A Loyal Spy Read Online Free Page B
need somewhere to dump their delinquent sons.
The team was five strong, including Monteith. He said that any more would be a crowd given the liaison difficulties at the other end, but Jonah suspected that they were the only ones who were not dead or had not refused to come out of retirement. They sat on white plastic chairs facing the collage: Jonah, Beech, Lennard and Alex.
Monteith liked to call them his waifs and strays. They were the British Afghans – the Afghan Guides. Between them they spoke Mandarin, Dari, Pashtun, Russian, Armenian and Arabic. They spanned fifteen years of war and civil war in Afghanistan. ‘Chinese’ Lennard, the oldest, the son of a Lancastrian construction engineer and a Chinese merchant’s daughter from Singapore, had carried Blowpipe missiles manufactured by Short’s in Belfast to Abdol Haq’s mujahedin group Hezbe Islami, and showed him how to use them to knock out the Soviets’ Sukhoi bombers. He was a graduate of St Martin’s School of Art, and carried a wooden paintbox in his pack. He painted watercolours, capturing the Afghan fighters’ grizzled, battle-scarred features, their jutting chins and enormous hands.
Andy Beech was the son of a Church of Scotland minister and an Armenian tapestry weaver. A graduate in theology, he’d taught Ahmad Shah Massoud’s commanders in the Panjshir valley to use burst transmission radios provided by the CIA to coordinate attacks on the Soviet-trained Afghan army in the Salang Tunnel and at Bagram airbase.
Alex Ross was the youngest and brashest, an orphan wolf-child. The son of a Para sergeant who’d won a George Medal and drunk himself to death, and a German barmaid from Munster. He was Monteith’s fixer – his ever-eager ‘foster’ son.
Then there was Jonah – Chewbacca behind his back. The polyglot son of a Palestinian scientist and a black English barrister; he’d been the Arabic-speaking interpreter who’d worked for Monteith when he reluctantly returned to regular soldiering and commanded a battle group in the first Gulf War. Monteith referred to Jonah as his bluntest instrument – an unstoppable force and an indestructible object.
The Guides knew each other’s secrets, each other’s skills and weaknesses. They’d shared shell scrapes, and brewed tea together in the midst of other people’s firefights. They knew that you measure out captured land, outcrop by rocky outcrop, in brews of tea. They forgave Monteith everything for the way he protected and shielded them from outside interference.
Monteith hurried through the door, followed by one of his assistants clutching a folder. A few seconds later Fisher-King stepped in, silent as an interloper. He leant against the wall at the back of the room and offered no comment.
‘Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban and Afghanistan’s de facto head of state, is seeking advice on how to deal with Bin Laden,’ Monteith explained, briskly. ‘He recognises and acknowledges that the presence of the Saudi is detrimental to the reputation and international standing of his regime, but he says that he cannot expel him because he has been a guest of the Afghan nation since the days of the jihad. He’d like to meet with us.’
‘What does he want?’ Beech asked.
Monteith flared his nostrils and cleared his throat. He’d never liked being interrupted. ‘We know the mullah is seeking assurance that if Bin Laden is given up his dependants will be cared for. We know the Saudis have offered shelter to his family. As for what else he wants, we’ll have to hear what he has to say.’
‘And what do the Americans think?’ Beech asked.
‘Let’s just say the Americans do not recognise the Taliban need for a face-saving formula. There was no common language. All the Americans can say is “Give up Bin Laden!”. The Taliban are saying, “Do something to help us give him up.” The Americans have not engaged these people creatively. There have been missed
The team was five strong, including Monteith. He said that any more would be a crowd given the liaison difficulties at the other end, but Jonah suspected that they were the only ones who were not dead or had not refused to come out of retirement. They sat on white plastic chairs facing the collage: Jonah, Beech, Lennard and Alex.
Monteith liked to call them his waifs and strays. They were the British Afghans – the Afghan Guides. Between them they spoke Mandarin, Dari, Pashtun, Russian, Armenian and Arabic. They spanned fifteen years of war and civil war in Afghanistan. ‘Chinese’ Lennard, the oldest, the son of a Lancastrian construction engineer and a Chinese merchant’s daughter from Singapore, had carried Blowpipe missiles manufactured by Short’s in Belfast to Abdol Haq’s mujahedin group Hezbe Islami, and showed him how to use them to knock out the Soviets’ Sukhoi bombers. He was a graduate of St Martin’s School of Art, and carried a wooden paintbox in his pack. He painted watercolours, capturing the Afghan fighters’ grizzled, battle-scarred features, their jutting chins and enormous hands.
Andy Beech was the son of a Church of Scotland minister and an Armenian tapestry weaver. A graduate in theology, he’d taught Ahmad Shah Massoud’s commanders in the Panjshir valley to use burst transmission radios provided by the CIA to coordinate attacks on the Soviet-trained Afghan army in the Salang Tunnel and at Bagram airbase.
Alex Ross was the youngest and brashest, an orphan wolf-child. The son of a Para sergeant who’d won a George Medal and drunk himself to death, and a German barmaid from Munster. He was Monteith’s fixer – his ever-eager ‘foster’ son.
Then there was Jonah – Chewbacca behind his back. The polyglot son of a Palestinian scientist and a black English barrister; he’d been the Arabic-speaking interpreter who’d worked for Monteith when he reluctantly returned to regular soldiering and commanded a battle group in the first Gulf War. Monteith referred to Jonah as his bluntest instrument – an unstoppable force and an indestructible object.
The Guides knew each other’s secrets, each other’s skills and weaknesses. They’d shared shell scrapes, and brewed tea together in the midst of other people’s firefights. They knew that you measure out captured land, outcrop by rocky outcrop, in brews of tea. They forgave Monteith everything for the way he protected and shielded them from outside interference.
Monteith hurried through the door, followed by one of his assistants clutching a folder. A few seconds later Fisher-King stepped in, silent as an interloper. He leant against the wall at the back of the room and offered no comment.
‘Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban and Afghanistan’s de facto head of state, is seeking advice on how to deal with Bin Laden,’ Monteith explained, briskly. ‘He recognises and acknowledges that the presence of the Saudi is detrimental to the reputation and international standing of his regime, but he says that he cannot expel him because he has been a guest of the Afghan nation since the days of the jihad. He’d like to meet with us.’
‘What does he want?’ Beech asked.
Monteith flared his nostrils and cleared his throat. He’d never liked being interrupted. ‘We know the mullah is seeking assurance that if Bin Laden is given up his dependants will be cared for. We know the Saudis have offered shelter to his family. As for what else he wants, we’ll have to hear what he has to say.’
‘And what do the Americans think?’ Beech asked.
‘Let’s just say the Americans do not recognise the Taliban need for a face-saving formula. There was no common language. All the Americans can say is “Give up Bin Laden!”. The Taliban are saying, “Do something to help us give him up.” The Americans have not engaged these people creatively. There have been missed
Readers choose
Frank Allen
W. P. Kinsella
Dale C. Musser
William Kerr
Elle Hansen
Joshua Zeitz
Laurann Dohner
RB Banfield
Stephanie Laurens
Ruth Rendell