by Hock G Tjoa
His brother nodded; he knew. “It is a good thing our uncle found husbands for our sisters in time. They are not rich, but at least we know where they live.”
“It is too bad our mullah is still young. I do not think he is a weak or a bad man.”
“God knows all. At the Judgment Day, all will be settled.”
Najmudin was less certain about this than his brother, but they never discussed religion. Instead, he said, “I must go back to the camp soon, but I shall kiss our uncle’s hand once more.”
On the second day of his swift, hard trek back to his camp, Najmudin felt the hairs on his neck stiffen; he was not alone. He kept up his pace, moving from tree to tree as swiftly and silently as before, but eased his rifle off his shoulder and cleared it from his shawl.
“Goat keeper!”
He recognized the voice and soon saw two men come out from behind a thick thorn bush. The two men fell into a loping stride beside him.
“Ah, Scholar and Little Brother. I hope I have not kept you waiting.” The two were men from his band. The Scholar was a little older than he and had been studying to be a mullah when the guerrillas recruited him just before Najmudin joined them. The guerrillas had called Little Brother that ever since they recruited him five years ago when he was only fourteen. He had grown much in that time and was probably the strongest soldier in their band, but he was still the youngest after five years, so the name stayed with him.
“Our leader sent us to make sure you did not get lost on the way back,” said the Scholar, his breathing labored to string more than five words together. “He sent Little Brother to watch over me.”
Najmudin glanced over them as he had on countless occasions gauged those he met in the wooded hills and detected nothing threatening. They were both armed, but in the mountains, it would have been unusual if they did not each have a rifle or knife. He would find out why they had come soon enough. He knew that he could have taken on and killed them both, but he had no desire or reason to.
The Scholar had been studying with a new teacher at his village madrassah, and the message of no compromise with the infidels had found a particular resonance with him. His parents had objected to his leaving. His mother wept and wailed, for sons who joined the cousins in the forests never returned. The father did not raise his voice but said, “We will need you to help with the goats and for the protection of your sisters. Who will be the man of the house if I, God forbid, should meet with an accident?”
“God will provide,” he had replied. “This work is important. We must clear our land of those infidels.”
“Our old mullahs never taught this. Who is this new mullah? He is not from anywhere around here.”
“He has been here for two years now. Besides, he came from the holy land where the sacred Kaaba lies. Our old mullahs also taught the importance of keeping our faith pure.”
“But they also encouraged us to show hospitality to strangers and to respect and support our elders.”
The Scholar was silent and bowed his head. His father waited a long time, but still, he said nothing. “Do you have so much faith in him, my son?”
“Yes, Father, you know I have long wanted to follow the teachings of the Prophet.”
“We are proud and happy that you wish to do so, but we thought that would mean studying to teach others, not to join a band of warriors.”
“This is God’s will for me, Father.”
In this manner, the Scholar had become a member of the guerrilla band.
Little Brother joined the guerrilla band for a totally different reason. There had been a government sweep of his village, and by the time the troops left with whatever they could pillage, he was the only survivor. It was by sheer dumb luck that he had been in the bushes relieving himself. He’d heard the cries and the gunfire, but by the time he dared to emerge into the cluster of mud huts, the entire village had been torched, and only corpses remained. He was still in tears, dragging out corpses from burned out mud huts when, two days later, the guerrilla band came by. They helped him to finish burying the dead and took him with them.
“Our camp is on the move,” explained the Scholar. “There is a gathering to the north.”
“Will there be a fight?”
“I don’t think so. We are meeting with our cousins,” chuckled the Scholar. Once he and Najmudin had spent a long evening discussing why the cousins fought more among themselves than against their enemies. The Scholar had taken the view that this was who they were and what they were supposed to do. It was their fate.
They didn’t speak for a long while as they moved at speed and uphill. Their breathing labored, and they would not waste it on conversation. As the sun sank toward the horizon, allowing yellow, gold, orange, reds, and purple into a sun-bleached sky, they stopped by a rock that faced the fading sunlight for a brief rest. Little Brother said, “We will be at the camp in two hours. I hope they saved some meat for us.”
“He is still growing,” said the Scholar with another chuckle.
The three continued on their way. Twilight ended as they approached the camp. They knew that sentries must have spotted them some time before a member of their band, wiry and small in build, hailed them. He was called the Jinn for his ability to move around without disturbing a stone or twig and also for a badly scarred face, the result of an accident in childhood. Those who got to know him found him the gentlest of souls, though none too bright, possibly the result of that same accident.
“Salaam, brothers. Our leader commands you to report to his cave as soon as you arrive.”
Najmudin choked a sense of alarm as he continued at the same pace toward the camp. It is in Allah’s hands, whatever was in store. When they arrived at the cave, their leader dismissed the Scholar and Little Brother and offered Najmudin a cup of tea.
“We must move soon to gather with our cousins in the north, Goat Keeper, but first I must ask about the Shopkeeper in your village.”
“He is old and childless, and he was my father’s best friend.” The Soldier looked around the leader’s cave and gestured at a cushion. The leader nodded at him to sit down. “He is very kind to my family.”
“I have learned that he is acquainted with the family of the Intelligence Chief down in the foothills from your village.”
“I know that he has an old classmate from his madrassah who chose to marry a woman from the plains and to settle in the town.”
“Why did the Shopkeeper send his nephew to live in their house?”
Najmudin thought for a moment before replying. “It was a private family matter. The Shopkeeper thought it best for his nephew to leave the village for a while.”
The leader of the guerrilla band was a considerate man and the most ferocious fighter that Najmudin had ever seen. He was a dozen years older than Little Brother, the youngest member of his band, but did not expect his men to do anything he could not. He was a member when Najmudin joined and had been his chief for five years. Informers to the guerrillas delivered the news a few days ago about the Shopkeeper’s nephew going to the house of the chief of the intelligence service in the foothills. Was this a security breach?
“What have you told him about us, Goat Keeper?”
“Oh, Leader, his sympathies are with us, and he rejoices in our victories. I have spoken to him only of things that all Pashtuns wish to hear—our meetings with our northern cousins, their victories, our common struggles. He does not ask where this band is or where we are going. We have never talked about how many there are of us in this camp or how many camps there are in these mountains.”
The guerrilla leader nodded and said, “It is true, Goat Keeper, that never in the last five or ten years has our band been attacked or ambushed by the Pakistani forces. But I must ask you because Ali has visited the…”
“You have spies watching Ali?” asked Najmudin.
“No, we have spies watching the Captain of the ISI in that town.”
“Our Shopkeeper, the only one who protested whe
n they came and took my father away, sent Ali years ago to a madrassah classmate; that is all I know. In our village, such friendships are as sacred as family ties.”
“You are sure you have not provided him with any details, where we are, where we might go?”
“He has never asked, and I have never told him these things. I will swear to this if you wish me to…”
“That will not be necessary. Tell me, what is this private matter with his nephew?”
So Najmudin told his chief about Ali’s sister and the mullah from the village to the west. The guerrilla chief remained silent as Najmudin had been when he received this information. His face was also as grim.
The next day, the guerrillas moved out from their camp and headed north. They left no signs that spotters in airplanes could detect—their camp was invisible from the air even when the fighters were at full strength. But anyone who came upon it on the ground would easily discover the caves in which they slept and the pits in which they buried their fires and waste. When they left, there were few traces of the direction they took because they were cautious to scatter and then met at pre-arranged points miles away.
Camp gossip soon settled on the notion that they were headed to a Loya Jirga of all Pashtun clans and tribes.
Bands of Pashtun in Pakistan and Afghanistan were soon to be on the move to the east, near the border and just south of the province of Khost in early summer. The warriors did not announce their presence, nor did they hide it. They were confident and secure in the knowledge of their superiority over any fighting force that would take the field against them and buoyed by their hope of the more perfect union soon to be achieved among the tribes. The guerrillas gravitated to a valley on the border between the two countries where there would be several clearings. Advanced parties arrived a week or two before the main clans and their leaders. They were all heavily armed, but their purpose was not to wage war.
Each tribe or clan found its clearing and prepared to receive their elders. When these were all present, the Loya Jirga would begin. The process of bringing the tribes together had begun months, perhaps years, ago. Sometimes, one clan or tribe would take the initiative, other times another. The process gathered momentum, even as the infidels declared victory and left.
There had been instigators as well as naysayers from inside and outside the Pashtun brotherhood. These tried to work through a Pashtun leader blinded by some outrage or bought with some irresistible blandishment. Over many cups of tea, they had all been found out, exposed and reconciled to the brotherhood or exterminated with rude prejudice.
The wars had brought a kind of money not seen before, and that brought arms, catapulting the tribes into the front ranks of guerrilla armies worldwide. Money also poured into religious schools that inculcated a blind fanaticism not seen before even in the poorest and most remote parts of the tribal lands. The mullahs remained, but recently their influence depended on how well they were able to carve a role for themselves in the primary task at hand, the unification of the Pashtun nation.
“Commander,” asked Najmudin as the band took their evening meal, “what will happen?”
“God’s will be done,” interjected the Scholar.
“What else?” demanded their leader with a frown.
“Will we have to stop fighting?” asked the Jinn, prompting raucous laughter.
“Our tribes have experienced peace before,” said the Scholar. “But now we should not stop fighting until all the infidels have left.”
“They have already left Afghanistan,” remarked the leader in a mild tone.
“But they are still pulling strings in the valley!”
“Would you have us continue fighting until the infidels leave the valley as well?” asked Najmudin.
“Wherever they are, they pollute our faith,” replied the Scholar fervently.
“Those in the valley do not seem to think so, nor our fellow believers to the north,” said Najmudin.
“We fight for the Pashtunwali, the Pashtun way of life,” said the leader. “Let those mullahs who wish to purify the earth look to their own homeland first.”
Thus went similar discussions in every camp of those attending the Loya Jirga.
8: SERGEANT MAJOR LI
(A suburb of Beijing)
While Tang and her team of analysts combed their scanty files on Afghanistan and the Pashtuns, the Spymaster sent word to Sergeant Major Li to meet him “at the usual time” in the basement of the agency’s building. They arrived at the same moment, and the Spymaster motioned for the Sergeant Major to follow him.
Li did so with a rising sense of alarm. He knows!
They entered a room with two chairs and a small table with two cups of steaming tea. A small side table bore an insulated flask with more of the beverage.
“Please, have a seat. This room is safe. I know about the Comrade Commissar, but nothing will happen to you against your will.” Wang flashed a smile. “Of course, you will not fulfill your mission for Honored Elder Jiang.”
They both sat, and Li picked up his cup of tea, hesitating only briefly before taking a sip. The Spymaster picked his tea up in a leisurely fashion, sniffing at its grassy reminder of hills far away from the city.
He smiled and nodded at Li, asking, “How long has it been since you last visited your wife’s parents?” He knew Li had been devoted to his wife who died three years ago because of complications during childbirth. That was how the vetting of the Sergeant Major had led into a dead-end. He was an orphan with no record of violence, psychological issues, criminality, or entangling commitments, and his wife had just recently passed away. It was easy to overlook the wife’s parents. As soon as General Chen alerted him to a connection between them and the Comrade Commissar, Spymaster Wang had ordered them investigated.
“About two years ago. I have not been able to see them since.”
“Would you like to?” Wang had learned that their obligation to Jiang was not dishonorable, but he was horrified that Jiang had taken advantage of them, and through them, of Li. He knew of the rumors of corruption and the abuse of authority for wealth and influence that swirled around the Comrade Commissar and around many of the leaders in the Party, but he did not think of the Comrade Commissar as a thug. He considered, however, the manipulation of the Sergeant Major despicable. The assassination or crippling of China’s Spymaster would have ended or ruined Li’s life, and he doubted that Jiang would or could do anything to prevent that. And to implicate the parents of the woman the Sergeant Major still loved—
“Are they…safe?”
“Yes.”
“You know where they are?”
“We are spies,” said Wang with a grimace. “This is one of the things we do quite well, find people. If you wish, they can be placed where they would be safer.”
“Outside Comrade Jiang’s reach?”
Wang raised his hands palms upwards and said, “He is able to reach further than I had thought possible. I will not underestimate him again. But what do you wish for?”
Sergeant Major Li frowned and shook his head. He rolled his shoulders back one after the other. The Spymaster stood to help himself to more tea from the side table. After a moment of silence, Li straightened up in his chair and said, “I do not think Comrade Jiang would harm them. There were no threats mentioned when they told me what he wanted. He might come after me because I accepted his mission through them and that is a promise I cannot keep.”
“It sounds like there is a ‘but’ coming,” the Spymaster said.
“How long have you known about my obligation to Comrade Jiang?” Li asked.
“A few weeks,” Wang replied.
“You took a risk, continuing with the exercises.”
“I sensed no danger.”
“I have killed in hand-to-hand combat.”
The Spymaster sat down, raising his shoulders and palms. He nodded and looked at Li intently as he said, “I have learned in combat to trust my instincts. They told me that you co
uld kill but also that I was not the target.”
He added, “We could use someone with your skills in this agency. Your general has assured me he can have you transferred to this agency.”
“Dangerous missions involving physical violence?”
Wang smiled. “Some more than others. But don’t believe everything you see in the movies.” He arched his back like a cat and rolled his head, sighing with relief. “The missions might each take a week or two. They might lead you to foreign countries, and you would have little notice should you accept the assignment. If you do, you will need as much additional training as we can manage.”
Li frowned as he rose from his chair to help himself to more tea. The Spymaster watched as the soldier took a sip. Older recruits into the agency, he had noticed, needed more time to process the implications of danger in their work.
“Take a week or two to sort this out in your mind. For now, you will return to your old duties and report back to General Chen’s camp. If anything is said, it will be that you almost crippled me in one of our sparring sessions, and I have ended my silly indulgence. It is time to acknowledge the passage of time and the process of aging.” Wang drained his cup and stood up.
“Wait twenty seconds, then leave by the door to the east. Someone will come to your rooms in an hour and take you back to your old army base. He will mention ‘Operation Kashgar.’ But you may not disclose anything of what we have just discussed. It will be a while before you can speak of it, perhaps never. Otherwise, you may choose to speak of anything or nothing.”
Administrator Hu was waiting in his office as Wang entered and said, “I think I may have found the solution to our problem.”
“Which one?”
“Very funny.”
The two men had discussed the staffing need on several operations that demanded a high degree of combat skills with sophisticated technical know-how, electronic surveillance, financial savvy, or language abilities. Wang thought that perhaps such operations might call for two agents instead of one. But trained operatives were scarce.
