Pashtun

by Ron Lealos

  “What do you suggest, Morgan?” he asked. “We enlist her? Train her to be the Mata Hari of the rocks?”

  I smiled. Pissing him off with my smart mouth wouldn’t achieve my goal, and I needed his cooperation.

  “Hardly,” I said and came around Khkulay’s chair, closer to Dunne.

  “Well, not the way you’re thinkin’,” I said. “You know those unmarked Gulfstreams that fly regularly in and out of Bagram? They usually depart with fewer passengers than when they arrived. If you fixed it, Khkulay could have a seat. She speaks fluent English, Arabic, and Pashto. She’s intimately aware of the cultural and religious challenges we face. She knows more about the Taliban mindset than any of the analysts in Langley.”

  I moved within a handshake of Dunne. “I’ve already proposed it to Khkulay. She’s agreed. Didn’t take any convincing. She’s extremely intelligent. Certainly smart enough to realize there’s absolutely no future for her here. I’m proposing Finnen and I escort her to the Kabul airbase. And that you schedule the transport and further arrangements when she gets stateside.”

  There it was. Simple. I was more nervous than if I had been personally threatened with being dropped into a pit full of vipers. We were used to an exchange of ideas. But that usually meant discussing the various methods of killing and getting back to base without wearing a body bag. Our plans had certainly never involved saving an Afghan damsel in distress. But I believed her destiny was in my hands, and I couldn’t let another innocent girl die. Dunne grinned with a smile that would frighten a Great White Shark.

  Even with all the normal torment dished out by older girls to a younger brother, as I grew, I still felt it was my responsibility to protect my sisters from the demons of Millard, Kansas. If I wasn’t big enough to physically threaten a rude quarterback who had called Tracy a skank, leading to tearful hours of sobbing behind her closed bedroom door, I could sneak into the locker room and sprinkle his jock with white pepper. Or drop Ex-Lax into his Gatorade. Or leave forged notes from the town punch in his cheerleader girlfriend’s locker, thanking the team captain for a “magical night” on a blanket by the reservoir where he “satisfied” her more than any of the “interior linemen.” The message was written on pink paper with lots of Xs and Os and swirly hearts. Somehow, my need to be a protector was born in the corn fields, and now Khkulay needed a guardian. And I needed a grain of redemption.

  Surprisingly, Dunne caved with minimal resistance and a wink from Finnen.

  “Okay, Morgan,” Dunne said. “But you’re accountable for anything that happens to her.”

  I smiled and nodded my head, knowing I couldn’t let anything go wrong with this one.

  “You’re already guilty of kidnapping as I see it.” Dunne said, the laugh lines crinkling his face. “I think it’s better for everyone you’re limited to the field.”

  He sat back and put his hands behind his head. “And there’s a certain MP Captain who wants to have a chat with you. Seems you abused one of his men.”

  Up ’til now, the only sound out of Finnen had been slurp and the crinkling of cans. He sat forward, resting the latest Bud on his knee.

  “Malarkey,” he said. “That gomer was plannin’ ta’ cop a feel. I could tell by his beady eyes. Morgan was makin’ sure Khkulay’s virtue stayed intact, like I used to with the girls at St. Mary Margaret’s.” He lifted the beer toward his mouth. “Not by choice, mind you.”

  Motives. I kept telling myself they were pure. Even if the girl had been toothless, crippled, and ugly, I’d convinced myself the outcome would have been no different. The scene at the market was evil and needed to be addressed. And sex—I had the normal hormone level of a healthy twenty-five-year-old male who hadn’t touched a woman in months unless I counted magazine pictures. I didn’t want to run off with Khkulay to a white-sand beach and lick the sand out of her bikini. The way I saw it, I had treated her like she was the little sister I’d never had, no matter how much my lower regions were starving and in denial. Platonic and protective. And that would be the way it would stay. I would be the older brother, only there to guard her. Maybe a kind of babysitter guide for someone new to the world.

  The discourse was over. Dunne was no longer infatuated, and it was time to get back on the job. He began typing, responding to what was probably the thousandth critical email he’d received so far today.

  “You’re going out in the morning,” Dunne said. “We’ll talk about this more when you get back. Take the girl over to the women’s barracks. Speak to Captain Meredith. She’ll give her a bunk. Be back here at 0600. Washington and you are pickin’ up a load.” He turned to Finnen. “And the leprechaun there. He can stay drunk ’til you get back for all I care.” The keystrokes made their little click sounds. “Now beat it.”

  Walking across the base, I tried to prepare Khkulay for what was coming, but I wasn’t familiar with all the secrets about what went on inside the women’s bivouac. If she would be drowned in deodorant, gagged with hairspray, her face smothered in a mud wrap, fingernails painted in red, and legs shaved. Or taught to fire an H & K and disarm a landmine with the tip of a Ka-Bar. What I did know was the females on the base weren’t smiley prom queens from Millard. Even if they didn’t go out in combat, they were tough and didn’t take a pinch on the butt or a whistle lightly. Or without a karate kick to the nuts. Khkulay understood she had already entered Oz and this was just another chapter. In some small way, I would try to be her mentor.

  After passing Khkulay off to the first female soldier I encountered with orders to take her to Captain Meredith, we parted with a bow and “Inshallah.” I went back to the compound to shave and get some rest before tomorrow’s journey deep into Indian country.

  The clouds of yesterday had made their passage into the mountains, not shedding any moisture before they reached the peaks of the Hindu Kush. Refugees, carrying sacks and blankets filled with their every possession, trudged alongside the road, fleeing the latest skirmish. The pavement had long ago ended, and the 6x6 bounced across the ruts and ancient water channels. Since leaving the river, the countryside morphed into brown. Not even a bush broke up the steady horizon of rocks and dirt, except near the occasional mud-walled hut. The last Allied checkpoint was behind us by at least twenty-five klicks. We were deep into Taliban country. Washington was the guide on this trip northwest.

  Khkulay had provided a diversion, momentarily taking my thoughts off the bigger questions. I couldn’t afford to let my Sir Galahad strategy intrude now. That could mean my head on a pole. This time, Washington was told to bring along a satchel filled with hundred-dollar bills he’d retrieved from a hiding place in the motor pool. No more middle men in Jalalabad. The pace must be accelerated. It was harvest time. No one wanted to keep a cash crop waiting in a place that might suffer a direct hit from an A-10 Thunderbolt. The money was now hidden under the engine hood in a mock ammo can. There were surprises sewn into the bag’s lining.

  Much of the Company intel on the Taliban came from paid informers. Before US troops landed in Afghanistan, the CIA had already recruited assets on the ground. Now, many more eyes and ears reported on Taliban movement at the rate of about $150 a month per snitch. That made it one of the most lucrative professions in Afghanistan, where the average daily salary, if you could find a job, was less than $2. Paid snitches were the primary sources for intelligence and the reason behind most of my missions. The other means of finding information on Taliban and al-Qaeda activity came from the sky. Predator drones were aloft around the clock, and Signal Intelligence Satellites, Sigints, and Quickbirds never slept, relaying pictures and mobile and cell phone transmissions. A particular focus was the Durand Line, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Crossing over the Line gave the Taliban and al-Qaeda a measure of safety when they were in Pakistan, where the US military presence was minimal and they were protected by tribal warlords and an inefficient and corrupt Pakistani army, as well as terrain as rugged as any on Earth.

  One troubling issue was
how the insurgents could pass so easily back and forth over the Durand Line when satellites and drones tracked their every move, and spies were in their midst. It was well accepted in the clandestine community that there were only fourteen points along the Pakistan–Afghanistan border where any sizable number of insurgents and vehicles could cross. Even if the boundary was more than 2,400 klicks long, almost every inch was impassable by man or donkey and certainly not trucks. It seemed like a relatively simple task to close the fourteen points. . . .

  But I couldn’t let this one nag more than the other doubts in my head. I was no policy maker.

  Then there was the so-called Afghan Army. Since nearly two-thirds of those who enlisted in this phantom force went AWOL, the Army was composed primarily of supporters of the hundreds of warlords who, for whatever reason, had chosen to fight against the Taliban. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent by the warlords arming themselves, mostly with Russian-made munitions bought by proceeds from the poppy fields. It was estimated these supposed anti-Taliban fighters numbered more than 200,000. According to Company intel, one northern warlord, Ahmed Mahim, had recently returned from Moscow having spent more than $100 million on Soviet hardware.

  The information and subsequent doubts were personally dangerous; there was too much to sift through when we were on our way to take out a cell. The static was distracting, but I couldn’t shake the resonance of one issue: Who were the Taliban?

  All Afghan men looked the same. Beards, loose-fitting pajama pants, open-toed sandals, vests or old coats, shawls, turbans. It was just as tough as my ancestors had it in ’Nam, distinguishing a Viet Cong from a Vietnamese civilian. One famous Afghan line was “Everyone is Taliban. No one is Taliban.” It was common for men to work their jobs until a cell leader called them to action. When the mission was complete, they melted back into their everyday lives. On any given day, there might be one thousand Taliban fighters active in the sector. The next, ten thousand. They didn’t have a fifteen-month assigned tour of duty. The call-ups and stand-downs came at the cell commander’s orders. And the only way the commanders could outfit their networks and sustain the opposition to the Coalition was the drug trade. Otherwise, they would not have the resources to counter a multi-billion dollar offensive fought primarily by Americans. Hopefully, I was about to make a small contribution in the ongoing battle against the Taliban and the narco trade.

  Washington had been silent most of the journey. I didn’t tell him about Khkulay, even though he’d probably already heard there was a stunning Afghan girl in the women’s barracks. Rumors like that spread faster than the bouts of dysentery that commonly occurred.

  We were starting to climb out of the brown and into the green, having passed through numerous Taliban checkpoints with only a few grunts from the metal-teethed men and waves from AKs. At each stop, one of the men was on a radio. Our passes were solid. There was too much money to be made. The road only got worse, turning into a series of ruts and holes big enough for coffins, Occasionally, I spotted men on rock outcroppings above us, rifles on their hips. Washington didn’t need a map. The intersections were few and klicks between. No traffic lights. A small stream was his GPS and the most common sound other than the growl of the diesel engine was a groan caused by another crippling pothole. There was little padding in the seats, and the frame of the 6x6 didn’t include shock absorbers. It was like riding a bull sitting on a lawn chair with the webbing missing. We were at the stage where Washington seldom left first gear.

  “Just around that bend,” he said, nodding ahead. “There’ll be at least ten guards up there, and we’ll be thoroughly searched. No weapons past the sentries. You’re gonna feel naked without the Hush Puppy. And Ka-Bar. I’ll feel safer, though.”

  In front about fifty meters, a man holding an AK stepped from behind a tree. He was the first. Within seconds, more appeared. I put on my helmet.

  “Not a very friendly looking greeting party,” I said. “Reminds me of when Finnen and me stumbled into an NCO club in our civvies and sunglasses. Even the music stopped. But none’a them had beards.”

  “They recognized you weren’t members,” Washington said. “They’re kinda exclusive in their entrance criteria. No spooks allowed.”

  “Well, we were invited to leave. Kindly, I must admit. Even after Finnen insulted them with a few knuckle-dragger comments.”

  “Sounds like that time I went into Big Frenchie’s in the bayou. Thought maybe it coulda been the Yankee hat I was wearin’ that caused the reception to deteriorate fast. Like the second they laid eyes on me. I didn’t have much time to think about it before the baseball bats came out. In hindsight, I think I shoulda stayed at the juke joint down the road. Or carried a Smith and Wesson. They still would’a had more firepower than me.”

  Nerves. Ten fierce-looking armed men within a few meters.

  While Washington and I told lies, both of us constantly scanned the field of vision, looking for escape routes, choosing spots that might provide cover, deciding which target would go down first, identifying other bad guys, and evaluating the potential success of any unrehearsed plan. It was a response drilled into us through training and many firefights. Neither of us would admit fear. The talk was bullshit. But words didn’t keep my blood pressure from rising like the price of oil.

  The mujahedeen fanned out across the road, knowing well enough if they bunched closer, a grenade tossed from the truck window would pretty much take out them all. One man spoke into a black handheld walkie-talkie; cell phone coverage this far from Jalalabad was spotty at best. The others held their AKs at their waists, aggression only showing in their bearded faces, not through the barrel of a pointed rifle. None of them looked like they had been feasting on mutton and Naan. I couldn’t tell anything about their teeth because they weren’t smiling. Dirty tunics stained by the brown of the rocks drooped from thin, nearly caved-in chests. Beyond the men, the first of the poppy fields was close to final harvest, and unarmed milkers were beginning the late afternoon’s sap collection. From over the hill, smoke rose in a dark funnel cloud. Probably from the lab where the opium was being boiled.

  Stepping forward and separating himself from the rest of the turbaned squad, the man with the radio held his hand up, palm out. The truck was barely moving.

  “I don’t recognize him or any of the other hadjis,” Washington said. “You s’pose I should stop this rig? Or make a run for it at two miles an hour?”

  “I think he wants you to pull over,” I said. “That’s what the hand sign means. I speak Pashto.”

  “They talk with their hands?”

  “Nahh, they don’t have to say much. Bullets have a way of speakin’ for them.”

  “Roger that. I’ll just ease on over to this designated parking slot.”

  The washboard dirt road was wide enough for only one vehicle. A 6x6 took up every centimeter. Washington put on the brake. Diesel fumes immediately drifted from the exhaust, stinking up the idyllic mountain landscape.

  The leader held up his right hand, thumb and forefinger pressed together. He rotated his hand back and forth, indicating Washington should turn off the truck. He did.

  “Man,” Washington said. “I’m gettin’ the hang’a this Pashto shit. Pretty soon, I won’t even need an interpreter.”

  “You should’a gone to language school,” I said. “You would have graduated Phi Beta Krappa.”

  Directly in front of the truck’s ram guard, the man motioned us to get out by waving his right hand.

  “There, I get it,” Washington said like a teenager discovering how simple it was to unsnap his girlfriend’s bra strap with one hand in the dark. “He wants us to dismount.”

  “Brilliant,” I said.

  Our H & Ks were stowed behind the seats. Without taking our eyes off the man, we reached back to retrieve the rifles.

  The man shook his head and then indicated we should get out, more forcefully this time.

  “No guns,” Washington said. “And he wants us on t
he ground. Post haste.”

  “Fuckin’ A, Washington,” I said. “You’ll be teachin’ the classes soon.”

  We opened the doors and stepped onto the dirt, moving slowly around to the front of the truck. Everyone would be jumpy, and quick movements weren’t advisable. Washington even held out his hand when he got close to the man.

  “Hey, Abdul,” he said, a sparkling grin showing off his white teeth. “How’s it goin’?”

  Shit. One of the slurs used by US soldiers. All Afghan men were named Abdul. Maybe we’d get lucky and his name would really be Abdul.

  The man stepped back, handshakes not in the Taliban etiquette.

  Washington continued with the grin.

  “Hey,” he said. “Why don’t you tell them other Abduls to put their rifles down.” He nodded toward the men, some of whom had started to walk toward us.

  Soon enough, the bullets thwack-ing into our bodies would make it painfully obvious if any of these Abduls spoke English.

  The man either had a sense of humor, not commonplace in the land of few smiles, or he didn’t understand the insult. He waved us to the side of the road. We obeyed.

  Four men walked past and searched the truck. They didn’t have one of those mirrored things, so one got down on his back and pushed himself beneath the 6x6, pulling on hoses and sticking his hands places I would never know. Another hadji climbed into the cab and collected all the weapons he could find. He rummaged around, and I didn’t think, without a thorough search, he would find the camouflaged button. He didn’t. They kicked the tires and crawled into the back, not bothering to open the hood. After a few minutes, they finished and came back to the man with the walkie-talkie, carrying our rifles and miscellaneous other goodies, like grenades and spare ammo. No one had said a word.

  The mujahedeen spoke briefly. Two separated and came toward us, lifting their arms up from their sides.