True Colours

AFGHANISTAN, 2002

For a week Ahmad Khan remained at home, working in the fields and regaining his strength, and then he returned Lailuna to the care of his sister. When she realised that he was going away again, Lailuna wailed as if her heart would break, but he promised her, ‘This is the last time I shall leave you behind. Next time we go together, I swear to you.’

He walked away without looking back, knowing that the desolate look on her face would weaken his resolve. He made contact with Joshua using one of the dead drops he had set up on his instructions, and the following night, waiting as arranged in the shadows at the side of a road outside Jalalabad, he was picked up by an American patrol and taken to a meeting with Joshua at the American FOB. ‘You’re not exactly flavour of the month with the British, just now,’ Joshua said as Khan was brought into the room where he was waiting. ‘They think you deliberately led their men into a trap.’

By way of answer, Khan simply removed his shirt and turned slowly around, allowing Joshua to see the fresh scars that covered his back and torso. Joshua listened intently as Khan told him the story. ‘So, do the Taliban still trust you?’

‘Two of the leaders don’t,’ Khan said. ‘My time is definitely running out. It is time for you to do as you promised and give me and my daughter a new life in the West.’

‘I will,’ said Joshua. ‘But before I do, I need you to carry out one more task for me. You know the money house you talked about across the Pakistani border? We have intelligence suggesting that some al-Qaeda operatives are based there and are using it as a source of funds and weapons. We’ve identified the broad area where it’s sited but we have not been able to locate it precisely. I need you to locate it, penetrate it and identify who’s using it.’

‘And then? What will you do?’

‘And then we’ll deal with it, one way or another.’

‘You will destroy it?’

‘That’s a decision that will be taken at a higher pay grade than mine.’

Khan stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘I need a reason to go there, I can’t just turn up and tell them I happened to be passing. They’re not stupid.’

‘I’ve thought of that.’ Joshua smiled. ‘We’re going to put a price on your head, a large reward for your capture alive. That’ll strengthen your credibility with the Taliban and also give you a powerful reason to cross the border into the tribal areas until the heat has died down.’

‘Even so, why would the Taliban want me to go to the money house?’

‘Because we’re going to make a large cash payment to the headman of your village to buy his loyalty. You’re going to relieve him of it on behalf of the Taliban and then volunteer to deliver it to the money house.’

Khan nodded thoughtfully. ‘And if someone captures me before I cross the border and hands me over to claim the reward you’re offering?’

‘Then you’ll have got your wish because you’ll be in our hands and on your way out of Afghanistan.’

‘I’ll do it,’ Khan said, ‘as I’m sure you knew I would, but Lailuna must be in a place of safety before I do.’

‘Agreed,’ Joshua said. ‘Bring her to the site of the dead drop at dawn tomorrow. I’ll have soldiers there, including a woman, to pick up your daughter. She’ll be waiting for you at Bagram when you return.’

‘And if I do not return?’

‘Then you have my word that she will be taken to my country and we will find a good American family to give her a home.’ He paused. ‘The drop of money to your village headman will take place at noon tomorrow and you would be well advised to be out of the area and on your way to the border by nightfall, because word will already be spreading about the price we’ve put on your head.’

Khan nodded. ‘I shall leave before the sun goes down,’ he said.

‘There’s one other thing,’ said Joshua. He held out what looked like a regular 5.45 round for Khan’s AK-74. ‘This is an HOTB – a Hostiles Ordnance Tracking Beacon,’ he said. ‘We use them to track and intercept enemy supplies – we just need to insert one of these into a shipment and then we can ambush it somewhere along the line, at a time and place of our choosing. I need you to have this with you at all times. We’ll have an AWAC in the air over the area where you’re heading. The HOTB sends out a constant pulse which the AWAC can track. When it stops pulsing, we’ll know that you’ve reached the money house and the point where the signal stops will give us the precise coordinates. There are two ways to stop it. You can fire it in your rifle; put it in your magazine, pull the trigger and it’ll seem like a misfire – there’s a .22 cap in the base which will go off and destroy the inner workings. A misfire will be perfectly plausible, most Taliban ammunition is made in Peshawar and it’s notoriously unreliable. But you can also silence it by crushing it between a couple of rocks.’

‘So when it is silenced, you’ll launch the attack?’

‘I’m not sure about the timing. But by killing the signal we will know the exact location of the house. When you silence the HOTB we’ll send in surveillance drones to check out the area and we’ll then deal with the target.’

‘A drone, perhaps?’ said Khan.

Joshua shrugged. ‘Given the sensitivity of relations with Pakistan, the attack is likely to be by special forces on the ground, and probably British ones at that, rather than by bombs or missiles. The attack, if it does come, will probably be at night and you would be wise not to be in the immediate vicinity of the building at the time.’

Khan was dropped off close to his village later that night and woke Lailuna well before dawn. They slipped out of the still-sleeping village and made their way to the dead drop. Khan told her only that she was going to meet an American woman who would look after her for him, and when he came back, they would be going on the long journey together that he had promised her. As he heard the noise of the approaching American armoured vehicle, driving without lights, he hugged Lailuna, but he was dry eyed and showing a confidence he did not feel as he entrusted her to a young blond woman in army fatigues. While her comrades formed a defensive perimeter around them, she greeted Khan, ruffled Lailuna’s hair and gave her a candy bar.

Khan stood watching as they drove away, Lailuna’s pale face and uncertain smile peering out at him until she disappeared from sight. He returned to his village and at once went to the house of the village headman, a grey-bearded elder with a face ravaged by smallpox scars. ‘I know the Americans are bringing money to the village at noon today,’ Khan said. ‘If the Taliban hear of it – and we both know they will – they will take all of it. But here is what I suggest. You will give me half the money the Americans bring, which I will deliver to the Taliban, but I – and you, when you are asked, as you surely will be – will tell them that it is the whole of the money that was given to you. You will hide the rest and when you judge it is safe, you will use it to ease the burdens of our friends and families and bring a little prosperity to our village. After today, you will not see me again for a long time, if ever. The faranji – the British – have put a price on my head and I must cross the border to escape them.’

The headman took Khan’s hands in his, thanked him and said, ‘May you travel safely.’

‘And may you not be tired,’ Khan said, returning the traditional greeting.

Exactly at noon that day, there was the clatter of helicopter rotors overhead as a Blackhawk swooped in, bristling with guns and missiles, and hovered above the heart of the village, churning up a storm of dust and leaves. A few minutes later the American military convoy rumbled into the village.

While troops fanned out around them, M16s at the ready, two soldiers, each carrying a sack, ran into the headman’s house. Moments later, they emerged empty handed, they and the troops jumped back into the vehicles and the convoy moved off, with the Blackhawk still flying top cover above it.

Khan had already summoned Ghulam from the neighbouring village and they made their way to the headman’s house as soon as the convoy had disappeared. For the benefit of any watching villagers, Khan unslung his AK-74 and covered the headman as he appeared at the door. There were still two sacks in the middle of the room, but Khan noted with satisfaction that they were now considerably less bulky than when they had been delivered. The headman made token protests, raising his voice in lamentations as Khan and Ghulam strode away, each with a sack over their shoulder. None of the other villagers tried to intercept them; they knew better than to cross the Taliban.

With Ghulam at his side, Khan made his way out of the village and took the narrow, twisting paths through the mountains. After sunset that night, they reached the safe house, one of several that Fahad constantly moved between. It could have been any farmer or goatherd’s house, had it not been for the satellite dish hidden among a copse of larch and pine trees a hundred yards away. Greeted with a faint smile by Fahad and a scowl from Piruz, Khan produced the money at once and told his story. ‘The British have put a price on my head,’ he said, ‘for the deaths of their soldiers.’

‘I had already heard so,’ Fahad said, nodding towards the satellite phone that lay on the table.

‘With your permission,’ Khan said, ‘I will cross the border and live among our brothers in the tribal lands until the faranji find other things to occupy their minds.’

‘Granted,’ Fahad said. ‘When will you leave?’

‘Tonight. The lure of the reward may be too much for some poor farmer to resist. Shall I deliver these dollars to the money house across the border, where it will be safe from the faranji? Ghulam will go with me for added protection.’

Fahad thought for a long moment before he replied. ‘Perhaps that would be wise,’ he said. ‘You can relieve my men who are guarding it and send them back to rejoin the fight here, but I will send Piruz and another fighter with you, for poor farmers are not the only ones who may find such sums of money hard to resist.’

Khan inclined his head. ‘As you wish.’

The four men left within the hour, travelling light with just their weapons and ammunition, a water bottle and a pouch at their waist containing rations of rice, almonds and raisins. Even in the summer season, the wind knifing through them as they climbed higher into the mountains was bitterly cold and there were ice and drifts of winter snow in the north-facing gullies.

They passed a chai house at the side of the trail, and the smell of cedar logs and the glow of light from inside were as enticing as the thought of hot food, but travellers might already have brought news of the price on Khan’s head even to this lonely place and the risk of betrayal and capture was too great, so they moved on into the darkness.

Dawn broke well before they reached the summit of the pass, but this little-used route lay well south of the Khyber Pass and they encountered only one group of travellers, merchants or smugglers herding their plodding donkeys, weighed down with bulky sacks.

They crossed the border mid-morning but did not stop to rest until they had descended below the treeline and found shelter in an abandoned shepherd’s hut. Its roof had collapsed, leaving it open to the sky, but the stone walls broke the force of the wind. Tired from their long march, they were able to snatch a few hours’ sleep. They moved on again that afternoon, heading steadily south-eastwards through the barren landscape, the brief greening of the slopes at the approach of spring having long given way to a brown, parched wilderness.

After dark that night they approached the money house. It was a tall building in a fold in the hills, surrounded by a collection of ruined outbuildings and a pile of rubble where another one had collapsed. There were a few other occupied farms and houses in the area, but all were at least half a mile away. They did not approach the house at once, but lay up among the trees, observing the guards. There were two of them that they could see, huddled near the doorway, blowing on their hands to warm them from time to time. There was a glow of lamplight from the building and Khan could smell woodsmoke from the fire burning inside.

They watched the house for half an hour, then moved quietly towards it. Piruz waited until they were within twenty yards of the guards, then called out, ‘Salaam alaikum. Do not be alarmed, we are friends and followers of Mullah Omar.’

The guards jumped up and pointed their AK-47s at Khan and Piruz. ‘You lazy dogs!’ shouted Piruz. ‘Be grateful we are not enemies, for if we were, you would surely be dead. I am Piruz, do you not recognise me?’

The guards bowed and apologised. One of them knocked on the door. A few moments later Khan heard the bolts being drawn and a face peered out. They identified themselves once more and Khan, Piruz and Ghulam were ushered inside. There were a dozen men in the house. Khan recognised two of them as low-ranking Taliban fighters but the others were different.

They sat together, their lips moving silently as they studied their Qurans. Five were Arabs and the other five did not look like Afghans to Khan either, but more like the Chechens, Uzbeks and other jihadis who had flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets years before. Khan was sure they were al-Qaeda warriors.

Through a doorway, Khan glimpsed a stockpile of weapons and ammunition and sacking-wrapped bales that could only have been opium.

Khan spoke to the Taliban fighters. He had to find a reason to get away from the others to silence the HOTB, but he also needed a convincing excuse for remaining outside the house during the night. The laxity of the guards at the door had provided him with one. ‘We’ve brought more American dollars for the cause,’ he said, gesturing towards the sacks they had carried. ‘But my daughter could guard this place better than your men. We walked in here tonight virtually undetected. If we can do it, so can faranji soldiers. You need a better guard system, especially at night. I’m going to go outside and find a place from where I can watch the building and the approaches to it.’

‘Good idea, brother,’ Piruz said. ‘We will help you.’

The last thing that Khan wanted was to have Piruz outside with him, but he had no choice other than to smile and accept his offer. He went outside with Ghulam. Piruz and Piruz’s comrade followed them. They moved around the money house in a gradually expanding circle, exploring the outbuildings and seeking out dips and hollows where they could be concealed and yet able to observe the terrain around them. They eventually chose two sites for guard posts, with a view of each other, the money house and the tracks leading to it. ‘There are four of us,’ Khan said. ‘Shall two watch and two rest, turn and turn about?’

Piruz gave him a suspicious look. ‘No, we will all watch together,’ he said.

‘As you wish, brother,’ Khan said. ‘But will you first keep watch for me while I empty my bowels?’

Without waiting for an answer, he moved away towards the trees. He knew that his fellow Muslims were both fastidious and prudish about bodily functions; even if he had been under guard, they would not have felt comfortable about following him. He slid the HOTB from his ammunition belt, dropped his trousers and squatted down, then blew a farting sound on the back of his hand, using it to cover the noise as he crushed the HOTB under a rock. Unseen high in the night skies overhead, the AWACs would already be relaying back to Joshua the exact coordinates of the place where the HOTB had been silenced and within minutes surveillance drones would be converging on it.

He stood up, poured some of his drinking water into his left hand and washed himself with it in case Piruz was watching him, and then walked back to the others. He glanced at the sky. The attack would not come that night, he was sure, for the first faint glow of dawn was already beginning to colour the eastern horizon, but he was fairly certain that it would happen the following night and he had to be ready for it. Joshua had been reluctant to reveal details of what he had planned, but Khan was sure that the attack would come sooner rather than later.

An hour after daybreak, they abandoned their posts and returned to the house. The other Taliban fighters left at once to rejoin Fahad, leaving the al-Qaeda men to mount guard during the daylight hours. Khan curled up on the floor near the embers of the fire, but he slept fitfully, plagued by thoughts when he was awake and troubled by dreams when he at last fell asleep.

He got up just after midday and at once went outside. He stood in the full sunlight, gazing up at the sky. He knew that drones would be overhead by now and if Joshua had needed any confirmation that they were watching the right place, the sight of Khan’s upturned face and the unmistakable milk-white pupil of his left eye would provide it. Piruz emerged a few moments later and gave him a suspicious look, but Khan merely smiled and nodded.

At sunset that evening they again left the building and mounted guard. Khan and Ghulam stationed themselves in the dip just beyond the pile of rubble. Khan lay full length on the ground while Ghulam took a place half a pace behind him. Piruz and the other fighter took up their positions in dead ground where they could see the opposite side of the house.

It was a bitter night, with frost sparkling on the ground. Even men as hardened to the mountains as Khan and Ghulam felt the cold seeping into their bones as they lay in wait.

At just before ten that night, Khan thought he heard the drumbeat sound of helicopter rotors in the distance, but it was snatched away again on the breeze and, though he strained his ears, he heard no more. Half an hour later there was movement on the periphery of his vision near a copse of tall trees. It was a ripple in the darkness, sensed as much as seen. Khan eased off the safety catch of his rifle and slid it forward, sighting not on the area where he had seen the movement, but towards Piruz.

Twice Khan tensed as small groups of dark figures moved down the track towards the money house, but on each occasion they were recognised by the guards at the door and admitted to the house. After remaining inside for perhaps an hour, they left again carrying bundles that might have contained dollars, opium or weapons and ammunition.

A lone figure, perhaps one of the al-Qaeda fighters, left the house shortly afterwards and disappeared up the track towards the mountains, but after that there was only silence, and the lamp inside the building was extinguished before midnight.

Nothing and nobody moved for another hour, but then Khan heard a faint noise, like the rustle of fabric. He strained his eyes into the darkness but saw nothing until two dark shapes suddenly materialised out of the night, no more than twenty yards from him. They carried a ladder between them, holding their rifles in the other hand.

Khan saw the outline of night vision goggles on the men’s faces and crouched lower, laying a restraining hand on Ghulam’s arm, for fear that he might open fire. For the moment, neither Piruz nor the two guards at the door were aware of any danger, because the two men’s angle of approach meant that the building was blocking them from Piruz’s sight.

Cloud still blanketed the sky, shrouding the moon and reducing its light to no more than a faint glow. Silent as ghosts, the two figures slipped between pools of shadow, blacker even than the surrounding darkness, until they reached the outside wall of the money house.

As they turned to look back the way they had come, Khan caught a glimpse of their faces. He recognised the man called Spider at once and felt a pang of guilt mixed with unease as he saw that it was Captain Todd alongside him. The SAS men had no reason to trust him, he knew, and every reason to hate him. If they saw Khan, it could cost him his life, but if he allowed them to be ambushed and killed, his ticket to freedom and a new life in the West could well disappear.

His mind raced. There was nothing he could do to alert them. He would simply have to watch and wait. He sensed Ghulam’s impatience and motioned for him to be still and silent.

Khan watched as the SAS men placed their ladder against the wall. They paused to listen and scan the surroundings for movement, then Spider climbed up the ladder and fixed shaped charges against the wall on each floor.

Again Khan had to restrain Ghulam from firing. He twisted around and leaned close to Ghulam’s ear, breathing, ‘Not yet, wait.’

Spider slid back down the ladder and Khan saw him mime protecting his ears to Todd. Spider covered his own ears a fraction of a second before there was a massive blast and a flash of light tearing the darkness apart. By the time Khan raised his head again, the two SAS men had rushed up the ladder and were disappearing through a gaping hole in the upper storey. Smoke was also swirling from similar holes on the lower two floors. Ears ringing from the blast, Khan barely heard Ghulam’s whispered query. ‘Now?’

Khan shook his head and breathed, ‘Not yet.’

On the far side of the building, he saw Piruz start to rise from cover, then think better of it and sink back down, but a moment later Khan saw twin red dots appear on the house as Piruz and his comrade trained their laser sights on the building.

The minutes ticked by in silence as Khan watched the building. Then flames flared inside and he heard the crackle of flames.

Suddenly a figure burst from the blazing building. It was Captain Todd. At once the red dots flickered across the building. A moment later Khan heard a double tap and saw the SAS officer fall backwards.

There was an immediate answering burst of fire from away to his right and, using it as cover, the second SAS man, Spider, burst through the hole in the wall. Firing as he ran, he dived and rolled and came up alongside his wounded comrade.

As firing continued around them, Khan saw Spider crouching over Todd, clamp a dressing on his wound, then cradle the dying officer’s head against his chest.

As Khan watched, Spider looked up and their eyes locked. The SAS man swung up his weapon, oblivious to the red dots now tracing a path across the ground towards him. Piruz and his partner were less than a second away from firing.

Khan turned towards Piruz, took aim and squeezed the trigger once, then twice, and felt a surge of satisfaction as Piruz’s head exploded like a melon struck with an axe.

In that same moment, Spider’s weapon flashed. Khan heard a double tap from it but also a simultaneous whipcrack from Ghulam’s AK-47 behind him. Spider’s weapon went flying as Ghulam’s shot smashed into his shoulder and sent him sprawling to the ground.

Khan had flattened himself and rolled sideways a few feet, just as return fire from the SAS cordon, zeroing on the muzzle flash from his weapon, ripped through the ground where he had been lying. Although Piruz now lay dead, his comrade was still firing, rounds smacking into the ground and striking Todd’s already dead body, half shielding the place where Spider was lying.

Khan zeroed in on the muzzle flashes and then saw the Taliban fighter’s face bottom-lit for a moment as he fired another burst. Even before his features had faded back into the darkness, Khan had put a single shot into his brain. He saw the Taliban fighter’s head disintegrate, the tail of his turban blowing out behind him as if caught in a sudden gale.

Khan was already rolling across the ground again as a fresh torrent of fire from the SAS cordon blitzed the area. He heard a grunt, choked off as soon as it began, and when he looked back he saw Ghulam spreadeagled, a pink froth bubbling from the hole blown in his chest.

Khan felt sick to his core. Ghulam’s loyalty to him had now cost him his life, for one glance at the wound showed there was nothing that could be done for him, and his own life was still in danger. He lay motionless as the suppressing fire from the SAS slowed and then ceased, and he watched as one of them ran to Spider, pulling a field dressing from his jacket. ‘Stay down,’ the soldier shouted, clamping the dressing over the wound. Khan heard him cry out, ‘Geordie, get over here! Spider’s hit!’ and saw Geordie sprinting to him, keeping low to the ground. The medic spared Todd no more than a cursory glance and then stooped over Spider.

Khan began to worm his way back into the shadows and then rose to a crouch, but as he prepared to creep away, some instinct made him look back and, as he did so, he saw Spider looking directly at him. The SAS man tried to speak but coughed, choked and spat blood, and though Khan saw Spider raise his arm to point towards him, Khan was already moving behind the cover of the rubble heap. He heard a burst of fire and rounds whined and ricocheted from the stones but he was already running fast, keeping the rubble heap between him and the SAS, bent double to stop his outline breaking the line of the horizon.

Lights had now flared in several of the outlying houses and he could see torches waving as villagers and Taliban fighters hurried towards the blazing money house. He dropped into cover and let them pass, then moved on as the glow from the burning house grew brighter and fresh bursts of firing erupted behind him. A few moments later he heard the sound of motorbike engines as the SAS tried to make their getaway.

Khan found the track leading up into the mountains and moved along it, sure-footed even in the darkness. As he crested a rise, he heard the thunder of rotors away to his left and saw the lumbering shape of a Chinook rising into the sky, its mini-gun thundering, while answering fire struck sparks from its fuselage. He watched until it had vanished into the darkness and even the distant echo of its rotors had been silenced, and then, steering by the stars, he strode on into the mountains, making for the rendezvous with his American handler that would lead him to Lailuna and a new life in the West.

The four men stood in amazement as Khan finished his story. Harper’s gun was at his side, his finger no longer on the trigger. ‘No fucking way,’ he said. McIntyre and Shortt had also lowered their weapons and they looked over at Shepherd.

‘Every word is the truth,’ said Khan. ‘May Allah strike me dead if I say one word of a lie.’

‘He saved you, Spider,’ said Shortt. He slid the gun into his pocket.

‘Looks like it,’ said Shepherd.

‘The guy’s a bloody hero,’ muttered McIntyre. He looked at Khan. ‘You’re a hero, mate. They should have given you a medal.’

Khan shook his head. ‘I am no hero, and I have done many bad things. But I did not shoot those three paratroopers in the back, I did not kill Captain Todd and I did not shoot you.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘I believe you,’ he said.

Harper turned around in a slow circle, staring up at the night sky. ‘I came that close to killing you,’ he said. He looked at Shepherd. ‘If you hadn’t turned up when you did …’ He shivered.

‘We all came that close,’ said Shepherd. He knelt down by the side of Khan and used his Swiss Army knife to cut the duct tape from his hands and feet. ‘Joshua kept his word and got you and your daughter out of Afghanistan?’

Khan forced a smile. ‘He said we could go to the US, or the UK, or Australia. He could get me citizenship of all three. I chose London because I have friends here. Good friends. They helped me find a place to live, and a job. And my daughter has a place at a good college.’

‘And Joshua paid you?’

Khan sat up and massaged his wrists. ‘He gave me money. Not a fortune, but enough.’

Shepherd stood up and offered Khan his hand. Khan grabbed it and Shepherd hauled him to his feet. He looked at Khan, overwhelmed by feelings of guilt over the way that he had treated him. Khan had saved his life, and Shepherd and his friends had almost killed him, shot him in the head and buried him in the woods. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, knowing as the words left his mouth that they weren’t enough and never would be. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to make this right, I swear.’

Khan smiled tightly, and massaged his wrists again. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You thought I had killed your friends. If I was in your position, I would probably have done the same.’

‘Maybe,’ said Shepherd. ‘And maybe not. But that doesn’t make what we did any less wrong.’

Harper, McIntyre and Shortt nodded in agreement. One by one they stepped forward, apologised and shook Khan’s hand. Shepherd stood and watched, knowing that it was going to take more than words and a handshake to put right the wrong that they had done. And it was clear from the looks on the faces of the three men that they knew it, too.