Caravan of Thieves (14 page)

“Feelings. I’ll try to remember that.”

We got into his car, another SUV, and when he turned, the sun splashed through the windshield, showing the tired lines around his eyes. He put down the visor and grabbed his sunglasses from the dashboard. “Where to?”

“McColl has me tracked. The jeep has GPS. He seems on top of my every move, in the jeep or out.”

“I can lose him.”

“I doubt it. If you come with me, there’s a good chance you’ll wake up dead.”

“Don’t you want to lose him?” he said.

“Not yet.” I let him digest that. “Why bother? I don’t know what I’m looking for, so why waste time losing him?”

“Okay.”

“What I don’t get is why you don’t want to catch him. Where’s the big team of federal agents with their windbreakers and walkie-talkies and all that gear?”

He gave me one of his crinkly “Gee, I’m impressed with how sharp you are” smiles. “There’s a lot you don’t know about this operation, Rollie.”

“Like what?”

He licked his lips as if deciding whether to put me in the picture or not. He drove for a little while then pulled to the curb across from a Starbucks. “Will you be here when I come back?”

“Depends how long you take,” I said. “I take my coffee black.”

When he returned, he handed me the coffee and a muffin and he inhaled a pastry in about three seconds. “I missed dinner last night,” he said. That seemed to be enough preparation or dramatic buildup for him. “We want more than just McColl. He’s part of a
large network. We don’t know how many of these money stashes there are around the country, but we believe there are at least five. But this is about more than just recovering money, Rollie. It’s about what they plan to do with it. We have to identify everyone involved and we have to catch them with enough evidence to make a strong case. Right now, we have nothing solid on McColl and your story about the man you call Blondie, his name is Peter Stenson by the way, won’t bring a murder conviction. We need more. We need you.”

“What do they plan to do with the money?”

“Did you hear any other names when they had you? Any familiar names? Active-duty personnel? Senior officers?”

“Nothing.” But I wanted to know more about that. I asked again: “What do they plan to do with it?”

He smiled again. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s better if I follow you, too.”

Without another word, he drove to the motel where I had left the jeep. As I got out, he said, “By the way, Rollie, you shouldn’t assume I’m the only one on this case.”

I
led the invisible caravan across the desert: a murderous, martial version of a reality show,
Dead Man’s Treasure
, or
Where’s My Body Bag?
I was the star and the sacrifice. I couldn’t be killed until the end, and then I must be killed. Anyone else was expendable along the way. “Mom, I’ve brought along some of my new friends to meet you. I guess I’ve fallen in with a rough crowd. They’re going to want to tear apart your life before they end it. And oh, yes, I must not forget, Dan planned it this way.” But Dan never intended for anyone to be collateral damage; he would just forget that people got hurt along the path to fulfillment of his schemes. I did not have his gift for ignoring consequences.

The last caravan I was in started in Karachi, Pakistan, and traveled north to the Khyber Pass and into Afghanistan. Rashid drove and I rode shotgun. Progress was slow, just over a hundred miles a day. Food, electronics, cooking utensils, bedding, and clothing fell off the trucks at every stop. The rest was fuel and arms, both guarded more closely. Our rig was loaded with MREs. We prayed in the mornings before hitting the road, stopped three times a day
for more prayers and to relieve ourselves. Then one more prayer in the evenings. All that peace and calm kept us from rushing toward our destination. At stops, it was my job to guard the truck with my rifle and a sidearm, a Beretta M9 pistol. When I prayed, MREs disappeared, though that wasn’t what I was praying for.

Every junction, every turn, every curve in the road held the threat of violence. At least that was the talk and the way everyone acted. Rashid spoke only of the danger.

“The danger is good for prices,” I said. “You rent out the truck for more.”

He shrugged. Rashid grew up in Karachi. His father drove a truck for a cousin and saved enough to buy one for his son. Rashid was young and arrogant, and he let me know that he looked down on Pashtun and anyone from a small town.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said, as if he had a good idea of what might happen.

Private security men escorted us in jeeps and Humvees, fore and aft and interspersed between the trucks. I assumed they were in charge of the looting. Nawaz Mazari, the name played like a mutilated lyric in my head. The danger in saying it out loud would be that someone would understand it. The best I could do was to identify a few thugs more thuggish than the rest, strutting around with the glazed cockiness of gang members on rolling turf. Asking to join the gang would only stimulate them to act out the viciousness of what they regarded as loyalty. A storm slowed us to a crawl, potholes and security stops checked the pace. I suspected everyone, everyone suspected me, everyone suspected everyone so no one had any doubts about who to suspect and the mood was relaxed. In cliques, they joked around about their trucks and how this one
drove and that one played soccer. It was a good gig as long as there were no attacks.

As we droned along, my excitement leveled off and I contemplated my new identity, spy, and how it differed from soldier. Is spying a choice or is it nature? Both for me: a relief, a cloak, a release. I was glad to be rid of the rules of engagement, but this assignment was too vague. It would have been more reasonable to try to expose someone who did not want to steal arms.

I had no status and no one to vouch for me. Soldiers have the luxury of rank among their own, who obey it religiously; spies, alone, learn that they must invent their rank and impose it on those who have no reason to respect it. No one came along and introduced himself as Nawaz Mazari, and if I asked around, I would either drive him to ground or give him cause to plant me in the ground.

On the second day, after prayers, a Pakistani security man came up to me with an MRE in his hand. He scooped out the dessert bar, unwrapped it, and took a big bite, and smiled the crumbiest smile I had ever seen. I knocked the bar out of his hands and shoved him in the chest. He pulled his sidearm. I grabbed his arm and twisted. The gun fell and I kicked it away. We had a big audience now. I called him a dog. One of his partners picked up the gun and tossed it to him. I put my palms up and smiled as if it were all a joke, as if I were going to back down now. He pointed the gun at me and his eyes ran over the crowd to measure how far he could go. I picked up the MRE and made a show of dusting it off. I moved toward him and held it out. And, as he reached for it, I took his right forearm with my left hand and raised my knee and slammed his forearm on it. The gun went off. The bullet hit the dust and he
screamed in pain. I tossed the MRE at him and walked away through the crowd.

I told Rashid: “If you’re going to steal, it should be something that can do some good.” He was concerned that the guards would be hostile to him because of me. But I had gotten the attention I needed. And I made sure to pay special attention to the arms trucks during the stops.

At Dera Ismail Khan, the convoy was halted because of delays on the road ahead. We camped outside of town on a flat plain of dirt and sand, grouping the trucks together protectively, like a wagon train, and cooking on propane stoves freshly stolen just the day before. Rashid was frying up khatay aloo, something with potatoes, when a man I had never seen before appeared. He was thick all over, with heavy-lidded eyes. The man nodded toward me and politely introduced himself as Nawaz Mazari. Rashid nodded and put one of the plates away. Then Nawaz invited me to join him for dinner.

The spread was elaborate, with rugs laid, thick cushions, and abundant food for six of us. Nawaz did a lot of the talking about patience and cooperation and respect. He never referred to the fight I had or to the trucks carrying arms which I had been watching. He took a while to make sure the hint was firmly planted and then he got to the main purpose of the powwow: checking me out. Three of the men had been completely silent. I figured at least one was an Afghan. Nawaz asked me about my childhood and complimented me on my fighting skills. I told him that an American had trained me.

“They are very kind,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “And very naive.” That got a laugh.

“Yes, sometimes they fight against themselves and don’t even know it.” Nawaz got a bigger laugh with that. It was a successful party. I had no idea whether I passed muster but could not see any benefit to letting the party drag on. When Nawaz started asking about my wife, I told him I was tired and thanked him for the meal.

We spent two long rainy days at Dera Ismail Khan. I did not see Nawaz again. Rashid tiptoed around me and my elevated status. We crawled up to Peshawar, and as we headed for the border, I could feel the tension tightening on Rashid and the others. They were eager to be paid but dreaded journey’s end and a possible reckoning and scrutiny of the manifests.

Torkham was a bottleneck with trucks, cars, and pedestrians squeezing in both directions: either way you went, you were still in the bottle. Private vehicles had to be emptied of all possessions, so kids with handcarts hustled the stuff back and forth across the border for cash and whatever they could steal. I left Rashid steaming in the truck and strolled through the Torkham gate.

Captain Ballard, Abdullah of the Ozarks, had stationed himself among the milling crowd on the Afghan side. He looked more ragged and worn, and his chronic anger went well with his new mustache. A big improvement. I slipped past him and loitered in the bazaar, watching to see if he was being watched. It looked clear, so I stood beside him until he recognized me.

“Do you like my mustache?” He had rehearsed the line.

“Is it real?”

He told me he had a room at the chaikhana up the road where we could talk. His Dari had not improved. I was still wary of being seen with him, so I followed a few yards behind him. The road was crowded with Americans and Afghans, military and civilian. When
Ballard reached the chaikhana, he stood at the gate outside the small tea courtyard and looked back for me. At that moment, a Marine captain coming from the other direction noticed Ballard and stopped. He grabbed the arm of the Afghan National Army lieutenant who was with him. And pointed out Ballard. It was clear that the Marine recognized him, or thought he did. Ballard spotted me, so he went through the gate and up to his room. I lingered just down the road to watch the Marine captain and his ANA friend. They were giving the chaikhana a good once-over and the ANA guy was nodding: he would be checking it out. They walked on. I went inside.

I passed through the courtyard into the small, dark restaurant and lingered there a moment. The ANA man was not coming in right behind me, so I went on toward the rooms, which were in a building attached to the back. I knocked on Number 10 and announced myself in Dari. Ballard opened up.

“Don’t you get tired of speaking only Dari?” He looked tired overall. Being someone new was exhausting work even if most of it consisted of waiting.

The answer was yes, but I kept speaking Dari. “Sometimes I speak Pashto, too. Outside, just now, it looked like someone recognized you. A Marine officer. A captain.”

“I didn’t see him,” he said in English.

“Maybe you should back off. At least get away from here.”

But Ballard was only interested in whether I had made contact with potential weapons sellers. I agreed to come back the next day after bringing up the subject with Nawaz.

I could not find Nawaz that night or the next morning until I was halfway to the chaikhana and he was coming back toward the
border. His eyes were bright and excited, his breath was shallow. The little ANA lieutenant was with him, and he was equally agitated.

“We must talk,” said Nawaz. “Have tea with us this afternoon, please.” He did not introduce his companion. They seemed eager to get back to the trucks.

“I look forward to it.” The commotion at the chaikhana was apparent from a hundred yards away. By the time I arrived, the body, Ballard’s body, covered by a sheet, was being loaded into a van. Two ANA soldiers helped the police hold back the curious. Maybe the ample supply of dead bodies helped people develop a taste for more. No U.S. troops were on the scene. Except me. I asked a boy what happened. “A man was knifed. Slit his throat,” he said.

“Pashtun?”

The boy shrugged. If he thought the victim was an American, he would have said so. Ballard would be treated as an Afghan and his death would not be reported to the Army for days. His Arkansas accent would not help him.

The van pulled away and the onlookers drifted toward the bazaar and the border. The ANA soldiers backed off and groups of men slid into the tea courtyard, grabbing the tables of those who were leaving. I watched, deciding whether it was worth trying to catch a peek inside Ballard’s room. My eye caught a familiar face: the Marine captain who had recognized Ballard the day before. He was sitting alone at a table at the back, next to the restaurant wall. He took off his hat to wipe the sweat off his shaved head. And then I recognized him. He was known as Junior, not as a term of endearment: it was an epithet earned by his arrogance and disregard for
everyone ranked below him. I had seen him strutting around at Camp Pendleton and at the mountain warfare training center as if he were a Congressional Medal of Honor winner and being treated that way, it seemed to those of us lucky enough to keep our distance.

I remember asking a sergeant about him. “Stay away from him if you can,” he said. “He expects others to pick up his messes.”

“Why does he expect that?”

“His father is General Remington.”

I was confident Junior would not recognize me and I was willing to risk the chance that he would.