Veiled Freedom

by Jeanette Windle

  As Steve returned to his silent inspection, Amy ventured tentatively, “So what do you think?”

  The contractor swung around abruptly from the window. “You may have a commendable project here, but your security is still lousy. A child could hop that wall or come over that roof.”

  The jerk of Steve’s head indicated the concrete guest rooms built against the divider wall. “Your outer perimeter isn’t much better, as I’ve told you before. I’m guessing your workers next door and any neighbor with a pair of eyes must be aware by now a foreign female lives here. That’s an attractive target in the current political climate. Did it ever occur to you that your presence here with such inadequate safety measures could be dangerous to those women and children and to yourself?”

  As much as she’d like to reject Steve’s criticisms, they echoed Amy’s own continuing disquiet. “I’m not disagreeing with you. I feel safe enough myself, but I’ve been worried about the women and children. After the incident we had last week—”

  Amy explained briefly as they left the apartment and descended the stairs. “Maybe it was nothing. But sooner or later some prison bureaucrat may let slip what we’re doing—or sell the information. It worries me that some male family member might show up demanding to take the women away. From what Rasheed tells me, I’m not even sure I’d have a legal right to say no. I asked Rasheed to see about getting some rolled wire or spikes or something up around the perimeter wall. He said he had to get permission from the landlord’s deputy.”

  “You mean Ismail?” Steve asked. “Khalid’s deputy minister?”

  “Yes. But it’s been over a week and still nothing. I hate to keep bugging Rasheed, but I’m not so sure he’s really trying. He wasn’t happy to start with about the Welayat refugees coming here, and he says putting up more defenses is basically hanging a billboard out for thieves. I would contact Ismail myself if I knew how.”

  “Well, I do,” Steve said grimly, “and I will immediately.”

  They were now outside. The children had stopped their games again to watch Amy guide her visitor down the cobblestone path. Wajid emerged from his guard shack.

  Amy stopped to eye Steve. “I didn’t mean anything like that. The last thing I need is for Rasheed to think I’m going over his head with his landlord.”

  “You won’t come into it, trust me. Like I said, Khalid’s security is my province. I don’t need Rasheed’s permission. I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve talked to Ismail and rounded up some details. Meanwhile, let me see your phone.” His outstretched hand and the inflexibility of his expression brooked no discussion.

  Snapping her jaw shut, Amy meekly dug her cell phone from the shoulder bag she hadn’t yet shed.

  Steve showed no hesitation with its controls. “There, I’ve programmed number one on your speed dial as an emergency number. If you run into any serious trouble, hit it. That’s a backup your agency should have arranged.” Returning the phone, Steve dismissed himself as abruptly as he’d come upon Amy, striding rapidly toward the gate as Wajid hurried over to open it. On the threshold, Steve turned to look back.

  Children had swarmed to Amy as soon as the contractor was beyond arm’s reach. A preschooler was in Amy’s arms, the rest clustered tight around her skirts. The child’s tugging had freed Amy’s hair, and so accustomed was she now to its cover, Amy refrained from pulling the scarf back into place only because it would have meant putting down the child.

  A strange expression crossed Steve’s face as his narrowed gaze rose from the children to touch the sunshine of Amy’s uncovered head. Then Wajid snapped the bar into its lock behind him.

  The prophet Isa Masih was a shaheed. A martyr.

  It had been days after that terrible nightmare of the flood sweeping away his birth land before Jamil picked up Ameera’s gift again. But his burning hunger to discover how this narrative played out overcame his terror of another dream-filled night.

  He’d even forgotten his original skepticism over which stories were true and which were the corrupted pieces of which the mullahs spoke. The details were too precise and coherent to be anything but eyewitness accounts. And so Jamil had puzzled out page after page far into each night, reaching the prophet’s final days with mounting apprehension, then horror so that he’d wanted to toss the small volume aside but found he could not.

  Which was why Jamil had headed to the bazaar once he’d dropped the women and cooking utensils back off at the New Hope compound. Even with his patu wrapped close, the chill night winds sweeping across the shed roof were growing too cold for reading.

  This morning Ameera had handed Jamil, Rasheed, and Soraya each an envelope filled with afghanis, their monthly salary. A flashlight and batteries would allow Jamil to read in his concrete cubicle. The truck Jamil had chauffeured was too big to maneuver through the bazaar, and Rasheed had taken the Toyota for some errand of his own, so Jamil had set out on foot. He’d been surprised to see a blue burqa gliding away from the New Hope pedestrian gate just as he left the mechanics yard. The compound women didn’t go out, much less alone.

  But neither the doings nor safety of that lone burqa were any business of Jamil’s. He’d followed only because he was heading the same direction. He’d turned the corner when the burqa did only because—well, because the open shop fronts along this street might have his flashlight, saving Jamil the long walk to the bazaar.

  Or so he told himself as he loitered just out of sight around a fruit stand from where the burqa was picking over ripe melons. An action that piqued Jamil’s interest. He’d delivered a load of fresh fruits and vegetables to the New Hope kitchens just this morning. Curiosity became disquiet when a man leaning against the fruit stand straightened up to accost the burqa. The two moved a few feet down the sidewalk, conversing in low, urgent voices.

  As the man raised his head to glance around, Jamil stepped quickly into the shadows of a shop entrance. But not so far he didn’t catch the burqa’s swift pass from under her blue polyester. Jamil stiffened as he recognized what the man now held in his hand. An envelope identical to the one stuffed inside his own wool vest. The burqa must be Ameera’s female assistant, Soraya.

  This man was older than Jamil, though measurably younger than Soraya, and Pashtun by feature. Now that Jamil knew who was under the burqa, the stocky build and height could easily be the escort who’d returned the Afghan woman to the compound a week earlier. Jamil stepped all the way into the shop as the burqa flitted past him toward the New Hope compound. When he emerged again, her companion was nowhere in sight.

  Did Ameera have any idea her housemate was meeting men clandestinely? Such a liaison was not only immoral but a crime under the penal code, punishable up to death during Taliban years. But to whom could Jamil report this? He had his own reasons not to entangle himself with local law enforcement. As for his employer, he’d no desire to explain why he’d lingered to spy on the Afghan woman.

  Besides, from all Jamil had seen and heard, he did not think Ameera’s people would consider what he’d seen the transgression it was in Muslim eyes. In any case, Soraya’s sins were her own to account for in Allah’s scales of justice. Jamil had enough to concern himself with his own.

  Jamil went back into the shop, glancing around the single small room. Its inventory looked to have fallen off a supply truck for the foreign soldiers because dusty floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked high with MRE rations, gallon-size cans with names like Del Monte, Kraft, and Heinz, bottled liquids called Gatorade and Starbucks Mocha, crates of nonalcoholic beer, strange sauces marked A1 and Tabasco.

  On a top shelf, Jamil spotted the flashlight he wanted, olive green and sturdy in a package that read Tactical Flashlight and Operation Enduring Freedom. He hesitated over matching palm-size field binoculars before settling for a second pack of lithium batteries. By the time he returned to the compound, the burqa had disappeared. But as Jamil neared the mechanics yard, his steps slowed.

  The man loitering behind a parked SUV across the stre
et held Jamil’s attention because he himself had just been skulking in precisely such an attitude. And if that full-bearded face had been blurred and dark in the screen of Ameera’s camera, Jamil had seen it before in daylight when he’d requested the man to back out of his way. The jinga truck driver.

  When the truck hadn’t returned to the mechanics yard the next day, Jamil had thought little of it. Either he’d been mistaken in its reason for being there, or the driver had found another mechanic. Now the admonition Ameera had given her staff sprang sharply to mind. Could the jinga truck driver have been the man accused of frightening one of the Welayat women?

  The Corolla had returned to its parking space, and Jamil spotted the chowkidar in conversation with one of the mechanics. Rasheed walked over as Jamil hovered near.

  “It is perhaps nothing,” Jamil explained in a hurried low voice, “but this is not the first time I have seen that man waiting and watching without seeming reason. After what Miss Ameera announced, I thought it best—”

  “Ah yes,” Rasheed interrupted. “The jinga truck driver. He will have been awaiting my return. I informed him last week there were no openings before today to bring in his truck for repairs. I will go make arrangements with him.” He marched across the street.

  Relieved, Jamil headed to his quarters. His jumpiness had exaggerated a business appointment to a mystery.

  Pulling out Ameera’s gift, Jamil leafed back to the page he’d been reading. It had grown dark enough to turn on the flashlight before he reached the final column of the Luke narrative. He shook his head with renewed incredulity.

  Ameera’s prophet a shaheed? It boggled the imagination. The mullahs taught that Isa Masih had never mounted the cross. Instead the prophet had sent Judas or Simeon of Cyprus or some other friend to take his place, living out his own life until he’d died at a peaceful old age. Unless, though none knew for sure, Allah had rewarded his prophet by transporting him in the manner of Elijah directly to paradise. From there tradition said Isa Masih would return one day to complete his interrupted ministry, battle the antichrist, and establish a thousand-year kingdom where the earth would finally in its totality bow in submission to Allah.

  But the mullahs could not have read these injil. The prophet in these pages could no more have allowed a friend to sacrifice himself in his place than he could leave a blind man crying on the side of the road or a leper pleading for cleansing. No, the only conclusion was that Isa had indeed given his life in martyrdom. Possessing power to whistle up legions of angels, he’d laid down his life with the deliberation and free choice of any suicide bomber.

  The resurrection part Jamil could dismiss. Perhaps this was where Muhammad had needed to correct the confused readers of the book. Or perhaps by some great miracle he had returned to his earthly life. After all, Elisha and Isa himself were said to have raised the dead. In that case the mullahs’ teachings were easily reconciled with this account.

  “Jamil-jan! Jamil-jan!”

  The high, piping chorus drew Jamil out of the thin pages of the book. He’d missed supper, and the children were calling him for story time. Turning off the flashlight, Jamil tucked the volume away. But he was still deep in thought as he pulled himself up onto the divider wall and jumped down to the other side.

  Why had Isa allowed himself to be martyred? It was not to strike down his enemies. It seemed, in fact, a final act of weakness. And yet, if there was anything that Jamil had gleaned from these pages, it was that there was nothing weak about the prophet Isa.

  The image of that bright head and slim figure hemmed in by a crowd of children, the valiant smile paired with anxious eyes, stayed with Steve as he walked briskly to the CS team house. There a minor emergency awaited him. An entire container of weapons, body armor, and other gear intended to augment what he’d scrounged from Condor Security’s in-country stock had been seized by airport customs. And since customs fell under the Ministry of Finance, dropping Khalid’s name made little impact.

  It was dark before Steve drove back to Sherpur in a commandeered Pajaro, but Phil was still at his desk. The medic tossed over a stapled pile of clippings and printouts as Steve walked in.

  “Take a look at the coverage of your MOI surge. Every major newspaper’s grabbing for some good news coming out of Afghanistan. And of course it’s all over CNN. The MOI came out looking good. You and the rest made it into some background shots.”

  “Let’s just hope it puts a smile on Waters’s face. And that budget committee.” Picking up the stapled file, Steve headed to his desk. “By the way, I’ve got an op I’d like you to put together. We’ve had some security issues develop at one of Khalid’s properties.”

  “The one where we dropped Ms. Mallory?” Phil swiveled around in his chair with a knowing grin. “Cute kid but an NGO? I thought you’d sworn off the type.”

  Steve gave no indication he’d heard the jab. Pulling up Skype on his laptop, he settled the headpiece in place. The electronic ring of the Internet phone was replaced by a voice. “Hey, if you’re not too busy, would you mind doing a couple things for me?”

  “Here is the translation of the new ministry directives for your American employers,” Soraya said. “I will fax it to them before I leave.”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll do it. It’s Thursday, and I’ve held you up enough already. Jamil just took the permit papers for the second neighborhood outreach down to the ministry. With your two new teachers, we should have no problem expanding now. Which should make Mr. Korallis happy.” Amy smiled across the desk at Soraya.

  Her housemate had hurried in yesterday just as Hamida was laying out supper with good news of two available teachers. Even better, one was male, which should satisfy parental grumbling at their current project over a woman, Soraya, instructing their sons. Never mind they’re getting it all for free.

  “When you contact them, tell them to come see me first thing after the weekend Saturday morning. And Becky Frazer is going to give us a date for the women’s checkups as soon as she works out her schedule.”

  Amy was still smiling, this time with gratification as she ran a pen down the agenda she was going over with Soraya. The Ministry of Economy oversaw foreign nonprofits, permits for each new project one more formality in the daunting red tape required to keep New Hope’s presence in Afghanistan legal. But Soraya’s years working for NGOs had made her an expert at navigating the shoals of Kabul’s bureaucracy while Jamil never balked at long hours waiting on one government clerk after another.

  I don’t need a fixer. I’ve got my own in Jamil and Soraya and Becky and Rasheed.

  Amy reached for her cell phone as it shrilled. It took a moment to place the deep drawl. “We’re about thirty seconds out. You said your tenants get spooked around men, so I figured I’d better give you a heads-up.”

  “A heads-up?” Amy repeated blankly. “What for?”

  “Why, putting up your perimeter defenses.”

  Despite Steve’s pledge, Amy hadn’t held her breath that she’d hear from the CS security contractor this soon. Getting to her feet, she met Soraya’s questioning stare. “Before you leave, would you please let the women know some workmen are arriving? I don’t want them alarmed. And Fatima, too. I know the children should be getting out of class soon, but if she could keep them indoors.”

  Before Amy reached the front gate, she could hear the screech of tires pulling up, the rumble of men’s voices. Lots of them. Wajid hurried from the guard shack, fingering his rusted Kalashnikov.

  “It’s just some workmen arriving,” Amy reassured. But she blinked as Wajid pulled back the bolt and opened the gate. This wasn’t a few workmen but an army. Two pickups held at least a dozen men each, a mixture of Afghans and what looked like Gurkhas and other foreign security personnel. A market truck was piled high with sacks, wheelbarrows, buckets, tools, and giant metallic spools of barbed wire.

  Steve was climbing out of a black SUV. With him were Phil Myers and another huge, bearded Caucasian with a long, tangled man
e. If Steve Wilson was going for unobtrusive, he’d failed miserably. At least any weapons in the mix were being kept out of sight.

  To Amy’s left, the compound’s vehicle gate stood open. A large jinga truck was turning into the mechanics yard, a process necessitating several men waving arms and shouting directions as the truck negotiated the tight fit. Amy glanced at peacocks parading along its side panel, then focused on Rasheed hurrying down the sidewalk.

  The men started heaving out sacks and tools. Steve had to see Amy just inside the pedestrian gate, but wraparound sunglasses didn’t shift her direction as he intercepted Rasheed. “Salaam aleykum. I’m looking for the caretaker of this property.”

  “Salaam. I am Rasheed, chowkidar here. What is all this?” Though Steve had spoken in Dari, Rasheed’s answer was in his heavily accented English, at once boosting his own status and shutting out the mechanics and other bystanders avidly eavesdropping.

  “Good, then you’re just who I want.” The security contractor shifted smoothly into English. “I’m Steve Wilson, head of security for Khalid Sayef, your landlord. We’re in the process of upgrading security on a number of his properties. We’ll be attending to this one today.”

  Rasheed showed no surprise. Everyone in Kabul knew of the minister of interior’s foreign bodyguard. But he glanced at Amy suspiciously. “You were requested to come here?”

  “Not at all. You will be aware of the many threats against the minister. It is our concern that his enemies, unable to reach Khalid himself, may turn to easier targets. That this property is rented to a foreign charity places it at greater risk. Which is why we are here.”

  Rasheed still looked suspicious. “I cannot allow you onto the property without proper authorization.”

  “Of course.” Steve flipped open his cell phone. After a murmured exchange, he handed the phone to Rasheed. From the chowkidar’s expression, Amy could guess the landlord’s representative, Ismail, was on the other end.