A Covert War (20 page)

‘I can remember reading that your brother was shot by a man with his little finger missing. It’s not conclusive, Susan, but when you see a photograph of him with a man who has just tried to kill you, and when you read what happened to your brother, and when you think of how often Maggot goes away.’ He leaned back in the chair. ‘Maggot’s a hit-man; that’s what he does.’

‘He’s also a terrorist,’ Susan said, her voice cracking a little.

Marcus’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘He’s a terrorist, Marcus; and the police know.’

She then told him about her trip to the local police station and what Detective Chief Inspector Rendell had told her.

‘It was Maggot who delivered my brother’s second letter. The police took pictures of him doing it.’

Marcus sagged visibly in the chair. His deductions about Maggot had saddened him immensely, and now he wasn’t sure what he could do about it.

Susan could see that the news of Maggot had affected Marcus. She knew they were both very good friends. Maggot had spoken very warmly of Marcus too.

‘Would you like a drink, Marcus?’ she asked suddenly.

Marcus smiled weakly. ‘I don’t fancy a drink Susan but I will have a coffee, thank you.’

Susan spent ten minutes making coffee and putting some quick snacks on a plate. She brought them through to him and watched as he worked his way through the lot. When he had finished, Susan took his plate from him and set it down on the coffee table beside her.

‘What are you going to do, Marcus?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘To be honest Susan, I’m out of my depth. This is a job for the professionals. I was better off where I was before; running my own agency in the way I know best.’

‘Marcus, your agency doesn’t exist anymore.’

‘What do you mean?’

She told him how she had turned up at his office and found it empty.

Marcus was stunned. Then he realised why Cavendish had to have the place cleaned out. He told Susan what had happened.

A look of concern clouded Susan face.

‘You really ought to get out of the country for a while, Marcus. Lie low, as they say.’

He laughed. ‘They’ll have my picture at every departure point in Britain. I wouldn’t even get a foot on a boat or an aeroplane.’ He stood up. ‘But I can do as I promised and get out of your life, Susan.’ He put his empty cup down.

Susan stood up and put her hand on his arm. ‘I don’t want you to get out of my life. Even if it’s only as a friend, I want you in it.’ She reached up and kissed him on the forehead. ‘But I want you in it in one piece. So please try and sort things out. If you stay in this, you never know, we may learn the truth about David.’

‘Did you go to the Press about David?’

She nodded. ‘They’re not interested; hostages aren’t newsworthy anymore: too many of them.’

Marcus was about to say something when the doorbell rang. He looked round and Susan told him to wait there. She went through to her front door and opened it. Marcus heard her greet someone disconsolately and then he heard footsteps. The door opened and Cavendish walked in.

‘Good evening Marcus,’ he said cheerfully. ‘My boy, you have given us a difficult time.’

Marcus looked over Cavendish’s shoulder as Susan walked into the room.

‘Did you phone him when you were outside making coffee?’ he asked sharply.

Susan shook her head. ‘No Marcus, I didn’t. He’s been watching this house for some time now. You just walked into his trap, that’s all.’

FIFTEEN

David Ellis looked out through the windows of the Toyota as Abdul drove through a flat plain of rock and sand. They were in a natural basin that nestled in the foothills of Kondoz in northern Afghanistan. Outside the temperature was in the high forties, while inside the Toyota they rode in air conditioned comfort.

They had been driving for about five hours, with Abdul and his minders taking turns at the wheel. Abdul had said very little to David, but with each day David was becoming more and more familiar with the Persian language that Abdul and his men used. It was basically
Farsi
, the
lingua franca
of Afghanistan, although in some of the more remote regions of the country, the farmers used local dialects. So with David’s increasing knowledge of the tongue, he was able to understand a great deal of what was being said. But whenever he spoke to Abdul, he always made sure he spoke in English.

Abdul had been following a river for several miles that flowed through the basin from the upper reaches of the hills, and it was soon evident to David where they were going when he saw the drying pans laid out in rows in the sun. These were pans of raw opium. Each pan held about twenty five to thirty kilos. David knew they wouldn’t be far from a poppy farm now and the preliminary processing plant.

A few houses came into view as the ground gave way to a scattering of trees that screened the poppy fields. Abdul pulled up beside one of the houses and killed the engine. He sounded the horn and got out of the car followed by David and the two minders. Abdul said nothing to either of them but waited until someone came out of the house. It was the poppy farmer.

Immediately the two men began the ritual greeting each other before venturing into the house where David knew they would be obliged to eat according to the traditional hospitality of the Afghan people.

After the meal Abdul got up from the table and beckoned David to follow.

‘We are going out to the sheds,’ he told David. ‘It will be good for you to see the work these men do to make your people rich.’

David got up and followed Abdul out with the farmer. The two minders stayed behind.

They walked some considerable distance from the house before coming to the first of several sheds. David could smell something in the air. It reminded him of the acidic smells of his schooldays in chemistry lessons.

Inside the first shed David saw several containers marked ‘ammonium chloride’ and ‘sodium carbonate’. He knew from titbits of information he had picked up that these were essential chemicals used in the initial process of converting opium sap into pure heroin.

There were several pots of boiling liquid adding to the overpowering, acidic aroma in the shed. On top of the boiling liquid he could see all manner of debris and scum collecting there.

Elsewhere men were straining the cooled liquid from other pots through cheesecloth filters, leaving a sticky residue behind. Abdul explained to David that the residue would be heated and condensed down to leave a paste, and it was this that David saw drying in pans out in the sun.

Abdul explained much of the process to David as they walked through the sheds.

‘The paste will be shipped out across the border from Kondoz into Turkmenistan for processing into pure heroin. We have other processing sites spread all along the border.’

‘Why Turkmenistan?’ David asked him.

Abdul almost snarled when he answered. ‘That is Janov’s part of the operation. It is less trouble shipping it over the border into Turkmenistan than trying to get it through into Pakistan. There are too many British soldiers in Helmand Province.’

‘What about the Americans?’ David asked him.

Abdul allowed himself a wry smile. ‘We have no problems in Nuristan where the Americans are.’ He slapped his thigh a couple of times. ‘They are in our pockets as you say in England.’

‘What about NATO troops?’ David put to him.

Abdul laughed out loud. ‘They are babies; they will not fight, so we have no problem with them.’

They walked out of the shed and into the hot sun. In between talking to David, Abdul had been having a business-like discussion with the farmer. David knew it wasn’t going too well, but he couldn’t figure out why. The farmer stopped on the track and faced Abdul. He bowed his head slightly and said farewell. They shook hands and the farmer went back into the sheds.

‘Abdul,’ David said, putting his hand on Abdul’s arm; something that would have encouraged a severe beating some months ago. ‘Why are you dragging me round like this?’

Abdul considered his reply for a while. Then he put his hands together in an attitude of prayer and began to walk along the track. David fell into step beside him.

‘I want you to learn to trust me, that is why I am keeping you with me,’ Abdul began. ‘I am having many problems now with my suppliers, my farmers. They are holding out on fixing a price.’

‘What has that got to do with me?’ David asked.

‘You will see. You remember the attack on the compound?’ He waited for David to say he did. ‘It was Janov’s doing. One of my farmers who is loyal to me has told me that Janov wants to cut me out.’

‘But you are doing business with Janov,’ David reminded him. ‘You met with him a few days ago.’

Abdul looked hard at David. ‘Janov is an ambitious man, an evil man.’ Abdul seemed to conveniently forget the kind of business he himself was in, the same as Janov. ‘But he is working for his cousin, Danvor. And his cousin works for the American CIA, and one day they will run this country. Soon, if I am not careful, the Americans will come and I will be taken out. That is why I keep moving and why I keep you with me, because I want to exchange you for something.’

David stopped. ‘Exchange me for what, Abdul?’

‘Your freedom and my freedom.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘I don’t understand,’ David admitted.

Abdul put his hand on David’s shoulder. ‘Your freedom means you can go home and live your life without hindrance, am I right?’ David nodded. Abdul continued. ‘But for me I want something else. I want your country to give me political asylum so I can live my life free from the threat I face from the Americans.’

David was stunned to hear Abdul say that he wanted to get out of the lucrative and criminal business he was in, and that he expected the British to help him achieve that. He feared Abdul was in for a big disappointment.

‘Well you won’t get that in exchange for me, Abdul, I can assure you.’

Abdul smiled. ‘No, but I will if I offer to give them the names of those who are involved here in Afghanistan and in Britain.’

***

They found Grebo’s body. It had been dumped in a fairly quiet area beside the river. A man walking his dog came across it. The police could not identify the corpse so easily because the face wasn’t there. The bullet into the back of the head had taken Grebo’s face clean off. All the police could do was to cordon the area off and wait for the forensic boys to get to work.

There were no identifying documents on him so they had to rely on dental records, but there was no way of locating a dentist with those records. It was a chicken and egg argument: they had the teeth but no records, and whoever had the records would not know about the teeth. But eventually it was suggested that they check on all Americans living in the area because the dead man was wearing clothing that had probably been purchased in America. Then someone thought of the American Forces stationed in Britain, which widened the search.

This link brought them to the United States Air Force base at Lakenheath and it was there they found the dental records they were looking for and subsequently identified one Danvor Grebo, Chief Master Sergeant in the USAF as the dead man.

It was fairly obvious to the investigating officer that Grebo’s murder had the hallmarks of a gang style killing, and there were only two possibilities that rang alarm bells: one was drugs, the other was terrorism; the possible slaying of a member of the American Forces as a terrorist style revenge attack.

The connections were then being made and passed to various departments within the Metropolitan Police divisions which included the narcotics and terrorist departments of SOCA, Special Branch and eventually the desk of James Faulkner.

It also crossed the desk of Andrew Butler, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner who phoned Sir Giles Cavendish as a courtesy. And so the loop was completed, and all the interested parties made their own choices on how they were going to deal with this particular crime.

James Faulkner made his choice; he phoned Randy Hudson, the CIA Station chief and asked for an urgent meeting. The meeting took place at the same riverside pub as before, but this time they were being observed and filmed by a member of Sir Giles Cavendish’s department. Cavendish was taking no chances with Faulkner since their meeting with the Prime Minister. It was because of something the SOCA chief had said after Cavendish had told them about the drug smugglers, bringing in drugs and young girls, then smuggling arms out. Faulkner had declared that he believed all the poppy fields in Afghanistan had been destroyed.

It was a simple enough assumption to make, that the drugs were coming in from Afghanistan, but Cavendish hadn’t mentioned that country; the drugs could have been coming in from the Far East. It was a small error, but one that immediately raised the bar, and Cavendish decided to keep a discreet surveillance on the SOCA chief; hence the camera filming his meeting with Hudson from across the river.

‘I’ve got very little time,’ Hudson warned Faulkner. He looked at his watch and sat down opposite the SOCA chief. ‘I don’t know if I can give you anything new; the boys at Lakenheath are in a flat spin over this. Your English newspaper guys are already calling it ‘gunfight at the OK corral.’

Faulkner raised his eyebrows a notch. ‘Our headline writers have vivid imaginations.’

‘But they do at least stir things up and get the public interested. This has taken them away from their soap operas.’

‘Well hopefully, your country folk will give our Press something to feed on. But I want to know if you have any contingency plan?’

‘Milan Janov is flying in tomorrow,’ Hudson told Faulkner. ‘I contacted him through the usual channels to tell him of his cousin’s disappearance. He doesn’t know yet what’s happened.’

‘I’m more concerned about how we are going to replace Grebo,’ Faulkner said levelly. ‘At the moment we don’t have anybody in place.’

Hudson shook his head. ‘Don’t worry; I’ll fill that gap. And I’ll talk to Janov.’

‘What can he do?’

Hudson shrugged. ‘Nothing really, but I think he wants to ride in and flex his muscles.’