In Afghanistan, she was surely right.
Herat was one of the safer cities in the country, which was to say that one might expect to get blown to pieces by an unexploded cluster bomb or be murdered by common criminals instead of having your body torn apart by a blast from a suicide bomber — though that was always a possibility as well. The Taliban generally kept their business to other parts of the country. Around here that was the south, in the scrub-filled wadis below Shindand and to the east where they smuggled opium across the border with Iran. At least that’s where they’d been when it had been his job to provide them with Russian Kalashnikovs and F1 hand grenades.
Dovzhenko’s taxi driver was somewhere in his early thirties, with the look of a man who had once been muscular and fit but was now muscular and fat. He spoke of politics, the way everyone in Afghanistan talked about such things after half a century of occupation and war. The ride into Herat would have cost around eight U.S. dollars. Dovzhenko offered the man twenty to take him through the city itself and then another five kilometers east through fields of saffron crocus and pistachio trees to the dusty village of Jebrael. The driver kept to the back roads rather than the highway, admitting that the headquarters for his old unit of the Afghan National Army was along the highway. Dovzhenko didn’t ask about the bad blood, but it was enough to make the driver spit on the floor when he mentioned the 4th Armored Brigade.
The driver was familiar with the address for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and, though he appeared to have almost as much bad blood for Russians as he did for his former employer, he took Dovzhenko to the dusty yellow building on the edge of town. The wind was blowing steadily by the time they arrived, sandblasting Dovzhenko’s skin and nearly ripping the money out of his hand as he stepped out of the vehicle. The driver snatched away the twenty and headed back the way he’d come without another word.
In front of the building, a boy of twelve or thirteen wearing shalwar kameez, the loose, pajamalike pants and long shirt ubiquitous in Afghanistan, leaned against the wall with his little sister under the swinging wood UNODC sign. They squinted at the new foreigner in the stiff wind. A moment later, a woman in a black chador came out the door and said something to the children. She shooed them past Dovzhenko, her head down. The little girl looked up at him with green eyes and smiled.
Dovzhenko shouldered his duffel and walked inside. The wooden desk in the sparse front room was clean and neat, with a single manila folder in the center. A cup of tea sat on a clay coaster beside it, half full, as if someone had just walked away. A rotating rack full of pamphlets about farming and drug addiction was the only other furniture.
The wind blew the door shut behind him with a loud crack, causing him to drop the duffel and spin instinctively. He released a pent-up sigh, cursing this awful wind.
The sound of a man’s voice carried in from somewhere in the back, gruff and confrontational. Dovzhenko opened his mouth to call out, but thought better of it. More voices, angrier now, then the muffled cry of a woman, and the clatter of furniture.
Hackles up, Dovzhenko stepped past the desk and down a dark hallway. His hand went instinctively for the Makarov, reaching inside his jacket pocket before he remembered the pistol wasn’t there. Rounding the corner into a concrete storage room, he found two men leaning over the figure of a woman. The men blocked Dovzhenko’s view, but he could see a dark blue headscarf. One of the men shoved her against some metal shelving, earning himself a slap to his ear. The other cuffed her hard in the neck, earning himself a kick to the groin.
Dovzhenko gave a shrill whistle, advancing in two bounding steps, and head-butting the nearest man in the nose the moment he turned. A second man, with a thick beard dyed gaudily red, swung at him wildly, a massive fist whirring by the Russian’s temple, missing by a fraction of an inch. Dovzhenko gave the man he’d just head-butted a donkey kick to the side of the knee, buying himself a little time. He used the momentum of a spin to plant an elbow across Redbeard’s face. The big Afghan fell flat on his back. Dovzhenko kicked him hard, once in the neck and once in the side of the head. Redbeard was out, but his partner was still upright. He hobbled on one leg, spraying bloody mist out the gash of burst skin on the bridge of his nose with each exhaled breath. His chin was up, attempting to stanch the flow. Dovzhenko punched him hard in the throat and then caught him by the face with an open palm, driving up and over, slamming him to the concrete floor. The Afghan’s eyes rolled, showing their whites. The spray of blood from his nose slowed to gurgling bubbles. Both men were surely concussed, they might even have cracked skulls, but Dovzhenko did not care. Enraged from the fight, he grabbed the man by the ears, bashing his head against the floor over and over and over. These men had attacked Maryam…
Dovzhenko shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. Ysabel. They’d attacked Ysabel.
He turned to check on her at the same moment a dark blur flew at him. Something heavy hit hard in his chest, driving him backward. Hands in front to ward off another attack, he looked down to see a dagger sticking straight out from his leather jacket.
Screeching like she was insane, Ysabel dropped to the ground, sweeping sideways with powerful legs. Dovzhenko fell, landing beside Redbeard, wondering why the dagger blade didn’t hurt more than it did. He yanked it out as he rolled, attempting to evade the woman’s lashing feet that seemed bent on caving in his skull.
Dovzhenko had been kicked before by people who knew very well how to kick. Instead of rolling away, he rolled toward her, trapping the lead foot as it plowed into him. He kept rolling, leverage from the weight of his body slamming her backward. She hit the ground with a sickening thud. She tried to scream but managed nothing but a croak.
It was only then, her diaphragm too paralyzed to draw a breath, that she remained still long enough for Dovzhenko to get a good look at her.
Long black hair spilled from a blue hijab. Ebony eyes stared up at him over prominent cheekbones. Her nose wasn’t too large, though she probably thought it so, and it had a slight hook to it. The most remarkable feature about her was the scars. With the scarf pulled away he could see many on the bronze skin of her neck. They were not ugly, far from it. A fine white line to the right of a perfect cupid’s bow gave her lips a perpetual pout. The rest simply added to the smoldering intensity of her demeanor.
Dovzhenko remembered the dagger and kicked it out of her reach, his hand searching for the wound under his leather jacket.
“You could have killed me,” he said, withdrawing Maryam’s notebook, panting. The tip of the blade had nicked his bottom rib, but the cardboard-and-leather cover had prevented it from reaching his heart. He wasn’t bleeding badly, at least not that he could see.
“My auntie telephoned to say that a Russian was looking for me.” Her English was perfect. Almost, but not quite, British.
“I never told her I was Russian,” Dovzhenko said. “Your auntie has a good ear.” The aggressive phone call had at least put her on guard, if it had almost cost him his life.
“What are you doing with Maryam’s book?”
Dovzhenko closed his eyes. “I am afraid I bring bad news. Maryam—”