Free Farishta by Patricia McArdle Page B

had my own Land Cruiser.
    Fuzzy, I quickly learned, was a man of few words. He nodded toward Jenkins, who responded to the rest of my questions.
    “Yes, ma’am, it’s owned by your government, and it’s been at the PRT since before we arrived. The American bloke who was here before you used it. As you can see, it’s not in the best of shape. We’ve patched the seats with duct tape and the engine gets pretty loud when we go over sixty-five clicks, so we calls it the Beast.”
    I could hear the Beast growling as it idled next to us on the tarmac. I also noticed that one of its windows was partially open, something that would not be possible in the hardened vehicles they used in Kabul.
    “Isn’t it armored? ” I asked, embarrassed at the slight quaver in my voice. I had grown accustomed to the protective bubble in which embassy personnel existed in Kabul. I didn’t want these soldiers to see how nervous I was, but I found it impossible to conceal my anxiety.
    “Oh, no, ma’am. We don’t use them vehicles up here. No need. No one’s shooting at us—at least right now,” Jenkins added with a grin. Fuzzy did not smile at this remark.
    “That’s why we don’t wear the Kevlar or the helmets, ma’am. The locals actually seem to like us, and the colonel, he wants us to drive around waving and smiling, weapons on the floor, passing out free newspapers in the local lingo. Can’t do that in those armored buckets with the windows glued shut. And they’re fucking heavy—impossible to maneuver on muddy roads in the mountains. Lord help us if we had to drive one of those two-ton fuckers through a river or near the edge of a cliff.”
    Jenkins stopped speaking and looked at me, his eyes wide, fingers pressed to his lips. “Sorry, apologies for the language, ma’am. We’re not used to having the ladies around.”
    “Don’t worry about your language, but I’d rather you didn’t call me ma’am. It’s Angela.”
    “Right, Angela,” replied Jenkins as he waited impatiently for me to climb into the Beast, which was growing angrier and louder. I felt the knot in my throat pushing up, but I was not going to show any weakness in front of these young soldiers.
    “Would you mind turning off the motor for a minute, Jenkins ? ”
    Rolling his eyes at my request, he reached in and pulled the key out of the ignition. The Beast shuddered violently then grew still. I sucked in a lungful of icy mountain air, released it slowly, and began to focus on my surroundings the way Mike, the Special Forces medic, had shown me the day I’d lost it during first-aid class. A blanket of silence settled over the empty runway, magnifying the vastness of the place and making me feel suddenly, inexplicably safer.
    The absence of machine-generated noise was having an equally profound effect on Jenkins and Fuzzy. They were both staring up at three raptors circling high above us, black chevrons against an impossibly blue sky. The only sounds were the rustling of the wind through the dry grasses along the runway and the raptors calling to one another overhead.
    “Ma’am—Angela, we’ll need to load up,” whispered Jenkins, tapping me softly on the shoulder and bringing to a close my few moments of serenity. “We’re driving back through town with vehicles coming from the Forward Support Base. They’ll be arriving any minute.”
    As he switched on the ignition and the Beast began to protest like a camel struggling to its feet under a heavy load, a convoy of three PRT vehicles rumbled by us. We followed them off the airfield, leaving it as we had found it, silent and empty with the raptors circling overhead.

TWELVE
    January 4, 2005 ✦ PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM, MAZĀR-I-SHARĪF
    Long before sunrise the following morning, I was startled out of a deep sleep by three soldiers running down the metal staircase outside my room. Their elongated shadows backlit by the security lights on the roof of the PRT danced across the bedsheet I had