Veiled Freedom

by Jeanette Windle

  The wounded look in Amy’s eyes told him she too had recognized what must have been part of those Eid gifts.

  “Take it away and process it.” Steve leaned across the table, his body language growing menacing. “So why the toy? And why here and not the loya jirga? You couldn’t get the bomb through, so you figured you’d just blow up a few innocent civilians who’ve been kind enough to offer you a roof and employment? You’d have succeeded too if you hadn’t left us a nice forensic trail. A little careless, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Perhaps. But you see, I did not expect to live so that I should care.”

  A fresh commotion in the hallway drowned out further speech. The loud demand was in Dari and only too recognizable. “I do not care about your orders! I am minister of interior, and this is my property. If you do not remove yourself from my path, my bodyguards will shoot. Willie!”

  Steve stood just as Khalid burst into the schoolroom, Ismail at his heels and CS detail tight around him. “What is the meaning of all this, Willie? I was told you have grave news for me, that you have found the man who has been trying to kill me.”

  The minister’s agent-in-charge responded to Steve’s glance. “McDuff passed on the good news. We made a beeline here right after the bonfire.”

  Khalid stared at the silent, immobile figure standing alone in the center of the room. Steve couldn’t quite make out the expression that flitted across the minister’s bearded face. Fury? Triumph?

  “Do you know this man, Minister?”

  “He is not familiar, but my enemies have access to many hirelings.” Khalid moved majestically farther into the room. “What I wish to know is what he is doing on these grounds and why he has destroyed my property.”

  “That we’re about to find out,” Steve said grimly. “Minister, would you like to take over the interrogation?”

  “No, I wish to hear what he has to say to your questions. But this is not discreet. If this is the man, as Ismail informs me, who has been trying to kill me these many months, I wish to hear what he has to say without so many listening ears.” Khalid gestured to the uniforms around the walls. “How can we know if one of these is not a spy who will carry tales back to his employers?”

  Which explained why Khalid was speaking laborious English instead of Dari. Ismail murmured to the Afghan force commander. At his curt order, the uniforms around the wall followed the officer out of the room. As Ismail dragged the vacated chair to a less cramped viewing angle for Khalid, Steve’s own orders left only Phil and Ian at the prisoner’s back, Rick on agent-in-charge duty behind his principal, Ismail glaring at the prisoner from the broken doorway.

  And Amy.

  As Steve’s frown moved pointedly to her, Amy raised her chin. “I’m not leaving. This is my property—at least I pay the rent for this—and Jamil is my employee. You’re going to have to pick me up and carry me out of here if you want me to leave.”

  Khalid raised a hand. “So this is the American woman who has abused my charity to bring such distasteful residents onto my property. No, no, the Americans have different ways, and I owe them much.”

  Under the minister’s knowing glance, Steve gritted his teeth.

  “I am understanding now, Willie, why Ismail tells me you have interested yourself in the defense of this property. Let the woman stay. If it is true she employs this delinquent, he may be more cooperative in her presence. Let us find out who this man is and how he is so incompetent I remain alive.” There was raw contempt in Khalid’s tone.

  Steve picked up where he’d left off, throwing the questions hard and fast like hammer blows. “So you did come to Kabul to target Khalid. Who paid you? How did you get ID to get on the grounds? And the bomb? It was remote control. Were you carrying the detonator or someone else? And why, when you couldn’t get the bomb past security, did you come here instead?”

  But his prisoner did not so much as glance at Steve, and when he took a step forward that raised every weapon in the room, it was toward Khalid. “Incompetent! Do you think you are alive because I could not kill you, Khalid Sayef? Do you not know who I am? Jamil, son of Asad. If you do not recognize me now, you knew me well the day you killed my father and brothers on these very grounds. The day you stole my family’s home from under my feet. The day you lied to the Americans that I was a terrorist so that they shut me away in their prison.”

  Jamil shifted to the two American contractors behind the desk. “Yes, I did come here to kill Khalid. As was my right and my blood duty. And if he is not dead, it is not that I was incapable of my mission. I was indeed inside your defenses today—as I was once before.

  “Oh yes,” he added as Jason Hamilton straightened suddenly. “I saw you on the rooftop that night—all of you.” A hand indicated the CS contractors, Khalid’s deputy by the door, the dark eyes moving to Steve for the first time. “As I saw you this morning and feared you might know me.”

  No wonder he’d been fooled. Steve would not have recognized that passionate, defiant, confident voice as belonging to Amy’s sullen assistant or even the silent, immobile captive his men had ushered into this room. As he’d have never recognized in this man the angry adolescent with grief twisting his face and murder in his eyes Steve and Phil had walked away from that long-ago day the Northern Alliance and American forces had rolled triumphantly into Kabul.

  Phil’s disbelieving glance told Steve he too held memory of that day. Did Jamil recognize his two American captors? He’d given no indication, and they had looked very different in muj clothing and long hair and beard, that entire encounter a matter of minutes. Had perhaps some subconscious recall contributed to the Afghan’s immediate antipathy toward Steve?

  And Khalid? Had he ever believed Jamil was a Taliban insurgent—or had he just wanted this house? And the note Steve had written in an impulse of compassion, by ironic coincidence in a New Testament Ms. Mallory had mailed him, designed to avert precisely what Jamil accused—where had that gone? Though Steve had avoided looking directly at Amy, he was conscious of every movement in that slight frame, the hands twisting in her lap, the stunned horror in her eyes.

  “Do you know what this man’s talking about, Minister?” Jason Hamilton addressed Khalid. “Do you recognize him now?”

  The minister’s narrowed gaze hadn’t left Jamil’s face. “There was war. Many people died. But if the name he shouts is truly his own, then he is an insurgent we captured on these very grounds. You remember, Willie. And if he is of the family who once occupied this place, they were collaborators of the Taliban, whom all know dwelled here when we freed this city. Which is why this property like others was taken from such traitors and given to those who fought the enemy.”

  “That is a lie!” An M4 barred Jamil’s way as he took another step forward. “My father was a doctor, a surgeon. He treated all who required his services without distinction. This man, Khalid Sayef—” the name spat out like a curse—“was then a supplier of foreign goods to my father. Above all, the morphine and other medicines that could not be obtained in the city. I remember well his visits to this house when I was a child.”

  In other words, Khalid had been a smuggler. Steve had no doubt now Jamil had the right guy. He could personally testify the muj commander knew every contraband trail in the Hindu Kush like the back of his hand. Though that was less a crime in these parts than honorable business tradition.

  “When the mujahedeen turned against this city, my father took our family to find refuge in Pakistan. But our chowkidar remained to safeguard our home. Yes, the mujahedeen seized it and the Taliban after them. By then I was a medical student in Islamabad. But when the chowkidar sent word that the Americans were bringing freedom at last, my father declared we would return to Kabul. So I obeyed my father and left my studies to join them here. Only when I arrived, it was not freedom I found but death. My father and brothers killed by the mujahedeen who claimed to be our liberators. And standing over their bodies in my home to claim it as his own, the man who once served my fathe
r, Khalid Sayef.”

  Jason Hamilton sneered. “That’s quite a story. And right out of the al-Qaeda manual. Blame your captors. Blame the Americans. Except if you were arrested as an enemy combatant, why aren’t you in Gitmo? And why wait all these years to go after Khalid?”

  Jamil drew himself to his full height. “If I did not kill him before, it was because I was a prisoner. First by you Americans at Bagram. Like you, they believed Khalid and said al-Qaeda taught their warriors to lie so. And since my possessions had been taken away, I had no papers to prove otherwise. They would not even listen when I begged them to find out if my mother and sister had survived that day. They only laughed and told me I was a good liar.”

  Then that note hadn’t reached its destination. Steve made no effort to take the reins of the interrogation back from Hamilton. He was having a hard enough time keeping emotion from his face. Khalid, on the other hand, was surprisingly quiet for someone accused of murder and worse, a bored interest the only expression Steve could read.

  “When the Americans grew tired of receiving the same answers to the same questions, I thought I would be freed like so many others. Instead I was taken to another prison. I did not know it was near Khalid’s home in Baghlan until I was released. But I soon came to consider the American prison a paradise. Until in time I no longer wished to live long enough to obtain vengeance but to die.”

  Jamil hadn’t looked at Khalid since that first accusation, and he didn’t do so now, but his tone had thickened with bitterness and revulsion. “Then one day not many months ago, I saw Khalid walk through the prison. I called out his name. I pleaded with him to tell me what had happened to my mother and sister. I screamed after him that he was a liar and murderer and thief. That he would not escape Allah’s avenging justice if I had to come back from death itself to exact it. But he only walked away, and I saw that he had truly forgotten me. That while his face had consumed my every waking thought, I was so little to him, he did not care enough to know whether I had lived or died.”

  Ameera believed him, Jamil could see in her face. Though he was addressing the American mercenaries, to make Ameera understand, to wipe away the horror and disbelief that had greeted his arrest, was what mattered most to him.

  But now to his dismay, Jamil saw Ameera was crying, silent tears he knew to be not for herself but for him. So he thrust down the terrible details he’d allowed to surface to his voice. Details too horror-laden and shameful to be relived. The beatings and brutality of the prison guards. The metal transport containers where a dozen or more prisoners were squeezed to freeze in winter and bake in summer. The food, vile and unclean and never enough. The lack of water to make ablutions or even for basic hygiene so that it was no wonder the guards chose not to enter the stench of the prison quarters. The two years Jamil had spent in shackles until at last he was considered too broken to cause further trouble.

  And worse things. The punishment for being young and good of appearance and undiseased in that hell, so that he’d wanted to die, even as he dreaded death because he’d known beyond any shadow of hope that he was irredeemably soiled now in the eyes of Allah. That not all the rakats and ablutions and meritorious deeds of a lifetime would suffice to balance again the scales of divine justice.

  But though so many others had died of the guards’ beatings or violence at the hands of their peers or lack of medical care, perhaps also because he’d been young and strong and healthy, Jamil had survived. And in so doing, he’d passed beyond despair to endurance and determination. And above all, hate.

  Then had come the miracle.

  Conscious of watchful eyes, Amy wiped her scarf across her eyes, then wound it as Farah or Roya might over her face. No wonder Jamil hadn’t wanted to speak of his family, had closed up at any mention of his mother or the young sister of whom Farah had reminded him.

  Amy couldn’t tell if Steve and Phil believed his story. But the older blond contractor’s skepticism was patent. “A heart-wringer story and nicely rehearsed. Minister, does this prison incident ring a bell?”

  “There was a madman when I went to interrogate an opium merchant,” Khalid said calmly. “He knew my name and began screaming curses down on me. I paid little heed. It is possible this is the prisoner involved. What I wish to know is why he is no longer in chains and how he found his way to my presence.”

  “Yes, let’s cut to the chase,” Jason said. “We’re not here for your excuses. Just how you managed to plant two bombs under our noses. And don’t think you can lie to us.”

  “I am telling the truth. I have nothing more to hide.” Jamil glanced at the two Afghans in the room. “That very night I saw Khalid, a man came to me. He asked if I meant it that I would give my life to destroy Khalid. He told me if my commitment was true, he could help me achieve a martyrdom that would not only destroy my enemy but strike such a blow for Allah that paradise would be assured. He swore his people would find my mother and sister and grant to them the allowance given to the families of martyrs.”

  “And who was this man? Who was behind this mission?”

  Jamil glanced again at the two Afghans before he shrugged. “The man came at night and kept his face covered so I would not see it. But I was given money to travel and papers for the chowkidar of this property that said I was the son of distant relatives who died in the fighting. Its truth was not questioned.”

  Amy let out a breath in relief. So at least Rasheed had not been in on this deception.

  “I was given instructions to a meeting place high in a ruined building where I found all I needed. A cell phone to receive orders. Materials and instructions to make a suicide vest.”

  “The one we found at the ministry building.” Steve broke his silence. “But how did you get in? We checked every entrance.”

  “I wore the uniform of the police. I was told a side door would be open, a truck making deliveries. As instructed, I lifted boxes from the truck to carry them in. No one asked questions.”

  Amy saw the disbelief in the glance that Steve and his companion exchanged before Jason said, “But you never carried out that mission. You could have blown up Khalid’s chopper, wiped out his entire party. So what went wrong? Someone else yanking your chain, or did you just chicken out?” He was deliberately trying to provoke his prisoner, his tone thick with contempt.

  But Jamil’s shake of the head showed bewilderment. “Yes, I . . . I should have achieved shaheed that night. I was prepared to make the sacrifice. I built the bomb as I was told. I pressed the detonator. I thought I would be then in paradise. But I did not die. Then I was told to leave the bomb behind as a warning. That the mission had been changed to a new target, a bigger one.”

  “The loya jirga,” the blond contractor said. “And that’s what makes you a liar. If we buy your story, you might try to justify going after the guy you blame for taking out your family. But how do you justify going after an entire assembly of innocent people who’ve never done a thing against you?”

  “Innocent!” Jamil’s eyes blazed. “Those I saw this day in your loya jirga, the men who now call themselves governors and ministers and commanders—you call them innocent? Are they not the very muj commanders who laid waste to my country? They are worse than infidels because they claim to speak for Allah even as they break his laws. The Quran itself teaches that such deserve to die. No, I felt no pity for them when I received new instructions and built the new bomb.”

  “And Waters and his team? Are you trying to tell me the arrival of the American drug czar had nothing to do with this? After all, if your mission was to take out crooked Afghan politicians, there’ve been plenty of other opportunities—and with a whole lot less security restrictions.”

  Jamil looked surprised. “But of course the American visit was necessary to the mission. How else could martyrdom’s reward be assured if there was not the death of infidels?”

  “Wait, are you telling me you targeted American citizens just to make sure you had an in to paradise?” Jason shot out of
his chair. “In case Allah didn’t quite consider assassinating your own government leaders meritorious enough to earn seventy virgins and all the rest?”

  Steve’s hand on his companion’s arm brought him back into his seat, a sharp gesture waving down weapons that had come up. But his demand was no less harsh. “You still haven’t explained why, if you were actually in place at the loya jirga, you’re standing here breathing, and there’s a hole in this house. Why go after this place? Did you think because your employer was also an American and an infidel, you’d get points for taking her out? And if you had the bomb there, what went off here?”

  “That was a mistake.” For the first time Jamil’s gaze met Amy’s directly, and in them she saw deep sadness and regret. “I—the bomb I carried into the loya jirga was not the real one but that.” He pointed to the sliced-open parka lying across a chair, its Play-Doh lining visible. “I had to carry out my instructions lest those who sent me make new plans. So I made a duplicate that looked and felt the same. I had Wajid’s keys, so I hid the bomb where it would not be found, that I might find a way later to dispose of it.

  “Even when I learned that I was not to be given the code to detonate the instrument of shaheed myself, I did not think there was danger because the bomb was many miles away. But while I waited in the loya jirga, my phone received a message from Rasheed that there had been an explosion. I knew then what must have happened. So though Khalid was not yet in place, I left my post to rush here, praying that none had been killed. And my prayers were answered. But—” Jamil glanced at Amy again—“I am so sorry for the trouble it has caused, the injuries. I did not intend that any should be hurt.”

  “I don’t know what’s harder to believe. That you waltzed a bomb through our security—a fake one at that—or that you didn’t realize a detonator connected to a cell phone could be set off anywhere phone service could reach,” Jason said. “And yet you had no problem building the thing.”