The Circuit (24 page)

I warned the guards who’d come on the Helmund trip that we’d likely encounter far worse conditions this time around, so they should be prepared. As for the new faces, I found out who among them had mechanics experience before assigning them to vehicles.

Finally, I asked each of the guards to show me their weapons. One of the younger guards, a new lad, spoke exceptionally good English. I thought I’d hit the jackpot with him, getting a guard and translator in one – that is, until I asked to see his AK. He told me, in impeccable English, that he didn’t have a weapon. When I asked him why, he fell silent and shrugged his shoulders. I had no choice but to tell him he wasn’t coming; English or no English, without a weapon, the young guard wasn’t a guard, he was a passenger and I had enough of those.

Our six-vehicle convoy headed out one guard down but on time. I positioned the live truck third from front, and Nic and his crew in the fourth vehicle. That way, my clients would still receive the best possible cover if we were attacked.

The streets were very empty and we cleared the city centre in no time. It wasn’t until we hit the southern outskirts of Kabul that we started to see activity. The local butchers were out by the side of the road, slaughtering sheep and cattle to sell as fresh meat at the morning markets. It was a hell of a sight. In the headlights I could see a father and son carving up an entire water buffalo with meat cleavers.

At 7 a.m. we stopped at a petrol station to refuel and blast out the engine filters. There was a little market stall attached to the station and a couple of the guards and drivers took the opportunity to chat with the locals and buy some bread to supplement the food supplies we had packed in the vehicles along with water. Afghan bread is thick, flat and very hearty. When it’s fresh it’s beautiful but once it goes stale (which happens within minutes) you can use it as plasterboard. The bread is never sold in bags but rather hung over metal rods in the open air until it’s purchased. You do have to think about how many hands have handled it before it gets to you; bearing in mind that loo roll is not commonly used in Afghanistan. I hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours so loo roll or not, I was happy to get stuck in.

Barring a couple of tyre changes, this was our first major stop. I was amazed that despite difficult road conditions we still had all six vehicles moving. We’d been fortunate for sure, but our luck could change at any time. We still had three mountain ranges to cross and hours of hostile terrain ahead of us.

At approximately 9 a.m. we ascended the first major mountain range of our journey along a narrow dirt and gravel track. We wound our way through the foothills past an ever changing landscape which gave way to something I hadn’t yet encountered in Afghanistan: trees, one approximately every twenty metres. One of the Afghans told me that when he was much younger, the hillsides were strewn with thick forest. Afghanistan’s deforestation didn’t happen as a consequence of development. The trees were chopped down after Kabul’s electricity plants were destroyed during the civil war of the 1990s. Even today, the majority of Kabul’s homes and buildings are heated with wood-burning stoves.

We continued on up the mountain, reaching the snow line at approximately eight thousand feet. I was concerned as we didn’t have snow chains for the vehicles (they weren’t available). I’d checked the weather the night before and there was no warning of snowfall for the area. Driving in Afghanistan is bad enough in decent conditions. Now, the local drivers had to navigate icy, inadequate roads in vehicles with very little tread on the tyres.

Even at these altitudes we encountered Kutchi families travelling with their camels and goats. Their brightly coloured clothing stood out against the blanket of white stretching above and below them.

My heart was pounding as we snaked our way around hairpin turns past sheer cliffs, some with one-thousand-foot drops. There were no barriers of any sort to stop us from sliding over the edge and falling into the boulder-strewn valley below. I stayed on top of the drivers, telling them to brake well ahead of the turns and stay in the lowest gear so we didn’t go tumbling over the side.

One of our drivers radioed that the top of the mountain pass had a stunning view to the south-east towards the Pakistan border. There was also a police checkpoint. I decided it would be a good place to park up and look over the vehicles to make sure they were in good order for the steep drive back down the mountain.

At the checkpoint, the police cautioned us to be very wary of bandits on the way down. Fortunately, in addition to beautiful views, the mountaintop offered a tremendous vantage point to survey the ground we had to cover. Visibility was outstanding and I could see at least twenty miles in each direction. It was indeed excellent bandit country. Winding roads, broken features, uneven ground; the terrain was tailor-made for ambushes. On a clear day like the one we were having, a bandit could easily mark a potential target such as a heavily loaded lorry and wait patiently for it to pass.

I gathered the drivers, guards and the TV crew together to brief them before we headed back down the mountain. I told them they’d done ever so well staying awake on the first part of our journey and that now, more than ever, everyone needed to remain alert and to keep their wits about them. I reiterated what the police had said about bandits and laid down a strategy for negotiating the terrain ahead.

The plan was as follows: about one hundred metres ahead of any bend, I’d get out of my vehicle along with the Afghan guards positioned at the front of our convoy. The guards would cover me while I peered down the pass to the next level below to see if it was clear; my thinking being that if I was a bandit, I’d ambush a vehicle driving into a bend when it’s travelling slowly and is at its most vulnerable.

By the time we got a third of the way down the mountain, we’d performed this operation three times. I was starting to think it would be nothing more than an exercise. Then, on the fourth bend, to my amazement, I spotted a group of bandits waiting below us. There were three men in total, wrapped in blankets, huddled around a brush fire. Each of them was armed with an AK47. I looked over the cliff down to the next road level. Sure enough, there was a large rocky outcrop to the side of the road that hid the group from anyone travelling up the mountain. I was lucky I could see them from above.

We outnumbered the bandits four to one but I wanted to avoid a firefight if possible. The moment you draw your weapon, the danger to your clients increases exponentially. I decided that if our convoy looked large and aggressive, the bandits would think twice before taking us on.

I gathered the drivers and guards together and mapped out a new strategy: instead of sending the lead vehicle as a scout thirty seconds ahead of the rest of the convoy, we’d all descend together at fifty-metre intervals around the bend and past the bandits. Once I was sure everyone understood exactly what needed to be done, I dispatched the drivers to their vehicles, sent a lat and long reading back to AKE’s ops office in the UK and performed a radio check. I also took my vehicle weapon from its bag and laid it across my lap. All of my senses converged to focus on the task at hand. I’m not sure what concerned me more: the prospect of getting into a firefight with three armed Afghans or having our closely grouped vehicles pile into one another and go sliding off the mountain.

As we rounded the bend towards the bandits, my heart skipped a beat. I could see them reaching for their rifles. Both of my hands were on my AK but I had no urge to lift it from my lap and show it to them. As I’ve said, you never draw your weapon unless it’s absolutely necessary.

My restraint paid off. Instead of opening fire, the bandits hid their AKs under their blankets. As our convoy approached, they stood up from the fire to get a closer look. It was apparent at that point that they had no intention of attacking us. They’d probably been waiting for a truck driver travelling alone or at the very least a group they outnumbered. As my vehicle drove past their position I looked each bandit in the eye – not aggressively but confidently to reinforce in their minds that we weren’t an easy target. Their eyes were glazed over and swollen. I suspected they were high on drugs.

Eight hours into our journey we entered a narrow valley into Zadran, an area of Paktia province controlled by Patcha Khan, an infamous warlord who runs his fiefdom with an iron fist. American forces knew not to go anywhere near Patcha Khan’s territory. Only two weeks before our journey, an American logistical convoy travelling exactly the same route had been attacked and looted by Patcha Khan’s forces. They let the American soldiers go with a warning to tell other internationals not to trespass there again. The empty, bullet-ridden containers with US military markings were still lying in the riverbed as we drove past. At that moment, I realized that we hadn’t seen any sign of the coalition for hours.

The valleys of Paktia gave way to the flatlands leading to Khost province. We’d been on the road now for more than nine hours – which I’d originally estimated as our total travel time – and we still hadn’t arrived at Camp Solerno.

At the time, Khost province was (and still remains) one of the most fiercely anti-western areas in all of Afghanistan. Ethnically, it is predominantly Pashtoon, which is reflected in the way men dress; long shirts, baggy trousers, flat hats or Pashtoon turbans worn around the head with a long trail of cloth draped to the waist. They keep their beards natural and heavy in the fundamentalist Islamic tradition. In Khost, if you do see a woman, which is rare indeed, they are always covered in a burka.

Eleven and a half hours into our journey we entered the outskirts of Khost town; the last populated area we’d drive past before reaching Camp Solerno some four miles away. The main road through Khost is a bumpy dirt track that skirts along the town’s edges rather than passing through the centre. As our convoy lurched along in late-afternoon traffic at ten miles per hour, I felt like we were a million miles from Kabul. Surrounded by flatlands and bordered by a range of mountains to the south-east, Khost town was one of the most inhospitable places I’ve ever had the misfortune to travel through. The flatlands lent themselves to hit-and-run attacks, which we knew were very frequent. But my biggest concern by far was the mountains; specifically, what lay on the other side of them.

The mountain range marked the border with Pakistan, but not the Pakistan controlled by the government in Islamabad and closely allied with America in the War on Terror. The area of Pakistan neighbouring Khost is Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s ‘tribal areas’: seven autonomous regions that stretch along the Afghan border. Waziristan is an authority unto itself. Its inhabitants are ethnic Pashtoon and have no allegiance whatsoever to the government in Islamabad. The Pashtoon of Waziristan don’t even consider themselves Pakistani. They regard themselves as Afghans.

Waziristan and the rest of the tribal areas are the cradle of the Taliban and the loyalty of the people to its native sons hadn’t diminished. When the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban in Khost simply walked over the mountains to safety; hence why the Yanks and the ANA were engaged in a joint operation aimed at stopping the Taliban from launching attacks over the border.

At long last, Camp Solerno came into view. At first, it appeared to have decent security including a high perimeter fence and guard towers manned by Afghan soldiers dotted at regular intervals. But it sat on very flat land flanked by high ground on one side; not exactly the best defensive position. I could see how it would be very easy for the Taliban to mortar or rocket the base and get away with it. Vulnerable or not, Camp Solerno was the only friendly patch of territory for over a hundred miles and I welcomed the sight of it. I looked at my watch. It was approaching 3:30 p.m. local time. The trip I had estimated would take nine hours had in fact taken twelve. Good thing we left Kabul on time.

At this point, instinct was telling me to relax and take a deep breath. I was about to deliver my clients and myself to the only place in Khost where westerners could spend the night in relative safety. Experience, however, was telling me to stay alert. We weren’t out of the woods yet. I radioed all the drivers to tell them to stay sharp.

Like Iraq, the entrances to military complexes in Afghanistan draw suicide bombers like flies to honey and Camp Solerno was no exception. The entrance to the base had two layers of security: first, a vehicle checkpoint manned by Afghan soldiers followed by a main gate guarded by US soldiers and reinforced with a barrier, guard house and blast walls. As we approached the first checkpoint, one of the tyres on my vehicle blew out. I radioed the rest of the convoy to drop Nic inside the main gate while we got roadworthy. I hadn’t travelled this far to have my clients ambushed on the doorstep of their destination.

The Afghan soldiers manning the vehicle checkpoint kept the rest of the traffic at bay while we mended the flat tyre. As usual, our drivers and security guards had us back under way in no time. When we caught up with the rest of the convoy, they were parked up in a holding area just outside the main gate. I didn’t see Nic and his crew, so I assumed they were already safely inside the camp.

I got out of my vehicle and walked towards the main gate. As I approached, I saw Nic standing on the other side of the barrier, engaged in what appeared to be a heated exchange with the American Guard Commander. When I reached the barrier, the US guards told me to stop and go no further. I looked at them as if they were joking. They responded by pointing their M16s at me. Mind you, as a fair-skinned, middle-aged Scotsman, I hardly fit the profile of an Afghan suicide bomber. Something was very, very wrong.

Nic walked towards the barrier, his face contorted in disbelief and anger. Trailing alongside him was the Guard Commander, a Sergeant dressed in green combats with an airborne insignia, body armour and army-issue sunglasses strung on a headband.

‘I can’t believe this,’ said Nic. ‘They won’t let you in.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.