The article was about the plight of Afghan women and the safe-house Basma ran in Kabul. She was talking about the promises made after the Taliban were kicked out. Their lives were supposed to get better once they were 'liberated'. Local women were supposed to be running multinationals by now, yet they were still third-rate citizens. Some of the girls in her refuge had been shot up with heroin at an early age to make them dependent, then used as mules by dealers to move drugs from around the country. It was perfect cover. Nobody paid any attention to them, and there was a lot of spare room under a burqa.
It sounded as if nothing much had changed since my last time there.
When the girl Farah died, I'd carried her body a short way from the village that night and buried her. I found out from Ahmad a couple of weeks later that her husband had managed to get over his loss. He'd gone out the next day and bought himself a replacement.
43
'We've started our approach, sir.'
The attendant was giving me a gentle shake. I hadn't even realized I'd fallen asleep.
I looked down at the vast mountain plain, six thousand feet above sea level, which held the capital. I'd never set foot there. Last time round, it was full of guys with red stars on their hats goose-stepping about with vodka bottles in their hands. We'd stayed in the mountains that hemmed them in.
The Australian didn't waste a second. 'Kabul has swollen from less than a million to nearly three million since the Russians left, and now the Taliban are back in the mountains, refugees from there are pouring in.'
To dodge any more waffle, I studied the parched landscape ten thousand feet below. The city was a giant mosaic of low-level, grey-brown buildings, not more than a couple of storeys high.
He didn't get the hint. 'Do you know what the Australian government advice is about this place? Don't go. And if you're there, get out.' He smiled to himself as he leant forward to share the view.
'Welcome to sunny Kabul.' He laughed. 'Who in their right mind would want to come to this Godforsaken place?'
I kept looking out. 'Who knows? I file a first-person account exactly as I find it. It's more like a travelogue for their website, really.'
I sat back in my seat. He nodded, not believing a word. Private contractors wouldn't tell other private contractors what they were doing. Different bits of the military wouldn't tell each other either. In a place like this, everyone had op sec. Or bullshit.
We thumped the runway. Flashing past the window on our left were more fixed-wing aircraft than I'd ever seen parked in one place, military or civilian, then every size and shape of helicopter. HESCOed compound followed HESCOed compound, each flying a different national flag, but all part of the International Security Assistance Force. More than thirty countries supported ISAF, from Finland and Norway to Portugal and Hungary, but only four were doing the actual fighting: the Americans, Brits, Dutch and Canadians.
The Stars and Stripes fluttered over a collection of stadium-sized tents. I bet some of them were bowling alleys and movie houses with milkshake bars.
The British compound would be the one with the Portakabin, a small TV, the boxed set of Only Fools and Horses, and a couple of teabags for the kettle. It was probably on the other side of the runway, where the husks of bombed-out buildings sat alongside the occasional intact concrete block, like a row of old man's teeth. Beyond, it looked like dustbowl all the way to the mountains.
Flags everywhere flew at half-mast. These days, they were probably like that permanently.
As we taxied past acres of armoured vehicles and steel containers, economy passengers were already surging forward to disembark. They chattered away on their cellphones as the aircraft still rolled.
The Australian had a suit-carrier handed to him. When the aircraft stopped and the seat-belt lights were switched off, he stood up and held out his hand. 'Well, nice to have met you. I hope it goes well.'
'And you.' I pulled my Bergen from the overhead locker. All it contained was the laptop and a bit of washing kit.
I detached myself from him in the crowd and walked down the steps into the blistering heat and blinding sunlight.
A pair of helicopters lifted off and cleared our aircraft by no more than thirty feet. Two Humvees armed with .50 cals roared along the runway and pulled