Farishta (5 page)

“Mark, if the Americans want to have one of their own up there reporting back to Washington, there’s not a great deal we have to say about it. Also the State Department and our Foreign Office both want a diplomat in Mazār who is fluent in Dari. Neither our current diplomatic representative nor his replacement has sufficient fluency.”

“But, sir . . .” Mark interrupted.

Smythe ignored him and continued. “We suspect that some of the interpreters may not be briefing our officers accurately on all the side conversations taking place during their meetings with the local warlords. Mind you, no one at the PRT, except for the commanding officer and his deputy, is to know about her language ability until she is able to spend a few months going out on patrols with our boys and assessing the accuracy of our terps’ translations.”

“They’re sending a woman? ” I could hear the agitation rising in the major’s voice. “That camp is quite small and really, sir, with an all-male infantry company, it’s no place for a woman.”

“Regardless of what you think, Mark, Her Majesty’s government, NATO, and the commanding officer of PRT Mazār-i-Sharīf have already expressed their full approval of and support for her assignment.”

Smythe glanced at me through the open door, raised one eyebrow, then turned back to the major before continuing. “Even more important, however, the gender of the diplomat the Americans choose to send to our PRT should be of no concern to you whatsoever.

“The British Army has temporarily housed female soldiers and civilians in the past at PRT Mazār—medics, journalists, supply clerks. Just because there aren’t any there at this time doesn’t mean we can’t accommodate the American for the next year.”

The major shook his head and ran his fingers repeatedly through his short-cropped hair.

“You should also be aware that you won’t be spending your tour in Kabul as initially planned, Mark. The Foreign Office intends to ask your commanding officer to release you for duty in Mazār-i-Sharīf for at least six months since your own regiment will be taking over there in April.”

There was no reply from the major to this new information.

“You’ll spend a few days being briefed at NATO headquarters in Kabul, but you are urgently needed to take over the running of the intel shop at PRT Mazār. It’s a total mess. We also need someone of your caliber to begin organizing the smooth transition of the whole intel operation to the Swedish Army when they take over the PRT from us at the end of 2005 and our boys move south to Helmand. We have requested your transfer north but, of course, it’s entirely up to your commanding officer to approve it.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” the major replied in a tone that failed to conceal his displeasure.

Smythe tapped his pipe on an empty ashtray and continued. “We also need a fluent Pashto speaker like yourself in Mazār for the same reason we need the American diplomat’s expertise in Dari. We understand that the Afghan government may be moving some Pashtun police officials from the south into senior positions in the northern provinces. Although these moves make no sense to us because there are so few Pashto speakers in that part of Afghanistan, we must be prepared since only one of the interpreters at the PRT speaks the language.”

“Is this woman with the CIA, sir? It would not help our credibility if word got out that we are providing cover for one of their agents.”

Smythe glanced at me through the door and saw me rolling my eyes at the major’s comment.

“The State Department says she’s one of theirs,” he assured Davies. “She’ll have a small private room in the officers’ section at the PRT, and she’s quite agreeable to sharing their shower and bathroom facilities.”

“And how can you be sure of that, sir? ” asked Davies.

“Trust me, Mark, she knows what she’s getting into,” replied Smythe.

“Yes, sir, but with all respect . . .” The major’s voice was rising again.

“Mark, the decision has been made,” said Smythe as he stood to indicate that the meeting was over. “Would you like to meet Miss Morgan?”

“Who is Miss Morgan?” Davies seemed momentarily confused as Smythe led him to the desk, where I rose unsmiling to greet him. My initial attraction had been replaced by the simmering anger I’d felt so many times during my career when faced with the unreasoning prejudice of men who couldn’t imagine working with me as an equal.

The major’s demeanor had also undergone a dramatic transformation. He took my outstretched hand briefly into his, muttered, “Pleasure to meet you,” thanked Smythe with great formality for their meeting, turned, and was gone.

“Is this the reception I should expect when I get to Mazār? ” I asked Smythe.

After twenty-five years in the Foreign Service, I had grown accustomed to this attitude on the part of certain older male diplomats, although things had slowly improved as each year’s crop of new diplomats brought the Department of State closer to resembling the America whose interests it represented abroad. The major’s chauvinistic reaction put him firmly in the old guard and told me I would have one less ally to count on.

Smythe thrummed his fingers on his secretary’s desk as we watched the major exit his office. “Miss Morgan, please let me apologize for this unpleasantness. I deliberately left my door open, because I realized when Major Davies arrived that this was the best way for you to understand what you’ll be facing when you get to Mazār.

“I . . . we have the greatest respect for our military forces and their contributions to our national security, but we struggle at times seeing eye-to-eye on matters of diplomacy. Major Davies is one of the finest intelligence officers I have ever met, but he is very much of the old school, like many of his fellow Gurkhas.”

“Who are the Gurkhas?”

“They are a unique regiment composed of Nepalese soldiers and multilingual British officers—in my opinion the finest regiment in the British Army and perhaps the most feared fighters in the world.”

As annoyed as I was by the major’s dismissive attitude, I couldn’t help but add, “Do you know where he’s from?”

“He has some northern Indian blood. I was at Oxford with a first cousin of his. There’s a Kashmiri princess on the mother’s side. Of course, the whole family’s been in the UK since partition.” Smythe’s secretary returned while we were talking, and he suggested we step out for a cup of tea. As soon as we got outside, he lit his pipe and continued our conversation with it clenched it between his teeth.

Over a pot of Earl Grey and a tray of scones, I asked for more details about the British military personnel I would be working with at the PRT. Smythe’s response was not encouraging.

“I’m sorry, Miss Morgan, I don’t have many details on the UK military personnel currently assigned to Mazār. I do know that there’s an infantry company and an operations team—more than a hundred officers and men in total. No women, mainly for privacy concerns. It’s a very small compound, mind you. There are also a number of six-man Military Observation Teams—MOTs, they call them—staffed with UK, Romanian, and Scandinavian Army personnel. Some of them work from safe houses in other provinces. Our new diplomatic representative at the PRT, Richard Carrington, is still on holiday. He’ll be arriving in Mazār a few weeks after you. I’m sorry there’s so much ambiguity about your role there. I don’t envy you this assignment,” he said with a sigh.

December 22, 2004
✦ DUBAI

To reach Afghanistan from London, I had to overnight in Dubai, where I’d been told to pick up an onward UN Humanitarian Air Service flight that carried aid workers and embassy personnel the last seven hundred miles into Kabul.

Dubai from the air took my breath away. Massive hotels and office buildings resembling cut-crystal perfume bottles were scattered across a swathe of green that stretched from the desert to the edge of the lapis blue Persian Gulf.

The U.S. Consulate in Dubai had made my reservation, assuring me that the perks of being a diplomat in the United Arab Emirates were impressive. My government per diem plus a diplomatic discount would allow me to stay at one of Dubai’s finer hotels.

My destination, the Emirates Towers, was one of a pair of identical thin, angular, smoked-glass buildings. A smiling Filipino bellman took my bags from the taxi driver and led me into a soaring ten-story atrium. Glass elevators slid silently between the floors. Elaborate fountains splashed next to clusters of well-dressed men sipping tiny cups of coffee and conducting their business in discreet murmurs.

My clothes were wrinkled, I was tired and sweaty, and I felt totally out of place in the presence of these manicured customers being attended to by a very solicitous hotel staff.

I was taken to my room on the “women’s floor”—where the hotel put females traveling alone. It was a suite, really, offering a spectacular view of the sea and a basket of fresh fruit on the coffee table. With nothing to keep me occupied until my nine A.M. flight to Kabul the following day, I decided to head down to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Going out at night on my own was something I generally avoided after my decade of debauchery following Tom’s death, but tonight would probably be my last chance for a gin and tonic in the next twelve months and the restaurant had a bar—so what the hell.

Certain that my rumpled khakis wouldn’t cut it at this hotel, I changed into a short black linen dress, the only knee-length item I had packed for my year in Afghanistan—perhaps to wear to an embassy party if I were ever invited.

Because air-conditioning kept the hotel’s restaurants and lobby chilled to subarctic temperatures, I threw a light jacket over my shoulders and pinned on the brooch Tom had given me for my twenty-seventh birthday. It was a gold-plated replica of an ancient piece of Scythian jewelry depicting the goddess Artemis on a leaping gazelle. Except for my wedding ring, which I had stopped wearing years ago, it was my favorite piece of jewelry.

It had been many years since I’d entered a bar alone. I pulled myself up on a stool, briefly noting that I was the only unaccompanied female in the room, and asked the bartender for a menu.

“So what brings you to the emerald city? ”

I turned my head and saw a tall blond man in tan slacks and an open-collared shirt sitting a few chairs down from me.

“Stefan Illyich Borosky, first secretary, Russian Embassy, Kabul,” he said with a friendly smile.

Russian. I should have guessed from his accent. I had met a lot of men like him during my two years in Leningrad, but in the Cold War years, it would have been dangerous to respond to anyone who approached me like this out of the blue.

“Angela Morgan.” I extended my hand. “I’m with the Department of State—on my way to a year at PRT Mazār-i-Sharīf. It looks like we’re going to be neighbors,” I said with a smile and the realization that I was engaging in a mild flirtation with a former Cold War enemy.

“I’m headed home for a few weeks of R and R in Moscow,” he said, “but I’ve spent some time in Mazār.”

“Maybe you can fill me in on some details I might not have picked up in my formal briefings.”

“With pleasure,” he replied with a broad grin.

With the instant camaraderie that often develops between travelers, we took our drinks and moved to a table in the restaurant. The conversation and wine flowed easily over dinner, although I was aware that we were both holding back, revealing only as much information as two strangers, who represented governments that were former and possibly future competitors for world domination, felt comfortable sharing—which was not much.

Stefan was fifty-three and divorced with three grown children in Moscow. He was planning to retire after one more overseas tour.

I was fairly vague about my professional background, leaving out my knowledge of Russian and the two years in the mid-1980s I’d served at the U.S. Consulate in Leningrad. I said nothing about Tom’s death in Beirut, only revealing that I had been a widow for a long time.

We shared an interest in horses, although neither of us rode anymore. Stefan had taken a nasty fall years ago when his horse stumbled and put him in a body cast for six months.

After losing Tom, I had lost all desire to ride, but I invented a story for Stefan about being thrown off a horse in New Mexico when a truck backfired. Ever the gentleman, he did not probe for details when I began avoiding his questions.

“So what is Mother Russia doing in Afghanistan these days? ” I asked as I fingered the stem of a glass of mellow Shiraz, which Stefan had ordered.

“We’re watching you attempt what we failed to do thirty years ago,” he said with a smile. “When you get up north, you’ll see the rusting detritus of our futile and very expensive efforts to civilize Afghanistan.” He took a puff of the Gauloises he was smoking and blew a thin stream of smoke into the air.

“Let’s begin with the sad procession of derelict fifty-meter transmission towers, looming like lonely sentinels across the northern desert. They once carried reliable electric power from the USSR to Mazār-i-Sharīf and over the Hindu Kush into Kabul.”

Stefan took a long swig of wine and closed his eyes. He was just getting started.

“If you have the good fortune to attend a
buzkashi
game in Mazār, you’ll see just south of the field an abandoned multistoried structure. Locals call it the silo. It used to be a bread factory—built by us, of course. It produced thousands of loaves a day and provided hundreds of jobs.”

Stefan raised his glass to the USSR’s many development projects in Afghanistan, then continued with his litany. “We prepared women for professional careers, sent them to study in Moscow with the men, and told them they didn’t have to leave their houses hidden under burkas. That did not go over at all well with the mullahs.” He laughed.

After three shots of vodka and several glasses of wine, Stefan’s voice began to lose its edge. I was intrigued by his frank assessment of Mother Russia’s long and failed involvement in Afghanistan, and I wanted to hear more, but my eyelids and my brain were rapidly succumbing to the thick fog of jet lag.