It was almost dusk and the sun was disappearing behind the jagged rust-red hills to the west. The land was silent and our voices echoed in the canyons around us. We were walking in single file through a small valley. My two bodyguards were in the lead, 10 yards apart. I was next and my interpreter was 20 yards behind me.
We were in Mohmand Agency, in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where no foreign journalist had been in years. I was nervous but walking easily. Soon we would reach our destination, and I thought of dinner and safety. I was with Pashtuns and they would protect me to the death, as they had in the 1980s against the Russians.
We had hiked across the border in the winter of 2008 from Afghanistan, my fifth such trip. We were travelling through the mountains to meet a Taliban leader, who said he would take me deep into the tribal areas and maybe to insurgent leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbadeen Hekmatyar. I knew them from the 1980s, when I was a reporter living with the Mujahideen, the US’s allies in their war against the Soviet Union.