Farishta (17 page)

“I think it would be better if you stay back here with the vehicle, Fuzzy,” I said to my grim bodyguard. “I’m afraid your uniform and loaded weapon may not be appreciated by this crowd.”

“Angela, I’m supposed to provide you with close protection at all times.”

“I know that. But look at the women in this crowd.”

The few adult females who were standing with their husbands, all political supporters of General Kabir, were bundled against the cold in long dark coats and head scarves. The cultural influences of the former Soviet Republics just across the northern border had filtered down to some of the more educated ethnic Uzbek women in this province, where a small but growing number of them no longer wore the all-enveloping burka at public gatherings.

“With Rahim at my side and my hair wrapped in this black scarf, I’m going to blend right in,” I argued.

“All right, Angela, but I don’t like it,” muttered Fuzzy as he turned and headed slowly back to the Beast.

The speeches by provincial and local officials had already begun, with each man heaping ever-greater praise on Kabir’s leadership. His dark, narrow face beamed with pride and the rows of medals on his ancient olive drab uniform jangled noisily as he approached the podium.

I had been invited at the last minute by Abdul to stand next to the general during the ceremony, but I had declined, arguing that it would not be appropriate for me to usurp the place of one of Kabir’s loyal supporters. In truth, I didn’t want to be seen in public standing next to a man whom many in the international community considered to be a war criminal.

Abdul told me that the general would be very disappointed if I didn’t accept, but I stood my ground and positioned myself next to Rahim behind several rows of the party faithful, who were anxiously waiting for the general to begin his speech. The sky was clear, but a cold wind blew across the soccer field where the general’s audience huddled together and tried to stay warm.

Surrounded by the attentive crowd wrapped in their dark coats and blankets, my attention was suddenly drawn to a small girl in a red cloak near the stage. She was tugging on her father’s hand and raising her arms. She wanted him to pick her up, but he was ignoring her pleas. She had the blond hair that occurred from time to time in this part of the country and with her apple cheeks and tight curls she reminded me of a young Shirley Temple. She caught me looking at her and offered me a wide smile before darting into the crowd.

While the general was taking his position with the other dignitaries, Abdul whispered something into his ear and pointed in my direction. I presumed that he was conveying my refusal to join them on the stage. As soon as Kabir glanced my way with an angry scowl on his face, I saw his eyes grow suddenly wide. A voice in the crowd shouted, “
Allahu Akbar.
” Then came the explosion and the smoke and the screaming.

The blast sent shock waves but little shrapnel into the crowd. Rahim threw me to the ground and covered my body with his. I could feel him bracing for a second explosion, but none came. Images of the black cloud over the embassy in Beirut flashed through my mind, but I forced them out and replaced them with the memory of Mike, crouched at my side in the auditorium, talking me through my panic attack.

Rahim tried to stand up, but people kept tripping over us as they fled the site of the blast. I glanced toward the stage and could see Kabir looking strangely calm as his bodyguards whisked him off the field.

The crowd thinned out rapidly, with only the injured and their families forming small clusters around the smoking and mutilated body of the suicide bomber.

“Angela-
jan,
are you hurt?” cried Rahim as he helped me to my feet. I was shaken but uninjured and surprised at how calm I felt. I was also secretly thrilled to hear Rahim addressing me for the very first time using the familiar term
jan
after my name.

“Angela, Rahim!” I could hear Fuzzy’s and Jenkins’s voices as they pushed their way toward us through the fleeing survivors. There were no medical personnel on the field.

A few yards in front of me, I saw a red bundle on the ground. With a gasp, I realized it was the coat of the little girl. Her father was crouched over her, scanning the crowd desperately for someone to help him. Blood was gushing from a gaping wound in her leg.

Mike’s first-aid training kicked in, and I went into autopilot. Femoral artery, I thought running to her side, pulling off my head scarf, stuffing it into the wound, and applying pressure. The blood continued to pulse from her leg. I pressed down hard on the artery and grabbing the end of the head scarf used it to make a tourniquet around her thigh.

“Rahim, tell this man we must get his daughter to a hospital immediately or she will die,” I shouted. “Fuzzy, Jenkins, pick her up. Keep her head lower than her legs, and I’ll keep pressure on the wound.

“Rahim, tell her father to come with us, and tell Jenkins how to get to the nearest hospital. We’re taking this little girl and her father there now.”

Fuzzy, Jenkins, Rahim, and the girl’s father reacted quickly and without further discussion. Jenkins called the soldiers waiting for us at the safe house and told them to follow us to Sheberghān, where there was another PRT safe house and a small hospital. We arrived an hour later at the poorly equipped hospital, where the little girl and her leg were saved.

By evening, Harry and Major Davies had driven over from Mazār with a convoy from the Forward Support Base to join me in meetings with the local police.

Harry was relieved that none of us had been hurt in the blast, and although I could tell how awful he felt about what had happened, he stood by his decision to allow me to make the trip. Major Davies felt otherwise. He grabbed me by the elbow as I exited one of the meetings behind Harry. “Miss Morgan, I admire your quick thinking, but you wouldn’t have been in any danger if you had taken my advice in the first place. You’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Thanks for your concern, Major, but I fully intend to meet with any officials in the northern provinces who are willing to see me. I believe that’s why I’m here,” I snapped as I pulled out of his grip.

An international criminal investigation team flew in from Kabul to view the mangled body of the unidentified suicide bomber and gather evidence. Only a few bystanders, like the little girl who had been near the bomber when he pulled the cord on his belt of explosives, had been hurt by the blast. Kabir was unharmed, and none of his deputies seriously injured. No one had died except for the bomber. According to the investigators, the explosives, which had eviscerated the bomber but left his shoulders, neck, and head untouched, were unusually compact.

 

 

Over the next few days, evidence and witnesses began to vanish mysteriously. The identity and motives of the bomber and any possible accomplices were never uncovered, leading some to conclude that Kabir might have arranged the attack himself to build sympathy and support.

After the incident in Andkhoy, I silently vowed never again to leave the PRT without my tiny golden goddess and her leaping gazelle pinned to my jacket.

The ambassador’s trip north was postponed indefinitely.

Surviving the bombing along with my quick action in getting the little girl to a hospital had profoundly altered my standing with the few officers at the PRT who still questioned my presence, except, of course, for Major Davies.

When our convoy returned to Mazār the next afternoon, Jenkins breathlessly recounted to a very attentive Sergeant Major how I had taken command of the situation. That night, I received a round of applause as I walked through the pub on my way to the treadmill. When I returned an hour later and the chief of staff offered to buy me a beer, I accepted and enjoyed my first drink in the pub.

Early the following morning, when Harry saw me attempting to squeeze my legs under the typing table that served as my desk in the bullpen, he took pity on me and offered to let me use one of the two empty desks in his office. The larger one was reserved for the British diplomat who would soon be arriving, but the spare one for official visitors, he admitted, was rarely occupied.

Much to my regret, these men, who would soon be rotating out with the rest of their regiment, would be replaced by the far more conservative soldiers and officers of Major Davies’s Royal Gurkha Rifles. I was especially disappointed that Harry, with whom I had established a great working relationship, would be leaving in three weeks.

At least Fuzzy and Jenkins would still be here. Both were scheduled to complete their military service at the end of the year. They had been asked and had agreed to stay on at the PRT as my designated driver and vehicle commander until I left in December.

Major Davies, who would be around for another six to eight months, seemed indifferent to the fact that I had survived the Andkhoy bombing. I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with his silent brooding stares during every meeting we attended together.

And then there was Rahim. After the suicide bombing, he and I had begun to bond in a way that remained unspoken between us, but which I hoped would survive my coming months of linguistic deception.

February 23, 2005
✦ MAZĀR-I-SHARĪF

I was equally thankful that I hadn’t been injured or killed in that bombing. My coolheaded reaction continued to astound me when I recalled the chaos of the moment. The Estonians’ demolitions still caused me to jump, but when faced with an actual crisis, I had been able to draw on reserves of strength I though I would never regain after Beirut. Was it Mike’s swift intervention when I panicked during the triage exercise that had improved my ability to handle stress? Would it last?

“Sergeant Major, I’m going to need my vehicle today,” I said, walking into his office and waiting politely for him to finish another profanity-laden conversation with his counterpart at the Forward Support Base. “My embassy has asked me to visit the central prison to check on reports of abuse of female prisoners.”

He looked harassed as always, but his attitude toward me had done a complete 180 after the suicide bombing in Andkhoy. Where before he was the soul of obstruction, he now bent over backward to accommodate all of my vehicle requests, even at the last minute.

“Angela, I’m terribly sorry to disappoint,” he said, “but I don’t have a single spare driver. Jenkins and five of his mates are at the Forward Support Base for a day of training. The others are all out on patrol.”

“I can drive myself,” I replied. “I only need one vehicle to go into town, I know how to use a stick shift, and Rahim knows the way to the prison. All I need is a vehicle commander to ride shotgun.”

“Sorry, luv, officers aren’t allowed to drive,” he said, tilting his closely shaven head to one side and raising an eyebrow.

“Sergeant Major, I’m a civilian and the State Department allows us to drive our own vehicles. My Foreign Service colleague at the German PRT in Kunduz drives himself alone all the time.” What I didn’t add was that most Afghan men considered it culturally offensive for a woman to drive. It was not against the law for females to have driver’s licenses here, as it was in Saudi Arabia, but only a few brave women in Kabul had taken the plunge after the Taliban fell from power. As far as I knew, there were no lady drivers in Mazār-i-Sharīf.

When two of the three phones on his desk began to ring, he furrowed his brow, reached into a metal locker, and handed me the keys to the Beast. “When do you want to leave ? ”

“Fourteen hundred hours, if that would be possible.”

“For you, Angela, anything,” he said with as much of a smile as he would allow anyone to see. “I’ll send Fuzzy to protect you from the bad guys.”

Rahim had such a look of distress on his face when he saw me in the driver’s seat that I had to force myself not to laugh. Even I had to admit that the image of me in the shaking Beast, its keys jangling in the ignition, could not have been the most comforting sight for this young man, who had never seen a woman drive anything in Afghanistan. He climbed warily into the backseat.

“Angela
-jan
, do you know how to drive this? ” he asked.

“My question was slightly different, Angela,” interrupted Fuzzy, as he wedged his rifle between his leg and the door and began the longest sentence he had ever uttered in my presence.

“Have you ever driven anything as big as this Land Cruiser in a city like Mazār-i-Sharīf, where no one has a license, women do not drive anything, there are no stoplights, there appear to be no rules of the road, and drivers completely ignore the few aging policemen who are attempting to direct traffic?”

“Calm down, both of you. I’ve driven in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Moscow. Mazār will be a piece of cake,” I said, laughing to conceal my own nagging unease about driving the Beast into town. Adjusting my head scarf, buckling my seat belt, and swallowing hard, I hit the clutch and shifted into reverse. I could see Rahim in the rearview mirror. He was mumbling something to himself—probably prayers.

I did attract a lot of attention as I steered the Beast cautiously into town. “Angela, you’re going to cause an accident,” Fuzzy said nervously. “Every driver who sees you is doing a double take.”

I kept my eyes on the cars, camels, and pedestrians ahead of us, grinding the Beast’s gears and white-knuckling the steering wheel. What happened next made up for everything I’d missed.