“Look, Cobra . . .” Plante seemed newly contrite, his face full of heartfelt pain. “This—Cougar . . . It was a blow. He was my friend, too. I can only imagine what it must be like for you. Why don’t you take a few minutes? I’ll be right outside when you’re ready to go.”
Morgan assented tacitly, then closed the door and walked back to his office. He took down a picture of Peter and himself that hung on the wall next to his gun cabinet. Sinking into his chair, he looked at the framed photo, in which he still had a full mustache on an unlined face. Peter Conley towered next to him, wiry, with a high forehead and a prominent chin. Both were smiling widely. The picture had been taken just a few years after they graduated from their year of CIA training and began work in Black Ops. They were showing off new arm tattoos, corresponding to their code names: Conley’s a cougar, and Morgan’s a coiling cobra, ready to strike—deadly animals for deadly men.
He glanced at the eggs and bacon, still untouched on the plate, undoubtedly cold by now. He thought of Alex and couldn’t help remembering the night he had told Jenny he didn’t really make his money—or most of it, anyway—dealing in antique cars.
He told her all he could say without breaking his oath of secrecy. All those business trips to car auctions, celebrity auto shows, private collector negotiations, and fleet deals—most were covers for dangerous forays into foreign countries, and often into enemy territory, to protect American interests. They were full of excitement, yes, as well as deception and violence—he had cheated death again and again. He did it by being stronger, faster, smarter, and better prepared than the enemy—but he knew that others had been, too, and had not survived. He was good and he knew it, but he also knew he owed Lady Fortune his survival on more than one occasion.
Jenny had been a mess of emotions when he told her. She had been proud, yes, of his bravery and service to his country, but she was also livid that he had deceived her into living, unwittingly, under the constant threat of being widowed by a foreign bullet, a car bomb, or a cyanide capsule. Even worse was that little Alex, almost nine years old at the time, could lose her father. They had made a decision together that night:
Alex would not grow up fatherless. Morgan had called Plante in the morning and told him he was out for good. That was almost eight years ago.
Morgan looked down at the picture in his hand and wondered whether Conley would be alive at that moment if they had still been partners. As he brooded on their friendship and what could have been, Morgan heard the sound of Jenny’s car pulling into the driveway.
C
HAPTER
4
“W
hat do you mean, you have to go to DC?” demanded Jenny. After helping unload the groceries from the car and put them away, Morgan had pulled her into the bedroom, away from Alex, and told her that he had to go. The soft gentleness of her face became uneasy, and she pushed her short brown hair nervously behind her ears. She knew, of course, what was in DC.
“Plante is outside, waiting,” he said, not knowing where to begin.
“Plante? You mean your old supervisor?” she asked, bewildered. She walked over to the window and looked out.
“My old handler, yes.” He tried to project reassurance in his voice. Its effect was limited, at best.
“Dan, what’s going on? What does he want?”
“It’s Peter. Peter Conley was killed on a mission.”
“Oh, Dan, I’m so sorry,” she said, as her natural kindness asserted itself, and she took his hand in hers and held it tightly. “How are you?”
He looked at her stoically, but he knew he couldn’t hide his grief.
“Oh, Dan . . .” she said, embracing him. She pulled away and then asked, “Is there going to be a funeral?”
“No,” he said bitterly. “Apparently it was more
convenient
to have him buried over there.”
“Wait, I’m confused,” she said suspiciously. “I assumed. . . Why do you have to go to DC, then?”
“Something to do with his last mission. They say they need my help.”
She pulled away from him, opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it on a second thought. Then she finally said, “
Help
how?” Her sympathetic dark brown eyes took on a familiar steely glint that was the only thing that still had the power to intimidate him.
“It’s strictly paperwork, I promise. They want me to take a look at something. Some kind of coded message.”
“They’re the CIA,” she said sharply. “Don’t they have people who can take care of that there?”
Morgan wondered how he had ever managed to keep his life hidden away from her for so long. “It’s a special case, Jen. It’s got to be me.”
“Dan . . .” she said, half pleading, half admonishing.
“I have to do this, Jenny.”
“Do you remember what you told me back when Alex was a child?” she asked. “Do you remember what you promised?”
“Yeah,” he replied, with a pinch of contrition. “I said that I was done. Out. And I meant it.” He moved in closer and put his arms around her. “I’m coming in only as a special consultant. This could be important, and I might be the only one who can help them. Believe me, I would not be going if that weren’t the case.”
She backed up slightly and raised an eyebrow. “No running around in a war zone?”
“No,” he said firmly.
“No gunfights? No flying halfway around the world to put your life at risk?”
“No and no. They show me a printout, I tell them what it means, and I’m out of there. That’s all.”
She sighed and looked away. “I know you’re upset about Peter. I am, too. But that won’t make me forget your promise.”
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to.”
“Did you ask Alex to the game already?” she asked. He nodded.
“Have you told her?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said.
“She’ll play it cool, but she really craves your company, you know. She will be disappointed.”
“I know,” he said, and he kissed his wife tenderly. “Look, Jenny, I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t perfectly safe. And if everything goes smoothly, I’m out of there in less than twenty-four hours.” Even if Plante were done with him by evening, Morgan had his own questions. “I’ll be back in time for the game with Alex. No harm, no foul.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer before they heard light footsteps approaching from the hall. The door, which had been ajar, opened, and Alex walked in breezily.
“Oh, hey, Mom,” she said, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Morgan. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m off to meet my friends in a few minutes.” And then, reading their body language, she asked, “What’s going on?”
“Your Dad has to go out of town.”
“Oh. Is this about that auction?”
“It’s just for a day or so, “said Morgan. “It’s happening in Virginia. I wasn’t planning on going, but an important client, the man who was just here—he wants me to be there to bid on a Duesenberg, and, well, long story short, I need to fly down today.”
“Are you going to be back for the game?” she asked, with affected nonchalance.
“Are you kidding? I’ll be back before you know it. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“Yeah. I mean, no pressure, Dad,” she said, and he thought he saw the trace of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
C
HAPTER
5
“I
hope that there is no one waiting for you tonight,” said Faqeer to Zalmay as he maneuvered the truck around another crater in the highway. The right front tire rolled off the edge of the road, and the entire truck groaned and teetered dangerously as the back wheel followed suit. Faqeer was obviously not new at this, so Zalmay did his best not to imagine the truck tipping over onto its side.
Zalmay had hitched a ride with Faqeer at the bazaar not far from where he last saw Cougar and the bullet-pocked jeep. Faqeer’s rig was what the Americans called a jingle truck, with beads and baubles hanging off the sides and with every surface painted with ornate designs. Faqeer, a Pashtun man in his late thirties with a trim black beard and a beret-style
pakol
, had been mostly silent at first, but he became more relaxed, even gregarious, after Zalmay answered his probing questions regarding his attitude toward the Americans.
Faqeer was as pro-American as they came—uncommon among the Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan to which the great majority of the Taliban belonged—but Faqeer had little to thank the Taliban for and much reason to be grateful to the Coalition forces. He had started his fruit business almost entirely thanks to their nation-building efforts and strategies to wean local farmers off growing poppies, from enlisting the support of fruit producers in the Kandahar province to the renovation of Highway 1, through which he brought all his produce to the capital.
He had a particularly soft spot for the military, even though their presence at checkpoints all along the road caused significant delays. Highway 1 was plagued by attacks, and the craters in the asphalt provided an all-too-clear reminder: Taliban militia prowled that span of the highway, ambushing all kinds of passing vehicles. The sight of troops was always a relief: a guarantee, if only partial, of safe passage.
Zalmay had heard about the dangers of this highway, yet even though he hadn’t been on it in years, the peril was obvious at a mere glance. It wasn’t only the blackened asphalt and mortar holes; looking out the window, he saw the bullet-ridden carcasses of cars and trucks on the edge of the road, now monuments to travelers who were not as fortunate as they had been—so far, at least.
If he had taken Cougar’s jeep, Zalmay could have made it to the capital by noon. The fact that they were in a truck capable of carrying a few tons of weapons and explosives meant that they were stopped at every checkpoint and had to wait behind a line of similar trucks for inspection, even though Faqeer’s truck was, at the moment, mostly empty—it being much too early for harvest season. What should have been a six-hour journey was taking all day, and it was now getting dangerously close to sundown.
Zalmay had days before he was to meet Cougar’s contact—he was not worried about that. But at any moment on the road he could be found by the enemy. Every time a soldier motioned for them to pull over, Zalmay wondered if they had his picture, if he had been flagged as a person of interest, to be detained and delivered to the enemy’s doorstep.
Even if he weren’t suspected, what would happen if a soldier were to find the small black memory card, which he had nervously pushed through a hole in the upholstery of his seat so that it wouldn’t be found when he was searched? He had some comfort in the knowledge that the soldiers weren’t looking for small things. They were more interested in finding Kalashnikovs, from the AK-47 to the AK-100 rifle, or a pallet of hand grenades, stacked like eggs, thirty to forty per carton; but what if one of them had a sudden hunch while searching the cab of the truck, and he casually probed the plushy orange foam for hidden objects?
“This is why they will lose, you know,” said Faqeer, as they passed the blackened shell of a bus, a memorial on the roadside.
“What?” said Zalmay, distracted by his anxious musings.
“The Taliban. This is why they will lose, in the end. They are destroyers, and this is all they know how to do anymore. Just to kill and to make our lives miserable. They are now the enemies of the people of Afghanistan. For this reason, their unjust regime will not return, and their insurgency will be defeated by the will of the people. Even if the Americans leave, we will be free of these vermin.”
“
Insha’Allah
”—if God wills it—Zalmay muttered. At that moment, he noticed that Faqeer was looking intently into the rearview mirror. The truck slowed and veered to the side of the road, as two American army vehicles—what they called Humvees—sped past them, leaving a trail of dust. It didn’t take him long to notice where they were headed; they were following a pillar of smoke rising in the distance, where the terrain rose into jagged hills.
As they drew closer, they came upon a long row of stopped vehicles, most pulled over to the shoulder of the road randomly and askew, as if they didn’t expect to go anywhere anytime soon. The smoke seemed to be coming from the bridge over a shallow ravine a couple of hundred feet ahead, where the two American vehicles had carelessly parked.
Faqeer pulled the hand brake and opened the door. “Stay here; I will see what’s going on.” The driver climbed down from the truck and walked toward the gathering of vehicles. Zalmay watched uneasily as his companion talked to other drivers who were hiding from the punishing sun under the shade of a short cliff. Faqeer came back about fifteen minutes later.
“The bridge is out,” he said, sitting back in the driver’s seat, against the colorful seat cover. “Taliban sabotage. An entire segment crumbled, and there is no way to get across. It will be many weeks before it is fixed. But do not worry. The Americans will not allow the road to be impassable for long. They will bring a temporary bridge, and we will be on our way soon. There are some who are waiting here, but I do not believe that it will be done tonight.” He started up the engine, and the truck rumbled under Zalmay’s seat.
“What happens to us in the meantime?”
“There is a small village, not far, where we can get lodging and food,” said Faqeer, as he maneuvered the truck into a three-point turn. “I have stopped there before. It is a simple place, but it will allow us to resume our journey tomorrow.”
It was only some twenty minutes until they reached their destination, a collection of a couple dozen houses just off the main road. There were two trucks and three cars there already, no doubt for the same reason they were. Faqeer brought his truck to a stop near the other vehicles, and two men in rustic dress came to meet them.
“Are there beds for two more?” Faqeer asked as the two clambered down from the truck.
“All are welcome,” one of them said warmly, and he waved them toward the village. Zalmay followed him, his sandals dragging across dusty terrain to a collection of about a dozen single-story adobe huts arranged haphazardly on a shrub-speckled hill. It was a peasant village, though there was no sign of electricity, and village water came from a hand pump, attached, presumably, to a well. On drawing closer, Zalmay noticed that the sides of some of the houses had rows of bullet holes—not befitting a war zone, but the place had obviously not been untouched by violence.
As they arrived within the limits of the village, Zalmay and Faqeer were introduced to their hosts, two brothers named Gorbat and Mirzal. They were both short, with sun-browned, prematurely wrinkled skin but also with broad smiles that lit up their faces. The brothers showed them the house and room where they would sleep, with two straw mattresses laid out on the floor. Two small children, a boy and a girl, looked on curiously. Zalmay noticed that there were no other mattresses in the house; their hosts had given up the only beds they had.
Gorbat and Mirzal made no mention of charging for their hospitality; the Pashtunwali, the code of honor that the rural Pashtun people of Afghanistan still lived by, forbade it. These customs were all but forgotten in the city, and Zalmay was amazed that, even this close to the great highway, people still kept to it.
They left their things in the room and went outside. The village seemed to be abuzz with activity as pots, sacks of grain, logs and slabs of meat were carried to and fro. The coming of visitors seemed to be shaping up to be a celebration—more of a pretext than a real reason, Zalmay thought.
As Zalmay’s spirits began to rise from the festive mood, he saw an old man with a wild, bushy beard walk out into the square. Mirzal said to Zalmay and Faqeer jovially, “That’s Malang, our muezzin. He does the daily calls to prayer.” He said the word
muezzin
mockingly, as if Malang had as much claim to the title as he had to call himself President of the United States. In a harsh, croaky voice, Malang began to chant the evening
adhan
, the Islamic prayer called out five times a day for all within earshot: “
There is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God
.” The inhabitants stopped what they were doing and shuffled slowly to get their prayer mats.
Once the villagers and their guests were done with their prayers, preparations for the celebration continued. “Tonight, we feast!” Mirzal explained with relish and anticipation. “We have many guests this evening, so Patasa is butchering a lamb. We will roast it here and have a banquet.”
Faqeer smiled contentedly.
Zalmay made a show of appreciation, but his own apprehension would not allow him to enjoy the festivities.
Time passed. By the time it was dark, the fire was blazing high. The villagers and guests had gathered around for light and warmth, when he heard a
rubab
, the stringed national instrument of Afghanistan, which had become somewhat rare after confiscations during the post-Soviet and Taliban government music ban of the 1990s. Its three-string twang of hypnotic rhythms was joined by the percussive beat of a
tabla
and
dohol
. Dozens of voices joined in, enchanting the night with epic narrative songs about heroes and heroines, brave death, and struggles between men over land, women, and status.
All that was missing were the belly dancers for an evening of
klasik
, history sung as folk music. The villagers sang of love, of war, of cruelty, and the national identity of a people who had never once been defeated, not by the Mongols, not by the Soviets, not by anyone, ever.
Meanwhile, the lamb was cooking over a pit, and they were served plain, slightly undercooked white rice in a clay bowl. It wasn’t much, but to Zalmay, who hadn’t eaten all day, it was a feast.
Despite the merry mood, Malang, the muezzin, was skulking around and scowling at them. “Malang does not approve of our mirth,” said Mirzal, when Zalmay asked him about it. “He fancies himself a mullah. Thinks he is the keeper of propriety. But we in the village don’t have patience for his preaching.”
The lamb was carved and the meat distributed to the guests first, as Pashtun hospitality demanded. Zalmay, for the first time since leaving his apartment, felt relaxed, and he allowed the joy of the moment to enter his heart.
And then he saw the headlights. They were coming fast toward them. Others saw them, too, and the music trailed off. The vehicles stopped at the edge of the village. By the light of the fire, Zalmay could make out two pickup trucks, with men in the truck beds. A group of them jumped to the ground, and as they came into the light, Zalmay saw that they wore turbans and had dark, scraggly beards. Each cradled an AK-47. He didn’t have to see Malang’s manic glee to know that the village had just been overrun with Taliban insurgents.