Given the time and safety pressures he was feeling, Williams was tempted to ask, “How much?” Instead he asked, “Why?” He explained that he couldn’t offer the elders anything unless he understood what they were trying to achieve.
Eventually they told him they would need to pay for information about who was responsible for planting IEDs— and money was obviously in short supply. They also wanted to give some of the money to the village, to preserve their status and prove that they weren’t just informants.