SIkander

by M. Salahuddin Khan

  Look at her. For all his inner peace, at this moment Sikander found this young, attractive woman more annoying than he had ever imagined anyone might cause him to feel. It wasn’t her fault she was being so incongruously pleasant. That was probably just her nature. But her smile underscored her detachment from the kind of lives being led just a few meters away. She has no idea… No, she has to know. How could she not know?

  Her cheerful mood seemed grotesque. It transformed her, in Sikander’s mind, into a metaphor for the American public, people known for their love of liberty, but now either oblivious of what was going on in their name in Guantanamo, or too afraid to intervene against the actions of their government.

  Beaming, the woman offered her right hand. “I’m Dianne. Dianne Drummond. I’m from the State Department and I’m here with Department of Defense orders that authorize your release.”

  As he permitted himself only the hint of belief, Sikander was shocked at the anger coursing through him. The silent rage he had fearfully accumulated throughout his captivity, seemed now to want to stand up, be acknowledged, and burst out of him. It took all his energy, aided by fear, raw, lingering fear, to maintain his composure. He said nothing, but with lips quivering, his gaze descended to the soft, slender hand. Without taking it, his eyes slowly returned to meet hers.

  Clearing her throat, Dianne lowered the hand, redirecting it to gesture toward the previously identified office where Sikander was to change into his new clothes. He took the clothes from the soldier and went inside the office, emerging, still dazed but transformed, a few minutes later. Sensing his condition, Dianne motioned to the soldiers to wait outside. She offered Sikander a seat and now, with a slightly more serious look on her face, she pulled some papers out of her briefcase.

  “Mr. Khan, President Musharraf has intervened on your behalf and confirmed that you are not a combatant but the owner of a bona fide business in Peshawar with no record of plotting or acting against the U.S. government. When you were brought here, your suspected al-Qaeda status meant that your family was not informed. But after the Red Cross conveyed your letter, we got word from President Musharraf about you. Once we were certain it was you he was referring to we set up the release process.”

  “So what’s to be done? Where do I go from here?”

  “After I complete this paperwork, which also requires your signature, a State Department jet will take you to Peshawar!”

  Elation was pressing into every fiber of Sikander’s being yet he still didn’t dare believe what was happening. With all the restraint he could muster, he cautiously opened up.

  “About the handshake, I… I’m sorry,” he said. “Muslim men aren’t supposed to touch a woman they aren’t married to.”

  “Please. Don’t give it another thought. I respect your beliefs, Mr. Khan, and I’m sorry I wasn’t better informed before I offered you my hand.”

  “Is it possible for me to say farewell salaams to some of the other men?”

  “I’m afraid not,” she replied with a note of sympathy. “As you’ve now been officially taken out of their controlled space, you’re not allowed back in. Besides, they’re only allowed communication by mail through the Red Cross with their families.”

  The irony was laughable. He was to be barred from a place where he had been forcibly kept for the past five months. Still, not saying farewells to fellow inmates was a small price to pay for gaining freedom. They’d understand.

  Dianne wrote on the papers and held one of them out for him together with her pen. The language was simple enough, asking the signatory’s acceptance of release, affirmation of identity, and an oath against engaging in terrorist acts. Sikander didn’t hesitate to sign. She returned the papers to her briefcase and stood up.

  “Please wait here for me. I have to present these papers to the folks at JTF-160 HQ. It might be a while,” she said. Ninety minutes later, she was back, accompanied by an MP.

  With the MP leading the way, Sikander and Dianne walked outside.

  Outside. It was a notion from which Sikander was thoroughly estranged. Since November, Sikander had been “inside.”

  Parked nearby was a shiny black Chevy Suburban. Dianne ushered him into the middle row seat. The MP followed him, and she sat in front, next to the driver. They drove up to Camp Delta’s barrier and after the appropriate credentials had been presented, were on their way to the airfield. Sikander had left the Wire.

  Following a short clearance at the airfield’s main entry gate, the vehicle came alongside a gleaming white Gulfstream IV. A Department of State seal was proudly displayed near the open door’s unfolded steps. Fueled and checked out, the aircraft was ready for departure.

  The MP stepped out and opened the door for Dianne before doing the same for Sikander. Another official-looking civilian who had been standing near the airplane’s steps introduced himself to Sikander as Lee Carver, staff assistant to Dianne. Carver had arranged the trip, from the aircraft to the clothing, the meals en route, and the meet-and-greet in Peshawar.

  When Lee, Dianne, and Sikander, together with a flight attendant, and the two-man crew were aboard, the attendant closed the door. The accompanying change of atmosphere within the cabin as all sound from outside was instantly muted, boosted Sikander’s sense of really departing this terrible place. Nevertheless, conditioned as he was for surprises and not ready to give up on the possibility of a twist to come, he wondered if it was real. Could he dare believe that his ordeal was over? Had he really left the Wire?

  He refocused on his surroundings, a welcome distraction from his anxieties. Four sumptuous seats, two pairs facing each other, behind which was a long couch formed the seating area. Between the seats and the cockpit was a small galley and in the rear was a door to what Sikander guessed was a lavatory. Rich wood and leather finishes were in abundance in sharp contrast with the ubiquitous austerity of the last several months.

  The engines came to life, their muffled sounds barely reaching the cabin. Any moment now, he thought. His mind filled once again with expectation and dread. Dashed hopes were a powerful way to break a spirit. Any moment now. The engines would wind down and the charade would be over. Any moment now! An interrogator would open the door, burst in, and repeat those unanswerable questions. It might even be Dianne, or Lee. But then again, he thought, the plane might circle Guantanamo for an hour or two with them expecting him to lower his guard and let slip some information. Then he’d be sent back to languish in his cell once more. They might try any of these things, but he’d be damned if they would surprise him. He would be ready for them.

  Dianne cast a sympathetic stare at Sikander. He was disoriented. He needed time to catch up with events and the journey would help him begin the process.

  A steady breeze flowed from the east, so Runway 10 was to be used. The airplane taxied to the runway threshold and lined up for takeoff. The tower clearance was given and in less than a minute, the jet was aloft and heading east.

  As it climbed steeply, Sikander took in the view from the large elliptical window next to him. He marveled at how a place of such agony could be so beautiful, as the Gulfstream passed over the narrow inlet that formed the opening of Guantanamo Bay. Once they were over the other side, wooded hills sprawled beneath them, while the afternoon sun shimmered off the sea. Between the hills and the southern coastline, Camp Delta came into view. Sikander found it jarring. A wave of guilt came over him. He was leaving, but for his fellow inmates down below, already rendered obscure by altitude, the endless night of despair would continue.

  Seeing the scale of Camp Delta, Sikander wondered how many detainees were there. How many might be dangerous terrorists posing a threat to the United States? Many, surely? It might have been his way of easing his guilt about being released, but he imagined at least some bad people were there. People who would be prepared to kill out of some crazed sense of religiosity.

  As the camp disappeared from view, the Gulfstream pressed on, gaining altitude, before turning onto its f
inal northerly heading. At the same time, Sikander found it easier to dismiss thoughts of his, or anyone else’s detention. He didn’t deserve to be there. That much he knew, and that was surely enough.

  “Mr. Khan, may I call you Sikander?” Dianne asked. Sikander nodded. “Sikander, then,” she said. “Perhaps some tea or coffee? Or maybe you’d like to sleep?”

  “Sleep. Yes, sleep.”

  Lee asked the flight attendant to bring some blankets. Sikander lay down on the long couch behind the cluster of four seats and dozed off.

  The flight routed off the eastern seaboard of the United States before making a descent into Halifax Shearwater airport in Nova Scotia. Sikander awoke as the aircraft descended. He had slept deeply. Unable to permit itself such a luxury in all these months in captivity, his body would now avidly consume all the sleep it could get.

  Refueling took forty minutes. A fully fueled Gulfstream IV was good for seven thousand kilometers, including reserves. The Atlantic crossing would require a full load. As the day drew to a close, the sleek jet took off once again, a gleaming orange streak reflecting the sunset.

  They were bound for Baginton, a small civilian airport near Coventry, England. On this leg of the flight, everyone slept. With his extra sleep before the Halifax stopover, Sikander awoke earlier than the others. Silently he brooded, replaying the last seven months in his mind as he stared out of the window to witness the thin but growing line of orange and blue heralding a new day. With it came an elevated confidence. With so much already behind him this was surely no charade. He was going home. As daylight quickly brushed away the night, they were soon making landfall over Stranraer, in Scotland’s Rhinn of Galloway peninsula. The June morning illuminated the land beneath them through the broken cloud cover. At seven in the morning, the jet began its descent.

  Having had too little sleep, Sikander’s companions didn’t do much talking as the aircraft came into Coventry. It taxied to just outside a small hangar for refueling. Clearances had already been established by the State Department, so everyone stepped out of the plane and walked to a comfortable waiting area where they spent an hour between dozing, browsing magazines, and drinking plenty of espresso. Sikander began imagining his welcome home and felt the urge to rehearse his reaction to it. As his fellow travelers grew more alert and awake, he decided to engage them.

  “So, where next?” Sikander asked Dianne. Her glance transferred the question to Lee.

  “We’ll be stopping in Amman and then Peshawar.” Lee answered.

  “When do we get there?”

  “Early tomorrow morning, right around sunrise.”

  Dawn in Peshawar. Filled once more with anticipation, Sikander recalled its sights, sounds, and smells as vividly as if he was already immersed in them.

  There was a further hour’s delay awaiting the arrival of a replacement crew from London but with fresh departure clearances for the next leg, they re-boarded and were airborne by ten thirty. After the airplane had leveled off, Dianne came to sit beside Sikander and from her briefcase retrieved a folder. She studied one of its contents quietly before speaking with him.

  “Sikander, we traced your capture back to a Dr. Atiq Mohammed in Kunduz, and he confirmed your story of being shot and his treating you for that wound. It also confirms what I told you in Gitmo about President Musharraf’s intervention.”

  “No different from what I explained to anyone who ever interrogated me,” replied Sikander, with a cynical shrug.

  “Yes, you…um…didn’t say that your were actually with the ISI. Why not?”

  Sikander paused. He didn’t want to risk being returned to Guantanamo. Not under any circumstance, but particularly not when he was this close to seeing his family. Perhaps Musharraf had asserted that Sikander was with the ISI and that had been important in his persuasion of the U.S. government. He elected to be inscrutable. “I was only asked about being a Taliban or al-Qaeda member and my interrogators seemed disinterested in much else.”

  “It’s okay, Sikander. We’re taking you home and you don’t have to be concerned,” Dianne assured him. “See this? This is a letter for you. It’s sealed with a U.S. State Department seal. Keep it that way. If you ever intend to come to America, you’ll need to deliver it along with everything else you send for your visa.”

  Sikander took the envelope from her. Having no jacket, he folded it and put it in his hip pocket. He didn’t want to talk. He wanted to think about what Dianne had just told him, but was prevented from doing so by her next remark.

  “When we land, we’ll give you a few other documents, but before you leave us, we…we’d like you to consider providing us with intelligence.”

  “What…kind of intelligence?” Sikander asked, his mouth agape.

  “We know Peshawar is a hotbed of Taliban sentiment and al-Qaeda members and sympathizers. We’ve spent a lot of time, trouble, money, and even people’s lives—on both sides, I might add—securing Afghanistan against the Taliban and their support for al-Qaeda. We need people in your position to let us know if you hear anything, see people, say, with an Arab background, or foreigners, maybe buying suspicious items or behaving unexpectedly. You claim to be against these organizations. Wouldn’t this be a good way to prove it?” A plaintive wrinkle dressed her brow.

  Sikander thought for a moment. She’s being clever. He certainly had no love for al-Qaeda and yes, he had professed a concern for the misguidedness of the Taliban. If he reported on such things, he could manage it in his conscience. And yet, he detested the thought of helping America after what had happened to him. However, on this aircraft, on his way to a freedom still under their control, this was neither the time nor place to be foreswearing the possibility of cooperation. It would be tactically wise to accept the notion, but he decided to offer at least token resistance.

  “Miss Drummond,” he began.

  “Mrs. Drummond. I’m widowed, but you can call me Dianne.”

  “Yes uh, Dianne,” Sikander began again, absorbing a ripple of sympathy, “as you’ve just noted, I was captured and delivered to your people for being a non-Afghan. You didn’t, however, mention that they paid money for me. I didn’t try to escape from my initial captors. I had imagined it would be better to be delivered to Americans than to Dostum or his cronies. At each step I put off thoughts of escape, expecting better treatment once I was among American soldiers. I was taken against my will to Guantanamo where I was…tortured…” He heaved, as the solitary word consumed a lungful of air to prepare, and another to utter. “I was beaten by your people. It’s good that the error was recognized after almost seven months of hell but why…why wouldn’t I just wish to go back to my life and try to forget what you…your people…have done to me?”

  In her most sympathetic voice, Diane replied, “What can I say? We’re genuinely regretful of your treatment. We know your government’s trying to help ours despite popular opposition, but you surely know more attacks on the United States won’t go unanswered. Don’t you want to help avoid such killing?”

  Her gaze was mesmerizing. Sikander couldn’t deny her physical appeal and her personality was by every measure radiant. But for the draining experience of Guantanamo, Sikander was a man in his prime. He was aware he needed to resist her and to resist staring at her, or scanning her shapely form, but the effort was tiring. Unable to meet her gaze for long, he cast his eyes down, and after a pause, gave a grudging nod. “What would I have to do? How would we communicate?”

  “You’ll need to contact a person at this number in the American Embassy. Please don’t share this number with anyone.” Dianne handed him a business card for a company called Pakswitch Limited identifying a managing director by the name of Azam Shah.

  “After the city code, dial every second digit and then start back from the beginning with the digits you missed, and you’ll actually be calling a dedicated line at our embassy in Islamabad. That line routes automatically to Washington. Your handler will pick it up there. Anyone dialing the number as it�
�s written will get a busy signal.”

  Impressed by such a simple tactic, Sikander put the card in his shirt pocket. “I’ll…consider it,” he said, leaning back in his seat to take in the moment. His once beloved America was asking him for help in the immediate aftermath of treating him despicably. Such a notion couldn’t have been further from the badal he’d grown accustomed to in Afghanistan. He was, of course, under no illusion that he’d make the difference between success and failure in America’s war. But the notion of being needed was interesting.

  The day moved along at a fast clip. The sun was low by the time they soared over Istanbul, and it was almost dark under grey rainclouds upon reaching Amman. Taxiing through pouring rain, the jet parked near the VIP lounge, a facility in its own building. Armed with umbrellas from the Gulfstream’s closet, the travelers disembarked, stepping briskly into the lounge.

  It was a study in opulence. Warm lights were recessed around the edges of Rojo Alicante marble floors. From there, each light bathed its own area of bush-hammered limestone brick wall, its grazing angle teasing shadows out of the naturally undulating stone surface. Persian rugs lay over the marble and were surrounded by seemingly never-used cream leather sofas. A pampering level of service, with cold cuts, sandwiches, hot and cold drinks, and pastries constantly being served on sparkling silver trays, completed the experience.

  The Americans certainly have friends in Jordan. Sikander mused. A couple of hours after landing, having refueled and with night drawing on, they departed once more on the last leg to Peshawar.

  Four hours later, the aircraft began its last descent. As his sensitive stomach picked up the subtle cues of the drop in altitude, the reality of his release felt complete. Sikander wondered who would be there to meet him. No one was likely to be interested in advertising an American government error, he reasoned. It would surely be a low-key affair. The jet landed.