At one point the driver stopped the Rover and shut off the headlights. They sat in silence for a full five minutes to let their night vision come back, and then started off again. Now the track rose so steeply in places that the driver had to switch into the low range of four-wheel drive, and even then the going was nearly impossible at times.
For a couple of thousand yards they followed what was probably a donkey path, very slowly, a fifty-degree slope rising on their right, and a shear cliff that dropped three hundred feet down into the river on their left. They could hear the low-throated roar and feel the tremendous power of the water rushing through the narrow gorge below, and even the mujahedeen seemed respectful of this place.
Gradually the walls of the steep cut began to widen, until they came dramatically out to a long, rising valley, the end of which rose suddenly toward a pair of snowcapped mountains that were probably still twenty-five or thirty miles away. The hills on either side of the valley were covered with brush and small trees in dark irregular patterns like long waves on a barren sea.
The path ended, finally, and the driver had to pick his way to the northwest toward a cut at the base of the valley, negotiating around the larger boulders, but driving over everything else with back-jarring bumps. It seemed as if they were at the top of the world here in this valley, even though the mountains rose far above them. The scale was impossible to accept.
A half hour later they crossed a wide, shallow stream, and turned north again, following its twists and turns, and finally after a long loop that ran with the contours of the hills, they came to the bombed-out ruins of a small village. Only a few mud and stone walls were left intact. Shattered bricks, splintered wooden poles and trees and glass and pottery shards littered the entire settlement. Even before the bombing — probably by the Russians if this had been a mujahedeen stronghold, McGarvey thought — this place had to have been a very mean spot in which to subsist. And yet as they came from the south he could see that the river went directly through the middle of the town where patios had been constructed, villagers could sit in the mornings with their tea, or in the late afternoons for their prayers beside the flowing water. He also picked out the remnants of several small fields of corn mostly gone to seed now, and perhaps a half-acre of grapevines in what was once a well-tended vineyard. There’d probably been goats and chickens and all the other basic necessities of a simple Muslim life. Laughing children playing in the dusty streets, old men talking Islam in the chaikhanas, tea houses, while then-veiled women went about their chores floating through the village like ghostly figures; seen but not seen except behind the walls of their homes.
They parked on the far side of the village in the ruins of a barn. The driver shut off the engine, got out and walked back about twenty yards to a clearing where he studied the sky to their south for a minute or so. When he came back he pulled off his balaclava and stuffed it in a pocket. He was just a kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with a thin mustache, scraggly beard and wide, dark eyes beneath finely drawn eyebrows.
He said something in Persian.
“In English, Farid,” the slightly built mujahed said. “For our guest.”
He took off his balaclava, and McGarvey saw that he had guessed correctly back at the checkpoint. The mujahed was a young woman, not a man, with fine features, high, delicate cheekbones, a clear complexion, full, rich lips and dark, almond-shaped eyes that were alive with simple amusement.
“The sky is clear. No one follows.” Farid’s accent was very strong.
“We have only two hours to make our first camp,” the woman said. “We’ll have to hurry.” Her voice was soft and cultured, she’d been educated in England or perhaps Europe, or at the very least tutored by someone very good. She turned and looked back at McGarvey. “You knew when we stopped at the airport, didn’t you?”
“I wasn’t sure,” McGarvey said. “It had to be very dangerous for you to come into Kabul, and then to talk to that officer.”
She shrugged matter-of-factly. “My father expects it of me. He’s a religious man, Mr. McGarvey, but he is a Saudi, and modern.”
“Are you Osama bin Laden’s daughter?”
“I am Sarah, his oldest child.”
The CIA had little or nothing of any substance about bin Laden’s family. He knew nothing about her.
Mohammed, who had taken off his balaclava to reveal a heavily pockmarked face under a thick salt-and- pepper beard, was angry. He scowled, and then said something in Persian to Sarah. He wasn’t as young as McGarvey thought he was from his voice. Sarah shot back a reply, her left eyebrow rising. He mumbled something else under his breath, and then climbed out of the car and stalked off.
“Not everyone has come to an equal understanding. But we can hope, Insha “Allah,” she said regretfully. She opened the door, then reached across to roll up the driver’s window, grab the keys and hit the door locks. “We have a long distance to travel before dawn, so we must leave now.”
Farid and the other mujahed, who looked almost as young, pulled camo netting over the Rover making it practically invisible from the air even during the day. Sarah walked over to where Mohammed was waiting, his Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, and she said something to him. It was obviously a conciliatory gesture. He towered menacingly over her, and for a brief moment McGarvey thought he was going to strike her down. But then he looked away insolently. She reached out and touched his arm, and he stepped back as if he was getting ready to strike again. His hand reached for the pistol in his tunic, but Sarah stood her ground, and after several seconds he withdrew his hand.
She came back, pulling a round felt cap on her head, and stuffing stray strands of black hair inside it. She got her rifle from the other mujahed, named Hash, slung it over her shoulder, then came over to where McGarvey was standing just outside the barn.
She studied his face as if trying to read something from his expression. Her own expression was one of concern and weariness, as if she was tired of the struggle. And yet he could see clearly stamped on her face a fierce determination and pride.
“Have you come here to assassinate my father, Mr. McGarvey?” she asked directly, without guile.
McGarvey shook his head. “Just to talk,” he said. He was already beginning to admire the young woman.
“About what?”
“We want the killing to stop.”
She nodded her understanding. “Then I think that you must have a great deal to say.”
“I do. But am I going to be wasting my time?”
She thought about that, and took a moment to formulate her answer. She was being very serious. “My father is not the monster you in the West think he is. But he is a very hard man, as the Russians found out.” She smiled wistfully. “He too wants peace, but an honorable peace.”
“Will he listen to me?”
“Listen to an infidel?” she asked rhetorically. Then she cocked her head and pursed her lips. “Do you believe that the prophet Isa was God? You call him Jesus.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about religion.”
“Then your task will be doubly hard. For us, Islam is life.”
“I understand.”
Sarah gave him an odd, thoughtful look. “I don’t know if you can. But I hope so.”
McGarvey motioned toward Mohammed who had hunkered down and was looking out across the valley toward the mountains as he smoked a cigarette. “What about him?”
Sarah followed his gaze. “He is an Afghani, and maybe he is already too old to change. I think he is a spy for the Taliban.”
The admission of a weakness in bin Laden’s armor was extraordinary, and McGarvey wondered if she had told him that to get some kind of a reaction, or merely because she was young and naive. He didn’t think she could be much older than eighteen or twenty.
“Why not send him away?” McGarvey asked.
This time Sarah laughed out loud, the sound soft and throaty. “Better to have a spy you know in your midst, than one you don’t watching you from a distance.”
Farid and Hash had taken four bundles from the back of the Rover. They put McGarvey’s bag and laptop into one of them, and the mujahedeen, including Sarah, shouldered the heavy loads.
“I can carry some of that,” McGarvey said.
