The cool water was a balm, and Baz stood under the soft rain of the Continental Guesthouse’s shared shower for far longer than she knew she should, given that clean water was a scarce commodity in Afghanistan.
The rest of their journey had been thankfully uneventful, and she and Logan had rolled into Kandahar late in the afternoon, the sweat dried on their bodies and the smell of the tanker fire still hanging inside the car. They went straight to the Continental and checked in. This was the place that Brad Kaminski had been staying in before he went missing, so she’d be able to start digging into what had happened as soon as she’d washed away the grit and grime of the journey.
She dried herself slowly. She knew she ought to ring Mac and let him know where she was. But she still felt shaken up from the events on the road, and Mac would be furious with her for making such a risky journey. Not to mention the fact that any show of sympathy from him would have her in tears, so she decided to put the call off for a couple of hours, until after dinner.
Dressed and refreshed, she went to find Logan – who was, as she expected, already in the Continental’s tiny honour bar drinking beer like it was a cure-all for the rigours of the day.
‘Better?’ he said, as he opened another bottle and held it out to her.
She took the offered drink, her fingers wrapping round the cold glass gratefully.
‘Sure.’ She nodded. ‘Yup, I’m fine.’ She was telling herself as much as him.
‘Spoken to Mac yet?’
‘Later,’ she said. ‘He’s probably busy.’
Logan looked surprised by this, but he didn’t say anything.
It was time to change the subject. ‘I need to find René Hausmann, the photographer who was with Kaminski when he was snatched.’
The boy who’d showed them to their rooms was perfectly willing to give up Hausmann’s room number when Baz flashed a five-dollar bill in front of his nose, and ten minutes later she was knocking on the French Canadian’s door.
‘Entrez.’
She nervously pushed open the door, unsure of the reception she would get.
René Hausmann was sitting on his bed sorting through camera equipment, but he stood up as she came in.
‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘My name’s Baz Khan. I’m a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. I want to write a piece about Brad Kaminski, and I wondered if you would talk to me?’
‘Merde!’ Hausmann looked away to one side, and Baz saw a jagged red scar, still fresh and raw, stretching down the side of his ear and onto his jawline.
She stood her ground. This was her job.
Hausmann processed whatever thoughts he was having and turned back to her. ‘Sure, sure, we can talk. A story about Brad will put more pressure on our government to get him back.’
Baz stepped into the room and closed the door. ‘You think they’re not doing enough?’ She’d seen the grainy video shots – Brad Kaminski, cowed and beaten, on his knees with his hands tied in front of him, flanked by armed, masked Talibs.
Hausmann shrugged. ‘They say they won’t pay the ransom the kidnappers are demanding.’
‘But that’s just in public, surely. Behind the scenes it will be different…’ No one could be sure of that. ‘Can you tell me what happened when they took him?’
Hausmann retold the story which he must have told a dozen times already – how he and Kaminski were visiting Karqa Sharif, the Shrine of the Cloak of the Prophet, where Mullah Omar had famously donned the cloak said to have been worn by Mohammed and proclaimed himself Commander of the Faithful, leader of the Taliban. Hausmann’s voice was almost devoid of emotion, as if he had to disconnect himself from the events.
‘Mullah Omar and the Prophet’s cloak is the thing of legends, and we just wanted to see where it happened. It would have made a great story. We didn’t mean any harm, but while we were there an old guy came over to us and started shouting. It seemed like he wanted us to leave. Brad told him to get lost, and he went away.’
Baz’s heart sank. These idiots had been blundering around one of the Pashtuns’ holiest shrines with no sensitivity. ‘Then what happened?’
‘After about ten minutes, he came back with a group of men – black turbans, black robes. A couple of them were armed, and they all seemed angry. We were about to leave anyway, so we tried to defuse the situation by turning our backs on them and walking away.’ He paused for a second, his throat dry. ‘They came after us. I heard their footsteps quicken and I broke into a run. I managed to get away, but Brad wasn’t so lucky. One of them grabbed him, then they were all onto him. I didn’t know what to do. If I went back for him, they would have taken me too.’
‘And your head?’ said Baz, pointing to the wound on the side of his face.
Hausmann shook his head. ‘One of them ran after me, grabbed for me. I stumbled and we both fell – I don’t quite know how this happened. I think he hit me with his pistol, but I managed to get away. I kicked him hard as I got to my feet, so I was able to escape.’ He dropped down to sit on the edge of the bed.
Telling the story had drained Hausmann, and Baz wasn’t surprised. It must have been terrifying to realise that his colleague hadn’t got away. How could he not be blaming himself? But at the same time, she wasn’t entirely sympathetic. They shouldn’t have just turned up at the shrine. They should have asked for permission to visit, which they probably wouldn’t have been granted. Baz knew that a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation crew had been allowed to film in the grounds, but that was only because their security consultant had known whose palms to grease with a hefty wad, and even they hadn’t been allowed inside the shrine.
‘What paper do you and Brad work for?’
‘We don’t. We’re freelancers.’
Inexperienced idiots, in other words. But Baz knew better than to let her feelings show.
‘Thanks for talking to me. I’ll do a story, and maybe it will add to the pressure on your government to get Brad back. But I’m sure they’ll be working behind the scenes anyway.’
Hausmann snorted. ‘If they are, I know nothing about it.’
Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t be included in the loop in a million years.
She found Logan in his room, beer in hand, and a lingering smell of chars on the air.
‘Find your guy?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Prize idiots, running around where they had no right to be.’
Logan’s phone buzzed on the bedside table. He picked it up and looked at the screen. ‘Mac,’ he said to Baz. ‘Hey bro, we got here safe – just!’
‘Where? What are you talking about?’ Baz could hear a tinny rendition of Mac’s voice.
‘You didn’t tell him?’ mouthed Logan.
Baz shook her head.
Logan held out the phone to her.
‘Hi, guess who?’ she said. She couldn’t help the huge grin on her face.
‘Baz? You’re with Logan? What’s going on? Where are you?’
‘Kandahar.’
‘What the fuck?’
‘I wanted to come down here and report on the Kaminski kidnapping.’
‘But you were going to go to Dubai.’
‘I changed my mind.’
There was silence at the other end of the line as he digested her words. When he spoke again, he sounded pissed.
‘What did Logan mean that you only just got there safely?’
Shit.
‘It was nothing. We came down with a USPI convoy. It was fine.’ Time to distract him before he dug deeper. ‘What did you want to talk to Logan about?’
Mac sighed. ‘All right, we’ll talk about your adventures later. We’re putting together a rescue mission – our kidnapped man was spotted about forty kilometres south of here. Logan’s got an in with Governor Khaliq, who I’ve already pissed off, so I want him to sort out a contingent from Khaliq’s militia to accompany us.’
‘Okay. Catch you later.’ She handed the phone back to Logan, relieved that she’d avoided having to go into the details of the tanker attack.