Sniper Elite: One-Way Trip

CHAPTER 8

Badira was eating her afternoon meal when Sabil Nuristani, the village headman, came into the hut asking where to find Naeem.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve not seen him since this morning. I think he left for Kabul.”

Sabil looked into the room where Sandra, dressed once again in a grubby gown, lay shackled to the bed by the ankle of her bad leg. She was sleeping. “How long will she live?”

“That depends,” Badira said, tired of being asked that question.

“On what?”

“On how much more brutality she is forced to endure.”

The old man stood brooding, deeply troubled on many levels. He was not Taliban, nor was he a Pashtun. He was Kalasha, and the Kalasha people were not like Naeem and his reckless band of Wahhabi fanatics, an ultraconservative arm of Islam. Sabil’s direct ancestors, those of the Nuristani line, had lived in the Hindu Kush for centuries. The province had even been named for them, in fact. The Kalasha people had their own traditions, their own customs, and they heavily resented the militant presence of both the Taliban and their new friends in the HIK.

Naeem was an upstart lieutenant from the Pashtun south, sent north to help bolster the Taliban presence in the face of the burgeoning Hezbi factions. He had chosen Waigal Village not only because it was isolated far up in the mountains, but also because most of the middle-aged men were dead from recent regional disputes over resources and land. This meant the rest of the villagers were easily scared into submission. The teenaged men of the village had no fathers to teach them tribal ways, no one to give them direction or to keep them on the straight and narrow. As a result, they had been highly impressed with Naeem’s heroic tales of the jihad — most of which Sabil suspected to be lies — and they were beguiled by his promises of the afterlife and all of the women they would experience should they be killed fighting the infidel.

“I’ve sent word to Aasif Kohistani,” Sabil confessed at length. “Once he learns that Naeem is trying to ransom the American wom—”

“But he’s Hezbi!” Badira said, fearing the HIK even more than the Taliban. “You should not have done that. Naeem will kill you.”

“It’s done. The woman is a danger to us all. This village will be very hard to attack, so the Americans will not differentiate when they come. They will drop bombs on everything, shoot everyone.” He stood gnawing his fingernails, convinced they were all in imminent peril.

“I wish you had waited,” Badira lamented. “The ransom demand has already been delivered to Kabul.”

Sabil waved his hand at her. “They will never pay. The amount Naeem wants is insane. His Wahhabi ideas have addled his brain. I even heard him telling the boys around the fire that he once met the Great Usama. Can you believe it? As if Bin Laden would have bothered to even look at a fool such as him.”

“Bin Laden was a fool,” Badira said wearily. “His jihad has brought us nothing but trouble.” She glanced into the room where Sandra was having a fitful dream. “You realize that Aasif Kohistani cares nothing for this village — or for you. He may come and take the American away, but he will not protect you from Naeem.”

“As long he takes her out of here,” Sabil said. “Then I will have done my duty to the village. Naeem is not long for this earth in any case. Fanatics such as him never are.”

He left a short time later. Badira went into Sandra’s room, waking her up. “You need to take your medicine and drink some water. You’re dehydrating.”

The antibiotics were keeping infection at bay, but Sandra’s bullet wound was still fevered and painful. “You’re sure you don’t have anything stronger than aspirin?” she asked. “The pain… it’s horrible. I can’t take it anymore.” She was in despair.

Badira sat looking at her. “I can give you opium. That’s all I have.”

“Heroin?”

“No, opium — from the poppy.”

Sandra consented, whimpering, “Okay, anything.”

Badira went to the door and told the teenage guard to go and bring her some opium and a pipe from one of the elders.

The boy got to his feet, an AK-47 hanging awkwardly from his shoulder. “For you?”

“For the American. Be quick. She’s in great pain.”

The boy looked at her skeptically. “The elders won’t—”

“Tell them Naeem has given orders. Go!”

The boy eyed her balefully for a long moment, then turned and went away.

He returned about twenty minutes later with a small, handmade wooden box that he brought into the room where Badira was cleaning Sandra’s wound.

“Fine,” she said. “Please set it on the table.”

The boy put the box on the table and stood looking down at Sandra with open disdain. “I thought they hated opium.”

Sandra averted her eyes.

“She’s in great pain,” Badira explained. “Now please go back outside.”

“Their pain is important enough for opium, but ours is not? She’s a hypocrite — just as Naeem has said.” He reached to pull the loose-fitting garment away from Sandra’s neck, wanting a look at her breasts. Sandra grabbed the gown and batted his hand away.

He socked her clumsily in the side of her face and shouted, “Don’t touch me, infidel whore!”

Badira jumped up from her chair, pushing him toward the door. “Get out! She is my responsibility when Naeem is not here. Now go!”

“Who does she think she is!” the boy demanded, throwing his hand in the air and shouting, “I am a soldier. She is our prisoner. She does as we say!”

“And you do as I say!” Badira hissed acidly, pulling the scarf from her face to expose her hideous disfigurement. “Now get out!”

The boy recoiled from her, frightened by the face that only moments before had appeared very pretty to him, two beautiful eyes peering over the top of a maroon hijab.

“I will tell Naeem!” he called over his shoulder as he fled the room.

“Sure you will!” she called after him. “You’ll tell him you ran from a woman. If that I could live to see such a day!”

She jerked the curtain across the doorway and went to open the box on the table.

“What was he saying?” Sandra asked, the confrontation having taken her mind very briefly from the pain.

“They are young and stupid,” Badira said, removing a pea-size pellet of dried opium latex, a small pipe, and a short candle stub from the box.

“I have to smoke it?” Sandra asked, painfully raising herself up onto one elbow.

“This is not a hospital,” Badira reminded her.

The tiny ceramic pipe was no bigger than Sandra’s thumb, made of fired white clay. Badira put the opium pellet into the bowl and gave it to her. Then she lit the candle and told Sandra to scoot closer to the table. “Get the pipe close to the flame,” she told her. “Breath the flame into the blow and inhale the vapor.”

Sandra did as she was told, sucking the vapor deep into her lungs, desperate to kill the pain in her leg. She inhaled twice and was rapidly transported to a separate reality. Every muscle in her body went limp, and her head suddenly seemed to weigh fifty pounds. Badira caught her and helped her to lie back on the bed, covering her with a blanket as she drifted off on the opium cloud.

Badira knew this was the beginning of Sandra’s opium addiction, but if Aasif Kohistani arrived before Naeem returned to take her back to the Americans, addiction would be the least of her worries. For now, it was better to keep her doped up and out of pain. This way she would hardly realize what was happening, should Naeem choose to violate her again.