Agency Rules - Never an Easy Day at the Office

by Khalid Muhammad

  Kamal’s father was seated, alone, well towards the back of the rows of chairs set up for families. I’m shocked. Not only did he come to the graduation, it looks like he’s actually waiting for me.

  As Kamal headed toward him, Afzal Khan rose from his seat, meeting his son halfway. He stopped when he realized that his son was not alone.

  “Abbu, this is Major Iftikhar, one of my training instructors,” Kamal preempted what he assumed would be a sarcastic, derisory greeting from his father. “He was also my training officer during SSG training.”

  Afzal Khan’s hand pushed forward to meet Iftikhar’s; with a half smile he said, “I hope that he hasn’t been too much trouble for you.”

  Kamal fought the urge to roll his eyes.

  “Trouble?” Iftikhar sounded confused. “Kamal has been one of my best students! Which would explain his continued success and growth in the armed forces. He has the ability to absorb information like a sponge and execute it like an seasoned veteran.”

  Afzal Khan looked taken aback. “Well…well. It’s good to hear that he has been able to do something right in his life.” Afzal, looking derisively at his son, missed the flash of anger that lit up the Major’s eyes. “I am taking him for lunch; would you like to join us?”

  Iftikhar responded with a smooth charm, but Kamal knew him well enough to know from the stiff shoulders that Iftikhar was pissed. “Actually, Kamal has to attend a briefing with his new commanding officer right now. He needs to be brought up to speed on his posting, so he probably won’t be able to leave the Academy.”

  Afzal Khan wasn’t used to being refused, but he couldn’t tell if Iftikhar was lying, and Kamal’s face was maddeningly blank as well. There was a small awkward silence as Afzal tried to think of an appropriate comeback. The two faces before him were stiff and unwelcome, and for the first time in his life, he felt like an outsider.

  “So, Kamal, where have you been posted?”

  Before Kamal could even reach for his posting orders, Iftikhar replied. “Sorry, sir. That’s classified. The location of an asset is never disclosed, not even to family members. I will be your point of contact if you need information.” He offered his business card to Afzal Khan. “This is done for both parties’ security.”

  Afzal had no military background, much less training in espionage, so he was unable to question anything Iftikhar was telling him.

  “Kamal, we should be going. The Colonel is waiting for us in the Commandant’s office,” Iftikhar said, grabbing Kamal’s arm. “It was a pleasure meeting you. If you need any information about Kamal, please feel free to contact me.”

  Dismissed and rebuffed, Afzal Khan’s face fell. He felt that he had made an effort – he had come to his son’s graduation. The least he should have gotten in return was a cordial lunch. Granted, he had been prepared to find that Kamal barely scraped through, that he would return to the family home, and be available to shoulder some of his own burdens.

  Instead, with a quick formal goodbye, the Kamal and Iftikhar turned around and headed for the main building. Kamal fought the urge to turn around one last time. He’d seen the expression on his father’s face, and was a little surprised and angry at him. Did he really think that appearing at one graduation would make up for missing the rest? For beating me with his belt when I was too small to defend myself? For either ignoring me or putting me down for most of my life? “Is the Colonel really waiting for me?” Kamal asked Iftikhar when they were out of earshot from his father.

  “Did you want to go to lunch with daddy?” Iftikhar retorted.

  * * *

  Peshawar had never been foreign territory to Kamal, having family scattered around the city and working in government offices. His own level of familiarity with the city rivaled that of any of the permanent residents; he had grown up in University Town, the “old money” of the city, during his primary education. He had often joked with friends that he could not move in the city without running into someone that he knew. He would have to make great efforts to avoid that this time around, he thought to himself, otherwise there would be questions that he could not honestly answer.

  As a city, conquered, captured and ruled by kings and invaders throughout history, it had always held strategic importance. It had seen the defeat of the Hindu ruler Raja Jaipal; the mighty Mehmud Ghaznavi called it home, and the British Army officers had hosted Afghan rulers in the city. At the center of Peshawar’s history was Bala Hissar Fort, guarding the entry to the city from the east. The fort itself was now the headquarters of the Frontier Corps or FC, a paramilitary organization responsible for policing the tribal areas of the province. All domestic intelligence agencies maintained offices within the walls of the mighty fort and it would be Kamal’s reporting station for the next year.

  Kamal’s entered Peshawar not via his family’s luxury vehicles but on a commuter bus launched from Rawalpindi bus station. Commuter buses in Pakistan didn’t follow speed limits or practice safe driving, but hurtled towards their destination as if there were a pot of gold to be won. The Peshawar bus station, just three kilometers from the mighty fort, was a melting pot of all of Pakistan’s many peoples with every province and religion represented among the travelers. For those new to the city, the bus station was intimidating with the overflow of noise, culture and flavors that symbolized the Pashtun people, whom Kamal considered a largely misunderstood people. Their own political “leadership,” for their own benefit, characterized them as gun-loving, Quran-thumping, and backward-thinking. What most didn’t understand was that this outdated stereotype was quickly being replaced by a highly educated, liberal thinking, nouveau riche. Kamal recalled a conversation with his basic training batch mates where he had characterized his culture divided into two groups, one that was uneducated and highly motivated, the other that was highly educated and unmotivated. The sad part of that equation was that neither mingled or assisted the other, even if they were from the same family. A failure of the Pathan culture, Kamal had always thought to himself, but never said publicly.

  As he exited the bus station, he heard the familiar sounds of taxi drivers trying their heavily Pashto accented Urdu to coax passengers to their vehicles. Kamal chuckled to himself, recalling his own experiences in Islamabad and Lahore, where people would be able to identify him as a Pathan just by his Urdu. A driver came up to him, reaching to take his luggage from his hand, quickly asking, “taxi chahiya? Kahan jarayi?”

  Kamal thought for a quick second. “Green’s Hotel tha zoo.”

  The driver smiled and asked, “Pathan? Shukr Allah! Pa khair raglay!”

  Pa khair raglay, or ‘thank god you arrived safely’, was a significant greeting to any Pathan. Kamal had grown up hearing it whenever he visited his mother’s family, but rarely amongst his father’s relatives. It was a term, much like the entire language of Pashto, full of affection, respect and hospitality for their fellow human beings.

  The taxi driver kept up a steady flow of conversation on the short drive to Peshawar Saddar and Green’s Hotel. He had questions about Kamal’s background and complaints about the performance of the elected government, mostly the continued neglect of the province’s needs in favor of the Punjab. Kamal personally agreed with him, having seen the development and opportunities available to Punjabis; but in an army that was dominated by Punjabis, he kept his own counsel. Back home in Peshawar, he let loose, agreeing with almost every complaint, and adding a few of his own.

  The drive to Peshawar Saddar traversed two different areas of the city. If you went through the normal commuter route, you would be taken past the historic Peshawar Library, empty due to lack of funding and importance, the Railway station and Edwards College, a premier learning institution from the time when the British ruled a unified India. The other direction, and the way that the taxi driver took Kamal, travelled past the provincial assembly, Pearl Continental Hotel and the Corps Commander Peshawar’s home. The driver turned towards Governor’s House and shot through the Cantonment area to Gr
een’s Hotel, a relic of the hospitality industry of Peshawar. At the hotel, Kamal quickly emerged from the taxi, thanked and paid the driver and ascended the steps into the hotel.

  This hotel did not have the airs or amenities of other hotels. There was no bellboy to take luggage from the car, no large garden area, just a nondescript building with a large sign in the heart of the Peshawar business district. Inside the hotel, the paint chipped from the walls, and stains covered the carpets. But this hotel did carry a great deal of historical significance. During the Afghan conflict, the Mujahideen leadership would regularly gather at the hotel to meet their ISI and CIA handlers. There were rumors that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omer had stayed on the top floor of the hotel for weeks at a time, prior to safe houses being established in University Town that would provide more security. Kamal had been planted at the hotel to follow the same path.

  The dim reception area was small. He didn’t have a reservation; occupancy of the hotel had significantly decreased with the expansion of the hospitality industry into the more open and centrally located University Town and he wasn’t worried about getting a room. A skinny young man stood behind the desk, friendly and helpful. Looking into the mirror behind the receptionist, he realized looked more like the typical Pathan than the military officer he had become, but it was all part of the show. Kamal ran a hand over his bristly chin. The transformation included growing a beard that hadn’t yet fully grown out and he scratched at it as he waited. His hair was longer too, flopping on his forehead and annoying him almost as much as the beard. This is going to take some getting used to.

  The receptionist finally found a room for Kamal and placed the booking card in front of him to fill. Taking the pen, Kamal read the form over once before making a mark. Then, with a confident smile, he started.

  Name: Dawood Islam.

  Chapter 6

  “So tell me about Kaleem?” the visitor asked, keeping a close watch on the door to the teahouse, knowing that at any moment things could go sideways.

  Kamal had been in Peshawar for two months now and had finally started to settle into a daily routine, with intermittent “visitors.” The visitors were nondescript messengers sent from Kamal’s handler to gather any new intelligence that he had acquired. He knew nothing of them and they knew nothing of him, other than a signal that would identify one to the other. This was the essence of human intelligence in an environment where a legend could not use technology, and Peshawar was such an environment for Kamal. His legend had been crafted by his handler with a great deal of planning to make sure that he would be able to support any story that he told. Kamal had been taught in training that the best legends were sixty percent true, so that the operative could embellish without worrying about remembering too many new details.

  In the two months that he’d spent in his Peshawar, Kamal Khan had successfully immersed himself into his new identity. He was now Dawood Islam.

  Dawood had moved from the Green’s Hotel to a rented room with three others who worked alongside him, constructing a commercial plaza on University Road. His evenings were spent in the masjid near his rented room studying the Quran from the masjid Imam. Dawood spent as much time as he could outside his cockroach-infested room. It reeked of male body odor and garbage. Peshawar was unusually hard hit by the electricity shortages in the country. With so many hours without a running fan, his roommates were forced to open the window, letting in the rancid aroma of the rotting garbage heap outside the window; another ingredient that made living there unbearable. Why couldn’t these people clean up after themselves? Dawood would think to himself late at night when sleep escaped him. This was supposed to be the more respectable, old money area of the city. He could only dream of being able to save enough to be able to find a better residence away from the garbage heap, or at least away from the other men in his crew.

  “Dawood?! Are you still with me?” asked the visitor, trying to bring him back to the table. “What can you tell me about Kaleem?” Dawood pulled himself back from the abyss that was the horror of his life for the past two months.

  “Kaleem is complicated,” Dawood started, slipping the cigarette back into his mouth, deliberately drawing out the brief pause to give himself time to figure out the best way to describe his new friend. Kaleem and Dawood had become close since he joined the construction site.

  “He’s pissed off at the world,” Dawood continued. “Seems to have had a lot of hard breaks in his life.” He hesitated again; he could easily have been this guy had he not joined the military.

  “What kind of hard breaks?” said the visitor, taking a black notepad from his pocket and opening it in front of him. Dawood raised his eyebrows.

  “I thought you guys were supposed to be able to retain information, not write it down in open view,” Dawood said glancing between the notebook and the visitor. “That won’t get me any points around here.”

  “I have to write some things down, otherwise I won’t be able to give all the information to your uncle,” the visitor said with a shrug. Dawood shook his head, trying to understand how these idiots were assigned as messengers. Couldn’t the agency give these people recorders? Something this minute could compromise him if the wrong people saw it.

  The visitor glanced at his watch impatiently. He didn’t understand how being seen with him would be a risk for Dawood. They could be old friends, after all. “The hard breaks?” he asked again.

  Dawood took a biscuit from the plate and dipped it into his tea, deliberately stalling his answer to let the anger subside. “His father beat the hell out of him, stuck him in a madrassah and made him work for a mechanic in the village.” He paused, taking another drag from his cigarette before continuing. “The mechanic used to molest him, liked to fuck him after the other daily wagers went home for the night. Really screwed him up as a kid.”

  “Damn! What happened to the bastard?” the visitor intently asked, shocked more by Dawood’s flat monotone than the words themselves. “What did the father do?”

  Dawood glanced over the edge of his teacup. “Nothing. Well, at least to the mechanic.” The visitor shook his head in disbelief, about to say something when Dawood continued. “The father, the wonderful man that he was, beat the living shit out of him. Because the mechanic kept the kid back after hours, he was routinely late going back home. After yet another late night, the father hit him so hard that he broke Kaleem’s arm and a couple of ribs, landing him in the hospital. While he was there, the madrassah teacher paid him a visit and heard all the gory details.”

  Dawood saw the shock and horror spread over the visitor’s face. “The mechanic’s body was found in a ravine near the Swat river in Batkhela. The father hasn’t been seen since then. People just assumed that after beating the hell out of his kid, he went and killed the mechanic before he disappeared. Kaleem became a permanent fixture at the madrassah until he moved to Peshawar a year ago to earn for his sister’s wedding.”

  “Where does he spend his time in Peshawar?” asked the visitor, as he continued to scribble notes. “I mean, other than the construction site.”

  “Kaleem’s day is quite simple. Work, pray, eat, work night job, sleep whenever possible. He lives at the masjid,” Dawood said. “He drives a taxi when he’s not on the construction site.” Dawood recalled one of his batch mates telling him about being posted as a taxi driver in Quetta. The relationship between the owner of the vehicle and the driver was simple. The owner would get Rs. 5000 a month and the driver would be responsible for all expenses and repairs to the vehicle. Motivated individuals could earn large sums in short periods and for someone like Kaleem, this was the perfect equation.

  Dawood stared hard at the visitor, gauging his response and understanding of the entire situation. He didn’t want his handler to hear an emotionless story from a messenger that could not empathize. “Empathy is the greatest asset of any field operative,” Lt. Colonel Riaz taught his students in The Jungle. “It allows you to build influence over your asset, and you
’re more likely to gain their trust.” That was the difference between messengers and field operatives. Dawood kept the thought to himself as the visitor finally looked up from his notepad.

  “So, this is your guy?” the visitor asked callously, almost inviting Dawood to reach across and bounce his head off the table. Granted, had they been somewhere less public, Kamal probably would have taken advantage of the opportunity, but they were in a teahouse that Dawood frequented. The visitor quickly tried to backtrack his question, as Dawood’s eyes narrowed to slits, realizing the error he had made. “Ah, I didn’t mean to offend. It was just a question,” he sputtered, hoping the apology would keep his nose intact.

  Dawood, unimpressed with the reversal, motioned to the waiter for two more cups of tea, before turning his attention back to the visitor, “You do understand what we are doing here, right? This is an innocent man’s life we are talking about. He didn’t sign up for what we are planning to do to him…” The visitor interrupted him before he could complete his sentence.

  “Isn’t that your job, Dawood? To sign him up?” Sure that any possibility of violence had passed, the visitor risked a smug attitude. “And please keep the attitude for someone who really matters. This is a job for me and for you. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  Dawood couldn’t believe the arrogance of this little fucker. Here we are talking about using an innocent in a covert operation and he thinks it’s just another day at the office. Dawood wondered if steam was pouring from his ears as his anger boiled, but he could not afford to make a scene here. Too many people knew him as Dawood and he couldn’t take the risk that someone from Kamal’s life may be around. Drawing attention to himself was not an option. Taking a deep breath, he pulled another cigarette from the now empty pack and tapped it on the table. Striking a match, he lit the cigarette and exhaled the smoke in the visitor’s direction. With a second drag, he dropped the match into his empty teacup, and asked softly, “Have you ever watched someone’s soul leave their body?”