You know what? That’s a pretty good life. A full life.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized how truly blessed I was. I still had hope and peace. Could my Taliban kidnappers say that?
I wondered what these men thought as they observed me. If I am the book these guys are going to read, what is being written in this chapter? What are they reading in me right now? If I’ve been put in this situation to show them another approach to life, how do I reflect that? Certainly not with anxiety, tension, and uncertainty. I sensed that I was being challenged.
As I trudged farther with each step from the life I knew and the people I loved, I was thankful that the God I knew seemed to be allowing me to see the bigger picture—that he was still in charge and that I still had a role to play, even in what might be my final moments. I was okay. Even here, now, I could choose to find peace.
The sun was setting, sending slivers of uneven shadows across our path, when another childhood memory came to mind. It was a tune I’d sung hundreds of times without thinking much about the meaning of the words. Now, however, those words meant everything to me. In my mind I started singing it over and over, sometimes alternating it with another song, but always coming back to the original. Twice, caught up in my emotions, I had to clamp my mouth shut as I began to sing out loud: “Jesus, name above all names . . .”
As the darkness spread, I concentrated my eyes on the narrow trail so I wouldn’t stumble or fall. My head was lowered, but my heart was in the heavens.
CHAPTER FOUR
TALIBAN HOSPITALITY
7:15 P.M., WEDNESDAY
I NEVER EVEN NOTICED THE DEPRESSION IN THE TRAIL. WHEN my left leg slipped into the hole, I was too tired to respond. My ankle twisted. I tripped and landed on my left knee and hand, narrowly avoiding tumbling headlong into the dirt. As tempted as I was to let myself fall so I could just lie there, I knew that wasn’t an option. Haqqani’s Kalashnikov nudged me even as I staggered to my feet.
Four hours. That’s how long we’d been hiking with almost no break at all. Fatigue, mixed with a rise in altitude and adrenaline spikes and drops from facing armed kidnappers, had begun to wear me down. Rafiq also seemed to be moving slower. I had to admire Farzad and our captors, however. They still seemed to be pushing forward with relative ease.
Passing clouds partly obscured the two-thirds-full moon. My eyes had mostly adjusted to the darkness, but my feet did not always cooperate. The fall was my second since sundown. Fortunately my ankle seemed all right. And I didn’t feel so bad about it when Hopeless also tripped and nearly sprawled on the trail a few minutes after I did.
A half hour earlier I’d spotted a single-story structure on a hill, ahead and to the left of the direction we were headed. Though I didn’t see light or movement, it immediately raised my hopes. What if people saw the six of us walking in the dark? Would they stop us and ask questions? Would the sight of guns scare them off, or would they decide to get involved?
Unfortunately, our captors led us on into the night without even a glance at the home on the hill. It was another letdown on a day overflowing with extreme emotions.
A few minutes later Rafiq’s voice broke the stillness. Though I didn’t know what he’d said in Pashto, I soon understood when our captors stopped and Rafiq sat down. Grateful for the respite, I plopped down near my friend. The three gunmen soon joined us on the ground.
This was a rare opportunity to catch my breath and gather my thoughts. Man, I need to find a way to identify with these guys. No matter how different we are, there must be a way.
Inspiration struck a moment later. I whisper to Rafiq, “Should I tell them that my kids have Pashtun blood?”
He considers this a moment; then without looking at me whispers back, “Go ahead.”
I clear my throat and begin to speak in a loud voice: “I just want you to know that I am originally from India. And as such, I am your neighbor.”
Each of the three Taliban watch me closely as I speak. I see no anger or malice in their eyes, but there is nothing encouraging there either. I keep going, as Rafiq continues translating for me.
“Historically, India has been a big-brother nation to Afghanistan. If not for the political boundaries drawn by the British close to a century ago in your land, we would all still be one nation.”
Still no response. I’m glad for the pause while Rafiq translates my words. It gives me time to decide what to say next.
“I also have the privilege of having Pashtun blood in my family,” I say. “My wife’s great, great, paternal grandmother was a Pashtun princess who married a man from India. So my children have some Pashtun blood in them as a result.
“I have come to your nation several times now with the hope of being of assistance in the rebuilding of your nation. My desire is to continue the same great relationship that our countrymen have had for a very long time.”
My speech was over. I was disappointed by the lack of response. The three Taliban made no comments and asked no questions. What had I expected? I suppose I’d hoped for something along the line of, “Sorry, we didn’t realize you are one of us. You can go now.”
Obviously that wasn’t going to happen.
Nevertheless, it felt good to have at least attempted to connect and make peace with them. I had put it out there for them to deal with. The response was now up to them.
Our hike continued, our group in the usual sequence: Ahmed led, with Rafiq just behind him. Twenty feet behind them were Farzad and Hopeless. After another twenty feet, Haqqani and I brought up the rear.
With the sun down, I had lost my sense of direction, but there was no hesitation on the part of our captors. We moved steadily, even urgently, toward what was to me an unknown destination.
It’s interesting how the mind works when it is calm. Even in dire circumstances, once you’ve resolved that you don’t need to be anxious about what’s happening—in other words, once you’ve shut down fight-or-flight responses—the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in so your body can relax and conserve energy.
Strangely, perhaps, this was happening to me. I was pleased to notice that despite the continuous walking up and down hills and the presence of a gunman at my back, my heart was not beating at a rapid pace. For the moment, I had accepted that there was nothing I could do about the situation. It had become a routine. I wasn’t consciously thinking about the danger. Even in the dark my focus was simply on placing one foot where the other foot had just been and repeating the process.
It was about an hour after my brief speech that I was startled by movement on our left. I was amazed to see it was a boy, about seven years old, forty feet away and on an intersecting course with our path. The moonlight revealed a slim youth with unruly dark hair, covered with dust. He carried three or four loaves of freshly baked naan and a kettle of water.
Where had he come from? Was it a coincidence, or had he been told to be in this exact spot at this exact time?
When the boy was close, Hopeless spoke to him. Without a word the boy handed over his load and quickly disappeared. It angered me that the Taliban had so much control over this child and his life. Yet it was an all-too-common story.
The father of the Taliban movement was a veteran of the mujahideen war against the Soviet Union, a Pashtun and Muslim fundamentalist named Mohammed Omar. In 1994, following the withdrawal of Soviet troops after its failed occupation, Afghanistan had descended into lawlessness and civil war. One day Omar was stopped and robbed by armed bandits at five roadblocks on a twenty-five-mile road between his village and Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city.
Omar was outraged. He organized a Jirga, or tribal council, of more than fifty area religious leaders. These men formed a militia with the goal of eliminating one checkpoint. When their lightly armed party chased off the bandits without a shot being fired, they advanced to the next checkpoint. Within a week all the roadblocks between Omar’s village and Kandahar had been cleared. Omar used the Pashto word for “stu
dents of Islam” to name his group: Taliban.
Soon after, Omar reportedly led thirty men armed with sixteen rifles to free two teenage girls who had been kidnapped and raped by a warlord, hanging the local commander from the barrel of a tank gun. More incidents like these led to support from a population weary of chaos and random violence.
Then Omar claimed to have had a dream telling him that Allah had chosen him to bring peace to Afghanistan. He found a ready supply of recruits for his new movement in madrassas—Islamic religious schools. When millions of Afghans fled their homes during the war against the Soviet Union, many ended up in refugee camps along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The young students here were taught a particularly austere and rigid form of Islam. They faced monotony and filth daily, with little promise for change. By comparison, Omar and the Taliban appeared to offer a life of excitement, hope, and meaning.
If the boy I’d just seen and others like him joined the Taliban, however, what hope did they really have? The Taliban may have brought order to Afghanistan, but their strict interpretation of Sharia law, brutal treatment of women, and dependence on violence to achieve their aims hardly seemed life-giving. I imagined that new converts would live not a life of peace but one of continuing aggression and terrorism. I was a doctor, trying to better equip people to deal with their medical issues. How did kidnapping or killing me foster anything that could be called peace?
After the boy left, Hopeless removed the checkered scarf that was wrapped like a turban around his head and spread it out on the trail. Haqqani placed the boy’s water kettle in the middle and motioned for us to sit around it on the edge of the scarf. At least, it appeared, I would not die hungry.
The three Taliban sat opposite Rafiq, Farzad, and me so we faced one another in a tight circle. Hopeless then removed the cloth that covered a still-warm loaf of naan, tore off a chunk, and passed it on. Each of us in turn tore off a piece.
After a couple minutes of chewing, Hopeless looks at me and says via Rafiq’s translation, “Isn’t this the best naan you’ve ever tasted? This naan is even better than what’s served in the best restaurants in Kabul.”
I sense that Hopeless isn’t just making conversation. There is almost a challenge in his voice.
“Oh, this is so good,” I say. “Thank you very much.”
It was good, and I was genuinely grateful to stop and eat after so much walking. I also did not want to disagree or say anything that might offend these men.
It was strange to be sitting so close to Taliban warriors in these remote mountains and having an almost-cordial conversation. There was no talk of violence or of how we might be killed. Our captors talked instead about their life in the mountains. It was almost as if a group of old and new friends had gathered to share a meal.
My experience has shown me that hospitality is important to us humans. We will go to great lengths to make our guests feel welcome. When I was growing up in India—perhaps the same age as the boy who had carried the naan—my parents and I went to visit a family whose father was dying of a chronic illness. The family had little; they barely could keep their roof together. While some of her children greeted us at the door, the family’s mother dashed out a back door. Understanding what was happening, my parents rushed in and tried to stop the mother, but they were too late.
The mother returned a few minutes later with a package of biscuits she’d purchased. Though she clearly could not afford to do so, this poor woman felt a strong obligation to treat us well.
Hospitality is equally important, if not more so, in Afghan culture—even, it seemed, among the Taliban. Nearly all Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns. The Pashtun people adhere to a code of conduct known as Pashtunwali. According to the code, it is a matter of honor to take care of one’s guests. Custom dictates that even an enemy, if he comes to your door and asks for refuge, must be protected as if he is a member of the family. An Afghan proverb states, “Honor the guest, O son. Even though he be an infidel, open the door.”
Rafiq, Farzad, and I now benefited from this practice. Though we were prisoners and though I, as an American, represented the “enemy,” they still were expected to sit down and break bread with us. It was a bit of comfort at a time when any positive sign was welcome. When no one was looking, I stuffed a piece of naan into my pocket. If I survived this ordeal, I wanted a token to remember this moment, a small piece of evidence that I had been treated well.
The naan helped fill my stomach, but I was desperately thirsty. Had I known we would be hiking for so long, I certainly would have made an effort at our first stop to screen out any nasty parasites and drunk heartily from the pool. While we ate, I eagerly kept my eye on the boy’s water kettle.
Soon each of the three Taliban picked up the kettle in turn and took a long gulp from the wide opening on top. When Ahmed offered it to me, I gratefully and carefully lifted the kettle above my head and poured water into my mouth from the spout. I didn’t want to miss a drop and, still concerned about parasites, also wanted to avoid putting my mouth on the kettle itself.
I was startled by a burst of laughter and comments from all three of my captors. Apparently the sight of this foreigner and his strange method of drinking water amused them greatly. A little sheepishly, I grinned back at them. It was embarrassing to be the butt of a joke but also encouraging. For those few seconds, at least, I felt they weren’t looking at me as an enemy or a piece of property. We’d made another unexpected human connection.
Though it seemed unlikely, I desperately hoped that these men would allow me to also connect again with the people I cared about most.
CHAPTER FIVE
BAD NEWS
9:10 A.M., WEDNESDAY
COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO
AFGHANISTAN IS ELEVEN AND A HALF HOURS AHEAD OF Mountain Standard Time. At nearly the same moment I was drinking from a water kettle in front of my three Taliban captors, my boss, Daniel, was at his desk in his second-floor office at Morning Star in Colorado Springs. He jotted down a few notes, items he planned to bring up at the staff meeting later that morning.
The phone rang. It was Roy, Morning Star’s director of operations in Kabul.
“Daniel, I need to let you know that Grace and I were supposed to have dinner with Dilip at five tonight,” Roy said. “We hadn’t heard anything from Dilip or Rafiq and had been trying to reach them for over two hours. Then, a few minutes ago, a cousin of Rafiq’s came to the door. He just left. He says his family received word from someone in Pul-i-assim that Dilip, Rafiq, and Farzad were kidnapped by the Taliban.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“None of that is official,” Roy said. “I haven’t been contacted by the Taliban or anyone else. It’s still possible that they’ve been detained by someone, and this is just a misunderstanding. I don’t know any more than that at this point.”
“Okay,” Daniel said. “I’m about to go into a meeting. Let’s plan to talk after I’m out about how we can respond and about setting up a crisis management team.”
After hanging up the phone, Daniel stared out his window, seeing but not seeing his view of undeveloped hills and, in the distance, upscale homes set amid a thick green growth of Ponderosa Pines.
Okay, what does this mean? That their vehicle broke down somewhere and they don’t have cell phone coverage. Or that they’ve been temporarily detained.
Or that they really have been kidnapped.
There weren’t many other options.
Daniel wondered if he should alert his staff at the meeting in a few minutes. No, he decided. We don’t have enough information yet. There’s no reason to get the rumor mill started.
He sighed as he got up from his desk. He’d always believed that if anything like this were to happen to someone at Morning Star, it would happen to him. To hear that colleagues and friends might be in mortal danger was a terrible feeling.
His mind was already racing ahead to potential responses. Without any word from the missing staff members or the supposed ki
dnappers, however, there was little he could do.
I hope they’re okay, Daniel thought. I just hope they’re okay.
CHAPTER SIX
“WE’RE GOING TO KILL YOU”
10:00 P.M., WEDNESDAY
MOUNTAIN RANGE EAST OF KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
I COULDN’T BELIEVE THAT AFTER NEARLY SEVEN HOURS WE were still walking. My legs were so heavy, on the verge of pain. I’d noticed Rafiq struggling to catch his breath during our rare two-minute breaks, and I could even hear Haqqani breathing hard behind me. At least my eyes had adjusted to the moonlight, making it easier to avoid tripping on the trail.
Among our trio of captives only Farzad seemed unaffected by the strenuous pace. He was clearly the most fit of the three of us. He had fought with the Afghan National Army during the early years of the Soviet intervention and apparently had kept up with his physical training. I knew Farzad was a brave man. Would he attempt to escape? Only later did I learn that he was indeed watching for an opportunity to turn the tables on our kidnappers. He hoped that if he found a way to immobilize two of them, Rafiq and I would take the initiative to subdue the third.
A half hour before, another dark structure had come into view. I’d wondered if someone really lived here in the middle of nowhere. I scanned it closely for any sign of light or life but saw nothing. Our captors ignored it.
I can’t believe we’re passing another opportunity to stop, I thought. Why are we still walking? Where are they taking us?
I’d made my peace with God, but the endless hike and the uncertainty over our fate were wearing me down physically and emotionally.
Now I fought to keep up with the relentless pace. Suddenly the landscape ahead of us flattened for about a hundred yards. As we stepped into this new terrain, however, I realized it was anything but even. It had furrows—a farmer had plowed this barren land and planted crops.
Someone had gone to considerable effort to bring life to this place. I remembered my conversation about Zakah with Rafiq. It was a shame that this farmer, whoever he was, likely had to give up a good portion of his profit to fundamentalists. I wondered what crop lay beneath my feet. I’d heard that in some cases, the Taliban didn’t allow rural Afghans to grow crops at all unless they were poppies. The heroin trade was far more lucrative than wheat.
Kidnapped by the Taliban: A Story of Terror, Hope, and Rescue by SEAL Team Six Page 5