they have to do then is fuck over the driver, take his place and drive you to a world of shit. It would have been madness to advertise myself on a Serena Hotel board, even with a cover name. I had no idea how many big-shot Stevenses there were on the planet, and I didn't want to be mistaken for one.
The young guy holding up my board was skin and bone. His shiny jet-black hair was parted on the left. Apart from a bum-fluff moustache, he was clean-shaven. His shirt was untucked over brown trousers and buttoned all the way up to a collar that was two sizes too big.
I gave him a smile and offered my hand. 'Hello, mate – you taking me to the Serena?' It never hurts. Let them have a nice day. Chances are they're treated like shit the rest of the time.
'Yes,' he said. 'Maybe.' He went to shake my hand but caught himself in time. He touched his chest in greeting first, then gave me a semi-toothless grin as we finally treated ourselves to a couple of shakes. 'Come, Mr Stevens. Come.'
I followed his dusty black plastic shoes through the maze of vehicles. Most were white and yellow taxis of all makes, sizes and stages of dilapidation. Among them were dusty 4x4s, a mixture of clapped-out Fords from the eighties and brand-new Mazda saloons.
He told me his name but I didn't quite catch it first time; his voice was like gravel and his English very accented.
'Magrid?'
'Magreb.' He beamed. 'Magreb.'
I nodded. 'Nice to meet you, Magreb.'
His ten-year-old Hiace people-carrier was coming to the end of its days. It looked like the blacked-out side windows were only held to the bodywork by layers of dust, so it was hard to hide my amazement when the door was slid open for me by a smartly uniformed escort. No grey serge for this boy: his black ball cap coordinated with his trousers, high-leg boots and heavy body armour. Only the brown wooden stock of his AK was off-message.
I climbed into the back, next to a torn and food-encrusted baby seat. The escort closed my door and sat up front with Magreb. The air-conditioning was going full blast.
We only got a few yards before we hit the end of a queue. A couple of old guys in suits, polo-neck jumpers and Afghan pancake hats manned a homemade checkpoint. The drop-bar was two branches roped together and painted red and white.
Magreb pulled a dollar bill from his pocket.
I leant forward. 'Police?'
Magreb gave an Italian-style shrug. 'No, no – police come here later, Mr Stevens. They come to collect the money, maybe.'
We drew level and he handed over his bribe. The old men lifted the barrier. We drove out past the empty shells of bombed-out buildings.
The wrecks of Russian vehicles rusted at the roadside. Only one bit of Eastern hardware had stayed the distance. A MiG jet fighter sat at a forty-five-degree angle in the middle of the exit roundabout, as if it was about to take off. Its freshly painted camouflage gleamed in the sunlight.
We hit an official checkpoint, manned by guys in khaki serge. They waved us through for free.
We turned south on to a dead straight road. The sun was on my right. 'How long to the city, mate?'
'Twenty minutes, Mr Stevens. Maybe.'
'Please call me Nick.'
'OK, Mr Nick.'
His breath stank from too many cigarettes.
Even from this distance, Kabul was clearly dominated by the mountain at its centre. It was like London with Ben Nevis instead of Hyde Park.
Magreb followed my line of sight. 'TV Hill, Mr Nick.'
It had two peaks of roughly the same height, with a saddle in between. Two colossal antennae farms capped the summits. It might be a hill to the locals, alongside the snow-capped mountains that surrounded us, but in the UK it would have been a national park.
I gave him a smile. 'Let's see if this works.'
I waved my mobile, sat back and powered it up.
The buildings either side of us looked like they'd been out in the sun too long. Even the advertising hoardings were like bleached skeletons.
The potholes were the size of bomb craters, but that didn't stop the local drivers going for it at motorway speeds. Instead of a central reservation, there were just one-foot-high concrete bollards.
We came to a run of shops and stalls, mixed with mud houses and stark concrete apartment blocks. One sold bananas, the next oranges. The one after that seemed to have cornered the market