The Kill List Read online

  As Pashto speakers they could not read the Koran and, like all non-Arab terrorists, had been converted because of what they had been told by Jihadi instructors, many pretending to be imams or mullahs while being nothing of the sort. So a Pashtun mullah or maulvi was in attendance to explain to the veterans how they had been deceived; how the Koran was, in reality, a book of peace with only a few “kill” passages, which the terrorists deliberately used out of context.

  And there was a television set in the corner, an object of fascination to the mountain men. It was not screening live TV but a DVD from a player linked to it. The speaker on the screen was using English, but the mullah had a pause button, enabling him to halt the flow, explain what the preacher had said and then reveal how, according to the Holy Koran, it was all rubbish.

  One of the four squatting on the floor was Mahmud Gul, who had been a senior commander as far back as 9/11. He was not yet fifty, but thirteen years in the mountains had aged him; the face beneath the black turban was wrinkled like a walnut, the hands gnarled and aching from incipient arthritis.

  He had been indoctrinated as a young man not against the British and Americans, who he knew had helped free his people from the Russians. He knew little of bin Laden and his Arabs, and what he did know he did not like. He had heard of what had happened in downtown Manhattan all those years ago and he did not approve of it. He had joined the Taliban to fight against the Tajiks and Uzbeks of the Northern Alliance.

  But the Americans did not understand the law of pashtunwali, the sacred rule between host and guest that absolutely forbade Mullah Omar to hand his al-Qaeda guests over to their tender mercies. So they had invaded Mahmud Gul’s country. He had fought them for that, and he was still fighting them. Until now.

  Mahmud Gul felt old and tired. He had seen many men die. He had put some out of their misery with his own gun when the wounds were so bad that they could live, in pain, for only a few more hours or days.

  He had killed British and American boys but could not recall how many. His old bones ached and his hands were turning into claws. The shattered hip of many years ago never gave him peace through the long mountain winters. Half his family was dead, and he had not seen his grandchildren except during hurried night visits, before dawn drove him back to the caves.

  He wanted out. Thirteen years was enough. Summer was coming. He wanted to sit in the warmth and play with the children. He wanted his daughters to bring him food, as it should be in old age. He had decided to take the government offer of amnesty, a house, sheep, an allowance, even if it meant listening to a fool of a mullah and a masked speaker on television.

  As the TV was switched off and the mullah droned on, Mahmud Gul uttered something under his breath in Pashto. Chris Hawkins was sitting next to him and he, too, had a command of the language, but not the Ghazni rural dialect. He thought he had heard correctly but could not be sure. When the lecture was over and the mullah had scurried back to his car and his bodyguards, tea was taken. Strong, black, and the farangi officers had brought sugar, which was good.

  Captain Hawkins slid down beside Mahmud Gul and they sipped in companionable silence. Then the Australian asked: “What did you say when the lecture finished?”

  Mahmud Gul repeated the phrase. Spoken slowly and not under his breath, it meant only one thing. He had said: “I know that voice.”

  Chris Hawkins had two more days to spend in Ghazni and one more reintegration meeting to attend elsewhere. Then back to Kabul. He had a friend at the British embassy who he was pretty certain was there with MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service. He thought he might mention it.

  • • •

  Ariel was right in his assessment of the Troll. The Iraqi from Manchester was possessed of an overweening arrogance. In cyberspace, he was the best and he knew it. Everything in that world to which he put his hand had the stamp of perfection. He insisted on it. It was his hallmark.

  He not only recorded the sermons of the Preacher but he alone sent them out into the world, to be watched on who knew how many screens. And he managed the growing fan base. He vetted aspirant members with intense checking before he would accept a comment or deign to reply. But he still did not notice the mild virus that slipped into his program from a dark little attic in Centerville, Virginia. As designed, it began to have its effect a week later.

  Ariel’s malware simply caused the Troll’s website to slow down, periodically and only marginally. But the effect was to cause small pauses in the transmission of the picture as the Preacher spoke. But the Troll noticed at once the tiny aberration from perfection that the pauses made in his work. It was not acceptable. It irritated and finally enraged him.

  He tried to correct it, but the flaw remained. He concluded that if website 1 had developed a flaw, he would have to create website 2 and move to it. Which he did. Then he had to transfer the fan base to the new website.

  Before he had invented his proxy server to create a false Internet protocol address, he had a real one, the IP that would serve as a sort of mailing address. To move the entire fan base from website 1 to 2, he had to pass back through the true IP. It only took a hundredth of a second, maybe less.

  Yet in the move across, the original IP was exposed for that nanosecond. Then it was gone. But Ariel had been waiting for that minuscule window. The IP address gave him a country, but it also had an owner—France Télécom.

  If the NASA supercomputers were going to prove no impediment to Gary MacKinnon, the database of France Télécom was not going to hold up Ariel for long. Within a day, he was inside the FT database, unseen and unsuspected. Like a good burglar, he was back out without leaving a trace. He now had a latitude and a longitude—a city.

  But he had a message for Col. Jackson. He knew better than send him the news by e-mail. People listen in to that sort of thing.

  • • •

  The Australian captain was right on two counts. The chance remark of the Taliban veteran was indeed worth mentioning, and his friend was indeed part of the large and active SIS unit inside the British embassy. And the tip was acted on without delay. It went by secure encryption to London and thence to TOSA.

  For one thing, Britain had also had three deliberate murders encouraged by the faceless and nameless Preacher. For another, an all-points request to friendly agencies had already been disseminated. Given that the Preacher was strongly suspected of being originally from Pakistan, the British SIS stations in Islamabad and neighboring Kabul were particularly alert.

  Within twenty-four hours, a J-SOC Grumman Gulfstream 500 with one passenger aboard had lifted off from Andrews field on the outskirts of Washington. It refueled at USAF base Fairford in Gloucestershire, UK, and again at the large U.S. base at Doha, Qatar. Its third stop was at the base still retained by the USA on the enormous sprawl of Bagram, north of Kabul.

  The Tracker chose not to go into Kabul. He did not need to and his transport was safer under guard at Bagram than at Kabul International. But his needs had been sent on ahead of him. If there were any financial restraints on the Reintegration Program, they did not apply to J-SOC. The power of the dollar kicked in. Capt. Hawkins was brought by helicopter to Bagram. Refueled, the same chopper brought them and a close-in protection unit drawn from a Rangers company to Qala-e-Zal.

  It was midday when they landed outside the impoverished hamlet, and the spring sun was warm. They found Mahmud Gul doing what he had wanted to do for so long: sitting in the sun playing with his grandchildren.

  At the sight of the roaring Black Hawk overhead and the soldiers who poured from it when it had landed on the communal threshing floor, the women rushed inside. Doors and shutters slammed. Silent, stony-faced men stood in the only street the hamlet boasted and watched the farangi walk into their home.

  The Tracker ordered the Rangers to stay with the machine. With just Capt. Hawkins beside him as introducer and translator, he walked down the street, nodding from side to side and uttering the traditional “Salaam” greeting. A few grudging Salaam
s came back. The Australian knew where Mahmud Gul lived. The veteran was sitting outside. Several children scattered in alarm. Just one, a three-year-old girl, more curious than afraid, clung to her grandfather’s cloak and stared up with huge saucer eyes. The two white men sat cross-legged in front of the veteran warrior and offered greetings. They were returned.

  The Afghan glanced up and down the street. The soldiers were out of sight.

  “You are not afraid?” asked Mahmud Gul.

  “I believe I have come to visit a man of peace,” said the Tracker. Hawkins translated into Pashto. The older man nodded and called something up the street.

  “He is telling the village there is no danger,” whispered Hawkins.

  With pauses only for translation, the Tracker reminded Mahmud Gul of the session with the Reintegration team after Friday prayers the previous week. The Afghan’s dark brown eyes remained unblinking on his face. At last he nodded.

  “Many years ago, but it was the same voice.”

  “But on the television he was speaking in English. You do not understand English. How could you know?”

  Mahmud Gul shrugged.

  “It was the way he spoke,” he said, as if no other consideration need apply. With Mozart, they called it perfect pitch—the ability to record and recall sounds exactly as they were. Mahmud Gul might be an illiterate peasant, but if his conviction turned out to be right, he also had that kind of ear.

  “Please tell me how it came about.”

  The old man paused, and his gaze fell to the bundled package the American had carried down the street.

  “It is time for gifts,” whispered the Australian.

  “Forgive me,” said the Tracker, jerking loose the binding. He spread out what he had brought. Two buffalo robes, from a Native American memorabilia store, backed with warm fleece.

  “Long ago the people of my country used to hunt the buffalo for his meat and his fur. This is the warmest hide known to man. In the winter, wrap one round you. Sleep with one beneath you and one above. You will never be cold again.”

  Mahmud Gul’s walnut face slowly cracked into a smile, the first Capt. Hawkins had ever seen on him. There were only four teeth left, but they did their best to create a broad grin. He ran his fingers through the thick pelt. The jewel box of the Queen of Sheba could not have brought him more pleasure. So he told his story.

  “It was in the fight against the Americans just after the invasion against the government of Mullah Omar. There were Tajiks and Uzbeks pouring out of their enclave in the northeast. We could have coped with them, but they had Americans with them, and the farangi were directing the airplanes that came from the sky with bombs and rockets. The American soldiers could speak to the airplanes and tell them where we were, so the bombs seldom missed. It was very bad.

  “North of Bagram, retreating down the Salang Valley, I was caught in the open. An American warplane fired at me many times. I hid behind rocks, but when he had gone, I saw I had taken a bullet in the hip. My men carried me to Kabul. There I was put in a truck and taken farther south.

  “We passed through Kandahar and crossed the border at Spin Boldak into Pakistan. They were our friends and gave us shelter. We came to Quetta. That was the first time a doctor saw me and I had attention to the hip.

  “In the spring I had started to walk again. I was young and strong in those days, and the broken bones healed well. But there was much pain, and I had a stick under my armpit. In the spring I was invited to join the Quetta Shura and sit in the council with the mullah.

  “In the spring also a delegation came from Islamabad to Quetta to confer with Mullah Omar. There were two generals, but they spoke no Pashto, only Urdu. But one of the officers had brought his son, just a boy of nineteen. He spoke fluent Pashto, with the accent of the high Siachen area. He translated for the Punjabi generals. They told us that they would have to pretend to work with the Americans, but that they would never abandon us and let our Talib movement be destroyed. And so it has been.

  “And I talked with the boy from Islamabad. The one who spoke on the white screen. Behind the mask. That was him. By the way, he had amber eyes.”

  The Tracker thanked him and left. He walked back down the street to the threshing floor. The men stood or sat in silence and stared. The women peered through the cracks in the shutters. The children hid behind their fathers and uncles. But no one molested him.

  The Rangers were in an outward-facing circle. They ushered both officers into the Black Hawk and clambered aboard. The chopper lifted off, sending dust and chaff in all directions, and they flew back to Bagram. There are reasonably comfortable officers’ quarters there, with good chow but no alcohol. The Tracker had need of only one thing—ten hours’ sleep. While he slept, his message went through to the CIA station in the Kabul embassy.

  • • •

  Before leaving the States, the Tracker had been advised that the CIA, despite any interdepartmental rivalry, was onside to give him the fullest cooperation. He needed this for two reasons.

  One was that the Agency had huge establishments in Kabul and Islamabad, a capital where any visiting American was likely to be under the closest secret police surveillance. The other was that back at Langley the Agency had a superb facility for the creation of false documents for use abroad.

  When he woke, the deputy head of station had flown up from Kabul to confer, as requested. The Tracker had a list of requirements, of which the intelligence officer took careful note. Details would be encrypted and sent to Langley that day, he was assured. When the papers requested were available, a courier would bring them personally from the U.S.

  When the CIA man had returned to Kabul, flying by helicopter from the U.S. compound at Bagram to the grounds of the embassy, the Tracker took his waiting J-SOC executive jet and flew to the large American base at Qatar on the Persian Gulf. As far as official records would show, no one called Carson had even been in the country.

  The same applied in Qatar. He could while away the three days it would cost to prepare the new papers he needed inside the perimeter of an American base. On landing at the base outside Doha, he dismissed the Grumman to return to the States. From inside the base he ordered the purchase of two air tickets.

  One was on a cheap local airline for the short hop down the coast to Dubai and was in the name of Mr. Christopher Carson. The other, from a different travel agency based in a five-star hotel, was for a business-class ticket from Dubai to Washington via London on British Airways. It was in the name of the fictional John Smith. When he received the message he was waiting for, he flew to Dubai International.

  On landing, he made his way straight to the transit hall, where the truly vast duty-free shopping mall was thronged with thousands of passengers enjoying the biggest airline hub in the Middle East. Without needing to disturb the transit desk, he walked into the club-class lounge.

  The courier from Langley was waiting at the agreed-upon entrance to the men’s room and the murmured recognition signals were exchanged. Very old-fashioned, a hundred-year-old procedure, but it still works. They found a quiet corner and two secluded armchairs.

  Both men had carry-on baggage only. They were not identical, but that did not matter. The courier had arrived bearing a genuine U.S. passport in the name of John Smith to match the America-bound ticket. He would obtain a boarding pass from the BA desk on the floor below. John Smith, having arrived by Emirates, would depart for home after a remarkably short stopover, but by a different airline and no one the wiser.

  They also swapped bags. What the Tracker gave the courier was irrelevant. What he received was a wheelie, containing shirts, suits, toiletries, shoes and any short-stay-traveler’s paraphernalia. Scattered among the clothing and airport-purchased thriller novels were various bills, receipts and letters, confirming the owner was Mr. Daniel Priest.

  He handed over to the courier every scrap of paperwork he had in the name of Carson. That would also return unseen to the States. What he got in return was a wa
llet of documents the Agency had spent three days preparing.

  There was a passport in the name of Mr. Daniel Priest, a senior staffer with the Washington Post. It bore a valid visa from the Pakistani consulate in Washington, securing Mr. Priest entry into Pakistan. The securing of this visa would mean that the Pakistani police were aware of his coming and would be waiting. Journalists are of extreme interest to sensitive regimes.

  There was a letter from the publisher of the Post, confirming that Mr. Priest was preparing a major series of articles on “Islamabad—the making of a successful modern city.” And there was a return ticket via London.

  There were credit cards, a driver’s license, the usual paperwork and plastic cards to be found in the wallet of a law-abiding American citizen and senior executive, plus a confirmation that a room awaited him at the Serena Hotel, Islamabad, and that the hotel car would be waiting for him.

  The Tracker knew better than to emerge from the customs hall at Islamabad International into the seething, surging chaos outside and then allow himself to be hustled into any old taxi.

  The courier also handed over the stub of his boarding pass from Washington to Dubai and the unused onward ticket from Dubai to “Slammy,” as Islamabad is known in the Special Forces fraternity.

  A thorough search of his room, virtually a certainty, would reveal only that Mr. Dan Priest was a legitimate foreign correspondent from Washington with a valid visa and a logical reason for being in Pakistan; further, that he intended to stay a few days and then fly home.

  With the exchange of identities and “legends” completed, both men descended separately to different airline desks below to secure boarding passes for their onward flights.

  It was nearly midnight, but the Tracker’s EK612 flight took off at three twenty-five a.m. He killed the time back in the lounge but was still at the departure gate with an hour to spare, then held back to size up his fellow passengers. He knew that if there were a breeze, he should stay upwind of most of them.