Harris smiled a you-got-me smile.
“We do.”
Chapter Nine
The truck moved slowly to start with. Whoever the driver was, he was fighting a losing battle with the gearbox. She could hear the grinding noise of the transmission rod being forced into action. Mattie slumped back against the metal frame of the vehicle. When Wasim had called Ali and lifted the heavy cover of the pick-up, she had hoped she could follow. A foolish hope, she knew. Wasim had slowly shaken his head. She could not quite read his expression, his face hidden by the shadow of the oilcloth and the shemagh around his face. Ali had stopped, looking at her without knowing what to say. She had shushed him away.
“Adhhab… go.” She moved her head towards the opening that Wasim had created. He could not be seen to be reluctantly leaving her behind. She was kafir. She was a woman.
Henry words still swam in her head… trust me. He was different… that she could tell and his eyes looked… familiar. But why would he risk his life for her?
Mattie focused on keeping track of where they were heading. She had known Raqqa before the jihadists took over. An ancient city, that had emerged around 300BC if she recalled correctly. No doubt its Hellenistic and Byzantine past would not be relevant to a group like ISIL. Raqqa had once been a place where nomadic tribes and clans had settled, a diverse background that gave it its cultural richness. That mixed city was going to suffer terribly under its new ruler. Since the beginning of 2014, when ISIL captured Raqqa from the Syrian opposition forces, Mattie had received information from reliable sources that ISIL had started cleansing the city systematically. It had started by identifying and executing the quiet pro-Assad and Syrian opposition supporters alike, destroying at the same time all Shia mosques and Christian churches.
The truck picked up speed. She braced herself for another long journey. She touched her injured arm gingerly. The dressing Ali had changed when they were on their way to Raqqa would need to be refreshed tonight. But she doubted priority would be given to a foreign woman if medication and bandages were in short supply.
The vehicle veered abruptly, almost throwing her off the rickety bench where she sat. It jumped over a sharp ridge that made the whole structure shudder and come to a sudden stop. The brakes were pulled firmly, wincing with a screech. They had been driving for a little more than 15 minutes. She could almost certainly find her way back to the hotel.
The heavy cover was lifted and the small man who had driven the truck jerked his head, indicating that she should follow him. She made sure her face was properly covered and moved cautiously towards the opening. She gathered her heavy robe around her shins and managed to leave the truck without falling. The fighter was already impatiently waiting at the door of an apartment block.
She moved silently through the door. The smell of food and cleaning products welcomed her, a strange mix that Mattie could not quite make out. The man shrugged his head towards the stairs. They climbed to the second floor of what seemed a luxurious building. It was well maintained, with marble flooring and immaculate white-painted walls. They reached a spacious landing. The man removed his shoes, moved forwards towards one of the two main doors and knocked. The door opened after a few seconds. They had been expected. A slender woman in full niqab opened.
Mattie stepped into the type of environment she had not seen since she had left London a few weeks ago. Expensive marble had been used not only for the entrance but for the flooring of the apartment, the deep silk carpets spread over the ground looked expensive. Such opulence contrasted strangely with the emptiness of the built-in shelves around the room, and the sadness of their look. The place had no doubt been owned by a Christian or Shia family. Mattie simply hoped that they had had time to flee before ISIL came knocking at their door.
The rustling of fabric came from behind her. Another woman appeared from within the apartment. Mattie turned around to face her new jailors. The woman who had just arrived lowered her veil. Her face was plump and plain. No make-up and no smile either. She ran her eyes over Mattie. She was making a judgement, but Mattie did not understand of what, the coldness of her glance unsettling.
“Clean her up,” was all she said. She kept looking at Mattie until she disappeared into the corridor, led by the woman who had opened the door. She too dropped her niqab to reveal a young, surprisingly beautiful face… no make-up needed there… large brown eyes, long lashes and perfectly shaped lips. A frightening thought dawned on Mattie. She hesitated but the young woman smiled and opened the door to an elegant bathroom. For now, Mattie needed to wash and have her wound dressed with proper bandages. The question of what came next could wait.
* * *
One of his burner phones had kept buzzing during the lunch. Harris had felt the repeated insect droning in his jacket inner pocket. He walked down Cornhill towards Bank Tube station and dialled the number back. His call was answered after the second ring…
Promising.
“News for me?” Harris was almost pleasant.
The man on the other side of the conversation wasn’t. “If I call it means I have.”
“I’ll be back at The Cross in 30 minutes, will call you from there.” Harris didn’t care if Brett wasn’t in the mood as long as his intel was worth it.
“I’m at the club.” Brett softened a little.
“Tempting as it is, I need to be back at the ranch asap. Will call.”
Harris pocketed his phone and took the stairs that led to the long corridors of Bank Station. Brett Allner-Smith was due to meet some of his Middle Eastern contacts who regularly sold him antiquities stolen from war-torn countries. Iraq had been a treasure trove. Syria seemed to be going the same way and Brett might provide Harris with a new way into ISIL.
As soon as he had cleared security at Vauxhall Cross, Harris found an empty room on the ground floor and called Brett.
“What’s the latest from your Middle Eastern clients then?”
“They’re not my clients… they’re my suppliers.” Brett sounded terribly proper.
“Beg your pardon, of course…” Harris could indulge Brett’s punctiliousness.
“Do you want the intel I have or not?”
“Shoot.” Harris had pulled out a chair and sat down.
“A number of high-quality artefacts are coming on the market… not from the usual providers.”
“You mean Al-Qaeda?”
“That’s right… These new people are rather amazing… pieces straight from the top sites in Iraq. Even after the level of extraction during the Iraq war they go where no one else has dared go. And now from Syria as well.”
“I thought your Al-Qaeda contacts were pretty good at sourcing quality stuff?” This was not a trick question. Harris was genuinely intrigued.
“I do have the best contacts, true… but this new lot is on another level… nothing stops them.”
“You’re not trying to sell me a piece, are you?”
Brett grumbled some inaudible insult.
“What’s so spectacular about these items then?”
“Some pieces come from Nimrud, Assyrian… King Ashurbanipal II, cuneiform tablets, manuscripts – I mean manuscripts of that era – and ancient gold jewellery of course.”
Harris remained silent.
“You don’t believe me?”
“To state the obvious, I only deal in current data, perhaps cold war stuff at a push, but certainly not manuscripts that predate our Lord JC.”
“Still… this king was of immense importance, the last great king of Assyria… he built the first library ever known to man, a collection of over 30,000 clay tablets…”
“Brett, I don’t need a lecture on ancient history… I’ll take your word for it.”
“What I’m trying to say is that this new terrorist group will make a lot of money when they sell these pieces on the black market.”
�
��They are beefing up their war chest. How much do you think that stuff will fetch?”
A sigh of exasperation. “That stuff as you call it is extremely rare… tens of millions. The pieces are museum quality.”
“Where are the buyers… your clients.”
Brett coughed lightly. “Europe mainly… and before you tell me I shouldn’t sell these, if it’s not me…”
“It’ll be someone else… I get that. The reason why you are not behind bars and working for HM’s intelligence service instead.”
“Always happy to help.”
“Do these new guys trust you?”
“Why should they not? I deliver and I pay on time…”
“You sure?”
“Are you worried for me?”
“Always… wouldn’t want to lose one of my best assets… bad for the profile and the reputation.”
Brett’s silence showed Harris he had scored as he wanted… nothing was more irresistible than being called best asset by MI6.
“What’s next?”
“I have a call with their top negotiator tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Will you be asked to go over there, do you think?”
“I think this time I’ll rely on photographs to appraise the goods and if they want to meet in person it won’t be in Syria or Iraq.”
“Good call.” At least for the moment. Harris might need Brett to become more involved but why make him aware of that now? A return ticket to Baghdad was no guarantee that the holder would ever be able to use it for the London leg back.
* * *
There were camp beds everywhere. The once luxurious entrance hall and comfortable waiting lounge had been transformed into a dormitory for young jihadists.
The rank smell of bodies in need of a proper wash combined with that of cooked food did not bother Henry as it once would have. Most of the camp beds were empty but the few fighters who were there did not bother to stop what they were doing when Henry, Wasim and Ali entered. Two men at the far end of the lounge near the large French windows that opened onto a wide terrace were sitting on their beds, prayer beads in hand. Their bandages looked new; two fighters freshly returned from combat.
A small man, thin and dishevelled, walked towards them. His eyes, deeply set in his skull, darted around the room. He expected to be jumped on at any moment. He told Wasim he had been instructed to show them to their room. His scruffy attire seemed to have once been a hotel uniform, but it had not been pressed for a while and it was hard to read the logo that might have revealed the hotel’s name.
He handed Wasim and Henry a key. But when Ali tried to follow, he stopped him. “You’re going somewhere else.”
Henry was about to protest. Wasim cut him short. “Where are you putting him?”
“With the others, here downstairs.” The man hesitated. Did he not understand the instruction correctly?
“We’ll come and fetch you.” Ali’s face looked hopeful again.
Henry and Wasim reached their floor where everything changed. This floor must have been reserved for senior executives. The carpet was deep and clean. The wall bore no traces of grime. The small man showed them to their door and scuttled off. When the door closed Wasim signalled with his fingers closed together in a slicing throat move to keep silent. He pointed to the phone, the wall sockets, the ventilation and air conditioning vent.
Henry nodded. They were about to go through the room and do what all good spooks did… a bit of debugging. Henry doubted they would be spied on just yet, but he was after all still an infidel… a man who should never be trusted.
Both Henry and Wasim stood perfectly still… nothing… not the faintest noise.
They started moving through the room in opposite directions, methodically, stopping when they thought they heard something. Still no buzz or clicks that might betray the presence of surveillance equipment.
Henry opened the wardrobe carefully and moved his hand inside the frame, underneath the shelves.
Wasim had reached the far end of the room. Standing on a chair he took out his multipurpose pocket knife and unscrewed the bolts of the smoke detector, removing it from its base on the ceiling. He inspected it thoroughly, using the torch of his smartphone.
Still nothing…
Henry moved to the phone that lay on one of the bedside tables, giving it the same treatment Wasim had to the smoke alarm. Its innards revealed nothing suspicious.
Wasim moved to the lamps. Henry attacked the electrical sockets.
They finally moved once more around the room, looking for inconspicuous objects that might hide a camera. The room was bare, which would have been otherwise disappointing for a hotel of this standing, but welcome under the circumstances. It limited the number of objects that could be used to hide a camera… no cuddly teddy bear with a beady eye.
“Clear.” Henry turned to Wasim.
“Clear.” Wasim nodded.
They each moved to a bed and threw their rucksacks over the mattresses.
Wasim took his laptop out and booted it up. He checked the new hard drive he had installed a few days ago was still showing the right web history for the months he had been travelling. He switched to the hard drive he would soon destroy. It was time to connect one last time to the site he was using to message London.
Henry walked over to the large sliding doors, opening them slowly in a small controlled push. He stepped onto a large terrace, walked to the end and looked at the view below. The room was situated at the side of the building; trees had been planted around the hotel, providing some welcome shade in the hottest months. Beyond the trees, Henry saw the city sprawling in all directions, white buildings after white buildings, modern for the most part. The architecture was unmistakably Middle Eastern… flat roofs, flat façades, balconies on most floors. Satellites and air conditioning units everywhere.
Henry moved back towards the sliding doors and waited. The heat of the day was starting to subside; soon the terrace and its shade would be a perfect place to sit. The room had passed the test, but the terrace was a better option to discuss sensitive matters.
Wasim joined him in the open, closing the sliding doors behind him.
“I wish I could have a cigarette.” His voice low and tired.
“Thought you’d given up when you started your new… assignment.” Henry had moved a couple of chairs he had found on the terrace to where a small breeze had started to blow.
“Yep… but it doesn’t mean I don’t miss it sometimes.”
Wasim did what Henry had just done … moved to the edge of the balustrade and surveyed their surroundings.
“Not bad for a quick escape.” Henry sat down.
“To go where exactly? We’re in the middle of Raqqa, in the middle of Syria and smack bang at the centre of ISIL’s territory.”
“You’re such a pessimist.”
Wasim did not answer.
“I’m surprised they didn’t separate us,” Henry carried on.
“You must have done fine at your interview with al-Haddawi. Otherwise we wouldn’t be staying in this hotel but in one of their detention camps, undergoing some pretty nasty interrogation.” Wasim crossed his arms over his heavy chest.
“Just as well I know how to handle a pretty difficult client.” Henry grinned.
Wasim shook his head. “Keep your bloody sense of humour to yourself.” But the tone was not there and Wasim grinned back.
“I think I did do well… Haddawi knows I can deliver on the financial side, but I’m not sure he…” Henry grew serious, “…likes it.”
“Why?” Wasim frowned.
“Not sure… perhaps because whoever I’m going to work for is a rival, or because he had someone else in mind…”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because it was more than a competency interview… he
wanted to get under my skin pretty quickly.”
Wasim paused to consider Henry’s take on his conversation with Haddawi.
“Perhaps Maeraka is no friend of his either… competition is fierce despite these people praising brotherhood.”
“What now?” Henry stretched his long arms above his head. Tiredness had started to creep in, and he was ready for a decent shower and a good night’s sleep.
“We wait… although I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t send for you again today.”
“I thought I’d passed the interview?” Henry stressed the word with air quotes.
“Did you ever get one of your big jobs based on one interview alone? You’re not rested yet, and you think the first contact has gone well… which it has… you are much more vulnerable now. And the man who’s about to rely on you to put together ISIL’s financial structure knows that. The Treasurer, as he is known, is an unforgiving man.”
Wasim’s phone rang. He answered in a burst of short sentences, his head beckoning Henry towards the room.
Henry walked in after him. “How does it feel to be right?”
“Scary.”
* * *
Computer screens were stacked up, arranged in groups on each desk and the people in front of them paid attention to their content with the intensity Henry had seen only on the trading floor. If he had not been in Raqqa, Henry would have sworn he had entered the trading room of a large multinational corporation. The young men, all wearing white crocheted skull caps and white kameez, did not notice the arrival of the two men. Only a short plump fellow turned his head and stopped the discussion he was having with one of the young men. There was curiosity in his eyes, a fleeting moment of intense suspicion, but he radiated above all immense confidence. This was The Treasurer.
On the back wall of the room they had entered Henry noticed a large map of the region, spreading from floor to ceiling. He recognised the symbols for oil wells, shocked by the number against which the ISIL flag had been pinned.
“It’s only the beginning.” The Treasurer noted Henry’s gaze. “We already have control of 300 wells in Iraq and 40% of the production in Syria.” His Arabic was softly spoken, measured and clear.
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