The Afghan (19 page)

Mike Martin’s final briefing took a full three days and it was important enough that Marek Gumienny flew over in the agency Grumman. Steve Hill came up from London and the two spymasters joined their executive officers McDonald and Phillips.

There were only five of them in the room, for Gordon Phillips operated what he called ‘the slide show’ himself. Rather more developed than the old slide projectors of yesterday, the demonstrator threw up picture after picture on a high-definition plasma screen in perfect colour and detail. At a touch on the remote, it could close in on any detail and magnify to fill the screen.

The point of the briefing was to show Mike Martin every last piece of information in the possession of the entire gamut of western agencies concerning the faces he might meet.

The sources were not just the Anglo-American agencies. Over forty nations’ agencies were pouring their discoveries into central databases. Apart from the rogue states, Iran, Syria, and the failed states like Somalia, governments across the planet were sharing information on terrorists of the ultra-aggressive Islamist creed.

Rabat was invaluable in targeting its own Moroccans; Aden fed in names and faces from South Yemen; Riyadh had swallowed its embarrassment and provided columns of faces from its own Saudi list.

Martin stared at them all as they flashed up. Some were face-on portraits taken in a police station; others were snatched with long lenses on streets or in hotels. The faces’ possible variants were shown: with or without beard; in Arab or western dress; long hair, short or shaven.

There were mullahs and imams from various extremist mosques; youths believed to be simple message-carriers; faces of those known to help with support services like funds, transport, safe houses.

And there were the big players, the ones who controlled the various global divisions and had access to the very top.

Some were dead, like Muhammad Atef, first Director of Operations, killed by an American bomb in Afghanistan; his successor, serving life without parole; his successor, also dead; and the believed present one.

Somewhere in there was the doctorly face of Tewfik al-Qur, who had dived over a balcony in Peshawar five months earlier. A few faces down the line was Saud Hamud al-Utaibi, new head of AQ in Saudi Arabia and believed very much alive.

And there were the blanks, the outline of a head, black on white. These included the AQ chief from South-east Asia, successor to Hanbali and probably the man behind the latest bombings of tourist resorts in the Far East. And, surprisingly, the AQ chief for the United Kingdom.

‘We knew who he was until about six months ago,’ said Gordon Phillips. ‘Then he quit just in time. He is back in Pakistan, hunted day and night. The ISI will get him eventually . . .’

‘And ship him up to us in Bagram,’ grunted Marek Gumienny. They all knew that inside the US base north of Kabul was a very special facility where everyone ‘sang’ eventually.

‘You will certainly seek out this one,’ said Steve Hill as a grim-faced imam flashed on the screen. It was a snatched shot and came from Pakistan. ‘And this one.’

It was an elderly man, looking mild and courtly; also a snatched shot, on a quayside somewhere with bright blue water in the background; it came from the Special Forces of the United Arab Emirates in Dubai.

They broke, ate, resumed, slept and started again. Only when the housekeeper was in the room with trays of food did Phillips switch off the TV screen. Tamian Godfrey and Najib Qureshi stayed in their rooms or walked the hills together. Finally it was over.

‘Tomorrow we fly,’ said Marek Gumienny.

Mrs Godfrey and the Afghan analyst came to the helipad to see him off. He was young enough to be the Koranic scholar’s son.

‘Take care of yourself, Mike,’ she said, then swore. ‘Damn, stupid me, I’m choking up. God go with you, lad.’

‘And if all else fails, may Allah keep you in his care,’ said Qureshi.

The Jetranger could only take the two senior controllers and Martin. The two executive officers would drive down to Edzell and resume their mission.

The Bell landed well away from prying eyes and the group of three ran across to the CIA Grumman V. A Scottish snow squall caused them all to shelter under waterproofs held over their heads, so no one saw that one of the men was not in western dress.

The crew of the Grumman had tended to some strange-looking passengers and knew better than to raise even an eyebrow at the heavily-bearded Afghan whom the Deputy Director (Operations) was escorting across the Atlantic with a British guest.

They did not fly to Washington but to a remote peninsula on the south-east coast of Cuba. Just after dawn on 14 February they touched down at Guantanamo and taxied straight into a hangar whose doors closed at once.

‘I’m afraid you have to remain in the plane, Mike,’ said Marek Gumienny. ‘We’ll get you out of here under cover of dark.’

Night comes fast in the tropics and it was pitch black by seven p.m. That was when four CIA men from ‘special tasks’ entered the cell of Izmat Khan. He rose, sensing something wrong. The regular guards had quit the corridor outside his cell half an hour earlier. That had never happened before.

The four men were not brutal but they were not taking no for an answer either. Two grabbed the Afghan, one round the torso pinioning his arms, the other round the thighs. The chloroform pad took only twenty seconds to work. The writhing stopped and the prisoner went limp.

He was put on a stretcher and thence on to a wheeled trolley. A cotton sheet went over the body and the prisoner was wheeled outside. The crate was waiting. The entire cell block was devoid of guard staff. No one saw a thing. A few seconds after the abduction the Afghan was inside the crate.

It was not badly equipped as crates go. From the outside it was just a large timber box such as are used for general freight purposes. Even the markings were totally authentic.

Inside it was insulated against any sound being able to emerge. In the roof there was a small removable panel to replenish fresh air, but that would not be taken down until the crate was safely airborne. There were two comfortable armchairs welded to the floor and a low-wattage amber light.

The recumbent Izmat Khan was placed in the chair that already had restrainer straps fitted. Without cutting off circulation to the limbs, the prisoner was secured so that he could relax but not leave the chair. He was still asleep.

Finally satisfied, the fifth CIA man, the one who would travel in the crate, nodded to his colleagues and the end of it was closed off. A forklift hoisted the crate a foot off the ground and ran it out to the airfield where the Hercules was waiting. It was an AC-130 Talon from Special Forces fitted with extra-range tanks and could make its destination easily.

Unexplained flights into and out of Gitmo are regular as clockwork; the tower gave a quick ‘clear take-off’ in response to the staccato request and the Hercules was airborne for McChord Base, Washington State.

An hour later a closed car drove up to the Camp Echo block and another small group got out. Inside the empty cell a man was garbed in orange jumpsuit and soft slippers. The unconscious Afghan had been photographed before being covered and removed. With the use of the Polaroid print a few minor snips were made to the beard and hair of the replacement. Every fallen tuft was collected and removed.

When it was over there were a few gruff farewells and the party left, locking the cell door behind them. Twenty minutes later the soldiers were back, mystified but incurious. The poet Tennyson had got it right: ‘theirs not to reason why’.

They checked the familiar figure of their prize prisoner and waited for the dawn.

The morning sun was tipping the pinnacles of the Cascades when the AC-130 drifted down to its home base at McChord. The base commander had been told this was a CIA shipment, a last consignment for their new research facility up in the forests of the Wilderness. Even with his rank, he needed to know no more, so he asked no more. The paperwork was in order and the Chinook stood by.

In flight the Afghan had come round. The roof panel was open and the air inside the hull of the Hercules fully pressurized and fresh. The escort smiled encouragingly and offered food and drink. The prisoner settled for a soda through a straw.

To the escort’s surprise the prisoner had a few phrases in English, clearly gleaned over five years listening in Guantanamo. He asked the time only twice in the journey, and once bowed his face as far as it would go and murmured his prayers. Otherwise he said nothing.

Just before touchdown the roof panel was replaced and the waiting forklift driver had not the slightest suspicion he was not lifting an ordinary load of freight from the rear ramp of the Hercules across to the Chinook.

Again the ramp doors closed. The small battery-powered pilot light inside the crate remained on, but invisible from outside, as all sounds were inaudible. But the prisoner was, as his escort would later report to Marek Gumienny, like a pussy-cat. No trouble at all, sir.

Given that it was mid-February, they were lucky with the weather. The skies were clear but freezing cold. At the helipad outside the Cabin the great twin-rotored Chinook landed and opened its rear doors. But the crate stayed inside. It was easier to disembark the two passengers straight from the crate to the snow.

Both men shivered as the rear wall of the crate came off. The snatch team from Guantanamo had flown with the Hercules and up front in the Chinook. They were waiting for the last formality.

The prisoner’s hands and feet were shackled before the restraining straps were removed. Then he was bidden to rise and shuffled down the ramp into the snow. The resident staff, all ten of them, stood around in a semi-circle, guns pointing.

With an escort so heavy they could hardly get through the doors, the Taliban commander was walked across the helipad, through the cabin and into his own quarters. As the door closed, shutting out the bitter air, he stopped shivering.

Six guards stood round him in his large cell as the manacles were finally removed. Shuffling backwards, they left the cell and the steel door slammed shut. He looked around. It was a better cell, but it was still a cell. He recalled the courtroom. The colonel had told him he would return to Afghanistan. They had lied again.

It was mid-morning and the sun was blazing down on the Cuban landscape when another Hercules rolled in to land. This also was equipped for long-distance flying, but unlike the Talon it was not armed to the teeth and did not belong to Special Forces. It came from MATS, the Air Force transport division. It was to carry one single passenger across the globe.

The cell door swung open.

‘Prisoner Khan, stand up. Face the wall. Adopt the position.’

The belt went round the midriff; chains fell from it to the ankle cuffs and another set to the wrists, held together and in front of the waist. The position permitted a shuffling walk, no more.

There was a short walk to the end of the block with six armed guards. The high-security truck had steps at the back, a mesh screen between the prisoners and the driver, and black windows.

When he was ordered out at the airfield, the prisoner blinked in the harsh sunlight.

He shook his shaggy head and looked bewildered. As his eyes grew accustomed to the glare, he gazed around and saw the waiting Hercules and a group of American officers staring at him. One of them advanced and beckoned.

Meekly he followed him across the scorching tarmac. Shackled though he was, six armed grunts surrounded him all the way. He turned to have one last look at the place that had held him for five miserable years. Then he shuffled up into the hull of the aircraft.

In a room one flight below the operations deck of the control tower two men stood and watched him.

‘There goes your man,’ said Marek Gumienny.

‘If they ever find out who he really is,’ replied Steve Hill, ‘may Allah have mercy on him.’

PART FOUR

Journey

CHAPTER TEN

It was a long and wearisome flight. there were no in-flight refuelling facilities, which are expensive. This Hercules was just a prison ship, doing a favour for the Afghan government who ought to have picked up their man in Cuba but had no aircraft for the job.

They flew via American bases in the Azores and Ramstein, Germany, and it was late afternoon of the following day that the C-130 dropped towards the great air base of Bagram at the southern edge of the bleak Shomali Plain.

The flight crew had changed twice, but the escort squad had stayed the course, reading, playing cards, catnapping as the four sets of whirling blades outside the portholes drove them east and ever east. The prisoner remained shackled. He too slept as best he could.

As the Hercules taxied on to the apron beside the huge hangars that dominate the American zone within Bagram base, the reception group was waiting. The US Provost Major heading the escort party was gratified to see the Afghans were taking no chances. Apart from the prison van there were twenty Afghan Special Forces soldiers headed by the unit commander Brigadier Yusuf.

The major trotted down the ramp to clear the paperwork before handing over his charge. This took a few seconds. Then he nodded to his colleagues. They unchained the Afghan from the fuselage rib and led him shuffling out into a freezing Afghan winter.

The troops enveloped him, dragged him to the prison van and threw him inside. The door slammed shut. The US major decided he absolutely would not want to change places. He threw up a salute to the brigadier, who responded.

‘You take good care of him, sir,’ said the American, ‘that is one very hard man.’

‘Do not worry, major,’ said the Afghan officer. ‘He is going to Pul-i-Charki jail for the rest of his days.’

Minutes later the prison van drove off, followed by the truck with the Afghan SF soldiers. It took the road south to Kabul. It was not until the darkness was complete that the van and the truck became separated in what would later be officially described as an unfortunate accident. The van proceeded alone.