feel I know you better, when the time is right, I’ll tell you everything you want to know. About your father. About what happened in Malta. About your mother and about you. The only thing I’ll never talk to you about is the way they died. I was there and I saw it and I don’t want to remember it. Is that okay with you?”
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Alex nodded.
“Right. Then let’s get some food in us. I forgot to mention . . . the stuff you’re going to eat from now on may not be to your taste either. And you can tell me a bit about yourself. I’d like to know what school you go to and if you have a girlfriend and things like that. Let’s enjoy the evening. There may not be a lot of fun ahead.” Ash picked up his menu, and Alex did the same. But before he could read it, a movement caught his eye. It was just chance, really. The hotel had a private ferry that ran between the two banks of the river—a wide, spacious boat with antique chairs placed at intervals on a polished wooden floor. It had just arrived, and it was the roar of the engine going into reverse that had made Alex look up.
A man was just climbing aboard. Alex thought he recognized him and his suspicion was confirmed when the man turned around and looked purposefully in his direction. The poppy had gone, but it was the man from the airport. He was sure of it. A coincidence? The man hurried on board, disappearing underneath the canopy as if anxious to get out of sight, and Alex knew that there was no chance about it. The man had spotted him in the arrivals area and followed him here.
Alex wondered if he should mention it to Ash. Almost at once he decided against it. It was impossible for the snakehead to know that he was here, and if he made a fuss, if Ash decided he had been compromised, he might be sent home before the mission had even begun. No.
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Much better to keep quiet. But if he saw the man a third time, then he would speak out.
So Alex said nothing. He didn’t even watch as the ferry began its crossing back to the other side. Nor did he hear the click of the camera with its special night scope and long-distance lens trained on him as his picture was taken again and again in the dwindling light.
7
F A T H E R A N D S O N
T H E N E X T M O R N I N G , A L E X ate the best breakfast of his life. He had a feeling he was going to need it. The hotel offered a hot-and-cold buffet that included just about every cuisine—French, English, Thai, Vietnamese—with dishes ranging from eggs and bacon to stir-fried noodles.
Ash joined him but spoke little. He seemed to be deep in thought, and Alex wondered if he wasn’t already having reservations about what lay ahead.
“You’ve had enough?” he asked as Alex finished his second croissant.
Alex nodded.
“Then let’s go up to your room. Mrs. Webber will be here soon. We’ll wait for her there.” Alex had no idea who Mrs. Webber was, and it didn’t seem that Ash wanted to tell him. The two of them went back up to the nineteenth floor. Ash hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and pointed Alex to a seat next to a window. He sat down opposite.
“Okay,” he began. “Let me tell you how this works.
Two weeks ago, working with the Pakistani authorities, ASIS managed to pick up a father and a son heading into India on their way here. We interrogated them and discovered they’d paid the snakehead four thousand American
dollars to get them into Australia. The father’s name is Karim. The son is Abdul. Get used to the names, Alex, because from now on that’s you and me. Karim and Abdul Hassan. The two of them were given an address in Bangkok. They were told to wait there until they were contacted by a man called Sukit.”
“Who’s he?”
“It took us a while to find out. But it turns out we’re talking about a Mr. Anan Sukit. He works for Major Yu.
One of his lieutenants, you might say. Very high up. Very dangerous. It means we’re one step down the pipeline, Alex. We’re on our way.”
“So we wait for him to get in touch.”
“Exactly.”
“What about the real Adbul?” Alex asked. He wondered how he could pretend to be someone he had never even met.
“You don’t need to know much about him or his father,” Ash replied. “The two of them are Hazaras—a minority group in Afghanistan. The Hazaras have been persecuted for centuries. They get the worst education and the poorest jobs—in fact, most people think of them as hardly better than animals.
“So where did they get their money?” Alex asked.
“They had a business in the city of Mazar that they managed to sell just before it was taken from them. They
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hid out in the Hindu Kush until they made contact with a local agent for the snakehead, paid the money, and began their journey south.”
“I don’t suppose I look anything like an Afghan,” Alex said. “What do these Hazara people look like?”
