KANDAHAR
Steph Baumer adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and, still staring at the computer screen, picked up a half-chewed pencil and placed it between her lips. The information she was looking at concerned her. Picking up a mobile phone she opened a new SMS and typed in the letter O and then sent the message to a number saved under favourites. Sucking on the end of the pencil, she raised her eyes to meet the gaze of Corporal Dawson, who sat at the desk opposite hers. The American intelligence analyst’s eyes darted away and then back to Steph.
‘Fucking problem, Dawey?’ she said.
Corporal Dawson looked back at his computer screen and shifted awkwardly in his chair. Even Steph, with her elfin features and lack of personality, was attractive eight months into a fourteen-month tour, especially in those glasses.
‘No, ma’am, I was just thinking about something.’ Dawson knew as he said it how lame it sounded; he could feel his face turning red with embarrassment.
‘Well, kindly don’t look at me when you’re doing it.’
The oval-shaped room was empty. During busy periods there could be up to twenty analysts, a mixture of military and CIA, all poring over computer screens, analysing reams of data and compiling urgent reports. It was quiet now, though, with just Steph and Corporal Dawson, and a low murmur of voices coming from a set of military radios on one of the desks.
‘Sorry, ma’am. Hey, why are you even in so early? It’s like you never sleep. I mean, I have to be here, it’s my shift – but it’s a weekend, you could be sleeping in.’
‘Dawey, I have six more months in this shithole then I’m back stateside to take up some mandatory desk job analysing the conversations between Mexican drug cartels and LA gangsters.’ Steph took off her glasses and placed them on the desk. ‘All these other shmucks are just trying to survive over here; I have a higher purpose.’
‘You mean you need to make a name for yourself?’
‘Dawey, you’re not even in the ballpark. The more success a CIA operator has over here, the less likely they are to be sent to some intelligence backwater. I’m not going to compete for a station chief position by learning Spanish and interviewing Mexicans discovered in the trunks of cars. My place is here in the Middle East.’
Steph’s desk was a clutter of handwritten notes and screwed up Post-its. A small black Nokia vibrated among a pile of different phones on the shelf next to her computer. She switched her focus from the corporal to the phone. Its screen was lit up with a single word: ODIOUS.
About time, she thought. She grabbed the tattered Moleskine notebook sitting in her top drawer and another analog mobile phone that was underneath it. She checked it was charged and stuffed it into the pocket of her cargo pants.
‘I’m going for a coffee on the boardwalk, Dawey. I’ll be back at ten if anyone needs me, otherwise they can ring my cell number.’ Steph attached the paddle holster to the belt of her pants and adjusted the Sig Sauer 9mm on her hip.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Dawson replied to the closing door. ‘Bitch,’ he added, as he turned his attention back to the episode of South Park that was playing on his computer screen.
• • •
The small Starbucks was empty; not unusual for this time of the morning. Steph surveyed the surrounds and noticed that she was mostly alone, save for a few guys playing volleyball on the sandy pitch inside the confines of the boardwalk, the covered walkway that skirted the multiple playing fields. A private construction company had made a fortune building it. The boardwalk had become the focal point of the Kandahar base. It housed military equipment shops, cafes and all the major American fast-food outlets; all providing the troops with a sense of civilisation in an existence that veered between mundane and violent. The workers were mostly imported Filipinos and some locally hired staff, the mixture of cheap labour and low operating costs making the boardwalk stores highly profitable.
‘Yes, ma’am?’ said a bored-looking Asian woman.
‘Give me a grande skinny cappuccino, to go,’ said Steph.
‘To have here, ma’am?’
‘What? No!’ Steph said. ‘That’s why I just said to go.’
‘Okay, ma’am, one grande skinny cappuccino to go. That’s five dollars, thank you.’
Steph handed her a five-dollar bill from the back of her notebook. The phone in her pocket vibrated again. She checked the caller ID. It was Faisal Khan.
She turned away from the cashier. ‘Faisal, hi, how are you? Are the family all well?’ Her voice, which had been gruff and sarcastic moments before, was now high and girlish.
‘Yes, I am good, thanks be to God. Some of the younger brothers are not so well but our big brother got away safely, thanks to you and the information that you gave me yesterday.’ Faisal coughed and Steph could hear him spit onto the ground.
Steph had painstakingly pieced together the life of Faisal Khan. From their conversations she knew that he was from a well-off Afghan family who had supported him as he studied English at Lahore University back in the eighties. He had then stayed in Pakistan through much of the nineties, living in the network of madrasas around Islamabad before disappearing for another decade as a guest of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI as it was known in spy circles.
Steph was still unsure of exactly where his loyalties lay. Some of their conversations gave her the feeling that he had grown to despise the West. She thought it strange that he had resurfaced in Afghanistan not long after US forces had ousted the Taliban. Perhaps he had some local government aspirations or maybe he was working for the Taliban. It was even probable that he was on the bankroll of ISI. No matter the case, Faisal was one of Steph’s best sources and she needed to handle him as such. She had reconciled that they were using each other, which is often the case between a handler and an informant.
‘That’s okay, Faisal. I’m glad he’s safe.’ Steph grabbed the coffee that was placed on the counter for her and walked outside to a table in the morning sun.
‘These bearded devils are a problem for us, sister. Maybe we need to go away until they leave Uruzghan.’
Uneasy at the prospect of losing such a valuable resource, Steph hastened to reassure him. ‘Faisal, they’re not an issue – I will let you know when they’re close. As long as you keep giving me what I need, I will be able to protect you. You have to trust me, Faisal. So, tell me, do you have anything for me today?’
‘I do have something for you.’ He lowered his voice and she pictured him looking around to see who was watching him. Speaking in English on a mobile phone was a sure way to get shot in the back of the head by an overzealous patriot or, worse still, reported to Quetta as a spy – because then you would surely wish you were dead. ‘You need to look at the pomegranates going into Iran,’ he whispered. ‘The Iranians control it all and instead of money coming back it’s weapons, tonnes of them.’
‘That doesn’t make sense, Faisal. What would the Iranians want with pomegranate?’
‘Pomegranate is worth 10 million dollars a year to them, but it’s not just pomegranates, Sister. It’s wheat, corn and any other crop they get their thieving hands on. The sanctions placed against Iran have cut them deep, but they have found ways around it.’
‘Of course, and the one thing they have an abundance of is old Russian weapons.’ Steph was joining the dots together now. ‘So they come over and buy off the farms and labour in exchange for weapons and in that way they are able to increase their trade in areas where they are not held against a sanction. Pomegranate juice made in Iran and shipped to the US, except that the pomegranates are from Afghanistan, farmed by Afghans with the proceeds going to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.’
‘Yes, I think now you get the picture.’
‘Right, well, that is interesting, Faisal.’ Steph could feel the excitement tingle in her spine – finally someone was confirming her theory that Iran was actively involved in this mess; this was the smoking gun she had been looking for.
‘Yes, the locals all know about it; most of the pomegranate orchards are owned by Uruzghan farmers, simple people, while the Taliban maintain the poppy fields so that the Americans think that it is the main export and don’t go looking elsewhere.’
Steph sensed that she could make a huge deal of this; she hardly dared to think of how quickly this would advance her career. But she needed to play it smart. The CIA director was chairing another meeting in a few months’ time, and if she could get enough information together, she could present this in front of the other regional intelligence directors while he was there. There was no telling how much traction she would get with the director. Certainly her profile would be lifted and they would talk about her in Washington.
‘Faisal, I suspect your friends in the police can’t touch them?’
‘No, of course not, and it has become difficult for the local farmers and the families, they are living on scraps while the bulk of the crops disappear over the border.’
Steph thought again for a moment, trying to work out Faisal’s angle and why he would part with such important information. ‘Right, and so if we liberate these farms from the Iranians, it will help to make the Uruzghan clan that you work for more powerful and give them a greater hold over the area.’
‘Yes, of course, and the farmers will receive money again for their crops, with the money staying here in Afghanistan and the flow of weapons will stop.’
‘Okay, this is good information, Faisal. Do you have names, contacts, somewhere I can start looking?’
‘Give me some time sister; a loaf can’t be baked before the ingredients are mixed. I will see what I can get.’ There was a pause and Steph could hear the sounds of young children playing in the background near Faisal.
‘Now, do you have something for me?’ Faisal demanded. ‘When are the bearded devils moving again?’
‘Well, Faisal, I saw today that they are going in their cars to the Chora Valley, so they shouldn’t be a bother to you at all. There is a mixture of Australian Special Forces and Afghan army. They are delivering medical supplies so they won’t be looking for a fight.’
‘Not in the helicopters this time, that’s good. We will watch out for them. How long are they going to be here?’ Steph noted that he sounded more at ease now.
‘Fourteen days,’ she replied. She gave him all the details that she had seen in the Yankee Platoon’s concept of operations brief, including their withdrawal route, which saw Yankee Platoon crossing briefly into the Mirabad Valley before moving through the dasht back to Tarin Kowt.
‘Hmm, I see. You know, the other girl that I talk to doesn’t tell me very much – and she doesn’t pay me very much either.’ Faisal laughed under his breath.
‘We’ve talked about this before, Faisal. Don’t ever mention me and don’t try to play us off against each other. I would prefer it if you didn’t talk to her at all. You know that.’ Steph was annoyed now; he had given her this gem and then wrecked it with his usual crap.
‘I’m joking, sister. I have a different phone for her and I only use my middle name.’
‘Right, and how many Faisals are there in Tarin Kowt? Yours is a fairly uncommon Muslim middle name.’ Steph had the shits now. God these guys are useless, she thought. Steph had been trained to handle post-Cold War operators in Eastern Europe. There was nothing in her training that had prepared her for the complete idiocy of the locals here.
‘It’s okay, all my brothers and uncles have the same middle name.’ He laughed. ‘I must go now, sister, it’s time for prayers.’
‘Faisal, remember, only use the phone I gave you to call me and don’t ever call anyone else on it and don’t talk about me to anyone, do you understand?’
‘Yes, of course, nothing has changed; I will wait for the message, then text the first number and then ring the second. I understand, sister, rest easy. God willing, our friendship will be of benefit to us both.’
‘Good, let me know when you have some more information and I will tell you when the devils are moving again.’
Steph hung up her phone and made some notes in her Moleskine. She sipped at her coffee and thought deeply about what Faisal had just revealed as she watched the guys on the pitch start to organise another volleyball match. The Iranians are controlling the crops and exchanging them for weapons to maintain the Taliban. ‘Well, that is interesting, the rest of the intelligence community thinks it’s heroin,’ Steph said out loud. She was enjoying this new game. She allowed herself a brief moment to imagine where she might be this time next year and wondered if there was a Starbucks in the White House.