The Lords' Day (retail) (33 page)

He had expected worse. Sure, they’d pushed him around a little, and on a couple of occasions beat him up badly, but he had blocked his mind to it all, even the occasional pain. They seemed
to think he was of far greater significance than he was, a man with links to every liberation group he had heard of, and quite a few he hadn’t, and he saw no reason to lift the veil on their
delusions. For some reason they thought he wanted to rule the world when all he sought was the comfort of his homeland, so he had locked himself away inside his imagination, up in his mountain
eyrie, beyond their reach, in a battle of wills. And when he opened his eyes, through the window of his cell, he would see these self-styled defenders of freedom throwing up and fouling themselves
in the corridor, and he felt not only better but superior. No, they wouldn’t break him.

Once again there was commotion outside in the corridor. More drunks. Raised voices. Anger. More drunks, he supposed. But, as he listened, he decided they were not drunks, after all. This was
something different. It was his British guards who were protesting, raising their voices in alarm. Moments later the lock of his cell was being turned, the door opening, and the men who crowded
through weren’t British policemen in their tan uniforms and short trousers but Americans in brown and green camouflage fatigues with bulletproof vests. They were also armed.

Daud Gul knew what this meant. The end. Summary execution. No more of this British softness with their pink-faced embarrassment when they hit him. These American thugs meant business. Gul stood
up; he wanted to die like a man, on his feet, facing his enemy.

‘You’re coming with us,’ one of the Americans growled.

Of course. This was it. ‘May your sister die beneath a hundred men,’ he spat in Pashto.

Then they said something that almost made the Mehsud fall back upon his chair with surprise.

‘Hurry up,’ they told him. ‘You’re going home.’

7.23 a.m.

Robert Paine was back inside the chamber before there was anything Tricia Willcocks could do to stop him. He had changed his clothes, looked fresher than anyone else in the
room, and stood for a moment at the doorway, taking in the rows of greying faces as they turned towards him. His nostrils puckered. Despite the air-conditioning the atmosphere inside the chamber
had grown heavy with hopelessness and the insistent, acrid smell of latrines.

‘So you have returned, ambassador,’ Masood greeted cautiously.

‘I promised I would.’

‘With good news, I hope.’

‘I think so. The rules of the game have changed. We are in the process of releasing Daud Gul. We will fly him to any airport you care to nominate.’

And suddenly it was spring. From the benches around him faces began to revive, voices were raised in joy and relief, and even John Eaton seemed to stage a recovery, his body unfurling like young
bracken, his eyes silently weeping. Someone cheered, others began to applaud, to laugh, and the tumult grew on all sides until Masood waved his gun and brought them back to a quivering silence.

‘How do I know I can trust you?’ he scowled at the American.

‘Because I am here. I’m a guarantee of Daud Gul’s safe conduct. And if the British will allow it, you can speak to him.’

‘But if he is to be released, why would the British not allow me to speak to him?’

‘Ah!’ Paine steepled his hands and touched his fingers to the tip of his nose. His voice grew lower, more intimate, as if there were things he wanted to share with the other man and
no one else. ‘It’s a matter of sorting out a few crossed wires. You see, Daud Gul is held in Diego Garcia, which legally is a British protectorate, but effectively under American
control. And we – the United States – are releasing him even as we stand here. It might just take the British a little while to catch up with things. So you see, the game’s over.
You’ve won. The guns can be put aside. There’s no reason for anyone else to die.’

But still Masood was not smiling.

7. 25 a.m.

There was no echo of joy to be found inside COBRA, either. The news came like a grenade rolling through the door, and it sent Tricia Willcocks into a state of shock. She
didn’t know how to respond. Somewhere, deep inside, she was relieved that the siege might soon be over, that there would be no more killing. There was still the matter of what to do with
Masood and his men, of course, but in the circumstances that seemed a mere trifle. Yet whatever the outcome now, it would undermine her. She had failed, lost control. This wasn’t like
marriage, screw up and move on; she wouldn’t get a second chance. The others were sitting, watching, waiting for her to say something, but in vain. Rats were scratching away inside her skull,
she couldn’t see, everything was going dark and the pain was coming back. Another migraine.

‘Game, set and match, I think, gentlemen,’ Five said, gathering his papers.

‘If you’ll excuse me, I must go and give some fresh instructions,’ Tibbetts said, rising.

‘Me, too,’ Hastie added.

‘I need to lie down,’ Tricia whispered.

And soon the room was empty, save for her.

7.26 a.m.

Masood waved his weapon once more for silence. Like young grouse on the moor, they froze.

‘You say Daud Gul is released?’

‘He’s in the process of being released,’ Paine responded. ‘As I under stand it, he should by now be on his way to the air base on the island.’

‘He is still in your hands?’

‘We need to know where to take him. You name it, we’ll fly him there.’

Masood stepped around the ambassador, like a fox, wary, one paw at a time, his eyes cautious, alert. ‘So, he is not yet free.’

‘Diego Garcia’s a mighty long way from anywhere you might want him to be, so just tell us where, and we’ll work out the best way to get him there.’

‘I don’t trust you, ambassador.’

‘No reason why you should. That’s why I’m here. I’m insurance.’

Masood continued to stare suspiciously at the ambassador. Paine stared back. Eventually the gunman tired of the game.

‘Peshawar,’ he said. ‘You know it?’

‘Of course. In the North-West Frontier province of Pakistan.’

‘You can see the mountains from the airport. It will be appropriate to release Daud Gul there.’

Paine knew that it wasn’t simply the view that made Peshawar an ideal choice. The town stood at one end of the Khyber Pass. Within an hour of landing, Daud Gul would be lost to the world
once more.

‘You fly him there,’ Masood continued, his eyes still fired with mistrust. ‘But I wish to speak with him first.’

‘I believe that might be arranged.’

‘And ambassador, understand that my deadline still exists.’

‘What?’

‘If he is not free – free of you, out of US and British custody – by nine, then the hostages start to die.’

‘You cannot be serious.’ For the first time since the siege began, it was Paine’s turn to offer a thin, mocking smile.

The gun was up once more, prodding at Paine’s stomach. ‘I think you will remember how serious I am.’

‘Diego Garcia is a thousand miles or more from anywhere and, God knows, it must be two or three times that far from Peshawar. We fly pretty damned fast but we don’t do time travel.
God knows, he won’t be in the air for an hour. So I tell you this, and you have the word of the United States government on it: he will be in the air just as soon as is humanly possible, and
he will be flown direct to Peshawar as quickly as a jet can fly. But if you harm one more hostage in that time, whenever that happens, wherever his plane is, we’ll drop your friend overboard.
I understand those things fly at about forty thousand feet. Should be one hell of a homecoming for Mr Gul.’

The two men stood toe to toe, locked in their battle of wills. No one else in the chamber moved, dared breathe, and from around the world millions watched as the fate of the hostages hung once
more in the balance. For many moments Masood’s face was frozen in thought. Then it cracked. He smiled, an expression that conveyed no warmth, not even a passing shadow of goodwill. ‘You
are a very good negotiator, ambassador. We shall do as you suggest,’ he declared. ‘I hope your word can be trusted. Your life depends upon it.’

7.43 a.m. (12.43 p.m. BIOT time)

Daud Gul walked slowly, as is the habit of mountain men, from his cell, into the sunlight outside the blue-painted police head quarters, and climbed into the back of a 4 by 4. A
guard held the door open for him. A British civilian who appeared to have dressed hurriedly was arguing with an American major, but however much the Briton threw his arms about or raised his voice,
it made no difference to the American. At one stage the Briton banged his hand on the bonnet of the vehicle, and Gul smiled. Never beyond his wildest dreams had he thought he could bring these two
Satans to each other’s throats. Perhaps he had already gone to Heaven.

He was curious; this would be his first view of the island – and last, he hoped. He’d arrived several months earlier in the middle of the night and had no idea where he was in the
world, except for the smell of the air and the cloying heat that told him he was a long way from his beloved mountains. Now they were driving along a clean, white-kerbed road with neatly clipped
ribbons of coarse grass on either side, beyond which lay a tangle of lush tropical vegetation with tall palms that bent in the breeze. No mountains, no hills, but through the gaps in the vegetation
he suddenly saw the sea, a lagoon filled with molten lapis. Then a roadside sign that said he was welcome in Diego Garcia. Wherever it was, this was a strange land, like nothing he had ever seen
before.

He still didn’t believe them, that he was going home. They’d offered no word of explanation, and he’d given them nothing in return. Perhaps it was another of their tricks,
raising his hopes, only to dash them again and hope to break him down. There had been no preparations – but what was there to prepare? He had no possessions, even the clothes he stood in
weren’t his; there were no books he wanted to take with him and he had written nothing down in all those months, knowing that his jailers would read every word. He hadn’t even many
memories to take with him, just periods of blankness, particularly when they had beaten him. They hadn’t even done a good job of that. Back home, in the mountains, they knew how to do these
things, but these British and Americans had come from the far side of the world yet had learned nothing.

They were still as ignorant as goats. And, he prayed, they would share the same fate.

7.45 a.m.

When Tibbetts arrived back in the Op Room he found Harry waiting for him. ‘Christ, Jones, you look a mess.’ Two of the middle fingers on Harry’s left hand were
in splints and a police surgeon was sewing stitches into the puffy wound beneath his right eye.

‘Never felt better,’ Harry muttered, in a manner that indicated there might be a tooth or two missing.

The commander reached for a mug of coffee, filling it with sugar and cosseting it as though it were a rare champagne. ‘At least we can begin to relax now. All we have to worry about is the
public inquiry and getting measured for our own funerals.’ He looked more closely at Harry, whose single open eye returned no hint that he shared the other man’s sense of relief.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Harry, it’s over.’

‘Is it?’

‘And what the hell do you mean by that?’ demanded the police man, irritated that his sense of well-being was already being rocked.

Harry waited until the police surgeon had finished his embroidery. ‘It’s simply this, Mike. We still have almost eighty of the most important people in the country locked up in one
room together with a load of fanatical gunmen.’

‘Come on, look on the bright side, it’s only a matter of time before they’re all walking out and heading for a psychiatrist’s couch.’

‘Perhaps. But one thing still bothers me.’

‘Just one?’

‘Why hasn’t Masood demanded any means to make his own escape? Strange, don’t you think?’

‘You just don’t like him.’

‘Let’s say I owe him one,’ he reflected, holding up his battered hand. ‘But that still doesn’t answer my question.’

‘Which is what, precisely?’

‘They’ve arranged transportation for their leader, so why have they arranged nothing for themselves? How do they propose to escape?’

‘I dunno,’ Tibbetts blustered.

‘Perhaps it’s because they don’t mean to escape.’

The thought took a little time to worm its way between the folds of Tibbetts’s rumpled mind. ‘You’re suggesting . . . ’ But the words faded away. He didn’t like the
taste of them.

‘I’m suggesting that if this were like any normal grubby siege they’d be talking twenty million dollars and a getaway plane. Yet they’ve demanded nothing for
themselves.’

‘And your conclusion?’

Harry got up and began pacing the floor; he seemed to have picked up a limp somewhere, too. ‘Just give me a moment and follow this thing through. They pack up and go home, and what have
they got?’

‘Their leader.’

‘A respite. Nothing more. People will say they got lucky, and that the British got sloppy, but in a couple of years’ time no one will remember them and what they did. Nothing will
change out there in the mountains, they’ll still have the whole world breathing down their necks, using them as a doormat for their own ambitions. Is that going to satisfy Masood after
watching his entire family being butchered?’

Tibbetts scooped an extra spoonful of sugar into his coffee. ‘He’s got Daud Gul out of his hole, and that shows Masood’s a serious player.’

‘Precisely. Not one to waste an opportunity, and as opportunities go this is the best anyone’s had since Guy Fawkes got his matches wet. Masood and his chums aren’t going to go
back home with nothing more than a tourist T-shirt.’

‘Then what do they want to go back home with?’ Tibbetts put the question slowly, in the manner of a schoolmaster examining a recalcitrant pupil and not expecting to get back the
answer he wanted.

Harry began prodding at the side of his jaw, searching for the tooth. ‘That’s just it, Mike. I don’t think they’re intending to go back home at all.’