Around five-thirty in the afternoon, the public areas of the Hotel Byron in Tirana began to fill, mostly with Albanian gangsters who left their bodyguards out in the car park. They moved through the bar to a crescent-shaped area bordering the gardens, trailing an air of listless menace, and sank into the Lloyd loom chairs to drink, smoke without pause and fiddle with their cell phones. There were some foreigners too; insanely risk-averse businessmen, low-level diplomats and a few edgy American evangelists sipping soft drinks and wearing hiking gear, as if the mere fact of being in this godless, chaotic country required rugged clothing.
The tableau was not difficult to decode, and as Herrick waited on her second evening for Lance Gibbons, her contact from the local CIA station, she realised that more or less the same groups appeared and seemed to settle at regular tables. Bashkin, the driver who had attached himself to her at Mother Teresa International airport, told her the Albanian men were mostly engaged in drug trafficking, prostitution rackets and smuggling people, cigarettes and fuel.
Gibbons arrived late, a large, shambling man who quickly announced that he was a veteran of the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, or the ‘Big A’ as he called it. After a couple of drinks, Isis brought up the purpose of her trip and asked when she could see the suspect.
‘Look, that’s going to be kinda difficult right now,’ he said, toying with the scarf loosely hung round his neck. ‘We have to tread carefully with the Albanians. He’s their prisoner. We’re just observing.’
Herrick gave him a sceptical look, pulled out her phone and dialled Nathan Lyne. ‘I’m having some unexpected difficulty inspecting the goods,’ she said to Lyne. ‘I wonder if you could intervene with the local representative and tell him there’ll be hell to pay if he doesn’t cooperate. I’ll put you onto him now.’
She handed the phone to Gibbons, who listened silently then said, ‘You got to understand, Nathan, that these goods are not in our possession yet. They’re still being held by the customs service.’
He hung up and handed the phone back. ‘You know, that was real unfriendly of you.’
‘I have to see this man quickly and report back to London. That’s all there is to it.’
‘You and your man Lyne don’t cut any ice here. Here is dif-fer-ent. Period.’ He sipped his drink then lit a cheroot. ‘So, Isis Herrick, tell me about RAPTOR. What the fuck is going down? We hear something big’s happening. All our guys pulled in from the field. Operations suspended without warning. What’s the deal?’
She shrugged. ‘That name doesn’t mean anything to me, but if there is something going down, as you put it, you better be sure that I see this suspect. It comes from the top.’
He laughed. ‘The top of what – my organisation? No way. The British Secret Intelligence Service? Hey, that would be something, wouldn’t it? I’ll stand to attention and drink to Her Majesty.’
‘Where’s he being held?’ she asked.
‘That’s classified information.’
‘The intelligence headquarters, the prison – where?’
He shook his head and stroked the three-day-old stubble on his chin.
‘What’s the problem with giving me access? If this man is talking, you must have transcripts.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s talking.’
‘Then you’ll get the transcripts to me?’
‘I can’t be certain of that.’
‘I’m not fooling around,’ she said icily. ‘If I don’t get your agreement this evening, I’ll have Nathan Lyne call his friends in the State Department and Langley. By morning your communications centre will be jammed with cables. Give me what I want and I’ll get out of your hair.’
‘Don’t misunderstand me, Isis. I’d like you in my hair. This town gets pretty tedious and you’re definitely the best thing to happen to me all week, but this is real difficult. I don’t see the Albanians letting you visit the suspect. Hell, you’re a woman. You know what that means to these people, right?’
‘Mr Gibbons…’
‘Lance.’
‘If you’ve heard that something unusual is going on,’ she stopped while the waiter placed another drink in front of Gibbons, ‘you should know that the authority behind it doesn’t get any higher.’
Gibbons exhaled a low, sarcastic whistle. ‘Hey, you already said that. Look, I’ll see what I can do, okay? But you have to understand that this is not a Western jail and right here they don’t have Western standards of prisoner care – you follow me?’
She nodded. ‘I want the transcripts this evening.’
Gibbons shifted the small, black pack from his lap – the standard cover for an automatic weapon – shouldered it and rose from the chair. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ he said, looking down at her.
‘This evening,’ she said.
‘We’re on Albanian time, Missie. Tomorrow.’ He gave her a two-fingered salute and loped out of the hotel, beckoning to his driver on the way.
She had dinner and then went to her room to smoke a rare cigarette on the balcony overlooking the gardens. At ten-thirty her cell phone rang and she dived for her bag.
‘Hello, darling. It’s your father.’
‘Dad, what are you doing?’
‘Merely phoning my daughter to find out how she is and what she’s up to. Can you speak?’
‘Yes. Did you go on your trip to the West Highlands?’
‘Yes, yes. Saw a lot and did a good bit of sea trout fishing.’
She was smiling to herself, swamped by a rush of affection for the old man. ‘That’s exactly what I’d like to be doing now,’ she said, glancing around the bleak hotel room.
‘Then we should take a trip together when you have some time off. I know how much you love being driven in the Armstrong. ’ He laughed. ‘Look, I gather from friends that you’re in Albania. The first thing to say about that is, be careful. They’re a treacherous bunch. I was there at the end of the war when I was no longer needed in France and witnessed a very ugly side of them. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that I have a message for you. It’s from my old student.’ She understood he meant Sir Robin Teckman. ‘He wants to talk to you on a secure line. So you’re booked to go and see our ambassador tomorrow.’
‘Dad, why’s he using you to talk to me?’
‘No doubt you’ll find out. He wants you there at eight-thirty sharp. You should go to Skenderbeg Street. Our Embassy is next door to the Egyptians’. Be discreet, Isis. If you have a driver, don’t use him. Take a taxi. The student says the driver may be unreliable.’
Herrick found herself reluctant to let her father go and asked him a succession of questions about Hopelaw and its inhabitants, the tap-room gossip that she missed, about barns burning down, sheepdogs going wild, poachers being caught and people running off with each other. Her father, though elliptical about himself, was an acute observer of village life and she liked hearing him speak about it. At length, she said goodbye, re-lit her cigarette and began to read a book about Albania she’d picked up in the hotel shop.
Just as she thought of turning in, the room doorbell rang. She looked through the spy hole and saw Gibbons standing with his thumb hooked in his shirt pocket and another cheroot hanging from his lower lip.
‘Hey there, Isis. Brought what you wanted,’ he said when she opened the door. His eyes scanned the room. ‘Any chance of a little of that Johnny Walker Black Label?’
She had bought the bottles as useful bribes. ‘Help yourself, Mr Gibbons.’
‘Lance,’ he said. ‘That stuff you have is from the first ten days. Most of what he’s said is in there. You’ll see that this character is quite fly. He’s educated in Britain and speaks good English. He’s not the usual Mujahadin type. He’s sharp and kind of civilised. Tough too. He got over the border and managed to survive long enough to be taken by the police. We think there is something more to him. For one thing, he was carrying the documentation belonging to a man thought to be dead, name of Jasur Faisal, otherwise known as The Electrician or The Watchmaker – a wanted Hamas terrorist. Maybe you’ve heard of him? So you see he’s a deal more interesting than the average holy warrior. We don’t know what he’s doing in Europe and why he’s flat broke, but he’s the kind of guy who could form the nucleus of a very big terrorist attack. We think one tough sonofabitch lies beneath the polite exterior.’
‘And what happens now? They’ve had him for ten days. Can’t be much more to get out of him.’
‘You’re wrong. There’s a truckload of stuff he can tell us about. He’s been ID’d by people in Camp X-Ray and elsewhere. Beyond that, we’re not sure. He may have served in Chechnya.’
‘But it’s been established that he’s a Pakistani national?’
‘Who knows, Isis. The way he looks, he could be either Pakistani or Palestinian.’
‘So what happens to him?’
‘Anyone’s guess.’
Herrick looked at the first few pages while Gibbons sipped and swilled the whisky round his mouth, making pain-pleasure grimaces.
‘Well, thank you for bringing this round so quickly. I take it I can keep this?’
‘For sure, but don’t leave it lying around.’
‘Is there much more?’
‘Some,’ he said, rolling the tumbler in his hands. ‘But it’s pretty much the same as what you got there. They’re doing a slow job on the stuff they know he’ll talk about. This is not a Defense Intelligence Agency operation – it’s the Company. We’re doing it thoroughly. The Pentagon knows shit.’
She moved to the door and opened it. Gibbons got up with a sigh. ‘If you need anything or any company while you’re here, this is my mobile number.’
‘Thanks again,’ she said.
‘Hey, we’re all on the same side in this thing.’ He gave her another salute and went out.
‘Exactly.’ She closed the door behind him and returned to the chair on the balcony. For the first time that day, the air was fresh and cool. She looked across the gardens to the lights illuminating the Palace of Congress and noticed a swirl of bats feeding on the moths that had gathered beneath each lamp. Then she turned to the interview transcripts.
She rose early the next day and left the hotel by a side entrance, knowing that Bashkin would already be waiting for her at the front. She crossed the city’s main boulevard and cut through the old politburo compound, passing Enver Hoxha’s villa, built in a curiously open style and surrounded by gardens now partly taken over by a McDonald’s restaurant. A little later she came across the diplomatic quarter, a haven of police patrols, well-barbered hedges and almost no traffic.
At the Embassy she pushed past a dozen locals, showed her passport and was led to a communications room in the basement, stuffed with equipment and a couple of large computers. The ambassador was drinking a cup of coffee and chatting to one of his staff.
‘Ah, Miss Herrick, welcome, welcome. Take a pew. The line is all set up for you.’ He left her alone with a copy of the Spectator.
When the call came through, Teckman was at his most distilled. He explained that he wanted her to make contact at the Byron with a former SIS officer named Harland, who at his request was escorting an osteopath named Sammi Loz, ‘a rather unusual figure from New York high society’, who he felt was interesting. She had heard of Harland, and knew he’d had something to do with the demise of Walter Vigo, but stopped herself from mentioning it. Instead she asked if he thought Karim Khan was important, or merely an excuse to get her out of the Bunker.
‘Both, though they won’t suspect that he is important. I think the fact the osteopath is interested seems to indicate something. Harland says that Loz owes Karim Khan for saving his life in Bosnia and feels obligated to try to free him. This is probably true, but there may be something else, and you and Harland are going to have to get it out of him, even if you have to mislead him about the possibility of achieving Khan’s release. I should warn you that the Americans are already alert to Loz’s possible significance but, like us, they don’t know why he’s important. Also, it’s unlikely there has been much serious communication between the FBI, who have been watching him in New York, and the CIA in Albania. He’s not on any watch list, and you know relations between everyone in Washington are at an all-time low.’
‘What do I say to the Americans? They’re being a bit tricky about access.’
‘I’ll see to it that you get in this afternoon. Present yourself at the US Embassy at three unless you hear from me.’
‘And RAPTOR?’
‘Just see Khan, do your stuff and send back a report to the Bunker. Believe me, they’re very preoccupied with the other nine active suspects and it will only confuse things if you start kicking up in your usual way.’ He paused and laughed quietly. ‘So, no break-ins for the moment, Isis. Keep your powder dry and use those observant eyes of yours. I’m afraid I can’t brief you more clearly than this, because things are very fluid: I’m relying on you and Harland to respond in a way that I know you’re both capable of.’ He gave her a number, then hung up, leaving her sitting in the cool of the communications room, wondering what the hell was going on. Her father had observed that the Chief might be waiting to make his move, but with only three or four weeks left of his tenure, it seemed a little late. Besides, everything he was interested in seemed way off the point.
She left the Embassy and walked out into the dust and noise of Rruga e Durresit, along which she had noticed some shops. She entered one of the boutiques, a sad little place with almost no stock, bought two brightly coloured T-shirts and a canvas shoulder bag she had seen some of the Tirana women carrying. In another, where there was more sense of actual commerce, she chose a belt and some jeans with studded seams. She moved on to a market and threaded her way into a rickety wood and tin structure pierced with shafts of light. Beyond the pyramids of vegetables and boxes of live chickens, she found a woman with a tray of cheap costume jewellery, and bought some imitation gold bangles and a necklace of white and black plastic beads. She turned to the adjacent stall, which was run by a young man with a wispy moustache, and bargained for a black fish-net shawl and a pair of high-heeled ankle-length boots with a cowboy fringe at the top. She placed all her purchases in a white supermarket bag, together with some fruit, and walked purposefully through the stall holders, who had now cottoned on to the presence of a foreigner and were plucking at her jacket.
By ten-thirty, she reached the hotel and, deciding that she would wait for Harland to contact her, went to the swimming pool with a couple of books and a newspaper.
When the doctor first came to Khan in the headquarters of SHISK, the Albanian intelligence service, and treated him for the abscess and broken lip, Khan assumed he was Albanian, but through the days of his interrogation he had learned that the man was Syrian. The SHISK interrogators referred to him as The Syrian or The Doctor, the latter always accompanied by a brief ironic smile that puzzled him. The Doctor also had a habit of making notes when Khan was answering a question. What did a doctor need to know about his past in Afghanistan? More unnerving was the way he interrupted proceedings by leaving his chair near the window and walking over to grasp one of Karim’s arms or dig his thumbs into the tendons at the back of his leg. While the doctor went about his curious inspection, the two Albanian interrogators would sit back and light up; the Americans, of whom there were never fewer than three, stretched, rubbed their necks and murmured under their breath.
At first he was reassured by The Doctor’s presence, thinking it would protect him from the treatment meted out to the other prisoners, but he gradually came to resent, then loathe the strange prodding and pinching that went on. Besides this, the expression in the man’s face had hardened in blood-chilling appraisal. He wished fervently never to be left alone with this man.
The interrogations had followed the same pattern since the first days, when he had given them the outline of his story from Bosnia to Afghanistan. Their interest focused on the last four years. They took it for granted that he met and knew the leadership of the Taleban and al-Qaeda, although he told them over and over again that he was just a mountain commander and had little experience of the regime, and none of the terrorist training camps. But, prompted by the Americans, the Albanian intelligence officers went on asking: ‘Where did you train? Who trained you? What methods were you taught – car bombs, sniper attacks, butane bombs, timing devices? What about dirty bombs?’ Did he know of any radioactive material coming over the border from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan or Tajikistan? He had admitted being in that area during the summer of 1999, they said, so he must have known of the shipments of strontium and caesium chloride. He insisted that he didn’t know anything about these shipments, but would not have hesitated to tell them if he had known. He was numb with repetition, going over the details so often that the words lost meaning for him.
They showed him books of photographs, brought by the Americans in two metal cases. This was a welcome break in the routine. He used these to show that he wanted to cooperate, and for all of two days they went through the four or five hundred faces of men who were suspected of having trained in Afghanistan. He gave them names of about a dozen he had fought with, and pointed out that three of the men – a Saudi, a Yemeni and another Pakistani with a British passport – were dead. He had seen the young Yemeni killed in front of him by a Northern Alliance rocket, and he’d buried him with five others under a mound of rocks, the ground being too hard to dig.
The interrogators returned again and again to the al-Qaeda camps. Khan explained that he had gone already trained, battle-hardened from Bosnia. As far as tactics and weaponry went, he knew much more than any of the men he fought with, but he had absolutely no contact with the terrorist training camps. During the last two winters, he had been trapped at the front with no supplies, freezing his arse off, men dying of cold and illness all around him. They had radio contact with Kabul but nobody seemed to care about them. ‘I was a soldier,’ he concluded wearily. ‘I was nothing to them, and the Arabs mostly kept to themselves.’
‘But you were the big hero from Bosnia. You commanded Arabs in battle with the Northern Alliance and on the Tajik border,’ said one of the interrogators.
‘The Arabs without money stayed with us, yes. And they became good fighters. But the rich ones always bought their way back south. I saw them come and knew they would not last more than a few weeks. You may have heard of the different Arab words for them. Tharwa were the rich ones, Thawra were the revolutionaries. It is an old joke in Arabic – a pun, I believe.’
‘Why didn’t you leave earlier?’ asked one of the Americans. ‘You say you hated the Taleban and you had no respect for the Arabs, yet you stayed in Afghanistan longer than anyone we have interrogated. Why?’
‘I was committed to the men I fought with. There were ten of us who’d been together since ninety-eight. We survived all the hardship together, the dangers and the crazy decisions that came from men in Kabul who didn’t have to fight. We ate with each other, shared our possessions; we saved each other and buried our brothers. When you’re out in the mountains like this for years, depending on one another, without supplies, you don’t think about what is going on in the outside world. It’s easy to become cut off…’
‘Myopic,’ offered another one of the Americans.
‘Yes, myopic. I was guilty of that. Yes.’
‘Horse-shit,’ said a man named Milo Franc. He was leading the American team and was easily the most hostile. ‘That’s hypocritical horse-shit, Khan. You’re a mercenary and you fought for a regime that executed women for reading school books!’
‘I didn’t support those things.’
‘You enjoyed killing. That’s the truth, isn’t it? You’re a professional killer. And when your people in Afghanistan were thrown out, you were ordered to the West to kill again.’ He paused and lowered his voice. ‘You left Afghanistan in December – is that right?’
Khan nodded, and stared at the patterns of chips in the wall paint. He knew every square inch of the room and was familiar with the routine noises coming from the street: the surges of traffic, the calls of vendors who appeared at exactly the same time every day, and the sound of students issuing from an academy up the road.
‘So,’ said Franc, hitching up his trousers. ‘At the same moment the leadership disbanded all al-Qaeda fighters and told them to continue the struggle from their own countries, you get it into your head to return to London to complete your medical studies. You go over the border at Spin Boldak and dodge around until you make contact with your family in Lahore. You went through Quetta, travelled north to the tribal areas then doubled back westwards to Iran. We have the Inter-Services Intelligence Agency report, so we know all this. It just so happens that at exactly that moment, hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters took the same route from Mashhad or Zabol in Iran, two cities you admit visiting. And you’re saying that all this is coincidence?’
‘Yes, I wanted my old life back. I realised I’d made mistakes with my life. I wanted to go back… to leave the killing and become a doctor.’
‘That’s crap. You were a lousy student and your professors in London – the ones that remember you – say you didn’t give a shit about medicine. Screwing around and drinking, yes. Medicine, no. We checked with them. Your attendance record was terrible and you never turned in your term papers.’
Khan shook his head. ‘I was a silly, misguided young man. I know that. But I have committed no crime.’
Franc looked at the two SHISK agents to see if they minded him continuing. One made an exaggerated flourish with his hand, as though to say ‘be my guest’. Franc approached him and knelt down by the table so he was looking up into Khan’s face.
‘You see, Karim – or whatever the fuck your name is – you’ve had it good so far. Regular meals, a bed, treatment for your injuries. That’s like three star service here. But it can all change. We can just leave you to these people. I guess you know what that means.’ He turned and glanced at The Doctor over his shoulder and smiled with his harsh, grey eyes boring into Khan’s face. ‘This man is a real doctor. Like any real doctor he cures people and saves them,’ he paused. ‘That is, after he has hurt them so much that they want to die. But he doesn’t let that happen. Oh, no. You see, he preserves the life of his subjects and then starts over with the pain. With your medical training, maybe you have an idea of what he can do. It’s not just scalpels, draining the blood from your body; it’s not electricity, or beating, or drowning. No, The Doctor is very scientific. He does things from the inside as well as the outside. He feeds you drugs, acid and every goddam shit you can imagine. The pain is total, you understand that, Khan. Total. He takes you to another place, a place that no man alive can imagine, because it’s so terrifying, so relentless. He can keep you in that state for years. Imagine that, Khan. He’s had a lot of practice because he worked for Saddam Hussein. He had so many people to experiment with there that he became the best in the business. No one has ever failed to tell him what he wants to hear.’ He got up and raised his voice. ‘And you know what, you little prick sonofabitch? We’ve got you an appointment with The Doctor. His time is booked for you, baby, and he’s willing to start work whenever we give the word. So you better cooperate and answer our questions.’
Khan stared at the table and composed himself. ‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ he said. ‘I have committed no crime. I fought a war as a foreign soldier in a foreign land, much like your people did in Vietnam. We both found we’d made a bad mistake and I wish to repay my debt to humanity.’
‘You’re a terrorist. That’s the difference, buddy.’ Franc went over to his chair, picked up a folder and returned to the table. ‘Now you know about The Doctor, let’s see what you say about this.’ He withdrew the two remaining postcards of the Empire State. ‘Can you explain these cards, which were found in your possession?’
‘Yes, they were given to me by a friend a long time ago to remind me to keep in touch. That’s why he addressed them to himself.’
‘Yes, Dr Sammi Loz. You studied together in London and then went to Bosnia, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why the Empire State? What’s the significance?’
‘My friend had a love of the building, an obsession with it, you might say. He said he would always work from the Empire State because of its spirit. He said it was a lucky building. He can tell you this. I’m certain he’s still there.’
Franc gave him a sardonic smile. ‘We were going to ask Dr Loz, but he went missing when federal agents approached him four days ago. He is currently being sought in the United States. When we find him we will of course ask him, but at the present time we’re going to have to rely on you.’ While Franc paused to consult some photostats, Khan absorbed the news that Sammi was a suspect too.
‘These postcards are written in code, aren’t they? Our analysis has shown they may include an attack date and target information.’ He placed five photostats on the table. ‘I want you to read them for us and explain the code.’
‘I can read them, but there’s no code.’ He shook his head and looked down at the surface of the table, then picked up the photostats and read the first one. ‘Greetings, my old friend. I am in Pakistan and hope very soon to be in London. I may need a little help from you. I have good news. I am returning to complete my medical studies, as you always said I should. With warmest wishes, Khan.’ He stopped. ‘That is all there is – there’s no message.’
‘You sent that from Quetta, Pakistan, where you got the passport doctored. Is that when you received your instructions? From the same people who gave you the name of the man who did the work on your documents?’
‘No, I did everything I could to avoid those people in Quetta. My family told me the ISI were looking for me. I had to be very discreet.’
‘So you managed to find the man who does work for al-Qaeda by yourself?’
‘I didn’t know he worked for them.’
‘Continue,’ said Franc.
He read the postcards and, when he had finished, slammed his hand on the table with frustration. ‘These mean nothing, I tell you. Nothing.’
Unmoved, Franc produced a second set of copies and put one in front of him. In the first postcard sent from Quetta, Khan saw that the capital letters were ringed in red:
Gr E etings, M y old friend. I am in P ak I stan and hope ve R y soon to be in London. I may ne E d a little help from you. I have good news. I am returning to complete my stu DIES, as you always said I should.
Karim looked up at him, mystified.
‘Let me remind you about this,’ said Franc. ‘All the letters you made into capitals spell EMPIRE DIES.’ He ran his finger along the message, stopping at each capital letter.
Khan shook his head incredulously. ‘This is stupid. It is like a school kid’s code. You think I wrote this to my friend? Honestly?’
‘But you did. Take a look at the first one you sent from Iran. It’s a little more complicated.’
He placed a grid of letters alongside a phrase from the postcard, which read, ‘I want to hide in Lundun for all time. KariM.’
‘This is the way you concluded your postcard from Iran. It’s certainly an odd phrase, especially when you compare it to the rest of the postcard, which reads pretty naturally and is correctly spelt. So our analysts had a look at it and they came up with this.’ He indicated the grid.
‘What you wrote was a near anagram of a well-known Hadith, a saying of the prophet – ‘Al kufr milatun wahidun’ – meaning unbelief is one nation. It’s a call to arms against the unbelievers.’
Khan stared at the letters. ‘I don’t understand.’
The American took a pencil and ticked off the letters that appeared in the Arabic phrase.
‘But it doesn’t work. There are too many letters in my postcard.’
‘It’s near enough. Why would anyone spell London like that? And again you use capital letters where they don’t belong – the M in Karim is a capital. We’re working on the next two cards but we think this is enough to put you and your friend Dr Loz in jail.’ He paused. ‘Unbelief is one nation. You people! What kind of shit fills your minds?’
‘This is crazy.’
‘All you have to do is tell me where the target information is hidden. I want the date and time of the attack and the names of your associates. What does the Empire State building have to do with all this? Is that your target? We need answers, Khan.’ He was shouting now.
‘There isn’t a plot. I am innocent. I wasn’t used to writing English – writing anything. The capital letters are a mistake and the codes you’ve found are coincidence. They don’t exist.’ He was sweating profusely, his throat parched with fear, and he had to hold his hands under the table to stop them shaking.
‘Yeah, like the other coincidences in your story. Right now, we’re all a little tired of listening to your crap so we’re gonna leave you for a couple of hours with The Doctor. When we come back, we want answers.’