Firefight

Will nodded and they climbed into the truck, Kennedy and Drew bringing the weapons case with them. The vehicle moved off and they were driven along a winding road that skirted the edge of the airfield. It stopped, about a mile later, outside a glum-looking pre-fabricated hut. A couple of trucks were parked outside and from the glow of light coming out of the window, Will could tell it was occupied.

'Who lives here?' he asked the young RAF soldier, gruffly.

'His name is Arthur Rankin, sir,' he replied. 'He's an assistant to the NATO Senior Civilian Representative. He helps coordinate liaisons between the military and the local Afghan population. He's requested that you report to him as soon as you land.'

'Fine,' Will said. He turned to the unit. 'You three wait here. I'll see what he has to say.' He climbed out of the truck and hurried through the snow to knock on the door of the hut.

'Come in,' a voice called, but Will had already opened the door and stepped inside.

It was warm in the hut, thanks to a large electric heater burning at full blast; but warmth was the only comfort the place offered. It was sparsely furnished — at one end was a solitary desk that looked like it came from a school classroom, with a beige computer and a telephone on it. Around the walls were a number of metal filing cabinets and sitting behind the table was an enormously fat man wearing a thick woollen overcoat. Standing at the other end of the room was a tall, skinny man with dark skin, a long scruffy beard and sturdy Afghan clothes. He had a large, hooked nose, deep brown eyes and his hair was bundled into a black turban.

'Shut the bloody door, for crying out loud,' the fat man barked. His voice was posh and it didn't do much to endear him to Will, who closed the door slowly behind him.

'Beastly place,' the man shuddered. 'As hot as hell in the summer, colder than a snowman's bollocks in winter.' He stood up and waddled towards Will. 'Arthur Rankin. Welcome to Afghanistan,' he said, stretching out his hand. 'You must be delighted to be here.'

Will shook his podgy hand without much enthusiasm. 'Not really,' he replied. 'The sooner we can get our business done, the sooner we can leave.' He looked meaningfully over at the bearded man.

'This is Sami,' Rankin said. 'He's your fixer.'

Will nodded curtly at Sami. 'I take it you have details of our contact.'

Rankin rolled his eyes at Will's aggressive demeanour. 'Of course he has the details of your contact,' he said. 'I hardly think he's here for the company or the comfortable surroundings.' He smiled at his own joke. 'I'd like to offer you a seat, but I'm afraid NATO won't stretch to any extra chairs in my delightful office.'

'I'll stand.'

'You'll have to, my friend.'

Will ignored him and turned to the fixer.

'Where do I meet him?'

Sami eyed him warily. 'Kandahar, at eleven o'clock this morning.' His voice was heavily accented, but he obviously spoke English extremely well.

'Where in Kandahar?'

'There is a small café near the bazaar next to the main mosque in the centre of the city. It has no name, but you cannot miss it.'

'I'll say,' Rankin interrupted in his braying voice. 'Ghastly little place, always filled to the rafters with screaming Afghans smoking their revolting tobacco.'

Will did his best to ignore the comment and he could sense that the fixer found Rankin as unpleasant as he did.

'Your contact's name is Ismail,' Sami said, calmly. 'He has been feeding us good information about what the Taliban in this region have been up to, but he is extremely nervous.'

'I don't blame him,' Rankin snorted. 'If they find out what he's been doing, he'll be in the arms of Allah faster than you can say "Islamic Jihad".'

'Have you met him?' Will asked. He had addressed the question to Sami, but Rankin answered.

'Absolutely not. I try to leave Kandahar Airport as little as possible and there's no way our man would ever come to us here. No, we have agents like Sami on the ground handling him. They pass information on to me and I pass it upwards.' He cast a curious glance at Will. 'I must say,' he observed,'there hasn't been any intelligence passing through me that I would have thought warranted the arrival of the SAS.'

He looked expectantly at Will, clearly hoping he might enlighten him; but Will remained stony-faced.

Rankin shrugged.

'As I was saying,' Sami continued, 'Ismail is an extremely nervous informant. As he's never met you before, he's insisting on using a double-password.'

'All a bit World War Two to my mind,' said Rankin, 'but if it stops the Taliban waving their cudgels at the little man, I suppose we ought to humour him.'

As each second passed, Will found himself loathing more and more this pompous official who worked in the relative safety of the airport base, yet was so dismissive of the people on the ground risking their lives. 'Why don't you just give me the passwords?' he growled.

'Give them to him, Sami,' Rankin ordered and the fixer handed Will a piece of paper, folded once. Will read the words that had been carefully typed on it and slipped it in his pocket so that he could commit them to memory later. Then he looked back at the smug, fat man opposite him.

'How sure are you of this Ismail's reliability?'

Again Rankin shrugged — he did that a lot, it seemed to Will. 'He's an informant. He's given us good intelligence about the Taliban, but where he gets it from he refuses to tell his handlers. He's reliable, but he's still an informant. He's screwing someone over — we just don't think it's us.'

Will nodded, then turned back to Sami. 'What do you think?'

Sami's eyes narrowed. 'My job is not to think about such things,' he replied. 'My job is to stay alive and pass on the information I am given to my superiors.' As he said that word, he hesitated slightly and glanced at Rankin. 'They decide whether to act on it or not.'

'But what's your gut feeling?' Will had only known these two men for a matter of minutes, but already he trusted Sami's instinct much more than Rankin's.

'My instinct,' Sami said, 'is that Ismail is a young man very much out of his depth. The Taliban are not stupid — they will find out soon enough that he is betraying them and when that happens he will be executed. But until then, we would do well to take advantage of the information he is giving us.'

Will assimilated this for a moment while Sami and Rankin watched him carefully. 'I'll need local clothes,' he said, finally. 'And transport.'

Sami inclined his head slightly. 'It has already been attended to. I will be able to come a certain amount of the way with you, but no further. There are barricades on the way into the city, which we will want to avoid, but I know a route that should stop us having to negotiate these. I will get you to within walking distance of the café, but it would go badly for me, you understand, if I were to be seen in the presence of a member of the military.'

Will gave him a nod of thanks, but before either of them could speak again Rankin gave them both a slightly dismissive wave. 'Speak to the kid who picked you up,' he said. 'He's been told to give you whatever you want. Now if you'll excuse me.'

The fat man turned and put his hands over the electric heater, rubbing them together. Will sneered. He didn't want to be in this guy's presence any longer than was necessary, so he left the hut and hurried back to the truck, Sami following close behind.

* * *

The clothes Sami had supplied them with were bundled in the back of one of the trucks outside the hut. 'This vehicle is for you,' he told Will as they stood out in the bitter snow. 'It looks old, but in fact it is in very good condition. The paintwork has been scuffed and damaged in order to stop it from standing out. There are not many new vehicles in my country these days.' He kicked one of the tyres. 'These are the only things that might attract attention,' he continued. 'Winter tyres, with a harder tread. But the risk is small, I think. Not many people will know what they are.'