Rules of Betrayal

7

The trek led upward, hugging the contours of the mountain. The truck surged and slowed, rocking like a lifeboat on a stormy sea. The foothills had disappeared hours ago, replaced first by sparse pine forest, then the featureless, ever-steepening slopes of scree. Now even that was gone, cloaked by gray cloud. It was just a patch of hardscrabble in front, a precipitous drop to the side, and the incessant grinding of the motor struggling at altitude.

“I would do anything for my father,” said Haq. “Wouldn’t you do the same?”

Jonathan sat between Haq and his driver, too uncomfortable to be scared. “My father’s dead.”

“This is fate,” said Haq with conviction. “When I was a boy, I was struck by shrapnel from a Russian grenade. My father carried me on his back for three days to reach an aid station. He had pneumonia at the time. It was winter. He nearly died to save me. I promised myself that one day I would repay him.”

Jonathan looked at Haq. “You destroyed a village to help your father?”

Haq considered this, his eyes indicating that he was not unaware of the moral complexity. “The village was of strategic value,” he said finally.

Jonathan looked straight ahead.

“What brought you here?” asked Haq. “You’re not a missionary?”

“No,” said Jonathan.

“But on a crusade nonetheless.”

“What about you?” asked Jonathan. “Where did you learn your English?”

“I was a guest of your country for several years.”

“You were in the States?”

“Not exactly. Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. I was captured in November of 2001. I surrendered, I’ll admit it. It was the bombs. Every day the planes would come. They flew high, so you could not hear them. The bombs would arrive without warning. We were dug in, but a mound of earth is no protection against a five-hundred-pound bomb, let alone hundreds of them. The fury. You have no idea.” Haq looked away, his eyes staring in horror at a point far beyond the windshield. And then he snapped back. “I’m glad you find my English acceptable. We learned from the movies.”

“You had movies there?” Jonathan’s surprise was evident.

“Not at first. No, at first there were no movies. At first we lived in dog cages outdoors. At first we had interrogation, not movies, but after a while, when the CIA decided we had told them as much as we knew, we were allowed books, and a few months after that, movies. By the time I left, the library had over seven thousand volumes and four hundred films.”

“What did you watch?”

“War movies mostly. Apocalypse Now. Platoon. Patton. These are very fine films. But my favorite was a musical.”

“A musical?”

“You find that amusing?”

“No.”

“ On the Town, with Gene Kelly. You know it? ‘The Bronx is up and the Battery down.’” Haq hummed a few bars. “For me, that is America. Three sailors happily singing and dancing while their country oppresses the rest of the world. Mindless tyranny. I tell myself, if I ever go to America, I must see this city. Have you been?”

“Yes. It’s impressive.”

“Six years I was in prison. One day they decided I could go free.”

“Why?” asked Jonathan.

“I lied to them,” said Haq, fixing him with kohl-smeared eyes. “The secret is to believe your lies no matter what they do to you.”

The Toyota rounded a curve, the trail flattened, and the truck accelerated drunkenly. They were no longer climbing the mountain; they were in it, hemmed in by vertical slabs that climbed all the way to heaven.

“Tell me about your father,” said Jonathan. “How old is he?”

“I would guess seventy. It is his stomach. It gives him much pain. He has not eaten in a week.”

“When did the pain begin?”

“Several months ago,” said Haq, “but it has worsened in the last week.”

“Has he suffered any blows or injuries?”

“We are warriors. Nothing more than the usual.”

“Does he speak English?” asked Jonathan.

“He thinks I’m a traitor for saying hello,” said Haq, laughing suddenly.

The driver laughed too, and Haq was quiet.

Jonathan asked a few more questions, but Haq had lost interest. The fighter fired off a series of commands to his driver, then without warning leaned across Jonathan and cuffed the man on the head. Jonathan said nothing. It was not the first time he had witnessed a violent and unprovoked exchange. He guessed that Haq had warned his driver against discussing any of what he had witnessed.

The steep cliffs fell away and the road fed into a narrow clearing. One hundred meters ahead, Jonathan spotted a number of vehicles parked beneath a camouflaged canopy. A group of men ran toward them, crying “Allahu akhbar.” God is great. It was the Afghans’ all-purpose expression, used to signify victory and defeat, happiness and heartbreak.

The truck halted. Haq climbed out and Jonathan followed, asking, “Where’s Hamid?”

Haq scratched his cheek with a long nail, as if reconsidering his promise, then walked to the last truck in line and hauled Hamid out of the flatbed. “Here’s your assistant,” he said, shoving Hamid to the ground. “A Hazara. Weak.”

Jonathan helped him to his feet. “You okay?”

Hamid brushed the dirt off his pants. “Thanks for looking out for me.”

“Yeah, well,” said Jonathan, “I got you into this.”

Haq walked away, and Hamid fished in his pocket for his phone.

“Put that thing away,” said Jonathan. “He’ll kill you if he sees that.”

“No reception,” said Hamid, thumbing a few keys angrily. “Crap.”

“What did you expect? Now put it away.”

Hamid stuffed the phone into his pants and looked at the sky, shaking his head.

A dozen men crowded the area beneath the canopy. Several wandered close to peer at Jonathan, one or two rushing forward to touch his sleeve as if he were some kind of talisman.

“Where are these guys coming from?” Jonathan asked.

“Over there.” Hamid pointed to a hole cut into the mountainside. A crude door fashioned from worn floorboards hung open. “We’re in Tora Bora. There are caves all over the place.”

Tilting his head, Jonathan gazed up through the netting. A narrow band of sky was visible between the towering granite aeries. From high above, the clearing was just one more inaccessible ravine among thousands. He swallowed. It would be impossible to find them.

Sultan Haq cut a swath through the men. “My father,” he said, gesturing for Jonathan and Hamid to follow. “If you please.”

The warlord pressed toward the cave, ducking his head as he passed through the door, and disappeared into a murky twilight. Jonathan walked close behind him, his shoulder bag of medical equipment feeling heavier than its weight. Inside the cave he slowed to allow his eyes to get accustomed to the dark. The dark, however, was only temporary, an anteroom walled with heavy curtains. Haq parted the curtains and stepped into a large, dimly lit chamber the size of a school auditorium. “This way.”

Jonathan noticed at once that a great deal of work had been done to make the cave habitable. The walls had been smoothed and the ceiling raised to a height of five meters. Somewhere there was a generator, because a track of lightbulbs had been drilled into the rock overhead. The air was bitterly cold. Supplies were stacked neatly against the walls, food in one corner, ammunition in another. Here and there men slept on the floor, wrapped in woolen blankets.

Haq walked across the chamber and advanced down a short passage. The ceiling was lower here, the walls uneven, rock jutting out at sharp angles. Every few meters a room opened up to their right or left. The first held sacks of rice marked with a NATO stencil. In the second, several men were sleeping on the dirt floor. Something caught Jonathan’s eye. He was looking at a pair of muddy combat boots sticking out of a pair of desert fatigues. Squinting, he made out not one but three soldiers, lying side by side. He couldn’t miss the American flag stitched on the shoulders of their uniforms. A guard sat in the corner, an AK-47 propped against his knee.

Haq peered over his shoulder. “Prisoners,” he said. “None of your concern.”

Hamid shoved Jonathan from behind, and Jonathan turned to see if he was all right. “Move,” said Hamid, in an unfamiliar and threatening voice.

Jonathan hurried to catch up to Haq.

The Afghan’s father lay on a bed of colorful blankets in the next room. Haq had said he was seventy, but his beard was black throughout and his eyes were alive and vital. Only the papery texture of his pale skin testified to his years. Sultan Haq dropped to his knees, and it was apparent that he was pleading with the old man to allow the American doctor to examine him.

“It’s Abdul Haq,” whispered Hamid to Jonathan. “Once he was minister of defense with the Taliban government. During the war he captured a brigade of his own soldiers crossing the lines to fight for the Northern Alliance. Eight hundred men. To set an example, he beheaded them all. Today he’s commander of all Taliban forces in the north and chief of their intelligence network.”

“How do you know all this?” asked Jonathan.

“Everyone knows,” answered Hamid, dark eyes flashing.

“Dr. Ransom, you will come,” said Sultan Haq, waving him close. “My father agrees to let you treat him. I will be watching.”

Jonathan looked at the armed guards to his left and right. He set his medical bag on the ground and kneeled to the right of Abdul Haq.

“You have pain in your stomach?” asked Jonathan. “Show me where, please.”

Sultan Haq translated and his father pointed to a spot a few inches below the rib cage. Jonathan unbuttoned the man’s shirt. The abdomen was visibly distended, the flesh a purplish pink. He ran two fingers over the discolored area. The old man tensed. His eyes widened, but he uttered not a sound.

“It’s all right to tell me if it hurts,” said Jonathan.

“A man does not howl,” said Sultan Haq.

“It will help me localize the problem.”

“Surely you can discover the problem yourself.”

Jonathan took the old man’s blood pressure, temperature, and pulse. All readings were well above normal.

“What is the matter with my father?” asked Sultan Haq.

“Without an X-ray, it’s impossible to be sure. My guess is that he’s suffering from an acute abdomen caused by a peritoneal abscess. That means there’s a tear in his colon or stomach that has allowed bacteria to escape into the abdominal cavity. Normally, if it goes untreated this long, it kills you. Since he isn’t dead, it means that his system has walled off the infection.”

“He is a strong man.”

“Yes, he is. But he has a big pocket of pus in there that needs to get out. And I mean now.” Jonathan looked at Abdul Haq and did his best to offer a comforting smile. The old warrior scowled in return, his eyes wishing Jonathan a long and painful death.

“What can you do?” asked Haq.

“We need to take him to a hospital in Kabul. The sooner, the better.”

“That’s not a possibility,” responded Haq. “I ask you again, what can you do?”

Jonathan sat back on his haunches, running a hand over his mouth. “I don’t have the equipment to perform that kind of surgery. Look around you. These aren’t exactly sanitary conditions.”

“I didn’t bring you up the mountain to do nothing.”

“Take him to a hospital and he’ll be better in two days.”

“You will heal him here, now.”

“I will not harm your father,” said Jonathan. “He needs proper medical care.”

“Then I will have to kill you and your friend.” Haq barked a command, and one of the guards grabbed Hamid and put a knife to his throat, drawing blood.

“Stop!” shouted Jonathan, jumping to his feet. “All right. I’ll do it. Let Hamid go.”

Haq waved away the guard and Hamid slumped to the ground, gingerly exploring the wound on his neck.

“But the best I can do is open him up and drain the pus,” Jonathan continued. “That will relieve the pain, but it won’t solve the underlying problem. Even if I find a perforation, I doubt I can close it. I don’t have the tools.”

Haq held Jonathan’s eyes. “You will cure my father or you will not walk out of this cave.”

Jonathan gazed down at the old man lying on the bed of colorful blankets. As he did, he observed a large black centipede scurrying beneath the pillows. He looked around the room for a table or some firm surface he could lay the man down on. There was nothing.

“I’m going to need water,” said Jonathan. “Lots of it, boiled and sterile. Hamid, put a bandage on your throat, then get me two syringes of lidocaine. I’ll need gauze, scalpel, forceps-that should do it.”

He turned to Haq. “Your father won’t feel anything, but you and your men”-he pointed at the guards standing nearby-“you’re not going to like it. I suggest you wait outside.”

“They’re used to blood,” said Haq.

“I’m not talking about blood.”

“We will stay,” said Sultan Haq.

Jonathan injected three cc’s of lidocaine into the area around the infection. He waited several minutes, then made a five-centimeter incision and with his fingers separated the fascia. “Mosquito.”

Hamid inserted the mosquito, a small rake-shaped clamp, to hold the incision open. Jonathan injected another cc of lidocaine directly into the fascia. Already he could feel the pressure from the abscess throbbing against the muscle.

“You guys might want to back off,” he said, eyeing the guards, who stood with the barrels of their AK-47s aimed at his back.

The guards looked at Haq. Haq shook his head sternly.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Jonathan cut through the last layer of fascia. A jet of pus erupted, shooting vertically out of the abdomen and striking one of the men squarely in the face. The man cried out, frantically wiping away the warm liquid.

“Be still,” commanded Haq.

Jonathan widened the incision and glimpsed a large mass of yellow pus. Officially the pus was termed a “fibrous, proteinaceous exudate.” As a resident in general surgery, he’d preferred to call it what it actually was: “gross nastiness.”

Inserting his fingers, he pulled out a wad of pus and wiped it on the gauze. It was then that the odor wafted from the wound, and the first guard bent double and retched. A second guard turned his head, his eyes watering.

Nothing on earth smelled as awful as a long-festering anaerobic infection. The smell was worse than a Lagos latrine on a 100-degree day. Worse than a three-day dead rat plumped with maggots. Worse than anything Jonathan had ever experienced.

“Like that, eh? There’s more. Don’t worry.” Reaching back into the abdominal cavity, he retrieved a second, larger wad, this one the size of a Coke can. The guards covered their mouths and rushed out of the room. Even Haq jumped to his feet and charged the door. Only Hamid remained rock-steady, unflinching.

“What do you think got to them?” asked Jonathan.

“No idea,” said Hamid. “Guess the sight of blood makes them squeamish.”

“Guess so,” said Jonathan. “Now, let’s clean this out.”

For the next few minutes he pumped syringe after syringe of sterile boiled water into the cavity. Leaving behind even a trace of bacteria would result in a second infection. Abdul Haq might be Public Enemy No. 1, but for the moment he was a patient in grave danger, and Jonathan did his best to save him.

Satisfied that the infection had been cleaned, he tacked the muscle together. To allow any residual pus to escape, he fashioned a Penrose drain from a short length of rubber tourniquet and inserted it like a candle wick into the cavity. Ten stitches closed the incision.

Jonathan looked at the doorway, where Haq remained, his face a curious shade of yellow. “We’re done.”

“Will he live?” asked Haq.

“That’s up to you. He needs to recover in a clean environment. If the infection comes back, I wouldn’t count on him making it through a second time. He’s tough, but not that tough.”

Abdul Haq probed the stitches gingerly. “I am all right?” he asked in Pashto.

“Yes,” said Jonathan. “You’re going to be fine.”

Suddenly the old man was beaming. Free of the crippling pain that had plagued him for weeks, he grabbed Jonathan’s hand and held it to his chest. “God sent you. Blessings upon your house. You are a great man.”

Sultan Haq touched Jonathan’s shoulder. “I thank you for saving my father’s life.”

“You’re welcome,” said Jonathan. “But if you really want to thank me, let those soldiers go.”

“They’re my enemies,” said Haq. “They have killed many of my men. They know where we live.”

“So do we.” Hamid kneeled beside Abdul Haq to apply a sterile bandage to his abdomen.

“Did I speak to you?” thundered Haq, looking down at the slight assistant.

“Well?” asked Jonathan.

“You are welcome to stay,” said Haq with forced kindness. “You say you came to my country to help its people. You may help us.”

“Is that an invitation or an order?” Hamid stood, and Jonathan thought he appeared taller, no longer so timid.

Drawn by the sound of the raised voices, one of the guards poked his head back into the room.

“Hold it, Hamid,” said Jonathan. “Finish putting on the bandage. Okay?”

“Your work is done, Jonathan,” continued Hamid. “Now it’s my turn.”

Jonathan looked hard at Hamid. It was the first time the assistant had ever called him by his Christian name. He could feel the tension ratcheting up, everyone looking at everyone else too expectantly.

A second guard returned to the room, holding his machine gun at the ready.

“I will decide when the healer’s work is done,” said Haq, incensed by the challenge to his authority.

“You don’t understand,” said Hamid. “The healer works for me.”

“You? A Hazara?” Haq spat the words with disbelief.

“No. Me, the United States government.”

In a blur, Hamid dropped to a knee and ripped a scalpel across Abdul Haq’s throat. A fountain of blood sprayed into the air. The old man arched his back, his hands reaching for the gaping wound. His mouth formed a perfect O, but no sound came out. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell back on the bed.

Abdul Haq was dead.