‘Most of them died in the attack on Hajikhel. I think that some reached Bangidar Refugee Camp, in Pakistan, but that was bombed by Russian planes, and we don’t know what happened to them.’
‘People close to you?’
‘Sir. My mother, my wife and two sisters among them.’
Captain Azambai, disguised in the uniform of one of Lieutenant Tura’s sergeants, led the reconnaissance. Two trucks, with thirty men, enough for a patrol and even to fight their way out of tricky situations, rolled away within half an hour of the defectors’ arrival at the oasis. They bluffed their way, with Tura’s movement orders, through the roadblocks of the Soviet 357th Motorized Rifle Division, guardians of the approaches to Kandahar.
They were back in four hours, well pleased, bringing an Afghan mechanic, one of the maintenance personnel at the skimmers’ base. He was anxious to defect, and full of information. There were no less than thirty of the skimmers sitting on a special site after their long journey from Krasnovodsk, their home base on the Soviet shores of the Caspian Sea, north of Iran.
And they were soon due to transfer a secret cargo, ‘machine parts’, already loaded, in heavy wooden cases, on a flight which was estimated to be ‘a thousand kilometres’. A skimmer looked like a half-aircraft, half-ship, was powered by immense engines, and could fly, skimming land or sea, at six hundred miles an hour. The Russians, who expected to use them anywhere in the world, were hugely pleased with their performance.
Some details, said the mechanic, had leaked out to the West: and he produced a photocopy, given to him by a Russian technician, of a page from the current edition of a British reference book, Jane’s Surface Skimmers, with pictures. What the West did not know was that the Monsters were in such large-scale production.
Adam was wondering how to attack the transports and get the gold away when Engineer Sirdar Akbar Sharifi, discoverer of the gold and the father of Noor, ducked into the brushwood shelter and embraced him.
‘Ambassador!’
‘Adam Jan!’
Adam was flabbergasted. ‘Amazing. I was working on all sorts of plans to rescue you. How ever did you do it?’
Sharifi smiled, and pointed to Zelikov, who was pushing his way into the shelter. ‘Ask your Russian friend.’
Zelikov drew a long dagger from his boot and started to pick his teeth with it. ‘Nothing, Preents. I borrow a Ural truck from Leytenant, take five Afghan soldiers, and Mulla Azimi show me the way.’
Adam clapped him on the back. ‘We don’t normally award decorations, Zelikov, but the next time we capture a Soviet soldier with the Order of the Red Banner, I’ll present it to you!’ He shook his head, slowly, from side to side. He could hardly credit that the exploit had taken place, and was rather glad that the Russian hadn’t spelt it out in detail: he was sure that he wouldn’t be able to absorb it.
Then he remembered.
‘Did Zelikov tell you where Noor was?’
‘No. Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine. And she’s here. Zelikov, take the ambassador to Noorjan.’
Almost before he had finished speaking, the old man was scrambling out of the shelter, through the bushes, to meet his daughter.
Adam went back to his sketch maps. Now, if the Russians attacked Kandahar from the north, where they were massing …
BOOK 13
Into the Abode of War
Da seori nakhl na nisi ratb
(Keep your palm tree in the shade
and you will get no dates).
Pashtu proverb
1 Target: Kandahar Airport
Pendergood’s Army
In the Free Land
Pakistan-Afghan Border
and Moscow
SEPTEMBER 15
Late afternoon
The Soviet High Command was indeed furious that the Red Army had been thrown out of Kandahar, again and again and with ignominy, by its people, mere bandits. But there was another reason for their decision to make the city safe for socialism: the presence of Kara Kush and his Commando.
Halzun, The Snail, aiming for supreme power over the Council of Ministers, was determined that Operation Altinkush, his treasure plan, should succeed. As a chess player, he saw two threats to it developing.
The information came from his trusted agent, Aliyev the Uzbek, diligently working from KGB Peshawar Centre, Pakistan. His network of spies extended, now, from Quetta, hundreds of miles to the south-west, to Chitral, abutting Afghan Nuristan. Aliyev worked on a mosaic, collecting, collating, inferring.
Adam Durany would have been surprised at the accuracy of Nurhan Aliyev’s message, one of two which lay on the desk before The Snail at Moscow Centre:
SUBJECT: Dangerous counter-revolutionary leader, war-name KARA KUSH, real name unknown. Message begins: Armed group led by Kara Kush, having fought Soviet and loyal Afghan forces in Paghman and blown up Oxus River gunboat JIHUN has struck southwards and now believed nearing Kandahar. Possible threat treasure transfer feared. Message ends.
Halzun, deleting the last sentence from the decrypt, marked the despatch ‘Immediate’, and sent it to Soviet Afghanistan Command, via the Ministry of Defence.
The second sheet of paper would have surprised both Adam and Pendergood:
SUBJECT: Force led by arms smuggler from England, soubriquet PENDERGOOD. Message begins: Suspected presence of above bandit and supplier of war materials to Kara Kush /see last message/ with large tribal force of paid Pashtun lackeys reported heading northwards through un-administered tribal territory unconfirmed. We lack access to this savage region. Message ends.
Much less substantial than the first signal, Halzun thought: there was no point in alerting the Army on that one yet. He rose from his chair and walked through the double doors of his office into the conference room: it was electronically shielded against surveillance.
The five men sitting around the green baize-covered table rose, sat down as The Snail waved a hand, and waited. Halzun reached out a paw for a bottle of Narzan water, poured a glassful, and began to speak.
‘Comrades, the War Party has been a great threat to our plan to acquire power and to establish competition, not confrontation, with the capitalist world. Achieving production of the large Ekranoplan – surface-skimmer – fleet five years ahead of schedule was a blow to us. It also impressed the Party so much that we had to take decisive action before some general or marshal actually took over the USSR. That was the agreed background. Now, Comrade Semyenov, at what point did we end the last meeting?’
The little man across the table rose and spoke fussily, precisely. ‘Comrade Chief Director, Comrades. We decided to research the vulnerability of the skimmers, and left the matter of the huge financial resources needed for competition with the West for further consideration.’
‘Exactly so,’ said The Snail; ‘in other words, we were at a loss. There seemed little chance of dealing with these two great challenges.’ He struck his right hand into his left palm. ‘And I have asked you to come here today to tell you that I, I Halzun, have solved both problems.’
There was a gasp of surprise from around the table.
‘A gold treasure was found in Afghanistan, and it fell into our hands …’ Halzun grinned.
‘Comrade Chief Director,’ said one of the men, ‘that gold was lost to us, by enemy action. The so-called Eagle blew it up.’
The Snail raised his hand. ‘Patience, Comrade Kaganovitch! It was indeed lost. But in any case it did not represent a spectacular amount, and would not have paid for our programme. No, we needed billions of dollars for that.
‘The Afghan engineer who found the gold, however, miscalculated its value. He thought that it must be worth billions, and offered to sell it to the Arabs. That’s what gave me my great idea. I intended to have the hoard brought to the Soviet Union, and our agents penetrated the engineer’s network. Engineer Akbar offered the gold but could not deliver. So we stepped in, to oblige.’ He interrupted himself with a long chuckle.
‘Now we had only mi
nor problems. The British, through Arabian and other contacts, found out the planned deception: that I wanted to forge “gold” coins of the right date and pass them off. The USSR leads the world in both metallurgy and counterfeit artefacts, you know. We have an alloy whose falsity can be detected only by the most sophisticated tests. We only lacked advanced technology: computer-controlled, continuous-process stamping machines. The British supplied those.’
Halzun paused, five pairs of eyes riveted upon him. Then he laughed. ‘The Americans will be what they call sore when they find that, with all the resources of Arabia, we are as rich as they are!’
Kaganovitch said, ‘And we’ll deliver the coins by surface-skimmer?’
‘Exactly. Once we have the money, we’ll use a certain plan to get the skimmers sabotaged, so that the Central Committee decides that they are useless. It is the last link in the chain. The gold plan, confided to the Committee, has already gained me the as yet undisclosed position of Chairman of the Council of Ministers.’
The five men goggled. Chairman. Effectively ruler of the whole USSR …
‘Comrade Chairman,’ Semyenov was unable to resist asking something which had been nagging in his mind. ‘Why should the English have helped us? Didn’t they even want a share of the money – they haven’t got any of their own!’
Halzun shrugged. ‘In international matters there is always a trade-off. The Americans might have got us out of Afghanistan through an ultimatum, as in the case of the Cuban missiles, two decades ago. They didn’t try that, because we would have told them to get out of Central America as the price. For the English, a guarantee of peace would mean eliminating their crushing defence burden. And then, of course, we paid well for the stamping machines: and they stand to get cheap oil from the bankrupt Arabs.
‘All is ready for the biggest coup in history, Comrades. Our agents are in place in Zurich, to empty the bank account when King Zaid’s message comes through, confirming delivery.
‘There is a little trouble near Kandahar to take care of, bandits, but we’re keeping an eye on that matter. The outlook, we might say, is good.’
‘Suppose the Arab king has spies in Afghanistan who could discover the truth?’ one of the men asked.
‘I have allowed for that. We have planted spurious movement orders all over the place, saying that we are transporting genuine gold coins from Kandahar. That’s why we are staging the counterfeits from Kandahar instead of direct from the Soviet Union.
‘That will be all, Comrades. I have to go now, to seek confirmation or otherwise about this rumoured attack, by some ridiculous revanchist called Pendergood. He appears to think that he can invade Afghanistan from the unpoliced, Pakistan frontier.’
Pendergood was indeed preparing for an all-out attack on the Soviets in the Kandahar area. He and Callil, with the Free Pashtun Army of their creation, were camped in the Free Land, which nobody in all recorded history had successfully administered. They had already crossed the Toba Kakar mountain range from Pakistan, north of the city of Quetta, and were within a stone’s throw of the line on the map which was supposed to be the international border: and Afghanistan. Kandahar Airport was within striking distance: no more than sixty miles to the west.
Around Pendergood’s mobile command post – an International truck – was a forest of supplies and vehicles. A mass of tents, originally white, now cunningly camouflaged, was invisible on the hard, flat sand. Clay and pulped grass, daubed liberally but at random, made the camp blend into the terrain, if viewed from the air.
More than three hundred vehicles, ranging from ancient jeeps to brand new Mercedes and American trucks, were dispersed in case of air attack. The six anti-aircraft guns were Dashkas, captured from the Russians and refurbished by the peerlessly competent gunsmiths of Darra.
Darra – Darra Adam Khel – had been on their route from Chitral, when Pendergood had travelled south, collecting his warriors. He, Callil and Bardolf the German had done good business at Darra: the bizarre arms centre of the Afridi frontier men.
Here, in 1897, the Afridi clan had negotiated an unique pact with the British, then ruling India. The imperial power was not strong enough, even in its heyday, to crush the Pashtuns, and knew it. In an unprecedented de facto recognition of Pashtun independence, Britain agreed that the clansmen could have their own arms factories. This obligation was inherited by Pakistan when Britain left the country.
Forty minutes drive from Peshawar’s frontier bustle, the Pendergood group, avoiding the volleys of gunshot being fired from shops in the main street where intending customers tried out Darra-made rifles, had found almost all the military supplies they needed to complete their army’s preparedness.
Until recently, the Pashtuns had been making perfect replicas of traditional weapons: British Army rifles from the Second World War were the most modern ones.
With the war in Afghanistan, however, a flood of weapons, captured by the Muhjahidin or sold to them by penniless Russian soldiers, came on to the market. These the gunsmiths bought, tested and refurbished, selling them again with their own guarantee.
The frontier smiths had their own sense of humour. Their copies of British rifles used always to carry the United Kingdom’s imperial symbol, often ‘G VI’ – King George the Sixth – and a copy of a British proof-mark. Now, with the Russians claiming that Soviet-type equipment was being supplied by their hated enemies, the Red Chinese, to the Afghans, the Darra technicians added Chinese markings to the guns, copied from the ones which were laboriously smuggled from Peking over the high Karakorum Highway into Pakistan. They called this ‘getting the Bear by the tail’. It infuriated the Russian agents who mingled with the genuine customers, and saw the ‘Chinese’ markings being applied. And the markings gave foreign journalists, also present in strength but often less perceptive, copy for their papers, about ‘Chinese influence’.
‘Rahla, Rahla! Onwards,’ said Pendergood.
There were about six thousand volunteers, men from several of the Pashtun tribes, in the lashkar, the private army, which Pendergood had assembled during his progress from the north to this wild spot. He did not believe in doing things by halves. His machine-guns and mortars had arrived from the Gulf, ordered from Zurich by his contact in Istanbul. His men had all been properly enrolled, outfitted and drilled, photographed and assigned functions in battle groups. The Russians were going to hear, see and feel something of the dragon’s claws.
If the Afghan dragon’s heart was its men, the claws were its armaments. Pendergood had scraped his resources to the bottom of the barrel, and bought everything he could afford from the Darra smiths and the middlemen of Zurich. Maryam had become his unofficial lieutenant, as Noor was to Adam. Her eyes were round as she looked at the lists of arms and materials, checking supplies.
A thousand Russian anti-tank stick grenades. Some of them had been captured by the Israelis and then sold and resold by dealers; some sold by the Egyptians, others raided from the Afghan stores of the Russians themselves. Grenades, fifty dollars each, cash on the nail. Replica Kalashnikovs, locally known as animals, $1,125 each; machine-guns from Darra, £525. Ammunition, two dollars a round. Rifles, six hundred thousand dollars, ammunition, fifty dollars a magazine: small arms, ammunition, equipment and transport, ten million dollars.
She turned the page. Communications equipment, food, medical supplies, explosives, field-glasses, oil and gasoline, knives. Allowances for families at £25 each, $150,000.
Including the small artillery pieces and grenade launchers, the bill came to just over eleven million dollars.
Not bad, for one man’s contribution. ‘You’re a remarkable man, Pendergood,’ she told him.
‘Because it’s so much?’ Pendergood laughed.
‘Well, yes. Partly that.’
‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘It’s my total assets. Now, if my whole fortune had been ten dollars and I’d spent that, nobody would think it was any big deal, would they? So, if you get it in perspective …’ He
quoted the Pashtu proverb, ‘First sharpen your sword, afterwards await the call to arms.’
That was the Pashtun talking, the soft-hearted, generous, ruthless Pashtun. Still, that mentality wasn’t only useful in the mountains; it had earned him millions in England, Maryam reflected.
‘But what happens when all this money is used up?’
‘We just don’t know. I’m trying for a big blow. There aren’t many people who can afford to finance a private army. I could, so I’m trying it. But I’ll show you something else. I’m not the only one making sacrifices.’
He reached for a despatch case and pulled out a bundle of envelopes.
‘This is what I picked up from my PO box today. I asked my friends in England to pass the word around that we need money to help free Afghanistan, and that I’m using up all my own. This is their answer.’
He brandished the envelopes and selected one. ‘I’ve written the latest list on the back of this letter. See, money is coming in – as little as one pound and as much as a hundred thousand dollars. From people who know me and people who don’t. From tycoons and pensioners, even from children. Say what you like, Maryam, our former enemies, now good friends, the British, have hearts.’
Time and again, Kandahar had fought and driven off the Russians. Time and again they had come back. In 1981 the Soviets, pushing the luckless Afghan conscript Army before them, had besieged the city for five months, from May to September. It was partly a matter of Russian pride. The Soviets occupied Kabul, it was true, but Kandahar was the true Pashtun capital of Afghanistan, and it commanded the flat land to the south: the way the Russians would have to roll if they decided to go for Pakistan, India, the Arabian Sea or the Gulf. And the people in the outside world always knew what was happening in Kandahar: Pakistan was only sixty miles away. This time the Reds were determined to get into the city and to hold it.