by Ron Lealos
A man in a black turban sitting in the truck’s passenger seat said, “Talal.” Go. The men began to back away and climb into the truck. Within seconds, they had reversed out of the street, only one mujahedeen shaking his fist and yelling “sta plar nikkan sara yo kam.” I’m going to kill your family.
The quickness of their flight didn’t quite make sense, but I was too thankful for being able to continue standing to explore any doubts.
When the truck was gone, I turned to the girl. She was trying to cover her face and head with a blue-sleeved arm. She was still crying and trembling. I knew better than to touch her. Finnen didn’t. He reached out his hand.
“Now, now, lassie,” he said. “The bad guys are gone.”
The girl pulled away, exposing her face. She had those arctic-blue eyes relatively common in Afghans. The OCA2 gene mutation had begun close to here near the Caspian about ten thousand years ago and spread around the globe but was even more astonishing and pure close to its roots. It was like looking through a crystal-blue bowl. They were bottomless and reflective at the same time. I only knew because mine were the same, only slightly darker, a further mutation. Like Dunne’s too, even though he was a few thousand years down the evolutionary chain.
Her left cheek was red and swelling. Dirt matted her long, black hair. She was average size for a girl of about eighteen. No one had taught her how to trim her dark eyebrows. They nearly connected. But that was all I could criticize. She was criminally gorgeous.
Even Finnen, not the best judge of female beauty, was shocked. He stepped back and whistled.
“Crikey, mate,” he said. “She’s a looker.” He shook his head from side to side. “But you shoulda let them take her rather than us dyin’ in the street on account of your need ta’ be a hero.”
Normally, I didn’t respect Finnen’s opinion of women. It was most often influenced by the number of Guinness bottles he’d drained. After a night out on R & R, he would say things like, “I like beer better than women. Ya don’t have to wash it so it tastes good. It always goes down easy, and you can share it with a friend.”
Today, though, his first impression was spot on. This girl could launch her own jihad.
The more I studied her, the more it became apparent she wasn’t a girl—a spectacular-looking young woman was more like it. Finnen and I were already under her spell, and it was eerie. Any moment could mean a fusillade from a dozen AKs or a tossed grenade, but we stood like cattle to slaughter taking in the slight curl of her full lips, the astonishing blue of her eyes, and the smooth darkness of her skin. I was adding to the list of superlatives, and time wasn’t going to let me finish now. We needed to get gone.
People were beginning to drift back to the market. One of the old women who had been selling carrots stared at us with a scowl and then spit. At least the hag didn’t have her face wrapped; she might have drowned. Clucking, she walked across the deserted street to the girl and wrapped her head in a scarf the crone must have carried for emergency concealment. The girl immediately stood, as if she had lost her top in the pool and someone threw her a towel. She was no longer an infidel—only another homeless, frightened refugee.
The rush of an imminent firefight was gone. Finnen and I were in the presence of someone exquisite, surely a candidate for Young Miss Universe. Neither of us budged, no matter how strongly our training thundered “Move out!” That cry was muffled by those eyes.
Sure, there were women back at the base. Not very many, though, and they tended to say, “yes, please” at every station in the chow line. Besides, we were spooks, and nobody spoke to us. This young lady would soon be more stunning than Lieutenant Colonel Richter, the Army’s pin-up girl, if a blond, beautiful forty-year-old woman officer could be called “girl.” Rumors were rampant about how Richter had climbed the ladder so quickly, but who could accuse the military of anything as crass as favoritism based on a rack that threatened to pop every metal button on her tunic.
Back at Millard, my high school sweetheart was the baton twirler who led the band out at halftime. She had impossibly long hair that threatened to carry her off in a stiff breeze. Aly’s dad was an orthodontic surgeon, and her teeth were in perfect sparkling rows that dominated an ever-present smile. Even without the music, she danced. My teammates constantly wanted to know how a heifer like me could be the boyfriend of this queen. They were jealous. I was lucky. Not even the freckles could mar skin that turned brown at the hint of sun. She was stunning. The last time I had seen Aly was on the cover of Elle. Compared to the girl bowed in front of me now, Aly would be confined to the back pages in small print.
Bizarre. We were standing in a city in Afghanistan having just offended a truckload of AK-waving Taliban. Snipers could already have our heads in their sights. A grenade could roll to our feet over one of the nearby walls. Our truck could explode momentarily, killed by an RPG fired from that bearded man up by the corner carrying something that looked like a long tube.
It was time to get out.
“We have to di di, Finnen,” I said. But I hadn’t moved.
“What about the girl?” he asked. He didn’t move, either.
“I don’t think we can leave her here,” I said. “She’s shamed herself and her entire family. And humiliated those mujahedeen. They’ll drag her through the streets behind their truck.”
“Yes, the bastards will. As I said, you already put us at risk for her when we coulda been eatin’ hummus somewhere safe. What’s your plan, chief?”
“For now, we have to all get out’a here. Fast.”
“Ya think?”
“I don’t know how to convince her.”
“Give it your natural charm.”
“Okay.”
Stalling. Dumbstruck. Sick. Twenty-five and an assassin, hypnotized by a teenage girl. Or young woman. A fucking drop-dead gorgeous one, for sure. My feet felt as if they were impaled in a bucket of the breakfast oatmeal back at the base. If we took her along, she would be my responsibility. Again, time to move.
“Num?” I asked, looking at the girl. Name.
Still looking down at the road, she said “Khkulay.” Beautiful.
Nearly dropping my H & K, I began to laugh.
“Perfect,” I said. “Finnen, guess what her name means.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “Jailbait?”
“Of course not,” I said. “There’s no translation for that. No such thing here.”
By now, the market was back to normal. A few vendors even dared to call out the names of the produce they were hawking, behavior frowned on by the Taliban who believed the voice should only be raised in praise of Allah. Lots of furtive glances in our direction. We were still well-armed, and Americans had a reputation for unpredictability. They were in the kill zone.
For the fourth time, my mind shouted, “Move out!” I pointed toward the truck, any ability to translate lost in the moment.
The girl looked up, those eyes holding too many hardships and years.
“Yes,” she said. “We must go.”
Another shock. Much more, and the circuits would overload. She spoke English, even if her voice quivered with fright.
Finnen stepped back as if he were in the presence of Ann “Goody” Glover, the famous Irish witch and the last woman hanged in Boston.
“Now there’s a miracle,” he said. “She speaks.”
Turning to Finnen, Khkulay said, “My father was a doctor. He was killed for treating women. He taught me English.” She looked back at me. “We must leave. I have no place to go. They will kill me by last prayer.” She began to search the market with her blue eyes, as though it hid someone who would soon take down the three of us.
No hesitation this time. I led Finnen and the girl to the jeep, scanning rooftops as we went. Seconds later, we cleared the market street and drove away with a beautiful young woman hiding in the cramped space behind the front seats.
After a few questions, we decided the only safe destination for Khkulay was the
base. No uncles or aunts would bother to take in a girl infected by the hands of an American heathen. She had already whispered she was alone, her mother executed alongside her father because there were books written in English at the house when the raid came. She was a pariah and had been living off leftover vegetables scraped from the ground when the market closed for the night. The little of her story she told made sense. I was hoping I’d get the chance to find out more.
No lunch at Sahar’s ka-bob shop. The word would already be out to watch for a jeep with two men and a girl. The roadside bombs were now remote-controlled, and the Taliban had cell phones. I sped as fast as the military vehicles, camels, donkeys, and motorcycles would allow.
Outside the city, the palms were replaced by spindly trees. Close to the Kunar River, crops were harvested by women who looked restricted in full dress. Men sat in front of mud hovels, smoking cigarettes and staring. We were on one of the few paved roads in Afghanistan, black-topped only because it was the main route from Jalalabad to the Tora Bora base.
As we approached the gate, I told Khkulay to sit up. There was no use attempting stealth. The jeep would be thoroughly searched. No wave-throughs in Afghanistan unless you sported general’s bars or were part of a convoy. I stopped the jeep, and an MP stepped out of the sand-bagged guard shack. He only glanced at me, all eyes on Khkulay, who was modestly keeping her head down but still undeniably gorgeous.
The MP didn’t grin, melt, or go goo-gaw. He stared. Maybe he was a catcher on the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell team.
To the left, a large gate opened, and an M1 Abrams tank rumbled past, followed by a line of trucks, mobile artillery, and Humvees. The MP waited for the noise to die down.
“Papers,” he said, finally taking his eyes off Khkulay. He didn’t smile.
Finnen and I didn’t carry papers. No wallets, no credit cards, no dogtags. Even the birthmark on my leg had been removed, and new, untraceable dental work had been performed on my teeth. If the Company could have altered our fingerprints and DNA, they would have.
I shook my head.
“No chance, man,” I said. “Call oh sixteen forty. Tell ’em we’re home.”
The MP scowled and walked over to the shack, but he knew the drill. He unhooked a phone mounted to the cement wall and punched in a number. After a few words, he nodded his head and hung up. Walking back to the jeep, he frowned even more deeply.
“Step out, please,” he said. “Stand over there.” He motioned to a wall of sandbags.
He searched the jeep, even using one of those mirrors on a stick to check underneath for bombs. Finished and feeling safe, he walked over to me.
“What about her?” he asked.
“She’s a high-level spy,” I said. “She infiltrated the largest Taliban cell in Afghanistan and provided us with top-secret information. Her intel has helped to save hundreds of American lives. We’re taking her inside to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. Okay?”
Another stand-off. Tiring, but I didn’t want Khkulay touched. Not out of possessiveness. I knew how much her conditioning would make her loathe the feel of any man’s hand other than her husband’s. The MP didn’t know about her religious beliefs, or care. He had a duty to perform. That included frisking of civilians.
“Not okay,” he said. “I don’t care if she’s Chairwoman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I have orders to search all non-combatants, especially if they don’t have papers or a pass. Move aside.”
“Do you have any idea what my boss will do to you if you keep hassling us?” I asked. “Getting demoted to Private would be a good outcome, though losing your tongue for insubordination is more likely.”
Legends. Astounding how everyone at this and other bases across Afghanistan had heard the myths. The Company wasn’t into denial, and the underground stories became more gruesome and mysterious on each retelling. No one really knew if we were CIA or from some other alphabet-soup intelligence agency. Spooks were all lumped under the umbrella of the Company. It was easier than trying to sort out if we were DIA, NSA, INR, OICI, or operatives from a department so secret it didn’t even have a letter designation. The grunts did notice how we were treated by their own commanders, though. Not used to officers acting edgy in front of lower-grade non-coms and civilians, unless they wore suits or dresses, there was always the suspicion we knew something—unfathomable somethings that could be used to achieve whatever furtive goal we sought, prejudiced or unprejudiced, against good guys as well as bad. Mostly, it was the strange, murky tales whispered in the mess halls and during downtime. Like the oft-told technique of wee-hour interrogations by helicopter. Take a few al-Qaeda suspects up for a ride in a black unmarked Bell chopper. Start throwing the actors out the door one by one until the real target unloaded his burden of guilt. Then, let the last man enlist in the Airborne with his first flying lesson. The helicopters were seen exfiltrating, but seemed to always come back empty. And the attitude. . . . Spooks never, ever, took shit from military personnel. If it happened, the repayment was always more severe than the offense.
The MP in front of me was aware of all this, and I could tell his mind was processing the nuances and potential penalties while I continued to glare at him through reflective sunglasses. He looked down at his spit-shined boots, which weren’t allowed to be marred by even a speck of the ever-present dust.
“Listen,” he said. “Give me a break. I’ll get court martialed if I don’t search the lady.”
The line of Humvees waiting to pass through the gate was getting longer. Behind us, a group of soldiers was in a buoyant mood, happy to be returning to base not disarticulated. The driver honked his horn and yelled, “Move it along, buddy. There’s cold ones waitin’.”
In his jolly mood, the lieutenant hadn’t paid close enough attention. Finnen didn’t raise his weapon or pull out a grenade. He just flashed the lieutenant the finger, unsmiling.
At first, the lieutenant reacted like any Army officer robot. He started to open the door of the Humvee to confront the public disobedience with at least a dressing down. Quickly and firmly, the soldier next to him grabbed his arm and began whispering in his ear. The lieutenant’s body deflated like one of the fifty-thousand-gallon collapsible fuel bags that dotted the air field. No more honks. End of party. The riders in the Humvee quieted and stared, some kind of message from their heightened battlefield consciousness passing between them. Don’t fuck with the spooks.
It was enough for the MP. “If you can vouch for her,” he said, “I’ll let you pass. She’s your responsibility. And your ass.”
I nodded Khkulay toward the jeep.
“Now that’s truly American of you,” I said to the MP. “Thank you for your gracious hospitality.”
Within minutes, we were back at spookville, explaining to Dunne why on Earth we hadn’t just dumped the girl at the nearest refugee camp.
“It would’ve been a death sentence,” I said. “You know better than me those camps are controlled by the Taliban. She couldn’t just vanish into a tent city. The refugees would be talking about her in minutes. She wouldn’t have survived ’til nightfall.”
For once, Dunne’s face wasn’t buried in the laptop screen. While he had been blunt in his earlier evaluation of our “fuckin’ sorry ass” decision to bring Khkulay into the compound, he still couldn’t take his blue eyes off hers. It seemed she was a distraction he didn’t want. Nevertheless, a few minutes in the presence of such astounding beauty, and he was beginning to soften. It was easy to tell; he had gone a dozen sentences without using the “f” word.
Khkulay was sitting in my usual chair, her head modestly bowed to her chest. She still wore the scarf, and her knees were tight together, hands folded submissively in her lap. Strands of black hair had escaped from her head dress but only helped make her look more fetching, vulnerable, and exotic.
Finnen was enjoying the show from his designated spot near the refrigerator, not participating in the dialogue other than a few grunts and chuckles. He had no inhi
bitions about drinking alcohol in front of this Muslim lass. Dunne had cordially filled the fridge with Bud, and Finnen was claiming his part of the treasure.
Being careful to not have any contact, I stood behind Khkulay’s chair, making sure Dunne’s field of vision would include her when he spoke to me. I hoped her looks would do more to convince him to go along with what I had planned than any argument I could summon.
“We can’t just hand her over to any of the NGOs,” I said. Non-governmental organizations. “They have no way of protecting her. It’s obvious we can’t send her home either. She doesn’t have one. Or family willing to adopt her. There’s surely a fatwa on her head.”
What Dunne did best was plot. His schemes rarely resulted in anything other than a successful op. But they never included women while he was stationed in Afghanistan, unless it was to list them as collateral damage. There were no “honey traps” being set to gather intel from the Taliban. Dunne was a user, and he probably couldn’t fathom how Khkulay could be employed to further the Company’s agenda. Therefore, he would believe she was of little value to him. He rubbed the side of his face and thought while I waited for the right moment.
Outside, the clamor of tanks and trucks and the sound of distant artillery. The day had clouded over with the high steel gray common to the region. Every once in a while, the chanting of troops exercising in formation drifted through the canvas. The guards outside were clones of the others. It was no use knowing their names. I called them all Bob.
Inside, Dunne’s anal character didn’t allow for change to his environment. The same table, laptop, desk lamp, maps, smells, and cell phone. Maybe some of the files held new intel, but they were all stamped with the top-secret red designation and closed. A breeze forced sand in through the flaps of the tent, and Finnen went over and secured the canvas. Otherwise, just a dirt-floored room where I had spent hours outlining mission parameters and objectives. The difference was the energy. Khkulay provided something this tent had never experienced. Femininity. And beauty. Dunne pushed a folder an inch to one side, tidying his universe.
