“Tell me about your father,” said Jonathan. “How old is he?”
“I would guess seventy. It is his stomach. It gives him much pain. He has not eaten in a week.”
“When did the pain begin?”
“Several months ago,” said Haq, “but it has worsened in the last week.”
“Has he suffered any blows or injuries?”
“We are warriors. Nothing more than the usual.”
“Does he speak English?” asked Jonathan.
“He thinks I’m a traitor for saying hello,” said Haq, laughing suddenly.
The driver laughed too, and Haq was quiet.
Jonathan asked a few more questions, but Haq had lost interest. The fighter fired off a series of commands to his driver, then without warning leaned across Jonathan and cuffed the man on the head. Jonathan said nothing. It was not the first time he had witnessed a violent and unprovoked exchange. He guessed that Haq had warned his driver against discussing any of what he had witnessed.
The steep cliffs fell away and the road fed into a narrow clearing. One hundred meters ahead, Jonathan spotted a number of vehicles parked beneath a camouflaged canopy. A group of men ran toward them, crying “Allahu akhbar.” God is great. It was the Afghans’ all-purpose expression, used to signify victory and defeat, happiness and heartbreak.
The truck halted. Haq climbed out and Jonathan followed, asking, “Where’s Hamid?”
Haq scratched his cheek with a long nail, as if reconsidering his promise, then walked to the last truck in line and hauled Hamid out of the flatbed. “Here’s your assistant,” he said, shoving Hamid to the ground. “A Hazara. Weak.”
Jonathan helped him to his feet. “You okay?”
Hamid brushed the dirt off his pants. “Thanks for looking out for me.”
“Yeah, well,” said Jonathan, “I got you into this.”
Haq walked away, and Hamid fished in his pocket for his phone.
“Put that thing away,” said Jonathan. “He’ll kill you if he sees that.”
“No reception,” said Hamid, thumbing a few keys angrily. “Crap.”
“What did you expect? Now put it away.”
Hamid stuffed the phone into his pants and looked at the sky, shaking his head.
A dozen men crowded the area beneath the canopy. Several wandered close to peer at Jonathan, one or two rushing forward to touch his sleeve as if he were some kind of talisman.
“Where are these guys coming from?” Jonathan asked.
“Over there.” Hamid pointed to a hole cut into the mountainside. A crude door fashioned from worn floorboards hung open. “We’re in Tora Bora. There are caves all over the place.”
Tilting his head, Jonathan gazed up through the netting. A narrow band of sky was visible between the towering granite aeries. From high above, the clearing was just one more inaccessible ravine among thousands. He swallowed. It would be impossible to find them.
Sultan Haq cut a swath through the men. “My father,” he said, gesturing for Jonathan and Hamid to follow. “If you please.”
The warlord pressed toward the cave, ducking his head as he passed through the door, and disappeared into a murky twilight. Jonathan walked close behind him, his shoulder bag of medical equipment feeling heavier than its weight. Inside the cave he slowed to allow his eyes to get accustomed to the dark. The dark, however, was only temporary, an anteroom walled with heavy curtains. Haq parted the curtains and stepped into a large, dimly lit chamber the size of a school auditorium. “This way.”
Jonathan noticed at once that a great deal of work had been done to make the cave habitable. The walls had been smoothed and the ceiling raised to a height of five meters. Somewhere there was a generator, because a track of lightbulbs had been drilled into the rock overhead. The air was bitterly cold. Supplies were stacked neatly against the walls, food in one corner, ammunition in another. Here and there men slept on the floor, wrapped in woolen blankets.
Haq walked across the chamber and advanced down a short passage. The ceiling was lower here, the walls uneven, rock jutting out at sharp angles. Every few meters a room opened up to their right or left. The first held sacks of rice marked with a NATO stencil. In the second, several men were sleeping on the dirt floor. Something caught Jonathan’s eye. He was looking at a pair of muddy combat boots sticking out of a pair of desert fatigues. Squinting, he made out not one but three soldiers, lying side by side. He couldn’t miss the American flag stitched on the shoulders of their uniforms. A guard sat in the corner, an AK-47 propped against his knee.
Haq peered over his shoulder. “Prisoners,” he said. “None of your concern.”
Hamid shoved Jonathan from behind, and Jonathan turned to see if he was all right. “Move,” said Hamid, in an unfamiliar and threatening voice.
Jonathan hurried to catch up to Haq.
The Afghan’s father lay on a bed of colorful blankets in the next room. Haq had said he was seventy, but his beard was black throughout and his eyes were alive and vital. Only the papery texture of his pale skin testified to his years. Sultan Haq dropped to his knees, and it was apparent that he was pleading with the old man to allow the American doctor to examine him.
“It’s Abdul Haq,” whispered Hamid to Jonathan. “Once he was minister of defense with the Taliban government. During the war he captured a brigade of his own soldiers crossing the lines to fight for the Northern Alliance. Eight hundred men. To set an example, he beheaded them all. Today he’s commander of all Taliban forces in the north and chief of their intelligence network.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Jonathan.
“Everyone knows,” answered Hamid, dark eyes flashing.
“Dr. Ransom, you will come,” said Sultan Haq, waving him close. “My father agrees to let you treat him. I will be watching.”
Jonathan looked at the armed guards to his left and right. He set his medical bag on the ground and kneeled to the right of Abdul Haq.
“You have pain in your stomach?” asked Jonathan. “Show me where, please.”
Sultan Haq translated and his father pointed to a spot a few inches below the rib cage. Jonathan unbuttoned the man’s shirt. The abdomen was visibly distended, the flesh a purplish pink. He ran two fingers over the discolored area. The old man tensed. His eyes widened, but he uttered not a sound.
“It’s all right to tell me if it hurts,” said Jonathan.
“A man does not howl,” said Sultan Haq.
“It will help me localize the problem.”
“Surely you can discover the problem yourself.”
Jonathan took the old man’s blood pressure, temperature, and pulse. All readings were well above normal.
“What is the matter with my father?” asked Sultan Haq.
“Without an X-ray, it’s impossible to be sure. My guess is that he’s suffering from an acute abdomen caused by a peritoneal abscess. That means there’s a tear in his colon or stomach that has allowed bacteria to escape into the abdominal cavity. Normally, if it goes untreated this long, it kills you. Since he isn’t dead, it means that his system has walled off the infection.”
“He is a strong man.”
“Yes, he is. But he has a big pocket of pus in there that needs to get out. And I mean now.” Jonathan looked at Abdul Haq and did his best to offer a comforting smile. The old warrior scowled in return, his eyes wishing Jonathan a long and painful death.
“What can you do?” asked Haq.
“We need to take him to a hospital in Kabul. The sooner, the better.”
“That’s not a possibility,” responded Haq. “I ask you again, what can you do?”
Jonathan sat back on his haunches, running a hand over his mouth. “I don’t have the equipment to perform that kind of surgery. Look around you. These aren’t exactly sanitary conditions.”
“I didn’t bring you up the mountain to do nothing.”
“Take him to a hospital and he’ll be better in two days.”
“You will heal him here, now.”
“I will not harm your father,” said Jonathan. “He needs proper medical care.”