On Edge

by Albert Ashforth

  “A minute later he saw that because his wife had become distracted, his son had wandered out of the building, and wanted to see what was happening and walked into the line of fire. Shah Mahmood says he could not believe how, in the moment when he was shooting and trying to kill you, you jumped out of the Humvee and risked your life to save his son.”

  As Shah Mahmood talked with Haji, I gazed at the elders and drank more tea.

  “Shah Mahmood says he felt terrible remorse for trying to kill you while you were risking your life to save his only son. Shah Mahmood says he will never forget your unselfish actions on his and his son’s behalf. He says your deed changed forever his view of Americans.”

  In time the other guests rose, said good-bye to one another and to Shah Mahmood. Before leaving, each elder bowed toward me.

  Haji said, “Shah Mahmood has arranged beds for us, Alex. We can stay here in the village.”

  The time was late afternoon. A boy led us across the road to another building. Inside was a room with blankets, mattresses, and cushions spread out on the floor. By this time I was beginning to feel very tired.

  Haji said, “Do you understand the word milmastia?” When I said I didn’t, Haji said, “Milmastia is the Pashto for hospitality. Shah Mahmood and his people here want us to feel as if we are in our own homes.”

  Haji’s words were the last I remember. Within minutes I was fast asleep.

  * * *

  When I awoke, it was already dark. Haji was seated next to me. “It’s seven in the evening,” he said. “Don’t worry, Alex. We can remain here as long as we like.”

  I was stiff but felt somewhat better. I got to my feet and took a walk around the room. I asked Haji the name of the village.

  “We are in a small hamlet. The nearest large village is Bibiyal,” Haji said. “The Korengal people are independent, and have never been ruled by outsiders. Before America came, they fought off the Russians.”

  Afterward, a boy brought tea and asked Haji if we were still hungry. Haji must have said yes because another boy arrived with bread and fruit.

  Then a messenger came in and spoke with Haji. Haji said, “Shah Mahmood says we are welcome to stay here tonight. He says whenever we want to leave, he can provide transportation. But before we leave he wants to talk with us.”

  I said, “Tell Shah Mahmood we will take advantage of his hospitality and stay tonight and tomorrow. And that we are very grateful for everything.”

  In order to stretch my legs I did some exercises and took a fifteen-minute walk around the village. The exertion was enough to make me feel better. Shortly afterward, I fell asleep and didn’t wake until the next morning.

  Early the next day, we returned to Shah Mahmood’s building. After we’d eaten, Shah Mahmood, Haji, and I sat on cushions in a small circle. As Shah Mahmood spoke, Haji translated.

  “Shah Mahmood says he apologizes for the fruit vendor. He says the man will no longer complain. On the second evening, Shah Mahmood sent someone to say that he no longer supported the vendor’s request for money. He says his messenger spoke with a woman at the gate and from her he learned your name.” When I told Haji to say whatever confusion there was had been resolved, I saw Shah Mahmood nodding his head.

  When Haji said to me, “Do you know who the woman was?” I said, “I assume it was Captain Corley.”

  After a few minutes, Haji said, “Shah Mahmood suggests we relax. Later, he will send a van and we can take a trip into Bibiyal.”

  After the banging around I’d gotten from the Talibs, I was happy to spend another day in the Korengal Valley, the place that supposedly was so inhospitable to Americans. Again I told Haji to say we were grateful for Shah Mahmood’s milmastia.

  That afternoon Haji and I were driven on a winding road through a narrow valley that after a mile opened onto a broad expanse of farmland. As we strolled through the ancient city of Bibiyal, Haji reminded me that I was one of very few Americans to visit the city after the withdrawal of the NATO armies three years before.

  I could well understand why Shah Mahmood wanted us to see the Korengal Valley. It was lush and fertile farmland as far as the eye could see, and unbelievably beautiful. The broad valley was nestled between mountains that rose gently toward the clouds. Seeing this incomparably beautiful area of Afghanistan, I found it easy to understand why the Korengalis were such ferocious defenders of their homeland. There could hardly be a more beautiful place anywhere.

  On Saturday night, I again slept very soundly.

  As we were getting ready to leave the next morning, Shah Mahmood came around to say good-bye. As we sat in a circle eating, he and Haji held a long conversation.

  After a few minutes, Haji turned to me. “Shah Mahmood says Abdul Sakhi grew up in Kunar Province. He belonged once to Shah Mahmood’s tribe, not to the Safirs.” After speaking again with Shah Mahmood, Haji said, “Abdul Sakhi left many years ago. He no longer has contact with the Korengali tribe.”

  I again told Haji to thank Shah Mahmood for his help and his hospitality.

  “Shah Mahmood also says you are the only American he has ever known. Because he says the dead Izat may have friends, he prefers that we not reveal to anyone how the Korengalis rescued us.”

  Haji and Shah Mahmood spoke awhile longer. I’d begun to wonder how we’d come to land in the Safir village, the one place hostile to Americans. It was clear we’d been given all kinds of wrong information.

  “Shah Mahmood says he hopes we will remain friends and stay in touch and that we will again be his guests.” After a brief exchange, Haji said, “When we are ready to go, he will provide transportation.”

  An hour later, as we were leaving the house, Jawid, Shah Mahmood’s son, appeared. As we climbed into the van, I waved good-bye. “Da khoo-die pah aman, Jawid.”

  “Da khoo-die pah aman, Alex.”

  “The driver says they know the way, and they can drive us part of the distance to the Pech River, near the COP. After that, we have to walk.” When I asked how far, Haji said, “Perhaps two miles. He also says there won’t be any problems with IEDs.”

  And then the driver started the engine.

  CHAPTER 15

  SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2013

  “I DON’T GET it,” Bud Withers said angrily. “Where did you guys disappear to?”

  “I don’t get it either,” I said. “How come you gave us wrong information?”

  We were back in the COP, in Withers’ command post. I had just helped myself to one of the bottles of water on the dirt floor alongside Withers’ desk. I was aware of Withers eyeing me as I sat back down.

  “Well?” I said. “I’m waiting. You call that intel?”

  Maybe I wasn’t doing a good job of staying calm, but Withers and his know-it-all attitude was bothering me. At the same time, I definitely wasn’t going to tell this guy that I was two minutes away from having my head hacked off.

  I had an idea he wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

  One of the company NCOs was also in the room, a sergeant named Malley. When Withers nodded to him, he decided to stay around.

  “We didn’t exactly disappear. A bunch of Talibs grabbed us.”

  Withers rolled his eyes. He gave the impression he didn’t believe me. “You didn’t just go along with them?”

  Before I could answer, Malley said, “We lost a man out there that night.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone. “Sully. Sergeant Sulzberg. He was one of our best. Danny Mayo, the other guy, found some cover. When he started shooting, you guys took off.”

  “They hauled us out of there,” I said. “We didn’t go because we wanted to go.”

  “That’s what we can’t understand,” Withers said. “There was supposed to be a shura. That was Wednesday night. Here it is Sunday. Where the hell were you?”

  “We weren’t where we were supposed to be. We were in the other village, that’s where we were.”

  “Why would they just take you guys? Did they know who you were?”

  �
�Good question.” I looked at Haji, but his face remained a blank. “In this village where we were they were hostile to Americans.”

  Withers frowned. “You ended up in the wrong village.”

  “We ended up where they took us.” I decided not to add that the way I now saw things this entire expedition was goofy from the get-go. It had been Withers who’d set it in motion and said we should meet with the Safirs. According to Shah Mahmood, they wouldn’t have known anything about Abdul Sakhi.

  “We lost a soldier out there the other night,” Sergeant Malley said again. “One of my men.” The way he glared at us I could see he thought we were responsible for Sully’s death. “Ain’t nothing like that’s ever happened before.”

  I decided to remain silent. Haji shifted nervously in his chair. It was plain the conversation had reached its end. It was also plain that Captain Withers wanted us off his base, which was fine with me.

  Sergeant Malley checked his watch. “Chopper should be here in another half hour.”

  Captain Withers stood up. “I have an idea you guys will want to be on it. I’ll call it in. You might also want to let people in ISAF know what’s going on.” He looked at Malley and smirked. “You can get yourselves some chow over in Building 8. MREs are on the menu today.”

  Malley pointed toward the door. “Take a right when you leave. Be ready at the gate when you hear the chopper.”

  None of us shook hands. There were no good-byes when we left the building. But I could feel Withers’ eyes focused on me as I pushed open the door. It felt like they were burning holes in my back.

  Haji and I waited for the chopper seated on benches in what passed for a mess hall on the COP. Since it was rough duty out here, I couldn’t much blame Withers for being unhappy. He had a lot of things to be unhappy about. I wondered whether he was right—whether I could have prevented Sully’s death. One thing was sure. I didn’t like the idea of being told I was responsible.

  * * *

  Like the people back on the combat outpost, Stan Jones and Doug Greer were skeptical of how things had worked out—or at least of my version of how they’d worked out.

  The debriefing had taken place in the office of Colonel Gardner Boyd, who was attached to the commander’s office.

  It was late afternoon, nearly four hours after we’d left the COP. On the ride back on the Black Hawk helicopter we’d made the loop, stopping at Bagram and a number of bases before putting down at Camp Phoenix.

  When we arrived, there had been a van waiting at the Phoenix helicopter pad to take me over to ISAF Headquarters.

  Doug Greer only shook his head when I had completed the story.

  “You were gone almost four days, for God’s sakes!”

  “And you say you were in the Taliban prison all that time?” Colonel Boyd said, frowning.

  I said, “For some reason we landed in a village that’s hostile to Americans.”

  Stan had made the trip over from Phoenix just to hear what had happened. “So you never got to talk to Shergaz, the elder.” He shook his head. “And you never found out where this Abdul Sakhi is.”

  “I don’t get it. I mean, it’s just not logical.” Colonel Boyd pointed to me. “Who do you report to?” he said.

  “He reports to someone on the NSC,” Stan said.

  I still didn’t know who I was reporting to. Jerry had said someone would contact me, but so far no one had.

  “I hope you can tell your boss a more believable story than what you just told us,” Greer said, standing up.

  People had good reasons to be skeptical. I hadn’t said how Shah Mahmood’s people had rescued us from the individual who wanted to chop off our heads. That would remain our little secret, for a while anyway. We’d do our best to tell the story without mentioning Shah Mahmood and his people.

  I kind of doubted anyone would believe the story anyway.

  I said, “Has there been any progress finding out who it was shot Pete?”

  Stan shook his head. “Nothing you don’t already know.”

  Although I felt someone could have said that it was nice to have us back in one piece I knew no one would. People’s minds were on other things.

  Colonel Boyd said, “We have a meeting scheduled tomorrow at 0900 hours. We’re hoping we can wrap up the investigation.”

  I said I’d be there.

  “We can talk again in the morning,” Stan said.

  When I got back to Camp Eggers, I remembered that among the things I’d lost out there was the five thousand bucks I was supposed to give the elder. I had an idea I’d be hearing about that.

  Something else I’d lost was my room key, and I needed to call a female sergeant from the Room Assignment building to open my door. And that took a while. It was after 1900 hours when I finally flopped onto my cot. It wasn’t the right moment to call Irmie. I was still too full of what had happened in the Korengal Valley, and I certainly didn’t want Irmie to know anything about that. I knew she was already worrying too much, even though she would never admit it. I hated to think how unhappy I was making her.

  Those were my last thoughts. Despite all the shouting and screaming I’d been doing, I slept soundly.

  CHAPTER 16

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013

  I DECIDED TO skip chow the next morning. After climbing out of my van at the Headquarters parking area, I still felt stiff but a lot better than two days ago. I saw I had twenty minutes to spare and stretched my legs with a walk through the Destille Garden and over to the Coffee Garden for a cup of java. The Coffee Garden, in the ISAF Headquarters building, was filled with office workers grabbing tea and coffee to take back to their offices. Listening in, I caught snatches of French, Italian, and Swedish. In a sense, Kabul had changed since my first visit two years before, and was becoming one of the world’s crossroads.

  Kabul is a nice city—if you’re willing to overlook the frequent Taliban attacks, the traffic chaos, the many military checkpoints, the occasional IED explosions, and the unpredictable green-on-blue killings.

  Something else that was on my mind was the ongoing trial of the twenty-two officials of the Kabul Bank. Like everyone else, I wondered whether the Afghan judges had enough strength of character to find these individuals guilty.

  As I dawdled with my coffee, I shuddered when I thought about how close Haji and I had been to losing our heads. I was still having difficulty trying to figure how the people who grabbed us would have known when we were coming. When I checked my watch, I saw the meeting, which was to take place in a second-floor conference room and was scheduled for 0900 hours, was about to begin. I took a last swallow of coffee and somewhat reluctantly headed upstairs.

  After seating myself at a long table, I realized that the verdict was already a foregone conclusion. Stan hadn’t made any secret out of his intention to find Baram Nolda guilty of shooting Pete. Since I was now convinced that Pete had been killed by Abdul Sakhi, I knew I was going to irritate some people when I stated my opinion.

  For that reason, I only listened for the first fifteen minutes while Stan recounted the details of the investigation for Colonel Boyd’s benefit—Nolda’s background, the interviews, the camera problems.

  Finally, he said, “According to the FBI, one of our assets, an Askar named Abdul Sakhi, was in the building the day Colonel Hansen was shot.”

  When Colonel Boyd frowned, Doug said, “He could have been there for any number of reasons. Only Alex thinks Sakhi killed Pete.”

  With all eyes upon me, including those of Colonel Boyd, I said, “I read Nolda differently right from the start. After talking to his CO and one of his buddies, I was convinced he wasn’t the type to pull a green-on-blue.”

  Hammond shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, the Askars are hard to read.”

  “I agree,” Colonel Boyd said. “Too circumstantial.”

  I said, “There’s more. Last week Nolda’s body turned up in Qargha Lake. This would have been eleven days after Pete was killed. When I saw the
body, I got the impression he’d been in the water for a while, maybe longer than eleven days.”

  Colonel Boyd said, “You were able to determine this individual had been dead for that long? Just by looking at him?” I heard the skeptical tone in his voice.

  “It had the signs, sir. A floater tends to become bloated. You can tell from the color of the skin.” I paused. “And the appearance of the body.” When Colonel Boyd grimaced, I said, “The body had been significantly eaten away. Decomposition would have occurred more slowly in a cold-water lake like Qargha.” Before Colonel Boyd could comment, I said emphatically, “But then the body disappeared.”

  Stan said, “That hospital’s chaotic. There could be any number of reasons for—”

  I said, “A pathologist was set to fly over from Bagram. He could have determined that Nolda was already dead when Pete was shot.”

  Greer said, “Alex, I just don’t see how you could tell from a quick look—”

  Colonel Boyd shook his head. “I don’t either. Sorry. Let’s wrap this up.”

  When Stan said, “How many here think it was Sergeant Nolda killed Colonel Hansen?” I was the only one who didn’t raise a hand.

  Colonel Boyd spent a minute writing in his pad, then stood up and nodded toward Stan.

  “That’s the official version?” Greer said, getting to his feet. “That’s what I can tell the people back in D.C.?”

  “I would say so,” Colonel Boyd said briskly and headed for the door.