”Are you sure he was British?” Emily asked him a little defensively.
“Of course. It was the teeth,” he said sarcastically as he poured another drink for himself and Emily.
“What?”
“Sure. You can always tell the British. They have the worst teeth in the world. Maybe they have something against dentists, I don’t know. But he had these large uneven teeth. They weren’t broken or decayed or anything like that, but they needed work. He just didn’t take care of them. I remember when I studied at LSE, You know London School of Economics? I used to notice how bad the teeth were of all these rich people. So now, I just identify this with the British. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows? Here’s the fellow who will tell you all about what happened to everyone,” he said, calling to the couple coming down the spiral stairs. “Hey Yuri, was gibts?”
“Yuri? Isn’t that Dimitri Schulkin? That’s who I’ve come to see!”
“He’s a Russian. They’re all Yuri to me,” he said, pouring more drinks for the others.
“Dimitri, Vika, how nice to see you,” Emily said, taking drinks to the farthest table under the stairs.
“Amina Desai. It has been a long time. I would not have recognized you. You look so,” he paused, “American!”
“Well, I have gained about forty pounds or so and I’m a lot more confident now, but all things considered you’re still bloody rude!” she said laughing. “You two look fabulous. Really. Haven’t changed a bit.”
“I’m a miracle of modern science,” Vika said in her earthy East European accent, “A leetle nip here, a tuck there, lipo, you name it. If it keeps me young looking, I’ll do it!”
“Come over and meet my daughter Haley and my friend Sinead,” she said, taking the couple over to the crowded little table. The Schulkins sat down and within minutes, as if on cue, three young men came over to the table and asked if anyone would care to dance. Vika, Haley and surprisingly Sinead got up and moved toward the dimly lit oval dance floor. Arno played old jazz, Les McCann and a very young Roberta Flack singing a Sinatra classic, ‘All the Way’.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Emily began, “How music evokes memory. He used to play that years ago. I can almost see myself dancing on that same dance floor where my daughter is now.”
“She’s beautiful. As you were at that age,” Schulkin said patting her hand softly.
“Before I became a large fat bovine?” she sniggered, removing his hand as she picked up her glass.
“Haley looks like her father.”
“Rubbish. Haley looks like my father”
“My dear. If you look at that profile, it’s pure Shallal!”
“Quite observant of you Dimitri,” she said softly, “She knows who he is but has never taken it further.”
“He’s had no contact with her?”
“He really didn’t know. I didn’t want any interference. You know me, the proverbial ‘I can do it alone’, which is why I’m here.”
“Ah yes, your son. He’s in Afghanistan at the behest of the British.”
“How do you know all this?’
“Amina, you are not thinking. Like you, I buy and sell information. We all do. I lecture, travel and receive handsome bonuses for my work. I’m a highly marketable commodity since the wall fell.” He raised his glass, “To the Evil Axis and the luxuries it brings. May we all profit.”
“So you’re self-employed now, Dimitri?” she asked, sipping her drink.
“My dear, I have always been self-employed. I serve only one master, myself! In relation to your son, however, he is in a very precarious situation. Dr. Shah has perhaps the only shred of honor left in Afghanistan and Masud, alas has picked the wrong place to be. A perfectly dreadful country...nothing but rubble for decades. I fail to understand why anyone feels it is such a strategic asset. I digress, my dear woman. Your son was sent there to observe, unfortunately no one told him who actually pulled the strings to do that. It was, I fear, none other than your old friends. We, on the other hand,” he said in a bored tone of voice, “have of course monitored that little affair as well.”
“My son was used?” she said, trying not to raise her voice and attract attention.
“No doubt. But it worked, did it not! He’s fired up with the cause and feeding them, through you, all of the information they need to keep another of their pawns in place. Do you think bin Laden got there of his own accord? They created him to use, along with his fine feathered friend Mullah Omar, to dismantle communism, and the plot backfired. Bin Laden got sidetracked with his ego and there you are. Total capitalistic chaos, worthy of, rather reminiscent of Chekhov, mixed with a little Tom Clancy.”
“Can you help me get him out? Where is the old crowd? Is there anyone who can help? He can hardly go to the British or the Americans.”
“Amina, Amina,” he said with some gentleness, “there is no old crowd. Meinhof, Baader, Ensslin all dead. They wanted to dissect Ulrike’s brain, for science you know. Those bastards! Leila Khaled, Angela Davis, Kathleen Cleaver, are all very respectable now and deservedly so. They are now exactly what they should be, mentors and teachers. They have a social war to win, but they will not help you here. Even Fusako Shigenobu, poor darling. You know what happened to her just last year? She had appealed to the Japanese Government to give her daughter citizenship. She left the safety net of Lebanon and was in Osaka disguised as a man, and they found her outside a restaurant in Takatsuki. She had been spotted, not because her disguise was faulty. No, not at all. She chain smokes! That’s how she was identified. Bloody amazing, is it not? Thirty years on the run and that’s how she gets caught. The revolution, my dear Amina Desai, is over! Old hacks like us sell our experiences to colleges and universities. We work for anyone who will listen and pay us. What happened to the revolution? We sold it! Now there’s 9/11, it keeps us in business, don’t you think? Now we’re in demand all over again. CNN one day, Fox News the next. Now I’m an expert. I was once a spy. It’s delightful, I think.”
“Look Dimitri. My son will die if I don’t get him home.”
“Amina, your son doesn’t want to come home. Let him go. He’ll find his own way. But I will make a connection for you, in a real emergency. His name is Aziz Fayed Khan. I can do no more for you. Remember what Ulla told you years ago? The biggest enemy is one of your own.”
“Ulla? How is she?”
“Very, very well. Quite the capitalist! Still in her dacha, living the rich full life. She has sold many pieces of the wall on eBay. Would you believe? She talks of the old days still, but her greatest regret is that she could not help the little Stoltz girl. You know she was brutalized. I saw the photographs. I got my copies from her killer. Still in our employ, you understand. He was so proud of that little coup. He is a strange man, that one, who enjoys the worst part of our work a little too much. Exercise caution with him, Amina Desai. He is also in Afghanistan.”
Schulkin signaled the men on the dance floor and the group returned to the table instantly. Within a few minutes he and his wife left. Emily picked up the tab, looked around the old haunt of her youth, perhaps for the last time, paid the bill and pointing Haley and Sinead in the direction of the stair case, bid goodbye to Arno.
The three women ate a late dinner at Zillertal’s, a tourist trap in the oldest part of the city and then returned to the apartment in Ziegelhausen, where they were greeted with alarming news.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-THREE
Margot Blatz was waiting for them when they entered. “I have some bad news. Harrison has been trying to get you for hours. He’s heard from Mason. Dr. Shah has been abducted! She’s been missing for about eight hours now. There’s another message from a man named Aziz Fayed Khan. He wants you to call him immediately at this number.” Frau Blatz handed a piece of paper to Emily, who was already calling her husband.
Harrison explained that he had heard from Mason several hours ago. Atiya had gone to pick up supplies from the Red Cross on the outskirts of Enjil. She had not r
eturned and her ancient Volvo station wagon had been recovered in what was left of the village square. Surprisingly, the supplies were intact in the back of the car. The locals said no one would harm the property of the doctor. Everybody loved her.
Later there had been a call from an International Red Cross worker who had treated a young boy caught in a skirmish between the insurgent Taliban and the Allied forces. The boy said he had seen ‘his’ Doctor Shah, who had tried to help him, but she had been literally pulled off him and dragged into a waiting Land Rover. The four men who had done this were dressed in black and wore what looked like ski masks. They had come from nowhere, just appearing and plucking her off of a street in the combat zone, overpowering her as if she was a marionette. They had a special insignia on their armbands, not like the usual soldiers. He had used the old British term ‘balaclava’ in describing the head gear that covered all but their eyes. Clearly this boy knew the difference between how the British special service dressed as opposed to their American counterparts and these men were dressed differently from both.
The boy’s English was good, the worker said, he often translated for the villagers. He was naturally observant and could be trusted. If Atiya had been abducted by the British, they had violated her rights. She was a physician, she was neutral! The Red Cross worker was very concerned for Atiya’s safety.
Harrison also told her that Dana Johnson had tried to contact the Afghan Embassy in Pakistan but found that it had been closed under the advisement of the United States and British Governments until such time as a multi-ethnic transitional government was in place. Dana had then called the Pakistani Foreign Office, telling their representative that Dr. Atiya Shah and her late husband had been close personal friends of Pervez Musharraf, President and Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, thinking that would make a difference, but it was to no avail. She was instead reminded that since the closure of the embassy the government was trying to save their own Pakistani nationals trapped in Kunduz. It was possible, they said, that Dr. Shah was with these foreign aid workers and literally caught in the crossfire, but their duty was to help their citizens and not Afghan nationals. In desperation, Dana again called Everett McArthur at the U.S. Embassy and again he reminded her that if Atiya chose to request political asylum perhaps they could help, but if whats-his-name Desai wanted to leave, it would have to be through his own embassy, he was after all, a Brit. There would be, he concluded, no international incident condoned by him. Emily explained to Harrison that she had met with Dimitri Schulkin and that he had given her contact information on a man named Khan who had telephoned her already.
“Call him, Emily. Do it now before it’s too damn late!” Clearing the connection, she placed the call.
“Speak!” a heavily British accented voice said.
“I am Amina Desai. I am returning your call.”
“Ah yes, Madam Desai. I understand your friend Dr. Shah is in protective custody in a place they call ‘Haramsarai’. It is the jail in Mazar-e-Sharif.”
“Haramsarai means Harem. What has she done? She is a doctor, for God’s sake!”
“She has aided people her abductors seek to destroy. They call that supporting terrorism these days.”
“If that were a philosophy, every member of the medical profession offering assistance in times of war would be arrested and tried.”
“Clearly you are in need of some re-education. If she is lucky, she will die in this place. If she is unlucky she will be raped and tortured. There will be no trial, no tribunal. She will give them the information they are looking for or she will be killed. This is not the usual chain of command.”
“Who took her away and why?”
“The reason she was taken is not clear, but it seems she has treated in the past few days, the husbands of some of her former patients. They are well connected in the Jihadic struggle and could give information on the whereabouts of Mullah Omar and our illustrious friend Mr. bin Laden.”
“She is a doctor. She does not take sides.”
“You son is also a doctor, Madam, and he does take sides. But for the present, their enemy, our enemy and your enemy is one and the same. Like bin Laden, he is rich and powerful. A blue blood with high political aspirations in his country, but he has been owned by the Russians since he was a young man in university, as was his father before him. He believes himself to be invincible, but then he also lunches with royalty, so perhaps he is. Nonetheless, may God help Dr. Shah in his hands.”
“And his name, Mr. Khan?” Emily asked the question although she already knew the answer. She simply mouthed the words.
“Madam, I do not have to say his name. He has several. He also maintains a Germanic alter-ego, and he habitually enjoys torturing young girls to rid himself of the boredom of his much older wife. You know that already, do you not, having already seen one of his victims? Perhaps that identifies him further. I will keep you informed as best as I can. Contact your son and tell him it is in his best interest to prepare to leave before they come for him. We have tried to let him know, but he refuses to hear us.”
Emily called Harrison immediately. Dana Johnson had made several frantic calls to the American Embassy. They reiterated that there was little they could do for either Mason or Atiya, unless both of them made it to the Embassy compound. Political asylum was an option Atiya could exercise, but if the Brits had her, it was clearly not without reason, she was informed, and they would not risk an international incident as a result.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FOUR
Shebergan Prison 75 miles west of Mazar-e-Sharif, Northern Afghanistan, November 28th 2001
Over three thousand pro-Taliban prisoners, some of them foreign nationals, had been captured by the Northern Alliance in Kunduz and interred in this rotted, filthy, overcrowded prison. Hundreds upon hundreds of Jihadists huddled against the cold, covered by their thin blankets or waded slowly and painfully in the feces-ridden courtyard of the jail. More of them were pressed to maximum capacity against the iron bars on the windows. Arms and legs dangling, faces pitched against the bars, arms waving, fists tight, they screamed insults at those guarding the complex.
General Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek born commandant of the North Alliance Forces controlled the facilities at the prison. There was little doubt that the prisoners taken included former Taliban officials who had surrendered. Those now incarcerated, as well the al-Qaeda detainees were brought to the prison for the initial interrogation. There was still no clue from the detainees on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar. American forces began a sealing off process of the prison so they could take detainees, third country nationals and several Afghans to what was known as the “staging area” for selected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners of worth. These prisoners would in turn be tried, if they were lucky, by U.S. Military Tribunals. All access was controlled by the U.S. Military authority while prisoner interviews took place. The prisoners would eventually be transferred, after intense interrogation, to either Khandahar or the U.S. facilities at Guantanamo Bay. It was well known that the arrival of the Americans had still ensured better treatment of prisoners than that previously administered in the jail.
As the transfer of prisoners went into effect, President George W. Bush met with Chairman Hamid Karzai, the future Afghan President concerning conditions at the jail. Karzai, an intelligent, attractive man was considered the only person capable of ensuring an effective transition of power and application of twenty-first century standards to his country. There could be no withdrawal of allied forces in the vulnerable areas surrounding Kabul as long as reprisal attacks continued. The heavy losses sustained by the Taliban made excellent fodder for even more insurgency by tribal warlords that the Taliban had effectively held in check. Any rebuilding of this battle scarred nation would take, Karzai believed, intense security monitoring on all sides and must be implemented by external forces before any long-term goals could be met. These views were shared and wholeheartedly supported by both Pr
esident Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. First clear the area of dissidents and academics, repair the damage, create an infrastructure that worked, briefly stabilize it and then if possible get the hell out and leave the Afghanis to it.
For three thousand prisoners unlucky enough to be left behind, the conditions in Mazar-e-Sharif were unbearable. The prison water supply was unclean. There was little if any sanitation and the barred slits serving as windows opened the building to the furious night time cold and the intense heat of the day. Cells built to house a maximum of fifteen prisoners were filled with between ninety to one hundred and twenty human beings. Some of them had been detained since before the Taliban claimed control of the country, languishing without trial in their own personal hell. There were no medical supplies available to treat the sick and dysentery, jaundice, and raging strains of hepatitis flourished. Prisoners with stomach problems, respiratory conditions, scabies, and other skin complaints related to diet were left to suffer. Hundreds of people allegedly died under conditions existing in defiance of international humanitarian law, which clearly state that all combatants, whether designated prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention or detainees under internal armed conflict specified in Common Article Three of the Convention, must be granted adequate food, shelter, water and medical care. And so it was to this prison that Dr. Atiya Shah, hooded, with her hands roped behind her back and her ankles shackled was taken, to a small room in the women’s section of the central jail pending interrogation by the commander of her captors.
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