Chameleon by Remi Adeleke

Author:Remi Adeleke
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2023-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty-One

Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan

A flight of six Super Tucano strike fighters roared in from the north over the snowcapped mountains. They were in perfect V formation, like a flock of metallic geese, and they swept over the runway, then broke from each other and arced for the sun, spewing colorful smoke from their tails.

After that came three lumbering C-130 military cargo aircraft. Their cargo ramps were open and they spewed bundles of equipment and ammunition crates, which floated down to the field under blossoming silk parachutes. Ten Black Hawk helicopters followed the C-130s, with five smaller Little Bird helos buzzing proudly in trail. And then came seven Russian Mi-17 heavy-lift helos, as if the world’s greatest superpowers had decided to join just this once in a brotherly aerial celebration.

It was an impressive display, because all of these aircraft had been left behind by Western coalition forces, and only a year before had been deemed unflyable.

As the last aircraft passed overhead, the audience erupted in wild applause and many rifles were fired happily straight up in the air—apparently the celebrants thought this new Afghan air force was immune to bullets.

There were more than two hundred folding chairs set out on the long runway’s apron, in the front of the old Soviet control tower that the Americans had once proudly acquired, and had then left empty to the rats and wild dogs. The chairs were occupied by high-ranking Taliban warriors, officials from the new Afghan Islamic Republic, heroes of the wars of liberation against the allied coalition, and many members of the international press.

Not one of the guests was a woman. Afghanistan was no longer pretending to be enlightened on that score or liberated in terms of its female population.

Lucas van Groot had a front-row seat for the military parade, along with Ziar Baradar, Bilad, and Shafik on one side and Amir Baradar on the other. To the right of Amir sat a nondescript beefy man wearing a woolen blazer—despite the heat—and his translator. The beefy man’s credentials said he was a minor vice-consul from the new Russian embassy in Kabul, and Amir had led his father to believe that he was merely an old chum from his days in Moscow. But he was actually Vitaly Chok, a four-star general in the Russian army.

A thunder of engines grew from the north end of the field, and then captured and refurbished coalition vehicles began to roll down the strip in perfect formation. There were Humvees, heavy-armored MRAPs, and M113 armored personnel carriers, clanking along on treads. All of them flew the whipping white flags of the new republic, and all had proud Afghan warriors standing straight up from their hatches, saluting smartly as the audience clapped and roared.

Ziar Baradar sat in his chair, nodding in approval as every new element of the parade passed by. He was wearing the traditional salwar and a pakol cap, but now he also turned a walking stick in his brown farmer’s fingers. His hips were telling him that

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