Exceptional Chapter 90 - Entering the Unknown The French Letter : The Akond of Swat by tfawcus

Background Seconded to MI6, Charles and Helen are in Pakistan on a mission in the Hindu Kush to neutralise Abdul Jaleel Zemar (The Lion), leader of an international terrorist network. Chapter 90 The following morning, I stretched a languid arm across the bed to draw Helen into the cusp of my body, but to my consternation, I found the space beside me empty. The pre-dawn silence amplified the sound of my racing heartbeat. I was overcome by a surge of panic.  As I swung my legs over the side of the bed, I noticed a soft breeze shifting the curtains. The sliding door was partly open. I drew the curtains back and, to my relief, saw Helen standing on the balcony, as if in a trance. Stealing up behind her, I wrapped my arms around her waist. The stillness was soon broken by the yearning cry of a muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer from a nearby minaret. His cry was taken up by others around the city. Helen and I were as one as we stood breathing in the sacred hour. I brushed her tangled tresses to one side and kissed her on the back of the neck. However, she pushed me away gently, and brought a finger to her lips. "Listen." Soon, the adhan subsided and I became aware of the city throwing off its mantle of sleep. A dog barked and cocks began to crow. Then, these sounds gave way to another call, a hollow oop-oopah ... oop-oopah, like a deep note repeated on pan pipes. The mournful monotone was every bit as insistent as the muezzin's previous call to prayer. "Look," she said, pointing to a bird perched motionless on the branch of a jacaranda tree. Its erect crest was like a plumed helmet in the waning moonlight, and its long beak curved down like a scimitar. "What is it?" "A hoopoe," she said. "An evil bird." "Why evil?" "They say it's associated with lewdness and lust." "Like me, you mean?" I said, giving her a playful pat on the bottom. "No time for that, lover boy. We're due to leave in half an hour. Come on!" She disappeared into the bedroom, with a provocative wiggle.   ***** We arrived at the depot shortly before seven to find our travelling companions were a group of Eastern Europeans. We beamed at each other and shook hands, but it was clear that the language barrier was going to be insuperable. Soon, they started chatting and laughing among themselves, and we took seats at the front of the vehicle. One of them spoke a little Urdu, but Helen didn't let him know that she understood his halting attempts to communicate with Hassim, our driver. Looking at the map, the two-day journey seemed unbalanced. It was around a hundred and eighty miles to Dir, where we were scheduled to spend the first night, but only a third of that distance on to Chitral. When I mentioned this to Hassim, he laughed. "The roads are different after Dir, when we start climbing up into the mountains. You'll see."   ***** Even at that time of the morning, the streets were thronging with motorbikes swerving from lane to lane. At one point, Hassim had to press simultaneously on the horn and the brake as an ancient Honda Hero lurched in front of us, carrying a man, his wife, two boys and a baby. One of the boys waved cheerfully as they zoomed past. Until we reached the Islamabad - Peshawar motorway, three-wheeled auto rickshaws outnumbered cars on the road. These tuk tuks, so called for the sound of their stuttering engines, added a carnival feel to the chaos, with their flamboyant colours and bizarre loads. There were crates of squawking chickens destined for the market. There were wicker baskets of pomegranates and pawpaw, precariously balanced on seats. One of the tuk tuks even contained a young boy and his sister, struggling to keep hold of a pair of Muscovy ducks. I slid the window partly open, letting in the exotic smell of spices and incense from a bazaar. It was mingled with the stench of roadside rubbish. I quickly shut the window again. Eventually, we left the city behind and joined the motorway. Hassim accelerated until the needle was hovering around seventy-five miles per hour. I imagined that this was close to our minivan's top speed. It took less than an hour and a half for us to reach the Sher Khan interchange and veer north onto the Swat Expressway. As soon as I saw the sign, I turned to Helen with a grin and started reciting: "Who, or why, or which, or what Is the Akond of SWAT? Is he tall or short or dark or fair? Does he sit on a stool or a sofa or chair, Or SQUAT, the Akond of Swat?" She looked at me as if I were mad. "Edward Lear," I explained feebly. "It's a great poem. I learnt it as a child. It never occurred to me, though, that there really is a place called Swat." I decided not to mention the Kipling connection sparked by the Sher Khan interchange. My thoughts inevitably turned to The Jungle Books and Mowgli's nemesis, the rogue tiger. The parallel with our own situation was uncomfortably clear. I hoped we would also have friends to support us, but I doubted it.   The expressway was fast and well-maintained, and we arrived in Dir a little after midday. At five thousand feet, the air was crisp and cool, with a light breeze chasing small puffs of fair-weather cloud across the sky. "How gloriously refreshing," Helen said, as she got out. She stretched her arms and inhaled deeply. Like me, she was stiff from the journey. I saw Hassim looking anxiously to the north, where banks of cumulo-nimbus bubbled ominously above the Lowari Pass. "It looks as though we may be in for rough weather," I said. "Yes, there's a big storm building. The pass will be closed for sure." A worried frown creased his forehead as he added, "It's early for such weather." "What about the tunnel? Will we be able to get through, do you think?" "I hope so." He glanced at his watch and said, "Why don't you join the others over there, while I call ahead to check." He pointed to a low building where a barbecue had been set up on the porch. Enticing smells drifted across towards us. "They are cooking chapli kebabs with hot Afghani bread. A speciality. Very good!" Having missed breakfast, we needed no second invitation. We were both starving, or so we thought, but in days to come I was to find out how relative to circumstances that word can be. It wasn't long before Hassim returned. "We should go now," he said. "The weather will be much worse tomorrow. If we leave immediately, we still have time to reach Chitral before nightfall." There were murmurs of dissent from our travelling companions when he explained the situation in Urdu, but he managed to persuade them, and within twenty minutes we were back on the road. Travel soon became dramatically different. It took more than an hour to traverse a dozen miles of hairpin bends rising up to the mouth of the Loweri Tunnel. The narrow, unmade road was slippery as a mudslide where snow melt had seeped through crevices, creating small cascades. The clear, mountain water sparkled in the sunlight as it swirled around fallen boulders and scree. We slid across hairpin bends, our back wheels slewing dangerously near the precipitous drop to the torrent below. In places, there was barely enough room to navigate around minor rockslides. At one point, Helen closed her eyes and buried her head in my shoulder. "I thought you grew up in this part of the world," I said, drawing her closer to me. "Yes, but ..." She tightened her grip, and I could feel the rigidity of her body pressed against mine. "I'm not good with heights. At this rate, we'll be lucky to reach Chitral." "Don't worry, darling. We'll be all right." In some places, isolated wooden buildings clung to the mountainside. Small children in doorways left the safety of their mothers' skirts to wave. A few of the braver ones screamed with delight as they ran alongside our minibus holding out their hands and shouting "Baksheesh!". When we reached the checkpoint at the mouth of the tunnel, we were glad to don parkas. I stamped my feet up and down to restore my circulation, then in a childish moment, jumped with both feet into a puddle. "You bastard! I'll get you!" Helen bent down to sweep the slush from her trousers and she scooped up a handful of wet snow to toss at me. It caught me just beneath the ear. Before I was able to brush it off, a good part had trickled down inside my collar. "Serves you right!" she said. Our games were interrupted by an impassive soldier with an AK-47 slung carelessly across his shoulder. He beckoned us across to the checkpoint, where we handed over photocopies of our passport ID page and Pakistan visa. Both were scrupulously examined, as he compared the photographs with our frozen faces. After a short delay, they were exchanged for the precious entry-exit pass issued to foreign tourists entering the Chitral region. "Take great care of these," he said. "Travel is not permitted without them." The sky blackened as we climbed back aboard, and there was an ominous rumble. The first heavy blobs of snow began to hit the windshield as we queued up to enter the six-mile tunnel connecting Chitral to the outside world. Recognized Author Notes List of Characters Charles Brandon - the narrator, a well-known travel writer. Rasheed - a Sikh taxi driver in Lahore, radicalised by ISIS Abdul - a taxi driver in Islamabad, working under cover for the British High Commission Hassim - a tour operator Ash - a French liaison officer attached to the British High Commission in Islamabad. Also a member of the French anti-drug squad (la Brigade des stupefiants), whose operations are directed by Jeanne Durand. Montague (Monty) - a member of staff at the British High Commission in Islamabad. Sir Robert - the Deputy High Commissioner at the British High Commission in Islamabad (a personal friend and confidante of Group Captain David Bamforth, the British Air Attache in Paris) Abdul Jaleel Zemar (The Lion) - Coordinator of an international network of ISIS cells Helen Culverson - a woman of increasing mystery Kayla Culverson - her older sister, who disappeared somewhere in Bangkok and has surfaced again in Paris. Group Captain Bamforth (alias Sir David Brockenhurst) - an intelligence officer with MI6 and Air Attache in Paris Madame Jeanne Durand - a French magazine editor and undercover agent with the French Drug Squad. Madame Madeleine Bisset - Helen's landlady in Paris Mr Bukhari - a Pakistani businessman (now deceased) Ian 'Bisto' Kidman - an ex-RAF friend of Charles's. Monsieur Bellini - a denizen of the French Underworld. Andre (aka Scaramouche) - an actor in Montmartre and friend of Kayla's Dr. Laurent - a veterinary surgeon in Versailles. Father Pierre Lacroix - vicar of the Versailles Notre Dame church. Madame Lefauvre - an old woman living in Versailles - the town gossip. Alain Gaudin - brother of Francoise, a gardener at Monet's house in Giverney Francoise Gaudin - Alain's intellectually disabled sister. Estelle Gaudin [deceased] - mother of Francoise and Alain, a prostitute Mademoiselle Suzanne Gaudin [deceased] - Alain's grandmother, to whom the mysterious 'French letter' of 1903 was addressed. Jack and Nancy Wilkins - a Wiltshire dairy farmer and his wife. Gaston Arnoux - Owner of an art gallery in Paris. A triple agent, who infiltrated the ISIS network in France and fed information to MI6, but who is now providing information to Abdul Jaleel Zemar (The Lion). Colonel Neville Arnoux [deceased] - Gaston's grandfather. Author of the infamous letter of 1903.

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