1
Khost Province
Afghanistan
ADITYA ZAHID LAY FLAT on his stomach behind the long-abandoned stone building, easing past its crumbling edge to scan the village of Sarabat.
The collection of square, dust-colored dwellings was small, even by the standards of this part of rural Afghanistan, and he felt the same shame that his father and his father before him had felt for allowing it to exist. The feud between these people and his own had burned for longer than anyone could remember, though the reason for it had faded with the years. Some said it was over stolen livestock and others a broken promise of marriage. Now it just was.
In truth, it no longer mattered. What did matter, though, was that despite outnumbering these people almost two to one, the fighting always ended in a bloody stalemate that resolved nothing. It was an ongoing humiliation that the elders of his village believed was about to be resolved. Zahid was less certain.
He retreated under cover and closed his eyes, picturing what he’d seen. Seven people in total were visible: two women, a child, and four men watering their goats at a well built by their good friends the Americans.
The sun was directly overhead and he squinted against it as he searched the walls of the shallow canyon. By now his companions would have completely surrounded the village, but he could find no sign of them. They had become part of the desert.
The anonymous foreigners who had made this moment possible insisted that the raid come now—not under the cover of darkness or even in the shade the cliffs would provide in only a few hours. And it was for this reason that Zahid didn’t share the elation of his people at the prospect of wiping these dogs off the face of their land. All he felt was fear and suspicion.
Still, the faceless men had lived up to every agreement they had made. Zahid was holding a new AK-47 they had provided as well as a silenced American hunting rifle that he had used to take down the sentry now lying next to him.
He looked down at the dead man and then propped him against a shattered section of wall. His head easily cleared the top and would offer a reassuring silhouette, keeping the unsuspecting men in the village complacent.
The digital watch on his wrist—also newly provided—didn’t read out the time, but a countdown. It would be less than two minutes before it reached zero. Before what could be their final victory began.
Again, Zahid closed his eyes. He had spoken against this. He didn’t trust faceless men or their weapons or their money. It smelled like a trap—a CIA trick. But the elders didn’t fully understand the new world they lived in. And their hated for the people of Sarabat burned much hotter than their hatred for an invader that would soon leave in defeat and be forgotten. Like all the others.
He wrapped his hand around his new assault rifle and prayed to Allah for success until he heard the quiet click of his countdown timer reaching zero. His men would be moving now, the younger ones too quickly—driven by adrenaline and the stories of glory they had heard from the day they were born. He was slower to rise, staying low as he approached the village, watching the ridgeline for American soldiers and the sky for attack helicopters. But there was nothing.
The silence was finally broken by the high-pitched scream of a child followed by the familiar roar of automatic rifle fire. A woman was hit from behind as she tried to escape, thrown forward with her arms spread wide, landing in the dirt with the unmistakable stillness of death. One of his own men appeared from behind a building, attempting to sight in on a running villager before a boy of eight on nine knocked his barrel aside. Zahid accelerated to a full run, putting himself on a path to intercept the fleeing man as the boy’s skull was crushed by a rifle butt.
His quarry was probably in his mid-twenties, straight and strong, but also seemingly confused as to what to do. He sprinted and then slowed. He looked forward toward his escape route and then back at the massacre taking place in his village. He reached behind him for the ancient rifle on his back but then seemed unable to close his fingers around it.
Zahid stopped and knelt, bringing his AK-47 to his shoulder and squeezing off a careful volley. The disoriented man wavered and then dropped to his knees, staring blankly at the sky. But still he didn’t reach for his weapon.
Fearing a trick, Zahid approached cautiously, scanning the empty landscape that stretched out in every direction. Was he being drawn into an ambush? Why would they wait? Why would they let themselves be slaughtered like animals?
He stopped two meters away, keeping the barrel of his new rifle trained on his enemy’s unlined face. He was bleeding badly from a wound in his leg and the ground beneath him had gone dark with it. He wouldn’t live much longer.
“Why don’t you fight?”
He didn’t answer, instead focusing on Zahid’s face with eyes that contained no hatred or fear. Only emptiness.
“Why don’t you fight?” Zahid repeated, glancing behind him as the rate of fire slowed and the screams went silent. The Americans hadn’t come. The village of Sarabat was gone from God’s vision. After more years than anyone knew, honor had been restored. But how? Why?
“God is great,” Zahid said, tightening his finger on the trigger as he turned back to his enemy.
The injured man’s brow furrowed and his chin rose until he was staring directly into the intense glare of the Afghan sun. “There is no God.”
* * *
CLAUDE GÉROUX SWEPT the massive lens north, focusing on one of the last living inhabitants of Sarabat: an old woman trying uselessly to escape a horseman raining blows down on her with a primitive club. Blood spattered across the animal’s fur and she fell, covering her head as she was pulled beneath its hooves.
He zoomed out, taking in the entire battlefield—if it could be called that. He’d fought in Congo, Iraq, and Bosnia, to name only a few, and thought he’d witnessed every way a human being could die at the hands of another. But never anything like this.
He turned his lens on one of the attacking force crouching next to the body of yet another armed male villager. They hadn’t used those weapons, though. Some had fled, but most had just stood there and allowed themselves and their families to be butchered.
The gunfire went silent and Géroux kept filming for a few seconds more, documenting not the customary pumping fists and elated shouts, but silent confusion as the victorious warriors wandered among the bodies of their fallen enemies.
He finally pulled away from the camera and shut it down, but the recorded images stayed trapped in his mind. They would be added to the others, he knew. The ones he couldn’t escape.