The Secret Gate

Copyright © 2023 by Mitchell ZuckoffAll rights reserved.Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.RANDOM HOUSE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Zuckoff, Mitchell, author.Title: The secret gate : a true story of courage and sacrifice during the collapse of Aghanistan / Mitchell Zuckoff.Description: First edition. | New York : Random House, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index.Identifiers: LCCN 2022034906 (print) | LCCN 2022034907 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593594841 (hardcover; acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780593594865 (ebook)Subjects: LCSH: Qādirī, Ḥumayrā, 1979 or 1980–| Women authors, Afghan—Biography. | Mothers and sons—Afghanistan—Biography. | Afghan War, 2001–2021—Evacuation of civilians—Biography. | LCGFT: Biographies.Classification: LCC PK6562.27.A35 Z98 2023 (print) | LCC PK6562.27.A35 (ebook) | DDC 958.104/71092 [B]—dc23/eng/20221223LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034906LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022034907Ebook ISBN 9780593594865Map based on satellite image of Kabul International Airport © 2021 Maxar Technologiesrandomhousebooks.comBook design by Ralph Fowler, adapted for ebookCover design: Carlos BeltránCover photograph: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Taylor Crulep_prh_6.1_143184102_c0_r0 ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightAuthor’s NoteMapChapter 1: HomeiraChapter 2: SamChapter 3: KabulChapter 4: VolunteerChapter 5: TalibanChapter 6: AsadChapter 7: White ScarvesChapter 8: Glory GateChapter 9: WolvesChapter 10: Abbey GateChapter 11: Last ChanceChapter 12: Final SprintChapter 13: “Run, Homeira!”Epilogue: After GloryDedicationAcknowledgmentsNotes on Sources and MethodsNotesIndexBy Mitchell ZuckoffAbout the Author_143184102_ AUTHOR’S NOTEAt a dangerous time, in a dangerous place,two strangers took the most dangerous leap of all.They trusted each other.This is a true story. 1 HOMEIRAONE BRIGHT SUMMER morning in 2021, Homeira Qaderi hurried her eight-year-old son, Siawash, out the door of their Kabul apartment. To speed their exit, she made him a promise that set his heart racing: tonight, after school, we’ll fight the Taliban.The electricity was out again in the middle-class Fourth District near Kabul University, so Homeira ignored the elevator and followed Siawash down ten flights of stairs.The temperature hovered around eighty degrees Fahrenheit when they stepped outside at 7 A.M. that Tuesday, August 3. Mother and son turned a corner into a cobblestone alley where a van waited to take him to a private international school that taught classes in English. As Siawash scrambled inside, Homeira heard him boast to his friends about her daring battle plan.Homeira watched the van drive off, praying as always that a suicide attack wouldn’t kill him.She returned to the apartment building where she’d remade her life. Where she regained her balance after Siawash’s father divorced her for challenging his decision to take a second wife. Where, after a forced separation, she was raising Siawash to be an enlightened Afghan man. Where she earned fame, fans, and deadly enemies as an author and activist. And where she intended to spend the rest of her days writing more books and campaigning for women’s equality in a city she loved for its beauty and its possibilities, despite its dangers and its flaws.Kabul-jan, she called it, using the Farsi term of endearment for “my dear Kabul.”Homeira breathed heavily as she scaled the last of more than a hundred steps in her headscarf and long-sleeved blouse. Inside her apartment, she moved with a dancer’s grace, unwrapping her shawl to reveal a cascade of thick brown hair that fell to her waist. Homeira was thirty-eight but looked younger, with high cheekbones, full lips, and large brown eyes that expressed her every volcanic emotion. A shade taller than five feet, she typically wore three-inch heels, which she removed to climb the stairs. She remained barefoot inside her four-bedroom sanctuary.The sunny apartment reflected a life that would have been unimaginable for a single mother in Afghanistan even a few years earlier. She purchased it with earnings from her first book published in English, an acclaimed memoir of her girlhood during the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s and under the Taliban’s vicious rule in the 1990s. The book doubled as a love letter to Siawash during their three painful years apart. The title alone made her a heroine to progressives and an infidel to extremists: Dancing in the Mosque.Every detail of Homeira’s home delighted her: shiny wood floors with hand-knotted rugs; a tufted white couch where Siawash did his homework while she read; a high-ceilinged office with a desk fit for a prime minister; an old-fashioned gramophone to play dance music when no men were nearby; an exercise room that served as home to Siawash’s pet turtle; shelves brimming with books, honors, and diplomas; a plant-filled balcony; and windows that faced north to the blue domes of a Shiite shrine and, four miles beyond, to Kabul International Airport.Homeira went to the kitchen for a handful of grapes and a large cup of sheer chai, tea with boiled milk, to kick-start her day. As she poured the pink tea, the room filled with scents of rosemary and eucalyptus. She carried the steaming cup to her office, where a silver MacBook laptop on her desk connected her to a world spinning out of control.The previous night, Homeira spoke by phone with her father, Wakil Ahmad. They were ethnically Pashtun, the same tribe that spawned the Taliban, but the family scorned the fundamentalist insurgents and their repressive, misogynistic interpretation of Islam. Wakil Ahmad was his celebrity daughter’s biggest supporter. He lived with his wife, Homeira’s mother Ansari, and four of Homeira’s five younger siblings in Herat, an oasis city near the border with Iran, five hundred miles west of Kabul. During the war with the Russians that consumed much of Homeira’s childhood, her father and several uncles fought among the militants known as mujahideen. Since then, Wakil Ahmad made a threadbare living teaching literature, with a special fondness for Russian novels.Internet phone service was spotty in Herat, so Wakil Ahmad had climbed to his roof to speak with Homeira. The call broke up repeatedly, but each time they connected Homeira heard gunshots from nearby clashes between the Afghan Army and the Taliban. Unconfirmed reports circulated that the Taliban had laid siege to Herat, Afghanistan’s third-largest city, as its fighters sought to expand