Registering her movement out of the corner of his eye, Zuy spins around, still holding the pistol in his outstretched hand. He pulls the trigger, and the room fills again with a resounding bang. As the bullet hits her, Sara hurls backward, moaning with a sound that seems to come from a much larger body than her own. She lands on the floor in a disorderly pile of clothes, as if she were a rag someone had tossed aside.
The boy lowers the pistol, which finally weighs down his skinny little arm. He stares ahead without looking at his mother. One of the Afghans grabs his arm and snatches the weapon. He doesn’t resist. The Afghan slaps him hard in the face, as if shooting Sara was merely a minor offense warranting a similarly mild rebuke.
The shot’s echo continues bouncing off the hard, rocky walls in the low-ceilinged room. Suddenly they realize that it can’t possibly be the echo of that one shot.
Somewhere nearby there’s a violent gunfight.
20
Schrøder appears in the doorway. Behind him the gunfire becomes more intense. His face is calm as he turns toward the Afghans, says something in Pashto, and then looks at his Danish prisoners. “We’re under attack,” he says. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not your friends coming to set you free.”
He looks over at the corner where Sara is lying on the floor in her bloodstained dress. “Just what happened here?” He repeats the question in Pashto.
The Afghan points at the boy and then at the gun, which he’s still holding in his hand. Schrøder responds angrily. He’s obviously reproaching the guard for being so irresponsible.
“Who’s attacking?” Steffensen tries to control his voice.
Schrøder shakes his head at him, as if he’s speaking to someone who’s dim-witted. “What did you think—that Naib Atmar was an only child? He has three brothers, all of them warlords like himself. They want revenge—and they’re coming after you, Steffensen. They couldn’t get to you inside Camp Price. The Americans are searching for you, the Brits, the Danes, all of them. They just have no idea where to look. But ask the Afghans. They know everything. It’s their country.”
Schrøder barks another order in Pashto and then speaks to them again in Danish. “You’re being transferred to another place. Your lives depend on us now.” He turns around and vanishes out of the room. Simon is on his way to Sara when one of the guards grabs him and redirects him toward the door with the others. Zuy stands motionless next to the mother he just shot down.
As she walks past Sara, Hannah hesitates. Zuy looks up at her. An Afghan with a Kalashnikov pointed at her is standing in the doorway. Once again the overwhelming thought that she’s going to die races through her mind. That must have been the order Schrøder gave: get rid of her. All of her muscles tighten. Should she try to jump the Afghan?
The guard suddenly turns his back on her and vanishes into the darkness. For a moment she considers following him and going for his weapon. She doesn’t doubt that she’d be his equal in a showdown.
As the boy looks up, she returns his gaze. She thought of him last night. They have similar mothers—and he just shot his. Although she often wanted to, Hannah has never even struck hers. Still, in some way, she understands Zuy. He could be her little brother. When she reaches out her hand, he takes it. Hand in hand, they leave the room and move together into the darkness.
After stumbling a few times, she lets Zuy lead the way. Shooting his mother seems to have given him a self-confidence that is both horrifying and irresistible. The little murderer is now her guide into the impenetrable darkness of the underground passages.
Reaching a staircase, they climb up through an opening in the ceiling and exit into a stall filled with clay pots and woven baskets. The crooked shelves lining the walls are empty, but the shutters facing the street are open. Although she’s standing in the half-light inside the stall, the bright sunlight outside is blinding. The boy tugs at her to go with him out into the street, but the sound of gunfire and explosions makes her pause. Also, she’s blinded by the tears caused by the brightness. He lets go of her hand and races out.
Through the prism of her tears, she can see how the usually stiff boy has overcome his stunted motor skills. He’s jumping and moving around like a joyous child, as if the battlefield were a playground offering him the opportunities he’s been longing for. He stops abruptly in the middle of a hop and stares up to the right. She takes a step closer to the doorway to follow the direction of his gaze.
Maybe a protective instinct makes her do what she’s about to do or maybe it’s simple curiosity. Either way, what she experiences a moment later is purely visceral.
A man in black is kneeling on the flat roof on the other side of the street. He’s holding a rifle against his cheek and squinting with one eye, as if carefully taking aim, the barrel pointed directly at the boy. He must have noticed movement in the doorway, however, because he lifts his eyes. The rifle immediately follows, the barrel now pointing at Hannah.
She blinks the last tears out of her eyes.
21
Hannah stares intently at the rifle barrel aimed at her, as if the power in her eyes could stop a bullet.
She sees everything that happens in the next few moments with a slow-motion clarity that makes every second seem monumental, as if she could walk around the scene and view it from any possible angle. She watches a rocket with a gray tail of smoke fly across the street until it rams into the mud-built wall beneath the sniper. The explosion doesn’t only blast a large hole in the wall—it also tears off one of the shooter’s legs at the hip. His kirtle is ripped to pieces, and his stomach opens as a jumble of entrails gush out of him in a bloody spray. He plunges to the ground in a cloud of dust and rubble. Large cracks spread out in the already shattered wall. Yet another piece of wall breaks off and falls down onto him. His Kalashnikov lies next to his blown-off leg.
Hannah feels her own legs giving way beneath her. She thumps down onto the floor.
Zuy walks over to the weapon and picks it up. It’s too heavy for him, heavier than the pistol, so he drags it behind him while holding on to the barrel, the stock bouncing behind him on the uneven street. He places the rifle in Hannah’s lap. She’s sitting on the stomped earth floor with her legs stretched out in front of her as if she’s been hit. He puts one of her hands on the rifle’s stock and the other on the trigger. He places her index finger right where it should be to fire the rifle and then points the barrel at the door.
He looks down at her, his eyes filled with pride, and then he smiles. She’s unable to return his smile.
He walks over and places himself between the shutters, as if to keep an eye on the street. Suddenly he turns around and runs back to her. A man with a full beard in a black turban appears in the doorway. And he’s armed. He aims his weapon at them.
Hannah sees the rifle in his hand. She sees his eyes widen at the sight of her. She sees her index finger wrap around the trigger, she sees her knuckle whiten, and she feels a sudden thrust between her diaphragm and her arm. She sees the man lose his rifle, take a step back, and fall backward onto the dusty street.
He’s lying on his back, blood seeping out of his kirtle.
That wasn’t professional, Hannah thinks. I shot him like a civilian would have.
She has to pull it together. She stands up. They can’t stay here, but she’s not sure if moving out into the open would be wise. She holds on to the boy, who’s wriggling to get back out onto the street. The dead man’s Kalashnikov is lying there next to him—that’s what Zuy is after.
Should she try to slip away with the boy? She has a weapon now. She quickly rejects the thought. She can’t leave the others. They get through this together or they don’t get through it at all.
She hears someone calling her name and recognizes Schrøder’s voice immediately. Why wasn’t she led out with the others? Was he trying to give her a chance? Or did he want to see her betray the others? Does some sick part of him still feel they have something? Has Schrøder seen something in her th
at she didn’t know was there?
Once again she feels how unbearable such questions are. They come from somewhere deep inside that she has no control over; they’ll end up killing her if she isn’t careful. She has to think rationally now. She needs to make a plan. Is this her opportunity to put an end to Schrøder? She has a weapon. She can do it, or at least die trying. That would be another solution.
She thinks about what Steffensen said—they have to keep Schrøder alive until the right moment arrives. He could have handed them over to Naib Atmar’s clan, and they’d all be dead by now, down to the last one. But he didn’t.
Schrøder calls her name again. He’s close now. Zuy escapes her grasp, and before she can stop him, he’s standing in the middle of the street.
She sets down the Kalashnikov and then steps out into the street, her hands in the air.
Part 2
KHAIBER
BLACK ZONE
1
In the plane on my way from Kabul to Kandahar, I try to sum up the case. Or, rather, the cases. It’s all one big mess.
First Lieutenant Rasmus Schrøder is the central figure, yet that fact has to remain a secret. We’ve decided to add him to the list of fallen. He’s KIA, killed in action, and will receive the same accolades as his victims. We’ll bury an empty casket, all the while cringing. Once we started digging into his past, we found so many identities that we could have filled an entire cemetery with Schrøders.
Including him, that makes fourteen fallen soldiers. It’s a big story; the whole country is in mourning. Normally the Danes couldn’t care less about the war, but they felt this. It’s a small population, and they feel decimated.
And then there are the fifteen soldiers hunting for Schrøder, including Commander in Chief Ove Steffensen and Chaplain Lukas Møller. At some point we’ll have to come clean. They’re missing in action. Which is worse: MIA or KIA? And how long do we report them missing before that indefinite word turns into the most definite of all: dead?
We’re pretty sure that satellite observance, cell phone interception, and electronic tracking won’t provide any information. If they were taken hostage, we’d have heard demands by now—or else the internet would be teeming with videos of their execution. But there’s silence on all fronts. They must be dead. If they had fallen in battle, we’d know that, too. It’s not the kind of thing the Taliban keeps to itself. So what happened? Who would want to kill them and not brag about it?
Or am I asking the wrong questions?
What’s left is Schrøder. He’s responsible for the death of thirteen soldiers. We don’t know his plans or who his allies are—and most importantly we don’t know where he is. Part of my mission is to find him. And what if I do? Then what? I’m not armed. I’m no murderer. I’m supposed to bring him back. Everyone knows that’s an impossible task. If they wanted him dead, they would have sent in Special Forces, but they’re already busy working with unofficial death squads down here.
And yet: bring Schrøder home. Schrøder, who is officially dead and whose name will soon appear on a gravestone on an empty grave somewhere in Denmark. We can’t understand his motives. Was it a conspiracy? But with whom and why?
There’s another possibility. Schrøder isn’t some grand conspirator; he’s just a man who knows how to take advantage of every situation. So, accidents aren’t his enemy—they’re his weapons. A chance appears. He takes it. He improvises. He’s like a child at play. A murderous child.
But I still don’t understand what he wants. What do children want when they’re playing?
I have to think of him as Rasmus Schrøder, a man with a face I can study in photographs, a name, an address, a social security number, an education, an entire life based on tangible facts.
Except that none of these facts are true.
Rasmus Schrøder is a flutter of identities, a ghost in cyberspace. We can peel away one identity after another, and there’s always a new one underneath. The only thing real is his face in the photographs. Plastic surgery? I have no idea. But why would he? On the net you can use the delete button to create something much more effective than plastic surgery.
We can easily locate Schrøder in state records. He has a social security number and an address in the national register. We know his income and his tax rate. We can see who his doctor is and when he last saw him. He’s prone to earwax and gets it flushed out once a year. That’s just one detail. He’s a whiz on the computer. His doctor has never seen him as a patient, and he’s never lived at the address he supplied.
We actually found someone who met him in the flesh—only under another name than the one we know. He was calling himself Arthur Rambøl. He worked as a game designer for a company that created computer games. He mentioned that in camp also. We thought that was a fabrication, like the rest of his stories, but to be safe we checked with the company. They didn’t know anyone named Schrøder, but once we showed them a photograph, they confirmed it. He worked for them for a year.
In computer games, you create an alternative identity, an avatar. That’s what Schrøder has done. He has peopled the world with his avatars. One day Schrøder is a game designer, the next he’s a first lieutenant in the Danish army, and the next he’s a terrorist. Maybe that’s what all of us are to him: a game, pixels on a screen.
We’ve considered whether Schrøder might be a convert, but none of our informants in extremist circles has ever heard of him. Personally, I don’t believe it. You convert because you’re in desperate need of a specific identity. You place any responsibility for your life somewhere else. Islam means submission. Schrøder wants the opposite. He has created hundreds of identities. The avatars on a screen won’t do—he needs to create them in reality. He does whatever he wants. He’s seeking unbridled freedom, not submission.
I have a lot to clear up on this trip, although I know that I’m just an alibi for someone higher up. If anyone starts shouting, the defense minister can say, We have someone working on the case. I’m that anonymous someone.
Surely the Ministry of Defense has already involved the Americans. I don’t know if any other agents have been put on the case, but I mustn’t assume I’m alone out here. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have allies who will come to my aid. In fact, it might mean just the opposite. We don’t have allies in the secret service—we have customers. If we have important information, we ask others what they’ll offer for it in return. There’s no such thing as loyalty. Only your own advantage. And I might as well face it. In that game, my life is just another commodity.
Looking out the window, I stare down at the landscape. In an hour the view will shift from the Hindu Kush’s snow-covered peaks to the pale-yellow expanses of the desert. Then come the cultivated green areas along a river I don’t know the name of. Closer to Kandahar, the mountains turn almost black. Their jagged cliffs rise like a palisade of spearheads in the middle of the desert, a mammoth monument to a people ready to defend themselves against any invaders. Even here in the most desolate of all wastelands, you’ll find the small, spiteful squares of the qalats, microscopic and fragile as seen from the air, but incarnations of a dogged perseverance that, up close, is beyond comprehension. I can’t understand how they survive in this wasteland, but I know we are at war with this spite.
2
In the eyes of the secret service, I am Afghanistan. It’s a weakness of their mind-set, and they know it. I was born in Denmark—I’m as Danish as they are—but my parents are Afghans. I speak both languages. Still, the secret service is smart enough to know that in Afghanistan we don’t speak Afghan; we speak Dari and Pashto. So they’re really not that much smarter, and they know that, too. I’m the best they have to offer.
“You poor things, you really can’t come up with anything better than me,” I tell them, and we all laugh together. They’re self-aware—that’s what I like best about them.
The service has offices in a red timber-frame building in an idyllic old military citadel with cobblestones and a m
oat. We can’t see the city, although it’s only a few hundred meters away. The grass-covered ramparts block the view. People walk in the shade of the centuries-old trees lining the ramparts, and even though you’re not allowed to let dogs run free, owners do it anyway. None of the soldiers on patrol tell the dog walkers to stop; instead, they bend down and scratch the dog behind the ears before asking apologetically if the owner can put the dog on a leash. The owner apologizes for the offense, and the soldier apologizes for the inconvenience. The owner thinks the soldier is a nice young man. The soldier thinks it’s a sweet dog. That’s the country I live in.
My boss is a ruddy-faced older man with fat cheeks and wispy white hair. All he needs is the beard to look like Santa. But make no mistake: he can be a hard-ass. I tell him all the time that he reminds me of an Afghan warlord. He smiles wryly. “Let’s hope I’m not, for Denmark’s sake,” he says, as if he’s not completely ruling out the possibility.
One day when we’re speaking alone, he looks me right in the eyes.
“There’s something I’ve noticed. When you talk about Danes, you say ‘they,’ and when you talk about Afghans you say ‘they.’ You never say ‘we,’ even though you’re not only a Danish citizen—you also work for the secret service. Just where do you stand?”
“If you get too close, it can cloud your judgment.”
The boss stares intently at me. “Do you have a problem, Khaiber?”
“Are you questioning my loyalty?”
“I wouldn’t dream of questioning your loyalty. You’re one of my best employees. And I agree completely that distance can sharpen your observation skills. You see most clearly when you don’t let your feelings get in the way. But a good agent must also be able to look inside. What would I have done in this or that situation? That’s an important question—but it means you have to know yourself. You’re used to moving around in two worlds. Maybe you’re even split between them. That’s why you’re good at what you do.”
The First Stone Page 33