Black Site (18 page)

Jamal took on odd jobs for enough money to help his family. Soon his cousins and uncles arrived at the camp, and they found menial work in Peshawar and nearby Darra Adam Khel.

On a Monday evening in April of 2010, while Jamal drove his recently purchased tractor-pulled delivery cart through the less accessible valleys of Khyber Agency, Jamal’s mother and his youngest brother were purchasing items in the Qissa Khawani Bazaar in the heart of Peshawar. Items Jamal had sent them to fetch. Items he would resell on his next run to the FATA. A protest in the market hampered the movements of the two. Seconds later a bomb exploded in the crowded street. Jamal’s mother and brother were blown into tiny bits of unrecognizable flesh and skin and hair.

Al Qaeda took credit for the bomb.

Once more the jihadists had taken members of his family from him. He was devastated, he was consumed by anger, but he still had to make money to survive, so he continued his delivery runs into the FATA.

*   *   *

A compound out of town and in the hills needed potable water once a week. Jamal thought that was odd. He didn’t know why the people living in the compound couldn’t drink the same murky stream water that everyone else did, but he wasn’t complaining. He needed the work.

Jamal drove his tractor to the compound once or twice a week past armed guards on the edge of the road. He also thought it odd that he was always made to climb off the tractor and raise his arms to be frisked. He was never sure if the armed men were Pakistani Taliban or maybe even foreign jihadists now under the al Qaeda banner. When he arrived at the compound a funny-looking black wand was waved around his body. It ticked slowly. After Jamal was checked, several men searched the tractor before he was allowed to pump the water into the large drum.

He saw a pair of foreigners, al Qaeda from Turkey he decided, and then his suspicions were raised further about the goings-on in Shataparai when he was sent to pick up antibiotics at a pharmacy and deliver them to the compound.

When, on his third week of deliveries to the compound, a bored guard mentioned Western prisoners, he decided what he would do.

The next day Jamal Metziel rose from his afternoon prayers in Peshawar and took a bus to the U.S. embassy. After waiting in lines outside the building for hours he was led into a hallway. Here he asked to speak to someone in the Central Intelligence Agency. A Pashto-speaking American woman treated him with more respect than any government employee he’d ever met, either back home in Afghanistan or here in Pakistan. He told her his story, and she took notes. Then she asked him many questions about himself: his family, his history, his motivation.

He was told to return in two days, but when he did return, he was told by the same woman that someone would contact him at his home.

As he left the bus stop to return to his tiny flat, a big, burly, white-haired man dressed like any other local on the street called out to him from his small car. Within minutes they were driving together through the city, and the man revealed himself to be an American.

Jamal had no clue that “Mister Bob” was not, in fact, in the Central Intelligence Agency.

TWENTY-TWO

Jamal waited by his “broken-down” truck for hours. Mister Bob had told him that the agent would come out of the sky, but Mister Bob had also said there were many factors in play and he could not promise that the man would arrive on time. Only once during his wait did Jamal encounter others on the broken road. Four men with pack mules loaded with cans of tainted gasoline passed by at eight thirty in the morning. And well behind the men, two women in bright blue burkas shuffled along, carrying heavy loads in their hands. Jamal wished the men peace, and avoided glancing at the women so as not to offend the men, and the procession moved on.

At 10:30 a.m. he was ready to leave. It was another three hours from here to the village of Shataparai, and he had to make his delivery at the compound of Zar Afridi, even if he had to go on alone. And even if the American spy arrived right this second and they set off immediately, he would not make it back to Peshawar before dusk, and the roads into Khyber were dangerous after dark.

Jamal looked up into the clear blue sky and prayed to Allah, willed a man in a parachute to appear.

*   *   *

Shortly after eleven, Kolt arrived at a low rise that, according to his GPS, should put him just above his rendezvous point with his contact. He dropped his backpack in a copse of low bushes, crawled forward on his hands and knees, and crested the rise.

Down below him, not more than fifty yards, he saw the old yellow truck. It had pulled off the rough dirt track, and the driver had the hood raised. The beige plastic water tank in back was full of water, and the rest of the bed contained boxes and cartons and other items a traveling merchant might transport.

Then Raynor saw his contact. Jamal was thin. He wore a prayer cap and a blue kameez under a gray vest, and had a short scruffy beard. The man looked up to the sky, and even from this distance, Raynor saw the nervous expression on his face.

He didn’t blame the contact for being scared or, for that matter, being pissed off. Kolt was three hours late. He quickly scooted back down the hill to retrieve his backpack, thankful that his strenuous walk/climb was almost over. A minute later he crested the hill again and headed toward the truck.

Jamal turned to him as soon as he appeared, but he looked utterly confused.

“A sallum aleikum,” said Kolt.

“Wa aleikum a salaam.”

The men shook hands, but the Afghan did not smile. He spoke in Pashto, because other than some Dari and a little Arabic he knew no other language. “I have been here for many hours. I thought you were coming from the sky.”

Kolt answered in his halting Pashto. “I
did
come from the sky, but missed my landing. Thank you for waiting for me.”

“It is a big problem. I will be late for my delivery.”

“Then we should go.”

Kolt and Jamal hid the American’s rucksack in a hollowed-out area below the driver’s seat. It barely fit, and then only after much pushing of the seat by both men and some colorful cursing by Raynor. Then Kolt climbed into the backseat, and Jamal shut the hood and fired the engine.

For the first twenty minutes of the journey Raynor rode in the back of the little truck’s cab, crouched next to the stash compartment behind the folded-forward seat. He spent the time asking Jamal about the lay of the land around them. He was interested in the area, of course, but mostly he was trying to get a feel for this agent. Was he as reliable as Bob promised?

As Jamal answered, sweat beads dripped from the tip of his hooked nose, and Kolt did not take this as a good sign. He had no problem with the kid being scared of the Taliban. But was he, in fact, afraid of Raynor? Afraid the American would figure out what treachery he had up his sleeve?

Kolt did not know. He kept up the conversation, searching for any clue as to what was going on in the Afghan’s mind.

“Not much of a road, is it?” Raynor commented. The path they traveled on was rutted and narrow; large boulders had to be avoided or carefully driven over, Jamal attacking each obstacle one wheel at a time. Even with the big tires and the four-wheel drive, the truck threatened to bottom out several times on the hard dirt track.

Jamal said, “It is a mule trail. It is difficult for this truck, and I can only do it this time of year, after the rains and before the snow. Normally I drive my tractor.”

Kolt nodded.

“You speak the language well,” Jamal complimented. He was visibly nervous, checking his rearview, checking both sides of the road.

Kolt himself looked around before saying, “Thank you.”

“But you do not sound like a Pashtun.”

“I know. I do not plan to deceive anyone.”

Jamal nodded. “Good. You will fail. You are not
that
good.”

Raynor kept his head low but his eyes just high enough to see out the front of the dirty windshield. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. The steep hills all around, the low scrubland, the rocky dirt road, everything looked the same in all directions. His GPS told him they were headed southwest, which was correct, but other than that, he had no idea if he and Jamal were following the same plan.

For all he knew this skinny, scruffy young man was going to sell him out to the Taliban just around the next turn.

This part of the mission, Raynor knew, he’d just have to go with the flow and hope like hell that Bob Kopelman was a better judge of character than the CIA.

The late-morning temperature was nearing seventy-five, and the sun shone directly on the unair-conditioned truck cab. Raynor was tucked tight behind the front seats, and his legs were near cramping. Still, he realized the box he’d soon be forced to climb into would be tighter and hotter and much more stifling.

“How close are you going to get me to the compound?”

“Mister Bob did not tell you?”

“He told me. I want to hear it from you.”

“It will be less than one kilometer away. There is a turn in the road just before the village. Two weeks ago Mister Bob told me to stop there and check the hill. I climbed into the trees and found a good place from where you can watch the compound.”

Raynor nodded—he’d play along—but he’d make his own arrangements once Jamal dropped him off. He wasn’t sure where he was going to find overwatch on Zar’s buildings, but he was damn sure
not
going to go exactly where this unproven contact expected him to be hiding.

“How long will you be in the compound itself?” he asked the Afghan.

“Normally thirty minutes.”

“And you will pass by the same road when you leave the village?”

“Of course. This village is very small. There is only one road to Shataparai.”

*   *   *

Soon Kolt slid around and got his feet into the stash compartment behind the passenger seat, and he struggled to slide his body inside. The space in the stash was large enough to accommodate him, with difficulty and discomfort, and it was black as night and hot as hell. He found a bottle of water that Jamal had placed there for him. He assumed the liquid would be somewhere just short of boiling, but he appreciated the gesture. Kolt had his CamelBak and he’d wet his patoo and placed it around his neck. When Jamal slid the metal door up he mercifully left the hatch open a half inch. He then locked the left rear seat back into position. Kolt would have to shut it tight soon enough, but for now the dusty and diesel-infused air was the most beautiful part of his world.

Every bump and bounce in the road seemed amplified here down low behind the cab, and Raynor cursed the lack of infrastructure in the FATA, and added a curse for Jamal, as they rocked and rolled slowly toward the west. When the truck drove through a stream that reached up to the frame of the cab, Raynor heard splashing on the bottom of his metal coffin, and then water squirted in on his leg through a seam in the box that had not been well soldered. Kolt fought a brief bout with panic—he’d surely drown here if the truck got stuck in the stream. But seconds later they were back on dry land, and with that came the banging rocks, the dust and the fuel fumes that made their way through that slight gap in the corner weld, and the infernal stifling heat.

The truck never got out of first gear, but Raynor felt it slow down even more than normal, and he quickly sealed the sliding door tight with his right elbow. This, he assumed, was the first of the two outer checkpoints, just a few kilometers from Shataparai village. The engine remained idling. It sounded rough to the American down there seated just behind the engine, but a breakdown was only one of his many worries. He lay on his side in the fetal position, not moving or even breathing deeply. He pictured Taliban guards looking into the cab and under the truck just now, and he hoped like hell they didn’t look too closely.

After less than a minute they were moving again. Kolt had heard no voices during the stop, but he felt confident they had just made it past their first obstacle.

He felt the urge to slide open the hatch again, to suck the dirty but cooler air. But he fought this urge, remained in his coffinlike box and sipped warm water through the tube every few minutes, well aware that his lack of a need to piss, while damned convenient considering his present circumstances, was nonetheless disconcerting. Dehydration would come soon. His body would be unable to retain the salts it needed to function. He had salt tablets in his ruck, but his ruck was secreted away under Jamal’s seat, and getting to it was not an option.

The second stop came just after two in the afternoon. Raynor lay perfectly still. His perspiration wet the entire floor of the iron box, and he worried it would drip out through the thin crack and draw attention to anyone checking the underside of the vehicle. It seemed unlikely, but Kolt could do nothing at the moment but lie there and worry, so his mind worked in overdrive.

This time Jamal turned off the engine, and this time Kolt heard voices. Several men spoke. Their words were not loud or angry, but there was a discussion of some sort. Raynor heard Jamal, seemingly speaking from behind the wheel, as the other men walked around the truck.

There was a scuffing sound on the ground below him. Someone was on his back under the vehicle. This man spoke out, and now Kolt heard. It was Pashto.

The truck moved slightly on its suspension. Jamal climbed out and shut the door behind him.

Raynor had pulled his pistol out of its holster just after climbing into the stash compartment. It lay pressed against his body, but it was near his hand and he would be able to wield it if absolutely necessary.

He crouched there for a long time. He pictured Jamal and the Taliban or Zar’s militiamen crouching around a fire and sipping chai, and he wondered if the Afghan’s nerves would show with a jittering hand or fleeting glances back at the truck. He did not know this guy. Even if he
was
solid, as Kopelman had insisted, could he keep cool under the pressure he must be feeling right now?

The door opened and shut, and the engine fired up again with a cough.