Empire State rh-2

by Henry Porter

  ‘Yes, this is me… but I thought…’ he looked towards Loz doubtfully.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know… I’m confused.’

  She waited. ‘Who took the picture?’

  ‘A man in Afghanistan. I don’t know his name.’

  ‘Did you give the picture away? How did it get into the hands of the man calling himself The Poet?’

  He shook his head. ‘I do not remember… I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. We’ll come back to it when you’ve had a chance to think.’ She paused and looked down at the recorder on the floor. ‘You know why we’re asking these questions, don’t you? We believe that one of the men you knew in Bosnia is now a terrorist leader.’

  He blinked slowly with a gentle nod.

  ‘Are there any other individuals you remember from Bosnia – or from Afghanistan, for that matter – who expressed the kind of views we associate with al-Qaeda or other extremist groups?’

  ‘There were many in Afghanistan but I kept away from them. I was not interested in attacking the West.’

  Loz nodded in agreement.

  ‘But it must have been difficult not to be affected by the atmosphere. You are a Muslim and most of the people who came back from Afghanistan were very opposed to Western beliefs and lifestyle.’

  ‘I believe in the teachings of the Prophet. I prayed to him when I was in prison… I prayed to Allah… in these last days I have prayed… and I was saved… but I have suffered moments of doubt. There was much cruelty in Afghanistan. Much violence. But I never hated the West.’ This all came out very slowly. Quite suddenly his eyes closed and his forehead creased. Tears began to run down his cheeks.

  Loz put a hand on his shoulder, but there was something in the gesture that made Herrick think Loz was content with the situation.

  ‘Will you describe The Poet for me?’ she asked when he had recovered.

  ‘He was about five foot five or six… small build… He had dark hair, thinning at the front. His cheeks were sunken, which made him look older than he was, but this was because we had little food in Sarajevo. He went days without eating. I did not recognise him later…’

  ‘Later? That was in Afghanistan,’ said Herrick quickly. ‘The Poet asked you to join him in Afghanistan in ninety-seven. And you saw him there. Is that right?’

  Khan nodded. ‘But he left.’

  ‘Yes, we know he was in New York receiving money from your friend. And the only way he could do that was if you had given him Dr Loz’s address and the picture of you to use as his bona fides. ’

  He nodded.

  ‘Did you know he would use your picture in this way?’

  ‘I do not remember.’

  ‘But you must do. It was like the postcards you sent him recently. It was proof that you were still in the land of the living.’

  Khan’s brow furrowed. His eyes moved rapidly from her to Loz.

  ‘It’s okay, Karim,’ said Loz.

  She waited until his gaze returned to her. ‘I would like to run a few names past you. They’re men you may have come across while in Afghanistan.’

  She went through a list of suspects. Some she had remembered from RAPTOR, others from the FBI watch list. She hoped the process had a ring of authenticity and thought she noticed a certain interest in Loz’s eyes. Khan appeared to hesitate over one or two but was unable to say definitely whether he had met or seen any of the men. In any normal interrogation the failure of memory would have been unacceptable, but she let it pass and asked him instead to list the key men he’d met and describe them. He gave her a score of names, many half-remembered. Then she returned to ask him where he had last seen The Poet.

  ‘It was in the south in the first three years. I stayed with him several times. He was with the men from the Taleban. The men who were giving us the crazy orders. He asked me to take the struggle to the West but I said no. After the second time he lost patience.’

  ‘So he did try to recruit you as a terrorist?’

  He nodded.

  ‘With your background in London he must have thought you were an ideal candidate.’ She wondered whether she was sailing too close to her actual target and before he had time to answer added, ‘So when you refused, you helped him another way – by giving him the photograph and Dr Loz’s address?’

  ‘Yes…I felt…’

  ‘You felt you had to compensate for not going along with his wishes?

  ‘Yes.’

  She spent some time asking about his journey from Afghanistan to the West. ‘There’s something I don’t understand, ’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you come back before the attacks in 2001? You say you were disenchanted with the Taleban and that you had seen too much bloodshed. The ambition to return to medicine must have developed in you before then. Why didn’t you act on it? And why these postcards? Finding a phone to call Dr Loz was surely not beyond you – not in all that time.’ She thought she was exerting just about the right degree of pressure, but then Khan looked around the room as though he suddenly didn’t recognise anyone.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Loz. ‘I think you are confusing him. You must remember what he’s been through.’

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right. We’ll take a break there and return to all this later.’ She switched off the recorder and left the room. Harland followed her out while Foyzi made his presence felt by putting the chairs against the wall and lowering a canvas blind on a window that had suddenly been filled with sunlight.

  ‘You know what you’re doing?’ he said when they reached the shade of a tree fifty yards away.

  ‘I think so… I hope so.’

  ‘You don’t seem to be getting much.’

  ‘I don’t expect to,’ she said.

  He wiped a trickle of sweat on his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Then what the hell are we doing here?’

  ‘Well, as you’re about to bugger off, I hardly think I need to answer to you. This is my operation and I’m going to run it the best way I can think of.’ She paused. ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘I’m waiting to hear from Foyzi, probably this evening. I would like to help. Really.’

  ‘You can, by setting up the sat’ phone. I need to send the recording I’ve just made plus an email.’

  She went to the table where they had sat the night before and composed a message on the laptop.

  At five the sun began its rapid descent into the western desert and the temperature eased a little. All around the riverbanks the steady call of frogs suddenly started up. Herrick moved from her room to the courtyard and came across Harland in a jellaba, getting his things together.

  ‘Thanks for saying goodbye.’

  ‘I was about to,’ he said, and explained that he would try to catch the Luxor Cairo Express at a halt sixty miles away. If he waited until the following day for a train he’d fail to meet up with the Secretary-General in Tel Aviv on Thursday.

  ‘I don’t get it. If you’re so bloody important to them why did they let you spend all this time with Loz?’

  ‘I was no use with my back. I couldn’t travel, let alone sit at a desk. Benjamin Jaidi put me in touch with Loz and things followed on from there.’

  ‘It can’t have been accident that gave you Loz’s name.’

  ‘Jaidi is also a patient so knew how good he was.’

  ‘That I hadn’t realised.’

  ‘Whatever one’s doubts about Sammi Loz, I have to admit he’s a bloody good doctor. I’m pretty much all right now, even after the twinge in Cairo.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘And then as if divinely coordinated, just as you come under the care of Sammi Loz, the Chief pops up in New York and asks you to watch him. And what the fuck was Teckman doing in New York anyway? He doesn’t travel abroad almost as a matter of policy.’

  ‘He was there because of Norquist’s death – a meeting.’

  ‘Yes, the Norquist murder… where this whole thing started.’ She thought again. ‘So both the Chief and the S
ecretary-General were steering you to Loz but without giving you their reasons. What was going on?’ She started to pace up and down, then moved to the shade of a tree. ‘I should have thought about this more seriously. What do they know? Why haven’t they told us?’

  ‘Look, I don’t think Teckman or the FBI or the Secretary-General knew much. The information about Loz’s property deals only came together when we were in Albania. And that’s the most they’ve got.’

  ‘Right. But they still must have suspected a connection between Loz and the assassination of Norquist.’

  ‘And Khan?’ he said.

  ‘Khan? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You’re very certain of that.’

  ‘Yes, Khan is an innocent, in as much as any fighter with his kind of record can be innocent. The point of Karim Khan is that Sammi Loz loves him. You’ve seen the way he looks at Khan in there. Actually I find it quite moving to think he would cast everything to the wind because of this man. But that’s the point, that’s why we’re here. It’s Sammi Loz they’re interested in.’

  Harland’s eyes had come to rest on a beetle doggedly making its way across the path. ‘I see,’ he said eventually. ‘You think the Chief has put both of them on ice here, taken Sammi Loz out of circulation?’

  She nodded impatiently. ‘Sorry, have I been going a bit fast for you?’

  He didn’t smile.

  ‘Tell me about Loz’s life in New York,’ she said. ‘What kind of man are we dealing with here? I need to know more.’

  ‘He’s well-connected. He has beautiful consulting rooms in the Empire State building. He dines at the best places. Knows the best-looking women. A perfect life for a certain type of bachelor.’

  ‘Any permanent girlfriend?’

  ‘I would guess not. Why?’

  ‘I’m wondering if that’s his weakness. We know he’s prepared to risk everything for Khan, so clearly he is a man who follows his emotions. To that extent, he’s impulsive.’

  ‘The one woman I saw him with in a restaurant was dismissed from his presence without much ceremony.’ He stopped. ‘You’re not thinking you…’

  ‘Jesus, no. He’s attractive. Anyone can see that. But I’m hardly his type. Besides, I’ve always thought that seduction was overrated as an interrogation technique.’

  Harland started to say something but decided against it.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing… Look, I want you to be careful over the next few days.’ He took her arm to move away from the buildings. The sun was plunging towards the mountains leaving the landscape bathed in a creamy apricot light. Through a gap in the trees she saw a pair of purple-green herons stalking the waters below. Beyond them a kingfisher hovered.

  ‘Foyzi was right,’ she said. ‘It’s extraordinary here. Almost too much to take in.’

  ‘I mean it, Isis,’ said Harland severely, pulling her round to face him. ‘If for one moment Loz realises you’re stalking him through your questioning of Khan, you’ll be in trouble.’

  ‘Foyzi’s here,’ she said. ‘His men are all over the island, though one never sees them. And I’ve got one thing going for me: the fact that we went to so much trouble to spring Khan. No one could doubt the value we place on him, not when nearly a dozen people flew from Britain to free him. Not even Loz. That was brilliant of Teckman. I just wish he had told us, that’s all.’

  They walked back to the villa where Foyzi told them that the truck was already waiting on the east bank. Harland picked up his stuff and they walked down to the river’s edge where he gave her an awkward kiss that missed her cheek and landed on the fabric of her hood. ‘Foyzi, you look after her,’ he called up the bank.

  ‘What were you going to say back there?’ she asked.

  ‘That Teckman has left you on this island without the standard backup of a lot of puffing, red-faced SIS officers, for a reason.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’d got there.’

  He produced a Walther P38 from his jellaba, together with half a dozen clips of ammunition, and offered them to her.

  ‘I hardly know how to fire one of those things,’ she said.

  ‘You might as well take it. I’ll have to dump it or give it away before I leave the country.’

  ‘Right.’ She took it and let it drop into the pocket of her robe.

  ‘You’ve got my mobile number – it’s good for anywhere. Call me.’

  ‘What, for dinner?’ she said sourly.

  He shook his head with mild exasperation, wedged his bag in the bow of the little wooden skiff and clambered in, knocking his shin against the rowlock and swearing. Herrick smiled and began to climb the bank. She did not give the boat a second glance as it slipped downstream into the dusk.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  She slept deeply that night and woke at six the next morning. After bread and coffee she went to Khan’s room, taking her recorder and the notepad on which she had ordered a series of questions. Khan was propped up, smiling tentatively, as if a dream was about to come to an end. Beside him Loz worked in the morning light at a cane table, setting out the medicine and throwing solicitous glances in his friend’s direction. Foyzi stood by the door and nodded to her as she came in.

  ‘I must congratulate you on these supplies,’ said Loz. ‘I haven’t wanted for anything yet, though we may need a little more of one or two drugs and I’m running low on the ointment. Any chance of a fresh delivery?’

  ‘Maybe we can get something from Luxor,’ she said pleasantly, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed from Loz. ‘You’re looking a lot better, Karim. You seem to have put on a little weight.’

  ‘I hope so,’ he said.

  ‘We were just reminiscing about our life in London,’ said Loz. ‘We were trying to think of a restaurant we used to go to where there was a very pretty waitress that Karim took a fancy to. She was Polish. The food and service were atrocious but Karim insisted we had to eat there because of her. What was her name?’

  Khan shook his head, unable to help.

  ‘Katya!’ said Loz triumphantly. ‘That was it. She was a real beauty. She’s probably two hundred pounds today, five children and a vodka habit.’ He paused. ‘The restaurant was in Camden High Street. We played snooker nearby, then went round to order just before the kitchen closed. You see, Karim wanted to walk her home at the end of the evening but after spending all that money we discovered she was having an affair with the owner.’

  Karim was smiling, borne along with Loz’s enthusiasm.

  ‘Actually, I also wanted to talk about the past,’ Isis said.

  ‘If Karim feels strong enough,’ said Loz.

  ‘I’m sure the rest last night will have done him good. When you were on your way to Bosnia you travelled together, is that right? In a lorry?’

  They both nodded.

  ‘What date was this?’

  ‘February 1993, I think,’ said Loz.

  ‘And you were prevented from going all the way to Sarajevo by Serb troops?’

  ‘Actually the Croats,’ said Loz.

  ‘I’d prefer it if Khan answers,’ she said, switching the recorder on and resting it against the chair leg.

  ‘Yes, the Croats,’ said Khan.

  ‘So you made your way with UN vehicles into Sarajevo. What was the point of that?’ She glanced at the recorder to check its light was pulsing in time with her speech.

  ‘No, we got a lift in a plane. We took all the medicine we could carry.’

  ‘Did you travel with any fellow medical students?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So this expedition was your own idea?’

  ‘Yes, we felt for our fellow Muslims. It was something we thought of together. I raised the money and we took two other people, one of whom could speak the language. But they both turned back with the truck.’

  ‘So you got to Sarajevo and delivered your supplies. Then what?’

  ‘We both worked in the hospitals. A lot of people were being injured by the snipe
rs and in the daily bombardment. Thousands of people died in the siege.’

  She nodded. She had the exact figure in her head – 10,500.

  ‘How did you end up on the frontline?’

  ‘It just happened. Sammi met someone who said they needed ammunition at the front. A big attack was expected. They asked us to help carry the boxes.’

  ‘And…’

  ‘There was an attack going on as we arrived. Many of our men were being killed and they were over-running our lines. We picked up the guns of the dead and started firing. It was as simple as that.’

  ‘As simple as that – from doctors to fighters in a few seconds?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Khan. ‘ But we still helped out as medics. We did both.’

  Loz nodded approvingly.

  ‘When did the incident take place when Sammi was injured?’ Herrick said, raising her hand to stop Loz answering.

  ‘Sometime in the winter of that year,’ Khan replied.

  ‘Of 1993?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where were you treated?’ she asked Loz.

  Loz replied that he was taken first to a hospital in Sarajevo and then to Germany. He recovered in London.

  ‘Which hospital in London?’

  A private one.

  ‘Which?’

  ‘King Edward’s – this was for the skin grafts. They didn’t do a very good job in Sarajevo.’

  ‘But you, Karim, stayed on, for nearly two years. Why?’

  ‘I was committed. I couldn’t understand why Islam did not declare a proper jihad against the Serbs. To leave those people when they had so little help, no heavy guns, no fresh troops, would have been desertion.’

  ‘So you were moved by very much the same emotions as The Poet. You were both men of peace who were turned into soldiers by the extreme conditions in Sarajevo. Tell me exactly where you met him.’

  ‘On the front. He was just an ordinary soldier like me then.’

  ‘Was that in the lines to the north of the city?’

  He looked surprised. ‘Yes – north-east actually.’