When the Americans invaded the country, Khan again took up arms, fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban against Americans, Britons and the new Afghan army, using the same guerrilla warfare tactics with which the mujahedin had brought the Soviets to their knees.
But the freedoms that Mullah Omar had promised never materialised. A new breed of Taliban commander emerged, hard-eyed fanatics determined to impose their own interpretation of the Prophet’s teachings on the areas they controlled. Khan watched with mounting unease as the soldier-monks of the Taliban clamped down on almost all sources of recreation and pleasure.
Lailuna was never the same after she had been beaten by the Taliban. She would start at any sudden noise and tense at the sound of any approaching vehicle. Her ready smile no longer sprang to her lips, the songs that had gladdened both their hearts had now been silenced and she barely left the house at all. Khan longed for his daughter to change, trying to coax her out of the dark place to which she had retreated, but the old Lailuna now seemed beyond his reach.
Khan’s burning anger at the men who had done this to his daughter remained, hardening into a cold, implacable hatred. He knew now that as long as she remained in Afghanistan there would be reminders of what had happened. As the weeks passed, he decided that he had no choice other than to seek a new life in the West. That was the only way that he and his beloved daughter had any sort of future together. So he cradled her on his lap and made his plans.
Jimmy Sharpe called back two days later. It was early morning and still dark and Shepherd had to grope around to find his vibrating phone. It took him a few seconds to remember that he was in his bedroom in Hereford. He squinted at the screen of the Nokia. It was five o’clock in the morning. ‘Bloody hell, Razor, you’re up early.’
‘Chance’d be a fine thing,’ growled the Scotsman. ‘I’ve just got in and I’m knackered.’
‘The Romanians?’
‘They’re like bloody vampires, they only come out at night. They’re going to be the death of me.’
‘Just don’t let them bite you in the neck.’
Sharpe chuckled. ‘Yeah, well, should be done and dusted in a few days. I met one of the godfathers last night and I’m back to see him later this week. I’ll be going in with a mic so with any luck we’ll be able to hang him out to dry.’ He began to cough and couldn’t speak for a few seconds.
‘Are you OK, Razor?’
‘They smoke like chimneys and it’s doing my lungs in,’ said Sharpe. ‘Isn’t there something about smoking being illegal in a place of work? I should sue the Met for putting my health at risk.’
‘You know what, the way things are you’d probably get a six-figure settlement. You should talk to your Fed rep.’
Sharpe laughed. ‘Yeah, I’ll put in a memo, see what happens. OK, so this Ahmad Khan. Turns out it’s a fairly common name, at least out in that part of the world. There’s a dozen or so on the PNC but none match the age range of the guy you’re looking at. Half of them were born here, two are in the nick and the others, like I said, just aren’t your guy.’
‘That’s a pity.’
‘Yeah, well, nothing in life is ever easy, is it? Now, I’ve got a pal in the Border Force and he ran the name for me and there have only been eight Ahmad Khans who have arrived in this country in the past three years. Now two of those match the approximate age of your guy, but they both left before their visas expired.’
‘That’s a bugger,’ said Shepherd.
‘Yeah, it means that if he is here he’s here as an illegal or he’s here under an assumed name. You know how it works, they get on a plane to the UK using whatever passport they can, then they destroy it en route and claim asylum when they land. He could have claimed to be an Iraqi or Iranian or a bloody Syrian. The checks are minimal once they’ve said the magic word “asylum”. And the only name and date of birth on file are the ones they give the immigration officer. My mate was telling me that every week they get grown men, clearly twenty-up, arriving at Heathrow without any paperwork claiming to be unaccompanied minors from Somalia. It’s as plain as the nose on their face that they’re not kids, but there’s nothing they can do. They know that so-called orphans get fast-tracked to a passport. Once they’ve got that they magically discover their families and they come over too. And my guy reckons that half the so-called Afghans who get asylum here are actually Pakistanis. Can you believe that? They throw away any ID they’ve got when they get here and we can’t even tell what country they’re from.’
‘Yeah, the system’s flawed,’ said Shepherd.
‘Flawed? It’s broken to bits, totally unfit for purpose, as the politicians love to say. The thing is, your Ahmad Khan could have got here without any paperwork at all and provided he’s played the system right he could be living here with his family under a totally different name with a British passport that’s as real as yours and mine.’
‘Thanks for checking, anyway, Razor.’
‘You know what you might think of trying,’ said Sharpe. ‘Facial recognition. He’s side-on pretty much in that picture but the facial recognition systems are getting more sophisticated every year. If he did go through the system he’ll have been photographed and fingerprinted. You should be able to run his picture through their database. My mate says he can’t do it, he’s just a foot soldier, but he says it can be done. Might be worth thinking about.’
‘Cheers, Razor.’
‘And your mate the Para. Alex Harper. Not much on him, either. Drugs aren’t aware of him but he’s in the frame for a few armed robberies, 2007 and 2008, but the only case against him was dropped when a witness recanted her evidence. They did a building society in Leicester and escaped on bikes, one of them smashed into a bus and ended up doing six years, he’s only just been released. He was a Para too and they tried everything to get him to turn over his mates but he kept quiet and did his time.’
‘Six years doesn’t seem long for armed robbery?’
‘He was firing blanks,’ said Sharpe. ‘To be fair, he didn’t fire at all. They didn’t have to, they went in mob-handed brandishing AK-47s and the staff and customers pissed themselves, and not in a good way. Anyway, when they examined the gun of the guy they caught they discovered there were only blanks in the clip. The judge still gave him ten years but he was as good as gold behind bars so they let him out early this year.’
‘And what was the story about Harper?’
‘Different robbery. Birmingham. About three months prior to the Leicester job. Harper was wearing a balaclava but one of the cashiers said she’d never forget his eyes. And she remembered a mole on his nose. The MO was the same as the Leicester job, motorbikes and AK-47s, so a very enterprising detective got hold of the arrested guy’s service record and ran the pictures of the guys in his unit past the cashier. She picked out Alex Harper. By then he’d scarpered. But then the cashier contacted the cops and said that she wasn’t sure after all. It was about that time that she started driving a new car and all her credit card bills were paid off. Cops couldn’t prove anything, but that was the last time Harper appeared in the system. He’s never been fingerprinted and his DNA isn’t in the system. Far as intel goes, looks like he’s in Spain now, on the Costa del Crime. But he’s not wanted. You said he was in Thailand, but that intel’s not in the system.’
‘Thanks, Razor. I owe you.’