"The Afghan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Forsyth Frederick)

CHAPTER 9

“IF YOU ARE GOING where I think you are going, young Mike,” said Tamian Godfrey on one of their daily hikes, “you will have to master the various levels of aggressiveness and fanaticism that you will be likely to encounter. At the core is self-arrogated jihad, or holy war, but various factions arrive at this via various routes and behave in various ways. They are not all the same by a long chalk.”

“It seems to start with Wahhabism,” said Martin. “In a way, but let us not forget that Wahhabism is the state religion of Saudi Arabia, and Osama bin Laden has declared war on the Saudi establishment for being heretics. There are many groups way out on the extremist wing beyond the teachings of Muhammad al-Wahhab.

“He was an eighteenth-century preacher who came out of the Nejd, the bleakest and harshest part of the interior of the Saudi peninsula. He left behind him the harshest and most intolerant of all the many, many interpretations of the Koran. That was then; this is now. He has been superseded. Saudi Wahhabism has not declared war on the West, or on Christianity; nor does it propose indiscriminate mass murder of anyone, let alone women and children. What Wahhab did was leave behind the seedbed of total intolerance in which today’s terror masters could plant the young seedlings before turning them into killers.” “Then how come they are not still confined to the Arabian peninsula?” asked Martin.

“Because,” cut in Najib Qureshi, “for thirty years Saudi Arabia has used its petrodollars to fund the internationalization of its state creed, and that includes every Muslim country in the world, including the place of my birth. There is no reason to think any of them realized what a monster was being set free or how it would be diverted to mass murder. Indeed, there is ample reason to believe now, a bit late in the day, that Saudi Arabia is terrified of the creature it has funded for three decades.”

“Then why has Al Qaeda declared war on the source of its creed and its funding?”

“Because other prophets have arisen, even more intolerant, even more extreme. These have preached the creed not simply of intolerance of anything not Islamic, but of the duty of attack and destruction. The Saudi government is denounced for dealing with the West, permitting U.S. troops on its holy soil. And that applies to every secular Muslim government as well. For the fanatics they are all as guilty as Christians and Jews.”

“So who do you think I shall be meeting in my travels, Tamian?” asked Martin.

The scholar found a stone the size of a chair and sat down to rest her legs. “There are numerous groups, but two are at the core. Do you know the word salafi?”

“I have heard of it,” admitted Martin.

“These are the back-to-the-beginning brigade. They really want to restore the great golden age of Islam. Back to the first four caliphates, over a thousand years ago. Wild beards, sandals, robes, rigorous Sharia’ah legal code, rejection of modernity and the West that brought it. There is no such earthly paradise, of course, but fanatics were never deterred by unreality. In pursuit of their manic dream Nazis, communists, Maoists, followers of Pol Pot, have slaughtered hundreds of millions, half of them their own kith and kin, for not being extreme enough. Think of Stalin’s and Mao’s purges-all fellow communists, but butchered for being backsliders.”

“When you described the salafis, you were describing the Taliban,” said Martin. “Among others. These are the suicide bombers, the simple believers; trusting their masters, following their spiritual guides; not very bright but completely obedient, and believing that all their deranged hatred is going to please the mighty Allah.”

“There are worse?” asked Martin.

“Oh, yes,” said Tamian Godfrey, resuming her walk but directing the party firmly back toward the castle, whose tower could just be seen two short valleys away. “The ultras-the real ultras-I would designate with one word: takfir. Whatever it meant in Wahhab’s day, it has changed. The true salafi will not smoke, gamble, dance, accept music in his presence, drink alcohol or consort with Western women. With his dress, appearance and religious devotion, he is immediately identifiable for what he is. From an internal security point of view, identifiability is half the battle.

“But some will adopt every single custom of the West, however much they may loathe them, in order to pass as fully Westernized and therefore harmless. All nineteen of the 9/11 bombers slipped through because they looked and acted the part. The same with the four London bombers; apparently normal young men, going to the gym, playing cricket, polite, helpful, one of them a special needs teacher, smiling constantly and planning mass murder. These are the ones to watch.

“Many are clean-shaven, barbered, groomed, dressed in suits, educated, with a good degree. These are the ultimate; prepared to become chameleons against their faith to achieve mass murder for their faith. Thank heavens, here we are; my old legs are giving out. Time for the midday prayers. Mike, you will utter the call and then lead us in prayer. You may be asked to later. It is a great privilege.”

Just after the New Year, an e-mail was sent from the office of Siebart and Abercrombie to Jakarta. The Countess of Richmond, with a full cargo of crated Jaguar sedans for Singapore, would sail from Liverpool on the first of March. After unloading at Singapore, she would proceed in ballast to North Borneo to take aboard the hold cargo of timber before turning for Surabaya for the deck cargo of crated silks.

THE CONSTRUCTION crew working inside the Pasayten Wilderness was finally and deeply grateful when the job was done by the end of January. To keep up the work rate, the men had chosen to overnight right on the site, and until the central heating came on stream they had been extremely cold. But the bonus was large and tempting. They took the discomfort and completed on schedule. To the naked eye, the cabin looked much the same but larger. In fact, it had been transformed. To cope with a staff of two officers, the bedrooms would suffice; for the extra eight guards to accomplish twenty-four-hour-a-day surveillance, an extra bunkhouse had been added, and a dining hall beside it. The spacious sitting room was retained, but a recreation room, with pool table, library, plasma TV and ample DVD selection, had created yet another extension. Both were built of insulated pine logs.

The third extension appeared to be built with the usual uninsulated, rustic logs. Its exterior walls were, in fact, clad only with split tree trunks; inside, the walls were reinforced concrete. The whole penitentiary wing was impregnable from without and escape-proof from within. It was reached from the guards’ quarters through a single steel door, with food service hatch and spy hole. Beyond this door was a single but spacious room. It contained a steel bed frame deeply embedded in the concrete floor; it could never be moved by bare hands. Nor could the wall shelving, also embedded in the concrete.

There were, however, carpets on the floor, and heat came from baseboard-level grilles that could never be opened. The room also had a door opposite the spy hole, and the detainee could open or close it at will. It led only to the exercise yard.

The yard was bare save for a concrete bench in the center away from the walls. The walls were ten feet tall and as smooth as a pool table. No man could get anywhere near the top; nor was there anything that could be propped against the wall or stood on.

For sanitation, there was a recessed area off the sitting room bedroom containing a single hole in the floor for bodily functions and a shower whose controls were in the hands of the guards outside. Because all the new materials had come in by helicopter, the only visible exterior addition was a landing pad under the snow. Otherwise, the Cabin stood in its five-hundred-acre plot, surrounded on all sides by the pine, larch and spruce, even though the trees had been cut back to a hundred yards in every direction.

When they came, the ten guardians of probably the country’s most expensive and exclusive prison were two middle-grade CIA men from Langley and eight junior staffers who had completed all the mental and physical tests at the Farm training school and were hoping for an exciting first assignment. Instead, they got a forest in the snow. But they were all fit and eager to impress.

The military trial at Guantanamo Bay began just before the end of January and was held in one of the larger rooms in the interrogation block, decked out now for its judicial purpose. Anyone hoping for a half-mad Colonel Jessup or any of the histrionics portrayed in A Few Good Men would have been sorely disappointed. The proceedings were low-tone and orderly.

There were eight detainees being considered for release as of “no further danger,” and seven were vociferous in stating their harmlessness. Only one maintained a scornful silence. His case was heard last. “Prisoner Khan, into what language would you like these proceedings to be translated?” asked the colonel, flanked by a male major and a female captain, presiding on the dais at the end of the room under the seal of the United States of America. All three were from the U.S. Marines legal branch. The prisoner was facing them, hauled to his feet by the Marine guards flanking him. Desks set facing each other had been allocated to prosecuting and defending attorneys-the former military, the latter civilian. The prisoner shrugged gently, and stared at the female Marine captain for several seconds; then he let his gaze come to rest on the wall above the judges. “This court is aware that the prisoner understands Arabic, so that is the language the court chooses. Any objection. Counselor?” The question was to the defending attorney, who shook his head. He had been warned about his client when he took the case. From all he had heard, he was convinced he had no chance. It was a civil rights-based appearance, and he knew what the surrounding Marines thought of white knights from the civil rights movement. A helpful client would have been nice. Still, he reasoned, the Afghan’s attitude at least got the attorney off the hook. He shook his head. No objection. Arabic would do.

The Arabic ‘terp advanced and positioned himself close to the Marine guards. It was a wise choice; there was only one Pashtun interpreter, and he had had a rough time with the Americans because he had coaxed nothing out of his fellow Afghan. Now he had nothing to do, and saw the approaching end of a quite comfortable lifestyle.

There had only ever been seven Pashtun at Gitmo, the seven wrongly included among the foreign fighters at Kunduz five years earlier. Four had gone back, simple farm boys who had renounced all Muslim extremism with considerable enthusiasm; and the other two had had mental breakdowns so complete that they were still under psychiatric care. The Taliban commander was the last one. The prosecuting counsel began, and the ‘terp uttered a stream of sibilant Arabic. The gist was that the Yankees are going to send you back to the slammer and throw away the keys, you arrogant Taliban shit. Izmat Khan slowly lowered his gaze and fixed on the terp. The eyes said it all. The Lebanon-born American reverted to literal translation. The man might be dressed in a ludicrous orange jumpsuit, shackled hand and foot, but you never knew with this bastard. The prosecutor did not take long. He stressed five years of virtual silence, a refusal to name collaborators in the war of terror against the USA, and the fact the prisoner had been caught in a jail uprising in which an American had been brutally stomped to death. Then he sat down. He had no doubt of the outcome. The man would have to remain in custody for years to come. The civil rights attorney took a little longer. He was pleased that as an Afghan the prisoner had absolutely nothing to do with the atrocity of 9/11. He had been fighting in an all-Afghan civil war at the time, and had nothing to do with the Arabs behind Al Qaeda. As for Mullah Omar and the Afghan government sheltering bin Laden and his cronies, that was a dictatorship of which Mr. Khan was a serving officer but not a part.

“I really must urge this court to admit the reality,” he wound up. “If this man is a problem, he is an Afghan problem. There is a new and democratically elected government there now. We should ship him back for them to deal with.” The three judges withdrew. They were away for thirty minutes. When they returned, the captain was pink with anger. She still could not believe what she had heard. Only the colonel and the major had had the interview with the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff and knew his orders. “Prisoner Khan, be upstanding. This court has been made aware that the government of President Karzai has agreed that if you are returned to your native land, you will be sentenced to life imprisonment over there. That being so, this court intends to burden the American taxpayer with you no longer. Arrangements will therefore be made to ship you back to Kabul. You will return as you arrived: in shackles. That is all. Court rises.” The captain was not the only one in shock. The prosecuting attorney wondered how this would look on his career prospects. The defending counsel was feeling slightly light-headed. The ‘terp for one panicking moment had thought the mad colonel would order the cuffs taken off, in which case he, the good son of Beirut, was going straight out of the window.

The British Foreign Office is situated in King Charles Street, just off Whitehall, and within easy glancing distance of the window across Parliament Square outside of which King Charles I was decapitated. As the New Year’s holiday slipped into memory, the small protocol team that had been set up the previous summer resumed its task.

This was to coordinate with the Americans the ever more complex details of the forthcoming 2007 G8 conference. The 2005 meeting of the governments of the eight richest states in the world had been at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland, and it had been a success up to a point. The point however had been, as always, the roaring crowds of protesters that presented problems which each year got steadily worse and worse. At Gleneagles, the Perthshire landscape had had to be disfigured by miles and miles of chain-link fencing to create a complete cordon sanitaire round the entire estate. The access road had had to be fenced and guarded. Led by two fading pop stars, the call had gone out for a million protesters at world poverty to march though Edinburgh close by. That was just the antipoverty brigade. Then the antiglobalization cohorts had thrown their flour bombs and waved their placards.

“Don’t these yo-yos realize that global trade generates the wealth with which to fight poverty?” asked one angry diplomat. The answer: Apparently not. Genoa was remembered with a shudder. That was why the idea out of the White House, who would be hosting 2007, was acclaimed: simple, elegant, brilliant. A location sumptuous but utterly isolated: immune, unreachable, secure, totally under control. It was the mass of detail that concerned the protocol team-that, and the advancement to mid-April. Something about the U.S. midterm elections. So the British team accepted what had been agreed and announced, and got on with their administrational task.

Far away to the southeast, two huge USAF Starlifters began to drop toward the sultanate of Oman. They came from the East Coast of the USA, with one midair refueling by a tanker out of the Azores. The two aerial juggernauts came out of the sunset on the Dhofari hills, heading east, and asking for landing instructions at the Anglo-American desert air base of Thumrait. In their cavernous hulls, the two giants contained an entire military unit. One had the living accommodations, from flat-pack, skilled-assembly hutments to generators, air-conditioning, refrigeration plants, TV aerials and even corkscrews for the fifteen-person technical team. The other cargo aircraft carried what is called “the sharp end.” Two pilotless reconnaissance drones, Predators, along with their guidance and imaging kit and the men and women who would operate them.

A week later, they were set up. On the far side of the air base, out of bounds to nonunit personnel, the bungalows were up, the air conditioners hummed, the latrines were dug, the kitchen cooked; and under their hooped shelters, the two Predators waited until their mission should be given to them. The aerial surveillance unit was also patched through to Tampa, Florida, and Edzell, Scotland. Someday, they would be told what they had to watch-day and night, rain and shine-photograph and transmit back. Until then, men and machines waited in the heat.

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 spymas-ters 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 slide projectors of yesteryear, this projector threw up picture after picture on a high-definition plasma screen in perfect color and detail. At a touch on the remote, it could close in on any detail, and bring that detail up in magnification 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 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 all 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 hair 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 Mohammed Atef, first director of operations, killed by an African 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 dove 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 Southeast Asia, successor to al-Hanbali, and probably the man behind the latest bombi ngsof 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 U.S. 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 of operations was escorting across the Atlantic with a British guest.

They did not fly to Washington but to a remote peninsula on the southeast coast of Cuba. Just after dawn, on February 14, they touched down at Guantanamo and taxied straight into a hangar whose doors closed at once. “I’m afraid you have to remain on 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 with arms pinioned, the other round the thighs. The chloroform pad took only twenty seconds to work. The writhing stopped, and the prisoner went limp.

He went onto a stretcher and thence to a wheeled gurney. A cotton sheet was placed over the body and he was wheeled outside. A 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 emerging. In the roof 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 to it. Without cutting off circulation to the limbs, they 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 to 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 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, just as all sounds were inaudible. But the prisoner was, as his escort would later report to Marek Gumienny, like a pussycat. 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 round in a semicircle, 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 backward, they left the cell, and the steel door slammed shut. He looked round. 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 midmorning, 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 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 became accustomed to the glare, he gazed round and saw the waiting Hercules, and a group of American officers staring at him. One of them advanced and beckoned. Meekly, he followed 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.”