Authors: Simon Conway
She’d tried everything. She was desperate. And so she had decided to use herself as bait.
The pounding of the music lessened as she walked in the direction of a distant grove of mango trees. There were times, like now, when she felt Ed’s absence as a physical pain. It was hard not to go over and over it; it hung like a bloody albatross around your neck. They had been so good together. There was the laughter and the sex (how she missed that!), but the best part was the talking. She had been completely open with him. More open that she had been with anyone else before.
She had been devastated when he was abducted. Every day had been torture since then.
#
As she approached the mangoes Leyla saw a young couple on a bench beneath one of the trees. She spotted the red coal of a joint being passed back and forth. She walked over.
‘Hi guys,’ she said.
‘Leyla,’ a familiar voice called out, clearly delighted.
It was her cousin Jamal with his girlfriend Alia. They were drinking bottles of
Murree
beer and sharing the joint, presumably to even out the rushes from the ecstasy they’d taken. Jamal was the one that had got her into the party. He wasn’t rich, not on the same scale as this crowd, but he was well-connected.
‘Enjoying yourself?’ he asked.
‘Not really my scene,’ she replied.
He offered her the joint and she refused, though not without a twinge of regret. It would be great to be free from care for a while. On the bench they were giggling, Jamal stroking Alia’s arm. She envied them their happiness. Jamal reached forward and kissed Alia behind her ear. Leyla could see that she should leave.
‘I’ll come back and check up on you in a bit,’ she said.
‘Did that guy find you?’ Alia asked.
‘What guy?’
‘Salman,’ Jamal added. ‘He’s agreed to talk to you.’
She pulled back slightly and they were grinning at her, chemical wonder in their eyes. ‘You’re serious?’
‘I told you I’d fix you up,’ Jamal told her.
‘He went that way,’ Alia said, pointing.
‘I’ll catch you later.’
She walked in the direction Alia had pointed, trying not to hurry, emerging from the mango grove onto another lawn. It was a cricket pitch. On the far side was the dark shape of a score hut and on the track beside it a matt-black Bugatti Street Fighter. As she approached he stepped out from under the eaves of the hut.
Salman was as unfeasibly handsome as she remembered. He was wearing low-slung jeans and a white T-shirt, pearly-white trainers and a gold Rolex watch. He carried himself with the self-assurance of a dollar millionaire. There were various stories: he was fabulously rich, a twin, totally without scruples, so dyslexic he had never left a mark on paper and so careful he never spoke on a phone. Leyla’s favourite story was the one where they were playing with sticks in the garden of his father’s house. She was six years old and had recently demanded to have her head shaved. He was the same age and as quick as her with the stick. Later he would become a Kendo master.
‘Salman! It’s time for Leyla to go,’ his mother had called from the veranda. ‘Say goodbye to her.’
‘He’s not going! He’s staying!’
‘No darling, Leyla is a girl. She’s going home.’
She remembered the astonished look on Salman’s face and could claim with some confidence that she was his first love. There were other stories of course and they had been actual lovers for a while in their early twenties. But she did not care to remember that time.
‘How are you Leyla?’ he asked.
He had never forgiven her for leaving him and fleeing to London, of that she was sure.
‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘I know.’
Of course he knew, he always did his homework. Or someone did it for him, whispered the information in his ear ahead of any meeting. She knew he hated surprises. She got down on one knee, rolled up her jeans and peeled back the fastening on her ankle wallet. She retrieved a stack of dollars that amounted to just about everything she’d ever earned from blogging and stood up.
She offered the money. ‘Here.’
‘Put your money away.’
She felt the blood rise in her cheeks. ‘It’s everything I have.’
He smiled wryly. ‘I’m sure it is.’
‘You’re not going to help me?’
‘You couldn’t pay me enough to betray a client.’
‘So why are we here?’ she demanded, angrily.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She span around as a bull of a man stepped out of the shadows behind her.
‘I am Noman.’
38. Truth serum
Ed opened his eyes. For a moment he had no sense of place, the mattress beneath him meant nothing. Then he shivered and the world came back. He was in Pakistan, in a cell, beyond the reach of rescue. The bolt was drawn back and the door opened. He looked up at the giant Raja Mahfouz, standing framed in the doorway.
‘Noman is waiting.’
He escorted Ed along the corridor, past the cellar door and up the stairs to the ground floor room they had used the day before. Noman was standing at the sideboard scowling, a vein in his forehead pulsing. He poured himself a coffee and palmed it in both hands.
‘Do you mind if I have some?’ Ed asked.
Noman shrugged. ‘Help yourself.’
Ed filled a mug and they sat down at the table. The coffee was strong and bitter, a jolt to the brain. There was something different about Noman, a harder line to his jaw. Ed contemplated throwing the coffee in his face.
‘The British are looking for you. Interpol has issued a Red Notice requesting your arrest and extradition. If the British are looking for you then Khan will be too,’ Noman told him.
Ed shook his head. ‘This is so fucked.’
‘Let’s go over what happened when you came back to London after Tariq’s death.’
‘I told you.’
Noman switched on the voice recorder. ‘Tell me again.’
‘I knew I was done for when they wouldn’t let me past reception at Vauxhall Cross. I was told to report straight to Burns. She was waiting for me in a basement under Whitehall.’
‘Was Jonah there?’
Ed was surprised. ‘Yes.’
‘Did he show you the Khyber Collage?’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘You people think you invented espionage.’ He shook out a Gold Flake and lit it. ‘Is Khan still at the centre of the collage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did they meet you there?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What did Jonah say to you?’
‘Nothing. Burns did all the talking. She said that getting out of Afghanistan took precedence over going after Khan. She said that with Tariq dead I’d outlived my usefulness.’
‘How did that make you feel?’
‘Just fucking dandy.’
Noman slapped him hard across the side of the face. It was so fast Ed didn’t have time to react. He’d never seen someone move so quickly. He sat back in his chair with his jaw throbbing. The coffee cup was lying shattered in a corner of the room.
‘I’m not in the mood for any of your shit,’ Noman told him. He casually finished his cigarette and dropped the butt on the floor, crushing it with the toe of his cowboy boot. ‘Why was Jonah in the meeting?’
‘I don’t know, ‘ Ed replied, holding the side of his face. ‘When she introduced him she said he was the only person in MI6 who had actually met Khan.’
‘When was he supposed to have met Khan?’
‘Burns said it was back in 2005, when a terrorist cell tried to blow up a ship in the Thames Estuary. Jonah met with Khan in Peshawar. That’s all she told me. I don’t know what they talked about. If I did I’d tell you.’
‘And Jonah didn’t speak to you?’
‘Not a word.’
Noman reached inside the desk and took out something small. He tossed it on the table with a scowl on his face. A wrap.
Ed looked from the folded piece of paper to Noman and back again.
‘Are you serious?’
Noman reached forward and unfolded the wrap. ‘I asked my dealer for truth serum. This was the best he could do.’ He tapped the cocaine into a mound on the top of the table and chopped it with a razor blade from his wallet. He drew off two lines and rolled a five thousand rupee note and offered it to Ed.
‘It’s not really my thing,’ Ed said.
Noman shrugged, leant forward and snorted a line. He drew himself erect and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He held out the note again.
‘You don’t get to choose.’
After a pause loaded with menace, Ed took the note and snorted the remaining line.
‘What did they do with you after that meeting?’ Noman demanded, his fingers drumming a tattoo on the top of the table.
‘Sure. Of course,’ Ed replied, his heart beating faster in his chest. He felt an expansive rush. ‘They suspended me. I shouldn’t have hit that weasel Hagedorn. It was dumb I know. I mean, what choice did I leave them after that? I was suspended and my clearance was revoked. I waited a couple of weeks. Then there was the Board of Inquiry. I was dismissed.‘
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes, that’s it. I was out on my ear.‘
‘You’re sure?’
‘Of course. Can I have a cigarette?’
Quick as a snake Noman was across the top of the table with his handgun drawn. He had a fistful of Ed’s hair in one hand and his Glock in the other, squashing Ed’s cheek against the table and screwing the muzzle of the gun into his temple.
‘Fuck!’ Ed yelled.
‘You listen to me, you piece of shit. You haven’t given me a single piece of information that I can use. You better start raising your game or I’m going to blow your fucking brains out!’
Noman let go of Ed and strode back and forth in front of the table. Ed slumped in his chair. ‘What do you want to know?’
39. 500g
The jittery smile on Noman’s face vanished. He took his phone out of his pocket and called a number. He paused for a moment before holding it out to Ed.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Talk to your lady.’
Sweat bloomed in Ed’s palm as he took the phone.
‘Ed?’
‘Leyla?’
He was overwhelmed by a sudden plunging sensation like vertigo,
They’ve got her. They’ve got her. They’ve got her
.
‘Are you ok?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. He could hear the fear in her voice. ‘I had to tell them.’
‘You’re not hurt? They haven’t hurt you?’
He had an image of her sitting with her knees drawn up on a mattress in a windowless cell.
‘No, I’m not hurt.’
Unharmed. He had to believe her.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘I’m going to sort this out. Everything’s going to be ok. Where are you? Leyla? Leyla?’
She was gone. The phone snatched from her hand. Call terminated.
Noman was watching him. His face was strangely peaceful, his eyes lucid. It was as if he was feeding off Ed’s desperation.
‘You bastard!‘ Ed snarled.
‘First let me reassure you. She is completely unharmed.’
Ed pushed himself up out the chair and set his fists on the table. ‘Let her go!’
Noman held up his hand. ‘You don’t dictate terms to me.’
‘I’ll kill you!’
‘Don’t make me tell them to do something to her,’ Noman said. ‘Slice her face or something.’
Ed didn’t answer. His head was pounding. It felt like something was tightening in his head and might at any time snap. In frustration he flung the phone against the wall. He sank back into the chair.
‘You know how this works,’ Noman said in the same even tone of voice. ‘You’ve spoken to her. You’ve established it’s her. You know she’s ok. I promise you nothing is going to happen to her if you co-operate. I’ve seen the room she’s being held in. It’s nice. Nicer than the one you’re in. So stop bothering yourself. You can have her back and live happily ever after. All you have to do is cut out all the bullshit and give me something I can use.’
‘You don’t have to do this.’
‘You haven’t given me a single piece of information that I can use.’
Ed slumped in his chair. He felt utterly defeated. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Tell me about the courier job you did after you left the service.’
‘It was nothing, really. I delivered a briefcase to a woman in Dubai. That’s it.’
‘What was in the briefcase?’
‘Money. Fifty thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills in a single brick: five hundred grams in weight.’
‘Tell me in greater detail what you did.’
‘I collected the suitcase from a hotel suite at Heathrow and checked in for an Emirates flight to Dubai. A seat in Business Class.’
‘From whom did you collect the suitcase?’
‘A service employee who worked for Informal Remittances, it’s a department of the service that manages cash payments to international sources. I’d done this kind of thing before, in the build-up to the Iraq War, when we were paying relatives of high-up Baathists in Saddam’s regime. We had an arrangement with the authorities who turned a blind eye. In Dubai I cleared customs and was met in Arrivals.’
‘Who by?’
‘A former soldier named Dai Llewellyn. He’d been my bodyguard in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now he’s based in Dubai. He’s a big guy, knows how to handle himself. His job was to drive me to the hotel. He parked in the car park and waited while I went inside.’
‘Did he know what was in the briefcase?’
‘He wasn’t supposed to.’
‘But he knew?’
‘He wasn’t stupid.’
‘And at the hotel?’
‘There was a reservation in my name. I collected the key-card and went up to my room. I sat on the bed. Somewhere between forty-five minutes and an hour-and-half later my room telephone rang.’
‘Who was it?’
‘A Somali named Abdi. He told me his room number and invited me to join him. I went up in the elevator. He was in a much larger suite than mine. He answered the door and escorted me to a sitting area where the woman was waiting.’
‘Describe Abdi.’
‘He was a tall, thin man with an angular face and thinning on top. I’d met him once before when I was with naval intelligence. Amongst others, he represented an informal network of seaman who worked the Dhows in the Strait of Hormuz and reported on the movements of Iranian shipping. He specialised in acting as an impartial third party, he facilitated secure meetings and counted money.’