The Place of Shining Light

by Nazneen Sheikh

  Gul-Nawaz counted the notes.

  “The man in Torkham waits for you. You must listen to him and move quickly.”

  “What is his name?” asked Adeel.

  “He has your photograph; he will find you.”

  “Here, this is for the tea.” Adeel extended another bill in Afghan currency.

  “Even thieves are guests in my country,” replied Gul-Nawaz before walking away, ignoring the money.

  THE DRIVE TO Torkham was picturesque, as the men travelled through the Kabul gorge, dry plains, and barren mountains. A caravan of lumbering buses, minivans, and even private taxis prompted reckless overtaking exercises. Toll barriers appeared, and buses carrying heavier than allowable loads were penalized. The largely empty half-truck with a quilt-wrapped bundle did not draw any unwarranted attention. As the border into Pakistan and the Khyber Pass inched closer, the flow of people, vehicles, and consumer items cheerfully contradicted the notion that hostilities existed between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The faces, clothing, and attitudes of the people in the frontier town were completely integrated.

  For Adeel, who was carefully revising a new plan of action in his mind, the sights and scenes outside the slow-moving truck were of very little interest. His limbs were rigid and tension sat like a band around his lower head and neck. In less than an hour, his life was going to change. He was going to become a fugitive.

  The faces of his mother and Major Zamir flitted through his mind. They had both commanded his respect, and he had given it willingly. His mother’s fierce love for him would never erode, but if she knew what he was about to do, grief would bludgeon her and, in all probability, she would perish. He had to find a way to reassure her and explain that he would be absent from her life for a while. Zamir, if the news reached him, would be disappointed too, perhaps even angry. He had passed on an invisible mantle of honour to his protegé and would not take Adeel’s act of theft lightly.

  At the Torkham border, two men in uniform approached the truck. Adeel pulled a brown envelope out of the glove compartment. The envelope contained his national identity card and crisp American fifty-dollar bills; border guards had a preference for U.S. currency. Adeel took off his dark glasses and gazed at the man who’d approached his window. He faced the smirking guard calmly and extended the envelope. The man lifted the edge with the tip of one finger, and then said something to his partner, who was checking the driver’s identity card.

  The other guard immediately walked around the front of the truck, peered inside the cab, and said, “We thought you would come much later.”

  “I did not make any stops on the journey,” replied Adeel curtly.

  He watched as the brown envelope was passed from one man to the other, and curiosity instantly replaced greed in the expressions on their faces. They knew richer and more powerful people had arranged this, and the deal, whatever it was, had to be bigger than the ten fifty-dollar bills in the envelope. Adeel was amused as he saw the guards toy with the idea of making another side deal and then reject the thought: they had to know he was armed, and the steely glare he levelled in their direction was making them uneasy. Their instructions were to let the truck cross the border and to look the other way when a Pakistani truck moved toward it.

  The last step was crucial. Adeel and his package had to change vehicles beyond the border, since vehicles from one country could not enter the other unless they belonged to a foreign aid agency or had a commercial import licence. Once they were safely inside Pakistan, the package would be transferred quickly from one vehicle to another. Wrapped in its heavy cotton quilt, the statue would be protected from prying eyes.

  Adeel extended his hand out of the window for his fake ID card to be returned, then nodded to the driver, who started the truck and released the clutch.

  The Torkham bazaar was filled with roadside food shops and crowds of people, some carrying bundles on their heads. Adeel felt a rush of adrenaline when he saw a mottled brown truck ahead. The man standing beside it gestured furiously at them. Adeel’s driver turned the steering wheel and pulled up parallel to the brown truck.

  The two burly men lifted the package from the back, staggering under the weight. For a moment it seemed that the statue might fall, but they managed to straighten up and place it in the back of the brown truck, where Adeel and the driver were now waiting. As the driver put the key in the ignition, Adeel instructed him to stop. He would drive the truck through the Khyber Pass to the city of Peshawar. That was where he would pay off the two muscle men.

  The driver of the truck seemed puzzled. “It is not like a car,” he said.

  “I can drive anything, and I am tired of just sitting here,” Adeel said.

  “There is a lot of traffic,” the driver said, putting his hand on Adeel’s forearm. “People try to overtake you and force you off the road.”

  The driver mistakenly put his hand on Adeel’s forearm, who reflexively tensed his biceps muscle before carefully removing the hand from his arm. He had silently indicated his strength to the driver. He then climbed out of the truck, and walked around to the driver’s side. Reluctantly, the driver moved over and took his place in the passenger’s seat. After he slammed the door shut, Adeel started the truck and smoothly put it into gear. Then he smiled.

  “I was in the army. I have a lot of experience driving trucks,” Adeel lied.

  “Ah! So we are in good hands,” the driver said, sounding relieved.

  Adeel smoked as he drove, and the driver obligingly lit his cigarettes along the way. Adeel was preparing himself for his first daring act. He was familiar with Peshawar, which teemed with military officials who used the city’s magnificent fort as their headquarters. There were also large Afghan housing settlements, the inner bazaars and the pristine, cordoned-off cantonment where the governor of the province resided. When he reached the city, Adeel decided he would make a stop for food and tea. His aim was to find a stall somewhere along the road that was close to the highway leading out of Peshawar. Other than the money that lay in the nylon duffel bag under his seat and his fake ID, Adeel carried an unregistered mobile phone in his pocket and the revolver concealed in an underarm holster. He leaned over and placed the rifle at his side.

  The city of Peshawar was noisy; the snarl of engines, the screech of mural-embellished rickshaws, and the sound of police whistles split the air. There were hordes of people riding placidly on scooters and motorcycles through the toxic diesel fumes and the grimy dust. It was a city where a native Pathan was undistinguishable from an Afghan, since both wore the same cap and dress. Here and there a delicate bundle of fabric rode pillion on bicycles next to women with half-covered faces, or sometimes a tiny child sandwiched between two adults. Adeel caught a glimpse of the large, fearful eyes of a woman as he drove past. In that fleeting second his mother’s face swam before his eyes and he felt as though a knife had been plunged into his heart. His reflexive discipline asserted itself and he regained his composure, banishing the thought from his mind as quickly as it had entered.

  After half an hour of dodging and weaving through traffic he saw a kebab shop with an outdoor charcoal brazier. Although it was mid-morning, the clay ovens spat up piles of steamy naans, and iron skewers threaded with meat and vegetables lined the grill. Groups of men were clustered around, waiting in anticipation.

  Adeel parked the truck close to the stand and turned to the driver. “Take the two at the back and get some food. Feed them and then let them have tea as well. I will be back in twenty minutes.” Adeel held out a five-thousand-rupee note.

  The driver’s eyes lit up at the large sum of money. He could order a couple of kilos of meat with that. He grabbed the note, jumped out of the truck, and went to get the men out of the back. All three dashed over to the barbecue stand and elbowed their way past the people ahead of them. Adeel reversed the truck and made a U-turn, narrowly escaping a collision with a car that blew its horn f
uriously at the unexpected manouevre. His hands felt clammy on the large steering wheel as he sped ahead. It would take the men at least an hour to get through the money and the food — an hour before they realized he was not returning.

  TWO

  THE CELLPHONE VIBRATED ON the table. Khalid ignored it. He loathed the telephone and considered it a harbinger of evil. Good news never came on the phone.

  Where was Faisal? he wondered. The phone normally rested in his nephew’s pocket and he answered it efficiently, erecting a barrier between Khalid and the world.

  As he gazed at the red-brick structure being erected on his estate, a smile lit Khalid’s face. This was going to be the family burial tomb. He had arranged to have verses of the Koran carved into the stone borders of the multi-arched structure. The tomb was being built on a small hillock so that Khalid could contemplate it from the top floor of the massive pavilion that housed his living quarters.

  Khalid had purchased ten acres of rolling hills outside the city of Islamabad and, over the past five years, had added structures to his estate in order to house his collection of art. Very few people in the country knew that his estate existed. Khalid lived with his small family and the men he employed, allowing only his extended family and a few antiquities dealers to visit. However, once or twice a year Khalid threw a party and hired caterers from town who transformed his open-air patio into a Mughal pavilion. Lights were strung up to illuminate the pavilions that dotted the estate, rose petals were strewn on the marble laneways, and all of the fountains were turned on. Along with the caterers, a clutch of musicians and dancing girls were hired for the evening. During the party, Khalid transformed into a boisterous and genial host. But in the past two years, due to financial considerations, the party had shrunk; the guest list now comprised only his family members from Lahore.

  Khalid rubbed his aching shoulder and drew his fine pashmina shawl around him. The remains of his uneaten breakfast lay in front of him on an ornate tray that was at least five hundred years old. Nestled between the teapot and the teacup was the black phone that continued to vibrate.

  Khalid, who’d had strange dreams the night before, looked down at the phone. A sense of dread gripped him. He resisted the urge to send the tray flying off the table or hurl the phone against the wall, and, instead, did something he had not done in years — he answered the phone.

  The conversation lasted for forty seconds.

  Suddenly, Faisal appeared at his shoulder, “I am sorry, Chachu,” he blurted, noting the phone in Khalid’s hand.

  Khalid ignored him and made three rapid calls. He spoke quickly but with authority. He then turned and handed the phone to Faisal.

  “I want you to tell me immediately if a call comes from Peshawar.” He rose from the cane chair and marched toward a large octagonal building.

  The building was Khalid’s Allah museum — a place he had recently begun visiting for longer periods of time. The ground floor housed massive glass-and-wood cabinets that displayed large Korans he had acquired from Iran, Turkey, and some Middle Eastern kingdoms. The gold-leaf calligraphic script glinted as though the gold had been hammered and reduced to ink that very day. In between the cases, rare and ancient carpets hung from the ceiling. The collection itself was priceless and had been assiduously collected over many years.

  An outside staircase led to the second floor, where there was a room that had an altar close to one wall. The altar was in fact a miniature Ka’ba, the revered stone in the city of Mecca that Muslims circled during their annual pilgrimage. Before the altar was a prayer rug with a large metal bowl containing water, where Khalid would prostrate himself and pray in loud ringing tones.

  Despite being a swashbuckling sort who hobnobbed with the Taliban in Afghanistan in search of antiquities and made a fortune in Japan and New York selling those antiquities, Khalid was a troubled man. His younger son, Hassan, who had very little interest in his business, had broken his heart. Hassan had spent a vast sum of his father’s money setting up an expensive car dealership, only to lose the total investment in six months. To add insult to injury, Hassan had also secretly contracted a second marriage. Khalid’s refusal to accept the new wife — or to even allow her to be received in his home — further alienated father and son. Khalid continued to support his son financially only because Hassan had given him two grandchildren from his first marriage.

  Hassan played the role of the dilettante son of a wealthy man to perfection. Sometimes he wandered through the estate acting like a devoted father, playing with his two toddlers; at other times he left to run mysterious errands in town. He texted for hours with the young woman whom he had beguiled into a civil marriage, or he sat before his computer jabbing at the keyboard. He kept a wary distance from his father.

  Khalid’s entire life had centred on his dream of building a private museum to house his antiquities, and he’d mistakenly thought his son would manage his dream for posterity. The construction of the family burial tomb reflected the pervasive sense of sadness that had flooded Khalid over the past few months.

  The news on the telephone had come as a blow to Khalid, and he sought refuge in his spiritual sanctuary, weeping away his dark rage. He had trusted his ISI contact — a brigadier he had known for years — when the man recommended Adeel. Now he was convinced that the brigadier’s many assurances regarding Adeel’s skills and loyalty had been false. It had taken Khalid close to six months, through a shadowy network of people both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to acquire the stone sculpture, and he had a guaranteed buyer in hand — at three times the statue’s value. The Pakistani buyer had an insatiable appetite for antiquities and enormous wealth at his disposal.

  Now, instead of hunting for antiquities, Khalid was going to have to hunt for Adeel.

  After two hours, Khalid rose from his prayer rug and walked over to the large room in the next building that he used for business.

  Art dealers from all over Pakistan offered Khalid their collections in this garish room, which was heavily carpeted and furnished with faded velvet couches. On the walls, and within two glass-fronted cabinets, priceless objects lay in splendour. The displays were Khalid’s way of letting the dealers know that they would have to come up with something that could equal his current collection if they expected him to buy. Today, the room was empty except for Faisal, who handed Khalid his BlackBerry as soon as he entered the room.

  “Brigadier sahib, I am looking for a solution,” said Khalid to the man on the other end of the phone.

  “We will find him,” came the brigadier’s confident reply.

  “Was he the right man for the job?” asked Khalid.

  “Absolutely,” the brigadier replied. “He has worked for me for years, ever since we pulled him out of the military. He is a machine, not a man. He follows orders.”

  “It shouldn’t be difficult to find him. The truck is brown in colour. I will have to replace it if it cannot be found,” added Khalid.

  The cost of the shabby yet sturdy truck did not concern Khalid as much as the next phone call he had to make, to the city of Shiraz in Iran.

  “Don’t worry. ISI has no problem locating people in Pakistan,” the brigadier said. “I will be in touch soon with good news.”

  Khalid knew all about ISI’s capabilities. Pakistan’s highly controversial intelligence was staffed mostly by military men, and was often accused of running a shadowy empire that ushered in heads of state and liaised directly with foreign governments. Khalid had courted the brigadier, for years, plying him with cases of Johnny Walker Black and even a silver water ewer that predated the sixteenth-century Mughal era by five decades. Khalid had also shared some of his earlier smuggling antics with the brigadier, who had been suitably impressed and had even murmured that Khalid could have had a good career with ISI.

  “We play chess, my dear Khalid. Pakistan is like a stupid, reckless child, but there are avenues for great opport
unity as well,” the brigadier had once told him.

  Khalid recalled the start of his career in antiquities: His father would drive a tonga on the Mall Road in the city of Lahore, carrying a few artifacts from the Gandhara period. The young Khalid would sit in the ramshackle horse-drawn buggy and wait while his father approached the front door of some great Punjabi home where he knew there was interest in art. Khalid could not believe how dirty terracotta pieces of pottery or stone figurines could result in his father returning with a handful of hundred-rupee notes. Sometimes his father seemed almost sad when a particular artifact was sold. That was when Khalid had the first inkling of his father’s passion. Khalid’s father had advised him, when he was still a child, that he should never become attached to an artifact, but instead sell it and endeavour to secure the highest price. The money his father earned supported Khalid’s siblings and mother and put food on the table. For his father, Pakistan was only a modest land of opportunity; the objects he sold there did not fetch the high prices claimed in other countries.

  When Khalid grew up, he opened a showroom in Bangkok from which he could ship his artifacts all over the world. Pakistan was a young country then, and there was no great importance paid to antiquities being smuggled abroad. Over the years, Khalid sold art in London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo — and amassed a fortune. Eventually, he returned to Pakistan, bought his ten acres in the rolling countryside, built his compound, and leisurely began serving his international clients as well as some second-generation Pakistani clients of his father’s era. He arranged the marriages of his two children and sent his elder son to Bangkok to handle the showroom there, but he kept Hassan by his side in Pakistan.

  Khalid forced his mind back to the present. He had another call to make, and it would be a difficult one. He had a bill to settle and would have to delay payment, which was not how he liked to conduct his business. Khalid paid promptly for his purchases. Yet since Hassan had squandered about two million U.S. dollars on his car dealership, Khalid’s reserves were currently short.