Three Cups Of Tea Part 20

"In the morning, when I opened my eyes," Fedarko says, "I felt like I was in the middle of a carnival."

"Before Haji Ali died, he had constructed a small building next to his house, and told me to consider it my home in Baltistan," Mortenson says. "Twaha had decorated it himself with different-colored sc.r.a.ps of fabric, covered the floor with blankets and pillows, and plastered pictures on the wall from all my different trips to Korphe. It had sort of become a combination of a men's club and Korphe's unofficial town hall."

When Fedarko sat up to accept a cup of tea, a town meeting was about to begin. "The people were so excited to see Greg that they had crept in all around us while we were sleeping," Fedarko says, "and once they had pressed a cup of tea into each of our hands the meeting got going full blast, with everyone laughing, shouting, and arguing like we'd been awake for hours."

"Whenever I came to Korphe or any village where we worked, I'd usually spend a few days meeting with the village council," Mortenson says. "There was always a lot to work out. I had to get reports about the school, find out if anything needed fixing, if the students needed supplies, if the teachers were getting their pay regularly. There were also always a few requests for other things-another sewing machine for the women's center, requests for some pipe to repair a water project. That sort of thing. Business as usual."

But this morning, something far from usual happened in the Braldu Valley's last village. A pretty, self-a.s.sured young woman burst into the room, stepped through the circle of thirty tea-sipping men sitting cross-legged on cus.h.i.+ons, and approached the man who had built Korphe a school. Taking a seat boldly in front of Mortenson, Jahan interrupted the rollicking meeting of her village's elders.

"Dr. Greg," she said in Balti, her voice unwavering. "You made our village a promise once and you fulfilled it when you built our school. But you made me another promise the day the school was completed," she said. "Do you remember it?"

Mortenson smiled. Whenever he visited one of CAI's schools, he made time to ask all the students a little about themselves and their goals for the future, especially girls. Local village leaders accompanying him would shake their heads at first, amazed that a grown man would waste hours inquiring about the hopes and dreams of girls. But on return visits, they soon chalked the talk up to Mortenson's eccentricity and settled in to wait while he shook the hand of every student and asked them what they wanted to be one day, promising to help them reach those goals if they studied hard. Jahan had been one of the Korphe School's best students, and Mortenson had often listened to her talk about the hopes she had for her career.

"I told you my dream was to become a doctor one day and you said you would help," Jahan said, at the center of the circle of men. "Well, that day is here. You must keep your promise to me. I'm ready to begin my medical training and I need twenty thousand rupees."

Jahan unfolded a piece of paper on which she'd written a pet.i.tion, carefully worded in English, detailing the course of study in maternal health care she proposed to attend in Skardu. Mortenson, impressed, noticed that she'd even bullet-pointed the tuition fee and cost of school supplies.

"This is great, Jahan," Mortenson said. "I'll read this when I have time and discuss it with your father."

"No!" Jahan said forcefully, in English, before switching back to Balti so she could explain herself clearly. "You don't understand. My cla.s.s starts next week. I need money now!"

Mortenson grinned at the girl's pluck. The first graduate of his first school's first cla.s.s had obviously learned the lesson he'd hoped all of his female students would absorb eventually-not to take a backseat to men. Mortenson asked Apo for the pouch of CAI's rupees the old cook carried, incongruously, in a pink child's daypack and counted out twenty thousand rupees, about four hundred dollars, before handing them to Jahan's father for his daughter's tuition.

"It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my life," Fedarko says. "Here comes this teenage girl, in the center of a conservative Islamic village, waltzing into a circle of men, breaking through about sixteen layers of traditions at once: She had graduated from school and was the first educated woman in a valley of three thousand people. She didn't defer to anyone, sat down right in front of Greg, and handed him the product of the revolutionary skills she'd acquired- a proposal, in English, to better herself, and improve the life of her village.

"At that moment," Fedarko says, "for the first time in sixteen years of working as a journalist, I lost all objectivity. I told Greg, 'What you're doing here is a much more important story than the one I've come to report. I have to find some way to tell it.' "

Later that fall, stopping off in New York City on his way home to recuperate from spending two months, at alt.i.tude, among Pakistan and India's soldiers, Fedarko had lunch with his old friend Lamar Graham, then the managing editor of Parade Parade magazine. "Lamar asked me about my war story, but I just found myself blurting out everything I'd seen and done during my time with Greg," Fedarko says. magazine. "Lamar asked me about my war story, but I just found myself blurting out everything I'd seen and done during my time with Greg," Fedarko says.

"It was one of the most amazing stories I've ever heard," Graham says. "I told Kevin, if even half of it was true, we had to tell it in Parade. Parade."

The next day, the office phone rang in Mortenson's bas.e.m.e.nt. "Man, are you for real," Graham asked in his Missouri drawl. "Have you really done all the things Kevin's told me about? In Pakistan? On your own? 'Cause if you have, you're my hero."

It had never taken much to embarra.s.s Mortenson. This day was no different. "Well, I guess so," he said slowly, feeling the blood creep into his face, "but I had a lot of help."

On Sunday, April 6, with American ground forces ma.s.sing on the outskirts of Baghdad, fighting their way into position for their final a.s.sault on Saddam Hussein's capital, 34 million copies of a magazine with Mortenson's picture on the cover and a headline declaring "He Fights Terror With Books" saturated the nation's newspapers.

Never had Mortenson reached so many people, at such a critical time. The message he'd fought to publicize, ever since the morning he'd been shaken awake in Zuudkhan to hear the news from New York, had finally been delivered. Fedarko's story led with Jahan's breaking into a circle of men in Korphe, then connected Mortenson's work on the other side of the world with the well-being of Americans at home. "If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else," Mortenson argued to Parade Parade's readers, "then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs."

Mortenson's message hit a national nerve, proposing, as it did, another way for a deeply divided nation to approach the war on terror. More than eighteen thousand letters and e-mails flooded in from all fifty states and twenty foreign countries.

"Greg's story created one of the most powerful reader responses in Parade Parade's sixty-four years of publis.h.i.+ng," says Parade Parade editor-in-chief Lee Kravitz. "I think it's because people understand that he's a real American hero. Greg Mortenson is fighting a personal war on terror that has an impact on all of us, and his weapon is not guns or bombs, but schools. What could be a better story than that?" editor-in-chief Lee Kravitz. "I think it's because people understand that he's a real American hero. Greg Mortenson is fighting a personal war on terror that has an impact on all of us, and his weapon is not guns or bombs, but schools. What could be a better story than that?"

American readers agreed. Each day, for weeks after the article appeared, the wave of e-mails, letters, and telephone calls of support surged higher, threatening to swamp a small charitable organization run out of a bas.e.m.e.nt in Montana.

Mortenson turned for help to his pragmatic family friend Anne Beyersdorfer, a liberal Democrat who would later serve as a media consultant for Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful campaign for governor of California. Beyersdorfer flew from Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., to set up a "shock and awe" center in Mortenson's bas.e.m.e.nt. She hired a phone bank in Omaha, Nebraska, to answer calls, and b.u.mped up the bandwidth of the Central Asia Inst.i.tute's website to handle the traffic that threatened to shut it down.

The Tuesday after the story appeared, Mortenson went to pick up mail addressed to Central Asia Inst.i.tute's PO Box 7209. Eighty letters were stuffed inside. When Mortenson returned on Thursday, he found a note taped to his box telling him to pick up his mail at the counter. "So you're Greg Mortenson," the postmaster said. "I hope you brought a wheelbarrow." Mortenson loaded five canvas sacks of letters into his Toyota and returned the next day to haul home four more. For the next three months, the letters from Parade Parade readers kept Bozeman's postal workers unusually busy. readers kept Bozeman's postal workers unusually busy.

By the time images of Saddam Hussein's statue falling had been beamed around the world, Mortenson realized that his life had been forever changed-the outpouring of support left him no choice but to embrace his new national prominence. "I felt like America had spoken. My tribe had spoken," Mortenson says. "And the most amazing thing was that after I finished reading every message, there was only one negative letter in the whole bunch."

The response was so overwhelmingly positive that it salved the wounds of the death threats he'd received soon after 9/11. "What really humbled me was how the response came from all sorts of people, from church groups, Muslims, Hindus, and Jews," Mortenson says. "I got letters of support from a lesbian political organization in Marin County, a Baptist youth group in Alabama, a general in the U.S. Air Force, and just about every other kind of group you can imagine."

Jake Greenberg, a thirteen-year-old from the suburbs of Philadelphia, was so fired up by reading about Mortenson's work that he donated more than one thousand dollars of his bar mitzvah money to the CAI and volunteered to come to Pakistan and help out himself. "When I heard about Greg's story," Greenberg says, "I realized that, unlike me, children in the Muslim world might not have educational opportunities. It makes no difference that I'm a Jew sending money to help Muslims. We all need to work together to plant the seeds of peace."

A woman who identified herself only as Sufiya e-mailed the following to CAI's website: "As a Muslim woman, born in America, I am showered with G.o.d's blessings, unlike my sisters around the world who endure oppression. Arab nations should look at your tremendous work and wallow in shame for never helping their own people. With sincere respect and admiration, I thank you."

Letters poured in from American servicemen and women, embracing Mortenson as a comrade on the front lines of the fight against terror. "As a captain in the U.S. Army and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan with the Eighty-second Airborne Division I have had a very unique and up-close perspective on life in the rural portions of Central Asia," wrote Jason B. Nicholson from Fayetteville, North Carolina. "The war in Afghanistan was, and continues to be, b.l.o.o.d.y and destructive; most of all on those who deserve it least-the innocent civilians who only wish to make a wage and live a decent life with their families. CAI's projects provide a good alternative to the education offered in many of the radicalized madra.s.sas madra.s.sas from where the Tal-iban sprung forth with their so-called 'fundamental Islamacism.' What can be better than a future world made safe for us all by education? The Central Asia Inst.i.tute is now my charity of choice." from where the Tal-iban sprung forth with their so-called 'fundamental Islamacism.' What can be better than a future world made safe for us all by education? The Central Asia Inst.i.tute is now my charity of choice."

Thousands of people felt the same way. By the time U.S. forces had settled in to endure their long occupation of Iraq, and Anne Beyersdorfer had dismantled the "shock and awe" operation and returned home, the CAI had gone from wallowing near financial insolvency to possessing a bank balance of more than one million dollars.

"It had been so long since the CAI had some real money that I wanted to get right back over there and put it to work," Mortenson says. "But the board pressed me to make some changes we'd been talking about for years, and I agreed it was time."

For six hundred dollars a month, Mortenson rented a small wood-paneled office s.p.a.ce in a nondescript building a block from Bozeman's Main Street, and hired four employees to schedule his speaking engagements, produce a newsletter, maintain a website, and manage CAI's growing database of donors. And, at the board's insistence, after a decade of living paycheck to paycheck, Mortenson accepted a long-overdue raise that nearly doubled his salary.

Tara Bishop appreciated that her husband's salary finally began to reflect the hards.h.i.+ps her family had endured for almost a decade. But she was far from happy about how frequently her husband would now be away, launching ambitious new projects the Parade Parade money made possible. money made possible.

"After Greg's kidnapping, and after 9/11, I didn't bother trying to talk Greg out of going back because I knew he'd go no matter what," Tara says. "So I've learned to live in what I call 'functional denial' while he's away. I just keep telling myself that he'll be fine. I trust the people he has around him, and I trust his cultural intelligence after working over there for so long. Still, I know it only takes one fundamentalist whack job to kill him. But I refuse to let myself think about that while he's away," she says with a strained laugh.

Christiane Letinger, whose mountaineer husband, Charlie s.h.i.+manski, predicts Mortenson will win the n.o.bel Peace Prize one day, argues that Tara Bishop's calm endurance is every bit as heroic as the risks her husband takes overseas. "How many women would have the strength and vision to let the father of their children work in such a dangerous place for months at a time?" Letinger asks. "Tara not only allows it, but supports it, because she believes so strongly in Greg's mission. If that's not heroism I don't know what is."

Suleman was the first person in Pakistan to get the good news. As they drove past the scale model of the mountain where Pakistan had detonated its "Muslim Bomb," Mortenson told his friend and fixer about the explosion of support Americans had provided to the CAI. Mortenson, whose staff in Pakistan had worked long hours alongside him for years, without benefiting personally the way locals allied with a foreigner might have expected to, was determined to share CAI's good fortune with his troops.

Mortenson told Suleman his salary would increase immediately, from eight hundred dollars to sixteen hundred dollars a year. That would be more than enough money for Suleman to achieve the dream he had been saving for, to move his family to Rawalpindi from his home village of Dhok Luna, and send his son Imran to private school. Suleman stole a glance from the road ahead to look at Mortenson, waggling his head with delight.

In the years since they'd been working together, both men had put on considerable weight, and Suleman's hair had gone mostly gray. But unlike Mortenson, once armed with his new salary, Suleman refused to let age have its way without a fight.

Suleman drove to the Jinnah Super Market, a fancy shopping center, walked into a hairdresser's, and ordered the most extravagant treatment on the menu. When he stepped outside two hours later, and found Mortenson browsing at his favorite bookstore, the thick thatch of graying hair over Suleman's grinning face had been dyed a shocking shade of orange.

In Skardu, Mortenson called a jirga jirga in the upstairs dining room of the Indus to announce the good news. Gathering his staff around two tables, he announced that Apo, Hussain, and Faisal would now receive the raises they had deserved for years, and their salaries would double, from five hundred dollars to one thousand dollars a year. Parvi, who already made two thousand dollars annually as CAI's director in Pakistan, would now receive four thousand dollars a year, a formidable salary in Skardu for the man who made all of CAI's projects in Pakistan possible. in the upstairs dining room of the Indus to announce the good news. Gathering his staff around two tables, he announced that Apo, Hussain, and Faisal would now receive the raises they had deserved for years, and their salaries would double, from five hundred dollars to one thousand dollars a year. Parvi, who already made two thousand dollars annually as CAI's director in Pakistan, would now receive four thousand dollars a year, a formidable salary in Skardu for the man who made all of CAI's projects in Pakistan possible.

To Hussain, Mortenson disbursed an additional five hundred dollars, so he could have the engine of the aging Land Cruiser that had logged so many miles overhauled. Parvi suggested renting a warehouse in Skardu, now that they had sufficient funds, so they could buy cement and building supplies in bulk and store them until they were needed.

Mortenson hadn't felt so fired up and frantic to work since the day, six years earlier, that he had gathered his staff around one of the plank tables downstairs in the lobby and told them to start spending the Parade Parade readers' money as quickly as they could construct schools. Before leaving town on a series of jeep rides and helicopter trips to jump-start two dozen new schools, women's centers, and water schemes, Mortenson proposed one project more: "For a long time, I've been worrying about what to do when our students graduate," he said. "Mr. Parvi, would you look into what it would cost to build a hostel in Skardu, so our best students would have someplace to stay if we give them scholars.h.i.+ps to continue their education?" readers' money as quickly as they could construct schools. Before leaving town on a series of jeep rides and helicopter trips to jump-start two dozen new schools, women's centers, and water schemes, Mortenson proposed one project more: "For a long time, I've been worrying about what to do when our students graduate," he said. "Mr. Parvi, would you look into what it would cost to build a hostel in Skardu, so our best students would have someplace to stay if we give them scholars.h.i.+ps to continue their education?"

"I'd be delighted, Dr. Sahib," Parvi said, smiling, freed finally to organize the project he'd been advocating for years.

"Oh, and one more thing," Mortenson said.

"Yes, Dr. Greg, sir."

"Yasmine would be a perfect candidate to receive one of CAI's first scholars.h.i.+ps. Can you let me know what her tuition would be if she went to private high school in the fall?"

Yasmine, fifteen, was Parvi's daughter, a straight-A student who had obviously inherited her father's fierce intelligence, and just as obviously inspired his fierce devotion. "Well?"

For a rare, elongated moment, Ghulam Parvi, the most eloquent man in Skardu, was struck silent, his mouth hanging open. "I don't know what to say," he said.

"Allah-u-Akbhar!" Apo shouted, throwing up his hands in theatrical rapture, as the table exploded in laughter. "How long..." he croaked between giggles in his gravelly voice, "I've waited...for this day!" Apo shouted, throwing up his hands in theatrical rapture, as the table exploded in laughter. "How long..." he croaked between giggles in his gravelly voice, "I've waited...for this day!"

Throughout the summer of 2003, Mortenson worked feverishly, testing the limits of the Land Cruiser's rebuilt engine as he and his reenergized crew visited each of the new construction sites that the Parade Parade money had made possible, smoothing out obstacles, and delivering supplies. Nine new schools in northern Pakistan were progressing smoothly, but one of CAI's established projects, the Halde School, which the aging Mouzafer had helped bring to his village, had hit a roadblock, Mortenson learned. The five-room school had done so well that its operation was now entrusted to the increasingly effective local government. money had made possible, smoothing out obstacles, and delivering supplies. Nine new schools in northern Pakistan were progressing smoothly, but one of CAI's established projects, the Halde School, which the aging Mouzafer had helped bring to his village, had hit a roadblock, Mortenson learned. The five-room school had done so well that its operation was now entrusted to the increasingly effective local government.

Yakub, who had seen Mortenson's team member Scott Darsney safely off the Baltoro back in 1993, had created a crisis. An aging porter whose upside days were done, like his neighbor Mouzafer, Yakub wanted to be appointed the school's chokidar, chokidar, or watchman. He had pet.i.tioned the government, requesting the job. But after receiving no reply, he chained the doors of the school, demanding payment. or watchman. He had pet.i.tioned the government, requesting the job. But after receiving no reply, he chained the doors of the school, demanding payment.

A day after the news reached him in Skardu, Mortenson arrived in the Land Cruiser, dusty and exhausted from the eight-hour trip. Grinning with his sudden inspiration, Mortenson reached under his driver Hussain's seat.

He found Yakub standing uncertainly by the chained and padlocked door to the Halde School as a crowd of villagers gathered. Smilingly, Mortenson patted Yakub's shoulder with his right hand, before holding out the two sticks of dynamite he clenched in his left fist.

After exchanging pleasantries and inquiries about friends and family, Yakub's voice shook as he asked the question he knew he must: "What is that for, Dr. Greg, Sahib, sir?"

Mortenson handed the two sticks of dynamite to Yakub, still smiling. Perhaps, he thought, the explosives could clear up obstacles more intractable than a road covered with rocks. "I want you take these, Yakub," Mortenson said in Balti, pressing them into Yakub's shaking hand. "I'm leaving now for Khanday, to check on the progress of another school. When I come back tomorrow, I'll be bringing a match. If I don't see that the school is open and the students are going to cla.s.s, we're going to make an announcement at the village mosque for everyone to gather here and watch you blow it up."

Mortenson left Yakub holding the dynamite in both trembling hands and walked back toward the jeep. "The choice is yours," he said over his shoulder, climbing back in. "See you tomorrow. Khuda hafiz! Khuda hafiz!"

Mortenson returned the next afternoon and delivered new pencils and notebooks to Halde's students, who were happily reinstalled at their desks. His old friend Mouzafer was not yet too feeble to a.s.sert his will on the school he helped to build. From Apo, Mortenson learned that Mouzafer, whose two grandchildren attended the Halde School, had also offered Yakub a choice after Mortenson left. "Get your keys and open the school," he'd told Yakub, "or I'll personally tie you to a tree and blow you up with Dr. Greg's dynamite." As punishment, Mortenson later learned, Halde's village council forced Yakub to sweep the school early each morning without pay.

Not every obstacle to education in northern Pakistan was so easily overcome. Mortenson would have liked to deliver dynamite to Agha Mubarek, but struggled to follow Parvi's advice, and observe, from afar, as the case against the mullah for destroying the Hemasil School progressed in Shariat Court.

After Korphe, no CAI project in Pakistan was closer to Mortenson's heart than the Hemasil School. In 1998, Ned Gillette, an American climber and former Olympic skier Mortenson admired, was killed while trekking in the Haramosh Valley, between Hemasil and Hunza, with his wife, Susan. The details of his death are still disputed by Pakistan's authorities, but the story Mortenson had pieced together from talking to Haramosh villagers was this: Gillette and his wife had been approached by porters who insisted that they hire them. Gillette, committed to traveling alpiniste-style, with only two light backpacks, refused, a bit too forcefully for the porters' taste. Late that night, the two men returned with a shotgun to the tent where the couple was sleeping.

"My guess is that perhaps they were just planning to rob them," Mortenson says. "To take something that, in their minds, would avenge their wounded honor. But, unfortunately, things got out of hand." Gillette was killed by a shotgun blast to the abdomen. Susan, badly wounded by buckshot in the thigh, survived.

"As far as I know," Mortenson says, "Ned Gillette was the first Westerner ever murdered in northern Pakistan. When his sister, Debbie Law, contacted me, and asked to donate money so a school could be built in her brother's honor, I jumped to make it happen. I couldn't imagine a more meaningful tribute."

But the site the elders of s.h.i.+gar Valley chose for the Ned Gillette School was not only near the pa.s.s where he was murdered, it was adjacent to Chutran, mullah Agha Mubarek's village.

"After we had the walls built, and the men of our village were about to begin putting on the roof, Agha Mubarek and his men arrived to block the project," says Mehdi Ali, the village elder who oversaw the construction of the Hemasil School. Mehdi was an activist for education whose father, Sheikh Mohammed, had written asking for a ruling from Iran after the first fatwa fatwa had been declared against Mortenson. "Mubarek told us, 'This had been declared against Mortenson. "Mubarek told us, 'This kafir kafir school is no good. It is the non-Muslim school. It is to recruit Christians.' I told him, 'I know Mr. Greg Mortenson for a long time and he never does such like that,' but Mubarek wouldn't hear me. So after midnight, his men came with their hammers and tried to take away our children's future." school is no good. It is the non-Muslim school. It is to recruit Christians.' I told him, 'I know Mr. Greg Mortenson for a long time and he never does such like that,' but Mubarek wouldn't hear me. So after midnight, his men came with their hammers and tried to take away our children's future."

Mehdi, along with Parvi, had paraded character witnesses for Mortenson through the high Shariat Court all spring and summer, and testified themselves. "I told the mullah in charge that Agha Mubarek collects money from my people and never provides any zakat zakat for our children," Mehdi Ali says. "I told them Agha Mubarek has no business making a for our children," Mehdi Ali says. "I told them Agha Mubarek has no business making a fatwa fatwa on a saintly man like Dr. Greg. It is he who should be judged in the eyes of Allah Almighty." on a saintly man like Dr. Greg. It is he who should be judged in the eyes of Allah Almighty."

In August 2003, when the Shariat Court issued its final ruling, it sided firmly with Mehdi Ali and Mortenson. The court declared Agha Mubarek's fatwa fatwa illegitimate and ordered him to pay for the eight hundred bricks his men destroyed. illegitimate and ordered him to pay for the eight hundred bricks his men destroyed.

"It was a very humbling victory," Mortenson says. "Here you have this Islamic court in conservative s.h.i.+a Pakistan offering protection for an American, at a time when America is holding Muslims without charges in Guantanamo, Cuba, for years, under our so-called system of justice."

After a decade of struggle, Mortenson felt that finally, all the tea leaves in Pakistan were swirling his way. That summer, Mortenson gained a powerful new ally when Mohammed Fareed Khan was appointed the new chief secretary of the Northern Areas. Khan, a Wazir from Miram Shah, took office determined to declare war on northern Pakistan's poverty with his tribe's traditional aggressiveness.

At a meeting over tea, trout, and cuc.u.mber sandwiches in his headquarters, a nineteenth-century British colonial villa in Gilgit, he sought Mortenson's advice about where to spend the money now finally flowing north from Musharraf 's government in Islamabad. And to demonstrate his support for girls' education, he pledged to accompany Mortenson and personally inaugurate the Ned Gillette School after his police force had insured that it was rebuilt.

Another forceful personality, Brigadier General Bhangoo, had a more novel way of demonstrating his support for Mortenson. Brigadier Bhangoo had been President Musharraf 's personal helicopter pilot before retiring from the military to join General Bas.h.i.+r's civil aviation company. By the summer of 2003, he regularly volunteered for the honor of transporting Mortenson to far-flung projects in his aging Alouette helicopter.

The general still wore his military flight suit, but subst.i.tuted a pair of bright-blue jogging shoes for his combat boots, which he said gave him a better feel for the pedals.

Flying down the s.h.i.+gar Valley toward Skardu, after retrieving Mortenson from a remote village, Bhangoo became enraged when Mortenson pointed out the ruins of Hemasil's school and related the story of his feud with Agha Mubarek.

"Point out this gentleman's house, will you?" Bhangoo said, increasing power to the Alouette's turbine. After Mortenson leveled a finger at the large walled compound where Mubarek lived, far beyond the means of a simple village mullah, Bhangoo set his lips firmly below his precisely clipped mustache and nudged his control stick forward, dive-bombing toward Mubarek's house.

People on the rooftops ran inside to take shelter as Bhangoo buzzed the compound half a dozen times, like an angry hornet preparing to sting, leaving welts of dust in his wake after each pa.s.s. His thumb drifted to the red b.u.t.ton marked "missile" and he toyed with it idly. "Pity we're not armed," he said, banking toward Skardu, "Still, that should give him something to think about."

Six months later, the red b.u.t.tons would be connected to actual armaments, when fifteen military helicopters flew in formation up the Daryle Valley, a haven of Taliban and Al Qaeda holdouts two hundred miles to the west, hunting extremists who had bombed eight government girls' schools. Mortenson, by then, had come to admire Musharraf, gratified to see that Pakistan's government was prepared to fight for the education of its girls.

In the fall of 2003, at the desk of his aviation company in Rawalpindi, as he tried to arrange a flight for Mortenson to Afghanistan, now that the CAI's work in Pakistan was on firm enough footing for him to leave, Bhangoo's boss, the bull-like Brigadier General Bas.h.i.+r Baz, ruminated on the importance of educating all of Pakistan's children, and the progress America was making in the war on terror.

"You know Greg, I have to thank your president," Bas.h.i.+r, said, paging through flight schedules on his high-tech flat-screen computer monitor. "A nightmare was growing on our western border, and he's paid to put it to an end. I can't imagine why. The only gainer in the whole equation is Pakistan."

Bas.h.i.+r paused to watch a live CNN feed from Baghdad. Staring at a small video window inset into the flight manifests scrolling down his monitor, Bas.h.i.+r was struck silent by the images of wailing Iraqi women carrying children's bodies out of the rubble of a bombed building.

As he studied the screen, Bas.h.i.+r's bullish shoulders slumped. "People like me are America's best friends in the region," Bas.h.i.+r said at last, shaking his head ruefully. "I'm a moderate Muslim, an educated man. But watching this, even I could become a jihadi. jihadi. How can Americans say they are making themselves safer?" Bas.h.i.+r asked, struggling not to direct his anger toward the large American target on the other side of his desk. "Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years." How can Americans say they are making themselves safer?" Bas.h.i.+r asked, struggling not to direct his anger toward the large American target on the other side of his desk. "Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years."

"Osama had something to do with it, too," Mortenson said.

"Osama, baah!" Bas.h.i.+r roared. "Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relations.h.i.+ps with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever."

Bas.h.i.+r took a breath, and peered back through his tiny window to Baghdad, where a camera crew was filming radicalized young Iraqi men shaking their fists and firing their weapons into the air after setting off a roadside bomb. "Sorry, sir," he said, "I'm really inexcusably rude. Of course you know this as well as I do. Shall we have lunch?" Then Bas.h.i.+r pushed a b.u.t.ton on his intercom and asked his lieutenant to send in the tubs of Kentucky Fried Chicken he'd ordered from the Blue Area especially for his American guest.

Skardu can be a depressing place when weather sets in. But in October 2003, making his last visit of the year to the Northern Areas before leaving to launch his new CAI initiative in Afghanistan, Mortenson felt perfectly content, despite the low cloud cover and encroaching chill.

Before Mortenson left Rawalpindi, Brigadier General Bas.h.i.+r had pledged four lakh lakh rupees, or about six thousand dollars, a considerable sum in Pakistan, toward a new CAI school to be built in his home village southeast of Peshawar, where rupees, or about six thousand dollars, a considerable sum in Pakistan, toward a new CAI school to be built in his home village southeast of Peshawar, where Wahhabi madra.s.sas Wahhabi madra.s.sas were plentiful. And he had promised to press his friends in the military for further donations, voicing his confidence that at least one American's war on terror was being fought in an effective fas.h.i.+on. were plentiful. And he had promised to press his friends in the military for further donations, voicing his confidence that at least one American's war on terror was being fought in an effective fas.h.i.+on.

Mortenson had also won a landmark victory in Shariat Court, overcome his second fatwa, fatwa, and humbled his most vocal opponent. Ten more schools would open their doors in the spring, once the nine new schools funded by and humbled his most vocal opponent. Ten more schools would open their doors in the spring, once the nine new schools funded by Parade Parade readers were completed, and the Ned Gillette School in Hemasil was rebuilt. Already, as Mortenson prepared to leave for Afghanistan, more than forty CAI schools were tucked into the high valleys of the Karakoram and Hindu Kush, where they were thriving. Thanks to Mortenson, the students who studied within their stone walls had become each village's most carefully tended crop. readers were completed, and the Ned Gillette School in Hemasil was rebuilt. Already, as Mortenson prepared to leave for Afghanistan, more than forty CAI schools were tucked into the high valleys of the Karakoram and Hindu Kush, where they were thriving. Thanks to Mortenson, the students who studied within their stone walls had become each village's most carefully tended crop.

And downside in bustling Skardu, in a small mud-block house Twaha had rented, with a view of a broad field where neighborhood children played soccer around cl.u.s.ters of grazing cattle, the new nurmadhar nurmadhar of Korphe's daughter was now living with her former cla.s.smate, chaperoned by two male cousins who'd come down from upside to see that the boldest young women in the entire Braldu were well looked after while they pursued their dreams. of Korphe's daughter was now living with her former cla.s.smate, chaperoned by two male cousins who'd come down from upside to see that the boldest young women in the entire Braldu were well looked after while they pursued their dreams.

Jahan and her cla.s.smate Tahira, the Korphe School's first two female graduates, had come to Skardu together, as two of the CAI's first harvest of scholars.h.i.+p students. And on his last day in Skardu, when Mortenson stopped by with Jahan's father, Twaha, to inquire about the girls' progress, Jahan took pride in preparing tea for him herself, in her own home, as her grandmother Sakina had so often done.

While Mortenson sipped the Lipton Tea, brewed, not from handfuls of torn leaves and rancid yak milk, but from tap water and bags bought in Skardu's bazaar, he wondered what Sakina would have made of it. He imagined she would prefer her paiyu cha. paiyu cha. Of her granddaughter, he was certain, she would be very proud. Jahan had completed her maternal health training course, but elected to stay in Skardu and continue her studies. Of her granddaughter, he was certain, she would be very proud. Jahan had completed her maternal health training course, but elected to stay in Skardu and continue her studies.

Courtesy of the CAI, both Jahan and Tahira were taking a full complement of cla.s.ses at the private Girls' Model High School, including English grammar, formal Urdu, Arabic, physics, economics, and history.

Tahira, wearing a spotless white headscarf and sandals that wouldn't have been practical in the mountains, told Mortenson that once she graduated, she planned to return to Korphe and teach alongside her father, Master Hussein. "I've had this chance," she said. "Now when we go upside, all the people look at us, at our clothes, and think we are fas.h.i.+onable ladies. I think every girl of the Braldu deserves the chance to come downside at least once. Then their life will change. I think the greatest service I can perform is to go back and insure that this happens for all of them."

Jahan, who had come to Skardu planning to become a simple health worker and return to Korphe, was in the process of revising her goals upward. "Before I met you, Dr. Greg, I had no idea what education was," Jahan said, refilling his teacup. "But now I think it is like water. It is important for everything in life."

"What about marriage?" Mortenson asked, knowing that a nur-madhar nur-madhar's daughter would always be in demand, especially a pretty girl of seventeen, and a Balti husband might not support his brash young wife's ambitions.

"Don't worry, Dr. Greg," Twaha said, laughing in the rasping fas.h.i.+on that he'd inherited from Haji Ali. "The girl has learned your lesson too well. She has already made it clear she must finish her studies before we can even discuss marrying her to a suitable boy. And I agree. I will sell all my land if necessary so she can complete her education. I owe that to the memory of my father."

"So what will you do?" Mortenson asked Jahan.

"You won't laugh?" she said.

"I might," Mortenson teased.

Jahan took a breath and composed herself. "When I was a little sort of girl and I would see a gentleman or a lady with good, clean clothes I would run away and hide my face. But after I graduated from the Korphe School, I felt a big change in my life. I felt I was clear and clean and could go before anybody and discuss anything.

"And now that I am already in Skardu, I feel that anything is possible. I don't want to be just a health worker. I want to be such a woman that I can start a hospital and be an executive, and look over all the health problems of all the women in the Braldu. I want to become a very famous woman of this area," Jahan said, twirling the hem of her maroon silk headscarf around her finger as she peered out the window, past a soccer player sprinting through the drizzle toward a makes.h.i.+ft goal built of stacked stones, searching for the exact word with which to envision her future. "I want to be a... 'Superlady,' " she said, grinning defiantly, daring anyone, any man, to tell her she couldn't.

Mortenson didn't laugh after all. Instead, he beamed at the bold granddaughter of Haji Ali and imagined the contented look that would have been on the old nurmadhar nurmadhar's face if he had lived long enough to see this day, to see the seed they planted together bear such splendid fruit.

Five hundred and eighty letters, twelve rams, and ten years of work was a small price to pay, Mortenson thought, for such a moment.