Free Licensed to Kill by Robert Young Pelton Page A

border. Where my GPS tells me there should be a border, I see only a flat expanse ringed by low scrub-covered hills. There are tea shops, tiny wooden boxes that pass as convenience stores, and clusters of Afghans sitting around on their haunches in typical fashion. Taxi drivers wait for customers, friends wait for friends, and relatives pass the time chatting and laughing.
    Toward the eastern side of the valley, I see a group of tall Pakistanis in sweaters and salwar kameez, and behind them a random collection of white minivans and cars. I am told that people are not allowed to drive into Pakistan but must walk across to take a Pakistani-licensed taxi. Vans pull up from both the north and south trailing white clouds of dust; families unload and walk toward us unmolested or even watched by the Pakistani soldiers. Curious as to the complete lack of interest in people crossing both to and from Afghanistan, I walk down to the gaggle of tall Pakistani soldiers to inquire.
    I assume the one with the striped stick must be in charge, and I am right. I ask him if Taliban and foreigners are coming across the border and attacking Americans in Afghanistan. “That not true,” he says convincingly. “The Afghans are lying.” Around me, about seventy Afghans squat while waiting for taxis or just watching the constant flow of people back and forth. Up on a hill on the Pakistani side of the valley is a fortification with a radio tower. The Pakistanis see me videotaping and demand that no pictures be taken, so I step back a few feet across a low gully into what I assume is Afghanistan and keep filming.
    I film van after van letting out passengers and groups of men going into Pakistan unchallenged and even unquestioned. It does not even appear that anyone is asked for identity papers by the Pakistani border guards. It makes me wonder how certain the Pakistani with the striped stick could be about his assertion that fighters are not crossing this border to attack Americans on the Afghan side. Later when I have tea with the Afghans sitting around below, they tell me that Arabs and Pakistanis from one or two hills over walk weapons in at night loaded on the backs of donkeys. The Pakistani guards appear to be symbolic and are here simply to bolster their meager wages. They’re ultimately beholden to tribal bosses back in the border towns—not to Musharraf’s central government—and the need to move or not move people across the border is decided well beyond their level of authority.
    The next day back in Khost, I walk up to a young Afghan with a Thuraya and say I want to meet the Americans. When I had asked him about visiting the border a few days before, he had told me not to go there because of the danger. Now he tells me to go there if I want to see my American friends. The difference was a cash incentive. So much for the secrecy of American-supported firebases, since I’ve now discovered the secret to locating them—just ask any young English-speaking local with an $800 satellite phone. A short cab ride later, poorly disguised as an Afghan, I arrive at the shabby hilltop firebase overlooking the pass leading from Miram Shah toward Khost.
    Coming up the hill toward the base are two armored tan Humvees, a beige camouflage pickup with an orange marker panel on top, and a brown-and-green-camouflage Land Rover, all followed by a convoy of Toyota pickup trucks overflowing with Afghan troops who wave to show off their heavy weapons and their new shooting gloves and sunglasses. So here I am watching this seven-truck convoy driving past on its way toward the nearby hilltop landing area, and I’m wondering exactly how I make contact. I jump down the sandbagged stairs to talk to the bearded commander, Shah Alam. In bad Pashto, I point to the gray helos circling around the hilltops and say “friends.” Alam squeezes me into a former Talib Toyota truck, and the Afghans and I make the convoluted journey from