A Loyal Spy

by Simon Conway

  After a few more minutes of digging Jonah’s spade struck metal.

  “Hey presto,” said Nor, standing on the lip of the hole.

  “What is it?” Jonah asked.

  “It’s a forty-eight-inch high-pressure pipeline. Out you come.” Jonah climbed out of the hole and slumped on the sand with the sweat pouring off his forehead. One of the Iraqis carried a wooden crate from the Land Cruiser and set it down next to the hole. A second put an olive-drab ammunition box beside it.

  “You’re going to blow it?”

  “Of course, I am,” Nor replied. “Identify and attack key enemy vulnerabilities. That’s what I’ve been talking about. That’s what I do. I blow things up. I fuck with the system. I spend a lot of time thinking up new ways to do it.”

  He knelt beside the wooden crate and opened it. It was filled with rectangular packets of C4 explosive wrapped in plastic. He removed one, unpeeled the wrapping and kneaded the explosive into a ball in his hands.

  “We buy the C4 from the Iraqi army. It is generously provided to them by the Americans. That’s how asymmetric warfare works. We use their tools against them.”

  He set the ball of explosive on the crate’s lid. Next, he removed a loop of white detonating cord and unraveled it, measuring it out from hand to elbow. Satisfied, he cut it with a knife from his belt, making a diagonal slice across the cord. He bent one end of the cord back on itself and tied it in a knot. He then folded the ball around the knot so that it was deeply embedded in the explosive.

  “Tell me this, how come a private security contactor is paying you to blow up a pipeline?”

  “Think about it for a moment,” Jonah replied. “Who benefits? This pipeline moves nearly four hundred thousand barrels of oil a day. Who gains the most from its destruction? Certainly not the Iraqis and definitely not the American taxpayer. I’ll tell you who benefits. Generally speaking, anybody who profits from a hike in the price of crude—obviously, the contractor who rebuilds the pipe but specifically the private security company that secures the site. The daily rates for securing a rebuild like this are astronomical. In Iraq, the postwar business boom is not oil. It is security.”

  “Winthrop works for Graysteel,” Jonah said.

  “Of course, he does.”

  “You knew that?” Jonah asked, genuinely taken aback.

  “Sure.”

  “Will you work for anybody?”

  “Yes, if our interests coincide. Don’t look at me like that, like you’re outraged. Don’t be so fucking naive. We’re bleeding American dry and I’m enjoying the irony of getting paid by rich Americans to do it.”

  He jumped into the hole with the detonating cord trailing behind him. Tariq advanced on the hole and filmed Nor as he placed the charge.

  “I spoke to your father,” Jonah told him.

  A flicker of irritation: “There’s nothing I can do for him.”

  “You could stop.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Nor said, looking up at him from the hole. “I’ve told you already.”

  “You’ve identified the Thames Barrier as a key vulnerability. Well done. But so have we. And you’ve given away your game plan. You’ve lost the element of surprise. It doesn’t matter how well-trained your combat divers are, you’re not going to get anywhere near the Barrier.”

  Nor smiled as he got down on his hands and knees to earth himself, dissipating any static build-up before handling the detonators.

  “You have no idea,” he said. He unlatched the lid on the ammo box. From it he carefully removed a small box of detonators and a length of safety fuse. He cut away a length of fuse the width of his outstretched hand and discarded it. Then he cut another length of a similar size and lit it with a box of matches from his pocket. The fuse hissed as it burned—a wisp of smoke traveling from one end to the other—while Nor consulted his watch to time the burn rate. Satisfied, he measured out two minutes’ worth of fuse.

  “People are expecting great things of me.”

  “Which people?” Jonah asked.

  “Have you heard of Those Who Seek The End?”

  “Those Who Seek The End? The end of what?”

  “Forget it,” Nor said. “It’s a joke.”

  “It’s very funny,” Jonah said. “You’re not going to attack the Barrier, are you?”

  Nor looked at him with sympathy and sadness: “Do you really think that I’m going to come clean with you? Do I look like I’m afflicted with a cinema villain’s brag reflex?”

  “The only way to negate the Barrier without taking control of it or sabotaging it is to overwhelm it. To do that you need a tidal wave that comes out of nowhere. How are you going to manufacture a tidal wave?”

  “Start the car,” Nor said, and one of the Iraqis headed for the Land Cruiser and seconds later the engine rumbled into life.

  Nor removed a small aluminum-cased detonator from its box and, holding it carefully between his thumb and forefinger, inserted one end of the safety fuse into the aperture.

  “You are going to blow something up in the Thames Estuary.”

  Nor crimped the fuse in place using a set of pliers from the ammunition box. “You’re not making this any easier for yourself,” he said.

  “You’re going to blow up a ship,” Jonah said.

  Nor grinned. In fact, he never could resist showing off. “Not just any ship. The biggest IED in history.”

  “You think they’re going to let you sail a ship full of explosives into the Thames Estuary?”

  “Maybe it’s already there,” Nor told him briskly. He used insulating tape from his pocket to attach the detonator to the cord.

  “Where?”

  “There. Just sitting there. Ready to blow. Has been for sixty years. Sort of like the Statue of Liberty guarding the mouth of the Hudson. Do you want to light this?”

  “No thanks.”

  Nor shrugged and cupped the end of the fuse in his hand.

  “You’re going to have to kill me if you don’t want me to stop you,” Jonah told him.

  “Sure.” Nor set a match against the exposed tip of the fuse and scraped the striker across it with a flick of the wrist. The fuse hissed and commenced its slow burn.

  “You think you could?” Jonah asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You didn’t in Sierra Leone.”

  “I didn’t need to,” Nor replied. “I caused you much more harm by letting you live. Let’s go.”

  They sprinted for the Land Cruiser. As soon as they had slammed the doors, it accelerated away.

  Then the explosion, filmed from the rear window of the Land Cruiser: the flash, the shock wave rattling the car windows, then the leisurely unfolding of a mushroom cloud; and coming up through it, a high-pressure jet of oil from the ruptured pipeline and a spreading pool.

  The atmosphere in the car had changed. They were racing northwards alongside the Euphrates, using the main highway this time. Several times they had passed massive US military convoys. Nor was pale and jittery, scanning the road ahead. Jonah wanted to ask, What is it? What’s the matter? But he thought he knew the answer. Nor was preparing to kill him.

  “I remember now where I saw the logo of the wolf in crosshairs before,” Jonah told him. “The guy from Graysteel who gave you the map had it on his T-shirt. And it was on the baseball cap that Kiernan’s bodyguard was wearing in 1999. Kiernan’s bodyguard was employed by Graysteel, wasn’t he?”

  “He was,” Nor acknowledged, staring out of the window.

  “They knew the route that Kiernan was taking that day.”

  “Of course, they did,” Nor acknowledged.

  “Is that where you got the information about Kiernan’s route and timings? Did Graysteel deliberately leak the information to you?”

  “I knew you’d figure it out one day.”

  “I don’t understand. Why would Graysteel be prepared to sacrifice one of their own bodyguards? Why would they want Kiernan dead?”

  “Kiernan wasn’t the only G
raysteel client in Kandahar in those days,” Nor explained.

  “Who else, then?”

  “Think about it.”

  They were entering the outskirts of Fallujah, their headlights lighting up the shredded palms and shelled mud-brick buildings that lined the street. Everything was in ruins. Soon the old metal bridge over the Euphrates appeared ahead.

  Jonah was remembering his conversation with Fisher-King in the MI6 headquarters when Fisher-King had told him that the Taliban could play a central role in restoring centralized government in Afghanistan: Lodestone are going to run a thousand miles of pipeline straight through the middle of it and pump a million barrels of oil a day. They’ve opened an office in Kandahar.

  “Lodestone …”

  They drove on to bridge, the shadows thrown by the girders causing them to plunge through stripes of darkness and light.

  “What did Lodestone have against Kiernan?”

  “Stop!”

  The driver hit the brakes. They slewed to a halt at the center of the bridge.

  “Kiernan was threatening to go to the Securities and Exchange Commission,” Nor explained. “He claimed he had evidence of Lodestone executives paying bribes to Taliban officials going back to the mid-nineties and in direct contravention of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. There was no way Lodestone could let that happen.”

  “And so you killed him?”

  “No. You killed him.” Nor turned on him angrily. “I don’t think you understand what it was like for me in Afghanistan after you abandoned me. I don’t think you have a fucking clue how much danger I was in. The ISI wanted me dead. The CIA wouldn’t touch me. Lodestone were the only people who were prepared to give me the time of day. They had big plans for Afghanistan. They were going to make everybody rich. And they needed someone like me. I walked into their offices in Kandahar and you know who I met? I’ll tell you. Richard Winthrop. Yes, that’s right! He was on contract from Graysteel, doing a risk evaluation for Lodestone. I can tell you, it was the best move I ever made. Right away, he saw my potential. Go ahead, look at me like that. I’ve been working for Winthrop for the best part of ten years. I was his joe, not yours. And because of your ridiculous sense of superiority, you never saw it. You were so keen to dismiss Winthrop as a naive fool that you failed to notice that we were playing you from the very beginning. Now get out of the car! Everybody out!”

  One of the Iraqis dragged Jonah out on to the bridge. His head was reeling. It was difficult to comprehend. He’d been duped. Not just the assassination of Kiernan. In the cages in Kandahar, in the Sahara and Nevada, in Kurdistan—it was obvious now that he’d been window dressing, a cutout, a means for Winthrop to disguise his relationship with Nor.

  “What about the diamonds?” Jonah asked softly.

  Nor shrugged. “Eleven of the twenty couriers made it out of Afghanistan and to the rendezvous point in Kurdistan. Pakravan and I were waiting for them.”

  Jonah was remembering a press cutting—the discovery of eleven disemboweled bodies in a mass grave. “You killed them, gutted them for the diamonds and dumped the bodies in a hole.”

  “Sure. We stole millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds from al-Qaeda. You could say we did the world a favor. We got rich. Winthrop bought a McMansion on the Chesapeake. So what?” Nor retorted, moving around to the front of the vehicle. All eyes were on him. “Wait here.”

  “What is it, Emir?” Tariq asked.

  It was the bridge where the corpses of American contractors working for the security company Blackwater had been strung up the year before. Standing on the structure, looking up at the metal girders, Jonah saw that someone, presumably a Marine, had written on one of them: This is for the Americans of Blackwater that were murdered here in 2004, Semper Fidelis. PS Fuck you.

  “Wait.”

  Ahead of them, several armed men materialized out of the shadows. They were wearing black uniforms and balaclavas and carrying M4 carbines with night-vision scopes.

  “Emir?” There was a hint of desperation in Tariq’s voice. “What’s happening here?”

  “Wait there,” Nor repeated, advancing toward the soldiers.

  “Aren’t you going to say goodbye?” Jonah asked. Beside him, one of Nor’s team made his weapon ready.

  “What are you talking about?” Tariq demanded.

  “He’s abandoning you. He’s switching sides again.”

  “What?”

  Nor stopped by the nearest Iraqi soldier, who pulled off his balaclava and embraced him; Jonah recognized Mohammed, the Iraqi general’s son who had lived with Nor in his caravan in the Nevada desert.

  “You’re going to die,” Jonah said.

  “I don’t understand,” Tariq protested.

  Nor looked back at them. “I’m sorry,” he said, meeting Jonah’s gaze. “I’m truly sorry.”

  Jonah thought of Flora and Miranda and his daughter Esme. All the mistakes that he had made. There was so much to do to put things right.

  The soldiers opened fire.

  Jonah started running. Not away from the soldiers but towards them. A bullet picked him up and spun him around. He fell forward over the bridge’s handrail and dropped toward the water.

  MIRANDA

  Takfir: Apostasy

  The practice of declaring that an individual or a group previously considered believers are in fact Kufr (nonbelievers in God).

  THE RED ROAD FLATS

  September 8, 2005

  Alex Ross was standing on the jetty at Oban waiting for her when the ferry docked. He was looking sleek and expensive, wearing a black cashmere overcoat and sunglasses on the crown of his head. As Miranda hurried down the gangway, trying to get off the boat as quickly as she could, he took his hands from his pockets and spread his arms out wide. “I couldn’t live without you,” he called. He was smiling, but his eyes were as hard and shiny as stones.

  “I know who you are,” she said.

  “Of course, you do. I’m Jonah’s closest friend. Here, let me take that.” He held out his hand for her rucksack.

  “I’m taking the bus.”

  “Like fuck you are,” he said cheerfully, and then in a low and threatening voice: “You’re going to get in my car and I’m going to drive as fast as I can as far away from here as I can, because very soon now the police are going to be searching the fucking length and breadth for you.”

  She bit her lower lip.

  “This way.” He strode across to his car and opened the passenger door. The car was almost unrecognizable, it was so covered in mud. The dog knew it, though—he streaked ahead of her and leaped in the back. Traitor, she thought.

  “Where are you planning to take me?” she demanded.

  He pulled his sunglasses down on to his nose from the crown of his head and she saw herself reflected in them. It was not a reassuring sight.

  “I’m taking you to a safe house,” he said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Duh! To keep you safe.”

  There was something disturbing about Alex, a mixture of immaturity and cunning that suggested that he was capable of almost anything. “Safe from whom?” she demanded, and as she did so she glanced back up the gangway, but there was no sign of the ginger-haired man.

  “Get in. I’ll explain on the way.”

  She wasn’t someone who liked to find herself in someone else’s power, particularly not someone like Alex, but she was terrified of the ginger-haired man and what he might do to her. She didn’t seem to have any choice. She slung her rucksack in the back of the car with the dog and got in. He closed the door after her and strode round to the driver’s side. She stared at her hands in her lap, her nails chewed to the quick. She tried to imagine herself in warrior pose, fearless, crouching with her arms outstretched. Alex slid into the driver’s seat beside her and switched the engine on. They drove up the hill out of the town and on to the A85 heading east.

  “I heard that Jonah had found himself a woman,” Alex said, “but Christ, no one sai
d how beautiful.”

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  Alex was impervious. “Jonah Said …” He pronounced the name with respect. “A very talented operator. One of the best. You know, I saw him just before he left for Pakistan. He arranged to meet me at the Thames Barrier. I thought that it was an odd choice at the time.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He smiled indulgently. “You know, I’ve been wondering about his motivation. What has driven him to this? Is it money? Could it be revenge? Was he pushed too far? Is he being blackmailed? Is it about making history or the very biggest bang?”

  “Where’s Jonah?” she demanded.

  Alex glanced at her. “Don’t you know?”

  She stared at the dashboard.

  He laughed. “We thought we’d lost you after you did a runner from Barnhill. We didn’t know about the boat. It was stupid, really. Of course, Jonah would have a backdoor. It’s in his nature. We should have anticipated it, but once we’d worked out you were on your way to the mainland, it was just a question of laying a string of checkpoints out and waiting for you to cross the tarmac. Sure enough, you did, and I happened to be close at hand. And I understand you giving me the slip in Spean Bridge. I was less than subtle, I admit that. But we knew you were heading for Barra. Where else were you going to go?”

  Miranda repeated the question. “Safe from whom?”

  Alex shrugged. “Take your pick, any of a cupboard full of spooks and sheriffs: CIA, FBI, MI5, MI6, ISI, Interpol. Since Nor pulled his publicity stunt, we’re all out of friends.”

  They sped south through the zigzag bends of Loch Lomond-side, weaving between lumbering caravans. Rain slashed the windshield. She was in an impossible situation: she didn’t know whether to trust Alex or not; she could not tell whether he was friend or foe. All she could focus on was Jonah’s reply to a question that she once asked him—What did they teach you at spy school? His reply when it came was succinct and serious—Always suspect. It’s the only rule. Never trust anyone.

  “Jonah went looking for Nor,” she told him.

  “And now he’s accused of being Nor’s accomplice.”