The Warlord's Son by Dan Fesperman

on the desk while a clock hummed on the wall, precious seconds ticking away. There had been a flight waiting. Najeeb had been due back in the United States for his senior year in college, but security forces had pulled him from the check-in line and hauled him into the city, ignoring his angry protests and parking behind the white walls of the ministry. It was after hours, and Tariq had seemingly been the only one left in the building. He had greeted the fuming Najeeb by placing a hand consolingly on his shoulder—“Don’t worry. We’ll have you back in plenty of time. As soon as you’ve answered a few questions.”
    It sounded reassuring enough until Najeeb heard the questions, the last of which had been the most alarming of all:
    “Tell me what’s going on in the cave. The one in the bluff near your father’s house. Then tell me, in as much detail as possible, how to find it. Do that and you may go. Don’t do that and, frankly, I think we may have some problems with granting your exit.”
    Tariq hadn’t seemed to mind when Najeeb didn’t respond. He’d stared down at his papers while the sun traveled lower, until the sky darkened and the office was a tiny pool of fluorescent light in a hushed and empty building, the traffic outside dwindling to almost nothing.
    The flight’s scheduled hour of departure came and went. Tariq pulled a sandwich and a water bottle from a drawer, chewing slowly. Najeeb stood once to leave and Tariq merely pushed a desktop button, producing a guard with a truncheon. Najeeb sat down.
    An hour later, between bites of an apple, Tariq said offhandedly, “We’re still holding the plane, you know. All those people, sweating and angry on board. Nice to know there are some advantages of a state-run airline. But we won’t hold it forever. And it’s this flight or nothing. So make up your mind.”
    Yet, Najeeb still held his tongue, so Tariq began to prod. He said little, but his few thrusts were deft, as if he’d known just where to aim after hours of study. The line that finally worked followed a full five minutes of silence.
    “What must your father think of you by now?” Tariq had asked. “I know it was his idea to send you away to school, but look at you. Hardly the sort to be either feared or respected, at least not where you come from. Or maybe that’s why he sends you away?”
    It was the same thought Najeeb had always tried to avoid, and he flashed back to one of the more awful moments in his life, his father roaring and ranting, having discovered that his boy—his only boy, no less—had been sketching birds, painting them when he should have been shooting them. Not only that, but the boy had actually saved the colorful drawings, rolling them up as a woman might do with her embroidery and placing them beneath his bed. The Pashtun had always honored their poets, their singers and, of course, their warriors, but painters simply didn’t exist, at least not among the male of the species. So his father, sputtering and swearing, had torn up the sheets one by one, while attributing Najeeb’s urges to every sort of vile motive he could think of, although the one he eventually settled on was quite predictable. “So what do I have for a son, then?” he’d said. “Some kind of
bedagh,
out servicing the local elders like the village whore? Is that what you’ve become behind my back?”
    So, prodded by Tariq, Najeeb began to talk. The words came slowly at first, then in a torrent, until even Tariq was rubbing his eyes and flexing his cramped hand, having heard vivid descriptions of mountain pathways down to the last boulder, places where Najeeb had once frolicked and scrambled, and, yes, had taken his drawing pad and his colored pencils, clandestinely, with the great thrill of the forbidden.
    After an hour or so they whisked him back to the airport without a further word, hustling him straight through security as if he were a diplomat or a celebrity. Najeeb boarded the sweltering