The Guardian (6 page)

‘You’ve got to be kidding me. I did what needed to be done over there, and you know it.’

‘You were under express orders to leave it alone. But you couldn’t, could you? You had to take matters into your own hands.’

‘They killed our people, Lawrence. Murphy and Desouza and Keller and Schmidt . . .’

‘I know.’

‘. . . and Jeffs and Klein . . .’

‘I know, goddammit!’ Ainsworth shouted. The outburst took Saunders by surprise. His boss was famous for his equanimity. Saunders couldn’t remember ever seeing him shout before.
His son’s death had shortened his temper. ‘You don’t have to tell me their names; I recruited every goddamned one of them! You think I didn’t feel it when they
died?’

‘And Sam?’ Saunders said quietly. ‘What about him? Didn’t he deserve justice?’

Ainsworth struggled to keep his composure. His face went red, and his breathing was heavy as he stared at Saunders. After a moment he was able to speak. ‘My son chose his
profession,’ he said.

‘Your son chose to follow you. Just like I did.’

‘He knew the risks. So did you.’

Saunders nodded. ‘He did. That’s what made him a hero. He did what he did knowing the risk. He, like you, loved this country enough to put his life on the line. To me, that deserves
our respect. To me, that deserves justice.’

‘I don’t disagree,’ Ainsworth conceded.

‘And yet you pulled me back off the field. You’re not allowing me to do my job. Why? Because I did what you would have done? Because I did what others wouldn’t do?’
Saunders shook his head. ‘Do these fucking bureaucrats really expect us to fight a war when we’re not allowed to kill the people who are killing us? It’s absurd.’

‘It’s about winning their hearts and minds, Jack,’ Ainsworth said.

‘That’s bullshit, and you know it,’ Saunders retorted. ‘We’re winning just enough hearts and minds to prevent us from using effective tactics. We might be better
off pissing people off more and letting everyone know that, in the end, we’re willing to do whatever it takes to come out on top.’

‘We don’t have that kind of mandate. This isn’t Pearl Harbor, Jack. Hell, it’s not even Iraq. Most Americans think the Afghans are our allies, and they view the number of
soldiers we lose every month as little more than an annoyance. Until that changes, an all-out war just isn’t feasible. The American people won’t stand for a greater
commitment.’

‘So you’ve kept me here, out of the game.’

‘I kept you here because no one else would work with you. I kept you here because there’s an
Assistant
in front of my title, and I don’t make the final decisions, you
got me? I was trying to protect you, don’t you understand that? All you had to do was lay low for a little while, but you couldn’t do that, could you? Well, this is where it’s
gotten you. It’s not what I wanted, but there it is. I’m sorry, you know that, don’t you?’

Saunders sat forward on his chair. ‘Yeah, Lawrence, I know.’

‘Good.’

Saunders sat back in his chair. ‘But the data’s been analyzed, right?’

Ainsworth rolled his eyes. ‘You really are unbelievable. It’s like talking to a brick wall.’

‘What did we find?’ Saunders pushed.

Ainsworth shook his head, opened up a file on his desk, looked it over for a few seconds. ‘There wasn’t much, really. Most of it’s coded, and a lot of it’s nothing but
chatter. Lots of references to Allah’s omnipotence, and platitudes about the evils of the West. Lots of propaganda to be spread.’

‘But there was something about Boston.’

‘There was.’

Saunders sat there for a moment, waiting for his boss, the man who had long ago recruited him for a life of deception and danger, to say more. ‘Well?’ he finally demanded.

Ainsworth slumped heavily in the chair across from Saunders. ‘It’s incomplete. There are references, but none of them make any sense.’

‘What do they say?’

The old man brought his hands together at the fingertips in a contemplative gesture. ‘They say that the Heart of Afghanistan is in Boston.’

‘
The Heart of Afghanistan is in Boston
,’ Saunders repeated slowly. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

Ainsworth shrugged. ‘We don’t know. The message is garbled. It says to locate Charles Phelan. It says that he has it.’

‘Really,’ Saunders said. ‘Do we know who Charles Phelan is?’

‘Maybe,’ Ainsworth said. ‘There’s a Charles Phelan from South Boston who was just discharged two weeks ago. His last billet was in Afghanistan with the 154th
Quartermaster Corps. We’re assuming it’s referring to him at the moment, but we have no way to know for sure.’

‘Do we have an address in Boston for him?’

The Assistant Director of the Central Intelligence Agency shook his head. ‘His father skipped out on the family before Charles was born, and his mother split a long time ago. He has no
permanent residence, as near as we can tell. He was discharged from Fort Devens near the Cape, so it’s a safe bet that he’s somewhere in the area. He has a sister – Cianna Phelan
– former Army, too. For the past three months she’s been renting a place in South Boston. They were both stationed at Kandahar Airbase until two years ago.’

‘After that?’

There was a noticeable pause before Ainsworth answered. ‘She left. He stayed. Finished out his tour, came home.’

Something about the manner in which Ainsworth phrased his answer struck Saunders, and he looked at the old man for a moment before he spoke again. Ainsworth met his stare and didn’t blink.
‘You said
she left
,’ Saunders said finally. ‘You didn’t say she finished out her tour.’

‘That’s true.’ Ainsworth crossed his legs, looked at his shoe.

‘Is this twenty questions?’

‘She got herself into some trouble. She had to leave, come back to the States.’

‘Where in the States?’ Saunders asked slowly.

‘Leavenworth.’

Saunders raised his eyebrows. Leavenworth was the largest military prison in the United States. ‘What for?’

‘Manslaughter,’ Ainsworth said.

‘Really?’

‘The original charge was murder. The panel of officers found there was enough justification to convict her only on the lesser charge. She was decorated, so the Army kept it out of the
press, and her sentence was reduced to two years. It’s just as well; any publicity about her conviction would have gone down badly for the Army.’

‘Why?’

Ainsworth took a deep breath. ‘She wasn’t an ordinary soldier. She was part of an experimental Delta Force unit and she’d been given special training. The kind of training most
women are not permitted to have.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Under Army regulations, women can’t serve in combat roles. They can be in support units – the Military Police, the Medical Corps, even ‘non-combat’ pilot positions
– but not in direct-combat units. It often ends up being a distinction without a difference, particularly with the MPs, where she served, who are regularly placed in full-combat positions.
But the Army still tries to recognize the division. As a result, certain types of combat training are not given to women. But over in Afghanistan, the Army was getting creative. They had certain
needs, and she filled one of those needs. Some believe the training she got led directly to the killing. No one wanted to go there with an investigation, so a deal was cut.’

‘Who’d she kill?’

‘That’s classified.’

‘I’ve got clearance,’ Saunders laughed.

‘No you don’t,’ Ainsworth shot back. ‘Your clearance was revoked when you were put on suspension.’

‘You need me out there,’ Saunders said. ‘You don’t have any field agents in country who understand Afghanistan the way I do. Who are they going to send to Boston to check
this out?’

Ainsworth shrugged. ‘I’ve submitted the analysis to the Director and the NSA, and it’s all being looked at. If they find it worth pursuing in his office, they’ll assign
someone.’

‘
If they find it worth pursuing?
Mustafa bled out on the street in front of our eyes! How can this not be worth pursuing?’ Ainsworth held his hands out, palms up, in a gesture
of helplessness. ‘Jesus, it’s gonna be days before they even make up their minds. By then, whatever this is will be over. You think Toney has the balls to do anything? We’ll be
reading about shit blowing up in the
New York Times
before he or the Director puts anyone on a plane!’

‘What do you want me to tell you, Jack?’ Ainsworth demanded. ‘I just work here. I do what I’m told.’

‘That’s bullshit, and we both know it. You’ve never been a guy who
just does what he’s told
. Neither one of us has ever been that.’

‘Maybe I’ve changed, then, because I’m sending out an official suspension notice today. It will arrive at your house within two days and is effective as of then. After that, I
do not want to see your face in this building. If I find your car parked in the lot, I’ll have it blown up. Do you understand me? It’s a paid suspension. There will be a formal hearing
in three weeks. After that . . . we’ll see.’

‘What the hell am I supposed to do for the three weeks while I’m on suspension?’

Ainsworth was looking at the file on the table in front of him again. ‘Get out of town,’ he said. ‘Go somewhere.’

‘Where am I supposed to go?’

It took a moment for Ainsworth to answer. He raised his head and peered over his reading glasses at Saunders, looking at him like he was the densest man he’d ever met. ‘I don’t
know,’ he said. ‘I can’t control where you spend your time off.’ His eyes were sharp. ‘You went to Harvard, didn’t you? Maybe a visit to your alma mater would be
just the thing to put you in order.’

Saunders sat back in his chair, looking at his boss. He’d known the man a long time, and he knew how he operated. ‘Cambridge is right across the river from Boston.’

‘Is it?’ Ainsworth shrugged. ‘I hadn’t given that much thought. Obviously if you wanted to do some other things while you were there visiting your old professors –
take in some sights, get some of the local flavor – there’s nothing stopping you. Like I said, I can’t control what you do when you’re on leave. If you don’t want to
go to Boston, you can always use my family estate in the Berkshires. It’s the closest place to heaven I’ve ever been.’

‘I know,’ Saunders said. ‘I’ve stayed there before, remember? With Sam.’

‘Of course,’ Ainsworth said. ‘I suppose I’d forgotten.’ He put the folder down on top of his desk, close to the edge, and left it open at an angle where the
contents were in plain view for Saunders. ‘The decision is yours, Jack. Your suspension notice will be in the mail today. You are officially off this case,’ the old man said.
‘Whether you decide to go to Boston is not my responsibility.’

Kalid Gamol reclined on a set of pillows before a feast table. His house was in the center of Kandahar, in what had once been a wealthy neighborhood, though real wealth had
fled the country back when the Russians invaded. Since then, even those with power had to settle for snatches of privilege, like tonight. It was his seventieth birthday, and he would not deny
himself this recognition.

The house, like many others in the area, had two stories of rooms and galleries facing onto a central courtyard open to the sky. Nearly one hundred guests had made it to the celebration, each of
them submitting to a full search at the door to ensure safety. Even friends were suspect in this country, he knew too well. There had been a time when he’d viewed his native country as a land
of honor, but more than three decades of war and subjugation had stripped the nation of any sense of itself. He remembered wistfully the time before, when trade flowed freely, and Afghans took
advantage of the nation’s location as a crossroad between major commercial centers. He wondered whether the country could ever find that place again, or something resembling that place. He
hoped so. Otherwise, it would remain nothing more than a staging area for the battles others wished to fight.

Gamol’s table was at one end of the courtyard, and ten of his closest allies and advisors were around him. He would join the rest of his guests shortly, but at the moment there was
business to attend to.

‘We have confirmation,’ Safraz, his primary advisor, was saying. ‘The relic has been removed from the country, taken to the United States.’

The faces around the table were grim. ‘This is not good,’ Gamol said with characteristic understatement.

‘Whoever controls it can control the country,’ Akhtar Hazara said. ‘If the Americans have it . . .’ He was still a young man, only twenty-four, but he’d already
proved himself to be a leader and a man of substance. He was tall and strong, and living a life without a father had made him hard. Since the death of Gamol’s only son, Gamol thought of
Akhtar as the closest he would have to an heir.

‘You listen too much to your uncle,’ Gamol said.

‘It has great power.’

‘Superstition,’ Gamol grunted. ‘Nothing more.’

‘We live in a superstitious country,’ Akhtar countered thoughtfully. ‘Even if you do not believe in the power of the relic itself, if it has been stolen by the Americans, it
will be blamed on you. It will give Fasil the advantage with the people. Kandahar is your responsibility.’

‘Kandahar is Allah’s responsibility,’ Gamol said quietly. ‘Only He could tame this city.’

‘It is not much of a campaign slogan,’ Akhtar commented, drawing nervous laughs from a few around the table. He was the only one brave enough to risk sarcasm with Gamol.

Gamol reached over to the table and closed his fist on a bowlful of dates. He sat back and put one in his mouth, frowning. ‘Democracy is an American fiction,’ he said. ‘The
people do not want to vote, they want to eat. Whoever takes power and shows that they can provide for the people will stay in power. No one would dare to oppose such a ruler. That is where our
focus has been – providing for the people. That is where our focus must stay.’

‘Even if it means working with the Americans?’ Akhtar asked.

‘Even if it means working with the Devil himself,’ Gamol responded. ‘At least, for a time.’ There was a murmur of assent from around the table.