The Network - Jason Elliot [126]
I had thought Manny dead, or at best imprisoned or gone mad. But I’ve seen him in the flesh now, and I still can’t really believe that he’s alive. It’s not only that. He’s sane. His sense of humour is intact. My greatest fear, worse than the fear that he’d been killed, was that he might have become like the men he’d been living among.
‘We have our way and they have theirs,’ he says when I share this fear with him. ‘They are human too,’ he adds. And though he has the odd habit of speaking in Pashtu when he gets excited and cursing in his prison Chechen, his mind seems whole and healthy.
‘It’s time to come home,’ I tell him.
‘Home,’ he repeats, as if dimly recalling an old friend. ‘Yes. I need to come home.’
‘When we’re back from the op I’ll get you out.’
He looks at me and shakes his head as if I haven’t understood.
‘I can’t just disappear.’
‘Why not?’
‘I need to die,’ he says, and for a moment I’m full of dread.
‘You don’t need to die,’ I tell him.
‘Why are you so stupid? I need to be seen to die. If I just disappear I’ll be considered compromised. All the plans I know will be changed. All this will be useless.’
From his pocket he produces a memory disk the size of a cigarette lighter. I’ve never seen one like this before.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
He holds it up solemnly between us with the fingers of both hands, in the manner of a priest about to administer the sacrament.
‘Unless we stop it,’ he says, ‘it’s the future.’ The light is fading now. ‘Can you get the contents to London, flash priority?’
‘What’s on it?’
‘It’s better I don’t tell you. There’s no time to explain now. It’s everything I know. They’ve got plans you can’t imagine. Huge attacks. New York, London.’ He shakes his head. ‘The Sheikh wants a war, a global war. This is how he’s going to get it.’
I can’t help thinking as he speaks that perhaps he’s grown too enthused by the ambitions of the men whose world he’s managed to infliltrate. I doubt whether Islamic militants, especially those living in a remote corner of Afghanistan, have either the means or know-how to provoke what he calls a global war.
‘I can’t stay here much longer,’ he says.
I tell him about the operation, unfolding the silk map and pointing out the location of the fort and the route we’re planning to take there.
‘Are you sure it’s there?’ he asks emphatically. ‘My firqat was in Sangin until a month ago. I know the men in that area.’ He strokes his beard thoughtfully. ‘The Stingers,’ he says quietly. ‘I’ve been wondering where they were being kept. They’ve got plans for those.’
‘So have I,’ I say.
His finger swerves over the map as he studies it closely. Then he looks up at me, his finger still tapping the map where it’s come to rest.
‘We need to make a plan,’ he says.
It’s dusk when I leave. I walk for a long way before finding a taxi, which drops me at the Shirpur crossroads. No one pays any attention to me as I walk the quarter-mile to Wazir. The entire city seems to be hurrying home to safety as darkness falls. I experience a sense of bemusement that no one can detect the torrent that’s racing through my head as I endlessly repeat to myself the details of my recent encounter. As I walk I’m making a list of the things I’ve talked about with Manny, linking them against mental images that rhyme with the numbers one to ten, which I’ll write up more fully when I’m back at the house.
With one hand I’m turning over the flash disk in my pocket, hardly daring to believe the significance of its contents. I don’t have the software to examine it myself but I can email it from the trust’s office and wait for a reply. I run my hand absent-mindedly against the stone wall beside me and feel its warmth, even though the sun has set. Then I reach the roundabout in Wazir and cross into the grid of streets beyond.
Up ahead I see the fruit stall that I pass in the daytime. There’s a tall Talib who looks like he’s buying fruit, and parked on the opposite side of the street is a signature Toyota pickup. For a moment I think of