Crossfire (18 page)

'I'm in the city, heading for the hotel. Any more
emails?'

'Yes. We have a problem. They want the money
in position by Saturday morning. If not, he dies.'

'Chances are he's history anyway, right?'

'Correct.'

'I'll read it when I get to the hotel.'

I closed down the cell and leant forward again.
'This your wagon, maybe?'

He smiled proudly and nodded like a madman.

'Nice.'

He nudged us past a dozen pushbikes taking
up half the road. The traffic was bumper to
bumper. I saw plenty of 4x4s and orange-and-white
taxis, but everything else seemed to be a
Corolla.

High walls, razor wire and floodlights
sectioned off the buildings in this neighbourhood.
They probably housed NGOs, big
companies and government bodies, and were
guarded inside by the entire male populations of
the Philippines and Nepal.

Outside almost every one of them was a plywood
guardhouse. Local guys in serge sat on
plastic chairs in the shade, their body armour so
thin it was more like a stab vest. Each had an AK
across his thighs, a brass teapot and a glass at his
feet. Nothing much seemed to be going on. They
just sat and stroked their beards.

I tapped the baby seat. 'How many children
you got, mate?'

'Four! All boys, Mr Nick!'

'You've been busy.'

He turned and gave me the world's biggest
grin. 'Maybe!'

The escort nodded along, too, as Magreb
explained what we were waffling about.

We crawled past rack upon rack of bootleg
DVDs, mostly Bollywood by the look of it. A
poster in the shop window behind them showed
a beautiful woman with perfect teeth dancing
around in blindingly coloured clothes as the guy
with the beard watched on admiringly. The
fucker was stalking me.

We reached a roundabout. Traffic in all
directions was at a standstill. Four guys in a
different style of grey serge pointed at vehicles
and shouted, then kicked the ones that didn't
obey. They wore oversized Russian-style white
peaked caps they'd had to place on the backs of
their heads so they could see. They looked like
drunken sailors. A couple wore face masks, as if
they were directing traffic in Tokyo.

Magreb made a tutting noise. 'A bomb in a car.
The man killed himself, Mr Nick, maybe.'

The escort thought he'd better demonstrate.
His arms went up in the air. 'Boom!' He pointed
along the exit immediately to our right.

I watched one of the peaked caps land a kick
on the side panel of an orange-and-white.
Magreb tutted again.

'You work at the hotel?'

'I work in kitchen, Mr Nick. I am chef. They
need someone go to airport, and I speak English.
My English OK for you, Mr Nick?'

I gripped his shoulder and gave it a bit of a
manly shake. 'Maybe, Magreb. Maybe. Thanks
for picking me up, mate.'

Cars tried to worm their way into any gap.
Magreb somehow worked the people-carrier
forward. The traffic cops' brand-new green-and-white
Toyota 4x4 was parked in the middle of the
roundabout. A sign on the back announced in
English that it was a present from the people of
Germany.

An old man selling SIM cards took advantage
of the jam and walked between the vehicles, his
merchandise hung from a board held high on a
pole, like a glockenspiel.

I tapped the escort. 'Give him a shout.'

Magreb translated. The window creaked down
and the guard called him over.

The old guy wore about three coats and a cowpat
hat. His eyes brightened at the prospect of a
sale. Every card that hung from the board in
a cellophane wrapper showed a footballer that
even I could recognize. I pushed my arm
between Magreb and the escort.

'How much?'

Magreb translated. 'Ten dollars each, maybe.'

My hand dived into my jeans.

The old boy's head almost filled the open
window.

I spread my fingers. 'Give me five.'

He grinned like I'd made his year and handed
over a set of Thierry Henrys. Perhaps he'd
celebrate with a fourth coat.

Transaction done, the Hiace was moving
again. I rummaged in my Bergen and pulled out
the mobile I'd bought at Heathrow. The Yes Man
didn't have to know everything I needed to do.
And I certainly didn't want him tracking me on
the Firm's mobile once I'd got my hands on Dom.
I'd give him just enough information to make
him happy and keep him letting me use his
resources. It wasn't op sec and it wasn't bullshit.
It was self-preservation. I didn't know what he
had planned for me once I'd handed Dom over.
If
I handed him over.

As I loaded one of the Thierrys, a two-ship
Humvee convoy barged its way to the detonation
site. Both wagons had .50 cals on top and the
American drivers were taking no prisoners.
Faces shrouded by dust masks and goggles, they
shouted, gesticulated, leant on their horns. It had
no effect. In the end the Humvees decided just to
bump cars out of the way with their bull bars.
The gunners up top in the turrets swung their .50
cals in wide arcs. How to make friends and influence
people, Washington-style.

'Kate, it's Nick. Top of the morning to you.'
Well, it was Dublin. I got a sort of laugh from her
as she tried to pretend no one had ever said that
before.

I asked if she could have a little rummage in
Moira's office for me and see if she could find
where Basma Al-Sulaiman had her safe-house.

'I'm so sorry, Nick. It's a women's refuge. Part
of the deal was that Dominik wouldn't divulge
any details.'

Shit
.

'But I have a mobile number.'

'Kate, you're a star. What are the colours of
your national flag?'

She hesitated. Either she didn't know the
Polish flag or it was just a stupid question. 'Red
and white.'

'That's the colour of the flowers I'll send you,
then. Has my number come up?'

I got lots of giggles and a thank-you before she
gave the answer I wanted. 'Yes.'

'Great – can you text me the number? I'll get
those flowers to you as soon as I can. I won't tell
Moira if you don't.'

I closed down as Magreb eased in behind the
second Humvee. The .50 cal gunner didn't like
that. He swung the barrel and waved at us to
back off.

Magreb pulled a face that said, in any
language,
Yeah, right
. I liked this boy more by the
minute.

We made some progress and passed a huge
mosque shrouded in scaffolding. An army of
plasterers was filling in strike marks and shell
holes.

Just round the corner a fortress was disguised
as the Serena Hotel.

Whoever had designed the place had made it
almost impregnable to ground attack by anything
except a Challenger or a Warrior, and with
not a HESCO or roll of razor wire in sight.

The two main gates must each have been about
twelve feet square, and built of thick steel bars in
close grids. Marble columns at either side
supported a thick stone canopy; whatever else it
was meant to do, it provided shade. The guards
underneath were impressive, too. They wore the
same kit as my escort, as you'd expect in a place
with a $35 million price tag. He gave them a
wave.

I'd read all the stuff about it online at
Heathrow. It had gone up last year over the ruins
of the old Kabul Hotel, which had been bombed
and shot to shit for years. Going by the pictures
and blurb on the website, it was the safest and
most luxurious place in the whole of the city,
probably in the whole of Afghanistan. Unless, of
course, you were bunkered in with ISAF.

The gates opened inwards and we drove into a
stone-slabbed courtyard. It was lined with a pair
of white Toyota Landcruisers with UN markings
and three American GMC suburbans with
blacked-out windows and enough antennae to
double as NASA mobile control centres. The
drivers leant against their bonnets in the new
grey spotty camouflage, thigh holsters and wraparound
shades and watched us rattle past.

Magreb stopped under a huge stone and
marble portico. A doorman dressed in the local
turban-type get-up rushed out and opened my
door. His London equivalent would have been
decked out as a Beefeater.

I shoved them both a twenty-dollar bill and the
escort discovered a little English. 'Thank you.'

It was probably more than they earned all day,
and it showed.

Two young bellhops ran out looking in vain for
bags. I pointed at my Bergen and shrugged. They
tried to take it from me, but I held on. I shook
hands with the security guy and he wandered
back to his mates at the main gate.

It was Magreb's turn for a handshake. 'Do you
want to drive me while I'm here, mate? Maybe
buy a new baby seat for son number four?'

The handshake got more rigorous. This was a
good day for him, and of course he liked me. I
was nice to him. 'But I work, Mr Nick . . . I cook
nice food for you, maybe.'

'No problem. When do you finish?'

He looked at his watch as if it was going to tell
him. 'Seven . . . seven.'

'Good, write down your number and I'll call
you at seven, OK?'

He jumped back into his seat and found a pen.

Job done, I headed for the metal detector
immediately to one side of the entrance. My new
mate with the turban ushered me straight
towards the tall glass doors. We might have been
in a war zone, but it felt a million miles from
Basra. There were no mortar rounds or rockets
raining down, no armoured track vehicles, no
helmets, no body armour jutting under my mate
Gunga Din's robes. The only reminder was a
printed sign telling me no firearms were allowed
inside.

The lobby could have belonged to a five-star
hotel in Paris or New York. There were marble
floors, glass walls and gold finishing to all the
surfaces. Local carpets and dark wood added to
the palatial impression. The only thing out of
place was the reggae music coming over the
speaker system. Either they'd got their lobby and
party disks mixed up, or there'd been a cock-up
in the mailroom at the hotel chain HQ and a
Caribbean pool party in Jamaica was trying to
dance right now to traditional Afghan folk songs.

Thirty-five million dollars for a hotel in Kabul
made good business sense. The oil companies
had their guys exploring the north of the country
to see what could be sucked out of the ground up
there. When their top brass jetted in for a visit,
they could hardly be put up in a downtown flophouse.
There always had to be wartime melting
pots for the so-called great and good. There was
a Serena lookalike in every war zone, maybe not
as luxurious as this one but they existed all the
same.

I started checking in. In this part of the world
they don't trust plastic; it's folding money all the
way – and preferably green, with presidents on.

I thanked reception profusely for organizing
my lift and handed over fifteen hundred US for
the first five nights I'd booked.

As I signed the register, seven or eight guys
swaggered past, all in BDUs with razor-sharp
creases and desert boots straight from the
quartermaster. Each carried a laptop bag over his
shoulder, and a small fancy box in his hand. The
pink ribbon they were tied with looked bizarre
next to the thigh pistols. I took it that the sign
outside was for the bad guys only.

They headed for the reception desk flashing
credit-card-sized IDs on their armbands, just in
case we hadn't realized they were American
officers.

I headed upstairs. The hotel was only three
storeys, with rooms on the first and second
floors. I'd asked for one on the first. In theory it
would be harder to hit with an RPG from the outside
because of the perimeter wall. With luck,
anyone taking a pot shot would only zap the top
floor.

My room was huge. Plush carpets, lots of dark
wood, all the gear. There was even a little office
area and a torch in case the emergency generator
didn't kick in when they lost power. The air-con
hummed above me as I looked through the
sealed, double-glazed windows. Maybe I
was wrong about RPGs. The perimeter wall was
being heightened to give a little more protection
from direct fire.

Down in the compound, the neatly pressed
Yanks had just placed their pink-ribboned boxes
into their three-ship GMC convoy. They lifted out
M4s, a shorter-barrelled version of the M16 with
a collapsible butt, and loaded them up before
climbing into the wagons.

I left them to it. First things first. I powered up
the laptop and connected to the room's ADSL.

I had no idea how the secure comms worked
on one of the Firm's machines, but there was
encryption and decryption at each end, and that
was all I needed to know. Normal email
addresses were used. I was on AOL, paid for by
direct debit from my ACA bank account at the
Royal Bank of Scotland. I'd be sending to a
Hotmail account belonging to the Yes Man.
Echelon wouldn't be able to intercept: it would
be a load of old mush bouncing around in cyberspace
until the Yes Man opened up his own
computer and retrieved it.

The mailbox was full of emails about jobs I was
planning and had already done for the publisher.
Their emails would keep arriving all the time I
was away. There was also a healthy amount of
spam. In fact, it looked so normal I was amazed
the Firm hadn't downloaded some porn on to it.

The hidden bit of the hard drive prompted me
for my password. I keyed in my eight-digit army
number and it took me straight online.

There was one email with an attachment waiting.
It was from the Yes Man.

Dom's reply this morning to the email Siobhan
had sent from the kitchen wasn't good news. The
language was controlled, but you could tell he
was sweating.

The sofas are blue – remember it took us a
month of shopping to find just the right shade?
Darling, they have told me that if the money
isn't ready by Saturday, they will kill me. Please
make sure all the funds from Patrick or whoever
come in by electronic transfer – no checks
– so the money is ready to move. I will give you
details of how and where as soon as you tell
me you're ready. I love you. Dx

Siobhan's email, in contrast, was all over the
place. I imagined her sitting at the island sobbing
into her alcohol.

I WILL HAVE THE MONEY . . . patricks nearly
got everything sorted . . . i will have the money
darling . . . please tell them to hold on I have it,
it will be ready for them anywhere anytime . . .
please tell them not to harm you, i will have
their money. When you reply, wherever you are,
we'll have good news – I promise. I love you.
Please tell me what happened to John's black
BMW last winter. Please show me you are still
alive. I love you . . .

I reread them both. There was something
wrong with Dom's. The proof-of-life statements
showed he was alive around the time they were
sent, but it didn't feel like Dom was sending
them.

He was a clever lad with a degree in English
literature. Under duress he might spell the odd
word wrong, but he wouldn't have spelt 'cheque'
like an American. In fact, I knew he didn't. I'd
seen the proof in Pete's files. So had I got an
American at the end of these emails? Could be;
there were enough of them in-country.

The Yes Man told me they were being sent
from AM Net Café. It was on the corner of Flower
Street and Jadayi Sulh, two shops in from the
junction opposite the Emergency Surgical Centre
for War Victims.

There was no welcome pack in the room and
no courtesy map, no bus trips on offer to see the
sights or visits to the ballet. One day I guessed
there'd be guided tours of bin Laden's caves and
the glorious poppy fields in bloom, but not yet.

There was a PDF map of the city on the desktop.
I'd try to correlate the main routes with satellite
imagery. It was important to know exactly where I
was, and exactly where I was going – there was
absolutely no room for fuck-ups.

I could have used the Firm's satellite imagery
to study the location, but Google Earth was just
as good for the detail I needed.

The street map itself wasn't detailed enough to
give street names, but the sat imagery was good.

I found the café. It was only about a K and a
half away, but I was going to need to burn the
routes there and back firmly into my memory. I
switched between the PDF and Google Earth and
soon had my bearings.

I found a bottle of water among all the mock-tails
in the minibar and went back to the laptop.
This was a dry country. If you wanted alcohol,
you had to smuggle in your own – or go to a
place like the Gandamack Lodge.

It was next on my list. I'd have to check all
Dom's known locations to find out where the
fuck he was by Saturday morning. Even if the
cash was handed over, he was still going to get a
round in the back of the head. And if I discovered
he'd killed Pete, I wanted it to be me who pulled
the trigger.

The Gandamack Lodge had opened in the
days following the overthrow of the Taliban in
2001, when a glut of news crews found themselves
with nowhere to stay. It very quickly
became a Mecca for journalists. That, in turn,
made it a Mecca for another breed of war
veteran, the fixer.

I checked Google Earth again. It wasn't easy
to work out where exactly it was on the map
when all I had to work with was an address that
read: 'Next to the UNHCR building and just up
from DHL'.

This wasn't unusual. I'd worked in plenty of
cities where the directions were just as vague.
Phrases like 'round the corner from' or 'at the
back of' keep cropping up. My favourite had
been in Jalalabad. One address had been 'street
number two, second alleyway, house fifteen, four
doors left'.

I thought I'd worked out which building I was
looking for. UNHCR (United Nations High
Commission for Refugees) was marked on the
PDF, but I still wanted a decent local map. I
wasn't going out there on the streets without one.
TV Hill stuck out like a sore thumb, but Kabul
was a city of three million people. That was a
fuck of a lot of streets and alleyways.

I closed down the laptop. The Firm's disk
would close itself down automatically and go
hide somewhere in the main drive. It would also
be defended against interrogation by sniffer
devices, which could read a hard disk from a few
metres away. Targets of industrial espionage can
have their hard drive downloaded while they're
checking in at an airport without having a clue
that it's happening. Even the new biometric passports
aren't immune. IDs are routinely stolen this
way, especially by people-traffickers.

I sparked up the personal mobile and a text
was waiting. Kate had sent Basma's mobile
number.

I highlighted and hit send. It rang four times. It
was answered, but whoever was at the other end
didn't speak.

'Hello, Basma? My name is Nick.' I could hear
rustling and distant traffic.

'Basma, I'm a friend of Dominik
Condratowicz.'

'Where did you get this number?' The voice
was female, and spoke perfect Home Counties
English.

'I need to see you. It's about Dom. He's in
trouble and I think you can help. I know he's
there. I was with him when you phoned a couple
of days back. Where are you?'

There was no hesitation this time. 'Do not call
me again.'

The line went dead.

I stored her number, and closed down to save
the battery.

The laptop and the Firm's mobile went into the
room safe, and my two passports, cash, room
card, RBS card and, of course, my Thierry Henrys
went down between my socks and my
Timberlands.

I'd bought a black nylon bum-bag at Heathrow
at the same time as the phone. I went to the bathroom
and padded it out with the flannel and half
a roll of toilet paper, then fixed it round my waist
so the pouch was on my right hip and protruded
from under my T-shirt. The personal mobile
went into the pocket of my jeans.

I switched on the TV. I looked back as I hung
the Do Not Disturb sign outside, and the first
face I saw on the screen was the grey-haired
bloke with the beard.