Free Chaos in Kabul by Gérard de Villiers

to make contact with certain members of the Taliban.”
    “That would explain it,” she said. “Contacts between the Taliban and the Americans are Karzai’s nightmare. If the NDS is suspicious of you, watch your step. They can mess you up in very nasty ways.”
    Which was pretty much what Warren Michaelis had told him.
    “I’ll be careful,” Malko promised, “and we’ll be discreet. Do they have ways to retaliate against you?”
    “In Afghanistan, if the president doesn’t like you, anything’s possible. They can expel you from one day to the next, even if your papers are in order. I’d hate if that happened. Anyway, there you have it; I wanted to warn you. I’m going back to work now.”
    “Why does the NDS handle this sort of problem?”
    “It’s the only agency that hasn’t been infiltrated by the Taliban. The NDS answers directly to Karzai. Its agents are his muscle, and they’re good at their job. If the Taliban ever come back to power, those guys better hop on the first plane out of here. Otherwise they’ll all be hanged, after being tortured.”
    Which didn’t tell Malko who had tipped the NDS off about him.
    The young South African woman was looking at him anxiously. “I really have to leave you now,” she said. “I need to finish fixing that car, and it’s gonna take me half the night. My driver will take you back. Be careful! You can’t trust anybody here.”
    She kissed him, pressing her body against his, and smiled.
    “I’d still like to enjoy you a little more while you’re in Kabul.”
    Malko had been turning in circles since the previous evening. He’d had no word from Michaelis, and without any money, he couldn’t contact Nelson Berry. He didn’t feel like going out for a stroll, and the Serena’s nonalcoholic bar was depressing, so he spent his time shuttling between his room and the dining room. Finally, his phone beeped: a text message.
    A
courier will be at your place in an hour. WM.
That had to be the money destined for Berry. Malko dialed the South African’s poppy palace, and an Afghan answered in strongly accented English: “Commander not here. In Wardak until tomorrow.”
    A short time later, a young CIA case officer brought Malko a briefcase full of hundred-dollar bills in plastic wrappers from the Arab Bank in Dubai.
    “It’s five hundred thousand dollars, sir,” he announced. “I have a receipt for you to sign.”
    Malko initialed the form next to his name. As much as anything, the CIA was one big bureaucracy.
    “Did you go to Dubai to get this money?”
    “Affirmative, sir. It’s easiest, and we come back through Bagram. There are special flights that aren’t subject to Afghan inspection. I make the trip often.”
    Once alone, Malko closed the briefcase, wondering what he was going to do with the money until the next day. The safe in his hanging closet was much too small. He wound up stowing the briefcase inside his suitcase, which he locked. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
    He now had just one meeting left: his dinner with NDS agent Luftullah Kibzai.
    Inside, the Sufi was as dark as ever. Malko sat down at the same table as before. There were even fewer people in the restaurant than there had been the last time.
    Kibzai showed up ten minutes later.
    “I’m taking a big risk by contacting you,” he said in a tense voice the moment he was seated.
    “Why?” asked Malko.
    “I was able to see part of your file. You were right; you were targeted. We have been tracking you since you arrived. A team was waiting for you at the airport.”
    Malko felt an unpleasant prickling on the backs of his hands.
    So it wasn’t his visit to Musa Kotak that had sparked the surveillance, he realized. And that raised a lot of questions.
    “Why would they do that?”
    Kibzai lowered his voice even further.
    “I don’t know. Our agents don’t usually follow CIA people; there are too many of them. You were targeted specially. The order came from the head