The Network - Jason Elliot [67]
‘God, you English are so darn polite.’ She laughs. ‘Course you can. I understand your time here is short. I booked you for the night so’s we can keep our appointment in Afghanistan. Time zone there is nine and a half hours ahead of us.’
‘We’re going to talk to someone who’s in Afghanistan?’
‘Better than that. But I hate to spoil a surprise.’ She clips an ID card to my jacket pocket. ‘When were you last in-country?’ I’m assuming by this she means Afghanistan, not America.
‘About four years ago.’
‘De-mining outfit, right?’
I nod.
‘Ever meet Massoud?’
‘Twice.’
‘Like him?’
‘I never thought he was a saint, but you can’t not admire him,’ I say.
‘Hell of a guy,’ she agrees. ‘Wish I could be there now. Kind of place that gets its claws into you. Ran four missions to our friend up north. Hell, I’m an honorary male Afghan.’
It’s hard to imagine. Massoud’s base of operations in the Panjshir valley and the northernmost province of Afghanistan called Badakhshan aren’t the easiest or safest places to travel. They’re the only portions of the country yet to fall to the Taliban, and are doggedly defended by Massoud and his dedicated soldiers. I travelled along the dirt roads of the region and through its spectacular mountain passes and valleys on de-mining surveys for the trust. Now Massoud’s ailing forces, squeezed between the Taliban’s inexorable advance from the south and the frontier of Tajikistan to the north, are fighting for survival. I’ve guessed that the CIA has sent advisers to the area to liaise with Massoud, the Taliban’s final opponent, but I never imagined that a woman was among them.
‘Choppered out of Tajikistan last year with a few of the boys on an Mi-8 that was damn near ready to fall apart. There was a few times I thought we were all fixin’ to eat dirt,’ she says, grinning at some recollection of peril, ‘but Massoud looked after us best he could. Didn’t seem to mind my being a woman.’
I ask if she thinks Massoud will survive the Taliban’s advance.
‘I don’t rightly want to think about it,’ she says. ‘He’s the last chance that darn country’s got. If the Taliban take the north and Massoud has to ride out on a rail, Afghanistan’s going to become one giant threat matrix that’s going to break everybody’s balls.’
‘Not yours, I take it,’ I say.
She laughs. ‘All depends. If the State Department keeps up its no-account fantasy of cosying up to the Taliban and we don’t get a result soon on Obi-Wan, then yes, mine too.’
Obi-Wan, I’m assuming, is her pet name for Osama bin Laden, a mild-mannered Saudi playboy turned anti-American jihadist. The Western world has hardly heard of him.
‘Had him in our sights a couple of times, but you have to promise me you’ll keep that dry. We even figured Massoud’s boys could do the job for us, but he’d take a whole heap of grief for it if anyone found out we’d sponsored it. Nobody in the Muslim world wants to be known for killing their very own Mahatma Gandhi.’
It’s not a comparison I would have thought of. But it’s true that bin Laden is beginning to be seen as a kind of hero in the Islamic world, and his message of defiance against American domination is catching on.
Our shared respect for Massoud has broken the ice between us, though there’s not much to break because she’s so refreshingly outspoken. I’m enjoying the contrast between talking to her and the tight-lipped Seethrough, who only shares information when he has to. We talk as the car heads along Dolley Madison Boulevard towards Maclean. Grace works for a secret unit within the already secret Counterterrorist Center, dedicated for the past couple of years to tracking and, if possible, capturing bin Laden and bringing him to trial for his role in the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. After having been hounded out of his native Saudi Arabia and then, under American pressure, from Sudan, he’s set up in Afghanistan. There he can move freely between his devotees’ training camps and preach his messianic message to all who’ll listen, though few of his fans