The Agent Runner

by Simon Conway

  ‘You’re dying,’ the kid said.

  ‘I know who you are,’ Noman told him. ‘I wish I didn’t. You need to sort yourself out, stop the whining and the bed-wetting. I don’t want to watch you do it. It makes you look weak. Who do you think you’re whining to? Muslims? Punjabis? Nobody cares. Go find your own hole.’

  The kid laughed. ‘Who are you trying to fool? They’ll make me an officer.’

  ‘But they’ll never trust you. You’ll always be a dirty little Hindu from Sindh with a swarm of angry gods buzzing around you like flies with shit on their feet.’

  Remember where you are, Noman told himself – flex the tips of your fingers and flare your nostrils. Keep it moving. Stop talking to ghosts. There’s no one else. Just the cold, dead earth. The weight was unmanageable. A lesser man might have given up by now.

  ‘You were always happiest in the dirt,’ his mother said. ‘As soon as you could crawl you were covered in filth from head to foot.’

  That was funny. So funny it hurt.

  ‘You deliberately set out to live your life in the wrong way,’ she said. ‘You always fought being a human being.’

  ‘I wasn’t given a chance,’ he protested.

  ‘Don’t give me that! Even as a tiny child you were a monster. From the first moment you opened your eyes I knew you were evil.’

  Remember why this happened, he told himself, because you believed in your country but it did not believe in you. Nobody starts out evil. You’re just an ordinary man with a child at your core. They made you this way. They twisted you and turned you like putty.

  ‘Look at you,’ his mother said, sadly. ‘You can’t even die with dignity.’

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he screamed. ‘You don’t exist. You’re just a ghost.’

  The pain was so much worse. It was getting away from him, unravelling into the void.

  ‘Where you’re going, Noman, there are only ghosts.’

  48. The patriot’s way

  Khan had always regarded his first duty as the protection of Pakistan, by which he meant the Indus Valley and its neighbouring deserts, mountains and swamps. He considered the ISI to be the moral guardian of the state defending it against corrupt bureaucrats, judges and politicians. He therefore saw nothing wrong in the ISI interfering in the running of Pakistan or anywhere else for that matter.

  He liked to explain it to people by saying that the ISI was a tool and it was the way you handled it that counted. It was like a knife, it was sharp, which was efficient, and it just depended on whether you cut vegetables with it, you slit somebody’s throat or you committed hari-kari with it. Anything was possible. It was up to him to decide how to wield it.

  A large part of protecting Pakistan involved preventing India from extending its influence in Afghanistan. The worst-case scenario was Afghanistan as an Indian client state ruled by its non-Pashtun peoples. There was nothing that frightened the Chiefs of Staff more than the prospect of encirclement. To prevent it the prevailing consensus was that the tribes of Afghanistan must be kept in a state of turmoil. It was a practical matter. Not meddling for the sake of it as some suggested but as deliberate policy of keeping Afghanistan on the boil. That had been as true during the Jihad against the Soviets, the subsequent civil war and the period of Taliban rule as it was now during the American occupation.

  His role in creating the Taliban did not signify ideological approval of them or any desire that Pakistan should experience a Taliban-style revolution. Any more than his support for Mujahideen in the 1980s implied much liking for them. In his mind, the Afghan Taliban were no worse than the Taliban’s old enemies the Afghan Northern Alliance, with whom the West had, in effect, been allied since 2001. The atrocities and rapes committed by the Northern Alliance in the 1990s and their looting of western aid and revival of the heroin trade in the 2000s had helped cement Pashtun support for the Afghan Taliban. There were times when Khan was staggered by the naivety and hubris of western politicians who had aligned themselves with a gang of murderers and narco-traffickers, and yet seemed to genuinely think they had right on their side.

  Khan had been studying the Americans and the British for his whole career. Since 2001 he had watched them drawn into quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan. He had watched them expend blood and treasure for no discernible profit. He had talked to colleagues from intelligence agencies in Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia. And in the process he had come to what was perhaps a surprising conclusion.

  He had come to realise that it was not the Americans or their little cousins the British who threatened his faith, they were not the ones who threatened his way of life or his liberty – it was the radical Islamists, Al Qaeda and their allies in the Pakistani Taliban who presented the more mortal threat. They were the ones that would rip apart the fabric of the country that he had pledged to protect.

  He decided it was time for Pakistan to rescue Islam from the Islamists. And it was for this reason he had decided to start channelling information to the British Secret Service. He preferred to deal with the British than the Americans. You never knew where you stood with the Americans. They had an unnerving habit of learning from their mistakes, which could never be said of the British.

  He had happily provided Tariq with information for the British. He had no qualms about revealing the location of terrorist training camps in the Pakistani tribal areas. He viewed the drone strikes as a useful means of achieving his aims. And when it came to giving them a helping hand in Afghanistan, it was a question of balancing the opposing sides. At times it was necessary to support both sides in a conflict. After all, the objective was to keep Afghanistan on the boil, not for it to boil over.

  He did not consider himself a traitor. Far from it. He viewed himself as a patriot.

  On balance perhaps he should have provided better quality information to the British, if he’d given up bin Laden earlier, for instance, he might have avoided this ridiculous and petulant plot against him, and he might not have had to give up the three million dollars accrued, but all was not lost. It wasn’t unremittingly bleak. There were some advantages. He had rid himself of a dangerous subordinate and as well as offering to resume the payments the British had pledged to assist with relocation. It was reassuring to know that there were options to hand in the event that the forces of discord prevailed and it became necessary to leave the country.

  He could not be sure that he would succeed.

  49. The road west

  ‘That’s it.’ Ed threw down his spade and stared at him across the disturbed earth. ‘I’ve done your dirty work for you. What now?’

  ‘Come here.’

  Khan put his hand on Ed’s shoulder and together they climbed back up the path to the car with Tufail following.

  ‘Tariq spoke highly of you,’ Khan told him, as Tufail eased the Mercedes along the ruts in the track. ‘Tariq said that at the beginning of a meeting you always asked the same question, it didn’t matter where you were or how difficult the circumstances, you said “how long have you got?” And provided there was more than fifteen minutes you always took the time to ask after his family, his wife and his mother. He appreciated that. I appreciated it, also.’

  ‘He was my agent.’

  ‘And mine too,’ Khan said.

  ‘You killed him.’

  ‘It was regrettable but necessary. He would have revealed everything If he had been captured. The consequences of that would have been disastrous for me and you.’

  Ed didn’t bother to reply. They bounced up off the track onto a tarmac road.

  ‘I have given much thought to the subsequent actions of Samantha Burns,’ Khan said. ‘I can see now that perhaps I should have been more generous with the provision of information. I could have done more to explain the danger posed by the House of War. After all, it was a genuine threat. And I could have given up bin Laden earlier. I acknowledge that. I made mistakes. I am genuinely sorry for that.’

  The car turned off onto a muddy esplanade within sight of the jun
ction with the Grand Trunk Road. There was a car, a battered white Corolla, parked alongside a small boarded-up kiosk. In the background, trucks trundled by on the highway.

  ‘I have spoken to Jonah,’ Khan told him. ‘I sent my regards to Queen Bee. I said to him, “Tell her that I forgive her”. We agreed that there is no need for further unpleasantness. We identified an opportunity to put the relationship on the right footing again. I’ve offered to help with the exit from Afghanistan.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.’

  ‘Everything is going to be back on an even keel.’

  It was so brazen it was breathtaking, Ed wanted to clap: a slow handclap in ironic tribute to The Hidden Hand.

  Khan reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and took out a dark-green passport and handed it to Ed. He looked at his watch. ‘We’re about three hours from the Torkham border crossing. The guards have been told to let you pass.’

  ‘You’re letting me go?’

  ‘Yes I am. You know you’re a lucky man. I don’t think the British would have gone to such lengths for you. In fact, I’m sure of it. Tell your friend that I’m relying on her to keep her word.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Ed hesitated with his hand on the door lever. It seemed possible that he was about to be shot while trying to escape.

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Khan.

  Ed got out of the car and closed the door behind him. When he looked up he saw that someone had got out of the Corolla. It was Leyla. Without a backward glance, he ran through the mud towards her.

  They embraced.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘Why is he letting us go?’

  She put the car keys in his hands. ‘You drive.’

  He got in the driver’s seat and started the car. Soon they were driving fast, heading west along the Grand Trunk Road, the needle showed a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I swapped you for a USB stick,’ she replied.

  His eyes kept flicking to the rear view mirror. The road was empty. As far as he could tell they were not being followed.

  ‘What was on the stick?’

  ‘You were. Recordings of your interviews with Noman Butt, I threatened to spread them all over the web.’

  ‘You blackmailed Khan?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He laughed. ‘Did you keep a copy?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I love you,’ he told her.

  For a few minutes he dared to imagine that they might make it. He could see that the information on the recordings would cause Khan considerable embarrassment and cast doubt on Noman’s guilt, but it would only be effective if it was substantiated by witness statements from those present and one of them, Noman, was already dead.

  ‘Its not enough,’ he said, eventually. ‘We know too much.’

  ‘So why did Khan let us go?’

  ‘Because he thinks we’re not going to make it. My guess is he’s issued orders for us to be shot at the border or maybe even at the checkpoint outside Peshawar. Later he’ll tell London he tried his best. That’s assuming anyone in London gives a damn.’ He’d never had such a strong sense of how expendable he was. ‘We don’t have any value.’

  She looked at him, a mixture of fear and exhaustion written on her face. ‘How can you be so calm?’

  ‘Because I’m not going let it happen,’ he said. ‘You won’t die tonight, I promise you that. We’re going to get off the highway and find another way over the border.’

  After ninety minutes of driving they turned off at the locomotive factory at Risalpur and headed north on the Malakand-Mardan Road. It was raining harder now.

  ‘We’ve got about an hour before we’re overdue in Peshawar and they raise the alarm.’

  50. The devil you know

  At lunchtime Samantha Burns stepped out of the cabinet office and walked north along Whitehall past the Scotland office, wearing a pair of pink trainers from the bottom drawer of her desk. She had just received word that Noman was dead and Khan’s position was assured. Ed was missing. Under any other circumstances the operation might be considered a disaster, but really it had all turned out rather well. She felt a great sense of relief and with it the desire to stretch her legs.

  She turned left into Horse Guard’s, walking through the gate past the mounted sentry of the Household Cavalry. There was the usual gaggle of tourists having their pictures taken beside the horses. More and more of them seemed to be Chinese. China was on her radar, of course, for the usual geo-political and economic reasons. She kept a watchful eye on the Straits of Taiwan and disputed islands in the East China Sea, the dinosaur regime in North Korea. Reports of industrial espionage crossed her desk. But mostly, if she was frank, she left the business of worrying about the Chinese to her successors.

  She went through the arched gate and onto the broad expanse of the parade ground. Crossing on the south side she came under the censorious gaze of Field Marshal Frederick Roberts, hero of the Second Afghan War. His bronze monument stuck like a fishbone in the throat of their current endeavour – the vigilant old soldier astride his horse, its hooves splayed with its front legs locked, and its head turning away as if to say thus far and no further. You could never escape from history in London. Despatched in 1879 to seek retribution for the death of the British envoy at the hands of an angry mob, Roberts had quelled an uprising in Kabul and then marched his army south to avenge the loss of a thousand British and Indian troops at the battle of Maiwand. He had routed the Afghans at the battle of Kandahar and then, astonishingly, against all expectations, had marched his army straight back out of Afghanistan.

  It was Roberts who had said: ‘We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan and offensive though it may be to our pride the less they see of us the less they will dislike us.’

  It had been a terrible mistake to stay in Afghanistan for so long. Afghanistan was a trap. It was easy to get in but almost impossible to get out. The Soviets had learned that and the British in the nineteenth century before them. Only a few far-sighted individuals, Roberts among them, had warned against the trap.

  She entered St James’ Park by the Guard’s Division Memorial. The park had been out-of-bounds for a while, after that fool Fisher-King was found poisoned on a park bench back in 2005, but it was back in-bounds again now.

  She took her customary route around the lake: a figure-of-eight loop, starting on the south side, passing Duck Island Cottage, the fountain and the massive old willow, with a nod to the orange-billed pelicans that were introduced to the park as a gift from the Russian Ambassador in 1664. Back then there had been rumours of witchcraft, that the large and ungainly creatures with sinister yellow eyes were Russian spies. She had once seen one swallow a pigeon in one gulp.

  She had decided that a celebration of sorts was in order, and before she left work she would call her husband and ask him to pick up a two-inch thick piece of sirloin and open a bottle of Clos de Vougeot laid down four years before. It was the last of the bottles left over from her daughter’s wedding. She’d been saving it for just such an occasion as this. She would eat the steak and drink a couple of glasses of the wine and was confident that she would sleep well.

  She did not often sleep well. There was so much to worry about: the rise of militant Jihadists from the Maghreb to Eastern Libya, from Egypt’s Sinai desert to the battlegrounds of Syria’s civil war; the danger of the Israelis launching a pre-emptive strike and the Iranians retaliating by blocking the straits of Hormuz; further disintegration in the Horn of Africa and Yemen; civil war in Afghanistan post-2014. But it was Pakistan that kept her awake most often at night. It was Pakistan that she regarded as the most dangerous place on earth. Not just because of its out-of-control intelligence services and nuclear weapons, its radicalised madrassas and failing civil institutions, its terrorist training camps and unregulated arms markets. But also because of its large British-bas
ed diaspora.

  It was Burns’ belief that the key to preventing a recurrence of the 7/7 London bombings in 2005 was a strong and stable Pakistan with its government (military or civilian) prepared to take control of its ungoverned spaces and rein in its extremist elements. How to achieve it? It was necessary for Britain to exert pressure, of course. But there was an equal need to be careful, to ensure that the pressure did not become so overwhelming that it undermined or destroyed Pakistan’s government by humiliating it in the eyes of its own people. The orthodoxy at Vauxhall Cross was that it was only legitimate Muslim governments and security services that could control terrorist plots on their soil. And so they had convinced themselves that the help of the Pakistani intelligence services to Britain, particularly the information passed by Khan via Tariq, had been absolutely vital to identifying the links between extremist elements in Britain and groups in Pakistan and to preventing more attacks on Britain, mainland Europe and the USA. The information that he provided had allowed the great uninformed mass to slump safely in front of their television sets and watch whatever passed for importance these days, Britain’s Got Talent or X Factor or whatever.

  As a source Khan was of “unparalleled value”.

  In truth, he was a fucking disaster. The Americans had described the contents of the USB stick known as “The sociopath’s address book” as ‘cannily compiled and heavily redacted’. They accused MI6 of being the credulous dupes of a foreign intelligence service. They were right. It was the same with the “alumni list”. Vauxhall Cross had been right royally screwed. The fish had reeled in the fisherman. Khan had repeatedly used them to enrich himself and pursue what seemed like private vendettas. The Americans were still demanding information on that bloody drone strike. Nobody really believed in the dirty bomb. By 2010 enough was enough. Burns had spent half-an-hour on the phone to Tariq while he was squatting in a ditch in Helmand, telling him that the information from Khan had to bloody improve or else.