‘It’s a nice story,’ said Shepherd. ‘Most conspiracy theories are.’
‘The same brothers don’t believe that Bin Laden was behind Nine-Eleven either,’ said Malik. ‘They say it was all an American-Zionist plot.’
‘There’re plenty of Americans who believe that too,’ said Shepherd. ‘But why would the Americans kill their own people?’
‘For oil,’ said Malik. ‘You think they care about their own people? How many of their soldiers have died in Iraq? Five thousand or so, right? Plus how many Iraqis? A million? You think with numbers like that they’d worry about how many were in the Twin Towers? And you know that at first Bin Laden denied having anything to do with Nine-Eleven, right?’
‘There was a lot of confusion in the early days,’ said Shepherd. ‘But I don’t think there’s much doubt now. You should have asked the man himself when you had the chance.’
Malik snorted. ‘We weren’t allowed to ask anything,’ he said. ‘They were very clear on that before they took us in to see him. No questions, no speaking unless he spoke to us, minimum eye contact, never contradict him.’
‘He knows that, Harvey,’ said Chaudhry. ‘He debriefed us, remember?’ He turned round to look at Shepherd. ‘There are those who don’t believe that Bin Laden died in that raid, but there are others who see it as yet another American attack on Islam. And the Pakistani brothers are the most fired up because of the way they flew in without telling anybody. Some of them are talking about it as if it was an invasion.’
‘Which it bloody well was,’ said Malik.
‘But you can see why it had to be done that way,’ said Chaudhry, turning back in his seat. ‘If they’d told the Pakistanis then someone would have tipped off Bin Laden.’
‘But if they’d done an air strike or something it wouldn’t have looked so bad,’ said Malik. ‘Flying in troops was like invading the country, wasn’t it?’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Do you know why they didn’t do an air strike, John?’
Shepherd laughed. ‘Mate, that’s well above my pay grade,’ he said.
‘Yeah, but you must have an opinion. Why would they piss around with helicopters and guns and that? Why not use one of them Predator things?’
‘Maybe they wanted to make sure,’ said Shepherd. It was something he’d asked Charlotte Button when she’d first told him that he would be going on the mission as an observer. Usually the Americans preferred to strike from the sky using the unmanned drones that were piloted from the other side of the world. Malik had referred to the Predator but the American military’s death-dealer of choice was now the Reaper, bigger and faster than the Predator and able to stay in the air for more than twelve hours before firing its fourteen Hellfire missiles. Button had explained that the Americans wanted to collect DNA evidence to make absolutely sure that they had the right man, but that hadn’t made sense to Shepherd, especially when the Seals had gone and buried the body at sea. A body was proof of death, a DNA sample wasn’t. ‘Also they’re saying that there were women and children in buildings nearby.’
‘That’s never worried them before, has it?’ said Malik.
‘You know, the Americans are a law unto themselves,’ said Shepherd. ‘The important thing is that he’s dead. And the fact that he’s dead makes it much more likely that they’ll do something with you guys, sooner rather than later.’
‘You think?’ asked Chaudhry.
‘Al-Qaeda will want revenge, there’s no question of that,’ said Shepherd. ‘And you guys are in place.’
‘At what point do you arrest them?’ asked Chaudhry.
‘That’s above my pay grade too,’ said Shepherd.
‘But they’ll stop them before anyone gets hurt, won’t they?’
‘I’m sure they will,’ said Shepherd.
‘What about if we wore a wire or something?’ said Malik. ‘Wouldn’t that help? We could record Khalid talking about what he wanted us to do — that would be conspiracy, wouldn’t it?’
‘And what if they found the wire?’ said Chaudhry.
‘Why would they find it?’ He looked at Shepherd. ‘They’re really small, aren’t they? They can put them in buttons, can’t they? Cameras too.’
‘Raj is right,’ said Shepherd. ‘You’d be taking too much of a risk. And Khalid is very unlikely to start revealing his plans all of a sudden; he’s only ever going to tell you what you need to know. He’ll give you the mushroom treatment.’
Malik frowned. ‘Mushroom treatment? What’s that?’
Chaudhry laughed. ‘It’s when they keep you in the dark and feed you bullshit,’ he said. ‘And John’s right. That’s how terrorist cells work: the upper echelons restrict the information that goes to the individual cells. That way the damage is limited if a cell is blown.’ He nodded at Shepherd. ‘Right?’
‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, Raj,’ said Shepherd. ‘But even a tape of Khalid saying what he wants to do isn’t enough. He could claim to be a fantasist, he could say that he was joking, or that you were acting as an agent provocateur. We need him with weapons, or bombs — hard evidence that no jury can ignore. So we just carry on playing the waiting game.’
‘And you have him under surveillance all the time, right?’ said Malik.
‘Best you don’t know about the operational details,’ said Shepherd.
‘Now who’s treating us like mushrooms?’ said Malik.
‘There’s a difference, Harvey,’ said Shepherd. ‘I’m doing it because I’ve got your best interests at heart. I’m on your side. Khalid just wants to use you.’
Even as the words were leaving his lips, Shepherd wondered just how truthful he was being. Yes, he was looking out for the two men and didn’t want them in harm’s way, but he was also being very selective about what he was telling them and in that respect he wasn’t much different from the men planning to use them as terrorists.
‘You’re doing a great job, and I’m watching your backs every step of the way,’ he said, smiling confidently.
Chaudhry and Malik joined the queue of men, mainly Pakistani, waiting to enter the Musallaa An-noorthe mosque in Dynevor Road. It was close to where they lived and catered for mainly Pakistani Muslims, with room for about a hundred worshippers at any one time. They nodded to those that they recognised but didn’t talk to anyone. The man in front of them was in his seventies, wearing a grey dishdash and a crocheted skullcap. He flicked a cigarette butt into the street before heading through the door at the side of a run-down sportswear shop. Chaudhry and Malik went down the stairs after him, keeping their hands on the walls either side for balance. At the bottom of the stairs they slipped off their shoes and put them in one of the wooden racks by the door. They were both dressed comfortably but respectfully in long-sleeved shirts and trousers and they were wearing ties. It had been drummed into Chaudhry as a child that the mosque was a place where men went to commune with Allah and that it was important to dress accordingly. But as he looked around he could see that most of the Muslims who had come to pray had not had the same upbringing. There were men in grimy sweatshirts and loose tracksuit bottoms, loose shirts and baggy jeans, stained overalls; there were even two teenagers wearing football shirts and shorts who were obviously on their way to a match. They were both chewing gum, and Chaudhry considered going over to them and admonishing them but he knew that it wasn’t his place to do that. He was there to pray, not to get into arguments with Muslims who should know better.
At just after sunset it was time for the Maghrib prayers, the fourth of five formal daily prayers that every good Muslim carries out. The man standing directly in front of Chaudhry rolled up his jeans to make it easier to kneel when praying, but he did it casually, one leg rolled right up to the knee, the other to mid-calf, and when he did kneel the jeans rode down and revealed his underwear. Chaudhry shook his head at the lack of respect.
He looked over at Malik and nodded at the uneven trousers of the man in front of them. Malik grinned. Like Chaudhry he had been born in Britain to hard-working middle-class Pakistani parents and had been brought up to respect the sanctity of the mosque.