Under an Afghan Sky (24 page)

“What’s happening?” we asked.

“ANP extraction.” The Afghan National Police had been caught in a shootout with Taliban insurgents. Three of their officers were dead, and they needed the Canadians to help them extract the bodies from the scene. Initial reports from the ANP indicated there
were about three hundred Taliban in the area. Sat and I hopped into an RG-31 Nyala, a more heavily protected armoured vehicle, with a crew of five. There were about ten vehicles in our convoy as we drove out from the base—a few RGs, some LAVs (light armoured vehicles), and a Bison, an eight-wheeled armoured vehicle.

We moved slowly down the dirt road. Children played in a wadi just a few metres from the base. They barely looked up, so familiar were they with these big foreign convoys rumbling through their living space. Nearby, women were hanging laundry outside their mud homes. Life seemed strangely normal in rural Afghanistan as I watched it from an armoured personnel carrier. We made a pit stop at FOB Wilson, where we picked up a few ANP officers, whose job would be to guide us into the checkpoint where their colleagues had been killed.

About a kilometre from the checkpoint, everyone got out of the vehicles, and we continued the trek on foot. The air felt thick and hot; the temperature was near fifty degrees Celsius. The soldiers were tiring under the weight of their backpacks and weapons. Several went down from heat exhaustion. Sat stopped to offer one his CamelBak, which was filled with cool water. Suddenly, rapid gunfire shattered the stillness. The ANP were trying to scare off the Taliban so we could make our way through the trenches, the wadis, and the marijuana fields that made up the landscape of Zhari district.

Once we got to the checkpoint, the Canadians secured the perimeter, assessed the situation, and called for air cover. The ANP officers gathered up the bodies of their fallen colleagues, put them in the body bags the Canadians had provided, and drove off in their rundown version of a police cruiser, a beat-up pickup truck, leaving India Company stranded at the checkpoint, since there was no one checking the road out to make sure it hadn’t been lined with fresh bombs during the time the Canadians were helping the ANP with the dead.

Quick consulted with headquarters before deciding that we would head back to Ma’sum Ghar, rather than staying overnight. It was just getting dark, and the soldiers were tired, hungry, and hot. A few of them gave me cold bottled water from the vehicles that had driven into the checkpoint, along with a ration they fixed for me of hot macaroni and cheese, made by pouring water into the bag that contained the freeze-dried noodles and powdered cheese.

Once we got going, the convoy had barely made it out of the checkpoint when it came to a complete stop. The road had given way and one of the vehicles had nearly flipped over. Everyone had to dismount, and the soldiers took up defensive positions. It was an extremely vulnerable position to be in—stuck at night in the middle of Taliban territory, and basically immobile. I sat down next to the gunner in our RG-31, who was keeping watch around us with his night-vision lenses. He pointed out two, three, four, at least five Taliban watching us from their vantage points atop the grape huts, the mud-brick buildings used for drying grapes. The soldiers were nervous and waited for the inevitable strike, but apart from sporadic gunfire, it never came.

Six hours later, after another vehicle got stuck in the mud, the convoy finally made it around the destroyed road and back to the forward operating base, and when I had a chance to talk to Major Quick the next morning, his frustration with the ANP came through.

“The biggest challenge,” he told me, “was trying to figure out what happened before we left. We had conflicting reports that upward of 300 Taliban were in the area. Then it went to 150. It’s extremely hard to determine what is the truth. And that was a good example of how difficult it is to work with the ANP.”

I knew that Khalid was right. The ANP would never find me here. They had enough problems of their own, and investigative
detective work was just not a skill they would learn overnight. But then maybe, just maybe, the Canadians were looking for me. I didn’t like the thought of them diverting resources from the war to go on a wild goose chase for a kidnapped journalist, but it gave me some comfort to think that someone like Dave Quick might be on the case. In the little time I’d spent with our troops, my respect for the work they did and their motives for going to Afghanistan had multiplied tenfold. Every soldier I met told me the same thing. They were there because they believed that they could make life better for ordinary Afghans, that they could contribute, even in a small way, to improving society there, and that they knew they were putting their own lives in danger to try to make a difference.

The debate back in Canada over whether our soldiers should be in Afghanistan had always bothered me. The fact was, they were here, risking their lives to take on an almost impossible task in one of the most inhospitable and dangerous places on earth. I believed that even if you didn’t support the mission, you needed to support these young men and women. They were eager, smart, and resourceful.

“Police bad,” Khalid said, interjecting himself into my train of thought.

I nodded. “Yes, police bad.” I was thinking of the ANP. “Taliban bad too,” I added. “So who is good?”

Khalid scratched his head. He didn’t seem to have an answer to that. “Mullah Omar good. Bin Laden good.” As expected. Shafirgullah had said the same thing the week before.

“Why are they good if they kill people?” I challenged.

“They Muslim. They kill people no Muslim. Good.”

I’ve been in this hole too long,
I thought. I was starting to have the same conversation over and over again with my captors—and myself, for that matter.

At least with Khalid there was a little more conversation, perhaps a little more trust—but after almost two weeks, even we were running out of things to talk about. There were only so many times I could ask him about his plans to get married, what Shogufa was like (“very pretty”), whether her parents approved of their relationship (“they like me”), and what their plans were for the future (“suicide bombing”).

Khalid was still worried, though. He was unsure whose footsteps we’d heard earlier in the day, and I could see that on his face. He made several more phone calls in the afternoon, taking his SIM card in and out of the Nokia phone. Then I recognized some of the names on the display screen.
Paul, Shokoor, Toronto, Sameem.
It was
my
SIM card he was using to make the calls.

“Let me see,” I said, holding out my hand. “That’s
my
phone, Khalid.” He handed it over, warning me not to try to dial. I scrolled through my phone and the SMS messages still contained in it. There was the one from Paul:
What can you tell me?
That was the message he had sent after Shokoor told him about my kidnapping. One from Shokoor:
We are late, sorry, Mellissa
—sent the morning he and his brother were coming to get me at the hotel in Kabul, to take me to the refugee camp. Then another from Paul:
Miss you, M, hurry back.

I put the phone down as my eyes welled up. I’m hurrying, P. I’m hurrying, and I miss you too. More than you know.

Khalid took the phone back. “Do not cry, Mellissa,” he said, taking my hand. “I no like you cry. I want you happy.”

“How can I be happy when I’m stuck here? When you’ve taken me away from everything? How can I be happy here?”

My captor sighed. “I am sorry for you, Mellissa,” he said. “I am sorry.”

“If you are really sorry, you’ll let me go, Khalid. You’ll take me back to Kabul on your motorcycle and take me back to my hotel.”

“It is not my choice,” he said. “My father…”

“Your father will understand. Please, Khalid. I am sick, and I’m going to get sicker. I will be of no use to you if I die here. You must let me go home to Canada, where I can see a doctor.” I knew he was worried about my health: he had been asking me practically every hour on the hour how I was feeling and if I had any
dard.
I did have pain, but it was in my head. I thought the weather must be changing outside because that’s when I get the worst migraines. It’s been that way since I was in high school. I could predict a thunderstorm by the strength of my headaches, and I was usually right. Doctors prescribed me every migraine drug they could, but unless I took it before the symptoms hit, I was reduced to lying in a dark room in a fetal position, waiting for it all to pass. I could feel a migraine coming on now, and I didn’t have any Maxalt or Imitrex, but I did have Tylenol, which I never went anywhere without. I dug down deep in my knapsack and pulled out the bottle with the red cap, then popped three pills in my mouth, washing them down with a gulp of apple juice.

“What you eat?” Khalid asked. He had been watching me.

“It’s my medication,” I said, rattling the bottle. There were only a few left. “I’m running out. It’s for my pain. That’s why I need to go home, Khalid. I need to see my doctor.” He took the bottle of Tylenol from me and opened it. He poured a few out into his big palm and studied them for a while before putting them back in the bottle.

“We find doctor,” he told me.

“You can’t. I need my doctor at home in Canada. She’s the only one who knows because she knows about my operation, and she’s the only one who can prescribe me my medication,” I said earnestly.

“We find doctor here,” he insisted.

“No, it won’t work,” I argued. “I could get sicker if I see the wrong doctor. It’s dangerous.” Khalid sighed and put his head in his hands again.

Sensing that he might perhaps consider what I was saying, I pressed on. “You have to call your father and tell him I am sick, and that he needs to finish my case soon. I won’t be any good to you if I die in here, Khalid. You wouldn’t want that.”

I was interrupted by a loud bang. And then another one. Mortars. And then the sound of an aircraft flying overhead. Gunfire followed. The noise went on for a long time, maybe a couple hours. It had to be NATO forces engaging the insurgents in the area. Khalid leaned back on his pillow and cracked the knuckles on his hands, then on his feet. He seemed resigned to the fact that he was staying another night. There was no way the others would come and dig him out as long as there was this much activity above.

We both lit cigarettes and waited. The noises would crescendo and then fade. At times, it sounded like whoever was firing was right above the hole. I thought about calling out, but I figured there was too much noise for anyone outside to hear me to risk the wrath of Khalid. Instead, I imagined what might happen if I did cry out. It was the umpteenth time I’d gone over this in my mind: Was it my best chance of escape? A few nights earlier, when Abdullah left, the kidnappers had left me alone in the cave for quite some time—almost half an hour. I’d crawled up the tunnel and looked up the uncovered shaft. No one was there. I’d heard voices a little farther away from the entrance, and I’d stood up to see if I could see anything, but the ground was a good two feet above my head. I was just trying to get my footing on one of the sides when I heard voices and footsteps approaching the hole. I dropped down and dove headfirst into the tunnel, covering my kameez and pants with a thick layer of dirt.

But the possibility that I might get another chance to escape teased me almost every time my captors came to replace each other. I was growing desperate. It had been five days since the
proof-of-life questions, and I’d heard nothing concrete about my release, and every time I asked Khalid what was going on, he told me my friends and my family didn’t love me because they were not prepared to hand over any money. I knew that would be the official line—especially if the Canadian government was involved, because it is its policy not to pay ransoms or negotiate with terrorists. I wondered if my sister and my parents would try to find the money. I know I would pay if someone I cared about was being held hostage. It’s a difficult situation because paying ransom encourages kidnappers to just keep on kidnapping. But when it comes down to it, you’re talking about someone’s life. And when someone you love is in danger or at risk, you do whatever you can to ensure their safety. If it were my sister, or Paul, in this hole, I knew I’d be trying to find money to secure her or his release.

We’d heard earlier in the year that Amanda Lindhout, a Canadian freelance reporter whom we’d met in Kandahar the year before, was kidnapped while in Somalia and that her family was trying desperately to raise the ransom money. I thought about where she might be now. I couldn’t imagine being in captivity for as long as she was. It had been months since her capture, and I supposed her parents were still trying to come up with the money. At least my parents had the support of a television network. I hoped they were being updated regularly, and that they’d been told I had answered the proof-of-life questions on Sunday.

And so, what happened next? Were the proof-of-life questions enough? Or were they just the beginning, in terms of negotiating with these guys? Would the AKE people demand more proof? Would there be more questions? Would they need to see me or talk to me themselves?

I had so many questions and no answers. And as a journalist, that was excruciatingly frustrating. I couldn’t do what I was
accustomed to doing—picking up the phone and dialing a number and asking a question. There was no way to get credible information—my kidnappers were not ones to tell me the truth, and I had no way of double-sourcing or fact checking what they told me. I was in a black hole of communication and information—and there was nothing I could do about it.

I couldn’t allow my thoughts to spiral me into despair—it was all too easy to sit here and feel sorry for myself, and I hated the idea of being a victim. So rather than let my thoughts continue to carry me away, I tried to distract myself the only way I could think of. I opened another package of cookies.

There was one box of cookies left—the chocolate ones I liked the best. On the box was a picture of a cartoon prince. I’d already studied the nutritional value of the cookies ad nauseam—but now for the first time I noticed there was a story in English about a prince. Prince cookies, they were called, and they made him big and strong so he could rule over his kingdom. Cute, I thought. Maybe he would come and rescue me.