BLOWBACK

by Deva, Mukul

  ‘Obviously! They need savvy terrorists because the uneducated ones wouldn’t last very long against modern security forces. But this is also a major chink in the terrorists’ armour, since the literate ones are also going to be able to see through the hidden agenda and realize they are only being used.’

  ‘Isn’t that what happened with Iqbal?’

  ‘Precisely! However, we have to be very careful that the guys we subvert don’t turn on us – or they could cause a lot more damage.’

  ‘Yes, they could,’ Anbu agreed. ‘In this battle, as in every battle, the key is not allowing the enemy to know what we know.’

  ‘So subverting one of their guys may be far more complicated and troublesome than the results it may yield.’

  ‘True, but also remember that trying to send an infiltrator into any terror group is not only a difficult and time-consuming process, it is extremely dangerous for the person trying to do so. They will show absolutely no mercy if his cover breaks for any reason whatsoever.’

  ‘That goes without saying, sir. It will have to be someone who is highly trained and motivated; someone who can stay the course for a long, long time on his own resources and, more importantly, with inner confidence.’

  ‘Pity we don’t have James Bond on our side.’ Sami gave a half-hearted laugh.

  ‘Or Jason Bourne.’

  The three Force 22 officers were silent, their eyes again drawn to the terrible scenes being telecast on the screen in the far corner.

  ‘Or Iqbal,’ Tiwathia said softly. ‘He had the motivation and the training... he was even the right age to have infiltrated the YPS.’

  ‘More importantly, Vikram,’ Anbu added, ‘Iqbal had already seen through the lies and the deceit. He was fully aware of the dark underbelly of terror and he knew it had nothing to do with religion.’

  ‘We all know that he was mentally strong…’

  ‘Yes. Remember how he went back across the LOC alone and took down Maulana Fazlur Rehman at Muzzafarabad? Can you imagine the guts that must have taken?’

  Another long silence fell upon the three men. It ended only when Vikram whispered, more to himself than anyone else, ‘Damn! I really wish we had brought Iqbal back with us. Then he would not...’ His voice trailed away. Even the battle-hardened commando was unable to voice the thought that the man who had saved his life was probably dead.

  SIX

  For a long time Tanaz couldn’t believe she was alive. The first two bullets fired by the Pakistani NCO had slammed into the stock of the Uzi in her hands, reducing it to a useless piece of mangled metal. The third had clipped the back of her hand. It had raced along the length of her arm, leaving a long, bloody furrow right up to her shoulder. The wound itself was neither dangerous nor fatal, but the loss of blood could be both. Shaking her head to rid herself of the wooziness, Tanaz sat up groggily. Gritting her teeth, she tore a long strip of cloth from the hem of her burqa and wrapped it tightly along the length of her arm. The biting pain sent a wave of giddiness through her. She pulled herself together with an effort and looked around for Iqbal.

  Then she saw the station wagon with its opaque windscreen.

  ‘Iqbal!’ Tanaz cried out in alarm, her pain forgotten as she ran to the vehicle. Iqbal lay slumped to one side. Through the folds of his shawl, the hole punched into his chest was clearly visible. Fresh blood oozed from it in a shocking, never-ending stream. Tanaz reached out and felt the warm stirring of Iqbal’s breath on the back of her hand; the pounding in her heart receded slightly as she realized he was still alive.

  She knew it was imperative that she stop the bleeding and get Iqbal away immediately. It was only a matter of time before someone landed up to investigate the gunfire. Working as fast as she could, Tanaz snatched up a fresh field dressing from the rear seat of the station wagon and used it to staunch the bleeding from Iqbal’s chest wound as best as she could. The sight of the open wound and so much blood sent fresh waves of nausea through her.

  Stop it! her mind screamed. She knew they would not get out of this alive if she did not take charge of the situation immediately. Gradually, reason and training seized control, forcing her mind into overdrive as her hands began to mechanically finish applying the bandage.

  The station wagon is finished! Even if it’s not, do I have time to change the tyre? How long before someone else lands up? Should I use the army jeep?

  She was still struggling with Iqbal’s makeshift bandage when she heard the deep, guttural sound of engines. Grabbing the Uzi from the floor, where it had fallen when Iqbal had passed out, Tanaz jumped out of the station wagon and spun around to face the new threat coming round the bend.

  The four vehicles thundered down the track, carrying a wreath of dust with them. They came to a halt just short of the station wagon. The first and fourth vehicles in the mini convoy were Toyota Landcruiser SUVs and the two in between were the Toyota Hiace minibuses that are so common in Pakistan.

  There was a long pregnant silence as the unseen occupants of the dust-laden convoy surveyed the gory scene of the shootout. Tanaz’s breath seemed to stop and she gripped the weapon tightly with both hands. Every fibre in her body screamed at her to lunge into action.

  But at what? Whom?

  The answer to her questions emerged as the doors of the lead Landcruiser opened in tandem and four men stepped out. They were all heavily bearded and dressed in identical dark Pathani suits. All four carried 5.45 mm AK-74 assault rifles in their hands.

  With a sinking heart, Tanaz saw the rifle muzzles train on her. There was no way she could match that kind of firepower. The slightest move would mean certain death for Iqbal and her.

  ‘What happened here?’ the man who had emerged from the co-driver’s seat called out. Marked with an unmistakable Afghan accent, his tone was devoid of emotion, as though he was inquiring about the weather.

  ‘There was an… an altercation.’ Tanaz tried to keep all traces of fear and nervousness out of her voice.

  ‘Step away from the vehicle and drop the weapon in your hand,’ the man said, again in the same flat tone.

  ‘I’ll step away if you want, but I won’t drop my weapon.’ Tanaz made sure she remained perfectly still as she spoke. ‘Not until I know who you are and what you plan to do with us. If you mean us harm, I promise I’ll take at least a few of you…’

  Her words brought a faint, derisive smile to the impassive faces of the quartet facing her. ‘Who are you, woman?’

  ‘I am a believer… a mujahideen.’ Tanaz’s intuition guided her reply.

  ‘What happened here with them?’ He pointed at the dead army men strewn around.

  ‘They saw my husband was wounded... they thought I was a helpless woman all alone and…’

  ‘Where is your husband?’

  ‘In there.’ She gestured at the station wagon with her weapon.

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘Yes, he is, but he is badly injured. I need to get him to a doctor quickly.’

  ‘Where were you two headed?’

  ‘We’ve just returned from a mission from across.’ Tanaz gestured vaguely towards the Indian border. ‘We were on our way back to rejoin our group when this happened.’

  ‘Which group?’

  ‘The Lashkar,’ Tanaz replied without hesitation, knowing it was the safest one to name since it was large enough to accord them the anonymity they desperately needed right now.

  ‘Wait!’ the man commanded. ‘And don’t make any sudden moves.’ He turned and walked back to the Hiace minibus. He opened the door and leaned forward to talk to someone, his demeanour clearly deferential. A long moment later, he shut the door and began to walk towards Tanaz. He must have muttered something as he passed the other men because they all shouldered their weapons.

  ‘Come on, woman. Let’s get the two of you out of here.’

  Aware that her options were limited, Tanaz lowered her weapon and asked, ‘Who are you? Are you also mujahideen?’

  ‘What did
you think? The Salvation Army?’ the leader grunted sarcastically, his words eliciting a short, barking laugh from the other men. ‘Come on. Let’s get a move on. We need to get clear of this area before someone else lands up.’

  Two of them reached inside the station wagon and hauled out the still unconscious Iqbal. The other two quickly gathered all the arms and ammunition they could lay their hands on from the fallen Pakistani soldiers. Tanaz hurried behind them as they carried Iqbal and laid him on the rear seat of the second Hiace minibus.

  ‘He has been shot badly,’ the man carrying him said to Tanaz as he put Iqbal down. ‘Try and keep him as still as possible. If he loses too much blood...’ The man shrugged.

  ‘How long before we can get him to a doctor?’ Tanaz asked worriedly.

  ‘Not long,’ he muttered, ‘maybe an hour at the most. He’ll take care of him meanwhile.’ He gestured at the man who had just alighted from the other Hiace, toting a large black medical bag. The newcomer was short, though equally heavily bearded and sported a pair of thick horn-rimmed spectacles. He ignored Tanaz as he got into the vehicle beside Iqbal.

  As the convoy started up again and carefully nosed its way past the shot-up vehicles, the bespectacled man removed the blood-soaked bandage and began to check Iqbal’s wounds.

  ‘Are you a doctor?’ Tanaz asked anxiously.

  ‘Keep quiet, woman, and let me do my work,’ the man said harshly without looking at her. He had a strange accent that Tanaz was unable to place. ‘And keep yourself covered! Have you no shame? Showing your face like that!’

  Tanaz suppressed an angry retort as she threw the veil of the bloodied burqa over her face. She kept her mouth shut as she watched the man get rid of the field dressings and clean up both the wounds. The minute the bandages came off, blood began to spurt out again. He reached into his bag and hauled out two silver-green rectangular packets with QuikClot printed on them in large red letters. Slitting them open one by one, he began to sprinkle sand-coloured granules onto the wounds. Tanaz had heard about this wonderous haemostasic agent but this was the first time she was seeing it being used.

  She watched in open-mouthed admiration as the thirsty, sand-like granules soaked up moisture from the blood and began to coagulate into a thick clot that completely covered the wound. Amost instantly, the flow of blood ebbed to a trickle and then stopped altogether.

  ‘What is that? Will it staunch the bleeding?’ Tanaz couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  ‘Of course it will.’ Perhaps the man was so used to being asked about the miracle powder, as the less literate jihadis were wont to call it, that he forgot he had told her to keep her mouth shut. There was a distinct note of pride in his voice as he explained, ‘The clot is strong enough to withstand high pressure, including blood transfusion. It will even stop blood loss from high volume arterial and venous bleeds. It’s a real life-saver.’ He waved the now empty packet at her before chucking it down. ‘In fact, had it not been for this, the goras would have lost many more lives in Afghanistan by now. Every damn NATO soldier carries one these days.’ Then, just as suddenly as he had begun to talk, his surliness reasserted itself and he clammed up. He gave Iqbal a shot and then jabbed an IV into him, hooking the bottle to the handle above the door.

  Still marvelling at the clot, Tanaz refocused on Iqbal, trying to keep him as comfortable and still as possible. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought he was breathing a lot easier by the time the vehicles halted an hour later.

  SEVEN

  The place they stopped at seemed to be a small village, or a suburb of the town looming large in the distance. From whatever little she was able to make out, they seemed to be near Faisalabad.

  Not that it mattered. Tanaz knew she had no option but to go with the flow, at least until Iqbal was fit enough to travel.

  The opening of the vehicle door put an end to her thoughts. The two burly mujahids who had carried Iqbal into the Hiace lifted him out and carried him into the compound.

  The compound comprised several small houses, most of them mud-walled, though there were a few brick ones too. A shoulder-high mud wall encircled the entire cluster. Cowdung and debris littered the area. Broken furniture was strewn around on the flat roofs of most of the houses. It had the peculiar, unkempt feel of a place that was largely inhabited by men whose minds were occupied with things more important than cleanliness.

  Either that, or this place is mostly used by transients who are merely passing through.

  Hurrying along behind the two men, she asked, ‘Where are we?’

  ‘At a safe place,’ the same man who had spoken earlier replied.

  ‘Safe from the army?’

  ‘The army? The Pakistan Army?’

  ‘Which other army is there in this country?’

  ‘Well, no one talks about it openly, but the American Special Forces slip in and out, conducting raids inside Pakistan. Don’t you know?’

  ‘Really?’ Tanaz showed an appropriate degree of surprise and anger. ‘Why do we allow it?’

  ‘Exactly!’ He gestured vehemently. ‘As for the Pakistan Army, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you.’ He looked at her and laughed. ‘This compound belongs to the local ISI commander. No one is likely to bother us here.’

  The room they entered would have been known, in a more organized place, as the medical room or the sick bay. Placed squarely in the centre was a steel operating table. Above it hung four large, naked tubelights. To one side was a tall steel cabinet with glass shutters that held an assortment of medicines and supplies. A rudimentary effort had been made to keep the room cleaner than the area outside. A faint but distinct hospital-like smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

  They had just finished laying Iqbal down on the operating table when the man who had tended to him in the van strode in. Behind him came a thin, gawky man with a harried air about him.

  ‘You wait outside, woman,’ the man ordered Tanaz in the same curt manner in which he had spoken to her earlier. ‘We have to operate on him.’

  ‘No,’ Tanaz replied softly, but firmly. ‘He is my husband. I will stay with him.’

  ‘Okay, then you will help,’ the man replied with a dismissive shrug. ‘Take these and boil them.’ He pulled out a tray of operating instruments from the corner cabinet and gestured to the cooking gas alongside it. ‘And don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s going to be bloody and painful.’

  ‘I won’t complain,’ Tanaz countered, though her heartbeat escalated and she could barely contain her anxiety.

  There was a glint of admiration in the man’s eyes as he looked at her. ‘I hope you’re strong.’ He paused. ‘Bear in mind that we have run out of anaesthesia. Your man will have to bear the pain on his own.’

  ‘No anaesthesia! Allah have mercy!’ Tanaz tried to shut out the thought of the knife cutting into Iqbal’s flesh. ‘How will he bear the pain?’ For a moment she felt her will weaken. Then she shut down her mind and began to focus on the task given to her. Of their own accord, her lips began to move in silent prayer.

  Iqbal’s body jerked awake as the knife sliced open a neat valley in his chest. Then the doctor dug in, searching for the 7.62 mm slug that had shattered Iqbal’s chest. Seconds later, the scorching pain hit him and Iqbal began to scream. His legs thrashed wildly and the men had to exert every ounce of their energy to keep him down. The more he screamed and thrashed about, the more the doctor scrambled inside, unable to achieve a clean removal of the slug. Finally, Iqbal’s voice deserted him and then, eventually, so did consciousness.

  It was some time around then that Tanaz fainted.

  When Tanaz came to, she found herself alone in the room, still lying on the floor where she had fallen. Iqbal’s screams echoed in her head, blanketing it with pain, that helpless, endless pain we feel when someone we love is being hurt. Large ugly drops of blood were splattered all around her on the floor.

  She sat up hesitantly and saw Iqbal lying still on the operating table. His face was pale
and his breath was running shallow. But his heavily bandaged chest heaved rhythmically and he appeared to be in better shape than when they had carried him in.

  ‘We managed to get both the bullets out of him.’ The sudden, surprisingly squeaky voice from the door startled Tanaz, making her jump. It was the gawky, nervous-looking man who had assisted the doctor in the surgery. ‘He should live, Inshallah… if he doesn’t catch an infection…’

  ‘He will live,’ Tanaz retorted, more sharply than she had intended. ‘He has to.’

  ‘Inshallah!’ the man repeated simply, raising his hands heavenwards. ‘So, Ghazi was saying you had a shootout with the army?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s strange... very strange. They never bother us – at least not in this part of the country.’ There was a hint of suspicion in his tone, or so it seemed to the ever watchful Tanaz.

  ‘Maybe they thought I was helpless,’ she replied, sticking to the version she had given earlier, ‘because my man was injured.’

  ‘Maybe!’ The man watched her unblinkingly. ‘Where are you two coming from?’

  ‘Across.’ Tanaz’s answer was monosyllabic.

  ‘What did you go there for?’

  ‘We were sent for a task.’

  ‘What task?’

  ‘If you were meant to know, you would have been told.’ Tanaz’s eyes dared him.

  ‘Bitch!’ he spat out. ‘Why don’t you just clean him up instead of chatting me up?’

  Tanaz turned away silently, relieved the inquisition was over, at least for the moment. She filled the metal basin lying in the corner with water and taking a wad of cotton from the cabinet, began to clean Iqbal, starting with his face, working her way down his body, careful to keep away from the bandaged parts.

  ‘Where are we now?’ she asked after a while.

  ‘It’s a safehouse given to us by the ISI,’ he said. ‘But it’s mostly the Arabs and other foreigners who use it.’

  ‘Arabs?’ Tanaz couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘What are they doing in these parts? I thought they kept to the north.’