The OK Corral
I returned from the Panjshir in time for an impromptu barbeque here in the courtyard of the Mustafa. The general manager, Wais, seems to
semi-regularly throw these parties for guests and friends. I was
famished and was delighted to eat steak, pork ribs, crab legs, and
chicken wings. Fresh veggies that're safe to eat, BBQ sauce and hot
sauce, topped off with cheesecake for desert. This would be a feast
anywhere but in the land of "kebab, pilau, nan," it's absolutely fit
for a king.
As word of food spread, some life was breathed into this place and people began to filter in. I spent a few hours eating and chatting
with the characters that comprise the expat community here. The
highlight for me was probably talking with a British "security
consultant" whom I've befriended over the last week. I mentioned the
"Wanted: Osama bin Laden" matchbooks that CIA dumped all over
Pashtunistan after 9/11 and to my surprise and delight, he said that
he knew some people and would make some calls in the next few days and would probably be able to get me one! They're nearly impossible to get, all having been snatched up by collectors or used up by a people so used to box matches that they eagerly snap up and use any book matches they can find.
I'd had an early morning and by 10pm I was completely beat. I retired to my room and quickly fell asleep.
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I woke up to the sound of nearby pistol fire. I immediately jumped out of bed and grabbed my passport and large USD cash and then slipped into pants and a t-shirt. I strapped on my watch -- 11:51p -- and tied my shoes. Moments later, the pistol fire stopped and was replaced by machine gun fire. By now I was dressed and ready to run as well as
coherent enough to gauge how near the fire was.
It was definitely very close.
Between me and the front door of the hotel was about 120' of open
space. The machine gun bursts sounded like they were definitely either
coming from there or coming from the bar which is situated near the
front but on the second level of the complex.
I quickly considered my options. "Should I move or stay put in my
room? If firing starts here outside my room, I should probably lay
down near the thick marble of the front wall -- it's barely large
enough for me to tuck my body behind. In case someone starts going
room to room, I should make up the bed to look like I'm sleeping in
it, but will I be safer, then, hiding under the bed, which won't
really stop bullets, or should I still tuck myself near the front of
the room? If someone entered the room, could I kill them with my metal
pen before they could shoot me? Is someone attacking the hotel or is
this internal? There're guards at the front and they're armed, but...
What time is it now? 11:57. Christ -- I tied my shoes far too tight
and my feet are going numb."
I loosened and re-tied my shoes as shotgun fire erupted, this time much closer than the machine gun fire. Three shots, a pause, then a fourth.
A few minutes passed with only shouting -- too far away to be
intelligible and half of it in Dari -- and I decided I could safely venture out of my room and try to see what was going on. I put two fingers against my neck and checked my pulse. It was faster than a resting pulse but far slower than I expected. My body had a light sheen of sweat on it but despite my fear I felt quite composed and clear headed. "Okay," I thought. "Here we go."
I crept out of my room silently, my metal-sleeved pen in my right hand
and a small LED flashlight, unlit, in the other. I walked through the
side courtyard, heading for the stairs to the second floor. I crept up
the stairs and looked around, seeing nobody. I rounded that hallway
and was continuing now a second when suddenly, right in front of me,
"Billy," a hotel regular and former Marine, rounded the corner with a
shotgun in his hand. He shouted at me, "STAY THE FUCK DOWN!" He's
always struck me as quite volatile and in that moment I was more
afraid of him than I was of whoever had the machine gun(s). I quickly
turned and half-walked/half-ran the other way, back down the hall, down the
stairs, and back to my room.
I quickly threw everything in my backpack, leaving the dirty clothes out so I wouldn't have to pack carefully, and set it near the door. I had to pee urgently and I realized that if this shit really went pear-shaped, an empty bladder would be an asset. I peed into a plastic water bottle and reassessed the situation. Billy was alive, the shotgun firing was likely him, the voices are definitely in both Dari and English and one of the English voices is shouting for Wais, the general manager.
I heard more shouting and now glass was breaking. A French man staying at the hotel crept by and we talked in hushed whispers. He'd also been
woken up by the firing, had no idea what was going on, had hid under his bed initially, and told me that after the initial pistol shots, he'd heard a woman screaming. I asked if him if he thought she'd seen something bad or if she'd been shot -- "Which kind of scream was it?" -- but he said he couldn't tell. We confided in each other that part of why we'd come to Afghanistan was for the danger but that this was definitely not what either of us had in mind.
After a while longer, he crept out again to see what was going on and I followed him. We slipped around the front corner, drawn by voices,
and found, finally, that the police, the Afghan National Army, and an
ISAF patrol had showed up at the front door of the hotel. This was
approximately 30 minutes after the shooting had begun.
I walked into the cluster of shouting people and tried to ascertain what went on. As far as I can piece things together, based on what I heard that night and what I've learned today, what happened is something like:
After the barbeque wound down, people still interested in drinking and partying moved from the courtyard into the bar. "Jason," a hotel
regular, was drinking heavily as was "Englebert," someone who'd just
checked into the hotel for the first time last night and who was, depending on who you asked, either a a State Department employee or a contract construction worker. In any case, the story goes that Jason, who was a nasty drunk and had caused problems twice earlier in the evening, called Englebert a faggot.
What happened next is unclear, but Jason went into a bathroom and Englebert left the bar and went into a shadowy area of the lounge about 40' away and waited for Jason to exit the bathroom. When he did, Englebert opened fire on him. Jason returned fire. Both men ran out of pistol ammo without hitting each other. Jason grabbed an MP5 submachinegun from his friend "Matthew" and opened fire with that.
Somewhere in the midst of the firefight, Englebert disappeared completely, either running off down the street or vanishing into the labyrinth-like hotel compound.
Resolving things with ISAF and the police took a few hours, with Jason
completely out of his head, drunk and furious, claiming self-defense
and saying that Englebert had tried to kill him, his wife, and his
friend. Luckily for everyone, Jason's friend Matthew was a cool head
and prevailed upon him to relax a little and stop threatening the
police and ANA soldiers. Wais was reasonable and handled the situation
well also. If you should want, or expect, anyone to remain calm, cool,
and logical in a situation like that, it's the people in a position of
authority and responsibility over everyone else.
Jason and his entourage left and then ISAF/police/ANA left and I
retired to bed. The next morning, I found out that Wais searched the
hotel and found the guy, the shooter, hiding in one of the servants
quarters. He handcuffed him and turned him over to the police who've
since tossed him in jail.
As you might imagine, discussing this has been on everyones lips all
day. People can hardly seem to talk about anything else.
Tidbits from today:
1) An Afghan couple who'd just married arrived at the Mustafa last
night. They entered with their wedding party and then the wedding
party left and the bride and groom came down to the lounge, barefoot.
(?) The second they stepped foot in the lounge is when the shooting
broke out. Glass flew everywhere. Bullets were flying. They
immediately ran from the hotel, running across broken glass barefoot.
2) Everyone ended up strange positions. I was in my room for most of
the firing, trying to decide whether it was safer to stay there or to
flee. Nick, the Greek doctor, stuffed his cargo pockets with a first
aid kit and gauze bandages and immediately went to the roof of the
hotel, thinking that anybody shooting wouldn't want to be cornered and
thus wouldn't come upstairs. Josh peed in a bottle like I had and
ended up on the roof with Nick. Mary ended up in someone elses room,
making cell phone calls to ask if people are ok.
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Today, the vast majority of the people in the hotel, and especially
the locals and expat regulars, have brushed off the incident as a mere
hiccup and are more concerned with looking forward to future
ramifications. "What if the Afghan police demand that everyone who has
weapons in the hotel have a permit?" Wouldn't that be terrible? It
might be for certain peoples fragile egos and paranoid fantasies, but
in terms of overall safety for everyone, I think it would be an
improvement. To acquiesce to the general chaos of the region is a
mistake, in my opinion. Weapons firing in the lobby of a hotel,
nevermind fully automatic weapons, is not a normal or safe state and
it shouldn't be brushed off with a macho shrug and wink.
Of course, voicing opinions like these might help me find camraderie
amongst the more enlightened expats, but to the rest it marks me as a
coward who's not a "Real Man." A real man would understand that being
called a faggot is appropriately responded to by trying to kill
someone and a real man would know that this sort of thing is just men
being men -- naturally prone to violence, tough, macho, hard. It's all
very absurd but in a land where the natural state is so abnormal, I
think it's easy to lose sight of what should be the natural state.
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