Chaos in Kabul (33 page)

Back in the living room, the champagne was flowing freely. Malko poured himself a glass and went to sit next to Parvez, who seemed the most interesting person there.

“I just got to Kabul,” he said. “What’s the situation like?”

“Not great,” said the young man, grimacing. “We don’t know what will happen after Karzai goes. The Americans are pulling out, and that’s leaving a lot of people unemployed. There’s no money. The Afghans would like to emigrate, but where can they go? Nobody wants them, not even Dubai. There are more and more beggars in town.”

“What about the Taliban?”

The young Pakistani smiled sarcastically.

“Oh, they’re doing just fine! We don’t see them much in Kabul. They only launch occasional suicide attacks against the police or the army, but they’re on a roll in the provinces. They don’t control any cities, but they’re everywhere in the countryside.

“Also, they’re systematically cutting the highways. You can’t go to Bamyan overland anymore. You have to fly. Which is making a man out in the Band-e-Amir Lakes crazy.” These were a chain of spectacular lakes on a fourteen-thousand-foot plateau a hundred miles west of Kabul.

“Why is that?” asked Malko.

“Believe it or not, he built a ski resort there. For rich people from the city.”

In the middle of war-torn Afghanistan? Malko was amazed.

“A ski resort! How?”

“Oh, he jury-rigged it somehow,” said the Pakistani. “He wasn’t able to build a ski lift, so he uses donkeys to haul the skiers up the mountain on a tow rope. But people love it. There aren’t many places to have fun in this country.”

Just then Maureen emerged from the kitchen with a huge plate of spaghetti.

“Soup’s on!” she cried.

Maureen’s living room was littered with dirty dishes and empty bottles. She had just seen her last guest to the door. She flopped down next to Malko on the sofa and sighed.

“To make them leave, I told them there wasn’t any more champagne.”

“They do drink an awful lot.”

The young South African shook her blond locks.

“I’m liquidating my supply. I can’t take it with me.”

“You’re leaving Afghanistan?”

“Soon as I can find someone to buy my business. Everyone’s leaving. Pretty soon there won’t be any more expats here. Most of my customers have already closed up shop.”

She crossed her legs high enough for Malko to glimpse her white panties, then stood up and ran into the kitchen. She came back with a bottle of Roederer Cristal and started to open it.

“This one’s for us!” she announced.

She filled two glasses and came to stand in front of Malko, provocatively thrusting her full breasts at him.

“Do I still turn you on?” she asked playfully.

Instead of answering, Malko slipped an arm around her waist and caressed her breast with his other hand. She promptly pressed her crotch against his and started to move.

But not for long.

Freeing herself, she slipped her dress over her head, keeping only her panties. Then she said, “It’s been a long time since I hosed you down. Get undressed!”

Since Malko didn’t react fast enough, she started unbuttoning his shirt, then attacked his alpaca pants. When he was completely naked, she took his cock in her right hand and gently stroked it until it was as stiff as she liked.

As she did, she gazed into Malko’s eyes, her upper lip drawn back a little from her dazzling white teeth.

As before, she drenched Malko’s belly with champagne, then knelt in front of him on the rug. First she licked the champagne from his stomach, then moved down to his cock, lapping the wine up like a little cat. Finally, she took his cock in her mouth and deep in her throat. Sighing with pleasure, she then settled back on the sofa, her legs apart.

Malko needed only to push her white panties aside to slide into her warm pussy.

A delighted Maureen bounced beneath him, squeezing his hips with her thighs, giving a little cry with each of his thrusts. Meanwhile, she licked the champagne from his chest each time she was able to. Eventually, he gave a yell and came deep inside her.

When she caught her breath, Maureen gave a peal of joyous laughter.

“I’ll always love sucking off a man with a big hard-on and a little champagne.”

The woman’s tastes were simple, though difficult to indulge in a country like Afghanistan.

She lit a cigarette and suddenly said, “By the way, d’you remember that guy you once mentioned, Nelson Berry? A South African, like me? He’s leaving town, too.”

Malko’s heartbeat picked up.

“How do you know that?”

“He came by this afternoon to sell me one of his cars. He’s leaving tomorrow morning.”

Maureen Kieffer had clearly made the remark casually,
without anything special in mind. Her meeting with Berry didn’t conflict with Malko’s, and there was no reason for Berry to have given Malko his schedule when they’d spoken. But it felt worrisome, somehow.

When Malko didn’t respond, Maureen asked, “Have you seen him?”

“We talked on the phone, but he didn’t say what he was up to. Why is he leaving Kabul?”

“He doesn’t have enough clients. At least that’s what he told me.”

“I should know more tomorrow,” said Malko. “I’m due to meet with him. And now I think I better get back to the hotel. Can you have your driver give me a lift?”

“Of course,” she said. “If you stay on in Kabul, I hope we can see each other again.”

Ten minutes later, Malko was riding through the darkened streets of the city. He was intrigued by what Maureen had told him, but he wasn’t able to say why.

It was 11:30 a.m., and Malko was due to be picked up by Berry’s driver at the usual place. As he was about to leave his room, he
hesitated. The automatic and ankle holster lay on his night table, and he couldn’t decide whether to take them. Finally, he strapped them on, first making sure a round was already chambered. The GSh-18 was the kind of weapon that had to be ready in an instant.

Taking it felt a little silly, given the conversation he was going to have with Berry. He would try to get him to throw himself to the wolves in exchange for a million dollars. And Berry would probably tell him to forget it, especially if he was leaving the country.

The sun over Kabul was brilliant. As before, Darius had parked the Corolla beyond the police checkpoint and was waiting for him. At first, Malko didn’t pay much attention to their route. But he soon noticed they hadn’t passed the NDS compound. Instead, they were heading north to the Jalalabad highway.

“Aren’t we going to Mr. Berry’s place?” he asked.

“The commander will see you at one of his properties,” said Darius. “It isn’t far.”

They soon left the highway for a bumpy track that wandered between barren hills, past flocks of sheep and isolated farms. Three-quarters of an hour after leaving downtown, they reached a large farm surrounded by a high wall. Berry’s SUV was parked in front of the farmhouse.

As Darius pulled up, a smiling Berry appeared in the doorway. He gave Malko a warm handshake and led him inside to a big wooden table.

“This is my annex,” he explained. “I store a lot of my stuff here. Want some chai?”

“So what happened?” asked Malko.

They hadn’t spoken since the attack.

“I was sold out by my source,” said Berry with a scowl of disgust. “The wanker pointed me to the wrong car. I only found out later, of course.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went to Logar Province for a job. I didn’t know what kind of shit was going to come down in Kabul, but fortunately nothing did. When I got back, life went on as usual.”

“A lot has happened in the meantime,” said Malko. “For one thing, the Americans have decided to make peace with Karzai.”

Berry looked surprised. “Did they admit what they’d been planning?”

“No. They were betrayed by someone on the inside, in Washington.”

“That takes the cake!” he said, whistling softly. Then he frowned. “What about me?”

Malko looked him straight in the eye. “I’m afraid your involvement has been discovered. But we’ve come up with a solution that will satisfy everybody, including you.”

The South African stiffened. “Tell me about it,” he said carefully.

Malko outlined the tricky plan they had hatched with the Afghans, the million dollars Berry would get for his cooperation, and what would happen after that.

The South African looked as if he’d been turned to stone. “Your Washington friends are pretty fucking naïve,” he finally said. “The Afghans are going to screw you, and then they’ll screw me. Once I’m in the hands of the NDS, they’ll do whatever they please.”

“But it’s the only possible solution,” argued Malko. “Otherwise they’ll have our hide.”

“They’ll have
your
hide, because I won’t be around. I don’t even plan to return to my poppy palace. From here I’m heading to Mazar and then Dushanbe, where I’ll take a plane to Dubai.”

Which tallied with what Maureen Kieffer had said, thought Malko. But why had Berry wanted to meet him out here in the sticks?

“Still, it’s not a bad offer,” he said. “You’re going to need money, even if you leave.”

Berry’s mouth twisted into a kind of rictus. “I’ll never see your million dollars because the NDS will never let me go.” He paused. “Too bad. I wish this business were ending some other way.”

Something in his tone set off an alarm in Malko’s brain. “Since you’re leaving Afghanistan, why did you have me come out here?” he asked.

The South African smiled slightly. “I’ll explain,
bra.
Follow me.”

He stood up and led Malko out into the yard, then another hundred yards farther to an orchard. Berry was walking slowly in front of Malko. Just before reaching the perimeter wall, he stopped.

Malko did too, suddenly feeling very tense.

He barely noticed Berry’s right hand move, but the sight gave him a jolt of adrenaline. Without pausing to think, Malko crouched and tore the GSh-18 from the ankle holster. He was straightening up when Berry turned around, aiming a big pistol at him.

Malko immediately fired. The shot’s rising trajectory caught Berry under the jaw and tore into his neck, exiting through the back of his head—along with a mass of bone, blood, and brain.

The South African didn’t even have time to pull the trigger. Knocked backward by the impact of the 9 mm shell, he collapsed, still clutching the gun in his right hand.

It all happened so fast that Malko had trouble gathering his wits. Berry lay bleeding from the neck, stone-dead. Malko turned to see an old one-armed man come out of the house, shouting something. The man slowly walked closer but stopped when he realized he wasn’t talking to Berry, and scuttled back inside.

Malko looked up at the perfect blue sky, a taste of ashes in his mouth. He hated the idea of taking a human life yet had now killed for the second time since coming to Afghanistan. And for the second
time, he’d been forced to do it. If he hadn’t reacted so quickly, it would be him lying there in the orchard, dead.

Silence had fallen.

Why had Berry wanted to kill him, when he’d just offered him a million dollars? Now he would never know. The plan the CIA and the Afghans had concocted was collapsing. The blood price had been paid, but not the way anyone expected.

Malko took a few steps and noticed a hole in the ground near a large orange tree. Berry certainly had foresight: he’d even had his grave dug.

The sound of an engine made Malko turn around, and he saw Darius driving the Corolla out the gate, fast. He was now without a car somewhere far from Kabul. Taking out his cell phone, he dialed the CIA station chief.

“Come and get me, Warren. I’m somewhere outside the city. I don’t know where and I don’t have a car. Please locate me with my phone’s GPS. I’ll be waiting.”

He went back into the farmhouse and sat down on the bench. He felt very, very weary.

More than two hours later, a convoy of three white Land Cruisers and a green police pickup pulled into the farm.

A man in a general’s uniform with a kepi stepped out of the lead SUV, which bore a red police license plate. He was followed by a tiny old man with a long gray beard, barely taller than his AK-47. The man in the kepi—it was General Abdul Raziq—walked over to Malko and in excellent English asked, “Where is Nelson Berry?”

“Over there at the end of the garden.”

Emerging from the second Land Cruiser were Clayton Luger,
Warren Michaelis, and two armed Marines. The four joined the general and his diminutive bodyguard.

Taking the big automatic from Berry’s hand, Raziq remarked, “He didn’t have time to shoot.”

“If he had, I’d be dead,” said Malko. “Berry brought me here to kill me. A woman friend told me last night that he was leaving Afghanistan. He wanted to do some housekeeping before he left.”

“This isn’t good,” said Luger. “The Afghans are going to be furious.”

“If I had died and Berry had left the country, they would be just as furious,” Malko responded.

“Search the property,” Raziq ordered the policemen. He and the others gathered near Luger’s Land Cruiser.

A half hour later an officer brought over a big leather satchel that he’d found in the South African’s SUV. Malko’s pulse began to race. It was the bag with the five hundred thousand dollars he had given Berry.