Gone Tomorrow

the way they kill. My mother was very worried about my father, obviously. And her baby brother. They went out most nights, into the low hills, with the electronic scope. Not too far. Maybe a thousand yards, to find an angle. Maybe a little more. Far enough to be effective, but close enough to feel safe. But nowhere was really safe. Everywhere was vulnerable. And they had to go. Their orders were to shoot the enemy. Their intention was to shoot the prisoners. They thought it would be a mercy. It was an awful time. And my mother was pregnant by then. With me. I was conceived in a rock trench hacked out of the Korengal floor, under a greatcoat that dated back to the end of World War Two, and on top of two others that were possibly even older. My mother said they had old bullet holes in them, maybe from Stalingrad.”
    I said nothing. Svetlana stared on. Lila put her hands on the table and tangled her fingers loosely together. She said, “For the first month or so my father and my uncle came back every morning, safe. They were a good team. Perhaps the best.”
    Svetlana stared on. Lila took her hands off the table and paused a beat. Then she sat up straight and squared her shoulders. A change of pace. A change of subject. She said, “There were Americans in Afghanistan at that time.”
    I said, “Were there?”
    She nodded.
    I said, “What Americans?”
    “Soldiers. Not many, but some. Not always, but sometimes.”
    “You think?”
    She nodded again. “The U.S. Army was definitely there. The Soviet Union was their enemy, and the mujahideen were their allies. It was the Cold War by proxy. It suited President Reagan very well to have the Red Army worn down. It was a part of his anti-communist strategy. And he enjoyed the chance to capture some of our new weapons for intelligence purposes. So teams were sent. Special Forces. They were in and out on a regular basis. And one night in March of 1983, one of those teams found my father and my uncle and stole their VAL rifle.”
    I said nothing.
    Lila said, “The loss of the rifle was a defeat, of course. But what was worse was that the Americans gave my father and my uncle to the tribeswomen. There was no need for that. Obviously they had to be silenced, because the American presence was entirely covert and had to be concealed. But the Americans could have killed my father and my uncle themselves, quickly and quietly and easily. They chose not to. My mother heard their screams all the next day and far into the night. Her husband, and her brother. Sixteen, eighteen hours. She said even screaming that badly she could still tell them apart, by the sound of their voices.”

Chapter 37
    I glanced around the Four Seasons’s dim tea room and moved in my chair and said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.”
    Lila Hoth said, “I’m telling you the truth.”
    I shook my head. “I was in the U.S. Army. I was a military cop. Broadly speaking I knew where people went, and where they didn’t. And there were no U.S. boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Not back then. Not during that conflict. It was purely a local affair.”
    “But you had a dog in the fight.”
    “Of course we did. Like you did when we were in Vietnam. Was the Red Army in-country there?” It was a rhetorical question, designed to make a point, but Lila Hoth took it seriously. She leaned forward across the table and spoke to her mother, low and fast, in a foreign language that I presumed was Ukrainian. Svetlana’s eyes opened a little and she cocked her head to one side as if she was recalling some small matter of arcane historical detail. She spoke back to her daughter, low and fast, and long, and then Lila paused a second to marshal her translation and said, “No, we sent no troops to Vietnam, because we had confidence that our socialist brothers from the People’s Republic could complete their task unaided. Which, my mother says, apparently they did, quite splendidly. Little men in pajamas defeated the big green machine.”
    Svetlana Hoth smiled and nodded.
    I said, “Just like a bunch of goatherders kicked her ass.”
    “Undisputedly. But with a lot of help.”
    “Didn’t happen.”
    “But you admit that material help was provided, surely. To the mujahideen. Money, and weapons. Especially surface-to-air missiles, and things of that nature.”
    “Like in Vietnam, only the other way around.”
    “And Vietnam is an excellent example. Because, to your certain knowledge, whenever did the United