At Hell's Gate

by Mark Abernethy

  I sent the text from my burner phone and made another coffee. After twenty minutes, I wasn’t so much annoyed by the lack of response from Gregory, but I certainly noticed it. If a client wants to build an ‘in place’ component into the job – and even intimate that he’ll be in the neighbourhood – it’s nice to show some urgency.

  A knock came at the door. ‘It’s me, Steph,’ came the voice, and I saw her through the peephole and opened up.

  ‘Christ,’ she said, pushing through the door and walking towards the TV set. ‘Just bumped into Whitey in the foyer – he’s telling all the foreigners to keep their people inside the hotel for a while.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, and as I did Steph found the local Kabul news where a woman spoke in fast Pashto over amateur footage of ambulances loading people into the back and police and military swarming around, putting handcuffs on people who looked European and military. But in plain clothes.

  ‘She’s saying foreign mercenaries have been shot during a stand-off with militants, south of Kabul on the highway.’

  I kept watching the night-time footage which showed the clean-up operation on what seemed to be a side road; it was the road I’d been looking at the night before, through a viewer clipped to the back of a Canon.

  ‘Are you shitting me?’

  ‘I think that’s our road to the tower,’ said Steph.

  A thirty-something farmer was interviewed by whoever held the phone camera, and he gabbled excitedly.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ I asked.

  ‘He says foreigners had been sneaking around for several days, and the militants had accosted these mercenaries in the early hours of the morning. They were heavily armed Europeans carrying high explosives.’

  I sank back in one of the armchairs, rubbing my face. I still had some jet lag and I was struggling to understand what it all meant. It looked like there was another crew in Kabul, with the same intention as us: to hit that cell phone tower. Someone was cutting my lunch, and I didn’t like it.

  I picked up my phone and called Gregory Crowther, not altogether clear that the ABC man was in Kabul somewhere but hoping he was. The call went to voice mail and I left a cheery message, asking if he could please verify that he’d received my text. But I was seething.

  ‘You spent yesterday at the Interior Ministry?’ I asked Steph.

  ‘Most of the afternoon,’ she said. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘You make new best friends with anyone?’

  ‘There’s one manager down there, she’s okay. Went to uni in Brisbane.’

  ‘I don’t think ABC Telecom has an office in Kabul, but they’d have some sort of registered address – somewhere to send the mail. I’d like that address.’

  She pulled a handful of business cards from the back pocket of her jeans and sorted through them. I looked through my phone for MG’s number and called him.

  ‘Yep,’ he answered.

  ‘There’s been a shooting just south of Kabul,’ I said. ‘Keep your cover, no side trips, and get back here as fast as possible. Everyone to their rooms – no congregating until I say.’

  ‘Roger that, boss,’ he said, and signed off.

  I watched Steph talking to the woman she’d met the day before – it was funny how people with good language skills took on the accented English of the people they were speaking to, as Steph was doing now: English, with an Afghani accent. I followed a bit of laughing and some chat – she was good, was Steph. One of the best interrogators that Aussie military intelligence ever had. Just as the laughter topped out, she dropped ABC Telecom into the conversation, and when there was hesitation Steph started up with the hoo-ha about rebuilding Afghanistan and infrastructure investment and then Steph was writing on the hotel pad beside the TV, and then the call was over.

  ‘InterContinental,’ she said. ‘You want me to go with you?’

  ‘Let me try him again,’ I said, and I hit redial on Gregory’s number. This time the call went to voice mail but much faster. On the phone!

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Did MG get weapons yet?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Steph. ‘But they’re with him, in his car.’

  ‘And?’ I asked, raising my eyebrows.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, whipping out the car keys. ‘I have a nine-mil in my car – happy now?’

  10

  We sped over to the InterContinental, through light traffic, in a four-year-old Nissan Patrol that MG had bought. In Australia this vehicle would have cost $20,000 – in Kabul, through a friend of someone who knew a man, MG had bought two of them for US$8000. Kabul was becoming a busy city like other major centres in Asia, but it didn’t yet have the craziness of Mumbai or Manila. It was cool with clear skies, but I was burning with annoyance. Perhaps I’d drawn too many straws together, too quickly, and come to a negative conclusion. But in my line of work coincidence and proximity are powerful arguments for the prosecution. The way I saw it, Gregory had flown in to Kabul, and suddenly there was a crew of what the media was calling ‘mercenaries’ carrying explosives and caught in a shootout with local Taliban. The Taliban militia had probably intercepted the hired guns on their way to blow something. And what would that be, out there on the Kandahar road, on the same side road that led to the cell tower?

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Steph, driving smoothly but quickly.

  ‘Ask him some questions,’ I said, forcing out a grim smile. ‘But maybe not with the same intelligence that you would apply.’

  ‘It’s the InterCon – we can’t take weapons in there.’

  She was right. They were picky about that, which was why you didn’t see many bodyguards and their clients hanging around in the bar. ‘Oh, well – let’s kick him where it hurts and see where the conversation leads us.’

  ‘Mike!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah – I got it,’ I said as we pulled in to the exclusive road in west Kabul where the InterContinental was located. We parked in the visitor area, having allowed the security team to look through the car, then we walked to the reception desk which was staffed by local women. I handed over to Steph. She went into charm mode, flashing the smile and letting the Pashto roll. I tell you something – there’s nothing in the world to match an Afghani’s smile when an Aussie girl with a ponytail just launches into the Pashto jokes. We were at the elevators inside of thirty seconds, with a room number.

  ‘What did that take?’ I asked as we sped to the fourth floor.

  ‘Greg’s my brother,’ she said with a smile. ‘He must have lost my Afghani phone number, because he just won’t call – bloody men!’

  We followed the arrows out of the lift and walked down the hallway until we got to the door marked 415.

  I knocked. Beside me I could see Steph softening her shoulders, loosening her neck. You can take the girl out of western Queensland . . .

  There was no answer. We looked at one another. I tried again, hitting the door a little harder. ‘You there, Mr Crowther?’ I said. ‘It’s Dave Smith, from the international newsagency service. I’ve got your magazines and newspapers – The Economist finally turned up. Sorry about the wait.’

  A voice croaked out, cleared its throat, and then said, ‘Um, oh yeah. Look, I’m with someone right now, could you leave them at the door?’

  Okay – so my employer had company, and he sounded scared. I wanted to kick down the door, but the best way forward was to act in a way that did not draw the authorities.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Crowther,’ I said. ‘You know the rules. I need a signature. Mustafa’s using that new QuickBooks set-up in accounts, and he’s not letting the small stuff ride. Sorry about that.’

  There was silence and then he said okay, and I heard footfalls towards the door. He opened it and when he saw my face I thought he was going to hug me.

  ‘There we go,’ I said loud enough so the other parties thought he was being handed a clipboa
rd.

  Over Gregory’s shoulder I could see a sliver of the living area, and a man’s arm in a red long-sleeved shirt, draped on the arm of a chair. I looked Gregory in the eye and held up one finger, and he shook his head and held up two fingers.

  I pushed him into the room and kept up the banter. ‘Okay, I’ll drop it on the table, okay, Mr Crowther?’

  I felt Steph in close behind me, coiled and ready to go. She’d grown up on cattle stations. She had shoulders, she had arms – she had brothers. I had no qualms about bringing her into this situation. I only hoped the other guests hadn’t been able to circumvent the InterContinental’s metal detectors and security guards and bring in a gun or a knife.

  We walked past the wardrobes and the cupboard with the ironing board and iron, and then we were in the room – long, with a living area and business desk, but not quite a suite.

  In front of me were two men, one at the business desk, the other in the red shirt in an armchair. I’d put them in their late thirties, athletically built and unshaven. Ex-soldiers looking for a payday. Red Shirt looked like the muscle: dark-haired, strongly built, military haircut. The other one – a swarthy chrome-dome with mean, dark eyes – seemed to be the leader. Neither of them moved.

  ‘Well, well,’ I said, as friendly as possible. ‘Just in time for the meeting.’

  ‘Pardon?’ said Chrome-Dome, in what was a French or Spanish accent.

  ‘The meeting,’ I said, looking for signs of weapons. They might have been carrying knives, but they weren’t carrying handguns on their hips or chests. That left their ankles, and if I saw anyone reach to tie a lace, I’d react fast.

  ‘There’s no meeting, Mr . . .?’

  ‘Looks like one to me,’ I said, keeping up the smile, determined that these guys would be the ones to start the tough stuff. ‘One employer, two crews. One crew fucks it up, the other one has to take over.’

  Chrome-Dome leaned forward – forearms on his knees – and I took a step towards him. He saw what I was concerned about, and sat up straight, holding his hands briefly in a surrender stance. ‘Okay, Mr whatever your name is – let’s be calm, we’re not armed.’

  ‘So where were we up to in the meeting?’ I said, turning to Gregory.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Chrome-Dome. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m not confused, thanks all the same,’ I said. ‘Let’s hear from Greg.’

  Gregory shrugged. ‘I don’t know where to start.’

  ‘Let’s start with the news this morning,’ I said, noticing that Steph was positioning herself at ninety degrees to Red Shirt, ready to move if he moved. I pointed at Chrome-Dome. ‘Those were your guys, on the Kandahar road?’

  ‘Who were my guys?’ he said. He was a terrible actor.

  ‘Okay, then.’ I smiled. ‘You two can leave now, because Greg and I have some things to discuss, and if you’re not in it . . .’

  ‘Well, hang on, cowboy,’ he said, like he was running the show.

  ‘What did you call me?’ I said, moving towards him until my knee touched his. ‘You call me a fucking cowboy?!’

  From the corner of my eye, Red Shirt stood and Steph leapt at him. Chrome-Dome ducked for his ankle, at which point I hit him with a straight right to the face. This is not my normal posture, by the way. When you’re six-foot-three and 125 kilograms, nerve strikes, wrist-holds and pressure points usually work just fine. But if someone reaches for a gun, and I can’t line up a good slap on the side of their neck, then they’ll get my fist. Which is a bad deal for them because as well as being a former rugby league front-rower, I’m also a boxer.

  I got him on the point of his nose and the blood and snot flew pretty much everywhere. As Chrome-Dome’s face sagged, unconscious, into his chest, I knelt and removed a small Colt Defender from his ankle holster. I turned and pointed it at Red Shirt, who was swinging Steph around, trying to get her off his neck. But she was in too close for him to exert his power and size advantage, and once she’d driven her knee into the side of his knee, she quickly had him where she could put a chokehold on the poor bastard. Gregory and I watched as she grabbed his torso with her legs and leaned back, choking off blood to his brain. He was unconscious in about five seconds, and I noticed how gently she lowered his head to the carpet when she disengaged.

  ‘Thanks for the help,’ she said, pulling hair from her face as she got to her feet. ‘You’re a couple of gentlemen.’

  Then she saw Chrome-Dome, slumped over and leaking somewhat. ‘Christ, Mike – is he alive?’

  ‘Maybe, but look what he might have been doing,’ I said, holding the Colt.

  She immediately knelt at Red Shirt’s feet, pulled back his jeans and took a similar handgun from the man’s ankle.

  Now I turned to Gregory. ‘Get your stuff – thirty seconds and then the train’s leaving.’

  I hid the pistols behind the ceiling panels in the elevator, and we walked out of the InterCon and straight to the Patrol, which the staff had left on the front apron. Steph drove us out of there and I sat in the back seat with Gregory.

  ‘Well?’ I asked, when we were down the drive and heading back into the heart of Kabul.

  ‘Shit, Mike,’ he said, rubbing at his temples.

  ‘Make it quick, Greg,’ I said. ‘I have no idea when the cavalry’s coming after us.’

  Greg nodded, and gestured a thumb over his shoulder. ‘Those guys were hired by the new directors.’

  ‘New directors, of ABC?’

  Greg nodded. ‘When I contacted you, I needed to move quickly and I couldn’t meet anywhere except a clean room. That was Singapore.’

  He was talking about spaces where just about all forms of radio communication are jammed: that includes listening devices, transmitters, Bluetooth, NFC (near field communication), wi-fi, walkie-talkies and cell phones. He was telling me that the new directors had him or his office under surveillance.

  ‘Who are these directors?’

  ‘A French company called Infuse Digital,’ said Gregory. ‘I didn’t trust them, but I’m just an employee – I don’t sit on the board. Infuse Digital bought forty-three per cent of the shares, giving them effective control.’

  ‘Why didn’t you trust them?’

  ‘They bought into ABC two months ago, and as soon as they were on the board the CEO was in my ear, changing all our strategy.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as shutting down our analogue network in Afghanistan,’ said Gregory. ‘We had a contract out for a Kabul construction company to dismantle the towers, and the systems hardware in the cabinet was to be redeployed to a site we have in Africa. All the paperwork was completed with the government.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But the CEO was suddenly telling me to scratch that, the new shareholders didn’t want to decommission it after all.’

  ‘So, how did we get here?’ I asked, giving him a smile. ‘I have a six-person crew ready to roll, I’m waiting for the in-place payment, and you’re telling me the new owners don’t want the thing shut down? I don’t follow.’

  Gregory made a fool’s face, embarrassed. ‘I haven’t behaved very well in all this, I guess. I had some off-books funds available, and decided to . . . you know.’

  ‘You ordered a demolition even though your board wants to keep the tower?’

  ‘Yep,’ he said.

  ‘Shit, Gregory. This is an unauthorised side project?’

  ‘Afraid so, Mike. The Afghani government wanted the network gone – they were going to shut down the spectrum – and I didn’t see any upside for our company to keep the tower.’

  ‘So why were these other guys trying to blow it?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they were.’

  11

  We took Gregory through to my room at the Serena. At this point the relationship was slightly confused
: was he my prisoner? Had I taken him in for questioning? I was settling for the contractor-protecting-his-client role at this point, and happy to see where it took us.

  I asked Steph if she could track down some sandwiches or wraps.

  ‘You a vegetarian?’ she asked Gregory.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’d prefer chicken over lamb or beef.’

  I made two coffees and asked him to clarify.

  ‘That person you punched in the face calls himself Emile,’ said Gregory. ‘He wasn’t concerned that those people were caught or shot overnight.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. But it wasn’t okay. Every person in my job worries that at some point a dickhead with ‘chief’ at the start of their title is sitting at a board table just playing with us. Like we’re the dumb little pawns sent out to scurry around in a bigger maze that we don’t understand.

  ‘I think that drama this morning was done to bring out the Taliban,’ said Gregory. ‘A message to the government, perhaps.’

  ‘What did Emile want from you?’ I asked.

  ‘Ha!’ he said, sipping on his coffee. ‘He wanted his payment.’

  *

  We kicked it around a bit and I ascertained that Emile hadn’t been aware of me or my gang. That had changed now, but it was an interesting part of the puzzle. I’d not been in a situation quite like this before and I had a couple of questions that Gregory probably couldn’t answer. The first was, what kind of a liability would Gregory be if I just let him wander around Kabul? Operational security (op-sec) is a big thing for me in my gigs, and I saw unknowns and dangers in letting Gregory off the leash. Who would he go to? Who would he speak to on the phone? What would be his next port of call, and who would be listening in? If someone wants to be a muppet in a dangerous country, let them. But if they implicate or entangle my people, my job is to stop them.