‘Ladies and gentlemen. Captain Iqbal Hussain from the cockpit. Sorry for the delay. We’ve been assigned runway Twenty-four Left for this morning’s departure but to get there we have to cross another active runway. The good news is there’s just one plane to land and one to take off, then we should be in position.
‘We’ll be taking off in a south-westerly direction this morning, heading . . .’ And in Zaafir’s fevered mind, the captain’s voice drains away to nothing, background chatter. He puts his hands up to his head, presses his sweaty palms tight against the pain in his temples.
Allah, I pray to You on this our journey for goodness and piety, and for works that are pleasing to You. Allah, lighten this journey and make its distance easy for me . . .
O Allah . . . O . . . And Zaafir shakes his head, almost on the verge of tears. O Allah. Will you please get this plane off the ground.
Bill Lamayette is also closing his eyes and saying a prayer. To a different god. He’d called Sheila ‘Noppy’ Davane yesterday but that had been the number for the MI5 switchboard, and he’d only got that by ringing up the hotel he stays at in London, Brown’s on Albermarle Street, and begging the concierge to go through the local directory. The perils of being on the run from the long arm of the CIA . . .
He pushes redial for the same MI5 general number. Cautiously he puts the phone up to his ear. Just the one bar of battery life. Public holiday, of course, in the UK and Stateside. Please God, let there be an operator . . . He doesn’t like what he hears. Mutters ‘You son of a bitch . . .’ in answer to that pert voicemail delivery. Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins: ‘This is MI5. If you have information you wish to give to the Security Services please hold. Your information is valuable to us and an operator will speak to you shortly . . .’
Shit. Shit. Shit. He turns to look up the giant rock to the summit. Bends back a couple of branch leaves and sees the madrasa guards scrabbling in confused agitation around Pir Durbar.
‘. . . You can also provide your information by contacting MI5 through our website, www.mi5.gov.uk. That’s www.mi5.gov.uk . . .’
Hell’s bells . . . he can’t bring himself to look at the battery charge.
‘. . . If you’re interested in a career with MI5, you can find more information at our website, www.mi5careers.info. Our recruitment agency . . .’
Lamayette punches a number, any number, to jump out of the Julie Andrews talkfest. Moments later he hears the familiar double-pulse ring of a British phone.
The voice on the other end of the line sounds startled. ‘Hello? Can I help you?’
Lamayette covers the mouthpiece, whispers. ‘This is urgent. I am calling from Pakistan. I am a senior CIA officer. I need to get hold of Sheila Davane. Noppy . . .’
‘It’s a public holiday here, friend.’ From the earpiece comes a sound of someone blowing across a steaming cup of tea. ‘I’m just a security guard, answering the phones and whatnot.’
‘Can you see if she’s there?’
‘If who’s where?’
Exasperation. ‘Sheila Davane. She’s like the number four or five in seniority in the whole organisation.’ Lamayette can feel his blood pressure drilling up through the top of his head. A couple of the madrasa banditos are looking down towards the valley floor below, scanning, casting their eyes in his direction. Urgent whispers of encouragement. ‘Noppy. Everybody knows her as Noppy.’
‘Is that right?’ Sound of a biscuit crunching in his overfull mouth. ‘Noppy . . .’ Like it’s the craziest thing he’s ever heard.
‘Do you know who I’m talking about?’
More slow, deliberate biscuit-chewing followed by a swallow. ‘Not the faintest idea, pal.’ Lamayette grips the phone so hard his knuckles show white. Above him, he’s alarmed to see that the body language of one of the guards is tensing up. Something interests him, hands shading his eyes. Looking now straight in Lamayette’s direction. The CIA veteran feels the skin on his face tighten.
‘I don’t suppose you have an extension for this Noppy?’
Seventy-two hours he’s been tamping down his rage at the betrayals, humiliation and crass stupidity that he’s endured, and that’s without factoring in the last twelve hours’ total absence of nicotine. And this . . . this tea-drinking, biscuit-chewing jobsworth is the ultimate. Suddenly the purest anger he’s ever known screams through his body. ‘OF COURSE I FUCKING WELL DON’T HAVE AN EXTENSION . . .’
Too late to undo what he’s done.
Within seconds his hiding place is peppered by gunfire. Spits of dust flying all around him. Twu-twu-twu-twu-twunnngg. Five semi-automatic rifles laying down six hundred rounds per minute. Wildly inaccurate but scary as all hell.
Especially when you don’t have a gun yourself.
A chilling cry echoes from the top of the slope. And Lamayette can’t help but gape. Without thinking of the holy man, the five guards career down towards him. Dishdashas flapping. Some holding daggers above their heads, shining blades glistening in the sun. Rudyard Kipling would have recognised that timeless bloodlust.
‘Hello? Hello? . . .’ From the handset, the very faintest voice from London. ‘What’s going on there?’
But Bill Lamayette is running for his life. Barefoot. Winding this way and that. A huge beast of a man sprinting across ploughed fields and open ground. Desperate. But clueless as to what to do now.
Best guess, he has about a thousand-yard advantage . . . but safety, if you could loosely describe Peshawar and Islamabad as safety, is hundreds of miles away. Everything in between crawls with danger and menace. A thousand yards’ head start is as nothing.
MI5 Headquarters
Thames House
Eight minutes later
One of the disadvantages of working a bank holiday is that it increases your chances of bumping into Sheila ‘Noppy’ Davane, who, famously, doesn’t do holidays. Long weekends serve only one purpose for her, the chance to poke around this massive structure and descend on some junior staffer, get them to show her some new piece of technology or walk her through a particular surveillance operation. Again and again. Until she’s satisfied.
Today’s victim is a floppy-haired, pale-faced ‘watcher’ whose official job description is CCTV surveillance monitor, as in someone hidden away in an audio-visual booth in the deep bowels of the massive Thames-side fortress. Nothing more to do than monitor CCTV cameras. Today’s watcher had been ploughing through hours of footage – perhaps scrolling a little faster than he should – logging major incidents, skimming through the others. Taking calls on his mobile, sending off a text or two, as he worked. Plugged into his iPod, of course. Singing tunelessly to himself in a comfortable little bubble of existence.
Then the unmistakable shape of stout, grey-haired Davane shouldered into the soundproofed room, her inquisitive mind itching for company. And a ‘watching’ task that would have taken a couple of hours . . . well, it won’t get finished today. Not at this rate.
‘Why isn’t it possible to teach a computer to watch this footage, do all the real-time analysis for us?’ The Ulsterwoman leans across the young technician, dabs a thick finger at a stationary black object on one of the quartered screens. They’re looking at surveillance of an Internet café on York Way, one of the roads bordering King’s Cross train station. ‘That bag, for instance . . . it’s been there for at least five minutes.’
‘You mean like an algorithm?’ Someone please take Granny away . . .
‘I don’t know what these things are called,’ she says fussily. ‘But it can’t be beyond the wit of man to tell a computer that leaving a bag unattended is worthy of our interest.’
Shrug of the shoulders. ‘I guess.’ The mumbled answer speaks to the fact that this is the second hour of Davane’s inquisitional riffs. Why can’t we do this? Has anybody thought to do that? All well above the young man’s pay grade and not helping him process through this York Way footage.
‘It would save us a lot of time . . .’ The shrill bleep-bleep of the phone st
ops the conversation. The watcher leans back in his chair and lazily collects up the handset. Please let this be for Noppy . . .
Big smile on the watcher’s face, ‘That’s the front desk, Ms Davane,’ his white-as-paper hand covering the mouthpiece. ‘They need you down there. Some kind of weird call for you from Pakistan. Some CIA guy said it was urgent.’
‘Put it through . . . put it through here right away.’
‘The signal must have dropped off.’ Another shrug of the shoulders. ‘Or the guy hung up. They’re dead keen for you to go down.’
‘Tell them to trace the call. Get a number . . .’ Davane’s already tugging at the massive door covered with heavy soundproof cladding. ‘And help me get this ridiculous door open.’
Swat Valley
Six minutes later
This barefoot business is not the way to run through the hills. Especially hills studded with sharp-edged chips of granite. Bill Lamayette is gasping for air. His feet are shredded.
He wipes down his face with a sleeve. But still . . . still he’s ahead of his pursuers. Don’t give up. They’re gobbling up the distance but he’s . . . he’s not dead yet. Climb. Keep on climbing, Bill. Above the valley.
The landscape has become alpine and Lamayette’s one plan is to reach the top of the valley wall. Maybe some pro-American yeti will intervene.
Wherever he looks are rocks, creeping plants, low, scrubby thickets. Absolutely no cover whatsoever. Two hundred yards back, his pursuers, hooting and hollering, are scrambling behind him. Firing indiscriminately.
It suddenly strikes Lamayette that this landscape is familiar; videos of Osama Bin Laden in his pre-9/11 phase had been shot in places like this. Dressed like a typical tribal hayseed. Skipping from rock to rock along remote pathways. Padding through mountain passes. Looking like he belonged, and was not in fact the pampered son of a Saudi billionaire. It had amused Lamayette there always appeared to be a goat somewhere in the background, quietly chewing its cud, looking up as Bin Laden mooched past. Thinking, Who the fuck is this idiot?
What a thing it would be if I bumped into Osama right now . . .
Then indeed, two extraordinary things happen. Totally unrelated.
The phone in his hand, which he’s long since forgotten about. It starts to ring. He pants. ‘Ha . . . low?’
No sooner does his brain register the voice on the other end of the line than there’s a terrible cacophony of gunfire. Violent and rapid, and a strangely different timbre to what he’s heard before. Deeper. Tdug-tdug-tdug-tdug-tdug.
Enough already.
He dives to one side, downhill, into a spongy mattress of scrub. In mid-tumble he registers two quick facts: that new, sonorous drilling of gunfire means he’s either dead and doesn’t know it yet. Or he will be soon, because he’s stopped running. And Pir Durbar’s guards will be upon him.
Lying on his back now, winded and dazed, Lamayette looks up to the heavens. Chest thumping. Big bass drum pulsing in his ears. Dazed and in a staggering amount of pain, he puts the phone back to his ear . . . fully expecting these to be the last words he ever says.
MI5 Headquarters
Thames House
Sheila ‘Noppy’ Davane is getting impatient. What is going on? ‘Lamayette. Bill Lamayette. Is that you there?’ The security guard and two network engineers look on. Pensive. The audio room is dark, lit only by a small anglepoise lamp and the backlit features of the various recording devices.
‘Oohh . . . mmmtmmhgh ffffukkkkk . . . iiiing bbbaahhllllll tsssseeeekkk.’
She turns to face the three men, who have their arms crossed in front of them. No more clue what it is going on than Davane. ‘What did he just say?’ They shake their heads. No idea. One of the engineers fiddles with the gain settings on the audio equipment.
‘I rrrrppppppd meeee ffffukkkkk . . . iiiing bbbaahhllllll tsssseeeekkk.’
One of the engineers uncrosses his arms and pushes away from the wall. ‘I think he said . . . something rude.’ A baffled thought plays across his face. ‘I ripped my fucking ball-sac.’
‘Ball-sac?’ flares Davane. ‘Lamayette . . . Lamayette, what’s going on?’
Silence from the other end.
‘Lamayette . . . Bill?’ Davane angles herself closer to the small microphone. Speaks very slowly, as if to a child. ‘Bill. What. Do. You. Want. To. Speak. About?’
This time the response is crystal clear. The first disorienting flush of pain and nausea has passed. ‘Sheila. I think I lost my testicles about two hundred yards ago.’
The security guard and one of the engineers stifle a laugh. Davane wags an angry finger at both of them. Her eyes fierce behind her big framed glasses. ‘You rang me up to tell me that . . .’
‘No, Sheila . . .’ And Lamayette breaks off for a second. A huge clearing out of the lungs and a gigantic spit follow, sounding like someone ripping up bedsheets. He’s still breathing heavily. ‘Today. Sheila. Pakistan flight . . .’ Wheezing noisily. ‘Stop PIA. To New York . . .’
Pause.
Davane stabs a button on the internal communication system, direct through to one of the always-staffed operations rooms. She speaks clearly. ‘This is Davane. Top priority: get me a status on all local PIA flights today to New York. Stand-by Special Branch, stand-by all our airport officers. We might be grounding some planes . . .’
In the meantime one of the engineers has been playing with switches and a dial. Out of the background ether he pulls Lamayette’s voice, very distinct: ‘Hey. Lookee here. The damned cavalry have arrived. Whoopdi-doo for the Special Forces.’
Davane raises her voice. ‘Focus on me, Bill.’ Gently pounding her fists on the wooden work surface. ‘Bill? Bill?’
‘Sorry, Sheila.’ Lamayette’s breathing is steadier but he still can’t squeeze out more than a handful of words at a time. ‘Big hijack planned . . . Nothing like we’ve . . . ever seen before . . . They’re going . . . to . . .’
‘Bill . . . which flight? Who’s involved? How many?’
‘Owwwww. Shiitttt. What did you guys do that for?’
‘What is it, Bill? Bill?’
‘Some Green Beret bastard . . . just . . . shot . . . me . . . with . . . a . . . trank . . . daaaa-rrrrrr . . .’
‘A tranquilliser dart?’ Davane frowns. Tugs on the thick chain of her glasses. Fretting. Trying to make sense of all this . . . weirdness.
‘Bill. Bill. Bill . . . What are the hijackers going to do?’
‘Shit . . . shot . . . Again . . . ‘ucking swine . . .’
There’s a lion-like roar from Lamayette as he struggles mightily to hold back the dark curtain passing his way. Enough energy for just one last thing . . .
‘Qissaaa . . . Khawani . . .’
And then there’s a sound the like of which those in the tiny cramped audio suite have not heard before. Relying only on their sense of hearing and the power of imagination . . . it sounds very much like the death-roar of a bull elephant followed by its sudden and final collapse earthwards.
Nearer than Lamayette could have imagined, less than a mile away, someone else is also relying on wits and a fevered imagination to work out what the hell is going on.
The State Department’s Kirsten Ackerman sits on a bench facing towards the scowling form of Jahanghir. They’ve just landed in the rear of a MH47E Chinook helicopter. Unable to move, because, standing fore and aft of them, are a pair of Green Berets from 3rd Special Forces Group. Each with an ever-ready trigger finger cocked to the side of a machine gun and looking underwhelmed to be babysitting ‘friendlies’, while overmatched and underpowered ‘combatants’ engage their colleagues in a firefight outside.
The rotors of the Chinook spin on an idle power setting and through the open rear ramp Ackerman can see shadows of the three blades swooping by. She lets out a long, draining sigh.
Who knows who was to blame? She had worked the phones on realising that Bill Lamayette had doubled back to the religious school. Perhaps she’d been indiscreet. Not though
t things through. In the absence of an actual dead body . . . Washington’s assumption is that Lamayette has gone rogue. She knows that now. To whom he had defected and why, well, that’s how come they want him captured so badly. One thing is certain, nobody had been in the slightest bit interested in her tale of holy men plotting evil deeds. The people in the helicopter are not thinkers – they’re doers, and as far as they’re concerned Lamayette is a nutcase, gone way off reservation.
It must have been that one of her calls had been pinged by the CIA or even the Pakistani spooks. As she and Jahanghir had been preparing to leave the Peshawar garage and head back to the madrasa, the real military had arrived. Pakistani soldiers. Effectively kidnapping them, disbursing Jahanghir’s rent-a-mob, and keeping the two of them blindfolded, under guard and out of circulation until the Green Beret Chinook came to pick them up at an undisclosed location. By that time, the mission to get Lamayette was prepped and the helicopter left as quickly as it had arrived.
Lamayette could at least rest easy knowing he had made himself a king-sized pain in the ass.
The hardware needed to capture him was impressive: from the USS Ronald Reagan in the Persian Gulf, an E2 Hawkeye early-warning-style twin-engine turboprop had triangulated Lamayette’s mobile phone signals to within a dozen yards. Two drones had flown figures of eight in the skies over the Swat Valley, waiting for that mobile to be powered up. And when it was finally switched on – for long enough to get a meaningful fix – the drones fed live imagery of Lamayette and his phone up to, among others, the Special Forces team inside the Chinook.
But the best indication of Washington’s ardour is that somebody had actually okayed inserting US troops and hardware into the situation. Into Pakistan. A wild and woolly place at the best of times. Only somebody at cabinet level could push that button.
Which explains why the helicopter had spent three hours standing off, circling the same spot at 9,000 feet, out of earshot of the ground.
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