by Ted Halstead
The guard reached for the pistol on his hip, but Khaled’s gun was already in his right hand.
Shaking his head, Khaled said quietly, “None of that. We want you going back home to your wife. You have children, right?”
The guard nodded miserably.
“OK. We’re not here for you or the guard inside the gate. You’re just employees, doing a job for a salary to feed your families. Do as I say, and you’ll walk away. If you think about it, if I’d wanted to kill you, I could have done it already.”
The guard slowly nodded. “What do you want me to do?”
“First, hand me your pistol—carefully,” Khaled said.
Once the guard had done that, Khaled put the pistol in his bag. Next, with his left hand, he pulled out first a strip of adhesive and then a small detonation device. Khaled quickly put the adhesive strip on the SUV’s driver’s side door. Then he pressed the small grayish mass of explosive into it, and next inserted the detonation device’s probe into the cube.
“Come with me to our car’s trunk,” Khaled said next.
Once they were standing in front of the trunk, Khaled opened its lid. The trunk’s interior was nearly filled with the same grayish material Khaled had the guard smell earlier and had a larger detonation device inserted in its top. An identical and much stronger odor emanated from the trunk. No one could doubt it was the same substance.
“We are going to drive back to the gate, and you are coming with us,” Khaled said. “Then, I’m going to set off that small charge you saw me attach to the SUV. When you see what it does, you will understand that if I set off the explosives in the trunk, neither you nor the guard on the other side of that gate will be going home to your wives.”
The guard looked like he was about to vomit.
Khaled smiled and said in a reassuring voice. “Remember what I said. We’re not here for you. Once the SUV explodes, get on your radio and tell the other guard the school is under attack. Tell him that you’re here with the police, and he needs to open the gate so we can enter and secure the school.”
The guard shook his head. “Then you’ll just kill us both.”
Khaled frowned impatiently. “No, I won’t. I want both of you alive to tell the real police how much explosive we have. We’re going to demand the release of Taliban prisoners, and the police need to know that if they try to storm the school, our bomb will level it and kill everyone inside.”
The guard still looked uncertain.
Khaled sighed. “Look, once you see what the small amount I put on the SUV can do, you’ll know that it wouldn’t have taken much more to blow down your gate. And if you don’t make the radio call, that’s what I’ll do, and then you and the other guard will indeed be killed. But again- that’s not what I want.”
The guard slowly nodded.
“Good. Now, get down on this side of our car. You can’t make the radio call if you get killed by shrapnel,” Khaled said.
This time, the guard didn’t hesitate. Very quickly, he was hunched down behind the bulk of the sedan.
Khaled pushed the button on the small remote control for the detonation device attached to the side of the SUV. At the same moment, he said a silent prayer. He’d tested a small quantity of the explosive as soon as he’d received it but still wasn’t sure it would work as well now as it had then.
It was one of the very few times in Khaled’s life where his concerns turned out to be completely groundless.
The small explosive mass Khaled had used had been shaped by one of the Taliban’s explosives experts, who had made more bombs just like it for the team leaders sent to the girl’s high schools in the three other cities. He had also given them precise instructions for where and how to apply the explosives to the SUVs.
The expert had explained why it was essential to follow his instructions, but Khaled had barely listened. All that mattered was that following them was critical to the success of the mission.
The force of the bomb’s explosion both lifted the SUV in the air and flung it down the street, fortunately away from them.
Khaled shook his head ruefully. No, that wasn’t right. There was nothing fortunate about it. He recalled now that was why the explosives expert had been so insistent that his instructions be followed precisely.
Khaled looked at the guard and was gratified by his reaction. Not only was he impressed, but he was also lifting his radio to his mouth, and saying exactly what Khaled had told him to say.
The gate swung open.
Seconds later, Khaled’s sedan and the guard were inside the school’s courtyard, and the gate had swung closed.
A small, squat structure occupied the space directly adjacent to the exterior wall, and next to the gate. It looked new and sturdy and had one-way glass all around it, except the side it shared with the exterior wall. Cameras on all sides meant it could see everything that happened in the courtyard.
When the Americans drew down their forces in Afghanistan and had to reduce their activities, they had decided to improve security at the girl’s schools they were no longer going to guard with their troops. The contractor picked for the job was American.
But many of the actual workers were Afghan.
After the projects were completed, it wasn’t difficult to find one who was willing to share details of the security upgrades, for the right price. Of course, once he had told everything he knew, he had to be silenced, and his body buried where it would never be found. It wouldn’t do for the Americans to be alerted to the fact that someone was interested in their security upgrades.
And in the daily chaos of the never-ending war in Afghanistan, people disappeared all the time. Here, there was no Missing Persons Bureau.
So, Khaled knew that the one-way glass was bulletproof, and the walls reinforced with steel plates that would protect the guard inside from even a high-velocity rifle bullet.
But the guard was facing a much greater threat today.
The guard booth was also equipped with exterior speakers, which the guard inside now used.
“Kader, what’s going on out there? How many attackers are there?” the guard asked.
Then, without waiting for an answer, he said in a low and suspicious voice, “And I want to see ID from everyone in the car.”
“Ali, these are the men who planted the bomb that blew up the SUV outside,” the guard whose name Khaled now knew was Kader said.
The response was a stream of invective as detailed as it was colorful. Khaled found himself hoping, half-seriously, that none of the girls inside the school could hear it.
“Ali, listen to me. These men have a trunk full of the same explosives they used to blow up the SUV. You saw what it did to the SUV. What you didn’t see is that they used an amount no bigger than my thumb. You’re not invulnerable inside that shack.”
Shack, thought Khaled. It was clear there wasn’t a great deal of love lost between Ali and Kader.
There was a long pause. Finally, Ali asked, “What do they want?”
“They are going to demand the release of Taliban prisoners in return for freeing the girls. Look, I know we were hired to protect them. But against this kind of firepower, we have no chance. They want us to leave and tell the police how much explosives they have,” Kader said.
Khaled pressed a button on the sedan’s dashboard, and the trunk lid swung up, revealing its contents. With all the cameras he had, Khaled knew Ali would have no trouble seeing what was inside.
Another long pause. Then, Ali asked, “How do I know that as soon as I open this door, they won’t shoot us both?”
Kader shook his head in exasperation. “Because they could have killed us both by now if that’s what they’d wanted. If we don’t tell the police how much explosives they have, the police will try to rush them, and then all the girls will die for sure. And if we’re going to tell the police, we have to leave now.”
Khaled added, “Before the police show up, and that’s going to be pretty quick after that SUV explosion.
Once they get here, I’m not going to open that gate.”
That seemed to make up Ali’s mind, because the gate swung open, and then Ali stepped out of the “shack’s” door.
Ali looked like he expected to be shot on the spot. The truth was if that would have helped achieve the mission, that’s just what Khaled would have done.
Fortunately for Ali and Kader, he’d been telling them the truth. Khaled gestured with his pistol for both of them to walk through the open gate.
Neither wasted any time in obeying.
Khaled stepped inside the guard booth and was glad to see all the control buttons neatly labeled. He pushed the one that closed the gate, just as he could see approaching flashing lights. As he’d thought, there’d been no time to spare.
The phone in the booth was buzzing. With amusement, Khaled saw that the digital readout next to the phone identified the caller as the principal’s office. Yes, Khaled imagined she would have questions about the rather loud explosion she had just heard outside. Well, she’d have to wait a moment.
Next, Khaled touched a button that a Taliban communications specialist had programmed on each of the leaders’ cell phones. Using something he called a “macro” the button sent texts and e-mails to multiple Afghan government offices throughout the city containing their demands and warning of the consequences of an assault.
There had been quite a bit of argument over the entry plan that Khaled, at least, had brought off successfully. The other Taliban leaders had said they had explosives- why not use them on the gate and the guard booth?
Khaled had pointed out that their goal was not just to take the girls at the school hostage. It was to keep the girls’ hostage, and the American soldiers they were sure would be sent to free them occupied for as long as possible.
That was the point of the mission, not to free Taliban prisoners. Khaled and the other Taliban leaders all knew the Afghan government would never agree to such a demand for a simple reason. If they did, hostage-taking would increase dramatically.
A gate smashed flat by explosives would give those American soldiers an obvious and easy way in. An intact guard booth gave Khaled, and his men, access to external and interior cameras that would make an assault far easier to spot.
Finally, reluctantly, the other Taliban leaders had agreed with Khaled’s plan.
Now to see whether the others had been as successful in implementing it. Khaled texted the number two to the rest of the assault teams. Within a few minutes, answering texts with the same number came in from two of the other teams.
From the third team, there was only silence. Khaled would never know it, but that team had the bad luck to assault a school where that morning, an Afghan Army squad had been sent to check on its security precautions.
In the firefight that followed, four soldiers were killed, and all of the Taliban fighters except the team leader. He set off their team’s bomb, but it only killed him and the remaining soldiers. Though the school building was damaged, the explosion was too far away to do more than injure a dozen girls from flying glass when multiple windows were shattered.
Khaled and the two remaining team leaders in the other cities set about their next task. Taking control of the school building.
All of the schools were in old buildings that had been initially built for other purposes. For many reasons, none of the buildings would have passed an American fire code inspection.
From Khaled’s point of view, one of those reasons was excellent news for him. Each building had only a single entrance.
Khaled took one of his men with him and walked across the courtyard to that entrance. Time to answer the principal’s questions.
Khaled had ordered one man to monitor the displays in the guard booth and the other to stay at the gate in case the police were foolish enough to attempt an immediate assault. He thought, though, that was very unlikely.
A large sign in front of the first door to the right of the school entrance announced it as the principal’s office. Neither the entrance doors nor the door to the principal’s office was locked. Khaled smiled to himself. With armed guards at the front gate, why would they be?
Khaled told the fighter he had brought with him to stand watch at the building entrance. Then he didn’t bother knocking but walked right into the principal’s office.
The principal’s secretary was in the outer office and had a phone pressed against her ear, trying no doubt yet again to reach Ali, the guard who was already gone. She had just looked up to see Khaled enter when the inner office door flew open.
Now Khaled noticed that the same bulletproof one-way glass that had been used for the guard booth filled the top half of the principal’s inner office. Seeing the angry, self-important expression on the face of the woman approaching him, Khaled was sure that was her idea.
Well, it did explain how she’d been so quick to react to his appearance.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” the principal demanded.
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and yelled at her secretary, “Why can’t you get Ali on the phone?”
That question, at least, Khaled could answer.
Pulling his pistol out of his jacket and pointing it directly at the principal’s face, Khaled said, “Ali and Khader have both left. I have men at the gate and the entrance. We set off the explosion you heard earlier. If, and only if, you follow all my instructions to the letter, we will leave all of you unharmed. Are you ready to listen to what you need to do?”
When Khaled had pointed his pistol at the principal, her initial reaction had been precisely what he hoped to see. Her eyes widened, and her face paled. By the time he had finished speaking, though, she had already regained her composure.
Though, Khaled saw with some pleasure, she no longer looked quite as self-important.
“First, what do you want me to do? Next, what should I call you?” the principal asked.
Khaled thought with satisfaction that he’d learned quite a bit from those questions. The principal had apparently been given at least basic training in how to deal with a hostage situation. One of the first lessons was getting the captors to think of you as a person, which is why she’d asked for his name.
It certainly wasn’t because she genuinely wanted to know it.
On the other hand, she wasn’t nearly as smart as she thought. She should have also told him her name.
Well, he didn’t care what her name was, and had less than no interest in thinking of her as a person.
The truth was that the smug, makeup-wearing woman with uncovered face and hair in front of him was a perfect example of the perversion of the natural order caused by the American invasion.
Keeping an American special forces team busy might be why he had been sent on this mission.
But for Khaled, the death of this woman and the teenage girls she sought to recast in her image was worth just as much. They were a cancer on Afghan society, and there was only one cure for a tumor.
You cut it out. Or the whole body would grow sick and die.
Khaled knew that there were Taliban who drew the line at killing children but also knew that those men were soft and weak. The girls at this high school were all old enough to have children, and that meant they should be married and doing exactly that.
Khaled would have died to protect his mother and his two sisters. They were all married, and they all had children. Raising children and caring for them and their husbands was honorable work, and it was work that Afghan women had been doing for as long as anyone could remember.
None of the teenage girls at this high school had been forced here by their parents. They were all here because they thought they were too good to follow their mother’s path. That instead, they would pretend to be men.
As far as Khaled was concerned, they all deserved their fate.
All these thoughts went through Khaled’s mind in a flash.
Then, at first, the habits of a lifetime made Khaled hesitate until he had a
small smile at his own expense.
Why not give his real name?
“My name is Khaled. You will first get on the school’s public address system and announce that there is a security emergency and that the police are about to enter the school and search it. For the protection of students and teachers, you are going to lock the doors to all classrooms. You will promise another announcement later when the emergency is over, and you can unlock the doors,” Khaled said.
The principal was silent for a moment, clearly thinking over what Khaled had just said.
Finally, she appeared to have remembered the other part of her training and said, “My name is Fereshtah Saheb.”
Meanwhile, a glance at the secretary showed Khaled that she wasn’t thinking about anything, and was simply terrified.
Turning back to Fereshtah, Khaled asked, “You do have a master key that locks all the doors in this building, correct?”
Fereshtah nodded.
“Good. Now, time to get on the public address system,” Khaled said, waving her towards the microphone with his pistol.
Fereshtah wanted to find some way to object or delay, but one look at Khaled’s expression told her that would be a bad idea.
Once she finished making the announcement, Fereshtah rummaged in a desk drawer, while Khaled watched closely. He thought it unlikely Fereshtah’s hand would emerge with a pistol rather than a key, but he hadn’t lived this long by being careless.
It was a key.
“Are there others?” Khaled demanded.
“Yes,” Fereshtah said. “I keep a duplicate in my car’s glove compartment for emergencies. That’s the only other copy.”
Khaled waved Fereshtah towards the door with his pistol and then turned to the secretary. “You too,” he said.
The secretary looked like she was about to faint. Fereshtah walked over to her and said something in a low voice Khaled couldn’t hear, but was evidently reassuring, because the secretary straightened up and walked with Fereshtah into the hallway.
Khaled put away his pistol and followed them as Fereshtah walked down the front hallway, quickly locking each of the classroom doors. Finally, on the way back to her office Fereshtah walked past a door marked “Library” without locking it.
