Veiled Freedom

by Jeanette Windle

  Bones skidded the SUV around to block the other side. Steve jumped out of the vehicle, marching toward the truck cab, the other contractors piling out behind him.

  “Get the back!” Phil called.

  As half his group peeled off, Steve swung to the running board, the butt of his M4 knocking out the window so that he had the muzzle against a bearded face before the man could reach for an AK-47 on the seat beside him. On the far side of the cab, Mac reached in to yank out the driver. From the rear, Steve heard Phil call, “Clear! We’ve got a bunch back here.”

  “Clear! Clear!” echoed around the outside of the truck.

  That quickly it was over. There were three men in the cab, ten more inside the cargo compartment. Along with the Kalashnikov in the cab, two more turned up in back along with an assortment of cudgels and sticks. These men definitely hadn’t planned on a convivial discussion.

  Steve turned to Bones, indicating the jinga truck. “Can you get this out of the street?”

  Bones climbed into the truck cab. As its engine rumbled to life, Steve turned his attention to the prisoners. An assortment of bearded Pashtuns ranging from late teens to forties and with enough similitude to stem from the same gene pool, they had looked both frightened and stunned as they’d stumbled out of the truck. But defiance was returning as they realized the M4 barrels ringing them in were not about to be precipitously unleashed.

  “We are not thieves!” the leader shouted over the racket. “We were told a runaway woman we’ve been searching for is in that house. We sought only to retrieve her. You have no right to detain us.”

  Another was trying to calm the leader down. “I do not think she is here. Can you not see this place is a business of foreigners? We must have been given the wrong information.”

  Unfortunately, it was the first man who was right. Whatever their security role, PSDs had no legal jurisdiction in Afghanistan, and the locals had shown themselves prickly about foreign civilians holding their citizens prisoner. So what to do with these men?

  But first things first. Punching Redial on his cell phone, Steve announced matter-of-factly, “You can turn off that alarm now. The neighbors might appreciate getting back to bed.”

  The night went mercifully silent. Then Amy’s voice, breathless with relief, returned. “You got them?”

  “Yes, and they were definitely after your women.”

  “It was the jinga truck, wasn’t it? I watched it crash the gate. I am so sorry. I saw that truck here the same day Aryana was so frightened. But there’re always trucks and cars coming and going next door. I didn’t even think to put two and two together.”

  “You, me, and your caretaker too,” Steve dismissed firmly. “There’s no point in anyone beating themselves up over this. The question is what to do with them now.”

  “Do you want me to come down and talk to them? Or Aryana to see if she recognizes them?”

  “Not a good idea,” Steve interdicted. “Right now with all these men around, they’re thinking maybe they were mistaken. We want to encourage that thought. Why don’t you get your people back to bed, and we’ll handle it from here. Though you might have your guard open the gate, so we can get this bunch off the street.”

  “I’m surprised he’s not out there already. That noise was enough to wake the dead. I’ll see if I can get him or Jamil on the phone. If not, I’ll come down myself.”

  That didn’t prove necessary, because when Steve walked over to the pedestrian gate, it swung open under the touch of his hand. The city electricity was still off, and the compound was dark except for a single fluorescent lamp shining from a second-story window. Steve raised a hand in acknowledgment even as he spoke into the phone. “We’re in.”

  “Good, then I’m going to check on my people.”

  The light disappeared from the window. Stepping farther inside, Steve dug a pencil flashlight from a pocket of his parka and shone it around the guard shack. Unbelievably, the elderly guard hadn’t moved from his tushak, a gentle snore reassurance the sprawled figure was even alive.

  The flashlight beam touched a pipe dropped to the concrete floor by the sleeping mat, then a small brown lump that caught Steve’s nostrils with a strong pungent smell as he stooped for a closer look. Opium. An entire army could invade this compound, and the old man wouldn’t awake. What Steve didn’t see was the ancient AK-47 the guard had carried on other occasions. And where was Amy’s driver?

  All questions to be answered. But first to deal with the prisoners. The correct protocol would be for the chowkidar as the landlord’s representative—or failing that, some other male household member—to call in the police and file a complaint. As for the property’s expat manager, the last thing Amy needed was to find herself embroiled in legal proceedings involving family conflicts.

  So who was next up the chain? Khalid was the owner, but Steve couldn’t see him bestirring himself over a trespassing incident, especially at this hour of the night. That was what subordinates were for.

  As the mental lightbulb went off, Steve punched in the number. “Ismail?”

  In the background Steve heard men’s voices and the live entertainment of tabla drums and rabab, Afghanistan’s traditional stringed instrument. The minister had been making up for a month on the road by nonstop entertaining since he was home. In fact, tonight’s guests included the chief of police responsible for that spectacular Dilshod bust.

  “You’re still at the party?”

  “It is the weekend, as your people say. The guests will spend the night and attend mosque tomorrow with Khalid in honor of their victory and Allah’s blessing.”

  Steve said, “Would you mind popping over to the Wazir property for a few minutes? I’ve got some prisoners I don’t know what to do with.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Leaving Phil in charge of herding the prisoners into the yard, Steve went over to the mechanics yard. Bones was pulling the jinga truck back through the broken gates. Steve shone his flashlight inside the guest quarters, noting only piled-up tushaks and cushions until he reached the final concrete cubicle. Here personal items set neatly along the windowsill, some clothing folded in a cardboard box, indicated a more permanent resident.

  Amy’s assistant, presumably. Unlike Wajid, he hadn’t slept through the commotion. But where was he? Steve walked over to examine the open gate, then strode through into the orchard. As he moved his flashlight over the French doors, he called Amy again.

  “No, I haven’t seen Jamil. And if you’re suggesting he had anything to do with this,” Amy added defensively, “he has no more access to keys over there than the jinga truck crew—or me.”

  “It wasn’t even in my mind,” Steve returned mildly. “These locks look like they’ve been picked anyway. Quite expertly, I might add. Either way, the local authorities are on their way to take these boys in. Oh, and you might want to be aware as far as your guard, Wajid . . .”

  By the time Steve rang off again and walked out to the front, headlights were pulling up outside, not just Ismail and an entourage of Khalid’s personal militia in one of the Sherpur residence SUVs but a green Afghanistan National Police pickup full of blue gray uniforms.

  Ismail was wearing the fine silk chapan and turban Steve had seen earlier, a heavy army parka adding an incongruous note. He marched over to Steve, militia at his heels, while the police squad headed for the prisoners. “I radioed the Wazir precinct to send over an arrest party. They will take custody of the prisoners. Now let us see what these men have to say for themselves.”

  Yes, where was Jamil? Amy hurried across the courtyard to where doors that had been locked and barred when she’d gone to bed now stood open onto New Hope’s inner sanctuary. She’d rushed downstairs as soon as Steve gave the all clear to find the Welayat group retreated into the kitchen salon, its heavy shutters closed and barred, sturdy door blockaded with furniture.

  Steve was right—these people were more experienced in crisis management than Amy. They’d opened first
a shutter, then the door only after the alarm went off and a cautious inspection assured them Amy was alone.

  Farah had been first to throw her arms around Amy. “We heard the men and guns. We were afraid they had you. We could not get inside to bring you safely here.”

  Their patent relief, their pats and hugs, brought tears to Amy’s eyes. They’d been worried about her. With the alarm now off, the sounds of men’s voices and engines could be heard from the front yard, and though Amy passed on Steve’s reassurance, the women and children were too unsettled to return to bed. Roya, always the organizer, directed preparations for making tea while others pushed furnishings back into place.

  So Amy had availed herself of their preoccupation to check out the intruders’ entry point. The front entrance was still barred, the heavy metal crossbar that had been across the inner doors dropped just inside the hallway as though hastily abandoned. Though the men had managed to access the inner courtyard, they’d evidently been scared into retreat before taking advantage of that breach.

  Amy lifted her lantern high to shine its beam through doors standing open to her left. She now knew what at least one of those locked salons contained. Why it wasn’t rented out now made sense. Every extra item this compound had ever contained or former renters abandoned must be stored in here. Dusty, well-used furniture was piled to the ceiling. The lantern beam picked out blackboards and tables and desks, even some Western-style bedsteads and mattresses. So this was how Rasheed had so quickly furnished the New Hope quarters.

  There was scrap lumber and other construction debris. Barrels and buckets stacked against another wall looked to be everything from paint and cleaning solutions to engine oil. The mechanics yard used this place too, because there were engine parts, tools, a pile of fenders, even detached car doors. The locked hallway doors made sense now too. Rasheed could open this side for the mechanics without granting access to the New Hope rental.

  Amy picked cautiously through to the other side where doors stood open to a chill wind. This was a compound quadrant Amy had never seen, though she’d glimpsed treetops above the cinder-block partition. The headlights of the jinga truck that someone had driven back into the yard shone through an open gate to outline grass, rose trellises climbing walls, fruit trees packed close enough together to seem a small wood.

  This late in the season, the leaves were mostly blown off, and what looked to be apricots, apples, maybe almonds too, lay thick on the ground. Though not so thick someone hadn’t collected a rudimentary harvest. Did some of the fruit Hamida served come from here?

  Still, after the dust and dirt that was all Amy had seen in Kabul outside that expat guesthouse, the garden looked beautiful even by night. And here the windows and doors held real glass. A door beyond the salon matched the one under the stairs that led from the inner courtyard into Rasheed’s quarters. Amy had seen it from the other side but never open.

  If the mechanics used this place as their depot, Amy understood why Rasheed kept it out of bounds. But surely there must be some time slot when the men could forgo access for a few hours. It would be wonderful for the women and children to have access to a real garden.

  The headlights cut off just then along with the engine. Amy lifted her lantern high. Her stomach jumped into her throat as the beam impaled a ghostly flutter among the trees. She snatched back her startled yelp as the pale movement she’d seen became white shalwar kameez emerging from the woods.

  Amy lowered the lantern in relief. “There you are. I thought you might have left. In fact, I was hoping you had and that it wasn’t something those men had done to you.”

  Jamil stepped hastily out of the lantern beam into the concealment of the storage depot.

  But not before Amy caught sight of the weapon hanging over his shoulder. Her eyes opened wide as the happenings of the last quarter hour clicked into place in her mind. “You set the alarm off, didn’t you? And that shooting, that was you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I shot only into the air. I did not know how else to frighten the intruders away, and I was afraid the foreign soldiers would not arrive before those men reached you or the others.”

  That he was carrying Wajid’s AK-47 suddenly seemed to occur to him as needing explanation, and he added quickly, “Wajid—he is old, and at times he has great pain in his arms and legs and back. When he does, he smokes some of the opium to help him sleep. So I took his weapon and opened the gate to let the foreign soldiers in.”

  Amy didn’t need further explication. Reality was, with so little access to medical care, much of Afghanistan used opium—readily available and cheap as its processed cousin morphine was not—as a painkiller and home remedy for any number of ailments. Understandable, if an added complication to the global counternarcotics war. When she got a chance, she’d have to ask Becky Frazer what she should do about Wajid.

  Meanwhile, she said fervently, “Well, you certainly saved the compound, because they had the doors to the courtyard open. If it wasn’t for you, they’d have been inside long before Steve and the others arrived. But why are you hiding out here? The men are all caught, and the police are coming. Don’t you want to tell them what happened? let them know what you did?”

  Jamil stepped farther back into the storage depot, and his voice turned harsh. “No, I do not wish to see the foreign soldiers or for them to see me. Nor do I wish them to know I was here tonight. I wished only to be sure you were well. Now I will go.”

  “No, wait, please.” As she shifted the lantern, Amy suddenly realized Jamil was barefoot and without coat or patu, his features pinched and blue with cold. Was her assistant so worried Steve or the local authorities would accuse him of being involved in the break-in, he’d endure exposure to this freezing winter night?

  And is that so far-fetched? Putting out a hand, this time without touching him, Amy infused firmness into her tone. “I understand if you don’t want to see them, though I’d be proud to explain how much you’ve done to help. But there’s no reason to go back out in that cold, at least until they’re gone.”

  An idea jumped to Amy’s mind. “I was thinking it might be good to get some pictures of the men who broke in to show Aryana so we could ID if they really are her relatives. You said the camera has night vision capacity. Since you’re here, do you think you could take some pictures of all those men out there in the yard? You should get a good angle from the infirmary.” And some blankets to keep warm.

  “Here are my keys. You know which is for the office and infirmary.” Amy could think of no better way to reassure the Afghan of her trust and gratitude. “I’d like to get back to the women and children until the strangers are all gone. Wait, the electricity’s off. You’ll need a flashlight.”

  “That I already have.” In her lantern beam, Amy saw a rare half-smile lighten Jamil’s expression as he tugged a small flashlight from the vest he wore over his tunic. “It is what I use to read your book at night. And it will be my pleasure to take your pictures.”

  Turning on the pencil-thin beam, he made his way sure-footedly through the room’s congestion. By the time Amy followed more slowly, he’d disappeared up the stairwell. Amy detoured to look out the schoolroom window onto the front yard.

  As earlier in the day, it swarmed with men. Not just the expat contractors or the bearded jinga truck prisoners but any number of uniformed Afghans. All of which Amy could see well because of portable lanterns that had been set up to fence the prisoners into a grid of light. Jamil should have no problem taking his pictures.

  Despite the press of people, Amy spotted Steve Wilson standing with a police officer and an Afghan civilian. The security contractor seemed to have the situation under his usual competent control.

  Amy headed back through the hallway to where the kitchen shutters were cracked open so fresh air could leaven propane fumes from cookstove and heaters. The warm, yellow glow of a Coleman lamp spilled out through the cracks. So did a clink of enamel cups, the scent of cardamom Roya added to the tea on specia
l occasions, and a babble of voices that sounded no longer worried but cheerful.

  Amy quickened her pace in sudden eagerness to join them.

  Wrapping closer a blanket he’d snatched up from an infirmary cot, Jamil ignored the wind whistling through a half meter of opened window to focus the video camera’s night setting on the jinga truck driver. He’d tried it first with the plastic pane shut, but dust coating the outside blurred the images. Counting slowly to five, Jamil moved on to the next captive and repeated the count.

  Rewinding, he checked the results. They were worth the chill shaking his thin frame despite the blanket. The portable lights set out around the courtyard offered enough ambient light that the faces were sharp and clear. Jamil shifted the camera screen slowly from one prisoner to another. Some had their backs to the camera, but Jamil waited patiently until one by one shifted position enough to catch a profile at least.

  Satisfied he’d fulfilled Ameera’s request, Jamil wrapped up with a slow pan across the rest of the assembly, the zoom catching policemen, foreign mercenaries, an Afghan official in civilian dress, a cluster of bodyguards at the official’s heels. It was truly amazing how even in such gloom, this tiny machine could pick up the men’s very expressions.

  But it wasn’t just the camera’s selling points that filled Jamil with satisfaction. Though he’d brushed away Ameera’s gratitude, he knew as well as she that he had indeed saved this sanctuary from violation, perhaps even bodily harm. He’d have saved it even if the foreigners never showed.