I looked through the open windows and on to the grass. Two big, muscular guys had squeezed into a couple of wicker chairs under the external lighting. They sat with their tree-trunk legs splayed apart. With their dark skin and black leather jackets they could only have been from the Balkans. My money was on them being Serbs.
They had been taking afternoon tea. A wicker table was set with china. Ducks waddled round their legs scavenging scraps of sandwiches.
Neither looked the afternoon-tea type. One's head was shaved bald, and reflected the light like he'd been having a go with the Mr Sheen. The other had greasy brown hair down to his shoulders and a top lip like John Major's. He was talking into a mobile.
I moved closer to the window. He wanted to know why they hadn't got the equipment they'd asked for. If it didn't come soon, someone was going to pay. That would have had the person at the other end sitting up and taking notice. To a Serb, payment didn't necessarily mean cash.
A young lad in a white shirt appeared behind me. He was all smiles.
'Hello, mate — where's the pub?'
'The Hare and Hound? Downstairs, sir. I'll show you.'
He led me out of the restaurant, past the weapon racks and back outside towards a flight of steps down to the basement.
'Is my mate staying here? Tall Polish guy, irritatingly good-looking? His name's Dom, Dominik Condratowicz. Might have left a couple of days ago, I'm not sure.'
He thought for a while. It couldn't be that hard. The card had said there were only fifteen rooms. 'I do not think so, sir.'
'Could you find out, mate? Maybe at the desk?'
He nodded and gave a smile as five dollars found their way into his hand.
I carried on down a couple of stone steps to a large wooden door. I took off my Bergen as I went through. It was like walking into an olde-worlde pub, right down to the low-beamed ceiling. The only giveaway that we were still in Kabul was the two hundred years of rifle and machine-gun history stuck on the wall.
It wasn't busy. There were a couple of guys at one of the tables in a corner, and a couple of women at another. An overly Western-dressed local nursed a Coke at the bar. Bob Marley was on the speakers. Was it the anniversary of his death or something?
The young barman wore jeans, a tight T-shirt and had long, centre-parted hair. I asked for a Coke. All the drink was in bottles or cans. Löwenbräu was the only stuff on tap.
I took my cold can and glass and headed past the dartboard to one of the vacant tables.
The two huddled in the corner were big lads, maybe in their late twenties. They'd obviously been hitting the weights before slapping on the hair gel and heading out for the night. They hadn't been working on their lower bodies, though. They'd just been hitting the chest and arms so they looked good in their spray-on T-shirts.
Sundance and Trainers wouldn't have approved.
54
They had holsters and mag-carriers on their belts but nothing inside them. Maybe it was different rules downstairs: not even side-arms allowed in case things got out of hand after a few Löwenbräus.
They cracked into their cans of Guinness and cast an eye over the other table. The girls sounded as though they were from London. Both were wearing red and white Arab shemags, slung fashionably round their shoulders. Not only wrong country but wrong ethnic group. They checked their Thuriya sat phones for messages. I doubted they'd have many: Thuriyas are the dog's bollocks of the mobile world, but even they aren't too clever in basements.
It was the local guy at the bar I was interested in. Maybe mid-thirties and clean-shaven, he was trying too hard to do the Western thing. His shirt had the little polo-player motif; his jeans had a sharp crease down the middle. His navy ball cap had KBR embossed across the front. Kellogg, Brown and Root were a military contractor and Halliburton subsidiary. He wanted everyone to know he was in with the in-crowd. He just had to be a fixer.
He finished his Coke and started to say his goodbyes to the barman. I powered up the mobile, left some cash from my sock on the table, and followed, dragging my Bergen by one of its straps.
He'd got to the top of the stairs.
'Hello, mate — I was told you're the fixer. You working for anyone this week?'
He adjusted his baseball cap so it covered his eyes. 'I have work, but maybe if you need someone I could…'
His English was good.
I held up a hand as I climbed the stairs. 'It's you I need. I want you to track a mobile phone for me. It's in the city somewhere.'
'I'm sorry, I wouldn't know how to do that.' He headed on up, but I held his arm. 'Look, mate. You're a fixer. The only reason you can do the job is you know the Taliban — you might even have been one. Otherwise you'd get fuck-all fixed, wouldn't you?'
'I have to go—'
I held up the cash so it was level with his eyes and close enough to smell. 'I got two hundred for you now and two hundred more when you tell me where the number is. Get one of your Tali mates to do the same for me as they do for the guys in the mountains.'
He didn't think too much about it before the wad disappeared into his jeans.
'Do you want the name?'
'No. I know his fucking name. He owes me money and I want it back. How long will it take?'
I kept a grip on the fixer's arm to make sure he came with me. I guided him up the gravel and towards the glass entrance.
'Maybe half an hour.'
As we started up the steps the guy with the brown teeth swung the gates open and a wagon rolled into the compound.
Next to the Martini-Henrys was a table with newspapers, postcards and pens. I copied Basma's number from the mobile on to a hotel business card.
'Talk to your mates. If they get a location, you'll get another two hundred.'
He took the card and disappeared into the dining area. His mobile was already to his ear.
I went to the desk at the other end of the hallway. My white-shirted mate was there, studying the computer. 'I'm sorry, sir. No Polish man. He hasn't been here for over one year.'
He got another ten dollars. 'Thanks anyway.'
A side-door took me out into the garden. The two big Serbs were still sitting and enjoying their cigarettes. Small bats darted about over a tiled veranda overhanging a set of rooms along the side of the lodge. The ducks rooted in the long shadows cast by the lights.
Serbs are to war as Jocks are to kilts and whisky. They'd finished their own in the 1990s, but had had a finger in everyone else's ever since. They weren't the type to lay down their arms and take up bookkeeping positions in a Belgrade bank.
As I walked across the grass towards them I gave a nod and a smile. 'Evening.'
They stared, waiting to find out what the fuck I wanted while they sucked away at their cigarettes and admired the red glows in front of their faces. They were ready for a night out by the smell of them. It was heavy cologne all the way.
'I need a weapon. I'm heading south. Do you know where I can get one, and quick? I'll pay.'
Top Lip couldn't have been less interested. Mr Sheen looked me up and down as if I shouldn't even be near them, let alone talking. 'Cowboy or newsman?'
'Cowboy.'
I hated that shit. They'd been watching far too many films. They waffled between themselves. It wasn't intense; it wasn't as if there was a law against having guns here. Top Lip was just telling Mr Sheen to fuck me off. But there seemed to be a good enough reason for helping me. Top Lip finally shrugged and Mr Sheen pulled out a pen. He beckoned for my hand. He gripped it with his rough and massive one and wrote straight on to the skin. If he'd pressed any harder it would have turned into a tattoo. 'Don't go until early hours. No one will let you in. Tell him I sent you.'