Three Great Novels (36 page)

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Authors: Henry Porter

Tags: #Thrillers, #Action & Adventure, #Fiction

BOOK: Three Great Novels
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She put on the robe and trainers and walked around the building until she found Foyzi standing by a clay oven. With him was an old man in a brown skull cap and dirty shift who, on seeing her, whisked a roundel of unleavened bread from the fire. Foyzi cooled it by flipping it between his hands, then spun it through the air to her. He walked a little distance to a patch of bare earth and looked up at the smoke from the oven curling to the top of the trees.
‘You should look around,’ he said. ‘It’s quite a place. A piece of paradise.’
‘You’re moving better,’ she said. ‘You’ve lost your limp.’
‘Oh yes, the doctor took a look at me last night and pressed a few buttons,’ said Foyzi. ‘He’s got quite a touch.’
She nodded. ‘“Big lorry jump all over little car,” I liked that. Were you actually hurt in an accident?’
‘Yes, a long time ago in Manchester, England. I worked there for eighteen months. Four of those were spent in hospital with a broken hip bone.’
‘What were you doing there?’
‘This and that,’ he replied.
She smiled at the evasion.
‘Okay, I have a question for you,’ he said suddenly in the manner of an eager college student. ‘How did you learn to lip-read?’
She told him about catching meningitis when she was young, the deafness that followed and the operation to cure it a few years later.
‘Only in English, not other languages?’
‘Maybe I can lip-read as many languages as you can do accents, Foyzi,’ she replied.
‘Never,’ he said.
A little later she took Foyzi’s advice and began to look around. From the buildings clustered on the rock plateau in the south to the northern end, the island measured about three-quarters of a mile. At its widest point it was about five hundred yards. The banks were covered in dense shrubbery, but at the centre there were citrus groves, palms and several large dark green trees which bore fruit Herrick didn’t recognise. There were also a few square fields cultivated with strips of lucerne, bananas, maize and flower crops, mostly roses and marigolds. Between these grazed tethered water buffalo, goats and a lone donkey.
There was very little noise as she walked - the rustle of a lizard over dead leaves, a bird call or the cough of buffalo - and because she barely glimpsed the river, the only sense she had of it was the smell of heated mud banks and an occasional distant whoosh caused by the current tugging at an obstacle on the bank. In a glade at the northern end she came across the old bread maker, who had made his way there along a more direct path, and was contemplating a wall constructed of drainage pipes and mortar. From the openings spilled swarms of bees that hung in the sun like skin pelts drying. He lifted the swarms with a stick, talking to them in a falsetto.
She made her way back and found a spot where she could see all the buildings and realised they had been designed to look like the blunt prow of a ship forging up the river. They were almost completely hidden from both banks of the Nile by vegetation, and even from where she stood they appeared deserted, a ruin from a colonial past.
She continued walking, deep in thought. She had never been so impressed by the beauty and stillness of a place, yet was aware of its dangerous isolation. The Chief had planned it this way, she was sure. He expected something to happen, some revelation to occur. And when it did, he wanted Loz and Khan away from the world and unable to communicate.
She went to Khan’s room and saw that he was still asleep.
‘I think you had better wake him,’ she told Loz.
He shook his head. ‘We’ve tried.’
She looked at Harland who nodded to agree with Loz. ‘I want him conscious by midday,’ she said, ‘even if it means throwing water over him. Is that understood?’
‘We will do our best,’ said Loz.
‘Just get him to the point where he can answer my questions, ’ she said, and turned on her heel. Harland followed, leaving Foyzi to watch them.
They walked to the most shaded part of the island in the east where a tree grew out into the river. Herrick perched on a low branch.
‘So now you’re going to tell me about this woman?’
He looked at her for a while, then shrugged. ‘She left six weeks after nine-eleven,’ he said. ‘November first to be precise. Just vanished. No letter, message or phone call; no activity on her checking account; no record of her having left the United States or having bought a plane ticket in her own name. Nothing.’
‘Had you been together long?’
‘About a year. I fell for her nearly thirty years ago. That didn’t work out, then we got together a couple of years back. It was after the business in the Balkans. You probably heard about it.’
‘I know it did for Walter Vigo - at least temporarily. You had a son together?’
‘Yep. When he died it was a very deep shock to her. She moved to be with me in New York but never settled down. She didn’t know anyone there and turned in on herself. My job took me away. It was difficult.’
‘And you tried to trace her?’
Harland nodded. ‘She knew how to disappear. She did it once before when we were young.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In Tel Aviv.’
‘She’s Jewish?’
‘Yep, though it was never particularly important to her, apart from the fact that her mother’s family in Czechoslovakia was wiped out in the Holocaust. Her mother was the only one left.’
Herrick thought for a moment. ‘Maybe she was reclaiming her Jewish ancestry. Trying to put herself in some kind of context.’
Harland nodded. ‘Something like that.’
‘How did they find her?’
‘Spotted her at Heathrow, followed her and then traced her to Israel.’
She thought, he’s holding something back. Either that, or there’s something else he doesn’t understand.
‘So you’ll try to see her?’
‘Yes, I’ll go directly from here. I’ve got work in Damascus anyway.’
‘And you have to go now?’
 
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve got a bloody job to do.’
 
By the early afternoon the mercury in an old enamel thermometer in her room reached the 105-degree mark. Nothing moved. The leaves on the trees hung limp and the birds and insects had long ceased to make any sound. In search of some movement in the air, Herrick climbed to a covered turret and looked across the swathes of green either side of the river to the unforgiving mountains in the west and east. Harland spotted her and shouted up that Khan was awake. She rushed down the narrow stairway and went to the room with him.
‘How are you?’ she asked, approaching the bed.
‘He’s doing very well,’ said Loz.
‘That’s good,’ she said, smiling at Loz.
‘I was just telling him that he must have lost forty pounds since I saw him last,’ said Loz. ‘I can’t believe he’s still alive.’ There was certainly love in his eyes but also an expectant look.
‘Have you explained that we have to ask him some questions? ’ she asked.
‘It is too soon,’ he replied. ‘I don’t think he has the strength.’
She crouched down so that she was at eye level with Khan. ‘We know you’ve suffered terribly,’ she said softly, ‘but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind talking to us for a little while?’
He glanced at Loz. ‘That will be all right,’ he said. Again the perfect English she’d heard in Albania surprised her. ‘I can try to help.’
She put the notepad and digital recorder down and touched his hand. ‘I’m really sorry about this, Karim. The moment you feel too tired you must tell us.’
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘But there are some things that are… not very clear at the moment.’
‘He’s on very strong painkillers,’ Loz interjected.
‘Can I ask you about The Poet?’
‘I’ve already told you about him,’ said Loz.
‘I know, but we really do need to find out more about him.’ She turned to Khan. ‘The Poet, who is he?’
‘The Poet was a man in Bosnia. But this was only our name for him.’
‘What was his real name?’
Khan shook his head helplessly.
‘You know that a man calling himself The Poet went to see Dr Loz in New York to ask him for money? He mentioned your name and after Dr Loz had given him the money he gave him a photograph of you. Mr Harland has it here.’ Harland delved into his shirt pocket and handed it to her. ‘Is that you?’
‘Yes, this is me… but I thought…’ he looked towards Loz doubtfully.
‘What?’
‘I don’t know… I’m confused.’
She waited. ‘Who took the picture?’
‘A man in Afghanistan. I don’t know his name.’
‘Did you give the picture away? How did it get into the hands of the man calling himself The Poet?’
He shook his head. ‘I do not remember… I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right. We’ll come back to it when you’ve had a chance to think.’ She paused and looked down at the recorder on the floor. ‘You know why we’re asking these questions, don’t you? We believe that one of the men you knew in Bosnia is now a terrorist leader.’
He blinked slowly with a gentle nod.
‘Are there any other individuals you remember from Bosnia - or from Afghanistan, for that matter - who expressed the kind of views we associate with al-Qaeda or other extremist groups?’
‘There were many in Afghanistan but I kept away from them. I was not interested in attacking the West.’
Loz nodded in agreement.
‘But it must have been difficult not to be affected by the atmosphere. You are a Muslim and most of the people who came back from Afghanistan were very opposed to Western beliefs and lifestyle.’
‘I believe in the teachings of the Prophet. I prayed to him when I was in prison… I prayed to Allah… in these last days I have prayed… and I was saved… but I have suffered moments of doubt. There was much cruelty in Afghanistan. Much violence. But I never hated the West.’ This all came out very slowly. Quite suddenly his eyes closed and his forehead creased. Tears began to run down his cheeks.
Loz put a hand on his shoulder, but there was something in the gesture that made Herrick think Loz was content with the situation.
‘Will you describe The Poet for me?’ she asked when he had recovered.
‘He was about five foot five or six… small build… He had dark hair, thinning at the front. His cheeks were sunken, which made him look older than he was, but this was because we had little food in Sarajevo. He went days without eating. I did not recognise him later…’
‘Later? That was in Afghanistan,’ said Herrick quickly. ‘The Poet asked you to join him in Afghanistan in ninety-seven. And you saw him there. Is that right?’
Khan nodded. ‘But he left.’
‘Yes, we know he was in New York receiving money from your friend. And the only way he could do that was if you had given him Dr Loz’s address and the picture of you to use as his
bona fides.
’
He nodded.
‘Did you know he would use your picture in this way?’
‘I do not remember.’
‘But you must do. It was like the postcards you sent him recently. It was proof that you were still in the land of the living.’
Khan’s brow furrowed. His eyes moved rapidly from her to Loz.
‘It’s okay, Karim,’ said Loz.
She waited until his gaze returned to her. ‘I would like to run a few names past you. They’re men you may have come across while in Afghanistan.’
She went through a list of suspects. Some she had remembered from RAPTOR, others from the FBI watch list. She hoped the process had a ring of authenticity and thought she noticed a certain interest in Loz’s eyes. Khan appeared to hesitate over one or two but was unable to say definitely whether he had met or seen any of the men. In any normal interrogation the failure of memory would have been unacceptable, but she let it pass and asked him instead to list the key men he’d met and describe them. He gave her a score of names, many half-remembered. Then she returned to ask him where he had last seen The Poet.
‘It was in the south in the first three years. I stayed with him several times. He was with the men from the Taleban. The men who were giving us the crazy orders. He asked me to take the struggle to the West but I said no. After the second time he lost patience.’
‘So he did try to recruit you as a terrorist?’
He nodded.
‘With your background in London he must have thought you were an ideal candidate.’ She wondered whether she was sailing too close to her actual target and before he had time to answer added, ‘So when you refused, you helped him another way - by giving him the photograph and Dr Loz’s address?’
‘Yes…I felt…’
‘You felt you had to compensate for not going along with his wishes?

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