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Authors: Simon Conway
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lives and come just as close to being overrun. It looked east down the valley across a rock-strewn landscape where an elusive and ever-moving enemy lurked amongst the boulders and bushes –
dukhi
or ghosts was what the terrified Russian conscripts had called them – men in dusty turbans and blankets, wearing shoes without laces, possessing nothing of any significance but their guns.
At the end of the valley was the Durand line marking the eastern edge of Afghanistan, a border as incomprehensible as the Iron Curtain or any other arbitrary ceasefire line or swerve of a pen on a map. It is unlikely that the Emir of Afghanistan, who could read no English, knew what he was signing when he put his mark to the one-page document drawn up by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand of the colonial office of British India. It was winter 1893, and with his pen the Emir divided the unruly Pashtun lands. It is equally unlikely that the British regarded the line as anything more than a temporary demarcation beyond which either side agreed not to interfere. But interfere they did just as those who followed them also interfered, and went on interfering. From the Third Anglo-Afghan war in which the Royal Air Force bombed Kabul and Jalalabad in 1919, through Operation Cyclone in the eighties in which CIA and Saudi funded Mujahideen groups crossed into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation, and through to the present day when Taliban fighters emerged from Pakistani tribal areas to do battle with the Americans.
‘This is a really fucking dark place,’ said Winslow, the Agency man, who had known many dark places in his life.
The remark was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even. The long-limbed soldier kneeling in the dirt lifted a scratched metal tin from the gas stove and poured coffee into four chipped enamel mugs. He passed them to the four visitors, two Americans and two Brits, who were squatting in the dirt.
‘
Mocha Harrar
,’ the soldier said with grim satisfaction He was a sharp-featured and dark-skinned Ethiopian from Minneapolis. ‘Peaberry beans…’
Winslow and the two security guards drank the coffee without comment.
‘Its delicious,’ Ed Malik said. ‘Thank you.’
He stared out through the sandbags at the dirty ribbon of the river far below and across the valley at the dark face and snow-capped peak of Arghush Ghar, the Black Mountain. The enemy owned the Arghush Ghar. He wasreminded of a line in
Heart of Darkness
, of a young Roman citizen in some inland outpost who felt:
The savagery, the utter savagery, had closed all around him
‘We can’t wait here much longer,’ Winslow said.
Ed said nothing. He was aware of both Winslow and Draper watching him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. Winslow, an ex-army ranger whose ruddy complexion made his face appear perpetually sunburned, was a CIA officer based out of FOB Chapman down in Khost. Draper was his security guard, a similarly weathered forty-five year old former Green Beret working for the private contactor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater. He was wearing an M4 carbine slung across his back.
‘Your man is twenty-four hours late,’ Winslow said.
‘You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,’ Ed told him. Winslow had been wounded in the 2009 attack on Camp Chapman, when the Jordanian asset Humam al-Balawi had crossed over from Pakistan to meet with his handlers and blown himself up, killing seven CIA officers. It had been the most lethal attack on the CIA in twenty-five years. It was no wonder Winslow was jumpy.
‘I’m staying,’ Ed told him.
Beside him Dai nodded to indicate that he was steadfast, that he wouldn’t argue with his boss in front of strangers.
‘How long are you gonna wait?’ Winslow asked.
‘As long as it takes.’
‘You said he’d come across yesterday.’
Ed suppressed his anger. ‘His cover’s blown. He’s on the run. Khan is hunting for him. Somewhere out there he’s terrified. If you’d
dukhi
or ghosts was what the terrified Russian conscripts had called them – men in dusty turbans and blankets, wearing shoes without laces, possessing nothing of any significance but their guns.
At the end of the valley was the Durand line marking the eastern edge of Afghanistan, a border as incomprehensible as the Iron Curtain or any other arbitrary ceasefire line or swerve of a pen on a map. It is unlikely that the Emir of Afghanistan, who could read no English, knew what he was signing when he put his mark to the one-page document drawn up by Sir Henry Mortimer Durand of the colonial office of British India. It was winter 1893, and with his pen the Emir divided the unruly Pashtun lands. It is equally unlikely that the British regarded the line as anything more than a temporary demarcation beyond which either side agreed not to interfere. But interfere they did just as those who followed them also interfered, and went on interfering. From the Third Anglo-Afghan war in which the Royal Air Force bombed Kabul and Jalalabad in 1919, through Operation Cyclone in the eighties in which CIA and Saudi funded Mujahideen groups crossed into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet occupation, and through to the present day when Taliban fighters emerged from Pakistani tribal areas to do battle with the Americans.
‘This is a really fucking dark place,’ said Winslow, the Agency man, who had known many dark places in his life.
The remark was accepted in silence. No one took the trouble to grunt even. The long-limbed soldier kneeling in the dirt lifted a scratched metal tin from the gas stove and poured coffee into four chipped enamel mugs. He passed them to the four visitors, two Americans and two Brits, who were squatting in the dirt.
‘
Mocha Harrar
,’ the soldier said with grim satisfaction He was a sharp-featured and dark-skinned Ethiopian from Minneapolis. ‘Peaberry beans…’
Winslow and the two security guards drank the coffee without comment.
‘Its delicious,’ Ed Malik said. ‘Thank you.’
He stared out through the sandbags at the dirty ribbon of the river far below and across the valley at the dark face and snow-capped peak of Arghush Ghar, the Black Mountain. The enemy owned the Arghush Ghar. He wasreminded of a line in
Heart of Darkness
, of a young Roman citizen in some inland outpost who felt:
The savagery, the utter savagery, had closed all around him
‘We can’t wait here much longer,’ Winslow said.
Ed said nothing. He was aware of both Winslow and Draper watching him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. Winslow, an ex-army ranger whose ruddy complexion made his face appear perpetually sunburned, was a CIA officer based out of FOB Chapman down in Khost. Draper was his security guard, a similarly weathered forty-five year old former Green Beret working for the private contactor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater. He was wearing an M4 carbine slung across his back.
‘Your man is twenty-four hours late,’ Winslow said.
‘You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,’ Ed told him. Winslow had been wounded in the 2009 attack on Camp Chapman, when the Jordanian asset Humam al-Balawi had crossed over from Pakistan to meet with his handlers and blown himself up, killing seven CIA officers. It had been the most lethal attack on the CIA in twenty-five years. It was no wonder Winslow was jumpy.
‘I’m staying,’ Ed told him.
Beside him Dai nodded to indicate that he was steadfast, that he wouldn’t argue with his boss in front of strangers.
‘How long are you gonna wait?’ Winslow asked.
‘As long as it takes.’
‘You said he’d come across yesterday.’
Ed suppressed his anger. ‘His cover’s blown. He’s on the run. Khan is hunting for him. Somewhere out there he’s terrified. If you’d
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