This Shall Be a House of Peace

by Phil Halton

  Umar spoke again. “But, forgive me, what exactly are we to do? The path is not as clear to us as perhaps it is to you.”

  Rashid’s voice was full of frustration. “I let Faizal betray us. It is my fault that we can no longer stay here.”

  Umar nodded. “Nasir Khan’s men are numerous and well armed,” he said. “We are tired and poorly equipped. We must do something, and quickly.”

  As the gravity of this fact sank in, all eyes turned to the Mullah again. He slowly stood and moved outside the circle to face everyone at once. “I am not tired. Indeed, I am refreshed.” He lifted his arms up vigorously as if to show his energy. “I am refreshed by my complete submission to the will of God. We are not ill equipped. We ourselves, our bodies, are God’s righteous sword. What better weapon than the heart of a righteous ghazi? You are right that we must leave this place. I know not yet where we will go. God will show us the path, if you are willing to walk it.”

  The men and boys sat stock-still, not looking directly at the Mullah, while letting his words sink in. A gust of wind blew a rolling stream of dust over them, obscuring the landscape around them, confining them for a few seconds inside the cloud. The Mullah continued speaking even as the others covered their mouths. “We must cease this discussion of what we will do next. We will be victorious, insh’allah. That is all we need to know or believe. Do you believe this with all your heart?”

  As the dust rolled onward the Mullah reappeared before them all. He looked from person to person, saying each of their names so that they would look at him. He waited for a moment as each of them weighed the faith that resided in his own heart.

  Umar stood up first. He walked over and knelt before the Mullah. “I place myself in the hands of God, and in your hands, as well. We will be victorious, insh’allah.”

  “It is God’s will,” answered the Mullah.

  Jan Nasrollah and Asadullah Amin approached the Mullah together, each jostling to get ahead of the other. They spoke over each other, Jan Nasrollah’s voice drowning out his brother’s. “Quiet,” he said, “I am the eldest! Mullah, you are like our father. We are yours, and will be victorious, insh’allah.”

  “Insh’allah,” repeated Asadullah Amin, with a vicious look at his brother.

  The small boys began to crowd around the Mullah, each kneeling in turn as did Jan Nasrollah and Asadullah Amin. Their high voices were no less solemn than the others as they said the words: “Insh’allah, we will be victorious.”

  Rashid sat still, not looking at the others, deep in his own thoughts. Isa pushed himself to his feet with a hand on Rashid’s shoulder and waded through the boys toward the Mullah. They parted for him, and he knelt down heavily. Isa’s eyes shone dully. “Mullah, I have passed the point where I can claim to have led a good life. But a good death is to die performing a righteous deed. I will live as best as I can until then. Insh’allah, we will be victorious.”

  The Mullah took Isa by the shoulders, “It is God’s will.”

  Rashid was the last to climb to his feet. He stood before the Mullah and looked him in the eye for a moment before dropping to his knees, saying only one word: “Insh’allah.”

  The Mullah raised Rashid to his feet again and embraced him tightly. “Insh’allah.”

  The sun was high overhead, and the Mullah’s followers suffered in the heat. They carefully searched the compound, looking everywhere to find what might have made the farm worth guarding, their efforts made difficult by the high, scorching sun. Wrecked rope beds, empty cans, and rotten mattresses filled the empty space behind the building. Asadullah Amin picked through the garbage, piling it in one corner, while Isa and Jan Nasrollah worked together to move a pile of stones that might have concealed something. “Do you think that they buried it somewhere?” asked Jan Nasrollah.

  “Do you see it lying around anywhere?” asked Asadullah Amin.

  Rashid flipped over a stinking mattress that came apart in his hands. “I can’t see that they did if it’s the size that Faizal described.”

  Jan Nasrollah’s tone was acidic. “We should never have believed a word that he said.”

  Rashid stopped and looked at him thoughtfully. “I don’t think that he lied about the cache. His betrayal only came later.”

  Asadullah Amin tossed a broken wooden bed frame into the corner but added nothing to the conversation. Isa and Jan Nasrollah rolled a heavy stone together, pushing it against their growing pile. “Maybe they moved the cache,” said Asadullah Amin.

  “It sounded too big to be moved without someone noticing,” said Rashid.

  Jan Nasrollah stopped working and wiped his brow. “What if someone did notice, but they’re not here to tell us?”

  Rashid stopped working, as well. “Then we will soon know. There is little room to conceal anything here, and we have nearly turned over every stone. Literally.”

  Rashid hoped to get a smile or laugh from the two young men, but they just rolled their eyes before going back to their work. Isa did not look up, but worked as slowly now as he always did, his eyes dull and flat.

  Jan Nasrollah heaved another stone to the edge of the compound. “Maybe we are just wasting our time here.”

  “Do you have a better idea of what to do, then?” asked Asadullah Amin.

  Isa looked pale despite the heat. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and sat down heavily on the edge of an old rope bed that he had just uncovered from within a pile of garbage.

  The bed collapsed with a crack, and Isa fell hard to the ground, disappearing from sight with a scream followed a few seconds later by a splash. Jan Nasrollah and Rashid stared at the hole in the ground that had opened up beneath him. Rashid moved to the edge of the hole and peered down. A square hole, cut into the mud and rock, plunged straight down into the earth, ending in a dark pool of brackish water. Deep handholds were cut into the sides of the well. Rashid quickly climbed into the hole and began to scramble down. Partway down, he let go of the wall and plunged into the water.

  Rashid kept his eyes open, scanning underwater for Isa. He quickly found him and pulled him to the surface, legs kicking hard. Isa spat out a stream of water and dry-heaved as he came to the surface. Rashid held him carefully under one arm, holding onto the wall with the other. “You’ll be all right, my friend.”

  The Mullah had come from inside the farm, alarmed by the noise, and had pushed the boys aside to peer down the hole that was illuminated by the midday sun. “It is a miracle,” he said.

  Rashid shouted up at him. “He will be all right.”

  “Can you bring him back up?” asked Umar.

  “Send down a rope. He’s not ready to climb just yet.”

  The boys all gathered behind the Mullah, wary of the deep hole. They chattered among themselves, alive with questions. “What is this hole?” they asked.

  The Mullah turned to them, his voice again that of a schoolteacher. “This is a qanat.”

  Some of the boys tried the unfamiliar word.

  “A qanat is a type of well,” said the Mullah. “It draws water from the mountainside down to the valley farms. It is a long underground tunnel, with deep holes to access it along its length.”

  Umar addressed the boys, as well. “We mujahideen sometimes hid in them, or used them to travel in secret.”

  The Mullah held up a finger. “And to store things.”

  Asadullah Amin pulled a length of frayed rope from the wreckage in the corner. It was not nearly long enough to reach the bottom of the qanat, and so he tied it into a loop instead, which he draped over one shoulder. He struggled to find his footing as he began to lower himself over the lip of the hole.

  “Help your brother,” commanded the Mullah, and Jan Nasrollah grudgingly held out his hands.

  Asadullah Amin climbed down the well, using the deep handholds cut into the rock. As he descended the shaft, he passed horizontal passages cut through the rock, too dark to peer into. He soon reached the bottom of the well, his feet just above Rashid’s head. Isa was conscious
and breathing normally, slumped against Rashid, who clung to the handholds concealed in the water. Asadullah Amin passed the loop of rope to Rashid, and climbed back up to the lowest horizontal chamber.

  Rashid passed the rope under Isa’s arms and the other end of the loop over one shoulder. He began to climb the side of the well. Isa followed him, supporting most of his own weight but held up by the rope linking him to Rashid should he fall. Asadullah Amin helped pull first Rashid and then Isa into the horizontal passage with a hand under each of their arms. As he did, he told each of them, “It is a miracle!”

  They each gazed down the length of the deep chamber, their eyes adjusting to the dark. The passage was stacked with green military crates, crusted with mud and dust, extending into the darkness. On the floor were a few boards and a block and tackle.

  Rashid brushed off one end of a box with his wet sleeve, reading the Cyrillic writing on the side. “It says that inside are ten kalashes.” He gave a low whistle, looking at the others. “Ten kalashes times how many crates? A hundred?”

  “And there are two more chambers that I passed as I climbed down,” said Asadullah Amin.

  They heard a shout from above, and tried to look up from the chamber. “What have you found?” asked the Mullah.

  Asadullah Amin shouted up at the Mullah. “Quick! Come down quick! It is a miracle!”

  The Mullah swiftly lowered himself over the rim of the hole, looking at Jan Nasrollah as he did. “Keep the boys up here away from the qanat.”

  When he reached the lower chamber, Rashid had already cracked open one of the crates of rifles. He pulled a kalash out from inside and smiled. “Still in packing grease.”

  The Mullah took it from him and turned it over in his hands, appreciating the pristine state that it was in. “What else?”

  “I only looked down this chamber, but there seems to be a little of everything. Rifles, ammunition, mines, grenades. Anything you could ask for.”

  Asadullah Amin pulled another rifle from the crate. “Praise be to Allah!”

  Rashid clapped him on the shoulder. “And thanks to Engineer Hekmatyar.”

  The Mullah turned to climb back up out of the well. “Rashid, you know well what kinds of things we need right away.”

  “Right away?” asked Rashid.

  The Mullah disappeared up the shaft and back into the sunlight. “We must move quickly.”

  The boys took up the slack on the rope and began to haul the crate up out of the well. Inch by inch they pulled, until it swung unsteadily under the bed frame. Jan Nasrollah carefully pulled it to the side, gritting his teeth. “Let it down. Slowly, slowly.”

  The crate came to rest beside the entrance to the well. Jan Nasrollah quickly untied it and dragged it to the side with the other three crates they had already raised.

  Rashid came climbing up out of the well. He clapped Jan Nasrollah on the shoulder as he passed him. His hand traced the outline of each crate that had been brought up and dragged off to the side, doing some mental calculations. He gave a satisfied grunt, and said, “Three more crates and we are done.” He then went looking for the Mullah, whom he found seated in the shade of the wall around the front of the compound. “We have pulled almost everything that we need out of the well.”

  “Very good,” said the Mullah. “How soon will we be ready?”

  “By dark. We just have to break it down into individual loads.”

  “Mash’allah.”

  “If I knew more about our plans, I could —”

  The Mullah waved off his concern with one hand. “All will become apparent once we are ready.” The Mullah closed his eyes in meditation, dismissing Rashid and ending the conversation. Rashid returned to his task.

  It was getting dark by the time the work was complete. Rashid laid out the weapons he had selected from the stores in the qanat and now began to assign them to each of the boys and men.

  To each of the boys he handed a kalash from which most of the packing grease had been hastily wiped. The boys had occupied themselves filling magazines, and now each of them wore a simple set of pouches across his chest. “Make sure that your lifchikas are full, I want you to have six full magazines each.”

  He next selected two rocket-propelled grenade launchers off of the ground and handed them to Umar and Jan Nasrollah. He then helped them pull the ammunition carriers onto their backs. “Three rounds each, including the one on the launcher already.” Umar had been chatting quietly with Jan Nasrollah but fell silent when he felt the weight of the pack.

  Rashid showed them how to carry the RPG tucked under one arm, the short sling over their shoulder taking up most of the weight. “You can fire it from here, too,” he said.

  A third backpack was handed to Isa, who buckled slightly under the weight. “The blocks of explosives in that pack are inert unless you use one of these.” He held up a metal tube the size of a finger. “I’ll hold on to the detonators for now.”

  Rashid turned to Asadullah Amin. “Little brother, I have something special for you.” He wheeled a bicycle out from where it had been leaning on the wall. Two heavy ammunition crates were tied together by the handles with rope and sat hanging over the bicycle’s frame. A pair of plastic water jugs were draped over the frame behind the crates. “This is much lighter to push than it would be to carry.” Asadullah Amin took the handlebars and pushed it back and forth. With effort, he could move it.

  Rashid picked up his own weapon, a kalash with a heavy drum magazine attached, and turned to the Mullah. “I have taken everything that I can imagine we will need from the qanat. Everything that we can carry, at least. We are ready, Mullah.”

  The Mullah shouldered his own pack. Its straps cut deeply into his broad shoulders, but he made no sign that he noticed. “We will cut off the head of the snake. We will finish this business with Nasir Khan directly, in his own home.”

  Looks of surprise crossed their faces, but no one spoke a word. The Mullah led the way out of the compound and into the countryside. He turned to Rashid as he stepped through the metal doorway. “You’re sure it won’t destroy it all?”

  “Yes. It will just drop the entrances to the horizontal chambers.”

  “Good. Wait until we are all clear.”

  Rashid watched as each of them left the compound and walked along in single file behind the Mullah into the night. Once they were nearly a hundred yards away, he went back to the top of the qanat. A yellow detonation cord ran from where he had tied it to a broken bed frame down into the darkness of the well. Rashid pulled the pin from the detonator and turned the ring, letting it snap into place. The friction lit the cord, which burned down into the well.

  Rashid left the compound at a light jog, well aware of how long the cord would burn. As he caught up to the column, the charges exploded with a deep thump. They all felt it in their chest as the sound wave washed over them. A plume of dust and smoke poured out of the well, obscuring their view of the building within the compound. Rashid stopped to admire his handiwork for a moment, and then he fell in with the others as they marched through the night.

  CHAPTER 25

  The Mullah lay on his back in what meagre shade he could create for himself. His patu, brown like the earth around him, sloped over him from the edge of the rock above, held down with small stones and earth. All around him lay his followers, concealed in a dry wadi where they waited through the heat of the day.

  The Mullah’s mouth was dry, his tongue thick. He pursed his cracked lips to speak, but did not, instead waving for Rashid to come to him from under the cover of his own patu.

  Rashid saw the signal and scurried over to the Mullah, keeping low to the ground. He did not think that there was anyone who could see them, but he took no chances. He lay down next to the Mullah, his ear cocked to listen.

  “How much water do we have left?” the Mullah whispered.

  Rashid shook his head. His parched lips hurt as he spoke, although he barely moved them. “Very little.”

  The
Mullah nodded. “Still, we will survive.” The Mullah’s eyes wandered to the end of the wadi. “Have another look over the rim of the wadi to make sure that there is no one who will disturb us.”

  Rashid moved off in a low crouch, his kalash hanging loosely from one hand. He moved to the edge of the wadi and stopped. Dropping down onto his belly, he crawled along the hot earth until he could just see the highway nearby.

  A small collection of farms clustered around the junction of the highway and a small stream. At the edge of the village, rubble had been piled on the highway in a pattern that forced vehicles to slow down. Lying among the rubble were a half-dozen bandits, all seeking shade.

  Rashid did not have binoculars, but his eyesight was keen. He pulled his patu over his head and shoulders to better conceal himself, and lay watching the highway for a long time. The bandits only roused themselves once, when a car appeared on the highway, but the car turned around without coming through the checkpoint at all. The bandits went back to their shade.

  Rashid’s mouth was hot and dry, so he popped a small, round pebble under his tongue. The pebble tricked his mouth into salivating and provided some small relief for a few minutes. He licked his lips, though he knew that it would not help for long.

  A few villagers moved about in the fields surrounding the village, but Rashid did not see what he feared the most. The village was poor, and seemed to have no herds of animals. A shepherd might use the wadi to move his flock and would be sure to spot them. Satisfied that they were in no danger, Rashid slid backwards and returned to the Mullah.

  “We should be safe.”

  The Mullah nodded and went back to his thoughts. Rashid waited a moment longer and then went back to his shady spot at the other end of the group. He placed his kalash on the ground and lay down in the thin shade of the wadi’s walls. Jan Nasrollah and Asadullah Amin lay behind him, separated from him by a large rock.

  “Any news?” asked Asadullah Amin.