Henry Porter: Empire State

The soldiers were close to them now. He estimated that one was about thirty yards above him while another, who was moving much more slowly, would eventually pass between him and Jasur. He held his breath and waited. Suddenly the uniform appeared a few yards from him. The man stopped, unzipped himself, thrust his pelvis forward and started pissing. The stream of urine glittered in the light filtering through the trees. As he neared the end he shouted up the hill to his friend, a crude joke bellowed to the forest.

Khan decided to launch himself the moment the soldier turned away. Just then, the saplings which had so artfully concealed Jasur erupted, and his head and torso appeared. The soldier was caught unawares. He turned and yelled out a single syllable of surprise. But instead of firing he struggled to zip himself up and seemed to have difficulty getting hold of the automatic which he had swung round on his back while he urinated.

He must have heard Khan behind him, the movement of earth and rush of air, but he showed no sign of it as the weight of his body was pulled back onto the knife. His shaven head came back and his eyes met Khan’s with a strange awkwardness, an embarrassment at the sudden intimacy with the man covered in dirt, not understanding that the first blow of the knife had neither punctured his heart nor severed his spinal cord, and that there would be no second blow. Khan let him sag to the ground and in an instant removed his water bottle, gun, and ammunition clips. He wagged his finger at the soldier and put it to his own lips. The soldier looked up terrified, but managed a nod.

Jasur came to his side and crouched down. They were hidden from the soldier above them who had started to call out to his companions, repeating one name. Alarm rang in his voice, which communicated itself up and down the line of soldiers and they all started calling out. Khan darted another look at the soldier and jabbed the gun at him in a way that couldn’t be misunderstood. They turned and began to climb, moving around the main thickets so as to make as little noise as possible.

A minute or two passed then all hell broke loose. The soldiers discovered their wounded companion and started up the hill, firing shots into the trees above them. The old maxim of mountain warfare came back to Khan – flight is always better than fight. Long-practised at fleeing into the mountains, he quickened his pace and blocked his mind to the pain that would come with the exertion. They went straight up for a hundred and fifty yards but soon Jasur was begging him to slow down. He had given his all in the sprint up the road. Khan put an arm round him and felt his skinny frame heaving and his heart racing. There was virtually no muscle or fat on him. He tucked his hand under Jasur’s armpit and started to haul him up the hill, the Palestinian’s breath wheezing in his ear. They went another fifty yards and scrambled over some rocks. Ahead of them the trees thinned out to the pastures where he had seen the cattle herds. Beyond these he remembered the rocky crags that he’d noticed in shadow when he was lying in the field. It meant they were steep, but it didn’t follow that they were impassable.

He turned round. Jasur, who had fallen to his knees, was silently coughing phlegm onto the rock. His eyes and nose were streaming and his skin had become grey. The medic in Khan guessed these were not tears but some kind of allergic reaction, probably caused by pollen or the leaves he’d been covered with, but when he took hold of his head and looked into his eyes, his diagnosis changed. Jasur was having an asthma attack and showed every sign of heart strain. Khan rolled him onto his back and started to give him mouth to mouth resuscitation, then pressed down rhythmically on his chest a dozen times. The Palestinian coughed again and began to breathe more easily, but his eyes showed that he knew exactly what was happening and Khan thought he’d probably experienced an attack like this before. He put his hand to the man’s pulse – more regular now – and lifted his head to give him some water from the soldier’s bottle. At that moment they heard the soldiers making their way up the hill. He dragged Jasur back across the rocks so he was out of view and then snaked forward on his stomach to look over the edge. There were four of them and further down the slope came another trio, but they had no appetite for the climb and were stopping every few feet to mop their brows and curse.

He tried the safety catch of the AK47, made sure that the magazine would come away when he needed it to, then lay flat on the rocks with his face resting on the polished wooden stock. As he waited his thoughts slipped back to the first moment of the day and he realised dully that whatever his dreams and hopes for the future, this was the way his life was cast. His fate was to be covered in grime and sweat, waiting in ambush with a murderous old gun in his hand.

Behind him Jasur uttered a dramatic series of gurgles and retches. Khan was worried for his companion but could not risk turning now. He nudged him gently on the shoulder with his boot and that seemed to quieten him. For one moment he thought the change in direction of the soldiers’ voices meant they had given up, or taken a path off to the left, but suddenly he heard them directly below him. He pulled himself forward and raised his arms so that the gun was angled downwards over the edge of the rock. After the initial burst he bobbed up and saw that he’d hit some of the first group in the legs. They fell backwards without even knowing where he was. One recovered and fired in the direction of the rocks, a long way wide of the mark. Khan sneaked another look and squeezed the trigger. This sent them tumbling from their cover down the slope. They don’t mind killing unarmed men in the open, he thought, but they’ve got no taste for real battle. He fired, changed clips and fired some more. Now there was no sign of them, although he heard one yelping like a lost puppy in the woods.

He turned and wriggled back to Jasur, lying against the rock, facing away from him. He touched him on the shoulder and said they ought to be going. Could he make it? He shook him and, feeling no life, rolled the Palestinian over.

His skin was ashen, saliva foamed at his mouth and his eyes stared without meaning at the tiny red spiders that circled on the rock surface in front of him. Khan was shocked. Bewildered. He pushed himself to his knees and shrugged, thinking that he should – no, he must – find out who this man was and one day let his family know what had become of him. He felt all over the body and eventually located a little pouch hanging from a string inside Jasur’s trousers. He flipped it open and saw some folded documents, one or two pictures, a printed prayer and an identity card. He would look at them properly later. Now he had to leave and hope that the Macedonians would bury the Palestinian.

He got up, and without looking down the hill, jogged off into the next clump of trees and made for the crags above.

Herrick put down the evening paper. It reported that Vice Admiral Norquist had not recovered consciousness before expiring at 5.30 a.m. this morning, May 15. He had died from heart failure during an operation to remove the bullet that had lodged in his spine. The President of the United States issued a statement saying that the assassination of his friend and mentor was a deep personal blow to him and his family, but more than this, it was another strike against America and all good Americans should mourn his sacrifice.

Thinking that the report was less than complete, Herrick turned to her desk and the FBI watch list, a summary of essential information on every known Muslim terrorist. She found this easier to use than the British version because of its layout and concision. From left to right appear the first names of the suspect or wanted felon, followed by his aliases, date of birth, US social security number (if any), place of birth, address, phone number and email. The far right column gives a unique identity number for the suspect and, in the middle of the page, there is a column headed Function. This column is left blank in the version of the list circulated daily at 8.00 a.m. EST to banks and airlines, and copied into their computer systems so that any transaction made by one of the individuals triggers an alert. But in the thirty-four-page document lying in front of her, the FBI logged trades against the names of some of the 524 men – computer expert (trained engineer), weapons and explosive expert, strategist /trainer, banker, facilitator and communications specialist. Most were guesses and the addresses and email accounts had long been abandoned, but the list fixed the last known position of suspects and in one or two cases hinted that they were anchored to a cover, like Youssef Rahe, although his name did not appear.