Pakistan

North-West Frontier Province - Peshawar

43 Kilometres South-East

of the Afghan Border - Two Days Later

The truck shuddered over a pothole – one of many in the stricken road – and Leo woke, having dozed on the world’s most expensive bed, several million dollars’ worth of heroin concealed in flour bags branded with the emblem of a Western aid charity. The voice of his addiction was still demanding that he smoke but it was growing fainter by the day. Though it was a cruel test of his determination, surrounding him with drugs, opium had only ever been a way of suppressing his desire to desert his post, to nullify his restlessness and his impossible hopes of an investigation into the murder of his wife. What had once been unachievable was within his grasp: passage to America and a path to New York.

They’d crossed into Pakistan shortly after clearing the minefield. Since they’d walked in almos complete darkness they were unable to ascertain if all the mines had been detonated. The question of whether they were blessed or whether it was chance remained unanswered. Leo didn’t spend too long dwelling on the matter. As a soldier in the Great Patriotic War, he’d seen examples of his friends believing they were saved by a miracle, a bullet lodged in a religious trinket, devoting themselves to understanding the meaning of this only to be killed a few weeks later. Despite his scepticism, he was pleased that their guide’s hostility had softened. As the sun rose, brushing away the last of the storm, the four of them had stopped on the crest of a Pakistani hill and looked back to see Soviet attack helicopters in the distance circling the Khyber Pass. Had they waited for daylight they would have been caught. Whatever the truth of the matter, it certainly felt like a miracle.

Cold, filthy and exhausted, they’d reached Dara, a small town in the northern tribal region of Pakistan that existed like the capital city of an unofficial nation. Misunderstood as a lawless buffer state, it was instead governed by the laws of survival and commerce. While Leo had expected the sight of a Soviet civilian, a woman, a badly burnt young girl and a mujahedin fighter to attract attention, this was a town entirely without convention, dominated not by religious stricture or government policy but by brazen material needs – a trading bazaar for three of the world’s top commodities: drugs, weapons and information. They were concerned with the questions of what you wanted to buy and what you wanted to sell. There were cottage heroin factories dotted through the town like teashops, bags of unprocessed opium sold for dollars, packed on the backs of mules. Weapons were tested and inspected, taken out of town and fired at tree stumps. Crates of bullets were examined as if they were treasure chests of rubies and emeralds. War funds were raised. War funds were stolen. Allegiances were bought and broken. Intelligence was sold. Victories were invented and defeats denied. From the north there was an influx of Afghan refugees, many with terrible injuries, legs sliced with shrapnel, fleeing the conflict. From the south came a trickle of Western journalists and travellers, some dressed in traditional loose-fitting clothes, others in designer khaki trousers, with sophisticated gadgets. Judging from the small number of journalists, even though this was the closest point of access to Afghanistan, Leo surmised that the war had so far failed to capture the West’s imagination. Such an absence of interest did not bode well for his defection.

Though no longer in Afghanistan, they were still in danger. The Soviets were active in the tribal region, crossing the border with a frequency that showed blatant disregard for Pakistani sovereignty. Leo had heard discussion of a series of covert operations intended to destabilize the area and bring pressure on Pakistan to patrol the full length of the border, closing it down. Extreme acts of provocation were being planned as punishment for helping the mujahedin even if Pakistan’s stated policy was neutrality. These Communist agents would be Afghan, perhaps disguised as refugees. Some were even corrupt mujahedin. Fahad found it implausible that any mujahedin fighter could be bought by the Soviets. Leo told him that he had seen lists of men who were on the Soviet payroll, identified by code names, arguing that on any side there were always men who could be bought, characters with weaknesses that could be exploited. Fahad had shaken his head in disgust, saying Leo spoke like a Westerner, rotten with compromise and ambiguity.

Fahad had wasted little time in getting them off the streets and into a chai-khana, where they were taken to a back room while he arranged transport to Peshawar, the region’s capital. Only thercould they make contact with Pakistani intelligence, or more specifically the ISI – the Inter-Services Intelligence, known for its close ideological association with Islamic fundamentalism. It was among the mujahedin’s most powerful allies.

As soon as Fahad left, the three of them fell asleep, a small fire keeping them warm, lying together on a coarse woven mattress with a single thick blanket covering them. They were like characters from a fairytale. When Leo awoke he found Fahad sipping tea by the fire, his long, gangly body tucked under a blanket. He was a truly remarkable soldier, a man who didn’t seem to rest, or lower his guard. His strength was not intended to impress, it was not bravado – he had no interest in Leo’s opinion of him. Seeing that Leo was awake, he offered him sweet green tea. Leo accepted, joining him by the fire, in silence, improbable allies: but improbable allies would be needed again if the ISID were willing to connect them with the CIA.

***

It was evening by the time they reached their destination. Descending from the truck, Leo was taken aback by the bustle of Peshawar, adjusting to the commotion after their remote, dark days in the mountains and tribal regions. The millions of dollars of heroin they’d been sleeping on would only fetch such a price on the streets of America or Europe, on these noisy streets the sacks were worth no more than a few thousand dollars each. The truck rumbled on, a rickety exhaust pipe spluttering black smoke. Leo wondered whether the drugs had a better chance of arriving in America than they did.

They followed Fahad down narrow side streets, shop fronts and gutters clogged with brightly coloured candy papers, like fallen blossom after a storm. The city was distinct from Kabul with a stronger sense of colonial architecture – ornate, pink-red brick buildings with clock towers framed by tree-lined avenues. Like Kabul, the contrast between ancient and new was sharp. Majestic mosques centuries old stood beside modern buildings that looked as if they would struggle to survive another year. Telephone posts emerged like weeds, at odd angles, jutting up, sprouting hundreds of wires that sagged across streets. Decay and wealth circled each other. The neighbouring war had made this lost outpost important, giving it a new and highly lucrative industry – espionage, professionalized deceit.

Fahad led them to a guest lodge intended for a Western clientele; a painted wooden sign hung from the side of the building, written in English:

A light bulb flickered intermittently in the narrow corridor. An unmanned reception desk was being used to store barrels of cooking oil. Fahad didn’t bother ringing the buzzer for attention. He walked straight through, under a broken ceiling fan limp and askew like a desiccated insect sucked dry and left to hang in a spider’s web. They entered a small restaurant. Several square tables were lined up against a wall but on one side only, as if waiting to be executed by firing squad. They were covered in red and white plastic tablecloths and set out with bright yellow napkins, unclean cutlery, each with a hundred partial fingerprints. The customers were a mix of strung-out tourists, lost souls running from home, adventurers and mercenaries. They were distinguishable by their physical strength, or lack of, and their kit, wearing leather boots laced up above their ankles or flip-flops with colourfully painted toenails. The Soviet high command had been worried about the mujahedin filling their ranks with Western mercenaries, fighters bought with drug money, believing only Westerners knew how to fight, when in fact the mujahedin, in this terrain, were the best fighters in the world. Their fight was personal, a matter of principle not profit, and they had no time for mercenaries. They didn’t trust their motives and thought them intrinsically unreliable. The groups sat at their tables, making plans over plates of oily chips. There was no alcohol and apparently no staff. Some of the customers turned around, regarding the new arrivals, curious, some too doped up to care. As Fahad slipped into the kitchen, a cockroach boldly passed him by, running out as though he were the establishment’s only waiter. Within seconds Fahad returned with a key.

On the top floor there were five rooms, three on one side and two on the other. They took the last room, the corner room, with windows on both streets. There was a bed, no bathroom – the facilities were shared one floor down. The floors creaked. The plaster was stained. The bed sheets had not been washed, only tucked in after the last occupants. Fahad tossed the key onto the bed.

—I will meet the ISI. If they refuse to help us, the mission has failed. I do not have any contact with the CIA myself. And we cannot approach them without ISI’s permission.

—We could go direct to the embassy and make our way to Islamabad.

—Not without Pakistani permission. We’re in their country now. My orders are strict. They will decide what to do. If you try to reach the American Embassy without me, I’ll find you and I’ll kill you.

With that warning, Fahad left.

Leo picked up Zabi, putting her on the bed. She asked:

—Are we going to die?

—No.

—But he said—

Nara interrupted:

—Ignore what he said.

Leo added:

—We haven’t had a chance to discuss what is happening. It must be very confusing. Do you understand why it is dangerous for you to live in Afghanistan?

She bit her fingernail, saying nothing. Leo carried on:

—The Soviets fear defeat very much.

—Why?

—They worry it will make them look weak. They are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to stop this from happening. They have many weapons. They will use them, on anyone, men, women, children. The country is not safe, not for you, not for me, not for Nara .

Zabi said:

—Where are we going to live?

—We must find somewhere else.

—Can we live here?

—I don’t think so.

Nara sat beside her.

&md There are many people from our country here. They have lost their homes, their family, just like you and I. They have nothing. They live in refugee camps, thousands sleeping under sheets of plastic with no clean water. It is a hard life. It would be dangerous, perhaps as dangerous as the war itself.

With precocious intelligence, Zabi followed the arguments put to her.

—Where else can we go?

Leo answered:

—There is a chance we can travel to America. Have you heard of this country?

She shook her head.

—It is far away. It is very different from the world you know. It is a place without war, with clean water, with food, somewhere safe, a place where we have a chance. There is no opportunity for us here. We would spend all our time struggling just to survive.

Zabi shrewdly asked:

—What troubles would there be in America?

—There will be challenges. It will be unrecognizable to you. And we will be foreign. We will be outsiders. They speak a different language. You would have to learn a new way of life. But if you manage to learn their language and their way of life, you have a chance of being accepted as one of them.

Zabi asked Nara:

—Are there mountains like here?

Nara was embarrassed. She asked Leo:

—I don’t know. Are there mountains in America? He nodded.

—It is a very large country. There are mountains. There are deserts. There are forests. There are beaches. You can swim in lakes or the sea.

Zabi asked:

—What is the sea?

Not only had she never seen the sea, she had no idea what it was. Leo thought for a moment, comprehending the scale of the journey for this young girl. He wondered how best to explain.

—The sea is an area of water as big as a country. Instead of land there is water, and the water is as deep as the mountains are tall. It is full of animals, like a lake, but some of the animals are very big, as big as this building.

Zabi was amazed by this idea. She exclaimed:

—A fish as big as a building!

—They’re called whales. They’re not fish. They breathe air, like us.

—If they breathe air why do they live in the water?

Leo paused, remembering conservations like this with Elena when she was young. She was fascinated by the world, always asking for information. The endless questions, parodied by her sister, were a display of intimacy and trust as much as they were about curiosity. The same was true with Zabi – she was reaching out to him at the same time as she was reaching out to the concept of this new world. Yet this new world would be one without his daughters. If he left Pakistan as a traitor, he would never see Elena and Zoya again. He found the notion impossible to accept, as impossible as the idea that he would never solve the murd of his wife. But the truth was that to return to the Soviet Union, as a known defector, would result in his execution. Even more troubling, there was a possibility both daughters would be punished if it were ever found out that he’d fled the country. Their safety depended upon the presumption that Leo had been killed in the air strikes or executed by the mujahedin. Secrecy was of paramount importance. He wouldn’t be able to write to them. He wouldn’t be able to call. If he fell sick, he would be alone. If they fell sick, he would not be able to sit by their side.

In a sombre frame of mind he failed to answer Zabi’s question, standing up. She squeezed his hand.

—Tell me more about the sea.

Leo shook his head.

—That’s enough for now.

He stroked back her hair. Zabi asked:

—Have you been to America?

—I tried to go there once but I didn’t make it.

—Will we make it?

—We have a good chance.

Zabi heard his uncertainty. She took Nara’s hand.

— And even if we don’t, you’ll stay with me? Nara nodded.

—I will never leave you, no matter what happens. I promise.

There was no uncertainty in her voice. Nara would die for this girl. Leo hoped it wouldn’t come to that.