Veiled Freedom Page 6

  His English had a musical, somewhat stilted cadence Amy knew well from Pakistani and Indian colleagues in other relief projects. Its familiar lilt and his slight build, only two or three inches taller than hers, made him far less threatening than the tall, burly Rasheed. This had been a good idea. “In Pakistan or here in Afghanistan? Do you still have family here?”

  A flash of emotion restored somberness to his dark eyes. “My family is the past. I am concerned only with the future.”

  Amy kicked herself mentally. After all the horror stories she’d heard and read of the war years, she should know better than to ask a personal question. Hastily she pulled the lease information from the manila envelope Bruce had given her. This had been typed up in neat English, but the official-looking heading at the top and signatures at the bottom were all in the curlicue Arabic script. “Can you tell me where this address is? How hard would it be to get there?”

  Jamil drifted over to the card table. “The Ministry of Interior? It is not far from here. See?” He pointed to a piece of meaningless calligraphy. “It is near Shahr-e Nau Park on the other side of the King’s Palace. Perhaps two kilometers walking.”

  Amy considered. It could be hours before Rasheed was back with the jeep. What better way to spend those hours than attending to Bruce’s final directive? Maybe even touch base with her new landlord if he was in his offices? Walking would stretch her legs and let Amy get a feel for her new habitat at the same time.

  “Good, then if you can show me the way, I’d like to walk to this address. I’ll probably need you to translate as well. I don’t know how much English your government offices usually have.”

  But not as she was currently dressed. Digging into her shoulder bag, Amy pulled out an oversize cardigan she’d tucked in for warmth on the plane. It was uncomfortably hot, but at least it covered her arms and any pretence of shape. Reshouldering her bag, Amy started for the door.

  Jamil made no move to follow. “I am sorry, but you cannot walk the streets uncovered.”

  Amy spun around, annoyed. “Look, I’m sorry if it offends you, but I am not an Afghan woman. I want to respect your culture, but if you’re going to work for me, I need you to respect mine as well, and I hope I’ve made it clear I will not be pushed into a burqa!”

  Jamil spread his hands wide, but there was no yielding in his expression. “It is not for me. In Pakistan I have seen many women not of my family with uncovered face. But I know the men of this city, these streets. You will not be able to walk in peace if you appear so.”

  Oddly, his intransigence gained Amy’s respect. With exasperation, she snatched up the burqa. If nothing else, it would be an opportunity to better understand the culture—the women—with which she’d come here to work. “Fine, just this once. But if I trip and fall, it’ll be your responsibility.”

  It wasn’t quite as bad as she remembered. The shoulder bag held the burqa tentlike away from her body, allowing for reasonable air circulation. As Amy followed Jamil out onto the street, she quickly learned to use her hands underneath to keep the grille positioned over her eyes. In some bizarre fashion, it reminded Amy of her favorite umbrella as a small girl. Also blue, it had curved below her shoulders with a small plastic window through which to see. Like walking around in my own little castle.

  The burqa offered some of the same sense of privacy, along with protection from wind and dust and prying eyes.

  On the negative, the burqa’s mesh grille proved a far inferior window than the umbrella’s plastic. Within blocks, Amy was developing a headache, a dizzying pattern of lines dancing in front of her eyes even when she closed them. She couldn’t see the ground, her peripheral vision only a few feet on either side, so she was constantly tripping. Without Jamil’s thin shoulders to focus on just ahead, she’d have soon been hopelessly lost.

  Or run over. Amy stumbled back as a bus barely missed her. How did countless Afghan women do this every day?

  There were plenty of burqas drifting through market stalls, begging at car windows, as well as the black chadors Amy had glimpsed at the New Hope compound. But other women were less constricted in enveloping headscarves but bare faces, long-sleeved tunics over pants, and ankle-length chapans, embroidered, button-up overcoats. As soon as I get my luggage.

  Amy swerved to avoid two burqas squatting on a street corner, skeletal hands outthrust, several small children huddled close. Bruce’s snide comment sprang to her mind. “This country’s crawling with starving widows and children.” Had she just stumbled over the first candidates to revive New Hope’s mission?

  “Jamil?”

  Amy almost collided with her escort as he spun around. Jamil had remained a stride ahead with only the occasional gesture to indicate when there was a street to cross. It seemed women were expected to be mute as well as anonymous. Now his tone was taut with irritation as he snapped, “What is it?”

  “How much farther?”

  Jamil was suddenly too close. “Be silent!” he hissed near a cloaked ear. “Do you wish the entire world to know you are a foreigner on foot?”

  Only that Jamil was right, the note of fear in his voice, excused his harshness. Though Amy’s English had hardly been loud, it had attracted unwanted attention, the narrowed stares turned her way ranging from interest to hostility. From somewhere a globule of spittle landed on the mesh grille.

  “Kafir!”

  Infidel.

  Amy hastened to follow as Jamil started forward again.

  “The place you seek is over there.” The jerk of his head indicated a long army green wall topped with concertina wire across a wide, busy avenue. “We can cross here, but you must be careful. No, wait!”

  An armored convoy was coming down the boulevard fast, soldiers in body armor at gun turrets, others braced in open hatches, lethal-looking weapons cradled in their hands. ISAF was lettered across door panels. Then Amy spotted a pale blue form sprinting toward the convoy instead of away. She had time to wonder how a woman in a burqa could run before the explosion knocked her from her feet.

  Amy was blind, the burqa twisting in her fall so that she was choking too. Around her, angry shouts had become panicked shrieks, the thud of running footsteps. Short bursts of gunfire spattered the screams. Amy scrambled backward until she felt a wall behind her. Not caring anymore who should see her, she pushed the burqa up until her face was free.

  The street was pandemonium, traffic jammed to a stop, the armored Humvee leading the convoy now twisted metal. Despite a bloodied face here and there, its contingent didn’t seem seriously injured. The shooting Amy had heard must have been in the air because the only still shape was the pale blue and scarlet heap that had been the suicide bomber. But there were plenty of gashes and abrasions, blood-splattered clothing and cries of pain. A yellow Toyota Corolla was in flames.

  “Go, go, go!”

  The damaged Humvee’s contingent had clambered to safety among the other vehicles. And now, Amy realized incredulously, they were leaving. The stalled traffic made maneuvering easier, but more than one vehicle was simply pushed aside by the weight of an armored personnel carrier before the convoy disappeared around a corner.

  I don’t believe it.

  Hers was not the only furious response. Raised arms and voices chased the departing convoy.

  Amy looked for her guide. She couldn’t spot Jamil anywhere, but across the street was the gated entrance to her original destination, and without traffic she could cross freely. With tensions calming, Afghans were shooting glances at her exposed face, so Amy dropped the blue polyester back into place.

  A high-pitched and very young cry altered Amy’s route. Down the block, a toddler no more than two years old was huddled alone on the curb, wailing fear and abandonment at the top of his lungs. Amy couldn’t have even said what motivated her swift weaving through stalled traffic and crowds. Certainly the terrified anguish of those screams. Perhaps too some subconscious image of the empty rooms and dusty courtyard that were now hers to fill. Was one
of those begging women in burqas the mother? Maybe even the suicide bomber?

  The child came into Amy’s arms willingly until he realized she was a stranger. His shrieks redoubled, and if Amy couldn’t understand the words, others could because she was now drawing more than hostile glares. Turbaned, bearded, and very angry faces closed in on her. Hands snatched at the burqa, tugged at the child in her arms.

  “The child! Put the child down!”

  It was Jamil’s voice. So he hadn’t abandoned her. Amy would have happily put the toddler down now. But his small, wiry body was struggling so hard, she didn’t dare loose her grip for fear he’d fall.

  Then she didn’t have to worry anymore. Amy felt the boy yanked from her arms, saw through the burqa’s mesh grille a tall, burly man scooping the toddler close. She made no protest. From the child’s clinging embrace, the man was no stranger.

  But it wasn’t over. Amy glimpsed only an upraised fist before a blow to the side of her head knocked her to the ground. She didn’t even try to get up as sandaled feet made contact with her ribs, drove the air from her lungs. Burying her face against her shoulder bag, she tried to curl her body into a protective ball.

  A single gunshot released her. The masculine voice calling out a curt order into sudden silence was deep and authoritative. Rolling over painfully, Amy struggled to a sitting position, her breath rasping in her ears. Her hands clawed at the polyester entangling her. Before she could pull it away, the burqa was yanked from her face.

  Amy blinked her surroundings into focus. Her attackers had moved back out of arm’s reach. A man bent over her, the metallic gleam of a pistol still in his right hand. The face only inches above her looked as furious as her assailants’, but it was clean shaven. Wraparound sunglasses were pushed up onto ruthlessly trimmed dark curls to reveal a furious gray gaze above a grimly compressed mouth, a jawline taut with anger.

  Still gasping for breath, Amy managed to speak at the same instant her rescuer chose to do so. “You!”

  Stepping back into the cover of a toppled stall so that none could note his interest, he surveyed the disaster scene with disapproving satisfaction. The shaheed, the holy martyr, had challenged the invincibility of the infidel leviathan. But the damage inflicted was insignificant, and though a cheering mob already swarmed over the disabled vehicle, not one of the foreign occupiers had joined the shaheed in death.

  Allah’s judgment because martyrdom had come in the unheroic form of a woman? And those screams of anguish, the bloodied garments and smashed merchandise. Did they not belong to fellow Muslim brothers? Did Allah truly reward with paradise such senseless incompetence? Besides, however unwelcome, the foreigners were not the true enemy of his people.

  Or his own mission.

  He swayed on his feet, exhaustion warring with his urgency. Nearby a toppled food stand had spilled the bright saffron yellow of pilau across the ground, the redolence of garlic and spice and fried bits of meat twisting at his stomach. He hadn’t slept since he’d been released to his task, and his few afghanis had evaporated on transport, so he hadn’t eaten since the day before.

  When and where he’d next eat or sleep, he did not yet know. Nor how he would achieve the commission to which his life was now committed.

  But he thrust away hunger and weariness and apprehension with the discipline of long practice as he straightened up and moved away. The hell of these last years had taught him to be patient.

  To endure.

  To hate.

  “Are you okay? Can you get up?”

  At the young woman’s nod, Steve flipped the veil down again, concealing that exasperatingly bright hair and expat clothing. His Glock remained raised in his right hand, but his left reached down to take hers. She gasped as she scrambled stiffly to her feet. As Steve tugged her close enough to feel her quick breathing under the blue polyester, the corner of his eye caught Cougar’s approach, unslung weapon melting away a path.

  Tucking his Glock into the small of his back, Steve spread his hands palms outward, his Dari fluent and regretful. “Please accept my apologies. There has been a misunderstanding. The woman was frightened and confused by the noise.”

  Turbans and flat wool pakul caps bobbed in comprehending nods. Who, after all, did not understand the hysterics of which a woman was capable?

  “She is your woman? You accept responsibility for her behavior?”

  Any need to respond was disrupted by a loud drone approaching fast and low. Heads shot up as the drone modified to the throp-throp of rotor blades. Steve expected an ISAF aircraft dispatched to assess the damage. But this was no Black Hawk. Russian-built Mi-8 Hips were Soviet leftovers the mujahedeen and Taliban and now the new Afghan government had snapped up for transport. This one hovered over the roof Steve and Cougar had vacated, scattering men in blue gray uniforms leaning over the parapet. Khalid had returned earlier than expected.

  Steve had no doubt who was in that chopper. He’d ridden in it himself with the current minister of interior. That it still flew paid tribute to Soviet engineering. A discreet commute it was not. A single RPG would blow the chopper through the ministry roof.

  As the Mi-8 hovered above the flat roof for passengers to disembark, Steve debated turning back. But only fleetingly. Dragging along a stray expat female was hardly a propitious introduction to this contract. The necessity of that decision roughened his tone as muffled noises beneath the burqa could now be heard above the departing chopper.

  “Be quiet! Haven’t you caused enough trouble? Follow me and don’t say another word. Cougar, you’ve got the rear.”

  If they didn’t understand his English, the gathered crowd approved of his harshness.

  “Beat her well for causing so much trouble!”

  The suggestion was followed by laughter, expressions no longer hostile but interested.

  Steve didn’t bother to disillusion them but strode off, making sure only that the pale blue shape was obeying his orders.

  Cougar plucked at his sleeve. “We can’t take an Afghan woman with us. You trying to get her killed—and us?”

  “She’s expat,” Steve tossed curtly over his shoulder.

  Cougar made no further protest. Nor did the woman in the burqa, both staying close on his heels, though the woman stumbled repeatedly until Steve slowed his pace. As traffic began to inch forward again, Steve scanned the crowd. Where was the Afghan man he’d thought to be accompanying his new charge? Their retreat was hardly inconspicuous, so if the man had made himself scarce, it was by choice.

  As they entered the alley where the black Suburban had pulled over, Ahmed jumped out, a raised arm halting traffic. Or maybe it was the unslung M4s in the two contractors’ hands. Steve gestured for Cougar to take the front passenger seat. The woman needed no urging to scramble into the backseat. Steve got in after her, Ahmed easing forward into traffic as Steve slammed the door shut.

  Beside him, the burqa was already coming off. From the front passenger seat, Cougar twisted around, recognition dawning on his broad face. No, Steve hadn’t been mistaken. The disheveled flaxen hair definitely belonged to the woman from the plane.

  She wiped whatever was left of makeup from her face with the blue polyester before giving both contractors a smile bright with gratitude. “Boy, it feels good to be out of this. I can’t thank you enough for getting me out of there. I’d hate to think what might have happened if you hadn’t come along.”

  “Exactly!” The uncompromising bite of Steve’s response offered no encouragement to her eager friendliness. “You want to tell me what possessed you to go out into the middle of a suicide bombing dressed like that?”

  Warmth immediately drained from her expression, and Steve found himself under a cool survey. He could have counted to five as she shook her shining curtain of hair back into order and unloaded the polyester bundle and shoulder bag onto the seat beside her. A hazel gaze rising to clash with Steve’s was a little too composed and impenitent for his taste.

  “I saw you at the
airport this morning, didn’t I? Let’s start over. I’m Amy Mallory, country manager for New Hope Foundation, a nonprofit working with women and children at risk here in Afghanistan. I really do appreciate your intervening back there. I know it wasn’t the smartest move, but there was this little boy who looked like he might be in trouble—”

  “Hey, no harm done. Perfectly understandable. Glad we could help,” Cougar said, trying to mollify her.

  But Steve wasn’t so easily conciliated. “Next time you’re looking to add to your client base, you might check to see if the kid’s already got parents. Even in Afghanistan people get antsy about strangers snatching their children off the street. And that hardly explains what you were doing there to start with, an expat woman alone and on foot. Or didn’t you bother reading the current security alert before getting off that plane? Oh yes, I noticed you, too. As to masquerading in a burqa, even the greenest newbie might have guessed that’s asking for trouble.”

  The SUV’s air-conditioning wasn’t enough to keep Amy’s annoyance from burning at her cheeks. She was still feeling shaken, her ribs sore enough for nasty bruises. And where was Jamil? His urgent shout when she’d picked up the child reassured Amy he wasn’t seriously hurt. Why hadn’t he caught up with her?

  As for her rescuer, Amy met his uncompromising stare with raised chin, her initial glow of gratitude fading fast. In the vehicle’s confined interior, her seatmate seemed much larger than he had at the airport. The terse drawl of his English answered the question of nationality, while apologetic glances from his companion made it clear who was in charge.

  The polished metal in his hands didn’t intimidate Amy. In the places she’d spent the last three years, armed guards were the norm, and by his casual handling, he knew what he was doing. But the palpable warmth of his long, muscled frame and a musk that was both perspiration and cologne were claustrophobically close. When Amy shifted her shoulder bag so that it was between them, the twitch of his mouth held malicious understanding. But he didn’t speak, and it was clear he was still awaiting an answer.