Chaos in Kabul (29 page)

“No, but he raised some troubling points.” Michaelis sounded hesitant.

“What is known about that attack so far?”

“Not very much,” Michaelis said. “It was carried out by a trained sniper using a Russian weapon that nobody’s been able to trace. I’m sure he was helped by someone on the inside, but the Afghans haven’t said anything about that.”

“And nobody’s been arrested?”

“Not yet.”

“Did my name come up?”

“No.”

A long silence followed, eventually broken by Malko. “Besides the attack, what’s been going on these days? I’ve been out of the loop.”

Michaelis gave him a strange look. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“How are various people reacting to events?”

“Well, Karzai is angrier at us than ever. He’s hinting that the Taliban tried to kill him with our support. He even refused to meet with Secretary Hagel, claiming he had the flu. Our relations are at the lowest point ever.”

Malko’s disinformation pipeline had worked apparently. But Karzai was no longer fooled.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Concerning Karzai, yes. Aside from that, the NDS tell me they have evidence that the Taliban have called off a major military operation. My opposite number at the Directorate learned that armed groups from Logar and Wardak were secretly entering the city. They now seem to have pulled back out. That would lend Karzai’s claim some credibility. If he’d been killed, the Taliban were apparently ready to launch uprisings in Kabul to take advantage of his death. Of course, this is just a theory.”

“Of course,” said Malko. “By the way, have you mentioned this to Langley?”

“Not yet. I’ll put it in my weekly brief tomorrow.”

Malko was now on pins and needles, with an additional reason to talk with Clayton Luger—urgently.

“Warren, I have to contact Langley on an absolutely secure line. Is that possible?”

“Of course. Come with me.”

When they got to the third floor, Malko realized that with the eight-and-a-half-hour time difference, it was 3:00 a.m. in Washington.

“I’m going to have to wait until the end of the day to call,” Malko said. “Until it’s nine o’clock at Langley.”

“Do you want to be driven back to the Serena?”

“Thanks, but I’d rather stay here.”

“No problem,” said the station chief. “We have a room on the fourth floor set aside for visiting operatives. I’ll have you taken up.” While they were waiting for a deputy to escort him upstairs, Malko said, “For the time being, nobody must know that I’m here.”

Michaelis took this in. “Not even Langley?”

“I mean the Afghans. I don’t think anybody noticed my arrival. Alicia Burton is the only person in the loop.”

Malko was shown to a sparsely furnished room whose single window faced a concrete wall topped with razor wire.

He stretched out on the bed and tried to relax. He was still being hunted by the NDS, he knew. They couldn’t get to him here, but he couldn’t stay at the Ariana forever.

It was time to start winding this insane mission down.

His eyes half-closed, Musa Kotak listened to the ritual blandishments from his visitor. The high NDS official was charming and polite, and his short beard showed that he was religious, unlike most of the NDS agents from the procommunist Khalq political faction.

It was a visit Kotak had been expecting.

The evening before, his nephew Nadir had been picked up by NDS agents staking out the mosque and taken to Directorate headquarters. Kotak had cautiously refrained from reacting, preferring
to wait and see. Koshan, the driver of the VW bus, had then told him what had happened during the aborted Ghazni trip. Kotak himself was protected by President Karzai, so he wasn’t worried; nothing could happen to him.

The politeness ritual over, the NDS officer explained why they’d had to take Kotak’s nephew in and assured him that the young man was being well treated. He then recounted the incident in Yusuf Khel and the role played by a foreigner in killing a villager there. Finally the NDS officer quietly asked, “Maulana sahib, do you know this foreigner, whom you put in your nephew’s care?”

“Of course. He was sent to me by our beloved leader, Mullah Omar.”

The officer stiffened. Now they were getting somewhere. Like everyone, he knew that Karzai had extended immunity to the former Taliban minister as a way of keeping a channel to Mullah Omar open. He would have to handle the affair with kid gloves.

“Maulana sahib, why was your nephew accompanying this man?”

“He asked for my help to travel to Quetta, to meet with members of our
shura.
As you know, the Americans shower us with kindnesses, so after consulting a friend in the
shura
, I decided I would do well to assist him.”

Kotak spread his chubby hands. “Needless to say, I had no way of knowing that the trip would end in such tragic fashion. I would be amazed if my nephew Nadir were in any way responsible. He is a quiet and gentle man.”

The NDS agent immediately spoke up. “Maulana sahib! Your nephew is absolutely not involved. In fact, he will be released this evening. I only wanted to know if you knew where this foreigner might be now.”

“I have no idea,” said Kotak, his eyes still half-closed. “I never saw him again. My nephew might know more.”

“He told us that he dropped him off yesterday evening at the Iranian embassy.”

The cleric couldn’t hide his surprise.

“I didn’t know that he had any connection with our Iranian brothers,” he said. “But then again, he didn’t tell me about all of his activities. I’m afraid I don’t see how I can help you. I must now go pray, but I am always at your disposal.

“I hope my nephew will be released quickly. I asked him to accompany this foreigner into an area that isn’t very safe. Because of the Taliban, of course.”

A touch of black humor.

The NDS officer didn’t insist. He stood up and handed Kotak his card. “Maulana sahib, if you hear anything about this man, could you please contact me?”

“I’ll be glad to,” said the cleric, escorting his visitor out.

As soon as he was alone, Kotak drafted a message for Quetta, describing all that had happened. The careful scheme they had put together with the Americans was collapsing. Worse, Karzai might well make the connection between the Taliban and an attack that almost cost him his life.

Which could complicate things.

He ended his message by stressing that the only link between the attack and the movement was Malko Linge, who therefore represented a threat to their cause. As long as the Afghan president was alive, they would have to deal with him. It would be best, he concluded, to erase all traces of the aborted operation.

Kotak now had to find Linge. He was reluctant to call him, knowing that the NDS was almost certainly tapping the phones. He would use his networks instead.

Nelson Berry left Pul-i-Alam around noon, after a final meal with his host. Having weighed the pros and cons, he was heading back to Kabul. After all, he couldn’t stay in Logar indefinitely.

The attempt on Karzai’s life was no longer the main topic of conversation. In Afghanistan, so much happened every day that people soon moved on from the failed attack, which had killed just a single person, one of the president’s drivers.

As he and Darius drove toward Kabul, Berry wasn’t feeling too worried. He had eliminated the only man who could testify that he was involved in the attack, and he knew the Degtyarov 41 couldn’t be traced. All that remained was his connection with Malko.

Berry had already prepared a story to tell the NDS, of course. He would say that Linge had asked him to carry out some CIA operations in areas that were too dangerous even for the Agency, eliminating members of the Haqqani network, but that he’d turned him down.

The story’s main advantage? It couldn’t be checked.

Berry felt confident that he could resist an eventual NDS interrogation. They weren’t as brutal when questioning
khareji.

Which left him with only two concerns.

The most immediate one was the five hundred thousand dollars he was carrying. He couldn’t risk the NDS finding it. He would have to explain where it came from, and they would probably steal it.

There were plenty of hiding places in his poppy palace, but none good enough to resist a determined search. However, Berry owned an abandoned farm outside of Kabul that he used as a firing range and storehouse. It was guarded by an old one-armed mujahideen fighter grateful to be given food and shelter. Berry decided to hide the moneybags among his stores of weapons. Nobody
would think to look for them there. That way, if the NDS picked him up when he reached Kabul, he would be clean.

His other concern was Malko Linge.

If the CIA operative had left Afghanistan, the problem was solved. If not, Berry’s wisest course would be to kill him.

Malko dialed Clayton Luger’s number at exactly 5:30 p.m.,
which was 9:00 a.m. in Washington. The deputy director got to his office around eight o’clock and would have reviewed his most urgent files. Luger lived near Langley in McLean, Virginia, and made it a point of pride to be among the first to pull into the CIA’s purple parking lot.

“Luger here.”

“Clayton, it’s me, Malko.”

There was a brief moment of silence, then a crisp question. “Where are you?”

“In Kabul, at the station. I’m calling on a secure line.”

“We haven’t talked in a long time,” Luger said. “What’s been happening?”

“A problem that I haven’t been able to sort out.”

“That’s not important anymore. We’ve gotten very bad blowback on this. Karzai wants to skin you alive.”

“How did he connect me to this business?”

“Because of a son of a bitch whose name I won’t mention on the phone,” Luger said bitterly. “Karzai is especially angry because we passed the word that the operation was off. We’re going to have to negotiate away a few points with him. This whole business is a disaster.”

Luger continued. “We have to make nice, so we’re all palsy-walsy again, regardless of how we actually feel. In any case, it’s a real cluster fuck. Do you have any news of our other man?”

“Nothing,” said Malko. “He’s disappeared. I don’t think he’s been arrested; otherwise, Karzai would be parading him through the streets because of his connections with the Agency. Anyway, you can give John one piece of good news.”

“Good news? Really?”

“This screw-up is actually a stroke of luck. Your Taliban friends were planning to double-cross you. Your whole scheme was to get them to stay on the sidelines, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Once Karzai was killed, they intended to put Kabul to the torch. A number of fighting units had secretly gathered in the city. We don’t know exactly what would’ve happened, but they were certainly planning a takeover.”

There was a long silence; then Luger asked, “How do you know this?”

“Tomorrow your COS will send you an in-depth report based on NDS analyses. In the confusion following Karzai’s death, anything could have happened. The only people expecting it were your so-called allies. They were planning to betray you up and down the line. Let you do the dirty work, then pull their chestnuts out of the fire.”

“Are you positive about all this?”

Luger was clearly having trouble believing it.

“Just ask Warren,” said Malko. “I think we dodged a major bullet.”

“Thanks to you,” said the CIA deputy director.

“Thanks to luck,” Malko corrected him. “So what do we do now?”

“Has the Agency officially taken you in?”

“No, I’m here undercover. But I don’t plan to stick around. Warren suggested exfiltrating me through Bagram and Dubai. That’s probably safest. I don’t dare show my face in town anymore. The NDS is after me, and it would be awkward if I fell into their hands.”

“That’s out of the question,” said Luger. “But your leaving Kabul is also out of the question.”

“Why?”

“As I told you, we’re working on Plan B. We still don’t want Karzai, but we have to handle him very gently. I’m coming to Kabul in a few days. The president wants us to wrap this business up, and I’m going to need you. Keep a low profile in the meanwhile, okay?”

“I don’t have much choice.”

Malko was perplexed as he left the code room. What exactly did the Americans want?

Returning to Michaelis’s office, he could immediately tell from his face that something was up.

“I have bad news,” announced the station chief.

“Concerning me?”

“Yes. I just received a message from the number two at the NDS. Officially neutral. Asking me if I knew how to reach you. It seems the Directorate plans to charge you with the murder of a villager in the Ghazni area. There are witnesses, apparently. What’s that all about?”

“I didn’t have time to tell you earlier. It’s true, unfortunately.”

Michaelis listened in silence as Malko told the story, then said, “That’s very awkward. I claimed I didn’t have any word from you, of course. I’m going to have to ask Langley for instructions, and I’ll do what they tell me.”

The station chief seemed to be washing his hands of him.