Private Wars

until 8 August 1998, when the taleban finally succeeded in sacking the city. By many accounts they came into town shooting anything that moved, including women and children, before deciding on a more systematic approach. They targeted the male members of the various ethnic groups that had lived in the city, specifically pursuing the ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara. The Hazara saw the worst of this persecution—they were a Persian-speaking Shi’a sect, and thus anathema to the taleban regime. When all was said and done, at least 2,000 people had been murdered.

Compounding this infamy came another incident, this time at the Jala-i-Qanghi prison on 25 November 2001, where taleban and al-Qaeda fighters were being held by members of the Northern Alliance. What has been alternatively described as both an uprising or a riot broke out, and the prisoners engaged in a pitched battle with their captors, one that lasted several days until U.S. and U.K. Special Forces arrived on scene and brought with them air strikes that resulted in the deaths of over four hundred. Among the Northern Alliance forces had been two CIA officers. One of them, Johnny Michael Spann, was killed in the riot.

Chace remembered that fact especially, because it was the first time that the CIA had disclosed to the media the death in the line of duty of one of its officers. There was still some question as to whether the Company had actually wanted that information disclosed, or if it was released as the result of an overzealous White House Press Secretary. Spann became a martyr, the first American casualty of the War in Afghanistan. Apparently, there was now a memorial marker at the site of the prison, commending his soul to God.

These were the things Chace knew about Mazar-i-Sharif, the things she remembered about the city as she stepped off the RAF Tristar transport and onto the airport tarmac. The sun was already up, as was the temperature, yesterday’s heat rising from the concrete beneath her feet. She heard Lankford cursing softly behind her as he fumbled for his sunglasses.

Mazar-i-Sharif, Chace thought. An appropriate place to come for a murder.

She’d traveled in the Islamic world enough to dress for it, with long sleeves and long pants, and a tan ball cap she could tuck her hair into to preserve her modesty. There were places where it wouldn’t have been enough, and God knew that before the taleban had gone, Afghanistan had been one of them.

Just before 9/11, there’d been a job to come up in the south, in Kabul. Operation: Morningstar, and Crocker had refused to send Chace, dispatching instead Wallace and Kittering. Chace had been bitter about it at the time, but Crocker had been right; she’d have been useless on the ground then, a woman surrounded by the taleban.

It struck her as vaguely ironic that here she was now, herself Minder One as Wallace had been then, with Lankford, Minder Three as Kittering was at the time. Even the operation names—Morningstar and Sundown— seemed to parallel one another. She wondered if there was a significance in that, some subtle computer error back at Vauxhall Cross that needed to tie stellar phenomena and time of day with the word “Afghanistan.”

With Lankford beside her, Chace fell in with the cluster of personnel moving off the airfield, toward the collection of prefab buildings and huts assembled in support of the military’s operations. Mission Planning had arranged cover for them as a BBC team, with the MOD in on it, of course, just to make their entry into the country that much easier. They went through without a hitch, the RAF Staff Sergeant who reviewed their papers finding them both appropriately permissioned and permitted.

“First time to Mazar-i?” he asked as he handed Chace’s passport back.

“Yes, it is.”

“You’ve arranged for a guide?”

She looked accusingly at Lankford, who said, with convincing defensiveness, “I tried, I did, but everyone I contacted fell through on us.”

Chace snorted, looked back to the sergeant, leaning forward slightly over his desk. “Do you think you could recommend someone? Or someplace to hire someone, perhaps?”

She watched the man struggle, trying to decide if he would focus on her chest or her face. Her chest won.

“If you’ll wait a moment, miss, I’ll see what I can do.” He raised his gaze, earnest and helpful.

Chace gave him her friendliest smile. “I’d be very grateful.”

The sergeant mumbled something unintelligible, then rose from his desk and headed around the corner, calling for one of the other soldiers. Chace glanced to Lankford, saw that he was looking at her, grinning.

“Wish that trick would work for me,” he said.

“Try a tighter shirt,” Chace suggested.

An hour and twenty minutes later they had not only a guide but a guide with a car, or more precisely, a taxi and its driver. They negotiated a fee of sixty pounds per day with a long-faced Pathan named Faqir, whose English was weak but “improving,” and whose French was not quite as good. The first thing Faqir did was drive them to his home, to meet his family, and offer them dinner. There were seven, including Faqir, living beneath one roof in a modest but well-kept new house. As Chace stepped out of her boots, she found herself wondering how much of a windfall the British troops in the region had been for Faqir.

They accepted the hospitality offered them graciously, mindful of where they were and of the customs of the land, sitting around a low table with Faqir’s wife, his younger brother, his father, and his three children, two boys and a girl. Chace let Lankford do most of the talking, remaining modestly silent, and from Faqir they got what was, without a doubt, a better briefing on the lay of the land than they had received in the Ops Room. She used the camera in her photo bag to take pictures, with permission first, of course, trying to get used to carrying the thing and using the bag. In it she had several rolls of film, as well as a loaded Walther P99 with two spare magazines.

The conversation was lively, Faqir and his brother, Karim, doing most of the talking. Faqir’s eldest son was missing his left arm below the elbow, replaced with a prosthesis that didn’t quite fit. Faqir explained that the boy had lost the arm during the Northern Alliance assault on the city post-9/11. The prosthesis had been courtesy of the British, though clearly the boy needed a new one.

Lankford used English and French alternately to eke out more and more information, little by little, until finally, as the meal was finished, he slid up to the name Ahmad Mohammad Kostum and gave it a nudge into the open.

“Have you heard of him? An Agence France Presse team spoke with him a month or so ago, and said he was quite friendly.”

Faqir and Karim exchanged hasty words.

“I know this man,” Faqir told Lankford. “But he is not . . . not . . . tres amiable? Yes?”

“Perhaps it was someone else, then. The one we’re looking for, he’s not Pathan, but Uzbek.”

“No, that is Kostum.”

“We’re hoping to interview him.”

Faqir ran his fingers through his beard, pulling at it, apparently deep in thought. “Kostum is south, Samangan. Up in the mountain, Kargana, I think. Far away. Very dangerous to travel there.”

“Hmm,” Chace said. “Perhaps we should hire some guards?”

Faqir looked at her and smiled, putting an arm around Karim’s shoulder. “My brother would make excellent guard.”

“When can we leave?” Lankford asked.

“Oh, tomorrow, in’shallah,” Faqir replied almost absently. “Tomorrow, yes. You can stay here, dormez. Tonight. Please stay with us here.”

The table was cleared, leaving Chace and Lankford alone. Outside, they heard a muezzin call from one of the nearby mosques for the last prayers of the day.

“What do you reckon?” Lankford asked her.