It TOOK US A few days to get our visas and make travel arrangements. Meanwhile we had to purchase the gear we might need. Except for armored vests, CTC/SO didn’t have equipment to issue out, so instead officers were given an equipment and clothing list and provided a cash advance to make purchases. Finding all the items on the list in northern Virginia, particularly the clothes items, turned out to be a challenge. It seemed as if everyone in the U.S. government was out shopping for the same things. Trying to find a couple pair of heavy-duty cargo pants with a 34-inch waist or size 11 hiking boots proved almost impossible.
Although Jimmy and I were to focus on establishing operations in southern Afghanistan, because I was due to arrive in Pakistan soon, it looked like I might be in a position to meet with Pasha when he came out of Afghanistan. Discussions had continued at CTC/SO about possibly putting a CIA team in country to work with him. Since I was the officer who had re-recruited him and prepped him for his mission, I continued to be the logical choice to go in with him should the decision be made to do so. I had mixed feelings about this.
The idea of working with Pasha to try to detect al-Qa’ida moving into his home province in the rugged Hindu Kush would be a challenging and worthwhile endeavor, and on the practical side, the money I had spent on snow shoes and a sub-zero sleeping bag would not be wasted. But there was a stronger allure about the idea of working in southern Afghanistan. Unlike in the north where CIA had a still small but growing presence working with the Northern Alliance, operationally and tactically speaking, the South was a blank canvas waiting to be painted. There was no “Southern Alliance” that held territory or had an army with which we could join forces; the Taliban and al-Qa’ida were still in control there. Whatever we did in the South had to take into account those very different circumstances.
But those were challenges for the future. Before we could begin to tackle them, Jimmy and I first needed to get to Pakistan. Though I had previously served in the region, I had never been to Pakistan. I knew facts about the country and its government, but my personal experience related to Pakistan and its people was very limited. My closest experience and most memorable impression happened years earlier when I was in the Army. I was attending the Special Forces Officer Qualification course and had the opportunity to work with a Pakistani Army captain who was a member of my student team. He was in the course as part of a military services exchange program between the U.S. and Pakistan.
The captain was from a Pak commando regiment, and although the oldest soldier in the course, he consistently scored the highest physical fitness scores and always managed to be the first to finish our daunting obstacle course. From a physical fitness standpoint he was an animal, to be sure. However, his intellect and manners were also of the highest order, reminiscent of an Oxford-educated English gentleman, a comparison with which the captain’s accent aligned as well.
The captain and I were paired up throughout much of the training, so I got to know him fairly well—and in one instance almost too well. That incident occurred during a nighttime parachute jump into a national forest in North Carolina, which was the start of the course’s final exercise known as “Robin Sage.” The drop zone was tiny—“postage stamp” size, to put it in airborne vernacular, and it was going to be a challenge to hit it and avoid going into the unwelcoming branches that stretched up to us from the surrounding trees. We had exited the aircraft one after the other, but as my parachute deployed with a reassuring jolt, I realized that the Pak captain and I were very close to one another—dangerously close. The captain saw this as well, and we quickly steered away from each other to avoid our parachutes becoming entangled and collapsing. Safely separated, we turned our attention to reaching the unlit drop zone. As we floated through the moonless night above the trees, we suddenly found ourselves again coming toward one another, this time on a direct collision course. Fortunately, we just managed to avoid direct impact, but our parachute canopies, like the skirts of twirling dancers, brushed against one another as we passed by. Despite the dangerous distractions of our aerial ballet, we both made it to the drop zone unharmed. All but one of our remaining team members crashed into the trees, however, with the sounds of breaking branches shattering the silence of the night.
The scenario for the Robin Sage exercise was that our 12-man Special Forces A-team was jumping in “behind the lines” to link up with a guerrilla, or “G”, force. The team’s mission was to act as a force multiplier by training and advising the guerilla force on how to fight and defeat the conventional military forces of an authoritarian regime. It was during Robin Sage that I got to know the captain the best. At one point, he and I were teamed together to conduct a two-day reconnaissance of a guarded bridge that served as the target of the exercise. To be successful—and not be discovered by the bridge guard force—required great stealth and patience, and there was almost no talking between us as we scouted the bridge’s defenses during the days. However, at night we would quietly withdraw from the bridge and move deep into the woods to set up a primitive lean-to made of rain ponchos. We would roll out our sleeping bags under the shelter and try to get some rest. As we lay there listening to the sounds of the night, in a lowered voice the captain talked about his home and country. He was extremely proud of Pakistan and the Pakistani Army, telling tales of battles that had been fought in the many wars against India and the heroics performed by Pakistani soldiers. Despite the bloody history of conflict between India and Pakistan, the captain said he believed peace was possible one day, although it would be “a long time coming.”
As I thought about Jimmy’s and my upcoming trip to Pakistan, I remembered the captain and how impressed I was by him. I wondered how his Army career had turned out and what he thought of the current situation in Pakistan. His impression on me was so strong and lasting that some eight years later he would be the inspiration for the fictional character, Major Tarek Durrani, the protagonist in my novel North From Calcutta.