by Chris Ryan
'Where in Kandahar?'
'There is a small café near the bazaar next to the main mosque in the centre of the city. It has no name, but you cannot miss it.'
'I'll say,' Rankin interrupted in his braying voice. 'Ghastly little place, always filled to the rafters with screaming Afghans smoking their revolting tobacco.'
Will did his best to ignore the comment and he could sense that the fixer found Rankin as unpleasant as he did.
'Your contact's name is Ismail,' Sami said, calmly. 'He has been feeding us good information about what the Taliban in this region have been up to, but he is extremely nervous.'
'I don't blame him,' Rankin snorted. 'If they find out what he's been doing, he'll be in the arms of Allah faster than you can say "Islamic Jihad".'
'Have you met him?' Will asked. He had addressed the question to Sami, but Rankin answered.
'Absolutely not. I try to leave Kandahar Airport as little as possible and there's no way our man would ever come to us here. No, we have agents like Sami on the ground handling him. They pass information on to me and I pass it upwards.' He cast a curious glance at Will. 'I must say,' he observed,'there hasn't been any intelligence passing through me that I would have thought warranted the arrival of the SAS.'
He looked expectantly at Will, clearly hoping he might enlighten him; but Will remained stony-faced.
Rankin shrugged.
'As I was saying,' Sami continued, 'Ismail is an extremely nervous informant. As he's never met you before, he's insisting on using a double-password.'
'All a bit World War Two to my mind,' said Rankin, 'but if it stops the Taliban waving their cudgels at the little man, I suppose we ought to humour him.'
As each second passed, Will found himself loathing more and more this pompous official who worked in the relative safety of the airport base, yet was so dismissive of the people on the ground risking their lives. 'Why don't you just give me the passwords?' he growled.
'Give them to him, Sami,' Rankin ordered and the fixer handed Will a piece of paper, folded once. Will read the words that had been carefully typed on it and slipped it in his pocket so that he could commit them to memory later. Then he looked back at the smug, fat man opposite him.
'How sure are you of this Ismail's reliability?'
Again Rankin shrugged - he did that a lot, it seemed to Will. 'He's an informant. He's given us good intelligence about the Taliban, but where he gets it from he refuses to tell his handlers. He's reliable, but he's still an informant. He's screwing someone over - we just don't think it's us.'
Will nodded, then turned back to Sami. 'What do you think?'
Sami's eyes narrowed. 'My job is not to think about such things,' he replied. 'My job is to stay alive and pass on the information I am given to my superiors.' As he said that word, he hesitated slightly and glanced at Rankin. 'They decide whether to act on it or not.'
'But what's your gut feeling?' Will had only known these two men for a matter of minutes, but already he trusted Sami's instinct much more than Rankin's.
'My instinct,' Sami said, 'is that Ismail is a young man very much out of his depth. The Taliban are not stupid - they will find out soon enough that he is betraying them and when that happens he will be executed. But until then, we would do well to take advantage of the information he is giving us.'
Will assimilated this for a moment while Sami and Rankin watched him carefully. 'I'll need local clothes,' he said, finally. 'And transport.'
Sami inclined his head slightly. 'It has already been attended to. I will be able to come a certain amount of the way with you, but no further. There are barricades on the way into the city, which we will want to avoid, but I know a route that should stop us having to negotiate these. I will get you to within walking distance of the café, but it would go badly for me, you understand, if I were to be seen in the presence of a member of the military.'
Will gave him a nod of thanks, but before either of them could speak again Rankin gave them both a slightly dismissive wave. 'Speak to the kid who picked you up,' he said. 'He's been told to give you whatever you want. Now if you'll excuse me.'
The fat man turned and put his hands over the electric heater, rubbing them together. Will sneered. He didn't want to be in this guy's presence any longer than was necessary, so he left the hut and hurried back to the truck, Sami following close behind.
*
The clothes Sami had supplied them with were bundled in the back of one of the trucks outside the hut. 'This vehicle is for you,' he told Will as they stood out in the bitter snow. 'It looks old, but in fact it is in very good condition. The paintwork has been scuffed and damaged in order to stop it from standing out. There are not many new vehicles in my country these days.' He kicked one of the tyres. 'These are the only things that might attract attention,' he continued. 'Winter tyres, with a harder tread. But the risk is small, I think. Not many people will know what they are.'
He pulled out a canvas bag, dumped it on to the snowy ground, then climbed into the back of the truck. Once inside, he pulled up a metal panel to reveal a storage area, then grabbed a clinking handful of metal. 'Snow chains,' he said. 'Ismail will not tell me where he is taking you, but it is possible that you may need these. Also there is a -' he seemed to struggle to find the word '- a winch, in case the vehicle comes off the road. The driving conditions south of here are not good. There are also extra tanks of diesel fuel for you.'
'Thank you,' Will said, sincerely. Sami was a typical fixer - no-nonsense, helpful. It angered him that the guy had to put up with an idiot like Rankin. 'You're a lot more help than he was.'
Sami inclined his head. 'I have noticed that a tour of duty in Afghanistan brings out the worst in people,' he observed. 'I do not judge him too harshly. We should ask your driver to take us somewhere where you and your men can change. Kandahar is not far from here, but the road can be slow in this weather.'
'I'll need some local currency,' Will told him.
'I have it here. I suggest I distribute it once you are changed.'
Will nodded and they made their way back to the truck, where brief introductions were made. There was no small talk.
The young RAF soldier drove them to a small hangar which he explained had been requisitioned for the use of British servicemen at the airbase. They attracted some curious looks as, carrying their weapons case, they were led to a private area where they could change their clothes, but they shrugged all that off. Maybe the rumour had gone round that an SAS unit was on site; maybe it hadn't. Whatever the cause of those funny looks, the four of them were too focussed on the job ahead to give them any thought.
The clothes Sami had provided were rough and cheaply made, but they were at least warm. There was no point trying to make themselves look like Afghans, but if they could avoid people thinking they were soldiers it would make what they had to do in central Kandahar more straightforward; and the fact that they all had beards was a help. Once they had picked up the contact, they would be able to change back into their cold-weather gear, which would be more suitable for the journey south. Will donned a pair of thick trousers made from a scratchy, Hessian-type material, a warm woollen jumper and a colourful Afghan hat; the others dressed similarly. They each attached holsters under their clothes - Anderson, Drew and Kennedy had chosen shoulder holsters, but Will had always found a waist holster to be more comfortable. He took the Sig 230 from the weapons case, loaded it, then hid it neatly under his jumper. They carefully stowed grenades and ammunition into their rucksacks, then loaded their Diemacos and slung them across their backs. Once they were ready, Sami took a bundle of afghani, the currency of the country, and handed them around.
By the time they were ready to leave, the snow was falling even more thickly. Junior Technician Evans drove them back to the hut where Sami's truck was waiting, then left them to it as Sami and the unit loaded their things on to the new vehicle, stowing the Minimi and the grenade launchers into the compartment alongside the snow chains, the
winch and the spare diesel. Sami looked at the Diemacos slung across their shoulders. 'I would stow those away,' he told them. 'They will only attract attention. You have your handguns, do you not?'
Sami was right. If they wanted to merge into the background, they couldn't walk around the streets of Kandahar with heavy weaponry on display. Will nodded curtly to the others and they stowed their guns as Sami took the driving seat.
It was about fifteen miles from the airport to the town of Kandahar and the snow was falling heavily. Occasionally a rocky mound would rise up out of the earth, but apart from these solitary hills, the immediate area was flat and featureless. The roads were nearly deserted - whether that was because of the snow or because people were keeping off the road in this dangerous part of the world, it was impossible to say. Now and then Will noticed an ordinary Afghan by the side of the road, struggling on foot through the snow; it didn't escape his notice how many of them had elderly AK-47s strapped across their backs. When they heard the truck approaching, they always stopped and watched, unsmiling, as it passed. This was hostile territory.
Sami drove slowly and carefully. It took more than an hour. As they travelled, Will gave the unit their orders. 'I'll be going in alone,' he said. 'If the four of us barge into this café, we're going to attract attention and if our contact is as jumpy as that idiot back at the airfield says, we can't risk scaring him off.'
'We should cover you,' Anderson suggested. 'Take up positions outside the café, in case anything goes wrong.'
Will thought for a moment. In a situation like this it was all too easy to get cocky, to assume that because this was the relatively straightforward part of the operation, nothing could go wrong. It would be a mistake and Anderson was right to suggest that Will needed a bit of back-up.
He pointed at Anderson and Kennedy. 'You two,' he said, 'follow me at a distance. Keep it subtle - I don't want our guy taking fright.' He looked at Drew. 'You,' he said, 'stay with the truck. Once I've made contact, that will be the RV point.'
The three men nodded their agreement as the vehicle trundled towards Kandahar. Will pulled the slip of paper Sami had given him from his pocket and committed the double password to memory.
- Do you have the time?
- My watch runs slow these days.
- I know a good watchmaker in Kabul.
- Kabul is a long journey in the winter.
Once he was sure he had firmly remembered the words, he spoke to Sami.
'Tell me more about this Ismail character. If he's going to be coming with us, I want to know who we're dealing with.'
'Very well,' Sami replied, politely. 'I will tell you what I know. He is about twenty-eight years of age and his parents were imprisoned by the Taliban when he was about seventeen. My understanding is that a sarinda - an Afghan musical instrument - was found in their house, which was considered sinful by the regime. They both died in prison. Ismail, I would say, is a very clever young man, but nervous at the best of times. After his parents were imprisoned, he followed the Taliban's rules to the letter, as most people did, so that he would not be destined for the same fate. He took a wife, whom I have never met, and I believe they have a young son.'
'How did you manage to recruit him?'
Sami shrugged. 'In the usual way,' he replied. 'A mixture of gentle persuasion and money. The people here are very poor - they will do many things for a few extra dollars and Ismail has a family to keep. I imagine he caught the eye of the Taliban insurgents because he is a very devout man and now they believe he acts as one of their -' Sami seemed to struggle for the word. 'Sneaks,' he settled on, finally. 'But his devotion does not, happily, extend to the kind of extremism they espouse. I truly believe he thinks that informing on them is a holy act, no matter how scared it might make him feel; the money is just an added bonus. He has been very useful, too. So useful that I do not think all of the information he supplies is acted upon, simply in order to maintain his cover.' Sami glanced over his shoulder at Will. 'Someone in your government must want this woman he knows about very badly. They have instructed that we pay him a great deal of money to lead you to wherever it is that she is being held.'
Will's eyes flickered towards the other three, but they did not seem to have raised an eyebrow at what Sami had said; and Sami was evidently too discreet to question Will any further.
'Ismail's English is serviceable, but not perfect,' the fixer continued, 'and he is not a physically strong man. I would advise that you do not expect him to fight or to endure extreme environments in the same way that you have become used to.'
'Sounds a fucking liability to me,' Drew complained.
'Maybe,' Will said, 'but without him we don't have an objective. He comes with us, liability or not.'
They drove on in silence.
As they hit the outskirts of the town, the roads became less treacherous as more vehicles appeared. Among the elderly and run-down civilian cars, Will saw a number of military trucks bearing the UN logo, which told of the heavy military presence in this part of the world. Normally this would make their job more secure, but for the moment, Will didn't want anyone to link them to NATO, the UN or the British or American army. What they were doing was under the radar and he wanted to keep it that way. Sami took them off the main road as soon as he could and continued their journey through a series of intricate, winding streets, not ideal for a large vehicle, but they were at least clear of the various security forces that would be barricading other entrances to the city.
The further they travelled into the centre, the more people there were. Large numbers of Afghans - some in traditional dress, others wearing more Westernised clothes - went about their daily business, shuffling up and down the snowy streets, moving quickly because of the snow. Some of them carried wicker baskets of food; others were empty-handed. No one paid any attention to their truck as it trundled past; in fact, nobody seemed to pay attention to anything.
Surprisingly frequently Will caught sight of two or three soldiers in camouflage uniform and carrying what looked to him like excessively heavy weaponry for patrolling the streets. There weren't many cars on the road and those that were had clouds of greasy diesel smoke billowing from their exhausts; they looked rickety in the extreme. Walking was clearly a far more common method of getting around, so several people walked in the road, all but ignoring the beeps from the horns of those who were trying to drive. At one point the unit stopped outside what could only be described as a shack, from which the appetising aroma of meat being grilled over hot coals wafted towards them. A customer bought a kebab, but Will noticed that the shopkeeper refused to hand it over until he had the money firmly in his hand.
Further along, they passed what looked to Will like a former administrative building. It was ramshackle now, its windows blown out and one side reduced to a pile of rubble - a monument to some violent incident in the not too distant past.
'We don't want to be dropped off too near the café, but it needs to be in sight,' he told Sami as they passed an impressive-looking mosque, its golden dome heavy with snow and people swarming outside.
'I know a suitable place,' Sami replied. 'It's not far now.'
The street where they stopped was thin but straight - Will noted with approval that they had a good line of sight at either end and they could see directly on to a bustling square. Anderson and Kennedy took their Sig 226s from the weapons cache - the slightly larger firearm was fine for them as they wouldn't be getting up close and personal with the contact, at least not yet.
'Is that the bazaar up ahead?' Will asked Sami.
The fixer nodded his head. 'The café is one of the doors you can see on the other side of the square.'
'Give us thirty minutes,' Will told Drew, tersely. 'If we haven't returned, come and get us.'
'Roger that,' Drew murmured. If he was upset at not being on the front line, he didn't show it.
'Remember,' Sami continued, 'Ismail is nervous. If you do not recite the double password exactly correctly, h
e will take fright and it will take weeks to regain his trust. Do not mention my name to him - he will only deny knowledge.' He turned to Drew. 'You can remember the route out?'