Free Chaos in Kabul by Gérard de Villiers Page B

road again. When it stopped after what felt like halfan hour, he felt both relieved and frightened, wondering what would happen next.
    The trunk was opened and two men helped him out. When one removed his improvised hood, he saw the lights of Kabul in the distance. They were at a farm on a hillside, and the air was chilly.
    His kidnappers, who were still masked, hustled him around behind what looked like a farmhouse and brought him to a well. They looped a thick rope around his chest, lifted him over the edge of the well, and pushed him out. Malko found himself dangling in space, being lowered along damp stone walls.
    The descent didn’t take long. Five or six yards down, his feet touched the bottom of the well. It was dry, thank God!
    They untied the loop and pulled up the rope.
    In the darkness, Malko could make out a man sitting on the ground: a youngish Afghan with a full beard and deep-set eyes. He gave a surprised look at Malko, who clearly wasn’t Afghan, and said something in Dari. Malko answered in English, but the man shook his head. He didn’t understand. As they sat looking at each other, suddenly everything went black. The kidnappers had covered the well, plunging them in darkness.
    Malko shivered. The temperature was icy. He would’ve wanted to talk to his companion in misfortune, but the man crouched against the wall seemed to be dozing.
    How long would he be down here?
    Why the kidnapping?
    And above all, would anyone be looking for him?
    His head bandaged, a shaken Darius told Nelson Berry what had happened.
    “They were waiting for us,” he said. “They knew we had money. They were bandits.”
    “What about the car?”
    “They drove off in it.”
    The South African couldn’t understand it. There were certainly robbers in Kabul, but how could they know Malko was carrying a lot of money? It was very strange.
    Berry was now out five hundred thousand dollars in cash, plus the armored Corolla, which was easily worth a hundred thousand. Why kidnap Malko? There was only one possible answer: ransom. So the kidnappers would be demanding ransom, but from whom? Malko didn’t live in Kabul, and they didn’t know about his connection with the CIA. Nor would the Corolla’s license plate lead them to Berry. The car was registered in the name of an Afghan who lived in the Emirates.
    “Darius, we’ve got to get all the people we know working on this,” he said. “I’ll go see my pals in the police. Maybe they’ll know something.”
    Warren Michaelis dialed Malko repeatedly, but the calls immediately went to voice mail. He also tried the Serena, but Malko hadn’t been seen at the hotel since that morning. Clearly something had happened to him, but no assaults on foreigners in Kabul had been reported. The local hospitals would have noted the presence of a non-Afghan.
    “We’re going to the NDS,” said Michaelis.
    That was the only agency with the technical means of locating Malko’s cell phone. Their Russian training would come in handy.
    Nelson Berry was in a funk. Despite his many connections, he hadn’t gotten any information. There had been no sign of Malkosince that morning. Just then, his cell rang. Maybe he would learn something, he thought.
    A rough-sounding man spoke, in Pashto.
    “Is Malko Linge your pal?”
    He so butchered the Austrian’s name that Berry had to make him repeat it twice before he could answer yes.
    “We have him,” said the man. “If you don’t give us fifty million afghanis, we’ll cut his throat. You have until tomorrow. After that …”
    The man hung up.
    Berry looked at his cell. They must have found his number in Malko’s phone. But they couldn’t know that Malko wasn’t actually a pal of his.
    The South African quickly sized up the situation. He had no intention of paying any ransom, and it probably wouldn’t do any good anyway. There would be bargaining, of course, but Berry wasn’t prepared to waste even a tenth of that sum in a lost cause.
    He wondered