Veiled Freedom (10 page)

Something about the complete lack of expression on Steve's face made Amy flare up. “Look, I don't know how many times I can say I'm sorry. But if you hadn't dragged me away without my translator, I wouldn't be in this mess. If it's such a problem, just leave me on a corner.”

“That wouldn't be advisable,” Cougar intervened hastily. “I wouldn't leave another man out there without security, much less an expat woman. We'll make sure we get you somewhere safe. It's absolutely no trouble and our pleasure, right, Steve?” He didn't wait for a response. “I know Khalid's properties. If you could describe the place, maybe we can figure out where you were.”

“Well, it's a big, two-story house in a pretty nice neighborhood. Blue green walls with black gates.”

“Khalid's Wazir property,” Cougar said. “That's only a mile or so from here, and it's practically walking distance from the CS team house. We're headed right that way.”

A few minutes later, the Suburban pulled up outside a black metal gate.

“That's it! Oh, thank you so much.” Though Amy reached for her shoulder bag and the wad of blue polyester, she made no move to get out, anxiety squeezing again at her stomach.

Steve leaned across her to stare out the window at the high, faded blue wall, the movement bringing him so close Amy could feel the even exhalation of his breathing, the brush of his shoulder against hers. “This is your headquarters?” he demanded sharply. To his companion he added, “This isn't Khalid's primary you mentioned?”

Cougar looked surprised. “You know this place? No, Khalid's primary residence is over in Sherpur district on the edge of Wazir, and it makes this one look like chicken feed. Khalid's got a couple rentals around the city.”

“He's certainly done well for himself in the new Afghanistan.” Steve straightened, pulling away from her. “Well, Ms. Mallory, is this where you wanted to go?”

Amy didn't respond as she clenched the burqa material. “Let me guess. Your guard doesn't speak English either.”

“I don't know. I was wearing the burqa when I came. I'm not sure he'd even recognize me. The man who brought me, Rasheed, drove my associate to the airport. I don't think he'd be back yet.” Amy was mortified at the helplessness of the gesture with which her hand came free of the polyester.

Steve climbed out of the SUV and spoke briefly through the security window, then came back to yank open Amy's door as the metal gate creaked open. “If ‘a woman with hair like spun sunlight' rings a bell,” he said with irony, “it seems your guard did catch a glimpse of you. He says you're welcome to come in and wait, that Rasheed should be home shortly, Rasheed's wife is here, and that you will know where to go.”

“Yes, I do. Thank you.” Amy turned to offer a grateful smile to Cougar, who despite the quietness of this side street, had his weapon up and ready, head and eyes roving. “And thank you. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this.”

Cougar removed a hand from his weapon to waggle his fingers. “Our pleasure.”

A sentiment his companion wasn't likely to echo, Amy told herself sourly as she got out. Leaning into the SUV, Steve took Amy's shoulder bag and burqa before she could grab them, then emerged with a manila envelope. Amy hadn't donned the burqa as she followed Steve through the gate, but when the elderly guard hurriedly averted his eyes, she rebelliously draped the polyester shawl-style over head and shoulders, feeling like a fool under the contractor's sharp gaze.

But Steve's survey had shifted immediately to the interior of the compound. Turning slowly on a boot heel, he made a 360-degree scan of his surroundings. What did he find so interesting in a dried-up garden, construction materials, and dilapidated ruin of a house? “You sure you feel comfortable being left alone here? If you'd feel safer waiting with other expats, I'm sure my associate would have some suggestions.”

Amy wasn't too excited about the empty courtyard, elderly guard, a babble of men's voices across the cinder-block wall. If she'd seen any flicker of real concern on Steve's face, she might have wavered. “I'll be fine. I'll wait with Rasheed's wife until he gets back. He'll be able to help me make housing arrangements.”

“Then you can probably put this to better use than I would.” Sliding a few folded sheets from the manila envelope, Steve handed Amy the rest.

Amy skimmed through the envelope's contents. English-language city guide. Folded map. Kabul business directory. Even a list of expat guesthouses. “Why, this is wonderful. Thank you.”

“Don't thank me. That's Cougar's doing. Make sure you read the security info packet. He'll blame himself if you end up in some embassy incident report.”

Unlike you.
To Amy, there was mockery in Steve's tone, and once again, her initial flush of gratitude evaporated abruptly. He headed back to the gate. Fury gave Amy the boldness to take a step after him. “What is your problem?”

Steve stopped, swung around.

Amy could feel the burning in her cheeks as she went on hotly. “I don't know why you're so down on me. I've tried to be nice and polite. I've apologized again and again for interrupting your mission or whatever you're doing here. It's not like I did this to inconvenience you or even asked you to step in. So why are you acting like the whole thing is somehow my fault? I mean, it's not like I asked for any of this to happen.”

Steve's eyebrows knit together as he looked at Amy. Then he took a long step toward her, his tall frame looming over her so that she retreated a step.

“No, of course you didn't ask for this,” he said evenly, bitingly. “You didn't have to. It was a logical outcome of your decisions and actions.”

Steve raised a hand to cut off her protest. “My problem is people like you waltzing into this country as though you were on some adventure cruise. You don't do your homework. You don't plan for security. You don't have backup in place. Inevitably you get in over your head and start screaming for help. Then it's up to those who
have
done their homework to waste time and effort and money—even risk lives—to get you out of whatever mess you've gotten into. People who don't come prepared shouldn't be allowed here—” He broke off, looking away from Amy.

Amy seized the pause to choke out her fury and humiliation. “You don't even know me. Who are you to judge? But don't worry. You'll never have to bail me out again. Or speak to me either.”

Then Amy realized that Steve hadn't broken off because he'd finished or thought better of his tirade. He didn't even look as though he'd heard her retort. He was staring somewhere past her left shoulder, the color under his tan draining to an odd gray white, his jaw tightened with as much stunned incredulity as though he'd just seen a ghost.

Steve gave his head a slight shake, and the memory he was staring at slid back into the present. This was no teenager running through winter-barren gardens with a scream of anguish and rage. Just a man who'd swung himself lightly down over a cinder-block interior wall added to the property since Steve was here last. The jolt of familiarity was because Steve had seen this same man earlier at Amy's heels.

“Oh, there he is!” Amy had turned to see whom Steve was staring at. “I'm so glad you got back okay, Jamil. You must have run the whole way.”

The Afghan paused among stacks of construction material some ten meters away, breathing quickly. A slight build and underfed gauntness had given Steve that first illusion of adolescence, but the somber bearded features and wary gaze were closer to his own age.

“Then you know him?” Steve confirmed.

“Yes, that's my translator. The one you left behind.” Amy's annoyance still burned in her cheeks, the fire of her gaze. “And now that Jamil's here, you don't need to bother about me anymore. You can go do whatever you were doing when I interrupted you.”

“Then good-bye.” Two strides carried Steve to the open gate, the elderly guard stepping hurriedly from his path.

Amy took a step after him, that ridiculous head covering slipping from her hair as she held up the manila envelope. “I want to thank you again for this. And for everything. I understand what you're saying. In fact, I agree. But that's not really me—being unprepared and risking other people's lives. Today just happened. It won't happen again. If you knew me, you'd believe that.” A tentative smile invited a friendly response.

Instead Steve dismissed himself with a curt nod. “You're welcome. And you're right. I don't know you well enough to judge. I apologize if I was rude.” He'd stepped through the gate when he turned back. “By the way, you might want to rethink your security. Your guard didn't even turn his head when your friend there hopped the wall. Next time it might not be someone you know.”

Steve wasn't sure why anger still burned in him as he slid into the SUV. Amy or the idiot of an employer who thought it ethical to send a kid that green to a place like this? Though maybe Amy Mallory was older and less unworldly than Steve's assessment. She'd almost have to be for her current position of authority.

Of greater interest was the property where he'd just left her. What coincidence had Amy's new rental turning out to be the site of that final skirmish in the liberation of Kabul? Or for that matter had brought Khalid Sayef back across Steve's path? Would the muj commander even remember Steve? The twenty-two-year-old sergeant had been the most junior of the Special Forces unit embedded with Khalid's fighters.

Khalid had hardly crossed Steve's own mind in years. His furious indignation over Khalid's commandeering of the Wazir compound had faded in the roller coaster of ongoing combat. Especially since investigation bore out that the entire neighborhood was indeed a hotbed of Taliban and al-Qaeda. If bin Laden never turned up on the property, a compound down the street proved to house one of his wives. Nor was it just the mujahedeen who'd seized on recently abandoned properties. Steve had returned that day from his airport run to find his team leader supervising the Special Forces unit's move into another Wazir compound. Who'd occupied their new living quarters before the Taliban wasn't raised.

“There're not a lot of property deeds around here. Possession's nine-tenths of the law.” Steve's lieutenant had shrugged. “You can bet those people who stayed in this country through the worst of the war aren't going to move when refugees start trickling back and laying claim to properties. Especially all those former aristocrats who fled this country when things got tough. And why should they?”

A valid question. Did the traditional aristocracy deserve to move back into their lives of leisure, privilege, and wealth, benefiting from a war others had fought while they'd built new and safe lives in exile? Or did the actual combatants and survivors of that war, who'd suffered terribly, deserve to pick up the remaining crumbs? even become the new aristocracy, as victors had done for thousands of years?

Not that it was Steve's call.

Still, Steve felt it was a shame that the man who commandeered the place had let it fall into the ruin he had just witnessed. And the civilian casualties that day, however unintentional, even inevitable in the heat of war, still left a bad taste in Steve's mouth. If the kid had been telling the truth . . .
Whatever happened to that kid?

Like Khalid, he hadn't crossed Steve's mind in years. His team had been transferred out of Kabul immediately after liberation to hunt down remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban on the Pakistan border. He'd inquired about the boy the next time he passed through Bagram Air Base north of Kabul, but the civilian interrogators had made it clear they didn't hand out info to just any uniform wandering by.

“Our team house is on this next street.”

Ahmed pulled up at a lowered red and white boom pole. Concertina wire and sandbagged machine-gun nests atop walls plus concrete blast barriers blocking driveways marked the street as an expat sanctuary.

“This whole street's PSD lodging, so no through traffic.” Cougar showed a badge out the window to a uniformed Gurkha. The small, wiry mercenaries, once a keystone of the British Indian army, were now Nepal's chief export and a staple of the PSD industry. The boom rose, and the SUV drove on. “Makes security easier for everyone. DynCorp and Blackwater both have team houses in here, so we can keep our security to a minimum.”

Like its neighbors, the CS team house had once been some Kabul aristocrat's personal residence. Indoors, downstairs salons had been converted into communal living quarters complete with cafeteria, workout gym, lounge. It might have been some exclusive bed-and-breakfast except for the communication stations, situation maps, and conference table that converted the largest salon into a command center.

Someone hit the Mute button as Cougar and Steve walked into the lounge, laptops and gun parts pushed aside as half a dozen men hoisted themselves to their feet. Steve matched introductions with the bio data Cougar had given him.