Transaction done, the Hiace was moving again. I rummaged in my Bergen and pulled out the mobile I'd bought at Heathrow. The Yes Man didn't have to know everything I needed to do. And I certainly didn't want him tracking me on the Firm's mobile once I'd got my hands on Dom. I'd give him just enough information to make him happy and keep him letting me use his resources. It wasn't op sec and it wasn't bullshit. It was self-preservation. I didn't know what he had planned for me once I'd handed Dom over. If I handed him over.
As I loaded one of the Thierrys, a two-ship Humvee convoy barged its way to the detonation site. Both wagons had .50 cals on top and the American drivers were taking no prisoners. Faces shrouded by dust masks and goggles, they shouted, gesticulated, leant on their horns. It had no effect. In the end the Humvees decided just to bump cars out of the way with their bull bars. The gunners up top in the turrets swung their .50 cals in wide arcs. How to make friends and influence people, Washington-style.
'Kate, it's Nick. Top of the morning to you.' Well, it was Dublin. I got a sort of laugh from her as she tried to pretend no one had ever said that before.
I asked if she could have a little rummage in Moira's office for me and see if she could find where Basma Al-Sulaiman had her safe-house.
'I'm so sorry, Nick. It's a women's refuge. Part of the deal was that Dominik wouldn't divulge any details.'
Shit.
'But I have a mobile number.'
'Kate, you're a star. What are the colours of your national flag?'
She hesitated. Either she didn't know the Polish flag or it was just a stupid question. 'Red and white.'
'That's the colour of the flowers I'll send you, then. Has my number come up?'
I got lots of giggles and a thank-you before she gave the answer I wanted. 'Yes.'
'Great – can you text me the number? I'll get those flowers to you as soon as I can. I won't tell Moira if you don't.'
I closed down as Magreb eased in behind the second Humvee. The .50 cal gunner didn't like that. He swung the barrel and waved at us to back off.
Magreb pulled a face that said, in any language, Yeah, right. I liked this boy more by the minute.
We made some progress and passed a huge mosque shrouded in scaffolding. An army of plasterers was filling in strike marks and shell holes.
Just round the corner a fortress was disguised as the Serena Hotel.
46
Whoever had designed the place had made it almost impregnable to ground attack by anything except a Challenger or a Warrior, and with not a HESCO or roll of razor wire in sight.
The two main gates must each have been about twelve feet square, and built of thick steel bars in close grids. Marble columns at either side supported a thick stone canopy; whatever else it was meant to do, it provided shade. The guards underneath were impressive, too. They wore the same kit as my escort, as you'd expect in a place with a $35 million price tag. He gave them a wave.
I'd read all the stuff about it online at Heathrow. It had gone up last year over the ruins of the old Kabul Hotel, which had been bombed and shot to shit for years. Going by the pictures and blurb on the website, it was the safest and most luxurious place in the whole of the city, probably in the whole of Afghanistan. Unless, of course, you were bunkered in with ISAF.
The gates opened inwards and we drove into a stone-slabbed courtyard. It was lined with a pair of white Toyota Landcruisers with UN markings and three American GMC suburbans with blacked-out windows and enough antennae to double as NASA mobile control centres. The drivers leant against their bonnets in the new grey spotty camouflage, thigh holsters and wraparound shades and watched us rattle past.
Magreb stopped under a huge stone and marble portico. A doorman dressed in the local turban-type get-up rushed out and opened my door. His London equivalent would have been decked out as a Beefeater.
I shoved them both a twenty-dollar bill and the escort discovered a little English. 'Thank you.'
It was probably more than they earned all day, and it showed.
Two young bellhops ran out looking in vain for bags. I pointed at my Bergen and shrugged. They tried to take it