The Prisoner's Wife (26 page)

An hour into this last leg of the flight, when Danielle's hand brushed his arm, Shawn felt that slight shock her touch evoked. Turning, he saw that she was close, her gaze reflective.

“As a woman,” she said, “it's hard for me to understand. The way you are, as a man. But, now—”

As she leaned in, the way she did, he inhaled her soft and musky scent.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you understand.”

“When things go wrong for you,” she said, “in your life, in your work, you look for a new woman—am I right? You take her, you forget where you failed—” She hesitated. “At least, when I think about you, that is how it seems.”

“You make me forget I'm a failure?”

She laughed and leaned closer, her hair loose, brushing his cheek. “No. I think it's more. It must be—you follow, you let me lead you round the world. But also I think, for you, women—we are, I don't know, like a drug? Is that a hard a thing to say?”

“I know people,” he said, “who've gone straight. Kicked the habit. I'm giving it a shot.”

“Tell me,” she said. “Tell me how you kick the habit.”

“You go to meetings. Admit you're addicted—”

“To sex?”

“Sex. Or whatever it is eases the pain. Admit you can't control the addiction. You make amends to the women you've wronged. You abstain from sex.”

She turned fully toward him. “You? You abstain? For how long?”

“A year.”

“Which ends?”

“In a while,” Shawn said. “This is embarrassing. Can we talk about something else?” He waited a moment, deciding whether to say what he had in mind. “If you weren't married,” he said, after a time, “I'd have a question for you.”

In that pilgrim-filled plane, he leaned close, to kiss her. Danielle, quite gently, turned his mouth away. She watched cloud patterns shift and reshape, then, as they flew lower, saw the desert spread below. Leaning across her, seeing the mountains of Waziristan, Shawn felt a frisson of fear. Something he felt more, as years passed: knowing he was not immortal.

Here he was, God help him, flying back to a place he'd hoped never to see again, a place where he'd seen his buddy's head hacked off, a town where he himself came near to death by fire. He badly needed alcohol; on this Arabic airline, of course, there was none. The pilot—who sounded Australian—announced they'd be landing at Peshawar in seven minutes. A modestly dressed woman, a stewardess, repeated the announcement in rapid Urdu. At least Shawn guessed that's what she was doing.

He saw the desert below them ridged with lines of gray-white tents.

Danielle leaned forward, staring downward. “Those,” she said. “What are they?”

“What do they look like? Refugee camps, right?” He pointed downward and westward. “Out that way, far as you can see.”

“The people are?”

“Afghani. Getting away from the war.” He thought back. “You know, first time I came here, they were running from the Russians. Now, poor bastards, they run from us.” He thought for a minute. “Back in the day, I had to question a guy in that camp”—he pointed—“back there. Saw him and his family. Eight kids—ten of them, total, in two little rooms, in a mud hut he built. I said, must be crowded. He said, no, sir, it's fine. Thank you, sir.”

“He was al Qaeda?”

Shawn shook his head. “Uh-uh. Got the wrong guy. My boss said, what the fuck, take him out anyway.” He shrugged. “I wasn't up for that. But someone did.”

“Tell me,” she said, “do you ever doubt what you've done? The way you spent your life? The things you do to others—to people less powerful—”

“War on terror. Covers any damn thing.”

She pointed downward, interrupting. “Yet you are killers, are you not? Of the innocent. From a plane, not a suicide bomb, that seems cleaner, no? More civilized. A plane, a guided bomb, way below, some are guilty, some are innocent, who knows which? Still, people die—they are dead, as much as in a suicide bomb.”

He knew there must be smart answers to that. While he was thinking, she spoke again.

“Fighting these wars—which in the end you lose—don't you play al Qaeda's game? Do you people ever ask what gives you the right to bomb other countries? To fly drones? To assassinate their people? Do others have that right? Is Iraq allowed to attack Kentucky? To bomb Connecticut?” She turned toward him. “To ask that question, surely, is to answer it.”

He looked at her, thoughtful. “I never heard you talk this way.”

“Because you never listen. I know this—I said before—you don't listen to women.”

“Spent a lot of my life listening to women.”

“
With
women,” she said. “You listen, of course, until you get us in bed. I spoke of something more.” As the plane descended, she pointed to the desert below. “Those people down there—if they are liberated, why don't they leave?”

It made him uneasy when she talked like this.

“Babe,” he said, “we do our best. I believe we do. We don't plan on hitting women and kids. You know how it is.”

“I don't,” she said.

“Some kid in Nevada, flying a Predator”—Shawn pointed—“over those hills…”

“Predator?”

“Drone. Pilotless plane. That's what we use. They fly here, driver's in Nevada someplace. Another country. Another continent.” He was watching her face. “How's this kid over there—never been further than Vegas—how's he pick out a bad guy in a turban? How's he tell who's not a bad guy? Think about it. Kid's in a big chair, aircon room, he's on camera, drinking Coke, looking down at this place—little hajji guys running round, wearing robes, beards, damn, they all look the same. It's a video game. Pick the guy who gets it. Kid makes his guess who he'll kill, then—zap. Maybe right, maybe wrong. Moral of that—don't live in the wrong damn place. Don't live in places we want to turn into bases.” He peered at her. “Are you okay?”

She pressed a hand between her breasts. “Maybe not. I don't feel good. Not serious, perhaps. I feel it here.”

“It's what you had in Fes?”

She shook her head and was about to speak when the plane flew low across the airport's unlikely railway line to touch down.

Some of the passengers clapped hands. Others rushed at the still-locked exit door.

The pilot announced that there had been an error: Some passengers' baggage was not on the plane. Missing pieces would—he gave his word—be on the next flight to Peshawar.

Shawn reached down to his valise. “Whenever the hell that is. How much you want to bet our bags got lost?”

“I couldn't care less,” she said. She was sweating. “They can have my bag. Have everything. I just want out of here. I want a bed.”

*   *   *

Forty minutes later, knowing now that both their bags were missing, having left at the airport the address of the Indus Grand Comfort Hotel, Shawn stood in Peshawar's shimmering heat, ignoring flocks of thin porters and the fatter drivers of auto-rickshaws. Hungry men, clutching at him. He was their evening meal.

He waved down an ancient taxi and helped Danielle into the backseat. It was like helping an old woman.

Settling on the ripped fabric, she said, “God, I so need a bed. What is—I mean, what is the hotel? What is it like?”

He shrugged. “No idea. Could be a flophouse.” She turned suddenly, to look at him. “No choice. Every place I called was full. Who knows why? Maybe something's happening here. I guess we got the last room in town.”

Covering her face with her hands, she began, without a sound, to cry.

“If the car goes the right way,” he said, trying to distract her, “I'll show you one of my memories. USAID building. There was a local mob, burned the place.”

She looked up, wiped a hand across her eyes. “You remember it, why?”

“When they burned it,” Shawn said, “I was inside.”

 

30

PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, 3 JULY 2000

After Rafe Ramirez lost his head in Peshawar, Langley made changes to the regional structure on the AfPak border. Shawn's old CIA buddy Robert Hamilton Walters came into Peshawar as chief of station: a last-choice posting if ever there was one. Bobby was given a temporary building, a former USAID two-story office modified with a newly built steel-lined safe room in what had been the office basement. As with all Agency outposts, the safe room was filled with secure-communication gear. Though the building was still officially USAID—so its signboard said—the former tenants pulled out when two workers, both women, were shot through the head while opening a school for local girls. Though markings had been scrubbed off the bullets, ballistics determined that the murder weapons were part of an American shipment delivered—by way of a Polish middleman called Kowalka—to the anti-Russian revolt in Afghanistan. To the Taliban.

One of Bobby Walters's unofficial tasks in Peshawar was sorting out Shawn's troubled life. As Bobby saw it, Rafe's execution took his friend to some dark chamber of the soul from which there was no easy return. Shawn became obsessive. There were physical symptoms, too: He found his vision blurring, could no longer see clearly the snow-peaks of the Hindu Kush. Not good for a man trained as a sniper. He concentrated on what was close at hand, spending his days hunting leads to Rafe's killers; his dream-haunted nights in bed with a unit secretary, an educated Shia Muslim girl, Khalida Gul.

On his second week in Peshawar, Bobby told Shawn he had a new assignment for him: He was being reassigned from the hunt for the men who kidnapped and killed Rafe Ramirez.

Shawn said, “Bobby, butt out. You can't do that.”

“Peshawar may be a dead-end assignment,” Bobby said, “which, no question, it is, but it's what I've got. Sorry to tell you this, my friend, but while I'm chief, you do what I say.”

“What do you say?”

“I'm saying, Shawn, this thing's driving you crazy. Check the mirror—you look ten years older than you did last month, and you didn't look so young back then. I want you off of this thing. Langley's sending a special squad to get those guys.”

“The ones who killed Rafe?”

“The ones who killed Rafe.”

“That's it?” Shawn asked. “End of story?”

Bobby shook his head. “There's more. I want the girl out of your bed.”

Shawn looked at him.

“You're going to tell me it's none of my goddamn business who you sleep with,” Bobby said. “I'm here to tell you, it is. The woman's on my staff. She's Pakistani. Okay, she's been in Islamabad, she's trained, but she comes from this town. She speaks Urdu. She has no security clearance. How do we know she's not taking every damn thing you tell her in bed back to the bad guys?” He watched Shawn react. “This burg has more fucking bad guys than any place I know.”

When Shawn said nothing, Bobby tried another tack. “Plus,” he said, “there's Martha.”

“What about Martha?”

“Don't be that way,” Bobby said. “I'm here to help you. You been chasing Martha half your life. The minute she says she's free to marry, you get in bed with a girl who is what? Twenty-one?”

Shawn said, “Bobby, what's happening?”

“Happening to you?”

“To me. Us. The world. The world we're running. We started, it was clear, right? Good guys here, bad guys there. Now, who the fuck knows the difference?”

After thinking it through, Bobby said, “Shawn, listen. Here's the deal. I forget about the girl, you take a new op.”

“Which is what?”

“Polish guy, American passport. Henryk Kowalka.”

Shawn searched his memory. “Pentagon weapons contract?”

“That's him. Contract to supply weaponry to various friendly guys around the globe. Ones we want to help. Mujahid next door, for instance.”

“I'm interested because?”

“Because Kowalka's in town. Our friends over the border say he's been selling them crap gear. They complain, which I understand. Kowalka holds up hands. Tells them, not me, buddy, stuff comes from Langley, through him—but do we ever see it? Do we hell. Polish son of a bitch buys from some damn bazaar. He delivers. Never comes near us.” Bobby consulted a typed list. “He's selling the muj Lee-Enfields—you believe this, Lee-fucking-Enfields, fifty years old?”

“Good gun,” said Shawn. “I trained on them.”

“AK-47s,” said Bobby. “Chinese make—plus RPG-7s, 60 mil mortars, 12.7 mil machine guns. Most of it not right, is what I hear. Shit stuff. God knows where he gets it.”

“I guess God would. So I should do what?”

“Check on the gear. You're a shooter, you'd know. See if it really is crap. If it is, go meet Kowalka. Squeeze his balls. Remind him he's Polish. Tell him we'll take away his passport. Cancel the damn contract.”

“When do I do this?”

Bobby looked at his watch. “Now. You head on out. You get a ride with a guy called Akmal Something-something. Pashtun hajji. Don't know his last name—it's on file. He's a mujahid. Used to be with Shah Massoud, before he was terminated. Massoud, that is.”

“Do we trust this Akmal guy?”

“We should. We trained him.”

“On the Farm?”

“On the Farm.” Bobby pointed. “He's outside. He'll take you over the border. Okay?”

*   *   *

Though late in the day, it was still hot when Shawn left the Agency's office.

We could have worse people running the country, he thought, though he could not, for the moment, imagine who that might be. He crossed Sahibzada Road to where a green-painted jeep was parked in the shade of a white mulberry tree.

The driver was a young man whose beard and shades made him look older than he was. He said, “Mr. Maguire? I am Akmal. Please get in.”

In the jeep, Shawn said, “Here's the deal. You show me the weapons you've been sent—you and your buddies. If I don't think they're right, we go talk with Mr. Kowalka. He's the guy who bought the stuff. Sound right to you?”