The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [84]
76. FROM THE FILES OF CHIEF INSPECTOR ALY QASIM.
On the morning of 11th July I flew in a police aircraft to El Fasher and thence by helicopter to the palace of the Amir of Khatar. My departure from Khartoum was precipitate. At five-thirty in the morning I received a telephone call from the prime minister. He was in a state of alarm. The Amir had wakened him ten minutes earlier with a radio-telephone call. Prince Kalash had been attacked near Kashgil by a band of six armed men. He had killed four of his attackers and was unhurt himself. Both the Amir and Prince Kalash connected this attack to my plan to infiltrate the prince into the Anointed Liberation Front. They demanded an explanation. I was instructed to satisfy the Amir that the prime minister was taking measures to ensure the safety of Prince Kalash.
Within fifteen minutes I was dressed and en route to the airport, where the aircraft was standing by. As my car travelled through Khartoum the muezzins were making the call to prayer. My driver looked anxiously in the rear-view mirror, anticipating an order to stop by the mosque, but I had no time even for that. I told him to drive on.
I had left instructions for a detail from Special Branch to proceed to the scene of the attack on Prince Kalash to carry out an investigation. I ordered the pilot to overfly Kashgil, and after some searching we located the site. There were four bodies scattered over the floor of a wadi. They had been abused by the jackals. The clothing was strewn about. As we flew over the scene at low altitude, vultures rose from the corpses. It was apparent that my men would find very little evidence, but I radioed the location of the dead and gave instructions for the investigating team to travel by helicopter so as to reduce the time element.
I arrived at the palace at approximately ten o’clock. It was not until three o’clock that my uncle, the Amir, received me. I had in the meantime been offered no refreshment. These signs of the Amir’s displeasure were underscored when I happened to encounter Prince Kalash in an anteroom. He was accompanied by the three male foreigners who have been travelling with him. With no regard for their presence, he immediately began to berate me. “I will tell you, since the collection of the simplest information seems to be beyond your capacities, that you very nearly got all of us killed,” Prince Kalash said. “Your Communists are very bad shots. Otherwise I and my friends here would be dead.” I made a ritualistic reply, as I knew that the man Miernik understood Arabic. “God is great,” I said, attempting to give Prince Kalash a warning glance. One does not warn princes; they say what they like. “I shall be interested to hear from you how these Communists knew precisely where to find me in a thousand square miles of desert,” Prince Kalash went on. Finally I managed to quieten him. He went away with his friends.
My interview with the Amir began on a painful note. I had, of course, anticipated his anger. Prince Kalash, after all, is his eldest legitimate son. The Amir has trained him since birth for the succession, and he is pleased with the result as only a father can be who sees in his son a version of himself. That this son had nearly met a meaningless death was most upsetting. The Amir himself had put Prince Kalash in death’s way by agreeing so casually to let him be used against the Communists. He was responsible for the prince and he had very nearly lost him. The