There was a loud shot, and Khalid had an astonished look on his face as he fell to his knees, blood spouting from his neck with each weakening pulse before his lifeless body slumped forward.

“I’m not going to make it.” Shireen gasped with pain and anguish. Her contact was kneeling beside her, holding her hand. She had bled profusely from her groin wound and was cold and breathing heavily.

He had to put his ear near her lips to hear what she was saying.

“Please take Saifullah and his family out of Kabul as quickly as possible.”

She let out a deep breath and then went limp.

The contact untied Saifullah, who was only half conscious, then picked up the phone on the table and called Warda.

He lifted Saifullah, pulled him to his vehicle, and then hurried to the minister’s residence. As he drove, he saw police cars racing down the motorway toward the safe house.

Warda gathered her things the moment she received the call and stood by the main gate. She jumped into the back of the vehicle and helped her father get a drink of water.

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She wanted to enquire about Shireen, but the driver remained silent. After switching vehicles on a side street, they went to pick up Banou and her son.

Two KhAD jeeps were parked in an abandoned alley when the contact stopped.

He pivoted in his seat and glanced at Warda in the backseat. “Don’t worry, they are on our side. Do you have anything for me?” the contact spoke for the first time.

Warda handed him her camera and several reels, which he quickly placed in the glove compartment.

After being loaded into the cars, Warda and her family quickly left the capital and travelled forty miles to a house.

By that time, the Soviets had described Afghanistan as “a bleeding wound”. They had decided to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan in the ensuing year or two, leaving the affairs of the state to a Soviet-backed government in Kabul.

However, many Afghan officials, including those in the military and the intelligence agencies, could decipher that the Mujahideen would take over Kabul following the Soviet withdrawal. Some of them formed covert agreements with the partisans to avoid the wrath and reprisals of the new rulers.

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Shireen had declared in a concise document she wrote a month before that fateful day that she would exact retribution on the intelligence services for abusing innocent women. She brought up Warda’s narrow escape from the checkpost and numerous instances where women were assaulted by the very authorities tasked with keeping them safe. She had handed it to her Mujahideen contact, and it was to be made public after her death.

Several copies of the text were sent to the press, the country’s president, the cabinet ministers, the chief of the army, and the head of KhAD. After a contentious discussion in the cabinet, Shireen’s school was permitted to continue, and measures were considered to increase women’s security and safety and prevent them from potentially becoming active members of the partisans.

The circumstances of the deaths of Khalid and his team members were deliberately kept concealed.