The Network - Jason Elliot [119]
‘Feels like it’s full of gold,’ I joke.
‘It is full of gold,’ says H. He takes the belt and pulls open a long zip on the inside face, revealing a line of twenty solid gold sovereigns nestling in a waterproof sleeve. I don’t know the exact value of a sovereign, but each one must be worth several hundred dollars, so there’s roughly ten thousand dollars’ worth of gold in a belt. There are two. ‘Should get us a few kebabs,’ he says.
We hide the equipment in the roof space of the house and I mark it with the ultraviolet pen. Reminded of its usefulness, and as a further precaution, I also mark the handles on our bedroom doors. Even the tiniest variation in their position will be detectable, and tell us if our rooms have been visited in our absence.
The biggest present is yet to come. When we get the message from Mr Raouf’s office that there’s been a delivery H is mystified, but I already know what’s waiting for us. We drive with Mr Raouf in the trust’s pickup to an immense car and truck park in the north-west of the city. In so far as the Taliban have a customs clearance centre, this is it. It’s here that the goods that have survived the long drive from the Pakistani port of Karachi are finally unloaded and spread over an area the size of several football fields.
It’s guarded by two armoured personnel carriers at the gates. We drive past several thousand truck containers and vehicles and are escorted by an armed Talib to a succession of run-down offices. Endless paperwork is endlessly inspected and approved over equally endless pots of tea. But it’s worth the wait. Several hours later, we’re led to a long line of dusty pickup trucks with registration plates from Dubai where an unmistakable shape leaps out at me. The design hasn’t really changed for twenty-five years.
‘Meet son of Gerhardt,’ I say. My hand comes to rest on the bonnet of a Mercedes G400 CDI. It’s the more serious version. It has a four-litre turbocharged diesel V8 engine that generates 250 brake horsepower, which makes it rather more powerful and sophisticated than Gerhardt. It also costs about fifty times more.
‘How the bloody hell did you manage that?’ asks H.
‘Called in a favour.’
‘That’s quite a favour.’
It is. I don’t know how Gemayel has done it. I’m guessing that his friends in the Arab world have friends in the Taliban world, and things have been smoothed over at a high level.
Mr Raouf looks a bit disappointed.
‘Is this it?’ he asks, stroking his beard thoughtfully. I suspect he’s a Land Cruiser sort of man. The G-Wagen is unheard of in Afghanistan, where its talents are unknown, and its boxy profile has yet to become an object of desire. From carjackers and bandits whose idea of heaven is the cab of a Toyota Hilux, at least we’ll be less of a target. They’ll also be unlikely to know about its built-in satellite tracker.
I offer Mr Raouf the key but he defers with a grimace. He’ll drive back in the trust’s pickup, which is more to his taste.
H circles the vehicle and taps the greenish glass of one of the windows.
‘Bloody thing’s armoured.’
He’s right. I didn’t ask Gemayel for the armour, but he’s had it added anyway, which is a thoughtful gesture. All the windows look about half an inch thick, which will be useful if anyone is in the mood to have a snipe at us, because they’ll need a 50-calibre to get past these windows. We climb in. The armour makes the doors feel as though they weigh half a ton each, and the windows don’t come down. The interior smells of leather and dust, but has a luxurious feel, as if we’ve entered the private quarters of a billionaire’s yacht. I recognise and am at home with the basic layout, but there’s more buttons on the steering wheel alone than all the cars I’ve ever owned. For those with sensitive fingers, I notice, the steering wheel itself can be heated. The rear-view mirror darkens automatically in response to glare, and there are sensors to monitor the tyre pressures. My