jasur Faisal - the man whose papers he was carrying. Faisal is wanted all over the Middle East, and in Egypt for the murder of a newspaper editor.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Chief quietly. ‘It means of course that the Albanians wouldn’t want to be answerable for the degree of torture they’re planning. This has happened before, in 1998.’ There was a long pause during which Harland and Herrick wondered if the line had dropped. ‘It complicates things a great deal.’ Another pause. ‘Yes, what we shall want you to do for the moment is to have that serious talk with Loz, using the information I sent you earlier. See how he responds. I’ll get back to you. Oh, by the way, we’re going to change encryption on the next call.’ He told Harland to enter a six-digit code into the computer through which the phone was routed, then hung up.

  As Harland worked at the keyboard, Herrick asked, ‘What did Loz say to you that made you and the Chief so interested?’

  ‘He told me that Khan knows the identities of two terrorist leaders who were already talking about al-Qaeda activity in the mid-nineties. He and Khan talked to at least one of them when they last saw each other in ninety-seven.’

  ‘But surely Loz is just trying to get us to spring his friend?’ she said. ‘He’s bound to exaggerate the importance of Khan’s information.’

  ‘It’s a tip that the Chief ’s not prepared to ignore. He has very good reasons to think Loz is telling the truth, but I don’t know what they are.’

  ‘But what’s the point?’ she asked. ‘If Khan is in Cairo, we can forget it. The only thing the Egyptians are concerned with is what target he’s planning to attack, who his contacts are, and where he was trained. They’ll be asking the questions the Americans want answers to, but with a cattle prod. When he denies being involved in a specific plot they’ll torture him to a point where he has to dream up some cock and bull story. Meanwhile they’ll miss the really valuable information.’

  ‘One of the minor problems with torture,’ said Harland grimly. He picked up the phone and told Tyrrel to bring Loz in.

  Loz’s buoyant expression collapsed when they told him that Khan had been taken to Cairo. ‘This is very, very bad news,’ he said, shaking his head and working his hands.

  ‘Well, we’re still evaluating what this means,’ said Harland, steering him to a chair away from the computers. ‘But it doesn’t look good, I grant you that.’ He paused and rubbed his chin, as though wondering how to proceed, then he focused on Loz. ‘Isis had an encounter with one of the nastier scumbags of our time tonight, a man called Marenglen who is head of the local secret service here. It’s a curious name which I understand is made from the first three letters of Marx, Engels and Lenin - a name forged in desperate communist times when people needed to ingratiate themselves with the regime.’ He stopped again. ‘Interestingly, it’s the same kind of formation as TriBeCa in New York, the Triangle Below Canal. But I probably can’t tell you anything about TriBeCa, Doctor.’ He let that hang in the stuffy atmosphere of the Communications room and looked down at Loz intently. Herrick wondered where the hell this was leading.

  ‘This Marenglen,’ continued Harland, ‘was picked up when he came to the LSE in London on a scholarship in 1987, and he was trained by former colleagues who of course had no idea that communism was about to collapse in Albania. He was a good spot because he was exceptionally clever, and useful to us after Enver Hoxha’s death, but Marenglen turned out to be a rotten apple, as bad a man as you could ever meet. There is literally no crime in Albania that Marenglen does not in some way supervise from the safety of his position. Coming in contact with this man is like handling a test tube of bubonic plague. I do not exaggerate.’ Loz looked mystified. ‘We are here because of you, Dr Loz, and because of your friend. Isis took a big risk this evening to see if she could help Khan and that’s when she came across Marenglen. It could have ended very badly for her but she took that risk because of you and your friend. But you know something? We don’t really have any idea about either you or Khan. So, I want you to help us. Tell us everything about you.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Loz, eagerly leaning forward, hands clasped around his knee. ‘But what more do you want?’

  ‘You should understand your position,’ said Harland. ‘You’re in Albania illegally. You travelled here on a forged passport and have none of the correct visa requirements. Remember, this was Khan’s only crime in Albania, and yet he was held and beaten up. If they find that his main contact is also here, they are very likely to do exactly the same to you. Who knows, you may even end up in the same Egyptian jail.’

  ‘But your responsibility is to help me.’ A fleeting, rather professional smile crossed his face. ‘That’s what the Secretary-General instructed you to do.’

  Harland shook his head. ‘Believe me, Doctor, what happens to you is entirely my choice now.’

  ‘So what do you want me to tell you?’

  ‘Ninety-seven. What were you doing in 1997?’

  ‘I was in New York, studying osteopathy. You know that!’ he smiled at Herrick as though Harland was now being quite impossible.

  ‘And the real estate business? How did that fit into your life?’

  Loz’s gaze hardened. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘We know all about that. We know that while you were studying, you were also investing large sums in Manhattan developments. I have a figure of sixty million dollars, but London believes the amount transferred to you through twenty accounts may be two or three times that figure. All of it was placed at your disposal to buy real estate in Manhattan - mostly in Chelsea and TriBeCa. TriBeCa was the big killing of your operation, wasn’t it? You made a profit of 15.7 million dollars on one deal in the Triangle Below Canal. There were many others.’ He stopped and examined his notes. ‘You know how we began to trace them? We started by looking up the name of a company that let your premises in the Empire State building - and still does - the Twelver Real Estate Corporation. That name rang a few bells in London. Anyone who knows anything about Islam knows that the Shi’a sect is called in Arabic Ithna Ashariya - the Twelvers. The movement of money from the Shi’ite banks in Lebanon to New York had been noted between 1996 and 1999 and so had the name of the Twelver Real Estate Corp. What they didn’t know was who was controlling the investments. A week ago, they began to dig again and found your signature on documents held by the City Authority in New Yor
k. Who were you investing the money for, Dr Loz?’

  ‘Some former associates of my father.’

  ‘And these people were connected with the Hizbollah organisation?’

  ‘No. But I cannot say definitely, of course.’

  ‘But you agree that the utmost was done to disguise the origin of this money before you invested it and, given your father’s Shi’ite background, it is likely that it came from Hizbollah?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  ‘But more interesting is that you deceived almost everyone about the extent of your wealth and your real occupation.’

  ‘But I am an osteopath.’

  ‘Yes, you are, and a very good one. But you are also a property tycoon. You’ve made many millions of dollars for your partners and for yourself. A rough estimate puts your wealth at fifty million dollars - enough, as someone observed in London, to finance one hell of a terrorist operation. Enough money to buy as many sets of fake identity as you could need. That’s why you found it so easy to leave the States and bribe your way through the Balkans.’