'From that point on, our intelligence on Latifa gets a bit thin. Faisal Ahmed was already proving his worth to us, so to keep him sweet, we offered to look after Latifa. She was cared for by the security forces out there for a short while — a couple of weeks at the best, until she regained some of her strength — then she disappeared. Our best guess is that after the traumas she underwent at the hand of the Taliban, she hid herself away in a quiet village somewhere — although, as you know, quiet villages are few and far between in Afghanistan. We're fairly sure, from all we know about their relationship, that Ahmed will have kept in touch with his sister somehow. We're equally convinced — and a number of psychiatric reports back this up — that he will have continued to remain in contact with her even after he went dark in 2003.
'As I've said, we rather lost track of Latifa once the Taliban fell. A few days ago, however, word reached us of her whereabouts. When the Taliban were thrown from power, their supporters were scattered around the country. Since then, certain factions have regrouped and gained in strength. It seems that Latifa has been abducted by one of these resurgent factions.
'Why?' Will asked, suspiciously. 'Surely the Taliban have bigger fish to fry at the moment.'
'I don't know,' Pankhurst admitted. 'I don't know why the Taliban do anything. What you've got to remember is that they're a law unto themselves and they have all sorts of warring factions that we don't even know about. I'm sure that most Taliban members couldn't give a fig about Latifa Ahmed. But clearly there's one group that does. If you want to know why, perhaps you can ask her when you see her.'
Will's eyes widened.
'We have an informer in the area who claims he can lead us to her. And that, Will, is where you come in.'
'You want me to go back to Afghanistan?'
'Precisely. You'll meet our contact and your objective will be to extract Latifa Ahmed from wherever she's being held and to bring her back safely to this country for questioning. If she can shed any light on Faisal Ahmed's whereabouts, we have to know. He could strike any minute and, frankly, this is our only lead.'
Will chewed on a fingernail for a moment. 'How reliable is your source?'
Pankhurst shrugged. 'We think he's sound. But we're not following this up because our source is reliable; we're following it up because we don't have any other options. And we don't have the luxury of time: at the moment we've no reason to believe that Faisal Ahmed knows Latifa's location. But he'll find out and we're pretty sure he'll try to free her. We have to get our hands on the woman before that happens.'
Will stood up and walked to the window. He looked out over the Thames to see that a flurry of snow was falling. It would be snowing in Afghanistan, too, not like the last time he was there. It had been high summer then, 35 degrees at the height of the sun, dry and acrid. But the Afghan winters were harsh. There would be deep snow — difficult to move through, easy to be seen in. And Afghanistan — the 'Stan' as the Regiment guys called it — was just as bad now as it was then. Worse, even. All this for a lead that could very well come to nothing.
He turned back to look at Pankhurst. 'How sure are you that Ahmed's planning something?' he asked.
'How sure do I need to be before I act?' the Director General replied, quietly. 'Our intelligence is pretty concrete. The student we apprehended in Rome gave us the basics.'
'Can I talk to him?'
'No,' Pankhurst said quickly. 'No. You can't do that.'
Will nodded, tactfully. He knew what that meant. If the student had been taken to a black camp, chances were he hadn't survived the questioning. Unfortunate for him, convenient for the authorities — they didn't want anyone running around spilling the beans about what they had been through.
'He must have got his intel from somewhere, though,' Will insisted.
Pankhurst nodded. 'He was a regular at the Rome mosque. We've interrogated the people he was friendly with, but they've given us nothing else. Trust me, Will, you won't get anything out of them. Our people are extremely persuasive.'
Will fell silent again. The prospect of a return to Afghanistan made him feel sick. But what was the alternative? To go back to the flat in Hereford and pick up his life where he had left off, dividing his time between the graveyard and the pub? How could he, now that he knew the truth about his family's death? How could he, now that he knew their killer was out there somewhere? He stared out of the window over the London skyline. Maybe Ahmed was there, hiding somewhere, waiting to strike. Waiting to kill more innocent people. Waiting to make widows and orphans. Waiting to destroy more lives, just like he had destroyed Will's. How bizarre that Will should have to go all the way back to Afghanistan to find out this man's location. Still, if that was what he had to do…
He turned back to Pankhurst. 'I'm not going in alone,' he said firmly. 'I'll need a unit. SAS.'
Pankhurst's nose twitched. 'Out of the question. If I could simply deploy the SAS, I would. You're being brought in precisely because you've been out of play for two years.'
'Cut the bullshit, Pankhurst,' Will snapped. The Director General's face flickered with annoyance. 'You and I both know I'm being brought in because you've gambled that I want Faisal Ahmed dead more than anything in the world.' Will looked around him. 'It's a comfortable office, this,' he said a bit more calmly. 'I'm not used to this sort of luxury. You obviously are. And you've obviously never been on covert ops in the Stan. If you had, you'd know that only an idiot would lay siege to the Taliban in mid-winter. If this were a more straightforward op, you'd be deploying a squadron. I'm asking for three men and if I don't get them, I'm not going.'
Pankhurst fell silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was with the reasonable voice of a skilled negotiator. 'I'm sure we could arrange some NATO troops in Kandahar.'
'I don't want NATO troops,' Will insisted. 'And I don't want fucking Green Berets. I want SAS. I know how they work and I know they're the best. Christ, sir, these guys devote their lives to this kind of work. There's no more chance of there being a mole in Hereford than there is of there being a mole in this room as we speak.'
The Director General took a deep breath. 'All right,' he said, quietly. 'I've asked you to trust me, so I'm going to return the compliment.'
Pankhurst managed to sound almost gracious, but Will knew it was simply that he had the DG over a barrel, so he stopped short of thanking him. 'Don't you have any more precise information about where this woman's being held?' he asked.
'Nothing. Our source is very jumpy — when you meet him, you'll need to win his trust. But we can hazard a guess that you'll be heading south from Kandahar — that's the area where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.'
Will nodded, curtly. He knew how dangerous that part of the world was.
'Listen to me carefully, Will,' Pankhurst continued. 'Your unit are the only ones you reveal your objective to and even they cannot know why you are extracting Latifa Ahmed. Someone's been tipping this guy off and we don't know how deep their influence goes. I know you've been trained to trust everyone at Hereford, Will, but that's one part of your training that you need to forget. We can't afford to trust anyone. Do you understand?'
'Yeah,' he replied. 'I understand.'
'And you're willing to do what it takes to get Latifa Ahmed out of Afghanistan?'
He nodded his head.
'Good,' Pankhurst said. If he felt any sense of satisfaction in Will's acceptance, he didn't show it. 'We can't hang around. We're assuming Ahmed doesn't know Latifa is being tortured, but as soon as he finds out he'll be straight there to extract her. And that woman has a lot of nasty things to look forward to — I don't want the Taliban torturing her to death before we've had the chance to ask her a few questions.'