Borrowed Time

‘I’ll put that on the cork board.’

‘At lunch today I talked to my colleagues in general terms about what you and I discussed yesterday — the Afghanistan initiative, the way terrorist groups and drug routes have blossomed since the Russkies moved out — and I asked if anybody had ever had confirmation of the alleged drug convoys running from Kashmir down the western territories into the Punjab. Louise, who is in liaison with our north-west Indian contacts all year round, said she’d heard the convoys had stopped. Pakistani Army hotshots on the border had made it too dangerous.’

‘Oh, well…’

‘Hang on,’ Lenny said. ‘Louise then told me she’d heard from a good source that the American guy who led the big convoy was running another one now.’

‘Did she say where?’

‘From up near the Wular Lake region in northwest Kashmir, down the western territories to a destination unknown. It could be Batala or Kangra — they’re places where you’ll find run-on links for any kind of contraband.’

‘Fascinating, Lenny. But it still sounds like hearsay.’

‘You’re not letting me unfold this the way I want,’ Lenny complained. ‘Just listen. When Louise told us about the new convoy route, up pipes Jonathan, our satellite communications guy. He said he visited the Aerial Defence Department’s tracking and reconnaissance centre at Arlington six weeks ago, and they showed him some high-definition photographs, computer enhanced, taken from three miles up. He was impressed, especially by one that showed a suspected bandit convoy in the Pirpanjal Mountains in western Kashmir.’

‘That sounds more promising.’

‘Let me finish. The faces of several of the men in the horse convoy were clearly visible, so Jonathan says. I asked him if the leader’s face was showing but he wasn’t sure, he just recalled they were great pictures.’

‘Lenny, you just made my day. I’m really grateful.’

‘What are you gonna do? Get hold of the pictures?’

‘Not easy, but yes, that’s what I plan to do,’ Mike said.

‘Don’t mention me or my people, will you? Jonathan was shown the stuff as a favour, and because I suppose the Aerial Defence guys couldn’t help showing off. It was classified material and Jonathan was warned not to talk about any of it outside his professional circle.’

‘And he didn’t.’

‘But I did. So keep shtum, unless you want Customs at Delhi to find an embarrassment of heroin in your baggage.’

‘Noted. Thanks again, Lenny. You’re a sweetheart.’

It took twenty minutes to raise anyone at Aerial Defence in Arlington who would speak to Mike. When he finally located a USAF lieutenant attached to Satellite Reconnaissance, the man was not keen to route the call to anyone with more authority.

‘Lieutenant Ross, I need to discuss access to possibly classified aerial photographs,’ Mike said, setting out his case all over again. ‘I have Level One security clearance, you can make an integrity check with your own central computer right now. My security rating, plus my connection with the UN Security Council, permits me access to individuals and to data at the most sensitive levels.’

‘I daresay all that is correct, Mr Graham, but I have no authorization to connect you with any other person at this facility.’

‘Then who can patch me through to where I need to go?’

‘Certainly not me,’ Ross said coldly. ‘And even if I knew of such an individual, I haven’t the authorization to connect you with him in order that he might help you.’

‘This is crazy.’

‘You’re entitled to your interpretation, sir.’

Mike put down the phone to kill the connection, then picked it up again. He tapped in the number of C.W. Whitlock’s mobile. When Whitlock answered, Mike explained the Catch-22 conversation he’d had with the man at Aerial Defence.

‘You went by the wrong route,’ Whitlock said. ‘They don’t talk to anybody they don’t know. The officer who froze you out, he would have checked the list of known characters. The short of it is, unless you’ve first of all been on face-to-face terms with someone up there, they won’t give you the time of day by phone or fax.’

‘Do they know you?’

‘Of course they do,’ Whitlock said smoothly.

Mike explained what he was trying to get. He added that he would deem it a favour if Whitlock said nothing to Philpott about the matter.

‘What have you got going there?’ Whitlock demanded. ‘A vendetta?’

‘Something of the kind,’ Mike said; he knew an outright lie wouldn’t work. ‘It’s a long story.’ He paused. ‘Well, no, it isn’t really, but this is not the time …’

‘Tell you what,’ Whitlock said. ‘If I get hold of what you’re after, you’ll tell me what’s behind it. Deal?’

‘For Pete’s sake, C. W…’

‘Deal?’

Mike nodded at the receiver. ‘Deal.’

4 (#ulink_777cf04a-2589-5695-aed0-7ee34bb34aff)

Next morning the plans for the Kashmir assignment were firmed up and finalized in the briefing suite. It was agreed that Mike would be flown directly to Delhi, then taken north by helicopter to the mountains north-west of the Vale of Kashmir. There he would receive an intensive introduction to the region from a Kashmiri Indian, Ram Jarwal, who was a UN Area Observer stationed near Srinagar, in the west of the Indian-administered territory of Kashmir.

Sabrina would spend a single day being briefed by a team of WHO specialists before she travelled to a US-operated commercial airfield at Dehra Dun, eighty kilometres north-west of Delhi. From there she would be spirited northward and would finally become fully visible driving a car into the town of Kulu, in the Pradesh region, 160 kilometres south of the Kashmir border.

‘As ever with agents collecting peripheral intelligence,’ Philpott said, ‘we want Sabrina to appear to have been around for a while, without anyone being able to pinpoint the place or time she arrived. The rule here is always worth remembering — a reassuring presence and a hazy history make for convincing cover.’

On her journey northward, Sabrina would carry the credentials of a WHO Ecology Monitor.

‘Since you will both arrive in the Vale of Kashmir by different means and at different rates of progress,’ Philpott continued, ‘it’s to be hoped you’ll pick up widely different intelligence in the early stages of your assignment. What we need to know, principally, is the severity of criminal activity — of recent origin, remember — in the target region. Long-standing problems are already accommodated by a number of means; we need to know what’s being added to make the pot boil over, as it were. The causes could be far more widespread than Reverend Young or our observers think. The short version is, we badly need hard intelligence.’

‘Nothing to be taken for granted,’ Sabrina murmured, scribbling.

‘Quite so,’ Philpott said. ‘We need to know the nature of the beast, where it’s from and how far it sprawls. In more realistic terms, we need to find out how best to counter and prevent a series of political reactions which could result in an Indo-Chinese bloodbath.’

Mike wanted to know if current intelligence still indicated that the main troubles were orchestrated by one or two terrorist groups.

‘That is still the view of our best-informed observers,’ Philpott said. ‘You may find differently once you get past the various façades, of course. If you do discover you’re up against something that calls for a small army rather than a couple of smart saboteurs, then don’t indulge in heroics. Evaluate the position, report to me, then clear out.’

Before dismissing them Philpott issued a caution. ‘At all times, remain aware that UNACO’s function is to combat and neutralize crime without impinging on local politics or customs. In this case it won’t be easy to avoid trespassing on sensitive ground, so damage-limitation must be a priority. Making matters worse will be a lot easier than making them better.’

In the corridor outside, Mike and Sabrina wished each other luck. Sabrina even put a peck on Mike’s cheek before they parted.

‘My, but that was cordial and civilized,’ Whitlock observed, stepping out of the recessed doorway of the briefing room. ‘Not like you two at all.’

‘Truces come and go,’ Mike said. ‘For a while now it’s been OK between us.’

‘Because you haven’t been working closely with one another.’