They landed shortly before eleven o’clock in the morning local time. Almost twenty-two hours since they had departed Santiago. A smell of hot concrete and jet fuel wafted across the air as Carter grabbed his rucksack and descended the lowered airstair. Termez in early spring, and the sun was already pulsing in the bright blue dome of the sky. An airport guard greeted Carter on the apron. He took one look at the SAS man and pointed him in the direction of the main terminal building.
Carter followed the signs for border control and joined a long line of passengers. Oil and gas workers, mostly. Rugged middle-aged guys dressed in heavy-duty kit, with hard faces and calloused hands. Therefore not tourists. Not here to admire the ornate mosques or the mausoleums of ancient kings. Carter flashed his passport and visa at the border guard. The guy scrutinised his documents closely, took in his NGO-branded clothing and the lanyard around his neck displaying his ID card. Then he stamped Carter’s passport and waved him through.
Carter bypassed the luggage carousel and customs and emerged to a high-ceilinged arrivals hall. Posters advertised taxi firms and local restaurants, mixed in with companies promoting various pumps and tank vessels and heat exchanges. All kinds of complicated refinery equipment. Aimed at the site managers and oil execs passing through, he guessed.
He walked past the duty-free shops, found a garishly lit café that reeked of disinfectant and ordered a Coke Zero from the humourless guy behind the counter. He tapped his bank card against the handheld reader, took a seat and waited for the guide to show up.
Two minutes later, a broad-shouldered guy walked over to his table. Carter identified him straightaway from the photo he’d seen back at the briefing in Santiago. The ex-Afghan police officer. He was a few inches shorter than Carter and running to fat; a long moustache drooped down either side of his down-turned mouth, and his prominent paunch threatened to burst out of his shirt. His eyes were heavily lidded, as if he’d just roused himself from a deep slumber. They peered at Carter suspiciously from beneath a pair of wild eyebrows.
‘You are Carter?’ he asked in a gravelly smoker’s voice. ‘Jamie Carter, yes?’
Carter stood up and said, ‘That’s me.’
The guide offered a sweaty hand. His khaki shirt carried the same logo as Carter’s shirt and cargo trousers. An odour of cheap tobacco permeated from every pore of his body.
‘Najim Kabiri. I’ll be accompanying you across the border.’
Carter pumped the Afghan’s hand. Najim Kabiri had a fierce grip and the mean-looking face to go with it. He had spent years in the Afghan police, Mullins had told him. Which was a perilous job, with a high casualty rate and the constant threat of Taliban infiltrators putting one in the back of your head. You needed nerves of steel to survive in that role for any length of time.
Kabiri dropped his eyes to the rucksack at Carter’s feet. ‘Is that all your baggage?’
‘That’s it,’ Carter replied. ‘Nothing else.’
Kabiri nodded. ‘I’m parked outside,’ he said. ‘We’ll head straight down to the border crossing, OK? We meet with Omar there. I must be back here before nightfall.’
‘Lead the way.’
He followed Kabiri across the hall and through the main entrance, past a throng of passengers and drivers milling about at the taxi ranks, then crossed the road and made for a short-stay parking lot. In which time Kabiri had managed to holler greetings at a couple of taxi drivers, fielded a call on his ancient-looking phone and puffed his way through another tab from his pack of Russian-branded cancer sticks.
They hastened across the lot until they stopped in front of a white Toyota Land Cruiser. One of the older models, with the logo of the NGO stickered down the side. A beaded pendant hung from the rear-view mirror. Kabiri dashed his butt on the ground, crushed it under his heel and gestured for Carter to get in. Carter dumped his rucksack in the back seat and hopped into the front passenger side while Kabiri squeezed his bulky frame behind the steering wheel.
‘Got some gifts for you, my friend,’ Kabiri said as he started the engine. Some sort of traditional folk music blared out of the car speakers. ‘In the glovebox.’
Carter popped open the compartment. Inside, he found a series of laminated maps of north-east Afghanistan, plus a bag of five-gram gold bullion bars. Each one was about the size of a standard SIM card and worth somewhere north of £250. A year’s salary in Afghanistan. There was also a separate double-sided sheet of letterheaded paper, written in both English and Uzbek, stating that the bearer of the document worked for the medical assistance programme and had the right to cross into Afghanistan. Project oversight. The signature at the bottom belonged to the company CEO. The document was bullshit, but the guards wouldn’t know that. They’d just see the NGO’s logo and signature and assume it was official.
Morally wrong, perhaps. There was always a risk of blowback when soldiers passed themselves off as aid workers or peacekeepers. Innocent people could become targets. But Carter couldn’t worry about that now.
As long as it gets us across the border.
He stuffed the bag of gold tablets into his belt pouch, put the folded maps in his rucksack. Kabiri sparked up another foul-smelling cigarette and pointed the Land Cruiser east and then south through the outskirts of Termez. Carter saw crumbling houses and ramshackle teahouses and crowded bazaars. Decorative minarets loomed over weeded gardens. Mangy dogs roamed the streets, sniffing mounds of rubbish. An endless ocean of desert stretched out beyond the city.
Kabiri took another pull on his cigarette, glanced at the phone mounted on top of the dash and said, ‘We’ll get to the bridge in fifteen minutes. You let me do the talking, OK? I know these guys. They trust me.’
Carter looked at him and said, ‘Have you done this before?’
‘Many times,’ Kabiri said. ‘I usually work for the aid programmes, you know. Taking people to the projects across the border. Sometimes, the Americans ask me to do them a favour. Get somebody across, no questions asked.’
‘Why would you risk your balls running blokes like me into Afghanistan if you’ve got a steady job?’ asked Carter.
Kabiri said, ‘I have relatives. In Kabul. I send them money. Whatever I can spare, to pay for rent and food. The Americans, they pay good dollar, you know?’
‘Can’t you get them out?’
‘I have tried. Many times. It is not easy with the Taliban. They don’t want people to leave. For now, I do what I can. Later, maybe the Americans help to get them out.’ Kabiri paused. Smoke fumed out of his nostrils. He said, ‘Omar is waiting for us on the other side of the bridge. Fifteen kilometres away. We meet him, then we’re good. I go back. You understand? I don’t stay there for a moment longer than necessary.’
‘Roger that, mate.’
He glanced sidelong at Kabiri. The guy was sweating like a drug mule at an airport. Carter didn’t blame him. He was going into Afghanistan with a white guy for a passenger. A risky proposition. If they rumble us, Carter thought, they might take me hostage. Use me to secure a fat ransom. But they’ll torture Kabiri and put him to death. Burned alive, maybe. Or thrown from the roof of a ten-storey building.
Kabiri said, ‘You know Omar Sharza?’
Carter nodded. ‘We worked together. A few years ago.’
‘Omar is a good friend of mine,’ Kabiri said.
‘Is that so,’ Carter replied.
‘Yes,’ Kabiri said. ‘He is Tajik, same as me. Since the Taliban came back to power, we do many jobs together. I think we will be doing this for a long time. Many people wish to leave Afghanistan.’
Kabiri buzzed down the window and flicked his cigarette into the road. On the radio station, the folk tracks had given way to a stream of noisy adverts in the local lingo.
‘People are starving,’ Kabiri went on. ‘Nobody has money to buy food, and the drought has been bad again this year. Now they say Daesh-K is getting stronger. More fighters are crossing into Afghanistan every day. Not only Daesh-K, but al-Qaeda. Even the Taliban cannot control these people. It is a tragedy.’
Carter didn’t reply. He wasn’t interested in shooting the shit with this guy. He just wanted to get across the border so he could link up with Sharza and start looking for Vann.
The sooner we begin the search, the better our chances of finding him.
‘None of my business, of course,’ Kabiri said. ‘But if you ask me, you have to be a crazy man to go back there now.’
‘You’re right,’ Carter replied tonelessly. ‘It is none of your fucking business.’
Kabiri fell silent and refocused on the road ahead. Carter watched the landscape roll past, mentally running through the next few hours in his head. He figured maybe half an hour to cross the border into Afghanistan. Then a thirty-minute ride south to the RV with Sharza. Then a two-hundred-mile journey east to the safe house near Khordokan. A four-hour drive, maybe longer. Assuming they steered clear of trouble along the way, they’d reach the safe house some time before nightfall. Carter could spend the evening assessing potential locations to recce with Sharza before they began their search at first light.
They motored east, away from the city, passing through a parched landscape interrupted with a few isolated settlements. Something caught Carter’s eye at the side of the road. Hundreds of flimsy makeshift tents had been pitched in a field, he noticed. Some were little more than sheets of tarpaulin held together with sticks. In the gaps between the tents he glimpsed skinny children rooting through piles of festering rubbish. Dishevelled old men sat around in groups, baking under the oppressive desert sun. At the edge of the road, veiled women pleaded at passing motorists with outstretched hands, begging for scraps of food.
‘Refugees,’ Kabiri said, noticing Carter’s expression. ‘From across the border. The lucky ones.’
‘Christ. There must be thousands living in there,’ Carter said. He thought: if these are the lucky ones, the country must have really gone downhill since I last saw the place.
We’re entering the gates of hell.
‘At least they got out before it was too late,’ Kabiri said. ‘They have no money, no clothes. Life will be very hard for them here. But at least they will not starve to death.’
Carter ran his eyes over the endless rows of makeshift tents. Emaciated figures stared vacantly into the distance. Mothers tried to comfort wailing babies.
‘Things will get better,’ Kabiri said. ‘When the world hears of the plight of our people, they will have to help. They cannot let us suffer like this.’
‘Maybe,’ Carter replied.
But he knew the hard truth. The rest of the world didn’t give a toss about these poor souls, not really. Western celebs and worthies would post sympathetic messages on their social media accounts, declaring their support for Afghan women, or whatever happened to be the fashionable cause of the moment. Then they’d lose people’s attention and move on to the next thing.
No wonder the rest of the world hates our guts.
Seven minutes later, they hit the border checkpoint. Which was a heavily policed zone roughly two kilometres from the river crossing. Carter saw lots of barbed wire. Lots of sandbags and concrete security barriers. Half a dozen border officials stood around a large guardhouse, armed with Russian-manufactured assault rifles, plate armour and holstered pistols. Above them, an Uzbekistani flag rippled like a tongue in the faint midday breeze.
In front of the guardhouse, a stream of vehicles waited to be let through. Aid convoys, mostly, representing NGOs and charities from several countries. Germany, France, Canada. Usually there would be a stream of traders crossing back and forth to sell their wares, Kabiri said, but no one bothered now.
‘The traders say the people have no money to buy anything. Some barter their gold jewellery or sell whatever else they have in exchange. But most have nothing left.’
Kabiri hastily extinguished his cigarette, took the crumpled packet from the dash and stuffed it into his trouser pocket. A smart move. The Taliban took a dim view of smoking. They didn’t want to piss off the border guards unnecessarily.
As Carter scanned the convoys he spotted a Land Rover belonging to a well-known British NGO at the rear of the queue.
‘Shit,’ he muttered.
Kabiri glanced anxiously at him. ‘What? What is it?’
Carter indicated the Land Rover directly ahead. ‘Stay away from that vehicle,’ he said. ‘Slow down and get behind them guys,’ he added, pointing out a German convoy immediately behind the Land Cruiser.
‘Why? Is there a problem?’ Kabiri asked, panic rising in his voice.
‘Just avoid that wagon,’ Carter ordered. ‘It belongs to a British aid organisation.’
‘So?’
‘They’ll have security with them,’ Carter said. ‘Some of them might be ex-Regiment guys. They might recognise me.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Just fucking do it.’
Kabiri eased the Land Cruiser down to a slow crawl and pulled over at the side of the road, letting the three German wagons pass before he tucked in behind them and joined the line of traffic. As they edged forward, Carter glanced out of the corner of his eye at Kabiri. The guy was sweating buckets, looking more jittery with each passing moment.
Fuck me, thought Carter. His nerves are shot to pieces, and we haven’t even reached the border yet.
After what felt like a long time but was probably no more than five minutes, a stern-faced border guard motioned for them to move forward. Which turned out to be the easier part of the crossing. The local border forces didn’t give a toss about people trying to get into Afghanistan. They only cared about who might be coming the other way. The guard had a brief exchange with Kabiri and took a cursory glance at Carter’s paperwork before casually waving them through.
Kabiri steered the Land Cruiser along the road, sticking close to the three-car German aid convoy in front of them as they passed over a Soviet-era road-and-rail bridge extending across a murky stretch of river.
On the far bank, Carter saw a cluster of half-ruined buildings, rusted pickup trucks and sagging power lines.
Afghan soil.
They cleared the bridge, motored on for another two hundred metres, and then Kabiri slowed the Land Cruiser to a halt as they reached the bottleneck at the Afghan checkpoint.
The scene in front of them was chaotic. A long line of vehicles clogged the road, motors running, spewing out exhaust fumes while the driver of the British aid wagon leaned out of his side window, waving paperwork at a Taliban soldier.
More soldiers patrolled the checkpoint, glaring at the new arrivals. They were nothing like the poorly equipped fighters Carter had encountered on his last rotation in Afghanistan. These lads had US weaponry and kit. Pilfered from the stores left behind by American forces, no doubt. Carter saw one guy armed with an FN Minimi light machine gun. His shoulders were garlanded with belts of 5.56 x 45 mm NATO link.
This isn’t 2001 anymore, Mullins had said. We’re not up against a rabble of bearded mullahs.
The Taliban are better equipped now.
Up ahead, the British NGO crew was finally waved through.
Kabiri edged the Land Cruiser forward, gripping the wheel so tightly Carter thought it might snap. Sweat patches the size of reservoirs stained the front of the guide’s khaki shirt.
On the other side of the road, a fleet of large cargo trucks snaked towards the Taliban-manned checkpoint. As Carter looked on a trio of Taliban soldiers stepped out into the road, shouting and signalling for the driver of the lead truck to pull over.
Directly ahead, the wagon at the rear of the German convoy had passed through the checkpoint.
A pair of heavily armed soldiers next to the guardhouse yelled something incomprehensible at Kabiri, motioning for him to ease the Land Cruiser forward. Kabiri drew the vehicle level with the guardhouse, buzzed down the side window and killed the engine.
The two soldiers marched over. A tall guy and a much shorter guy. Like opposite ends of a matryoshka doll set. The shorter guy was squat and wide-necked and wore a pair of wraparound shades. The second soldier stood about six inches taller than his mate. He had a mean-looking face and a scar shaped like a crescent moon below his left eye.
Their gear and clothing might have changed. But the Taliban still looked like a bunch of evil bastards.
The scar-faced soldier stopped a couple of paces from the Land Cruiser. He gave Carter his best screw-face while the taller guy with the crescent scar approached the driver’s side window. Kabiri gave him a nervous smile. His stained rotten teeth looked like a mouthful of stubbed-out cigarette butts.
The scar-faced soldier barked at Kabiri and extended his left hand. Carter understood the guy’s demand easily enough. Show me your papers. Carter handed over his passport and the fake letter from the NGO, and Scar-Face creased his brow in concentration as he studied the documents.
Across the road, the driver of the lead transport truck climbed down from the front cab and raised his hands above his head. One of the soldiers started questioning him while his two mates inspected his vehicle, searching the cab and kicking the tyres.
Carter looked back at Scar-Face. He was still frowning at the letter. Shades came over to cast an eye over it. They had a quick consultation in front of the guardhouse. Then Scar-Face marched over to the Land Cruiser, pointing to the document as he shouted at Kabiri.
Kabiri held up his hands in mock surrender and made a series of apologetic gestures. As if to say: What do you want me to do? Scar-Face shook his head and snapped angrily as he shoved the letter back at him.
‘What does he want?’ Carter asked.
‘He says that this letter is not sufficient,’ Kabiri replied in a strained voice. ‘He says he cannot let us through without the rest of the documents.’
‘Tell him that’s all we’ve fucking got,’ Carter said angrily. ‘If he’s got a problem, tell him to check the NGO’s website. He can find all my details on there.’
Kabiri hastily translated. Scar-Face uttered a quick-fire reply.
‘He says he doesn’t know about any website,’ Kabiri said. ‘He says if you don’t have the paperwork, you have no right to be in Afghanistan.’
Carter leaned over, showing the soldier the identity card attached to his lanyard. ‘Tell this fucking idiot we’re working on a major project with the support of his government. If he doesn’t let us through, he’ll be in a world of shit with his bosses.’
Kabiri translated again. But Scar-Face didn’t appear to be listening. He caught sight of Carter’s right hand and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. The soldier pointed to it as he snapped at Kabiri.
‘What is it?’ Carter asked. ‘What’s he banging on about now?’
Kabiri swallowed nervously. ‘He says he wants to know why an NGO worker has got a bloodied fist.’
Carter glanced at his purpled hand. He’d been so busy focusing on the mission during the flight from Chile that he’d forgotten to clean the dried blood from his knuckles. A stupid mistake.
Scar-Face waited impatiently.
‘I fell down the stairs coming off the plane,’ Carter said. ‘On the connecting flight. Wasn’t looking where I was going. Bloody typical.’
Kabiri relayed the explanation to Scar-Face. The Taliban guard snorted and grooved his brow. The guy wasn’t buying it, Carter realised. The man shouted furiously at Kabiri, gesturing at him with the business end of his assault rifle. Kabiri gave a panicked response. The argument was getting heated. Carter realised the whole operation was about to turn to shit. If Scar-Face saw through the cover story, he was fucked.
Just then he heard a commotion from the direction of the cargo trucks. Screaming voices. Shouting. Carter looked across the road. Towards the lead truck, fifteen metres away.
So did Kabiri and Scar-Face.
The two soldiers beside the truck were dragging out a pair of shrieking kids from the underside of the chassis. They pulled out two more boys from beneath the truck and forced them at gunpoint to stand next to the first pair. None of the kids looked a day older than eleven or twelve.
Carter looked on through the dirt-flecked windscreen as the soldiers ripped the threadbare clothes from the four boys, revealing dozens of dark-coloured packs strapped with duct tape around their chests, arms and legs.
Heroin.
Black tar.
The two soldiers tore the heroin packs free and started thrashing the half-naked kids with their long wooden sticks. Almost immediately the other guards hurried over to join in, kicking and punching faces and torsos while their mates stood around and laughed.
Carter saw another trio of kids crawl out from beneath one of the rear transport trucks. They turned and began running back down the road in a desperate attempt to escape the same fate as their friends. One of the guards spotted them and shouted what sounded like an order at Shades and Scar-Face. Telling them to give chase, perhaps.
Scar-Face glanced back at Kabiri and drew his eyebrows together, as if making a quick decision. Then he said a few words to the guide before he started after the fleeing kids.
‘He says we can go,’ Kabiri said. ‘We are free to continue our journey.’
‘Thank fuck for that,’ Carter muttered.
As they accelerated away, Carter glanced back at the checkpoint. Scar-Face and Shades had caught up with the kids. The soldiers yanked them to their feet while their mates marched the other boys at gunpoint towards a windowless concrete building at the side of the road.
‘Smuggling,’ Kabiri said. He lit a celebratory cigarette and sucked on it, exhaling with relief. ‘Very big problem on the border now. Lots of gangs use the children to try and get through. Most make it. Some do not.’
Carter said, ‘But the Taliban run most of the smuggling operations in these parts, don’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘So why the fuck would they arrest some kids for trafficking heroin? Surely they’d want the gear to get through.’
‘Supply and demand,’ Kabiri said. ‘Today, there is too much opium on the global market. It is, as you say, saturated. Which makes it cheap. So now the Taliban cut the supply. Drive the price up. Make more money.’
Sharza rubbed his thumb and forefinger together to emphasise his point.
‘What will happen to the kids?’ Carter asked.
‘They will be flogged and beaten. One or two may be used for bacha bazi.’
Carter wrinkled his nose in disgust. During his time in the country as an embed he’d heard plenty of stories about the rural custom of bacha bazi. Boy play. Adolescent boys who dressed up as females and danced in front of groups of adult men. Many were sold or kidnapped and sexually abused by powerful Afghans.
He said, ‘I thought the Taliban had outlawed all them dancing boys.’
Kabiri said, ‘This is true. But the Taliban also use them for honeytraps sometimes. To get close to the warlords and commanders who are opposed to the rule of the Taliban. They force the boys to win the trust of their enemies, then poison or shoot them.’
Carter shook his head in disbelief. ‘The drug gangs never used to use kids. Not for this shite.’
‘Times have changed,’ Kabiri said.
‘What does that mean?’
Kabiri shrugged and said, ‘People are desperate. Families will do anything for a little food. Some sell their kidneys or other organs. Girls are sold into marriage with older men, sometimes when they are still just infants, so the father can receive a down payment on the dowry. Boys are forced into labour. Whatever work they can find. Some go to work for the smugglers. They pay money to the family if the children make it across the border.’
Carter stared at him in disgust. ‘People are selling their kids now?’
Kabiri said, flatly, ‘They have no choice. A bride can fetch two or three hundred dollars. Enough to put food on the table for a while. Many parents cannot afford to feed their children anyway. If they do not sell them to someone else, they will starve to death.’
‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Like I told you. Only a crazy person would come back here.’