SULAIMAN MOUNTAINS. SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN.
Kneeling on a snowy ridge, Mullah Akhtar Baqer opiated while watching the rescue helicopter disappear around a bend in the mountain, some three thousand feet below them. A minute later, its rotor noise also disappeared.
The battle had lasted but a couple of minutes, during which he had hoped the team he left behind would put down anyone foolish enough to track him this high up the range. But as he had observed just one wounded being airlifted, followed by radio silence from his team, he had to assume the worst.
“What now?” demanded Dr. Khan, who was standing next to him, his dark woolen tunic being pelted with snowflakes. “They’re still coming, and we’re now leaving a perfect trail in the snow!”
Feeling the drug reenergizing him, Akhtar set down his pipe and picked up his binoculars, fingering the focusing wheel, estimating no more than a couple of miles of switchbacks between them and those men.
A couple of hours’ hike, he thought.
Pointing at the storm clouds sweeping in from the west, he said, “Allah will cover our tracks by morning.”
“Good of him,” Dr. Khan replied, his head now covered in a woolen keffiyeh. “But I thought you said that if the explosives and the soldiers you left at the compound didn’t stop them, those men down there would.”
“Professor,” said Akhtar, lowering the binoculars, “you worry about the well-being of the bomb. I’ll handle everything else.”
Dr. Khan pointed at the men transporting the weapon on the makeshift stretcher, their skin boots sinking in fresh snow to their ankles as they waited atop an icy ridge that would lead them to the north face of the range. “That’s precisely my point,” the scientist said, hugging himself while shivering. “I need a place to work and get the device ready to receive the new components. And this … this frozen hell isn’t it.”
“And you shall have it and the components,” Akhtar replied, remembering the emergency signal he had received from Pasha the night before. His younger brother had connected with the courier, but they were being pursued, just as he was being hunted.
“Meg ze jawaze safar na kawom.” We’re not traveling alone.
The simple phrase told him everything he needed to know—everything he needed to do to ensure safe passage of the components to their mountaintop hideout.
Akhtar shifted his attention to the north, to the high, jagged peaks of the southern extension of the Hindu Kush mountain system, where the Sulaimans continued for another hundred miles to form the eastern edge of the Iranian Plateau. He panned the binoculars to the highest peak in the vicinity, the Takht-i-Sulaiman.
The Throne of Solomon.
Just south of the summit named after the renowned king stood a secret and dangerous high pass—Qais Kotal—named after Qais Abdur Rashid, father of the Pashtun nation, who was buried on top of Takht-i-Sulaiman. Legend had it that Solomon himself had hiked the perilous footpath during his historic climb to look over the land of South Asia.
Akhtar had no idea if the king had actually crossed it, but the pass was very real, very difficult to negotiate—and very difficult for American UAVs or satellites to spot from above. Rising to over twelve thousand feet and very narrow and heavily wooded, it had been used by generations of jihadists to traverse the Sulaimans in their constant fight for independence from foreign invaders.
The mullah set down the binoculars, picked up the pipe, and took a final hit, closing his eyes as he inhaled deeply, feeling his body absorb the pure drug, letting it do its magical work while a cold Sulaiman wind washed over him.
Dr. Khan continued his incessant whining about being hungry, cold, and tired, disturbing this moment of peace. Thoughts of reaching for his pesh-kabz and just putting an end to the annoying little man crossed his mind, but the ancient wisdom of King Solomon kept the curved knife sheathed.
Although Akhtar didn’t share the religious convictions of his younger brother and Akaa—or the thousands of jihadists who called him “mullah”—the title meant he was actually versed in Holy Scripture. Allah, for the guidance of mankind, had privileged four prophets by trusting each with a holy book. Moses received the Torah. King David the Zabur, or Book of Psalms. Prophet Isa—who Muslims believe was Jesus—was bestowed the Injeel, or true Gospel, not to be confused with the Christian Gospel written by Matthew, Luke, John, and Mark. And finally, Allah bequeathed to Muhammad the Holy Koran.
But it was King David, Solomon’s father, who one day gathered his sons and put forward a number of profound questions, one of which had always resonated with Akhtar.
What is that action the result of which is good?
Solomon’s answer: patience and forbearance, not haste, in the face of anger or peril.
Patience and forbearance.
Akhtar put his pipe and binoculars away in his rucksack, which he shouldered while turning to Dr. Khan. The palm of his right hand resting on the pesh-kabz, he said, “This way, professor.”
As he followed the group across the southern face of the mountain, Akhtar could only hope that his younger brother, who was certainly facing his own share of peril, would choose patience and forbearance rather than haste.