I invited my National Directorate of Security neighbor, who we'll call A, over for dinner last night. While we waited for his friend B, A told me how his current job training special forces is much more laid back then when he was doing recon operations, speaking the English he'd learned living for years in the US. For the latter, he and usually one other guy would go to a village posing as travelers and then if they found who they decided were insurgency they called their team in from 2-3 klicks away. Sometimes his partner doing recon would be a white boy (his words) with a beard who pretended to be a mute. That had raised suspicions on occasions, and a few times he and his partner had to run for it, hole up in an irrigation ditch or other cover while backup came. He showed me a couple scars where he'd gotten nicked by bullets. That's the thing: if it's not your time yet you're not going to die, he said. Simple as that.
A's Pashtun but doesn't trust other Pashtuns. Tajiks and Hazaras and Uzbeks are cool; like his Hazara servants at work they do whatever he tells them to, but Pashtuns don't take any shit and don't like strangers. But if you're their guest, in with their family, then it's all good. I should come back with him to his home town in Paktia, he told me (maybe in 10 years, I said). He went back there sometimes and it was no problem even passing through Taliban checkpoints on the road as long as you could say where you were from and what family you belonged to. Because even the Taliban were afraid to fuck with you in case your family decided to take revenge. Last time he was back his uncle showed him weapons cache he had for his household of about 20 males and 10 females who could fight. Not just AK's but RPGs, mortars. The uncle had asked A to buy him a couple .50 caliber heavy machine-guns when he had a chance.
Of course A told everyone back home that he worked helping out orphans in Kabul, and not for NDS.
B was also NDS but had learned his English wholly from the American soldiers he worked with. He had something like a southern accent and ended many of his sentence with Nigga you know what I'm sayin'? or Nigga pleeaase. A and B had worked together on many an operation. The shit we've done, man, you wouldn't believe it, A laughed. You should write a book, I told him. Write it in English and it's be a bestseller: Memoirs from Afghan Special Ops. Nah man, he said, I try writing thing but I get pissed off, you know. I've smashed a few of my laptops when they screwed up on me.
Back at their place I was introduced to C, who looked pious and maybe 40 in white shalwar kamiz and beard. As C kneaded a lump of hashish, A told me how C had spent 14 years in prison in Germany and 7 in Russia. He became like the president of the jail in Germany, A told me. What was he in jail for? I wanted to know. Lot's of things. He's killed so many people, A chuckled. He would go a factory and tell the owner to give him 200,000 dollars, and if the factory owner told him to fuck off he'd come later and kill him, or even come back and put all the people working at the factory in vans and take them away.
6 years ago he was transferred back to Afghanistan in shackles and immediately released. Now for the past 5 years he had been trying to build a legal case against the German government,demanding 40 million euros in damages for wrongful imprisonment. He did all the bad shit they said he did, they just don't have the documents and proof now, A explained. C had a big binder of documents in clear plastic sleeves from the case and gave me a few to look over. He told me he'd gotten signatures and backing for his case from lots of important people in Afghanistan, even President Karzai (I really should have asked to see that letter). He told me he was very hopeful because Germany is trying to maintain very good relations with Afghanistan and they wouldn't want his case to spoil that.
C half-seriously started negotiating in Pashto with A and B about the provision of security once he got his 40 million euros. A switched over to English for my benefit: We're telling him he better give us a lot of money for security, otherwise we'll just take it all. He laughed.
C used to be a great kickboxer too, B mentioned to me. He fights mean, A added. C asked me if I'd like to write an article about him. Maybe, I said, You have a very interesting story. Yes, it's an interesting case from the perspective of human rights, he replied. I don't want to get murdered for writing in a way that displeases him, but I might mention this to journalist friends to see if they want to take up the story.
C later decided, however, that I should write a screenplay instead. He could invest a lakh (100,000) or two of euros of his court winnings into the production and then make 60 lakhs in profits selling distribution writes in Asia and Europe and Africa. Books and articles had too low of a profit margin.
Another two friends showed up later on, one of whom didn't seem to speak Pashto and the other I'd met before briefly and was surprised to now have me introduced as an Iranian. Oh I thought you were Herati, he said. That made me feel good.
They brought some hashish but after taking first tokes and passing it around refused to take the joint back after it had circled around. They won't smoke with us because we've been drinking alcohol, A explained to me.
It turned out that not only C but and A and B spoke good Russian and had spent time in Moscow, for what I didn't pry. B missed blondes--he used to have 10 girlfriends at a time back in Russia. A wanted to know about all the honeys who were always coming over to my house. He sat at the upstairs window smoking sometimes and knew who all visited who on our block. And I'd better invite him over and share next time I had bitches over, he joked, otherwise he and B would come knocking demanding documentation from them. They laughed and bumped fists. We're just fucking with you man, B reassured me, We're really humble actually. We're country boys in the city, you know?
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