Veiled Freedom (28 page)

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Night crept in, but Jamil could not put the book down until his eyes hurt struggling to decipher the small black marks. Taking the volume, he slipped outside. There were no streetlamps, but at the front of the property a security light powered by a generator next door cast a dim pool of illumination onto the mechanics shed's tin roof. Clambering from a pickup cab to the metal sheeting, Jamil pulled his patu tight around his shoulders and continued to read.

The Sermon on the Mount, a subheading called the prophet's instructions. This was what Jamil had sought. How did Isa's commands for his own followers compare to the many explicit instructions Allah's apostle had left behind?

And yet the words did not seem at first so different from the teachings of the mullahs, more so because they were in English that he understood and not in the Arabic he knew only by rote. A sternness in Isa's commands was like the preaching of Friday mosque. Good deeds were to be done, the law obeyed and not ignored. Lustful thoughts were as forbidden as adultery. Teachings on murder, anger, oath-taking, and giving alms differed in no significant degree from the hadiths Jamil had memorized.

Isa's strictures on divorce were more rigorous. But perhaps there needed to be strictness in such things. To throw out a woman who displayed no unfaithfulness on a husband's whim had troubled Jamil since in his childhood an aunt had returned home weeping.

The night chill seeped through the patu's thick wool, sapping Jamil's interest. His glance flickered down the page. Then it stopped, gripped by the words he read.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'”

Jamil nodded his approval. Here was a teaching that resonated the fierceness and strength of a warrior prophet, not the gentle and mild healer Isa had shown himself thus far in these pages, almost womanish, meritorious though his deeds might be, as humble and meek as the poor and downtrodden to whom he directed his blessings.

Jamil stiffened as his eyes reached the next line.

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. . . . If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?

Love your enemies?
That was not the way of Islam. It was not even the way of manhood. An enemy was to be hated with the passion with which one loved one's family. To be held accountable before Allah and the
ulema
, the community of the faithful. To be remembered with unforgiving patience until Allah granted opportunity to redress wrong.

With swift fury, Jamil threw the volume from him into the night. He heard the rustle and thud of its landing, but he did not go after it. No wonder the mullahs called this book corrupt, refused to teach it.

Hastening back to his room, Jamil pulled the patu over his head and fiercely shut himself into sleep.

That night the dreams were back in full measure.

Boredom was the killer.

Steve shifted from one foot to the other. Having your toes fall asleep while standing at your principal's back wasn't an item that made it into PSD how-to manuals. The meeting had gone on for hours, a dozen men around a conference table.

“There will be
no
aerial spraying!” The minister of agriculture's fist came down on the table. “That is no longer an item of discussion. The Afghan people will not stand for it.”

“Aerial spraying could make a sizable reduction in a matter of weeks,” an attaché from the U.S. embassy's Bureau of International Narcotics persisted patiently. “As we've explained, the spraying is very precise. And it won't harm your crops. With the time crunch we are currently facing—”

Khalid broke in smoothly. “Yes, the visit from your new—what do you call him?”

“Drug czar,” DEA Chief Ramon Placido murmured. “Jim Waters.”

“Ah yes, czar, as once ruled the infidel Russians. A strange name for a man who opposes these drugs. We look forward to showing your Jim Waters the hospitality of our country. And if we cannot yet offer him success, surely the new Colombian instructors you have provided will soon produce in our own forces such competence as they display against their own delinquents.”

Was Khalid being serious or sarcastic? Across the table, DynCorp manager Jason Hamilton was listening to this exchange with a deadpan expression. The best that could be said for Colombia's own counternarcotics operation was that coca cultivation had somewhat stabilized under the U.S.–sponsored Plan Colombia while Afghanistan's opium production had exploded from two hundred tons at the height of Taliban rule in 2001 to over eight thousand tons in the most recent harvest. But Colombian hires were cheaper than American counterparts, and since U.S. tax dollars had paid for said instructors' training, offering America's south-of-the-border allies a piece of the action was a shrewd political gesture.

Still, it said much about how bad things were on the ground here when the mess in South America was held up as a yardstick to which the Afghans might someday hope to aspire.

Steve shifted his feet again, an annoying prickle signaling that blood was once more reaching his extremities. A secondary itch had started under the ceramic inserts of his tactical vest, but his mad urge to tear off boots and vest didn't register in a large wall mirror above the table. It reflected instead an impassive profile, stance straight and relaxed, M4 hanging loose but within instant grasp. Wraparound sunglasses offered anonymity for blinking and looking around, the comm wire curving from earpiece to Steve's mouth discreetly invisible.

“We will host a
loya jirga
,” the minister of counternarcotics offered. “Ministers, governors, police, and counternarcotics commanders will all come to welcome your new leader. By then your Colombians will have finished their training. The new recruits can put on a demonstration.”

“And my people can organize a tour of alternative development projects. The sugar factory won't be up and running again yet, but we've got some exciting new crop ventures.” The USAID alternative development coordinator was one of several on the American side of the table who spoke no Dari, while Khalid alone of the Afghan ministers had learned English. At the end of the table, a translator murmured Dari and English alternatively for communication sets both sides wore.

“That isn't good enough,” the BIN attaché answered sharply. “It isn't just Waters we'll need to impress but the congressional delegation coming with him, especially the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. You've got to understand the mood of the American people right now. They've invested billions into building up the Afghan security machine. And frankly, they're hard-pressed at the moment to see what they've got for their buck.”

The embassy official's assessment drew no rebuttal from either side of the table. Following the Taliban's ouster, the biggest challenge facing Afghanistan had been restoring immediate security and rule of law. The new government and their Western allies had come up with an ingenious stopgap to fill the vacuum, deputizing in each district local muj commanders and their militias.

Rather like deputizing Bonnie and Clyde or Jesse James and their outlaw bands as the new sheriffs in town.

In the short term, it seemed a win-win situation, giving the task of preserving order to those already with the muscle to do so while providing a career opportunity for all those otherwise unemployed mujahedeen. Unfortunately, the losers proved to be Afghan civilians who'd trusted that establishment of law would liberate them from the rapaciousness and marauding of those same militias. With minimal funding attached to said deputizing, the new law in town simply squeezed their wages out of the local residents.

“My colleague has a point,” U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission Carl Bolton interjected. “All this discussion hasn't yet resolved the reason we're here. We don't have a firm date for Waters and his team. But we can count on two months, three at most, since Waters plans to present his recommendations before Congress dismisses for year-end holidays. Welcome celebrations and tours are fine. But without some hard progress to present, we can kiss good-bye our current budget, much less the increased aid package we're counting on to turn this situation around.”

If nothing else, the hours of monotony were proving educational about Afghan interior politics as well as Steve's own embassy. That American agencies represented at this table had as much reason to be concerned about the upcoming budget evaluation as the Afghans had never entered Steve's thinking. But then the same congressional committees threatening to cut Afghanistan's aid controlled their pocketbooks as well.

“Which brings us back to aerial spraying,” the BIN attaché said. “There's simply no other tangible return we can offer at such short notice. I have a hard time understanding why anyone should object, since it's also the most equitable. Every poppy grower from the biggest landlord down to the peasant with a few plants gets hit the same. Any district not willing to cooperate can simply be assumed to be uninterested in other aid disbursements. We could wipe out the whole crop in weeks, case closed.”

The logical argument was proof the counternarcotics official must be new in-country. With poppy cultivation all that stood between many Afghans and starvation, the Americans had been as pragmatic as other ISAF nations, eradication to date kept to a token 5 percent or less of this year's half-million-acre crop. That the highest bidder also determined which fields fell to police scythes was again no secret. It took only for the implications of the BIN attaché's statements to filter through the translator for protests to start.

Khalid's voice rose above the others. “We cannot penalize our farmers for trying to feed their families. And it is, after all, the opium merchants who profit most. If your Waters needs progress to report to your Congress, I myself will ensure he receives it. The regional commanders know who the delinquents are in their territory, though they do not always possess the strength to confront them. So I will prepare an order for each police district to cooperate, while my associate—” he nodded toward the new minister of counternarcotics—“mobilizes the counternarcotics task force I myself formerly trained. In two months, we can arrest a number of the worst offenders. Would this satisfy your Waters and Congress?”

“Sure it would, if you can pull it off,” the BIN attaché answered sharply. “If it's that simple, why hasn't it been done before?”

“I was not minister of interior before,” Khalid responded with an aplomb that left both sides of the table silenced even after translation was finished. After a moment he added as though an afterthought, “I will accompany the task force to oversee these arrests personally.”

The bombshell left Steve struggling to restore his impassivity.
Khalid, you didn't just spring that on me.
In the mirror Steve eyed Khalid's deputy, at his side as always. Did that poker face suggest Ismail knew the minister's plans? Or was he just better at hiding surprise than Steve?

The U.S. joint task force commander gave voice to Steve's disbelief. “Mr. Minister, is it prudent to expose yourself to such threat? Your country can't afford to lose another interior minister.”

“Have I not already faced threat right here in Kabul?” Khalid answered placidly. “On the road it will not be so easy to find me. And I have my own excellent protection.” He waved a magnanimous hand to the tall, silent figure at his back. “You will allow no harm to come to me; is that not so, Willie?”

No, he wouldn't, though at the moment an impulse to strangle his principal pulsed at Steve's temples. Unfortunately, while he might have some small sway in security measures, Steve could hardly dictate the movements and job performance of Afghanistan's top cabinet minister. And from the serene determination of the minister's reflection in that mirror, Khalid wasn't going to budge.

“Mr. Minister, if you're serious about this,” Placido spoke up, “I'd sure like to have some of my boys ride along. We've been dealing with a lot of those same commanders—and those delinquents you mentioned.”

“Of course,” Khalid consented.

A fresh babble of discussion ended hopes of adjournment. Flexing his toes again in his boots, Steve blanked discomfort from his mind to settle himself to immobility.

At least he wouldn't have to worry about boredom for a while.