Before driving up to North Waziristan, Moore stopped off at Forward Operating Base Chapman, one of the CIA’s key facilities in Afghanistan, located near the eastern city of Khost. Chapman was the site of the infamous suicide attack that, on December 30, 2009, killed seven CIA operatives, including the chief of the base. The Agency’s primary mission at that time was to gather HUMINT for drone attacks against targets located within the tribal lands, and those attacks had incited retaliation from the Taliban operating across the border. The attack was one of the most lethal ever carried out against the CIA. Moore knew three of the dead men and had spoken on the phone with all the others. He’d walked around in a daze for about a week afterward. It was, for everyone, a devastating loss.
Rahmani’s body — or what was left of it — had been transferred there, and while the torso had been shredded by the bombs, his face had remained somewhat intact. Moore was probably imagining it, but it almost seemed that he’d died with a sardonic grin on his face.
Moore arrived in Miran Shah in the late afternoon. The dust and squalor and antiquated influences of Western culture struck him once more. This time, however, without Rana as his driver, he was aggressively stopped by four guards, members of the Army who were pleased to show him the business ends of their AK-47s. Frowning, one of them shouldered his weapon and shook his finger at Moore. “I remember you.”
“I remember you, too,” Moore lied. “I’m heading up to see Wazir.”
The guards looked strangely at one another, and then the one who remembered Moore said, “ID, please.”
Moore waited while the man inspected the document.
“Okay,” he said, returning the ID. “Where is your young friend?”
Moore averted his gaze. No reason to lie now. “He died.”
“Sorry.”
The guards lowered their rifles, and he was waved on. Moore followed the dirt road, remembering the turn to the right and the ascent through the foothills. He pulled up near the two brick homes with satellite dishes on their roofs and the collection of tents rising behind them. The goats and cows were shifting in their pens behind, and in the valley below were dozens of farmers working the fields. He had never smelled air so clean.
An old man came out, leaving the door open behind him, and Moore did a double take. This man wore black robes and a matching vest, but his beard was much shorter than Wazir’s. Two more men appeared — soldiers with rifles pointed at Moore. He shut down the engine and stepped out.
“Who are you?” asked the old man.
“My name is Khattak. I’ve come to see Wazir.”
“Wazir?” The old man faced his guards, then gestured for them to return to the house.
“Is something wrong?” Moore asked.
The old man made a face. “I’ll take you to see him.” He started around the house and past the tents, working his way along the animal pens and through a serpentine path toward the hillside beyond. Moore followed in silence.
“So, you are a friend?” the old man finally asked as they mounted the hill.
“Yes. And you?”
“Oh, yes. Wazir and I fought the Soviets together.”
Moore took a deep breath and hoped against fate that his suspicions weren’t true. “What is your name?”
“Abdullah Yusuff Rana.”
Moore stopped walking and turned back toward the valley. This was Rana’s grandfather and the reason why young Rana had known Wazir all of his life. Moore wanted very badly to tell the old man that he knew his grandson, that the boy had worked bravely for him, given his life for what he believed in, and that Moore owed him everything.
“Do you see something?” the old man asked.
Moore shook his head. “Just beautiful up here.”
The older Rana shrugged and led him farther up the hill, where near the top lay a deep crater with pulverized stone lying in curious lines and fanning out in all directions. Off to the left was a rectangular mound lying in the shade of three tall trees. A grave.
Rana pointed. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
Moore tried to breathe. Tried. “What happened?”
“I thought you knew.”
Moore shook his head vigorously.
Rana looked to the sky. “Wazir liked to come up here to read and meditate. The drone flew over and dropped the bomb on him. As far as we are concerned, he was a martyr, buried in the clothes he died in, lying on his side and facing Mecca, and it was Allah’s will that he died in his most favorite place.” Rana closed his eyes and added in Arabic,
“I will leave you alone,” said Rana, heading back the way they’d come.
Moore stepped over to the grave site. He’d been planning to take Wazir up on his offer:
Moore rubbed the corners of his eyes, then started back down the hillside. The breeze caught his hair, and he thought he could hear the old man’s voice in his ear, but it was only the rustle of leaves.
Samad and the rest of those evil bastards would escape because of big bureaucracies and impatience and actionable intelligence that excused murder. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
When he reached the front of the house, Rana was waiting for him and said, “Please stay for the evening meal.”
It would be rude for Moore to decline, but he was too depressed to do much more than leave.
A tug came at his sleeve. It was the boy who’d helped Wazir serve them stew. He was Wazir’s great- grandson, Moore remembered, maybe eight or nine years old. Between his thumb and forefinger was a slip of yellow lined paper folded in half. “My great-grandfather said if you came when he wasn’t home, I should give this to you.”
44 COLD-TRAILING
The entire world’s intelligence and law enforcement assets were hunting for Samad and his men, and Moore had been handed an address on a slip of paper that could very well be the most significant clue anyone had.
However, that information gave him pause.
If he turned it over to the Agency, and they in turn released that intel to all agencies worldwide, the hyper- alert Samad with contacts everywhere would vanish before they ever arrived.
So with the paper tucked tightly into his pocket, Moore had come to the old safe house. It was a bittersweet return. He reflected on the many conversations he’d had with Rana as they’d sat on the balcony among the Margallah Hills, the lights of Islamabad flickering in the distance. He could almost hear the kid’s voice:
And he was, while he waited impatiently for all the connections of the video conference he’d set up for
