THE HABIB BANK OCCUPIES a four-story building in Kabul's Shahr-i-Nau district, a neighborhood that features an outdoor photo exhibit of Afghan land-mine amputees, an Internet café that was blown up by a suicide bomber in 2005, and a man holding a trained monkey on a chain. At five minutes to nine on a Saturday morning, the monkey's eyes dart toward the bank's entrance as two men in combat vests come charging out through the doors.

The figure in front, a hulking six-foot-four American, is wearing a pair of size-15 Merrell clogs and a shalwar kameez, the pajama-style robes favored by men throughout Afghanistan. Behind him is a former Pakistani commando whose right hand is frozen into a kind of claw. In it, he clutches a plastic bag just given to him by the lady who brings fresh-baked bread to the bank's employees every morning. The bag now holds 23 bricks of cash totaling $100,000. The cash is dusted with flour, and both men are running as if the devil himself were after them.

They jump into a cab that plunges into the morning traffic, speeding past tea shops and Indian video stores and into the Wazir Akbar Khan roundabout, where the driver unwisely opts for a shortcut that involves entering the thing in the wrong direction.

Oops.

A policeman blocks the vehicle and slams his fists on the hood. Then he reaches through the open window and starts shaking the driver by his lapels while unleashing a blast of enraged Dari, the language spoken throughout half of Afghanistan. From the backseat, the retired commando calmly vise-grips the driver's neck and barks a one-word command: "Burro!"

Rough translation: "Floor it."

The driver rams the accelerator, leaving the cop kicking the side of the cab as it resumes its race toward Kabul International Airport, where the men's plane was scheduled to start boarding at 8:40 a.m.

"Hey, what time is it?" the American wonders as he stuffs cash into his vest.

"Nine-o-five," the Pakistani grunts. "Too bad we cannot ring up Mr. Siddiqqi."

Mr. Siddiqqi would be a big help right now. He ran the control tower at Kabul's airport for 38 years—a period spanning the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, from 1979 to 1989; the anarchic civil war that followed; and the country's seven-year imprisonment under the Taliban, from 1996 until the U.S.-led invasion following September 11. Back then, anyone who had taken the trouble to pay a visit to the tower and have a cup of tea with Siddiqqi needed only to give him a ring if they were running late, and he'd hold their plane. Unfortunately, Siddiqqi's recent retirement has now created the possibility of something unthinkable.

"We're about to miss this plane," the American mutters. "You know, we should probably call and find out—"

"—what Wakil is up to?" says the Pakistani, completing the thought. He punches the cell-phone code for Wakil Karimi, their Pashtun accomplice in this morning's operation. Three seconds into Wakil's woefully unacceptable report, the Pakistani's face darkens with anger.

"What the hell are you doing sitting down drinking chai?! This is not an episode from Three Cups of Tea! Get your butt outside the airport—now!"

As the taxi weaves through donkey carts and battered minivans, the shouting continues. "Have our tickets ready! Have a porter standing by! Tell security to let us through!"

The men brace as the cab screeches to a stop at the airport entrance, and there stands poor Wakil, with his Areeba flip unit glued to his ear, enduring the novel misery of finding himself excoriated in person and over the phone at the same time.

"You know, some people say that we're just totally winging things over here in this part of the world, but that's not really fair," the American remarks, somewhat defensively, as he shuffles toward the gate, where it is now being announced that the flight has been delayed for three hours.

Before completing the arc of an argument whose abundant illogic has escaped his notice, he pats his pockets to make sure he hasn't dropped a stray wad of cash that will cover the annual salaries of 20 schoolteachers working in the mountains of northern Afghanistan.

"It's true, of course, that back in the early days we may have been flying by the seat of our pants a bit. But, believe me, we are much more organized now."