The Network

by Jason Elliot

  As I draw nearer I realise there’s something going on between the Talib and the boy who runs the stall. The Talib has said something to him in Pashtu and now repeats it, but the boy doesn’t respond, so he asks again but this time he yells it. I’m close enough now to see the boy’s expression. He’s just looking down at his feet, scared as hell and not daring to answer.

  So the Talib hits him. His right hand flies up and slaps the boy violently on the side of his head. The boy winces and holds his hand to his ear and mumbles what I take to be an apology. That’s probably the end of it, but the scene has caught my eye, and without realising it I’ve stopped.

  Mistake.

  In the greater context of things a man slapping a boy is not much to be concerned about. Especially in Afghanistan. It’s a tough country and the boy has probably been dealt worse punishments. And it’s none of my business. But it’s an unprovoked act and I feel a disproportionate sense of outrage at the sight of someone being bullied, and I’m allowing it to show.

  In another place at another time it wouldn’t matter. I’d say, ‘Pick on someone your own size,’ and the other man would say, ‘Get lost,’ and that would be the end of it. But this is Afghanistan and its people are at war and the Taliban have come to Kabul to show who’s in charge.

  The Talib notices me a few yards away and his head turns. He has a huge black turban and a thick black beard, and the strange thing is he’s strikingly handsome. But his expression tells me he’s an arrogant belligerent bastard, and for the second or two that our eyes meet I want him to know that’s exactly what I think of him. I realise that I’ve let my gaze linger an instant too long, issuing thereby a silent challenge. I’ve unwittingly threatened his pride, and the pride of an Afghan is not a thing to underestimate. I look away but it’s too late.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ He’s speaking Pashtu, which I don’t understand, but the question is obvious.

  I walk past him, and his body turns to face mine.

  ‘I’m talking to you,’ he says.

  I raise a hand in a gesture of dismissal, to indicate that I meant nothing and that I’m leaving him in peace. My back is turned to him now. He calls after me but I keep walking because it’s not a moment for confrontation. With a military map in my underwear, encrypted computer files and a weapon on my waist, it’ll be a challenge to pass myself off as a passer-by. But he’s not letting it go.

  Behind me I hear his boots on the ground. He’s running towards me. I turn around and raise my hands to my throat and make a strangling noise to let him know I can’t talk properly. He stops just short of me and he’s staring at me with a look of both anger and curiosity. I pull desperately at my throat to convince him I can’t talk and turn away again, and it’s just as I turn that I feel the first blow.

  The strange thing is that the pain erupts not from my back but my stomach, and I look down in astonishment as my hands clutch the front of my body in reflex. It feels like a powerful electric shock and as I begin to double over in agony I’m just able to turn enough to see what’s caused the blow. The Talib is standing behind me with a length of thick black electrical cable in his right hand, which I now realise has whipped over my arm and across my abdomen.

  I can’t speak. Nothing comes out of my mouth. I stare at him in astonishment, and his hand comes up in a lightning motion. The wire hits my other arm, curls over it and sends another electrifying jolt of pain across my back. Where the cable has struck it feels as if a red-hot piece of metal has been pressed against me, and I’m gripping my sides trying not to speak, because I mustn’t.

  I’m amazed at how quickly pain affects the consciousness. There’s a few gawping bystanders now, gathering at the periphery of the street, but as I take in the sight of them they already seem unreal, like characters in a dream the significance of which I don’t really understand. The Talib is yelling at me, but I don’t understand and I can’t respond. I hear only a weird, animal-like moan of anguish escape me, but my attacker wants more, and the cable leaps out at me once again, delivering another burning jolt to my wrist, arm and back, and making me stumble down into the dirt.

  I can’t take much more of this. If he hits me again I know I’ll be in too much pain to function. I can run, but another Talib who’s been sitting in the cab of the Toyota has got out now, and has an AK in his hands, half-raised into a firing position just to let everybody know this is their business and nobody else’s. I’ll have to shoot him first, while my vision is still good and my hand steady. But if I do, my options are not too good. I can run through this maze of streets, but I won’t escape for long. If I’m not killed, I’ll be found soon enough and the entire op will be ruined. I may or may not have time to conceal the flash disk somewhere, but I’ll then have to find a way to transmit its location to H or someone I can trust.

  I can’t bear the prospect of all this. If I own up to being a foreigner he’ll stop hitting me, but I’ll be taken prisoner and searched and my map and weapon will incriminate me. God knows what will happen to me if I end up in a Taliban prison. Every scenario spells disaster.

  I’m lying in the road now, propping myself up with one arm, looking him in the face, deciding that if his hand goes up again, I’ll roll to my left and shoot the one with the AK who’s leaning against the door of the pickup. He won’t be expecting it. For the moment he’s just enjoying the sight of his friend beating the hell out of an unlucky passer-by. Then, unless he acquiesces very quickly and very politely, I’ll shoot the one with the cable.

  He walks towards me with a menacing swagger. Slowly, as if nursing my ribs, I move my hand under my shalwar to the holster, and find the grip of the Browning. Safety off, finger to the trigger.

  ‘What have you got to say for yourself now, you Panjshiri son of a whore?’ he says, or something very like it.

  In a movement calculated to cause further terror, he winds an extra turn of cable over the hand that holds it, and runs his other hand along its length, as if preparing it for its next journey. But it never comes. At the moment he’s about to hit me again and, though he doesn’t know it, to be shot twice through the chest, there’s a high-pitched squeal of brakes from a few feet behind him, where a car has pulled up alongside the Toyota. At the sight of it I experience a strange sense of recognition. It takes me a few seconds before I realise why, but I get there in the end. It’s the BBC Land Rover on its way home, and behind the windscreen I can clearly see the female passenger, leaning across from her seat and honking the horn to get everybody’s attention.

  She gets out, strides up to the Talib with the cable and with a minimum of ceremony introduces herself as the BBC corres-pondent and asks what the hell is going on. She has no idea it’s me, but sees only an apparently defenceless man lying in the street and a big Talib looming over him with an electric cable in his hand. She’s blathering fearlessly at him and the effect is so dramatic I’m transfixed by the spectacle. At the sight of this obviously mad, shrill foreign woman, the murderous warrior turns into a sullen schoolboy who looks as if he’s just been caught by the headmistress behind the bike sheds. He skulks with his partner back to the cab of the pickup without even looking at me, and as I stagger to the pavement the pickup roars angrily away.

  Then, summoning her interpreter, she marches over to me. I avoid meeting her eye.

  ‘Bastards,’ she mutters in English. ‘What have they done to you?’

  I’m still gripping my sides in pain.

  ‘Khub ast,’ I growl. ‘It’s alright.’

  I try to keep my face turned from her towards the shadow. But as she looks at me, her expression turns from one of concern to curiosity.

  ‘I know you,’ she says quizzically. She’s squatting beside me. ‘Don’t I know you?’

  I want to shake my head, but I mustn’t show that I’ve understood.

  ‘Zekriya,’ she calls to her driver, who’s been sensible enough to stay clear of the fray, ‘ask him if he’s alright, can you?’

  ‘Khub ast,’
I repeat, disguising my voice with a wince of pain.

  ‘That is so weird,’ I hear her say with a sigh as she stands up and walks back towards the Land Rover. ‘He looks just like someone I know. Zek?’ she calls with her hands on her hips. ‘Ask him if he’ll agree to an interview. Honestly, these poor bloody people.’

  14

  I’m not good for much the following day. But while my body’s been immobile, my mind’s been careering back and forth over the events of the previous twenty-four hours. The mind hungers naturally for certainty, but I can’t be as sure as I want to be about any of the things that are troubling me. All that is possible is an interpretation, and the one I’ve come up with has a dark side and a light side.

  The dark side is that, as the Baroness indicated, someone is attempting to sabotage the operation and wants us to fail. I have accepted the cynical possibility that, somewhere along the line, there’s an agenda in favour of the survival of the Stingers. I must accept, possibly, that the Talib who accosted me yesterday was perhaps expecting me, and had been paid or persuaded to disable or kill me. Perhaps he wasn’t really a Talib at all. Perhaps Sattar, on whom my suspicion has largely fallen, has been watching the house, seen me leaving on Mondays and Tuesdays, and arranged for the Talib to intercept me on my return. The planning and effort involved in this, as well as the fact that a much simpler method could have been found to make me disappear, render it unlikely. But not impossible.

  The trouble with small conspiracies is that they lead contagiously to larger ones. When I dwell on the notion that there really is a plan for the Stingers to fall into the wrong hands, I can’t help remembering Grace’s solemn prediction that there are people in America just waiting for the excuse to invade Afghanistan. All they need, she said, is to trace an act of terrorism on US soil back to Afghanistan. The Stingers could certainly provide the means. Yet the chances of planned American military involvement in Afghanistan seem so utterly remote, I have to mentally dismiss this possibility.

  The light side is that if my encounter with the turbanned cable-wielder really was a devious attempt to stop us, it has failed. And if someone is still going to try to stop us, he’ll have to come up with another plan. If we leave quickly, the chances of another attempt will be much reduced. I share this idea with H when he looks in on me the next morning, because it feels right that we should move without delay.

  ‘Let’s leave now,’ I say.

  ‘What, today? What’s the hurry? You need to rest.’

  ‘No. We pick up the men and leave without warning them. That way no one has time to talk.’

  ‘Are you serious? Let’s have a look at you.’

  I sit on the edge of the bed and H inspects the deep-red welts that run across my back and stomach. Dark bruises are beginning to extend along them. The skin isn’t broken, but it looks as though I’ve had an unusual accident with a very large barbecue. I wonder if they’ll leave scars.

  ‘Give it another day,’ he suggests.

  Then we make a new discovery. I ask H to retrieve the first aid kit for me, which is with our stash of equipment in the roof space. I remember at the last minute to give him my phone so that he can check the markings I’ve left on the bags and cases with the ultraviolet light. He returns with the first aid kit, but there’s a new expression on his face.

  ‘How did you mark the stuff?’ he asks.

  ‘Vertical lines across the front that join up with the floor.’

  ‘Well,’ he says, ‘either there’s a bloody great Afghan rat in that attic or someone’s been poking around in there. None of the lines match up.’

  We’ve both been out of the house over the past few days. It’s possible that a determined visitor could have taken an interest in our stuff. We call downstairs to the chowkidar, who says there have been no visitors but that he’s had to leave the house at times.

  ‘I didn’t check the doors when I got back yesterday. I was too distracted.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘you were a bit out of it.’

  It’s an unpleasant feeling. There’s nothing for it but to recheck every piece of our equipment and all the supplies in the G. We start with the kit in the attic, hauling it down into the room and scrutinising every item minutely for any signs of tampering. H even inspects each individual round of ammunition for the Brownings. It’s all there, along with everything else, and none of it seems to have been interfered with.

  Then we descend to the garage and unload everything from the G, paying particular attention to the explosives in case they’ve been altered in any way. H takes out every block of the plastic and smells it. We unwind the blasting fuse and I coil it over my arm as I inspect its length, and then rewind it onto its original spool. We do the same with the detcord. The detonators are intact.

  If nothing is missing, then perhaps something has been added. Most likely is a bomb. Less probable is a transmitter to track our movements. Either one will take up a certain amount of space. We run our hands over every seam of the G’s interior, probing the seats, panels and carpets for any sign that they’ve been disturbed or modified. We check with minute care to see if there’s any indication of modified or extra wiring in the vicinity of the ignition or the panels around the dashboard. We lie on the ground with our torches and search the wheel arches and bumpers and chassis. Then we roll the G forward into the daylight to check under the bonnet, using a strip of paper to detect any tripwires before opening it fully. We peer into the fuel tank, radiator, reservoirs and lamp housings. Anything that can be readily removed and replaced, we remove and replace.

  There is no bomb. There is no transmitter. No one seems to have installed a tilt switch that will go off when the car meets its first slope after leaving the house. Nothing is missing. I wonder, but not out loud, whether I could have accidentally moved the kit in the attic myself. I do not know.

  It’s late afternoon. We spend the rest of the day packing, and agree to leave in the morning without telling the chowkidar or giving any advance warning to the other men. An envelope with a letter of thanks and a generous tip will express our appreciation.

  Not long after sunrise, we drive to Mr Raouf, who’s not expecting us.

  ‘We have to leave immediately,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Moshkel nist,’ he says, no problem. He summons the other men on a two-way radio. While we wait for them to arrive, I ask if I can use his computer to check my email. He lifts a scarf from the keyboard, dusts off the screen with it and pulls back the chair for me, observing me wince as I sit. It’s an unpredictable process, and takes a dozen attempts before the modem finally connects. I log into the secure server maintained by the Firm, encrypt and send the contents of the flash drive using my own public encryption key, and ask Mr Raouf if he’ll keep the original for me in his safe, along with our second passports. What happens next is a surprise.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he says. From under his desk he pulls out an AK-74SU Kalashnikov with a folding stock, and presents it proudly to me.

  ‘For your journey,’ he says.

  H’s eyebrows rise as Mr Raouf hands it over. It’s a compact automatic weapon which fires the 5.45-millimetre low-recoil round, and the barrel is much shorter than the AK-47. It can be easily hidden under a jacket and will fit snugly under a car seat, which makes it popular in Russia with special forces, drivers and bodyguards. It’s a generous gift because I suspect he’s deeply attached to such a rare and highly prized weapon, and I promise to return it to him on our return. He nods gravely as if to say ‘when you return’. At least I hope that’s what he means, and not ‘if you return’.

  On journeys at home the road is a means to an end. It’s a featureless thing which doesn’t attract the greater part of your attention, and you take for granted that it won’t crumble to dust under your wheels as you while away the time with distracted thoughts, thinking of your final destination. You take for granted that your journey implies arrival.

  In Afghanistan all this is reversed
. The road demands your attention from the start. Every aspect of it requires effort and stamina and determination. It does, literally, crumble to dust under your wheels, and offers you no time for distracted thoughts. In the meantime your destination becomes an ever more abstract idea, a thing you doubt and question and wonder if you’ll ever reach, and as your journey lengthens you feel like a fool for blindly assuming that your eventual arrival is guaranteed. The road, in short, becomes the goal, and arrival a luxury.

  Our caravan is made up of two vehicles. The trust’s white Toyota pickup leads the way, carrying Sher Del, Aref and Momen. H and I ride second in the G. Our doors and bonnets bear the vinyl stickers that Mr Raouf has supplied us with, so that our true purpose, like that of many a charitable institution operating in this part of the world, is amply disguised.

  We drive through the devastated western suburbs under a brilliantly blue, clear sky. On the outskirts of the city the surfaced road ends. There was one, years before, but it’s simply been worn away. Now it’s a pale scar on which every vehicle lurches and weaves in a perpetual cloud of white dust. Which side to drive on is only an approximate convention.

  Beyond the dust we can see the long chains of peaks to the north and south of the city. It’s late spring now and the mountains are draped in ice on their upper ridges, and lower down their snow-filled gulleys resemble the camouflage of a killer whale. It’s hard to believe that a country so beautiful is in the midst of a brutal conflict, and has been for years. But there’s always the ruined armoured vehicles, tilted at the verges of the road like ships that have run aground in the shallows and been abandoned, to remind us otherwise.

  An hour west of the city centre the road divides. The route to the north-west leads up to Paghman and the southern towards Ghazni. We take the lower branch and move beyond Maidan Shahr, the natural pass that protects the city’s western flank. Then an hour later, at the next main junction, we turn into the mountainous folds of Wardak province, where the road deteriorates a stage further.