A Covert War (25 page)

Susan protested. ‘But I have already spoken on the telephone with the editors. I have told them why I am here and they have all agreed to see me. Surely they would have said no if they didn’t intend printing anything?’

‘It is not like that here. They are being polite.’ He dipped his head slightly. ‘Yes, they may print something, but it will be very little and probably tucked away in the middle of their papers. Don’t forget, there are suicide bombings here and in Pakistan, which is just a few miles away almost daily. There are Afghan policemen and soldiers from the United Nations being killed by roadside bombs and suicide bombers, not counting innocent civilians. What value is your brother’s situation against that of those brave men who are laying their lives down to protect Afghanistan? No, the newspapers have much to choose from, and I think your brother will be of little interest to their readers.’

‘I’m not going to give up,’ Susan told him a little indignantly. ‘My brother is important to me. I do understand the awfulness of the situation, but I won’t let that get in my way just because of a few Taliban.’

Ali pulled a face and pursed his lips. ‘Please, please do not underestimate them; they are ruthless.’ He leaned forward as if to add meaning to his next remark. ‘And they do not like Western women, believe me.’ He straightened. ‘My advice to you is complete your enquiries, your search, quickly and leave. Your brother has been missing a very long time; it is unlikely you will ever find him.’

Susan looked at Ali with a sad expression on her face. ‘What can I do?’

He shrugged. ‘There is nothing either of you can do because it will be very dangerous for you both. Already the American Embassy is providing secure accommodation for its employees inside the embassy because it is so unsafe for them in the city. Believe me; if the two of you do not leave Afghanistan soon, you will never leave.’

***

Milan Janov had been left kicking his heels by the events that had unfolded in London. His request to the CIA chief to send a hit team in to take out Abdul and his group had yielded nothing, and in frustration he had contacted Maggot to find out why. Maggot was unhelpful, not because he wanted to be but because he knew nothing; he had not been contacted by Hudson, the CIA man. At that stage, neither of them knew that the organisation had been seriously compromised and effectively shut down, probably for good.

Janov asked Maggot to make some phone calls. He was afraid his own, heavily accented English might give him away, so Maggot had agreed to take on that task. He contacted the American Embassy and asked for Randolph Hudson but was told the Mister Hudson had returned to the United States. He then asked to be put through to the Military Attaché’s office. It was then he discovered that Commodore Deveraux had also returned to America.

The alarm bells began to ring and Maggot had that uneasy feeling that the game was up; the security forces were closing in on members of the group. He contacted Janov and they met again in the nightclub in West London.

‘From what you have told me,’ Maggot said to Janov, ‘The Chapter has stopped operating. Well, here at least, and I think it is getting dangerous for anyone who had dealings with them.’

Janov was sat hunched over his Urquell lager. He held the glass firmly and shook it gently so that the amber liquid spun inside the glass.

‘If I take care of my end of the operation,’ he said eventually, ‘could you take it on here in Britain?’

Maggot shook his head firmly. ‘The operation is too big. And even if I wanted to, there will be other members of The Chapter who would prevent it. Someone will pick it up again, but not me.’

They sat in silence as the music drifted over them and dancers moved gracelessly about the pocket handkerchief dance floor. Janov cast around; his bottom lip protruding as he pondered the impact of what Maggot has said. His thoughts were no longer on what pleasures awaited him in the rooms upstairs, but how he could repair the break in their import/export business.

‘Rafiq,’ he said after a while. ‘I have control from Turkmenistan up to all the European ports. Abdul Khaliq has control in Afghanistan. But it is weakening and I believe he is preparing to break away from us. I think it is because of him that we have reached this situation.’

‘If this is true, how can you prevent it?’ Maggot asked him.

Janov shook his head. ‘I cannot, but I can make him pay.’ He lifted his glass and drained it. Maggot turned round towards the bar and attracted the attention of one of the barmaids. He pointed to Janov’s empty glass. The girl nodded.

‘How can you make him pay?’

Janov belched and put his hand to his mouth. The sound was swamped by the noise pounding out from the speakers.

‘When I go back I will go to Kabul. Abdul goes there often.’ He pointed at Maggot. ‘That is where it will finish; I will see to that.’

‘How will you do that?’ asked Maggot, doubting whether Janov had the support in Kabul that he would need. ‘It isn’t your territory. You don’t have the people in place there.’

Janov smiled slowly. A shadow fell across him as the barmaid put a full glass in front of him. Janov put his hand up her skirt and squeezed her thigh. She pulled away sharply and looked daggers at him. Maggot laughed.

‘It isn’t always necessary to have people there, as you say Rafiq.’ His face brightened. ‘But so long as I have someone with me who I can rely on and trust, I can get the job done.’

‘Who’s that someone?’ Maggot asked, sensing the direction the conversation was going.

‘You, Rafiq.’

Maggot laughed. ‘Why me?’

Janov opened his hands in an empty gesture. ‘Because you are no longer safe here in England. You have to be there.’

‘I don’t have to be anywhere,’ he told Janov, shaking his head.

Janov nodded vigorously. ‘But you do, Rafiq. You are no longer safe in England.’ He leaned closer, repeating his point. ‘How much longer will it be before they connect you with The Chapter?’ He leaned back in his chair but kept his gaze fixed firmly on Maggot. ‘Don’t you see? You will be safer with me in Afghanistan than you are here in your own country.’

Maggot could see a modicum of sense in what Janov was saying. He thought back to the day he had met Susan Ellis in Marcus’s empty office and began to see one or two pointers into the way things were changing. He had told Susan that if Marcus was involved in the big boys’ games, he could be in trouble. He linked that thought to Susan’s reason for contacting Marcus, namely her brother David and he could see where those pointers were going: all the way to Afghanistan.

He put all this into the melting pot of supposition and conjecture, including Janov’s assertion that he might not be safe in England, and realised that it might be the time for another trip to Pakistan, or even Afghanistan simply to keep away from the security forces in England.

‘How easy would it be to hit Abdul?’ he asked carefully.

A huge smile blossomed on Janov’s craggy features and thumped the table top with his huge fist.

‘That’s it Rafiq; the old Rafiq that I know.’ He came closer. ‘First of all we must get you to Kabul, and then we can plan everything else once you are there.’

‘How will you know where Abdul is?’ Maggot asked.

Janov tapped the side of his head with the tip of his finger. ‘I have somebody close to Abdul. He tells me what I wish to know. So when we get to Kabul I will find out where Abdul is and you and I will finish it.’

EIGHTEEN

David was asleep on a small bed when the sound of his bedroom door opening woke him. He had been given a very tiny room to sleep in, much like a prison cell but without bars. Despite being allowed certain freedoms, David still found himself being contained rather than confined, and knew that his existence depended purely upon Abdul Khaliq’s state of mind. He had made precious little mention of the so called ‘freedom’ he had told David to expect and wondered if it was some delusion that Abdul carried around in his head all day.

He opened his eyes and rubbed the sleep from them, allowing himself a moment to get accustomed to the orange sunlight filtering through the small opening in the wall that served as a window. He blinked away the sleep and opened his eyes fully as the door burst open and Abdul Khaliq walked into the room.

‘Get dressed!’ Abdul shouted, flicking his arm in the air. ‘We leave in ten minutes.’ He stormed out of the room.

David sat there staring at the back of the door which was closing slowly. He had no idea why Abdul had done that, and he knew it would do no good asking. He stood up and pulled on a pair of trousers and then went out into the courtyard of the farmhouse in which they were staying. There was a small, square bathing area which was little more than a low walled box into which water was hand pumped from a subterranean well.

David operated the handle of the pump and doused himself in cold water. It brought goose bumps up on his skin in the chill morning air. Water ran from his beard and he shook his head vigorously sending droplets flying like a dog shaking itself after a dousing.

He straightened up and looked around the small courtyard. It was strangely quiet, as though as air of expectancy had suppressed any life. He guessed it had something to do with Abdul’s dramatic order to be ready to leave.

As he walked across the yard he could hear the sound of a Toyota Landcruiser starting up. He guessed it must have been Abdul’s wagon. David quickened his step and hurried back to his room where he finished dressing.

Seven minutes after Abdul had left his room, David walked out of the house eating an apple which he had picked up from the table in the kitchen. He had grabbed a drink of water from a jug that was always kept full, and hoped it wouldn’t be too long before Abdul explained what the drama was all about, and then perhaps he could get a satisfying meal inside his belly.

Abdul had seemed nervous lately, not that it was too obvious, but David had been in Abdul’s custody long enough now to know that something was worrying him.

As usual, the two lieutenants signalled David to join them in the Toyota. He clambered in and took up his usual position in the rear passenger seat, sandwiched between the two men.

Abdul came hurrying out of the farmhouse and looked quickly at another Toyota that had lined up behind his car. He gave a satisfying nod of the head and clambered into the Landcruiser. The driver slipped it into gear and hit the accelerator, spinning the wheels on the sandy ground and throwing up clouds of dust.

The second Toyota followed and the two vehicles motored away from the farmhouse in which the men had stayed overnight. David peered through the window and watched the dwelling grow smaller until it was lost from sight behind the rising ground they were leaving behind.

But if David had looked up into a sky that was coming to life in a mixture of reds and dark blues, he might, just might have seen an American MQ-9 pilotless drone watching their progress, eight thousand feet above them.

***

Cavendish was standing behind a United States Air Force Colonel who was sitting at the control desk of the MQ-9 Reaper unmanned drone. The aircraft was flying above Abdul Khaliq’s Landcruiser, looking down from the sky at an easy target. They were inside the MQ-9 control station that had been fitted into a windowless, air conditioned trailer at the American Air Force base at Khost.

Immediately in front of the USAF Officer was essentially the ‘cockpit’ of the MQ-9, with hand controls to fly the unmanned drone. In front of him were two, large coloured screens that gave him a camera shot looking down towards the ground, and a moving map on which he could track the drone’s progress. With the camera view he was able to maintain contact with the target which, in this case was Abdul Khaliq’s Toyota Landcruiser.

Beside him was the sensor operator who operated the sensors that were essential to fly the aircraft. Between them the two men were like the flight crew of a two man jet. Fortunately for Abdul Khaliq, this was not a hostile interdiction.

Cavendish was at Khost base at his own request; he had flown out the moment he had received the most unexpected text message on his phone just a couple of days previously, and had been met at the base by the Base Security Officer, Lieutenant Brad McCain.

Cavendish now knew that David Ellis was alive and well. Although Cavendish had put a trace on the call, the number was unlisted, but he was now convinced that the search for his man would end in Afghanistan.

Cavendish believed he knew the reason Susan had received those letters; it was because someone was definitely trying to contact him without making it known in Afghanistan. And David had named Abdul Khaliq in the text message. Putting two and two together was fairly simple logic, but Cavendish knew he was not quite touching home base; there was still plenty to do.

He stayed in the MQ-9 trailer until he had seen enough, and told the young officer at the cockpit controls that he was leaving. He said he would check with the operations officer on the time of the next MQ-9 over flight of the suspected target.

On his way back to his quarters, Cavendish passed by a great number of service and civilian personnel all walking from one place to the other, intent on their business, getting on with their own lives in that hostile environment.

As he walked past the Base Headquarters, Cavendish saw two men come out of the building and get into a waiting car. One of the men was wearing the uniform of a pilot. The other was a civilian and Cavendish thought he recognised him. He watched the car pull away but was unable to get a closer look at the man because of the darkened windows of the car. He shrugged and thought no more of it, and continued his progress towards his own accommodation block, hoping it would come to him later.

***

Janov had no trouble crossing the border between Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. It was something he had done countless times before and would probably do countless times in the future. It crossed his mind at the time that he might even move the centre of his operation into Afghanistan once he had disposed of the troublesome Abdul Khaliq.