“You should take some candids.”
“Funny,” Exley said.
“Where is your better half, by the way?”
“He was up late riding. As you know.”
“Someone needs to steal that bike.” Shafer closed the laptop. “How is our problem child?”
“Please don’t call him that.” Shafer was infuriating, but she trusted him more than anyone else at the agency, including Wells. She sat beside the window, which was coated with a layer of Teflon that damped the vibrations of the glass, making eavesdropping from outside impossible.
“It’s easier for me,” she said. “I still have David and Jess to take care of. I have my friends. He doesn’t have friends, Ellis. The people he knows die at an unusually high rate.”
“He ought to stop killing them.” Shafer vigorously rubbed his nose. She looked away in case he decided to poke a pinky inside, as she’d caught him doing over the years. “He could write a book. A memoir. At least it would give him something to do.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “A memoir? ‘How I got shot saving the world.’ By John Wells. Then he could go on
“Good. Let him quit, then. He wants to be someplace nobody cares who he is, let him run an orphanage in Africa. You too. The agency’ll make sure you never have to worry about money. Duto will write the check himself just to be rid of you.”
She had considered something similar herself. And yet she couldn’t imagine it working, not now. “I don’t think he’s ready for that.” She paused, trying to find the words. “Ellis, nobody else in the world could have stopped Khadri.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I do. And you do too. Without him Manhattan would be a toxic waste dump. Nobody’s paying for your college yearbook. Or mine.”
“I wish you were my girlfriend,” Shafer said. “You’re good for the ego. Saving a few kids in Africa would be a waste of his talents, you’re saying.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t agree.”
“I agree he’s earned the right to do what makes him happy. You too. If the two of you can figure out what on God’s green earth that might be.”
“It’s not just that. I think he has posttraumatic stress disorder. He doesn’t sleep. Sometimes he’s not there at all. I wake up in the morning, he’s on my laptop, playing solitaire, like he’s been there all night.”
“It would be the least surprising thing in the world if he had PTSD. Have you ever talked to him about what it was like over there?”
Exley felt her eyes well up. She turned away so Shafer couldn’t see. She’d failed. By failing to challenge Wells, she’d failed him. “He needs an op, Ellis. We need to get him an op.”
“Killing more guys isn’t gonna get him over PTSD.”
“It’ll get him off that damned bike. If he’s going to take these chances, let it be for a good cause.”
“You think what we do is for a good cause?”
“Please stop proving how smart you are, Ellis.” She was tired of this conversation. “There’s something else I wanted to ask you about. Unrelated. I think.” She walked out.
IN A FEW MINUTES she was back, carrying a sheaf of papers from her safe.
“After-action reports from Afghanistan, ours and the Army‘s, raw field files. The Pentagon didn’t want to send them, but I gave them my clearance and told them they didn’t have a choice.”
“Membership has its privileges,” Shafer said. Exley handed Shafer some papers. “This is a summary of reports from SF units”—Special Forces. “Basically, the Taliban tactics are steadily improving. Their body counts are down, ours are up.”
“So we took out the dumb ones.”
“It’s more than that. This report mentions ‘company-level coordination typically seen among professionally trained armies.’ And this one.” She opened another file. “‘Enemy command-and-control has improved…. A combination of suppressing fire and point-to-point movement not seen before.’ It’s all over the place.”
“Fine. The Talibs are learning how to fight. Good for them, bad for us. So?”
Exley pulled out another report. “Two months ago, in Kandahar”—the city in southern Afghanistan where the Taliban had been headquartered—“a Colonel Hamar in the Afghan army tells us that the Taliban are getting ‘professional training’—his words — from ‘foreign fighters.’”
“The only foreign fighters in Afghanistan are bin Laden’s boys. They’re hardly professionals. Unless you think blowing yourself to bits is a hallmark of professionalism.”
“Let me finish, Ellis. By the way, the good lieutenant colonel died shortly after passing this rumor along.”
“I’m going to guess it wasn’t natural causes.”
“Throat cut in half.”
“In Kandahar that’s practically natural.”
Exley passed Shafer a photograph of a blood-drenched corpse rolled up in a rug. “His body was left in front of the local police HQ.”
“I guess that’s what’s known as sending a message.”
“Anyway. So the Special Forces say the Talibs are fighting better. Kandahar reports foreign fighters. Then this from the Tenth Mountain Division.” She handed him another file.
“More foreign fighters?”
“In eastern Afghanistan near the Pak border.”
“Nowhere near Kandahar,” Shafer said.
“I looked for more reports from the Tenth Mountain, but there weren’t any. They just rotated in. So I checked back to the old reports from the 101st.” The 101st Airborne Division.
“More foreigners.”
“Gold star, Ellis. Two reports. But no one linked them to the new ones. You know once a division leaves, its intel goes with it. These were also in eastern Afghanistan.”
“Okay. I’ll play.” Shafer began to read again, not skimming this time. Exley waited. One of Shafer’s strengths was his willingness to reconsider his preconceptions when he got new evidence. She wished more people at the agency — and across the river in the White House — shared that trait.
Finally Shafer looked up. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying? The Taliban is getting outside help? Some foreign power is sending its own soldiers to give the Talibs tactical support?”
“I seem to remember we did something similar.” During the 1980s, America had aided Afghan guerrillas against the Soviet Army. Some of those same guerrillas had now turned against the United States.
“Supporting the Talibs would be an act of war against the United States. All of NATO too.”
“Proxy war.”
“Let’s say you’re right. Who’s doing it? The Russians would never help the Talibs. No matter how badly they wanted to hurt us. They haven’t forgotten they lost a hundred thousand soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.”
“Someone else, then.”
“Who? Nobody in NATO. They’re on our side. Iran and Pakistan would hardly count as foreign. North Korea? China? Anyone say anything about Asians?”
“No. The fighters are specifically identified as white. Mercenaries maybe?”
“Maybe. But it’s a seller’s market these days for mercenaries.”
Shafer was right, Exley knew. Former Special Forces soldiers could make $5,000 a week providing security in Iraq. South African and Russian soldiers made less, but even so they could take home $10,000 a month. They would want even more money to help the Taliban against the United States. Not for moral reasons either. Simply because of the risk.
“The Talibs couldn’t afford these guys,” Shafer said. “Who would pay them?”
“I think it’s time to find out.” She handed him the last report in her file. “Also from the Tenth Mountain Division. Two days ago. A fairly big camp in eastern Afghanistan, at least fifty Talibs. And several white fighters.”
