“Shouldn’t I be speaking to an ISI representative?” Kamal asked.
“Don’t worry Captain, I’ve been read in,” Major Umer replied. “Either way, we report to the same people and I’m sure that the ISI will be sending someone along. I have notified them that you’re awake now.”
“I can only remember a few things. The bulk of that night is still unclear to me.” Kamal wanted some information himself. “First, how is Kaleem? He was taken by these people.”
“Kaleem? Oh, the man you passed off as a friendly to the FC?” the Major said. “He seems to be recovering well. Let’s get to the business at hand. What can you recall?”
Relived that Kaleem has survived, Kamal shifted in his bed, trying to get a more comfortable position. “Sir, they took him. I tracked him to an abandoned warehouse in Hayatabad Industrial Estate,” Kamal paused, taking a breath as he finally settled into a comfortable position. It was a relief to be able to talk clearly again. “I watched the warehouse for three to four days, gathering intelligence on force strength and patterns of movement. The day that I chose to breach, I went during an evening guard change,” Kamal explained. “There were two guards outside and three inside. I think I knocked three out and neutralized two.”
“You neutralized all of them,” the major’s tone was dry. Kamal furrowed his brow. He didn’t think that he’d killed the first two guards, but then… He shrugged painfully, and continued.
“Inside the hall, there were two men. I had changed into the second guard’s uniform, so I managed to catch both of them off guard, but the second one gave me this.” He gestured to his eye, still swollen and painful. “I had to kill him. That alerted Faheem and…”
“Wait, Faheem?”
“FC officer.”
“Hold on,” the Major said. “Are you telling me that an FC officer was behind this whole thing?”
“I thought you already knew this,” Kamal answered confused. “It seems a little odd that the FC would be providing security for a normal citizen who had kidnapped someone, doesn’t it?”
The Major shook his head in disbelief, reaching into his briefcase to pull another file. He read the contents, shaking his head even more.
“You want to tell me what is in the file, Major?” Kamal asked.
“I think we have some problems here that will have be discussed in more detail with the Chiefs,” the Major replied. His cryptic nature of his answer caused concern and confusion with Kamal.
“Sir,” Kamal politely said. “I have been through hell already. I really don’t want to sit through a debrief answering uncomfortable questions about things I know nothing about.”
The Major glanced over his bifocals at Kamal and smiled. “Let me put it this way,” he said. “The debrief is going to be explosive.”
Chapter 14
And on the fifteenth day, the President rejoiced.
Personally, he hated the backdoor political gamesmanship that is Pakistani politics, yet when forced, he was more adept than those who had been playing for years. He had used his corporate experience to leverage every political leader into doing what he wanted. Sure, he had made back channel promises, but as an independent President, his actions were seen as preventive measures against possible constitutional showdowns between two branches of the federal government.
In Pakistan, the president is much like the queen of England. He’s there, but holds no powers under the constitution over the elected government. Well, no powers other than being able to dissolve the sitting government with the stroke of his pen. This time, he had done what other Pakistani presidents had never done – orchestrated a coup d’état within the democratic system.
“Congratulations, President Butt,” said the US Ambassador Annie Parker. “You did well to keep Pakistan’s democracy on track.”
“Thank you, madam Ambassador,” the President replied, standing to shake her hand. “It was with the support of our international partners that we were able to salvage this. There are always wolves at the door in Pakistan,” he added with a smile.
He made a mental note to wash his hands with bleach when the ceremony was over. The US Ambassador was the biggest double dealer in the diplomatic Corps, using every enticement to sway politicians away from Pakistan’s national interests. He had heard from Jaffer Shah that she had approached him a few days ago to recommend a more ‘favorable’ name for prime minister instead of Ahsan Chaudhry. This, sadly, was not new strategy for the Americans. They were like the street pimps that their urban cities were famous for producing. Buy, bully or beat the local talent into working for them. Parker was one of the best, promising favors, approach and even citizenship to those willing to sit at the feet of her masters.
“I do hope that you will join us at President House later for the reception, Madam Ambassador,” the President cordially said, with a forced smile. Relations between the two had never been cordial, far from it.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she replied moving down the aisle.
“Bitch,” the President murmured as she passed to her seat on the other side of the gallery. She smiled at the President as she sat down. The President returned her smile, turning it into a sneer as his face turned away.
The hall erupted with applause as Ahsan Chaudhry entered from the room where he awaited the vote tabulation. His party faithful, who just four days ago stood opposed to his nomination, rallied around him as he made his way to the seat reserved for the leader of the National Assembly. He turned and waved to the gallery and the members on both sides of the aisles before taking his seat to await the announcement.
“Order! Order!” the Speaker of the National Assembly called, pounding his gavel against the table. “There will be order in this house.” The house members seemed to disregard his command, but as the pounding continued, they begrudgingly returned to their seats and the noise slowly fell to hushed silence.
“Honorable members of parliament, distinguished guests and respected heads of state, I am honored to welcome you to this session of the National Assembly,” said Tariq Nadeem. “Fourteen days ago, Pakistan lost its prime minister to the bullet of an assassin, bringing great sadness to the entire nation. Today, we are honored to be able to announce the unanimous election of our new prime minister, a long-standing and loyal member of the Muslim League, Mr. Ahsan Chaudhry,” Nadeem paused as the hall filled with applause.
“Mr. Prime Minister elect,” Nadeem continued. “The floor is yours.” Nadeem was the most angered by Chaudhry’s election. He had married Azam Shah’s ugly duckling of a daughter to secure his path to the party leadership and eventually, the prime minister’s chair. With Azam Shah gone, he expected to be the party nominee to replace him only to have the party leadership supplant Ahsan Chaudhry in his place.
The Prime Minister-elect stood up to thunderous applause. Again, he turned acknowledging the audience and guests. To his left sat Jaffer Shah, the former deputy speaker, now the Prime Minister’s chief political advisor. The kingmaker sat smug, knowing that he had once again seated the king of his choice and he had been richly rewarded with the spoils from the kingdom. He was the first to stand, bringing the audience to their feet to join him.
“Mr. Speaker… Mr. Speaker…” Chaudhry repeated trying to calm the house. The Speaker slammed his gavel down bringing the house volume down again. The Prime Minister-elect took a drink from the glass under his podium, waiting for silence to return to the house.
“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Chairman, honorable members of Parliament, President Butt, distinguished guest and respected heads of state, As-salaam-a-laikum,” Chaudhry began. “Today, we are honored to gather together, first to honor the former Prime Minister Azam Shah and his sacrifice for the people and nation of Pakistan and secondly, to complete the constitutional and democratic process to fill the vacated seat that I have been honored with.” Chaudhry paused as the hall filled with applause again.
“I want to tell my fellow Pakistanis that today is the beginning of a new Pakistan. A Pakista
n that sustains itself without international loans; a Pakistan that no longer tolerates corruption on any level for any amount; a Pakistan that defends its citizens equally, not based on wealth or position. And finally, a Pakistan that, when we achieve all these things, will be populated by citizens proud to call themselves Pakistanis,” the Prime Minister said, followed by another round of thunderous applause.
President Butt was not surprised by anything that Chaudhry was saying. His speechwriters had prepared the entire speech under his guidance. Mr. Chaudhry would now be a pawn in the President’s game to right the sinking ship and remove the pirates. And he would right the ship.
* * *
Kamal had finally been released from the hospital to recover at the safe-house. Nothing has changed since my last stay here other than the bounty on my head from the Sheikh. His movements would be more controlled; security within the perimeter of the boundary walls was heightened and a doctor was moved into the safe-house for his continued treatments. Kaleem’s condition after Faheem’s intensive interrogation meant that no one was taking chances with Kamal’s safety.
Kamal spent most of the day inside the house, avoiding any risk of exposure. He was free to leave the house at night, as long as the lights along the boundary wall were off. It was his only respite from the mini-prison that caged him. Within a few days of moving, he returned to the ‘normal’ routine for a protectee, with the inclusion of a demanding physical therapy schedule. He had formed a casual friendship with the doctor, giving him someone to talk to in the long daylight hours. What he hadn’t been told was that that doctor’s mission included, other than facilitating his quick mental recovery, a detailed extraction of as much information as he could from Kamal.
It was early one Islamabad morning, a week after his release from the hospital, before the sun had climbed from its slumber in the Margalla Hills, that Kamal was spirited out of the house into a blacked-out car in the driveway. He looked into the rearview mirror from the backseat and recognized the eyes staring back at him.
“It’s been a while, soldier,” Kamal said with a smile. “How are you?”
“Sir, I’m fine. Thank you,” he replied. “You don’t look as well as last time.”
“Slip and fall accident,” Kamal said laughing.
“Looks like the fall was a bad one,” the soldier said, smiling in the mirror.
“You have no idea,” Kamal replied, shaking his head. “No idea,” he repeated, voice trailing away as his mind slipped back to that night in the warehouse.
“We’re just waiting for the other vehicles to get in position,” the soldier said. “Two minutes and we move.”
Kamal nodded his head, not consciously registering anything that had just been said to him. The vision danced in his mind of the guards falling one by one as he engaged them, until the radio squelch pulled him back from the warehouse to the car again.
“Comms check,” the driver said taking the walkie-talkie in his hand. “Identify and report positions.” In quick succession, five drivers called out their call-signs and locations, confirming they were in position.
“We’re ready to move out,” the driver said, looking in the rearview mirror at Kamal.
“Let’s go,” Kamal replied, fighting the demons in his head.
The car moved out of the driveway and turned toward the F-10 market where the convoy grew. Kamal sat quietly in the back as five vehicles pulled from their parked positions and joined ahead and behind his own. Counter-surveillance, he thought to himself as the lush green of Islamabad faded away and his mind painted the picture of the barren, mountainous view to each side of the road in Timergara. How had he gotten there?
As the cars moved along the road, he watched each of them peel off in different directions drawing any potential lurkers and watchers with them. As his vehicle moved closer to a police checkpost, Kamal’s eyes saw the FC soldier that had checked his identification, and expected to stop, but the driver pulled straight through. He glanced back a few times seeing the same black Corolla that he was in behind him, but there were times when he glanced in the rearview mirror only to see a double-door pickup in the shadows. Was his mind really this confused? The car raced down the turnpike and onto the Islamabad Highway headed back towards Islamabad. Where had he been if not the safe-house? The car shot through the city and in the gates of ISI headquarters as Kamal’s mind returned to the reality of Islamabad.
The car pulled around to the familiar security door and stopped. Kamal entered hobbling to the elevator, not bothering to stop for the cursory security check. The driver can take care of that. An escort tried to board the elevator with him, but Kamal held out his hand stopping him. “I know where I’m going,” he said as the elevator doors closed between the two.
Kamal took a deep breath, trying to bring his fractured mind into focus. How would he handle a debriefing with so much confusion? He tried to collect his thoughts as the elevator moved up the floors, but found himself questioning his own version of events. Before the doors opened on the fourth floor, Kamal shifted his weight from the back wall where he was leaning and grabbed his crutch. The injuries caused him to move slower than the elevator door, forcing him to jam the crutch between them as they closed, triggering them open again. He pulled back the crutch, slotting it under his left shoulder and limped out.
Pausing at the end of the hallway, he drank in the environment, trying to settle his mind and draw all his energy for the long hobble down the corridor to the conference room, but his mind could only see the corridor in the Imam’s home. He had already passed the security door downstairs, but the ever-present cameras kept watch on anyone in the corridor. He dreaded the distance from the elevator to the conference room. This is the longest trek I’ve had to make since the hospital, as he put the crutch forward and swung his weight to start moving down the hall.
Traveling down the corridor, Kamal’s forehead beaded with sweat. The exertion was more than he was accustomed to. His mind still stumbled between the Imam’s house and where he now stood. This is the room where we waited for the evening festivities, he thought standing outside the reinforced wooden door. That image shattered when he looked across the hall at the plaque outside another door. ‘Dr. Sara Ahmed’ read the inscription. What the fuck is wrong with me? Should I stop and say hello? He hovered for a moment debating, regaining some strength before continuing down the corridor. Now isn’t the time. My mind isn’t clear enough and she will have too many questions. Moments later, he found himself finally at the door. The guards reached for the handles to pull it open for him, but Kamal stopped them.
“Let me settle myself first,” he said, taking a handkerchief from the back pocket of his uniform pants and wiping the sweat from his face and neck. He adjusted his shirt, checking to make sure the perspiration had not bled through, looking to one of the guards for approval. The guard looked him up and down and gave him a thumbs-up signal, before snapping the door to the conference room open.
Kamal stood in the doorway feeling as naked as a newborn as silence greeted him from within. He shifted his weight to his one good leg and snapped off a salute to the officers sitting around the ornately decorated table. There were flowers at both ends with another bouquet in the center. A tea service was before each of the men around the table with a fresh setting at his assigned seat. He recognized many of the occupants of the chairs, but there were a couple of new faces that he hadn’t seen before. At least, he didn’t recall seeing before.
Lt. General Misbah Qadir pulled a cigarette from the pack of imported Dunhill's and tapped the butt on the table. Kamal tracked the movement as if in slow motion, the taps echoing in his head like gunfire. The general dropped his cigarette on the table and looked sternly at Kamal.
“Do you plan on sitting down, Captain?” he said, picking the cigarette back up between his thumb and forefinger to place it between his dry, chapped lips. Kamal was frozen in place as the lighter was raised and the flame exploded from its nib. The tip of the cigarette
drank up the flame, glowing red with its heat. The general exhaled the smoke, asking, “Unless you feel strong enough to stand throughout the debrief?”
Kamal was visibly confused by the general’s aggressive tone. I haven’t done anything wrong, I only fought to get an asset free to save the mission. But the tone made the hairs on Kamal’s arm stand up. This is not going to be an easy debrief. He squared his shoulders and limped to his place at the table.
With Kamal finally in his seat, the General sat forward and pulled a microphone towards him. He reached across the table and took a remote in his hand, pointing at the camera in the corner of the room that Kamal had noticed in his last debrief. This time, the red light is on.
“I now call this debrief of Captain Kamal Khan to order on this the 14th day of June, 1996. Present are Lt. Gen. Asim Junejo, Director General, Military Operations; Brigadier Ahmed Saeed, Director General, Military Intelligence; Brigadier Imtiaz Riaz, Director General, Frontier Constabulary; Major Umer Afzal, Investigator, Military Intelligence; Captain Kamal Khan, and myself, Lt. General Misbah Qadir, Director General, Inter Services Intelligence,” he said into the microphone.
“The purpose of this debriefing is to understand the actions and activities leading up to, and including, the attempted kidnapping and interrogation of a deep cover ISI operative,” he looked around the room at all the participants to see if there was anything else that needed to be added. “Gentlemen, let’s begin.”
* * *
His seat was comfortable in the first class section of the Islamabad-bound Emirates flight. He had flown by private jet to Dubai, where he spent time with his wife and children before boarding this flight. But his wife and children were forgotten when looking at the beautiful twenty-three-year-old Emirati sitting next to him. Ahdad was a journalist for Al-Jazeera traveling to Pakistan to interview the newly elected Prime Minister for her channel. They had met in a chance encounter in the Duty Free shop, reaching for the same Tom Clancy spy thriller. The interaction was quick but cordial, and he was surprised to find her in the seat next to him when she boarded.
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