Chaos in Kabul (7 page)

“What are you doing?” asked Malko.

“I’m escorting you back to the hotel. You seem to have some enemies in Kabul. I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’d better be careful if you want to leave in one piece!”

The temperature had dipped a few degrees, but the sky was still an astounding cobalt blue.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon, time for Malko to meet Mullah Kotak, the former Taliban minister Mullah Beradar had named at the Doha meeting. Thanks to some mysterious connections, Mullah Musa Kotak had managed to stay on in Kabul and was now a member of the High Peace Council, an organization created by President Karzai as a channel to the Taliban.

Malko didn’t know if Kotak was aware of the Americans’ plan, but he would always be a useful contact. He apparently spent every afternoon at the Wazir Akbar Khan mosque, in a building on the mosque grounds.

Jim Doolittle, the case officer who had picked Malko up at the airport, drove Malko there in a white CIA Land Cruiser. There was no point in hiding his movements. The fact that his room had been searched and his dinner date followed showed that NDS agents were keeping an eye on him. Plus, he had obviously been spotted at immigration. The NDS must figure he had come to talk with the Taliban. Malko was happy to let them think that.

The Land Cruiser stopped next to a fence, through which Malko could see a bare garden and a shabby-looking modern building.

“This is the mosque, sir,” said Doolittle. “I’ll wait for you here.”

Malko got out and took the path inside. An open area in front of the mosque was covered with worn carpets. In it, a man wrapped in a
patu
lay on his back, talking on his phone. Others were kneeling and praying.

Malko walked around the building to the rear of the mosque. A young Afghan with round glasses appeared, wearing a
shalwar kameez
—traditional tunic and trousers. In English, he asked Malko what he wanted.

“I’m here to see Mullah Kotak.”

“Follow me,” said the man.

Malko entered a large room with a hard dirt floor, cob walls and ceiling, and a few pieces of rickety furniture. Shelves of books covered one wall, and a couple of computers stood on the desk.

At the back of the room, a fat man propped up on cushions on the floor was eating. He gave Malko a happy salute.

“Salaam alaikum! I heard you’d arrived in Kabul,” he explained in fluent English. “Did you have a good trip?”

“Excellent,” said Malko to the mullah, who waved him to a nearby cushion.

“One of the faithful just brought me some stew. It’s lamb with candied fruits, and absolutely delicious. Would you like a taste?”

Malko politely declined, and Kotak went back to eating greedily. Between bites, he said, “Life is so hard that whenever Allah sends me something good, I enjoy it to the fullest.”

The cleric was so fat, he had to lean over just to reach his plate. Kotak looked like a harmless little Buddha, but he had harshly applied sharia law when the Taliban ruled from 1996 to 2001.

He finished eating, drank some fruit juice, and fell back on his cushions with a happy smile.

“I am not the imam of this mosque, but I come here every afternoon to see people and receive visitors. My apartment is too small and far from downtown. What do you think of Kabul today?”

“It seems pretty quiet.”

The mullah gave a laugh that ended with a slight belch.

“President Karzai’s people claim that our Taliban friends aren’t in the city. They say they’re all out in the provinces and that the ones who come to launch attacks are from Logar or Maidan Wardak. It’s almost true.”

“Why ‘almost’?”

Kotak laughed again.

“Because in Kabul, the Taliban are everywhere! We’ve infiltrated all the ministries, the army, the police, the bazaar. We know everything that’s going on.” He lowered his voice. “There are even Taliban in the president’s entourage, though he won’t admit it.”

He heaved a heavy sigh and continued.

“If only Allah would rid us of this cowardly, corrupt man, this traitor to his country!”

He paused, clearly giving Malko a chance to take the hint. When he didn’t, Kotak went on.

“I don’t know what you’ve come to do in Kabul, but if I can help in any way, it would be an honor and pleasure. Are you planning to go to Quetta?”—the seat of Mullah Omar’s
shura
in Pakistani Baluchistan.

“I don’t know yet,” said Malko cautiously.

The cleric made a gesture that was almost a blessing.

“In spite of my modest position, I have many friends around the country. If you want to travel there in safety, I can help you.”

Their eyes met. Kotak’s gaze was impenetrable, but Malko understood from this brief conversation that the Taliban had just “approved” him, as Clayton Luger had predicted. It also meant that they might be able to help him in case of trouble.

“Thank you very much for your welcome,” he said.

The cleric struggled to his feet from the worn carpet and took Malko’s right hand in both of his.

“Please come back whenever you like!”

Once back in his hotel room, Malko took stock. He had one last contact to make: Luftullah Kibzai, the CIA’s mole inside the NDS. Going to his office was out of the question. Though instructed not to, he would have to telephone him.

The number rang for a long time before an almost inaudible man’s voice answered with a few words in Dari. When Malko spoke, his accent must have shown him to be a foreigner, and the man continued in English.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m a friend of Sherwood’s, and I just arrived in Kabul. Can we meet?”

There was a long silence on the line, as Kibzai hesitated.

“We could have dinner at the Sufi,” he finally said. “It’s in the Taimani neighborhood. Around eight o’clock.”

“Perfect,” said Malko.

Night was starting to fall, and Malko had nothing else to do. The Serena was three-quarters empty and the bar didn’t serve liquor, so he fell back on watching CNN. Among other things, he
learned that Lance Armstrong had admitted to doping in his Tour de France races.

Malko was still watching the news when Berry phoned.

“How’s it going,
bra
?”

“So far, so good,” said Malko.

“Let’s meet tomorrow morning. Pick you up at the same place, at nine o’clock?”

“That works for me.”

The South African was apparently starting to find the idea of assassinating President Karzai appealing.

The Sufi’s nearly empty dining room lay in a gloom pierced
only by the gleam of the candles on its tables. A waiter in an embroidered vest led Malko past a big stove to a second room, where a man spotted him and waved.

“I’m the person you are meeting,” he said, as if afraid to say his own name.

“You’re Luftullah Kibzai?” asked Malko.

“Yes,” the NDS agent breathed, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

Kibzai ordered for them both, glanced around, and spoke in a low voice. “I have to be careful. For some time now, President Karzai has been angry with the Americans. I have an advantage because officially my job is to maintain relationships with my opposite numbers in the CIA, and to oversee the negotiations over the return of the Bagram prison to the Afghan authorities.”

“What’s the situation in Kabul?” asked Malko.

“There aren’t any more large-scale attacks,” he said. “Though a few weeks ago a female suicide bomber blew up a minibus with seven South Africans who were working as pilots for NATO. Otherwise, the streets are quiet. The army controls the city.”

“So everything’s fine,” said Malko.

“No, it isn’t. At the NDS, we’re worried. The Taliban have
sleeper agents everywhere. They know everything. They even knew the security plans of the last
loya jirga
assembly.

“They can infiltrate and strike at will. We discovered there’s a huge traffic in stolen uniforms. You can get a pair of military boots for three hundred afghanis—about six dollars. A uniform costs five hundred afghanis; a coat, two thousand. With that you can outfit people very easily.”

Kibzai reminded Malko that every Afghan family had members on both sides, and the dividing line could be pretty porous. Three months earlier, a sergeant who’d been in the army for four years drove to the Ministry of Defense at the wheel of a general’s car. It had an “A” pass on the windshield, which exempted it from searches. Once he was inside, he detonated two hundred pounds of explosives. It was later discovered that his cousin was an important Taliban leader.

Under a surface calm, Kabul was apparently seething with violence.

The restaurant started filling up, mainly with Afghans. Malko lost his appetite when his entrée came: a glutinous mass of rice and tough chunks of mutton. Pushing his plate aside, he asked, “Does President Karzai really know how bad the situation is?”

“Of course!” said Kibzai. “We give him alarming reports every day. For example, he knows that south of Kabul members of the Haqqani network secretly force members of the police and the army to sign statements declaring their loyalty to the Taliban. With that kind of document, they’ve got a hold over them. They’re ruthless, and people are afraid of them. Not long ago, the Taliban approached a truck driver who delivered merchandise to the ISAF in Bagram. They asked him to bring in a large, remote-controlled explosive device. He refused. The next day, they strangled his son.

“And three days ago, a woman came to our headquarters and killed a Tajik officer who had been arresting Taliban leaders. She
showed the NDS guards all the right passes, walked into his office, pulled out a gun with a silencer, and shot him twice in the head. Then she calmly strolled out. We still have no idea who she was.”

“Are you frightened yourself?” asked Malko.

The Afghan nodded. “Of course, because I’m known to be close to the Americans. If the Taliban take power, I won’t be able to stay in Kabul. I already don’t dare visit my home village. The Taliban are in charge there.”

“It sounds as if the Taliban are everywhere,” concluded Malko.

Kibzai nodded again, sadly. “Yes. The provinces are falling one after the other. The Americans have evacuated Kunar, in the northeast, and government officials don’t go there anymore. Close to Kabul, the Taliban have taken over Logar Province. Except for the big towns during the day, they control everything. The governor doesn’t dare leave his residence.

“It’s even worse in the south. They completely control Kandahar Province; Helmand, too. You can’t use the Herat-Kandahar-Kabul highway anymore. I’m told they’re infiltrating around Bamyan, cutting the road to the west. The only safe one is the Mazar-e-Sharif highway through the Salang Tunnel, because it’s in Tajik territory.”

“So what keeps the Taliban from coming out into the open and taking power?” asked Malko.

“They lack enough matériel for a direct confrontation with the army and the police,” said Kibzai. “They’ve only got a few mortars, machine guns, grenades, and explosives. But they’re prepared to die.

“President Karzai is smart and very cautious. Plus he’s protected by the Americans. They don’t like him, but they need him. If he were out of the picture—because he’d been killed or left the country—everything would collapse, probably in a few days. The Taliban already have a working underground organization, so they would quickly take over.”

Malko was feeling more and more perplexed. From what Kibzai was saying, the American plan to get rid of Karzai so as to strike a deal with the Taliban was a delusion. Once again, it looked like the Americans were being fooled. Only this time it wasn’t some CIA station chief but the president of the United States.

“So if I understand what you’re saying,” Malko asked, “Karzai’s death would be a victory for the Taliban?”

“They’re going to win in any case,” said Kibzai with a bitter smile. “They’re Pashtuns, and the Pashtuns have always run Afghanistan. Besides, they have Pakistan behind them.

“Anybody who wants to control Afghanistan has to do it through the Quetta Taliban. And the Taliban have developed a more sophisticated approach than when they took power the first time, in 1996. They’ll go slower and won’t be so brutal, so as not to alarm international public opinion. When the last American leaves, they will complete their takeover.”

Malko suddenly found himself wondering if even attempting this mission was a good idea. The problem was, he would have to return to Washington to persuade John Mulligan to change his mind. Communicating through the Kabul CIA station was out of the question.

Kibzai was studying him.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, “what are you doing in Kabul? There are already so many of you CIA people here.”

“I’ve come to make contact with some Taliban who don’t want to be officially connected to the Agency. I’ve already met with Musa Kotak. Do you know him?”

“Who doesn’t?” said the Afghan with a smile. “He’s a very powerful man. He was part of the ruling circle during the ‘black years.’ ”

“How is it that he hasn’t been bothered?”

“He’s one of the people Karzai protects, to keep a channel to Quetta open. Kotak holds a major trump card: he knows everybody
who collaborated with the men in black, and he manipulates them. For a Talib, he is a moderate, like Mullah Mansur, his old mujahideen comrade-in-arms against the Soviets. But his friends keep a close eye on him.”