The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

and three more entered his head. Residue from gunpowder on his clothes revealed that theshots were fired from a very close distance. But who shot him? All of the Americans whowere present at the hotel stated that they didn’t hear any shooting in the room, whichmeans that the ambassador was shot during the attack. It seemed that he was, mostprobably, shot intentionally.Officers gathered all of the weapons that were lying near the bodies. They picked upthe ambassador’s undamaged glasses. They opened an attaché case that was lying next toDubs. It contained a towel, toothbrush, and other toiletries that a person might take withhim when leaving for a long trip.***The news about the death of the American ambassador spread across the cityimmediately. At first it was rumored, then broadcasted in the afternoon news on Kabulradio and in the evening news on Afghan television. The next day, all Afghan newspapersprinted official information about the incident.When the KGB analyst Vladimir Khotyaev arrived to work in the morning, he lookedat the morning newspaper Anis. At first he stared very attentively at the photographs ofDubs, as well as the ones of the murdered terrorists, taking in every detail. Then he lookedthrough the article about what had happened in Hotel Kabul. The newspapers alsopublished Dubs’s biography. Reading it, Khotyaev noticed the name of the German city,unclearly spelled in Persian letters, where Dubs had worked earlier in his life. Vladimirwent downstairs to the library, where he started to search through the atlas for the Germancity where Dubs had lived. He tried different versions of the name: Golmbach, Kolbach,Kolmbach. He didn’t find anything resembling the name that had been printed in the311