Let Bhutto Eat Grass 2

by Shaunak Agarkhedkar

  ‘I was told that you would have one or more compact cassettes or tapes in your possession,’ she said softly, turning to Sablok. The windows were rolled down and her voice didn’t carry far in the din of traffic.

  Sablok stared back at her, trying to make up his mind. The code had matched and she had authenticated herself perfectly. As far as the protocol Almeida had devised was concerned, she had indeed been sent by him. But when the possibility had been discussed between Almeida, Arora and him back in Delhi, it had all been hypothetical.

  ‘And what happens after authentication, Chief?’ Arora had asked. Arora was a case officer with the Europe section and had known Almeida since before Sablok’s birth. It was natural for the two of them to implicitly trust each other.

  ‘Captain Sablok has tried his best to learn the language these past few weeks, but the fact remains that he still speaks very little French. And what little he does speak is—forgive me for being blunt, Captain—quite atrocious. If the situation in Paris sours, he cannot act independently and manage everything on his own. When we send someone to get you out, Captain, we will make sure that someone will take care of everything. All that will be left for you to do is follow their instructions and pray to whatever gods you believe in,’ Almeida had replied.

  The fact that Nissa had been sent by Almeida or someone he trusted should have been good enough for Sablok. But for some reason that he couldn’t pinpoint, it wasn’t. Twice since they had stepped out of the hotel and into the first taxi to the Louvre, Sablok’s thoughts had gone back to the exchange that began when Nissa addressed him as Havildar Singh. Each time he had concluded that Nissa hadn’t missed a single syllable of the code. He was now supposed to follow her instructions to the last letter. It should have been simple. And yet it wasn’t. The reason she had given him—about the forger being arrested by MI5—was certainly plausible, but a stubborn part in Sablok’s mind remained unconvinced. Abducting and interrogating Tahir Hussain had taken an immense amount of effort, and Sablok wasn’t about to give up the cassettes on which the interrogation was recorded just because someone authenticated themselves and gave a believable reason. Plausible wasn’t good enough, he decided.

  ‘I think there has been a misunderstanding,’ he said to Nissa.

  She smiled politely and then turned away. A few minutes later she gave the driver some instructions which caused the driver to talk back. He then grudgingly turned the taxi around and drove in a different direction. She did this again a few minutes later. This time the driver pulled over to the curb and turned to have words with her. He seemed particularly irritated, and it was obvious to Sablok from the way he now drove that he was in a foul mood.

  When the taxi finally came to a halt and they got down, Sablok noticed that the building before them flew the Canadian flag. His stomach dropped. He had to confront her right there, he thought. Time was running out, if it wasn’t too late already. Sablok turned to face her but she had already turned away from the Canadian building and was walking briskly. He followed quietly but kept a tight grip on his knapsack. The cassettes and the portable cassette recorder—a Philips Norelco Carry-Corder 150—were inside it. He had found both in the van and guessed that the person Almeida had tasked with providing him the van had also arranged for the audio equipment.

  This was a diplomatic enclave, he was sure of it now. Every other building flew a different nation’s flag. The street wasn’t familiar, though; it was nothing like the one where he had abducted Hussain from right outside the Pakistani embassy. And the position of the Eiffel tower seemed wrong, for some reason, whenever he caught a glimpse of it between buildings. That gave him some comfort, but the wariness did not entirely disappear. He exaggerated his limp as a pretext for slowing down, increasing the distance between himself and her. He anticipated having to flee from her and this gap would certainly help. An escape plan was already building in his head. He would try to reach the nearest Metro station, the one their taxi had passed about two kilometres before they reached the Canadian building, if he felt that she or whoever she was working for intended to grab him.

  He was reasonably certain that if she worked for a foreign power, it was someone other than the French. Had that not been the case, the French—and Nissa—wouldn’t have bothered with the charade of taxi rides and telephone calls. The Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire would simply have sent one of their teams to pick him up from the hotel and transport him to their headquarters at 7 rue Nélaton. Counterintelligence agencies didn’t bother much about being subtle on their own soil, especially when dealing with illegals—spies who lacked diplomatic cover. And if it wasn’t the French then whoever it was would have to manage with a small team—if that—and minimal resources, otherwise they themselves would attract the unwanted attention of the French. That gave him hope that he could somehow reach the Metro station. If that happened, he would take a roundabout route to Barbès–Rochechouart station. The 18th Arrondisement which was near it had a large immigrant population from Morocco and other African countries. Arora had briefed him about it in New Delhi and both of them had agreed that it would serve well for Sablok to blend in and hide among them before figuring out his next steps.

  When Nissa stopped abruptly and rang the doorbell of a building they had just reached, he steeled himself and prepared to make a dash for it. He could feel the periphery of his vision darken. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, but this was the first time he was experiencing it outside combat. Sablok began turning his head from left to right in a repetitive motion. He didn’t want to be caught off guard by someone emerging from his blind spot.

  ‘If he made my backup passport...’ Sablok began while they waited for a response from someone in the building, ‘...I haven’t used it yet.’ He wanted to keep her engaged in conversation. Changes in her voice could serve as an early warning.

  ‘That passport has your photograph. It also has a French visa—with an entry stamp—and a Dutch visa without one. That tells MI5 where you’re headed and what you look like. Are you willing to gamble your freedom on the belief, which you seem to cherish for some reason, that MI5 are incompetent?’

  Her voice hadn’t wavered in the slightest, and the explanation had been delivered without so much as a glance back towards him. If he couldn’t see her expression, he couldn’t decide if she was telling the truth. But the argument was reasonable enough and in any case events were already in motion. He had a decision to make, and little time in which to make it. A window opened somewhere above them and he jerked his neck upwards. He couldn’t see who had opened it, but the sight of the tricolour fluttering above the building made him pause.

  ‘Is this the embassy?’ he asked, his voice shrill and trembling.

  She nodded. ‘Can I please have the cassettes now? I’d rather not stay here a moment longer than necessary. I don’t have the luxury of returning to a safe cocoon in New Delhi.’

  That stung. He let out a heavy sigh and took the knapsack off his shoulders just as the door opened and a security guard stepped outside.

  ‘Go to the consular section,’ he told them, his voice a curious mix of disdain and authority that would have made any bureaucrat proud. ‘You cannot come here.’

  This part of the embassy was not open to the public.

  ‘We aren’t here for consular business. Go get the Second Secretary - Political,’ Nissa replied. The back and forth had happened in rapid-fire French. Unable to keep up, Sablok lurched from “consular” to “Second Secretary” and tried to join the dots.

  The guard hesitated. He wasn’t used to being addressed haughtily by Indians.

  ‘Tell him his sister Meera is here,’ she added.

  Had Sablok not known better, he would have believed her too.

  ‘Don’t let them see your face,’ she suddenly whispered to Sablok.

  ‘How the hell do I do that on an open road?’ he replied, but tried to keep his head down and
his face turned away from the building.

  The Second Secretary - Political stepped outside the building five minutes later. He was short, five-two at best, but the charcoal-grey suit he was wearing made him appear taller. It was well-tailored and had to be expensive; socialism stopped at the national borders, apparently. The bony face had a five o’ clock shadow. Sablok recalled the photographs Almeida had shown him and recognised their Resident in Paris.

  ‘Yes?’ he asked, not bothering with pleasantries.

  Nissa handed over the knapsack containing the cassettes and recorder.

  ‘Make sure this reaches the Jesuit in New Delhi,’ Nissa said with ill-concealed dislike. ‘They are for his ears only. If he finds out you played them, he’ll have your balls.’ Then she turned and walked away.

  Sablok was torn between following her and running into the building. The embassy was Indian soil and promised safety. For someone who was fighting fatigue and uncertainty, who was running from shadowy enemies he didn’t even know, the thought of taking those few steps and putting it all behind him was alluring. But a voice within refused to listen. The safety of the embassy was an illusion, it told him, a mirage that he would never touch. Without the Foreign Service’s cooperation, the embassy was nothing more than a temporary shelter, one that would allow those chasing him to catch up. The diplomatic corps disliked spooks. This attitude cut across race, religion, and nationality. A diplomat’s raison d’être was to avoid conflict. Spies weren’t so committed to ideals of peace. They were, however, a necessary evil and a few, like Residents, were tolerated as long as they avoided doing something absurd or drastic. An illegal like Sablok, on the other hand, had no reason to count on diplomats’ generosity.

  Sablok caught up with Nissa just as she turned the corner, the embassy disappearing behind the building that housed the permanent delegation from Canada. He glanced back one last time. The Resident was already back in the building. The guard was outside, shuffling his weight from foot to foot by the closed door, staring after the Second Secretary - Political’s sister and the man doing her bidding.

  ***

  ‘Stay indoors, stay quiet. Don’t open the door for anyone.’

  Sablok and Nissa had taken the metro to Barbès – Rochechouart as he had expected, but instead of proceeding to one of the poorer parts of the 18th Arrondisement, which were browner too, she had taken a taxi to a neighbourhood that Sablok found full of Parisian cafés, gardens, museums, and swanky apartments. The flat was empty but clean, and the kitchen was stocked with essentials: bread and cheese, lots of it. Sablok would have killed for a bottle of Scotch, but all the apartment had was a slightly dusty bottle of red wine. He eyed it with distaste, put it back into the kitchen cabinet, and turned his attention to the food.

  ‘I hope you’re now convinced the Jesuit sent me to get you out of here in one piece, Captain.’

  Her emphasis on his rank bothered Sablok. He stopped cutting a slab of hard, yellow cheese and looked up to see Nissa at the apartment door. She was looking straight at him, her eyes blazing annoyance. It made him uncomfortable, but he fought the urge to look away this time. He opened his mouth to reply, but the mind struggled; no words emerged.

  ‘I haven’t read your file,’ Nissa began. Even though she hadn’t planned to say more, the silence and Sablok’s slack-jawed expression urged her to continue. ‘The Jesuit told me that you used to be a soldier. He even mentioned something about gallantry, but I don’t remember the details and, at the moment, it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. I am not here on a lark, Captain. I’ve been given a job and I intend to do it to the best of my abilities. But I’m perfectly happy to drop this mission and walk away if you plan on continuing to question my actions.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Your cover might well be blown, and you may have two of Europe’s best counterintelligence agencies hunting you. You’re in a foreign land you’re not very familiar with. That your French is marginally better than terrible just happens to be the icing on the cake. I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Captain: you shouldn’t even be here. Your tradecraft is patchy at best and horrible the rest of the time. For heaven’s sakes, you didn’t even know the location of the embassy. What sort of an illegal doesn’t know where his nation’s embassy is! The Jesuit must have become senile if he’s sending the likes of you...’

  Nissa paused, more to take a few deep breaths than for effect. The words were intense, but something told Sablok they weren’t exactly driven by emotion.

  ‘Do you want to get caught?’ she asked him.

  The question jolted Sablok. He quickly shook his head.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ he added for clarity.

  ‘Then stop questioning my instructions and let me continue keeping you alive and free.’ After a few moments, she continued, her voice more conciliatory, ‘I will be gone for a while, perhaps for a few days. We need fresh papers, and those take time and money. If I don’t return by midnight the day after tomorrow, dial the telephone number the Jesuit gave you in Delhi and follow the instructions you receive. Good luck.’

  Sablok stood motionless for a few minutes after she had latched the door behind her, his tired mind absorbing her words. It was nearly two in the afternoon. The flat was silent, its air still like a jungle’s before first light. When he had accepted his situation and realised that for the moment there was little he could do to change it, Sablok took a deep breath and turned his attention back to food. He had never tasted this kind of cheese before, and the smell bothered him a little. He still suspected it had gone bad, though Nissa had assured him it wasn’t rancid and was supposed to smell that way. But the flat had little else to eat. More than twenty-four hours after his last proper meal, eaten at a small café half a kilometre from the Pakistani embassy before Tahir Hussain’s abduction, Sablok bit into a slab of cheese sandwiched between two roughly-hewn slices of grey bread. When he had eaten his fill, he heated water and made strong black coffee.

  Nissa had told him to stay indoors and he understood why. But he couldn’t bring himself to rest, not after such an eventful twenty-four hours. His mind was a busy junction for a thousand thoughts that sprinted in and out of his consciousness. He grabbed the cup and stepped out onto the balconet, pretending to casually sip an early-afternoon coffee while looking up and down the street. He was on the second floor. A few people were walking on the street below. None appeared to look in his direction or show any interest in him. The cars parked within sight—mostly Citroëns and Renaults—appeared empty. It took a few minutes for him to orient himself using the top half of the Parisian tower that peeked from behind the building down the street, but by the time the last dregs of coffee were emptied he had a good idea of where he was and, more importantly, how he would exit the neighbourhood if he had to leave in a hurry. He felt a twinge of regret about having returned the Beretta to the holster on Hussain’s ankle; a weapon would come handy should he need to fight his way out. But there was nothing to be done about it now, and he pushed the thought to the back of his mind, substituting the missing gun with a sharp knife from the kitchen.

  The urge tickled him about fifteen minutes later. He ignored it and forced himself to focus on the mission. He had bled through his trousers without realising it until Nissa had pointed it out. That was sloppy of him. Nissa was right, his tradecraft wasn’t the best. Perhaps he had been sloppy with other things as well. He closed his eyes to concentrate. A few deep breaths later he was in the Forêt de Rambouillet.

  ***

  It all felt distant now, but it was only early that morning that he had murdered Tahir Hussain alias Colonel Ejaz Khan of the Pakistan Army and dumped his body in a densely wooded hollow in the Rambouillet forest. The Pakistani had murdered Malathi, Sablok’s colleague and the Wing’s Resident at The Hague, and Sablok had felt no regret for his act. If anything, the bastard should have suffered more. As he had hoisted the fat corpse and carr
ied it deeper into the forest, he had felt curiously elated. The first drops of rain after the murder had brought with them a whiff of petrichor, adding to his elation. But that scent had dissipated completely about fifteen minutes later, and all Sablok could smell was desperation—his own. The skies had opened up just moments after he returned to the Citroën, having dumped the corpse. But what had seemed convenient then—the rain would hasten decomposition and wash away evidence—had soon turned into a challenge. The van and the weather conspired against him as he wrestled with the steering wheel to keep the van from sliding off the slippery mud road and crashing. Every once in a while he had to lean forward and wipe the foggy inside of the windscreen ineffectively with the palm of his right hand. It was a left-hand-drive vehicle, and he struggled to get the gear right. The engine screamed in pain each time he changed gear. Vengeance was exacted by the clutch which engaged and disengaged with a violent jerk that reminded him of a venerable Jonga he had once driven in the Thar.

  He caught himself longing for the dry heat of Jaisalmer and laughed mirthlessly. Summer in France was supposed to be pleasant. Yet here he was, his clothes sodden, his breathing ragged, the ache in his thigh calling for a bottle or two of fiery brandy and a soak in steaming water. He wondered what it was about him that made his forays into the field turn into dissertations on discomfort, then tried to push those thoughts of self-pity away. First light had come and gone. Despite the gloom lent by thick clouds and rain, it was becoming brighter by the minute. The chronometer on his left wrist showed 5:40 a.m. The last thing he wanted was to run into a police patrol.

  He had, of course, taken every precaution to avoid leaving traces of himself on the body. The Beretta had been wiped clean and then placed in Hussain’s cold, clammy left hand—his dominant one—to gather the prints of its dead owner before being carefully returned to its harness on Hussain’s ankle. The hole made by the Trocar on Hussain’s left shin was tiny. Sablok mangled that part of Hussain’s leg by smashing the jagged edge of a stone on it to mask the existence of the route by which Hussain had been injected with narcotics. Then he placed the corpse face-down so that it would appear to the casual eye as if Hussain had collapsed and then banged his knee on the stone.