A Rope and a Prayer Read Free Page A

judgment call. As we sit in the café, Tahir warns of the danger involved. That spring, an American journalist and a British journalist who ventured into Pakistan’s tribal areas to interview militants were kidnapped in separate incidents, Tahir explains. He says the British journalist’s family sold their home to pay a ransom for his release. The concept of putting my own family through such an ordeal horrifies me. I had also recently read a story in Rolling Stone by an American journalist who was nearly kidnapped by a rival Taliban faction when he drove to Ghazni to interview a Taliban commander.
    “Ghazni is too far,” I tell Tahir. “I only want to do a Taliban interview in Kabul.”
    We part ways and Tahir tells me he will contact another Taliban commander who he believes is in Kabul. He promises to call me later that night. I leave with a sense of dread. I have long viewed journalists who interview the Taliban as reckless. Yet I find myself contemplating doing something I have resisted for years.
    I was imprisoned for ten days in 1995 while covering the war in Bosnia for The Christian Science Monitor . Serb officials arrested me after I discovered the mass graves of Muslim men executed in the Serb-controlled part of Bosnia around the town of Srebrenica. I was freed after my family, friends, and editors put intense pressure on American officials to force the Serbs to release me. War crimes investigators later found that more than 8,000 Muslim men had been executed around the town. My detention in Bosnia was excruciating for my family, and I promised them I would never put them through such an ordeal again. And two months ago, before I left for Afghanistan, I took a momentous step. I married my girlfriend, Kristen Mulvihill.
    Kristen is a photo editor at a women’s magazine as well as a painter. Her sunny disposition, determination to see the positive side of everything, and fierce love have created a tranquility in my life. My two years with her in New York left me feeling gradually more at peace and at home. At thirty-nine and forty-one, respectively, Kristen and I are eager to focus more on our personal lives and start a family. To the delight of my ever-patient mother, we married in a small wooden chapel in Maine, a state both of us adore and where we each spent time while growing up. I see our marriage and the book as long-delayed positive steps that will take me away from reporting in war zones and allow me to move into a more stable form of journalism and life.
    I am also extremely close to my family. My mother is the most iron willed and loving person I know. She successfully raised four children while having a career as a fashion industry executive. She and my father are divorced but he is dogged, successful, and determined as well. He has built an independent insurance practice and a rich life for himself in Maine, where he loves hiking in the woods, running marathons, and exploring spirituality. My stepparents, Andrea and George, have brought joy to my parents and me for more than two decades.
    My older brother, Lee, is president of a small aviation consulting firm and the rock of our family who hides his emotions beneath a calm exterior. My younger sister, Laura, has soared in recent years, thriving professionally in the human resources field, marrying, and becoming the mother of two children. And my younger brother, Erik, has happily shifted from being a police officer and paramedic to a business operations manager for a helicopter ambulance company. He has also become one of my closest friends. After driving across the country together three years ago, we talk by phone once or twice a week. My stepbrothers, Joel and Dan, have become dear friends with whom I share an avid love for Boston sports teams. I have a tremendous amount to return to.
     
     
    My cell phone rings at dusk as I am about to begin an interview. Tahir says the Taliban commander he knows in Kabul despises Americans and refuses to meet