The Agent Runner (31 page)

‘Who is it?’ Hakimullah called out in Pashto.

The girl on the floor stared at him with fearful, addled eyes. Hakimullah climbed to his feet and came towards them.

‘I didn’t recognise you,’ he said. He was smiling, his voice slurred by opium. ‘You look like a ghost.’

‘It’s been a long night,’ Ed replied in Pashto.

‘I didn’t expect to see you again.’

‘Well I’m here now,’ Ed told him, collapsing into one of the chairs. He saw that the girl was looking towards the door where Leyla was standing. He was pleased to see that she didn’t look scared.

‘She’s my friend,’ he said.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Hakimullah told him.

The dressing on his bicep was dark brown and saturated with blood. More blood had crusted in patches all down his arm.

‘I got shot. I think it’s gone all the way through. Can you stitch me up?’

Hakimullah shrugged, ‘Of course.’

‘Have you got something you can clean it with?’

Hakimullah nodded. He pulled aside the rug and lifted one of the wooden planks, revealing a metal box beneath. From it he removed a bottle of clear liquid covered in Cyrillic writing.

Vodka.

‘Let’s have a celebration,’ Ed muttered.

Hakimullah removed the dressing, peeling it away from the entry and exit wounds, and poured vodka on them. Ed winced at the sting. Then they passed the bottle back and forth, taking swigs, while Hakimullah stitched the wounds with a sewing needle and some dark thread.

‘I need you to get us over the border,’ Ed told him.

Hakimullah paused with the needle in his a hand and the thread between his teeth.

‘We have a car that can get us most of the way,’ Ed explained. ‘If you’ve got some fuel.’

Hakimullah finished sewing before replying. He tied off the ends and made a fresh bandage from strips of cloth cut from a white turban. He took a final swig at the bottle.

‘Let us go now,’ he said. He gave them blankets to fashion into cloaks.

They went out again into the rain. Hakimullah and his granddaughter were clutching two-litre soda bottles filled with petrol in each hand. They crossed the yard and followed the trail back up onto the road. The car was still there.

As soon as the petrol had been dispensed they set off again, Hakimullah driving this time with the young girl beside him. Ed and Leyla in the back with a blanket over them.

‘Try to get some sleep,’ Ed told her. ‘We’ve got a long walk ahead.’

52. Crossing the Durand Line

They had been walking for a couple of hours when they heard the noise of the helicopter carried on the wind. It had stopped raining and they had made reasonably good speed, but dawn wasn’t that far off. For the last hour the forest had blocked their view of the valley as they climbed. It had been dark under the fir trees, like being in a long tunnel, and silent, their footsteps swallowed by the soft carpet of needles. Then they emerged onto an exposed ridgeline and it was as if they were on the roof of the world. Deep gorges and jagged peaks stretched away in every direction. There was a sprinkling of stars to the west but most of the sky was dark.

The cloud cover wasn’t low enough to inconvenience the helicopter. It was heading towards them but wasn’t flying in a straight line. It was criss-crossing the valley and every now and then its searchlight would pinpoint one of the isolated farmsteads. It was looking for movement, any kind of movement.

As it approached the edge of the valley and climbed towards them they took refuge in a hollow at the base of a rock. It passed almost directly over them. They waited breathlessly for it to turn back but the sound of its rotors was abruptly muted as it dropped between two peaks and the night was silent again.

Leyla switched on the torch and changed the dressing on Ed’s wounds. Some of the stitches had torn through the soft flesh and the surrounding skin was mottled every colour of the rainbow and so tender that even to look at it made it hurt more.

‘How far to the border?’ Ed asked through gritted teeth.

Hakimullah shrugged. He seemed to have only the most rudimentary understanding of time and distance. ‘Not far.’

‘Will we make it before daylight?’ It was good country for moving at night but when daylight came it would work against them. They would be far too conspicuous.

‘
Inshallah
, we will.’

‘Let’s go, then.’

Wearily they climbed to their feet and set off again. They were tired now and the short break that had helped their lungs had stiffened the muscles in their legs. Ed set off at a good pace to show them he was strong enough to make it, but after a while he slowed and fell behind. He found it difficult to hold his arm up, but if he let it hang it throbbed even more. He wondered if it was septic. He’d seen wounds go septic very quickly in this part of the world.

He put the thought to the back of his mind and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

#

Less than an hour later they stood above a valley with a thin grey strip of river running through it: Durand’s arbitrary line. On the far side of the river was Afghanistan.

There was the faint pinkish tinge of light in the eastern sky. Ed cursed their bad luck. Hakimullah spoke for the first time since they last stopped, turning back to Ed. His face was drawn and tense.

‘We have to cross here now, without delay,’ he said, ‘or hide and wait until night comes.’

‘We can’t wait another day,’ Leyla said when Ed had finished translating for her. ‘We need to get you to a hospital.’

‘On the other side the path is narrow and there are many mines,’ Hakimullah explained.

‘What is he saying?’ Leyla demanded.

‘We have to walk in his footsteps on the other side.’

‘Why?’

‘Russian helicopters dropped a lot of mines in these valleys.’

She was appalled. ‘I don’t believe this.’

‘It’s ok, he knows the way through. And because there are so many mines the Pakistanis won’t expect us to cross here. It’s the best chance we’ve got. It’s going to be ok.’

Scrambling downslope through the loose rocks and stones, Ed slipped and fell and knocked his wounded arm and the pain was so great he curled up in a ball. Leyla lifted his face from the ground and cupped it her hands. She kissed his forehead and his cheeks.

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I don’t care about what happened before.’

He smiled but he didn’t say anything. There was no energy in him to spare. She helped him up and gripped him around the waist and he leant on her for support. At the bottom of the ridge they left the cover of rocks and stumbled across an exposed gravel plain. If the helicopter came back now it was certain that they would be killed.

When they reached the river they hesitated. The old man’s granddaughter was the first in. She plunged in to her waist and battled against the current. Hakimullah was next and then Leyla and Ed. She gripped him around the waist and held him upright. It was freezing, the glacial water cutting through their bones like steel. Ed managed to keep his arm out of the water but he felt his resolve draining away as the cold penetrated.

The girl splashed ashore and paused at the top of the bank to help the rest of them. Ed sank to his knees on the gravel.

‘We can’t stop here,’ Hakimullah said.

Ed nodded and Leyla helped him, slowly and painfully, to his feet again.

Hakimullah took the lead. They walked in single file following a barely discernible path. Ed gripped the back of Leyla’s wet coat with his good hand. Once the old man knelt down and pointed to a shape in the gravel within a foot of the edge of the path. It was a sycamore-shaped piece of plastic, its seed pouch full of liquid explosive. It was a Soviet PFM mine, scattered here a quarter of a century before. Ed imagined many more of them lying hidden in the gloom. Hakimullah set off again and they followed, fearing that each step might be their last.

After ten minutes Hakimullah stopped and said, ‘We are through the minefield.’

The path climbed up out of the valley on a winding track between outcrops of rock, and they were shielded from view as the leading edge of the sun rose above the ridgeline behind them.

At the top of the track they saw a herd of goats, their fur matted with mud, and beyond them the outline of buildings clinging precariously to the rocks and a twist of smoke in the frigid air.

53. The code of life

Ed lifted the shaking cup to his mouth. He was still shivering uncontrollably and it burned his chapped lips, but as the hot tea travelled down his throat and into his gut he could feel it warming him to the core.

They were sitting huddled around an iron pan full of burning firewood in a
hujra
at the centre of the village. It was a squat building made out of boulders set in mud and the earth floor was covered in rushes of reeds. Large parts of the room were in shadow and, though it was difficult to be sure, Ed estimated that there were more than a dozen men of various ages spread out against the walls and in the corners.

Leyla was on one side of him and Hakimullah on the other with the village headman facing them across the fire. He was related to Hakimullah by marriage and the two old men spoke with solemn familiarity while staring into the embers. On a rough-hewn shelf in the corner of the room there was a VHF radio and every now and then it crackled into life. Men from the local Taliban were searching the valley for them, calling out to each settlement in turn.

‘What happens now?’ Leyla whispered.

‘Hakimullah has invoked Pashtunwali,’ Ed replied in a low voice.

‘What does that mean?’

‘He is asking for asylum,’ Ed explained. ‘He wants them to protect us against our enemies.’

‘Why should they?’ she asked.

‘It’s the code of life: courage, revenge, hospitality and generosity to the defeated. It’s always been this way.’

‘Are we the defeated?’

‘Not yet,’ he said with a weary smile. ‘These people are no friends to the Taliban. The headman is complaining that they come and steal their livestock. And they take young girls from the village in temporary marriages and discard them when they get tired of them. He says the girls are no use after that.’

Leyla shook her head. ‘It’s so screwed up.’

‘Hakimullah is urging him to take a stand,’ Ed told her. ‘There’s a chance for us.’

A man’s voice on the radio interrupted them. It was frighteningly loud.

‘They’re getting closer.’

After another five minutes, the headman turned his attention to Ed. He had a wizened face the colour and texture of a walnut and his beard was completely white.

‘Will you fight?’ he asked.

Ed nodded. ‘Yes.’

The headman got up and reached up into the gloom amongst the rafters with his arthritic antler-like hands. He lifted down two
Kalashnikovs
, one after the other, and handed them to Hakimullah and Ed.

‘We will fight with you,’ he said.

Ed pressed his good hand to his chest. ‘Thank you.’

He heard the rustling of reeds as the men got up from the floor and the click-clack of working parts as they prepared their weapons.

‘What’s going on?’ Leyla demanded.

‘He’s agreed. Here, help me with this.’ He passed the rifle to her. ‘Pull on this.’ She used the heel of her palm to pull back the cocking lever and the first bullet fed into the chamber. He set the rifle down in his lap and reached into his belt for the Makarov.

‘Take this,’ he told her, giving her the pistol. ‘I want you to stay here. If they make it this far into the village it’s over for us.’

She stared at it as if it terrified her. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’

‘They’re bad men, Leyla.’

Her eyes were wide as saucers. ‘You’re scaring me.’

‘Don’t let yourself be taken alive.’

Tenderly, he touched the side of her face and then drew her to him. They kissed tenderly.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I love you.’

Using the gun as a crutch he climbed to his feet and followed the men out of the building and into the bright morning light.

#

Ed crouched in the stark shadow of a rock at the top of the trail, just outside the village. It was a bright morning without a cloud in the sky. Soon it would be ferociously hot. Hakimullah was somewhere close by and the other men of the village were spread out in the rocks around him.

He was listening as hard as his concentration allowed. His arm was throbbing and he felt light-headed. His mouth was dry and he needed a drink of water. He wished that Leyla were beside him. He didn’t want to die alone.

Somewhere up ahead he heard the soft slap of sandals and the patter of dislodged stones. A shape flitted between two rocks, a twist of turban in the morning breeze.

He opened fire. Three round bursts.

Someone nearby started firing as well. Then they stopped.

A momentary hiatus: everyone conserving ammunition.

He heard the sound, like a cork popping, of an RPG leaving its launcher. In a moment a ball of smoke and dust and shattered rock swelled up behind him. He was pattered with flying grit. Raising his head he caught a glimpse of one of the Taliban rolling across the trail.

Ed surged upwards and around the rock with the rifle butt in his shoulder and the barrel rising into the path of the Taliban who was rising from the crouch that he’d landed in. Close enough to make eye contact, a stiff unwashed beard and kohl-rimmed eyes. Ed pulled the trigger. The Taliban’s body heaved.

There was firing all around him. Another RPG warhead exploded amongst the rocks and another cloud of dust billowed. It was impossible to see the trail or the sky overhead. Ed struggled back up from cover to cover, pausing to fire at the Taliban coming up the trail. Behind a boulder he found one of the men from the village sitting down, trying to pick rock chips out of his flesh. He had an expression of intense concentration on his face.

Ed thought he heard a helicopter. His first thought was that the Pakistanis must want him dead very much. He took the magazine from the villager’s rifle and reloaded his weapon, jamming it between his knees before slowly and painfully pulling the cocking handle.