Termination Orders Read online

  Zalmay had days before he was to meet Cougar’s contact—he was not worried about that. But at any moment on the road he could be found by the enemy. Every time a soldier motioned for them to pull over, Zalmay wondered if they had his picture, if he had been flagged as a person of interest, to be detained and delivered to the enemy’s doorstep.

  Even if he weren’t suspected, what would happen if a soldier were to find the small black memory card, which he had nervously pushed through a hole in the upholstery of his seat so that it wouldn’t be found when he was searched? He had some comfort in the knowledge that the soldiers weren’t looking for small things. They were more interested in finding Kalashnikovs, from the AK-47 to the AK-100 rifle, or a pallet of hand grenades, stacked like eggs, thirty to forty per carton; but what if one of them had a sudden hunch while searching the cab of the truck, and he casually probed the plushy orange foam for hidden objects?

  “This is why they will lose, you know,” said Faqeer, as they passed the blackened shell of a bus, a memorial on the roadside.

  “What?” said Zalmay, distracted by his anxious musings.

  “The Taliban. This is why they will lose, in the end. They are destroyers, and this is all they know how to do anymore. Just to kill and to make our lives miserable. They are now the enemies of the people of Afghanistan. For this reason, their unjust regime will not return, and their insurgency will be defeated by the will of the people. Even if the Americans leave, we will be free of these vermin.”

  “Insha’Allah”—if God wills it—Zalmay muttered. At that moment, he noticed that Faqeer was looking intently into the rearview mirror. The truck slowed and veered to the side of the road, as two American army vehicles—what they called Humvees—sped past them, leaving a trail of dust. It didn’t take him long to notice where they were headed; they were following a pillar of smoke rising in the distance, where the terrain rose into jagged hills.

  As they drew closer, they came upon a long row of stopped vehicles, most pulled over to the shoulder of the road randomly and askew, as if they didn’t expect to go anywhere anytime soon. The smoke seemed to be coming from the bridge over a shallow ravine a couple of hundred feet ahead, where the two American vehicles had carelessly parked.

  Faqeer pulled the hand brake and opened the door. “Stay here; I will see what’s going on.” The driver climbed down from the truck and walked toward the gathering of vehicles. Zalmay watched uneasily as his companion talked to other drivers who were hiding from the punishing sun under the shade of a short cliff. Faqeer came back about fifteen minutes later.

  “The bridge is out,” he said, sitting back in the driver’s seat, against the colorful seat cover. “Taliban sabotage. An entire segment crumbled, and there is no way to get across. It will be many weeks before it is fixed. But do not worry. The Americans will not allow the road to be impassable for long. They will bring a temporary bridge, and we will be on our way soon. There are some who are waiting here, but I do not believe that it will be done tonight.” He started up the engine, and the truck rumbled under Zalmay’s seat.

  “What happens to us in the meantime?”

  “There is a small village, not far, where we can get lodging and food,” said Faqeer, as he maneuvered the truck into a three-point turn. “I have stopped there before. It is a simple place, but it will allow us to resume our journey tomorrow.”

  It was only some twenty minutes until they reached their destination, a collection of a couple dozen houses just off the main road. There were two trucks and three cars there already, no doubt for the same reason they were. Faqeer brought his truck to a stop near the other vehicles, and two men in rustic dress came to meet them.

  “Are there beds for two more?” Faqeer asked as the two clambered down from the truck.

  “All are welcome,” one of them said warmly, and he waved them toward the village. Zalmay followed him, his sandals dragging across dusty terrain to a collection of about a dozen single-story adobe huts arranged haphazardly on a shrub-speckled hill. It was a peasant village, though there was no sign of electricity, and village water came from a hand pump, attached, presumably, to a well. On drawing closer, Zalmay noticed that the sides of some of the houses had rows of bullet holes—not befitting a war zone, but the place had obviously not been untouched by violence.

  As they arrived within the limits of the village, Zalmay and Faqeer were introduced to their hosts, two brothers named Gorbat and Mirzal. They were both short, with sun-browned, prematurely wrinkled skin but also with broad smiles that lit up their faces. The brothers showed them the house and room where they would sleep, with two straw mattresses laid out on the floor. Two small children, a boy and a girl, looked on curiously. Zalmay noticed that there were no other mattresses in the house; their hosts had given up the only beds they had.

  Gorbat and Mirzal made no mention of charging for their hospitality; the Pashtunwali, the code of honor that the rural Pashtun people of Afghanistan still lived by, forbade it. These customs were all but forgotten in the city, and Zalmay was amazed that, even this close to the great highway, people still kept to it.

  They left their things in the room and went outside. The village seemed to be abuzz with activity as pots, sacks of grain, logs and slabs of meat were carried to and fro. The coming of visitors seemed to be shaping up to be a celebration—more of a pretext than a real reason, Zalmay thought.

  As Zalmay’s spirits began to rise from the festive mood, he saw an old man with a wild, bushy beard walk out into the square. Mirzal said to Zalmay and Faqeer jovially, “That’s Malang, our muezzin. He does the daily calls to prayer.” He said the word muezzin mockingly, as if Malang had as much claim to the title as he had to call himself President of the United States. In a harsh, croaky voice, Malang began to chant the evening adhan, the Islamic prayer called out five times a day for all within earshot: “There is no deity but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” The inhabitants stopped what they were doing and shuffled slowly to get their prayer mats.

  Once the villagers and their guests were done with their prayers, preparations for the celebration continued. “Tonight, we feast!” Mirzal explained with relish and anticipation. “We have many guests this evening, so Patasa is butchering a lamb. We will roast it here and have a banquet.”

  Faqeer smiled contentedly.

  Zalmay made a show of appreciation, but his own apprehension would not allow him to enjoy the festivities.

  Time passed. By the time it was dark, the fire was blazing high. The villagers and guests had gathered around for light and warmth, when he heard a rubab, the stringed national instrument of Afghanistan, which had become somewhat rare after confiscations during the post-Soviet and Taliban government music ban of the 1990s. Its three-string twang of hypnotic rhythms was joined by the percussive beat of a tabla and dohol. Dozens of voices joined in, enchanting the night with epic narrative songs about heroes and heroines, brave death, and struggles between men over land, women, and status.

  All that was missing were the belly dancers for an evening of klasik, history sung as folk music. The villagers sang of love, of war, of cruelty, and the national identity of a people who had never once been defeated, not by the Mongols, not by the Soviets, not by anyone, ever.

  Meanwhile, the lamb was cooking over a pit, and they were served plain, slightly undercooked white rice in a clay bowl. It wasn’t much, but to Zalmay, who hadn’t eaten all day, it was a feast.

  Despite the merry mood, Malang, the muezzin, was skulking around and scowling at them. “Malang does not approve of our mirth,” said Mirzal, when Zalmay asked him about it. “He fancies himself a mullah. Thinks he is the keeper of propriety. But we in the village don’t have patience for his preaching.”

  The lamb was carved and the meat distributed to the guests first, as Pashtun hospitality demanded. Zalmay, for the first time since leaving his apartment, felt relaxed, and he allowed the joy of the moment to enter his heart.

  And then he saw the h
eadlights. They were coming fast toward them. Others saw them, too, and the music trailed off. The vehicles stopped at the edge of the village. By the light of the fire, Zalmay could make out two pickup trucks, with men in the truck beds. A group of them jumped to the ground, and as they came into the light, Zalmay saw that they wore turbans and had dark, scraggly beards. Each cradled an AK-47. He didn’t have to see Malang’s manic glee to know that the village had just been overrun with Taliban insurgents.

  CHAPTER 6

  One of the insurgents raised his Kalashnikov into the air and fired. The villagers recoiled in fear.

  “We are fighters for God, and we demand hospitality in your fine village,” he said. “We will need beds and food for all my men.”

  Zalmay tried to remain calm. He had nothing incriminating on him, and the memory card was safely tucked away back in the truck. He had a well-rehearsed story about why he was on the road, and he did not look like a Tajik farmer, whom the Taliban, who were almost exclusively of the rival Pashtun ethnicity, would undoubtedly target first. As long as he stayed quiet, he told himself, he would live through this.

  “You will stop your sinful music now, and the women will cover up appropriately,” said the leader.

  Malang, looking positively triumphant, came forward to greet the man.

  “Welcome, talib,” he said. The word was the proper singular of Taliban, and meant student. Malang continued, “We honor your presence in our simple village.”

  Everyone else was too terrified to move, but a few were suppressing looks of indignation. Zalmay looked at Faqeer, who was standing across the square and whose fury was barely checked. He was fuming, and his eyes were wide with mad hatred.

  “We claim all the vehicles in this village, along with anything else that might aid us in our fight against the invader.”

  Don’t do anything stupid, Zalmay urged Faqeer in his mind. Please. The leader, who had been ambling as he spoke, now stood in front of Faqeer and apparently saw the expression on his face.

  “Do you have something to say?” the talib demanded.

  Faqeer did not answer but managed to restrain his emotion; his face became blank and accepting. The talib seemed satisfied that he had cowed Faqeer into submission, and he turned away. But it was a mistake: as soon as his back was turned, Faqeer pulled out a short revolver and shot the man twice in the torso.

  Everyone watched in complete silence as the dead man fell to the ground. Faqeer panted, with wide-open, crazy eyes. And then, almost immediately, there was a burst from the AK-47 of a nearby insurgent. Faqeer crumpled to the ground, his final expression of wild anger frozen on his face. One of the villagers, a wizened old woman who had been in the line of fire, fell down as well. She began to wail pitifully. All the villagers and their guests gasped and recoiled, except for Gorbat, who ran to succor her. The assailants raised their weapons to make very clear what would happen if anyone decided to pull a similar stunt.

  “Throw him into the fire,” said one of the Taliban with practiced authority, pointing at Faqeer’s body.

  Zalmay was shocked. Cremating a body was forbidden, a grievous sin. His heart burned with rage against these thugs. He knew that this was equally intolerable to the villagers—even more so, since their honor would compel them to protect their guests. But they did not move; instead, he saw, their heads hung in shame. Zalmay remembered the bullet holes on the sides of the houses. This village had seen their share of misfortune, and war, apparently, had broken their will.

  As his underlings moved to carry out the order, this new leader pulled Malang aside and conferred with him. Malang spoke and then pointed directly at Zalmay. So much for not attracting too much attention to myself, he thought. The man walked toward him, and Zalmay spoke a quick prayer under his breath.

  The man stood in front of him, commanding, “On your knees!”

  Zalmay complied, trying to hold steady while clinging to whatever desperate hope he could find.

  “You were with the pig that shot our brother?”

  Zalmay tried to speak but was frozen, the barrel of the man’s Kalashnikov inches from his face.

  “Speak!”

  Zalmay couldn’t. Another man said, “Shoot him!”

  The man raised his rifle and prepared to fire. Zalmay shut his eyes and braced for the bullet, the end of everything. But it never came. Instead, Zalmay heard shouting.

  He opened his eyes and saw that Mirzal had stepped forward defiantly, preventing anyone from moving Faqeer’s body. Despite his shortness, Mirzal’s silhouette against the bonfire seemed tall and proud. One of the thugs yelled for him to step back, but that just prompted Gorbat to step up to stand beside him.

  Emboldened, the villagers came forward to stand with them, one by one. The insurgents shouted, “Back! Back!” But the villagers moved forward instead, edging the armed men back toward their trucks.

  The man who had his rifle on Zalmay turned to deal with this new situation. The armed men were shouting and motioning for the villagers to step back, but they would not. They continued to advance.

  Zalmay realized that all the thugs were distracted. If he took off at a sprint, he could probably make it far enough into the darkness to get away from the armed men and then run back to the highway. All he had to do was dash out of there.

  Instead, he stood up and walked to stand by his hosts, facing the men with guns. Zalmay saw that most of the men seemed uncomfortable, unwilling to actually open fire. All but the man who had almost killed him, the one who seemed to be in charge. His cruel face seemed murderous in the flickering firelight.

  “Swine!” he said. “Step back, or you die!”

  Zalmay knew this was not an empty threat, and so did everyone else. But nobody faltered, nobody stopped. Whatever they were grasping on to, whether it was their honor and hospitality or just being tired of the thuggery of the Taliban, the people of this village were willing to die that night. And Zalmay was prepared to die with them.

  At least he would die on his feet. He braced himself, ready for it this time. The cruel man raised his rifle, and the others followed suit. All he had to do was give the order, and then—

  There was a pop! of a gun from the darkness beyond, and the insurgent’s head erupted, splattering red onto Zalmay’s face. The man fell to the dust. Almost immediately, there were three more reports, and three more Taliban collapsed. The rest, realizing what was happening, turned around and started shooting wildly into the darkness. The villagers dropped to the ground to avoid incoming gunfire. The thugs, shooting ineffectually into the darkness, continued to drop. They tried to run, but bullets caught up to every one; soon, they all had dropped like flies.

  That’s when Zalmay noticed that the square was surrounded by men in desert camouflage, wielding M-16s and shouting at everyone in broken Pashto, “Stay down! Stay down!”

  Americans.

  They had been saved by the Americans.

  CHAPTER 7

  Less than three hours after they left the Morgan home, Plante was ushering Dan Morgan into the CIA’s New Headquarters Building. Called the George Bush Center for Intelligence, it had been added to the original building in the nineties. It was a complex of steel and glass that always made Morgan think of a shopping mall, with its flower gardens, arched entrance, and blue glass. It brought to mind the last time he had seen Plante, when he had come down to tender his resignation as an operative (even if, officially, of course, he had never worked for the CIA).

  Plante had been Morgan’s handler and usually his only contact in the CIA, summoning him whenever he was needed. Plante had accepted his resignation without much protest. He gave Morgan no grief, other than reminding him that the confidentiality agreements he had signed at the beginning of his service still held. Then Plante wished him well in his new life, and that was, Morgan thought, the end of it.

  But then, in the coming weeks, Morgan began to notice things. Things like an unfamiliar car parked near his house. Or odd phone calls in the middle of th
e night, when there was nothing but a ominous silence on the other end. Or, even, strangers in public places who bumped into him deliberately and whispered menacingly, “We’re watching you.”

  Morgan tried to call Plante, to get them to stop, but all he got was the bureaucratic runaround. His calls were never transferred to Plante, and he was reduced to yelling at powerless underlings. The harassment eventually stopped, but it had left a lot of bad blood between himself and the Agency. Since then, he had all but completely cut ties with Plante and everyone else in the CIA’s hierarchy.

  There was one exception to that silence. Morgan had left certain items in a personal locker at headquarters during his days as a wet contractor in Black Ops, items he wanted to get back. He didn’t return for them right after his resignation, partly out of pride but mostly out of fear of calling attention to the locker’s contents: incriminating records and documents that he should have destroyed long ago, and some that never should have existed at all. Among them was a diary of everything he had ever done in the service of the CIA, with dates and detailed accounts of his every Black Ops mission: a little black book filled with the Agency’s dirty little secrets. He had thought of it as his insurance policy, in case things ever got really bad. The situation soured before he could collect them, and so there they had remained.

  Years had passed by the time he decided to retrieve the stash in his locker. He had called the National Clandestine Service—formerly known as the Directorate of Operations—to find that Plante was still there. He scheduled an appointment, but they never met. When he arrived, Morgan had been told that Plante was in a meeting. He was left waiting until some desk flunky told him there was no record of any Code Name Cobra ever working at the CIA. He had lost his temper, made a scene, and burned his bridges with the Agency. As far as he was concerned, at the time, he was done, for good.