This Shall Be a House of Peace

by Phil Halton

  Rashid stopped frequently, Isa crouching close behind him, moving his shoulders impatiently to find a way to balance the weight on his back so that it did not hurt. When they paused, Rashid listened carefully for any sign that they had been seen or that Nasir Khan’s men were patrolling. In this manner they moved slowly, from cover to cover, creeping closer.

  Rashid stepped gingerly through a small patch of gravel and stopped to crouch behind a large, low rock. Behind him, Isa stumbled on the same gravel and slipped, rolling under the weight of his pack. As he fell, he gripped his rifle tightly, instinctively, and his finger squeezed the trigger when he hit the ground. A single shot went straight into the air and the sound carried sharply in all directions.

  Rashid and Isa froze where they were, hoping not to be seen in the darkness. The tank crew lounging by their vehicle shot to their feet. In their haste to mount the vehicle, the driver knocked over their lantern, which smashed on the ground and went out. The other guard scrambled to the top of the turret and shouted at the compound, “Wake up! They’re here!”

  As Rashid watched, the two guards dropped into the tank, slamming the hatch closed over their heads. Seconds later the turret began to rotate slowly, as if cranked by hand, to point in the direction from which they had heard the shot.

  Rashid and Isa hugged the earth as tightly as they could as firing started along the top of the compound wall, the chatter of kalashes filling the pre-dawn darkness with noise. The ground around them was sprayed with bullets, fired wildly but still deadly. A heavy machine gun started firing, as well, adding a deeper thump to the sound of the gunfire.

  They expected us, thought Rashid. The sound of gunfire resonated in the pit of his stomach. Rashid saw in Isa’s eyes that he was full of fear. Isa reached out and took Rashid’s hand as they clung to the ground together.

  A few hundred yards away, the Mullah and the others watched as the compound came alive like a nest of angry ants. There was a brief pause in the wild firing aimed at the sound of the shot, just long enough for Nasir Khan’s voice to be heard. “You are outgunned, Mullah! You cannot fight my men and a tank! Surrender!”

  The Mullah’s followers froze, cowed by the surprising weight of fire coming from the compound and the failure of their plan. The boys all huddled together, wild-eyed, each pressing against one another in a tight clump. Some whimpered quietly at the tremendous noise of the gunfire, but most seemed to have been frightened into a state of silent shock. The Mullah looked at them for a moment, and then began to bark out orders to the others who had not yet frozen completely. “Fire the RPGs. We must hit the tank and machine gun from here.”

  Umar and Jan Nasrollah loaded the RPGs they had been carrying, sliding rockets into the end of the tubes. Once they were both loaded, Umar gave a nod to Jan Nasrollah, and they stood up in unison. Umar shouted as they fired the rockets. “Allah-u akbar!”

  The rockets streaked up the hill toward their targets, but both went high, carrying on into the dark sky and exploding in the far distance. The Mullah slid along the ground toward them, keeping low. He spoke directly into their ears so that he could be heard over the deafening sound of the gunfire around them.

  “Umar, look at the tank,” said the Mullah. “Aim for the point between the turret and the hull.” When Umar nodded that he understood, the Mullah turned and spoke to Jan Nasrollah. “Aim for the wall just below the gun.”

  Umar and Jan Nasrollah reloaded their launchers, the boy’s fingers shaking as he tried to slide the round into the tube. Umar watched him as he fumbled before using one hand to steady the rocket and drive it home. Umar looked Jan Nasrollah in the eye and nodded. Once more they pushed themselves off the ground into a standing position, rockets balanced on their shoulders. As they stood, the ground around them was torn up by incoming fire, throwing dust and sparks into their faces. They pulled their triggers and dropped to the ground, not pausing to see where their shots would land. The rockets went wide, peeling off into the darkness again. The heavy machine gun at the edge of the compound wall began to rake back and forth around the source of the rocket fire. The bullets dug into the ground in front of the men, throwing up a bigger cloud of dust and a hail of stones that peppered them as they pressed themselves into the earth.

  The Mullah slid backwards and raised himself into a half crouch, speaking now to the boys who cowered in a heap on the ground, clutching their kalashes. “Move up! Move up!” He grabbed one boy by the kamiz and lifted him onto his feet. He began to manhandle the other boys as he spoke. “When I give the signal, you must all fire at the edge of the compound wall. This will give Umar and Jan Nasrollah a chance to fire their rockets.”

  The boys looked at him mutely, but seemed to understand. Asadullah Amin crawled over to squat in the midst of the boys. From this position, he was just barely able to make out the outline of the tank in the darkness. The turret was still traversing slowly, and now the huge barrel of the gun was starting to elevate, as well. Asadullah Amin realized that soon it would be pointing in their direction.

  Umar and Jan Nasrollah, having reloaded their launchers, looked to the Mullah for a signal. The Mullah held out a hand toward them like a symphony conductor. He shouted at the boys: “Stand! Stand and fire!” Asadullah Amin was the first on his feet, and the boys followed his example.

  They stood like old men bent down as they faced into a sandstorm. The boys fired their kalashes at the compound, most with their eyes closed and triggers held down tightly. The sudden volume of fire surprised Nasir Khan’s men, but not before two of the boys were cut down like wheat under a scythe. Asadullah Amin looked down at their shattered bodies. Rasul, the youngest boy in the madrassa, bled from a half a dozen holes in his chest. He lay on his back, his arms thrown over his head as if merely playing dead. The other boy fell closer to the firing line, but his face was no longer recognizable. Asadullah Amin did not take the time to look at the others in order to determine who it must be. He focused instead on firing his own kalash, mechanically changing magazines when it ran dry.

  As the fire from the boys built, the Mullah waved his hand at Umar and Jan Nasrollah, who quickly stood, carefully aiming their rockets at their targets. The rockets streaked out through the night one after the other. Umar’s rocket hit the ground in front of the tank, sending a spray of dirt and gravel up at the turret.

  Jan Nasrollah’s rocket hit the compound wall just below where the machine gun had been firing. Mud bricks shattered, spraying deadly shrapnel through the men who had been manning the machine gun. Their bodies toppled to the ground, and one of the metal compound doors now hung askew in its frame. The fire from the compound slackened off again.

  “Allah-u akbar!” cried the Mullah.

  After a moment, the shout went up from the boys, as well. “Allah-u akbar!”

  Before they finished shouting, the Mullah was already on his feet and running toward the compound. Asadullah Amin was close behind him, shouting at the boys, “Up! Get up! With the Mullah! Allah-u akbar!”

  Isa and Rashid were still firmly pressing their bodies against the earth, trying to use what little cover the rolling ground could give them. They were covered in clods of dirt sprayed over them by bullets that had struck all around. Hearing the firing slacken, Rashid lifted his head enough to turn and speak to Isa. “We need to pull back now. You move first. I’ll cover you.”

  Isa hid his head behind his backpack, which he clutched with both hands. “But what about the tank?”

  Rashid shook his head. “We’ll have to find another way.”

  Isa looked Rashid in the eye and began to scramble to his feet. “Death in the company of friends is as a feast, my brother.” He leapt up, but instead of retreating he ran forward toward the tank. Rashid pulled himself up into a crouch, and fired every round in his drum magazine in one very long burst at the top edge of the compound wall. His eyes followed Isa the whole time that his kalash shuddered in his hands.

  By a miracle, Isa made it to the side of the tank u
nscathed. He swung himself up onto the hull over one of the tracks, fumbling the backpack as he did so. Rounds struck the side of the tank with metallic pings, forcing him to tuck himself into the seam of the turret and the body, pushing his face against the metal. When the firing paused for a moment, he rolled off the tank and onto the ground, recovering the backpack and hoisting it back up.

  Isa pulled himself onto the tank again, sheltering the explosives with his body. He adjusted the backpack, pushing it firmly against the base of the turret, which continued to grind slowly around toward the Mullah and the others. His hands worked quickly, pulling a simple timer out of the bag, checking that the detonator cord was still firmly seated inside its metal body.

  Rashid changed magazines and raised his weapon to fire again. Before he did, he heard a burst of fire from the compound wall. Bullets ripped through Isa and ricocheted off the hull underneath him. His body slumped over top of the charge that he had just set, blood seeping through the backpack. A second burst tore through his legs, spattering the side of the turret with blood.

  Rashid began to climb to his feet, ready to charge toward the tank to set the explosives, when he saw that Isa’s head had turned to face him. In his fingers was the timer, which he twisted to set for a short delay. Isa pulled the safety pin with what little strength he had. Isa’s lips moved, wet with blood, but Rashid could not tell what he was saying.

  Rashid whispered to himself, “None is worthy of worship except Allah.”

  With a thunderous crack and a billow of black smoke, the charge detonated against the weakest point in the tank. Isa was flung in a thousand directions at once. Smoke streamed out of the buckled hatches. The tank was no longer a threat to anyone.

  Rashid could hear the cries of the Mullah and the boys as they charged up the slope behind him. Umar and Jan Nasrollah were behind them, herding the boys forward and firing over their heads. The boys were firing sporadically from the hip toward the top of the compound wall, but by now there was little resistance as they closed the short distance remaining to the wrecked gate.

  The Mullah disappeared through the entrance first, but the boys hesitated. One metal door hung off of its hinges, blackened and twisted. Rashid rushed past the boys, shouting encouragement at them as he ran, Umar on his heels, and ducked through the doorway, stepping over the crumpled body of one of the machine gunners as he went. He heard his own voice crying out: “Takbir!”

  Hearing his shout, the boys followed him into the fortress.

  “Allah-u akbar!”

  They all fired madly at everything they saw, shouting takbirs as they went. Asadullah Amin watched them run, hearing the short bursts of fire as they reached each new room in the building. He turned in a different direction, walking cautiously along the outer perimeter of the compound, reasoning that Nasir Khan would be as far from the fighting as he could get. He reached a heavy door that was closed but not locked. He swung it open and listened. There was neither the sound of gunfire nor shouting from this section of the fortress, and so he stepped through the doorway and began to follow a long hallway that seemed to lead into a separate back compound.

  While he could still hear the others charging madly from room to room behind him, he watched and listened before moving. He gripped his kalash in both hands, holding it out in front of him at the ready, letting the barrel turn corners and enter rooms before he did himself. Asadullah Amin rounded the final corner at the end of the passage to find himself in a small courtyard. In the corner were a huddle of women and very young children. Some of the women wore chadors, and the others hid their faces with their hands. The children tried to hide behind them or in the folds of their veils. The women and children all wailed piteously, hands stretched out, begging for mercy.

  Asadullah Amin lowered the barrel of his rifle, and averted his eyes from the women. “Peace be upon you, sisters. We are not here for you.”

  The women and children began to wail again as the boy in the sequined vest pushed himself through the little group, holding a short-barrelled rifle in his hands. He briefly thought about shouting at Asadullah Amin, to draw attention to himself, and to the power that he held in his hands, but instead he just fired a series of short bursts.

  Asadullah Amin was still looking away when the rounds ripped through his arms and chest. He turned as he fell, his mind detached, briefly noting the pockmarks that were appearing in the plaster of the wall behind him. He did not feel himself hit the ground and no longer heard the women or children over the sound of blood pulsing in his ears.

  The boy growled like an animal as he saw Asadullah Amin drop to the floor in a widening pool of blood. The other children clutched at his legs and hid their faces in fear, but he ignored them, staring only at the destruction he had caused.

  When Jan Nasrollah stepped into the courtyard, drawn by the firing and the shout, his eyes quickly skimmed over the boy in the sequined vest to his fallen brother, lying on the floor like a broken toy. As he ran toward his brother, he fired a long salvo of bullets from the hip, cutting across the boy and the women and children huddled around him. The boy’s slight body was driven back against the wall, collapsing in a spray of blood. The women and children fell on top of him, shattered by the gunfire.

  “Allah-u akbar!” cried Jan Nasrollah from where he stood on the other side of the courtyard. When his rifle had run dry, he snapped a fresh magazine into place and fired again, into the boy in the sequined vest, into the bodies of the women, into the children, into everything.

  “Allah-u akbar!”

  When his rifle was empty for the last time and he had no more magazines left, he dropped the rifle and collapsed beside his brother. Cradling his brother’s head in his lap, he sobbed. His head was full of all the words that he wanted to say, that he had not said in months, but his tongue was thick and the words stuck there. He tried to force them out between his lips.

  “Amin.”

  There was a bubble of blood at his brother’s lips, which may have moved ever so slightly. He strained his ears to listen.

  “Wasif. Tell me a story.”

  CHAPTER 27

  The Mullah moved cautiously through the guest house library where he had once met with Nasir Khan. The room was silent, though shots could be heard coming from the rest of the compound. The Mullah examined each room carefully, checking everywhere that a person could hide. Rounding a long, low couch, he stopped. Spread across the floor at his feet were bundles of rupees, each wrapped in a strip of paper and tied with string. There were dozens of these bundles, so many that walking across the floor here was difficult. All together they were a fortune. He reached down and picked up one packet of rupees, turning it over in his hands thoughtfully. His eyes strayed from the money to a battered tin trunk that was tucked up against the wall nearby.

  The Mullah dropped the rupees as he moved toward the trunk, lightning quick. He flung open the lid with one hand, pointing the barrel of his kalash into it with the other. Crouched down inside of it on what stacks of money remained was Nasir Khan.

  He shook with terror, hands clutched over his head, as he looked up at the Mullah. “Stop! Please! I am unarmed!”

  The Mullah sneered. “Stop what? What do you think I am here to do?”

  Nasir Khan took his hands from his head and stood up awkwardly, balancing on the uneven piles of money in the tin trunk. He held out his hands to the Mullah, begging. “I was right when I said that I underestimated you. For that, I am very sorry.”

  “Just for that?” asked the Mullah.

  Nasir Khan slowly crouched down, grasping a bundle of money in each hand and holding them out to the Mullah. “Let me reframe my offer from before. I will work for you. Gladly.”

  The Mullah looked at him silently as Nasir Khan continued to speak.

  “Together we can still run this district. Maybe even more. And we can both be rich men.” As if to prove it, he held the money out again.

  The Mullah grabbed him roughly by the shirt collar and dragged
him out of the tin box. His feet dragged across the floor of the room as the Mullah pulled him along. “Let me ask the others what they think of your offer. Discussion is the way of our people, as you well know.”

  When the Mullah emerged from the compound, dawn had begun to break over the far hills, spreading light in jagged fingers through the mountaintops, slowly illuminating the dark landscape. He looked around for a moment, blinking. Black smoke poured from several places inside the compound. Outside of it, a gaggle of boys stood next to the blackened hull of the tank. Asadullah Amin and two other dead boys lay at their feet on a bedspread taken from inside.

  Jan Nasrollah sat beside his brother, holding his hand tightly. With his other hand he clutched his kalash across his lap. Rashid stood over him, one hand on his shoulder. He chose his words carefully. “Jan Nasrollah, today you are truly a man. You will marry your brother’s widow, as is right and proper.”

  Jan Nasrollah made no indication that he heard him.

  Rashid climbed up onto the tank and peered down through an open hatch. “I thought as much. If there were any ammo inside this tank, it would have cooked off. There would be nothing left of it.” He looked around at the others. “An unloaded weapon makes two people afraid.”

  No one responded to him. They stood close together, almost touching. They looked away from the bodies at their feet.

  The Mullah dragged Nasir Khan by one arm through them, stopping in front of the tank. All eyes were fixed on him as he spoke. “This man has made us an offer. He will work for me and will make us all rich men. What do you think?”

  Before anyone could respond, Umar appeared at the tangled gates dragging a wounded man. He shouted, “Mullah, wait. Look who I found. Another old friend.” Umar held him up at the shoulders, but the man was so covered in blood as to be unrecognizable.

  The injured man looked up, wiping blood from his eyes so that he could see the others. It was Faizal. He dropped to his knees on the spot, arms outstretched. “Please, forgive me, all of you.”