The Apostle

CHAPTER 57

Mullah Massoud Akhund woke up earlier than usual to the sound of his stomach growling. He rolled over and looked at the empty pallet on the floor beside him. Zwak must have gotten up to check on the American woman. He was like a child with an injured bird, and Massoud feared he had grown too attached to her.

The Taliban commander also feared that his brother was holding a grudge. Zwak had not said a word to him since he had arrived at the mountain camp. Massoud knew his brother was angry at him for taking away his basketball shoes, but that was before the Russian had explained what had really happened with Elam Badar’s son, Asadoulah. Even though Massoud had promised to return the shoes once they were back home, Zwak still wouldn’t speak to him. But it wasn’t just the loss of the shoes that had wounded his pride.

In order to cover their tracks, Simonov had insisted Zwak wear a burka, just like the American woman, as they made the drive to the summer grazing pasture. Massoud understood the Russian’s logic. He also understood why Zwak had felt emasculated. Some of the soldiers had teased Zwak afterward and though the Russian had reprimanded them harshly, Zwak felt ashamed and the stern rebuke of the soldiers did nothing to repair his bruised ego.

Massoud wondered how much his brother had slept during the night, if at all. Though he might have stepped outside to relieve himself, he was most likely checking on the woman. He was incredibly protective. Massoud wondered if his brother understood that he felt exactly the same way about him. That was why he found so many important jobs for him to do. Whether he did or whether he did not, reasoned the Taliban commander, Allah knew.

Rising from his thin bedroll, Mullah Massoud stepped past the sleeping soldiers crammed one on top of the other, quietly opened the door, and slid outside. They had much to do today and he knew he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep. Besides, it was good for his men to see him up so early. It would set a good example.

He walked toward the small hut they were using to hold the woman and looked for Zwak. Except for when he slept or when he prayed, he had not been far from the woman the entire time she had been their prisoner.

Massoud walked around the building and, not seeing his brother, wondered if maybe he was inside with the woman. He knew the two had developed a relationship. And while he didn’t think it was wise, he found it difficult to discourage his brother from speaking with her. He knew what his duty was and he also knew that no matter how much kindness she showed him, she would never be able to charm Zwak into setting her free. He was all too aware of the shame that would bring on the entire family. It was far beyond having your basketball shoes taken away or being forced to disguise yourself in a burka.

Completing a full turn around the little outbuilding, Massoud stopped at the door, wondering if Zwak might be inside, but then saw that the wooden peg that held the door locked was firmly in place. Zwak had to be either at the latrine or in the cookhouse trying to get something to eat before morning prayers.

Feeling the urge himself to urinate, Massoud headed toward the trench. If Zwak was there, he hoped that sleep had softened the stone in his heart and that he might be ready to talk.

One of the strange ironies of night was that it always seemed coldest right before the first rays of the sun pierced the darkness to touch the earth. The Taliban commander pulled his patoo tighter around his shoulders and readjusted the angle of his AK-47.

Looking up as he walked, he regarded the stars and almost believed he could see them twinkling out one at a time, like tiny lamps being extinguished in the sky as daylight arrived to relieve them. Shifting his eyes away from the sky and back to the path he was walking, he saw something. Though his mind raced for an alternative explanation, he knew even from this distance what he was seeing; dead bodies.

The fear that they had been discovered was surpassed by an even greater fear. Was one of them his brother?

Abandoning all concern for his own life, Massoud charged toward the mass of corpses. Two of the bodies were face up with bullets through their heads and he could immediately see that neither was Zwak. Though the third man was obviously too tall to be his brother, Massoud still bent and rolled him over. The lifeless eyes of his lieutenant stared up past him. Where was Zwak?

While the kitchen seemed an obvious place to look, Massoud’s instincts as a commander were starting to take over and his gut drew him back to the storage hut. If the men from Elam Badar’s village had come to make war, they could have begun by quietly taking out the sentries, but that’s not what was happening here. This was about the woman. It was a rescue attempt of some sort; he could feel it. And if he was right, the moment she was safely away, the skies would open and all kinds of hell would rain down upon them.

Gripping his AK-47 now, Massoud ran back to the hut, pulled the peg from the lock, and pushed open the door. It took his eyes a moment to adjust, and then he saw his brother bound and gagged on the floor.

The Taliban commander bent down, removed his brother’s gag, and set to work on the strips binding his wrists and feet behind his back.

“No crying,” he ordered. “Not now, Zwak. What happened?”

The admonition had no effect.

Massoud withdrew a small knife and cut him loose. Helping Zwak to his feet, the Taliban commander grabbed his brother’s face in his hands and held it. “It is okay, Zwak. No one is going to hurt you,” he said. “You need to show courage. You need to be a warrior now and tell me. Where is the American woman?”

The mentally challenged man’s breaths came in short, sharp stabs. “They took her,” he managed to choke out.

“How many?”

“Two.”

The first thing that came to Massoud’s mind was that he had been sold out. Someone in his organization had double-crossed him so they could ransom the woman back themselves. “Did they speak? Did you hear their language? Was it Dari? Pashtu?”

“Na,” said Zwak. “They spoke her language. English.”

Massoud’s heart began pounding even faster, and he willed himself to calm down. That could mean anything. “Did you see their faces?”

“Na,” repeated the mentally challenged man. “They had no faces. Only mouths,” he stammered as he pantomimed holding a pair of binoculars up to his eyes.

Night vision goggles, thought the Taliban commander. Had he been sold out to an ANA commando unit? Or worse, had the Americans somehow found them and sent in a special operations team?

As quickly as the thought entered his mind, Massoud pushed it away. If this was the work of the Americans, he and his men would be dead by now. Once they recovered the woman, they would have come into the camp and killed everything that moved.

That was another thing; he had not heard any helicopter. Whoever had done this could have only come in via vehicle or by foot.

Removing his cell phone, Massoud turned it on and stepped nearer to the doorway to get a signal. Though many new towers had been built in Khogyani, reception, especially at the mountain camp, could be spotty.

Holding the phone outside, he was finally able to lock on to a tower. Remaining in the shadow of the doorway, he called down to his roadside checkpoint nearest the village.

A man named Mohambar answered on the third ring. The co

“No,” the sentry shouted into his phone. “Only the three trucks from Dagar a half hour ago. We have seen nothing since.”

“And where are those trucks now?’ asked the commander.

“Please repeat?”

“Where are those trucks now?”

“Still at the camp with you.”

That had to be it. After ordering his men not to let anything pass, Massoud disco