Chapter Twenty-Seven

The commercial flight on Lufthansa from JFK to Frankfurt was $2600 for coach. The gate agent was a vet who recognized the look on Jarvis’ face and gave him an exit window seat. He looked slightly wistful handing Jarvis the boarding pass. A stint in the Gulf was more enticing than explaining to the fat woman next in line that she might have to buy two seats.

 

Jarvis put his one bag in the overhead bin and only got up once to stretch his legs and pee before they reached cruising altitude. Eight hours later he landed in late morning fog in Germany. He went through uncrowded customs and passport control lines then took a shuttle to a remote terminal where the planes were unmarked except for numbers on the fuselage. He got in line behind a dozen men who ran the gamut from Central Casting mercenary to left-wing aid worker. He fit right in. A courteous but no-nonsense security guard – private, not employed by either the US or German aviation agencies, directed each man in line through a metal detector and toward a second guard who escorted them to a private area. It was more like boot camp induction than flight prep. When it was Jarvis’ turn, he went through the metal detector and then to his left, as directed. The guard took him to a bare space the size of a small doctor’s examination room and pointed at his clothes. Jarvis wordlessly stripped naked and let the guard do his business after snapping on a surgical glove. The man’s hands were cold.

 

Apparently not concealing any Uzis in his nether parts, Jarvis was permitted into the waiting area where several dozen people gathered. Against the advice of the signs, half the men smoked and no one objected. Duffel bags were lined up by a door leading to the tarmac. Three armed security guards roamed the room, not randomly but according to a clear sequence. Another two were on the tarmac on either side of the plain white 767. Half an hour passed and a guard opened the sliding glass door to the outside. Without any rush or bustling that accompanies businessmen and tourists jostling to get on a plane, the fifty-some-odd group naturally formed a line and worked their way up the mobile staircase.

 

The seats were less comfortable but much roomier than the commercial flight. There was no movie or hot meal service. All the travelers were used to government transport and quickly settled in for the seven-hour flight. Few people spoke and the guy next to Jarvis was asleep before the door closed. Jarvis waited until they were at cruising altitude and took a nap of just under an hour. No writing beforehand. He awoke refreshed and with a clear plan in mind. The guy to his left woke midway in the steep descent that felt like a Kamikaze attack – the angle of entry into Khandahar Airport was intended to minimize the amount of time the plane was potentially within reach of surface to air missiles. The g-forces felt familiar to Jarvis and put him in the right mindset. It was a the mentality of war – heavy with anticipation, even during the stretches of unrelenting boredom, everyone knowing that a break in the calm was never minor, never just a bump in the road. Most of the passengers were up and holding their bags before the plane came to a stop. Jarvis was the last off the plane.

 

It was mid-morning and the sun had already baked away any coolness clinging to the ground from the evening. The tarmac was dry and dusty but as modern as any runway at LAX. The only differences were the rubble to the left that used to be the international terminal and the line of vehicles parked thirty feet from the plane. Two reinforced Humvees driven by security contractors, a government aid agency white van, two limos for the three men who’d sat in what passed for first class seats on the flight, and three taxis that looked like they’d crossed the dessert with Moses. All but the last taxi drove off. He wondered if the reason it stayed still was because it was waiting for him or was too dilapidated to take another breath and summon up the energy to move. It was the former. The driver got out with a creak of the door and waved as though Jarvis were a mile and a half away rather than fifteen steps. Jarvis pretended not to see, then not to recognize the driver, who took that as a sign to come around to the other side and almost jump up and down.

 

“Jar-vees! Jar-vees! Over here! It is me!”

 

Jarvis couldn’t resist the impulse to smile any longer. He bee-lined to the driver and took off his sunglasses. They clasped hands, then hugged.

 

“Saleem, I see you got a new car.”

 

The laugh was deep and real and was Jarvis’ true welcome to a country he loved and feared. Saleem took the bag from Jarvis and tossed it through the windowless back seat door. He yanked open the passenger door, metal fighting metal as if it were a battle for existence. The ancient leather smelled of every food, every type of smoke, and every soul Jarvis had experienced in his two years in Afghanistan. He felt at home and afraid.

 

Saleem almost ran around to the driver’s side and had the car in gear before his door closed. If the speedometer had been working Jarvis could have confirmed his estimate they were going fifty miles per hour before they’d made it the forty feet to the gate. The taxi entered a surprisingly dense stream of traffic headed out to the highway and into the dessert. They dropped in behind a quickly moving group of vans, small trucks, and old Mercedes that was following three US military Humvees. Saleem whistled, fired questions, and updated Jarvis on what had happened since the last time they had seen one another almost eight years ago. It was music to Jarvis’ ears and he answered about one out of four questions, waiting for a pause in the monologue. He closed his eyes and breathed in, catching whiffs of diesel fuel, occasional animal smells as they passed a truck filled with chickens, and the unmistakable scent of war.

 

“Jar-vees, don’t tell me you are here to fight some more the war? You are not mercenary!!!” Saleem laughed but there was an undercurrent of dead seriousness.

 

Jarvis opened his eyes and turned to his friend. “No, no habib. I have some personal business.” This time Saleem’s laugh was undiluted.

 

“That woman, Fallah, she who took your heart back then?” Fallah was an ancient prostitute who had crooked her finger at Jarvis many times when he was on leave and traveling the city of Khandahar with his friend. The first time he’d been disgusted, but by the twentieth it had become a running joke. She was probably no older than 50 but looked as though she were Methuselah’s older sister.

 

There was silence and Saleem saw Jarvis’ business was serious. “Where will you stay, my friend? My home is open, you know this, but I think maybe your business must happen from somewhere else.”

 

Jarvis reached across the seat and clasped the driver on the shoulder. “I’ll need your help getting around, but it would be better if I stayed at the Interconti.”

 

Saleem watched the increasingly crowded road and nodded. They were quiet for a moment and Saleem kept his eyes on the road. Below the hubbub of the car and noise from passing vehicles, he nodded again and whispered, “It is very bad here, my friend. Very bad for everyone, but very very bad for Americans. Please you be careful.” They rode in silence for a mile and then Saleem began catching him up on what his three children were studying in school and how his wife berated him for staying out too late but always had a warm dinner waiting for him. They pulled to the side of the road once to let a caravan of half a dozen Humvees whiz by. Army issue, but under private label. Jarvis knew if they hadn’t pulled over, the vehicles would have either pushed them out of the way or a “security consultant” riding in the lead car would have pointed a 50-caliber rifle at them and not waited more than a couple seconds to fire off a few rounds. Better safe than sorry. They were at the hotel twenty minutes later and parted warmly but with foreboding in the air around.