The Circuit (26 page)

My 360-degree survey left me satisfied that it would be difficult for anyone to gain access to our rooftop without a very long ladder. I asked Hamid if he’d spotted any potential hazards and he said no. Hamid wasn’t a security man, but as an Afghan he had a greater sensitivity than me to any anomalies on the streets.

While we were on the roof, the caretaker had returned with dinner, which he’d laid out on plastic sheets at the end of the corridor on the top floor. By the time we finished our recce, the guards and drivers had gathered on two old, dusty sofas and were tucking into mutton kebabs, rice, bread and soft drinks.

The caretaker didn’t notice me when I walked in. I doubted I could keep my identity concealed for long so I broke the ice by making a casual remark. The sound of English spoken in an undoubtedly western accent immediately caught his attention. He looked up at me. We were both taken aback; the caretaker’s face was heavily scarred and he had only one eye, which was as wide as a saucer. I’m sure the last person he expected to see in his hotel was a westerner.

I shook his hand and asked him how he was. The caretaker bowed his head and gave the typical Muslim response – ‘alhamdulilah’ (praise be to God) – very friendly given the circumstances. I thanked him for the food and for allowing us to stay at his hotel. I also complimented him on how well he’d secured the premises, which seemed to please him greatly.

The caretaker asked me where I was from.

‘Scotland,’ I said.

A big smile spread across his mangled face. ‘Braveheart!’ he said.

I wondered if Mel Gibson had any idea that his portrayal of William Wallace had won over fans as far afield as Khost.

A bit more small talk and I asked the caretaker the question I really needed answered: had he told anyone he had guests staying at his hotel? He assured me he hadn’t, adding that there were many bad people in town and it was in his interests as well that no one know we were there.

After dinner the guards on duty broke off to their stations while the rest got their heads down. Luckily, the caretaker had his own place right next door to the hotel and he’d graciously offered the use of his home to the vehicle guards so they could take turns sleeping and have access to running water for Muslim ablutions. That meant the rest of us could barricade ourselves in on the top floor for the rest of the night. We’d keep in touch with the vehicle guards via radio.

Before going quiet for the evening, I grabbed two guards for one last patrol of the rooftop. The lights at street level were very bright and we couldn’t see any activity. It was completely dead except for the strange sight of a mixed-breed dog that someone had shaved and covered in different coloured paints and slogans written in Arabic script. I asked the guards if they could figure out what was written on the dog but they were as baffled as I was. The dog walked past our hotel several times. By the third turn I asked the guards jokingly if it was an al-Qaeda decoy meant to flush us out.

After a couple of hours on the rooftop, I decided to move the guards inside and station them on the central corridor. We bolted, chained and locked the rooftop door behind us and barricaded it with furniture. As an extra precaution, we also jammed table legs against it to prevent anyone from battering it down.

I carried on with the corridor guards for another hour before leaving them to get some sleep. If we survived the night, we’d still be facing a long and treacherous journey back to Kabul and I’d need my wits about me.

I lay down on my bed with my compact AK across my chest and tried to get some sleep. It was a struggle. Each squeak of the floors or creak of the ceilings startled me to attention. I felt extremely vulnerable. If we were attacked, we had only ourselves to rely on. The American military was only four miles away, but they may as well have been four hundred.

I was still seething over the way the Yanks had thrown me to the wolves but I can’t say I was surprised by their actions. A mate of mine working in Iraq had also had the door slammed in his face by the American military during a crisis. He was escorting his client, a US civilian, when their convoy was attacked by insurgents. My mate and the rest of his CP team tried to get the client to the safe haven of an American military base only to be turned away. He showed the guards passports and corporate ID cards but they wouldn’t let his client in.
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I got out of bed twice during the night to make sure the guards on duty were awake. They were. All of them knew as well as I did that the likelihood of an incident was high. By 4.30 a.m., we’d all passed a restless night but one that was thankfully behind us. I’d told the lads we’d leave the hotel by 5 a.m. sharp. I wanted to be out with the first casual flow of vehicles on the road. Better to blend in with the local traffic than leave too early and look like we were sneaking out of town.

Before we left, I thanked the men for their vigilance during the night and reminded them of the importance of staying alert while we were on the road. There was still dangerous ground to cover and everyone had to be switched on. I also promised them that when we got to Kabul, safely, I’d take them all out to dinner. My presence had greatly endangered everyone and I was grateful to them for sticking by me. It was literally the very least I could do.

I had one last item of business to take care of before getting under way. I gave Hamid one hundred US dollars to give to the caretaker. I don’t believe you can ever buy security; after all, what’s one hundred dollars compared with twenty-five thousand? The tip was my way of saying thanks for being such a gracious and discreet host.

Our convoy pulled out of the hotel compound and joined the early morning traffic. We meandered our way out of Khost town and continued on a north-west bearing. I’ve never been so glad to put a patch of land behind me.

That night in Kabul, a group of exhausted Afghans and one red-eyed Scotsman sat down to dinner in one of the capital’s finest Afghan restaurants. We dined on mutton, chicken, dumplings and rice with sultanas. Afterwards, I was happy to pick up the tab.
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CHAPTER 25

Terrorist organizations need two things to thrive: a breeding ground and a training ground. During winter and spring of 2004, I visited the two principal training grounds for Islamic insurgents: Iraq and Afghanistan. In the summer of that year, I had the opportunity to see the world’s foremost jihadist breeding ground: Saudi Arabia.

When Nic Robertson rang to see if I’d be interested in looking after him and his team (via AKE) for a documentary they were shooting in Saudi Arabia, I told him to count me in. I’d been there once before with the Regiment during the first Gulf War but my experience of the country had been confined to air bases and the desert. I’d been itching to return to Saudi Arabia ever since the 11 September attacks. The majority of the 11 September hijackers were Saudi, and the country was and, in my opinion, remains the premier hub for al-Qaeda financing and recruitment. Seeing the real Saudi was crucial for advancing my understanding of the al-Qaeda threat.

The working title of Nic’s documentary was
Kingdom on the Brink
, which couldn’t have been more appropriate. In the months leading up to our trip Saudi Arabia had been rife with al-Qaeda activity. In May of that year, al-Qaeda militants attacked two oil installations and a foreign workers’ compound in the eastern city of Khobar. During a twenty-five-hour rampage, al-Qaeda militants rounded up fifty people, killing twenty-two. The militants reportedly focused their fury on Christian hostages, allowing Muslims to go free. In June of that year, al-Qaeda militants abducted Paul M. Johnson, a US helicopter engineer working in Saudi for the American defence contractor Lockheed Martin. In exchange for Johnson’s life, the kidnappers demanded that the Saudi Government release prisoners arrested for links with radical groups. When their demands weren’t met, they beheaded Johnson. Pictures of the execution were posted on an Islamic website.

Of all the horrific incidents in Saudi that year, the one which perhaps resonated most with Nic and his crew was the killing and wounding of two members of their own profession. In June 2004 two BBC journalists were fired on by militants while filming in Suweidi, a known al-Qaeda neighborhood in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. Cameraman Simon Cumbers was killed. Correspondent Frank Gardner survived the attack but was left paralysed by his injuries.

Before the BBC incident, many journalists regarded Saudi as a soft environment compared to Afghanistan and Iraq. In truth, Saudi is perhaps more dangerous because the risks involved in operating there are hidden beneath a benign exterior and are therefore more difficult to recognize. Sadly, it took a tragedy like the BBC shootings to goad western media organizations into providing security for journalists operating in Saudi. It was a sobering reminder that the country was indeed a hostile environment; one full of Islamic militants who regard all westerners – journalists, oil workers or otherwise – as legitimate targets.

Nic had a large crew in tow for this project including a cameraman and two producers; one from CNN headquarters in Atlanta and a young Arab producer educated in England with numerous Middle East contacts. It was a big group to look after, especially as I’d be operating on my own again. Moreover, I couldn’t arm myself during any portion of the trip. You can’t carry weapons in Saudi so the security I provided would have to be entirely proactive.

The assignment also introduced a variable I hadn’t yet encountered on The Circuit: a ‘minder’ who would accompany us at all times during our trip. Minders are government officials who ensure that the host country is portrayed in a positive light. In other words, they try to keep journalists from getting too close to the truth. I had reason to believe, however, that Saudi minders might be playing both sides. The BBC lads were with a government minder when they were attacked. The minder got away without a scratch and there was speculation at the time amongst the international media that he may have helped orchestrate the incident.
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Our minder was waiting for us as soon as we stepped off the plane in Riyadh. A smiling, rotund man with a moustache and Saudi headdress, he looked jovial and not the least bit threatening. Then again, appearances can be deceiving. The minder had prearranged transport to our hotel. On the drive over, we passed dozens of international compounds, all of which looked very vulnerable to attack. It was little wonder al-Qaeda had been busy that year. As we turned from the main highway into our hotel complex, it appeared as if the authorities had taken steps to enhance security. The hotel was surrounded by police vehicles as well as hotel guards. The extra measures did little, however, to reassure me. It was still possible for militants to hit the hotel with a truck bomb or send fifty angry men through the security cordon and spray the place with gunfire.

My clients and I were assigned to a block of rooms at the end of a corridor on the fourth floor. I was well pleased. If the hotel was attacked in the middle of the night, I didn’t want to be wandering from floor to floor, rounding up Nic and his crew to get them to safety.

While my clients sorted their gear, I performed a security audit of the complex. The hotel was a soaring glass structure with a sky bridge leading directly to a shopping mall; beautiful to look at but not optimal from a security standpoint. I took a quick walk through the mall to get my bearings. From the coffee bars to the burger joints, it was exactly like the ones I’d visited in the United States, with two exceptions: first, the women were covered from head to toe in black veils. Secondly, there were the police. Along with the regular uniformed officers there were Mutaween – religious police who enforce Saudi Arabia’s hardcore Wahhabist tenets, such as strict dress codes.

During my rounds I bumped into an ex-Marine looking after a Sky News team at the same hotel. I was heartened to see that other networks were taking the security situation in Saudi seriously. Hopefully, the BBC incident would remain an isolated one.

Later that afternoon, Nic and his crew sat down with the minder to discuss what they hoped to accomplish during their stay. Nic explained, with the utmost diplomacy, that in the light of recent events in the Kingdom, it would be useful to examine the tensions between Saudi Arabia’s religious and progressive elements. He wanted to visit several regions of the Kingdom in order to profile a cross section of Saudi society: a wealthy prince, an architect, a lawyer, a businesswoman, a young person and a reformed radical.

What Nic didn’t tell the minder was that he was also hoping to interview a person with intimate knowledge of al-Qaeda; namely, Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law.

The first character Nic profiled was Prince Al Waleed bin Talal, one of the wealthiest men in the Kingdom, not to mention the world. We accompanied the Prince on his private jet from Riyadh to Jeddah and back. The aircraft was decked out with every possible luxury, from a shower to a private bedroom. The Prince also had a ‘chase’ jet that followed him everywhere, in case his primary jet broke down. I’d seen some filthy rich people on The Circuit, including royalty, but none who could afford to have a backup jet trail them wherever they went. I imagined the Prince’s conspicuous consumption, along with that of the rest of the Saudi royals, was breeding a tremendous amount of contempt among the Kingdom’s less privileged inhabitants.

We got a first-hand look at the fallout from that simmering anger as soon as we arrived back in Riyadh. It was 11 p.m. local time. While driving to our hotel, one of Nic’s contacts rang to say a battle had broken out between Saudi police and Islamic militants in the King Fahd district of the city. Luckily, our minder had left us for the night, so we could divert there immediately.

We could see tracer rounds criss-crossing the sky as we neared the incident area. Two rings of Saudi police had surrounded the house where the militants were holed up. We managed to drive past the outer cordon of Saudi security approximately three blocks from the fighting. Nic and the crew stayed with the vehicles while I grabbed a small DV camera to recce the area. I wanted to see if it was possible to get past the inner cordon and film.