‘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?
‘Yes.’
She spent some time asking about his journey from Afghanistan to the West. ‘There’s something I don’t understand, ’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you come back before the attacks in 2001? You say you were disenchanted with the Taleban and that you had seen too much bloodshed. The ambition to return to medicine must have developed in you before then. Why didn’t you act on it? And why these postcards? Finding a phone to call Dr Loz was surely not beyond you – not in all that time.’ She thought she was exerting just about the right degree of pressure, but then Khan looked around the room as though he suddenly didn’t recognise anyone.
‘That’s enough,’ said Loz. ‘I think you are confusing him. You must remember what he’s been through.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right. We’ll take a break there and return to all this later.’ She switched off the recorder and left the room. Harland followed her out while Foyzi made his presence felt by putting the chairs against the wall and lowering a canvas blind on a window that had suddenly been filled with sunlight.
‘You know what you’re doing?’ he said when they reached the shade of a tree fifty yards away.
‘I think so… I hope so.’
‘You don’t seem to be getting much.’
‘I don’t expect to,’ she said.
He wiped a trickle of sweat on his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Then what the hell are we doing here?’
‘Well, as you’re about to bugger off, I hardly think I need to answer to you. This is my operation and I’m going to run it the best way I can think of.’ She paused. ‘When are you leaving?’
‘I’m waiting to hear from Foyzi, probably this evening. I would like to help. Really.’
‘You can, by setting up the sat’ phone. I need to send the recording I’ve just made plus an email.’
She went to the table where they had sat the night before and composed a message on the laptop.
At five the sun began its rapid descent into the western desert and the temperature eased a little. All around the riverbanks the steady call of frogs suddenly started up. Herrick moved from her room to the courtyard and came across Harland in a jellaba, getting his things together.
‘Thanks for saying goodbye.’
‘I was about to,’ he said, and explained that he would try to catch the Luxor Cairo Express at a halt sixty miles away. If he waited until the following day for a train he’d fail to meet up with the Secretary-General in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
‘I don’t get it. If you’re so bloody important to them why did they let you spend all this time with Loz?’
‘I was no use with my back. I couldn’t travel, let alone sit at a desk. Benjamin Jaidi put me in touch with Loz and things followed on from there.’
‘It can’t have been accident that gave you Loz’s name.’
‘Jaidi is also a patient so knew how good he was.’
‘That I hadn’t realised.’
‘Whatever one’s doubts about Sammi Loz, I have to admit he’s a bloody good doctor. I’m pretty much all right now, even after the twinge in Cairo.’
She thought for a moment. ‘And then as if divinely coordinated, just as you come under the care of Sammi Loz, the Chief pops up in New York and asks you to watch him. And what the fuck was Teckman doing in New York anyway? He doesn’t travel abroad almost as a matter of policy.’
‘He was there because of Norquist’s death – a meeting.’
‘Yes, the Norquist murder… where this whole thing started.’ She thought again. ‘So both the Chief and the Secretary-General were steering you to Loz but without giving you their reasons. What was going on?’ She started to pace up and down, then moved to the shade of a tree. ‘I should have thought about this more seriously. What do they know? Why haven’t they told us?’
‘Look, I don’t think Teckman or the FBI or the Secretary-General knew much. The information about Loz’s property deals only came together when we were in Albania. And that’s the most they’ve got.’
