Oath of Office

34

The Afghan customs official at the Kabul airport was a stumpy, heavyset man who looked as if he could not quite commit to growing a beard. He eyed Dovzhenko’s diplomatic passport suspiciously, then shunted him off to a supervisor. The second man did not appear to like Russians any more than the first, but waved him into the country nonetheless. The airport was small and the layover was quick, just long enough for Dovzhenko’s clothing to soak up the odor of dust and burning garbage that would accompany him for the rest of his time in Afghanistan. He exchanged two hundred U.S. dollars for just under fifteen thousand afghanis — about a third of a month’s pay for the average Afghan man. Half an hour later, he was in the air again, flying over mountains that were the same color as his new duffel.

There was one attendant on the Ariana flight to Herat. Unlike the young woman out of Dubai, this one kept her bangs tucked neatly inside her blue hijab.

Anguish and fatigue consumed a great many calories, and Dovzhenko was feeling unsteady on his feet by the time he landed in Herat. Pilots in Afghanistan had gotten used to rapid corkscrew descents to keep from getting shot. Even now, when the danger was minimal around Herat Province, landings were white-knuckle, ear-popping affairs.

The warm naan bread and spiced lamb wraps from the stall outside the terminal caused him to salivate, but he opted for one of his candy bars instead. It was a little too early to be breaking into the Imodium. The sugar seemed to go straight to his cells and, though he felt no happier, he could at least walk in a straight line without looking as though he might keel over. He used the renewed energy to scan the outer terminal for danger.

Dovzhenko had spent enough time in dangerous places to know the threats in this place would come from every direction. Former enemies might act like friends one moment and then revert to old habits if some unanswered insult popped into their minds. A clear head was essential to survival now. There could be no more losing himself to his grief.

His mother had often told him the Tolstoy story about a peasant who went to steal cucumbers from his neighbor’s farm. This cucumber thief became so engrossed in thoughts of becoming wealthy from planting the seeds of the stolen loot that he began to daydream others were stealing from him — and absentmindedly shouted to his imaginary guards, “Keep an eye out for thieves!” alerting the real guards. It was his mother’s favorite story, and she told it every time she thought Dovzhenko had his head in the clouds. A spy, she said, could not afford to daydream.

In Afghanistan, she was surely right.

Herat was one of the safer cities in the country, which was to say that one might expect to get blown to pieces by an unexploded cluster bomb or be murdered by common criminals instead of having your body torn apart by a blast from a suicide bomber — though that was always a possibility as well. The Taliban generally kept their business to other parts of the country. Around here that was the south, in the scrub-filled wadis below Shindand and to the east where they smuggled opium across the border with Iran. At least that’s where they’d been when it had been his job to provide them with Russian Kalashnikovs and F1 hand grenades.

Dovzhenko’s taxi driver was somewhere in his early thirties, with the look of a man who had once been muscular and fit but was now muscular and fat. He spoke of politics, the way everyone in Afghanistan talked about such things after half a century of occupation and war. The ride into Herat would have cost around eight U.S. dollars. Dovzhenko offered the man twenty to take him through the city itself and then another five kilometers east through fields of saffron crocus and pistachio trees to the dusty village of Jebrael. The driver kept to the back roads rather than the highway, admitting that the headquarters for his old unit of the Afghan National Army was along the highway. Dovzhenko didn’t ask about the bad blood, but it was enough to make the driver spit on the floor when he mentioned the 4th Armored Brigade.

The driver was familiar with the address for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and, though he appeared to have almost as much bad blood for Russians as he did for his former employer, he took Dovzhenko to the dusty yellow building on the edge of town. The wind was blowing steadily by the time they arrived, sandblasting Dovzhenko’s skin and nearly ripping the money out of his hand as he stepped out of the vehicle. The driver snatched away the twenty and headed back the way he’d come without another word.

In front of the building, a boy of twelve or thirteen wearing shalwar kameez, the loose, pajamalike pants and long shirt ubiquitous in Afghanistan, leaned against the wall with his little sister under the swinging wood UNODC sign. They squinted at the new foreigner in the stiff wind. A moment later, a woman in a black chador came out the door and said something to the children. She shooed them past Dovzhenko, her head down. The little girl looked up at him with green eyes and smiled.

Dovzhenko shouldered his duffel and walked inside. The wooden desk in the sparse front room was clean and neat, with a single manila folder in the center. A cup of tea sat on a clay coaster beside it, half full, as if someone had just walked away. A rotating rack full of pamphlets about farming and drug addiction was the only other furniture.

The wind blew the door shut behind him with a loud crack, causing him to drop the duffel and spin instinctively. He released a pent-up sigh, cursing this awful wind.

The sound of a man’s voice carried in from somewhere in the back, gruff and confrontational. Dovzhenko opened his mouth to call out, but thought better of it. More voices, angrier now, then the muffled cry of a woman, and the clatter of furniture.

Hackles up, Dovzhenko stepped past the desk and down a dark hallway. His hand went instinctively for the Makarov, reaching inside his jacket pocket before he remembered the pistol wasn’t there. Rounding the corner into a concrete storage room, he found two men leaning over the figure of a woman. The men blocked Dovzhenko’s view, but he could see a dark blue headscarf. One of the men shoved her against some metal shelving, earning himself a slap to his ear. The other cuffed her hard in the neck, earning himself a kick to the groin.

Dovzhenko gave a shrill whistle, advancing in two bounding steps, and head-butting the nearest man in the nose the moment he turned. A second man, with a thick beard dyed gaudily red, swung at him wildly, a massive fist whirring by the Russian’s temple, missing by a fraction of an inch. Dovzhenko gave the man he’d just head-butted a donkey kick to the side of the knee, buying himself a little time. He used the momentum of a spin to plant an elbow across Redbeard’s face. The big Afghan fell flat on his back. Dovzhenko kicked him hard, once in the neck and once in the side of the head. Redbeard was out, but his partner was still upright. He hobbled on one leg, spraying bloody mist out the gash of burst skin on the bridge of his nose with each exhaled breath. His chin was up, attempting to stanch the flow. Dovzhenko punched him hard in the throat and then caught him by the face with an open palm, driving up and over, slamming him to the concrete floor. The Afghan’s eyes rolled, showing their whites. The spray of blood from his nose slowed to gurgling bubbles. Both men were surely concussed, they might even have cracked skulls, but Dovzhenko did not care. Enraged from the fight, he grabbed the man by the ears, bashing his head against the floor over and over and over. These men had attacked Maryam…

Dovzhenko shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. Ysabel. They’d attacked Ysabel.

He turned to check on her at the same moment a dark blur flew at him. Something heavy hit hard in his chest, driving him backward. Hands in front to ward off another attack, he looked down to see a dagger sticking straight out from his leather jacket.

Screeching like she was insane, Ysabel dropped to the ground, sweeping sideways with powerful legs. Dovzhenko fell, landing beside Redbeard, wondering why the dagger blade didn’t hurt more than it did. He yanked it out as he rolled, attempting to evade the woman’s lashing feet that seemed bent on caving in his skull.

Dovzhenko had been kicked before by people who knew very well how to kick. Instead of rolling away, he rolled toward her, trapping the lead foot as it plowed into him. He kept rolling, leverage from the weight of his body slamming her backward. She hit the ground with a sickening thud. She tried to scream but managed nothing but a croak.

It was only then, her diaphragm too paralyzed to draw a breath, that she remained still long enough for Dovzhenko to get a good look at her.

Long black hair spilled from a blue hijab. Ebony eyes stared up at him over prominent cheekbones. Her nose wasn’t too large, though she probably thought it so, and it had a slight hook to it. The most remarkable feature about her was the scars. With the scarf pulled away he could see many on the bronze skin of her neck. They were not ugly, far from it. A fine white line to the right of a perfect cupid’s bow gave her lips a perpetual pout. The rest simply added to the smoldering intensity of her demeanor.

Dovzhenko remembered the dagger and kicked it out of her reach, his hand searching for the wound under his leather jacket.

“You could have killed me,” he said, withdrawing Maryam’s notebook, panting. The tip of the blade had nicked his bottom rib, but the cardboard-and-leather cover had prevented it from reaching his heart. He wasn’t bleeding badly, at least not that he could see.

“My auntie telephoned to say that a Russian was looking for me.” Her English was perfect. Almost, but not quite, British.

“I never told her I was Russian,” Dovzhenko said. “Your auntie has a good ear.” The aggressive phone call had at least put her on guard, if it had almost cost him his life.

“What are you doing with Maryam’s book?”

Dovzhenko closed his eyes. “I am afraid I bring bad news. Maryam—”

The back door creaked open, letting in a howl of wind.

Dovzhenko opened his eyes to find a large Afghan standing on the threshold, the wind whipping the shemagh tied around his neck. The new arrival took a quick scan of the unconscious Afghans on the floor and then shot a glance at Ysabel.

She held up her hand. “I am fine, Hamid.”

His gaze then fell to Dovzhenko.

The Afghan’s hair was cut close to the scalp, but he had a long black beard, groomed to a great scimitar of a point. Smile lines creased his cheeks and eyes — a rarity in a country that had suffered generations of war. His wide leather belt held a pistol and long knife. A Kalashnikov hung from his neck on a three-point sling with the release tab pulled and the rifle pointed directly at Dovzhenko’s chest. The fact that he carried a rifle was not surprising, but a relatively sophisticated tactical sling in a country where many carried their weapons on a length of old carpeting or a piece of rope made Dovzhenko think he might know how to use the thing. He had to be former military, but virtually every fighting-age male had fought on one side or another of one battle or another over the past four decades, so that wasn’t much of a leap.

Hamid smoothed the point of his long beard. “The generator is fixed,” he said. “They must have damaged it to draw me outside.” He motioned for Ysabel to step out of the way. It was clear that she was the employer, but he was in charge of her safety.

He focused on Dovzhenko now. “What is your business?” the man asked in Dari, eyes squinting from the gritty wind that now swirled around the storeroom. Dovzhenko got to his feet and squinted back, but didn’t answer.

“What do you want?” Hamid asked again, in English this time.

“I am here to see Ms. Kashani.”

Hamid cocked his head to the side. “You are Ruski?”

“I am,” Dovzhenko said, staying with English. He raised his hands.

“You should go now.”

Dovzhenko took a deep breath. “I cannot do that.”

Sand and dust roared outside behind the Afghan, giving him an otherworldly look.

Ysabel spoke now. “He has my friend’s notebook.” She glared at Dovzhenko with narrow eyes, black as liquid tar. “How did you get it?”

When he told her Maryam’s story, Ysabel Kashani fell to her knees and wept.