Andy McNab - Crossfire

The Yes Man tapped the folder in front of me. 'Unfortunately, there is mounting evidence that Dominik Condratowicz should be seen in an entirely different light.' He lifted the cover. 'This is what happened to one of our people last year.'

I opened the folder to see half a dozen colour eight-by-tens of a young Arab, maybe early twenties, sitting on wet concrete. He was held upright by a pair of over-inflated forearms. The right one had an ageing scar that looked like a badly laid railway track. I flicked through the pictures with no idea if the man was dead or alive. His body was a mess of cuts, bruises and burns. His face was so swollen his eyes were forced closed and his lips were like plastic surgery gone wrong.

'They were taken in Afghanistan. An illegal prison. Freelance bounty-hunters, normally torturing their victims for information about the Taliban and al-Qaeda.'

I shrugged. 'There's a lot of those guys about over there. It's the new Wild West. Bad things are going to happen.'

'Condratowicz was in Kabul at the time, ostensibly filming a documentary. I have to ask myself whether there's more to that than meets the eye.'

One of the pictures was a wider shot of the room or cell. The door had a sheet of steel screwed over it and a gaoler's spyhole. The last one showed a tabletop with the legs removed, bolted to an oil drum. It looked like an oversized see-saw, but I knew this was no game. Two buckets of water stood next to it. A tap stuck out of the wall. A fat roll of clingfilm sat on a pile of empty hessian sandbags.

Waterboarding is guaranteed to get its victim telling everything he knows, and even some things he doesn't – anything to keep breathing. The physical experience is like being trapped under a wave. But that's fuck-all compared to the psychological horror. Your brain screams at you that you're drowning. And the reason I knew all this was because the Americans and the Brits had invented this shit.

'Then we have a major drugs haul unearthed in Basra, and yet again it happens that Dominik Condratowicz is in town. There is more. Believe me, I could go on. Stack up enough of them, Nick, and you have to start asking yourself whether they're not coincidences, but positive correlations.

'I know that he was with the FCO in Basra the day before a raid that resulted in the confiscation of a huge haul of heroin. What are we to make of that? Was Condratowicz colluding with others to misbrief the military for certain ends – for example, to disrupt or stamp out any competition to their trade? I just don't know. I don't know any of what he's been up to for sure, but I've started to wonder, for example, how a television reporter can afford a seven-million-euro house in the best street in Dublin…'

The Yes Man fixed his gaze on the garish neon across the road. The pause wasn't to give me a chance to ask a question. It was to give his words time to sink in.

He cleared his throat. Even in profile, he looked appalled. 'So, has he been abusing his position as an asset to help others ship heroin out of Afghanistan? I don't know. Might he have been doing it for the last two years? I can't be sure. Has he profited to the tune of millions? Nick, you look at pictures of that house and can't help asking yourself the question…'

He settled his gaze on me. 'I suspect this is a large and far-reaching network. People in the FCO could be involved. Maybe people in this very building.'

'Do you think the cameraman was implicated? The story is that he got shot by insurgents.'

He shook his head. 'Like everything else in this mess, I can't say for sure, but I very much doubt it.' He placed his cup carefully back on its saucer. 'Perhaps he saw something he shouldn't… Who knows? But get Condratowicz back to me and it's one of the things I stand a chance of finding out. You're independent of us, Nick, and that suits us very well. There's much less risk of anyone getting tipped off. You-'

I raised an eyebrow. 'Dom was against the heroin trade. Vehemently against. He wanted to expose it, not encourage it.'

The Yes Man leant across the veneer. 'Afghanistan now produces over ninety per cent of the world's heroin. One of the trafficking routes is into Iran and thence Iraq, alongside Iranian weapons and ordnance. The network knows this. They know those weapons kill British soldiers, they know the drug money finances terrorism, but it hasn't stopped them. So what would prevent them killing a cameraman who got in their way?'

He sat back. 'I know we haven't always seen eye to eye, and I know you probably feel you don't owe me too many favours, but this isn't about you and me, Nick. Think about the soldiers. Think about their families. This has got to stop. Bring me Condratowicz and I promise you it will.'

'Is there any kind of trail?' There was no harm in asking.

'The FCO made some enquiries. They say he left Basra with a fixer, and crossed the border into Iran soon after. But in the light of what I've told you, can we trust what they say? I've had to soft-pedal. I don't want anybody to find out who's looking for him – the whole network could go to ground. But your name came into the equation, Nick, and it started me thinking. You know the man. You know his habits, the way he thinks. You, I believe, are the best chance I have of reeling him in.'

Dublin Airport Tuesday, 6 March 1415 hrs Rain dripped off the canopy outside Arrivals as I stood in line for a cab. The bus would have been just as quick, but I wouldn't have learnt as much. It was a long time since I'd been there, and a chat with a cabbie's the best way of getting up to speed.

That was the excuse I gave myself. In truth, I wanted to squeeze myself a bit more thinking time. I needed to be in control of the situation and keep on my toes. Bullshit baffles brains, but the Yes Man was spinning too much of it my way. He must take me for a complete dickhead if he thought a few rubber stamps on a folder were going to make me think it now had a yellow card.

The only known points of contact for Dom that remained were the station, his wife and his stepson. I'd told the Yes Man to have surveillance put on Dom's mobile and his wife's, all landlines and the house computer. No flies on him. He already had that in hand with his Irish counterparts.

OK, so there was no signature page on the inside flap and never would be. That didn't matter. I was going to use the Yes Man and all his resources to help me find Dom. But after that it would be me who found out what he knew – and dealt with it, if necessary.

Siobhan had been Dom's last point of contact. He had called her from the COB before he'd permanently closed down. I should have gone straight there, but his file hadn't revealed that much about him, let alone her. It wasn't known if she worked, spent her days in the gym or just shopping. What was the point of getting there early and hanging around for hours on the street corner? It made more sense to go where I was going.

The driver of the cab that rolled towards me had to have been seventy if he was a day. There were creases in his face that even a steam press wouldn't get out.

'O'Connell Street, mate.' I jumped into the back with all my worldly goods still in my Bergen. The Yes Man had sorted me with a UK bank account, and I now had ten thousand euros in cash in my pocket. I'd drawn it all out because that gave me control of it. He wouldn't be able to track my movements whenever I made a withdrawal. I hadn't got changed. My clothes could have done with a bit of attention from that steam press as well.

'Been to Dublin before, have you, sir?'

We nosed out into a queue.

'Many times, but not for maybe twenty years. Stag parties, rugby matches… You know the sort of thing.'

'A bit of that still goes on. But you'll see a lot of changes. A rags-to-riches story, Dublin is. I wish I was young enough to enjoy it.'