The Warlord's Son

by Dan Fesperman

  The last statement floored Najeeb. His mouth fell open, and he shut it too late. The naswar had relaxed him far too much, which he supposed his father must have counted on. The malik had always had a flair for pursuing an attack on a wavering enemy, and Najeeb expected him to do so now.

  “I would have supposed that a man of the world such as yourself, one who takes a mistress before he even takes a wife—a bachelor with a concubine, now that is something new for our family—I would have expected someone like that to have figured all of this out by now. But I can tell from your face that it is news to you. Staying in touch with you was what your mother needed to do, I suppose, as were her dalliances with Aziz, if only as a way of getting back at me for my own infidelities. Aziz, of course, only participated to humiliate me.

  “But that is a secondary matter. It was you he was always courting the most. I saw that from your earliest days. I always wondered what Aziz would do to oppose me, once his wives were unable to produce a son. Then when I found all those drawing books, those bird sketches beneath your bed, then I knew. He’d taken you for his own. Hunting together, smuggling supplies to you for your little insurrections. Taking my own son and turning him against me. You became his wedge, his weapon, and with every passing year he honed your edge against me. But of course he made the edge too sharp, too fine. In trying to make you someone other than my son, he made you something other than a Pashtun, and so I pushed you even further, to ensure that you wouldn’t belong to him, either. Which is why I sent you away, off to university. So arrogant and haughty you became there, with your libraries so far above us, and with all of your women—yes, I heard about them, all those American girls. Then our government friend, Tariq, came along to show us what you had truly become. You wrecked my little factory for a while, but not for so long that we couldn’t recoup our losses. And others, of course, paid the greater price. But I don’t suppose your uncle Aziz ever told you what happened to him.”

  Najeeb slowly shook his head. The world was reshaping before his eyes, and collapsing on his head. He felt buried, emotions at a boil. He swallowed hard and set his jaw, determined not to flinch or look away.

  “I heard he might have gone away for a while,” Najeeb said. “To lie low.”

  “Lying low. That’s one way to put it. Imprisonment would be even better. Nothing of the official variety, like they have in Peshawar or Islamabad. But your friend Tariq insisted that someone, preferably with higher standing, had to pay a price or else things just wouldn’t look right. I offered him Aziz, and arranged it so the state would be spared the expense of his incarceration, which Tariq liked even better. So the next time Aziz was off in Afghanistan supervising a caravan from an opium supplier, I arranged for our Taliban brothers to happen upon him, and all his wares. Karim, why don’t you fill him in on the rest?”

  Karim proceeded to do so in lurid detail; an expressionless monotone rehash of the way Aziz had been subjected to a peculiarly effective brand of Taliban punishment reserved for drug runners—two years of beatings interspersed by hours at a time in chambers of frigid water. No wonder Aziz hadn’t wanted to linger around Kudrat and his Arabs once he’d rounded up Najeeb. One more slip among those people and he’d doubtless have been up on the gibbet next to Bashir. Or perhaps Karim had made a secret deal to prevent that. Any alliance seemed possible now, and that would explain the ease of their escape.

  Whatever the case, Najeeb felt devastated. Even if his uncle’s affections had been calculated all those years, the help Aziz had offered had been invaluable. It was crushing to learn he’d been responsible for so much pain. But there was no use giving his father more satisfaction from it, so Najeeb held himself in check—blinking once did the trick—and stared back toward his father.

  “Of course, by the time he returned you were an outcast,” his father continued, “and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with you, or more to the point, what to do to you. So he simply stayed in touch, pretending he was still your friend until he decided on a course of action.”

  Najeeb felt suddenly defeated, humiliated before the entire assemblage. He looked across the room to see that even the uncomprehending Skelly now looked worried, and tried to signal with his eyes, telling him that the news was only getting worse. Najeeb shook his head slowly. There was no sense in any further pretense about a mask. His father, sensing that the son must have finally figured it out, let him speak next.

  “The malang. He . . .”

  “Was sent to kill you, by your uncle. Only he was no mere assassin. Your uncle always thought of himself as too clever for such bluntness. Everything had to be artful, elaborate. Thirty years of trying to outwit his older brother made him too enamored of details. So he found this malang, this mendicant from the hills, and all he had to do was tell him of the life you were leading, show him the things you’d written in the newspaper, the people you spent time with, the beverages you drank, and he knew that would be enough.”

  “So the malang sent me the notes.”

  “Yes. As a warning. As an opportunity for you to mend your ways and save your soul. But you didn’t heed them, of course, as Aziz knew you wouldn’t. He had no doubt that plans would move to a rapid conclusion.”

  “He was going to let him kill me.”

  “It would have been a humiliation for me, once word got around what had happened and how it had transpired. It was to have been a demonstration of Aziz’s new powers. But it was a humiliation I wasn’t willing to endure.”

  “How compassionate of you.”

  “Your only concern should be that I saved your skin. Thanks to the actions of Karim here.”

  “Yes, Karim, who killed the malang with a knife from my kitchen.”

  “It was that or have Karim compromise himself. And what better way for me to keep control of you than for you to land in the Peshawar jail. But of course your old friend Tariq interfered once again.”

  It was hard getting used to the idea of Tariq as an ally. Or perhaps he was only the lesser of many evils.

  “Then, of course, Aziz heard you’d gone off with Razaq.”

  “And when I was in trouble, he came and got me,” Najeeb said, spotting a weak point in his father’s rationale and eagerly prodding it. “He got both of us. If all this is true, why not let them kill me?”

  “Because he had found a better use for you here. He brought you back as a trophy. You gave him something to rub in my eye, to blind me with just as he was preparing to make his final strike, in order to disrupt my most ambitious venture yet.”

  “More heroin factories?”

  “Please, my son. I do not repeat mistakes. But it is fitting that you mention that, because the very cave that you told the authorities about will now be put to much more advantageous use. As a home for new guests, ones who prefer to avoid notice in the village.”

  “Guests from where?” Najeeb asked, although he knew the answer.

  “From a foreign land. A little like your Mr. Skelly. Only far more devout than him, I would wager.”

  “And bearing gifts, I would suppose.”

  “It will be up to them, of course, to determine the value of my hospitality.”

  No one had to tell Najeeb that it wasn’t a good sign that his father was confiding in him. A son guilty of betrayal would never again be trusted with such information, unless the father had devised a means of ensuring the son’s silence.

  “So what will you do with me now?”

  “Give you back to Aziz. He will come for you, and I’ll let him have you. Not without pretending to put up a fight, of course. He will then deliver you to his backers as a great victory, a sign of his new powers that will ensure their support.”

  “He will deliver me how? Dead? Alive?”

  “I am afraid I am not privy to all his plans, Karim’s efforts notwithstanding. But I am sure that with patience you will find out soon enough.”

  “Who are his backers?”

  “Our usual rivals. The Shinwari, right across the hill in A
lzara. Aziz has been trying to interest them in joining in an uprising for years, but they’ve never been convinced he had the necessary strength. You’ll be the evidence he needs. But we’ll be waiting, of course, with certain new arrivals of our own, which will spell the end of them, and the end of Aziz. So you see? Your arrival was fortunate. And worthy of this dinner, and this evening among friends and honored guests.”

  Najeeb nodded toward Skelly.

  “And what will you do with him?”

  Skelly, sensing that the conversation was now about him, perked up accordingly.

  “He is my guest. So even though it troubles me greatly to hear of all that he saw across the mountains, what else can I do except show him our hospitality? And if there are those among my new visitors who seek to do him harm, I will of course protect him. As is only right.”

  “And when he decides to leave? When he crosses the boundary of your lands?”

  “Then he will no longer be my guest.”

  This told Najeeb everything he needed to know.

  “When will Aziz come for me?”

  The malik turned toward Karim, who answered.

  “Tonight. I am the one who will let him inside the compound, him and a few others. There will be shots. Perhaps we will even kill one of his men, just to make him believe more deeply in what he has accomplished. And I will fall, too, of course. Or pretend to.”

  Presumably so Karim could stay behind, and join in the final plot for Aziz’s destruction. But in all that confusion, might Najeeb find his own way to safety? His father seemed to read his thoughts.

  “I would discourage any idea you might have of foiling those plans through your own initiative, my son. Should you remain upon the grounds once Aziz has departed, Karim will know how to deal with you.”

  The same way that he dealt with the malang, Najeeb supposed. All in all, he would rather take his chances with Aziz. But that would mean the end for Skelly, who would be left alone and unprotected. And eventually it would mean the end for him as well.

  So had the dove really matured into the eagle after all? It sure didn’t feel like it. But if somehow he had, then this eagle had better soon discover its claws.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  IT HAD BEEN HOURS since Skelly had heard a word of English. He had never felt so isolated. He tried to reach Najeeb after the dinner, but two men escorted him away before he could catch Najeeb’s eye. As he was leaving the great hall he saw Karim leading Najeeb away by the arm.

  Skelly spent the next hour being squired around by the nudges and grunts of a pair of unsmiling bearded men. He ended up on the verandah of the hujera, seated on a cot to watch the moon rise as it cast a pale light on the walls of the family compound. After half an hour in silence, one of his escorts drifted away, but the other maintained the vigil, working through a pack of cigarettes by lighting each from the burning stub of the previous one. Skelly gave up any hope of seeing Najeeb until morning and rose to take his leave, shadowed all the way to his door.

  Now he lay in bed—a decent mattress stretched across a rope frame, his most comfortable berth in days. He’d stripped to his underwear and already imagined he could feel lice crawling from the thin blanket onto his chest. But anything was preferable to another night in his clothes, which he hadn’t changed since Azro. His beard bristled and itched after three days without a shave, and he would have paid hundreds for a shower, or even clean underwear.

  The dinner, at least, had been restorative, if heavy on his stomach. He must have drunk a gallon of hot tea, in preference to the questionable water. Late in the meal someone had surprised him with a warm Pepsi, the bottle looking like something from a vending machine in the 1950s. He gulped it down, and the sugar and caffeine still sang in his veins. The smoke from the odd-looking hookah had scorched his throat despite the water filter, but it had at least seemed to relax him. He had no idea what had transpired this evening, although the stunned look on Najeeb’s face at the end of the dinner had worried him, especially when Najeeb began frequently glancing his way during a lengthy pronouncement by the malik. But Skelly had been unable to decipher any message beyond a general impression that things were going poorly.

  He had forgotten how bewildering life in a foreign land could be without a translator, and it was doubly frustrating knowing his fixer was right across the room, separated by familial duty and centuries of tradition. So he had kept eating the food as it was offered, just as Najeeb had advised. And now, stretched out on the bed, he replayed the night’s events as if they might hold some clue for what would happen tomorrow.

  Skelly had been surprised to see Karim at the dinner, and even more surprised when the man spoke up, delivering a short speech of apparent importance, judging by everyone’s rapt attention. And where had Aziz gone? If he was now out of the picture, Skelly supposed that was further bad news.

  Yet for the first time all week he felt relaxed. Maybe the food had done the trick, or the hookah. More likely it was that he felt protected here, despite all the restrictions on his movement. As long as he did as he was told he would be sealed from harm. Tomorrow he would lie low and work on his story. Too tired to think about it now, he soon drifted off. With no fever to warp his dreams he slept soundly, slipping into a blank realm where his body seemed to be counting time. So it was that when he finally awakened it was as if he was emerging from the bottom of a pool, surfacing to the jarring sound of gunfire and an angry commotion outside his door.

  He groped for his clothes, tumbling out of the low bed with a painful thud, his own stench rising to his nostrils as he stooped to pull on his shoes. His back ached from the day on horseback. Stepping groggily onto the verandah, he heard shouting and rushing feet from the nearby compound. Then came two gunshots and what sounded like hoofbeats. A burst of machine-gun fire followed, a few rounds striking the wall overhead and sending down a shower of mud and plaster. For a horrible moment he wondered if Kudrat’s men had come for him, bursting into the village after an overnight ride, and he edged back into the doorframe.

  Then the shooting stopped and the hoofbeats receded. He stepped off the porch, looking up to see turbanned heads in the moonlight atop the parapets of the compound wall. To the right a man passed on horseback in no apparent hurry, the beast nickering, tail flicking. A man on the wall shouted, eliciting rough laughter from someone below. A hand grasped Skelly’s arm from behind, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. One of his escorts had returned and was tugging him back toward his room. But Skelly wasn’t going without trying to find out what was happening. All he could think to do was shout out the name of the one person who he knew could help.

  “Najeeb!”

  Silence. Another burst of laughter.

  “Najeeb?”

  The escort again tugged his arm, then croaked out the first words of English anyone seemed to have said in ages:

  “Najeeb gone. Gone.”

  “Gone where?”

  “Gone.” The man waved dismissively with one hand as he pulled with the other. Skelly finally relented and went with him.

  “Gone.” A key word, but with so many possible meanings. Departed? Dead? Gone to the compound, or to some other place, perhaps on horseback? For all Skelly knew, the escort’s English was so limited that he might even be referring to Najeeb’s previous seven years. Gone, but now returned.

  “What do you mean, ‘gone’?” he asked, desperate for more. He suddenly felt quite alone. The desolation of abandonment seemed all too near.

  “Yes, gone. Najeeb gone.”

  No use, he supposed, and by now the compound was again quiet. Perhaps there would be some answers in the morning, but for the rest of the night the word “gone” troubled his sleep.

  THE MORNING OFFERED nothing clearer.

  Skelly wandered outdoors into the early sunlight, only to be chivvied toward breakfast. They brought him yogurt and bread along with a pot of tea and a bunch of small, blackened bananas. He tore off three of the sweet, mushy fruits and wolfed them
down. The tea was milky and hot, and he swallowed enough to burst his bladder, figuring that unless someone offered another Pepsi it might be the only liquid he could trust until he got back to Peshawar.

  There was still no sign of Najeeb, and his questions now were answered only with blank stares. But for all his worries, his story was now preying on his mind. He would have killed for a phone, but he didn’t see any lines coming into the hujera or the compound. The only cables were electrical wires. Maybe the village had a public telephone office, where he could pay enough dollars to make an international call. “I’ve seen him,” he wanted to shout across the miles to his editor. “I’ve seen the man himself, and there is some sort of plot, either for his capture or for his protection.” Details to follow, of course, as soon as Skelly discovered what those details might be.

  Perhaps he could find someone who spoke a little English. He thought of trying to work on his story in longhand—a few potential lead paragraphs had darted through his mind as he awakened, all of them featuring prominent references to al-Qaeda Arabs and a colossal betrayal of Razaq. The puzzle was where the Americans fit in, and why.

  He walked back to his room, and with nothing else to do he pulled his notebooks from his satchel, covering everything from his jottings about his beers with Sam Hartley to the hangings back near Jalalabad. He arranged them in chronological order, then began flipping through the pages, adding things up as best he could, inching toward conclusions that had previously eluded him. It felt good to be back at work, arranging the pieces of this puzzle and beginning to discern a shape. Feeling thirsty, he got up for some tea, which by now had gone cold in the pot. He saw by his watch that hours had passed, but there was more yet to do.