by Fritz Galt
Stripped of their watches, wallets and papers, he and Alec had sat on the tile floor of the dark, unfurnished room counting the hours.
Suddenly, he heard a padlock open and a chain swing open against their door. A ceiling light flooded the room and illuminated a stout man with a handlebar mustache.
“Welcome to The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Mr. Pierce and Mr. Pierce,” he said in a friendly voice, and tossed their valuables back in their laps.
Mick blinked, taking in the man’s casual plaid shirt, jeans and white cap.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said, extending his hand.
Mick rose and shook it. Alec was more suspicious and remained on the floor.
The man continued in a staccato voice that reminded Mick of machine-gun fire. “My name is Qazi Aziz. Five years ago, the Armed Islamic Movement based in Sudan installed me as leader of the Islamic Jihad of Pakistan. We are based here in Karachi, where I am responsible for all Islamist activities in Pakistan, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Albania and Kosovo.”
Alec jumped to his feet. “Training, equipment, operational support?” he asked.
“You’ve hit the nail right on the head,” Aziz said, and clasped Alec’s hand warmly.
“You’ve got support from Islamabad?” Mick asked.
“Tremendous support. Very receptive,” Aziz said.
“As long as you funnel your energies in the right direction,” Mick said.
“Of course,” Aziz said, eyeing Mick closely. “That’s why I needed to talk with you. Do you mind if we take a seat?”
He indicated several pillows on the floor of the next room.
“Care for tea?”
Both brothers readily agreed. After twenty-four hours without food, they were starved.
“Right,” Aziz said. A manservant entered, served tea and left. “So exactly who are you, and why are you here?”
Mick explained, “The ISI has sent us in to help out on operations in Indian-Occupied Kashmir.” He noticed Aziz smile at the Pakistan-friendly expression.
“Yes, the ISI told me to expect you,” Aziz said. “Who are you, the CIA?”
Mick gave one of his impenetrable smiles. “May I go on?”
Aziz motioned for him to continue.
“Word is out that Abu Khan is not a separatist. Instead he wants Kashmir to remain part of India, for his own purposes.”
Aziz stroked his shaven jaw. “I see. Do you know this Abu Khan?”
Mick tried to stretch his legs while on the pillow, and said. “I know Abu fairly well. I’ve met him once or twice. Is your organization related to his in any way?” he inquired, treading softly on a sensitive subject.
“Actually, no,” Aziz said. “In all truthfulness, I do not know who he is or where he came from.”
Alec rolled his tongue around in his mouth thoughtfully. “Are you connected with Multan Malik in Mauritius?”
Aziz shook his head, no.
Mick exchanged glances with Alec. Was Qazi Aziz that far out of the loop?
“Has the ISI given you any direction in this matter?” Mick asked.
“As far as I know, there is no change in the policy of forward engagement in India. And as far as I know, Islamabad still wants Kashmir and control of the Trans-Asian Axis.”
Alec bent forward confidentially. “And what do you want?”
“With Allah’s help and the backing of the ISI, I want Koranic Rule,” he said simply.
Mick nodded. “Then I think we can talk business.”
He proceeded to sketch out his plan to use the Armed Islamic Movement’s help to cross the Line of Control into Indian-held Kashmir and use AIM’s contacts to infiltrate Abu Khan’s network. Once given access to Abu Khan, Mick and Alec planned to retrieve the vaccine and capture Abu Khan. “The key is working our way into bin Laden’s network.”
Aziz’s eyes took on a far-off look. “I don’t have direct involvement with bin Laden, but I do know who does,” he said, nodding. “And I’ve been waiting several years to reactivate them.”
Mick waited for him to continue.
“It’s time to call on Al-Faran.”
Mick tried to cough as the Bedford truck’s exhaust billowed fumes just inches from his bound face. But an oily rag gagged him, and he couldn’t move a muscle. He and Alec were tied from head to toe and hanging from the truck’s suspension.
It was a lurching ride through Karachi’s streets, at times doubling back past construction sites that began to sound familiar. Mick tried to dislodge the wrap around his eyes by scraping the dark gauze against the rusty undercarriage of the truck. Bright sunlight finally flickered from the ceramic-tiled Pakistani sidewalk, just as the truck paused before a seal of the United States of America.
Of all places, they were passing the U.S. Consulate in Karachi.
Perhaps the men driving the truck were enjoying some cruel vengeance by hauling two Americans past the compound. Suddenly, Mick could tell otherwise. As the engine slowed, he heard chanting. A mob was screaming outside the consulate.
From his poor angle, he made out surges of protestors hurling stones at the building. They were shaking fists and shouting in Urdu, which he couldn’t understand. One banner in English read, “Send your ships home!”
Oh God. Charles Damon had sent in the fleet to rescue India. Natalie hadn’t told him that part of the plan.
At that moment, he felt safer kidnapped by the Armed Islamic Movement than if he were holed up behind the broken windows of the U.S. Consulate.
There was a loud, grinding noise. The driver was stripping the gears. Suddenly, they lurched forward past the violent mob and jerked down the congested street.
Eventually, the two-story shop fronts of Karachi gave way to single-room hovels leaning against each other, which in turn were replaced by free-standing one-room structures. Between these widely separated buildings, stray trash fluttered over piles of yellow rock. He saw men, women and children everywhere, standing upon the rocks, pissing on them, strolling among them, squatting on them and sometimes just staring at the yellow stones as if some deep meaning could be extracted from them.
Shops lined the well-paved highway as they left the city. But soon, the brown fields of early winter gave way to flat, barren land.
An hour and a half out of the Karachi, the truck pulled off the blacktop and stopped in a cloud of dust. Mick arched his back and peered forward. They had come to a halt before some green Army Jeeps and a blue police bus with chicken wire for windows. Uniformed men sauntered about, tapping long wooden laths and peering into trucks and cars.
Perhaps they were passing from the Sindh State into the State of Punjab, a starkly conservative region that was rife with separatist violence. To his relief, the soldiers didn’t check under the truck, and within minutes, the engine chugged to life and his momentary reprieve from exhaust fumes was over.
He watched Alec’s inert body several feet from him. He had no way of knowing whether his half-brother was still alive in his tight constraints. Under cover of the engine noise, he decided to risk communication. The only sound he could make was a grunt, so he grunted several times. The body opposite him still didn’t move. Perhaps with the exhaust and mouth gag, Alec didn’t have enough oxygen or had choked on his own vomit.
The truck turned and jostled onto a more primitive road. It felt more like a camel track. His head thumped against the undercarriage with a severe jolt. He stretched taut to absorb the blows with his shoulders. He wouldn’t have the strength to last long.
The change in road surfaces meant more than a bumpy ride. The truck kicked up golden dust, and Mick was suspended in a cloud of exhaust and dirt.
He grunted louder for Alec to hear him.
Then, miraculously, amidst the squeak of the suspension and the gunning motor, he heard a faraway, “Ugh.”
He closed his eyes.
Alec wasn’t enjoying the ride any more than he was.
At last the truck ground to a halt. When the dust set
tled, Mick could make out chickens crossing the road and a goat standing on a pile of rocks beside a primitive stone house.
Four militants jumped off the back of the truck and began untying Mick and Alec from the chassis.
An authoritative voice, a new person, intoned commands in the distance.
Mick’s legs were freed from the truck and thumped against the dirt road. Next his upper torso was unfastened, and he fell on his back.
A hand reached for his mouth and removed the gag.
He let out the cough that he had wanted to release several hours earlier. Alec was coughing similarly several feet away from him.
“Get this blindfold off me,” Mick growled. “I’m not your enemy.”
The voice from the distance sounded closer now. “Of course you’re not. You realize that this was only a precaution, both for yourselves and for our network.”
A hand unwound the rest of the gauze from his face. The desert was a shimmering blue mirage with gold flecks reflecting the winter sun. The sun also caught the embroidered skullcap of a tall, slim man with military bearing.
“Welcome to India,” the man said.
Mick and Alec stared at each other. How could they be in India so soon? He had envisioned several days’ drive to the far north, followed by a weeklong battle across the border into Kashmir.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Rajasthan,” the man said coolly. “Care to step inside?”
Mick untangled the remaining bindings from his arms and legs. His hands and forearms were puffy and purple.
He rocked to his feet and followed the man into the dirt-floored structure. Electricity had not yet found its way to that corner of western Rajasthan. Nor had telephone service.
On a battered colonial desk, there sat a stack of old newspapers and a cell phone.
“I’m sorry that I can’t divulge my name,” the man began as they sat cross-legged on cushions. “In fact, I don’t even know your good names. And I don’t care to know them.”
“Are you part of Al-Faran?” Mick asked.
The man smiled benignly and ignored the question. “My job is to get you to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. Since we are already in India, it should prove a fairly easy task.”
Slowly, the broad outline of Qazi Aziz’s plan became clear. Armed Islamic Movement militants were entering India at a desert crossing into Rajasthan and then traveling within India to Kashmir, rather than infiltrating across battle lines to the north.
“Our first order of business is to reintroduce you to everyday life,” the soldier said. “From tomorrow, you will exit the underground and become run-of-the-mill tourists. Our guide in Jaisalmer will present you with your tourist passports and show you the city. From there, he will escort you north across the desert to Bikaner, up through the Indian Punjab and finally up the Vale of Kashmir to Srinagar. At that point, he will reintroduce you to our underground network.”
It sounded simple enough to Mick. “Exactly how will we travel?”
The man’s grim expression did not change. “A camel caravan should arrive only shortly.”
Mick blinked. Maybe it would take a full week to get to Kashmir after all.
The man pulled his desk drawer open and withdrew a Polaroid camera. “If you please.”
He motioned for the two brothers to stand up against a stone wall. “I need your pictures.”
As the flash popped before Mick’s eyes, an image came to mind.
Several years earlier, equipped with sophisticated weapons and modern communications equipment, Al-Faran, the cover name of an elite Islamist force, had kidnapped eight Western tourists in Kashmir, beheaded a Norwegian man among the group and mailed a photo of his head to the press.
The other captives were never found.
Chapter 47
A MiG jet roared overhead toward India’s border with Pakistan, just minutes away by air.
Mick’s camel plodded undisturbed, its wide hooves digging into the slope of a dune. Beautiful wind-sculpted sand swept across the entire horizon of the Thar Desert.
Beside Mick, Alec’s camel loped thoughtlessly along. Alec’s shoulders sagged and swayed, absorbing the beast’s jerky movements.
“Is our progress too slow for you?” Mick asked.
“It’s not that. I’m just not sure what kind of reception we’ll get once we reach Kashmir.”
“I don’t know either, but we can handle it.”
Alec stared at him as if he were an ancient carving placed incongruously in the middle of the desert.
“What is it?” Mick said. “Am I getting in your way? Cramping your style?”
“I’m not sure. But I’ve learned to work alone.”
Mick rode on for some distance in silence. He could split up with Alec at some point. They could attack Abu from separate angles.
Until Mick’s India assignment, the CIA had posted his half-brother to the same cities as Natalie and him. While Natalie and Mick held official government jobs, Alec was always the desperate younger sibling scrambling to find some sort of cover for his presence as a CIA operative. Perhaps Alec had outgrown the role of little brother. Mauritius had been his first solo assignment, and he may have gotten used to calling the shots.
A monitor lizard moved laggardly away from the approaching caravan. Circling overhead, a rare Great Indian Bustard thrust its beak forward, looking for insects in the cooling evening air. Behind Mick, guides were spinning colorful tales of Jaisalmer to the tourists on the four-day trek.
He caught some tidbits of their lively tales about the princely bastion of the valorous Rajputs. In medieval times, caravans like theirs bore precious cargoes of spices and silk, upon which the feudal chiefs levied huge taxes.
Once situated on a main trade route linking India with lands like Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Africa and Europe, the glory of Jaisalmer finally faded when sea trade replaced the old land routes.
“I can’t wait to see Jaisalmer,” he said for a change of subject. He had been as near as Pokhran just a hundred kilometers to the east, but never as far into the desert as the famed Jaisalmer.
Alec shrugged. “Jaisalmer is probably just another Mauritius. Yet one more former gem on a forgotten trade route.”
The sun was setting rapidly, and the sand changed hues from tawny yellow to the color of golden honey.
At the base of a dune, the lead guide called the caravan to a halt. It was time to pitch tents for the night. Kalbelija gypsies walked among the camels, pulling their bridles down to let off passengers. The group of twelve tourists and twenty-four servants got to work setting up camp.
A lead guide, a Manganiyar, broke into a full-throated song that carried far over the cooling sands.
Chatting with the other tourists, mainly a group from the University of Ohio, Mick inquired what they were doing on a camel trek in India when there was a malaria epidemic.
The young men and women looked at each other slightly bewildered.
“What epidemic?”
“Haven’t you read the newspapers, watched CNN?” Mick asked.
They shook their heads. “We don’t want to spend that kind of money,” one man said.
“That’s a world away,” the woman said beside him.
“But the news is about India,” he insisted. “People are dying in the streets. Didn’t anyone warn you? Didn’t you notice anything?”
They looked stumped.
“I thought the people looked pretty feeble,” one man said. “But I just thought to myself, ‘That’s India.’”
Exactly how had Natalie circumvented the quarantine and entered the United States?
“How are you getting back, mister?”
“I don’t know. I’m still working on it.”
The next morning, Mick awoke shivering. The desert air felt cold, but even under a heavy woolen blanket, his entire body was shaking.
Every bone in his body ached as he mounted his camel and it lurched to its feet.
He had been pr
epared by the guides’ descriptions of Jaisalmer. But he didn’t expect such intricate beauty, straight from the pages of the Arabian Nights, as it rose from the brooding silence of the desert.
Ninety-nine turrets rose out of the shifting sands. Over a quarter of modern Jaisalmer lived within the fortress city. With their carved lattice grills, buildings outside the citadel were molded from the same golden sandstone, creating the illusion that a master craftsman had carved the city as a single work.
They slipped down off their camels and approached the city on foot. Mick felt drawn to the eight hundred-year-old fort that crowned Trikuta Hill. Once their group had reached the thirty-foot high ramparts, he and Alec separated from the rest and began to wander down the quiet, narrow lanes and by-lanes.
He was flanked by ancient townhouses of former merchants. Laundry still fluttered from screened bay windows. Broad balconies balanced on elaborate brackets. The sandstone exteriors of these mansions sported sculptural filigree, panels embossed with heraldic beasts and whimsically painted scenes.
As his eyes traveled up the facades, the floors proliferated with delicately carved galleries, pavilions, cusped arches, baluster colonettes and floral panels.
Something struck him as strange. The streets were deserted. There were no hawkers and touts that normally crowded Indian tourist destinations. Where were the aggressive trishaw drivers trying to steer him to a hotel where they would earn a commission? All his typical “friends” were missing, his forty thieves who could advise him on where to change money and how to spend it.
They stumbled from the first winding lane into an open-air bazaar. The city still seemed to exist in its medieval past. In one shop, a craftsman slowly plied his ancient craft with a one-man weaving loom. A mallet and chisel pounded away at a stubborn piece of sandstone in a corner of the square. And a man fashioned chunks of silver into jewelry beneath a shredded awning.