Stinger

by Stinger (retail) (epub)

  One of them emerged from the car brandishing the cassette that Panna had hidden. He caught a loop of the tape on the tip of his bayonet, ripped it out and threw it to the base of the dead tree. The black ribbons of tape rustled in the wind.

  The leader shouted a question at Panna. I heard the words faranji and kafir – foreigner and infidel. Panna’s answer did not please the Taliban and he punched Panna in the face. The driver dropped to his knees, a thin trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. The leader uncurled a length of electrical flex from around his waist and brought it whistling down on Panna’s back half a dozen times. Despite the pain, Panna neither flinched nor made a sound.

  Dexy’s face remained impassive. Jeff had tensed alongside me, and beads of sweat trickled down his forehead and dripped from his nose. I forced myself to remain still, but as the leader turned to look at me his eyes widened and he stepped towards me, pulling a wicked-looking curved knife from his belt.

  I froze, my mouth dry with fear. The Taliban leader grabbed me by the hair and dragged my head downwards, forcing me to my knees.

  ‘Wait!’ It was Amica’s voice.

  The leader turned to stare at her.

  ‘This man has just arrived from the West to help us,’ she said. I could hear the tremor of fear in her voice. ‘He is not yet used to our ways.’

  The leader strode towards her as if he would strike her, then paused. ‘Then I shall have to teach him.’

  He began hacking at my hair with his knife, punctuating each cut with shouts and curses. The blade was blunt and my scalp burned as clumps of hair were torn from it by the roots. He carried on until the ground at my feet was covered in bloodstained hair. Then he put the point of the knife under my chin and forced me upright. He shouted at me again, pleased at the fear in my eyes, then pushed me away.

  He kicked at Panna. ‘Bring the faranji to the sports stadium tomorrow afternoon. They shall learn what it is to be a good Muslim.’

  Jeff was shivering with fright, but the Taliban leader left him and Dexy alone. He glanced back at Amica standing by the rear wheel of the pickup, her face averted, then motioned for us to get back into the car.

  We waited in silence. Finally the leader made a dismissive gesture with his hand and the barrier was raised.

  Panna started the engine and we roared off down the road, trailing dust. Jeff looked away from me, reluctant to meet my eye, but Dexy’s gaze was level. ‘Sometimes the hardest thing is to do nothing,’ he said. ‘But we can’t jeopardise what we’re here to do by trying to fight these guys, whatever the provocation.’

  I heard a muffled sound. Behind the burka, I was sure that Amica was crying. I hesitated, then reached over and touched her arm. ‘Are you all right?’

  She started. ‘I’m – It was seeing that man, Salan.’

  ‘The Taliban leader?’

  She nodded. ‘He did not recognise me — how could he beneath a burka? But I knew him.’ There was cold rage in her voice.

  I waited for her to continue, but she was silent.

  ‘You will have to fight me to get to him,’ Panna said. ‘He has shamed me, whipping me like a dog.’

  Amica parted what was left of my hair to inspect my bloody scalp. ‘We’ll treat your wounds as soon as we get back to the compound. Yours too, Panna.’

  He shrugged his shoulders, then cursed as the movement reopened the wounds on his back.

  ‘What did he mean about learning to be a good Muslim?’ I said.

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow.’

  We drove on, following the curve of the encircling hills, and halted at the gates of a compound ringed with barbed wire. Inside, I glimpsed a group of white vehicles and a huddle of dirt-brown buildings. Four Taliban soldiers guarded the entrance. From their posture and the direction they were facing it was obvious that their prime duty was less to keep others out, than to keep watch on those inside.

  Two Asian men in ill-fitting linen suits stood nearby. ‘Who are they?’ I said.

  Amica kept her voice low. ‘Secret police. From the Pakistan Inter-Services Agency.’

  The Taliban peered at our papers and handed my passport to the Pakistanis, who noted the details then returned it. Panna nosed the pickup past them into the compound, weaving between baulks of timber laid across the ground as primitive tank or car-bomb traps.

  We parked by a battered forklift truck. Four huge, grey rubber fuel bladders were lined up on pallets along the fence facing the entrance gates. Two sides of the compound were flanked by a series of low, mud-brick buildings. The space between each one was filled with neat stacks of boxes and equipment bearing the AMCO logo, but the rest of the compound resembled a junkyard. There were heaps of old, bald tyres, piles of rusting scrap metal and a mound of torn paper, cardboard, dead leaves and broken wood, weighed down by yet more scrap metal. A fire was smouldering in a rough depression scraped in the ground, heating a metal dome on which a one-armed boy was laying naan breads to cook. An oil drum, lying on its side and split lengthwise, was half-filled with grey, greasy water. I realised from the piles of cups and plates close by that this was the kitchen sink. The flies seemed to like it.

  The main building was protected by mounds of sandbags, and every window was screened by heavy-gauge wire mesh. More rough baulks of timber shielded the doors.

  ‘This was a former Soviet post,’ Amica said. ‘It was abandoned when the Mujahedeen overran Kabul.’

  The interior was dark, musty and cool and looked more like a cell block; a series of tiny rooms, each one no more than six by ten feet, led off the single, long, dark corridor. There were no chairs, tables or even beds in any of them, just a low pile of rugs and a cushion propped against the wall. Personal belongings hung in plastic bags from nails hammered into the mud walls.

  ‘Where is everybody?’

  ‘In the minefields,’ Dexy said. ‘That’s what we’re here for – remember?’

  I dumped my bags in an unoccupied room and followed Jeff and Dexy back outside. ‘Where’s the heli?’

  Jeff pointed to what appeared to be a hillock of the same red-brown dust as the compound. ‘Under that tarpaulin.’

  ‘Jesus, how long have you had it buried?’

  ‘Since the last crew quit,’ Dexy said,

  ‘What happened?’

  He turned to face me, still with the same impassive expression. ‘They got tired of being shot at.’

  We moved the rocks pinning down the edge of the tarpaulin and dragged it off the heli, filling the air with dust.

  ‘It’s a corpse,’ I remarked. ‘No wonder you buried it.’

  ‘The Mark I Hydra,’ Jeff said. ‘Also known as the flying brick. The Sovs introduced it when Boris Yeltsin was a teenager. It’s primitive, grossly under-equipped and underpowered, but it’s so easy to fly even you shouldn’t have any problems.’

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Dexy said. ‘I’m aiming to be in Konarlan by tomorrow night, if you crabs can manage to get us there in one piece.’

  ‘Konarlan?’ I said.

  ‘It’s a village a couple of hundred kilometres east of here. We use it as a forward base. There are so many people crippled by mines around there you couldn’t even organise an arse-kicking competition.’

  ‘What’s the food like?’ Jeff said. ‘I’ve been in Afghanistan a week and I haven’t had a decent meal yet.’

  Dexy exchanged a glance with me. ‘Is he always this insensitive?’

  ‘No, he’s usually worse.’

  ‘You won’t be getting gourmet meals up there,’ Dexy said. ‘Rice and spring onions, and a bit of fat or gristle on special occasions.’

  Jeff sighed. ‘It’ll probably do me good anyway.’ He patted the paunch straining against his belt. ‘I’ve been piling on the lard recently.’

  ‘You’re in luck. They’ve got one of the finest dietary aids known to mankind here.’

  ‘Don’t tell me – dysentery, right?’

  Dexy smiled. ‘We’ll have you three stone below yo
ur fighting weight before you can say “pass the pebbles”.’

  Jeff gave him a suspicious look. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? Your piles are in for a treat. Toilet paper is strictly a metropolitan luxury. They don’t use it in the rural areas, just pebbles or sand – or your fingers if you can’t find anything else.’

  Jeff winced. ‘Thanks. Right now, that’s what I really needed to know.’

  I walked over to the heli and kicked the tyres. ‘So, are we going to try and get this crate airborne?’

  Dexy looked at his watch. ‘Not today, I think. We’re almost on curfew. Get some rest tonight and you can put it through its paces first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I’m for a brew. Where do we get one, or is there no tea around here either?’

  ‘Two sorts,’ Dexy said, ‘black and green. I’ll show you what passes for a canteen.’

  He led me around the back of the main building and into a room sparsely furnished with cushions and low tables. The one-armed boy I had seen earlier was feeding the fire beneath the samovars with scrap wood. He paused to ladle sugar into two tin cups and filled them with black, astringent tea.

  Panna was lying face down on one of the tables, grimacing with pain as a woman cleaned the wounds on his back. She wore a khaki cotton shirt and trousers, and was tall and olive-skinned, with long hair as black and glossy as a raven’s wing. She seemed to sense my scrutiny and glanced up for a moment, holding my gaze with her dark eyes.

  Only when she spoke did I realise that it was Amica. ‘I’ll be finished with Panna in a minute, then I’ll have a look at your scalp.’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘The flesh is broken in a few places. If it gets infected you’ll be no use to yourself or us for several days.’

  Dexy and I sat sipping our tea as I waited my turn at the treatment table. ‘What made you switch from fast jets to choppers?’ he said.

  I looked up, surprised by the question. ‘I wanted a change. Does it matter?’

  ‘No, it’s just that it’s an unusual career move, that’s all. Not many people get bored with fast jets.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You were decorated in the Falklands, weren’t you?’ He saw the look on my face. ‘AMCO in Geneva forwarded us a copy of your C-file. Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s obviously a touchy subject, forget it.’

  I hesitated before replying, fighting down the irrational surge of anger that I felt at his questions. ‘Yes, I fought in the Falklands. It’s not something I’m too keen to talk about though, if you don’t mind. I lost – I lost a lot of friends there.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’

  ‘In a way. I’d seen enough killing.’

  He gave a grim smile. ‘You’ve come to the wrong place then.’

  ‘I mean,’ I struggled to find the words. ‘I suppose I just wanted to do something for the people at the other end of the gun barrel for a change. Mine clearance seemed a good option.’

  When I looked up, Amica’s eyes were fixed on me. She flushed and looked away. ‘Panna’s patched up. I’ll do your scalp now.’

  Dexy drained his tea and stood up. ‘I’ll be in the compound,’ he said. ‘I can’t bear to hear a grown man scream.’ He winked and sauntered out.

  I sat on the end of a table while Amica stood over me, frowning with concentration as she dabbed at the cuts on my scalp. I could smell her perfume and felt very conscious of her nearness to me. I tried to look up at her face, but she placed a cool, firm hand on my brow and pushed my head down again. ‘Keep still, this won’t take long.’

  ‘Why did my hair make Salan so angry?’

  She gave a sour laugh. ‘The Taliban believe that devils nest in long hair.’

  ‘But obviously not in long beards.’

  She shrugged. ‘There is no logic in the world of the Taliban, or only of the most twisted kind. They have banned cameras, television, music, chess – even flying kites.’

  ‘Kites?’

  ‘Kites were a national passion for us. The sight of a thousand multicoloured kites swaying against a backdrop of snow-capped mountains and a sky of the deepest blue was—’ She broke off and gave a slow shake of her head. ‘No kites fly in our skies now, and there are no songbirds in our houses. All we are left with is the scent and colour of the flowers we nurture in our gardens. No doubt the Taliban will soon ban those as well.’

  She stood motionless, her expression veiled, and I found it impossible to shift my gaze from that proud but haunted face. Then she concentrated once more on her work.

  An uncomfortable silence grew between us and I was glad of the distraction when the boy brought me more tea. ‘What happened to his arm?’ I said, as he went back to tending the fire beneath the samovars.

  ‘A mine.’

  ‘Poor little kid.’

  ‘There are thousands like him.’ She stepped back and studied me in silence for a moment, as if trying to read something in my face. ‘Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.’ She led me back outside and pointed to a low building at the back of the compound. ‘Come and see the other side of our work. We don’t just clear the mines; we clear up after them as well.’

  A piece of filthy, frayed hessian sacking hung over the doorway. As I pushed it aside, I was hit by a wall of heat. A legless boy pushed himself around on a wheeled wooden platform. He was loading plaster casts of arms and legs into an oven belching smoke and flames. The roar of the fire was drowned by the rattling din of ancient lathes. Behind each of these sat another amputee turning or trimming more limbs. Another group, all missing one or both legs, hacked with knives at threadbare tyres, fashioning sandals from the tread.

  I tore my eyes away.

  Amica’s mouth was set in a thin hard line. ‘This is one of Afghanistan’s few growth industries,’ she said. ‘Some of these boys were wounded in action for the Taliban.’ She shrugged. ‘No one else pays any wages. Others lost their limbs on mines scattered in their family fields.

  ‘Many of them were crippled when the Taliban decided to expel all foreigners, including AMCO. They said they could carry out their own mine-clearance programme. They first attempted to clear the minefields by sending their troops out to probe the soil. It was not a success; they were untrained in the work and many men were killed clearing a single large minefield.

  ‘So then they sent boys like these crawling across the fields, pushing knives or sticks into the ground. No one knows how many were killed or wounded – probably thousands – before they relented and allowed us back in.’

  We stayed only a few minutes in the building, but the sights that I had seen there stayed in my mind long after I lay down that night and closed my eyes, until at last I fell asleep.

  The beginning of the familiar nightmare filled me with dread, but I was powerless to change its course or wake myself from it. It had been some time since the end of the war that had claimed the life of the woman I loved, but I was still haunted by the same painful memories and recurring nightmare. I saw green water slopping over Jane’s face. She choked and spat. ‘The chute. I can’t get it free.’ Seawater flooded her billowing parachute and it began to sink beneath the waves, dragging her with it. I saw the terror in her eyes and cried out, flailing at the water with my hands, but the waves kept carrying her away from me, just beyond my reach. More and more waves broke over her head. She spat the water from her mouth. ‘Let me go, Sean. You’ve got to let me go.’

  ‘No! I can’t lose you now.’

  Her face came clear of the water again, but her lips were already turning blue. She gazed into my eyes and I felt her hand brush mine. I lunged for her, but my fingers closed around nothing. She was already sinking as the parachute wrapped itself around her like a shroud.

  ‘NO! NO! NO!’

  I was awake, bolt upright, streaming with sweat. Jeff mumbled a drowsy curse at me from across the room, then went back to sleep.

  I shivered as the swe
at cooled on me in the night air. I slipped out of bed, towelled myself dry and pulled on my clothes, then walked out into the night.

  Chapter Two

  The mountain peaks rose above me, black against the starlit sky. The sound of distant gunfire broke the absolute stillness of the night. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the dark I realised that I was not alone. Another figure was sitting on a rock, staring towards the east where the faintest trace of blood red heralded the beginnings of the dawn. She stirred and turned towards me.

  ‘Amica? I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t startle you. I didn’t see you there at first.’

  ‘Can’t you sleep either?’

  ‘Too many demons.’

  She nodded.

  We stood in silence for a moment, listening to the faraway thunder of guns. Flashes of fire among the hills to the north showed where the shells were landing.

  ‘Are those demons what drove you to Afghanistan?’

  ‘Partly.’ I hesitated. ‘I wanted to go somewhere as far – in every way – from the Falklands as I could: no Air Force, no complications, no women.’

  I paused, embarrassed, but she smiled. ‘It’s all right, I won’t take it personally.’

  ‘I – I just wanted to go somewhere I could sink into my work for a while, do something so all-enveloping that it wouldn’t leave me time to think, and so demanding that I’d just fall exhausted into bed every night and sleep till daybreak.’ I paused. ‘The plan doesn’t seem to be working too well, does it?’

  Her dark eyes searched my face. ‘The Falklands must have been terrible for you.’

  I began to bridle, feeling the familiar tide of anger rising inside me. I didn’t want sympathy or concern or compassion. All I wanted was what no one could give me: Jane alive and well and back with me again. I felt tears stinging my eyes. I turned my head and walked a few paces away from Amica until I had control of myself again.

  Amica waited in silence. I felt a sudden urge to unburden myself to this stranger, pour out my heartbreak into the darkness, but I stifled the thought as soon as it had formed. All that was keeping me going was the grip I kept on myself. If I let my thoughts dwell in that dark place that haunted my dreams…