“You have too much faith in your technology. Let me tell you one thing. I have been in a lot of tough situations, and the one thing I’ve learned is that the greatest weapon that you can use is the human spirit. These men, however misguided they may be, believe that they are on a divine mission. And they are willing to die for it. I’m a soldier, and I live to fight. But this war we are fighting isn’t going to be won by your technology or your smart bombs. It’s going to be won by the side whose spirit is the strongest. Remember that.”
The Americans’ desperation to solve the case was made worse by their patent distrust of their Pakistani counterparts. To the Americans, every move the Agencies made appeared to be a part of some grand conspiracy designed to make fools out of them. The more they voiced their suspicions to their superiors, the more pressure Bleak House received from the top to ensure a positive conclusion to the case. Frankly, at this point, achieving that conclusion would require a feat of alchemy more impressive than turning copper into gold, and a conjurer greater than any of the medieval charlatans who had practised those dark and dubious arts.
But perhaps, Rommel pondered, they had found such a conjurer in Akbar Khan. His revelations had produced a clue that had been beyond the scope of the not inconsiderable resources of the FBI, Bleak House, and Maqsood Mahr. Rommel chided himself for having acted the way he had with Akbar and Constantine the day before. It was the typical knee-jerk reaction of a brash officer, a rather stupid and immature outburst. He had realized that Akbar was the key to cracking the puzzle and Constantine was a vital cog in unravelling Akbar. As he got into his jeep to begin his drive to the prison, he decided that he would have to develop a more intelligent strategy if he wanted to get what he needed out of Akbar. Today he would not go as the arrogant young army officer. Instead he would be the humble supplicant, lending a sympathetic ear to the prisoner.
11
Day 2, December 22, 7:22 a.m.
Constantine loved waking up in the morning to see his daughters off to school. When he had been an SHO, or even a deputy superintendent, the routine of the thana was so hectic that the girls usually went to bed before he came home and left for school while he was still asleep. Now, the more regular hours of the jail enabled him to have breakfast with his daughters every day. He considered this to be the biggest perk of his current posting. His eldest daughter was almost ten years old, a precocious child who was always poring over her schoolbooks. Constantine was very proud of the fact that she was so studious. Despite her young age, he was already dreaming of her becoming a doctor. His younger daughter was just seven, but far more street-smart and playful. Her mother always said she took after her father.
Constantine would take great pains over the girls’ breakfast, eating with them, helping them recite their lessons, and then sending them to school with his trusted driver and bodyguard, Ashraf. This morning, he got up twenty minutes late. The girls were already dressed, and his elder daughter was at the table, digging into her buttered toast, a textbook held inches from her nose. Constantine walked into the kitchen wearing a vest and rumpled shalwar, the sleep not yet gone from his eyes. His wife, who taught the morning shift at a nearby girls’ college, had left a steaming cup of tea for him on the counter. He playfully tousled his daughter’s hair as he sipped from his cup.
“Your mother’s gone to work, Malia?”
“Yes, Papaji.”
“And where’s Choti?”
“She is outside, Papaji.”
“And you let your younger sister just go off on her own?”
“She’s just gone down to the gully, Papaji. She plays there every day.”
Just then Choti came skipping through the front door, holding a lollipop. The smile on her face was enough to vanquish the darkest thoughts from Constantine’s mind. “Papaji!” she shouted and leapt into his arms.
“Where did you go so early in the morning, Choti? And why are you having this before your breakfast?”
“I was in the gully, Papaji. A man gave it to me.”
“What man?”
“The man in the gully, Papaji. He called me by my name and said he was your friend, and asked me what time you come home from work. I told him you were at home now.”
Constantine put the teacup down because he did not want the girls to see his hand shaking. He struggled to keep his voice calm. “What else did he ask you?”
“He asked me which school I was in, and told me if I needed a lift to school, he would drop me. But I told him that in our house Ashraf Chacha drops us to school. I asked him if he wanted to see you, but he said he was in a hurry and would come another day.”
Constantine set his daughter down on the table and then hurried to his bedroom. He took out his Beretta pistol from his bedside drawer and walked towards the open door.
“Papaji?”
“Malia, take Choti into your room and don’t come out of there until I come back, do you understand?”
“Yes, Papaji.”
Constantine’s house was one of the larger quarters in the Preedy Station police lines. Most of Karachi’s old police stations had been built with residential police lines next to them. The quarters had originally been spacious and comfortable, but, over the years, with an expanding force and no concurrent expansion in the housing facilities, the same quarters kept getting subdivided, and most had now become little better than hovels. Constantine had been lucky. He had managed to secure a large quarter when he had first been posted at Preedy Police Station many years ago, and he had been able to resist his neighbors’ attempts at encroachment. He stepped out of the compound into the adjoining alley, his gun raised and cocked. He scanned the area for any sign of anyone suspicious, evoking nervous stares from passersby who just saw a half-dressed man with a gun in his hand. His bodyguard, Ashraf, who had been washing the pickup, sensed the seriousness of the situation from the crazed look in Constantine’s eyes and came running from behind with his Kalashnikov cocked and loaded.
“Sahib! Sahib, what’s wrong?”
“Ashraf, go call the duty officer at the thana and tell him to send a motorcycle patrol into these alleys. Tell them to pick up anyone remotely suspicious, I don’t care who they are! Tell them that! And tell Saeedullah to stand guard at the front door and not to let anyone near the house. Not anyone, do you hear?”
“Yes, sahib.”
His heart was pounding. It was still early enough in the morning for there to be a chill in the air, but Constantine couldn’t feel the cold. Beads of sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes. He couldn’t believe they had come to his house. He had been alarmed when Wajahat had told him Ateeq Tension’s plans, but he always figured they would target him directly. Not like this. They had approached his daughter. That was a line they had never crossed before.
As Rommel drove into the prison courtyard, he noticed that Constantine was not waiting for him outside, as he had done the previous day. It must have been a calculated snub, probably in response to his behavior yesterday. It didn’t bother Rommel. In all fairness, he felt he probably deserved it. But he was surprised when an orderly received him and told him that Constantine hadn’t reached the jail yet. Rommel had deliberately come later than he would have, in deference to the fact that police officers did not follow the same timetable as the army.
Constantine arrived in his office, clearly preoccupied, just as Rommel had sat down in his chair. The last hour had been a nightmare for him. He had first debated keeping the girls home from school and then decided it would probably be safer if they were in school. But he had gone to drop them off himself, and had requested one of the Sisters at the convent not to allow them to talk to any stranger. Just as insurance he had left Ashraf at the school gate, with orders to shoot anyone who tried to approach the girls. But, like any worried parent, he was not satisfied. He would have stood outside the school himself all day, but he knew he could not now rest easy until he traced out the men who were after his family; to do that, he couldn’t sit at home. With his
mind focused elsewhere, the rude major from yesterday was an irritant for him. After having deposited his beret and stick on his desk, he impatiently got up and pointed towards the door.
“Shall we proceed, sir?”
“We’ll get to that soon enough. If you don’t mind, I’d like to sit and have a word with you. And, of course, a cup of that strong tea that you serve here. I am beginning to learn that a good cup of tea is very important in this job.”
“What? Oh, uh yes, but of course, sir.” The two men sat down again and Constantine ordered the tea.
“Consendine, I uh, I’m sorry, Constantine. I’m sorry I still haven’t gotten your name right.”
“That’s all right, sir. I’ve gotten so used to people mispronouncing it that it’s all the same to me.”
“I wanted to apologize for yesterday. It was stupid of me to have barged in the way I did. I’m very new to all this. Where I come from, I am used to things being very definite—black or white. Now that I’ve come here, it seems as if I’m serving in a different world. I don’t understand a lot of things. But I was fascinated by what you started telling me yesterday and I would like to learn a lot more about you, Akbar, everything really. I think it will help me. You know how busy Colonel Tarkeen has been; he hasn’t really had the time to brief me. And besides that, a briefing or a file only conveys what happened, not the how or why. I cannot comprehend the feelings of the men who were there, from words written in a file. I want to know things from your point of view.”
As the orderly came back into the room with the tea, there was a pause, as Constantine looked at the major in a new light. “If you don’t mind my saying, Major sahib, this kind of intelligence work doesn’t seem to suit you. You aren’t really like the other officers. What are you doing here?”
The major smiled. “Yes, you’re not the first one to tell me that. And quite frankly, I’m not sure what they were thinking when they sent me here. You’re absolutely right. I’ve never worked in intelligence before. I have spent my entire career in the regular army. I was in Siachen, Kargil, Landi Kotal near the Khyber Pass, then Kashmir. I was in Bosnia as well, with the UN peacekeepers. The army kept sending me to these godforsaken outposts, and I liked them so much that when my tenure ended, I would volunteer to stay on. I think they ran out of frontiers to send me to, so they pushed me here.”
“All the places you mentioned were hard postings. You must have seen a lot of action. Is that how you got your injury?” Constantine pointed to the major’s eye.
“Yes, they were hard areas, but I enjoyed the life there. It was a proper soldiering life. As for this,” he pointed to his eye, “this I picked up in Kargil.”
“You’re a brave man, sir.”
“I never really thought of it that way. You know, that kind of job is much easier. You do what you have to, you know which side the enemy is on. There’s a clearly defined mission. Since I came to this job, I always seem to be chasing shadows.” The major pondered the thought. “But enough about me. What about you? Why did you join the police? I’m sure it wasn’t a very normal career path for a Christian.”
“No, it wasn’t, sir. My father never wanted me to do this. I had to lie to him when I went to take the physical test. He wanted me to join the church, like him. He felt it would give me a lot of opportunities to travel, maybe even settle abroad. He believed that the church could isolate me from the problems of this world, keep me out of trouble. But I was a natural troublemaker. I was never a reading-writing type of boy. We had this police constable, Ghafoor Chacha, who used to patrol our mohalla. When we boys got up to some mischief while playing in the street, harassing the shopkeepers, he used to tick us off. But from time to time he used to tell us these magical stories about life at the police station, about catching crooks, and the big afsars, the officers who were so respected and powerful. I suppose for him, as a constable, even a sub-inspector was a big shot, but we didn’t know that at the time. He would keep us spellbound with his stories. And I saw how the people of the mohalla treated him with respect. The shopkeepers would provide him with a stool to sit on while he was on duty, they would give him tea and food. Everyone who passed him salaamed him. I always loved looking at his uniform. It fascinated me. It was intoxicating for me, as a young boy.”
The major laughed. “Wardi ka shouk. Love of the uniform. I think it’s the same everywhere for young men. I used to love seeing my father dressed in his uniform. That’s where I caught the army bug. And what does your father think of you now?”
“He passed away a few years ago, God bless his soul. I think he came to terms with it. My father always believed in hard work, merit. He believed in having compassion, he believed that virtue should be its own reward. But the world doesn’t necessarily run on those principles, sir. He never understood that. I have seen that you can be the most hardworking, virtuous chutiya in the world and still get nowhere. The thing with our society, sir, is that if you are not a rich or powerful person, if you are a small person like myself, you need to have access to power just to survive—access to a little bit of influence, so that your existence can be bearable. Otherwise life can be very difficult in this city. You see these poor police constables in the stations, sir. Their lives are pathetic. They work long hours, twelve-hour shifts most of the time, no leave and dangerous duty. Our department doesn’t take care of its men like your army does, sir. We have to do everything for ourselves. You might think why would anyone want this miserable job? Yet the number of people who want to be recruited is never-ending. You need big sifarishes just to get your name on the selection list. It’s because all those people standing in line want to have a slight touch of being close to the circles of power and influence. Because even if they are mere constables, they are somebody. This job enables me to survive in this city. It means no one will be rude to my wife and daughters, that my family will not have to pay extortion to the UF thugs or the police. It means I can get an electricity meter and phone line much quicker than an ordinary person. My daughters will get admission into a good school because the principal will always have some problem or the other for which he will need to know a police officer. I will be able to make some money and secure my children’s future. That is enough for me.”
“You paint a very bleak picture of life.”
“Sahib, it is not bleak. It is realistic. This is what life is for us. You army people live in a cozy cocoon. From the minute you enter the military academy, everything is taken care of for the rest of your life. You live in safe cantonment areas where schools, hospitals, parks are all provided for. At the end of your career you get a nice plot of land and enough money to secure your retirement. It’s a good life.”
“Do you resent us? Colonel Tarkeen said you were reluctant to work with the Agencies. Is this why?”
“No, sahib. I don’t begrudge you your life. My only issue is when people like you come and make assumptions about our lives without understanding our compulsions, like you did yesterday. You accused me of being corrupt. Yes, I cannot deny that I have taken money from people. But I do it because I want to survive in this world, I want to try and give my children a slightly better life than I had, and I cannot do that if I do not become a part of this system. In our country, sahib, it is the system that makes the individual bad. But what you think of me doesn’t really matter. You have your ways, and we have ours. I don’t have some kind of principled stand that I will not work with the Agencies. As Colonel Tarkeen must have told you, I have done so in the past. And very successfully too. But sir, when you have spent as much time in the police as I have, you see a lot of ups and downs. When you are younger, the thrill of being at the center of events keeps you going; it’s like a drug. You are dealing with the big cases, talking directly to your superiors, the Agencies calling you, wanting you to work with them. You are willing to get through the bad times because the good times are so good. But when you get to my age, you don’t have the nerve to face up to the bad times. The truth is, sir, that I . . . I
don’t want to end up like Akbar.”
There was silence as both men finished their tea.
“What happened with Akbar, Constantine? I still don’t understand.”
“Ask him yourself, sir. I think we should go and see him now.”
The two men left the office and once again entered the jail courtyard. As they approached Akbar’s barrack, they saw that the door of the barrack was slightly ajar; inside, Akbar was holding court with four bearded tableeghis. They were all holding copies of the Quran and reciting from it. Akbar was wearing the same crumpled white shalwar-kameez of the previous day. As Constantine and the major stepped in, the group quickly broke up, and the four men got up and left the room as if on cue. Akbar grinned widely as he put away his Quran. Constantine noticed that the folder that he had sent the previous night was lying open on the side of the mattress. It had obviously been read.
“Arre, Major sahib, welcome back! Didn’t I tell you, Consendine, that Major sahib would find my company so stimulating that he would come back? What can I do for you today, sahib?”
“I just wanted to chat with you today, Akbar sahib. As I was telling Constantine earlier, I am new to Karachi and I don’t know much about what happened in the past. I do know that you are a fascinating man. I would like to learn more about you. If you have the time, of course.”
Constantine looked at the major admiringly as they both sat down on the stools. He had appealed to Akbar’s vanity, inviting him to air his grievances, without so much as referring to the kidnapping. He was not the impatient young man of yesterday but a rather shrewd judge of a situation. Smart.
“One thing you have plenty of in jail, Major sahib, is time. What would you like to know about me?”
The major took out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to Akbar. “Is this your brand?”
Akbar smiled. “Gold Leaf. Yes, it was my brand, Major sahib. Thank you.”
The Prisoner Page 13