Central Intelligence – maybe you were never taught to dress with correctness and decency, were never drilled in the virtues of truthfulness and the values of humility… but you are American, and how could it be different?
You lie to us because you do not trust us. You have no humility because you believe in your superiority over us. When you have been expelled, in less than nine hours, take this message back. We fight terrorism. Al Qaeda is our enemy. We are not the wet-nurse to the fanaticism of bin Laden. Together, and with trust, you would have been able to fulfil your mission. Your arrogance destroys that possibility. It is why you are hated and why you are despised, and why your money cannot buy affection or respect. Take that message home with you.'
She bit her lip. Anyone who knew Lizzy-Jo – knew her in New York or at Bagram base – would not have believed that she could resist a response. She turned on her heel. She walked back to the armourer and kept going. She went past George and his team, who were struggling to crate the engine of First Lady, and past her tent, which was now folded with her possessions stacked, and past Marty's tent – and past the boxes of the Hellfires that would not now be needed. Alone untouched, because Carnival Girl still flew, were the Ground Control and the trailer attached to it that carried the satellite dish. She climbed the steps.
Flopped beside Marty, she called Oscar Golf. 'Lizzy-Jo here. It was just some local rubbernecker, it was nothing. I'm taking over, but thanks for helping out.'
Marty said, smiling, 'I got bored watching that lorry. Wasn't sand it was carrying. I reckon it was pretzels.'
She snapped, 'Just watch your fucking screen – watch it till we finish.'
It was as if he was building a wall of information. Eddie Wroughton's way, when trying to make sense of intelligence, was always to pretend that he was building a wall of coloured bricks. He sat cross-legged on the floor, had pushed aside the rug to give himself a firm surface and spread out sheets of paper. He had used his highlighter pens to ring each of the sheets – red and green, white and blue, and yellow.
He had started to build the wall.
In the red brick was the telephone number that had called Bartholomew's home. The number's code identified it as coming from the extreme south-east of the Kingdom, and his assistant's unpraised work had found that it was listed in the name of Bethany . . Jenkins. He remembered her from a party – tall, a picture of healthy endeavour, well muscled, tanned – and from a casual meeting at the embassy. Something about meteorites and something about the oil-extraction plant at Shaybah. She had called Bartholomew late in the evening, and he'd gone, disappeared.
He had run the fine dark sand granules across the indented sheet that he had taken from Bartholomew's notepad beside the phone.
Pretty basic, what they taught on the recruits' induction courses, about as sophisticated as invisible ink pens – and they still lectured on the use of them. Scribbled words came to life after the granules were tipped from the indent marks. 'Military action… missile attack
… head wound and a leg wound… Highway 513. Route 10. Harad, south. To Bir Faysal (petrol station).' That was the green brick.
The white brick was Shaybah, from where Gonsalves' people flew Predator unmanned aerial vehicles that were armed with twin pods for Hellfire missiles.
The blue brick built the wall higher. Wroughton reached behind him for the photographs taken by the Predator's real-time camera.
With a magnifying-glass – could have done it on the computer with the zoom, but preferred old ways and trusted practices – he studied those who were identified as dead, and the one who was not accounted for. A young man, head up and erect, and the magnifying-glass – at the blurred edge of its power – seemed to show a strong chin. He laid the photographs on the blue sheet.
Two and two did not make five. The worst sin of an intelligence officer was to leap to untested conclusions. Conclusions must always have foundations, his father used to say, as any wall must. What he knew… Bethany Jenkins had rung Samuel Bartholomew from Shaybah. At Shaybah there was an Agency search-and-destroy operation, which had searched and destroyed, but there was a target still not accounted for. Bartholomew had driven away in the night, with fuel and medical supplies, after being told of a patient injured in 'military action'. The stupidity of the woman – Jenkins – astonished him. The involvement of Bartholomew bewildered him
– and then his own guilt swelled around him. It came back to him as the scabs on his face and body itched. A phone plug pulled out, a mobile switched off. But Bartholomew could still have left a message on the voice mail. His head sank. Why had no message been left? . There was a knock.
Wroughton called sullenly, 'Come.'
His assistant always had a nervous twitch in his presence, as if expecting a rebuke. He had not known she was still there. Thirty-five minutes past four in the morning. What was she staring at? She was staring at nothing. Hadn't she ever seen the scrapes from walking into a door? She hadn't noticed any scrapes. What did she want? Had thought Mr Wroughton might need coffee and a hot beef sandwich – and she put the mug and the plate on the table in front of him.
As Wroughton growled an acknowledgement, without grace, she said cautiously, 'Oh, and this just came through – it's a general notification, to all stations. It's probably not worth you looking at right now but…'
'I am trying, if you didn't know it, to work.'
Papers and photographs were laid on the table alongside the mug and the plate, and she fled.
On his hands and knees, Wroughton went to the table, lifted down the mug and slurped from it, then the plate and took a coarse bite of the sandwich. In putting back the plate he dislodged the papers and the photographs. They fell at his knees. He started to read.
Caleb Hunt. 24 years. Description, ethnic Caucasian but sallow-skinned, and no distinguishing marks, and his height and weight. The address, 20, Albert Parade, and the name of a town sandwiched between the conurbations of Birmingham and Wolverhampton; the address of his place of work as a trainee garage mechanic. The recruitment, Landi Khotal, North West Frontier of Pakistan, April 2000 by known Al Qaeda talent-spotter. The arrest, captured by US military persooel in ambush south of Kabul, December 2001. The deception, assumed the name and identity of Fawzi al-Ateh, with profession of taxi-driver. The detention, held at Camps X-Ray and Delta, Guantanamo Bay, under category of 'unlawful combatant' until release back to Afghanistan in programme for freeing those believed innocent of terrorist involvement. The escape, during comfort stop en route from Bagram to Kabul City for lodgement and processing with Afghan intelligence, ran, and was not subsequently recaptured. Status, extremely dangerous, exceptionally professional and highly motivated. His success at duping interrogators at Guantanamo marks him out as.. . His laughter split across the room and broke the night's quiet. More detail to follow. He pushed the papers away across the floor, looked again at the bricks – and the upper photograph caught his eye.
Wroughton breathed hard.
The upper photograph was a school group, a leavers' picture, with a circle drawn round one face. The lower photograph was a compilation of a prisoner, full face, left profile and right profile.
He laid the papers from Vauxhall Bridge Cross on the yellow-bordered sheet, then the photographs. The image of the lost fugitive taken before the Predator's strike did not match Guantanamo, humble and cowed. He gazed down at the school photograph – the boy was taller than the others, straight-backed and head held high.
The face, Wroughton thought, showed a mind that was detached and restless, and the eyes looked through him and beyond. It was where Caleb Hunt would be, in the wilderness of the Rub' al Khali. He was injured, and Samuel Bartholomew had been idiot enough to be persuaded to minister to him. He went to the door, leaned through it.
'I'd like to say thank you for the coffee and the sandwich. I much appreciate that you've worked through the night.'
It was the first decent thing he had said to his assistant in months and he saw her gape.
Back on the floor, peering down at the papers and photographs, he realized there was one area of doubt among the many certainties.
Why was she involved? Why was Bethany Jenkins – quality, with class, wealth and education – in the desert and helping the man?
Why…? The doubt was erased.
'Because, Miss Jenkins, you are naive, self-centred, and you have let the world pass you by.' The photographs and printouts, the imagined bricks, were Wroughton's witnesses as he spoke. 'You cut yourself off from the real
