He took them, but gave two back. 'You pay me when I work, Mr Nick.' He pocketed the equivalent of nine days' pay and the rest went back into my jeans.
I climbed out and lifted my Bergen from the footwell. 'OK, mate. But in my book, if you're on standby for a call, that's working.'
He held out a hand to stop me closing the door just yet. 'You really not want me wait and take you back to hotel? Your friend look too nice be with man who go to this place.'
More headlights bounced towards us from the main.
'I'll call you tomorrow. Go on, mate. Go and get your head down.'
I closed the door gently and took the Hiace's place between the containers as Magreb drove off.
An Italian armoured-vehicle two-ship trundled into the square, probably a neighbour-hood-watch thing to make the residents feel safe. Two guys on.50 cals stuck out of the tops. They did a lap before heading off to look good elsewhere.
I had a quick scratch of the sutures, swung the Bergen over my shoulder, then moved out of the gap and made my way across the packed-mud square. At the gate of number fifty, I could hear the steady thump of music. I gave it a couple of bangs.
A small peephole slid open. It was too dark to see eyes.
'No car? You no car?'
'I live just round the corner, mate. No need. You letting me in or what?'
The gate opened just enough for me to slip through. A Tilley lamp hissed away inside yet another plywood guardhouse. Blankets were heaped on the floor. A kettle steamed above a portable gas burner.
The music got louder and light spilt from a door fifty or so metres away. Vehicles looked more abandoned than parked, like the place was so hot the punters couldn't wait to get in.
59
The two guards were bearded lads in their fifties. They toted AKs and had Osprey, but without the collars and bat-wings.
They shone their torches to draw my attention to a couple of printed signs, covered with dirty plastic and pinned to the plywood of their hut.
One said: Two more killed last week. No more weapons allowed in the house. Leave them in your vehicles. We will search you.
And the other: If you have a gun or no folding money, you get no drink or fun with the honey.
They pointed at my Bergen. 'In here, leave here.'
I smiled as I dropped it from my shoulder. 'No, no, mate, I'm going to keep it with me. You can search it here, yeah?' I stepped inside and unzipped the top. 'See? No guns.'
One knelt and had a rummage while I held up my hands for the other to frisk me. It wasn't a very good search: Afghans don't like touching strangers that intimately. They hold hands with each other as they walk down the road, but they aren't too keen to feel someone's bollocks to see if there's a little revolver nestling between his legs.
My Gunga Din gear came out and was piled on the floor, along with my map, my bum-bag, now stuffed with money instead of toilet paper, and the Yes Man's phone wrapped up in a black-and-white shemag, the sort the two girls in the Gandamack should have had. None of it raised an eyebrow. All they were interested in was weapons.
Next out was my jar of Marmite. The guy held it up like he thought it was high explosive.
I smiled and squatted down next to him. I undid the lid and mimed digging in with an imaginary spoon. 'Mmm, yum-yum.' I dipped in a finger and gave it a suck. I offered him some. He took a sniff and recoiled. The other lad had a taste, and looked like he was going to throw up.
'You either love it, mate, or hate it.' I packed it away as if I'd been given permission to go.
I shook them both by the hand before I turned and left.
The music got even louder as I picked my way round the vehicles and towards the large two-storey house.
Two more beards sat cradling AKs on the doorstep. They had no body armour, and looked bored. They waved me through.
I pushed open the heavy wooden door and felt like I was about to step into a Wild West saloon. A thick fug of cigarette smoke hung in the air, but this being Kabul, it was sickly sweet. Instead of a pianist on a honky-tonk, Justin Timberlake yelled from invisible speakers. Or maybe Justin was actually there — it was impossible to see much beyond the end of your nose.
The whole of the ground floor seemed to consist of one huge room. Old sofas and armchairs were dotted around on bare, beer-soaked floorboards. Dining- and coffee-tables had been stained and bleached by years of spillages and cigarette burns.
There was a sea of faces, and every guy was white. The girls looked Pakistani. Some were dressed in green Russian uniforms with drunken-sailor type hats. Some were in saris. The rest catered for other tastes as they tottered round serving drinks in high heels, ripped fishnets and tight mini-skirts.
There were lots of wide eyes, sunk behind gaunt cheeks, just like in any other opium den on the planet.
60
I ventured further in and found it wasn't just whores and punters having fun. Small monkeys, about a foot from head to tail, jumped about the place dressed in little camouflage uniforms. Miniature plastic AKs were strapped to their backs. They jumped on tables and grabbed drinks or cigarettes. One was smoking a joint. Another soaked its face fur with beer as it tried to drink from a can.
I headed towards the one boy who looked as though he still paid fleeting visits to my planet. He had a straggly beard that came down to his chest and made him look like he should be taking over Middle Earth from the Good Wizard. His hair was tied back in a ponytail. He stood behind a makeshift bar in the corner.
Bottles were stacked on shelves. Pictures, flags, college pennants, all sorts were plastered across the walclass="underline" Union flags, Stars and Stripes, soccer teams, American-football sides. A poster showed Mel Gibson doing his Braveheart thing. His face was peppered with 9mm holes. The ceiling was the same. There were so many strike marks it looked like a dartboard. This room had seen a few party-size bursts, that was for sure. Either the president was too shit scared to shut the place down or he was a regular.
I could hear Brits, Americans, French, Italians. There were other languages I couldn't make out over the music, but then I heard one I did recognize, even with Justin going full blast.
The Serbs sat on a sofa; each had a whore on his lap. Mr Sheen's fifteen-year-old wore a sari that was up round her waist. Top Lip's was in Red Star gear. She kept stroking his long greasy hair away from his sweating face. Mr Sheen pushed his girl out the way so he could gob off to his mate. Then he leant back and shouted at a group of three guys I took to be Americans. He jabbed a finger at them and repeated himself, but they ignored him and carried on laughing and drinking.
The whole lot were probably freelancers, bounty-hunters drawn here from all over the world like gold prospectors to the Klondike. Only here the prize was Osama, al-Qaeda and any of the Taliban leadership. There was still a price of something like fifty million dollars on bin Laden's head, but most of these guys wouldn't have a clue where to start.
I'd played with the idea of coming here myself for a while, until I did a little digging. It soon became clear I'd be hanging around like this lot. Some had resorted to séances in one of Osama's old houses in the city, the one he'd used to accommodate wives number one and two. They'd legged it when the Americans started bombing, leaving behind just an old bra and a kettle.
Their landlord, the next-door neighbour, wasn't happy. Bin Laden owed him five hundred dollars in rent so he had to make up the cash somehow. He came up with the ingenious idea of installing a few local Mystic Megs, lighting a couple of candles and charging bounty-hunters through the nose to come and get guidance from the other side.