Veiled Freedom (61 page)

“That was a mistake.” For the first time Jamil's gaze met Amy's directly, and in them she saw deep sadness and regret. “I—the bomb I carried into the loya jirga was not the real one but that.” He pointed to the sliced-open parka lying across a chair, its Play-Doh lining visible. “I had to carry out my instructions lest those who sent me make new plans. So I made a duplicate that looked and felt the same. I had Wajid's keys, so I hid the bomb where it would not be found, that I might find a way later to dispose of it.

“Even when I learned that I was not to be given the code to detonate the instrument of shaheed myself, I did not think there was danger because the bomb was many miles away. But while I waited in the loya jirga, my phone received a message from Rasheed that there had been an explosion. I knew then what must have happened. So though Khalid was not yet in place, I left my post to rush here, praying that none had been killed. And my prayers were answered. But—” Jamil glanced at Amy again—“I am so sorry for the trouble it has caused, the injuries. I did not intend that any should be hurt.”

“I don't know what's harder to believe. That you waltzed a bomb through our security—a fake one at that—or that you didn't realize a detonator connected to a cell phone could be set off anywhere phone service could reach,” Jason said. “And yet you had no problem building the thing.”

“I am good at following instructions,” Jamil said simply. “That was not included.”

“Which brings us to the big question.” The blond contractor's tone was even more sarcastic. “Why the charade? Why the change of heart? The target wasn't big enough? You decided dying just wasn't worth it? Or you had some epiphany that Khalid and his pals weren't such bad guys after all?”

Jamil didn't answer immediately. Every eye was on him, every breath, so it seemed to Amy, held like her own in anticipation.

Then with absolute simplicity and conviction, Jamil said, “It is none of those things. Only that it was not in my heart any longer to kill.”

Steve was silent. Everything he'd just heard, even those parts he himself could testify to be true, gave motive for killing, not a change of heart. And yet he found himself believing Jamil. He could even make a good stab at just what would bring about such a drastic reversal. Not that it was any excuse or mitigation.

As Jason beside him was making his business to point out. “You think that's good enough? That you can somehow wash your hands of this because you chickened out of your mission—and didn't mean all the damage you've caused to this place? Sure, no one died here today. But what about other attempts? What about that sugar factory bombing? We know that was an attack on the minister and his predecessor too. And unlike today and that little roof episode, a lot of people died.”

Jamil looked more confused than guilty. “I do not know of what you speak. Every week this country endures bombings. But I was in prison until the day I traveled to Kabul. As Khalid can testify, should he choose. The fingerprints you have taken are enough to confirm I was released no more than two days before I arrived here.”

“In this at least he tells the truth.” The minister of interior spread his hands. “I remember the day I saw this man in the prison. It was just before you yourself arrived, Willie.”

But Jason wasn't letting up. “Then you know who pushed the button, because I'm betting it was the same people who put you up to this. Who were they? Are they still planning on going on without you?”

Jamil shook his head in silent confusion.

Jason slapped his hands down hard on the desk. “Fine, I think we're about done here, don't you, Steve? I'm sure they'll get more out of him at Pul-e-Charki than we are. Minister, what authorities need to be notified here?”

Khalid's intent gaze didn't leave the prisoner's face. “None. Let him go.”

Even Jamil looked stunned at the pronouncement.

“Let him go? Minister, you can't possibly be thinking—”

Khalid's majestic gesture cut off Jason's protest. “As the man said, he did not kill anyone. He has already paid for earlier crimes. And this house is my own. If I do not hold the damages against him, who should? Shall we not celebrate a shaheed who chooses life over death? It was against me he did this, and I will forgive—so long as he leaves this city immediately and does not return.”

At the snap of Khalid's fingers, Ismail pulled out a knife and sliced the flexicuffs from Jamil's wrists.

Jason muttered to Steve, “This guy tried to take out Waters and an entire congressional delegation. Who cares about some last-minute conscience attack? The embassy's going to have a fit if we let him walk.”

Steve's own emotions were conflicted as he murmured back, “I don't know what we can do. Khalid's the only government authority in this room. You talk about causing an international incident, try telling the Afghan minister of interior who he should or shouldn't arrest in his own country.”

Now that they'd disposed of the prisoner's future, Khalid and his deputy showed no further interest but were whispering, heads close together.

With a resigned shrug, Steve nodded to his men. “You heard the minister. Let the perp go. Ian, Phil, if you'd walk him past the guards.”

As Jamil took an uncertain step, Steve got suddenly to his feet. “No, never mind, I'm going to make sure this one gets off the property without doing any more damage.”

“Wait!” Amy stepped quickly into their path as Steve's M4 motioned Jamil toward the broken doors into the hall. “Aren't you going to let Jamil get his belongings? They're upstairs. You can't just throw him out without clothes or money for food.”

She'd let her scarf drop so Steve could see signs of tears, eyes stormy as they looked pointedly at the weapon covering her assistant.

Steve's jaw tightened. “Personally, it's against my better judgment he's walking off this property at all. But since I want him out of this city, sure, he can take any belongings and money that will hurry things along.”

A glance detached Ian and Phil from the background to fall in behind the prisoner as Steve pointed Amy ahead of him up the stairwell. A police uniform still guarded the apartment door. Steve held Amy back as he opened the door. Stepping into the living room, he looked into both bedrooms before nodding an all clear.

Amy hadn't yet so much as glanced at Jamil. Now as she stepped ahead of Ian and Phil and their prisoner into her quarters, she turned to Steve. “Please, I need to speak to Jamil for a few minutes. To say good-bye.”

Steve's mouth twisted sardonically. “Who's stopping you?”

“Alone, please!”

At first Amy was sure Steve was going to deny her request. The line of his mouth was hard and bitter, his eyes as cold as ice. Then his head lifted, that cold survey panning the apartment again as though looking for anything that could be turned into a weapon.

“Fine, you've got fifteen minutes.” His gaze rested on Jamil. “And no locking the door, or I'll kick it in.”

The door closed behind the three contractors, leaving Amy alone with Jamil. She immediately scooped his scattered belongings back into the patu. “Here are your things, and I'll give you your next salary so you'll have afghanis for the road. And here, you should take some of these first aid supplies you brought.” To Amy's dismay, her eyes filled up again with tears.

Jamil was at her side. “Please do not cry. You cannot believe I would hurt you.”

“Hurt me!” The chair Jamil had pulled out for her earlier was still on the rug by his bundle, and suddenly dizzy with grief and confusion, Amy groped for it and sat down. “Jamil, you don't have to explain anymore. I know with all my heart you were telling the truth, that you'd never do anything to deliberately hurt the children or me. It was an accident, and everyone's going to be okay. And I understand now why you felt you had to leave before Steve—anyone—found out who you were. But you!”

She made a helpless gesture, the tears she'd striven to hold back spilling down her cheeks. “You're the one who has been hurt so badly. Your family and home, your mother and little sister, all those terrible years stolen from you. Like Farah and Aryana and Najeeda and so many others. There's just so much pain, and I am so angry this world should have to hold such terrible things for all of you. I-I even understand why you'd want to repay Khalid and others who are responsible, though I'm so glad you chose not to.”

Amy mopped her face with a sleeve. “I just wish there was something, anything, I could do to change it all, to make things different. But it's just too big and—and too broken.”

“Oh, Ameera-jan!” Jamil knelt in front of Amy, his expression alive. “Do you not know how much you have done? I was trying to tell you before. I came here with such hate in my heart. And you . . . you taught me to love.” Jamil raised a hand at Amy's sudden movement. “Please, I must say before I go what has been building in my heart for so long.”

But despite his words, Jamil was silent for a moment. Then slowly, as though explaining to himself as well as Amy, he said, “You must understand. Since my earliest memory, I have been taught what I must do—what my people must do—to please Allah. The five pillars of my faith. The practices of the prophet. The fasts and holy days. And I have never understood why, no matter how closely my people followed such commands, were made to follow them by the Taliban and mullahs, my country remained filled with violence and corruption and cruelty, one man to another.

“Then after the Soviets, we could not even point the finger of blame to others. Because it was no longer foreigners raining down evil and violence on Afghanistan but ourselves. I have never wanted anything more than to bring freedom and peace and righteousness to my people. It was not just for my mother, my sister, nor even to take vengeance for the death of my father and brothers that I consented to this mission. I believed it when I was told that the mission of shaheed—of martyrdom—that I was given would destroy many powerful and evil rulers and so give my people a chance to obtain more righteous leaders and with them freedom.

“So when I came here to New Hope, I came already dead, so focused on the mission I could not see life around me. I did not want to see. And then the mission was changed, so that I still lived. And I came to know you.”

His eyes were alight again with that blaze of emotion Steve had interrupted what seemed a lifetime ago. They were also uncomfortably close, but Amy did not draw away, could not even breathe.

“I know that for such as I to love you—as a man loves a woman like in the Hindi movies—that is not possible for more reasons than there are stars in the sky. I have not let myself ever dwell on such a thing. But I did not know there could be other love. Love that will not allow hate to endure. I did not know, because my people's ways do not permit it, that friendship could be between a man and woman that is a meeting of two hearts, two souls.”

He was blinking rapidly now. “And I did not know a foreigner, an infidel such as the mullahs have always told us to fear and hate, could show such love to those not of her family, her tribe, her people, even her own faith. Love as I have watched you bestow on these children, these women. I did not understand it until I read your book.”

Suddenly busy in his pack, Jamil held up the well-worn, olive-hued volume that was the first Amy had given him. “I . . . I must tell you I was at first very angry that you gave me this book.”

“Because it was Christian?”

“No, because it was not the first like it I had seen. A foreign fighter with the mujahedeen who destroyed my home carried such a book. He promised I would not be hurt, and he wrote in the book a message he said would ensure my story was heard and believed. Khalid took it away, so that I could not give it to my captors.”

Jamil hesitated before going on. “I did not then hate the Americans. My father had always told me good things of them. When I learned of the lies Khalid had told my captors, I had hope the American would return and keep his promise to tell them I was not a Taliban. But he never returned. And so I knew my father's dreams and hopes held no merit. I came to believe the Americans were no more to be trusted in their promises to bring freedom to my people than the mujahedeen or the Taliban.”