The Prisoner

by Omar Shahid Hamid

  They weren’t even used to the questioning of the police. The barey log, the big shots, had buffered themselves from the droll problems of everyday life. If the water board didn’t provide water, they would just buy private tankers. If there were power outages, they bought generators. And if they had a problem with the police, they wouldn’t deign to go to the local police station. They would just call someone up to sort things out, the higher the person in the chain of command, the better. A man like Maqsood Mahr flourished in the company of such people. He was like a plumber to them, putting his hands in their shit and cleaning up after them. He was their “one man in low places,” the connection that everyone needed to have, to get around the silly impositions of the law. Constantine had always dreaded being posted in this area and had avoided it so far. He had heard the stories of those officers who had spent time here. Crime fighting was low on their list of priorities, if indeed they ever got around to it. No, the biggest component of the job was VIP ego massaging. Everyone was a big shot, and thus everyone had a “source” they could call up. The most inconsequential fender bender could become an issue, because the rival parties would start pressurizing the local station in-charge to adhere to their point of view, each side using its own heavyweight to prevail over the local constabulary. Constantine remembered how his mentor, Chaudhry Latif, used to always warn them of the pitfalls of duty in posh areas. “It may look very glamorous from afar, making connections with these barey log all the time, but remember one thing. It is always better to be the SHO of a poor neighborhood rather than a rich one. In a poor mohalla, even if a hundred people get killed on your watch, no one will be too bothered. In a rich mohalla, if someone’s cat goes missing, they’ll hang you by your balls.”

  Therefore, the recent incursions of the police regarding this case had not been welcome. Individuals who were not accustomed to speaking to any police officer below the city police chief now had to give statements to lowly inspectors and sub-inspectors. Everyone understood, of course, the importance of the case. After all, if the Americans were to be killed by a bunch of nut jobs, it would become even harder to get a five-year, multiple-entry US visa. Nevertheless, the local population was losing patience. Constantine sensed from the furtive looks the waiters and managers were giving him that a complaint about him was imminent. It was a good time for him to leave.

  There was nothing else to do here. The answers, if there were any to be found, would not be found in Zamzama. Constantine decided to go meet an old informer of his on the other side of the town. The drive to Boulton Market, in the center of the old city, was like entering another world. Gone were the sights and scents of immaculately groomed begum sahibs and choti memsahibs, flitting from one boutique to another, doing some late afternoon shopping or sipping a latte in a coffee shop. These were replaced by the odors of working men’s sweat, and the stink of the carbon fumes that choked the air. Instead of the glossy and spacious boutiques stood cabins, barely ten by ten, selling all sorts of wares, from car tires to open spices heaped in little mounds in front of the customers. The traffic, too, changed. It grew far more congested as one travelled deeper into the heart of the city, coming to an almost complete stop in the alleys, where more than half the road had been encroached by shopkeepers stacking their wares. Auto rickshaws spouting black smoke, beat-up old Suzuki wagons, camels, and donkeys clogged the roads. There was no sign of the Mercedes saloons and Toyota SUVs that flocked to Zamzama.

  Constantine had come to see Wajahat. The former ward tea boy and professional arsonist had come a long way since the day Akbar Khan had spared his life in Orangi. He had done only a short stint in prison, as Constantine had promised, and as soon as he got out, he became one of Constantine’s most trusted informers, often alerting him to crucial snippets of information that came his way. He had drifted from the UF towards sectarian politics, joining a militant Sunni organization. There, he started specializing in orchestrating hostile takeovers of mosques that belonged to rival sects. He remained loyal to Constantine, though, and kept providing him with useful information. Ultimately, he was arrested again and, after serving a second, longer spell in prison, he had gone straight. But there were few men in this city who could match his knowledge of the city’s underworld.

  Boulton Market, where Constantine alighted from his pickup, was the city’s traditional cloth market. In many ways it resembled a Moroccan kasbah—a massive covered market holding hundreds of stalls with narrow, winding passageways for customers to navigate. Constantine drew a few stares as he tried to push his way through the rush to the particular spot he was looking for, where the shop where Wajahat now worked was located. The shop itself was identical to dozens of others in the market. It was literally nothing more than a deep alcove in the wall, with four or five chairs placed in a narrow space in front of a raised platform. The shop owners and their assistants sat on the floor of the platform and displayed gigantic folds of cloth to the customers. An assistant would use a stick with a hook at its end to pull down the particular design requested by the customer from the wall. As Constantine approached the shop, he saw a young man with a prematurely gray beard opening a roll of cloth and speaking to a customer. He wore a prayer cap, and a pair of unfashionable, thick, horn-rimmed spectacles rested on his nose. He was dressed in a modest, sky-blue shalwar-kameez, and no one could have imagined, looking at him now, that he had once been one of the most feared goondas in the city. As he saw Constantine enter the shop, his eyes widened in shock and surprise. Before anyone else could react, he moved towards Constantine and grasped both his hands.

  “Arre, Consendine sahib, how nice to see you! I know you had said you wanted a nice saree for your wife, but I didn’t know you would come down here yourself. Why did you bother? I would have brought it home for you! But now you are here, please, have a cup of tea with me. Come this way, sahib, there is a chai wallah just round the corner. We have so much to catch up on, let’s go and sit there, where we won’t be disturbed.”

  Wajahat nervously ushered a slightly bemused Constantine out of the shop and towards the tea stall. The two men occupied a small table with two chairs in one corner of the stall and ordered tea.

  Constantine smiled as Wajahat looked around anxiously. “Worried that I’d open my mouth about your past in front of your employers?”

  “Arre, no sahib, it’s not you I’m worried about. I just generally don’t like to answer too many questions about my past around here. It’s just better to maintain a low profile.”

  “Would they fire you if they found out you once burned twenty cars in a single day, not too far away from here? I’m sure some of those cars must have belonged to the merchants here.”

  “No sahib, they can’t fire me. I have a part ownership share in the shop.”

  “Now I am impressed, Wajahat. Where did a tapori like you get the money to buy a share of a shop in Boulton Market? Are you freelancing for your religious friends again? And since when did you start wearing glasses?”

  “I’m not working for the mullahs anymore, sahib. You know that. I quit when I went to jail last time. But the problem is, the last masjid I took over, you know that Makki Masjid in Gurumandir? Where we held the Pesh Imam at gunpoint and told him to go back to his village? Well, I, uh, kept some of the funds from the masjid collection. I didn’t hand them back. It was quite a sizeable collection because the previous occupants had an aggressive fundraising program. It was about ten lakh, sahib. I hid it and told the mullahs that the police had confiscated it when they arrested me. I did my stint in jail, and then, when I got out, I decided to use the money to buy a share in this shop. As for the glasses, these are just there to soften the image. My old look wouldn’t have gone down well in these parts.” When he had been a UF activist, Wajahat was prone to wearing a dirty old leather jacket on top of a vest in the fashion of Bollywood heroes from a decade ago. When he turned to the religious parties, the look remained the same but he had sprouted a beard, and taken to wearing a checked scarf around
his neck and a prayer cap on his head.

  Constantine laughed heartily. “I had heard that there was no honor among thieves anymore, but no honor among mullahs? My, my, what a world we live in if we cannot have faith in the men of God.”

  “Arre, sahib, what God and what honor? It’s all about the money. If I hadn’t taken the money, those bloody mullahs would have pocketed it. It was exactly the same in the UF. The ward in-charges always thought that the only way to uphold the party’s interests was by lining their own pockets. Besides, these mullahs are hardly God’s chosen ones. When I was in jail the first time, I got sucked in by their rhetoric about defending Islam and all that. But when I started working for them, all they were interested in was trying to capture the rich mosques from their rival sects so that they had a better cash flow. It’s all business at the end of the day. I saw an opportunity and decided to cash out. My mother is too old now to come and see me rotting in a police lockup.”

  “I am sorry for the intrusion. It wasn’t my intention to alert your employers to your sordid past, but I urgently needed some information.”

  “That’s okay, sahib, no harm done. They don’t know everything about my past, but they know enough to know that I could be a dangerous man if they tried to cheat me. And your visit does no harm, because it shows that I have good contacts in the police. They will be a little more deferential to me now. But what is it that you wish to know?”

  “Do you still have your contacts with the religious groups?”

  “Yes, I still maintain some informal contacts. I told them I was leaving because I was the only support for my old mother. Which is true enough. The only bit I left out was that I was earning my bread with their money.”

  “What do you know about the kidnapping of this American journalist?”

  At the mention of the American, Wajahat’s mood suddenly changed. His smile disappeared, and he glared at Constantine. “Consendine sahib, what kind of things are you getting into? Stay away from that case. Don’t even mention that name again in public, sahib. Besides, you are in the Prisons, why are you interested in this matter?”

  “I’m just professionally curious, I’m not investigating the case. What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing much, sahib. Any time somebody mentions the American, everyone shuts up. No one wants to know about it.”

  “Why is everyone afraid? Are they being threatened by someone?”

  “No one has come forward, but the word is that there is some kind of ruthless new organization behind the kidnapping. No one has ever heard of this group before, but the fact that they picked him up so successfully the way they did, on their first mission, has given them a lot of credibility. I have heard that even the Agencies didn’t know this American was in the city, but somehow this group found out. That shows that they have some very powerful sources and connections. That’s why everyone is scared. Who knows what might happen to someone who was found to be digging for information about them.”

  “There must be a name on the street?”

  “Qari Saif. That’s the only name I’ve heard.”

  “Who is he? I’ve never really come across that name before.”

  “Neither have I, sahib. He wasn’t really known in our circles. Apparently, he used to run a madrasa somewhere in the tribal areas. But I don’t even know if he’s actually involved in this. I heard his name once, when someone mentioned that if anyone knew about the American’s whereabouts, it would be him.”

  “Are you sure that’s all you know, Wajahat, or do I need to have a chat with your partners in the shop?”

  “Arre, sahib, how long have you known me? Would I lie to you? I haven’t heard anything else, and neither do I want to know more about this case. I suggest you do the same, Consendine sahib, and forget your professional curiosity. You have enough to worry about as it is.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Sahib, I was going to call you anyway today, before you came. You need to be very careful. You remember Ateeq Tension? You know the UF got him out of jail when they joined the government. It was one of their conditions for joining the coalition. Well, not only is he out of jail, but he’s also back in the good books of the party. They’ve given him a position of authority. And he’s got his old ward boys working with him again.”

  “So what? I know he got out months ago.”

  “An old friend of mine who’s still a ward member overheard him talking to some others. He wants revenge. They were talking about you and trying to work out how to hit you. Tension said that he wanted ‘the Christian dog’ at any price. Apparently, they put out a fielding for you twice in Nazimabad, before you were transferred to the jail.”

  “What sort of a fielding?”

  “A strong one, sahib. Ten boys, at least three motorcycle pairs. They had it all set in Nazimabad, but for some reason they couldn’t carry it out. They would have tried again for you, but the jail is harder for them to ambush you in.”

  Constantine was stunned. He blinked several times and sipped his by now ice-cold cup of tea to regain control of himself as Wajahat continued.

  “Sahib, just be careful. I remember Tension from the old days. He was always a crazy madarchod. And he hasn’t forgotten how you publicly humiliated him when you arrested him. He’s going to come after you. Watch out.” He glanced up once again to check if anyone had overheard them, and then he got up from the chair. “I have to go back to the shop now, sahib, but take care and please, whatever you do, don’t come back here again.”

  The prison, later that evening

  Constantine had been sitting at his desk studying the sheaf of papers in front of him. It had been dark for a while. He could hear the muezzin’s azan, calling for the Ish’a prayer, the last of the day. Very soon the jail would start shutting down for the night. The guards and wardens of the night shift would take over from the morning-shift staff, the barracks would be locked, and silence would descend upon the whole compound. Constantine stretched his arms and rubbed his eyes. He realized he hadn’t eaten all day. His only sustenance had been the numerous cups of tea he had consumed. He smiled as he called his orderly to get him some food. Endless cups of tea were an important component of a police officer’s life. His first station in-charge always told them that one of the most important tasks for a police officer was to have excellent relations with the best chai wallah in his jurisdiction so that tea could easily be procured at any time of the day or night. In a job that often involved long periods of waiting and irregular hours, it was a necessity.

  Tarkeen’s last sentence had been delivered as a very subtle hint, Constantine realized. Whether Tarkeen remembered his role in helping them or not, he would certainly not forget if he didn’t help. Like it or not, his fate was now linked with Akbar’s.

  He turned to the papers scattered on his desk. There were the intelligence reports that Tarkeen had given him, the papers from Maqsood’s case file and various newspaper clippings from the past few days. The hours since his return to the jail had been busy ones. He had to deal with the daily administrative tasks that had piled up, but for the past two hours he had devoted himself to learning all he could about the kidnapping. His orderly brought in his dinner—dal, lentil stew cooked in the prison kitchen, and freshly baked naan. Constantine broke off a piece of naan and hungrily dug into the dal. The prison’s dal was famous all over the city for being delicious.

  Constantine glanced once again at the newspaper clippings. Most of the stories carried Jon Friedland’s life story. He was a young man, only twenty-seven. Unmarried, which was probably a good thing in his profession. In the short time that he had been a reporter, he seemed to have gotten around quite a bit. He had worked in Iraq, Beirut, and Egypt before coming to Pakistan. The press had gotten wind of the fact that he had been expelled from the tribal areas a couple of days ago and had absolutely crucified the government. Journalists had virtually accused the intelligence chiefs of being complicit in the kidnapping. The press was conv
inced that the government had a role in it. In an unlikely role reversal, the Agencies, who usually used the press for their own purposes—to plant false information or to attack their own critics—were being ripped to shreds in the popular papers and, at this point in time, had no way to respond. Free press was a good thing until it came and bit you in the ass, reflected Constantine.

  The local papers had carried a few excerpts from the stories Friedland had filed from the tribal areas. It was obvious that his sources were excellent. He had not followed the standard government-prescribed sources, but gone off and made contacts on his own, which in itself was an achievement for an American in the tribal areas. Constantine wondered for a second if perhaps he was working undercover for the CIA. In Pakistan, most Western reporters were assumed to be working for the CIA, Mossad, or MI6. Friedland’s stories were almost gushing over the tribals and were entirely anti-government. If he was indeed so favorably inclined towards the jihadis, why would they abduct him? Well, presumably to create an international incident, but still, if they wanted to nab him, it seemed to Constantine that it would have been far easier to do it in the tribal areas. Yet he had moved around freely over there, often without any kind of government escort, going to remote villages under protection of the tribals, and nothing had happened to him. He arrived in Karachi, and within forty-eight hours he was kidnapped from Zamzama, the most modern, liberal, and prosperous enclave in the city, where one was more likely to see a miniskirt than a madrasa. It just didn’t make sense. It was as if someone was trying to frame the Agencies.