On 11 September 2001, I was in Quetta, Baluchistan, just south of the Afghan border. So was Bin Laden, according to the CIA, though our paths never crossed. I had been working with the courts and staying in the lovely Serena Hotel built in traditional mudbrick by the Aga Khan. Baluchistan is a seriously exotic place in the Hindu Kush populated by veiled, dark-skinned women with the astonishing green eyes of Alexander’s armies and Pushtun warriors wearing the black turbans of Taliban affiliation.