Three Cups Of Tea Part 16

Mortenson climbed back in, behind the box of dynamite.

Eighty kilometers east of Skardu, Mortenson noticed two neat white minarets piercing the greenery on the outskirts of a poor village called Yugo. "Where do these people have the money for a new mosque like this?" Mortenson asked.

"This also Wahhabi, Wahhabi," Apo said. "The sheikhs come from Kuwait and Saudi with suitcases of rupees. They take the best student back to them. When the boy come back to Baltistan he have to take four wives."

Twenty minutes down the road, Mortenson saw the spitting image of Yugu's new mosque presiding over the impoverished village of Xurd.

"Wahhabi?" Mortenson asked, with a gathering sense of dread. Mortenson asked, with a gathering sense of dread.

"Yes, Greg," Apo said, acknowledging the obvious thickly through his mouthful of Copenhagen, "they're everywhere."

"I'd known that the Saudi Wahhabi Wahhabi sect was building mosques along the Afghan border for years," Mortenson says. "But that spring, the spring of 2001, I was amazed by all their new construction right here in the heart of s.h.i.+te Baltistan. For the first time I understood the scale of what they were trying to do and it scared me." sect was building mosques along the Afghan border for years," Mortenson says. "But that spring, the spring of 2001, I was amazed by all their new construction right here in the heart of s.h.i.+te Baltistan. For the first time I understood the scale of what they were trying to do and it scared me."

Wahhabism is a conservative, fundamentalist offshoot of Sunni Is is a conservative, fundamentalist offshoot of Sunni Islam and the official state religion of Saudi Arabia's rulers. Many Saudi followers of the sect consider the term offensive and prefer to call themselves al-Muwahhiddun, al-Muwahhiddun, "the monotheists." In Pakistan, and other impoverished countries most affected by "the monotheists." In Pakistan, and other impoverished countries most affected by Wahhabi Wahhabi proselytizing, though, the name has stuck. proselytizing, though, the name has stuck.

"Wahhabi" is derived from the term is derived from the term Al-Wahhab, Al-Wahhab, which means, literally, "generous giver" in Arabic, one of Allah's many pseudonyms. And it is this generous giving-the seemingly unlimited supply of cash that which means, literally, "generous giver" in Arabic, one of Allah's many pseudonyms. And it is this generous giving-the seemingly unlimited supply of cash that Wahhabi Wahhabi operatives smuggle into Pakistan, both in suitcases and through the untraceable operatives smuggle into Pakistan, both in suitcases and through the untraceable hawala hawala money-transfer system-that has shaped their image among Pakistan's population. The bulk of that oil wealth pouring in from the Gulf is aimed at Pakistan's most virulent incubator of religious extremism- money-transfer system-that has shaped their image among Pakistan's population. The bulk of that oil wealth pouring in from the Gulf is aimed at Pakistan's most virulent incubator of religious extremism-Wahhabi madra.s.sas.

Exact numbers are impossible to pin down in such a secretive endeavor, but one of the rare reports to appear in the heavily censored Saudi press hints at the ma.s.sive change shrewdly invested petroleum profits are having on Pakistan's most impoverished students.

In December 2000, the Saudi publication Ain-Al-Yaqeen Ain-Al-Yaqeen reported that one of the four major reported that one of the four major Wahhabi Wahhabi proselytizing organizations, the Al Haramain Foundation, had built "1,100 mosques, schools, and Islamic centers," in Pakistan and other Muslim countries, and employed three thousand paid proselytizers in the previous year. proselytizing organizations, the Al Haramain Foundation, had built "1,100 mosques, schools, and Islamic centers," in Pakistan and other Muslim countries, and employed three thousand paid proselytizers in the previous year.

The most active of the four groups, Ain-Al-Yaqeen Ain-Al-Yaqeen reported, the International Islamic Relief Organization, which the 9/11 Commission would later accuse of directly supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, completed the construction of thirty-eight hundred mosques, spent $45 million on "Islamic Education," and employed six thousand teachers, many of them in Pakistan, throughout the same period. reported, the International Islamic Relief Organization, which the 9/11 Commission would later accuse of directly supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, completed the construction of thirty-eight hundred mosques, spent $45 million on "Islamic Education," and employed six thousand teachers, many of them in Pakistan, throughout the same period.

"In 2001, CAI operations were scattered all the way across northern Pakistan, from the schools we were building along the Line of Control to the east to several new initiatives we were working on all the way west along the Afghan border," Mortenson says. "But our resources were peanuts compared to the Wahhabi. Wahhabi. Every time I visited to check on one of our projects, it seemed ten Every time I visited to check on one of our projects, it seemed ten Wahhabi madra.s.sas Wahhabi madra.s.sas had popped up nearby overnight." had popped up nearby overnight."

Pakistan's dysfunctional educational system made advancing Wahhabi Wahhabi doctrine a simple matter of economics. A tiny percentage of the country's wealthy children attended elite private schools, a legacy of the British colonial system. But as Mortenson had learned, vast swaths of the country were barely served by Pakistan's struggling, inadequately funded public schools. The doctrine a simple matter of economics. A tiny percentage of the country's wealthy children attended elite private schools, a legacy of the British colonial system. But as Mortenson had learned, vast swaths of the country were barely served by Pakistan's struggling, inadequately funded public schools. The madra.s.sa madra.s.sa system targeted the impoverished students the public system failed. By offering free room and board and building schools in areas where none existed, system targeted the impoverished students the public system failed. By offering free room and board and building schools in areas where none existed, madra.s.sas madra.s.sas provided millions of Pakistan's parents with their only opportunity to educate their children. "I don't want to give the impression that all provided millions of Pakistan's parents with their only opportunity to educate their children. "I don't want to give the impression that all Wahhabi Wahhabi are bad," Mortenson says. "Many of their schools and mosques are doing good work to help Pakistan's poor. But some of them seem to exist only to teach militant are bad," Mortenson says. "Many of their schools and mosques are doing good work to help Pakistan's poor. But some of them seem to exist only to teach militant jihad. jihad."

By 2001, a World Bank study estimated that at least twenty thousand madra.s.sas madra.s.sas were teaching as many as 2 million of Pakistan's students an Islamic-based curriculum. Lah.o.r.e-based journalist Ahmed Ras.h.i.+d, perhaps the world's leading authority on the link between were teaching as many as 2 million of Pakistan's students an Islamic-based curriculum. Lah.o.r.e-based journalist Ahmed Ras.h.i.+d, perhaps the world's leading authority on the link between madra.s.sa madra.s.sa education and the rise of extremist Islam, estimates that more than eighty thousand of these young education and the rise of extremist Islam, estimates that more than eighty thousand of these young madra.s.sa madra.s.sa students became Taliban recruits. Not every students became Taliban recruits. Not every madra.s.sa madra.s.sa was a hotbed of extremism. But the World Bank concluded that 15 to 20 percent of was a hotbed of extremism. But the World Bank concluded that 15 to 20 percent of madra.s.sa madra.s.sa students were receiving military training, along with a curriculum that emphasized students were receiving military training, along with a curriculum that emphasized jihad jihad and hatred of the West at the expense of subjects of like math, science, and literature. and hatred of the West at the expense of subjects of like math, science, and literature.

Ras.h.i.+d recounts his experience among the Wahhabi madra.s.sas Wahhabi madra.s.sas of Peshawar in his bestselling book of Peshawar in his bestselling book Taliban. Taliban. The students spent their days studying "the Koran, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed and the basics of Islamic law as interpreted by their barely literate teachers," he writes. "Neither teachers nor students had any formal grounding in maths, science, history or geography." The students spent their days studying "the Koran, the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed and the basics of Islamic law as interpreted by their barely literate teachers," he writes. "Neither teachers nor students had any formal grounding in maths, science, history or geography."

These madra.s.sa madra.s.sa students were "the rootless and restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self knowledge," Ras.h.i.+d concludes. "They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to. Their simple belief in a messianic, puritan Islam which had been drummed into them by simple village mullahs was the only prop they could hold on to and which gave their lives some meaning. students were "the rootless and restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self knowledge," Ras.h.i.+d concludes. "They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to. Their simple belief in a messianic, puritan Islam which had been drummed into them by simple village mullahs was the only prop they could hold on to and which gave their lives some meaning.

"The work Mortenson is doing building schools is giving thousands of students what they need most-a balanced education and the tools to pull themselves out of poverty," Ras.h.i.+d says. "But we need many more like them. His schools are just a drop in the bucket when you look at the scale of the problem in Pakistan. Essentially, the state is failing its students on a ma.s.sive scale and making them far too easy for the extremists who run many of the madra.s.sas madra.s.sas to recruit." to recruit."

The most famous of these madra.s.sas, madra.s.sas, the three-thousand-student the three-thousand-student Darul Uloom Haqqania, Darul Uloom Haqqania, in Attock City, near Peshawar, came to be nicknamed the "University of in Attock City, near Peshawar, came to be nicknamed the "University of Jihad Jihad" because its graduates included the Taliban's supreme ruler, the secretive one-eyed cleric Mullah Omar, and much of his top leaders.h.i.+p.

"Thinking about the Wahhabi Wahhabi strategy made my head spin," Mortenson says. "This wasn't just a few Arab sheikhs getting off Gulf Air flights with bags of cash. They were bringing the brightest strategy made my head spin," Mortenson says. "This wasn't just a few Arab sheikhs getting off Gulf Air flights with bags of cash. They were bringing the brightest madra.s.sa madra.s.sa students back to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for a decade of indoctrination, then encouraging them to take four wives when they came home and breed like rabbits. students back to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for a decade of indoctrination, then encouraging them to take four wives when they came home and breed like rabbits.

"Apo calling Wahhabi madra.s.sas Wahhabi madra.s.sas beehives is exactly right. They're churning out generation after generation of brainwashed students and thinking twenty, forty, even sixty years ahead to a time when their armies of extremism will have the numbers to swarm over Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world." beehives is exactly right. They're churning out generation after generation of brainwashed students and thinking twenty, forty, even sixty years ahead to a time when their armies of extremism will have the numbers to swarm over Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world."

By early September 2001, the stark red minaret of a recently completed Wahhabi Wahhabi mosque and mosque and madra.s.sa madra.s.sa compound had risen behind high stone walls in the center of Skardu itself, like an exclamation point to the growing anxiety Mortenson had felt all summer. compound had risen behind high stone walls in the center of Skardu itself, like an exclamation point to the growing anxiety Mortenson had felt all summer.

On the ninth of September, Mortenson rode in the back of his green Land Cruiser, heading for the Charpurson Valley, at the very tip of northern Pakistan. From the front pa.s.senger seat, George McCown admired the majesty of the Hunza Valley. "We'd come over the Khunjerab pa.s.s from China," he says. "And it was about the most beautiful trip on Earth, with wild camel herds roaming around pristine wilderness before you head down between Pakistan's incredible peaks."

They were driving toward Zuudkhan, to inaugurate three CAI-funded projects that had just been completed-a water project, a small hydropower plant, and a health dispensary-in the ancestral home of Mortenson's bodyguard Faisal Baig. McCown, who had personally donated eight thousand dollars toward the projects, was accompanying Mortenson, to see what changes his money had wrought. Behind them, McCown's son Dan and daughter-in-law Susan rode in a second jeep.

They stopped for the night at Sost, a former Silk Road caravansary reincarnated as a truck stop for Bedfords plying the road to China. Mortenson cracked open the brand-new satellite phone he'd purchased for the trip and called his friend Brigadier General Bas.h.i.+r in Islamabad, to confirm that a helicopter would be available two days later to pick them up in Zuudkhan.

Much had changed over Mortenson's last year in Pakistan. He now wore a photographer's vest over his simple shalwar kamiz, shalwar kamiz, with pockets enough to accommodate the detritus that swirled nowadays around the frenzied director of the Central Asia Inst.i.tute. There were different pockets for the dollars waiting to be changed, for the stacks of small rupee notes that fueled daily transactions, pockets into which he could tuck the letters he was handed, pleading for new projects, and pockets for the receipts the projects already underway were generating, receipts that had to be conveyed to finicky American accountants. In the vest's voluminous pockets were both a film and a digital camera, means of doc.u.menting his work for the donors he had to court whenever he returned home. with pockets enough to accommodate the detritus that swirled nowadays around the frenzied director of the Central Asia Inst.i.tute. There were different pockets for the dollars waiting to be changed, for the stacks of small rupee notes that fueled daily transactions, pockets into which he could tuck the letters he was handed, pleading for new projects, and pockets for the receipts the projects already underway were generating, receipts that had to be conveyed to finicky American accountants. In the vest's voluminous pockets were both a film and a digital camera, means of doc.u.menting his work for the donors he had to court whenever he returned home.

Pakistan had changed, too. The blow to the nation's pride caused by the rout of Pakistan's forces during the Kargil Conflict had driven the democratically elected prime minister Nawaz Sharif from office. And in the bloodless military coup that ousted him, General Pervez Musharraf had been installed in his place. Pakistan now operated under martial law. And Musharraf had taken office pledging to beat back the forces of Islamic extremism he blamed for the country's recent decline.

Mortenson had yet to understand Musharraf's motives. But he was grateful for the support the new military government offered the CAI. "Musharraf gained respect right away by cracking down on corruption," he explains. "For the first time since I'd been in Pakistan, I began to meet military auditors in remote mountain villages who were there to ascertain if schools and clinics that the government had paid for actually existed. And for the first time ever, villagers in the Braldu told me a few funds had trickled to them all the way from Islamabad. That spoke more to me than the neglect and the empty rhetoric of the Sharif and Bhutto governments."

As the scope of his operations spread across all of northern Pakistan, military pilots offered their services to the dogged American whose work they admired, ferrying him in hours from Skardu to villages that would have taken days to reach in his Land Cruiser.

Brigadier General Bas.h.i.+r Baz, a close confidant of Musharraf's, had pioneered helicopter sling drops of men and material on the Siachen Glacier's ridgetop fighting posts, the world's highest battleground. After helping to turn back India's troops, he retired from active duty to run a private army-sponsored air charter service called Askari Aviation. When he had time and aircraft free, he and his men volunteered to fly Mortenson to the more remote corners of his country. "I've met a lot of people in my life, but no one like Greg Mortenson," Bas.h.i.+r says. "Taking into account how hard he works for the children of my country, offering him a flight now and then is the least I can do."

Mortenson dialed, and aimed the antenna of the sat phone south until he heard Bas.h.i.+r's cultivated voice arrive strained through static. The news from the country whose peaks he could see over the ridges to the west was shocking. "Say again!" Mortenson shouted. "Ma.s.soud is dead?"

Bas.h.i.+r had just received an unconfirmed report from Pakistani intelligence sources that Ahmed Shah Ma.s.soud had been murdered by Al Qaeda a.s.sa.s.sins posing as journalists. The helicopter pickup, Bas.h.i.+r added, was still on schedule.

"If the news is true," Mortenson thought, "Afghanistan will explode."

The information turned out to be accurate. Ma.s.soud, the charismatic leader of the Northern Alliance, the ragtag group of former mujahadeen mujahadeen whose military skill had kept the Taliban from taking northernmost Afghanistan, had been killed on September 9 by two Al Qaedatrained Algerians claiming to be Belgian doc.u.mentary filmmakers of Moroccan descent. After tracing serial numbers, French Intelligence would later reveal that they had stolen the video camera of photojournalist Jean-Pierre Vincendet the previous winter, while he was working on a puff piece about department store Christmas window displays in Gren.o.ble. whose military skill had kept the Taliban from taking northernmost Afghanistan, had been killed on September 9 by two Al Qaedatrained Algerians claiming to be Belgian doc.u.mentary filmmakers of Moroccan descent. After tracing serial numbers, French Intelligence would later reveal that they had stolen the video camera of photojournalist Jean-Pierre Vincendet the previous winter, while he was working on a puff piece about department store Christmas window displays in Gren.o.ble.

The suicide a.s.sa.s.sins packed the camera with explosives and detonated it during an interview with Ma.s.soud at his base in Khvajeh Ba Odin, an hour by helicopter to the west of Sost, where Mortenson had just spent the night. Ma.s.soud died fifteen minutes later, in his Land Cruiser, as his men were rus.h.i.+ng him toward a helicopter primed to fly him to a hospital in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. But they cloaked the news from the world for as long as possible, fearing his death would embolden the Taliban to launch a new offensive against the last free enclave in the country.

Ahmed Shah Ma.s.soud was known as the Lion of the Panjs.h.i.+r, for the ferocious way he had defended his country from Soviet invaders, repelling superior forces from his ancestral Panjs.h.i.+r Valley nine times with brilliant guerilla warfare tactics. Beloved by his supporters, and despised by those who lived through his brutal siege of Kabul, he was his coun-try's Che Guevera. Though beneath his brown woolen cap, his scruffily bearded, haggardly handsome face more closely resembled Bob Marley.

And for Osama Bin Laden and his apocalyptic emissaries, the nineteen mostly Saudi men about to board American airliners carrying box-cutters, Ma.s.soud's death meant that the one leader most capable of uniting northern Afghanistan's warlords around the American military aid sure to pour in was toppled, like the towers about to fall half a world away.

The next morning, the tenth, Mortenson's convoy climbed the Charpurson Valley in high-alt.i.tude air that brought the rust-red ranges of Afghanistan's Hindu Kush into acute focus. Traveling only twenty kilometers an hour, they coaxed their jeeps up the rough dirt track, between shattered glaciers that hung like half-chewed meals from the flanks of shark-toothed twenty-thousand-foot peaks.

Zuudkhan, the last settlement in Pakistan, appeared at the end of the valley. Its dun-colored mud-block homes so closely matched the dusty valley floor that they barely noticed the village until they were within it. On Zuudkhan's polo field, Mortenson saw his bodyguard Faisal Baig standing proudly among a ma.s.s of his people, waiting to greet his guests. Here at home, he wore traditional Wakhi tribal dress, a rough-hewn brown woolen vest, a floppy white wool skiihd skiihd on his head, and knee-high riding boots. Towering over the crowd gathered to greet the Americans, he stood straight behind the dark aviator gla.s.ses McCown had sent him as a gift. on his head, and knee-high riding boots. Towering over the crowd gathered to greet the Americans, he stood straight behind the dark aviator gla.s.ses McCown had sent him as a gift.

George McCown is a big man. But Baig lifted him effortlessly off the ground and crushed him in an embrace. "Faisal is a true gem," McCown says. "We'd stayed in touch ever since our trip to K2, when he got me and my b.u.m knee down the Baltoro and practically saved the life of my daughter Amy, who he carried most of the way down after she got sick. There in his home village he was so proud to show us around. He organized a royal welcome."

A band of musicians blowing horns and banging drums accompanied the visitors' progress down a long, curling reception line of Zuud-khan's three hundred residents. Mortenson, who'd been to the village half a dozen times to prod along the projects, and had shared dozens of cups of tea in the process, was welcomed as family. Zuudkhan's men embraced him somewhat less bone-shatteringly than Faisal Baig. The women, in the flamboyantly colored shalwar kamiz shalwar kamiz and shawls common among the Wakhi, performed the and shawls common among the Wakhi, performed the dast ba dast ba greeting, laying their palms tenderly on Mortenson's cheek and kissing the back of their own hands as local custom dictated. greeting, laying their palms tenderly on Mortenson's cheek and kissing the back of their own hands as local custom dictated.

With Baig leading the way, Mortenson and McCown inspected the newly laid pipes carrying water down a steep culvert from a mountain stream to the north of the valley, and ceremonially switched on the small generator the water turned, enough to break the monotony of darkness a few hours each evening for the few dozen homes in Zuudkhan where newly wired light fixtures dangled from the ceiling.

Mortenson lingered at the new dispensary, where Zuudkhan vil-lage's first health care worker had just returned from the six months of training 150 kilometers downside at the Gulmit Medical Clinic CAI had arranged for her. Aziza Hussain, twenty-eight, beamed as she displayed the medical supplies in the room CAI funds had paid to have added on to her home. Balancing her infant son on her lap, while her five-year-old daughter clung to her neck, she proudly pointed out the cases containing antibiotics, cough syrup, and rehydration salts that CAI donations had bought.

With the nearest medical facility two days' drive down often impa.s.sible jeep tracks, illness in Zuudkhan could quickly turn to crisis. In the year before Aziza took charge of her village's health, three women had died during the delivery of their children. "Also, many people died from the diarrhea," Aziza says. "After I got training and Dr. Greg provided the medicines, we were able to control these things.

"After five years, with good water from the new pipes, and teaching the people how to clean their children, and use clean food, not a single person has died here from these problems. It's my great interest to continue to develop myself in this field," Aziza says. "And pa.s.s on my training to other women. Now that we have made such progress, not a single person in this area believes women should not be educated."

"Your money buys a lot in the hands of Greg Mortenson," Mc-Cown says. "I come from a world where corporations throw millions of dollars at problems and often nothing happens. For the price of a cheap car, he was able to turn all these people's lives around."

The next day, September 11, 2001, the entire village gathered at a stage set up at the edge of the polo ground. Under a banner that read "Welcome the Honourable Guest," Mortenson and McCown were seated while the mustachioed village elders, known as puhps, puhps, wearing long white wool robes embroidered with pink flowers, performed the whirling Wakhi dance of welcome. Mortenson, grinning, got up to join them, and, dancing with surprising grace despite his bulk, he had the entire village howling in appreciation. wearing long white wool robes embroidered with pink flowers, performed the whirling Wakhi dance of welcome. Mortenson, grinning, got up to join them, and, dancing with surprising grace despite his bulk, he had the entire village howling in appreciation.

Zuudkhan, under the progressive leaders.h.i.+p of Faisal Baig, and the eight other elders who formed the tanzeem, tanzeem, or village council, had established their own school a decade earlier. And that afternoon, Zuud-khan's best students flaunted their facility with English as the endless speechmaking that attended the inauguration of all CAI projects wore on through the warm afternoon. "Thank you for spending your precious time in the far-flung region of northern Pakistan," one teenaged boy enunciated shyly into an amplified microphone attached to a tractor battery. or village council, had established their own school a decade earlier. And that afternoon, Zuud-khan's best students flaunted their facility with English as the endless speechmaking that attended the inauguration of all CAI projects wore on through the warm afternoon. "Thank you for spending your precious time in the far-flung region of northern Pakistan," one teenaged boy enunciated shyly into an amplified microphone attached to a tractor battery.

His handsome cla.s.smate tried to outdo him with his prepared remarks. "This was an isolate and cut-off area," he said, gripping the microphone with pop-star swagger. "We were lonely here in the Zuudkhan. But Dr. Greg and Mr. George wanted to improving our village. For the benefit of the poor and needy of this world like this Zuudkhan people, we tell our benefactors thank you. We are very, very graceful."

The festivities concluded with a polo match, staged, ostensibly, for the entertainment of the visiting dignitaries. The short, muscular mountain ponies had been gathered from eight villages down the isolated valley, and the Wakhi played a brand of polo as rugged as the lives they lead. As the bareback riders galloped up and down the clearing, pursuing the goat skull that served as a ball, they swiped at each other with their mallets and slammed their horses into each other like drivers at a demolition derby. Villagers howled and cheered l.u.s.tily every time the players thundered past. Only when the last light had drained over the ridge into Afghanistan did the riders dismount and the crowd disperse.

Faisal Baig, tolerant of other cultures' traditions, had acquired a bottle of Chinese vodka, which he offered the guests he housed in his bunkerlike home, but he and Mortenson abstained from drinking. The talk with village elders visiting before bed was of Ma.s.soud's murder, and what it would mean for Baig's people. If the remainder of Afghanistan-just thirty kilometers distant over the Irshad Pa.s.s-fell to a Taliban a.s.sault, their lives would be transformed. The border would be sealed, their traditional trade routes would be blocked, and they would be cut off from the rest of their tribe, which roamed freely across the high pa.s.ses and valleys of both nations.

The fall before, when Mortenson had visited Zuudkhan to deliver pipe for the water project, he'd had a taste of Afghanistan's proximity.

With Baig, Mortenson had stood on a meadow high above Zuudkhan, watching a dust cloud descend from the Irshad Pa.s.s. The hors.e.m.e.n had spotted Mortenson and rode straight for him like a pack of rampaging bandits. There were a dozen of them coming fast, with bandoliers bulging across their chests, matted beards, and homemade riding boots that rose above their knees.

"They jumped off their horses and came right at me," Mortenson says. "They were the wildest-looking men I'd ever seen. My detention in Waziristan flashed into my mind and I thought, 'Uh-oh! Here we go again.' "

The leader, a hard man with a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, strode toward Mortenson, and Baig stepped into his path, willing to lay down his life. But a moment later the two men were embracing and speaking excitedly.

"My friend," Baig told Mortenson. "He looks for you many times."

Mortenson learned the men were Kirghiz nomads from the Wakhan, the thin projection at Afghanistan's remote northeast, which lays its brotherly arm over Pakistan's Charpurson Valley, where many of the Kirghiz families also roam. Adrift in this wild corridor, between Pakistan and Tajikistan, and hemmed into the corner of their country by the Taliban, they received neither foreign aid nor help from their own government. They had ridden for six days to reach him after hearing that Mortenson was due in the Charpurson.

The village chief stepped close to Mortenson. "For me hard life is no problem," he said through Baig. "But for children no good. We have not much food, not much house, and no school. We know about Dr. Greg build school in Pakistan so you can come build for us? We give land, stone, men, everything. Come now and stay with us for the winter so we can have good discuss and make a school?"

Mortenson thought of this man's neighbors to the west, the ten thousand refugees stranded on islands of the Amu Darya River that he'd failed. Even though Afghanistan at war was hardly the place to launch a new development initiative, he swore to himself he'd find some way to help these Afghans.

Tortuously, through Baig, Mortenson explained his wife was expecting him home in a few days, and that all CAI projects had to be approved by the board. But he laid his own hand on the man's shoulder, squeezing the grime-blackened sheep's-wool vest he wore. "Tell him I need go home now. Tell him working in Afghanistan is very difficult for me," he told Baig. "But I promise I come visit his family as soon as I can. Then we discuss if building some school is possible."

The Kirghiz listened carefully to Baig, frowning with concentration before his weathered face cracked open in a smile. He placed his muscular hand on Mortenson's shoulder, sealing the promise, before mounting his horse and leading his men on the long trip home over the Hindu Kush to report to his warlord, Abdul Ras.h.i.+d Khan.

Mortenson, in Baig's house a year later, lay back on the comfortable charpoy charpoy his host had built for his guests, even though Baig and his family slept on the floor. Dan and Susan slept soundly, while McCown snored from his bed by the window. Mortenson, half awake, had lost the thread of the village elders' conversation. Sleepily, he meditated on his promise to the Kirghiz hors.e.m.e.n and wondered whether Mas-soud's murder would make it impossible to keep. his host had built for his guests, even though Baig and his family slept on the floor. Dan and Susan slept soundly, while McCown snored from his bed by the window. Mortenson, half awake, had lost the thread of the village elders' conversation. Sleepily, he meditated on his promise to the Kirghiz hors.e.m.e.n and wondered whether Mas-soud's murder would make it impossible to keep.

Baig blew out the lanterns long after midnight, insisting that in the small hours, faced with the unknowable affairs of men, there was only one proper course of action: Ask for the protection of all-merciful Allah, then sleep.

In the dark, as Mortenson drifted toward the end of his long day, the last sound he heard was Baig, whispering quietly out of respect for his guests, praying urgently to Allah for peace.

At 4:30 that morning, Mortenson was shaken awake. Faisal Baig held a cheap plastic Russian shortwave radio pressed against his ear. And in the green underwater light cast by the dial, Mortenson saw an expression on his bodyguard's handsome face he had never witnessed there before-fear.

"Dr. Sahib! Dr. Sahib! Big problem," Baig said. "Up! Up!"

The army training that had never completely abandoned him made Mortenson swing his feet onto the floor even though he'd only s.n.a.t.c.hed two hours of sleep. "As-Salaam Alaaik.u.m, Faisal," Mortenson said, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. " Faisal," Mortenson said, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. "Baaf Ateya, how are you?" how are you?"

Baig, usually courteous, clenched his jaw without answering. "Uzum Mofsar," "Uzum Mofsar," he said after a long moment of locking eyes with Mortenson. "I'm sorry." he said after a long moment of locking eyes with Mortenson. "I'm sorry."

"Why?" Mortenson asked. He saw warily that his bodyguard, whose bulk had always been enough to ward off any conceivable dan ger, had an AK-47 in his hands.

"A village called New York has been bombed."

Mortenson pulled a yak-hair blanket over his shoulders, slipped on his frozen sandals, and stepped outside. Around the house, in the bitter cold before first light, he saw that Baig had posted a guard around his American guests. Faisal's brother Alam Jan, a das.h.i.+ng blond-haired, blue-eyed high-alt.i.tude porter, held a Kalashnikov, covering the home's single window. Haidar, the village mullah, stood scanning the darkness toward Afghanistan. And Sarfraz, a lean, lanky former Pakistan army commando, watched the main road for any approaching vehicles while he fiddled with the dial of his own shortwave.

Mortenson learned that Sarfraz had heard a broadcast in Uighur, one of the half dozen languages he spoke, on a Chinese channel saying two great towers had fallen. He didn't understand what that meant, but knew that terrorists had killed many, many Americans. Now he was trying to find more news but, no matter how he spun the dial, the radio picked up only melancholy Uighur music from a station across the Chinese border in Kashgar.

Mortenson called for the satellite phone he'd bought specially for this trip, and Sarfraz, the most technically adept among them, rode off on his horse to retrieve it from his home, where he'd been learning to use it.

Faisal Baig needed no more information. With his AK-47 in one hand and the other balled into a fist by his side, he stared at the first blood-hued light brus.h.i.+ng the tips of Afghanistan's peaks. For years he'd seen it coming, the storm building. It would take months and millions of dollars poured into the flailing serpentine arms of the U.S. Intelligence apparatus to untangle for certain what this illiterate man who lived in the last village at the end of a dirt road, without an Internet connection or even a phone, knew instinctively.

"Your problem in New York village comes from there," he said, snarling at the border. "From this Al Qaeda shetan, shetan," he said, spitting toward Afghanistan, "Osama."

The huge Russian-made MI-17 helicopter arrived at exactly 8:00 a.m., as Brigadier General Bas.h.i.+r had promised Mortenson it would. Bas.h.i.+r's top lieutenant, Colonel Ilyas Mirza, jumped down before the rotor stopped and snapped the Americans a salute. "Dr. Greg, Mr. George, sir, reporting for duty," he said, as army commandos leaped out of the MI17 to form a perimeter around the Americans.

Ilyas was tall and das.h.i.+ng in the way Hollywood imagines its heroes. His black hair silvered precisely at the temples of his chiseled face. Otherwise he looked much like he had as a young man, when he served as one of his country's finest combat pilots. Ilyas was also a Wazir, from Bannu, the settlement Mortenson had pa.s.sed through just before his kidnapping, and the colonel's knowledge of how Mortenson had been treated by his tribe at first made him determined to see that no further harm befell his American friend.

Faisal Baig raised his hands to Allah and performed a dua, dua, thanking him for sending the army to protect the Americans. Packing no bag, with no idea where he was headed, he climbed into the helicopter with McCown's family and Mortenson, just to be sure their cordon of security was unbreachable. thanking him for sending the army to protect the Americans. Packing no bag, with no idea where he was headed, he climbed into the helicopter with McCown's family and Mortenson, just to be sure their cordon of security was unbreachable.

From the air, they called America on Mortenson's phone, trying to keep calls short because of its forty-minute battery life. From Tara and McCown's wife, Karen, they learned the details of the terror attacks.

Jamming the receiver's headphone attachment deeper into his ear, Mortenson squinted at the cut-and-pasted vistas of peaks he could make out through the MI-17's small portholes, trying to keep the phone's antenna oriented toward the south, where satellites reflecting his wife's voice circled.

Tara was so relieved to hear from her husband she burst into tears, telling him how much she loved him through the maddening static and delay. "I know you're with your second family and they'll keep you safe," she shouted. "Finish you work and then come home to me, my love."

McCown, who'd served in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Command, refueling B52s carrying nuclear payloads in midair, had an unusually vivid sense of the fate awaiting Afghanistan. "I know Rumsfeld and Rice and Powell all personally, so I knew we were about to go to war," McCown says. "And I figured if that Al Qaeda bunch was behind it we were going to start bombing what was left of Afghanistan into oblivion any minute.

"If that happened, I didn't know which way Musharraf would go. Even if he jumped in the direction of the U.S., I didn't know if the Pakistani military would jump with him, because they had supported the Taliban. I realized we could end up hostages and I was anxious to get the h.e.l.l out of Dodge."

The flight engineer apologized that there weren't enough headsets to go around and offered Mortenson a pair of yellow plastic ear protectors. He put them on and pressed his face to a porthole, enjoying the way the silence seemed to amplify the view. Below them, the steeply terraced hillsides of the Hunza Valley rose like a crazy quilt patched together of all known shades of green, draped over the gray elephantine flanks of stony mountainsides.

From the air, the problems of Pakistan appeared simple. There were the hanging green glaciers of Rakapos.h.i.+, splintering under a tropical sun. There, the stream carrying the offspring of the snows. Below were the villages lacking water. Mortenson squinted, following the traceries of irrigation channels carrying water to each village's terraced fields. From this height, nurturing life and prosperity in each isolated settlement seemed simply a matter of drawing straight lines to divert water.

The intricate obstinacies of village mullahs opposed to educating girls were invisible from this alt.i.tude, Mortenson thought. As was the webwork of local politics that could ensnare the progress of a women's vocational center or slow the construction of a school. And how could you even hope to identify the hotbeds of extremism, growing like malignancies in these vulnerable valleys, when they took such care to hide behind high walls and cloak themselves in the excuse of education?

The MI-17 touched down at the Shangri-La, an expensive fis.h.i.+ng resort patronized by Pakistan's generals on a lake an hour west of Skardu. In the owner's home, where a satellite dish dragged in a snowy version of CNN, McCown spent a numbing afternoon and evening watching footage of silvery fuselages turned missiles slamming into Lower Manhattan, and buildings sinking like torpedoed s.h.i.+ps into a sea of ash.

In the Jamia Darul Uloom Haqqania madra.s.sa Jamia Darul Uloom Haqqania madra.s.sa in Peshawar, which translates as the "University of All Righteous Knowledge," students later boasted to the in Peshawar, which translates as the "University of All Righteous Knowledge," students later boasted to the New York Times New York Times how they celebrated that day after hearing of the attack-running gleefully through the sprawling compound, stabbing their fingers into the palms of their hands, simulating what their teachers taught them was Allah's will in action-the impact of righteous airplanes on infidel office buildings. how they celebrated that day after hearing of the attack-running gleefully through the sprawling compound, stabbing their fingers into the palms of their hands, simulating what their teachers taught them was Allah's will in action-the impact of righteous airplanes on infidel office buildings.

Now, more than ever, Mortenson saw the need to dedicate himself to education. McCown was anxious to leave Pakistan by any possible route, and burned up the sat phone's batteries, trying to have business a.s.sociates meet him at the Indian border, or arrange flights to China. But all the border posts were sealed tight and all international flights grounded. "I told George, 'You're in the safest place on Earth right now.' " Mortenson says. " 'These people will protect you with their lives. Since we can't go anywhere, why don't we stick to the original program until we can put you on a plane?' "

The following day, General Bas.h.i.+r arranged for the MI-17 to take McCown's party on a flyby of K2, to entertain them while he searched for a way to send McCown and his family home. Face pressed to the porthole once again, Mortenson saw the Korphe School pa.s.s by far below, a yellow crescent glimmering faintly, like hope, among the vil-lage's emerald fields. It had become his custom to return to Korphe and share a cup of tea with Haji Ali each fall before returning to America. He promised himself he'd visit as soon as he'd escorted his guests safely out of the country.

On Friday, September 14, Mortenson and McCown drove an hour west to Kuardu in the Land Cruiser, at the head of a convoy that had grown much larger than usual as the grim news from the far side of the world washed over Baltistan. "It seemed like every politician, policeman, and military and religious leader in northern Pakistan came along to help us inaugurate the Kuardu School," Mortenson says.

Kuardu's primary school had been finished and educating students for years. But Changazi had delayed its official inauguration until an event promising sufficient pomp could be arranged, Mortenson says.

So many people crowded into the courtyard, munching apricot kernels as they milled around, that the school itself was hard to see. But the subject this day wasn't a building. Syed Abbas himself was the featured speaker. And with the Islamic world awash in crisis, the people of Baltistan hung on their supreme religious leader's every word.

"Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim," he began, "In the name of Allah Almighty, the Beneficent, the Merciful." he began, "In the name of Allah Almighty, the Beneficent, the Merciful." "As-Salaam Alaaik.u.m," "As-Salaam Alaaik.u.m," "Peace be upon you." "Peace be upon you."

"It is by fate that Allah the Almighty has brought us together in this hour," Syed Abbas said. The stage he stood on, invisible in the crush of bodies, made him seem to float above the crowd in his black cloak and turban. "Today is a day that you children will remember forever and tell your children and grandchildren. Today, from the darkness of illiteracy, the light of education s.h.i.+nes bright.

"We share in the sorrow as people weep and suffer in America today," he said, pus.h.i.+ng his thick gla.s.ses firmly into place, "as we inaugurate this school. Those who have committed this evil act against the innocent, the women and children, to create thousands of widows and orphans do not do so in the name of Islam. By the grace of Allah the Almighty, may justice be served upon them.

"For this tragedy, I humbly ask Mr. George and Dr. Greg Sahib for their forgiveness. All of you, my brethren: Protect and embrace these two American brothers in our midst. Let no harm come to them. Share all you have to make their mission successful.

"These two Christian men have come halfway around the world to show our Muslim children the light of education," Abbas said. "Why have we not been able to bring education to our children on our own? Fathers and parents, I implore you to dedicate your full effort and commitment to see that all your children are educated. Otherwise, they will merely graze like sheep in the field, at the mercy of nature and the world changing so terrifyingly around us."

Syed Abbas paused, considering what to say next, and somehow, even the youngest children among the hundreds of people packed into the courtyard were absolutely silent.

"I request America to look into our hearts," Abbas continued, his voice straining with emotion, "and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education. But today, another candle of knowledge has been lit. In the name of Allah the Almighty, may it light our way out of the darkness we find ourselves in."