‘Good morning sir. May I interest you in a tailored suit?’
I was shocked that I had been rumbled so easily, tried not to show it.
‘How much?’ I asked.
‘For you we have a special price of...’ there was an almost imperceptible hesitation as he worked out how much I might be able to afford, ‘... three thousand five hundred rupees. Depending of course on your choice of material.’
I guessed the cheap stuff was something that might spontaneously combust on a warm day. ‘How much is that in US dollars?’ I asked.
He seemed surprised that I didn’t know the exchange rate, but quickly told me that it was only forty-five dollars. It didn’t seem like much for a suit, but, more importantly, it gave me an idea of how much money I had. A quick mental calculation told me that ten thousand rupees wouldn’t leave me much change from a hundred and fifty dollars. I was going to have to find some more cash soon.
‘No suit today thank you,’ I told him, ‘but I would like to buy some shirts and a pair of pants.’ For not much more than one thousand rupees I bought two plain looking shirts and a pair of beige trousers, all made from cotton and all very nondescript. I needed to become a grey man. With my purchases securely wrapped in brown paper I ventured out again, to get a few more things.
I was looking for somewhere to buy a razor when I came across the Hotel Al-Haq in one of the side streets. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it looked fairly clean and, more importantly, affordable. I secured a room for three hundred rupees, left my shopping there and went out to look for the toiletries I needed. I found something better. Not far from the hotel was a barbershop. For a few dollars, I had the works: haircut, shave (with a very sharp cut-throat razor), ear and nostril hair removal and even a head massage.
Back at the hotel I had a very welcome shower after having discarded the Taliban disguise. I tried on the clothes. They fit perfectly. By that time the sun had begun to set, but fatigue was stronger than hunger and I snuggled up in the bed and fell asleep immediately.
I woke early the following morning and lay in bed for a while, planning. My geography told me that Pakistan is flanked by Afghanistan and India. There seemed to be only two ways out. I could either go to Karachi and somehow board a boat, or I had to fly out. The former was probably the most doable, but had all sorts of difficulties: like the time it takes for a boat to go anywhere, and how I would get from where it was going back to Prague. Getting on an aeroplane would be considerably more difficult, but I could be in Europe within hours. It took me a couple of hours to work out how I would tackle the problem of having neither money nor ticket for an aeroplane. I checked out and caught a bus to Islamabad.
Once I was there it didn’t take long to get a taxi driver to take me to the best hotel in town, the Marriott. Islamabad is completely different to Peshawar. It is a far more modern city with streets laid out with military precision in straight lines. No winding back streets through warrens of crumbling buildings mar Islamabad’s order. I paid the taxi driver with my dwindling supply of cash and walked in to the hotel as if I owned the place. I greeted the doorman like an old friend and chatted to the security guard at the metal detector in the entrance as if I had just stepped out moments earlier. Although nobody seemed to be paying me the slightest attention, I continued with my charade, pretending to look around for someone I was meeting, before relaxing into one of the chairs in the foyer to wait; and watch.
There was a constant flow of people in and out of the hotel. Although there was a metal detector in the entrance it was of no practical use. I saw a number of people setting the alarm off and continuing unchallenged. Bags that were supposed to be scanned separately had the wand cursorily passed over them. And when it squealed, nobody did anything about it. Security was there in name only. That suited me just fine.
It took a long time to find what I was looking for. The hotel was full of foreigners, but I was looking for one that could pass as me, or vice versa. Finally a man came in that was about my height and build, had fair hair and, best of all, had a beard. I got up from my seat and followed him. He went straight to the elevators.
There was no one else in the elevator – not ideal – but I followed him in anyway. I was worried that he might turn to me and ask me what floor I wanted. My mind was racing, trying to think of what to say, but he saved me and pressed he button for the fourth floor. I made as if I had been reaching for the button too and stopped when he pressed it, smiled at him: ‘Thanks.’
When the lift reached the fourth floor I hung back slightly, let him get out first, followed him. He took the passageway to the right and I followed a pace behind on the opposite side of the passage so as not to make him feel uncomfortable.
He stopped at a room and reached in his pocket for the key. I continued past without hesitation, but did manage to get the room number: 412. The passage was coming to an end and he was still struggling with the door. I needed to do something to allay any suspicion, so I stopped at a door, checked quickly to see that there wasn’t a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, knocked; held my breath. My luck was in, the occupant wasn’t.
My target eventually disappeared into his room and I walked back to the elevator, in no rush, as if the person I had been looking for wasn’t in. I didn’t want to alert anyone watching the security camera (if there was one).
Back in the lobby I bought a copy of ‘The Nation,’ and returned to my vigil. There was a flurry of activity and the lobby began to fill with women in brightly coloured saris and men in dark suits. They blocked my view of the elevators, were about to trash my afternoon’s work. I stood up, sought a better vantage point. Just then the elevator doors opened and my mark walked out. He was wearing gym clothes, went out towards the pool. I made my way through the partygoers and back to the elevator, to the fourth floor, to room 412. I stood at the door and patted my pockets in case the CCTV was watching; then I started the search for a chambermaid. It wasn’t long before I found an open door. Inside the bed was stripped; I could hear water running in the bathroom. I went in.
The maid got a fright, jumped when I knocked on the door. Then I started rabbiting in French, asking her to open the door, going through all the motions. I could have used English. She probably would have understood; but I was trying to smudge my identity, make it difficult for anybody to work out exactly who the thief was. I knew that she probably could not understand a word, but morons locking their keys in their room are something universal, and it didn’t take long for her to catch on. I laid it on thick, the thanks, and when she opened the door I slipped her a thousand rupees. She was ecstatic.
Safely inside, I closed the door behind me. My mark wasn’t exactly mister tidy. The clothes he had been wearing were lying on the floor where he dropped them. I scanned the wardrobe, the bathroom, the desk. Nothing out of the ordinary. There was a notebook computer open on the desk, clothes hanging in the wardrobe, toiletries. Joe average. There was a computer bag lying on the floor under the desk. I picked it up, opened it. Pen, calculator, memory stick, various other shit, but no air ticket and no passport. I checked the drawers: empty. I already knew in my heart that mister messy was also mister careful. The stuff was probably in the safe. Then on a whim I rifled the pockets of the pants on the floor. Success. A wallet. There wasn’t much money in it, a few thousand rupees and a hundred dollar bill. I put it back in the pants without taking anything. Time was ticking. I hoped he had gone for a long workout. I found the safe at the bottom of the cupboard. It was locked. There was no keypad, just a slot to slide a card. There were two options. First was the room key and the second... I couldn’t believe that anyone could be so stupid. I retrieved the wallet, extracted the cards, ran them through the slot one at a time. American Express did the trick. The safe swung open. Not mister ordinary after all. It was stuffed with money. Jackpot.
I wasn’t greedy. On the contrary. I took a thousand dollars, one from each bundle, the air ticket, passport (German) and one credit card (there were three spare
s in the safe). Then I put everything back in place: exactly where it had been. I took a moment to look at the passport and the ticket. Fortunately he still had the beard in the passport photograph. I could claim that I’d just cut it off. The ticket was to Frankfurt, on Pakistan Airlines, on the 27th February, the following Wednesday – six days away. Not great.
I put the spoils in my pocket, looked around to make sure that I hadn’t missed anything and legged it. I had become Herr Roman Kaufmann; hopefully the real Herr Kaufman would not miss his stuff until I was safely out of the country.
I caught a taxi to the airport, where I hoped to change the ticket for an earlier flight. It wasn’t that easy. Pakistan Airlines flew to Frankfurt once a week: on Wednesdays. It was Thursday. My plan was starting to fall apart.
Chapter 57
I didn’t want to arouse suspicion by seeming desperate. So I explained that although I had only just arrived the previous day, the man that I was supposed to meet had been involved in a car accident (seemed reasonable considering the way they drove in Pakistan) and was in a coma in hospital. There was nothing else for me to do in Islamabad. Where there any other flights to Europe?
There was a Pakistan airlines flight to Milan that afternoon. I made the booking, paid the two hundred dollars penalty in cash; didn’t want the credit card to flag just yet.
The flight was scheduled for 13:45; it was already boarding. I was concerned about the passport, but the guy at immigration stamped it without looking up. I could have been dressed as Father Christmas and he wouldn’t have noticed. I went straight to the gate and out to the aircraft. I didn’t relax until the doors were closed and I heard the reassuring whine of an engine starting. Even then I scanned the apron, looking for the sudden appearance of a bevy of police cars, blue lights flashing, coming to get me. It was only when we were airborne and I saw the patchwork countryside of Pakistan falling away from us that I really finally relaxed. I fell asleep.
From Milan I took an easyJet flight to Prague. The fare was only one hundred and fifty dollars. I paid cash, tore up and ditched the credit card. I wouldn’t be needing it any more.
The aircraft was full; I had a window seat near the back, spent the entire flight staring out the window. When I first caught sight of Prague I held my breath. I couldn’t believe that I was finally home, that Martina was there somewhere, that I would find her soon, that somehow we would be able to put all this behind us: move on.
When we were in the bay everybody stood up, began pulling their luggage from the overhead bins, blocked the aisle. I waited patiently, stared out the window at the snow-covered apron. Inside I was a pressure cooker ready to explode. Something was going on at the front of the plane. I stood up and craned to see what was happening.
Two policemen were standing at the door to the plane. They were talking to the flight attendant and she was pointing to the back of the cabin. I went cold. I couldn’t believe that I had come this far only to be arrested at the airport. My mind began to race. I remembered the briefing that the flight attendant had given us before departure. There were six exits: two at the front (blocked), two in the middle (too far) and two at the back. I glanced around to see if would be able to get out the rear. The flight attendants there were busy with their trolleys, not paying attention to the passengers. I should be able to get to the door before they stopped me. Then what? I didn’t know if they escape slide was armed or not. If it wasn’t I might fall to the frozen pavement and break my leg. If it was and I got out safely, then I’d be outside on the apron of an international airport, chased by the police. I had no idea where I would go from there.
They probably expected me to run, so I did the opposite, decided to blag it. I sat down, took Roman’s passport from my pocket and slid it into the seat pocket in front of me. Then I went through the rest of my pockets carefully, looking for anything that might identify me, or even let them know where I had come from. I found the boarding pass for the Islamabad-Milan flight and put that in the seat pocket too. All that was left was two hundred and thirty dollars, some coins and my current boarding card. I needed to switch the boarding card.
I got up, moved up the aisle towards the exit, pushed up against a man struggling to get his bag out of the overhead bin, put my hand in his pocket. No boarding card. He looked at me; perhaps he had felt something. I winked at him; he looked away. Then I saw what I needed. A woman just in front of me was talking to her companion. She had a novel in her hand and had used her boarding card as a bookmark. I plucked it from the book and put it in my pocket.
I squirmed up the queue to make it look as if I had been seated further up the cabin. When I neared the front, I put on my poker face, caught the eye of one of the policemen, smiled. He didn’t smile back. I kept going. Then I saw something that gave me hope. Confusion. The policemen looked bewildered. They didn’t know who they were looking for, how to identify their prey. They were asking passengers to show their boarding cards, scanning them, stopping men who did not have boarding cards, checking their passports. But they didn’t seem to have a description of who it was they were looking for, because they were stopping all the men.
When I got to the front I held out the stolen boarding card and the policeman gave it a cursory glance, waved me on. My heart jumped when I saw the expression on the face of the flight attendant. She was looking at me strangely. It was as if she thought it was me, but wasn’t sure. I smiled at her, said goodbye in Czech;‘Na shledanou.’
She smiled and looked away. I walked up the jetway as casually as I could; just another passenger. Of course there was still the small problem of a passport. I didn’t have one. I considered stealing another one, mugging someone in the toilets or something like that. But it was too risky. I had flown in from a European Union country and they didn’t always check. They didn’t. I went straight through to the taxi rank outside. It was only when I had sat down in the taxi and the driver asked,‘Kam jedete?’ that I realised I hadn’t thought that far. I had no idea what to do next.
Chapter 58
My first priority was to find Martina. I had no idea where she was being held, but I had a damn good idea how to find out. I asked the taxi driver to take me to Malostranské náměstí. It’s a major tourist destination, a place to get lost in the crowds visiting St. Nicholas Cathedral, and only a few blocks from the US Embassy.
On the way there I worked out a rudimentary plan. I was out of resources and didn’t dare show my face anywhere, so it would have to be simple. When the taxi stopped outside St. Nicholas I was lost in thought and the driver had to prompt me to get out. I handed him twenty dollars from my dwindling resources and slipped into the crowd.
The embassy was just around the corner, on Tržištì. I did a brief reconnaissance, walked past taking in everything I could. It wasn’t a good spot for me. The building overlooked a small square, right on the street. Two big wooden doors allowed access to what was probably a courtyard for embassy vehicles. Next to the doors the entrance door with a Marine guard: armed. On one side of the square was a hotel, the Alchymist: expensive. But diagonally across from the embassy was a small hostel with rooms overlooking the street.
I didn’t stop during my walkthrough, didn’t even break stride. I continued on, looked for a hardware shop to buy some supplies. I found one not far away and bought a roll of duct tape and a small can of pepper spray.
I checked into the hostel, managed to get a room on the first floor overlooking Tržištì. I watched and waited. There was a lot of traffic in and out of the embassy. Most looked like locals, probably applying for visas. The big wooden doors didn’t open very often. Only two cars left the whole time I was watching. Both were big American Town Cars with tinted windows. It wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought to find Bob. But then he surprised me. It was getting dark, the embassy had closed to visitors and I was about to give up my vigil to get something to eat when the doors opened and a big black Tahoe eased out onto the street. The windows were tinted. The car turned right, passe
d under my window. The driver’s window was down. It was Bob. I watched him disappear down the street, my heart racing. I was one step closer to finding Martina.
The next morning I moved my observation point to a pavement cafe at the corner of Tržištì and Karmelitská. From my table at the cafe, I could see most of the way down Tržištì, had good warning of the Tahoe approaching. I had prepared the duct tape so that it was easily accessible. A number of strips were already cut to size, stuck to the inside of my jacket.
It was almost lunchtime before Bob emerged. I was on my umpteenth espresso and my ears were starting to buzz. When I saw the Tahoe approaching, I got up and walked to the traffic island, as if to cross the road. The Tahoe slowed and stopped at the pedestrian crossing. I darted to the driver’s door; before Bob knew what was happening I sprayed the entire contents of the pepper spray into his eyes, yanked the door open, pushed him across to the passenger seat. He thrashed about wildly, but it wasn’t controlled, he was still in shock. I rode the blows and wrapped the duct tape securely around his ankles, then secured his arms. A crowd started to gather. The car behind hooted. I ignored them, slapped the last two prepared pieces over his eyes and mouth and then, when he was properly secured, drove off.
Bob went limp. I might have caught him off guard, but I would have been foolish to underestimate him. He was an old pro. He knew that struggling was futile, that it would only waste energy. He was orientating himself, recovering his strength, planning a counterattack. But he didn’t know that I knew what he was doing.
I drove north, up the river, to a little cul-de-sac off Podbabská. On weekends it was used by model boaters, but during the week it was deserted, separated from the road by a stand of trees. I chose a spot next to the river and parked so that we couldn’t be seen from the road. Bob was still lying limp on the seat. I reached across and ripped the duct tape from his eyes.
Elements of Risk: A Noah Stark Thriller Page 28