CHAPTER 35
Only a fool or a heavily armored military column went anywhere in rural Afghanistan uninvited. To enter the village of Asadoulah Badar, the young man Dr. Atash had treated for a broken jaw, Harvath, Gallagher, and Fontaine would have to be invited.
The best way, especially for Westerners, to secure such an invitation was to offer the village shura something they needed. Based on Gallagher’s relationship with his tenants in Butkhak, he came up with what he thought was the perfect offer.
In exchange for half the booze in the back of Fontaine’s SUV, Clean Water International’s project leader agreed to allow the trio to pose as a scouting team. They were given a brief overview of CWI’s mission and how they conducted project assessments. More important, the project leader contacted a resourceful “fixer” and interpreter they used in Khogyani who was adept at getting the most difficult jobs done, as long as the money was right. They asked him to reach out to the village shura to see if they would consent to being considered for a clean water project.
After agreeing to a price, the interpreter explained that he would call back in a few hours once he had been to the village and had met with its elders. Harvath gave the CWI leader an alias as well as his Afghan cell number for the interpreter to call back on.
They loaded the cargo area of Gallagher’s Land Cruiser with all of the weapons except for their pistols, threw a blanket over them, then loaded the alcohol on top and covered that with another blanket. If they were stopped along the Kabul to Jalalabad Road, they could plead to the lesser offense, give up the booze, and keep going. That was simply the price of doing business in Afghanistan. Once they got off the main road and headed for Khogyani, though, they weren’t likely to run into many official checkpoints. At that point, they were going to make sure they had the bulk of their firepower very close at hand.
CWI’s Afghan houseboy cooked them lunch, and then, after changing into their baggy salwar kameez, or “man-jammies,” as Harvath like to call them, the trio hit the road.
Gallagher drove while Fontaine rode shotgun and Harvath sat in back and tried to catch up on his sleep. The narrow, two-lane highway took them through snow-capped mountain passes and tunnels carved by hand out of solid rock. Garishly decorated, hand-painted Pakistani trucks, known as jingas, often found themselves stuck inside the tunnels or losing significant portions of their cargo, which were stacked Beverly Hillbillies–style, higher than common sense would ever allow.
They were halfway to Jalalabad when Baba G told Harvath to wake up. “All hands on deck,” he said.
Harvath’s hand moved to the butt of his Glock before his eyes were even fully focused. “What’s up?”
“We’re coming up on Surobi,” replied Fontaine.
“What’s in Surobi?”
“Nothing good,” responded Gallagher.
“It’s known to have a very heavy Taliban presence,” said Fontaine. “Lots of the hits on convoys have supposedly been orchestrated out of this village. They also run bullshit checkpoints at night, shaking down anyone dumb enough to be out driving this way.”
They were in the Kabul River Valley and would be following the water the rest of the way to Jalalabad. Gallagher slowed his vehicle as they entered the outskirts of Surobi, took off his seatbelt, and made sure his door was unlocked. Fontaine and Harvath followed suit.
With traditional Afghan clothing hiding their body armor, and driving a slightly beat-up, unarmored Toyota, the hope was that the men would not draw too much attention to themselves.
As Gallagher and Fontaine spent a lot of their time bouncing back and forth between Kabul and Jalalabad, they both knew the Jalalabad Road quite well. “You want to stop for tea?” Gallagher asked Harvath as they rolled into the village itself. “There’s a nice little tea house here.”
“I think I’ll pass,” said Harvath as he made eye contact with a man walking along the side of the road wearing a black turban, the symbol of the Taliban. The look the Afghan shot back was pure hate. Some people called it the evil eye, though Baba G liked to refer to it as the “death stare,” or the “hairy eyeball.” Whatever the case, the man obviously wasn’t fooled by Harvath’s local costume. He was an outsider and therefore didn’t belong.
“I’ve actually got the tea thing down to a science,” continued Gallagher. “From the moment they first realize you’re in town, you’ve got twenty minutes, give or take, until they start pulling the trigger.”
Harvath turned away from the window and met Baba G’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Why do they wait twenty minutes?”
“The lookout who sees you has to call his handler. The handler then has to call the higher-ups. The higher-ups then have to decide how much they think you’re worth. Once they have a price they’re willing to pay, they call the handler, who then argues with the lookout over how much he’ll get paid for popping you. Of course the lookout thinks he’s getting ripped off because the handler is taking too much off the top, which he is, so they argue back and forth for a little while longer until the handler relents and agrees to pay a little bit more. That’s why I say it takes about twenty minutes, give or take.”
“The day they go to a straight rate card,” Harvath said with a laugh, “you’re in big trouble.”
“That would make too much sense. TIA.”
“TIA,” repeated Harvath as he turned his eyes back to the window.
Surobi, like most of Afghanistan, was nothing more than a collection of mud brick buildings. The only color at all came from the produce or mass-produced consumer goods being sold from drab roadside shops and stalls.
Harvath spotted three more men, all of whom were wearing black turbans and had AK-47s slung over their shoulders. The fact that they not only carried weapons, but so openly and brazenly displayed their allegiance to the Taliban, said a lot about Surobi. If only all of the Taliban and the rest of world’s Islamic fundamentalists had the courage to so openly identify themselves. Instead, they hid behind women and children and used mentally challenged people to carry out suicide attacks. For all their talk about being brave warriors, they were the biggest cowards on the planet.
If the world could see these a*sholes for the animals they really were, maybe there wouldn’t be such a hue and cry from the fools who wanted to afford them all of the protections due signers of the Geneva and Hague conventions. Forget the fact that idiots like the Taliban weren’t signers of either Geneva or Hague, refused to appear on the battlefield wearing even so much as an armband to identify themselves as honorable combatants, and wreaked untold misery upon civilian populations—the major group the conventions were designed to protect.
Harvath just couldn’t understand the liberal mindset. He was convinced that they believed deeply in what they said and what they did; his only problem was that it so often flew in the face of reality. They continually focused their rage on their protectors rather than their enemy. They denigrated their country, believing it was the source of all evil in the world. The truth was, when it came to Islam, it had been violent since its inception. Its clearly stated goal was worldwide conquest. It was a mandate handed down in all of its religious texts. And while Harvath believed there were peaceful and moderate Muslims, he knew from studying the religion that there was no such thing as peaceful and moderate Islam.
The entire religion was a mess and needed a complete gut-rehab. And though he had a good feeling his country’s new president would probably not agree with him, he also knew that until the politically correct crowd stopped making excuses for them and undercutting any motivation to reform their religion themselves, the majority of Muslims wouldn’t do anything. Their religion forbade them from even changing one word of the Qur’an. Islam had been Islam for fourteen hundred years and what it had been was violent. As far as Harvath was concerned, they could have the rest of the world, but they couldn’t have his country.
Harvath was content to go door to door and eliminate as many trouble-making members of the “religion of peace” as was necessary. He didn’t need, nor did he expect, so much as a thank-you for it. He knew it was the right thing to do and he would continue to do it for as long as he was able to squeeze a throat or a trigger. It was what he was trained to do and it was an oath he had taken. That he was no longer in the direct employ of his nation did not mean that he felt any less responsible to see to its protection. There was nothing he held more sacred than his duty to his nation.
Seeing a roadside vendor up ahead advertising Coca-Cola, Harvath told Gallagher to pull the truck over.
“Are you serious?” he asked.
“Of course. I want to be able to say I stopped for a drink in Surobi.”
Baba G looked at Fontaine.
“Fine by me,” replied the Canadian.
Gallagher navigated the truck to the side of the road and came to a stop in front of the small shop. “I’ll wait here,” he said.
“Chickenshit,” replied Harvath as he opened the door and hopped out.
Walking into the tiny store, he found a toothless old man sitting behind a worn table that functioned as the shop’s makeshift counter, with a faded cookie tin that acted as its cash register. The old man smiled as Harvath entered. Covering his heart and bowing slightly, he wished Harvath peace. “Wa alaikum salaam,” Harvath replied.
The old man’s smile remained as he waited to serve his customer.
“Coca-Cola?” asked Harvath.
Smiling more widely, the man removed one of the many plastic bags hung on the arm of his chair and shuffled across the dirt floor to a small cooler. “Dua?” the man asked holding up two fingers.
Harvath couldn’t tell if he was the world’s greatest salesman, or if he was trying to figure out how many people Harvath was traveling with to maybe relay the information up the road to a waiting sniper. It was an inhospitable way to think, especially as the old man seemed very nice, but it was the kind of viewpoint that kept people like Harvath alive.
Harvath held up four fingers and the old man beamed. He was making his day. As the man selected four Cokes and placed them in the bag, Harvath looked around the little shop. Not knowing when they might be eating again, he bought a can of nuts, some chocolate, and a tube of Pakistani Pringles.
The old man followed Harvath, carefully placing each item in the bag. Harvath was about ready to pay when he noticed a small, dusty row of books along the floor in the corner. The man had one or two books in German, Swedish, French, Italian, Dutch, and English—something for almost every potential NGO worker who might have once stopped at his place of business before Surobi became so dangerous.
Harvath looked through the titles in English. One in particular caught his eye. Picking it up, he smiled.
Done with his shopping, he followed the old man to the counter and paid him.
Handing the bag across the table to his customer, the old man said, “U.K.?”
“No, U.S.A.”
“Ah, America. America good.”
Harvath nodded and replied, “Afghanistan good, too.”
Glancing toward the door to make sure they were still alone, the old man’s toothless smile faded as he stated, “Taliban bad.”
“Yes, “Harvath said as he picked up his bag. “Taliban very bad. But Afghanistan good.”
The smile returned to the old man’s face and he watched his American customer leave the shop.
Outside, Harvath climbed back into the waiting Land Cruiser, pulled out the tattered Jackie Collins novel, and tossed it into the front seat.
“What took you so long?” asked Gallagher as he looked at the book. “I thought you were just buying a drink.”
“I was making a new friend,” replied Harvath. “You’d like him. Same taste in literature. You two could start your own book club.”
“I don’t think so,” said Baba G as he put the truck in gear and pulled out onto the road. “You just couldn’t pay me to sit around with a bunch of Taliban deconstructing Lady Boss.”
“How about having a lady boss who pays you to deconstruct a bunch of Taliban who are just sitting around?” asked Harvath as he settled back into his seat.
Gallagher laughed. “Throw in a cooler of cold beer at the end and that would be my kind of job. But by the same token, I learned a long time ago that you should be very careful what you wish for.”