Three Great Novels

by Henry Porter

  He must do away with himself. That was his only thought as the plane touched down and sped along the runway to a desolate spot on the airbase where some vehicles waited. Gibbons cut the plastic restraints on his ankles and hooded him again. He avoided Khan’s eyes and said nothing. Khan already knew he was to be tortured. During the last twenty minutes of the flight, as the light flooded the cabin, he had strained round to see who was behind him and caught sight of a powerful, fat leg jigging in the aisle. Then he heard the rustling of The Doctor’s bag of nuts.

  They hauled him from the seat and steered him towards the door, down the short flight of steps. Several men were shouting in Arabic and tugged at his arms, but Gibbons held on and guided him towards one of the vehicles where he was formally handed over. Beneath the hood Khan saw the shadows of the men and the outlines of the vehicles. The smell of the great city nearby came to his nostrils, a mixture of exhaust, wood smoke and shit. Gibbons said ‘Welcome to Cairo, Mr Faisal.’

  Someone spoke to him harshly in Arabic. When he didn’t respond, he was hit in the small of the back with a rifle butt, and sank to his knees. He was picked up and the same phrase was repeated over and over. Gibbons shouted, ‘Look, you fucking goons. His mouth is taped!’ Someone took off the hood and ripped the tape back. He saw faces staring at him, men eager to hurt him. They spoke again, using the name Jasur Faisal, and although he understood better this time, Khan realised that it would be stupid to respond. Arabic was not his language; Faisal was not his name.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Speaking in a damp, official monotone, Vigo attempted to wind up the meeting with Herrick in the Bunker. He shifted in his chair and pushed her report on Karim Khan away from him as though confronted with a poor examination paper. ‘And you’re satisfied that Khan was the person executed on the hill?’ His eyelids seemed heavy; his hands lay limp on the table.

  She nodded. ‘Yes. I observed him being loaded into the car by his Albanian guards at the SHISK headquarters. I noted his clothes and saw the same man taken from the same vehicle to the fire’s edge. There’s nothing more to say. They disposed of him.’

  ‘Were any of our people there?’ asked Nathan.

  ‘No, just Albanians,’ she replied. ‘A man named Marenglen was in charge of the operation.’ She stopped and looked at Vigo. How would Marenglen’s tutor respond to that?

  ‘We know of him,’ said Vigo neutrally. ‘And what was your impression of Khan? Did you believe he had any potential, or was he no more than what he claimed to be - a refugee, a disillusioned fighter?’

  ‘As a veteran of the jihad in Bosnia and a field commander with years of experience in Afghanistan, he could have told us much that was useful, yes. But the constant threat of violence and the actual abuse during his interrogation were counterproductive. Aside from this, there was disagreement between the Albanian interrogators and the agency personnel, who seemed concerned only with proving that Khan was in fact the Hamas operative Jasur Faisal. It’s clear to me that Khan’s story about taking the identities from Faisal’s body following the attack in Macedonia is true, but the presence of these papers was used to harass and intimidate him. Khan was guilty of no crime, whereas Faisal was wanted by several countries. And they wanted to pin Faisal’s crimes on Khan.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Vigo. ‘Well, there’s evidently nothing more we can do on this.’

  She nodded.

  ‘Now, as to your role here…’

  ‘I have a few questions about this,’ said Lyne. ‘It doesn’t make sense. I looked at the transcripts and it’s obvious that the questioning was unfocused, but what explains the change in direction when Isis went to the jail? You were having difficulty getting access, right? Then the moment you get in the room they start talking about Faisal. Why would they do that? And then why would they suddenly kill him? Whether they believed he was Faisal or Khan doesn’t make any difference. He was still useful by any standards.’ Herrick studied him. This was no play act. Lyne was genuinely puzzled, which meant he didn’t know about Khan being flown to Egypt.

  ‘In some respects it is regrettable,’ conceded Vigo. ‘But as you know, the American government has taken a firm line on terrorist suspects. They are to be eliminated…’

  ‘Sure, if they’re escaping through the desert like the al-Qaeda suspect in Yemen, but not if they are already in custody. I’m telling you, this doesn’t make any sense, especially as our guys were involved in debriefing the suspect. They wouldn’t let it happen like that.’

  ‘I can only say what I saw,’ said Herrick. ‘I was certain it was him in that valley and my conversation with Marenglen confirmed it.’ Vigo’s eyes glittered with concentration. The Chief had taken pains to rehearse her and warned that if she appeared too credulous or too sceptical he would suspect she knew Khan was alive.

  ‘But you, Isis,’ said Lyne accusingly, ‘the reigning queen of doubt, you know this doesn’t add up.’

  ‘Look, we weren’t in charge of the operation. Your people were. There’s a hell of a lot going on in Tirana that I couldn’t find out because Lance Gibbons wouldn’t tell me. You’re in a much better position to discover why this happened. Call your friends at Langley.’

  ‘I will do,’ said Lyne.

  Vigo’s eyes moved from Lyne back to her with a slow, reptilian blink. ‘In the meantime we must discuss whether you’re willing to rejoin Nathan’s team without indulging your wilder impulses. We just can’t have that sort of behaviour, Isis. We must work together as a unit on this.’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ she said. ‘I apologised for the last incident and now I genuinely want to help with the ten remaining suspects. ’

  ‘Nine,’ said Lyne. ‘The Turkish guy in London is in a coma. Complications from surgery. He’s not expected to recover.’

  ‘Right,’ said Vigo, evidently having made up his mind. ‘You can start at the next shift in an hour’s time. You better bring her up to date, Nathan.’ He moved from the room with a slight limp on his left side.

  Isis raised her eyebrows to Lyne.

  ‘Gout,’ said Lyne.

  She smiled. ‘Good.’

  Lyne seemed to be weighing something in his mind. ‘It’s great to have you back, Isis. But I got to say I don’t believe a word about Tirana, even though it’s you telling me. What about the torture? Were our guys involved?’

  ‘Not directly.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose. I remember Lance Gibbons when I was in the DO. He was old school, crazy but brave as hell - and effective. He was captured in Kurdistan after the Iraqis penetrated one of the Kurdish groups up there in the mid-nineties. When he was being driven back to Baghdad he took out his guards with a concealed Beretta hidden on his ankle and then hiked back to Kurdistan and over the Turkish border through a fucking mine field. We need more people like him. I can’t see him sitting in some fly-blown jail turning thumbscrews.’

  ‘Can I ask you a question, Nathan?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘What do you feel about the torture of terrorist suspects?’

  ‘Depends on the circumstances. Clearly, if you know a man is in possession of vital information that may save thousands of lives, like the location of a dirty bomb or a suitcase full of smallpox, well, then I can see the argument that the harm done to one man, repellent though it is, may be excusable in the face of protecting thousands of innocent people. Eventually you have to do the math.’

  ‘Even so, there’s a moral problem, isn’t there?’ She was aware of herself sounding priggish.

  ‘Yes, if you’re dealing in absolute terms, I guess there is. But the war on terrorism is not about moral absolutes. This isn’t a clash of moral systems of equivalent worth. The attacks on ordinary people aren’t justifiable in either Islam or the Judaeo-Christian systems. What we are dealing with is a profound, undermining evil that threatens everyone, and I suppose it’s understandable, if not forgivable, if the West tortures one or two men to save large numbers of people, some of whom may be M
uslims.’

  ‘But a line is being crossed. Once we condone it, we lose the thing we’re fighting for.’

  ‘I’m not persuaded of that. You could easily argue that killing someone is worse than torturing them. When those guys were targeted by a missile in the Yemeni desert, that was clearly extra-judicial killing and wrong by any moral standard. Yet almost no one objected because people saw it as the justifiable elimination of a threat. Why is torture any worse than that?’

  Herrick thought for a moment. ‘Because the slow and deliberate infliction of pain on any human being is in most instances worse than death. And then there’s the question of whether it produces the information that you want, assuming you know the individual is in possession of that information in the first place.’

  Lyne leaned back. ‘Mostly I agree with you, Isis. A few years ago I wouldn’t have condoned it in any circumstances. But say one of these guys we’re watching is about to let loose a virus on the continent, a virus that might kill millions. No one could stand in the way of extracting the information by all available means. That’s the nature of the inglorious, shitty war we’re fighting. It’s rough, but these guys chose it and now you and I are in the front line of the response. That’s our job right now.’ He put a pen to his lips and examined her, rocking silently in his seat. ‘How badly was Khan tortured?’

  ‘Not while I was there.’

  ‘What would you say if I told you I believed he was still alive?’ Lyne asked.

  ‘The official version, the version that your people have decided will be the record, is in my report. By your people I mean the high command of RAPTOR - Vigo, Jim Collins, Spelling, the head of bloody MI5, God bless her. Who am I to doubt their wisdom?’

  Lyne threw himself forward. ‘You’re shitting me. What do you know?’

  ‘Nothing. I simply asked you about torture because all this took place with the CIA involved. I wanted to know what you thought about the issue.’

  ‘No, you were sounding me out for another reason.’

  ‘I thought you were sounding me out!’

  ‘Either way, tell me what’s up.’

  ‘Honestly, Nathan, I think it would serve both our interests if you were to accept everything in my report and then forget about it.’ She looked down.

  ‘I hear you.’ He raised his fingers in a boy scout salute. ‘Don’t tell. Don’t ask.’

  She smiled again. ‘So what’s been happening here?’

  ‘It will be easier if we go out onto the floor,’ he said, brightening. ‘Andy Dolph is looking forward to seeing you. I think he carries quite a flame for you.’

  They went together to Lyne’s desk. On the way Herrick noticed new spaces had been opened in the short time she had been away, and there was a lot of new equipment manned by people she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Forget those guys,’ said Lyne, gesturing in their direction. ‘They can only talk number theory and they’re losing their backsides in Dolph’s poker school. One of them has been running a program based on the cards he draws, trying to figure out if he’s cheating.’

  ‘He is,’ said Herrick.

  Lyne also told her that ‘Collection’ had bugged all the apartments where the suspects were hiding. The live feeds from these could be seen on every computer hooked up to the RAPTOR circuit. The behaviour of the nine men - their toilet routines, exercise regimes, diet, reading patterns, religious observance and evidence of sexual frustration - was subject to minute scrutiny by behavioural psychologists.

  ‘Did they find anything interesting?’

  ‘Uh-uh.’

  They arrived at Southern Group Three to find Dolph leaning back in his chair wearing a pair of lightly tinted sunglasses and a black trilby with a small rim.

  ‘Hey, Isis, what’s cooking?’ he said, getting up and giving her a brief hug.

  ‘Andy’s won the Blues Brother award for investigative excellence,’ explained Lyne, ‘which means he gets to wear John Belushi’s hat until someone betters his achievement. The shades and ghetto-talk are optional.’

  ‘How’d you win it, Dolph?’ she asked.

  ‘The Haj,’ said Dolph, sitting down again. ‘My man here will explain.’

  Lyne grimaced. ‘Andy did some research which tied all the suspects together. They basically all went on the Haj pilgrimage. Every single one of them arrived in Mecca on the fourth of February. They each went as one person and came away with a new identity.’

  ‘A variation of the Heathrow switch,’ she said.

  ‘I told you she’d take credit for it,’ said Dolph, raising his sunglasses to the rim of the hat.

  ‘Okay then, tell me how it worked,’ she asked, bowing in mock respect.

  ‘How much do you know about the Haj?’

  ‘A bit.’

  Dolph put his feet on the desk. ‘The Haj takes place every year for five or six days. Nearly one and a half million people from all over the world are issued with special visas by the Saudi Ministry for Religion. The pilgrim goes stripped of his worldly possessions, with nothing but a two-piece white cotton wrapping and a money-bag tied round his waist. The whole point is that you go as one person and return as another. “Re-chisel then your ancient frame and build up a new being,” says a Pakistani poet. That sentence rang a bell with me and I realised the Haj was the perfect occasion for these guys to swap identities.’ He stopped.

  ‘That’s the traditional break for applause,’ said Lyne drily.

  ‘I just knew that’s what they had done. And after just forty-eight hours we found three had travelled to Mecca on the same day in the first week of February. The whole thing is so damned easy because the Saudi authorities insist that each pilgrim hands in his passport when he enters the country. They only give it back when he leaves. How much organisation would it take to do that switch? Answer, nil. By the way, all of them travelled in that period and acquired the identities they’re currently using. They re-chiselled, Isis. And there are more. We think a total of seventeen men moved through Saudi Arabia during that week and came away as other people.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘But would they do this - sully the holiest pilgrimage of the year with a terrorist plot?’

  ‘Of course they would. Anyway, I think it happened as they were leaving, after the visit to the holy sights was done and dusted.’

  ‘You deserve the hat,’ she said. ‘But what would be the point of the second ID switch at Heathrow? If they’d already established a very efficient way of doing it on Arab soil why the hell would they risk everything by repeating the operation at Heathrow?’

  ‘Aye, there’s the rub,’ said Dolph.

  ‘So what’s happening about this?’

  Dolph looked pained. ‘They put it on the back burner. They were interested, but the focus is on these nine men. We’re going to hunt down the others at some later point.’

  ‘Still, it was very smart of you.’

  ‘That’s what I keep saying,’ Dolph exclaimed.

  ‘I can vouch for that,’ said Lyne.

  Five minutes later, Herrick asked, ‘You remember when the Stuttgart suspect killed himself and Walter Vigo ordered an intensive surveillance of calls from the Stuttgart helpers? He thought they would make contact with the leadership. Was a call traced?’

  Before she had finished Dolph’s eyes were revolving.

  ‘Yep,’ said Lyne absently, ‘there was a trace to a satellite phone in the Middle East, but that’s all I know. It’s Umbra.’

  ‘Umbra is NSA-speak for very restricted knowledge,’ said Dolph.

  ‘Right, so shut the fuck up,’ said Lyne without smiling.

  ‘Why’s that so sensitive?’ she asked. ‘Anyway, where in the Middle East?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Dolph.

  Lyne got up and made for the water machine shaking his head.

  Herrick spent the next few hours doing what the Chief had instructed, roaming the system and reading anything that caught her eye. ‘Go into the garden and pick what flowers you l
ike,’ he had said. ‘Then come back to me.’ She concentrated on the connections between the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hizbollah and the suspects who had visited the tri-border region in South America. It was a random thread, but she followed it because of Sammi Loz’s background and her particular interest in Beirut.

  When Lyne asked what she was doing, she told him she was familiarising herself with the new material and then added, ‘You know, the suspects still seem like they’re all half-asleep. Why haven’t they been arrested?’