“I know that’s not correct,” Johnson said.
“When I lived in Kabul I was a photographer. I didn’t work for the KHAD. Who are you?”
“I’m an independent investigator,” Johnson said. “Listen. We know your background. But I’m not interested in that right now. I’m interested in how you might be able to help me. Can we go for a chat somewhere quieter? Not your house. Maybe a coffee shop?”
Akbari peered at Johnson through his glasses, then at Vic, appearing to weigh his options. He glanced down at Johnson’s waist. “Do you always carry a gun in public?” he asked.
It was Johnson’s turn to be surprised. This guy’s sharp.
“It’s for self-protection,” Johnson said.
“I’m not going to be any help to you,” Akbari said. “I’ve been out of Afghanistan since the Russians pulled out. I came here carrying nothing more than the clothes I was wearing—like we all did. I’m an American citizen now. You can go to hell.”
He turned and walked off.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Saturday, June 8, 2013
New York City
Akbari was halfway down the steps to the Christopher Street subway before Johnson finally got him to stop again by shoving his phone under his nose, showing the photograph of the ledger taken at Din Khan’s shop.
“Remember Din Khan, the passport forger?” Johnson asked, continuing to hold up the photo as a stream of people barged past them up and down the steps. He had to raise his voice above the noise from the traffic passing the subway station.
“Din remembers you,” Johnson continued. “So we can either have a sensible discussion, or we can call the FBI and the citizenship and immigration service right now and let them handle this. In which case you’ll be going straight to jail or back to where you came from. You choose.”
Akbari grabbed hold of the steel handrail on the steps as someone bumped him in the back, almost knocking him down. He recovered his balance and stared at the photograph. “This is a setup. That’s not genuine, it’s a—”
“Yes, it is,” Johnson interrupted. “We’ve had a trace done. Din provided you with a French passport as well as a new Afghanistan one. You came here via France and Canada, also using a fake birth certificate.”
Despite the revelations, Akbari’s face remained marble-like, and he ontinued to eyeball Johnson. He finally shrugged and looked down at the ground. “What is this all about? Explain.”
Five minutes later, the three men were sitting in a quiet corner of a coffee shop on Grove Street, near to the subway station.
Akbari sipped the latte that Johnson had just bought for him. “I’m not doing this. How do I know I can trust you?” he asked.
“You don’t,” Johnson replied, slowly swirling his double espresso around in the small china cup. It was thick and strong, the way he liked it. “But this is the way I do business when I need to, as I’m sure you might well have done when you worked for the KHAD. I might be wasting my time—you might not be able to help. But if you can, I’m prepared to do a trade, and so is he.” He indicated with his thumb toward Vic, who nodded. “Anyway, you’re going to have to trust me. Otherwise I call the USCIS, like I said.”
Akbari said nothing but took another sip of his drink.
“You headed the whole archives operation in Kabul at that time, right?” Vic asked.
“Yes, I did. Look, what is it you need?”
“Information about two men. Possibly more,” Johnson said. “People who I’m certain the KGB and the KHAD would have kept files on. One was a Russian, a former KGB officer, who I’m guessing might have even contributed to or written some of the files. The other is an Afghan, a mujahideen.”
“Names?” Akbari asked, tapping the table with his fingers.
“The Russian, the KGB man, was Yuri Severinov. He worked in Kabul on military intelligence until the Soviets pulled out. The mujahideen was Javed Hasrat.”
Akbari looked out the window, then took another sip of his coffee before carefully replacing the cup on his saucer. “Severinov? Yes, I was familiar with him. I didn’t like him. He was in the office periodically, adding to or retrieving files. Arrogant man who thought he was above everyone else.”
Johnson exchanged brief glances with Vic. That helped, if Akbari and Severinov didn’t get on.
“And Javed?”
“The name sounds a little familiar, but I don’t immediately recall him. There were so many mujahideen we had listed,” Akbari said. “Anyway, why are you interested in these two?”
“Because they are still, today, continuing a personal conflict between them that was very bitter and which dates back to the 1980s. I need to find out why and what the background is to that.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
“I’ve got my reasons,” Johnson said. “So what happened to all the KGB files in Kabul?” Johnson asked. “Do they still exist somewhere? I’d like to trace the ones on those two men if I can.”
Akbari shook his head. “No, the KGB had everything incinerated before they left Afghanistan. There were no records left behind.”
It was just as Johnson had been expecting, although he had somewhere inside him a vain, slight hope that the files might have been stashed away in a cache, a vault, a basement somewhere, maybe even taken back to the Kremlin.
“So there’s no trace of any of them?”
Akbari shook his head. “Correct. All the original files went.”
It took Johnson only a moment to realize the significance of what he had just heard. “What do you mean, the original files?”
“Like I told you, I was a photographer—an amateur when I was in Kabul. I still am.”
“And?”
“And I photographed many of the important files.”
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Hell’s Kitchen, New York City
Johnson stood in the doorway as Akbari walked across the darkened living room of his third-floor apartment on West Forty-Sixth Street and began pulling four long maroon curtains open.
Behind him, Vic muttered, “This could be massive.” He wandered off down the hallway.
Johnson nodded but didn’t say anything. While Akbari was pulling the curtains back, Johnson could see out of the corner of his eye that Vic was poking his nose around the doors of the other rooms, which led off the hallway.
The three-bedroom apartment, on the corner of Tenth Avenue in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, was a mess of papers, books, and magazines. They were piled on the dining table, the coffee table, and nearly every other flat surface. Two dirty soup bowls and a half-empty whiskey bottle stood on another small table next to an aged leather armchair. One wall was covered entirely by bookshelves. It was an eccentric academic bachelor’s pad.
“How long have you lived here?” Johnson asked, trying to distract Akbari while Vic finished his private look around.
“I moved here in 1998, two years after I got my job with the institute,” Akbari said, tugging at one curtain that was sticking. “And I have stayed. The neighborhood has really improved since.”
It doubtless had. Johnson had memories of Hell’s Kitchen being a slightly rough area, full of laborers, factory workers, actors, and other bohemian types. The apartment, two long blocks and about a third of a mile from the Hudson to the west, was now of the type that Wall Street financiers were probably buying and modernizing.
Vic edged through the doorway behind Johnson.
Akbari turned and stood, legs slightly apart, scrutinizing them both. “Before we go any further, we need to agree on some ground rules,” he said. “The tentacles of the SVR are long. They don’t know I’ve got these copies, and they don’t know where I went to, as far as I know. If they find out what I’ve done, then I’m likely to get a bullet in the back of the head or a nerve agent in my tea. So I’m putting myself on the line here—I need a guarantee you’re not going to tell either the US immigration authorities or the SVR.”
“I fully realize tha
t,” Johnson said. “I’m a private investigator. As far as I’m concerned, I’m getting some information from a private source. Nobody needs to know where it’s coming from. I’m not here, if you know what I mean. You’ve got my word—and that’s rock solid.”
“Yes, well, the question is, do I trust your word? And what about him?” Akbari said, gesturing toward Vic.
“I’m not here either,” Vic said. “If you decide you want me to be here, let’s have a discussion then about how I approach it at Langley. For them, old KGB files would be of huge interest, as you can imagine, and there will be ways of getting the information to them safely. A deal can be done. But for now, I’m not here.”
Akbari nodded. “We would need to do a deal for the package. I can give you a taste of them now.”
“Yes, as an authenticity test,” Vic said.
“So tell us more about the files,” Johnson said. “You’re saying you photographed them. Was that officially, for backup purposes, or unofficially, for your own reasons?”
Akbari looked away. “You don’t need to know that,” he said.
It was obviously unofficial, then.
“But you must have had a very good reason,” Johnson said. “It must have been extremely risky. What if your KGB bosses found the films?”
Akbari clasped his hands behind his head and was silent for a few seconds. “It was my insurance,” he said eventually. “It was in case they turned on me, like they did many others. I saw what happened to them, and I didn’t want it to happen to me. And I made sure they wouldn’t find them—I had ways.”
“How many did you photograph?”
“Just the important ones. Those about senior politicians, public figures, senior army and security services people on all sides, police. Some KGB officers and some mujahideen. That was enough. It ran into a few thousand, though that was just a fraction of the entire files, of course. Most weren’t worth bothering with.”
“How did you get them out of Afghanistan?” Johnson asked.
“I was a photographer as well as an archivist,” Akbari said. “I left the undeveloped films with a friend who smuggled them into Pakistan after the Russians had gone, and he parceled them up and sent them here, by post. They were labeled as photographic supplies.”
“And you developed them here?”
“Yes. I have my own darkroom in one of the rooms,” Akbari said, pointing down the hallway. “I’ve printed them, scanned and digitized them, and then also cataloged most of them. I’ve been thinking of writing a book, a history, of the KHAD and the KGB in Afghanistan, using them as source material. It would be interesting, a legacy, but I’d need a way of doing it anonymously, of course. Otherwise it would amount to a death warrant.”
“Yes, anonymously might help,” Johnson said, trying to visualize the explosive reaction in the Kremlin and the SVR headquarters at Yasenevo if and when this came to their attention. “If you’ve digitized them, can we search for the files I mentioned, about Severinov and Javed?”
Akbari nodded. “Let’s treat that as your taster, your authenticity test.”
He now seemed fully willing to cooperate. Quite a turnaround, Johnson thought. But then, the possibility of being returned to his native country with the loss of his prized Manhattan apartment and his cushy job doubtless would focus the mind.
The Afghan led the way to one of the bedrooms, which was fitted out as an office. He had a large monitor screen on the desk with a laptop connected to it. A few minutes later, having logged onto a photograph storage application, he typed the name “Javed Hasrat” into a search box. Thumbnail images of five documents appeared.
Johnson bent over and peered at the screen. The jpeg files showed documents closely typewritten in Russian, with dates all from 1988, serial numbers, and header titles.
“Let’s have a look at them,” Johnson said.
Akbari clicked on the first, and a document appeared at full size. Johnson began to read down. He found his Russian, while rusty, was still good enough to understand the text.
189/JH/46 JAVED HASRAT
January 8, 1988 r.
Kabul
Information received from GOATHERD relating to Mi-24 mission on Wazrar village on January 2, 1988, tells us that Stinger missiles which destroyed two Mi-24 helicopters nearby were fired by mujahideen Javed Hasrat from a location approximately 1.6 kilometers away. Hasrat leads the mujahideen group in that area and is responsible for other fatal attacks on 40th Army targets in and around the Khost-Gardez Pass. We are therefore prioritizing intelligence efforts on him with the intention to eliminate him and his group as quickly as possible. GOATHERD reports that Stinger missiles used by Hasrat were supplied by ISI and CIA sources over the preceding eight months.
Johnson finished reading the memo. “Who was GOATHERD?”
Akbari shrugged. “Probably a mujahideen mole.”
“So Javed was seen as a priority at that time?” Johnson asked.
“Yes. I’m remembering now,” Akbari said. “Severinov, the KGB officer, brought in a few memos that went into the file about him. His office was near to mine, just down the road. That was the first of them. Let’s have a look at the others.”
He clicked on the second.
190/JH/46 JAVED HASRAT
January 12, 1988 r.
Kabul
GOATHERD has issued a warning about Javed Hasrat following the Mi-24 incident in Wazrar on January 2, 1988. Hasrat’s wife and youngest daughter were killed in the Mi-24 operation on the village. Hasrat now reported to be seeking intelligence about which KGB officers authorized the attack (Yuri Severinov). Hasrat is now also identified as the mujahideen who killed and mutilated surviving crew members of the second Mi-24 that was successfully crash landed following the Stinger attack.
Scribbled in the margin in black handwriting was a short additional note: Cross-reference see 329/AS/21 YURI SEVERINOV.
Johnson pointed to it. “What’s that?” he asked Akbari.
“I had a cross-referencing system for linking different files if there was information in both that might be relevant to a particular incident, or case, or project,” Akbari said. “That’s one of those. There was a file on Severinov too, of course. We can look it up when we’ve finished going through Hasrat’s files, if you like.”
“Yes, definitely, we’ll need to see that,” Johnson said. “It looks as though Severinov must have signed off on the attack on Wazrar. His wife and daughter—that would partly explain why Javed is on his tail now.” Without going into too much detail, he briefly outlined to Akbari the recent RPG attack on Severinov in Kabul.
“I can’t overstate how strong the tradition of revenge is among the Pashtun,” Akbari said. “Especially if it’s a blood relative involved. I do recall this case. But you said partly explain. What else is there?”
“It was Severinov who captured Javed in Jalalabad in 1988—just after a meeting with me, as it happens—and put him into Pul-e-Charkhi,” Johnson said. “He was incredibly lucky to get out alive.”
“Ah, of course,” Akbari said. “I think that is referenced in one of these memos too. I recall it.”
“Just a minute,” Johnson said. “There’s another one there about the Khost-Gardez incident. Can we see that?”
Akbari clicked on the next memo. “Ah, yes, this is a copy of an internal memo that was appended to Javed Hasrat’s file and also, I see, Severinov’s because of its relevance to both.”
Johnson peered over Akbari’s shoulder. The memo, dated January 12, 1988, was also written in Russian and had a subject line that read: “Death of 2x Mil Mi-24 helicopter crews—Flight 19.”
It was a detailed incident report about the attack by three Hind helicopters on Javed’s home village of Wazrar and the subsequent shooting down by mujahideen of two of the three aircraft. It had been written by Captain Yegor Malevich, commanding officer of the 35th OVP Independent Helicopter Regiment, based in Jalalabad, to General Lieutenant Boris Gromov, Commander of the Soviet 40th Army, in
Kabul. The report included the names of the deceased crews from the two helicopters that were destroyed and the flight times.
At the end of the memo was an addendum.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION RECEIVED: At 15:45, Aircraft 3, supported by two other Mi-24s, returned with reinforcements and landed next to Aircraft 2. The pilot and weapons system officer discovered the mutilated bodies of the crew of Aircraft 2 ten meters from the remains of the helicopter. The bodies had been decapitated and the heads placed next to the torsos. The genitalia of the crew had been severed and placed in the mouths of the deceased crew. The mouths had then been stitched shut.
The bodies were retrieved and returned to Jalalabad Airfield.
In the margin next to the supplementary information paragraph, someone had scribbled in the same black handwriting as before: Cross-reference see 331/AS/21 YURI SEVERINOV.
“My God,” Johnson said. “Sewing their balls in their mouths. Why the hell do they do that sort of thing?”
“Why did the American Indians scalp people?” Akbari asked in a dry tone.
Johnson shook his head. “We need to look at the cross-references. Can you get to them?”
“Yes, give me a minute,” Akbari said. “The testicles thing was a common torture by some of the mujahideen if they captured a Russian soldier. They used to do it while they were still alive, then kill them afterward. But frankly, given what the Russians were doing to them, who could blame them. I’m not passing judgment.”
Johnson snorted but said nothing.
Abkari typed in the reference numbers into the search box. But nothing came up. He tried again, this time checking carefully that he had the numbers typed correctly. But again, there was nothing.
“That’s odd,” Akbari said. He scratched his head. “It may be that document is among some I’m still cataloging. I do have quite a few more to do. I can check if you like.”
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