Gravedigger (2 page)

The first village they headed
for was in the Spin Ghar mountains on the Pakistan side of the border. Technically they didn’t expect much. The Soviets hadn’t really come this far into Pakistan during their invasion, but Landing and the CIA wanted them to check out the village of Garha. The air was thin and cold and black clouds threatened rain.

Johnston was driving, the Land Rover struggling with the incline and thin air. As they pulled into the village of Garha, Derek, sprawled in the rear, said, “Welcome to Garha, population 133.”

“I think you’re counting the goats and chickens,” Johnston said, slowing to avoid running over some of both, which were crossing the dirt track that the Pakistanis called a road. He pulled the Range Rover to the side of the road and waited.

“Waiting for the welcoming committee?” Derek asked.

“I’m sure it knows we’re here.”

They didn’t have long to wait. After about two minutes a burly bearded man in
salwar kameez
and turban strode toward them, an AK47 slung over his shoulder. The three of them piled out of the truck. The man squinted, studying them. Finally he said something in Urdu. Noa responded. They spoke for a few minutes. Finally she turned and said, “This is Abasin Yusufzai. He is, I guess you would call him the mayor, of Garha. Mayor isn’t exactly the right word, but he’s in charge. He wants to know why we are here. I told him we were passing through and that we were looking for a place to spend the night.”

Derek reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of dried meat. “Tell him I have a gift for him.”

She and Derek stared at each other, then she turned and spoke to Abasin Yusufzai. After a moment he nodded and accepted the food. He spoke. Noa translated.

“He thanks you for the gift and invites us to have dinner and stay the night with his family.”

“Tell him we happily accept,” Johnston said.

Minutes later they found themselves in Abasin’s house, which was made of stone and mud walls. It was small, with basically three rooms. It was one of maybe fifty houses, more or less set inside a walled compound and surrounded by farmland.

Abasin’s wife wore traditional Pakistan clothing with her dark hair covered by a purple scarf, and busied herself around a fireplace. A pot hung over it into which she tossed chunks of meat and vegetables. Three small children, two boys and a girl, probably ages two through six, watched them curiously but shyly. Abasin shooed them into a different part of the house.

He brought up a kettle that was by the fire and began to prepare tea. Noa translated.

“Are you Americans?”

“We are,” Derek said, gesturing to himself and Jim Johnston. “Our translator is Pakistani.”

“With the government?”

“International Health Alliance,” Derek said, launching into their cover stories. “We’re an NGO, a non-governmental agency. We are surveying villages, trying to figure out what people need. Then we’ll prepare reports for IHA and the World Health Organization.”

Abasin spat into the fire, an apparent sign of disgust. “They never came here.”

“You never saw Russians?”

“I did. But not here. I fought them.”

“You’re a mujahideen?” It was a loaded question and Derek wasn’t sure if it was a safe question to ask.

Abasin’s expression was not friendly. He spoke for a long time, Noa listening carefully. Finally she turned to Derek. “He says he is a Muslim and that he is a Pakistani. But he had a cousin who fought against the Russians, so he went to fight alongside him. He says that the mujahideen were fighting for freedom, protecting Afghanistan, fighting the Russians, defending their homes. But some of these mujahideen, they were fighting a holy war, a jihad. But he says that these men, they will call everything they do a jihad to justify themselves. So he does not think of himself as a mujahideen. Now he is just a farmer.”

“What does he farm?”

“Cucumbers, barley, and corn. He has goats and sheep.”

Derek wanted to ask if they grew poppies, but held his tongue. That wasn’t why he was here. He said, “How is everyone in the village? Is everyone healthy?”

Abasin’s wife, who had remained silent, jumped slightly as Noa translated the question. Noa noticed as well.

“Some children have been sick,” Abasin said. “Yes.”

Derek stroked his cheek with his fingers. The beard was at the scratchy stage. Another week, though, and it would fill in. “I’m not a doctor, but I have medical experience. I would like to see the children.”

Abasin nodded. “But first we will eat.”

The food was good. They started with something called
bolaanee
, which resembled triangular pierogies, filled with potatoes and deep-fried. A
salaata
, which was a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes and onion. And the main meal was
kofta
, which was a ground lamb dish placed over rice, served with tea. Abasin and his wife and children asked them many questions about America, which they were happy to answer. And they were more than generous about the food, insisting they eat until full.

When the hospitality part of dinner had finally passed, Abasin led them out of his home and across the village. The houses were made of stone and mud, the streets not much more than dirt paths. There were a few trucks and bicycles and a couple of motorcycles. There were also mules and horses. People were working in gardens, or tending to animals, or sitting on the stoops of houses smoking pipes. There were not many women to be seen, but there were plenty of children, who would swarm toward them until a few sharp words from Abasin scattered them.

Finally, on the other side of the village they came to a low, flat building. Abasin pounded on the wooden door. A woman whose entire face was covered by a scarf except for her eyes, came to the door. He spoke to her softly and she waved them in.

It was some sort of hospital. There were six people on beds. Two of them were adults. Four were children, none older than four years of age.

Abasin talked, telling the woman who they were. Noa translated. Johnston excused himself and left the building, indicating he was going to go back to the truck. Derek asked him to bring his backpack along if he got the chance.

The woman explained that the two adults were sick with fever, but it wasn’t anything unusual. The children, though, she didn’t understand. They had complained of headaches, vomiting, sore throats. None of those were unusual, but they also seemed to be weak. Two of them had seizures, but the woman explained it was not epilepsy. She’d seen epilepsy and this wasn’t epilepsy.

Derek questioned the woman about her background and found that she was the local midwife, nurse and general healthcare worker – she had spent a year training in Islamabad. He asked her if he could examine the children. She looked at Abasin, who nodded.

The oldest child, a boy, was sitting up, but his eyes were glazed and he twitched as if he had some sort of neuromuscular disorder. His name was Malik. Derek felt his forehead, but didn’t think he had a temperature. He asked the nurse about diarrhea. She said yes. He asked her if there was any blood in it. Yes. But that in itself wasn’t unusual. Dysentery was common.

But the tremors were unusual. All the children had tremors. One of the other children was drooling. He asked the nurse if the amount of drool was unusual.

“Yes,” she said. “For all of them. They’re spitting a lot or drooling.”

Derek sat back on his haunches, thinking.

Glancing up at Abasin, he said, “What’s the water supply for the village?”

“We have a well.”

“I’d like to see it.”

As Abasin was
leading them to the village well, General Johnston appeared carrying Derek’s ruckpack. “What’s up?”

“We’re going to look at the community well.”

Johnston’s bushy eyebrows arced, but he nodded. He asked Abasin if he could walk around, look at the crops. Derek suggested Abasin point him in the direction of the well, but Noa and Johnston go with Abasin.

The well was in the middle of the village, a round concrete turret about three feet tall, about six feet in circumference. It was a hand pump. Several women were filling plastic jugs. He pointed at himself and to the pump. They nodded and he pumped while they filled the containers. The water had a slight sulfur smell, but looked clear enough.

Finally the women left, hauling their water away. From his backpack Derek removed an M272 Chemical Agents Water Testing Kit. He pulled out a variety of test tickets for different nerve agents and wet them with water from the well. He then pressed them against the test patches. As he watched, several of the tickets turned blue.

He then took several test tubes and filled them with the water and added drops of chemicals to each one, waiting for a reaction. This time nothing happened.

Packing the kit way in the backpack, he stood up and looked around. The village was built on a plateau. Below spread fields of corn. Above the village an arc of crops separated the village from several ridges of mountains. At this time of year it was dry. He knew that in the winter there would be snow and much of the village’s water came from snowmelt. From the looks of the sky, dry wasn’t going to be a problem. The clouds hung dark and low and filled with rain. The air smelled like rain.

Shouldering the pack, he started hiking to the high ground above the village. As he left the village, he was stopped by two men carrying AK47s.

Derek’s grasp of Urdu was slim, but he had learned a few phrases. “
Salaam! Dost Suno
.” Which, roughly translated, meant, “Hi! Hey! Friend!”, which, he had found, was a useful phrase in any number of languages.

They glared at him through their bushy beards, jabbing their AKs at him. He kept his hands up, but said, “I’m an
Amereykey
scientist.” He wished he knew the Urdu word for scientist. “I’m with Abasin Yusufzai.”

“Abasin?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Abasin.
Ap aneguereyzey beoletai heyn
?” Do you speak English?

“Abasin?”

“So, you don’t speak English,” he said. He gestured toward one of his pockets. “I’m going to reach in here, okay? Really slow.”

Carefully he plucked out a bag of candy he had bought in the bazaar. He held it out to the two men. They looked suspiciously at it, then at him. Cautiously one of them plucked a candy out of the bag, peeled the cellophane off it and popped it into his mouth. He nodded, smiling. Derek offered the bag to the other man. He too took some candy.

“I’m trying to help,” he said, knowing that speaking English wasn’t getting him anywhere. “Help. You understand ‘help?’”

They stared at him.

Feeling like an idiot, he patted his chest, then pointed toward the fields. Then he made his two fingers move like he was walking. “I want to look around. You can come with me.”

They still stared at him. The guns, at least, were no longer aimed at him.

He tapped his chest again. “Derek. My name is Derek Stillwater.
Amerekyey
.”

One of the men tapped his chest. “Abdullah.”

The other pointed to himself. “Mohammed.”

Derek offered the bag of candy again. They each took one. “
Tafey.
” Candy.

“
Tafey
,” Abdullah said in agreement.

“Now we’re cooking with gas,” Derek said, smiling. “We’re just like the fucking U.N.” He waved toward the farmland and tried again. “
Bagh
. I wish to look at the
bagh.
” Garden. He wished he knew the word for farm. “
Peyaden
in the
bagh
.” He felt like his IQ was dropping every time he opened his mouth.
Peyaden
meant “on foot.”

Abdullah and Mohammed looked at each other, seeming to discuss what Derek was saying. They shrugged, shouldered their assault rifles, and gestured for him to follow them.

The fields, for the most
part, were poppies. Which explained the armed Pakis, he supposed. Afghanistan, when it wasn’t exporting Islamic extremists, exported opium made from poppies. But they were in Pakistan, although as everyone in the governments kept saying, the border was porous.

There were other plants, but he wasn’t sure what they were. He bent down and studied them. Poppies were easy to identify, but these were low, green plants that almost looked like bunches of onions. He crouched down to look closer, but still didn’t know what it was. It wasn’t poppies.

Glancing around this part of the field, he saw that a few of them had purple flowers. He walked over to one of the flowers. He looked up at Muhammed, who said, “
Kesar.
”

That didn’t help. He shook his head and smelled the flower, which had a very strong, distinctive aroma. Something stirred in his memory.

Abdulla said, “
Zafran
.”

And it clicked. Saffron. The flowers were crocus, harvested for the spice saffron. It was one of the most expensive spices in the world, a very smart alternative to poppies.

He stood up and looked around the fields. They had dug canals to channel water. Off to one side was a shed. Striding to the shed, Muhammed and Abdullah trotted after him, jabbering away. They were probably telling him to stop. He pulled the door open. Inside were several large red metal canisters. The writing wasn’t in English, but the poison symbol and the chemical structure was.

“Shit.”

Turning, he saw Abdullah and Mohammed staring at him. “Thanks guys, I’ve seen enough.” He offered them more candy, then headed back into the village. Johnston, Noa and Abasin were standing by the well talking with several villagers.

When Derek arrived he said, “What are they growing below the village?”

With a shrug, Johnston said, “Corn, wheat, watermelon, cucumbers. Why?”

“Their cash crops are above the village – poppies and saffron. But that’s not the problem.” He gestured to Noa. “Translate carefully, okay?”

Turning to Abasin he said, “The problem is that your well is contaminated. You’re using some very powerful pesticides on your poppies and saffron. They are called organophosphates and they’re very dangerous to people. The pesticides are getting into your water supply. Probably because the irrigation canals pick it up and wash down into the village or seep into the ground. If you can get the children to a modern hospital, that would be good. If not, I think I can come up with something short term. Unfortunately, if you don’t do something about the well, more and more people will get sick and maybe die, children first, followed by the adults.”

Derek spent several
hours with the children, talking to the woman who was caring for them and administering first aid. In his travel kit he kept not only several poison and biological weapons test kits, but various medicines and first aid for the biological and chemical weapons he was hunting. He treated the children with doses of activated charcoal, then with mild doses of atropine.

He explained to the woman that they should still get the children to a hospital if at all possible. He knew that was difficult. He had grown up with parents who were missionary physicians, in Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka and in Cuba and Congo. Derek knew all about the difficulties that poor people had who lived long distances from modern medical care.

After two hours the children’s seizures had stopped. Their appetite had returned, at least a little bit.

When he left the children, the skies had opened up and a pounding rain had arrived. He sloshed through the now-muddy tracks back to the truck. Lightning crackled across the sky. There was a single tent set up, instead of the usual two. He let himself in.

General Johnston sprawled on his sleeping bag, boots off, leaning against his duffel. He was reading a book.

Sealing the tent back up, Derek went about stripping out of his wet clothing. “Where’s Noa?”

“Staying with the women and children.”

“She happy about that?”

Shrugging, Johnston said, “She’s not happy about anything.”

Derek dried off and began throwing on sweats to sleep in. It was going to be a cold night. He was bone tired. He said, “Do you think Abasin’s going to do anything about my suggestions?”

“Shift the crops around? Dig a new well? Stop using the pesticides above the village? Don’t know. How are the kids?”

“Recovering. But if they start drinking the water again they’ll get sick again. And they’re the first. It won’t be long before they’re all sick. Or dead.”

“While you were in with the kids I used the sat-phone and called my contact at WHO about the water problem.”

Derek nodded, now in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. “Find anything?”

“No. Did you?”

“Besides the pesticide? No. We can go onto the next site tomorrow. It’ll take us a while with the weather and roads. Way up in the mountains on the other side of the Khyber. Want a drink?”

“Absolutely.”

Johnston dug into his duffel and withdrew a bottle of Glenmorangie scotch. “Think what Noa’s missing.”

Shaking his head, Derek took the proffered three fingers of single malt. Both of the men had found the Israeli to be difficult and unfriendly. Clearly she wasn’t happy working with Americans. “Any idea why she got stuck in on this?”

Another shrug from Johnston and a swallow. “My suspicion is it’s some sort of punishment or some sort of deal worked out between CIA, the US Army and MOSSAD that I’m not privy to.”

Derek sipped the scotch and said, “Speaking of which, you want to tell me what a general is doing running around in the field in Pakistan and Afghanistan instead of pushing paper in Washington working on your second star?”

“We’ve been driving for three days and this is the first time this occurred to you?”

“It’s the first time I figured Noa wasn’t either in earshot or likely to interrupt.”

“She does keep her eyes on us, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “Like she doesn’t exactly trust us.”

“Or she has an agenda different than us.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Derek said, “Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

Derek sipped more of the scotch. “You’ve managed to avoid my question.”

“I asked for the chance to work out here.”

“Fresh out of Desert Storm and you want this? Go be a field soldier again?”

“I’m considering going into the private sector or to an NGO. I’ve also got a party back in Minnesota urging me to run for the senate.”

“You’ve never struck me as being terribly political.”

“It’s not clear to me if the Minnesota Democratic Party thinks that’s a plus so they can boss me around.”

“Or ‘mold’ you into whatever they want,” Derek said, making finger quote marks around “mold.”

“That, too. But I’ve also been looking at some other things.”

“Like?”

“There’s an opening at State.”

“At Foggy Bottom?”

“Moscow, actually.”

“So this might educate you?”

“It gives me time to be away from the Army for a while. How about you, Derek? I was shocked when you retired. Make Colonel and promptly retire and join the Agency.”

“Thought it might be nice to stop killing people for a while.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Okay, although Cuba was a near-disaster. And I have to say, the Agency seems entirely willing to use their agents as pawns in some political deal. That’s probably what happened in Cuba. They didn’t expect me to succeed with the mission, they just wanted to flush out a mole and I was bait. I’m lucky I’m not rotting in a cell in Havana.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re completely happy with the Agency.”

Derek finished his scotch and held it out for more. “Safe to say. We’ll see how things go in Afghanistan.”

Johnston poured two fingers in each of their glasses. They clinked glasses and Johnston said, “This we’ll defend.” It was the Army’s official motto.

Derek had been Army Special Forces, a Green Beret. “
De oppresso liber
.” To free the oppressed, the Special Forces’ motto. He drank.

The general grinned. “What’s the CIA’s motto?”

“We’re so secret we don’t even know how fucked up we are.”

Roaring with laughter, Johnston said, “I’ll drink to that.”