Baz Khan wandered out into the garden at Le Monde Guesthouse with a resigned sigh. So much for their vacation. The hotel was cancelled, the flights were postponed. Now she was stuck at a loose end until Mac got back from his little adventure. She’d taken leave from work, which meant the news desk wouldn’t be expecting any copy from her, and she’d been left twiddling her thumbs, with no one to have fun with.
It was stinking hot, the mercury nudging forty with not a breath of wind, and there was no air-conditioning in the room upstairs. Sweat made her kurta stick to her back, and although she was wearing her lightest pair of pants, it seemed mad not to be in shorts and a tank in this heat. She wandered over to the one patch of dappled shade, thrown by an ancient walnut tree. On the scrubby grass under its low-hanging branches, she could just discern a patch of scruffy grey-brown fur.
‘Lobo,’ she called.
The fur moved and turned into a young wolf cub. He stood lazily and came towards her, sniffing the air to pick up her scent. She held out a hand – he liked to be scratched under his chin.
‘You’ve grown again,’ she said.
She tickled his neck for a few seconds, but then the animal’s body stiffened and he drew back, baring his teeth. There was a sound behind her, and she looked round.
‘Garry, hi.’
‘You know he’s gotta go?’ Garry was the manager of Le Monde, and he’d been gifted Lobo by the guesthouse owner, a Panjshiri called Khudus, a couple of months earlier. Garry had brought him to live in the guesthouse garden. Back then, Lobo had been a tiny abandoned pup, and Baz had helped Garry care for him, feeding him milk through the night until he graduated onto minced meat. Now he was munching his way through a couple of chickens each day.
‘I know. He’s not a dog.’
‘Too right he’s not. Look what he did to me last night.’ Garry held out a hand and Baz saw a nasty-looking gash across the back of it.
‘He’s challenging you for the alpha male spot.’
Garry laughed, then gave her a questioning look. ‘Hey, I thought you’d be gone by now.’
Baz frowned, her mood dipping as she was reminded of her own desertion.
‘Mac’s gone down to Lash to do a favour for a friend – we had to postpone. Do you think you should get some shots for that bite?’
Garry scowled, gave a quick shrug and went inside.
Back upstairs, Baz tipped her vacation packing out on the bed. That had been a waste of time. And now she had three or four days to kill. But she wasn’t going to sit around moping. There were stories she could be chasing. She dug under the pile of bikinis, T-shirts and shorts to find her phone.
‘Logan?’
‘Yo, my favourite woman in Kabul.’ Logan’s voice was loud and brash – and his familiar accent made Baz feel at home.
‘Hi, second favourite guy,’ she said.
‘Oh, harsh, babe!’ They both laughed. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You busy? Working?’
‘Can take it or leave it.’
‘Fancy a short trip – three or four days?’
‘Where?’
Baz took a deep breath. Was she about to do something stupid?
‘Kandahar.’
‘Hmm… What’s happening there?’
‘You heard about that Canadian journalist that got snatched? Brad Kaminski? I thought it might be worth going down there and digging around a bit. Write it up for the paper.’
‘Like, you’ll need to consider these things, Baz. There are no flights currently to or from Kandahar, so you’d be looking at a road trip. The road from Kabul to Kandahar is five hundred klicks through some real bad country. Then, when you’re done, five hundred klicks back again. Kandahar city is crawling with Talibs, militiamen and narco gangs. Brad Kaminski isn’t the only westerner to be grabbed there. A Turkish engineer and a couple of UN workers have also been kidnapped this year. You go down there, you’ll be wearing a target on your back.’ He paused to let it all sink in. ‘But if you still wanna go, I’m your guy.’
‘Sure, I still want to go. I’ll pay you, of course.’
‘Damn right you will. I’m not heading down there for free. Not even for you.’ Baz heard the pop of a bottle top in the background, then a gulping sound as Logan drank. Beer, no doubt. ‘When d’you wanna go?’
‘Tomorrow, if you can fix it up.’
‘’Kay. I’ll see if I can get us onto a USPI convoy – there’s usually one heading out on a Tuesday.’
‘USPI?’
‘US Protection and Investigation. Del Spier’s outfit. They escort convoys of construction materials up and down between Kabul and Kandahar. It’s the safest way to travel.’
‘How much will it be?’
‘I’ll come back to you. If the convoy’s full, I might have to pull some strings, pay a bit more. But I’m in with them pretty good, so it shouldn’t be a problem.’
It wouldn’t be a problem for Baz – the paper would pay for it.
‘Logan, you’re a star. Let me know what time I need to be ready.’
‘Sure. It’s a six- or seven-hour drive, so it’ll be early.’
Adrenalin spiked as she disconnected the call. She knew Mac wouldn’t be happy with her plan, but he was busy. He didn’t even have to know until afterwards. She opened their shared wardrobe and pulled out her camera bag to check she had all the kit she might need. She pulled her trusty Nikon D2H from the bag, balancing the familiar weight of it in her hands. It felt good. She felt good. This could be the breakthrough story she’d been looking for.