‘Just getting a signal in from D Squadron, sir.’
‘Yes, Hadley?’
‘Retreating troops all Turkish SF, sir.’
‘How many?’
‘They count twenty-five, sir. Can they ambush?’
‘No, Hadley, arrest and search. I want a video.’
‘Are we returning to RV, sir?’
‘We’re waiting here for the Chinook from Mosul to airlift casualties. Details to follow in forty-five minutes.’
Richmond turned to Ashe, still elated after his narrow brush with death.
‘We’ve got some tidying up to do. Bury the enemy combatants. Clear the site of mines and booby traps. Record the scene. Gather evidence. Perhaps you’d like to interrogate your friends while we wait for the Chinook.’
‘Delighted.’
Two figures emerged from what was left of the cave entrance, blindfolded, coughing and with their hands tied. They were forced to kneel at gunpoint. Ashe pulled off his turban, wiped his sore eyes with it and signalled for a soldier to remove the blindfolds.
Sami al-Qasr, squinting in the dusk light, glimpsed Ashe and the enveloping chaos, then closed his streaming eyes, still coughing. Aslan inhaled and stared at Ashe.
‘Not exactly the Hemlock Club, is it Tobbi?’
The figure kneeling before him in green battle jacket and cargo trousers was a hundred years away from the sensitive character with whom Ashe had shared wine in St James’s. Now he really looked like his name – Aslan: defiant as a lion. Ashe did not know whether to smile or scowl. Behind those bright, hard-soft eyes was a complex character beyond Ashe’s understanding.
‘A few questions, Colonel.’
‘First, Dr Ashe, before you congratulate yourselves on your professional heroics, you should know the full price of your victory.’ Aslan observed Ashe’s narrowing eyes. ‘Yes, Tobbi. Your decision to strike here today has blown to pieces the greatest opportunity the West has ever enjoyed of capturing, and delivering to justice, the fugitive Osama Bin Laden.’
He paused for effect. ‘Is this not true, Sami?’
Al-Qasr nodded.
Ashe’s stomach wound itself into a knot. There was such a conviction in Aslan’s face and eyes that Ashe instinctively knew that this was no face-saving boast, no blind to shake off the shame of defeat.
‘Yes, Dr Ashe, it’s a real British victory for “Cool Britannia”. But it is not Trafalgar, Tobbi, and I am not your Napoleon. The fools have rushed in, yet again. You see, the thing about intelligence is, it has to be employed intelligently.’
‘Where is the Baba Sheykh?’
‘Safe in the cave. No need for alarm.’
Ashe looked at Richmond’s blanched face. Richmond gave a slight nod.
‘Just where might we find Bin Laden, Colonel?’
‘You won’t. He’ll have sent an advance party to assess security. Who knows where he’s coming from. Soon, it’s going to be dark. You’ve missed the chance of a lifetime.’
‘I can alert satellite reconnaissance. Checkpoints. Reinforce border posts. How do we keep this from the Americans now?’
‘You’ll find a way, Major.’
Richmond hurried into the gorge to find a signals operator.
Ashe squatted down. ‘All right, Colonel. Explain.’
‘Would you mind untying my hands? It would help me unburden myself.’
‘Prove your innocence, Colonel.’
‘I will establish my innocence. It has not escaped me that the man who brings Bin Laden to justice will be richly rewarded. He will find a path to the very centre of power. Who would ever have thought that Turkey could – as you might say – bring home the bacon?’
Ashe grimaced.
‘Not only that, Dr Ashe, but our good genius here, Sami al-Qasr, has formulated a weapon of such extraordinary and subtle potency that simply possessing it would mean a vast increase in respect accorded us. Even from those nations who have affected friendliness towards us. America, for example. The president speaks of a war on terrorism but treads softly with Kurdish rebels who’ve brought death and misery to my country.’
Aslan glanced around the scene in the gorge.
‘I see you’ve killed my little private band of terrorist hunters.’
‘Everyone knows, Colonel, that the position of the PKK in Iraq is an anomaly.’
‘An anomaly to you, but an insult to those who believe in Turkey.’
‘What will Turkey’s having a DNA weapon prove?’
‘If nothing else, we should deny it to the Americans. Do something positive for the balance of power in the world. Turkey is the balancing point for peace around the globe. It always was. You see, Dr Ashe, my country has a destiny. It is not a pawn in the international game. We are finding ourselves again.’
‘Get to the point, Colonel. What about Bin Laden?’
‘I dreamt up a plan. In my grubby little office, in a not very inspiring quarter of Istanbul. With only a picture of Atatürk for company. From my work in Hakkari Province, during the war with the PKK.
‘From my good contacts in Israeli intelligence, and from my own operations elsewhere, I knew about Sami al-Qasr: Iraq’s lost genius. And I have also learned a great deal about the Yezidis. Enough to regret many things I did when I was in eastern Turkey. My job was to lure Sami here out of his comfortable role as a CIA lackey in California, and get him to do something I knew burned in his heart. So I created a charming little al-Qaeda recruiting and information website. It was called… What was it called, Sami?’
‘The Daggers of Righteousness.’
‘That’s right. This was my creation – along with my good colleague, Ali, who is very skilled at the computing side of life. Daggers of Righteousness has hooked many into the cause of Bin Laden. Or rather, the cause of Aslan. This gory little website, packed with coded material, is the best counter-terrorism operation in the world today! Why? Because it is the bridge between many groups of al-Qaeda supporters and the leadership of al-Qaeda itself! My troops have been turned without even realising that they are working against their supposed masters!’
‘Brilliant, Mahmut. Worthy of you.’
‘Thank you, Tobbi. You are a good man, but still a beginner in the game. Now, I have played a waiting game, a careful game. To bag your prey you have to take infinite pains. You do not tell people, “I have lost patience with Saddam”, or al-Qaeda, or anyone like that. You never lose patience with your enemy. You must learn to love him in order to defeat him!
‘And so… whilst I covered my own tracks, this one here–’ he gestured to a surprised-looking Sami ‘–was encouraged to believe that Bin Laden was paying for a secret research facility in the Hakkari Mountains, created especially for him! And Osama, meanwhile, was given to believe that he and his colleagues could purchase a weapon here of such force that the mere threat of its use would get him almost whatever he wanted. It might be used, for example, to persuade General Musharraff in Pakistan to change his policies towards the United States. The weapon need never be actually employed. And if it ever was… Well, it’s very psychological. No blood. No scenes of railway station massacres. No grieving families. No burning skyscrapers. No headlines. Just a silent, painless defeat of… how can I put it? Expectation. Targeted precisely at the genetic pool of choice. Clans. Tribes. Musharraff’s family, for example. Or Bush’s. Or Blair’s. The new, subtle way of bringing your enemy to its knees.’
Al-Qasr’s eyes lit up for the first time. Ashe immediately spotted the strange, telltale gleam of the blind idealist who has gone beyond himself, into the bottomless hinterland of egoistic fantasy.
‘This far from charming weapon was enough inducement to persuade Osama to pay us a call.’
‘The caves?’
‘His facility, Tobbi. This very evening! You see, you bloody fool, your timing could not have been more insane. Had you only waited till dawn, history would have been different. Now it is too late. Your actions here will have sent him rushing off at full speed to a fresh hiding place, right out of the country. I had him, Tobbi! Almost in my grip!’
‘Which direction was he coming from?’
Aslan slowly shook his head. ‘You can forget it. You’ve missed your moment. Blown it, you might say. Take my word for it. He’s gone.’