Agent 6 (35 page)

Same Day

They were trapped. Even by daylight their progress would be slow, having to tread a careful path around the mines, whose plastic shells would be coloured to match the orange and red hues of the terrain. Nara said:

— In the morning there’ll be enough light to find a way around them.

The lack of conviction in her voice was damning. Leo muttered:

—
We’re only metres from the Soviet border patrols.

—
We might have enough time.

—
At sunrise this is the first place they’ll search.

Fahad called out, cutting short the discussion:

— We must wait till first light. We have no other choice. Be careful not to shuffle your feet, or fall asleep, the only safe ground is the ground you’re standing on. We will need to move very fast in the morning, as soon as there’s light. Rest now.

Leo crouched down, rotating, careful not to move his feet. He wrapped his arms around Zabi, keeping her warm. On the other side Nara did the same. Their hands met on Zabi’s back, fingers overlapping. The thought occurred to him to move his hand away but he dismissed the idea, instead taking hold of her hand. Huddled together, they waited for the morning.

*

It was difficult to estimate how much time had passed. In the darkness, exhausted, near delirious with cold, time became hard to quantify. The wind picked up, swirling furiously around them, as if trying to force them into the minefield. Even though they were at rest, they were being sapped by the cold. In all likelihood they might be granted a few minutes at dawn before the attack helicopters arrived but it was equally likely that the slim advantage would not be enough. Drained by the savage night, they would struggle to find the energy and pace needed to reach cover.

Something wet hit the back of Leo’s neck. He touched his skin, feeling a trace of ice. He tilted his head up towards the sky. Another lump landed on his eyelashes, another spotted his forehead. Out of the darkness the rhythm of the rain increased: they’d be soaked through in seconds. As he thought upon the now impossible challenge of keeping warm until morning the rain morphed into hail, pellets of ice crashing down with such velocity that they stung his skin. Leo felt Nara’s hands grip tight around his own, an expression of despair. Their journey was over.

Suddenly, to the side, no more than a few paces away, an explosion – it was small, like a flash grenade. Leo called out:

— What was that?

Fahad replied:

— A mine!

A second mine detonated, also close by. Leo smelt smoke and felt the blast of air. Another mine, this time the explosion was several hundred metres away. The hail on the pressure sensors was setting them off. Within moments, the plateau was alive with bursts of light and puffs of smoke. As the hailstorm intensified so did the pace of the explosions, now so numerous it was as if they were coming under mortar fire. Zabi cried out, terrified by the noise.

Remembering the mine directly in front of him, Leo let go of Zabi and Nara, turning hastily, once again forced to keep his feet on the same spot. If the mine exploded at this range the blast would injure the three of them. He reached out, trying to guess where it was, shielding it from the hail. His hands were lashed with falling ice. Within seconds he could no longer feel them, numb from the elbow down. The hail continued, the storm interspersed with detonations ringing across the landscape. Leo’s arms were shaking. He couldn’t remain in this position for long, protecting the very device that had been dropped to kill him.

The hail began to weaken, changing back into icy rain. The rate of explosions slowed down until then finally there no more detonations. Unable to keep his arms out in front of him any longer Leo lowered them. He slaed his hands together, like two slabs of dead meat, trying to restore circulation, his fingers not responding. He was too cold to think about the consequences of the hailstorm, and it was Fahad who called out from the front:

— The path will be clear.

Was it possible that all the mines had been destroyed, or had the detonations merely stopped when the hailstorm passed? Beginning to move his fingers again, Leo called out to Fahad:

— How can we be sure?

Fahad called back:

— This mission is blessed.

Though the notion carried no weight in Leo’s mind the indisputable truth was that they would die if they remained here, freezing cold, waiting for dawn. Leo said:

— We must take the chance.

Nara was more cautious.

— We don’t know that the path is clear. Some mines have been destroyed, surely not all of them, maybe not even the majority of them.

Fahad shouted back angrily:

— You are a non-believer! You wouldn’t understand the significance of this event!

Furious, Nara replied:

— My faith doesn’t make me stupid. I don’t believe I’m invulnerable.

Leo interrupted:

— It is irrelevant what we believe. We cannot stay here! By tomorrow morning we will be too weak to run, too weak to escape. We must press ahead. It is a calculated risk. I will go first.

Fahad replied:

— You are the reason for this mission. You are the person the CIA wants. If you die the mission has failed. The girl should go first.

Nara said:

— I agree. I will go first.

Fahad contradicted her:

— Not you. The girl, the miracle girl, she will find a path. It is no coincidence that she is with us when this happened. We must trust in her.

Aside from the patter of rain, there was silence as Leo tried to unpick Fahad’s suggestion. The man was sincere in his belief that Zabi was divinely protected. It was not cowardice that underpinned his suggestion that a young girl should walk first, leading them through the minefield, but piety. Leo was quite sure Fahad’s acute sense of pride meant that he would rather lose his own life than appear to be hiding behind a girl. To Fahad it was an insult to God for any other decision to be taken. Nara spoke first, her careful response displaying diplomatic sensitivity:

— I will go first. I will lead. If this displeases Allah I will die, if not, then we need not discuss the matter further. But there is no chance, Fahad, no chance at all, that Zabi will walk first. Not while I am alive.

As expected, Fahad was insulted.

— This has nothing to do with bravery. I would gladly walk first—

Nara didnck Fahad&rlet him finish.

— Without you, we’re all dead. Without Leo, the mission has failed. I am the only person who we can risk. This isn’t theology or bravery. It’s common sense. I will walk first. You will follow me.

Leo protested:

— No, Nara, you must carry Zabi. I will walk first.
Nara rejected this idea.

— The CIA is not going to be interested in me. Without Fahad as our guide, we’ll be lost. It has to be me. It is absurd to discuss this further. You must carry Zabi.

Without waiting for his reply, Nara manoeuvred around him, hands on his waist, until she was about to step forward. Leo cried out:

— Wait!

He remembered the mine that had landed directly in front. He waited, rain streaming down his face, until lightning flashed in the clouds. The mine was still there, unexploded. Nara had seen it too. She let go of his waist, stepping around the mine and moving to the front, overtaking Fahad.

Leo picked Zabi up:

— Hold on to my neck.

Weakened by the hail, he could feel his muscles struggling even though the girl was light. He stepped around the mine, his legs shaking with fatigue. Nara was out of sight, lost in the darkness, now at the front. He heard her voice.

— Fahad, follow my footsteps exactly. Put your hands on my waist. That is the only way you can do it! That is the only way we’re going to survive.

Leo wondered if he was going to refuse. Fahad called back to Leo:

— You must also do the same.

Leo placed one hand on Fahad’s waist, keeping the other supporting Zabi.

Forming an awkward human train they set off, shuffling forward blindly, guided only by the infrequent flashes of lightning. The storm had passed, moving over the mountains of Pakistan. Leo could hear Fahad’s heavy breathing. He could hear their shoes on the ground. Each footstep that sank into the damp soil brought a sensation of relief. Leo felt Zabi squeeze his neck in fear. It was the closest he had ever come to praying.

Pakistan
North-West Frontier Province
Peshawar
43 Kilometres South-East
of the Afghan Border
Two Days Later

The truck shuddered over a pothole – one of many in the stricken road – and Leo woke, having dozed on the world’s most expensive bed, several million dollars’ worth of heroin concealed in flour bags branded with the emblem of a Western aid charity. The voice of his addiction was still demanding that he smoke but it was growing fainter by the day. Though it was a cruel test of his determination, surrounding him with drugs, opium had only ever been a way of suppressing his desire to desert his post, to nullify his restlessness and his impossible hopes of an investigation into the murder of his wife. What had once been unachievable was within his grasp: passage to America and a path to New York.

They’d crossed into Pakistan shortly after clearing the minefield. Since they’d walked in almos complete darkness they were unable to ascertain if all the mines had been detonated. The question of whether they were blessed or whether it was chance remained unanswered. Leo didn’t spend too long dwelling on the matter. As a soldier in the Great Patriotic War, he’d seen examples of his friends believing they were saved by a miracle, a bullet lodged in a religious trinket, devoting themselves to understanding the meaning of this only to be killed a few weeks later. Despite his scepticism, he was pleased that their guide’s hostility had softened. As the sun rose, brushing away the last of the storm, the four of them had stopped on the crest of a Pakistani hill and looked back to see Soviet attack helicopters in the distance circling the Khyber Pass. Had they waited for daylight they would have been caught. Whatever the truth of the matter, it certainly felt like a miracle.

Cold, filthy and exhausted, they’d reached Dara, a small town in the northern tribal region of Pakistan that existed like the capital city of an unofficial nation. Misunderstood as a lawless buffer state, it was instead governed by the laws of survival and commerce. While Leo had expected the sight of a Soviet civilian, a woman, a badly burnt young girl and a mujahedin fighter to attract attention, this was a town entirely without convention, dominated not by religious stricture or government policy but by brazen material needs – a trading bazaar for three of the world’s top commodities: drugs, weapons and information. They were concerned with the questions of what you wanted to buy and what you wanted to sell. There were cottage heroin factories dotted through the town like teashops, bags of unprocessed opium sold for dollars, packed on the backs of mules. Weapons were tested and inspected, taken out of town and fired at tree stumps. Crates of bullets were examined as if they were treasure chests of rubies and emeralds. War funds were raised. War funds were stolen. Allegiances were bought and broken. Intelligence was sold. Victories were invented and defeats denied. From the north there was an influx of Afghan refugees, many with terrible injuries, legs sliced with shrapnel, fleeing the conflict. From the south came a trickle of Western journalists and travellers, some dressed in traditional loose-fitting clothes, others in designer khaki trousers, with sophisticated gadgets. Judging from the small number of journalists, even though this was the closest point of access to Afghanistan, Leo surmised that the war had so far failed to capture the West’s imagination. Such an absence of interest did not bode well for his defection.

Though no longer in Afghanistan, they were still in danger. The Soviets were active in the tribal region, crossing the border with a frequency that showed blatant disregard for Pakistani sovereignty. Leo had heard discussion of a series of covert operations intended to destabilize the area and bring pressure on Pakistan to patrol the full length of the border, closing it down. Extreme acts of provocation were being planned as punishment for helping the mujahedin even if Pakistan’s stated policy was neutrality. These Communist agents would be Afghan, perhaps disguised as refugees. Some were even corrupt mujahedin. Fahad found it implausible that any mujahedin fighter could be bought by the Soviets. Leo told him that he had seen lists of men who were on the Soviet payroll, identified by code names, arguing that on any side there were always men who could be bought, characters with weaknesses that could be exploited. Fahad had shaken his head in disgust, saying Leo spoke like a Westerner, rotten with compromise and ambiguity.

Fahad had wasted little time in getting them off the streets and into a
chai-khana
, where they were taken to a back room while he arranged transport to Peshawar, the region’s capital. Only thercould they make contact with Pakistani intelligence, or more specifically the ISI – the Inter-Services Intelligence, known for its close ideological association with Islamic fundamentalism. It was among the mujahedin’s most powerful allies.

As soon as Fahad left, the three of them fell asleep, a small fire keeping them warm, lying together on a coarse woven mattress with a single thick blanket covering them. They were like characters from a fairytale. When Leo awoke he found Fahad sipping tea by the fire, his long, gangly body tucked under a blanket. He was a truly remarkable soldier, a man who didn’t seem to rest, or lower his guard. His strength was not intended to impress, it was not bravado – he had no interest in Leo’s opinion of him. Seeing that Leo was awake, he offered him sweet green tea. Leo accepted, joining him by the fire, in silence, improbable allies: but improbable allies would be needed again if the ISID were willing to connect them with the CIA.

*

It was evening by the time they reached their destination. Descending from the truck, Leo was taken aback by the bustle of Peshawar, adjusting to the commotion after their remote, dark days in the mountains and tribal regions. The millions of dollars of heroin they’d been sleeping on would only fetch such a price on the streets of America or Europe, on these noisy streets the sacks were worth no more than a few thousand dollars each. The truck rumbled on, a rickety exhaust pipe spluttering black smoke. Leo wondered whether the drugs had a better chance of arriving in America than they did.

They followed Fahad down narrow side streets, shop fronts and gutters clogged with brightly coloured candy papers, like fallen blossom after a storm. The city was distinct from Kabul with a stronger sense of colonial architecture – ornate, pink-red brick buildings with clock towers framed by tree-lined avenues. Like Kabul, the contrast between ancient and new was sharp. Majestic mosques centuries old stood beside modern buildings that looked as if they would struggle to survive another year. Telephone posts emerged like weeds, at odd angles, jutting up, sprouting hundreds of wires that sagged across streets. Decay and wealth circled each other. The neighbouring war had made this lost outpost important, giving it a new and highly lucrative industry – espionage, professionalized deceit.

Fahad led them to a guest lodge intended for a Western clientele; a painted wooden sign hung from the side of the building, written in English:

GOOD NIGHT
LODGE

A light bulb flickered intermittently in the narrow corridor. An unmanned reception desk was being used to store barrels of cooking oil. Fahad didn’t bother ringing the buzzer for attention. He walked straight through, under a broken ceiling fan limp and askew like a desiccated insect sucked dry and left to hang in a spider’s web. They entered a small restaurant. Several square tables were lined up against a wall but on one side only, as if waiting to be executed by firing squad. They were covered in red and white plastic tablecloths and set out with bright yellow napkins, unclean cutlery, each with a hundred partial fingerprints. The customers were a mix of strung-out tourists, lost souls running from home, adventurers and mercenaries. They were distinguishable by their physical strength, or lack of, and their kit, wearing leather boots laced up above their ankles or flip-flops with colourfully painted toenails. The Soviet high command had been worried about the mujahedin filling their ranks with Western mercenaries, fighters bought with drug money, believing only Westerners knew how to fight, when in fact the mujahedin, in this terrain, were the best fighters in the world. Their fight was personal, a matter of principle not profit, and they had no time for mercenaries. They didn’t trust their motives and thought them intrinsically unreliable. The groups sat at their tables, making plans over plates of oily chips. There was no alcohol and apparently no staff. Some of the customers turned around, regarding the new arrivals, curious, some too doped up to care. As Fahad slipped into the kitchen, a cockroach boldly passed him by, running out as though he were the establishment’s only waiter. Within seconds Fahad returned with a key.

On the top floor there were five rooms, three on one side and two on the other. They took the last room, the corner room, with windows on both streets. There was a bed, no bathroom – the facilities were shared one floor down. The floors creaked. The plaster was stained. The bed sheets had not been washed, only tucked in after the last occupants. Fahad tossed the key onto the bed.

—
I will meet the ISI. If they refuse to help us, the mission has failed. I do not have any contact with the CIA myself. And we cannot approach them without ISI’s permission.

—
We could go direct to the embassy and make our way to Islamabad.

—
Not without Pakistani permission. We’re in their country now. My orders are strict. They will decide what to do. If you try to reach the American Embassy without me, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.

With that warning, Fahad left.

Leo picked up Zabi, putting her on the bed. She asked:

—
Are we going to die?

—
No.

—
But he said—

Nara interrupted:

— Ignore what he said.

Leo added:

— We haven’t had a chance to discuss what is happening. It must be very confusing. Do you understand why it is dangerous for you to live in Afghanistan?

She bit her fingernail, saying nothing. Leo carried on:

—
The Soviets fear defeat very much.

—
Why?

—
They worry it will make them look weak. They are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to stop this from happening. They have many weapons. They will use them, on anyone, men, women, children. The country is not safe, not for you, not for me, not for Nara .

Zabi said:

—
Where are we going to live?

—
We must find somewhere else.

—
Can we live here?

—
I don’t think so.

Nara sat beside her.

&md There are many people from our country here. They have lost their homes, their family, just like you and I. They have nothing. They live in refugee camps, thousands sleeping under sheets of plastic with no clean water. It is a hard life. It would be dangerous, perhaps as dangerous as the war itself.

With precocious intelligence, Zabi followed the arguments put to her.

— Where else can we go?

Leo answered:

— There is a chance we can travel to America. Have you heard of this country?

She shook her head.

— It is far away. It is very different from the world you know. It is a place without war, with clean water, with food, somewhere safe, a place where we have a chance. There is no opportunity for us here. We would spend all our time struggling just to survive.

Zabi shrewdly asked:

—
What troubles would there be in America?

—
There will be challenges. It will be unrecognizable to you. And we will be foreign. We will be outsiders. They speak a different language. You would have to learn a new way of life. But if you manage to learn their language and their way of life, you have a chance of being accepted as one of them.

Zabi asked Nara:

— Are there mountains like here?

Nara was embarrassed. She asked Leo:

— I don’t know. Are there mountains in America?
He nodded.

— It is a very large country. There are mountains. There are deserts. There are forests. There are beaches. You can swim in lakes or the sea.

Zabi asked:

— What is the sea?

Not only had she never seen the sea, she had no idea what it was. Leo thought for a moment, comprehending the scale of the journey for this young girl. He wondered how best to explain.

— The sea is an area of water as big as a country. Instead of land there is water, and the water is as deep as the mountains are tall. It is full of animals, like a lake, but some of the animals are very big, as big as this building.

Zabi was amazed by this idea. She exclaimed:

— A fish as big as a building!

—
They’re called whales. They’re not fish. They breathe air, like us.

—
If they breathe air why do they live in the water?

Leo paused, remembering conservations like this with Elena when she was young. She was fascinated by the world, always asking for information. The endless questions, parodied by her sister, were a display of intimacy and trust as much as they were about curiosity. The same was true with Zabi – she was reaching out to him at the same time as she was reaching out to the concept of this new world. Yet this new world would be one without his daughters. If he left Pakistan as a traitor, he would never see Elena and Zoya again. He found the notion impossible to accept, as impossible as the idea that he would never solve the murd of his wife. But the truth was that to return to the Soviet Union, as a known defector, would result in his execution. Even more troubling, there was a possibility both daughters would be punished if it were ever found out that he’d fled the country. Their safety depended upon the presumption that Leo had been killed in the air strikes or executed by the mujahedin. Secrecy was of paramount importance. He wouldn’t be able to write to them. He wouldn’t be able to call. If he fell sick, he would be alone. If they fell sick, he would not be able to sit by their side.