SIkander

by M. Salahuddin Khan

  Launch of the national distribution hub became integral to the company’s annual plan for 2007. In January, Sikander began scouting for a location in Memphis. At the same time, thanks to Jamil, the much-anticipated video link with Peshawar was established. The brothers were often to be found conferring or else in family “video fests,” always popular with the children.

  One evening in early February, while browsing the Internet for information about lithium-ion battery manufacturers, Sikander was intrigued to find one in Scotland. His attention drifted as he recalled his experiences learning to operate the Stinger more than twenty years earlier. Abruptly, he realized that he might be able to search for the place where the SAS training had taken place. Sure enough, when he compared the place names that came up in his searches of “Stinger training of mujahideen” with Google’s online mapping, he was able to see satellite images of those places. One place stood out. It was correct topographically. It was oriented as expected relative to the water and islands. It was Applecross.

  As he browsed the map online, long-forgotten memories of place names last seen on road signs bubbled up to the surface of his consciousness; places that he and his fellow mujahideen had visited or passed through on the bus tour all those years ago.

  Over the following weeks, without letting Rabia know what he was up to, he arranged for a detour on their next trip to Pakistan, which was due to take place in early April. He concocted a story about stopping in London for a few days for a business meeting, which provided a perfect cover for their UK visa applications.

  April came. Arrangements were made for the children to stay with Sabrina and Salman until Sikander’s return. He planned to be back earlier than Rabia, who would to stay on to spend time with family. After they landed in London, Sikander broke the news that their four-day stopover in the UK was in fact to visit Scotland. She was delighted with the surprise.

  One more flight from London to Glasgow, where they rented a car, put them within five exhilarating hours of driving into Scotland’s northwest. They proceeded along the west side of Loch Lomond, past Loch Linnhe to Fort William, then past Loch Lochy before heading northwest to Applecross. The weather alternated between heavy downpours and bright sunshine, but the beauty was unrelenting.

  “This place is wondrous, Sikander!” Rabia said as her head turned from one scene to another.

  “Wait until you see Applecross,” he replied. The day that had begun in London just after sunrise was drawing to a close. Rabia was enchanted by the setting sun amid the clouds shooting shafts of light into the hills, valleys, and lochs of the highlands. By late evening, the car’s tires were crunching the graveled driveway of the Applecross Inn, a charming hotel set in leafy woodlands overlooking the water toward the Western Isles. After a late breakfast the following morning, Sikander and Rabia took a packed lunch and left the inn to explore.

  “See over there?” Sikander pointed out a thin stretch of land to their north. “That’s where the camp was, I’m pretty sure, and those are the islands I told you about. The weather’s perfect. Let’s just walk around here for the whole day, shall we? We can even sit down and enjoy the sunset when the time comes.”

  “Sikander, it’s…heaven! The breeze is so sweet I can taste the air! And just look at that water. Flowing diamonds glittering in the sun!” exclaimed Rabia.

  The couple strolled along taking in the scenery, the light Scottish breeze, and the patchy sunshine. From time to time they stopped to absorb some especially engaging aspect of how the light played on the vista. Lunch was taken by the water’s edge, and as the evening drew on, most of the clouds had died out allowing the sunset to oblige the visitors by delivering on Sikander’s promise. The red halo he’d told her about twenty years ago came to life while they gazed out over the water to the islands in the distance, among them the enchanted Skye. Sikander basked in the scene and the validation of his now fabled stories of the place. He made her grant him the accuracy of his claims, which she willingly did. That night was a belated honeymoon, as there hadn’t been much of one in Laghar Juy. But they enjoyed it in every way imaginable, as if it had been their first.

  The second day was spent driving around the Isle of Skye culminating with a brief—but for Sikander, nostalgic—stopover at Broadford airfield, after which they began their departure by driving to Fort William and staying the night there. The following day, they drove to Glasgow and flew back to London. On the day after that, they were on their way to Islamabad. Sikander was back at work within a couple of weeks. In Rabia’s absence, a nanny was engaged to look after Ayesha while the two boys largely took care of themselves. Sikander juggled his schedule to allow more time at home than usual each day.

  As part of his efforts to be better informed about the business, Sikander decided to connect with second-level management and he periodically set up either breakfasts with small groups of them or visited them individually in their offices to see what they did and how they did it. After a few such occasions, subconsciously giving himself some practice, he decided it was time to reconnect with Mahler. The appointment came and Sikander visited Jim’s office on the lower level. He knocked on the door and got the expected response to enter.

  How predictable and how unpredicted, thought Sikander as the visual cues around him recalled the picture Mahler had shown him during interrogation to make a point about his 9/11-victim friend. On the walls hung pictures of different types of shotguns, various certificates, and what looked like prize awards. Behind his desk on a credenza he had three pedestal-mounted gold awards with his name engraved on them. There were two other pictures, including the one with DeLea, showing each of them holding a clutch of bagged ducks after an evidently productive day.

  Sikander took a seat and opened up the conversation. “You seem to enjoy hunting.”

  “No awards for astuteness,” said Mahler in a feeble attempt at caustic humor. “But yes, I do like to hunt. Ever done it yourself?”

  The question awoke a conditioned reflex in Sikander as a quiet shiver traveled up his spine. The calm tone of Mahler’s questions in Camp X-ray had formed an inseparable link to the severe and painful punishment that followed. Concealing what had passed through him, he responded. “Not in the sense you mean, unless you count Russian helicopters.”

  “Huh! Yeah… Hinds, right?”

  Sikander nodded, interrupting a wistful recollection before returning to the subject of hunting.

  “Where do you hunt?”

  “North Carolina. Virginia. There are lots of places along the coast here as well as inland. I like to hunt where I can use a boat blind. It gives me some flexibility and I enjoy being on the water.”

  “Interesting. I’ve been a ‘hills-and-forests’ person all my life, but I must say I’m attracted to the possibility of boating. Kerr Lake isn’t too far from here and it seems like a good place for that sort of thing, don’t you think?”

  “What kind of boat did you have in mind? I know something about them.”

  “I’m not sure I had anything in mind, but it seems that something in the twenty-five to thirty-foot range might be a good choice?” Sikander was not particularly sure of himself on the subject and, at a more basic level, had only recently begun to attune himself to American units of measure.

  “Hmm, well that’s a pretty decent handful for a boat. You’ll probably want to get lessons.”

  “Thanks, I’ll look into it,” responded Sikander. “Now, about security,” he asked looking at his watch. “What are the important things you focus on?”

  Mahler thought about the question. He wasn’t used to being asked about his work by the company’s seniormost executives. They usually took it for granted. It was a little suspicious for him to see the CEO appear concerned about the subject. Mahler opted for a professional response.

  “We generally aren’t worried about intellectual property or espionage,” he remarked, waving a hand. “But we do care about warehouse pilfering, insider-sponsored theft, that sort of thing.<
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  “Another concern is damage or theft of capital equipment. Computers, office equipment, maybe tools on the warehouse floor. We also care about backing up important information, documents, computer systems, and protecting them from hacking, even…even terrorist attacks. Jim was hard-pressed to hold back a cynical smile. “You might be interested to know that quite a few hacking attempts come out of Pakistan, though most come from China, West Africa, and the Balkans.”

  “And how do you know you’re being effective?”

  “Each of these areas, personnel, information, capital asset, and inventory protection has its own set of metrics, that we can monitor and improve upon. I have one person in charge of each. So if we get a theft of inventory, we can compare that to the total and make a judgment about whether we’re improving or getting worse. It’s something I’m continually working to improve.” Jim explained with justifiable pride.

  “I see. And how do you report it?”

  “The information’s collected weekly. I put it into a monthly view, and report it up to Glen in a quarterly view unless he wants something ad hoc or to drill deeper.”

  “Sounds pretty well organized,” noted Sikander, genuinely impressed. “Jim,” Sikander used Mahler’s first name for the first time, “you may recall I mentioned last December that we should be expanding to support online sales? Well, we’ve found a promising location, so tell me, what would be special security concerns for that kind of setup?”

  Jim gave a thoughtful pause before responding. “I guess I’d have to take a look at the place, but off the top of my head? TV security systems, inventory recording, spot checks, things of that nature. RFID tagging would also make a difference. And, we’d need to improve upon employee background checks, especially for certain critical information access roles.”

  “Hmm…well, give it some more thought. I’ll be coming back to you to take this further,” Sikander said before rising to leave. The tension lingering between the two of them, although diminished, encouraged Sikander to depart hastily, but as he did so, Jim belatedly managed to sputter out a polite: “Thanks for…” the office door closed “…stopping by.”

  As the year progressed, Carolectric Corporation secured better supply sourcing deals from China, which enabled Javelin in Pakistan to operate at better margins. The brothers decided they could afford to bring wholesale prices down for Chinese products and still make acceptable profits. Driving their less resilient Pakistani competitors into distress, Javelin either picked them up for rock bottom prices, or bought their assets as they folded.

  As early as March, with the help of Sabrina’s deft hand, Rabia had managed to furnish and decorate the new home in an interesting Mughal motif, with a few modern design elements. Now, coming back from Pakistan, she brought several family members with her for a housewarming that was set to take place in late May. They included Noor, Razya, Sameena, Jamil, Kausar, Sofie, Ejaz, and Hinna and all their children. Abdul Rahman and Sabiha had not been able to come as Sabiha was hospitalized for minor surgery.

  Sikander didn’t want to risk Saleem or Abdul Majeed coming. Their Taliban past would probably still have haunted them all the way to U.S. immigration, even though neither of them had ever fired a shot at American forces. Certainly, neither of them relished the idea of being hauled off to Guantanamo at the president’s pleasure in the awful footsteps of their brother-in-law.

  The family visit was tumultuous. Everyone congratulated Sikander and Rabia for the life they had put together and the station they had reached, but none more so than Hinna, Rabia’s long-time “khowr.” The years may have demanded it, but they hadn’t exacted their customary price from Hinna’s youthful beauty and although their luster wasn’t quite the same, much of the magic clung to her enchanting eyes. Especially when she smiled.

  “Rabia, mashAllah, what a long way you’ve come! Twenty years now we’ve known each other and who would ever have believed then that this is where your nest would be now?

  “Alhamdulillah, Hinna, after all we’ve been through it’s wonderful not only to be living here but to have you all out here. We feel so blessed just to be alive and to be able to recognize such blessings for what they are.

  Two weeks later, the housewarming guests returned to Pakistan.

  Ayub and Qayyum had a good year in school and it didn’t take long for a North Carolina drawl to take root. The same had begun for Ayesha who had just completed a pre-school year.

  Rabia made several new friends among the neighbors and more broadly. She sometimes thought about how far she’d come from being a poor village girl in Laghar Juy—a dim and receding memory now—to becoming an affluent woman in suburban North Carolina with a very passable grasp of English. No work of fiction could have dreamed up her unlikely story. Indeed, her ability to recount her history made for fascinating conversation with friends, who also delighted in her priceless but rare mistakes with the language. She didn’t, of course, volunteer any information about Sikander’s Guantanamo experience or her own parallel miseries stemming from it.

  With the weather holding, Sikander arranged a company barbecue, as another chance to get to know his employees. To his surprise, Jim showed up. Equally surprisingly, a woman accompanied him. The interaction was appropriately cordial.

  “Jim and…?”

  “And Louise,” she responded, with a warm smile.

  Sikander welcomed her with a polite nod though customarily, without a handshake. Wonder if she has any idea what kind of a man he was five years ago? How did he unwind after a day’s work then? Sikander speculated. Still, he’s probably a lovable guy right now. Who knows? Maybe he didn’t know her then.

  The barbecue was a success, even without booze. Sikander was convinced that such outings were a great way to meet the cultural needs of the business. He quietly resolved to repeat them.

  From a work point of view, Sikander was engrossed in the routine issues of day-to-day business decision-making. He was frequently on the video link to Jamil and rarely made any move without his valuable input. His management style of general affability wrapped around a core of steel, made him resolute when others would perhaps more readily cave. But he never came across as stubborn. This endeared him to his own management team, adding to company cohesion and turning it into a serious competitive force. Carolectric was still tiny by comparison with much larger international players, but as far as Sikander was concerned, that was a matter of time.

  Just before Labor Day of 2007, the children went back to school, with Ayesha now enrolled into Kerr-Vance’s kindergarten. The weather in North Carolina was still excellent. The first weekend after Labor Day, having left the children at a sleepover with Sabrina’s children, Sikander and Rabia went to Kerr Lake to enjoy the beautiful day. It reminded them of Applecross and in some ways even Laghar Juy when the streams were in full flood.

  “There’s something special here when the afternoon sun shimmers on the water,” remarked Sikander.

  “Mmm…remember when you saved me from the river?” asked Rabia with a gleam in her eye.

  “Oh yes,” responded Sikander in mock weariness. “Alhamdulillah, it wasn’t very deep, but with the current—”

  “Yes? Sikander, what would you have done if it had been deeper?”

  “Wouldn’t be here today!” chuckled Sikander.

  “You wouldn’t have come after me?” she came back indignantly.

  “It would have been hard, Rabia. I can’t actually swim. Never learned how,” he lied, teasing her.

  “Well, I think you should learn. I’d hate to be in the same position with all this water around us and then discover what you just told me!” Her own girlish giggle reminded Rabia of when they were younger. “Sikander, we’re blessed, aren’t we?”

  “God, yes!” replied Sikander. “With what we’ve been through? Huh! Can’t complain of having had a dull life!”

  “Hardly! Perhaps we should see if we can make it just a little duller?” They both laughed and each time they seemed to be
over it, another glance at each other set them off again. Rabia changed the subject.

  “Ayub’s doing really well at school. I think this was the best move for the children. They have such good facilities in the schools here. Computers, books, art materials, science labs…it’s all very impressive.” Rabia reflected upon just another of her many sources of happiness. “You should come one of these days, maybe the next parent-teacher conference.”

  “I will, InshaAllah. And it’s great that Ayub seems to have taken to baseball quite happily. What about Qayyum and Ayesha? How are they doing?”

  “Probably too soon to say, but as I see Qayyum sometimes picking up Ayub’s books at home, I think he’s learning quickly. His reading and math reports are excellent.”

  As the sun began to cast a vibrant reddish glow, a million orange shimmering stars reflected off the tiny ripples and waves of Kerr Lake. The couple looked over the lake one last time before finally walking back to their car and driving the short distance home.

  All was finally right with their world.

  By the end of November, on the outskirts of Memphis International Airport, Carolectric’s national distribution warehouse was almost complete. It was a marvel of automation, especially the pick-and-place function Jamil had insisted on. Incoming products could be racked in bulk, but the challenge lay in filling an order, with its random requirement to pick out items from anywhere in the warehouse and efficiently get them into a shippable package. They would need to be retrieved from well ordered racks and placed in electronically tagged collecting bins, allowing each bin to be tracked until its contents were deposited into a pre-labeled shipping box before being delivered to one of several outbound shipping bays.

  Along with the warehouse, a new Web site was created and a new marketing campaign to promote the Internet capability was launched.