by Mainak Dhar
‘Aman, they have my family! I need to go after them.’ I kept calling out, as I followed.
The kid was actually the first to reach him and he smiled as I came in last.
As I reached Karzai, I caught his arm and spun him around. ‘Don’t you hear what I’m saying? Those ISIS bastards have my wife and son.’
I got a closer look at him now.
The grey hair, the sharp blue eyes, the grin – they were all there, but he had clearly seen hard times since I had last seen him. His body was more gaunt. When I had met him, he had had a wiry build like that of a long-distance runner, but he was thinner now, and I could see some ugly scar tissue on his neck. He had been hurt badly and perhaps was lucky to come out of that injury alive.
‘Major, I don’t know about the hijackers but the men in the jeeps were certainly not ISIS. Whoever they are, we can’t risk being caught in the open if they have friends coming this way. Plus, the Americans no doubt have drones overhead. We don’t want them watching us either, wondering what we’re doing with a sniper rifle out here.’
‘How do you know they aren’t ISIS? That’s what they said they were when they hijacked the plane?’
‘Because I’ve been killing ISIS men for a few months. I know the local guys here. These men were not local ISIS. They could be help brought in from outside, but most certainly not local. The local guys would never have fallen for an ambush of the sort we just pulled off. I had thought you’d be dead by now, but it was the best I could think of with so little time to react and plan.’
I just stared at him, dumbfounded.
He smiled and motioned for me to go deeper into the tree line with him. We sat near a large tree and he whistled to the boy and spoke to him in English.
‘Hanif, keep a watch and let us know if anyone is coming.’
Then, he turned to me.
Now that we were under the cover of the trees, hidden from anyone watching us from below or indeed any drone above, I could see him relax a bit.
‘It is a surprise to see you here. When the villagers brought in news of a hijacking, and I heard about it on the radio, I was concerned that the Americans would start bombing this area again. This place has been bombed, rocketed and shot at by every side in the war. After all these people have been through, I didn’t want them getting in the middle of another fight that’s not theirs, so I had people on lookouts. They spotted the trucks taking hostages away. And then, they reported a single open-bed truck, which had disappeared in the hills. That got me curious. I came out to have a look myself. And, there you were. In trouble again.’
He smiled to show he meant no offence and continued.
‘Since you practically showed up in my backyard, I thought I’d lend a helping hand. I’m sorry, I had no idea they had taken your family in the other convoy. Also, with the kind of manpower they had escorting those trucks and the little time I had to prepare, the chances are that if I had tried to rescue them, I would have got a lot of hostages killed.’
He had his hand extended, and I took it and shook it.
‘Thank you. I’m sorry that I didn’t even get to say thank you to you for what you did in Mumbai.’
He waved it off. ‘Major, we both owe each other. I’d say we’re even.’
‘Aman, they have my family and I have no idea where they are.’
He grinned and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Major, I was focused on figuring out why a lone truck had disappeared in the hills. I didn’t like the idea of strange gunmen showing up here, bringing even more trouble to us. But now that I know it is you and I have managed to get you out alive, let me tell you that I have a man tailing their vehicles. We’ll hear back soon on where they are headed. We will know where they have taken your family and the other hostages.’
I stared at Karzai, wondering what the hell he was up to in Afghanistan, in the middle of nowhere. He said he had been killing ISIS men, and now he had men at his command following the hijackers. But I couldn’t sit back and wait, not while Zoya and Aman were in danger. I closed my eyes and cursed silently.
Karzai asked me if I had a photo of my family. I showed him a recent photo on my phone and he smiled, as he recognised Zoya.
‘You did well, major. You did well. I’m so glad things worked out. Congratulations on starting your own family. Your son takes after her, luckily for him. What’s his name?’
‘Aman.’
As I said the name, I wondered how he’d react. He paused, looking at me for what seemed to be a long time, then he smiled, shaking his head slightly as if trying to process everything that was implied in that one name.
He handed back my phone and nodded to the kid to come closer.
‘Major, come with me. I think any drone watching overhead will have lost interest in this area by now. Hanif, get some clothes for the Major. In case a drone is indeed watching, I want him to look like just another villager.’
The boy returned with a set of clothes, which mirrored what Aman wore – loose fitting salwar kameez and a soft cap, which seemed to be made of wool. I changed as fast as I could and Hanif bunched my clothes in a bundle and we set off again, Karzai setting a scorching pace.
Dust was blowing all around us and I was glad for the black and white chequered scarf Hanif had given me. I had tied it around my mouth and nose. I had been in the deserts of Rajasthan, but had never seen any place as desolate, dusty and dry as this. Thirty minutes later, we were in a small passage carved into the side of a hill. Then we set off on a course downhill, to be honest falling more than walking, with gravity doing most of the work for me. Karzai and Hanif were clearly more used to this than I was, and when I emerged from the descent, it felt like I had been on a particularly scary roller-coaster ride, and was scratched in a dozen or more places from branches that had scoured me on my way down.
‘Not much longer, major.’
A few more minutes of walking later, we emerged in a clearing and I saw a small village in the distance. No more than fifty small cottages, with some green fields set off behind the houses. but the first thing I noticed was that this was not just another small village of shepherds and farmers. There were raised earthen walls on all sides, with platforms behind them where a man could kneel, take cover and fire.
Karzai motioned for me to step in his footsteps and when I looked down, I saw why. There were subtle indentations in the ground around me. Most people wouldn’t have made much of it, but I knew the place was booby trapped.
As we came closer, we were greeted by what I presumed to be much of the village’s male population, other than the kids. There must have been well over fifty of them, ranging from teenagers to at least a few who looked to be in their sixties or seventies. All of them carried guns – some had AKs, others had ancient Enfield rifles and a few had pistols.
An old man stepped forward and smiled at me. His face was lined with wrinkles that looked no less deep than the valleys surrounding us. He wore a turban on his head and a faded salwaar kameez. He walked with a slight stoop and had no visible sign of authority, but I could tell that he was in charge here by the way the other men made way for him. He nodded at me with a slight smile.
Karzai went up to him and they whispered together for a few seconds. It was hard to tell what the mood was in the group. Most of them looked grim and a few had outright hostile glances to offer me, the stranger in their midst. But as Karzai kept speaking, I could see the old man’s expression change and he whispered to some of the men around him. Whatever he said seemed to have reassured them and ripple through the group like a wave. The men began to relax, rifles were lowered and then the old man came towards me.
‘Pakheyr.’
The man had welcomed me in Pashto. I nodded back and replied in the same language, introducing myself and thanking him.
‘Zama num Aaditya. Kaushala shum pa li do do.’
His grin broadened when he heard me respond in Pashto, introducing myself and expressing my pleasure at meeting him. He looked at Aman, his eye
s twinkling before he addressed me again.
‘Aya ta pa pakhto khabarey shey?’
Thanking my stars that the man had asked whether I spoke Pashto, and knowing full well that I could not handle much more than the bare basic greetings in the language, I replied in the only way I could answer such a question.
‘Lag lag.’
The leader roared with laughter and the rest of his men followed. I smiled along. I had said that I could speak a little bit. The truth is I could understand some phrases in Pashto but my vocabulary was severely limited. I mean, the only practical application I’d had for the language was in killing Afghan terrorists who would cross into Kashmir, chasing martyrdom. It had served me well at times, like a gunfight when I, fresh into the Paras and in my first real exposure to combat, had shouted out ‘za la ta sara gada wokri’ at a hardened Afghan firing from behind cover. He had looked at me, shocked into revealing his position, just long enough for the team’s sniper to take off his head. That evening, as we drank to celebrate my initiation, my Commanding Officer had come over, nearly choking with laughter and revealed to me what the words had actually meant. He had told me that they meant, ‘surrender or die.’ But they actually meant, ‘I love you.’
Yeah, those were the good old days.
The old man waved me forward and we all trooped into the middle of the village.
I asked Karzai what they had in mind, and he looked at me and winked.
‘I’m one of them now. I told them you are my brother. By taking your family, they have declared war on all of us. So, now we take the war to them.’
***
We were seated around a small fire, bread and roasted mutton being passed around. It reminded me of all the other campfires I had sat around with my army buddies in what seemed like another lifetime.
It had been an hour since I had reached the village and I was keen to get going on with the task of finding my family, but Aman had stopped me.
‘Don’t think only like a father and husband, think like the soldier you were. We go to war, but we do so on a full stomach and with a plan. We go in informed, not blind.’
As we ate, I asked Aman what he had been doing for the last year and how he had ended up here. ‘Major, after Mumbai, I had some business to finish in Pakistan.’
He looked me in the eye, as if wondering whether I’d probe further.
A few months after the events in Mumbai, Pakistan President Asghar Karimi had been assassinated. Karimi had been the man who had destroyed my career when I had killed his nephew in a cross-border raid. He was also the man who had made Karzai believe that his sniper attacks in Mumbai were retribution against those who had helped the Americans orchestrate a Predator strike that had killed his family.
‘After that, I thought I’d get back to my home in Afghanistan and lie low, try and figure out what to do with the rest of my life. Someone must have spotted me or perhaps the ISI found a way to track me. They sent men after me. I got most of them, but they got me as well.’
He lowered the collar of his kameez and I saw the thick scar tissue across his neck. A bullet that had perhaps been inches away from ending his life.
‘I was bleeding, weak and thought I’d die in these hills. That’s how bad it was. I lay not far from here, watching the vultures circling over me, wondering if they would come and feed on me while I was still alive or wait till I was dead. Gul Mohammad, the leader here, found me and brought me home. He is a farmer now, but he was once a fierce warrior in these parts. Fought the Russians, fought the Taliban, and had thought he’d find peace here with his men and family. Then came the Taliban, al-Qaeda and more recently, ISIS. All trying to take control, all attacked by the Americans, and these people have always been caught in between. Those mountains over there are the Tora Bora, where the Americans bombed the hell out of Osama’s men and where more recently, their Predators and bombers have been taking out ISIS men by the hundreds.’
Gul Muhammad was looking at me intently. I wondered if he understood a word of what Karzai was saying, as he continued.
‘Some ISI men came looking for me, but Gul Mohammad turned them away. Under the code of Pakhtunwali that they live by, once they take a guest in, they will defend him to the death. I recovered and came to think that I had been kept alive for a purpose. I realised that these villagers were being terrorised by all sorts of terror-mongers – Taliban, local bandits and ISIS dregs. The Taliban wanted them to grow poppy for them like so many villages here to increase their opium trade, the bandits just wanted to loot them, and ISIS has taken a beating here from the Americans and the Taliban and wanted to get more recruits.’
I whistled aloud.
A small village like this, with enemies like those, couldn’t have been an easy life.
‘Is that why they put up all those defenses?’
Aman sipped on his tea.
‘I helped them a bit, though Gul Mohammad knows more about defending an area. He’s an old warrior and still knows his business. Where I helped was in ensuring that anyone who thought it was a good idea to attack this village, had second thoughts. I used to slip out each night with a spotter, and come back in the morning. Word soon spread that there were easier pickings to be had and by and large, we have been left alone. If anyone in the area still gets ideas about attacking us, we have spotters out there watching and I take care of them long before they get anywhere near the village.’
I knew Aman Karzai. I had seen the death he could dole out at a distance. As a soldier, I knew the fear a sniper strikes in the heart of any soldier.
Hanif came up and sat next to Karzai, and he tousled the boy’s hair affectionately.
‘Hanif is Gul Mohammad’s grandson, and my spotter. In the first two months, I must have taken out dozens of men.’
‘Hundreds,’ cut in Hanif with a look of pride in his eyes.
I saw Karzai’s expression change.
‘I thought I was doing penance for the evils I have committed, the innocents I have killed by helping protect these good people. Over time, I realised I was wrong. I had made my choice. But did I want Hanif to grow up to have the life I did? I realised blood cannot wash off blood, so I began to help in other ways. I traced old friends who were in the government in Kabul and quietly reached out to them. We got some generators to get more reliable power. I started teaching English to Hanif and the other kids. We got better communication equipment, including radio sets and some mobile phones, so that we could stay in touch with the outside world.’
As he spoke, I watched him. Here he was – a sniper, a hardened killer, yet one of the most honourable men I had met. A man, who did not justify or rationalise his choices, but took ownership for his actions and was making amends for them. A man who having lived a life of violence, was learning to be at peace with himself and to create a better, more peaceful life for those around him. I was even more glad I had named my son after him – Aman.
He set his tea aside and glanced at Gul Mohammad, speaking in rapid Pashto. The only word I understood was the English word Predator.
As the old man replied, Karzai translated for me. ‘He has spotters up in the hills, who know the area and monitor Taliban and ISIS radio transmissions. He says the area is likely clear of American drones for now and we can set out to get your family.’
Gul Mohammad came up to me and knelt on the ground in front of me, holding my cheeks with his calloused hands. He looked into my eyes, staring into them with an intensity that unnerved me. He began speaking softly in Pashto.
Karzai translated. ‘Whoever those men are, they will regret what they did. They will regret taking his family. They will regret making him what he once was. This one was a killer of men. This one is the real predator.’
When Gul Mohammad left, I looked over at Karzai. ‘You don’t need to put yourself or these people in harm’s way. Show me where to go and get me weapons.’
He looked at me, with the piercing gaze I had come to recognise.
‘Where I come from,
major, we repay our debts. You spared my life once, and perhaps I have repaid that by saving yours. You gave me the chance to learn who was behind my family’s killing and gave me the opportunity to get away so that I could avenge their deaths. Now, your family is in danger and I owe it to you to save them.’
Five
‘Are you sure that’s where they are being kept?’
I could see a flicker of irritation on Karzai’s face, which soon gave way to a smile. I knew I was being a pain, but my wife and baby son were in there, at the mercy of ruthless killers. Karzai crawled backwards till his face was level with mine. We were both atop a small hill overlooking an abandoned army barracks where Karzai’s spotters had reported that the hijackers had brought the hostages.
‘Major, the only sure thing in life are death and taxes, but in Afghanistan, even the latter doesn’t always hold given how little the government controls. So, no, I am not sure. However, Rasool and Malik are the best scouts in the village. Both served with the Northern Alliance. If they tell me we should look here, I’ll come and have a look.’
Suitably chastened, I held the binoculars Karzai was carrying up to my eyes and took a look. Rows of buildings with rusting metal walls and roofs, a couple of guard towers that had nobody in them, and a fence that had perhaps kept out intruders but now was filled with gaps. There were no vehicles in sight, either. If the hijackers had brought the hostages here, it sure didn’t look like a very defensible location.
‘Wouldn’t someone be around, someone who would notice movement and come here. The Taliban? Don’t they control this area?’
‘Major, really nobody is in control. The Talibs claim to be many things, but basically they are in the drug-running business. If someone paid them enough, as you heard the hijackers say, they may just stay away for some time.’
‘But wouldn’t the Americans be able to spot their movement from the air? How could they get so many people here unnoticed?’
He grinned again. ‘The Americans think that controlling the air means they control the land. With so many tunnels and hills, created by centuries of guerrillas and fighters, it’s easy for someone who wants to melt away to do so in this terrain.’