Black Tulip

" 'Soviets! Soviets! Death, death, death!' " Krikor translated with somber relish. He waited for Sergei to take that in, then went on, "So I really don't give a shit about how hard we hit the ghosts, you know what I mean? All I want to do is get my time in and get back to the world in one piece, all right? Long as I don't fly home in a black tulip, that's all I care about."

"Makes sense to me," Sergei agreed quickly. He didn't want to fly out of Kabul in one of the planes that carried corpses back to the USSR, either.

"Okay, kid." Krikor thumped him on the shoulder, hard enough to stagger him. "Keep your head down, keep your eyes open, and help your buddies. Odds are, we'll both get through."

The ground shook again, but not so hard this time.

"Allahu akbar!" The long, drawn-out chant of the muezzin pulled Satar awake. He yawned and stretched on the ground in the courtyard of a mud house a Russian bomb had shattered. Ten or twelve other mujahideen lay there with him. One by one, they got to their feet and am-bled over to a basin of water, where they washed their hands and faces, their feet and their privates.

Satar gasped as he splashed his cheeks with the water. It was bitterly cold. A pink glow in the east said sunrise was coming soon.

"God is great!" the muezzin repeated. He stood on the roof of another ruined house and called out to the faithful:

I bear witness, there is no God but God!
I bear witness, Muhammad is the prophet of God!
Come quick to prayer!
Come quick to success!
Prayer is better than sleep!
God is great!
There is no God but the one true God!

The fighters spread blankets on the dirt of the courtyard. This was no mosque with a proper qibla, but they knew in which direction Mecca lay- They bent, shoulder to shoulder, and went through morning prayers together.

After praying, Satar ate unleavened bread and drank tea thick with sugar and fragrant with mint. He had never been a fat man; he'd grown thinner since joining the mujahideen. The godless infidels and their puppets held the richest parts of the countryside. But villagers were generous in sharing what they had—and some of what was grown and made in occupied parts of the country reached the fighters in the holy war through one irregular channel or another.

A couple of boys of about six strutted by, both of them carrying crude wooden toy Kalashnikovs. One dived behind some rubble. The other stalked him as carefully as if their assault rifles were real. When the time came for them to take up such weapons, they would be ready. Another boy, perhaps thirteen, had a real Kalashnikov on his back. He'd been playing with toy firearms when the Russians invaded Afghanistan. Now he was old enough to fight for God on his own. Boys like that were useful, especially as scouts—the Shuravi weren't always so wary of them as they were with grown men.

Something glinted in the early-morning sun: a boy of perhaps eight carried what looked like a plastic pen even more proudly than the other children bore their Kalashnikovs, pretend and real. Assault rifles were commonplace, pens something out of the ordinary, something special.

"Hey, sonny," Satar called through lips all at once numb with fear. The boy looked at him. He nodded encouragingly. "Yes, you—that's right. Put your pen on the ground and walk away from it."

"What?" Plainly, the youngster thought he was crazy. "Why should I?" If he'd had a rifle, Satar would have had to look to his life.

"I'll tell you why: because I think it's a Russian mine. If you fiddle with it, it will blow off your hand."

The boy very visibly thought that over. Satar could read his mind. Is this mujahid trying to steal my wonderful toy? Maybe the worry on Satar's face got through to him, because he did set the pen in the dirt. But when he walked away, he kept looking back over his shoulder at it.

With a sigh of relief, Satar murmured, "Truly there is no God but God."

"Truly," someone behind him agreed. He turned. There stood Sayid Jaglan. The commander went on, "That is a mine—I am sure of it. Pens are bad. I was afraid he would take off the cap and detonate it. Pens are bad, but the ones that look like butterflies are worse. Any child, no matter how small, will play with those."

"And then be blown to pieces," Satar said bitterly.

"Oh, no, not to pieces." Sayid Jaglan shook his head. He was about forty, not very tall, his pointed beard just beginning to show frost. He had a scar on his forehead that stopped a centimeter or so above his right eye. "They're made to maim, not to kill. The Russians calculate we have to work harder to care for the wounded than to bury the dead."

Satar pondered that. "A calculation straight from the heart of Shai-tan," he said at last.