At Castle Forbes the regime started intensive and became more so. Mike Martin was required to change out of western clothes into the robes and turban of a Pashtun tribesman. His beard and hair were to grow as long as the time allowed.
The housekeeper was allowed to stay on; she had not the slightest interest in the laird’s guests and nor did Hector the gardener. The third remaining resident was Angus, the former SAS sergeant who had become Lord Forbes’s estate manager, or factor. Even if an interloper had wished to penetrate the estate, he would have been most unwise with Angus on the prowl.
For the rest, ‘guests’ came and went, save two whose residence had to be permanent. One was Najib Qureshi, a native Afghan and former teacher in Kandahar, once a refugee given asylum in Britain, now a naturalized citizen and translator at GCHQ Cheltenham. He had been detached from his duties and transferred to Castle Forbes. He was the language tutor and coach in all forms of behaviour that would be expected of a Pashtun. He taught body language, gestures, how to squat on the heels, how to eat, how to walk and the postures for prayer.
The other was Dr Tamian Godfrey: mid-sixties, iron-grey hair in a bun at the back; she had been married for years to a senior officer in the Security Service, MI5, until his death two years earlier. Being ‘one of us’, as Steve Hill put it, she was no stranger to security procedures, the cult of need-to-know, and had not the slightest intention of mentioning her presence in Scotland to anyone ever.
Moreover, she could work out without being told that the man she was here to tutor would be going into harm’s way and became determined he would never slip up because of something she had forgotten. Her expertise was the Koran; her knowledge of it was encyclopaedic and her Arabic impeccable.
‘Have you heard of Muhammad Asad?’ she asked Martin. He admitted he had not.
‘Then we shall start with him. Born Leopold Weiss, a German Jew, he converted to Islam and became one of its greatest scholars. He wrote probably the best commentary ever on Al-Isra, the journey from Arabia to Jerusalem and thence to heaven. This was the experience that instituted the five daily prayers, keystone of the faith. You would have this at your madrassah as a boy, and your imam, being a Wahhabi, would have believed totally that it was a real, physical journey, and not just a vision in a dream. So you believe the same. And now, the daily prayers. Say after me . . .’
Najib Qureshi was impressed. She knows more about the Koran than I do, he mused.
For exercise they wrapped up warmly and went walking the hills, shadowed by Angus, quite legally equipped with his hunting rifle.
Even though he knew Arabic, Mike Martin realized what a staggering amount he had to learn. Najib Qureshi taught him to speak Arabic with a Pashtun accent, for Izmat Khan’s voice, speaking Arabic to fellow prisoners in Camp Delta, had been recorded secretly in case he had secrets to divulge. He did not, but for Mr Qureshi the accent was invaluable because he could teach his pupil to imitate it.
Although Mike Martin had spent six months with the Muj in the mountains during the Soviet occupation, that was eighteen years earlier and he had forgotten much. Qureshi coached him in Pashto, even though it had been agreed from the start that Martin could never pass as a Pashtun among other Pashtun.
But mostly it was two things: the prayers and what had happened to him in Guantanamo Bay. The CIA was the principal provider of interrogators in Camp Delta; Marek Gumienny had discovered three or four who had had dealings with Izmat Khan from the moment of his arrival onwards.
Michael McDonald flew back to Langley to spend days with these men, draining them dry of every detail they could recall, plus the notes and tapes they had made. The cover story was that Izmat Khan was being considered for release under the NFD rules – no further danger – and Langley wanted to be sure.
All the interrogators were adamant that the Pashtun mountain warrior and Taliban commander was the hardest man in detention. He had vouchsafed very little, complained not at all, cooperated to the minimum, accepted all the privations and punishments with stoicism. But, they agreed, when you looked into those black eyes, you just knew he would love to tear your head off.
When McDonald had it all he flew back in the CIA Grumman and landed right at Edzell air base. Thence a car took him north to Forbes Castle and he briefed Mike Martin.
Tamian Godfrey and Najib Qureshi concentrated on the daily prayers. Martin would have to say them in front of others, and he had better get them right. There was one ray of hope, according to Najib. He was not a born Arab; the Koran was only in classical Arabic and no other language. A one-word slip could be put down to mispronunciation. But for a boy who had spent seven years in a madrassah, one entire phrase was too much. So, with Najib rising and bowing, forehead to the carpet, beside him, and Tamian Godfrey (due to her stiff knees) in a chair, they recited and recited and recited.
There was progress also at Edzell air base where an Anglo-American technical team was installing and linking all the British intelligence services and those of the USA into one nexus. The accommodation and facilities were up and running. When the US Navy were in residence the base had had, apart from housing and work stations, a bowling alley, beauty salon, delicatessen, post office, basketball court, gym and theatre. Gordon Phillips, aware of his budget and Steve Hill breathing down his neck, left the fripperies much as they were – defunct.
The RAF shipped in catering staff and the RAF Regiment took over perimeter security. No one doubted the base was becoming a listening post for opium-traffickers.
From the USA giant Galaxies and Starlifters flew in with listening monitors that could and would scan the world. Arabic translations were not imported because this would be handled by GCHQ Cheltenham and Fort Meade, both of whom would be in constant secure contact with Crowbar, as the new listening post had been coded.
Before Christmas the twelve computer work stations were established and brought on stream. These would be the nerve centre and six operators would hover over them day and night.
Crowbar Centre was never devised as a new intelligence agency of its own, but simply a short-term ‘dedicated’ (i.e. single purpose) operation, with whom all British and US agencies would, thanks to John Negroponte’s blanket authority, cooperate without stint or delay.
To ass
ist this, Crowbar’s computers were fitted with ultra-secure ISDN BRENT lines with two BRENT keys for each station. Each had its own removable hard disk which would be taken out when not in use and stored in a guarded safe.
Crowbar’s computers were then linked directly into the communications systems of Head Office, or HO, the term for SIS headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, and Grosvenor, the term employed for the CIA Station at the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, London.
To seal the operation from any unwanted interference, the Crowbar address for its communications was hidden under a STRAP3 access code with a Bigot list limited to those in the know: a very few senior officers indeed.
Then Crowbar began to listen to every word spoken in the Middle East, in the Arabic language and in the world of Islam. By then it was only doing what was already being done by others, but the pretence had to be maintained.
When Crowbar went operational it had one other access. Apart from sound, it was interested in vision. Also piped into the obscure Scottish air base were the images the National Reconnaissance Office was picking up from its KH-11 Keyhole satellites over the Arab world and the yield of the increasingly popular Predator drones whose high-definition images from twenty thousand feet went back to the American Army Central Command, or CENTCOM, headquarters at Tampa, Florida.
Some of the more penetrating minds at Edzell realized that Crowbar was ready and waiting for something but they were not quite sure what.
Shortly before Christmas 2006 Mr Alex Siebart recontacted Mr Lampong at his Indonesian company office to propose one of the two general-cargo freighters registered in Liverpool as suitable for his purpose. By chance both were owned by the same small shipping company and the firm of Siebart and Abercrombie had chartered them before on behalf of clients who had been amply satisfied. McKendrick Shipping was a family business; it had been in merchant marine for a century. The company chief was the patriarch, Liam McKendrick; he captained the Countess of Richmond and his son Sean captained the other ship.
The Countess of Richmond was eight thousand tons, flew the Red Ensign, was moderately priced and would be available for a fresh cargo out of a British port by 1 March.