coat and quilted vest. I have been prepped for none of this. The former secretary looks exactly like his photos—silver-gray goatee, Bolivian-dictator pompadour, hands the size of skillets. He goes 290 if he goes an ounce. He sits to my right in back; the Defender yaws to starboard. The secretary’s bulk dominates the vehicle. He grasps my hand in a mitt as big as a Christmas ham.
“So you’re Maggie’s nephew,” he says, introducing himself. “We’ve been waiting for you for two hours. The guides refused to take us out without you.”
The Defender bucks and jounces out of the court; in ninety seconds we’re on the moors, following rutted dirt trails that make the river tracks in Nangarhar look like Southern California freeways. Nephew? No one has alerted me to this cover story either—or given me the slightest warning that I’m going to be planted cheek by jowl with the former SecState (and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize) who singlehandedly, or almost so, destroyed Gen. Salter’s conventional-military career.
The drive goes on forever, following back trails and sunken traces so as not to alert the game. It’s eight in the evening and still not dusk. Our ruddy-cheeked driver, who apparently is a hunting guide or gamekeeper employed by the estate, wears a satcomm earpiece beneath his tweed cap. It squawks with staticy transmissions. “I’ll ride ye as far for’ard as I can, gents,” he says. “Then it’s shank’s mare for the lot of us.”
He explains that four hunting parties are fanned out over anumber of miles, across the range of treeless vales ahead of us. Each party consists of a shooter and a guide. Mrs. Cole’s is one of these. On a hunt, our driver reminds us, the guide has the final say in all matters. The radio transmissions are from the various guides ahead, navigating us in.
“The lady must be onto somethin’, or her man wouldn’a shut down.” He means that Mrs. Cole’s guide, in the interest of stealth, is not responding to our driver’s transmissions or allowing them to come through. “Stags can hear a mouse fart a mile away and pick up a Rover engine at five miles. They can smell the diesel thirty minutes after you shut the damn thing off.”
He explains how the hunt, as twilight approaches, becomes a competition, even though the hunting parties are miles apart. “If one party fires, the hunt’s over for aw th’ others. Every animal within ten miles’ll bolt.”
We crest a rise and brake. The sun is finally setting. Our driver kills the engine. Before us in the failing light spreads a spectacular vista of dales and glens, receding into a smoky distance probably twenty miles away. “End of the line, lads.” The driver springs down. “Let’s have you!”
We advance on foot. The secretary is not happy. “How much farther?”
“We’ve only just started, haven’t we, sir?”
I like our guide. He doesn’t wear hunting togs; except for his shoes, which are rubber mud-sloggers, he’s dressed in a gray houndstooth business suit with a tattersall shirt and a necktie with little Irish setters on it. He looks like a banker. The gear works, though I’m shivering in my North Face field jacket; he’s toasty as a tick.
“What’s your real name, Colonel?” Echevarria tramps beside me over the spongy, heather-carpeted turf pocked with patches of spiky, knee-high gorse. “Or do you go by rank in your outfit? Clearly you’re nobody’s nephew.”
“I’m somebody’s nephew.”
“My guess is General Salter’s.”
Our guide hisses for silence. “If we molest the lady’s hunt,” he says, “she’ll have all our bollocks, mine first.”
We cross two ridge crests and start down a third. I’m scanning ahead. “There.” The guide’s hand stops us in place. He goes down on one knee. We do likewise.
“Where?” says the secretary. There’s excitement in his voice.
The guide indicates a rocky promontory, well over a mile ahead. Daylight is going fast. It’s
“So you’re Maggie’s nephew,” he says, introducing himself. “We’ve been waiting for you for two hours. The guides refused to take us out without you.”
The Defender bucks and jounces out of the court; in ninety seconds we’re on the moors, following rutted dirt trails that make the river tracks in Nangarhar look like Southern California freeways. Nephew? No one has alerted me to this cover story either—or given me the slightest warning that I’m going to be planted cheek by jowl with the former SecState (and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize) who singlehandedly, or almost so, destroyed Gen. Salter’s conventional-military career.
The drive goes on forever, following back trails and sunken traces so as not to alert the game. It’s eight in the evening and still not dusk. Our ruddy-cheeked driver, who apparently is a hunting guide or gamekeeper employed by the estate, wears a satcomm earpiece beneath his tweed cap. It squawks with staticy transmissions. “I’ll ride ye as far for’ard as I can, gents,” he says. “Then it’s shank’s mare for the lot of us.”
He explains that four hunting parties are fanned out over anumber of miles, across the range of treeless vales ahead of us. Each party consists of a shooter and a guide. Mrs. Cole’s is one of these. On a hunt, our driver reminds us, the guide has the final say in all matters. The radio transmissions are from the various guides ahead, navigating us in.
“The lady must be onto somethin’, or her man wouldn’a shut down.” He means that Mrs. Cole’s guide, in the interest of stealth, is not responding to our driver’s transmissions or allowing them to come through. “Stags can hear a mouse fart a mile away and pick up a Rover engine at five miles. They can smell the diesel thirty minutes after you shut the damn thing off.”
He explains how the hunt, as twilight approaches, becomes a competition, even though the hunting parties are miles apart. “If one party fires, the hunt’s over for aw th’ others. Every animal within ten miles’ll bolt.”
We crest a rise and brake. The sun is finally setting. Our driver kills the engine. Before us in the failing light spreads a spectacular vista of dales and glens, receding into a smoky distance probably twenty miles away. “End of the line, lads.” The driver springs down. “Let’s have you!”
We advance on foot. The secretary is not happy. “How much farther?”
“We’ve only just started, haven’t we, sir?”
I like our guide. He doesn’t wear hunting togs; except for his shoes, which are rubber mud-sloggers, he’s dressed in a gray houndstooth business suit with a tattersall shirt and a necktie with little Irish setters on it. He looks like a banker. The gear works, though I’m shivering in my North Face field jacket; he’s toasty as a tick.
“What’s your real name, Colonel?” Echevarria tramps beside me over the spongy, heather-carpeted turf pocked with patches of spiky, knee-high gorse. “Or do you go by rank in your outfit? Clearly you’re nobody’s nephew.”
“I’m somebody’s nephew.”
“My guess is General Salter’s.”
Our guide hisses for silence. “If we molest the lady’s hunt,” he says, “she’ll have all our bollocks, mine first.”
We cross two ridge crests and start down a third. I’m scanning ahead. “There.” The guide’s hand stops us in place. He goes down on one knee. We do likewise.
“Where?” says the secretary. There’s excitement in his voice.
The guide indicates a rocky promontory, well over a mile ahead. Daylight is going fast. It’s
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