Crossfire (16 page)

St Stephen's Green
0908 hrs

At least it had stopped raining.

You could smell the money round St Stephen's
Green. Not as strongly as down Ballsbridge way,
but it was getting there. The park was beautifully
kept and dotted with memorials to the great and
good. There wasn't a statue to celebrate EU
subsidies yet, but it was only a matter of
time.

I came out at the northern edge of the square
and counted down the numbers to the one on the
letter. It was an elegant Georgian townhouse.
The big black door looked just like the one at 10
Downing Street, even down to the large fanlight
and thickly glossed white columns. Black railings
lined the stone steps.

I carried on past with my takeaway latte in one
hand and a big map in the other, then parked my
arse on a doorstep a couple down and played the
dickhead tourist. Leaning against my Bergen, I
spread the map on my lap and got very interested
in orienting it with the street.

A guy in painter's overalls came out of the black
door and fetched some brushes and rollers from a
Transit. He went back in.

The Yes Man mightn't have thought it worth
checking this place out, but I did, for two
reasons: Pete had filmed there and Finbar lived
there. And it looked like I'd been vindicated. I'd
been expecting a junkie's squat, but it was smart
enough to be the Saudi embassy.

The two windows on the top floor, the third
storey, were open. The guy in overalls eventually
appeared behind the one to the right.

None of the windows at the front had curtains
or blinds. The ceilings had no lights hanging. Just
like the flat being decorated, no one was living
there. Was the whole place being made ready to
go on the market?

There were four buttons on the polished brass
entryphone. I pressed number four.

'Hello there?' He sounded much older than the
guy in overalls, and a forty-a-day man.

'I'm a friend of Finbar's, number four – can
you let me in?'

He didn't answer but the door buzzed. I
pushed it open. There was a strong smell of fresh
paint.

'Up to the top.' A head came over the banister.
'Hope you got oxygen.' He chuckled to himself
and disappeared.

The four pigeonholes held nothing but flyers
for pizzas and taxis.

I headed up. The building had been gutted and
rebuilt. New deep-pile carpet was laid on York
stone. I reached the top floor, where the smell
and gleam of fresh white gloss nearly overpowered
me.

The head turned out to belong to the older of
two guys. His overalls looked like a Jackson
Pollock painting. Not much of an ad for his
decorating skills. I followed him through the
open door. Dustsheets covered the floor. A third
guy clutched the top of a very tall ladder and
worked his brush over an elaborate ceiling rose.

'This Finbar lad is very popular. You're the
second one to come looking for him in as many
days.'

'Who was the first?'

'His mum. Well, she said she was. She took his
post.'

'We were supposed to meet up today.'

He winked. 'Who? You and his mum?'

'Finbar. Young lad – twentyish?'

'Never seen him.'

'Who gave you the job – his mum?'

'No. All the places we do belong to one of these
fancy London property companies. We finished
this building a few months ago. Got the call to
come and redo this flat before the whole thing's
sold.'

'Oh . . . I thought he owned it.'

He shook his head. 'Like I said, it's a
developer.'

'So you never saw Finbar . . . You don't know
where he's gone?'

'Not a clue. I didn't even know anyone was
living here until his mum came round.'

'Thanks anyway. If he turns up, can you tell him
Chris called?'

My mobile rang as I headed down the stairs. I
knew the Yes Man had been wrong not to go
down this route. I tried not to crow. 'The house is
going cheap and the stepson lived in a flat that—'

'Stop wasting time. We know this. Once you
do your job we can do ours. We traced the email.'

'Afghanistan?'

For once, the Yes Man was silent.

'It's the only place I know that's four and a half
ahead.'

'Quite so. The email was sent from Kabul.'

'Is it Dom?'

'Possibly. They claim to be from him, and there
have been a number of exchanges. If so, they're
using him to negotiate with his wife.'

'I want to see them.'

I hit the street and headed for the main. 'Any
idea why he went to Afghanistan?'

'Heroin? Looking after his interests? He was
probably lifted by the local Islamafia or one of
the bounty-hunter groups – they know he has
cash. I'm trying to discover which group may
have him.'

'OK, I need you to make sure this mobile
works over there. I need a visa, a cover story, and
a laptop with Internet access. I want to be able to
read any more emails coming through while I'm
there. Also, as much mapping and photography
as you can lay your hands on.'

I waved down a cab. 'I can't talk. I'll be coming
into City airport. I'll call to confirm.'

I threw my Bergen on to the back seat and
jumped in.

Arrivals buzzed with City boys and girls flying
in from Europe with a few more zeroes on their
annual bonuses. Most were being met by men in
grey suits who held up name cards. It made the
Yes Man easy to spot. He'd taken off his jacket and
tie, and was in a checked business shirt with gold
cufflinks, suit trousers and shiny black shoes.

I aimed for the coffee shop. 'I've been up all
night. You want one?'

'No, thank you.'

I asked for the large latte-and-muffin deal, and
was just about to organize a mortgage to pay for it
when he got his money out.

We didn't exchange another word until we were
through the automatic doors and walking past
the lines of cabs and buses. The airport was
slap in the middle of Docklands. Blocks of new
million-pound apartments stood uncomfortably
alongside estates built to house dockers after the
Blitz.

'You get all the gear I asked for?'

The Yes Man clenched his jaw. Maybe he wasn't
used to meeting in public. He certainly wasn't
happy taking orders from his underlings. 'Yes,
and I have the emails. You're right, by the by. He
launders money via a property company here in
the City. We knew that. We had it covered.' The
Yes Man pulled an A4 sheet from his pocket.
'There have been three emails from Dominik,
starting last Sunday. All originate from the same
location in Kabul. The ransom is eight million US.'

I gave him a frown. 'If he's the big-time drugs
baron, why the need to sell the house?'

He was getting annoyed now. 'He has the cash,
believe me. He probably wants it to look as if
they're giving up everything, just to keep the price
down. Back to the matter in hand . . .'

I read the page. Dom's emails were basically
messages of love and hope. Siobhan's were about
progress in raising funds.

We've got a buyer at 6.5 [she wrote]. Please beg
them to hold on, I will get the rest. It will take
time.

She'd spoken to Patrick, she said. I presumed he
was their money man. Patrick was trying his best
to liquidate their portfolio.

I've told him we've gone broke. I will get the
money, Dommy, I will. Please tell them I need
time. I don't know how long. Explain to them it
might have to be in instalments. The house
money very soon, they can have that, then the
rest. Please show me again that it's you. Please
tell me what colour the sofas are in the living
room.

I was right: it hadn't been the flu making her
sniffy and red-eyed in the kitchen last night.
Maybe she didn't normally drink or smoke.
Whatever her state of mind, she was on the ball
enough to ask for proof of life each time. Last time,
she must have asked him about a suit, because
Dom's email started:

My Paul Smith is grey and it came back from
the cleaners with double creases in the trousers.
I was upset because I was going to wear it for
dinner at the Mermaid the night before I left.

It ended:

I love you darling, but they need to know how
long.

One thing we knew for sure, then: up to the
point he wrote those words, he was alive. They
could only have come from Dom.

Proof-of-life statements are an important part of
any hostage deal. A trained negotiator would also
be looking for clues that Dom was either bullshitting
or under duress. Prone-to-capture troops
and business people working in hostile zones
have a ready-prepared under-duress sign, and
maybe even a coded means of identifying
locations. All Dom's had been sent at around
eighty thirty, local. That was why she had been up,
online and waiting.

We'd reached a bank of pay stations for the
short-stay. I handed him back the sheet. 'Any idea
yet who's lifted him?'

Criminals would demand a ransom and hold
out for it. Only if it didn't eventually materialize
would they offload him in a fire sale to another
gang – or, in Afghanistan, the Taliban. That was
when things usually turned nasty. Each gang
would sell him on to the next like a girl passed
between sex-traffickers; he'd spiral down a chain
of extremist groups with life getting worse and
worse until he ended up with one who didn't
want anything except to hack off his head in front
of a camera.

The Yes Man shook his head. 'It could be freelancers,
it could be another drug cartel. I don't
know and don't care.' He put the sheet into his
pocket and paid for his ticket. 'I just want him
back and in a fit state to talk.'

We stalled as four guys walked past with
suit-carriers over their arms and overnight bags
trundling on wheels behind them.

'Is he emailing anybody else?'

'No.'

The Yes Man had phenomenal electronic firepower
at his beck and call. Using the Echelon
system, GCHQ could capture radio and satellite
communications, telephone calls, faxes, emails
and other data streams nearly anywhere in the
world.

'This could all be bullshit to get the cash from
the house and fuck his wife off.' He gave me a
strange look and I wondered if he thought I'd lost
my marbles. 'Why not?' I raised my palms. 'We
don't know what the fuck is happening.'

He did it again. I suddenly realized it was the
profanity and not the idea he didn't like.

'There's no other traffic from that or any other
email address while the user is logged on. But his
emails have all been sent from the same location.'

He'd stopped by the boot of a navy Audi A4
and produced a key fob from his trouser pocket.
He pressed it and the boot unlocked. A laptop bag
was sitting on top of picnic blankets and wellington
boots.

'Everything you need is loaded in here. New
ACA, the lot. The Read Me file will start you off. If
you have information, you send it directly to me
the moment it happens.'

He handed me the case. 'The password is your
old army number. You know how to work
Schubert?'

I nodded. GCHQ had developed the secure
hard drive and email system so not even the
Americans could suck it up. There wasn't anything
to know about it. It just, like, worked.

'Good. The mobile will still be secure there.'

He unzipped the front pocket of the bag to
show me the airline tickets.

He took a step closer, as if airport car parks had
ears. I could see inside his collar. He'd been
squeezing that boil.

'I want to keep foremost in your mind the
sensitivity of this operation. There are people in
the FCO in Kabul, embassy officials, who may
well be part of the problem. We need him back
without anyone knowing.'

He held out a hand, but shaking wasn't what he
had in mind. 'Why don't you let me have your
own documents, for security? I'll hold them until
you get back.'

I zipped up the laptop and put it over my
shoulder. I smiled, shook my head and walked
away.

Thursday, 8 March
1305 hrs

Well over an hour behind schedule, and six
security checks and X-rays later – including one
right at the door of the aircraft – the Indian
Airlines Airbus 320 took off into the hot blue sky
over Delhi and pointed north-west for the two-hour
flight to Kabul.

Departures had been a nightmare. We'd even
been segregated in our own little holding area. It
reminded me of the Belfast to London flights
during that war, except that here the whole
terminal, including our Kabul leper colony, was
plastered with flat screens showing non-stop
Bollywood. No matter which film it was, they all
seemed to star the same tall guy with a grey beard;
he even popped up in the commercial breaks,
advertising mobile phones and aftershave. Then
one of the channels ran a documentary about his
waxwork in Madame Tussaud's.

The aircraft could have carried 150 passengers
but was only half full. Kabul was hardly competing
with Amsterdam or Prague for the
city-break crowd. The Gurkhas and Filipinos in
economy, paid to guard compounds, were proud
big-time of what they did, and didn't care who
knew it. They toted US Army camouflage print
or Brit DMP day sacks, and their T-shirts were
emblazoned with eagles wrapped in the Stars
and Stripes and messages about Operation
Enduring Freedom.

Up in business class, Indian men in pressed,
short-sleeved shirts scribbled furiously on
notepads, arranging the shipment of another
twenty tonnes of Fairy Liquid and marmalade
into the war zone.

Some of the Westerners looked like seasoned
contractors, the sort who supplied the armies
with everyone from cooks to radar operators.
They were the ones in black polo shirts with
embroidered company logos. There were also a
few of the bigger-buck contractors. They wore
Gucci safari vests, and their hair was longer to
show they weren't military. One had a Mohican.
They didn't want a sergeant major shouting at
them by mistake. Me, I was in my normal shit
state, but at least I had brand-new boxers and
socks on. When I pulled off my boots the stink
wasn't half as bad as usual.

The seat-belt light pinged off and the attendants
started serving our pre-ordered drinks. I'd
gone for Pepsi to wash down the antibiotics. I
gazed out of the window. I'd thought I'd never
get shot again, and I had been. Afghanistan was
one place I'd thought I'd never come back to, and
here I was. Whatever happened, I didn't want to
be running up and down those fucking hills
again.

When the Russians invaded in 1979, it had
been for much the same reasons as we did in
2001. They were 'liberating' the country. The
West didn't see it that way. Soviet troops weren't
welcome so close to the Gulf oilfields.

As a young Green Jacket squaddy running
round Tidworth garrison in Wiltshire, the invasion
had about as much impact on my life as
coastal erosion in Northumberland. It didn't
directly hit my pay packet or interrupt the
supply of curry sauce to the local chippie, so why
should I give a shit? In any case, I didn't even
know where Afghanistan was.

To start with, the invasion was a breeze. The
Russians thought they'd cracked it. Their problem
was, none of them had a clue about
mountain warfare or counter-insurgency, and
their weaponry and military equipment –
particularly their armoured vehicles and
tanks – were crap. Their other problem was the
mujahideen.

The Dad's Army in cowpat hats finally started
to get their act together and kick ass – until the
Russians brought in the Hind gunships. Basically
an airborne artillery park, the Hind was the most
formidable helicopter in existence. It turned
the tide. By the mid-eighties, the Americans were
flapping big-time. It was still the Cold War. The
Kremlin needed to be taught a lesson.

Ronald Reagan was suddenly hailing the muj
as freedom-fighters. A wealthy Saudi, Osama bin
Laden, called on Muslim fighters round the
world to come and do their bit. Weapons poured
in from all over, and they didn't have a clue how
to use them. Dickheads like me, by then a lance
corporal in the SAS, were told to get cracking and
give them a hand.

The only way the muj could win that war was
by making the Russians pay such an unacceptable
manpower cost for the occupation that
public opinion back home turned against them
and the army rebelled. Simply put, that meant
killing and wounding as many Soviets as
possible, and fucking up their infrastructure any
way we could. Just about anything was a
legitimate target.

Before that could happen, the Hinds had to be
eliminated.

The American Stinger ground-to-air heat-seeking
missile was the best in the business at
knocking things out of the sky. The trouble was,
it was so good the Americans were reluctant to
let go of them. The risk of them falling into the
wrong hands was just too high.

Instead, the Brits were tasked with teaching
the locals how to use Blowpipe, our equivalent to
the Stinger. We'd round up about thirty at a time
and get them out to Pakistan. Then we'd throw
them on a C-130, and have a two-day trip to one
of the little islands off the west coast of Scotland.
We ran our own field-firing exercises, teaching
the boys everything from how to use Blowpipe to
how to drop electricity pylons. At the end of their
couple of weeks of rain and cold, we'd put them
back on the C-130 with a packed lunch and a can
of Fanta, get them into Pakistan, then over the
border to put theory into practice.

The trouble was, Blowpipe was a heap of shit.
Not even the Brits used it any more: you had to
be a PlayStation wizard to operate the thing, and
that was before PlayStation even existed. It was
soon clear it wasn't working. The sky was still
full of Hinds. The Americans had to relent. They
opened the toy cupboard and broke out the
Stingers.

The muj had to be trained all over again. The
west coast of Scotland reopened for mujahideen
short-breaks and the C-130s resumed their
shuttle.

The kit was filtering into Afghanistan via
covert convoys, but the shifty fuckers weren't
using it. Stingers were far too nice and shiny, and
the muj were saving them for a rainy day.

It was then that we had to go over there ourselves
and get our hands dirty. We were running
all over the snow-peaked mountains and harsh
rock valleys I was now seeing below us. We
ambushed, attacked, blew up and killed anything
that carried a hammer and sickle. Every
time a Hind retaliated, one of us would loose off
a Stinger and blow it out of the sky. All my
Christmases had come at once.

Eventually the Russians had had enough.
We'd helped make Afghanistan their Vietnam.
One day they just got back into their tanks and
few remaining Hinds and crept out of town.

We withdrew, only for the muj to start fighting
among themselves all over again – as they do. If
there's no enemy, they kick the shit out of each
other. They're even worse than Jocks. Fifty
thousand people were killed in Kabul alone during
the civil war that followed.

The Taliban finally won in 1996, and they ran
the shop until late 2001. That was when, after
9/11, the USA came calling with a few thousand
tonnes of bombs so the Northern Alliance could
enter the city and take over for the US forces that
were 'liberating' the country. And so the show
goes on.

Even today, the US are still shitting themselves
at the prospect of Stingers being used against
them, and rightly so. Pallet loads of the things are
unaccounted for. They could be lying in somebody's
shed, still waiting for that rainy day, or in
Iran, being busily reverse-engineered.