“Come in,” a gruff voice said before the Clerk could even knock.
The door opened on a man seated behind another larger, gray desk. He was bent over a stack of papers with pen in hand, the front of his round bald head wrinkled with effort, eyes crinkling as if he were either in pain or on the verge of solving a vexing riddle. Najeeb recognized him immediately, and his apprehension turned to anger. The recognition was mutual, and the man smiled slightly before quickly shaking his head, as if to say, “Why am I not surprised?”
His name was Tariq. Or so he had said the first time they met, seven years ago in the sunny offices of a far less notable agency along the marbled boulevards of Islamabad. Najeeb wondered now if the ISI had been the man’s employer all along. He tried to recall Tariq’s last name, then remembered that he had never stated one, and it was doubtful he would now.
Najeeb’s most vivid memory of that day was Tariq’s maddening patience, waiting calmly even as Najeeb had refused to answer questions, hands folded on the desk while a clock hummed on the wall, precious seconds ticking away. There had been a flight waiting. Najeeb had been due back in the United States for his senior year in college, but security forces had pulled him from the check-in line and hauled him into the city, ignoring his angry protests and parking behind the white walls of the ministry. It was after hours, and Tariq had seemingly been the only one left in the building. He had greeted the fuming Najeeb by placing a hand consolingly on his shoulder—“Don’t worry. We’ll have you back in plenty of time. As soon as you’ve answered a few questions.”
It sounded reassuring enough until Najeeb heard the questions, the last of which had been the most alarming of all:
“Tell me what’s going on in the cave. The one in the bluff near your father’s house. Then tell me, in as much detail as possible, how to find it. Do that and you may go. Don’t do that and, frankly, I think we may have some problems with granting your exit.”
Tariq hadn’t seemed to mind when Najeeb didn’t respond. He’d stared down at his papers while the sun traveled lower, until the sky darkened and the office was a tiny pool of fluorescent light in a hushed and empty building, the traffic outside dwindling to almost nothing.
The flight’s scheduled hour of departure came and went. Tariq pulled a sandwich and a water bottle from a drawer, chewing slowly. Najeeb stood once to leave and Tariq merely pushed a desktop button, producing a guard with a truncheon. Najeeb sat down.
An hour later, between bites of an apple, Tariq said offhandedly, “We’re still holding the plane, you know. All those people, sweating and angry on board. Nice to know there are some advantages of a state-run airline. But we won’t hold it forever. And it’s this flight or nothing. So make up your mind.”
Yet, Najeeb still held his tongue, so Tariq began to prod. He said little, but his few thrusts were deft, as if he’d known just where to aim after hours of study. The line that finally worked followed a full five minutes of silence.
“What must your father think of you by now?” Tariq had asked. “I know it was his idea to send you away to school, but look at you. Hardly the sort to be either feared or respected, at least not where you come from. Or maybe that’s why he sends you away?”
It was the same thought Najeeb had always tried to avoid, and he flashed back to one of the more awful moments in his life, his father roaring and ranting, having discovered that his boy—his only boy, no less—had been sketching birds, painting them when he should have been shooting them. Not only that, but the boy had actually saved the colorful drawings, rolling them up as a woman might do with her embroidery and placing them beneath his bed. The Pashtun had always honored their poets, their singers and, of course, their warriors, but painters simply didn’t exist, at least not among the male of the species. So his father, sputtering and swearing, had torn up the sheets one by one, while attributing Najeeb’s urges to every sort of vile motive he could think of, although the one he eventually settled on was quite predictable. “So what do I have for a son, then?” he’d said. “Some kind of bedagh, out servicing the local elders like the village whore? Is that what you’ve become behind my back?”
So, prodded by Tariq, Najeeb began to talk. The words came slowly at first, then in a torrent, until even Tariq was rubbing his eyes and flexing his cramped hand, having heard vivid descriptions of mountain pathways down to the last boulder, places where Najeeb had once frolicked and scrambled, and, yes, had taken his drawing pad and his colored pencils, clandestinely, with the great thrill of the forbidden.
After an hour or so they whisked him back to the airport without a further word, hustling him straight through security as if he were a diplomat or a celebrity. Najeeb boarded the sweltering plane before a sea of glaring faces, but at least Tariq had upgraded his seat to business class. Najeeb tried to calm down, telling himself that the worst of the experience was behind him. But in the brief time that it took for the big plane to taxi to the head of the runway his relief turned to shame and confusion, and as the wheels left the ground he vomited furiously into a bag, his shrunken stomach offering up the little that remained from a farewell lunch, lovingly served by his mother eight hours earlier. After clearing customs the next morning at JFK he tried phoning home, either in warning or in penance, he wasn’t sure which, leaving messages of every sort at the tiny public telephone office in his home village. But the authorities must have acted quickly, because by the following day when he tried again his father had already left word for him to cease calling. And his mother, an unfamiliar voice warned, “will be unable to call you anytime soon.”
It was months before he heard the further consequences of his betrayal, and then only in vague reports of arrests and government raids, although his father rode out the storm with the usual bribes and accommodations. But it wasn’t until the following May, the end of the academic year and graduation, that Najeeb faced the full realization of what he’d forfeited. The tip-off came when no one showed up at the airport to meet him. No driver or cousin or uncle. He hired a cab and made the lonely ride west with a creeping sense of desolation, hoping vainly that his diploma might soften the blow, a conquest abroad that would allow for atonement.
It was not to be.
At the edge of his father’s lands the taxi came upon a red Toyota Land Cruiser parked astride the pavement. A distant cousin, Riaz, stepped from the truck, rifle in hand. Riaz said little, apart from telling Najeeb that he must turn back. Then he handed over a small bag of Najeeb’s belongings, plus a letter from his mother and a sealed envelope of cash. The taxi turned around without a further word, and Najeeb got off in Peshawar, stepping into the haze that had never seemed to abate in all the days since.
And now he was again face-to-face with the man who had made it all possible.
“Congratulations on your promotion,” Najeeb said disdainfully, still standing. “Or was it just a relocation?”
“I’m not sure either word is correct.” Tariq set down his pen and folded his hands, squinting upward in appraisal. Satisfied that Najeeb had nothing further to say, he gestured to an undersized wooden chair.
“Be seated.”
The chair was hard and uncomfortable, probably by design.
“You finished your university years successfully, I trust?”
“I have a degree, if that’s what you mean.”
“The University of . . . North Carolina? If memory serves.”
Najeeb nodded, flashing on a wispy vision of vast green lawns between colonnaded brick buildings. Tanned young women gliding beneath yellow pin oaks with books in hand, slim thighs scissoring in dappled sunlight. A bell tower tolling on a fall Saturday with golden leaves fluttering heavenward in a breezy blue sky.
“Tell me about your meeting this afternoon with Haji din Razaq.”
Najeeb was amazed, then decided he shouldn’t be. Of course they’d be watching Mahmood Razaq, plus everyone in his family. A son’s visit to the Pearl Continental, the very center of activity for foreigners, would
be too enticing to pass up. The question was whether they were working for Razaq or against him, and why.
Najeeb, if anything, was relieved. At least this time the questions weren’t about him or his family. It emboldened him to be a little resistant.
“Who wants to know?”
“I do.”
“Because you’re ISI now? Or have been all along?”
A theatrical frown. Here came the standard disclaimer, Najeeb supposed, or some lecture about how all of us were only doing our duty, and you had best do yours. But Tariq surprised him.
“Think whatever you want. There are at least a thousand rumors in the streets, but I don’t think I’ve heard a single one that’s true. The only important thing is that you tell me what you know. You’re hardly in a position to be uncooperative. It’s not like you can just run back home.”
“Thanks to you.”
“It’s not my job to anticipate repercussions, merely to get information. Mahmood Razaq is the subject. But I can always move on to other matters. Your newspaper. Your girlfriend. Daliya, is it? Or maybe Razaq, if you prefer.”
“You probably know more about his plans than I do. Anything I can tell you has already been in the papers. His son was in the hotel lobby and my client wanted an introduction.”
“Stanford Kelly. An American.” Tariq glanced at a paper on the desk. “Just arrived this morning.”
“Your people obviously don’t have enough to keep you busy.”
“We’ve far too much. You just happened to have stumbled onto two of the people we’re interested in.”
“Skelly? What’s he done?”
“See? As always you have no idea what or who you’re dealing with. Do you know where he’s been?” Tariq consulted the paper. “Somalia, Bosnia, Panama, other places. Wherever U.S. forces go, he goes.”
“In America that’s called covering the news.”
“You can think of it however you want, as long as you keep us posted on his movements. Who he sees. What kinds of questions he asks. Where he wants to go next.”
“He wants to go to Afghanistan, just like all the others.”
“Yes. But where in Afghanistan?”
“I’m not sure even he knows. He just wants a dateline from across the border. The sooner he gets it the sooner he can go home.”
“And he’s hoping to tag along with Mahmood Razaq.”
Najeeb shook his head. “You know they won’t let him.”
“Maybe they will, but just don’t know it yet.”
It was an interesting remark, but Najeeb didn’t rise to the bait. “Then why did you need to talk to me?”
“Every bit helps. Have you ever heard of triangulation? Calculating your exact position by readings from at least three different points. The more sources, the better. So what did he say to you then, this son of Mahmood’s? Is the great man going to see you later?”
Najeeb hesitated. No harm in telling the truth, he supposed. No doubt Tariq’s people were already staking out Razaq’s house.
“Tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock.”
Tariq paused to write something down. If anything, Najeeb had probably just confirmed that Razaq’s little war party wasn’t setting out this evening. Unless Razaq’s son had lied to him, of course.
“What do you do with all of this trivia, anyway?”
Tariq said nothing, continuing to write. Then he set down his pen.
“You may be receiving a visitor from time to time in the next few days. At your apartment, not your office. When you do, I urge you to be cooperative and answer all his questions.”
“So it was your man who left the note, then?” Somehow it made Najeeb feel better. An official snoop was more predictable than a fanatic.
Tariq frowned. “The note?”
“Warning me to behave. Quoting the words of the Prophet.”
“We’ve got enough religious nuts to worry about without creating any. Your contact’s code name is Abdullah. He dresses like a phone man, partly because he is a phone man. It will all be very boring and businesslike. Unless you become uncooperative, in which case we’ll make other arrangements. As I told you, I don’t concern myself with repercussions, only with information.”
Najeeb took that for what it was, while wondering again about the note under his door. He decided to retrieve his reply if it were still posted by the mailboxes. He began to stand, but Tariq motioned him back down.
“I’ll say when you’re done.”
“Another goon outside?”
“No need. Not in here.” He said it with some distaste, as if he, too, felt claustrophobic. “We don’t always just use the stick, you know. There’s a carrot, if you’re interested. And if you really help us. You want to go back to America, I understand. Calling the consular section day and night.”
“Not anymore. They’ve stopped answering and sent everyone home.”
“But you’d leave tomorrow if you had a visa.”
“Me and a million others.”
“But a million others don’t have the chance to accompany Mahmood Razaq.”
“And I won’t, either.”
“An opportunity could present itself. And if it does, you should be prepared to take it.”
“So I can get myself killed?”
“You know they won’t touch a whisker on his beard. They just want to show him who’s boss.”
“And so do you.”
“We have other reasons. And other clients.”
“And if I’d rather not take advantage of this opportunity?”
“Then we’ll find someone else, and go back to using the stick.”
Najeeb said nothing. Tariq stood. The meeting must be over. “Someone will show you out. Your motorbike is in the alley.”
The Clerk followed Najeeb to the door, punched in a few numbers while shielding the code with his other hand, then shut the door behind him with another screech of rusting steel. So much for the legendary ISI, Najeeb thought, strangely calmed by the experience. It reminded him of a movie he’d seen his freshman year, when he seemed to have done nothing but watch the free films showing on campus every night, as if he might ingest American culture from a spaghetti bowl of celluloid. The movie was The Wizard of Oz, and the humbug in the title role now struck him as being a lot like the ISI. Did all of Oz look so bland and harmless once you reached its core, he wondered— quiet, burrowing men in windowless cubicles where everyone watched the clock. Then he remembered what had happened after his previous appointment with Tariq, and his assessment darkened. You ignored these humbugs at your peril. At the moment neither the carrot nor the stick seemed to promise anything but pain.
It was dark now. His scooter was waiting as promised, and the military police were gone. The market crowds were reaching their peak and his eyes smarted from the wood smoke. But it was good to be out of the frigid office, which had numbed his fingertips. Casting a parting glance at the nondescript door, he wondered how late everyone inside would be working tonight. There was no keyhole or numbered pad outside to allow for independent entry, meaning that unless there was some other entrance at least one person must have to stay here round the clock, babysitting all that equipment with the blinking lights. Would they have bothered to place some sort of listening device on his scooter? Doubtful. He was letting the legend work on his mind. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, he told himself. Just wait to hear from this fellow Abdullah, and take it from there.
He kick-started the scooter and eased into the crowd. It was less than a mile to his apartment, where he arrived to find that the lights in the stairwell were burned out once again. But he could see well enough to notice that his reply to this morning’s messenger had already disappeared from the wall. Great. Another enemy cultivated. He climbed the echoing stairs while thinking ahead to the morning, wondering what had made Tariq believe that Razaq might actually invite Skelly and him along. And why would they suspect Skelly of being anything other than a typical scribbler?
Fum
bling for his keys, he was alarmed to find his door ajar. He placed a hand on the knob, wondering if he should enter. Perhaps the ISI’s man Abdullah was inside, already making a courtesy call, showing who was boss, or adding a few enhancements to the phone line. Then a voice called faintly from inside, sweet yet frightened.
“Najeeb? Is that you?”
“Daliya?”
“Someone attacked me. Someone on the stairs.”
He pushed open the door, but the room was dark, and as he reached for the lights Daliya cried out, startled.
“No! Leave it off. He cut my face, just a few minutes ago. He might still be out there.”
Najeeb glanced backward, seeing no one, then stared ahead into the darkness for Daliya, finally spotting her on the cushions against the far wall. As he drew nearer he saw tears on her cheeks, reflecting the glow of street lamps from the window. There was also something darker beneath her right eye, where she held a washcloth to her face.
He leaned down to touch her, console her, suddenly shaky himself. It was the most disturbing moment yet of an odd and disturbing day, but things were about to get worse. As his hands reached her quivering shoulders he saw a cream-colored envelope lying unopened on the cushion beside her.
It was just like the one he’d received that morning.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PEARL CONTINENTAL’S lunch buffet must have been just what the doctor ordered, because Skelly’s stomach rallied throughout the late afternoon and on past dark. By eight-thirty he felt sufficiently recovered to try a platter of Szechuan chicken at the Pearl’s Chinese restaurant, tweezering aside the hot peppers with his chop-sticks as a precaution.
The dinner cried out for a beer, but of course there wasn’t any, not there or at any other restaurant in Pakistan. You could order a drink in your room by calling a special number, but how much fun was that? So Skelly took the elevator to Peshawar’s one and only bar, a windowless room with a speakeasy atmosphere tucked away on the top floor.
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