“The Agency has already pulled more than a thousand operatives out,” said Luger. “We only send our ‘newbies’ there now.”
Mulligan resumed. “Every report that crosses my desk says the same thing. Once the last coalition troops leave, the Afghan National Army will fall apart. It already has a 27 percent attrition rate every year. Police, same thing. The Taliban have completely penetrated them. Which means we might wind up leaving with our tails between our legs, like in Vietnam. That’s something the president wants to avoid at any cost.”
“So you’re in a tight spot,” said Malko. “Do you have a solution?”
“The Taliban suggested one to us. Even though Karzai’s weak and corrupt, they’re afraid of him. So they suggested a negotiated settlement that would ensure a peaceful transition.”
“They’d be giving up their claim to power?” asked Malko skeptically.
“No, they want some power, but they’re prepared not to take it all—at least, not the moment the coalition leaves. If the Taliban are in control of Kabul a year after we leave, we save face. They’ll be wielding the real power, of course, but officially, the new Afghan government will be holding the reins. Even if this doesn’t fool anybody. After all, nobody blamed the Russians when the Taliban hung President Najibullah three years after they left.”
Mulligan fell silent, then ordered another cup of coffee. The Hay-Adams dining room was emptying out. Some people were going back to work, others up to comfortable rooms where their lovers waited.
“And what’s the price for the Taliban’s indulgence?” asked Malko.
“Hamid Karzai,” said Mulligan.
In the silence that followed, the two Americans’ tension was almost palpable.
“So you’re dropping him?” Malko asked carefully. “That should be easy. He’s powerless without you.”
Mulligan gave him a long, meaningful look.
“That’s impossible, politically,” he said. “We’ve been singing his praises to the world for the last decade. Officially he’s our ally, through thick and thin.”
“And unofficially?”
Mulligan’s face betrayed nothing.
“He has to go.”
This time, the silence that followed was even longer, eventually broken by the national security advisor.
“That’s the mission I would like to assign you. To get rid of Karzai for us.”
Malko felt a wave of vertigo. He never imagined that Barack Obama would go this far.
“Does the president know about this?”
Mulligan didn’t blink.
“He has given me carte blanche. He doesn’t want to know the details. He just wants a guarantee that his administration will never be connected to this affair.”
Malko was silent for a few seconds, unsure that he’d really heard right.
“What exactly do you have in mind?” he finally managed.
Luger leaned across the table.
“We considered several options, but the only effective one appears to be physically eliminating Hamid Karzai,” he said in a low voice. “That’s Mullah Omar’s bottom-line condition for striking a deal with us.”
The national security advisor spoke again.
“As I said at the start of this conversation, the president doesn’t want to hear about that country anymore. My job is to work out an honorable transition, and for that we need the Taliban.”
It all felt so overwhelming that Malko found himself unable to speak for a few moments. A representative of the president of the United States was asking him to assassinate the president of Afghanistan in order to please the Taliban.
And he wasn’t dreaming. He was in the Hay-Adams Hotel, a stone’s throw from the White House, in Washington, D.C.…
“If the Taliban are so eager to get rid of Karzai, why don’t they do it themselves?” he asked Mulligan. “They’ve completely infiltrated Kabul, and they have plenty of means at their disposal.”
The CIA deputy director answered for Mulligan.
“They have tried,” said Luger. “Several times. They launched a mortar attack at a meeting Karzai was attending. And they recently sent a young Taliban messenger with a bomb hidden in his crotch that severely wounded the head of the NDS”—the National Directorate of Security.
“Karzai is paranoid. His movements are never announced in advance.
“He got rid of his Blackwater people and replaced them with bodyguards from his tribe. He always wears a bulletproof vest under his robes. In the palace, every item is examined. Cell phones are forbidden. Aside from his intimates, Karzai hardly sees anyone.”
Mulligan paused.
“I’ll repeat my question,” he said. “Will you undertake this assignment?”
Malko wanted to rub his eyes in disbelief.
“John, this mission is impossible,” he said. “The Agency has everything it needs in Afghanistan. You operate a fleet of drones that can hit anything. What can you expect from one man against the Karzai machine? Besides, you know I’m not a killer.”
“Are you turning it down?” asked the American sharply.
“No, I’m just voicing the questions I have to ask myself. I know Afghanistan, but that isn’t enough for a mission like this.”
“You wouldn’t be alone,” Luger immediately said. “We have a small asset in place who’s never been connected to the Agency but has served us on many occasions. He’ll be at your disposal.”
“What kind of asset are you talking about?” asked Malko.
“A private contractor named Nelson Berry,” said Luger. “He’s a South African who set up a protection company for foreigners. Afghans also occasionally use him for risky jobs, like delivering currency in unsafe areas. We’ve asked him to carry out several ‘gray’ sanctions in the past, and he’s always performed well. These days, his back is against the wall because he has high expenses and his customers are leaving Kabul. He contacted me to see if I had anything for him.”
Malko was surprised.
“And you trust this man Berry enough to make him such an offer?”
“Yes, we do,” said Luger. “He’s been killing all his life, in South Africa and elsewhere. It will be up to you to convince him, with an irresistible offer.”
“Do you think he has the means to assassinate Karzai?”
“I don’t like the word ‘assassinate,’ ” said Mulligan with a frown. “We’re sidelining him, for reasons of state.”
Sidelining … as in forever.
Malko looked at his two interlocutors in turn. They were perfectly serious, focused on their request. He really was being asked to kill the president of Afghanistan.
As if he could guess Malko’s thoughts, Mulligan said, “You’re the only person we can make this offer to, because of your capacities as a mission leader and because of the trust we have in you. You won’t be responsible for the outcome, of course, but if you succeed, you’ll be doing our country an enormous service. I certainly understand your scruples, but eliminating Karzai will prevent many deaths.”
Malko was feeling boxed in. This proposal wasn’t being made casually.
“Aren’t you worried that Berry will just take the money and run?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” said Luger. “I’ve been his handler myself. He says yes or no and names his price.”
“Even for an assignment like this one?”
“For him, this would be a mission like any other,” said Luger. “Just a little harder.”
Malko could feel himself on a slippery slope. He tried to snag a rock to keep from going over the cliff.
“What role would the Kabul CIA station play in this?” he asked.
“It won’t know the real purpose of your assignment. We’ll tell the station people that you’re coming to continue the negotiations with the Taliban that we began at Doha.”
“With someone in Kabul?”
“Yes. Our Taliban friends gave us the name of a person you will meet, one Mullah Musa Kotak. Under the Ta
liban, he was the minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. Karzai named him to the High Peace Council, a thing he set up to bring in Talibs who might still be useful. Kotak is in close touch with the Quetta shura. He’ll be told about your arrival.”
“A former Taliban minister, and he’s still in Kabul? That’s amazing!”
The security advisor smiled.
“As you know, nothing is simple in Afghanistan. Kotak’s a committed Talib, but the Karzai people have never given him any grief. He has a lot of influence within the Taliban. He might be able to help you.”
In the face of Malko’s silence, Luger added, “One other person may also be of help: we have a source within the NDS. He can give you information without asking how it will be used. He’s also somebody who needs money. But you have to be very careful in contacting him. His name is Luftullah Kibzai.”
The three men were now the only people left in the Hay-Adams dining room. Mulligan ostentatiously looked at his watch and said, “I can’t stay with you any longer. The president is expecting me in half an hour for Chuck Hagel’s debriefing. He just returned from Kabul, as it happens.”
“Are you going to tell him about this conversation?” asked Malko in surprise.
“Absolutely not,” said Mulligan.
Malko was starting to feel trapped. The tense silence lengthened, broken only by an occasional tinkle of glasses from the bar. Malko could feel the Americans’ eyes on him. The men asking him to assassinate Hamid Karzai were honorable, honest, and clearly patriotic. In this muted, elegant setting, the whole thing seemed crazy, but there was no way to avoid the reality. He was being asked to become a killer for hire, like one of Israel’s kidonim, for the most powerful nation on earth.
Malko understood his interlocutors. The United States couldn’t afford to lose face. Even if this was a gamble, it had to be attempted.
“Very well, I accept the assignment,” he said, “but on one condition.”
“What?” the two men asked simultaneously.
“I’m doing this for free,” he said. “I won’t receive any compensation from the Agency. But if something happens to me, I want your word that I’ll be given the honors I deserve, and not considered a gun for hire.”
What might have been a tear appeared at the corner of Mulligan’s eye.
“Malko, I swear that if anything happens to you, God forbid, you’ll be buried in Arlington Cemetery in the company of those who gave their lives for our country.”
A machine gun protected by sandbags stood on the roof of the little Kabul airport terminal, manned by a lone helmeted Afghan soldier.
Along with the many combat helicopters parked at irregular intervals along the single runway, it was the only tangible sign of the war raging in Afghanistan. Just two civilian planes stood in front of the blue-and-white-striped terminal.
Gone were the flags of the various nations of the ISAF—the International Security Assistance Force—that once flew at half-staff when one of their troops was killed.
As Malko stepped down the stairs from the Flydubai Boeing 737, he spotted a white Land Cruiser a few yards away. A tall man in a down jacket with a pistol on his hip got out and approached him.
“Are you Malko Linge, sir?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Jim Doolittle, one of Warren Michaelis’s deputies. The COS asked me to meet you. Come with me, please.”
Malko climbed into the Land Cruiser. Seated in back were two impassive Marines in full combat gear: helmet, M16, hand grenades, pistol.
Doolittle explained their presence. “We always have to have an escort in town,” he said. “We go out as little as possible.”
They drove over to the terminal, and Doolittle dropped Malko off at an empty garden opposite the building.
“Give me your baggage claim tickets and your passport, and wait here, please.”
Doolittle’s SUV had the permits required to park next to the terminal. The unwashed masses, on the other hand, were kept at a distance behind the first checkpoint, more than five hundred yards away. The terminal entrance was protected by coils of razor wire and guarded by soldiers, fingers on their AK-47 triggers.
The fear: car bombs.
Slumped on a park bench, Malko huddled in his cashmere overcoat. He had dozed on the flight from Dubai to Kabul and still felt bleary-eyed from the long trip.
Around him, the landscape of snow-covered mountains looked like the Alps.
A fairyland.
Once his Boeing 737 had crossed the crest of the mountains, it had descended to the plain on which Kabul stood at an altitude of fifty-nine hundred feet. Close up, it looked like less of a fairyland: around downtown the city spread like a cancer over the barren hills in vast shantytowns without water or electricity. The slums looked like the morros of Rio de Janeiro, minus the sea and the sun.
It was thought that Kabul had three million inhabitants, but nobody was really sure. The number could be higher. The last census had been taken forty years earlier.
What struck Malko was the silence. The last time he was in Kabul, coalition planes were constantly landing and taking off amid a hum of activity. Today there were no Americans left—they had pulled back to Bagram Air Base, forty miles from Kabul—and the only planes on the runway were C-130 Hercules turboprops in Afghan colors. A French contingent was stationed at the airport to oversee the return home of its last units, but it was nowhere to be seen.
As Doolittle drove out of the airport, Malko noticed that the controls weren’t very strict. But the car still had to stop at the first checkpoint, then at a second, on a roundabout dominated by an old MiG-21 that looked ready to take off. As they swung onto Airport Road, the arrow-straight route downtown, Malko turned to Doolittle and asked:
“What’s the mood in Kabul these days?”
“It’s cool,” said the American. “The ANA and the police run the city. There aren’t many shootouts or kidnappings, just a car bomb from time to time.”
Traffic was relatively light. A green Afghan police pickup with a dozen men in back roared past them. As before, the dusty avenue was lined with fruit and vegetable sellers.
You didn’t feel you were in danger.
Ten minutes later, they reached the Massoud monument. The roundabout was dominated by a column with a big ball on top and hung with two enormous pictures of Ahmad Shah Massoud, hero of the Panjshir Valley and the Northern Alliance. Al-Qaeda agents had assassinated Massoud in his headquarters in September 2001.
Doolittle was soon forced to slow down. Downtown, the traffic was terrible. They made their way between rows of concrete walls twenty feet high topped by coils of razor wire. Punctilious checkpoints slowed the traffic further.
The only cars on the road were Toyotas, of every year and model, with both right- and left-hand drives.
“Seems like a lot of Toyotas,” Malko remarked.
“About three-quarters of a million, sir. They come from the four corners of the earth.”
Malko noticed many more flat Tajik pakol hats than he had on his last visit. One would think that the Tajiks controlled Kabul, which must get under the skin of the Pashtun majority.
Every thirty yards or so, they saw a man armed with an AK-47, in or out of some sort of uniform, guarding something or other. It made Kabul look like a city under siege.
“Are you still operating out of the Ariana?” Malko asked.
“Affirmative, sir.”
The Ariana was a former hotel near the American embassy. It stood at the end of an avenue interrupted by roadblocks where the French embassy was located; it had once served as the Taliban’s headquarters. The Ariana was the CIA’s Maginot Line. With Agency numbers melting away and its case officers ordered to keep a low profile, not much was going on here.
The SUV was now moving at walking pace around Zarnegar Park through a flood of vehicles that included a few yellow taxis. There were no stoplights, just policemen in tattered gray uniforms waving little red disks to di
rect traffic.
A dense crowd, nearly all men, flowed along the sidewalks, with the occasional handcart adding to the chaos.
Despite the apparent calm, Doolittle watched the crowds of people as if they were wild animals. A little girl in rags with enormous eyes approached and extended a dirty little hand, her pleading face pressed against the bulletproof glass.
Piteous.
Doolittle gave her an angry glance.
“You’ve got to be careful, sir,” he said. “A kid will ask you to lower your window to give them money, then toss in a grenade.”
No risk of that happening with the Land Cruiser. Its windows were two and a half inches thick, and too heavy to be rolled down.
When Malko spotted the Kabul Serena Hotel, he noticed something new: a high wall had been erected between the hotel and the one-way street in front.
The Land Cruiser drove up onto the sidewalk, first passing a barrier of black-and-white metal tubes, and continued along the hotel wall. Three more checkpoints followed: the first to make sure the vehicle was authorized to enter the Serena, the second to run a mirror under the chassis. The third checkpoint, for passengers, was behind a pair of heavy sliding gates.
Driving military vehicles and wearing police uniforms, the Taliban had attacked the Serena in 2008 and killed half a dozen people. An investigation later showed that the head of the commandos, who died in the attack, had regularly enjoyed the hotel spa while scouting the area.
Passing the last gate, the Land Cruiser pulled up under the awning at the entrance to the hotel. A staffer in a turban greeted them with a broad smile.
“I’ll wait here, sir,” said Doolittle. “The COS wants to welcome you.”
Malko had met Chief of Station Warren Michaelis three years earlier. He was a tall, lanky American who must now be near the end of his tour.
“Okay. I’ll check in and come back out.”
The hushed Serena lobby didn’t exactly feel like party central. A few guests lounged on red benches around the central fountain. Malko checked in and went up to his room, number 382. He dropped off his things and went downstairs.
Chaos in Kabul Page 3
