The Haha Man

by Sandy Mccutcheon

  ‘I’m afraid that’s all I can tell you.’

  Dengler pushed. ‘Why did you have her name flagged?’

  There was a pause at the other end of the phone. ‘Sorry, I can’t tell you that, but I’m sure you can work it out if I tell you there has been a fair bit of traffic between a party here and one in Peshawar. At some point Balkhi’s name registered as a recipient of email.’

  ‘And you transcribed it?’

  ‘It wasn’t my area.’ Wepner sounded tense.

  Dengler rephrased the query. ‘But it was transcribed?’

  ‘Couldn’t be, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘All encrypted. That was what raised interest in the other two parties.’

  Time to trade, Dengler thought. ‘I have some names for you. You may be interested to see if they come up in relation to Balkhi.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Amanda Bryson, Andrea Waxman, Kate Colbert and Wilna de Villiers.’

  ‘What’s your interest?’

  Dengler paused to underscore the high level of the information he was about to impart. ‘Possible conspiracy to break out a number of illegals from Woomera.’

  Wepner gave a low whistle. ‘Shit.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have called you if it was trivial …’

  ‘Understood.’

  Time to cash in. ‘So,’ Dengler asked, ‘who was Balkhi corresponding with?’

  ‘A whacko going under the user-name The Haha Man.’

  ‘The Haha Man?’

  ‘Some joker, huh?’ There was a dry laugh from Wepner. ‘The suspect on the Pakistani end was calling himself Zulfi.’ The laugh was repeated. ‘Might as well have called himself Smith!’

  ‘Very funny,’ Dengler said. ‘Anything I should know?’

  ‘No. All encrypted.’

  ‘Very dodgy.’

  ‘Extremely.’

  ‘I need more.’

  ‘There are other organisations involved …’

  For which read ‘no’. Dengler realised he wasn’t going to get anything further. ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘We never spoke, okay?’

  ‘Not unless Geraldton is listening …’

  Wepner hung up.

  It took Dengler another half-hour to track down Michael de Villiers.

  ‘On her way to Sydney for a charity function.’ ‘Of course, Mr de Villiers, but I thought it better to check. One of our men spotted the truck and bus and thought it a little unusual that two brand-new heavy vehicles were being driven by women. So he did a check of the registration.’

  There was a laugh from the other end of the phone. ‘I’m impressed your people are so on the ball. Just as long as she doesn’t put a ding in the paintwork before I get them back.’

  ‘I hear they were driving very well, sir.’ Dengler allowed himself a chuckle. ‘I must say I was intrigued by the choice of vehicles …’

  ‘Who knows how my wife’s mind works? Whatever it is, she’ll be aiming for maximum publicity, and I have no doubt she will get it, as usual.’

  ‘No doubt at all,’ Dengler agreed and thanked de Villiers for his time. He was about to tell Rootham to call off the surveillance when the man appeared at his door.

  ‘The women are on the move again, sir.’

  ‘Towards Sydney, yes? I’ve just spoken to de Villiers —’

  ‘No, sir,’ Rootham interjected. ‘Onto the Oxley Highway heading for Gunnedah.’

  ‘Gunnedah? They could come down the Newell through to Dubbo and Orange,’ he replied with slightly less conviction.

  ‘Of course, sir.’ Rootham decided not to buy into an argument. It didn’t work.

  ‘No, Rootham, not of course. Dammit! Keep our boys on them and let me know if they deviate one inch away from the Newell Highway.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The phone rang, but Dengler ignored it for a moment. ‘I want something about this Rabia person and I want it yesterday.’ He snatched the phone up. ‘Yes?’ He listened, then replaced the phone and glared at Rootham. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Get on to the airport and have a plane on standby. There’s another bloody cock-up at Woomera.’ He sat back in his chair and pulled the phone towards him. ‘You know what this means, Rootham?’

  ‘No, sir.’ Obviously it wasn’t something good.

  ‘Helga is going to have my balls in the mincer. A bloody dinner party and I’m supposed to be cooking.’

  Rootham stifled a smile. ‘I could ring her for you, sir. National emergency …’

  ‘Someone is going to pay,’ Dengler said. ‘None of us deserve this … none of us.’

  Karim slumped in the corner of the cell and closed his eyes. He had been awake for more than twenty-four hours and yet he fought against sleep. He knew it must come — but not now. In sleep, he would have no defence against the images in his head and no guard against the seething anger.

  The isolation cell was clean. There was a narrow bed, bolted to the concrete floor, a toilet and two small grilles, one over a window above head-height and the other in the thick steel door. A high-wattage bulb was burning, as it had night and day since his arrival. In one corner was a video-surveillance camera. The still hot air held a lingering smell of disinfectant. In this part of the complex there was no air-conditioning and the heat was oppressive, yet Karim shivered uncontrollably. Slowly he raised his hand to his head and touched the bandages. The bleeding seemed to have stopped.

  He clamped his teeth together and ground them hard, trying to create some pain that would jolt him out of the endless cycling images. Deal with them, he snarled at himself. Don’t let them win. More importantly, don’t hit out. Not here, not yet. His code of honour demanded revenge, but not from these people here. Many times he had heard the tribal elders say that you punish the man and not the servant. Yet here the servants were culpable.

  The arrival of a man at the gates of Woomera claiming asylum had thrown the security guards into a spin. They picked Karim up from the gate in a small mini-van and drove him inside the wire. Karim craned his neck as they passed underneath it, perplexed at the need for such oppressive security. Surely the people inside had fled oppression in order to find a new life? He shuddered and looked away.

  ‘Wait here,’ one of the guards said as the van pulled up outside an administration building. As if he had a choice.

  The men went inside and Karim decided that he had been left in the van while they found someone high up enough to take responsibility. Twice people came to the door and stared at him, before retreating inside.

  While he waited, Karim tried to make sense of the scene in front of him. Just beyond the administration block was a large compound, grassless and treeless. Several hundred people were sitting on baking dirt, under the full glare of the burning sun. Were they being punished? There didn’t appear to be any great security presence, just a couple of guards relaxing in the shade of a building to the side of the compound. Then it occurred to him that these were the hunger strikers that he had read about in the Sydney papers. He peered into the glare, trying to see, trying to understand. For an instant he was reminded of the Jalozai camp in Pakistan — but that housed tens of thousands of people and not behind razor wire. Ever present in his mind was the thought that amongst them, somewhere, was his father.

  ‘Come on.’ A burly guard slid open the side door of the van and gestured for Karim to precede him into the building.

  It was like walking from a furnace into a cool-store. The air-conditioning was working overtime — but at least it was working.

  ‘Through there, thanks.’

  The guard swung open a door into a small office and indicated that Karim should take a seat. Behind the desk a man took off his glasses and nodded for the guard to go. He looked at Karim in silence, then took a deep breath, replaced his glasses and picked up a pen.

  ‘This is most unusual.’ The accent was American.

  Karim was about to reply but the man shook his head.
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  ‘I’m Brian Fleischer and this is my centre. Most people get sent here, so your turning up is … irregular, to say the least.’ He took another deep breath and exhaled slowly. ‘Immigration will want to talk to you. But in the meantime I need the basic details. So let’s start with your name.’

  Karim could hold back no longer. ‘I am Karim Mazari and I have come because my father is in detention here. His name is Ahmed Mazari.’

  The man’s eyes flashed at him, his face rigid for a second. He slowly sucked air over his teeth and returned his attention to the form on his desk. ‘Karim Mazari. And your nationality?’

  ‘The same as my father: we are Hazara.’

  ‘No, Mr Mazari, Hazara is not a nationality. So I will put down Afghan.’

  ‘I am an ethnic Hazara. That’s important. Please write it down.’

  Fleischer dropped his pen onto the desk; the sound was loud in the stillness of the room. No noise came from outside. No music, no laughter, no voices. Fleischer smiled, and when he started to speak again he kept the tone gentle, almost conversational, as though they were discussing some trivial matter.

  ‘Mazari, let’s get one thing clear. I hate this place. I hate Woomera and the stinking desert. But most of all I hate smart-arse queue jumpers who know every answer to every question because they can afford some sleazy bleeding-heart lawyer to brief them. Now I don’t give a flying crap if you are ethnic Tajik or Pashtun or Hazara. In my camp you’re an Afghan. And let me tell you another thing …’ He stabbed the air in the direction of the window. ‘The Australian public have had a gutful of your kind coming out here. They don’t want you in Australia, and I don’t want you in here. I don’t have a choice, I have to have you. But I’m not going to have you here for long. You know what they’ll do? They’ll ship you out. Now, how did you arrive in Australia?’

  The insolence of the man was almost too much for Karim. He would have liked to walk around the desk and break his neck, but knew that no gain would come from that direction.

  ‘I flew in.’

  ‘Date and flight number?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t remember.’ Karim had known the question would come up and had decided that, no matter what happened, he wouldn’t say anything to jeopardise the work of Zulfi and the Haha Man.

  ‘Mr Mazari, there’s a place that makes this camp look like Sanctuary Cove. It’s very unpleasant and its only redeeming feature is that they don’t keep people like you there very long.’

  ‘I will answer no further questions until I see my father.’

  There was a long silence before Fleischer picked up his pen and made a note on the file. He looked over his glasses and smiled condescendingly.

  ‘Then I’m going to pass you over to another organisation who will be better placed to gain your cooperation.’

  The other organisation was never named, and the man who arrived four hours later to interrogate him also remained nameless. He intimated that he had just flown in from Canberra and was in no mood to play games.

  First they went through the same rigmarole. Then the man stunned Karim. He said that he knew Karim was planning a break-out. ‘I should warn you the others have confessed.’ The man smiled wearily. ‘We know about the plan, we know about Rabia Balkhi and the Haha Man.’

  Dengler couldn’t believe his luck when the Afghan reacted visibly to the names. He knew Mazari was disoriented, tired, sleep-deprived, but he hadn’t expected such an obvious response. He felt like a miner who is just preparing himself for the backbreaking work of digging into a seam when he finds a nugget in the dirt at his feet. Too easy.

  ‘So you know them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that is good to hear, Mr Mazari. And what exactly can you tell me about them?’

  Karim shook his head. ‘Nothing until you let me see my father.’

  ‘Your father?’ Dengler feigned surprise. Fleischer had briefed him about Karim’s request.

  ‘He’s a prisoner here.’

  ‘We prefer to call them detainees.’

  ‘I insist on seeing him.’

  Dengler thought about it then nodded slowly. ‘I tell you what — you tell me about Rabia Balkhi and the Haha Man and I’ll see what I can do.’

  There was silence and then the Afghan’s face broke into a broad grin. ‘Rabia Balkhi is a very famous person.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She was a poet and the first woman to write in Persian. The only problem is she died a long time ago.’

  ‘I think this woman is still alive.’

  ‘No, she was a princess and a famous poet. She lived in the court of the Samanid Dynasty in Balkh in the ninth century AD. Rabia fell in love with her brother Hareth’s servant, Baktash. Hareth became so angry that he killed Baktash and the story is told that once Rabia heard of the murder, she ran to where Baktash was lying and slashed her veins to die at the side of her beloved. She is so loved that when the Taliban captured the city of Mazar, they declared Rabia’s tomb out of bounds.’

  Dengler frowned. ‘So you don’t know any woman who uses that name? For email, maybe?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the Haha Man?’

  Karim shook his head emphatically. ‘No, I have never heard of such a person. Now, you must bring my father to me.’

  Dengler looked at him blankly. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’

  ‘You said you would.’

  ‘I said I would tell you if you told me about Rabia Balkhi —’

  ‘And I have done so!’ Karim’s anger spilled over, swamping his tiredness. ‘You lied to me.’

  ‘No,’ Dengler dropped his voice, adopting a mild and friendly tone. ‘I’m afraid I can’t bring your father to you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘According to the report I heard, Ahmed Mazari attacked a guard. Unfortunately, during the scuffle he hit his head on the floor. I’m sorry to have to tell you that he’s dead.’

  An enormous wave of rage rolled over Karim, breaking around him, smashing him to the floor. He struggled up, lashing out in every direction. Arms grabbed him. In the confusion he was wrestled back to the ground. Someone jabbed something in his arm and from a distant universe he heard a voice say, ‘Take the fucking bastard back to his cell and keep him under observation.’

  He screamed, but it was drowned in a rising tide of nausea — and then nothing.

  Later, when he awoke, he vomited. He staggered to his feet, seeking the face of the man who had lied to him — but all he saw was a wall. There was blood on it. Fresh blood. As he reached up to touch his head he became aware of the pain. But it was not enough. He needed more pain and so he resumed beating his forehead against the concrete.

  In one exquisite moment of clarity, balanced between the pain and the anger, he knew that he must not die — not yet. Someone would pay for the Mazari blood and he was going to be the one to collect the debt.

  ‘I want him out of here.’ Fleischer was adamant. ‘The man is trouble.’

  ‘He’s understandably upset.’ It was an understatement. Dengler had never seen a man react the way Karim Mazari had. It was like watching someone go insane in front of your eyes. Beyond comprehension. And then that sedative should have kept him docile for hours, yet it had been less than two hours before the guards had called to say that the man was beating himself to a pulp against the wall.

  ‘I’m not talking about that.’ Fleischer waved his hand dismissively. ‘We are talking about a man who manages to get into the country undetected and then turns up at the gate demanding to be let in.’

  ‘For God’s sake! He thought his father was in here.’

  ‘That’s an assumption. We don’t know that it was his father.’

  ‘You saw how he reacted. You think he was acting?’

  Fleischer waved his hand again. ‘I don’t trust these people one fucking bit. There’s been talk about a mass break-out. And then this Mazari turns up out of the blue. It’s too much of a coincidence.’

 
Dengler decided to humour him. ‘So what do you suggest we do?’

  ‘Get him and the ringleaders out of here. You have the other place. Use it.’

  ‘Plym?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Dengler glanced at his watch. He really should be getting back to Canberra. ‘I’ll give it some consideration.’ He stood and picked up his briefcase. ‘Oh, one other thing …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This man, Ahmed Mazari.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The report —’

  ‘I’m not talking about the fucking report,’ Dengler cut across him savagely.

  ‘An altercation with one of the guards. An unfortunate accident …’

  Dengler looked at him with contempt. ‘You really ought to keep your animals under control.’ Fleischer opened his mouth to protest, but Dengler held up his hand to forestall him. ‘I’ll want DNA so we can do a match with the son.’

  ‘Is that necessary?’

  ‘Having a guard kill someone was never going to be easy to keep under wraps, no matter what your report says. But now — well, if we can make it a national security issue … I’m sure you understand.’

  Fleischer nodded. ‘I’ll get the DNA for you.’

  ‘And from the son.’

  Fleischer frowned. ‘What if he won’t agree?’

  ‘Get it off the walls. There’s enough blood, hair and tissue there to get a sample.’

  The following morning, back in Canberra, Dengler received a phone call from Wepner that changed his mind about the potential for trouble in Woomera. One of the four names he had submitted had come back with a positive trace.

  ‘The de Villiers woman has had unencrypted email contact with this Rabia Balkhi …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘There’s a veiled reference to a trip to an unnamed detention centre and a date is mentioned.’

  Dengler sat up, switched the phone to his left hand and picked up his pen. ‘Yes?’