Yellow Rain

To Glenda, always on my mind

1

THE DEADLY DROPS

Shamsulla rolled his aching body to the left, hoping against hope that he could move off the sharp, rocky projection that was pressing into his bladder. His knees and elbows felt as if every layer of skin had deserted him, leaving only his protruding bones to suffer.

He lifted his head slightly, drawing in a small bit of cooler air to relieve the heat and stench under his camouflage cover. For five hours, he had lain nearly motionless under the piece of camel's hide that stretched over him, its blotchy, brown color blending in perfectly with the rocks and dust of the hillside. Although the hide had been carefully scraped to remove every remnant of flesh, the oily residue that remained within made it unmistakable that the previous occupant of the hide had been an aging camel.

Shamsulla had personally checked the hiding holes of each of his three dozen mujahedin to ensure that their concealment was perfect. Each man was assigned a place behind or between rock projections, then covered with an animal hide or a pattu—a brown and gray blanket. Shamsulla had then scattered small amounts of crushed stone and dust over the covers until the shapes had merged completely with the barren landscape. His men were invisible to even the most careful scrutiny with binoculars. Shamsulla was confident none of his men would move and destroy his plan. He had handpicked the most dependable battle veterans for this operation.

The fighters had taken their positions at first light after walking four nights through the rugged hills east of Qandahar. Shamsulla had meticulously chosen this position weeks earlier. He had scouted for a week before picking a place along the highway ten miles north of the city where the road ran through one of the countless passes and gorges. The ambush point was bounded on the east side by a high rock face and on the west by a flat, dusty plain.

At nineteen, Shamsulla was regarded by some of the mujahedin as too young to lead a fighting force of guerrillas. The men who waited in ambush with him knew differently. Shamsulla had been fighting the Russians and the Afghan army since he was twelve years old. Where older men were cautious, Shamsulla was bold. His men called him kiftan, meaning captain, and they boasted that their leader had true tureh—unlimited courage—in his blood. They were fond of saying that Shamsulla had cold water in his veins instead of blood, a tribute to his calm, unflappable leadership in battle.

Shamsulla constantly put other leaders to shame, striking much closer to Russian enclaves than any other guerrilla leader and with a sense of daring that had earned him the nickname, Mohammed's Sword.

Not all of Shamsulla's men were among the rocks. One was lying flat on the bed of a burned-out truck that sat at the edge of the roadway. The big, German-made machine had been destroyed years ago by a guerrilla force and its charred skeleton left to slowly disintegrate.

Shamsulla had placed his most trusted lieutenant, Ahmad, in the truck with two lightweight, Chinese-made antitank rockets. The devices were so small a person would guess them to be ineffective, but at close range they could penetrate the thickest armor. The task of firing the rockets at close range required steady nerves, and Ahmad had such nerves. True enough, Ahmad was an enigma.

Away from the battlefield, he was given to unpredictable behavior, such as wandering alone through the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He didn't associate much with other adult males, but preferred to organize silly games for the children in the refugee camp, often playing the role of a blind idiot who rages against the children tormenting him with sticks. He would sometimes weep during prayer.

Shamsulla's confidence in his lieutenant was not shaken by these matters. He knew that Ahmad carried an enormous burden of grief since the Soviets had destroyed his village. When Ahmad returned home from a two-month campaign, he could not find a single living person. He identified his family mostly from rotted bits of clothing on decaying bodies hastily pushed into shallow graves by a band of fighters who had passed through the village.

While most men sought refuge from the horrors of battle, with Ahmad it was the reverse. He sought refuge from the horrors in his mind by throwing himself into battle. It was the only time he found relief from his inner pain. When he was given the chance to kill Russians, Ahmad's behavioral quirks vanished. He was both cunning and fearless, and Shamsulla trusted him with the most difficult and dangerous assignments.

The guerrilla leader moved his body back to the right, still seeking the soft spot in the rock that wasn't there. He had to urinate very badly, adding to his suffering. His own human weakness infuriated him. No matter how often he emptied his bladder before a battle, it always refilled immediately and plagued him. It was a worse problem than the heat and foul air under the camel hide and the sand flies that had detected his warmth and were making a breakfast of his flesh and blood.

He squinted and gazed down the highway once more, trying to locate any discernible images through the heat waves of the late-morning sun. He could see only a brilliant glare and a scorching wall that looked like a translucent veil suspended from the sky. He was being slowly cooked under the hide and knew that his men were suffering the same torture. His water bag was propped up on a rock near his face, and he occasionally nudged the wooden spout to his mouth to suck in a bit of the warm liquid. He wanted to drink it all, but resisted the urge, not knowing how long he would have to remain in his hiding place. He might have to stay until nightfall if the convoy he expected did not appear. To run out of water would be a reckless act, unworthy of a chieftain.

His sweating hands loosely held the Russian-made Kalashnikov AK-47 automatic rifle that he had carried for the past two years. He had come by it easily enough—a deserter from the Afghan army had simply handed it over to him when Shamsulla's unit had met the man walking toward Pakistan. The soldier had politely declined the invitation to join this guerrilla unit. He was a Tadzhik and would not have felt comfortable fighting alongside a band of Pakhtun freedom fighters. Not even the Russian invasion could heal ancient rivalries. However, the man had surrendered the weapon without much argument and had once again trudged off toward the border.

Shamsulla quickly developed great trust in the rifle he had liberated. Its parts were loosely fitted together, not tightly assembled like those of the American M-16. While dirt might jam an M-16 by getting into a close-fitting spot, the AK-47 was a rattling slop gun that kept on working despite dust or mud among its moving parts. Shamsulla hoped he would have more AK-47s at the end of this day. Fifteen of his men were armed with older French, German and American rifles dating back to World War II. Two men still carried handmade, single-shot rifles that belonged in an eighteenth-century museum. Such weapons were totally ineffective for ambush tactics. An ambush had to be short and vicious, employing overwhelming firepower in the first few seconds.

He considered urinating in his pants and accepting the derision his men might heap upon him. He made a mental promise that if the convoy did not appear within thirty minutes, he would do it.

The guerrilla leader tried to think of ways to pass the tune. Time can be a terrible enemy of the human mind, for unlike the body, the mind cannot be idle. A man simply has to think of something. He tried to imagine if other warriors had lain in ambush where he now lay. Shamsulla knew a bit of history, but not much. His minimal education had taken place inside a dark, foreboding hut where he and five other boys had received basic instruction in religion. His sisters had received even less education at the hands of a stern matron, who had warned them against temptations of the flesh.

Shamsulla knew that many invaders had passed along this route. Alexander the Great had supposedly built a small monument—a small compliment to himself—to mark his passing, although no one knew where it was. The Huns had marauded through the valleys until the fierce Afghan tribesmen made it too costly for them. The British had tried to subdue the rugged people of the rocks and had failed miserably. The Russians were having some success, but not without cost. They relied upon their air power, showing great reluctance to engage the Afghans in close combat in the mountains towering above the fertile valleys below. Shamsulla knew perfectly well that the Soviet objective was to turn the entire country into a wasteland wedged between the U.S.S.R. and the frightening Islamic tide to the south. The Soviets wanted nothing to grow, nothing to live and nothing to spread disaffection among the Muslims within their borders.

Shamsulla's village had suffered the fate of thousands of villages. The houses were bombed flat, the fields sown with mines dropped from the air so that they could not be farmed. The mines were small, painted light brown and very hard to see. At first the farmers tried to stay, working the fields at night to avoid being attacked by helicopter gunships. But at night they could not see the mines, and both men and animals were blown to pieces trying to plant and harvest. Shamsulla's father and uncle had both died tending their fields.

There had been no choice but to leave. Carrying what possessions they could, he and his mother and sisters had joined the other villagers and made the long trek to Pakistan and into one of the depressing, ever-growing camps that sprawled along the border.

At the age of twelve, Shamsulla's childhood was over and his manhood had begun. He could not remember ever owning a toy.

His thoughts were interrupted by the noise of a helicopter passing overhead. He could not see it, but his trained ears told him it was a Hind—a Russian attack helicopter—on patrol. He hoped his men were motionless, because Russian crews shot at anything that looked even slightly suspicious.

As the sound of the helicopter faded away, he heard a different noise. He knew instantly it was the right one.

Lifting his head very slowly, he looked down the road and focused on the dark objects slowly coming out of the glare, raising small plumes of dust along the edge of the highway. He began to count the shapes as they appeared.

His spies in the Afghan army had told him there would be six vehicles, and his eyes needed to confirm their reports. His lips formed what might have been called a tiny smile if, indeed, Shamsulla ever smiled. Although many Afghans had deserted the Soviet-controlled Afghan army, others stayed in order to provide a more important service to the freedom fighters—information. The Russians knew that half the Afghans in the army were actively supporting the guerrillas, but there was nothing they could do about it. They needed the Afghan army to maintain the pretense that they were assisting a legitimate government to fight an American-sponsored revolt.

Shamsulla knew almost everything his enemy was planning right down to the last detail.

This small convoy was to resupply the Russian garrison at Qandahar with munitions, particularly rockets for their helicopter gunships. The Russian pilots and gunners had been less than frugal recently and had expended rockets at a feckless rate. The air fleet was dangerously low on supply and Shamsulla hoped to keep it that way.

The line of vehicles seemed to approach with infuriating slowness, as if they were on a leisurely outing. Shamsulla guessed that the convoy commander was trying to reduce the amount of dust he and his men must eat by driving slowly, confident that they were well beyond the striking range of any guerrilla force. As Shamsulla slowly moved his automatic rifle into firing position, he could almost feel his enemy's complacency.

The plan had been rehearsed over and over again. It would be Ahmad who would spring the trap shut. Ahmad was closest to the enemy and would be able to make a last-minute decision about whether to attack or allow the convoy to pass. There could be no surprises. If something was amiss, such as the presence of tanks within the column, they would cancel the attack. The guerrillas would then have to wait for darkness before they could fade into the hills. Disappointment was no stranger, but Mohammed's Sword did not recklessly waste his men's lives in hopeless attacks.

Shamsulla looked over the sights of his rifle and studied the vehicles carefully as they came into view. Despite the dust clouds, he could see the first three clearly. Luckily, the lead vehicle was just an armored car, not a tank. Small and lightly armed, it was little more than a scout car.

The second was a troop carrier with firing ports on the sides. There most likely were infantry inside, perhaps eight or nine men.

Shamsulla raised his head a fraction higher, and with an expert eye studied the third vehicle. It was a heavy truck, with the oversize tires that the Soviet army favored. The giant wheels enabled the vehicle to keep traction in waist-deep mud, a necessary element of design the Soviets had learned in their war against the Germans.

The guerrilla leader could scarcely make out the remaining three vehicles, but they all appeared to be trucks, their boxes covered with canvas.

Russian or Afghan soldiers? Shamsulla didn't much care. The advantage of fighting the Afghan army was that they fought badly and were easily defeated. The advantage of lighting the Soviet army was that killing them was more pleasurable. Either way, it promised to be a rewarding day.

The lead vehicle slowed as it approached the burned-out truck, then stopped. Shamsulla's body tensed as he saw the small turret containing the machine gun turn toward the truck and pause. Had Ahmad done something to give away his position? The man who had painstakingly planned this attack for weeks was now concerned that a single moment of carelessness had spoiled everything. A guerrilla attack was unlike ordinary battles. It either succeeded wonderfully or failed miserably—there was seldom any middle ground. Shamsulla knew this attack could just as easily result in the annihilation of his forces as it could the Soviet convoy.

The convoy sat motionless, the low rumble of idling engines puncturing the dust and haze. Everything seemed to have gone into suspended animation.

Then, with a lurch, the lead vehicle began rolling once more. The Russian commander's head could be seen peering out of a hatch, his dust-covered face shielded by plastic goggles. Shamsulla breathed a little easier, guessing that the convoy commander was satisfied that the wreck beside the road represented no danger. Sometimes the Russians shot up such vehicles just as a precaution.

The sound of changing gears was clearly audible as the armored car gained speed and passed the rusted hulk. The convoy commander impulsively gave the derelict a last-second glance over his shoulder. He returned his attention to the road before him, then suddenly turned his entire body around in the hatch! He had detected movement out of the corner of his eye and swung around to identify what it was. It was his last view of this world.

Kneeling on the bed of the truck, behind what remained of the cab, squatted a man holding a short, dark tube on his shoulder, sighting along the top of it. He was thirty feet from the armored car and there was no mistaking the device he was holding.

The Russian officer shouted something into the mouthpiece of his helmet, and the car swung sharply to the left. It was a futile, evasive action.

Shamsulla saw the black tube belch fire from both ends. A dark object appeared through the orange and yellow flames at the front end of the rocket launcher then struck the rear of the armored car. It exploded with a dull, muffled thump that understated the actual damage that the projectile caused. The rocket did not completely explode upon impact, but produced a burning core as it melted the vehicle's outer skin. After it burned through, the rocket exploded inside the vehicle, spraying molten pieces of metal into the bodies of the hapless occupants.

Shamsulla grasped his AK-47 and leaped from under the cover of his camel's hide, exuberant to be freed from its smothering presence and in the open air once more. He sprinted down the hill toward the road, squeezing off a short burst of bullets as he ran. To his right, a dozen men were also on the run, guns firing. From above, his best marksmen were turning the truck windshields into powdered glass, killing the drivers. They did not fire indiscriminately, for Shamsulla had carefully limited each man to eighty bullets. Ammunition was never to be wasted.

On the road below, Ahmad got up from the bed of the truck. The explosion that rocked the armored car had also knocked him on his rear. He heard a loud rushing noise in his ears, then felt a sharp pain across his forehead. He shook off the temporary concussion suffered from the explosion and grasped the second rocket from the truck bed. Leaning on the cab for support, the guerrilla fighter fired the second rocket at the troop carrier, skillfully aiming at a spot just below the cupola mounted on the front. Another ball of fire—another hit. Shamsulla got a good view of the deadly missile as it tore through the carrier's steel. He could hear men's anguished screams as the inside of the vehicle was filled with white-hot shrapnel.

Fry, you sheep-screwing bastards, he cursed silently as he jumped like a mountain goat from boulder to boulder on his way to the road's edge.

The guerrilla leader chose the armored car as his target, the AK-47 ready should any head appear. He fervently wanted a target of opportunity, and found it.

The driver was struggling to escape the burning vehicle by pulling himself out through a hatch near the left front of the vehicle. Shamsulla ended his efforts with a short burst from his Kalashnikov, which removed the upper third of the man's head.

Without pausing, he climbed to the top of the vehicle and fired a burst through every open hatch he could find. Nothing moved. He observed, with much pleasure, the outline of at least two bodies on the vehicle floor amid burning fuel. He jumped clear just as the ammunition began to explode.

Shamsulla ran toward the rear of the second vehicle, nearly colliding with Ahmad as he came around the corner of the burning troop carrier. The smaller warrior looked slightly absurd—his face was blackened and his clothes had large holes burned through them. Some were still smoking.

You cannot fire the rockets so close! Shamsulla shouted at his lieutenant. Ahmad demonstrated no regrets over his reckless behavior—he shook his fist mightily in the direction of the burning car.

"Inshallah—God willing—I will get closer next time! I don't ever want to miss."

If you get closer, you can beat them over the head with it, Shamsulla replied as he poked his rifle through an open firing port in the side of the vehicle and sprayed the inside until the magazine was empty. He quickly replaced it with a full one.

There was no return fire, only the crackling sound of tiny flames licking through seams opened in the vehicle by the exploding fuel tank. The two men moved on.

There had been little resistance. The small convoy had been manned by only a small number of soldiers, and most had been killed in the first onslaught. The heaviest defense had come from the tail end of the convoy, and two mujahedin had been wounded before the Afghan soldiers in the truck were silenced. Their bodies had fallen in a heap behind the vehicle, arms and legs intertwined like twisted tree roots.

Shamsulla's men were busy pulling back the canvas tops and searching the vehicles for weapons and ammunition. To their delight, they found both.

Aha! a satisfied fighter cried aloud as he discovered that the first truck was nearly overburdened with wooden crates. The crates contained helicopter-fired rockets, the type that had killed and maimed so many Afghan warriors in past clashes. They were of no use to the guerrillas, but keeping them from Soviet hands was a grand achievement.

Brothers! Get everything useful out of those trucks, then set them on fire! Shamsulla shouted to his men, who seemed to be moving too slowly. Sometimes the mujahedin wanted to celebrate their victories on the spot instead of doing so in the safety of their hiding spots. Shamsulla had to keep his men hopping, for they tended to lose sight of the fact that the Soviets had airplanes.

Another voice cried out at the discovery of something important. Shamsulla and Ahmad trotted to the last truck to see what treasure had been found. There they discovered two grinning fighters holding a shaking, crying Afghan army sergeant by the armpits, trying to stand him on his feet. It was a failing effort because the man's legs had turned to jelly. He was waving both arms and pleading for mercy.

What shall we do with this mongrel? one of the guerrillas asked, holding a long, curved knife under the man's chin.

Shamsulla did not have time to reply before another fighter stuck his head out of the rear of the truck and called to him.

"Kiftan, you must see this," the man said grimly. Then he glared at the trembling prisoner in a manner that promised a terrible death.

Alerted, Shamsulla handed his rifle to Ahmad and, grasping the metal rungs at the rear of the truck, hauled himself up to where he could see inside. At first his eyes were puzzled by the odd-shaped mounds and lumps scattered about. They looked like laundry bags thrown in heaps. Blotches of dark red stained the mounds.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw hands and realized that the bags were bodies. They seemed small for soldiers.

The man inside the truck reached down and yanked one of the mounds upward, exposing it to full view. Shamsulla recoiled momentarily in shock, his hands gripping the metal rungs so tightly his knuckles turned white. His jaw suddenly tensed; a sharp pain seared across his chest. The object held aloft was a dead Afghan child, her limp body punctured by half a dozen bullets—mujahedin bullets most likely. The wounds were fresh, and blood still oozed from some of them. Her face was frozen in an expression of total terror. It was a picture that burned indelibly into Shamsulla's memory. The child's potential rescuers had unknowingly become her executioners. Her red and black embroidered dress told him the child was, or had been, a Turkoman.

He scarcely felt the road beneath his feet as he jumped from the truck. His vision was slightly blurred, and his ears were ringing with a strange, haunting noise as he walked slowly toward the trembling Afghan soldier. His men were fascinated by the peculiar expression on his face. They had never seen anything like it before. But they were at a disadvantage—they had not seen the contents of the truck.

Without speaking, Shamsulla struck the soldier directly on the nose, his powerful fist smashing into the bridge, turning it into a red pancake. As the man's head snapped back, Shamsulla's boot crashed into his groin with a ferocity that caused the man to fly from the grasp of his guards. The victim fell to the roadway in a ball, trying to use his hands and arms to protect himself from further injury. It was futile.

The guerrilla leader kicked him in the side, scarcely hearing the sound of ribs cracking. The next kick was to the side of the head, producing an equally resounding crack. The warriors were alarmed. They had seen their leader execute men. They had been witness to his embracing others and accepting them into his band. They had never seen him abuse a prisoner. It was not his way.

Kiftan, one man said softly as he stepped forward and placed a restraining hand on Shamsulla's arm, do you want to ask him anything before you kill him?

The steady voice, the carefully chosen words, brought Shamsulla back to the reality of the moment.

He seized the groaning man by his hair and yanked him into a kneeling position. The soldier could see out of only one eye, but he caught a glimpse of the knife Shamsulla held just below his injured eye, the razor-sharp point drawing a trickle of blood from the socket.

Why are those children in that truck? Shamsulla demanded, shaking the man's head and nearly pulling his hair out by the roots.

We were taking them to Qandahar, the man quickly blurted.

Why?

I don't know. I wasn't told.

Shamsulla pulled the knife back a short distance, then slashed the man's face with it, opening a huge gash from the forehead to the right ear. The soldier emitted a single scream, then grasped his tormentor's wrists with both of his trembling hands. The flowing blood streamed over his good eye, nearly blinding him.

"Please, Kiftan, he begged, I had nothing to do with it. I was simply told to ride in the truck."

"You had nothing to do with what? the guerrilla leader asked, once again pressing the knife against the man's cheek. The truth, pig, or I am going to cut out both your eyes and leave you to wander blind the rest of your life."

I had nothing to do with what happened at their village. The Russians did it.

Tell me about it.

They... The man hesitated, the words unwilling to pass over his tongue. Shamsulla slashed the bottom of the man's left ear away with his knife. The words then flowed in a torrent.

They surrounded the village. Nearly everyone was killed. They captured these children in a small cave just beyond the village.

Where were they taking them?

"To the Soviet Union. I heard a Russian officer say they take children to the Soviet Union to be brainwashed. They are to be trained to work for the Soviets. An orphanage! They go to a special orphanage. Kiftan—spare me! As Allah is my witness, I was going to desert. Believe me, I was. The first chance I got, I was going to desert. I never shot at you or your men today. I am a simple man. I never killed anyone."

Shamsulla relaxed his grip momentarily and the soldier's hopes were raised that his life would be spared. A tiny, nervous grin spread over his lips as he looked around at the stern faces in the circle of men. The guerrillas had heard that the Russians were stealing Afghan children to be sent to their indoctrination centers for brainwashing. The Soviets thought they could train thousands of future Afghan leaders totally loyal to the U.S.S.R. Until today, this had been just a rumor. Now it was a harsh fact. Another harsh fact was that these fighters had unwittingly killed a dozen children. The sorrow and fury burned in their guts.

Were the children alive when they were placed in that truck? one man suddenly asked.

Yes, the soldier eagerly answered. They were well. Your bullets killed them.

Then how did you survive? Ahmad suddenly demanded, glowering over the soldier in a near rage. A murmur went through the ring of men, for they all wanted to know the answer.

I ... hid. When the shooting started, I hid, the man replied.

Hid? Hid where? Shamsulla asked, pressing the knife into