The Afghan

For a century and a half, either as soldiers or administrations of the old empire, or as eccentric explorers, the British had been trudging over desert, mountain range and goat pen in the zone that had now become the intelligence time bomb of the world. The British code-named the CIA “the Cousins” or “the Company,” and the American called the London-based Secret Intelligence Service “the Friends” or “the Firm.” For Marek Gumie

“Hallo?”

“Steve? Marek.”

“My dear chap, where are you? Over here, by any chance?”

“No, I’m at my desk. Can we go to secure?”

“Sure. Give me two minutes”-and, in the background-“Darling, hold the roast.”

The phone went down.

With the next call, the voice from England was slightly ti

“Am I to understand that something has hit the ventilation system close to your ear?” asked Hill.

“All over my nice clean shirt,” admitted Gumie

“I expect so. I finished reading it yesterday. I was wondering when you would call.”

“I have something you may not have, Steve. We have a visiting professor over here from London. He made a chance remark Friday evening. I’ll cut to the chase. Do you know a man called Martin?”

“Martin who?”

“No, that’s his surname. His brother over here is called Dr. Terry Martin. Does it ring a bell?”

Steve Hill had dropped all banter. He sat holding the phone and staring into space. Oh, yes, he knew the Martin brother. Back in the first Gulf War of 1990-91, he had been one of the control team in Saudi Arabia when the academic’s brother had slipped into Baghdad and lived there as a humble gardener under the noses of Saddam’s secret police while transmitting back priceless intelligence from a source inside the dictator’s cabinet. “Could be,” he conceded. “Why?” “I think we should talk,” said the American. “Face-to-face. I could fly over. I have the Grumman.”

“When do you want to come over?”

“Tonight. I can sleep on the plane. Be in London for breakfast.”

“Okay. I’ll arrange it with Northolt.”

“Oh, and Steve, while I’m flying could you get out the full file on this man Martin? I’ll explain when I see you.”

West of London, on the road to Oxford, lies the Royal Air Force base of Northolt. For a couple of years after World War II it was actually London ’s civil airport as Heathrow was hastily constructed. Then it relapsed to a secondary airfield, and finally to a field for private and executive jets. But because it remains an RAF property, flights in and out can be fixed to take place in complete security without the usual formalities. The CIA has its own very private airfield near Langley and a small fleet of executive jets. Marek Gumie

He took his guest not to the green-and-sandstone ziggurat at Vauxhall Cross on the south bank of the Thames by Vauxhall Bridge, home of the SIS, but to the much quieter Cliveden Hotel, formerly a private mansion, set inside its own estate not thirty miles from the airport. He had reserved a small conference suite with room service and privacy.

There he read the analysis of the American Koran Committee, remarkably similar to the analysis from Cheltenham, and the transcript of the conversation in the back of the car.

“Damn fool,” he muttered when he reached the end. “The other Arabist was right. It can’t be done. It’s not just the lingo, it’s all the other tests. No stranger, no foreigner, could ever pass them.”

“So, given my orders from the All-High, what would you suggest?”

“Pick up an AQ insider and sweat it out of him,” said Hill. “Steve, if we had the faintest idea of the location of anyone that high in Al Qaeda, wed take them as a matter of course. We don’t have any such target in our sights as of now.”

“Wait and watch. Someone will use the phrase again.” “My people have to presume that if al-Isra is to be the next spectacular, it will be the USA that is the target. Waiting for a miracle that may not happen will not pacify Washington. Besides, AQ must know by now we got the laptop. Chances are, they will never use that phrase again, except person to person.” “Well,” said Hill, “we could put it about in places they would hear it, that we have it all and are closing in. They would discontinue, cut and run.” “Maybe, maybe not. But we’d never know. We’d still be in limbo, never knowing whether Project Stingray had been terminated or not. And if not? And if it works? Like my boss says: Is it nuclear, biochemical, conventional? Where and when? Can your man Martin really pass for an Arab among Arabs? Is he really that good?”

“He used to be,” grunted Hill, and passed over a file. “See for yourself.”

The file was an inch thick, standard buff manila, labeled simply with a name:

COLONEL MIKE MARTIN.

The Martin boys’ maternal grandfather had been a tea planter at Darjeeling, India, between the two world wars. While there, he had done something almost unheard of. He had married an Indian girl.

The world of the British tea planters was small, remote and snooty. Brides were brought out from England or found among the daughters of the officer class of the Raj. The boys had seen pictures of their grandfather Terence Granger, tall, pink-faced, blond-mustached, pipe in mouth and gun in hand, standing over a shot tiger.

And there were pictures of Miss Indira Bohse, gentle, loving and very beautiful. When Terence Granger would not be dissuaded, the tea company, rather than create an alternative scandal by firing him, hit on a solution. They posted the young couple to the wilds of Assam, up on the Burmese border. If it was supposed to be a punishment, it did not work. Granger and his new bride loved the life up there-a wild, ravined countryside teeming with game and tigers. And there Susan was born in 1930. By 1943, war had rolled toward Assam, the Japanese advancing through Burma to the border. Terence Granger, though old enough to avoid the Army, insisted on volunteering, and in 1945 died crossing the river Irrawaddy.

With a tiny widow’s pension from the company, Indira Granger went to the only place she could, back into her own culture. Two years later came more trouble:

India was being partitioned for independence. Ali Ji