The Afghan

Najib Qureshi was impressed. She knows more about the Koran than I do. he mused. For exercise, they wrapped up warmly and went walking the hills, shadowed by Angus, quite legally equipped with his hunting rifle. Even though he knew Arabic, Mike Martin realized what a staggering amount he had to learn. Najib Qureshi taught him to speak Arabic with a Pashtun accent, for Izmat Khan’s voice, speaking Arabic to fellow prisoners in Camp Delta, had been recorded secretly in case he had secrets to divulge. He did not, but for Mr. Qureshi the accent was invaluable because he could teach his pupil to imitate it.

Although Mike Martin had spent six months with the muj in the mountains during the Soviet occupation, that was seventeen years earlier, and he had forgotten much. Qureshi coached him in Pashto, even though it had been agreed from the start that Martin could never pass as a Pashtun among other Pashtun. But mostly, it was two things: the prayers, and what had happened to him in Guantanamo Bay. The CIA was the principal provider of interrogators in Camp Delta; Marek Gumie

Michael McDonald flew back to Langley to spend days with these men, draining them dry of every detail they could recall, plus the notes and tapes they had made. The cover story was that Izmat Khan was being considered for release under the NFD rules-no farther danger-and Langley wanted to be sure. All the interrogators were adamant that the Pashtun mountain warrior and Taliban commander was the hardest man in detention. He had vouchsafed very little, complained not at all, cooperated to the minimum, accepted all the privations and punishments with stoicism. But, they agree, when you looked into those black eyes you just knew he would love to tear your head off. When he had it all, he flew back in the CIA Grumman and landed right at Edzell air base. Thence, a car took him north to Forbes Castle, and he briefed Mike Martin.

Tamian Godfrey and Najib Qureshi concentrated on the daily prayers. Martin would have to say them in front of others, and he had better get them right. There was one ray of hope, according to Najib. He was not a born Arab; the Koran was only in classical Arabic and no other language. A one-word slip could be put down to mispronunciation. But for a boy who had spent seven years in a madrassah, one entire phrase was too much. So with Najib rising and bowing, forehead to the carpet, beside him, and Tamian Godfrey, due to her stiff knees, in a chair, they recited and recited and recited.

There was progress also at Edzell air base where an Anglo-American technical team was installing and linking all the British intelligence services and those of the USA into one nexus. The accommodation and facilities were up and ru

The RAF shipped in catering staff, and the RAF regiment took over perimeter security. No one doubted the base was becoming a listening post for opium traffickers.

From the USA, giant Galaxies and Starlifters flew in with listening monitors that could and would scan the world. Arabic translations were not imported, because this would be handled by GCHQ_ Cheltenham and Fort Meade, both of whom would be in constant secure contact with Crowbar, as the new listening post had been coded.

Before Christmas, the twelve computer workstations were established and brought onstream. These would be the nerve center, and six operators would hover over them day and night.

Crowbar Center was never devised as a new intelligence agency of its own, but simply a short-term, “dedicated”-that is, single-purpose-operation, with whom all British and U.S. agencies would, thanks to John Negroponte’s blanket authority, cooperate without stint or delay.

To assist in this effort. Crowbar’s computers were fitted with ultrasecure ISDN BRENT lines, with two BRENT keys for each station. Each had its own removable hard drive that would be taken out when not in use and stored in a guarded safe. Crowbar’s computers were then linked directly into the communications systems of the head office, or HO, the term for SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, and Grosvenor, the term employed for the CIA station at the U.S. Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.

To seal the operation from any unwanted interference, the Crowbar address for its communications was hidden under a STRAP3 access code, with a bigot list limiting those in the know to a very few senior officers indeed. Then Crowbar began to listen to every word spoken in the Middle East, in the Arabic language and in the world of Islam. It was only doing what was already being done by others, but the pretense had to be maintained. When Crowbar went operational, it had one other access. Apart from sound, it was interested in vision. Also piped into the obscure Scottish air base were the images the National Reco

Some of the more penetrating minds at Edzell realized that Crowbar was ready and waiting for something, but they were not quite sure what.

SHORTLY BEFORE Christmas 2006, Mr. Alex Siebart recontacted Mr. Lampong at his Indonesian company office to propose one of the two general cargo freighters registered in Liverpool as suitable for his purpose. By chance, both were owned by the same small shipping company, and Siebart and Abercrombie had chartered them before on behalf of clients who had been amply satisfied. McKendrick Shipping was a family business; it had been in the merchant marine for a century. The company chief was also the family patriarch, Liam McKendrick. who captained the Countess of Richmond, and his son, Sean, captained the other. The Countess of Richmond was eight thousand tons, flew the Red Ensign, was moderately priced and would be available for a fresh cargo out of a British port by March 1.

What Alex Siebart did not add was that he had warmly recommended the contract to Liam McKendrick if it came their way, and the old skipper had concurred. If Siebart and Abercrombie could find him a cargo from the USA back to the UK, it would make a very nice and profitable triangular voyage for the spring. Unbeknownst to either man, Mr. Lampong contacted someone in the British city of Birmingham, an academic at Aston University, who drove himself to Liverpool. With high-powered binoculars, the Countess of Richmond was examined in detail, and a long-range lens took over a hundred pictures of her from different angles. A week later, Mr. Lampong e-mailed back. He apologized for the delay, explaining that he had been up-country examining his sawmills, but that the Countess of Richmond sounded exactly right. His friends in Singapore would be in touch with details of the cargo of limousines to be brought from the UK to the Far East. In truth, the friends in Singapore were not Chinese but Malaysians; and not simply Muslims but ultrafanatical Islamists. They had been put in funds out of a new account created in Bermuda by the late Mr. Tewfik al-Qur, who had deposited the original monies, before transfer with a small private bank in Vie