It's almost dusk, and our car is belching steam from the engine. We have stopped at a police station in the southwestern Afghan province of Zabol in a district where foreign aid workers have been held up at gunpoint, their belongings and vehicles stolen. My driver's face is edgy as he pumps water from the police-station well and pours it over the boiling engine of a car he wishes he hadn't bought.

Afghan policemen are circling the car with Kalashnikovs, peering inside at the curious light-skinned bearded man in Afghan clothes--me--clutching a Thuraya satellite phone. I'm engaged in a conversation with my editing desk about a story I filed earlier in the day about a US offensive against Taliban forces in the area around Kandahar, a city we left at dawn. One man, apparently the police chief, walks up to my translator, Ali, and asks, "Who is this man? Is he going to call in an airstrike on us?"

Just as the last light fades over the mountains around this checkpoint, we start the engine and head out on the road, breaking rule No. 1 of travel in Afghanistan: Never travel at night. But our foolishness is based on the second rule of Afghan travel: Never trust an Afghan policeman. "These men are policemen in daylight," says Ali, a razor-sharp medical student, nervously adjusting the white prayer cap on his head. "But at night, they become thieves. They are probably the ones who steal cars from the NGOs." My driver, Malik Jan, a former Islamist guerrilla against the Soviets, adds another layer of gloom. "These men were here before the Taliban. Then they became Taliban. Now they support Karzai. But they will always be thieves."

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