Bolt Action (17 page)

Monday – 1427 Islamabad time, 0927 UK time

T
he landscape of the Swat Valley has an exciting geologic history. Across it, primeval batholiths and basalts sprouted in abundance, all with different and hard-to-explain isotopic compositions.

One such geological burp is the massive fist of granite that in its distant liquid-magma past bubbled its way up through the surrounding landscape. It formed a steep-sided island mountain, slightly smaller but just as incongruous as Ayer’s Rock. It’s up this that CIA station chief Bill Lamayette is pounding. Short, jolting steps, water sploshing off his clothes. Over his back is the naked body of holy man Pir Durbar. Almost drowned, but not quite, Lamayette being something of an expert on dancing that particular fine line. The Pakistani whines quietly, venting a stringy vomit of river water down the soaked back of the American.

Lamayette had first noted this place when they’d surveilled Hamza, scum-bucket son of General Khan. From high ground, Lamayette and Jahanghir had watched through top-of-the-range binoculars as the younger Khan’s plush Range Rover nosed its way around the myriad of dusty tracks, before the turn into the madrasa. As Lamayette had looked down the valley, this singular rock, a piece of timeless solidity, rose almost above them, off to his left. Four miles downstream from the madrasa.

‘Help,’ Pir Durbar gurgles in Urdu. ‘Help me. In the name of Allah the Merciful . . .’

Lamayette feels the strain in his thighs, and the moisture in
his eyes is no longer river water but sweat. Not a good time to ask for help. ‘I’ve got two words for you, Fuckface:
Qissa Khawani
.’ Speaking over his shoulder, Lamayette takes a fresh grip on the wet of the man’s bony ankles, looks up the track. Hundred yards to go, straight up . . . he powers on, the body swinging from side to side.

For the first time, the American senses the holy man coming fully to life. Trying to straighten up, to regain some semblance of control, as if he’s only just realised this is
serious
now. Pir Durbar machine-guns his next words, panicky. ‘You must not torture me. I forbid it. It is absolutely forbidden. I have rights. I am citizen of a sovereign country. With rights. Do you understand?’

‘You can kiss my ass with your rights.’

Lamayette leans into his stride, feeding off the stinging burn in his muscles, the quick-fire bounce of his shoulders making it impossible for Pir Durbar to speak further. Counting off the paces in his head. Five . . . Six . . . Seven . . . Lamayette allows himself a little burst of breath as he says each number.

The reward for reaching the top is the most insanely cooling breeze.

He drops Pir Durbar off his shoulder, making sure the old man’s head impacts with a particularly nobbly cushion of granite; his cry of pain thins into nothingness like a talking doll running out of battery.
EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
A dazed Pakistani whose slick-wet hair and beard might make him look like Father Christmas, but whose brain, the CIA chief is betting his life, is filled with the worst kind of secrets . . . no doubt triple-locked and burglar-proofed against all usual forms of coercion.

But this is going to be different. So different.

Lamayette tests the strength of a triangular rack he’d created before capturing the old man. He had come across the thinned-out spinney of
Chir
pines as he crabbed across the fields near the madrasa after the early morning light had broken. The meatiest lengths of pine had already been chainsawed into
firewood by the locals, but Lamayette was after the offcuts and had gathered what he needed, poking around the matted debris of sawdust. Two lengths about eight foot and another of about five. The wood is a warm yellow, the colour of ripe bananas.

He had humped his three branches to the top of the hill and was lashing them together, just as the sun rose above the quiet of the sleeping valley. Binding it all together, he’d had to use strips from his
shemagh
headdress.

He felt like Grizzly Adams. A frontiersman. Not a freakin’ CIA station chief.
Correction:
ex-chief. Thinking this reminds him of how consumed by doubt he really is, not least because he had not one piece of technical equipment with him. Except the mobile phone. He kept the battery and phone separated so nothing could give away his position. But even the mobile offers no consolation.

Last time he checked, it blinked back at him the same miserable answer: only one bar of battery charge left.

Two minutes later
. . . There are six madrasa guards. Each as confused as the next. Each in turn using the snout of their semi-automatic rifles to nose through the holy man’s clothes at the water’s edge. Six proddings of the same spot still reveal nothing more than various short lengths of cotton, Pir Durbar’s dusty, worn-out sandals and his expensive spectacles. Not a stitch of evidence to show where he is, or what has happened.

A big problem: no Pir Durbar, no madrasa. The terribleness of this begins to dawn. Despite the guns and the fierce demeanour, there is not an ounce of natural leadership or courage to be had between them.

Blame and the avoidance of blame become the next obvious tasks. They shuffle uneasily from foot to foot, each taking his turn to make clear in convoluted and dramatic language where they were and what they were doing when the holy man disappeared. Whitewashing the walls, tilling the fields, collecting firewood . . .

Now, with each of their stories secure, the eldest of them
tugs on his beard apprehensively, speaking in Pashto to the five others circled around. ‘It’s like he disappeared into thin air.’ Good for a couple more minutes of wild exclamation.

Eventually some kind of plan falls into shape. Five of them will head downstream, the obvious direction in which an ailing old man might have floated. The sixth, lame-footed and slightly deaf, will head upstream, in the unlikely event something has taken their holy man in that direction.

‘Agree?’ the eldest offers as their six pairs of dark, suspicious eyes cast around at the others. Nobody breaks rank. And so, they part ways. Happy to be doing something, anything.

Five, loping easily like wildcats, follow down the course of the fast-flowing water. One stumbles upstream. Each of them trying to make sense of this ominous disappearance.

Terminal 2

Manchester Airport

Monday – 0933 UK time, 1433 Islamabad time

T
hree minutes later . . .
With the palm of one hand clasping his temple to silence the headache, the normally unflappable PIA airport manager Majid Ali Khan leans his other hand against the overhanging check-in sign. PK412 to New York JFK. It’s a public holiday, Khan is short handed and more than a little pissed off. All of the computers but his are logged out. Officially 412 is closed and 342 passengers are now in the process of boarding or reboarding.

But in front of him are three first-class passengers looking to check in late. All blaming road works on the M60. To Khan, that sounds plausible. The M60 is a horror of a road. So, the PIA airport manager is sympathetic, in spite of the circumstances. He’s thinking this through, doing some speedy sums in his head.

Two men and a woman, white and British. All have confirmed seats, valid Passenger Name Records, and have paid full fare for their tickets. That means the tickets will be easily transferred to another carrier and it will be PIA that will lose out if he doesn’t take them. He either uploads all of them, or none.

Majid Ali Khan is the sort of nervous worker who is kept awake at night by his revenue yields, trapped in a nightmare of rising costs and falling margins. We’re talking here about three full-fare first-class tickets . . .

More mental maths in his head. Less than thirty minutes to
scheduled departure . . . the May bank holiday.
Could these three make it?

He looks at the e-tickets in front of him, then flicks quickly through the pages of the passports, searching for a reason not to upload them. All are valid. Visas good. With the travel documents in his hand, he looks at the anxious faces in front of him. The rest of the check-in area is deserted. ‘Merritt . . . where is Merritt?’

From behind the huge frame of one of the men, a woman peers out. Slowly edges forward. Khan swallows hard. Long dark hair, and sea-blue eyes that suddenly twinkle as she smiles shyly, showing a full set of flawless teeth. ‘Is there a problem?’ she asks in a Tweetie Pie voice, her head slightly cocked to one side.

‘In this photo,’ he waves her British passport, ‘your hair is different.’

‘Yes. A blonde . . .’ She casts her eyes downward for a moment, crestfallen, ‘but it wasn’t really . . . the colour came out of a bottle.’ Her distress seems almost palpable and Khan feels himself tilting forward, ready to comfort,
So sorry, I didn’t mean to pry
. She looks up and wows him again with those flashing eyes. Puts a finger to her lips. ‘I hope you can keep a secret.’ Mischievous. A touch of Marilyn about her.

A tingle of electricity had run several times up and down Khan’s trouser legs before he realised what it was about this woman. We’re talking Christy Turlington. Circa 1994 . . .

When he was growing up, Khan’s Pakistan-born parents had insisted he and his brothers and sisters attend a youth study circle in the local mosque. Khan was one of many teenagers who didn’t care for the endless
khutbahs
and
salats
, some old goat haranguing the Muslim girls about the dangers of dressing promiscuously. Khan had sat at the back, making money, quietly trading pictures of Elle, Cindy, Linda, Naomi . . . and of course Christy Turlington. Nothing too risky. But the supermodels, the way their eyes came at you right off the page, well, that gave everything a hormonal young buck needed.

This woman, this Tristie Merritt, could be a dead ringer. He thinks this wistfully, looking from her picture to her face.

Only afterwards would Khan recall something strange about this female: the way she shielded herself from view. He would find it hard to explain this. She was certainly the most attractive white woman he had seen on a recent PIA flight. Yet she held back, kept herself inconsequential, almost reticent. Incredible to say this, but it was as if she knew the sightlines of the pinhole cameras, the ones that Special Branch and MI5 installed in the light fittings above the airline’s check-in booths.
But how could that be?
How would she know about those little black nodules? They were designed to be totally inconspicuous behind the bright lights, as they fed video and audio data into the computers and hard drives on which churned the latest face-recognition software. PIA services into and out of Britain, Manchester in particular, are the most heavily surveilled flights in the world. Bar none.

He hands back the passports and tickets. Smiles. ‘OK, this is what we’re going to do.’ He grabs a marker pen, and starts dialling through to the departure gate. ‘I’m going to have you bring all of your luggage on board.’ Between printing off their boarding passes and shouting down his colleague on the other end of the phone, Khan lays out the deal: ‘I’ll try but I can’t guarantee that you’ll all get your first-class meals . . . I’ll do my best. I promise.’

The giant male grins, rubs his chin. Looks quickly to the man and woman behind him. ‘That’s tops, man. Not a problem. Not a problem at all.’

‘Good.’ And Khan bounces over the weigh-in and leads them on a dash towards immigration, security and the Boeing 777.
City of Risalpur
, callsign Victor Sierra.

Operation Macchar is twenty-two minutes from take-off.

Swat Valley

Pakistan

Monday – 0938 UK time, 1438 Islamabad time

F
ive time zones to the east of Manchester Airport is the holy man.

Pir Durbar moans slightly as Bill Lamayette picks him up around his thin waist and humps the naked body towards the triangle of pine branches.

He had spent time – heaps of time this morning, nothing but time – making sure the lengths of fabric were just right. Longer strips would be needed to bind the wrists than would for the feet. So he doubled the length. With all of this crystal clear in his mind, and enjoying the peace and solitude of a craftsman getting on, doing his thing, the CIA man tugs a bony wrist over one set of interlocking branches. Feels the dark leathery skin as he makes the first tie-off. He quickly whips up a pair of constrictor knots, over and under, and over again, and under, then threaded through into a son-of-a-bitch tight knot. One tying the strip to the angle of the branches, the other using what was left of the
shemagh
to bind up Pir Durbar’s wrist. There is almost no undoing a constrictor knot once significant tension has been applied . . . that would be some other schmuck’s problem to solve.

He repeats the process quickly, hopping pixie-like to the remaining two corners of the triangle until the holy man is firmly and inescapably bound to this crucifix of pinewood. Then he lifts up the shorter side of the three, by Pir Durbar’s
head, and manhandles his creation, dragging it across the top of the deserted hillock until it’s in just the right place.

He eases it down, not out of any respect for the holy man, but out of fear of ripping the
shemagh
knots, or severing the old guy’s spindly wrists and wasting a morning’s work.

The three boughs of pinewood now rest on the ground, their considerable weight dragging downwards on the arms of Pir Durbar, tugging at him like a medieval rack. But his body is actually being held up, resting on a table of solid granite as big and well defined as an office desk. He can’t move. Not a muscle, not even to turn his silver-thatched head from one side to another.

‘What are you doing to me, American man? . . . You heathen . . . Faithless man of violence . . . Apostate . . . CIA man.’

Lamayette moves around so he can get a good look at Pir Durbar’s set-solid face, the cold eyes, as lifeless as a shard of beer-bottle glass. ‘You see. I know who you are, CIA man . . .’

‘That’s good, holy man. Wouldn’t want you to be at a disadvantage. Not with you lashed down and powerless. And me not having had a fucking smoke for twelve hours.’

Pir Durbar’s eyes swivel around in his skull, as if he is entering a trance. His voice hits a strange, remorseless monotone. Preprogrammed. ‘If you reject my guidance you will suffer even during your lifetime here on earth. You will endure life here on earth as if it is hell. I am here to tell you that God will condemn a man to hell who rejects my guidance. And I am your guidance, Mr CIA Man. We are together now because I am your proof of His mercy.’

Lamayette props a knee up on the table of granite. Wipes the sweat from his brow. ‘Long time ago, I got a good piece of advice. Kind of handed down over generations from some reverend guy in England.’ He shakes his big bald head with a real sense of wonderment. ‘You just don’t get it. Your God, my God, anybody and everybody’s God. Why would he be some jealous, childish, merciless tyrant, like you’re making out. He’s just a guy asking us for a regular diet of good actions – not
your fucking ill-composed threats, zinging people with eternal apprehensions. Who wants a God like that?’

A strange, eerie silence falls over the top of the hillock.

Just the whisper of a breeze. Two men looking at each other, examining. So close, yet so far away. It’s the Pakistani who speaks first. Again with the bug eyes, the same words, and that grating, monotonous drone: ‘If you reject my guidance you will suffer even during your lifetime here on earth . . .’ The holy man wriggles his arms, trying to get free. Tightening the knots. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything. Nothing. You understand.’ His thin voice carries a desperate resolve.

‘That would be a pity. You see . . . I’m someone who’s got nothing after this. Nowhere to go, no more rope to hold me up. So. It’s not just that I hate the way you talk. Or that I haven’t eaten for almost a day. And haven’t had a smoke. It’s that you’re playing now against a man with no options. No fallback. It’s either you or me, bud. I need to know what all this talk is about, you and that idiot toad Hamza Khan . . .
Tomorrow we shall make Qissa Khawani famous again. Operation Macchar
.
Patience and righteousness shall once more be the weapon of the Prophet . . .
’ Lamayette squats down so that he can examine his prey closely. Eye to eye. ‘What is Operation Macchar? What little shit-storm have you guys got planned for today? You tell me now and we both walk off this hill . . .’

There’s a complete lack of sound.

The sun beats down on Lamayette’s still-sodden clothes. Nothing moves but their breath as the two of them stare intently at one another. Pir Durbar tries again to shake himself free of the bindings. But gives up, exhausted. They both watch as a trickle of sweat gathers into a little dewdrop at the end of the American’s nose. Their eyes following it as the drop bulges bigger and bigger, then falls on to the hard, hot black surface of the granite table. It seems to sizzle.

Lamayette rises slowly. ‘Your choice.’ And begins to move clockwise around the pinewood rack. Measuring out each pace to give rhythm to his story: ‘Long time ago, Mr Holy Man,
when I was seven and growing up in Louisiana, my pappy gave me a pet.’ The Pakistani tries but fails to turn his head. ‘Lovely little thing, about ten pounds heavy, and so big,’ Lamayette measures out a span of two feet with his hands.

‘I got Billy Bob on account of the McIlhenny family. You understand who I’m talking about? The Tabasco people. You know Tabasco? . . .’ Lamayette chuckles.
The clock is ticking on some terrorist outrage and I’m banging on about Tabasco
. ‘Billy Bob was what they call a nutria. Halfway between a small beaver and a giant rat, if you will. Anyway, the McIlhennys were a big deal in my part of Louisiana and they decided to breed nutria, for their fur. So the patriarch of the McIlhenny clan released a dozen of these fellows in about 1940. They sure knew how to root because next thing, about fifteen years later, there was more than twenty million of the little critters. Destroying the bayou, they were, with their big teeth. You’ve never seen teeth till you’ve seen a nutria. Boy. I tell you, Billy Bob bit a friend of mine once, snipped the end of the finger clean off. Right through the bone . . .’ Lamayette draws near Pir Durbar. Puts his hand down on the man’s bony shoulder and pushes all of his weight through the palm of his hand. Feels the bones shifting.

The holy man is blinking hard. Something is coming. His eyelids flutter, he’s steeling himself. Perhaps trying to think himself outside of his body, perhaps just disoriented by the strange arc of Lamayette’s story. Still trying to wriggle free. The start of something like panic.

Lamayette rises. ‘Now this is the point when I’m supposed to jump up and down on you. Bang your head on the rock. Break your fingers one by one . . .’ His voice slows and Lamayette shields his eyes. ‘Heck. You know it is a mighty fine view from up here.’ Gazing out over the wide, lush valley from this unusual geologic eyrie. ‘Such a nice day as well,’ he laments. ‘You see, Mr Holy Man, I know you’re up to something bad today. This Qissa Khawani thing. And
I am
going to break you . . .’ he pronounces with great certainty.

‘First, though, I want you to understand why it is I’ve been
telling you my beautiful Huckleberry Finn life story. You know about Huck Finn and his best buddy Tom Sawyer?’ Lamayette leaves the question hanging in the still air, walks over to the torn remains of his headdress, a discarded tangle of cloth half overhanging the edge of this vast rock, like a weathered prayer flag. Hundreds of feet below rush the teeming Swat river tributaries. The American talks over his shoulder as he squats down and carefully, tenderly picks something up. Cradling it against his massive chest. ‘You see, growing up with Billy Bob gave me a certain, how shall I put it . . . a certain affinity for these little furry fellows. I came to understand how they think and work.’

Lamayette turns, smiles with delight at the old man’s startled, terrified reaction to what he is carrying. Uselessly, the holy man shrinks back. The saggy skin over his naked buttocks clenching tight, and he rattles his wrists against the pinewood frame, trying to kick out with his feet. And slowly the thin, old, purple lips of his mouth form into a perfect circle of horror.

Earlier that morning, when Lamayette had set off by himself for the madrasa, he’d taken precious little with him. His only sustenance a seventy-five-ounce bottle full of jalapeno-spiced cornichons. Chewing on these and holding the sliced jalapenos under his tongue until the roof of his mouth was ready to lift off had been about his only way of staying awake and putting one foot in front of the other. That, and some mindless singing.

Cartons of this delicacy are delivered twice monthly to the CIA’s headquarters at Langley, to a former secretary of almost overpowering maternal instincts towards Lamayette. Thence packed into the various CIA pouches shuttling to Islamabad. No doubt there’d be some taxpayer coalition against government waste that would be duly outraged if this, or any of Lamayette’s other epicurean smuggling rackets, came to light. But that’s a worry for another day.

One small taxpayer comfort: Lamayette is a master of interrogation.

Throughout his early years at the CIA, he had brought a childlike enthusiasm to this ugly, thankless task. He was marked
out as the Hitchcock of his generation. No waterboarding or expensive chemicals. Just an old-fashioned understanding that the most powerful weapon in separating a person from their secrets is to screw with their imagination.

So it is that Lamayette brings the tall glass bottle up to his face. Reaches inside and runs a finger lovingly down the thicks brown pelt. Scratching at its shoulders. ‘Me, and these creatures, you see, we’re like buddies. These fellows like to move at night and they’re a bit obvious when they’re hungry. When I’d worked out where their run was, trapping one was a cinch.’ There’s a skittling sound of minute toenails scratching on glass and strikingly shrill squeals. Pir Durbar is breathing fast and flinching, to make himself as small as possible.

‘We’re supposed to call this guy
Rattus norvegicus
. But that’s such a lame handle for a dude to have, so let’s name this fellow . . . not Billy Bob, but Billy Ray. Like Billy Ray Cyrus. Same nice, shiny teeth. Lovely thick brown hair . . . See how Billy Ray’s standing up on his back legs. Can’t wait to meet his first holy man. First ever terrorist ringleader . . .’ and Lamayette puts the bottle right up against Pir Durbar’s leathery cheek. The twelve-inch-long rat paws wildly at the glass, and as the Pakistani squirms, the CIA chief presses the jar harder. ‘He
really
likes you. See how he’s trying to touch you with his cute pink paws, his little fingers.’ The rat is frenzied with hunger. ‘And, while you’re so close, take a look at those teeth. Especially those two incisors. You know he has to eat about a third of his body weight each day to survive. That’s what he was trying to do last night when I caught him. Kind of tough to do when you’ve been in a jar for twelve hours. So this fellow will be down a good five or six ounces of chow. Boy, will he be hungry.’

Lamayette nods his head incredulously, then, remembering something, makes an
aw-shucks
noise. ‘I clean forgot that he’ll be so
thirsty
in there too. A rat that big needs about six fluid ounces of water a day. But what with this heat and being in that jar . . . boy, Billy Ray’ll have anything that’s moist. Just lap it up.’

Billy Ray’s squeaks get louder, as if he understands the words.

The American puts his hand across his mouth, speaking confidentially. ‘You know round about now Billy Ray will be going a little bit crazy. Loopy-loo.’ And he twirls his index finger around and around near his temple. Nutcase. ‘Just your average Darwinian psych-out. Such a tiny, primitive brain, and it’s telling him he might never eat or drink again. How terrible must that be? Gee, will he be ready to use those teeth.’

A long slick of saliva eases out of Pir Durbar’s mouth. The terror is palpable. Against the glass, the old man’s body is palpitating with fear. As if he has a feverish chill.

Lamayette gives a low whistle, which makes the rat pause. It looks around, blinking fast, rubbing its nose anxiously with a forepaw. Lamayette whispers, like one of those nature presenters on TV trying to keep quiet in the jungle. ‘I don’t suppose your madrasa has a sort of Sierra Club section?’ Pause. The Pakistani’s eyes are transfixed by the rat. Those two long, yellowing curved incisors. Only inches away. ‘I guess not. Then perhaps you don’t know this: Billy Ray, our out-of-his-mind-with-hunger-and-thirst rodent, well, he’s actually an omnivore. Yep. Billy Ray, he’s partial to a little bit of anything. He’ll eat meat. Crustaceans. Shellfish. Heck, I saw a clip on Discovery Channel of a brown rat catching a goddamn fish once.’

Lamayette tugs hard on Pir Durbar’s one exposed earlobe. Pinching the delicate skin between his fingernails. The Pakistani protests.
AAAAaayyyyeeee . . . AAAAAhhhhhhhhhh.

The American’s voice rasps with deadly menace and a thousand years of cigarette smoke. ‘If I put a bit of spit in your ear . . . then hold this glass jar over it . . . what do you think my poor starving friend would do?’ Pir Durbar wails, high pitched, through almost clenched teeth. ‘His brain’s running real hot right now. There’s a wild, wild hunger in charge of those sharp little teeth. All he sees in you right now is a long row of Big Macs. End to end. Nothing but soft, yummy tissue right the way through to your brain.’

Sweat streams down the holy man’s face, twisted and tensed into ghastly apprehension.