“I’m sorry,” Thollen said, “but the lieutenant colonel’s in the operations room right now. We’ve got something very urgent going on that he needs to take care of. It’s all hands on deck here and will be for the next few hours. I’ll have to ask him to call you back, but it may be in the morning.”
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Kabul
It was just before midnight on Sunday when Javed finally rolled into Kabul after an exhausting five-hour solo drive from just north of Wazrar. He had been forced to go it alone because Noor needed to remain in Wazrar and help with the arrangements for his brother Baz’s burial, which was now scheduled for noon the following day.
Their journey back from the cave had been a long one. Upon arriving at the Toyota that Baz had left in the shed for them north of Wazrar, they had been met by Noor’s somber-looking cousin, who had given them the bad news about Baz’s murder at the hands of the black-clad perpetrators.
Noor had crumpled in a heap on the floor upon hearing about his brother. Javed’s stomach had turned in knots.
The killers were obviously the same Russian-sounding men who had been spotted heading toward the cave in the mountains.
Severinov? It had to be him.
The other piece of news supplied by Noor’s cousin was about the arrival in Wazrar of the American investigator Joe Johnson and his British colleague Jayne Robinson. That was utterly intriguing. He had asked the cousin to repeat Johnson’s name to make sure there was no mistake. And then he had been told that Johnson had set off into the mountains accompanied by a mysterious Pakistani and Imran.
First an email from Johnson and now he also showed up in Wazrar. What was the guy doing? After receiving Johnson’s email, Javed had assumed it was coincidence that both he and Severinov had resurfaced at around the same time.
But maybe this was no coincidence.
For most of his drive back from Wazrar to Kabul, Javed felt both tearful and torn.
He very badly wanted to attend Baz’s funeral, but he knew that if the Russians, guided by Sandjar, were on his tail, the risks in remaining anywhere near Wazrar were too high. Not least of his considerations was that if there was a firefight, it would very likely result in collateral damage to a large number of innocent villagers, which was the last thing he wanted to be responsible for.
Johnson, however, was a different story.
If Johnson was now pursuing Severinov—and it was Javed’s gut feeling that that was why he had ended up in Wazrar—then he would in principle like to meet up. He had clicked with Johnson in a fundamental way in those couple of covert meetings they had had in ’88, both of which had ended badly at the hands of the Russians through no fault of their own. Their agendas against the Soviet occupation forces had been similar.
But at the same time, Javed also had a strong sense of caution. If Johnson was a war crimes investigator, it was hardly likely that his current intentions toward Severinov were going to be aligned with Javed’s own thirst for revenge. More likely, he wanted to get him in court. He could therefore easily cause problems.
In any case, how he was going to engineer a meeting with Johnson now was something he was struggling to work out. Maybe that would have to wait.
During his drive back to Kabul, Javed’s resolve to achieve revenge, first for his wife’s and daughter’s deaths and now for Baz’s, hardened into a simmering rage that he struggled to shake off. He knew it wasn’t a good thing—he needed a clear head to think straight—but there was too much bubbling around inside him to do that right now.
Javed turned the Toyota off Qala-e-Fatullah Street onto Street Nine, stopped and opened the gate to his brother’s old house, and then parked out of sight of the locals who were still wandering up and down the street outside, despite the hour.
He was relieved to have made it back. He had been forced to heavily bribe his way through a few police checkpoints in order to avoid his pickup being searched. Thankfully, in contrast to the journey to Wazrar, there had only been two US Army checkpoints, and neither had caused any concern—they were looking out for Taliban and seemed relieved to wave him through when he appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary carpenter.
Javed unloaded his cargo of nine Stinger missiles, two gripstocks, and the BCUs, all of which had been hidden under the false bed of the pickup, and took them inside, together with the six RPGs. He would store them in a hidden cupboard in his basement. Step one of his plan was complete.
Chapter Nineteen
Monday, June 3, 2013
Kabul
Johnson groaned as the Ford pickup turned a sharp left and bumped over a pothole, causing him yet again to bang the back of his head on the vehicle’s floor. He didn’t know where he was, but his best guess from the length of journey and the conversations he had overheard at police checkpoints was that they were back in Kabul.
For five and a half hours he had lain horizontal, his ankles trussed tightly together with thin rope, his arms likewise tied to his sides like an Egyptian mummy’s, with a piece of rag stuffed in his mouth and secured with insulating tape.
The first part of the journey in particular, over the rough, unsealed section of the Khost-Gardez highway, had caused his head, the base of his spine, and his elbows to vibrate and bounce repeatedly against the thin mat that separated him from the metal floor. Now his head felt as though it had been pressurized from within; it was severely bruised at the back since there had been no way of supporting himself to stop it banging every time the vehicle hit a pothole or rut, of which there were many.
From the muffled groans coming from Haroon, lying two feet to his left, Johnson could tell the Pakistani was in similar discomfort. The Russians had stopped only once, pulling off the highway and removing Johnson’s and Haroon’s gags briefly to give them a quick drink of water. They had been given nothing to eat.
Johnson had initially pinned his hopes on being discovered through a routine search at one of the police and army checkpoints. As previously, there had been delays at most of the checkpoints.
He clearly heard Severinov negotiating bribes at some of them as they passed through. He also heard him mentioning he was working on an antidrug enforcement program for the United Nations. Bullshit. Some checkpoints took longer than others to resolve, but Severinov was obviously being sufficiently generous, because there were no searches.
A short distance farther on, the pickup came to a sharp halt, and there was a protracted metallic scraping noise, which sounded to Johnson like a gate being opened. Then the pickup drove on over some bumpy ground before coming to another halt.
Eventually, the hard cover over the back of the pickup, a few inches above Johnson’s head, was lifted. It was dark, but there was an orange glow from the city lights that dimly illuminated his surroundings. This was definitely Kabul.
Severinov’s colleague Vasily appeared above him, his face silhouetted against the glow behind him. He untied the rope binding Johnson’s ankles and pointed a pistol at his chest.
“Get out, stand up,” Vasily said in English. He didn’t offer to untie Johnson’s arms, so he was forced to shuffle his way on his backside to the end of the pickup and then let his legs swing down to the ground. Both feet were so numb that he had no feeling in them, with the result that he almost fell over when he tried to put his weight on them.
“Walk that way,” Vasily said, indicating across the yard with his gun, which Johnson could now see was a Makarov. It was a large site littered with cinder blocks, piles of sand, old bricks, and other building materials, with a building in one corner that looked unfinished. Johnson did as he was told. Ahead of him, Severinov unlocked the door of the building and stood to one side as Vasily marched him through at gunpoint.
Johnson found himself in a kind of hallway with a rough concrete floor and unpainted, pink plastered walls. Somewhat incongruously, a framed print hung somewhat crookedly on the wall ahead of him, showing a quote attributed to Josef Stalin written in decorative Russian script.
“Be a
bee that stings for the Motherland: be busy, be dangerous,” it said. It was the only decoration in sight. Johnson was not familiar with the quote.
“Down the stairs,” Vasily said, jabbing the barrel of the gun hard into Johnson’s back.
Johnson walked down a set of stairs to the left of the entrance hall and found himself in a narrow corridor.
“Stop,” called Vasily. He opened one of the doors to the left, stood back, and ordered Johnson into the room.
The small windowless basement room, with a bare concrete floor, had a thin foam-rubber camping mat in one corner, with a blanket, a bucket, and a plastic bottle full of water. The room was illuminated by a single bare low-wattage light bulb dangling from a cord.
“You are staying here. Don’t try anything, otherwise . . . ” Vasily didn’t finish his sentence but waved his Makarov in the air. Then he ordered Johnson to strip naked. Once Johnson removed all his clothes, including his socks and shoes, the Russian went through the pockets of his pants, carefully examined his belt, and then started to check his shoes. Johnson forced himself to remain calm as Vasily removed the insoles from his shoes and first looked inside them, then put his hand inside and felt around.
This is it, game over, Johnson.
But Vasily threw the shoes on the floor and ordered Johnson to get dressed again. Without waiting, he then walked out, shut the heavy wooden door, and turned the key in the lock, leaving Johnson feeling thankful that the lighting in the room was dim and the tracker had gone undetected.
Five minutes later, Johnson heard footsteps in the corridor outside his door and Vasily giving instructions, obviously to Haroon. He heard another door open and then the sound of a key turning in a lock. Haroon was being similarly incarcerated in the room next door.
“Bastards,” Johnson said out loud. He kicked the gray cement floor.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Washington, DC
Watson sat back in his chair in the anonymous house he had rented in Dirk Leman’s name on Bath Street, Springfield, half an hour’s drive southwest of DC. He studied the text message that had just arrived on his burner phone from Mohammed Burhani in Kabul.
Have received data from police sources re Johnson. Passport seen yesterday June 2 at five police checkpoints Kabul-Gardez and at one checkpoint northern end Khost-Gardez highway. After that, nothing. He is traveling with Jayne Robinson (British), Haroon Rashid (Pakistan) + Afghan driver. Suspect he still in Gardez-Khost area. Did not pass through checkpoints at southern Khost end of highway. Will notify if more information received.
To Watson, it seemed immediately clear that something was going on. If Johnson was doing something for the ICC, then the Khost-Gardez Pass was one area where he might focus, given all the killings by Taliban and Haqqani networks in the south of the country, near the Pakistan border.
But the K-G Pass remained a very dangerous area to be. Surely Johnson would stay in the main towns of either Gardez or Khost? He seemed to have gone off the radar somewhere between.
The pass was an area that Watson had known quite well during the late ’80s, when he had gone off piste in the same region for very different reasons.
The other additional piece of information was that Johnson and Robinson had a Pakistani traveling with them. That also seemed odd. He recalled that Johnson had developed some good sources within Pakistan’s intelligence service during the ’80s.
There was no obvious reason to be worried. But Watson had a well-honed survival instinct that had kept him intact through any number of very tough situations over the years.
Now that same primeval survival instinct that had made him such a skillful intelligence officer was sounding alarm bells somewhere at the back of his mind.
What was the best advice he could now give to EIGER and Zilleman about what ZenForce should do? He stared out the window across the street at the park opposite. The parking lot was gradually filling up with cars carrying families, kids, young couples, and dog walkers. It was all a world away from the scenes he imagined in southern Afghanistan.
He should at least run the new findings past EIGER.
Watson slowly tapped EIGER’s number into his burner phone. After he answered, Watson ran through the detail he had received from Burhani.
“What concerns me is that Johnson is spending time in an area that’s sensitive to us and is with an unknown Pakistani. It might be innocent or it might not be, I don’t know,” Watson said. “Listen, we could just walk away from Project Peak now, live to fight another day, and find something else in a less difficult part of the world, and that—”
“Why?” EIGER interrupted abruptly. “It most likely is all completely innocent. Think how long it’s taken us to prepare for this bid—months, years. And think about the rewards if it comes off. We could almost double the size of ZenForce in terms of asset value. If we get to the stage where it looks as though it’s all going to shit, then we can reconsider, but we’re nowhere near that situation. Are we, Robert?”
Watson hesitated. “No, we’re not in that situation right now,” he said. “But on the other hand, I don’t want to take unnecessary risks.”
“I’m glad you agree with me,” EIGER said. “Let’s press ahead until we see something that tells us to do a U-turn. There’s too much at stake.” He hung up.
Watson slowly put the phone down on the table. Maybe EIGER was right. Maybe Burhani’s people would yet pull Johnson in for questioning. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Chapter Twenty
Monday, June 3, 2013
Firebase Wilderness, Afghanistan
A cloud of gray dust flew into the air as Lieutenant Colonel Seb Storey removed his combat helmet and sunglasses and brushed his hand down the front of his uniform. “Russians?” he asked. “That seems very unlikely. If he has actually been taken, it’s more likely to be a Taliban kidnapping. It’s got all the hallmarks and we should know; we’ve had to rescue a few victims in the last three or four years.” Storey frowned and stroked his chin between his thumb and forefinger as he studied Jayne’s face carefully.
“I think it has to be the Russians,” Jayne said. Her strong gut feeling was that it was the same people who had so brutally murdered Baz. She described what she knew about Baz’s death and the perpetrators.
“Listen,” Jayne said, placing both hands on her hips, “I can’t be completely certain who’s got Joe, but I do know where he is. We need to go get him.”
An hour earlier, after finally getting through to Storey on the phone and briefly explaining the situation, Jayne had been picked up from Baz’s house in Wazrar by three US soldiers in an armored car. They took her a few miles up the Khost-Gardez highway to Firebase Wilderness, a fortified army outpost, not much bigger than an American football field, comprising a collection of a few dozen temporary huts and shipping containers built into the stark gray scree slopes of a small ravine. The base was surrounded by blast-proof barriers topped with razor-wire.
The army units based there, currently led by Storey, were tasked with providing security to the construction crews building the highway and also training Afghan National Army soldiers. They had frequently come under rocket bombardment by Taliban and Haqqani forces on the surrounding hillsides.
Jayne took out her cell phone, clicked onto her GPS monitoring app, and showed Storey where the transmitter built into Johnson’s shoe was located, not far from Kabul Airport.
She knew that a United States’ citizen who had apparently been kidnapped should be a priority for a US army unit. But it seemed that in practice, she would have to convince a stressed and skeptical-looking Storey. Flanked by Staff Sergeant Thollen—the same man Jayne had spoken to on the phone—and a sergeant, Dave Randall, he rattled through a series of questions.
Storey wanted to know how they had come to be in Wazrar and why Johnson had gone into the mountains with Haroon and Imran. Jayne was forced to go more deeply into the historic background to the situation than she had intended, explaining the linkages between Joh
nson, Javed, and Severinov and how they had become involved.
“The bottom line is, Joe and I believe there’s been a series of war crimes committed by these people in the past,” Jayne said. “But if we don’t act quickly now, there’ll be another. And instead of Joe doing the investigating, he’ll be the victim.”
Storey looked out the window of the hut where they were sitting. A pair of mobile 105mm howitzers, mounted on wheels, stood outside, and beyond them three helicopters, one a Chinook, the others Black Hawks, stood idle on a flat stretch of scree. Groups of soldiers in combat uniform walked purposefully past.
“I hear what you’re saying, but why the hell you guys came out here alone is beyond me,” Storey said in an even tone. “My soldiers are putting themselves on the line every day in highly dangerous territory. You should know not to do this without making proper arrangements with the authorities, including us. Now you’re asking me to tell my guys to take more risks to rescue your friend Joe, all as a result of your stupidity?”
Thollen, an athletic-looking man with a dark crew cut, nodded vigorously.
Jayne paused. She could see his point. They should have kept Storey informed.
“I appreciate that, and I know that extricating civilians from a kidnap situation is not part of your normal day-to-day routine,” Jayne said, glancing at both men alternately. “But I’m sure it should be top of your list right now. This is urgent. And as for what we’re trying to do, well, you’re helping ordinary Afghans who are being disrupted now by insurgents and terrorists, and we are trying to get justice for those who suffered the same thing twenty-five years ago. Except then it was Russians who were shooting the shit out of the Afghans, not the Taliban.”
Jayne leaned back in her chair. She didn’t want to keep talking; she just wanted them to take some action.
Storey nodded. “Give me a minute. I need to go and put a call in to the general’s office in Kabul. He needs to be in the loop on this.” He stood and walked through into a neighboring office, closing the door behind him.
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