Agency Rules - Never an Easy Day at the Office

by Khalid Muhammad

  The Major furiously scribbled in his black leather sheathed notepad, one that Kamal had gotten quite familiar with during meetings with his visitors in Peshawar. Umer would glance up every few seconds to see if the General had any additional instructions. “What do I do with him, sir?” the Major asked when the General stopped speaking.

  “Take him to the Center and lock him in a cell,” the General seethed. “And Umer, again, no one tells him where he is going or why. Understood?”

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  The General then turned back to the Imtiaz, who had slunk down in his chair and looked like he finally understood the extent of his blunder. “I can’t decide, Imtiaz,” the General said.

  “Can’t decide what General?”

  “I can’t decide if you are the stupidest person in Pakistan or just so incompetent at your job that we should take you out back and shoot you,” the General said rising from his chair. He moved around the table, making his way closer to the Brigadier, continuing, “In my thirty plus years of service for this country, I have never seen anyone botch something this badly. It’s a clusterfuck! And you alone are to blame for it.”

  “Sir, I only followed the intelligence,” Imtiaz’s voice cracked as the General hovered over his seat.

  “Imtiaz, let’s be honest with each other. You didn’t follow any intelligence. You followed your ambitions,” the General said placing his mammoth hands on his shoulders. He cringed under the weight of those hands. “Your only salvation is if Faheem admits to his double game.”

  The General stepped back and gazed around the table, looking into each committee member’s eyes, at times looking through the person in the chair. His gaze finally settled on Kamal, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It had been a long debrief, and his ribs were aching from holding his spine up for so long.

  “Captain, you are dismissed until eleven hundred hours tomorrow morning,” he said. “Guards!”

  The door to the room swung open quickly and the two men standing outside filled the doorframe. “Please assist the Captain back to his vehicle,” the General said.

  As the guards helped him out of the chair, Kamal could feel the sweat dripping down his back. Kamal was grateful to have been spared the General’s wrath, although he knew that it was just beginning for the men who were still in the conference room. The confrontation would be a different kind as he would come face to face with the man who had tried to kill his friend and him. Faheem had escaped then, I’ll make sure that he doesn’t escape now.

  Chapter 15

  The hardest part is over, Kamal thought to himself as he moved down the corridor. For the last five hours, he had been examining every aspect of the FC plot to kidnap him. There is no other way to think of it right now, other than an FC plot. There was no evidence of his involvement in the Prime Minister’s assassination, nor would there ever be, but the accusation had served as the basis for Brigadier Imtiaz’s authorization.

  He hobbled down the hall, stopping every few feet as the pain medication he had taken earlier began to wear off. The guards had been helpful in getting him up from the chair, but once outside the door, they returned to their posts and Kamal had limped his way back to the elevator on his own. He was halfway down the hall when he finally stopped and leaned against the wall. The pain from his injuries, coupled with complete immobility for five hours, began to cloud his senses. Pulling out his handkerchief, his hand grazed across the pack of Benson & Hedges nestled in his breast pocket.

  “Soldier,” he called back down the corridor. “Is there somewhere that I can have one of these?” he said shaking the cigarette pack for the guard to see.

  The guards both glanced at each other and one made an inaudible comment before the other moved down the hall to Kamal. Wow, he doesn’t look happy with my request, Kamal thought as the guard neared him.

  “Sir, there’s a smoking area just around the corner,” the guard said, gesturing to the other end of the corridor. “I can escort you there,” he said, moving away from Kamal.

  “Normally, I wouldn’t have an issue going to the smoking areas,” Kamal called out to the guard, “but maybe you didn’t notice… I am pretty badly injured and moving to the smoking area would be like walking down a flight of steps for me right now.”

  The guard stopped and turned back to Kamal, wondering what he would like him to do.

  “Look, the last time I was here,” Kamal explained, “the guards on duty were kind enough to open an office for me to smoke in. I can’t be seen in uniform or at the ISI headquarters, so they made an accommodation for me.” He pointed to one of the many offices that lined the corridor. The guard was unimpressed with his request.

  “Sir, there is a smoking area that I can take you to,” the guard repeated, mechanically. “We have wheelchairs if you are unable to move under your own power, but I can’t let you smoke in one of the private offices.”

  “And I can’t be seen outside this building in uniform!” Kamal reiterated for the soldier, as he pushed himself off the wall.

  “Sir, I have orders…” the guard started, but a door opened between Kamal and the elevator, and the guard stopped to turn and see where the interruption came from.

  From the door emerged the one person that Kamal didn’t want to face right now. She seemed to not notice the other people in the corridor as she quickly pulled the door closed behind her and used her keys to lock it. Turning her head, she saw the two of them standing about twenty feet down the corridor. It doesn’t look like our faces registered with her, he thought as she turned and started towards the elevator. But something must have clicked, because she turned and marched back in their direction.

  “Kamal?” she asked.

  “Hello Sara,” Kamal answered. “How are you?

  Sara looked at the broken soldier before her, and he caught a fleeting look of shock and concern. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Classified,” Kamal replied jokingly.

  “Classified?” she said, with anger in her voice. They had spent a great deal of time talking to each other during Kamal’s last visit to headquarters. “Is that… what the…” She fumed, paused, and Kamal could almost see the smoke rising. “Fuck you and your classified,” she said.

  “Sara…” Kamal called, as she turned to walk away. “Can you stop and listen for a minute?”

  “Sorry Kamal,” Sara replied without missing a step, “I’m not cleared for classified information.”

  The guard hid his amusement at the response, but Kamal wasn’t amused at all. He gathered up the remaining energy in him and hobbled his way down the corridor until he caught up with her.

  “It was a joke, Sara,” Kamal said, as he caught up with her at the elevator, out of breath and wincing in pain. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of the guard.” The ping from the elevator was loud.

  The doors to the elevator opened and she stepped in, not answering his clarification. “Aren’t you headed downstairs?” she asked as she turned to hit the button on the elevator. Kamal jammed his crutch into the elevator doors as they began to close, forcing them open again.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Then maybe you should get in,” she said with a smile.

  * * *

  It wasn’t unusual for soldiers to be roaming around Timergara bazaar. Actually, it was quite a common occurrence, Faheem thought as a faded green pickup swept past him. From the border post, there were only two markets, Khar and Timergara, where any supplies could be obtained outside the military supplies that come twice monthly. The Khar bazaar was often where basic supplies were purchased, anything else required a trip to Timergara. But today, there seemed to be more uniformed personnel than usual.

  It had been almost two months since Peshawar, but it had been anything but peaceful for Faheem. After his escape from the warehouse, he had passed information through a trusted source to the compound before assuming his uniformed duties again. The message had been simple, nondescript, “It’s done,” but
questions plagued his mind and troubled his sleep. Kaleem was dead, but what about Dawood? Did the FC get him or had he managed to escape somehow? One question troubled him more than any other – how was one man able to do such damage to six highly trained soldiers? That all changed fifteen days ago when Brigadier Imtiaz called him, furious.

  “What the hell did you get me into?” the Brigadier yelled into the phone.

  “Sir?”

  “Who told you about Dawood and Kaleem?” the Brigadier asked, almost screaming into the receiver.

  “Sir,” Faheem replied. “It was talk between two known Afghanis in the Khar bazaar. We have been watching them since.”

  “So you could find them… produce them in front of me if needed?”

  “Without a problem, sir,” Faheem said self-assured. “Just tell me when and where.”

  “Good,” the Brigadier said, calming down. There was a pause and then he asked a question that shook Faheem even today when he thought of it. “The boy in the chair… have you seen him recently?”

  “Sir, Kaleem died during the interrogation,” Faheem said, letting his mind return to that night and the memory of the limp body in the chair.

  “He wasn’t dead when we took him to CMH,” the Brigadier answered. “And he disappeared from there soon after.” Faheem’s mind ruptured. Was he still alive? Where the fuck had he disappeared to? He was dead when I left him and Dawood was beaten like a dog, possibly hit by the bullets I had fired. He calmed himself, slowing his heartbeat before he answered the Brigadier.

  “I can ask around, but he has not been seen or heard of since then,” Faheem said, mind racing, “I can ask where he is buried or when his janaza happened.”

  “No!” the Brigadier yelled. “Stay away from anyone associated with him or Dawood.”

  “Dawood?” Faheem asked, heart in his throat. “Isn’t he dead as well sir?”

  There was a long pause again, this time making him uncomfortable. Imtiaz took a deep breath. “I’ll be in touch when I need you to bring your sources to Peshawar. Until then, keep your head down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The past fifteen days had been filled with higher security and darting eyes for him. The nights were sweaty and sleepless, as he replayed the whole thing over and over in his head. As a result, he now slept with a pistol under his pillow and an extra sidearm under his kameez when he was off-duty. And the additional uniformed personnel in the market made him extra cautious and immediately aware of his surroundings.

  He made his way across the street to his 1988 Toyota Corolla, plastic bags in his hands. He didn’t feel like a watched man. It didn’t feel like anything other than a normal day of shopping for his wife and children. Unlocking the door, he smiled at the ice cream vendor where he would come with his children on Sundays. The vendor smiled back and offered him a battle of Pepsi, but Faheem’s mind looked past him at the ten soldiers enjoying themselves inside. Suddenly, he was noticing anyone in a uniform.

  “Faheem sahib, Pepsi?” the vendor called to him again.

  “No thank you,” Faheem said with a smile. “See you Sunday with the kids.”

  Faheem placed the grocery bags in the backseat and climbed behind the wheel. He paused for a second to recite the Ayat-ul-Kursi, as had become a practice fifteen days ago, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired up, as it had each day since the call, and he turned onto the road for the trip three kilometers to his home. Two kilometers down the road, the faded green Army pickup cruised past him for the fourth time, pulling to a stop at the dusty road that led to his house. Faheem, disregarding the pickup, turned down the road, kicking dust up with his tires and slammed on the brakes, sliding to a stop when he saw the five soldiers blocking the road. A few seconds passed before a soldier appeared on the driver side and knocked on the window. He motioned to Faheem to roll it down. Faheem complied without hesitation.

  “Identification please,” the soldier stated, glancing in the windows of the car.

  “Commander Faheem Khan, Bajaur FC post,” Faheem said, as he had always done when stopped at a checkpost.

  “Identification please, Commander,” the soldier repeated. Faheem looked at the soldier, realizing that he was not dissuaded by his verbal identification. He took a deep breath and pulled a wad of papers from his chest pocket. Searching, he found his FC service card and handed it to the soldier. “Is there a problem?” he asked handing it over.

  The soldier took the card, holding it up to compare the face on the card with the man in the car. “Please step out of the car, Commander.” Faheem felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck, as he opened the door and stepped out.

  “Do you have any weapons on your person?”

  “No,” Faheem said, immediately realizing that he did. He slowly reached under his kameez to pull out the weapon, but the soldiers didn’t like the movement, arming and aiming their weapons at him. “Wait!” Faheem said, trying to bring calm back to the situation. “I do have a weapon. I was mistaken,” he said, as calmly as he could, continuing to move his hand closer to the weapon. The soldier unwilling to take the chance of an incident, slammed him against the car and padded him down for the weapon.

  “Why did you lie to me?” the soldier asked, withdrawing the weapon from the holster on his waist.

  “I didn’t lie. I just forgot,” Faheem said, trying to hold back his anger at the accusation.

  “Are there any others?” the soldier asked, jamming his rifle into his back.

  “No, that’s the only one.”

  “Empty your pockets, Commander,” the soldier said, pulling his rifle from his back.

  Faheem looked around at the five AK-47s pointed at him, before slowly reaching into his chest and side pockets to remove everything he had in them. The soldier looked at each item that was placed on the hood of the car, sweeping them all up into a satchel.

  “You need to come with us,” the soldier said, motioning to the other soldiers.

  Faheem hesitated for a moment, looking around at the armed soldiers. His mind raced with the possibilities. Did they know about the compound and his association? Maybe they found the bank balance that exceeded three hundred times his monthly salary. Could this be about Kaleem and Dawood? He wanted to ask questions, but knew that he would not find answers here. As he turned to walk with the soldiers, he tossed the keys to the car into the driver’s seat. They were not going to do him any good wherever he was going, he said to himself, climbing into the back of the covered, faded green pickup.

  The transport from Bajaur was quicker than he had expected. The Army soldiers that picked him up from Timergara bazaar were polite and respectful. The same was not true once they got him to Nowshera. When they handed him over to the base military police, he was shackled and tossed into a cell to await transport. No one would tell him anything about anything, but he could only assume this had something to do with Peshawar.

  “Soldier! Guard!” Faheem called out to the men smoking at the door. “What am I doing here?”

  The two men glanced over unconcerned with his rantings; one even waved his hand in the air that they couldn’t hear him, before returning to their own conversation. Faheem, angered that he was not getting any response, kicked the cell door causing it to rattle on the hinges. The soldiers turned and strolled over.

  “What’s your problem?” the guard yelled, slapping his baton inches from Faheem’s hands making him jerk back quickly.

  “What the fuck, soldier?” Faheem yelled at the havildar. “Do they not teach you to respect officers in the army?”

  “You’re not an army officer,” the guard sneered back. “And when you’re in the cell, you’re not an officer at all!”

  “What was I brought here for? No one has told me anything,” Faheem said, trying to calm his emotions, hoping to get more information with politeness. “I need to know why I’m in a cell.”

  “That’s above my pay grade,” the guard replied with a smile. “You’ll have to wait for the Ca
ptain to get here.”

  “When does he get here?” Faheem asked, his voice rising in anger at the side step of his question.

  The guard turned and started walking away without answering, only to have Faheem holler again, “When does he get here?”

  Without breaking his stride, the guard called back, “When he gets here. Now shut the fuck up or we’ll shut you up!”

  The comment only infuriated Faheem more. He kicked the cell door again, thinking that it would draw a reaction from the guards again. The guards just kept walking, uninterested in the tantrum behind them.

  Faheem spent the next hours alternating between sitting on the rotten wooden bench and pacing in his 4x6 cell. His mind was racing with possibilities. I know Kaleem is dead, I killed him. Is that why they picked me up? What about Dawood? Where the hell are they taking me? Each time someone passed, he would try to drum up some conversation that could get information on why he was there or where he was going. No one stopped or spoke to him, no matter how much noise he made. The silence of the other officers made Faheem more jittery. Can no one speak here? Why won’t anyone tell me anything? Where the hell is this Captain?

  When the Captain finally arrived, however, he wasn’t interested in answering questions, only asking them.

  “Commander Faheem?” Captain Abdul Haleem asked as he approached, flanked by guards on either side. He was flipping pages in a file marked “Classified,” looking for something specific in terms of questions he was to ask. The pages of the file didn’t reveal much as most of it had been redacted to protect confidential operation information. He stopped as he reached the cell and looked up. “Of course you are. Who else would you be?”

  “Why am I here?” Faheem asked.

  “Faheem, you’re on a stopover,” the Captain said. “Someone is in transit to collect you. Don’t know from where or where they are taking you.”

  “Can I have some water?” Faheem asked. “I haven’t been given anything to drink since Timergara.” The statement caused the Captain to look up from the file at him. He cocked his head to the side, looking past Faheem into the cell, and motioned to the bucket of water in the corner.