A man with dark hair, dressed in civilian clothes, drove the Honda Civic I was thrown into. Jackson slid into the seat next to me and said, “You don’t need a hood here. No one in the city would recognize you. More importantly, no one in the city would care what was happening to you. They have their own problems. Less than twenty miles from the Pakistani border, everything comes through Jalalabad. Including terrorists and the Afghan army chasing them.”

As we drove through the city and into a residential neighborhood, I thought the place looked like the bad areas of Phoenix, Arizona, or somewhere in New Mexico. Brownish sand with very few plants to break up the monochrome color. Mostly smaller, run-down houses with the occasional well-kept two-story. The climate felt about the same as well.

Jackson said to me, “This is the center of the world as far as Afghanistan goes. Kabul may be the capital, but this is the crossroads. One of the few cities with daily bus service to both Kabul and Pakistan. And we’ve got a sweet house not too far away.”

We rolled into the driveway of an ordinary-looking house. We pulled into a carport and entered through the side door, directly into what looked like the living room. Only now the room was crammed with desks, boxes, and other shit laid out in a loose arrangement.

Jackson led me down a hallway and I looked in each room quickly, just getting a glimpse. In each room, three or four portable cages looked almost like a person-size kennel. That made each of the rooms crowded.

We hesitated at the last bedroom. Jackson stepped inside and pulled me along. There were two empty cages in this room. A man sat on some blankets inside one of the cages. He wore a white shirt and baggy white pants. He had no shoes on. He just stared at me with dark eyes. Then a smile slid across his face.

Jackson let out a laugh. “Probably not such a good idea to put you inside with these guys. I don’t have enough people to make sure you’re safe. We’ll have to set up a cage in the main room for you.”

Chapter 38

Chapter 38

They stuck me inside of a cage in the first bedroom temporarily. There were three men already in the room. They all stared at me silently. I nodded because my hands were still cuffed behind my back.

Two of the men started to speak in Pashto. The third man laughed at whatever they said. One man dragged his finger across his throat in a slashing motion. I didn’t take it to mean they were welcoming me to their home.