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to go down. The team ran forward in ragged order, dropped, and opened up on the fence line. I put my hands over my ears to preserve my short-term hearing. Bursts of flame lit up the night. We were go. To my right and left, the RWW guys started shouting fire control orders as they engaged the watchtowers. I hugged the dirt. They doubled back, in a haze of fire and smoke, as planned, and there I was. The sacrificial goat.
    I buried my face in the grit and started counting. I counted... and counted. The echoes faded. Like wraiths, they were gone.
    And then the noise from the Bagram perimeter started up.
    I hugged the dirt. I kept hugging it.
    Ten minutes later there was an approaching whine, like a mosquito. It got louder. I felt a touch on my shoulder. I rolled onto my back like a good Taliban insurgent. A robot was inspecting me. This would have to be the US Army. A flare fired from the back of the robot, and within seconds an alsatian was standing over me and barking like it was Doggy Christmas. Three minutes later and a Hummer screeched to a halt to my left in cloud of dust. I heard boots. Flashlights settled on me. I winced. A Specialist First Class was standing over me. She said one word as she aimed the Taser.
    ‘Motherfucker.’
    And then the lights went out.
     

 
     
    13
     
    The sacking was pulled off my head. I was sitting on a chair and my hands were cuffed behind my back. I looked down at my shirt, at the two little rips where the Taser barbs had struck. I looked around. I was in your typical interrogation room and going by the insignia, I was looking at a US Army major.
    He was glaring at me.
    I glared back. I was Taliban, wasn’t I?
    He suddenly started jabbering away at me in some harsh Asian-sounding language. What the…? It wasn’t anything I spoke so I was lost. He stopped then started again, louder this time. Nope, sorry mate, no idea, I thought.
    Suddenly the Major threw his hands in the air in disgust and stood up.
    ‘Dumb haji doesn’t even understand Pashto. OK, give the ANA guys a call. He’s all theirs.’
    It looked like they were washing their hands of me and I was on my way to Gary Swallow’s fabled madhouse. He rattled more gobbledegook at me.
    A voice from behind me. ‘Whatchoo sayin’ Sir?’
    ‘I’m telling him that we didn’t strip-search as we are now preevented from doing so, so as not to offend their cultural sensitivities.’
    He looked disgusted and bored at the same time. He glanced at the Specialist who’d zapped me.
    ‘Can you get me some coffee. Proper coffee. And Ruth? Contact INSCOM on-site and tell them I want to know why the power grids have been dropping off in the area. We can’t have power-outages on base. Especially at the detention centre. Kabul’s one thing, but not here.’
    ‘Sir.’ She saluted and left, just as two ANA guys walked in and clocked me and my dishevelled state. They spoke to the Major in that language. He nodded.
    They grabbed me by the arms and marched me out into the desert night. I immediately started coughing on the outside’s miasma of acrid shit, dust and diesel fumes. I was flung unceremoniously into the back of their Hummer, and off we sped across the airbase. I wriggled about until I could see out of the window. I was trying to commit as much to memory as possible. Good grief, this place was huge . Lines of planes of every description. Combat planes, transport planes. Squadrons of fully bombed - up F16s, A10s, ranks of C130s, Transalls. A solitary grey Air Truck. Hangars, vehicles, lights, buildings. We drove along a runway past a sign saying “Welcome to the home of the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing”. More hangars. Fences with five rolls of razor wire apiece. After some time, we stopped in front of a set of hangars lit as harshly as a baseball stadium and another sign, in squiggle and also in English that read “Parwan Detention Facility/ BTIF”.
    I was dragged out and up to the main doors. They were talking at me in that