“No, not yet,” said Afridi, “I want two cars following their vehicle. We need to know where they go and whom they meet. Make sure we don’t lose them. I want an hourly report and call me immediately if anything unusual occurs.”
Turning away from the screen, he wheeled himself outdoors again, where it had grown completely dark. The fragrance of the wisteria blossoms seemed stronger, almost cloying. A thin crescent moon was rising above the Himalayas like an eyelash of gold.
Twenty-Eight
For the past three hours, they had been climbing over scree and moraine, broad slopes of loose shingle and boulder fields that seemed to go on forever. The jihadis hadn’t covered Luke’s eyes, but his wrists were loosely tied behind his back. It hardly mattered, for he had no idea where they were going, except that it seemed his captors were headed toward the crest of the ridge on the western side of the valley. Three men accompanied him. At first, he thought they were taking him out to be executed. Each of them had a rifle slung across his shoulder.
Finally, they reached a snow bridge over a swift stream, which they traversed cautiously, hearing the ice creaking under their feet. Luke could see the pass above them, a narrow gap in the rocks with a funnel of snow extending down to the stream. Clouds had come in and covered the sun. As they started to climb, the snow was soft in places, and his boots sank up to his knees. At other places there was a glaze of ice, and they had to kick steps into the slope. When they finally reached the pass, daylight was fading, and they hurried down the opposite side, a more gradual descent. At nightfall they took shelter amid a cluster of boulders. Luke’s head ached from the altitude. When the men gave him a handful of dried apricots to eat, he had trouble chewing and swallowing them down. The rocks protected them from the wind, but the cold was severe and they lay together for warmth.
Luke had no idea where they were taking him or why. The next morning, they continued down off the pass and stopped near a patch of juniper to boil some water for tea and warm themselves by the fire. After this, they wrapped a cloth across Luke’s eyes and made him walk between them for an hour until they came to a settlement where he could hear voices and animals. A few minutes later, he was lifted onto a horse and they continued on their way. At one point someone untied the ropes and put a flat piece of bread in his hand. He ate it slowly, the dry doughy texture making him gag. As he finished eating, he heard a diesel engine, and they hustled him into the back of a truck, which set off along a rough, winding road. The second night was spent in the truck parked somewhere in the darkness. His blindfold was removed, and he was allowed to get down to relieve himself and drink water. Overhead, the sky was brilliantly clear, and the stars had a phosphorescent clarity, like glowing creatures at the bottom of the sea.
The next day, Luke was blindfolded again and shifted to another vehicle, a smaller SUV. They drove for hours. At places, he could hear sounds of traffic and felt as if they were passing through towns. The only roads in this region, as far as Luke knew, converged on Peshawar, and he wondered if that was where they were headed, approaching the city from the north. For a while, the winding road seemed to straighten out, and his ears popped several times as they lost altitude.
Finally, the vehicle came to a halt, and he could hear men shouting and the sound of a gate being opened. He had lost all track of time and any sense of direction. Rough hands took hold of his legs and dragged him out of the vehicle, and he found himself standing unsteadily, eyes still covered. Luke expected the worst, but when the blindfold was removed, he was startled to find himself in a garden, standing amid beds of larkspur, snapdragons, and poppies. A small fishpond was full of golden carp and pink water lilies. To his right was a large ranch-style house that could have been somewhere in California, with picture windows and gently sloping roofs. Plush green lawns spread between the flowerbeds. Two pink oleanders were in bloom, as well as a pomegranate tree laden with fruit. Only when he looked up at the sky did he feel he was still in Pakistan, a concave dome of turquoise set amid a distant circle of dusty hills.
His captors had driven off, and a different set of guards surrounded him, four men in dark green uniforms. Their assault rifles and black berets made them look like paratroopers, though they wore no insignia. Luke glanced down at his soiled jeans and muddy boots. His parka was ripped, and feathers were spilling out of the torn fabric. One of his hands was bleeding where it had scraped against the tailgate of the SUV. His eyes hurt, and his mouth felt as if it were full of sand.
The guards gestured for him to go up the steps to the house, but at that moment the front door opened, and a middle-aged man walked out. He was neatly groomed and dressed in a linen bush shirt with pale gray trousers. His black wingtip shoes were polished to a perfect gleam. Luke had never seen him before, but he looked like one of the patrons of the Rawalpindi Polo Club, a member of Pakistan’s feudal elite.
“Welcome, Mr. McKenzie, welcome,” he said. “Please come inside. We’ll get you a bath and something to eat.”
Luke stared at him with a dazed expression of disbelief as the man extended his hand to introduce himself.
“My name is Jehangir Daruwalla.”
Twenty-Nine
At the southeastern corner of Jahanpanah Forest in South Delhi lies a small octagonal tomb made of brick and sandstone, with a band of broken blue tiles encircling the drum of its dome. Awkwardly positioned between the barrier wall of the forest and an electric substation, the tomb faces a crossing where the main road continues on toward Tuqlakabad Industrial Area and a side lane winds its way into Greater Kailash Part II. Most people who drive along this road never notice the tomb, for it is hidden behind a line of fruit vendors and a spider’s web of electric wires, poles, and fuse boxes. A miniature version of the famous Rukn-i-Alam tomb in Multan, this fourteenth-century mausoleum is believed to contain the bones of a sufi named Hafiz Jamaluddin, popularly known as Kanra Pir, the one-eyed saint. The Archeological Survey of India has erected a small sign that declares it to be the grave of one of Ghiyasuddin Tuglaq’s generals, but for the faithful who gather here each day it remains Kanra Pir’s tomb, and nobody can convince them otherwise. They offer prayers and green muslin chadors to cover the gravestone, burning incense while invoking the sufi’s blessings and his healing touch.
Most of the people who visit this tomb are crippled in some way, missing limbs or suffering from withered arms or congenital disfigurements. Some have lost a hand in accidents; others can no longer walk. The legend of Kanra Pir goes back to the time of Mohammed Bin Tuglaq. Originally from the mountains of Afghanistan, the sufi wandered into India, as mystics have a way of doing, and crossed paths with Tuglaq’s army just after they had subdued a marauding force. One of the officers had been badly wounded, his hand severed at the wrist by an enemy sword. When the saint came upon him in the aftermath of battle, he offered the injured man water to drink, after which the officer discovered that his hand was healed. As recompense for this miracle, however, the sufi had lost his left eye. Farsi verses attributed to Kanra Pir declare that “a soldier without a hand can no longer defend the faithful, but a true believer needs only one eye to see the path to paradise.”
Afridi had known about the tomb for some time. One of his colleagues had even suggested that he go and pray to the saint, in the hope that his legs might be restored. The colonel had told him off politely and made it clear that he had no time for superstition. Now, as he studied the queue of supplicants lining up on the pavement, he felt irritated and depressed by the desperation that drove so many people to believe in the curative powers of a mendicant who may or may not have died six hundred years ago.
Rawat and his technicians at HRI had tried to get a satellite image of Kanra Pir’s tomb, but it was impossible because of Delhi’s polluted air, which reduced visibility to a dirty haze. As an alternative, a mobile surveillance unit had been deployed across the street, where its cameras could follow the comings and goings. As Afridi had predicted, the three passengers who arrived from Kabul the
day before were standing in the queue at Kanra Pir’s tomb, waiting to receive whatever miracles a dead sufi might bestow upon their missing limbs. As soon as Rawat recognized them on the screen, he informed the colonel.
Watching the chaotic traffic around the tomb, with people who could barely hobble trying to negotiate the broken pavement and mounds of rubbish tossed near the fruit vendors’ carts, Afridi felt grateful to be far away from Delhi.
“Sir, do you think they know they are carrying heroin?” asked Rawat.
“That’s a good question,” Afridi replied. “The fact that they’ve come here this morning makes me think they have no idea what’s going on. They are simple, God-fearing pilgrims, as they said they were.”
The Afghans had gone straight from the airport to a guesthouse in Lajpat Nagar. Through discreet inquiries, Afridi’s team had learned that the man was the father of one of the women, who was accompanying her widowed friend on a visit to the tomb of Kanra Pir. They had heard that many people like them had been healed and for three years now they had been saving up for this journey. Both women had lost an arm when a landmine exploded under a bus they were traveling in. The father’s leg had been amputated eighteen years earlier after it was shredded by a Russian artillery shell. When asked about their artificial limbs, they said they had recently been fitted with new prostheses at a hospital in Jalalabad, run by the Sikander-e-Azam Trust. None of them spoke English, but the one woman knew enough Urdu to answer questions, saying how grateful they were to have these new limbs and the opportunity to visit the sufi’s tomb. The trust had even provided them air tickets for their journey to Delhi.
Despite the HD cameras in the surveillance van, it was difficult to see what was going on. Afridi waited until the supplicants entered the crowded courtyard in front of the mausoleum before returning to his office.
“Excuse me, sir,” Rawat asked. “Shouldn’t we alert Narcotics?”
Afridi smiled. “Why are you always so impatient?” he said.
“But if they are carrying heroin—”
“If they are,” said Afridi, “we’ll get one kilo, maybe two at the most, which is a sizeable amount, of course…. But if they aren’t carrying anything, then we’ll have tipped Guldaar’s people off, and they’ll find some other way to smuggle it in next time.”
Rawat began to protest, but Afridi raised his hand.
“Patience, Rawatji, please. This is a dry run, to test things out and make sure nobody’s watching. There’s no reason for us to act in haste. Next week, when the death celebration of the so-called Kanra Pir takes place, on 23 April, hundreds of pilgrims will be coming, many of them from Afghanistan. You can be sure that, when Narcotics conducts its raid that night, they’ll seize twenty or thirty kilos of heroin, not just three or four.”
Rawat seemed unconvinced.
“Besides,” Afridi added, “heroin is the least of our concerns.”
Thirty
The annual Laurel Day Parade began at the far end of the Bromfield campus, near the new Fleischmann Student Center, and followed a route along Main Street, through the center of Eggleston. Three flag bearers led the way, each of them a veteran in uniform, carrying the stars and stripes, the Ohio state flag, and a banner honoring soldiers missing in action. After them came the captain of the local high school football team, wearing a Roman helmet and breastplate, with a sword and shield. The school’s mascot was a gladiator. He was followed by six twirlers, who looked as if they had just stepped out of a frieze in Pompeii, throwing batons in the air. Behind them was the high school marching band, also in faux Roman uniforms, a raucous phalanx of trumpets and trombones, along with saxophones and clarinets. Two bass drums brought up the rear, thudding loudly to the beat of a John Philip Souza march. Everyone wore a laurel wreath on his or her head, even the town councilors, who followed the band in Cadillac convertibles, waving to the crowd. They were accompanied by members of the Rotary, Lions, Elks, and Kiwanis clubs. Next came another group of veterans on motorcycles, mostly Harleys, decorated with red, white, and blue regalia. Several floats had been made by local organizations, each pulled by a tractor. One had a tableau of Roman deities, including an obese Bacchus with a red beard, holding up a handful of plastic grapes. Another was shaped to look like a huge siege engine, with a blond nymph in the catapult who looked as if she were about to be launched into outer space.
Anna had seen posters for the parade as soon as she arrived in Eggleston, and Professor Verma had encouraged her to attend, saying, “It’s the town festival. You’ll get to observe the natives performing ancient martial rites.”
Verma offered to accompany her, but Anna had avoided him and gone down to the corner of Main and Buckeye, near the First Presbyterian church, where she could watch the parade on her own. The street was decorated with bunting and streamers, all red, white, and blue. An annual celebration of spring that began years ago, the Laurel Day Parade had recently been revived as a way of building community morale and helping restore Eggleston’s town pride. Roger Fleischmann had a lot to do with it, Verma had explained, and Peregrine sponsored a couple of floats that showed off their military hardware. People cheered and clapped as a huge display with the company’s logo went by, the falcon and arrow fashioned from rosebuds and laurel blossoms.
A few seconds later, Anna saw the first drone go overhead. It was flying about forty feet above the crowd, down Main Street, and passed over the floats and marching band without a sound. This was followed by a dozen more in a loose formation, like a flock of geese, skimming over the rooftops and trailing plumes of colored smoke. Then Anna heard a roar that sounded like all of the Harleys revving their engines at once. It seemed to be coming from the far end of Main Street. Suddenly, a vintage fighter jet appeared above the rooftops, a World War Two Curtiss P40 Warhawk, with a single propeller and a snarl of teeth painted on the lower half of the fuselage below the cockpit. Dipping its wings, the plane buzzed the crowd, then did a barrel roll above the Town Hall before climbing steeply, as if searching for a dogfight.
Anna caught the eye of a young man beside her, holding his son on his shoulders.
“What was that?” she asked.
The man laughed. “Roger Fleischmann in his latest toy. He collects antique planes. Every year, he flies a different one.”
The Warhawk circled back and came around for a second pass, so close that Anna could see the pilot waving to the cheering crowd as he roared above the parade. Seconds later, he pulled up again and veered away from the town, heading south. The sound of the engine had diminished, but Anna heard a distinct sputtering noise and saw the vintage fighter bank sharply at an awkward angle before it plunged to the ground. As the crowd now screamed with terror instead of excitement, there was the sound of an explosion followed by a rising column of black smoke.
Daphne and Anna had planned to meet again in the library the day after the parade, but following the crash almost everything in town remained closed. Classes were canceled at the college, and all of the flags were lowered to half-staff. Even the library shut down as a mark of respect for its benefactor. A sense of shock and mourning settled over the campus. The Eggleston Tribune carried a full-page photograph of Roger Fleischmann accompanying a lengthy obituary and tributes from the state senators and representatives, as well as the secretary of defense. According to the police reports, the crash was being treated as a tragic accident. Flying a seventy-year-old fighter jet, even if it was carefully restored and maintained by a team of expert mechanics, was a risky business. But Fleischmann was a man who enjoyed taking risks, as the newspapers suggested, the more dangerous and bigger, the better. He had built his company out of a fearless sense of entrepreneurship and patriotism. As the defense secretary remarked, Peregrine represented America’s willingness to take on the most desperate threats around the world. After 9/11, many had questioned how the country could respond to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Peregrine’s drones were the answer. American innovation and technology would triumph over the regr
essive forces of evil, ignorance, and hatred.
Eggleston’s tragedy became a national cause for mourning. In her room, Anna watched the story play out on all of the television networks—a small-town hero and businessman, self-made and determined to stick to his roots. That he had been flying a World War II fighter plane made Fleischmann’s death all the more poignant. One commentator after the other compared him to ace pilots who shot down German Messerschmitts and Japanese Zeros. Anna was amazed how quickly history got muddled with the present as dozens of posts celebrating American warplanes produced in the 1930s and 40s swept through social media. All kinds of photographs were posted, with technical data and nostalgic reminiscences by the last few living pilots of that era. The way they reported the accident, it seemed as if Fleischmann’s Curtiss P40 had been on a mission against the enemy, rather than showing off at small-town parade. A cartoon in the Eggleston Tribune depicted the gladiator in tears.
The funeral was scheduled for three days after the crash. Before the event, the White House issued a statement, saying that “Roger Fleischmann was a true American hero. Not only did he build weapons of stealth that saved hundreds of military casualties on the ground but he was a courageous captain of industry who manufactured drones in the American heartland, with American grit and determination, creating jobs for American workers.” The barrage of hyperbole made Anna switch off the TV.
When the library opened again, two days after the accident, Anna went back to her study carrel and waited. She had no way to contact Daphne. She didn’t want to use a phone for fear that it was tapped. Security on campus was tighter, and two armed policemen were posted outside the library building. With the memorial service planned for the college chapel, everyone seemed on edge.
The Dalliance of Leopards Page 15