Assassin (John Stratton) (8 page)

A man came out of one of the buildings. He was wearing a business suit and headed away from Chandos. There was no one else.

Chandos felt encouraged but forced himself not to be complacent and to seek complete success for that stage of the plan. There was a long way yet to go.

He saw a taxi dropping someone off and ran across the road towards it. As the passenger walked away, Chandos pulled open the door and climbed into the back of the cab.

‘Heathrow Airport, please,’ he said, out of breath, as he looked back in the direction he’d come.

‘That’ll be around fifty quid from ’ere, mate?’ the driver said.

‘That’s fine. I’m in a hurry, if you don’t mind.’

The driver pulled the cab away from the kerb and they headed away from the junction. Chandos kept his eyes out of the rear window. No one appeared.

As the cab took another turn, Chandos relaxed just a little. He looked ahead, confident he’d shaken the assassin,
for the time being at least. He was under no illusion of escaping the killer completely. That would be impossible. He knew that. All he’d done was buy some time.

His next move was even dicier. It would throw up a flag that would signal his location. But it was essential to his overall plan. He only hoped he’d have enough time to do it.

Mahuba felt tired as they drove along the bumpy, busy road to Bagram. His backside ached on the lumpy seat and his shoulders felt stiff. But he’d allow nothing to slow him down or deter him from reaching the destination. A couple more hours and he’d be there.

The road began to climb and wind its way up into the hills. They passed several village compounds built on the treeless land either side of the highway, each a collection of mud houses surrounded by a single high wall. None were occupied and all had long since been abandoned.

The land in all directions was vast and open. A boundary of distant mountains paralleled the road on their left. Those on the right were out of view but Mahuba knew they were there. He could see small bands of nomads on the distant plains. Their handful of tents. Trucks and camels. Goats. The Pakistani general glanced in his rear-view mirror to see the crate still there.

Such an innocuous-looking object, he thought.

He shifted his focus to the Hilux behind, its driver and passenger in the front, three armed Afghans sitting on the flatbed. The other Hilux behind that. Another in front.
The Afghan escort had done its job well. Their presence alone was sufficient. They’d passed through two checkpoints without any problems. The police showed no interest in them or the crate. They had paperwork listing spare parts for a generator, but it had not been needed. His escorts, all handpicked Taliban, had assumed the identity of security guards from a known convoy company that specialised in protecting vehicles along the Kabul–Bagram road. The Taliban commander was a well-known convoy commander from that company. The police didn’t give his men a second look once they recognised him.

It was late afternoon when Mahuba’s small convoy rolled into the town of Bagram along the central road leading to the main checkpoint into the vast US air base that sprawled less than a kilometre to the east.

Bagram Town was a tightly compact and busy place. Most of the buildings were single-storey and constructed from a combination of mud bricks and concrete blocks. The main thoroughfare was a focus of local industry, lined with filthy shacks and lean-tos providing all types of vehicle tuning, tyre repairs, welding and other sundry services. Market stalls sold sad-looking local produce, clothes and footwear. They passed stripped vehicle carcases, left where they’d broken down. Many were Russian, from the days when the Soviets dominated Afghanistan. The air was filled with the smoke from countless cooking fires, inside and outside of the dwellings.

The lead Hilux turned off the main thoroughfare and headed along a sandy road past several muddy, garbage-ridden
backstreets. The US base’s impenetrable perimeter could occasionally be seen from the road. A grey-brown wall of earth and razor wire. The houses each side of the road had been built close together, but as the convoy drove away from the centre they grew further apart. Half a kilometre from the town the lead vehicle came to a stop outside a large walled compound, around thirty metres wide at the front, with a set of rusting, wrought-iron gates in the middle.

The driver sounded his horn. A couple of armed Afghans sauntered into view through the gate. They unbolted it and pulled open both sides. The pick-ups drove in and the men closed and locked the gates behind them. They eased between a handful of dirty houses, scattering goats and chickens out of their way, to the back of the compound and the grandest building in comparison, about twice the size of the others. They stopped outside it and Mahuba climbed out, carrying a laptop bag and stretched his aching body while he looked around. A dozen bearded fighters were spread about, all carrying AK-47 assault rifles over their shoulders. They were a mixture of ages. Teenagers to men old enough to have seen the end of the Russian–Afghan war over two decades before. Clothes on washing lines outside the other smaller homes bore evidence of women and children living in them.

Mahuba wasn’t pleased with the location. He’d asked for, and had been expecting, complete isolation. But he’d had little control over the execution of the planning in that respect. Particularly inside Afghanistan. It had been left up
to third parties who weren’t privy to all the details of the operation. There was no point in complaining. It would have to do. He wasn’t about to start shopping around for a better house at this stage.

The guards watched him with mixed curiosity. They knew he was a Pakistani. They could tell he had breeding. Riches or rank. As to what he was doing in Bagram, they didn’t have a clue. But then, they were never privy to information on anything of strategic value. Their lot in life was simply to obey. Without question. They had been ordered to protect the compound with their lives. And that is what they would do. None of them cared that they were eight hundred metres from one of the largest US military bases in Afghanistan. Ten thousand American troops. They believed the Americans would eventually be defeated and would leave their country, like every other invader had over the last few hundred years. The Afghans were in no hurry. Life was all about eating, resting, praying and fighting. That was their purpose, come rain or shine, shelter or hunger, apart for a break in the winter for some. There was no need to get excited about anything. They were energetic only when ordered to be. They measured each day by the number of prayers they made and the meals they ate. Life was simple. They would never be wealthy and none bothered as much as even to hope to be.

Mahuba walked into the main building, followed by his servant. A house boy bowed to him as he entered the lobby. He ignored the boy and walked along a short corridor and through a doorway into a spacious though nearly empty
living room. It had a table and chairs, a couch and a couple of rugs, and empty walls. He went to the nearest window, its simple wooden frame locked on the inside. An iron grille had been built into the masonry outside. A glance around at the other windows revealed they were of a similar construction.

He decided it was probably perfect for what he needed. Austere felt right. All he required was solitude and security. And space to think.

He put his laptop bag on the table, then leaned heavily on the top. It felt strong. He was satisfied. It would do.

‘Tea,’ he said.

His servant relayed the order to the house boy who was standing in the doorway. He shoved the boy ahead of him as he led the way to the kitchen.

Mahuba went back into the hallway. An open door to one side led to a flight of stairs inside an alcove. The narrow staircase turned tightly in the small space as it led up to the next and only other level of the building. He climbed the steps and came out through an open hatch onto the flat, dusty roof. An Afghan was sitting against a semi-circle of sandbags in one corner. Leaning against the short wall of sand-filled nylon sacks was a PKM 7.62mm machine gun with an extra-long barrel. He had several boxes of ammunition close to hand.

The guard was smoking a cigarette. When he saw Mahuba he got to his feet and bowed slightly.

Mahuba walked to the edge of the roof and looked about the town. And then he focused on the purpose of his visit.
The US air base. Its perimeter had been constructed of countless rows of grey-brown HESCO parcels – large cube-shaped wire and cloth containers filled with earth – stacked side by side and one on top of the other in a pyramid fashion to create height and depth. With razor wire spread about them like it was a WWI battlefield. Beyond them he could see rows of concrete blast walls five metres high. Watch towers had been placed at intervals along the boundary, which went off into the distance for miles. A modern makeshift fortress.

He could see only a portion of the base, it was so large. He watched a transport aircraft slowly fly out in the distance. A couple of jet fighters passed overhead. Helicopters hovered somewhere in the middle of the base. Waiting to land or having just taken off. The air seemed as busy as the ground.

The Americans didn’t appear to be concerned about ground-to-air rocket attacks. Some of the aircraft were flying quite low. They had to be confident the area around the base was secure. Which it was.

That was all about to change. As the base stood, with the current weapons arrayed against it, it was largely impregnable. The security entrances would be difficult to pass through without the right credentials. Every vehicle got thoroughly searched. But none of that mattered to him and the solution he had to the problem.

Mahuba looked down at the vehicles in the compound, in particular his pick-up. To his absolute and sudden horror several of the fighters were dragging the crate off the back of it.

‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Do nothing! Leave it alone!’

He hurried back to the hatch and down the stairs. He ran out of the house and into the courtyard to find the men had obeyed him to the letter and were holding the crate half on and half off the flatbed while waiting to hear what he wanted them to do next.

Mahuba controlled himself. Realised he was overreacting. The men were doing just fine and what they believed they should be doing. There were four of them around the box, enough to carry it safely.

He took a calming breath. ‘Bring it into the house,’ he said. ‘Carefully.’

The men eased it off the truck. It dipped a little in their hands, heavier than they had anticipated. They carried it in through the front door, along the short corridor and into the main room. Mahuba kept ahead of them and went to the sturdy table and removed his laptop.

‘On here,’ he said.

The men shuffled over with the crate and placed it clumsily onto the table, eager to be rid of the weight.

‘Careful,’ Mahuba said angrily.

They pushed it so that it was in the middle.

‘Leave it alone,’ he ordered. He didn’t want them doing anything more to it. ‘Go.’

The four men let go of the crate and left the room.

Mahuba’s servant arrived with the tea and placed it on the table by the crate.

‘Get me a large screwdriver or crowbar, or something to remove the wood,’ Mahuba said, taking the small glass
cup of tea. He sipped it. The tea was hot and sweet. It felt good. He put it down and drew the curtains across the window that directly overlooked the table.

The servant returned holding a steel pry bar.

‘Go,’ Mahuba said, and the servant handed him the bar and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Mahuba took a mobile phone from his pocket, selected a number from the contacts list and hit the send key. He waited patiently with the phone to his ear. It beeped, signalling his call had been answered.

‘I have arrived,’ he said.

A voice on the other end acknowledged him.

‘Do the timings remain the same?’

’Yes,’ the voice replied.

Mahuba disconnected the phone and put it back in his pocket. He picked up the tea and stared into space as he put the cup to his lips and drank the rest of it. After a time, he put down the empty cup and regarded the crate.

He picked up the pry bar and jammed the end into the side of the wood. Levered it. Wiggled it in further. Levered it again. The gap widened. He repeated the process around the top of the crate until the lid came up. He pushed it up, separating it from the rest of the crate.

He removed the lid and placed it on the floor. The sides came away a lot more easily with the top gone. Within a few minutes he’d exposed a black plastic moulded box. It had a hinged lid. He unclipped three latches along one side, gripped the lid and raised it up on its hinges. He let it down the other side. All of his actions had been conducted
with a kind of reverence. Respect for what was inside the box.

He looked at the object. It was the shape and size of a keg of beer.

It was the first time he’d ever seen an atomic bomb. He’d studied a pamphlet on this particular kind and knew it well. It was an impact device, designed to fit into a ground-to-ground rocket, or it could be dropped from an aircraft. With a little modification, it could be detonated in a static location. To actually see it live for the first time. To be able to touch it. Such a weapon of destruction. That was remarkable.

A portion of the box was taken up by a power source. A battery. Leads connected it to the device. Essential power to keep the bomb primed. Without it the device would die in time and become inoperable.

Mahuba placed the flat of his hand on it, his fingers outstretched. He didn’t need to enter the US base to destroy it. He could do that from where he was. The bomb would destroy everything within a radius of six kilometres. The radiation would reach much further. The fallout even further still, depending on the weather. Everyone in the base would die. And of course, those in Bagram Town and the outlying villages would also perish. A small price to pay.

He remembered once mentioning to one of his ISI colleagues about his disappointment at not being able to see the outcome of the attack. He’d be able to see it from the other side of life, his colleague had replied. Mahuba had left the conversation at that point. In truth, his faith
wasn’t strong enough to accept advice of that nature. His planned attack on the Americans had nothing to do with Islam. It was about national pride. He believed they were plotting to destroy his people’s way of life. In order to preserve that, sacrifices had to be made.