Frederick Forsyth - The Afghan

There was a reference which could only have come from an interview with Terry Martin; the older boy in his white Iraqi dishdasha, racing about the lawn of the house in the Saadun suburb of Baghdad, and his father’s delighted guests laughing with pleasure and shouting. “But Nigel, he’s more like one of us.” More like one of us, thought Marek Gumienny, more like one of them. Two points down of Ben Jolley’s four; he looked the part and could pass for an Arab in Arabic. Surely, with intensive schooling, he could master the prayer rituals? The CIA man read a bit more. As Vice President Saddam Hussein had started nationalizing the foreign-owned oil companies, and that included Anglo-Iraq in 1972. Nigel Martin had stuck it out three more years before bringing the whole family home in 1975. The boy Mike was thirteen, ready to go to senior school at Hailey-bury. Marek Gumienny needed a break and coffee. “He could do it, you know,” he said when he came back from the restroom. “With enough training and backup, he really could. Where is he now?” “Apart from two stints working for us when we borrowed him, he spent his military career between the Paras and the Special Forces. Retired last year after completing his twenty-five. And no, it wouldn’t work.” “Why not, Steve? He has it all.”

“Except the background. The parentage, the extended family, the birthplace. You don’t just walk into Al Qaeda except as a youthful volunteer for a suicide mission; a low-level lowlife, a gofer. Anyone who would have the trust to get near the gold-standard project in preparation would have to have years behind him. That’s the killer, Marek, and it remains the killer. Unless…” He drifted off into a reverie, then shook his head.

“Unless what?” asked the American.

“No, it’s not on the table,” said Hill.

“Indulge me.”

“I was thinking of a ringer. A man whose place he could take. A doppelganger. But that’s flawed, too. If the real object were still alive, ACMvould have him in their ranks. If he were dead, they’d know that, too. So, no dice.” “It’s a long file,” said Marek Gumienny. “Can I take it with me?”

“It’s a copy, of course. Eyes only?”

“You have my word, ol’ buddy My eyes only. And my personal safe. Or the incinerator.”

The DD Ops flew back to Langley, but a week later he phoned again. Steve Hill took the call at his desk in Vauxhall Cross.

“I think I should fly back,” the DDO said without preamble. Both men knew that by then the British prime minister in Downing Street had given his friend in the White House his word on total cooperation from the British side on tracking down Project Stingray.

“No problem, Marek. Do you have a breakthrough?” Privately, Steve Hill was intrigued. With modern technology, there is nothing that cannot be passed from CIA to SIS in complete secrecy, and in a matter of seconds. So why fly? “The ringer,” said Gumienny. “I think I have him. Ten years younger but looks older. Height and build. Same dark face. An AQ veteran.” “Sounds fine. But how come he’s not with the bad guys?”

“Because he’s with us. He’s in Guantanamo. Has been for five years.” “He’s an Arab?” Hill was surprised; he ought to have known about a high-ranking AQ Arab in Gitmo these past five years.

“No, he’s an Afghan. Name of Izmat Khan. I’m on my way.”

Terry Martin was still sleepless a week later. That stupid remark. Why could he not keep his mouth shut? Why did he have to brag about his brother? Supposing Ben Jolley had said something? Washington was one big, gossiping village, after all. Seven days after the remark in the back of the limousine, he rang his brother.

Mike Martin was lifting the last clutch of unbroken tiles off his precious roof. At last, he could start on the laying of the roofing felt and the batons to keep it down. Within a week, he could be waterproof. He heard the tinkling notes of “Lillibolero” from his mobile. It was in the pocket of his jacket, which was hanging from a nail nearby. He inched across the dangerously frail rafters to reach it. The screen announced it was his brother in Washington. “Hi, Terry.”

“Mike, it’s me.” He still could not work out how people he was ringing knew already. “I’ve done something stupid, and I want to ask your pardon. About a week ago, I shot my mouth off.”

“Great. What did you say?”

“Never mind. Look, if ever you get a visitation from any men in suits-you know who I mean-you are to tell them to piss off. What I said was stupid. If anyone visits…”

From his eagle’s nest, Mike Martin could see the charcoal gray Jaguar nosing slowly up the track that led from the lane to the barn. “It’s okay, Bro,” he said gently. “I think they’re here.”

The TWO spymasters sat on folding camp chairs, and Mike Martin on the bole of a tree that was about to be chainsawed into bits for campfire timber. Martin listened to the “pitch” from the American, and cocked an eyebrow at Steve Hill. “Your call, Mike. Our government has pledged the White House total cooperation on whatever they want or need, but that stops short of pressuring anyone to go on a no-return mission.”

“And would this one fit that category?”

“We don’t think so,” Marek Gumienny interjected. “If we could even discover the name and whereabouts of one single AQ operative who would know what is going down here, wed pull you out and do the rest. Just listening to the scuttlebutt might do the trick…”

“But passing off… I don’t think I could pass for an Arab anymore. In Baghdad fifteen years ago, I made myself invisible by being a humble gardener living in a shack. There was no question of surviving an interrogation by the moukhabarat. This time, youd be looking at intensive questioning. Why would someone who has been in American hands for five years not have become a turncoat?” “Sure, we figure they would question you. But with luck the questioner would be a high-ranker brought in for the job. At which point, you break out and finger the man for us. We’ll be standing by, barely yards away.” “This,” said Martin, tapping the file about the man in the Guanta-namo cell, “is an Afghan. Ex-Taliban. That means Pashtun. I never got to be fluent in Pashto I’d be spotted by the first Afghan on the plot.” “There would be months of tutorials, Mike,” said Steve Hill. “No way you go until you feel you are ready. Not even then if you don’t think it will work. And you would be staying well away from Afghanistan. The good news about Afghan fundos is that they hardly ever appear outside their own manor.” “Do you think you could talk poor Arabic with the accent of a Pashtun of limited education?”

Mike Martin nodded. “Possibly. And if the towelheads bring in an Afghan, who really knew this guy?”

There was silence from the other two men. If that happened, everyone round the fire knew it would be the end.

As the two spymasters stared at their feet rather than explain what would happen to an agent unmasked at the heart of Al Qaeda, Martin flipped open the file on his lap. What he saw caused him to freeze.

The face was five years older, lined by suffering, and ten years more than his calendar age. But it was still the boy from the mountains, the near corpse at Qala-i-Jangi.

“I know this man,” he said quietly. “His name is Izmat Khan.”

The American stared at him openmouthed.

“How the hell can you know him? He’s been cooped up at Gitmo since he was captured five years ago.”

“I know, but many years before that we fought the Russians in the Tora Bora.” The men from London and Washington recalled the Martin file. Of course, that year in Afghanistan helping the muj in their struggle against Soviet occupation. It was a long shot, but not unfeasible that the men had met. For ten minutes, they asked him about Izmat Khan, to see what else he could add. Martin handed the file back.