More Than You Can Say (26 page)

‘Well, her file says Nadine Lemprière.’

Before Nick could say any more, his phone rang, and he answered it, at the same moment pushing a photo across the desk towards me. It showed a much younger Adeena. She
was wearing a black gown and a headscarf. She looked different: younger, and wilder. Cruel, inhospitable ridges of rock filled the background of the picture and in the foreground was a dusty hillside, strewn with boulders and other objects I could not make out. Adeena was staring up and the shot had been taken from somewhere above her. Behind her was an area of charred ground. The photograph was grainy and blurred, as if it had been reproduced many times. But it was Adeena, no question about it.

‘Ask someone else. I’m in a meeting.’ Nick slammed the phone down and turned his attention back to me.

‘This photo was taken at an al-Qaeda training camp in the Safed Koh mountains. That’s on the border between Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan.’

I felt myself go cold, as if my blood temperature had dropped a couple of degrees.

‘What training camp? Where did you get this picture?

‘It was in her file,’ Nick told me.

‘What file?’

‘The file that we eventually got from our allies: the Combined Security Transition Command in Kabul. The file of Nadine Lemprière, daughter of the late Jean-Paul Lemprière.’

Nick smiled at me, as if he’d laid down a particularly good hand of poker. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more.

‘She told me her father was a journalist based in Qatar …’

‘That’s bollocks.’ Nick paused and watched me to see the effect his words were having. ‘Her father got his first entry on the files as a radical student. That was in 1968, during the student riots in Paris. He was right at the centre of the violence, a real hard-case anarchist. Then nothing was heard from him for quite a few years, until the CIA station in Beirut
ran a check on him. By then he was working in the city, lecturing on journalism at Beirut University – on the days when it was open for business, that is. He had a reputation as an anti-Zionist, and an anti-American. While he was there he married a Palestinian girl from one of the camps in south Beirut. Nadine was the result. They lived in Paris for a while and then disappeared off the map.’

He paused, sipped his coffee again, and pushed the photo forward an inch.

‘This was taken six years ago from a Predator drone. It was overflying a camp in the Safed Koh mountains. Everyone was after Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar at the time, so the air was thick with flying cameras and missile platforms like the one that took this picture. Nadine and her parents had been living there for a while.’

He paused and looked at me, wanting to determine how much of this I already knew. But this version of Adeena’s story was very different to the one she’d given me.

‘Of course, Jean-Paul called himself a freelance journalist,’ continued Nick. ‘Of course, he said he was based in Qatar. But he was never there. The CIA became interested in him again when his pieces about al-Qaeda started appearing on various so-called ‘‘non-aligned’’ news channels. It was like he was the AQ in-house public relations department. The CIA – or someone – decided he had the wrong sort of friends and knew too much to be just a journalist. Eventually they picked up his image on the same flight that grabbed this picture of Nadine.’

Outside in the main office several phones started ringing at once but Nick was concentrating on his story.

‘The people operating the drone checked and confirmed the image. They knew if Lemprière was in that camp then
some of the really bad guys would be there too. Luckily for them the kill chain was short: they were sitting looking at the pictures in real time in Nevada, and the senior officer they needed to talk to was in the same time zone and awake, for once. They got the heads-up to launch a Hellfire missile at the camp. I’d guess it was a few minutes after that photo was taken. It hit the target: parents both killed, as well as a dozen other interesting individuals Jean-Paul had presumably been interviewing for his next big scoop. The CIA got a result but they didn’t get Nadine.’

There was a silence. At last I felt able to speak with a steady voice.

‘So what happened to Adeena?’

‘You tell me. Someone got her out of there. Someone got her a job as a translator for an aid agency in Kabul. That bit’s true. She did change her name to Adeena before she applied for that job. For all I know, Adeena Haq may now be her legal name, at least until she married you. But that’s not the issue here.’

‘Does she have a brother? A brother who lives in Kabul?’ I said.

‘No,’ said Nick. ‘No brother. Why do you ask?’

I thought about the phone calls to her ‘brother’ that Adeena had made from Hartlepool Hall and then from my flat. If there was no brother, then to whom had she been talking, and about what?

‘So what is the ‘‘issue’’?’ I said, not replying to his question.

‘The issue is Aseeb’s motive. Why did he bring Nadine here? It must have involved considerable personal risk. It’s not what he normally does, which is money laundering for his paymasters in Afghanistan and elsewhere. He didn’t bring
her all this way just to sell her for a few hundred pounds or use her as a sex slave. He might have used her as a mule to carry money or drugs, but then why bother with all that marriage business?’

‘I don’t know,’ I replied.

‘You’re not the thinking type, are you?’ said Nick. ‘A beautiful girl of mysterious Middle Eastern origins falls all over you, and you don’t even ask yourself why? You must have a very high opinion of your charms, Mr Gaunt.’

‘Of course I don’t,’ I said angrily. ‘They just picked me up off the street.’

‘Yes,’ interrupted Nick. ‘They picked you up off the street. That’s where it all went wrong for a moment. We’ve been talking to the lad Kevin. Instead of getting hold of some drifter, he picks up a slightly pissed ex-army officer who is trained to kill. Probably not what was in the original job specification. All they wanted was some poor bastard who was desperate enough to give his name to a marriage in return for a lump sum, very likely a lot less than they paid you in the end. But you went along with them anyway. Why was that?’

There wasn’t an easy answer to that question. The Richard Gaunt of two weeks ago now seemed like someone from another age. Then I had been indifferent to anyone and everyone, living a life without meaning or purpose. I had been walking to Oxford for a bet when I was kidnapped, hadn’t I? That alone was a fairly stupid thing to do.

Nick Davies was right. I didn’t think deeply: thinking deeply led me to places I didn’t want to go to. And now, everything had changed.

‘Why was that?’ repeated Nick. ‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ve got much of an answer anyway. You helped them get
what they wanted: Nadine was recreated as Adeena Gaunt, given the right to stay in this country, and was one step away from full UK citizenship, thanks to you. But Aseeb wasn’t really interested in you at first. He wanted to create a new identity for the girl, and you would have been discarded as soon as you had done what was asked of you. When you left, that should have been the end of it. But it wasn’t.’

Basil put his head around the door.

‘The minister’s on the phone. He wants you to join a conference call shortly. What do I say?’

‘Say what you like,’ Nick snapped. ‘Tell him that if I spend my entire time reporting to him and joining pointless conference calls, I’ll never get anything done. He wants me to keep the president of Afghanistan alive while he’s in London, I suppose? Then why doesn’t he let me get on with it? Tell him ‘‘Yes’’, Bas, but have a car ready and get a dial-in number so we can join in on the call on a mobile.’

Nick turned back to me.

‘Nadine is a sleeper, Richard. She’s a terrorist, with a more or less legitimate UK identity, waiting to be pointed at an opportunity. So why did she come back to you when you left? Suddenly their long-term plan had become a short-term plan. They must have seen something. Or you told them something. What was it? Try and think, for once. It could be really, really important.’

I had no idea what he was talking about.

‘You said something,’ persisted Nick. ‘Or else they saw something when they went to your flat. Or something else happened that rang a few bells. They sent Nadine after you. What was it that changed their minds?’

I wasn’t on Nick’s wavelength at all. He was talking about someone called Nadine, and all I could think about was
Adeena: a girl who had run away from her captors in search of help, who had come to me because I was the only person in the United Kingdom whose address she knew. Now I had promised to look after her, no matter what. But
who
had she been calling on the phone?

‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’ I suggested.

‘Good idea,’ agreed Nick. ‘
Cherchez la femme
. We’ll ask the lady herself. Call her to tell her that you’re on your way home.’ He held out the handset towards me so that I could punch in my number. After a moment the line connected, and I could hear the phone ringing. No one answered.

‘She won’t pick up,’ I said.

Nick frowned. Then he stood up and went to the door of his office and shouted:

‘Right.
Basil!
Car.’

Basil was bending over a desk, talking into a phone. He raised his head.

‘Car’s downstairs, Nick.’

‘I want your guarantee that she won’t be arrested,’ I told Nick.

‘No deals. No guarantees,’ he said. ‘We’re way beyond that. You know that. Let’s go.’

Feeling sick, I followed Nick through the office and downstairs. There was a black Audi A6 parked outside, with a driver at the wheel. Nick gestured to me to get into the back, then walked around the car to sit on the other side. A moment later Basil came flying down the stairs and jumped into the front passenger seat. As the car took off, Nick leaned forward and gave my address to the driver, then asked Basil:

‘What time’s that conference call?’

‘It’s been put back half an hour, Nick. The minister’s in with the prime minister, reporting to him.’

‘Jesus,’ said Nick. He checked his watch and stared out of the window.

‘I don’t want Adeena to be locked up, or sent back to Afghanistan,’ I said.

‘You’re not in a position to ask for anything. Don’t even bother trying.’

The driver drove fast, but well, and we arrived at my flat in a surprisingly short time. I got out, wondering whether Adeena was watching. I looked up but did not see her face at the window. I ran up the steps to the entrance to the flat, with Nick and Basil close behind me. The door was still locked. I found my key and opened it, my hands trembling slightly. I stepped through the small hallway into the kitchen. It was empty. I called out.

‘Adeena!’

Nick and Basil pushed past me and looked in the sitting room, the bathroom, my bedroom and the box room. Then Nick came back into the kitchen. Basil was already on his mobile, talking to someone.

‘So what’s the story, Richard?’ asked Nick. ‘Where is she? Is she having her hair done? Or has she gone to be with Aseeb? What’s your best guess, Richard?’

I stared at him. Then I sat down at the kitchen table and put my head in my hands.

‘Come on, Richard,’ said Nick. ‘Let’s not fuck about. Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it? Where is she?’

‘Sir, the conference call is open. We can join in now.’

Basil waved the mobile phone in Nick’s direction.

‘Put the bloody thing on speaker and let’s hope the battery doesn’t run flat halfway through,’ said Nick. For a moment the two of them had forgotten about me. I heard some static and then a voice: ‘You are joining a secure conference call. Please identify yourselves.’

Nick and Basil gave their names and a pass code. There were some clicks, and then a booming voice came across the line. I recognised the clipped tones of the minister David Longtown. He was fond of making television and radio appearances and one heard his voice with great regularity, whether one wanted to or not.

‘David Longtown here. Commander Verdon is in the room with me. Stand by. Is Cheltenham on the line?’

Another voice said yes, GCHQ at Cheltenham was standing by.

‘It’s two o’clock,’ said David Longtown. ‘I’ll just run through the main points of the timetable. The president is touching down at Heathrow about now. He’ll be picked up by car. That’s the Foreign Office, plus standard police escort. He goes to Buckingham Palace for an audience with Her Majesty at three. Three forty-five he leaves the Palace and they drive down the Mall to St James’s Gate, turn into
Lancaster House. Four to four thirty he has a reception at Lancaster House. After that the convoy goes down the Mall, turns right into Horse Guards, along George Street and then to Number Ten. That’s where I’ll meet the president, along with the prime minister. OK so far?’

Everyone said yes.

‘Commander Verdon, can you introduce yourself?’

A new voice announced itself. The minister said, ‘Commander Verdon is from Counter Terrorism Command and he is Gold Commander for this operation. In any emergency, he is in charge. Everyone got that?’

Various noises of assent sounded over the speaker. The minister continued: ‘This line will stay open until the president and his escort arrive in Downing Street. Any problems, anything at all that doesn’t seem right, call it in on this number. Anything new on threat status, Cheltenham?’

‘The usual increase in activity in Internet chat rooms,’ said a voice. ‘Threats to blow up the president, cut off his head and so on. Some mobile chatter. Nothing specific. We’ll keep listening.’

‘Do that,’ said the minister. At that moment Nick realised I was still in the room. He turned and mouthed, ‘Get out.’ As I left the kitchen I heard Nick say, ‘Minister, Nick Davies speaking. We may have a situation here.’

Bas closed the kitchen door, cutting off the sound of Nick’s voice. I stood in the sitting room. An awareness was growing within me: not all at once in a flash of revelation, but creeping up on me like a poison injected in my veins. I’d been had; I’d been played like a fish. Adeena’s appearance outside my flat, calculated to arouse my sympathy, had been the hook. Her apparent abduction in the supermarket had set the hook within me. I felt compelled to go after her and release her, as
they knew I would. And how easy they had made it for me! Two hardened members of al-Qaeda had let me walk all over them at the house in Oxfordshire. It was obvious to me now that the whole episode had been a set-up. I had done exactly what they wanted me to do – with the possible exception of shooting Kevin in the leg. I had brought Adeena back with me and … Adeena had brought a bag with her.