Undersea Prison (2 page)

The pilot had seen the threat and had initially increased power to pull the craft upwards, hoping to get above the missile’s altitude limit. But after an instant recalculation he took the lift out of the rotors and banked the chopper away in an effort to gain downward speed and move out of the weapon’s horizontal range. As he gripped the controls tightly, willing more speed into the lumbering beast, he knew in his heart that they would not make it. If the rocket was a Strela-7, rumoured to be the most common in use in the region, he needed to be over four kilometres away and above two thousand metres to stand a chance of evading it. He was short of both distances. They were in God’s hands now.

The crewman could do nothing but squat in the doorway and stare at the head of the trail of smoke that twisted and curved towards them.The helicopter swung dramatically over onto its other side in an effort to shake its pursuer but the missile’s computer nimbly adjusted the projectile’s tail fins to compensate for the move.The smoke trail corkscrewed several times in a tight curve, cutting through the crisp, clean air as it homed in on the heat signature of the Merlin’s red-hot exhausts.

Hillsborough did not know the nature of the threat but it was evident from the crew’s reactions that the situation was a serious one. He put a hand to his seat belt to unfasten it in order to have a look for himself but then he remembered the helicopter crash drills he’d been taught, the fundamental rule of which was to stay strapped into the seat. If they landed he would want to get out of the craft as soon as he could and he focused on the open door in front of him, keeping his hand on the buckle in readiness. The crewman suddenly leapt from the doorway, throwing himself to the floor, and for a split second Hillsborough could see, in the bright sunshine outside, the instrument of their deaths as it homed in.

The impact struck above the cabin at the back of the engine compartment and the blast rocked the craft violently.A second later the fuel tanks ignited, exploding down into the Merlin’s interior. The engines died instantly and the tail buckled as the chopper descended in a tight spiral, its nose dipping to lead its dive.

Hillsborough covered his face with one hand as flames engulfed him. The other was restrained by the chain, the briefcase having jammed under the seat. Even so, he managed to undo his seat buckle with his tethered hand and as he fell forward he saw that his body was on fire. He felt the scorching heat pour into his throat as he took his final breath.

‘Mayday! Mayday!’ the pilot screamed as he and the co-pilot pulled at the controls in a futile effort to get the craft’s nose up. Then flames burst in from behind to fill the cockpit and as the men struggled blindly to release their seat belts the helicopter slammed into the ground.

 

Durrani followed the course of the missile with wide, anxious eyes, his heart pounding in his chest in excited expectation. As soon as he saw it strike and the side of the Merlin burst into flames he shouted for his men to get into the two battered pick-up trucks. He was first into the cab of the lead truck. Its engine was still running, and Durrani yelled again for his men to hurry as they scrambled for the back. Impatiently, he floored the accelerator and the wheels spun in the dry soil before they gained traction and shunted the vehicle forward.

Two of the men gave chase. One of them managed to grab hold of the tailgate and hang onto it, his legs racing at a speed they had never achieved before. Durrani only had eyes for his prey as it dropped towards the horizon. The truck picked up speed as he steered it resolutely across the rough terrain, doing his best to avoid the worst of its hazards.The man hanging onto the tailgate lost his hold after a desperate attempt to pull himself into the back and after sprawling briefly on the ground he scrambled to his feet and leapt into the back of the other vehicle.

Durrani watched the helicopter as it fell out of sight. A second later a mushroom of smoke and flame spouted into the air.

He sped towards it, desperate to complete the planned follow-up phase of the attack. His eyes flickered left and right - he was keenly aware that the road across the plain was a regular military route between Kabul and Bagram and that there was every chance that the attack had been seen by the enemy somewhere.

The trail of black smoke twisting into the clear blue sky was a fast-dissolving record of the doomed helicopter’s flight path from the point the missile had struck to the Merlin’s impact with the ground. Durrani fought to keep the rising black smoke in his sights but the dust blowing in through his open window was getting in his eyes.

Bright orange flames came into view as Durrani closed on the wreckage. He kept the accelerator to the floor as the pick-up bounced up onto a tarmac road and across it. He looked quickly in every direction, including skyward. If anything remotely military-looking came into view he would turn around and head towards the nearest village at the foot of the hills behind him, his only chance of escape.

The helicopter lay on its side like a gutted beast, its ravaged carcass burning, its rotors buckled, its tail broken off. The cabin and cockpit were fiercely ablaze and Durrani drove in a wide arc around it until he was upwind and away from the direct heat and smoke. He slammed on the brakes, slid to a dusty halt, opened the door and stood out on the sill to inspect his handiwork. His first thought was that it did not look possible that anyone could have survived. Prisoners were a bonus but rare in such attacks.

The other vehicle halted behind Durrani’s but the men were more concerned for their own safety, anxiously scanning every quadrant of the horizon like meerkats. As far as they were concerned Durrani was putting their lives at risk by remaining in the area.

Durrani took a long and patient look, scanning the wreckage for anything of value.The destruction appeared to be complete and he was about to swing back inside his cab when something caught his eye. Several metres from the wreckage, lying on the scorched earth, was a twisted, broken body, as charred as the surrounding debris and clearly dead. But a small metallic object lying in the midst of the remains and reflecting the strong sunlight was impossible to ignore.

Durrani stepped down onto the ground.

The anxiety among the others increased as they watched their leader walk casually towards the wreckage. One of them called out that they should be going. The others quickly echoed him. Durrani ignored them, his stare fixed on the body. The wind suddenly changed direction and the searing heat from the flames struck him. He was forced to shield his face with his hands and move back several steps. The wind changed again and he saw that the glinting object was a chain attached to what appeared to be a small case.

Durrani moved in at a crouch and picked up the case, the attached limp arm in a charred jacket sleeve rising on the end of the chain.The metal handle burned him and he quickly dropped it. He drew a knife from a sheath on his belt, pulled the arm straight and dug the tip into the wrist joint, slicing through the sinews until the hand fell away. He looked for the end of the other arm lying awkwardly across the body’s back and wiped the thin coat of carbon from the face of the watch to reveal the clear, undamaged glass, the second hand rotating beneath it. The watch was cool enough to touch and he pulled it off the corpse’s wrist. He picked the chain up by using the point of the knife. The smouldering case dangled beneath it and, after a quick check around for anything else, Durrani headed back to his pick-up.

He climbed in behind the wheel, dropped the briefcase onto the passenger seat, slipped the scorched watch onto his wrist, put the engine in gear and roared away.

Durrani felt exhilarated as he looked around for the enemy, confident that they would not appear. He was wise enough not to celebrate until his escape was complete but seasoned enough to trust his senses. He bounced in the seat as the pick-up roared back over the tarmac road and headed for the safety of the hills and the villages that ran along the foot of it. Any doubts that he would fail to escape vanished. It had been a well-executed plan.

Durrani looked at his new watch, the shiny metal exposed where the carbon had rubbed off. His gaze moved to the case on the seat, the cracks in the charred brittle plastic exposing more metal beneath. He looked ahead again but the briefcase and its as yet unknown contents remained at the front of his thoughts.

It was dark by the time Durrani entered the city of Kabul in his battered, dusty pick-up. He was wearing a leather jacket whose condition matched the vehicle perfectly. He was alone. On the seat beside him, concealed beneath a Tajik scarf, was a loaded AK47 with a seventy-five-round drum magazine attached. When Durrani had contacted his Taliban mullah to report the success of the attack and describe what he had subsequently found in the wreckage he was told to report to the mosque with his find as soon as the sun had set and to ensure he was protected.That meant he was to travel with bodyguards.

But Durrani did not like the company of others and avoided it even if it meant increasing his personal risk. He endured the presence of other men only when carrying out tasks he could not physically complete alone. In his younger days, during the fight against the Russian occupation, he had chosen to specialise in mines and booby traps because it was a military skill that he could develop alone. And to ensure he would always be employed in that role and to avoid being thrown into a regular combat company he had worked hard to become one of the best. In the process he’d gained a reputation for innovation and thoroughness, qualities that his peers felt could be employed in other roles - such as the shooting down of helicopters.

Durrani’s desire for solitude was not a survival tactic in the usual sense although it had its advantages in that regard. He had been alone, except for a handful of acquaintances, since his early childhood. None of those few friends could ever have been described as close to him. He would not allow that. Durrani was living a lie that if discovered could give rise to dangerous accusations and lead to the loss of his head. He feared that if anyone got close to him they might somehow find out. One way of avoiding unwelcome scrutiny was to gain a reputation for being introverted. He had achieved this but it meant that he could never let his guard down. Success as a soldier bred jealousy and the need to remain enigmatic only strengthened as his celebrity increased.

Durrani was a Taliban - or, to be more accurate, he had joined their cause. The ranks of the Taliban were made up mostly of Pashtuns, the most privileged of the Afghan tribes, and he had been accepted as one of that ethnic group since his childhood. His claim to that heritage was not entirely valid. Durrani was actually half Hazara, a race considered by the Pashtuns to be no better than slave material. The Hazara were also Shi’a whereas the Pashtuns were Sunni. The Pashtuns were the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and at one time had been considered the only true Afghans. The Hazara were not only different socially, tribally and religiously. They also looked very different: their features were distinctly Mongol - flat faces with flat noses.

Durrani’s mother was Hazara and had grown up in Kandahar with her father who was a servant of a wealthy Pashtun family. They had lived in a hut at the bottom of the back garden and the Pashtun master’s son, who was a year older than Durrani’s mother, had spent his adolescence with her. When she had fallen pregnant in her mid-teens it had been obvious who was responsible and before the bump became too visible the girl’s father threw her out of the city.

Durrani knew very little more about his mother’s early life than that. He didn’t know if her master’s son had forced himself upon her or if they had been lovers. Durrani did not suspect rape, though. What little his mother did say about his father, when she eventually told Durrani that he was the son of a Pashtun, revealed no sign of malice or dislike and sometimes even displayed a hint of affection.

Durrani had no great interest in finding his father but even if he had wanted to it would have been impossible. He didn’t know where the family had lived or even who they were. All his mother had revealed to him about their identity - it was something she was quite proud of - was that they were descended from Ahmed Shah Durrani, an eighteenth-century Pashtun king of Afghanistan. In the years leading up to the Russian invasion every member of that line had been considered a potential threat to the Communist Afghan government of the day.Those who survived assassination either went into hiding or fled the country along with the rest of the royal family and their relatives.

Durrani had been able to hide any visible evidence of his Hazara bloodline because he had not inherited the distinctive physical Mongol characteristics of that ethnic group. Instead, he had acquired his father’s angular, long-nosed, lighter-skinned features. His mother had died of some illness when he was eight before he had developed any curiosity about his male parent. By that time they were living in abject poverty in Kabul in a small mud hut on the outskirts of a residential area at the foot of a hill occupied by an old British military fort that had long since been abandoned.

The memories of the day she died were now cloudy but Durrani remembered being very hungry and his mother lying on the blanket that was their bed, calling weakly for God to help her. God had not heard her: she eventually stopped making heavy and laboured breathing noises and her open eyes became still and unfocused. He shook her and asked her to wake up. When blood trickled from her lips and down the side of her mouth he knew she would never talk to him again. He did not look for anyone to help for there was no one. He could not remember ever talking to anyone else but his mother in those days and as far as he knew she had only ever talked to him - unless begging counted as talking to others. He remembered that his days with her included collecting water in a bucket from a tap and walking miles to get wood for the fire on which she cooked their paltry meals. Looking back it was hard to see how they had survived.