I Am Pilgrim(90)

‘The war was over,’ the Saracen replied. ‘We were striking camp; you and I sat in the kitchen smoking cigarettes.’

Lord Khan’s face softened – they had been good times, full of comradeship and courage, and he liked to recall them. ‘I was heading home, you were starting on a much longer road.’

The Saracen said nothing, taking two delicate cups out of a rack, placing them next to the fire to warm.

‘The last time I looked,’ Lord Khan continued quietly, ‘the House of Saud still had its palaces and power.’

‘For how much longer?’ the Saracen asked, equally softly. ‘Maybe we’ll learn soon enough if they can survive without the help of the far enemy.’

The two men looked at one another. ‘When I heard you were a travelling doctor,’ Lord Khan said, ‘I wondered if you had changed, mellowed as you got older …’ His voice trailed off. ‘So you are still doing God’s work, then?’

‘Always. I need three people, Abdul Mohammad Khan, three dispensable people. If you can help, I am sure God will be well acquainted with what you do.’

‘What do you mean exactly – how dispensable?’

The Saracen made no reply; he just turned and looked at Dumb and Dumber.

‘Oh,’ said Lord Khan, ‘that dispensable.’ He needed time to think, so he walked to a balcony overlooking the compound and started yelling orders to the soldiers gathered below. Whatever the risks, he realized, he had little choice: the Saracen had been willing to lay down his life for Khan and his people, and that was a debt which could never be repaid. He returned to finish making the tea. ‘Any preference regarding the prisoners?’ he asked.

‘Jews would be perfect,’ the Saracen said.

Lord Khan laughed at the joke. ‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘I’ll check the local synagogue.’

The Saracen grinned back. They both knew there hadn’t been a Jew in Afghanistan in decades, not since the last of the once-flourishing community had been forced to run for their lives.

‘Seriously,’ the Saracen continued, ‘they have to be young and healthy – and no Muslims.’

‘Or Americans,’ Lord Khan added. ‘Abduct one of them and it brings down a world of grief on everyone.’

The Saracen nodded: ‘If Muslims are excluded, it means it has to be foreigners – so I guess there will be trouble enough without asking for more.’

The proposal had one huge chance of success, Lord Khan thought. Afghanistan was awash with potential victims: European aid workers, Christian missionaries, English reconstruction workers, international journalists.

Though he said nothing, he also knew men who had been in the kidnapping-for-ransom business for years. They were a gang of a dozen brothers and cousins who had once fought under his command and now lived across the border in Iran. Just as importantly, they would die for Abdul Mohammad Khan if he asked – he had once saved their mother’s life.

‘One final criterion,’ the Saracen said. ‘The prisoners don’t have to be men.’

That pleased Lord Khan – women made it a lot easier. They were more difficult to abduct but easier to control and conceal: no foreign soldier would ever dare look beneath a black veil and full-length robe.

‘Can you give me three weeks?’ Khan asked. The Saracen couldn’t believe it – he would have waited three months if he’d had to. Not trusting words to express his gratitude, he reached out and warmly embraced the old warrior.

Their business concluded, Lord Khan pulled a bell rope, summoning his staff back into the room. He didn’t say it but the less time he spent with the Saracen alone, the easier it was to disclaim any knowledge of future events.

‘And what of you, my friend?’ he said as the door opened and his guards entered. ‘You are blessed with a wife?’

Lord Khan was making casual conversation for the benefit of his retainers, but he knew from the shadow of grief that passed across his visitor’s face it was a question which would have been better left unasked.

‘I was blessed,’ the Saracen replied softly. ‘Immediately after I graduated as a doctor I went to Gaza, to the Jabalia refugee camp. I knew that was where the people’s need was the greatest.’

Several guards and retainers exchanged a glance – Gaza was not somewhere to be taken lightly; it was probably the only place in the world that made Afghanistan look safe.

‘I had heard a woman lecture about it while I was studying medicine in Beirut; she was the one who introduced me to the idea of the far enemy,’ the Saracen continued.

‘After I arrived I found her again. Two years later we were married and then—’ His fist clenched and he shrugged, the simple action conveying more about loss than any words.