Dreams to Die For (34 page)

“Do you think she would find going into town interesting?” Gordon enquired.

“Absolutely Gordon, of course. There are some really excellent shops there and Inverness is a great place just to mooch about in. There's a lot to see and do. Don't forget, Assiter's wife is very young and she might find life at Mealag somewhat of a culture shock, especially as she has only recently given up international modelling. I expect she may welcome the sight of a few good boutiques and chic restaurants, as would I.”

“That's settled then, if Paulette agrees. Another good idea of yours, Cindy, thanks.” Gordon made a mental note to suggest it early into Assiter's stay.

Fadyar Masri reached Birmingham in mid-afternoon on Saturday and immediately made contact with Nasra Khan. She quickly parked her car in a lock up garage and transferred her cases and belongings to a hired Vauxhall car, the rental agreement having been taken out by Sharid Bagheri. That car, too, was well concealed in a rented garage. The following morning Fadyar, Bagheri, Khan and Mawdud Mattar would be making the journey to Scotland, and Saturday evening provided her with an opportunity to check that the deadly supplies she had ordered had been delivered and ready for use. She checked off the items from her list:

Everything was exactly as she had asked. In fact the sub machine guns had a specification well in excess of the model she had requested. She was thrilled, but the CAR-15s added considerably to the group's fire power and were short-barrelled and easy to use, as she wanted. Currency was plentiful and Khan, Mattar and Bagheri each confirmed their bank accounts had been topped up from Switzerland. Finally, Khan reported that they had hired a fully equipped camper van for three weeks. The van had been deliberately chosen as the particular model had a space beneath a side sofa that could hide someone and its blacked out windows in the rear also offered the occupants some sort of protection from them not being visible should it ever be attacked. Mattar had been charged by Fadyar to organise the transport once in the Highlands. Their earlier trip had revealed just how conspicuous tourists were just by the types of vehicle and registration plates they carried. Mattar said that awaiting them tomorrow evening or Monday morning at MacGregor & Berry's garage in Fort William was a second-hand green, Land Rover Defender 110. He had ordered, and paid the deposit for it, online. He was confident that the powerful 2.5 Turbo diesel, five seat version, would more than meet their needs and be capable of traversing the roughest of off-road conditions. The vehicle was only a few months old and had originally been registered in Inverness so carried local plates, which hopefully would attract limited attention. There were only a few thousand miles recorded on the odometer and there was no reason why the vehicle should not be in A1 condition. Completing her final check of all the equipment, Fadyar congratulated them.

“You have done well, my brothers. Now I can reveal to you my plan. Come. Let us sit at the table so we can all see the papers”

The three men leaned forward across the table, expectantly, as Fadyar spread the maps and her blueprint before them. In fact she had two principal plans depending on the circumstances, but the key point of both was, she emphasised, adaptability. She stressed that whilst she was satisfied with the reconnaissance and the information gained from the previous trip, it was simply impossible to devise a single plan that covered every eventuality as she would be unaware of precisely what security arrangements would be in place to protect Assiter until his actual arrival. The group spent several hours discussing every detail of the plans, asking questions, making suggestions, learning their precise role, what they had to do, how they were to do it.

At the end of the evening, Fadyar spoke to them. “We are ready. Our mission will bring glory to our people, revenge for all those murdered by the invading, imperialist infidels. Sharid will be my deputy and he will ensure that if for whatever reason I am unable to continue command, or carry out the mission, it will still succeed.”

She went to bed, tired but not totally happy. It was the second anniversary of that awful day when her parents had been murdered and the horrible recollections came flooding back to her in a series of vivid images, as if she was watching a movie in slow motion. Before going to sleep she said several more prayers than usual.

The following morning the group rose early and spent Sunday driving leisurely to Scotland, stopping frequently on the journey. Bagheri drove the Vauxhall, with Mattar as a passenger and Khan drove the large camper accompanied by his tense, but focused, leader. Mattar was able to collect the Land Rover, paying the balance in cash, and drove along the A82 to meet up with his companions a little while later in the small public car park at the rear of the shops in Spean Bridge, the supermarket providing all the provisions that Fadyar and her conspirators would need for the next few days. They all knew what they were to do next. Bagheri took the Vauxhall and Mattar the Land Rover. Khan drove the camper van with Fadyar as passenger. He headed along the A82, past a very grey Loch Lochy, and onwards to Invergarry where he turned left on the A87. However, he did not make the second left turn a mile later that would have taken them along the Kinloch Hourn road via Corach and the dam. Instead, he stayed on the A87 for another twenty-one miles and having filled the camper with diesel from the petrol station sited at the junction, turned left at Shiel and climbed into the hills and forest of Ratagan along an unclassified road. The view was awesome as they climbed higher and Khan expertly handled the camper around the tight and twisty bends.

After the summit, the road became easier and Khan was able to increase speed as they gradually dropped down towards the strait that divides the Isle of Skye from the mainland. The stretch of water, known as the Sound of Sleat, is a frequent passage for sharks, whales and a host of other marine life, plus British and NATO submarines, and all are often seen as they make their journey through the narrow channel but, as Khan approached, the surface of the sea was totally flat and undisturbed.

At the coast, he headed left once more before finally stopping at the large car park, seemingly constructed almost on and only a little above the rock strewn beach, at the pretty village of Glenelg. They parked the camper at the far side of the car park, well away from the tourists who usually wished to stop and loiter, looking either at the view of Skye or at the Memorial to the Fallen proudly standing at the centre of the coastal edge of the car park. The road beyond Glenelg follows the coastline and continues for several miles around the massive mountain Beinn Sgritheall, meeting the waters of Loch Hourn and finishing only a few miles short of Kinloch Hourn village. When Fadyar had first visited the area, she cursed how unlucky they were that the Glenelg road had not been continued to meet the Corach road at Kinloch Hourn – but it was obvious why it had not been constructed. Sheer massive cliffs formed a promontory at the mouth of Kinloch Hourn, making any linking of the roads completely uneconomic. She also lamented the fact that Loch Quoich itself had no navigable outlet to the sea, either at the Straits or at Loch Hourn, despite reaching almost to the village. Because a couple of miles or so of rock had not been blasted away she had been forced to devise a much slower escape route, one that relied upon the camper van now parked at Glenelg.

The car park was not empty. Glenelg is a tourist destination not just because of its commanding position across the narrows from Skye, nor due to its famous Bernera military barracks of 1725. Nearby, along the coast at Sandaig a few miles to the south-west, was the site of ‘Camusfearna' where Gavin Maxwell had lived with the otters he made famous in ‘
Ring of Bright Water'
, and within a mile of the village were two of the best preserved 1
^st
and 2
^nd
Century dwellings of the ancient Picts – Dun Telve and Dun Troddan. Visitors arrived for many reasons and, as usual, several vehicles were scattered across the tarmac, all facing towards the Straits and the Isle of Skye and all immaculately parked within the neat, white lines that marked an approved space. The occupants of the camper were not interested in looking at marine life, nor ancient monuments. Once they had stopped, the two fundamentalists got out and made a deliberate effort to be noticed. They walked around, stretching their arms above their heads and casually walking over to the memorial. They looked at the small row of terraced houses, and then lingered a while on the road opposite a row of clean, colour-washed cottages. Fadyar and Khan waited, hoping that someone local would come along. A quarter of an hour passed, then half an hour, and the light was rapidly fading causing the mountains on Skye to glow a vivid orange that reflected onto the calm sea. At last a small, plump woman came out of one of the terraced houses and went to walk along the road.

“Excuse me,” said a relieved Fadyar. “We have come a long way and I was wondering if it is permitted to leave our van on the car park,” she pointed to the camper, ”over there?”

“O aye. Nay problem. Ach, I know it says no overnight parking but folks do it all the time and old John, who is supposed to check these things, usually turns a blind eye. Anyway, leave a note inside the screen that says you're staying with me a wee while. Morag's the name.”

Fadyar smiled at Morag.

“Are you sure? That's very kind. We have some friends we hope to see and they have a four wheel drive vehicle that can go where our van can't. They are also renting a cottage but it's a bit of a way from here, so we may leave the camper for a few days and then come back to it. Sort of come and go.” Fadyar did not allow any time for conversation to be developed about the supposed friends and changed the subject before Morag could interject.

“This is a really lovely area, isn't it? We hope to be up here about a fortnight and do plenty of walking in the mountains so we may not see you much, but thank you again.”

After a few more exchanges, to reinforce her apparent integrity, Fadyar wrote a fictitious mobile number on a piece of paper and handed it to the woman. “I know these things don't always work in the hills around here but if there is a problem with the van, do please phone me or leave a message. I will get here as quickly as I can.”

Fadyar was in her element and the chat went exactly as she had hoped for. She knew that they could leave the camper van and it would be perfectly safe, watched over by Morag, who reassured her again that the parking would be ‘Nay bother'. Khan and Fadyar returned to the van where they spent a surprisingly comfortable night after a good meal cooked on the camper's stove. Tomorrow's supper would be eaten in the self-catering cottage they had rented at Kinloch Hourn.

Bagheri drove from Spean Bridge straight to the Eagles Rest Hotel at Corach where he and Mattar had reserved a room with twin single beds. They had given false, English sounding names that belied their ancestry, but had credit cards that backed their deception. After unpacking and a brief rest, Mattar was anxious that the sparkling clean Land Rover was itself too noticeable, but he was also impatient at wanting to test out his new toy and its two or four wheel drive options. He suggested that he take the vehicle for a drive.

“Whenever have you seen a clean Land Rover, especially if we are supposedly local?” Mattar rhetorically asked his companion as he gave him a wave before heading out of the hotel car park.

He headed back towards Spean Bridge, then along the A86 Newtonmore road. He had not travelled this particular road before and was awe struck when after a few miles he parked next to another large dam. This dam, at the head of Loch Laggan, was quite different in construction from the one at Quoich. Whereas the Quoich dam was huge this was only moderate in size, but the Laggan dam was equally, if not more, impressive. Built before Quoich, it was of a more expensive form of construction having a weather protected rear face as well as an impervious front slope – features which permitted a slimmer design. Along the length of the top of the dam were thirty-six arches through which water over-spilled when the level rose too high, sending it spectacularly cascading down into a gorge one hundred feet below. It also had four huge independently operated siphons which passed through the wall of the dam, each being automatically triggered by successive increases of the water pressure as the loch level rose. When functioning, these created a massive water spout churning out hundreds of gallons of water a second into the gorge. There was no power station, the dam being used solely to ensure that an adequate supply of water could be fed through miles of tunnel to yet another loch, Loch Triegg. At the opposite end of that loch, water was continuously being drained at a staggering rate by a second tunnel through the mountains, emerging immediately above the aluminium production plant at Fort William. The processes required enormous volumes of water for power and cooling, and three huge pipes carried the water as it accelerated down the mountain slope directly into the works. Bagheri was fascinated as he stopped and studied the elegant dam, before turning back towards Spean Bridge.

He turned onto a very narrow road marked ‘Fersit' that meandered through a large, dark forest of tall conifers, hoping to find some suitable rough land on which to dirty and test his vehicle. In places, the road had grassy unkempt earth banks at its edges that provided the ideal mud splash to despoil the clean Land Rover. He also found a forestry road that clearly had not been used for several months and he soon became accustomed to handling his vehicle in rough terrain. The light was fading fast as he cleared the forest and he suddenly had to brake hard as he found himself rapidly approaching the base of yet another dam, this one very small, only a few yards ahead. The crudely finished back slope of the dirty brown, rock-fill dam, no more than thirty metres in length by twenty high, looked shabby and forgotten. Tufts of grass hung limply from the joints where the rocks had been piled on top of each other and mosses covered most of the area of the block work. The forest was behind him, dark and shadowy with only the tiniest glimpse of light arcing down through an occasional dead branch.