Farishta (39 page)

“Rahim, where are you? What’s the matter?”

“I’m in a taxi with Nilofar. We are almost at the PRT. Please, Farishta, I beg you—tell the guards to let us in. Nilofar is bleeding ba . . .”

“Rahim!” I screamed. “Rahim!” His cell phone had gone dead.

In three minutes, I was at the gate, wrapped in my robe. One of the officers on my floor had come running when he heard me calling Rahim’s name. He notified the duty ops officer, who had ordered the guards to open the gates and admit the taxi. Rahim lifted Nilofar carefully from the backseat and carried her limp and bloody form into the dispensary, where the camp doctor, also in his robe, was waiting for them with a medic.

“What happened to her, Rahim?”

“She was attacked by three men, sent by a warlord who accused her of interfering with his plans to marry a twelve-year-old girl. They took Nilofar from the university as she was leaving class. No one did anything to stop them.”

“I mean what did they do to her, Rahim?” the doctor demanded sharply as he began to cut away her blood-soaked clothing. Rahim turned away and began to sob. “They beat her. They tried to rape her, but when they saw that she was already bleeding . . . that it was her time of month, that she was . . . unclean to men, they . . . they violated her with a . . . a . . . a Kalashnikov rifle,” he said, burying his hands in his face.

“Jesus Christ,” muttered the doctor. “Angela, get Rahim out of here while I try to stop the bleeding. We’ve got to get this girl to a hospital fast.”

“Not the hospital in Mazār, sir, please,” begged Rahim. “They will find her and kill her.”

“Sergeant, tell the duty ops officer we’ll need our ambulance and two escort vehicles, ready to go to the Forward Support Base in ten minutes. Tell him to have the FSB inform the doctors at the field hospital that we’re bringing the girl. They have blood supplies.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the medic as he rushed out the door.

I led Rahim into the frigid night air. “Where are her parents? Why didn’t they come with her? ”

“Her father wouldn’t let her in when the men left her on the street in front of her house. He said that she had shamed her family by her actions and that no one would ever marry her now because she had allowed herself to be violated. She called me on her cell phone before she fainted. I came with a taxi and found her still lying in the street. I didn’t know where else to take her.”

We went back into the dispensary, where the medic was inserting an IV into Nilofar’s arm.

“The Jordanian doctors at the field hospital will be able to help her, Rahim,” the doctor assured him.

“Will she die, Doctor?”

“She is young and strong and she’s a fighter, Rahim. She won’t die.”

As I wrapped my arms around Rahim, he buried his face in my hair and wept uncontrollably.

Nilofar was quickly stabilized at the field hospital. The young surgeon said her wounds would heal but warned that she might never be able to have children. Two days later, I escorted her on a military flight to Kabul, where she could recover from her wounds and her surgery.

She and Rahim had a tearful farewell at the Mazār airport. She would remain sheltered inside the compound of an international NGO for several weeks until they could locate a country that would give her asylum and a temporary residence visa. Nilofar could not return to Mazār. It was dangerous for her even to remain very long in Kabul.

I spent my first day in Kabul with Nilofar, who was still drowsy from pain medication. Just before sundown, I returned to the embassy and, after an early dinner, settled in for an evening in my hooch with a favorite mystery novel and a glass of sherry for company.

It was hard to concentrate on the book. I was still worried about Nilofar and was also agonizing over my own encouragement of her recklessness. Perhaps I could have prevented this tragedy if my warnings to her had been more forceful.

And then there was Mark, who was constantly on my mind. I reviewed to the point of obsession every detail of our last evening at the Romanian party. Was it only five days ago? I was worried about his being in Iraq even though I knew he had a desk job and would rarely go outside the wire. I was also making plans for our reunion in London.

My phone rang at six P.M. “Sorry to disturb you, Miss Morgan, this is the guard at Post One. You have a visitor, who must be signed in before I can admit him. I’ll start filling out the paperwork and have it ready for your signature.” He hung up before I could ask who it was.

Switching off my phone, I wondered who could be coming to see me so late in the day.

I stepped into the guard shack expecting to see Rahim, who I knew was trying to get down to Kabul to see Nilofar. I thought I was dreaming. Mark was handing his NATO ID card to the guard.

“Hello, Angela,” he said in a voice that told me he wasn’t certain I’d be happy to see him.

“Mark, I thought you left for Basra three days ago,” I said, choking on my own words and grabbing the sleeve of his uniform to make sure he was real.

“I was, I mean we were, but the plane had engine trouble. We’re now expected to leave tomorrow. I didn’t know you were in Kabul until I called the PRT this afternoon and asked to speak with you. Sergeant Major said you had brought Nilofar here. What happened?”

“She was attacked and badly hurt, but she’s stable now. She’s in seclusion until a host country can be found for her. It’s not safe for her to stay in Afghanistan.”

His face darkened. “I knew it,” he said, growing suddenly angry. The guard handed him a visitors badge and waved him through the metal detector.

“You knew what? ” I asked, surprised at his tone.

“That you shouldn’t have encouraged them to continue seeing each other,” he said as I led him into the walled embassy compound.

“What are you talking about, Mark? This had nothing to do with Rahim. Nilofar was attacked because she was defying one of the warlords.”

“You could have stopped her,” he said, grabbing my arm. “What if that had been you? ”

“Mark,” I said, taking his face in my hands, “look at me. It wasn’t me. I’m fine, and Nilofar will be fine. It was Rahim who rescued her.”

He nodded without speaking.

“Why didn’t you call me earlier to say you were still in Kabul? ” I asked.

“I couldn’t bear to say good-bye to you again, especially over the phone.”

“Are you angry with me, Mark? ”

He reached for my hand. “No, I just want you out of here as soon as possible and safely assigned to your embassy in London so I won’t have to worry about you anymore.”

“You don’t think I’ll be worrying about you in Iraq? ” I asked.

“Is there someplace we can go to talk privately, Angela?” He was starting to look quite desperate. “I only have a few hours. My driver will be back at nine forty-five to pick me up.”

“There’s really no place on this compound where we can have any privacy except for my hooch,” I said, feeling uncertain about what to do next until he put his arm around my waist.

“Shall we?”

We walked between the long rows of white shipping containers and entered my hooch in silence. I motioned for him to sit in my only chair.

“May I offer you a glass of sherry,” I asked, forgetting for a moment that I only had one glass. “You take the glass. I’ll just drink out of the bottle.” I laughed as I began to remove the cork.

“Angela.” Mark rose from the chair, took my hands in his, and brought them to his lips. We moved into each other’s arms and were one breath away from kissing when a key slid into the lock, the knob turned, and there was DEA special agent Sally Dietrich wearing her black body armor, black uniform, and combat boots. A black pistol was strapped to her hip and a black duffel bag and semiautomatic rifle slung over her shoulder.

“Angela! Oh, shit! I’m so sorry,” she cried at the sight of the two of us staring at her and moving apart with our arms dangling at our sides.

“They didn’t tell me I was sharing, or I would have knocked. Hell, I would have asked for another hooch. Christ almighty, what horrible timing,” she moaned, then added with an embarrassed grin, “but I suppose it could have been worse.”

“Sally, what a surprise,” I stammered, looking from her to Mark as they both stared at each other and then at me.

“This is Mark Davies. We worked together at the PRT in Mazār. He’s on his way to Iraq tomorrow morning. Mark, this is Sally Dietrich. She’s with our Drug Enforcement Administration and is training Afghan counter-narcotics squads. We shared a hooch when I arrived last December.”

Mark and Sally shook hands, and the three of us stood in awkward silence not knowing what to say or do next until Sally took control of the situation.

“Listen, I have an early call tomorrow and have got to get some shut-eye tonight, but you two look like you really need some alone-time. Here’s the deal. I’ll head over to the cafeteria for dinner and join my boys for a beer, but at 2200 hours I’m coming back. I swear on my mother’s grave, Angela, I will not step through this door one minute earlier or one minute later than ten P.M.”

Without waiting for a response, she tossed her rifle, pistol, and duffel bag on the unused bed and was out the door.

“So now we have privacy,” I laughed. “Almost four hours, and you’re not leaving this room, Mark Davies, until I’ve finished with you,” I said as I grabbed the collar of his uniform and pulled him into my arms.

Mark buried his face in my hair, which, untouched by scissors for the past eleven months, now fell in dark waves below my shoulders.

“I’m glad you haven’t cut your hair,” he murmured. “It smells like the roses in your garden at the PRT.”

“It’s only shampoo,” I whispered as my lips parted and we became one sweet, sensuous tangle of teeth and tongue. He began to kiss me with an urgency that was frightening in its intensity. My response was equally violent.

 

 

“What are you thinking about, Mark? ” We were resting quietly in each other’s arms. An hour had passed since we’d spoken and there was a sadness in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.

“I’m thinking about my biggest regret of the past year,” he replied, brushing his lips down my neck and across my shoulder.

“And that was what? ” I asked after catching my breath.

“That it took me so many months to acknowledge my feelings for you.”

We kissed again and all conversation ceased. When I next looked at the clock on my desk, I sat up quickly.

“Sally will be back in less than an hour, Mark.”

“A few more minutes? ” he pleaded.

“We really can’t have her walking in on us like this.” I laughed, throwing back the blankets. “I made her a promise. We’ll have plenty of time in London.”

As he began to rise, I grabbed his shoulder and ran my fingers over the delicate indigo script that curled around his bicep, “Mark, your tattoo,” I said. “It’s in Arabic.”

“Yes,” he replied. “Can you read it? ”

“Never give up,” I murmured as he pulled me into his arms again.

 

 

We dressed quickly when we saw how late it was and walked hand in hand to the main gate, where I signed him out. A British Army truck, idling in the road under the halogen glare of a security lamp, was waiting to take Mark back to Camp Souter for his early morning departure. I stood on the street watching until his vehicle vanished around a barrier of sandbags and barbed wire, shivering in my light jacket, until one of the Nepalese guards touched my elbow.

“Ma’am, you should go back inside,” he said gently.

When I awoke the next morning, Sally and her weapons were gone.

“Here it is! Your new chariot,” announced an embassy staffer from the motor pool. “It’s only ‘lightly armored’ so you can still roll down the windows and of course you’ll have to wear body armor,” he added. I didn’t bother to ask what he meant by “lightly armored.”

We were in a parking lot behind the motor pool. My shiny white “lightly armored” Toyota was parked next to a fully armored embassy vehicle, which the day before had run over an IED on a road just outside Kabul. Although the front was a burned-out, spaghetti-like tangle of twisted metal, the passenger compartment, including windows, was completely intact.

“How are you planning to get your van back to Mazār?” he asked as I continued to stare at the blackened vehicle next to my white one. “If you want it flown up, it will be weeks before I can get space on one of the C-130s.”

“The PRT sent some of our soldiers down to Kabul this morning,” I replied. “They’ll be driving my vehicle and several new British Army vans back over the mountains. I’ll be riding with them.”

“I don’t think that’s allowed,” he said, scratching his chin.

“They’re picking me up tomorrow morning, and I’ve already signed all the papers for this Land Cruiser, so unless someone stops me, I’ll be driving away with the Brits at 0800 hours.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “It’s your neck.”

I went to say good-bye to Nilofar that afternoon. Two burly Afghan guards posted outside the high, unmarked walls of the compound where she was in hiding greeted me by name as I climbed out of an armored American Embassy vehicle. I’d been spending all my free time with Nilofar since bringing her to Kabul.

The Norwegian director of the center led me to a small garden where Nilofar was sitting alone in the sun. “Her parents haven’t called,” she said with resignation, “and I don’t expect they will. We’ve had many girls staying here who were disowned by their families after being raped.”

The day was cold and the cloudless sky a deep cerulean blue. Nilofar was wrapped in the red shawl she’d been wearing the night Mark found her with Rahim. A cup of tea sat cold and untouched on the table next to her.