Maqsood Mahr’s case file was not particularly enlightening either. It had the initial report, the FIR, which described how a brand-new white Honda Civic had pulled up outside the restaurant just as Friedland was exiting with a group of friends. They had shown the group their weapons and grabbed Friedland, tossed him in the back seat of the car, and driven off. The account tallied with what Constantine had learnt from the scene of the crime. The statements from the family that Friedland had been staying with were also pretty similar—that he had been on holiday, he had not undertaken any work-related meetings. Their servants, and the chauffeur who had been driving him around, confirmed all of this. The family itself, as Mahr had said, was extremely well off. They had a business—a factory in SITE, the industrial zone. The children had all gone to college abroad. There were several servants in the house, all of whom had been questioned but only in the presence of the family members. No one had been taken to the police station. Apparently, the family patriarch was a good friend of Hanuman, and he had requested the chief that his servants not be subjected to any form of torture or harassment.
Now, that was unfortunate because Constantine thought that questioning them separately might have been worth it. Someone must have told the kidnappers about Friedland’s whereabouts, quite likely someone from inside. Taking the servants to the police station did not necessarily imply beating them up to confess something, but the mere atmosphere of a thana was often quite intimidating to the common man, and their reactions and answers may have been different in that environment as opposed to when they were questioned in their employer’s home. Certainly, it seemed that one of the servants, the houseboy, was worth probing some more because he had recently come to Karachi from Azad Kashmir. Since there were a large number of training camps and jihadi organizations operating in Kashmir, it was a logical assumption that he may have been in contact with those sorts of individuals. It looked like Maqsood Mahr had missed a trick there. True, the head of the family had intervened on behalf of the servants, but one would assume that in a case of this magnitude, such considerations would have been overlooked. Mahr’s people had not really pushed the point.
Constantine tried to think hard. His best bet had been Wajahat, but other than a vague reference to a name, he had nothing. Further telephonic enquiries with other possible sources about Qari Saif had also proved fruitless. He pushed aside his half-eaten plate in frustration. What did he think he was doing? This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted. These were the kind of intrigues he was running away from, and now he was bang in the middle of them again. He was looking at the case papers as if he was the investigating officer. His detective instincts had been awakened by the challenge of an unusual case. Here he was, stuck in the middle of this great game between Tarkeen, Mahr, and Akbar, and he seemed to be the ping-pong ball in the middle. And did he think that he could somehow solve the kidnapping of Jon Friedland on his own, like some modern-day Sherlock Holmes, just by staring at the case papers?
Brought crashing down to earth by that last thought, Constantine hurriedly gathered all the documents and shoved them into a manila folder. He then wrote down his own findings and whatever he had learned from his informers and added this to the folder as well. Wajahat’s warning rang in his ears and led him to a practical conclusion. He decided that he was definitely not going to go down that path again.
He called his reader into his office. His reader was the only one that he could absolutely trust from amongst his staff. “Are you sure that Akbar hasn’t met with anyone recently?”
“Absolutely, sir. He hasn’t had any visitors for six months.”
“And he hasn’t communicated with any of the other prisoners?”
“No one, sir. You know his barrack is completely out of bounds. The only one who goes there is that C-class prisoner who takes his food to his cell and cleans up the place for him. Bilal, his name is, but he’s a simple-minded fellow. A little slow in the head.”
“Does this boy have any political connections?”
“No sir, not at all. He is just a normal prisoner. He’s not even from the city. He’s from a village in the interior. He was locked up for murdering some relative in a family dispute. That’s why he was assigned to Akbar. He isn’t connected with anyone. He hardly meets anyone else. He’s very content just doing chores for Akbar. Neither of them meets anybody. Well, except the hari-pagri wallahs who come for tableegh every day.”
“All right. Take this folder, don’t let anybody see what’s in it and don’t talk to any of the wardens or guards. Go to Akbar’s barrack and hand him the folder. Then come back and report to me. I’m waiting here.” The reader took the folder and left.
Constantine had decided he would act as Tarkeen’s facilitator, but nothing more. He did not want anything to do with this case directly, although he would try and help Akbar indirectly. He hadn’t figured out how Akbar knew what he knew, but he wanted to see what Akbar made of the case file. He still had to be careful. Akbar’s detractors were far from finished. He could not risk someone finding out that he was helping Akbar even a bit. As Wajahat had categorically warned him, he had bigger things to worry about. If Ateeq Tension were really after him, he shouldn’t do anything conspicuous to attract attention. He would have to find someone within the UF who would act as a mediator between him and Tension. Any such mediation would probably involve some level of grovelling on his part. Constantine was a proud man and certainly not ashamed of having done his job, but in these times, with a United Front government in power and Akbar locked up, he could see no other alternative. In the past, Akbar’s fearsome reputation in UF circles always ensured that they stayed clear from Constantine as well. But that was not the case anymore.
The reader returned ten minutes later. He reported that he had handed over the folder to Akbar.
“No one saw you?”
“No, sir.”
“What did he say when you handed it to him?”
“Nothing, sir. He had been saying his prayers. I told him that you had sent him the folder. He took the papers out, looked at them, and then told me to go.”
“He didn’t say anything?”
“No, sir.”
“Very well. Thank you.” He couldn’t discern whether Akbar’s silence had been a good sign or bad. There was little else he could do at this stage. Constantine got up from the chair, stretched again, and decided to go home. It had been a long day, and tomorrow promised to be even longer.
10
Day 2, December 22, 7:02 a.m.
Officers’ Mess, Bleak House
Rommel was in the habit of waking early. The military academy had inculcated the habit in him. He loved the crispness and the quiet of the early morning. He had served in many parts of the country, and in every place he always found something different to savor about the morning. The only exception was here in Karachi. The hustle and bustle of commerce and industry that was the bedrock of the city would start intruding upon the peace and quiet from daybreak. The tropical heat and humidity would begin to swallow the early morning coolness far too quickly. It was only the recent inclement weather that had made things more tolerable for Rommel.
He got out of bed and strolled out to the lawn for his daily exercise. That was another habit that he had maintained since the academy days. It was a cold and misty day, although, for Rommel, “cold” was a relative term. The locals may have shivered with their teeth chattering, but, to a man whose last posting had been the frozen wastes of the Siachen Glacier, the city’s cold snap was like a summer breeze. Rommel was amused by the complaints about the “biting cold.” He had been hardened by the fury of the glacial winds that used to cut through skin like a knife. He recalled the term “wind rape,” which the soldiers had given to the manner in which the icy-cold winds ravaged the exposed part of the body when someone went out in the open to take a leak. Now that had been biting cold. The weather here was a joke. As he stepped onto the grass, he wore only a vest and a pair of shorts. He enjoyed the coo
l air on his back as he went ahead with his stretches. For a change, he enjoyed his workout because it was actually quiet, with everyone staying indoors to avoid the cold of the early morning. The staff around him, covered in layers of sweaters and jackets, thought he was crazy. He, in turn, thought that they had all gone soft. None of his fellow officers was present either. Rommel was living alone in a guest room on the Bleak House premises. The room he was staying in had been built to house VIP prisoners. It was strictly functional, comfortable but without any character. And, of course, it was lonely. Rommel missed the camaraderie of a regimental mess.
He finished exercising and returned to his room for breakfast. The bearer had laid out hard-boiled eggs, toast, and a cup of tea for him. He took a sip from the cup and almost spat it out. The teabag tea tasted vile. Rommel much preferred the traditionally brewed tea, brought to a boil together with milk. Doodhpatti, they called it. Ever since he had arrived there, all he had been able to get was this weak, Anglicized version of tea. All the officers at Bleak House either preferred it that way or drank coffee. The only decent cup of tea that Rommel had drunk had been in Constantine’s office the previous day. It was yet another reason for him to despise the place. Everything over here was different to what he was used to in the army. The thing Rommel always found reassuring about army life was the regimentation. No matter what part of the country you were in, you got the same routine in every mess. There was an automatic familiarity and predictability, right down to the snacks that were served at midday “tea break,” which was as much a part of army life as a tank or rifle.
Rommel loved life in the army. Mornings spent training with the men, pushing them and oneself to the limits of physical endurance; the camaraderie and bond that developed between officers and their men; and the raucous company of one’s brother officers in the mess at night. But in his current assignment, this routine was nowhere to be found. Everyone seemed to work rather secretively. It was quite possible that one had no knowledge of what the man sitting at the desk opposite was working on. And to Rommel’s eternal consternation, the most useful tool in this business was that accursed invention, the mobile phone. Rommel, an avid hater of modern technology, detested mobile phones. And since the work here involved intelligence gathering, or managing informers, the working hours were irregular. The staff at Bleak House often worked late into the night. All of these things were anathema to Rommel.
He was not happy to have been sent here in the first place. He never wanted to be posted to Karachi, and he certainly hadn’t wanted a posting in intelligence. Rommel knew that there were many young men who would love to be in his position. Junior officers loved being associated with the Agencies. It gave them some clout, opened doors for them that would otherwise be closed and gave them a sense of power. And, of course, where better to exercise that power and influence than in a city like this? But the charms of life in the Agencies, as well as life in the city, were wasted on Rommel. He had always served in the border areas and remote outposts, and he had preferred it that way. Others termed these as hard postings and tried to stay away from them. To Rommel, they were the essence of what the army represented to him. There was no greater thrill than to be on the frontier, whether in the wilds of Waziristan or on the icy peaks of the Karakoram Mountains.
The army was in Rommel’s blood. His father and grandfather had both served in the army. His grandfather had fought and been decorated for valor in World War II, while his father had made his bones in the 1965 war with India. The army that Rommel was used to, that he wanted to be a part of, was the traditional army of uniforms, regiments, and pretty cantonment towns. Of course, it wasn’t always fun and games. Rommel had seen his fair share of action. He had been wounded in the line of duty. But he loved the action, the element of danger that he had experienced on the front lines. He had never aspired to be mixed up with the cloak-and-dagger life of the Agencies. Rommel was beginning to learn that the differences between regular army duty and intelligence duty ran far deeper than just the requirement of not wearing a uniform. Here, nothing was as it appeared. There were wheels within wheels, hidden agendas in all activities, and everyone had a smug, superior “know-it-all, we are the masters of the universe” mentality. Rommel hated his job.
There was something about this city, completely different to anything he had experienced before. Young officers enjoyed being in Karachi because social life here was far more vibrant than in any of the small, sleepy cantonment towns. One could dine out in fancy restaurants, meet pretty girls, and spend time on the beaches. All of these things naturally held the highest priority for virile young men with a lot of time on their hands. Rommel was not immune to these attractions. He might have enjoyed the solitude of the mountains, but it wasn’t as if he was averse to enjoying the temptations of the big city. Indeed, as a young lieutenant he had been known to be quite a Casanova. After his injury, though, he had become a little self-conscious about his appearance. He had been lucky that he had not lost his eye. The surgeons had done an excellent job, and, after the army sent him to Germany for reconstructive surgery, all that remained was his distinct scar. His friends told him that it was quite appealing, that it gave him an air of mystery and danger, another weapon to use in his amorous arsenal. But so far he hadn’t worked up the confidence again to get back in the wooing game. Besides, he hadn’t had much of a chance to explore the beautiful side of the city yet. So far, he had only been exposed to its ugly underbelly.
He was on a steep learning curve, and everything he was learning, about Akbar, Constantine, the police, or the United Front, completely challenged all the assumptions he’d had before he came here. He had been brought up with a healthy contempt for the corruption and incompetence of the police, especially when compared with the integrity and the organizational effectiveness of the army. But when he began to get into it, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. The police had its good and bad points, like any other organization. And from what he was beginning to see, the police of this city had made great sacrifices, in the most trying conditions. Rommel could not understand how the president could tolerate such fascists like the UF to be his partners. In his mind, there was no difference between them and the jihadis. Both parties hid their criminal actions behind the veil of political ideology. There were so many things that Rommel was only beginning to understand now. Rather than being repelled by all that he had heard from Akbar and Constantine, his curiosity was piqued. He wanted to know more. Colonel Tarkeen had deputed him to go and see Akbar again today. Whether or not they were able to get any useful information out of him about this case, on a personal level Akbar fascinated him. Everyone was out to destroy this now powerless man sitting in a solitary cell, who was still unwilling to compromise with the world. Rommel saw a certain nobility in that.
As he finished dressing and walked out towards his jeep, he reflected upon the kidnapping. This case, of course, was complicated further because of the presence of the Americans. As Friedland was an American citizen, an FBI team had been working with them on the investigation. Rommel struggled to understand why his boss, Colonel Tarkeen, was reluctant to cooperate with them. Tarkeen was innately suspicious of the Americans, reluctant to share too much information with them or to appear too cooperative in general. To Rommel, the problem was simple. Friedland had been kidnapped, it had become an international embarrassment for the country and their task was to do whatever they could to get him back. If that meant working side by side with the Americans, then that was what had to be done. He had tried to argue this point with Tarkeen one day.
“Sir, if we have to get rid of them, don’t you think the best way to do that is to cooperate with them? I can understand their point of view, sir. When we don’t appear to be forthcoming, they start suspecting us. Let’s try to be transparent. One of their citizens is missing. Our reluctance sends the wrong signal and creates more pressure for us from above.”
“No, Rommel. We just can’t trust them. They betrayed us in the past, and they�
�ll do it again, once they cease to have a need for us. We open the store up for them, and they’ll take everything. They don’t understand how we work. They never can.”
The Americans themselves did not help things with their attitude. They were understandably anxious about the fate of Friedland, especially after the release of the video on the Internet. They could not afford another global media event, a high-profile execution of one of their citizens by jihadis, performed live on YouTube for all to see—something that would become a “recruiting poster” for every mullah from Marrakech to Macau. The War on Terror had turned into one long no-hitter for them, and they badly needed a win.
But they were arrogant and overly cocky. Rommel had tried to befriend them, but they were contemptuous and patronizing towards the Pakistanis. He had become friendly with the team leader, a man named Jim, a streetwise ex-cop from Brooklyn who was extremely confident that his computers and electronic gadgets would solve the case for them. “Criminals always slip up somewhere,” he said to Rommel by way of explanation one day. “They always make one transaction, a phone call, a credit card, something that puts them on our net, and that’s what we wait for. Then we go in for the kill.”
“Jim, these men are different from the regular criminals. They are jihadis.”
“Hey, please, Rommel, don’t tell me you buy their crap about waging a legitimate holy war.”
“No, not at all. All I’m trying to explain to you is that their training and indoctrination give them a very different worldview from ours. They don’t do things the way we do.”
“A perp’s a perp. Doesn’t matter if they keep saying Allahu Akbar while committing the crime. Our technology is too good for these cave-dwelling sons of bitches. They aren’t that smart.”
The Prisoner Page 12