The Afghan

Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Saturday, February 6, 1988

Khost-Gardez Pass

The convoy of four mules, accompanied by three men, wound its way slowly up the lightly snow-covered mountain path in single file. The glare from the sun on the snow caused the man leading the group to squint a little as he stopped for a breather at the top of a steep incline.

Javed Hasrat was still coming to terms with the shock he had experienced more than a month earlier. That was when he had been told that the Hind helicopter attack on Wazrar had decimated the village, reducing his house to a smoking ruin and killing his wife, Ariana, and youngest daughter, Hila, only eight years old.

He, Baz, and Sandjar had arrived at the wreckage of the Russian helicopters to find two other men from his village waiting there to give him the tragic news.

A red mist of hatred had rapidly encompassed him. The crew of the helicopter that had taken a direct hit from the Stinger had all died, but those in the second chopper that had crash-landed had been fully conscious, and they had taken the full force of Javed’s anger. He had ensured they suffered greatly before finally meeting their end.

It was only after the deed was done that he sank to the ground and wept for his lost family members.

At thirty-eight, he had felt as though he had aged another three decades. He had gone into a deep depression that had only begun to lift thanks to the love and resilience shown by his two surviving older daughters, Roshina and Sandara, aged sixteen and fourteen, respectively.

Javed put his hand up to his face to shield his eyes and studied Baz, standing next to him, and Baz’s younger brother, Noor.

“Nearly there. Another kilometer,” Javed said. He straightened his traditional pale gray linen shalwar kameez—baggy trousers and a long shirt—and adjusted his jacket and chitrali cap. The action was unnecessary, an almost unconscious habit that he had developed as a youngster.

He gazed along the path ahead of them, which narrowed sharply and turned into little more than a two-meter-wide ledge carved into the face of the cliff.

The mules all had tarps covering the loads on their backs. Javed certainly didn’t want anyone to see what was underneath. The animals were each carrying four FIM-92 Stingers on their backs, all wrapped in clear plastic sheeting, packed into special canvas holders, and disguised under packages of food and blankets.

It was the only way to transport the weapons, weighing about fifteen kilograms each, from Wazrar, on the Khost-Gardez highway, to the safety of the cave, about ten kilometers northeast of the village in the Sulaiman Mountains. No vehicle could navigate the tortuous route.

Following the downing of the two Hinds, the Russians had continued to mount occasional attacks on the villages.

But the mujahideen commanders had noticed that over the past week, these attacks had dwindled sharply in frequency, and there were rumors that the Soviet troops were withdrawing.

For Javed this had been no consolation. He ached with the loss of his wife and daughter and doubled his determination to take every opportunity possible to exact revenge on the Russians.

It was for that reason that he had decided to move sixteen of the Stingers under his control to the safety of the cave, leaving just five in a weapons cache near the pass itself for quick access if required. He was concerned that if the Russians really were leaving, his precious Stingers might be stolen by rival mujahideen commanders. Or maybe the Americans who had supplied them might try to claw them back. He might need them for another day and couldn’t risk them disappearing.

He had already moved two shoulder-fired RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launch tubes, plus six grenades, to the cave four days earlier for the same reason. That left him with two launch tubes and ten grenades in the pass.

The convoy moved on up the path, now traveling with extreme care given the sheer vertigo-inducing drop of more than a hundred meters that lay over the ledge to their right.

Half an hour later, they stood under a rock overhang, beneath which was the entrance to a natural cave in the cliff face, concealed behind a fissure in the rock surface. The overlapping shape of the fissure and the overhang ensured that the cave entrance was virtually invisible to anyone not in the immediate vicinity and certainly undetectable from the air. The cave had been discovered by one of the other villagers from Wazrar while he had been searching for some lost sheep, and he had mentioned it to Javed.

As he had done during the entire journey up from the pass, Javed checked carefully all around the area for any sign of surveillance. There was nothing.

Then he took the lead mule behind the rock and into the cave beyond. The others followed. Javed switched on a small flashlight and used it to locate three kerosene lamps hidden behind a rock.

Once he had lit the lamps, the interior of the cave became visible. It was a naturally occurring space that could almost have been custom-designed. High-ceilinged, it stretched at least thirty meters back from the entrance and was more than twenty meters wide. At the rear was another fissure, almost a narrow doorway, that led to another smaller cavity beyond, where the weapons were stored on a ledge above head height and out of sight of any intruders.

“Let’s get this lot unloaded, quickly,” Javed said, twirling his forefinger rapidly in circles in front of him, indicating the need for speed.

Baz leaned against one side of the mule at the front of the convoy while Noor, who was two years younger at thirty-six, leaned against the other side. Both brothers seemed in less of a rush.

“I’ve heard that Royan has got hold of another twenty Stingers and several multiple-barrel rocket launchers,” Baz said. “And Salar got fifteen Stingers.”

Royan, one of relatively few Tajiks in the predominantly Pashtun Sulaiman ranges, was a rival mujahideen commander in the neighboring valley and was known to be exceptionally wealthy. He and Javed had dropped their historically bitter tribal enmity in the interests of defeating a common enemy—Russia—and ensuring a flow of American weapons. But if the Russians really were going, Javed knew it wouldn’t be long before the status quo—traditional hostilities between tribes—would be resumed.

Salar was a Pashtun mujahideen commander, based slightly farther north, who was a strong ally and friend of Javed and Baz. There had been a long-standing relationship between their tribes, based on alliances during past conflicts and occasional intermarriages between families.

“Where did they get them from?” Javed asked.

“That’s a good question,” Baz said. “I know for sure it wasn’t from the ISI.”

Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence agency, had managed the delivery of the entire stock of weapons and ammunition supplied by the CIA to the Afghan mujahideen, on the insistence of President Zia, who refused to allow the Americans to deal with them directly.

“So who, then?” Javed asked.

“Two Americans,” Baz said. “I know that for sure.”

Javed’s eyes narrowed. “Direct from Americans?”

Baz nodded. “Yes.” He rubbed his right thumb and forefinger together, as if wrinkling banknotes. “Someone’s making a lot of money.”

“Do you know who?” Javed asked.

“I don’t know names, but I do have a copy of a photo my good friend Mehtar took of the Americans delivering the Stingers. He’s one of Salar’s men.”

“I know Mehtar. Why did he give you a photo?”

“He asked me to keep it safe for him—as a backup. He trusts me. He said it was in case the Americans played dirty.”