CHAPTER 23

Spin Boldak, Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border

 

The town of Spin Boldak stood just beyond the border on the flat plain that extended from south Afghanistan into western Pakistan. By truck, it wasn’t much more than seventy miles from Spin Boldak to Quetta, across the border. The main highway that passed through the center of the small town provided the only southern access to the country. With the many forces occupying southern Afghanistan, the highway continued to be busy with trucks bringing cargo loads of gasoline, engine parts, building materials, and much more. The convoy-created dust cloud drew a continuous line across the open desert.

On the north side of Spin Boldak, a ridge jutted up from the desert floor. At the one end of the ridge near the north side of the town, a square, mud-brick fort stood watch, as it had since the nineteenth century.

Abu Umarov scanned the walls of the fort with his binoculars. He noticed the antennas that stood beyond the parapets. They marked the French battalion. Its tanks and armored carriers were behind the walls. He counted the number of guards from left to right. It would be dark soon, and the French would be out of play. Except for the occasional patrol, the French didn’t wander beyond the walls of the fort when the sun went down. And he would know the instant a patrol left the fort. On the horizon, the brown fog of dust crept up the valley. The setting sun would bring a breeze from the south, hastening its arrival. Soon visibility would be severely limited.

The Americans’ unmanned aerial vehicles would be committed to the north. They were deadly, but Umarov had timed this well. A movement of his fellow soldiers to the north, above the Khyber Pass, would attract the Americans and their UAVs. Even the Americans had a limit to their assets.

Yousef had picked out the target after his return from Riyadh. The trip was important, Yousef had told Umarov. But Umarov doubted it. And Yousef had seen the doubt in his face.

Umarov didn’t like the idea that his leader would go home when summoned. But he had kept his counsel, not daring to question Yousef aloud.

Even so, Yousef had decided to explain. “Never forget: there are more princes than the secretary. We will need the House of Saud to be divided when we move. We need voices that will approve of our new state. They must know we are serious.”

The explanation had satisfied Umarov. Yousef ’s vision was clear. He knew his path. He knew that when word passed in Riyadh that Yousef had been home and had met with the secretary, others would return his e-mails and send money. Just the meeting would cause a stir.

But Umarov didn’t like the trips this close to the operation. Chicago wasn’t needed. He knew the target. Fortunately, he convinced Yousef to stay far away from the cell and Canada.

Secrecy didn’t matter. Not for this operation. He would rot in Guantanamo for a decade before they got anything out of him. And by then, this would all be over.

“Is it time?” The boy stayed low, below the rocks, touching Umarov’s boot from behind to get his attention.

“No. Go back.” The Chechen didn’t respect the boy. He was no more than fourteen and was here for the money. The kid would fire his rifle and run. Umarov knew that the boy would be killed, but more important, he might get Umarov killed as well. He wasn’t a Chechen, not a true warrior.

“There he is.” Umarov saw the truck sitting next to the house on the far end of Spin Boldak. It was a white Nissan with oversized tires and a roll bar behind the cab. It was too new to be owned by just anyone from Spin Boldak. It had been paid for with drug money. It was owned by the son of Abaidullah.

The trucks that left Afghanistan, after dropping off their cargo, brought back another cargo on their return. And Abaidullah ensured that they were safe on their trip when they passed through Spin Boldak and crossed the lawless land back into Pakistan. But Abaidullah had become too brave. He enjoyed a new pastime. He enjoyed killing the soldiers of the Taliban. After one horrific firefight, Abaidullah had the bodies piled up in a dump truck and taken to the border. There, just into Pakistan, the bodies were dumped in a pile, just like gravel or even worse, garbage, on the side of the two-lane highway. The stench had dogged drivers for days.

“Boy.” Umarov slowly signaled with his hand below the rocks.

The boy looked up at the Chechen. The fourteen-year-old had an odd face, tanned and dark, but with clover-colored green eyes. He wore his brown fleece pakol pulled down around his ears. A powderlike dust caked his face and the pakol. His hands looked like hands of an old man, nails caked with dirt, used for any task and never cleaned.

“Yes, Chaac neen?” It took some time for them to learn to say the word. It didn’t sound right.

“Come here.”

The boy slid up in the hillside of the ravine they were hiding in, slowly moving his head up to its edge.

“There will be dogs. You hear them?”

The sun was beginning to set, and as it did, barking dogs began to howl in the distance. The sweltering heat had kept them hiding in ditches and ravines and in boxes discarded on the side of the highway, anything that provided some protection from the brutal sun.

“Yes.”

Umarov was close to the boy. Even in the lowering light, he could see the boy’s eyes were glassy. Heroin abuse was commonplace now. They would inject it just before the fight. It made them bulletproof. It also made them foolish.

“Take the dead dog. The one we brought. Move slow. Put it in that ravine to the side there.” Umarov pointed to a cut, short of the rocks, to the far right of their position. The boy would cut the dog’s belly so that the last of its blood would gush out onto the dry earth, attracting the other dogs. The arsenic would kill off the scavenging pack in minutes and the valley would become quiet.

Umarov watched as the boy moved from rock to rock, dragging the carcass by its leg. In daylight, the boy would have revealed their position. He would have been killed by either Umarov or the French. But the light was low and Umarov could hear the clanking of pots from the French compound. The sound of music accompanied the laughter as well. He knew the French. They were good fighters, tough, cold, but they loved to eat. The Americans would eat their combat meals packaged in plastic, but the French would prepare meals with bread and wine.

The dogs saw the boy cutting across the ravines and began to follow. Umarov then saw the boy slip back up the ravine. Fortunately, by then, the pack had picked up the smell of the blood and followed the trail to the carcass. Soon they would be dead.

Umarov checked the blade he carried on the side of his calf. He had lost count of the men who felt the razor steel pull across their throats. Several were boys, Russian boys, some younger than the boy with the dog.

“Let’s go.” He signaled to the five men down below him in the ravine. They all had the same glassy eyes. Umarov noticed two needles lying on a rock next to the men.

The Chechen didn’t say much on these missions. He wouldn’t, but more important, he didn’t need to. He had trained them over the last several months. They would move slowly, in coordination, aware of where the others were at all times. They worked their way down the ravine, past piles of sagebrush, slowly moving down to the house with the white truck. They weren’t there just to kill the man.

Two of the fighters moved to the side of the white truck, looking in, seeing the keys, and signaling back to Umarov. It was what he had hoped for. No one in the village would dare steal the truck of the son of the chief of the Afghan Guard. It made the plan possible.

Umarov was here to do the killing. The others would ensure that no one came up the alleyway or to the other side.

Umarov pulled the door open to the house behind the truck, hearing the music of Ali Omar on the radio. In the past, music had been banned.

The son of Abaidullah lay asleep on the couch.

“Don’t say a word.” Umarov pulled the boy’s head up by his hair as he slid the blade underneath his chin. Umarov could feel the boy’s body jerk as he awoke from his sleep to feel the steel cutting into the flesh of his neck.

“Come with me.” He dragged the boy, struggling to keep up with the blade holding his head in place under Umarov’s arm. Outside, one of the other fighters taped the boy’s hands behind him. He was dragged into the bed of his truck as another of the killers taped the boy’s feet and then his mouth and eyes.

Umarov slipped in behind the steering wheel and quietly started up the engine. He pulled the truck out from in between the houses, into the alleyway, and turned down the road. The other men jumped into the bed of the truck. He drove it in the dark, without the lights, going between the buildings, while the others in the back held down their victim. Even if someone saw the truck, they would recognize it and let it pass. The white Nissan of the son of the commander would never be stopped.

Several miles out of Spin Boldak, heading back to the east in the direction of Pakistan, the truck pulled off the highway and changed directions to the north. The rocky trail cut through the ridgeline and eventually led to a ravine that was wider and farther than the others. Near the end of the ravine, a truck trail cut up through the mountains heading east, farther into Pakistan. After several miles, curving through the pass, they came upon a cave that was cut out of the limestone. It was more of an overhang than a true cave, but it served its purpose.

Umarov pulled the boy out of the truck by his hair.

“Wait a moment!” A man came out of the cave. It was Yousef.

Umarov nodded to his leader.

“Go and get the cameraman,” Yousef barked to one of their younger soldiers.

“I have it, brother.” A small, thin boy, still a teenager but with the face of a man, came from within the cave with a video camera in a clear plastic bag.

Yousef took the camera from the bag, blew away any remaining dust, and set it up on a tripod.

“All right, I am getting ready to film. So pull up your scarves.”

Each of the men pulled their scarves up, wrapping them around so as to only let their eyes be seen through a small slit.

“Pull that worthless piece of dog into the light.” Yousef pointed to some gas lamps that stood well within the cave.

The teenager sobbed, but his cries were muffled by the layers of tape wrapped around his face. Umarov and the others dragged him to a rock no larger than a coffee table. And there they began to beat him mercilessly while the camera taped.

Finally, after they had beaten the boy to a near pulp, Yousef held up his hand.

“How much is left on the camera?”

“Ten minutes at the most,” said the teenaged soldier.

“Umarov, show them what Nidal taught you.”

“Is there enough light?” Umarov knew that this could only be done once.

“Yes, pull the light closer. Pull it near the hole.” Just beyond the boy, a shallow grave had been dug into the soft floor of the cave. The hole wasn’t any deeper than the waistline of a man standing in it.

“First, I want to say something.”

Umarov had to hand it to Yousef. He was bold. Abaidullah would see this tape and swear to pursue his son’s killer to the ends of the earth. But Yousef knew that. And he knew that the killing would galvanize the men of the Taliban behind him. The sons of the men in the pile beside the road would pledge themselves to Yousef ’s cause, speaking Yousef ’s name with reverence. And they would die to defend him. It was the first of many steps on his part to consolidate his power, solidify his following. The tribes of Afghanistan would be either behind Yousef or the Americans. Those behind the Americans would die.

Yousef spoke to the camera. “To the men of Abaidullah, I say: He could not protect his son. Why do you believe he can protect you? Or your children? Do not take up arms against us.”

Yousef spoke the words coolly, without passion. Again, Umarov admired his style.

“Okay.” He pointed to the hole.

Umarov was off camera, but before he came into view he pulled his scarf up over his face. His pakol was pulled down, and his black scarf was pulled up tightly so that only his eyes were visible. It didn’t matter. Even now, everyone had heard of the Chechen. He was much bigger than the others. He stood out.

Umarov pulled the boy into the full view of the camera and cut the tape off his mouth and eyes. Again, he pulled the boy up by his hair, still whimpering and sobbing, so that the camera could focus in on the face. Bloodied and swollen as his face was, no one would doubt that this was the son of Abaidullah. Umarov dragged the kid into the hole and then pulled a piece of plastic pipe out of his rear pocket. He would do this just like he saw Nidal do it to the man that Nidal called a traitor. With his boot on the boy’s chest, he pushed the tube into the boy’s mouth. The camera picked up the sound of the gurgling.

“Begin.”

Umarov stepped out of the hole as the soldiers buried the boy alive. Shortly, only the tube stuck up from the pile of dirt.

“Abaidullah, you son of a dog,” Yousef cursed on the camera as he began to pour water, in small amounts, down the pipe. “Come here.” Yousef signaled to the cameraman to come closer. The camera panned in closer to the hole, focusing on it as Yousef poured water down the pipe. He didn’t put much, only enough that in desperation the boy would swallow the water and dirt as quickly as he could. Gasping in the black hole, with the dirt crushing down on his chest, trying to breathe through the hole while the swallows of water stopped.

“Abaidullah, this is your fate as well.” Yousef let his voice grow more intense. The glow in his eyes made him seem possessed. He pulled out a small pistol and fired down the pipe. He kept firing the pistol into the tube. He pulled the trigger until, finally, the weapon only clicked.

The camera light went black.

Umarov smiled. Abaidullah would remember the face of Yousef until the last breath passed. So would many others. In fact, with the release of the video, the entire world would know what Yousef al-Qadi looked like.