Janis Shinwari, the Afghan interpreter I wrote about a couple of months ago, finally had his U.S. visa restored, and he’s now in Virginia with his wife and two children. That’s a success story of sorts. But the effort it took to get them out of danger and over here shows how deep the betrayal of Afghans and Iraqis like Shinwari really runs.

During his seven years as an interpreter for the U.S. Army, Shinwari saved the lives of several American soldiers. One of them was Matt Zeller, a former intelligence officer who is still in the Army reserve. When the American Embassy in Kabul mysteriously revoked Shinwari’s Special Immigrant Visa shortly after issuing it, in September, Zeller pushed to get people in Washington to pay attention. According to Zeller, the State Department regarded the affair as closed; Shinwari’s chances of getting to America were almost zero. But attention and, especially, pressure from half a dozen members of Congress whom Zeller contacted—including Earl Blumenauer, of Oregon, who called for hearings, and Jim McDermott, of Washington, who spoke about Shinwari with a senior State Department official—made it impossible for the government to ignore the case. Since Benghazi, State has been extremely sensitive to congressional inquiries, and the small storm kicked up by Zeller’s frenetic lobbying on Capitol Hill forced the plight of this one Afghan, among thousands like him, to the attention of top officials.

Shinwari spent much of October hiding with his family in Kabul, moving every couple of nights between his relatives’ houses. The Taliban knew about his situation—they were stalking him. One night, a group of strangers came to his parents’ compound, adjacent to his, and said that they wanted to congratulate Shinwari on his visa. His father turned them away. In the middle of another night, rocks were thrown at his in-laws’ house.

Shinwari kept getting e-mails from the Embassy asking him to come in with his passport and his visa. If he complied, the visa would be cancelled and he might never get another; if he didn’t, it would raise suspicions. In early October, on the advice of Zeller and the Iraqi Refugee Assistance Project (which is now applying its experience to Afghanistan), Shinwari finally made the dangerous trip to the Embassy. He was searched, then seated in an area that was separated from an adjacent room by a blast wall with a window made of blast-proof glass. On the other side, speaking to him by phone, was the consul-general, Debra Heien.

“We’re very worried about your safety,” she said. “Are you safe?”

“No, I’m not safe,” Shinwari told her. “You’ve ruined my life.” In anticipation of leaving for America, he had quit his job at an Army base and sold his house and all his possessions. Now his children, ages five and three, were trapped inside the houses of relatives, without even toys.

The consul-general talked with Shinwari for a long time. She was nice. She told him that a lot of people in Washington were interested in his case, that they were very concerned that he remain safe until the Embassy could resolve the problem. She asked him to check in regularly and gave him a number to call if he ever felt in danger. “We can see if we can help you,” she said. But she had no answer as to his fate.

A few days later, the process was repeated: the same blast-proof room, the same questions by phone, the same expressions of concern. Did he feel safe? “No, I’m not safe,” Shinwari told the consul-general. “Every time I come to the Embassy, the Taliban are watching me. My life is in danger.”

After the second visit, he received an e-mail saying that the Embassy had identified the problem with his visa: I.S.A.F.—the International Security Assistance Force, his employers in the U.S. military—had never conducted an exit interview. Could he come back one more time to do it? Arriving on Sunday, October 6th, he had to convince the National Guardsman doing perimeter security that he had an appointment, even though the Embassy was closed for the weekend. He was shown into an inner room, where a man in civilian clothes was waiting for him.

“I’m here to do your investigation.” It wasn’t an exit interview—it was a polygraph. “If you pass, you can keep your visa,” the examiner, presumably an intelligence officer, said. “If you fail, you’ll never go to the U.S.” Shinwari was hooked up to the machine, and the questions went on for hours. When it was over, the examiner congratulated him on passing.

By the time Shinwari got out of the Embassy, it was nighttime. His identity card and cell phone had been taken by the National Guardsman, who was now gone, a new team on perimeter security. Meanwhile, his wife was panicking about not being able to reach him. Fortunately, for backup, Shinwari had arranged for his nephew, an Afghan cop licensed to carry a gun, to wait for him, and together they walked through Kabul’s dark and dangerous streets to the nephew’s house, where Shinwari called his wife.

It still wasn’t over. The following Wednesday, October 9th, Shinwari received another e-mail from the consul’s office: “Thank you again for coming in on Sunday for your exit interview with I.S.A.F. They would like to meet with you one last time, if you agree. Would you be able to meet on Thursday, October 10th, at 13:00? They ask that you come to Camp Phoenix, to the walk-in gate. Someone will meet you to take you to the office.”

Camp Phoenix was a U.S. military base in Kabul. On arrival, Shinwari was met by another man in civilian clothes, with a sidearm. He was hooked up to another polygraph machine. He was again told that if he passed, he could keep the visa; if not, he could say goodbye to ever getting out of Afghanistan. Four hours of questions. Had he ever conducted any attacks on Americans in Afghanistan? “I did my job honorably,” Shinwari said, getting angry. “I could have killed Americans anytime.”

The examiner told him, “Yeah, I know. We know you’re a good guy. We just have to get you through this.” Shinwari passed again.

Early on the morning of October 17th, the day the government shutdown in Washington ended, Shinwari got a call from the consul-general: his visa was good. He should get ready to leave with his family on the next plane he could get out of Kabul.

Eleven days later, on October 28th, Shinwari, his wife, and their children boarded the first flight of their lives and flew to Dubai, then on to Frankfurt and New York, landing at J.F.K. on the 29th. When they finally arrived that night at Reagan National, in Washington, Zeller was there to meet them, along with Blumenauer, Representative Dan Maffei, and a CBS News camera crew. The Shinwaris were in shock, exhausted, the children crying. “Brother,” Zeller told Shinwari, “the Taliban can never get to you again. You and your family are safe now. I’m sorry it took so many years.”

Zeller later told me, “I just wanted to hug him and hold him. I wanted to touch his face. As his officer, I considered him to be the last member of my unit still serving overseas. The Army says, ‘Leave no man behind, leave no man behind.’ I feel like we’ve completed our mission now. The last one is back.”

At the same time, Zeller felt a strange sense of guilt. Shinwari would still be hiding in Kabul if not for the noise that Zeller and others had made back in Washington. The Embassy would have consigned his case to oblivion, and with it his years of service to the U.S. Army, on the basis of an anonymous lie from the enemy. But it could only happen once, and the special immigrant-visa program itself was still broken, leaving thousands like Shinwari to the same fate. “It’s selfish,” Zeller said. “This is unrepeatable—it would never work again. The story isn’t going to be new. I stole the whole universe’s thunder to save one guy. What I’m hoping now is we can use that story to fix the whole program.”