Lie Down with Lions (1985)

is: who will be the Big Chief?”

“That’s easy. The most promising of the guerrilla leaders, by far, is Ahmed Shah Masud, in the Panisher Valley.”

The Five Lions Valley. What are you up to, you slimy bastard? Ellis studied Winderman’s smooth-shaven face. The man was imperturbable. Ellis asked: “What makes Masud so special?”

“Most of the rebel leaders are content to control their tribes, collect taxes and deny the government access to their territory. Masud does more than that. He comes out of his mountain stronghold and attacks. He’s within striking distance of three strategic targets: the capital city, Kabul; the Salang tunnel, on the only highway from Kabul to the Soviet Union; and Bagram, the principal military air base. He’s in a position to inflict major damage, and he does. He has studied the art of guerrilla warfare. He’s read Mao. He’s easily the best military brain in the country. And he has finance. Emeralds are mined in his valley and sold in Pakistan: Masud takes a ten percent tax on all sales and uses the money to fund his army. He’s twenty-eight years old, and charismatic—the people worship him. Finally, he’s a Tajik. The largest group is the Pushtuns, and all the others hate them, so the leader can’t be a Pushtun. Tajiks are the next biggest nation. There’s a chance they might unite under a Tajik.”

“And we want to facilitate this?”

“That’s right. The stronger the rebels are, the more damage they do to the Russians. Furthermore, a triumph for the U.S. intelligence community would be very useful this year.”

It was of no consequence to Winderman and his kind that the Afghans were fighting for their freedom against a brutal invader, Ellis thought. Morality was out of fashion in Washington: the power game was all that mattered. If Winderman had been born in Leningrad instead of Los Angeles, he would have been just as happy, just as successful and just as powerful, and he would have used just the same tactics fighting for the other side. “What do you want from me?” Ellis asked him.

“I want to pick your brain. Is there any way an undercover agent could promote an alliance between the different Afghan tribes?”

“I expect so,” said Ellis. The food came, interrupting him and giving him a few moments to think. When the waiter had gone away, he said: “It should be possible, provided there is something they want from us—and I imagine that would be weapons.”

“Right.” Winderman started to eat, hesitantly, like a man who has an ulcer. Between small mouthfuls he said: “At the moment they buy their weapons across the border in Pakistan. All they can get there is copies of Victorian British rifles—or, if not copies, the genuine damned article, a hundred years old and still firing. They also steal Kalashnikovs from dead Russian soldiers. But they’re desperate for small artillery—antiaircraft guns and hand- launched ground-to-air missiles—so they can shoot down planes and helicopters.”

“Are we willing to give them these weapons?”

“Yes. Not directly—we would want to conceal our involvement by sending them through intermediaries. But that’s no problem. We could use the Saudis.”

“Okay.” Ellis swallowed some lobster. It was good. “Let me say what I think is the first step. In each guerrilla group you need a nucleus of men who know, understand and trust Masud. That nucleus then becomes the liaison group for communications with Masud. They build their role gradually: exchange of information first, then mutual cooperation, and finally coordinated battle plans.”

“Sounds good,” said Winderman. “How might that be set up?”

“I’d have Masud run a training scheme in the Five Lions Valley. Each rebel group would send a few young men to fight alongside Masud for a while and learn the methods that make him so successful. They would also learn to respect him and trust him, if he is as good a leader as you say.”

Winderman nodded thoughtfully. “That’s the kind of proposal that might be acceptable to tribal leaders who would reject any plan that committed them to take orders from Masud.”

“Is there one rival leader in particular whose cooperation is essential to any alliance?”

“Yes. In fact there are two: Jahan Kamil and Amal Azizi, both Pushtuns.”

“Then I would send in an undercover agent with the objective of getting the two of them around a table with Masud. When he came back with all three signatures on a piece of paper, we would send the first load of rocket launchers. Further consignments would depend on how well the training program was going.”

Winderman put down his fork and lit a cigarette. He definitely has an ulcer, Ellis thought. Winderman said: “This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind.” Ellis could see he was already figuring out how to take the credit for the idea. By tomorrow he would be saying We cooked up a scheme over lunch and his written report would read Covert action specialists assessed my scheme as viable. “What’s the downside risk?”

Ellis considered. “If the Russians caught the agent, they could get considerable propaganda value out of the whole thing. At the moment they have what the White House would call ‘an image problem’ in Afghanistan. Their allies in the Third World don’t enjoy watching them overrun a small primitive country. Their Muslim friends, in particular, tend to sympathize with the rebels. Now, the Russians’ line is that the so-called rebels are just bandits, financed and armed by the CIA. They would just love to be able to prove it by catching a real live CIA spook right there in the country and putting him on trial. In terms of global politics, I imagine that could do us a lot of damage.”

“What are the chances that the Russians would catch our man?”

“Slender. If they can’t catch Masud, why would they be able to catch an undercover agent sent to meet Masud?”

“Good.” Winderman stubbed out his cigarette. “I want you to be that agent.”

Ellis was taken by surprise. He should have seen this coming, he realized, but he had been engrossed in the problem. “I don’t do that stuff anymore,” he said, but his voice sounded thick and he could not help thinking: I would see Jane. I would see Jane!

“I talked to your boss on the phone,” Winderman said. “His opinion was that an assignment in Afghanistan might tempt you back into fieldwork.”

So it was a setup. The White House wanted to achieve something dramatic in Afghanistan, so they asked the CIA to lend them an agent. The CIA wanted Ellis to work in the field again, so they told the White House to offer him this assignment, knowing or suspecting that the prospect of meeting up with Jane again was almost irresistible.

Ellis hated to be manipulated.

But he wanted to go to the Five Lions Valley.

There had been a long silence. Winderman said impatiently: “Will you do it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Ellis replied.

Ellis’s father belched quietly, begged pardon and said: “That was good.”

Ellis pushed away his dish of cherry pie and whipped cream. He was having to watch his weight for the first time in his life. “Real good, Mom, but I can’t eat any more,” he said apologetically.

“Nobody eats like they used to,” she said. She stood up and began clearing away. “It’s because they go everywhere in cars.”

His father pushed back his chair. “I’ve got some figures to look over.”

“You still don’t have an accountant?” Ellis said.

“Nobody takes care of your money as well as you do,” his father said. “You’ll find that out if you ever make any.” He left the room, heading for his den.

Ellis helped his mother clear away. The family had moved into this four-bedroom house in Teaneck, New Jersey, when Ellis was thirteen, but he could remember the move as if it were yesterday. It had been anticipated literally for years. His father had built the house, on his own at first, later using employees of his growing construction business, but always doing the work in slack periods and leaving it when business was good. When they moved in, it was not really finished: the heating did not work, there were no cupboards in the kitchen and nothing had been painted. They got hot water the following day only because Mom threatened divorce otherwise. But it got finished eventually, and Ellis and his brothers and sisters all had room to grow up in it. It was bigger than