Chaos in Kabul Read Online Free PDF Page A

assignment. We’ll tell the station people that you’re coming to continue the negotiations with the Taliban that we began at Doha.”
    “With someone in Kabul?”
    “Yes. Our Taliban friends gave us the name of a person you will meet, one Mullah Musa Kotak. Under the Taliban, he was the ministerfor the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. Karzai named him to the High Peace Council, a thing he set up to bring in Talibs who might still be useful. Kotak is in close touch with the Quetta
shura.
He’ll be told about your arrival.”
    “A former Taliban minister, and he’s still in Kabul? That’s amazing!”
    The security advisor smiled.
    “As you know, nothing is simple in Afghanistan. Kotak’s a committed Talib, but the Karzai people have never given him any grief. He has a lot of influence within the Taliban. He might be able to help you.”
    In the face of Malko’s silence, Luger added, “One other person may also be of help: we have a source within the NDS. He can give you information without asking how it will be used. He’s also somebody who needs money. But you have to be very careful in contacting him. His name is Luftullah Kibzai.”
    The three men were now the only people left in the Hay-Adams dining room. Mulligan ostentatiously looked at his watch and said, “I can’t stay with you any longer. The president is expecting me in half an hour for Chuck Hagel’s debriefing. He just returned from Kabul, as it happens.”
    “Are you going to tell him about this conversation?” asked Malko in surprise.
    “Absolutely not,” said Mulligan.
    Malko was starting to feel trapped. The tense silence lengthened, broken only by an occasional tinkle of glasses from the bar. Malko could feel the Americans’ eyes on him. The men asking him to assassinate Hamid Karzai were honorable, honest, and clearly patriotic. In this muted, elegant setting, the whole thing seemed crazy, but there was no way to avoid the reality. He was being asked to become a killer for hire, like one of Israel’s
kidonim
, for the most powerful nation on earth.
    Malko understood his interlocutors. The United States couldn’t afford to lose face. Even if this was a gamble, it had to be attempted.
    “Very well, I accept the assignment,” he said, “but on one condition.”
    “What?” the two men asked simultaneously.
    “I’m doing this for free,” he said. “I won’t receive any compensation from the Agency. But if something happens to me, I want your word that I’ll be given the honors I deserve, and not considered a gun for hire.”
    What might have been a tear appeared at the corner of Mulligan’s eye.
    “Malko, I swear that if anything happens to you, God forbid, you’ll be buried in Arlington Cemetery in the company of those who gave their lives for our country.”

A machine gun protected by sandbags stood on the roof of the little Kabul airport terminal, manned by a lone helmeted Afghan soldier.
    Along with the many combat helicopters parked at irregular intervals along the single runway, it was the only tangible sign of the war raging in Afghanistan. Just two civilian planes stood in front of the blue-and-white-striped terminal.
    Gone were the flags of the various nations of the ISAF—the International Security Assistance Force—that once flew at half-staff when one of their troops was killed.
    As Malko stepped down the stairs from the Flydubai Boeing 737, he spotted a white Land Cruiser a few yards away. A tall man in a down jacket with a pistol on his hip got out and approached him.
    “Are you Malko Linge, sir?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I’m Jim Doolittle, one of Warren Michaelis’s deputies. The COS asked me to meet you. Come with me, please.”
    Malko climbed into the Land Cruiser. Seated in back were two impassive Marines in full combat gear: helmet, M16, hand grenades, pistol.
    Doolittle explained their presence. “We always have to have an escort in town,” he said. “We go out as little as