The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist's Memoir of Death and Redemption (25 page)

We were only able to transfer one hundred of the rockets to the pack animals and were forced to leave the rest with the convoy. I went and found the Pakistani captain in charge. “Please remind General Hafiz that Sheikh Fahim will be very keen to see us return with a second load of rockets. Tell him to take good care of the sheikh’s property.”

As the convoy rumbled away, Aziz, the Pashtun leader, gave us each a set of Afghan clothing: Flowing pants, tied at the waist and gathered at the ankles, that had once been white but had yellowed to ivory and were covered with stains; a same-colored tunic to the knees; a brown woolen vest and a wool cap. They also handed us each a long beige scarf; I noticed some of the Pashtun wore a similar cloth wrapped completely around their face and neck, revealing only their eyes. I wrapped mine in the same fashion and put on my sunglasses to knock out the glare.

The Pashtuns didn’t talk much, except to each other in their native Beluchi tongue from which I could catch a sprinkling of Arabic. One of the tribesmen, Rafuq, did speak a little more Arabic than the others so I talked with him about the journey ahead, a four-day trek to our rendezvous with an Afghan warlord named Abu Haifem. As we advanced, I kept a wary eye on the narrow path; if you wavered to the right or the left, you would likely fall into a gorge. Looking below, I could see the thread of a small river or stream snaking through the floor of the abyss.
Down there, green trees and shrubs flanked the water’s edge. Where we were, only a bland, endless palette of dirt and stone jutted up into a hard blue sky.

The journey was much worse than I expected and grew worse as we went along. Along the lower trails, the desert sun scorched our skin. As we climbed higher, harsh range winds beat us constantly, carrying so much grit that I felt like I was eating breakfast right from the air, even through the scarf that covered my face. As we tramped along with the pack animals, we dodged steaming piles of dung about every twenty feet.

As we gained elevation, the air turned brutally cold. Near the end of the first day, I began to notice Russian helicopters below our altitude patrolling for
mujahadeen
. On the second day, as we ascended narrow rugged trails, I watched the eastern sky turn a smoky red as a Soviet bomber pummeled an Afghan village.

“Sikhoi,” said Aziz, naming the bomber, which appeared as a long silver tube in the distance. “They are like flying death. When the villagers see them coming, there is nothing they can do but hide and pray.”

I had heard stories of hundreds of mud-walled huts smashed into jagged ruins, thousands of Muslims killed. I stared out at the fiery horizon. “We are here to change that.”

Our rockets represented a chance to liberate the valley villages, temporarily at least, from Soviet air attacks. The villagers were mostly farmers and herders, tied to the land by their crops, their animals, their water supply. Most of the
mujahadeen
were part-time fighters with responsibilities at home. For too long they had had to leave their villages and livelihoods in the care of women, children, and old men in order to escape the Soviets’ systematic attempts to purge the villages of rebel fighters. Now, if the
mujahadeen
could control access to the valley with the rockets, they might have time to regroup.

By mid-afternoon, we arrived at a cave system called
al-qa’idah
, or “the base,” a
mujahadeen
stronghold secreted deep inside a labyrinth of jagged gorges. Abu Haifem met us at the main entrance and introduced himself.

“Welcome, welcome,” he said, greeting us with firm handshakes
and a clasping of our wrists that signaled our warrior brotherhood. “Before we go in, I want to tell you that there are rules here. I am the liaison for all things. Anything you want to do, you must go through me.”

I nodded my understanding.

Abu Haifem stepped aside so that I could see deeper in the cave. I had expected a primitive setting with a few
mujahadeen
. Instead, I saw a fully operational military base thrumming with the low conversation of at least two hundred warriors.

In one area, I saw stacks of supplies—bags of rice and crates of what appeared to be military food rations. In another corner, two
mujahadeen
guarded an arsenal of AK–47s, RPGs, and an assortment of ammo boxes. I saw a sleeping area and to the left several
mujahadeen
were gathered, each holding a Koran, in a circle with a man who appeared to be an imam.

The biggest surprise: an entire corner devoted to what appeared to be a communications and surveillance station. Radar and radio equipment, and at least six men in Afghan dress and
keffiyeh
who were clearly not Afghans. It was instantly clear that the
mujahadeen
gave that area a wide berth, as if it were surrounded by some kind of force field. Or it might have been the huge, grim-looking man standing at the edge of the equipment holding a grenade-tipped weapon. His forearms were as big as my neck.

Abu Haifem saw me staring. “They are Americans. Don’t cross to that side.”

Americans.
Instantly, I was on guard.

Abu Haifem then led us toward the rear of the cave. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, dripping water into stone pools. When we passed the Americans on the right, I could see that their station was elevated on a kind of natural rock platform. The man guarding it kept a close eye on us as we passed, and I him. These were not regular military. Those I would have faced head on. But not these men. I could tell from the way they held themselves, like tigers coiled to spring, that they were Special Forces of some kind, or perhaps CIA. From the platform, I heard snippets of three languages: English, Arabic, and Russian. In spite of the testosterone of my twenty years, in spite of my time at war in Beirut, in
spite of thirteen years of training, I knew instantly I was outmatched. In fact, it was possible these half-dozen men could take on the entire force of
mujahadeen
assembled in the cave. That was the signal they sent off. I could smell it.

Abu Haifem then led us through a passageway to a sandpit, a kind of cave within a cave.

“You can store the rockets here,” he said. “I will post guards.”

That evening, Aassun, Zeid and I sat with Abu Haifem and made a simple dinner of meat and rice. We gathered around a tiny fire built in a stone pit in the corner of the cave opposite the Americans.

“Tell me about them,” I said.

“Advisers,” he said. “They arrived a few weeks ago. Strategy, tactics. That is their game.”

“And the radar?”

“The Americans monitor the Soviet air traffic. It helps the
mujahadeen
stay clear of Soviet patrols. We can get to and from cover and from our base camps without detection.”

By base camps he meant the cave systems. Despite the Soviet’s superior technology and firepower, the
mujahadeen
had been able to hide in networks of natural mountain caves, staging small-arms and RPG attacks that bruised the Communist invaders. Some of the caves, such as the one we sat in now, were concealed behind rock formations and intricate gorge systems impassable even to the Soviet helicopters. Further, enough
mujahadeen
lived in the villages to prevent the Soviets from concentrating their forces on extended sieges on the Afghans’ mountain positions.

“Who is in charge?” Zeid wanted to know.

Abu Haifem nodded toward the raised rock platform. “See the big man talking on the radio phone? It’s him. He calls himself ‘Rick.’ We call him ‘Abu Fox.’”

In the dim light with his face covered, I could not tell much about the man. But when daylight came, I wanted to know who I would be dealing with, which American might have the most influence over what happened to our rockets.

“How will I know this ‘Rick’ tomorrow?” I said.

Abu Haifem peered at me across the flickering fire. “Look for the man with eyes like ice.”

4

I awoke the following day to the distant pounding of Soviet bombs and the low chop of rotor blades bouncing off the mountains as Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships combed the valley floors for rebels. With their gun pods, rockets, and 100-kilo iron bombs, the Hinds were both fearsome and persistent. Unlike the bombers, which had to frequently return to base to refuel, the Hinds could hunt their prey for hours.

“We move mostly at night,” an Afghan fighter named Tariq told us over a breakfast of rice and goat. “The helicopters hunt in pairs and packs. We are sometimes able to bring them down with RPGs. But still, they rain death upon the
mujahadeen
and the villages. We call the choppers
Shaitan-Arba
.”

Satan’s Chariots.

That evening near sunset, Abu Haifem rallied a reconnaissance party: my five
fedayeen
, several
mujahadeen
, and four of the Americans, including Abu Fox. The Afghans meant to lead us to an area from which we might launch the SAMs at the Soviets. Range was an issue. The rockets we stole had a maximum range of just over four kilometers—only two miles. To fire at Soviet aircraft, particularly Satan’s Chariots, at so close a range—and to miss—would likely mean instant detection and certain death.

Outside the cave, the sky had taken on the colors of fire, but the frigid mountain air bit at my face and hands. Again, we had all dressed in Afghan clothing, every one of us with his face covered. In fact, because of the Americans, I had not uncovered mine since we arrived. I and my
fedayeen
had brought 9 mm handguns with us from Lebanon, but Abu Haifem issued us each an AK–47. I slung mine from my shoulder. Looking around at the recon group, I could see that the
mujahadeen
were similarly armed. Tariq was among them and had brought with him an RPG–7. The Americans also carried various assault rifles and, under their tunics, who knew what else.

As I observed all this, I felt the bore of someone’s eyes and looked up to see Rick, the American leader, standing just a couple of meters away, gazing steadily at me over the shield of his white
keffiyeh
. Even at this distance, I could see that his eyes were the crystalline blue of a glacier, rimmed in thick red lashes. Something in his gaze bothered me. It was not aggression or defiance, but more like…
knowing
. Knowing more than he should. I held his stare for a moment then glanced away as Abu Haifem gave a signal to move out.

Our trek took us farther along the same goat trail that had deposited us at
al-qa’idah
the night before. I walked with Aassun and Abu Haifem, just behind the Americans. When the rock formations that concealed the main cave gave way to more open space, I saw a vast valley spreading below us, ringed on the opposite side by more jagged and barren mountains that speared the sky, their peaks frosted in snow. I wondered how the
mujahadeen
planned to take us through these trails without exposing us to the Soviets. Their primitive genius soon became clear.

Over the centuries, underground springs and the runoff from melting snow had carved narrow waterways into the mountain stone. Many of these had gone dry or mostly dry and, where the water still ran underground, had developed a sparse cover of desert scrub and bushes. Cleverly, the
mujahadeen
had dug a meter or two deeper into these natural cuts in the earth, creating “grooves”—pathways beneath the foliage under which a man could walk upright without being seen from the air.

“Pathways like this one connect many of our mountain bases,” Abu Haifem told us as we entered the first groove under a canopy of worm-wood and camel-thorn. “They are almost as good as the U.S. interstate system, yes, Abu Fox?”

The American glanced back over his shoulder, an enigmatic smile in his eyes. “Better,” he said.

The man unnerved me. I definitely did not trust him and suspected he wanted to take control of the rockets, or at least control what we did with them. As Redding had demonstrated perfectly, Americans never
enter a situation unless they want to be in charge. There was no way I would let this American take charge of us.

Still, his watching manner pricked my curiosity. How did he see us? I wondered. What did he make of this small band of men who came all the way from Lebanon through Pakistan to help the Afghans with rockets stolen from Syria?

For a solid thirty minutes, we walked in the cover of the grooves, the light seeping slowly away. It was not yet full dark when we reached an outcropping from which we could see a wide
madiq
, a mountain pass, at least twenty kilometers away. I saw a dozen helicopters flying through the “V” away from us, insect-small in the distance, backlit by the fiery last light of the day.

“There is a Russian base on the other side of the pass,” Abu Haifem said. “The Sikhoi and the choppers—they all come into this valley from that direction. The MiG fighter jets are more unpredictable. They can come from anywhere.”

Aassun and Zeid emerged from the groove and joined us, gazing out across the sprawling valley. “The
madiq
is far out of SAM range,” Aassun said. “We will have to advance at least fifteen kilometers in the open.”

“The Soviets fly in groups,” Zeid said. “As soon as they pinpoint our firing position they will kill us.”

Abu Fox and his men, along with Tariq and the other
mujahadeen
, joined us at the valley rim. I delivered my battle plan to Abu Haifem. “We will take our
fedayeen
, plus two of your men, and five to seven rockets. The
mujahadeen
can carry a
doctoryov
and RPGs. We will advance outside the grooves toward the
madiq
until we are well inside the SAM range. We will fire on the Soviets, bring down as many aircraft as we can, then fight our way back.”

It was a bold plan, and I delivered it proudly, knowing it meant near-certain death for us and whoever went with us. In my view, the Afghans were my Muslim brothers. If this mission was my appointed time to die, so be it.