Akbar finally found his voice. Braving the bullets, half expecting to get shot at by his own men, he got up from the road by sheer force of will. This action of his had an impact, and the firing suddenly stopped. The inert bodies of several of Chandio’s men who had been in the backup vehicles were strewn on the road. He rushed to the red Pajero, which had by now come to a complete halt. He peeked in the back seat, hoping against hope that Chandio had only been wounded, that the sturdy frame of the jeep had stopped the bullets from passing through. He looked in the back and saw Nawaz Chandio calmly sitting in the back seat. There was a serene expression on his face. For a second Akbar admired his courage. The man had not even bothered to duck. The fellow was truly regal in character, thought Akbar, all the while chanting a dozen prayers of thanks for having kept Nawaz alive. It was only when he opened the car door that Akbar realized that the back of Nawaz Chandio’s head was no longer there.
18
November 5, 2001
Half an hour outside the city, Constantine’s vehicle’s wireless set had picked up the Karachi Police’s band frequency. Dispatchers were urgently sending mobile units to the Super Highway, where, from what Constantine could make out, Akbar’s unit had been involved in a shootout with Nawaz Chandio’s men. Officers were also being deployed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where the dead and injured had been taken. Every five minutes or so, the head dispatcher at Police Control would shout out, “All wait, all wait!” as he cut into the transmission and bellowed priority instructions to the local police about the imminent arrival of yet another senior officer at the hospital. After listening to the wireless chatter for about ten minutes, Constantine still couldn’t figure out if Akbar had been injured or killed, but the movement of the top brass towards the hospital was not a good sign. Constantine crossed himself and told his driver to take a shortcut from a dirt road into the city. The scene of the crime could wait. He needed to know if Akbar was okay.
There was a sea of flashing lights outside Abbasi Shaheed. Police pickups, senior officers’ staff cars, and ambulances were backed up three blocks away from the hospital building. Various uniformed officers, holding walkie-talkies and carrying their AK-47 rifles, flitted around here and there in a state of mass confusion. Constantine abandoned his pickup, the anxiety within him building by the second, and started running towards Emergency. He almost barrelled into Hanuman, who was whispering softly into his mobile phone.
“Where are you running?” asked Hanuman, as one of his bodyguards broke Constantine’s run inches from the senior officer.
“Sir, I, uh . . . Akbar, the encounter, I was in Jamshoro . . . is Akbar dead?” The words almost choked in his throat.
“No, Akbar isn’t dead. He isn’t even injured . . .”
“Oh, thank Christ!”
“. . . but Nawaz Chandio is.”
Constantine’s relief drained away, as the implication of what Hanuman had said sunk in.
“Sir, you mean, Nawaz Chandio, is actually . . . he must be seriously wounded or something?”
“No, he’s dead.” Hanuman said it with as much emotion as he would have mustered ordering a cup of tea. His gunman, a smart-looking fellow with his pants tucked into his boots commando style, approached with a chattering walkie-talkie in his hand.
“Sir, Eagle 1 is on his way.”
Hanuman bobbed his head up and down. “Consendine, the Inspector General is inside somewhere. Go and inform him that the Chief Minister will be here in a moment.”
“Sir, the CM is coming here? To the hospital?”
Hanuman looked at him irritably. “Yes, his brother has been killed. Of course he’ll come to the hospital. Don’t ask stupid questions, and find the IG. I will wait outside to receive the Chief Minister.”
In a daze, Constantine saluted and headed to the entrance of the emergency ward. Inside, it seemed as if a war had broken out. Blood was spattered all over the floor of the ward, and doctors and nurses ran from one gurney to another, trying to tend to as many of the wounded as they could manage. At least a dozen men had been injured in the encounter, and Constantine noted that all of them seemed to be Chandio’s fidayeen.
Towards one side of the casualty ward was a partially open door that marked the entrance to the mortuary. Inside, still as a statue, was Dr. Death, standing over the bloodied mess on the autopsy table. As Constantine shuffled into the room, he realized that the bloodied mess was, in fact, Nawaz Chandio. A man in a stained hospital smock was awkwardly cradling the back of Chandio’s skull, trying to jam it back into place, as if fitting on the head of a store mannequin.
It took Constantine some effort to control his gagging reflex. So many years on the force had still not made him immune to such a sight. Having barely succeeded in keeping the contents of his stomach down, he approached Dr. Death and saluted, but the IG seemed oblivious to him. He was transfixed by the mortuary assistant’s efforts to sew Chandio’s head back on to his neck.
“Sir, the Chief Minister is on his way.” Constantine said the words softly the first time and then a little louder when it was evident that they had had no impact on Dr. Death. He was about to repeat himself a third time when a firm hand grabbed hold of his shoulder, and a familiar balding figure pushed him back out of the mortuary doors.
Constantine had been so focused on Dr. Death, that he had not noticed Tarkeen in the room. He tried to speak, but Tarkeen held a finger to his lips and maneuvered him into a corner alcove of the casualty ward.
“Constantine, what the hell are you doing here? Are you mad? Get as far away from here as you can, before any of these fidayeen recognize you!”
“But sir, I was on my way back from Jamshoro when I heard about the encounter on the wireless . . . what happened, sir? Where is Akbar?”
“It’s a damn mess. Akbar is still at the scene of the crime, thank God. If he were to show up while the Chief Minister was here, I don’t know what would happen.”
“But sir, why is the CM coming here? To the hospital? Wouldn’t it be better for him to wait at the CM House, and get the IG and you to brief him there?”
“Yousaf Chandio is well and truly fucked in this one. Whatever the rumors may be that he was jealous of him, Nawaz was still his brother. Nawaz’s loyal fidayeen have already started rioting, here in the city and in the Chandios’ village. They are saying that Yousaf secretly ordered the police to kill Nawaz. And, you have to admit, it looks bad. The sitting Chief Minister, the head of the province, and his brother, who many considered his political rival, is killed in a ridiculous shootout with the police on the highway! And to top it all off, no policeman is even injured! The media is going to have a field day with this. Chandio has to show up, even if it’s only to shed a few crocodile tears in front of the cameras. Otherwise, he might as well sign a confessional statement owning up to having killed Nawaz. God, what a fuck-up!”
Constantine had never heard Tarkeen swear before. His eyes swept the room repeatedly to ensure that they weren’t being overheard or recognized, and a thin bead of sweat collected on his brow. These were signs that even the otherwise unflappable Tarkeen was flustered. The two men were positioned near a window that looked out into the porch of the hospital. They could see reporters and camera crews forming a scrum in front of the entrance, in anticipation of the arrival of somebody important. Just then, a wail of sirens drowned out the din of the casualty ward. Motorcycle outriders, with their blue lights flashing, sped into the porch and sent the gathered journalists scampering to one side. Police commandos dressed all in black disembarked from two moving open-topped jeeps and established a security perimeter. And behind them, driving at breakneck speed, a convoy of vehicles, led by two identical Mercedes cars with fluttering flags, came to a screeching halt.
Hanuman had managed to fight his way through the media scrum and awkwardly opened the heavy, bullet-proof door of the lead Mercedes. Constantine could see the figure that emerged from the car was quite dishevelled. The man’s shoulders were hunched over, and he st
ooped while walking. The dark hair that was usually slicked back and held perfectly in place on the TV screen seemed to have turned gray and stood up from his head like antennae. The shalwar-kameez that he wore looked dirty and bedraggled. And as he stepped out of the car and stared vacantly at Hanuman, Constantine could see that the Chief Minister was barefoot. This was certainly not the deal-making, smooth-talking Yousaf Chandio that people were used to seeing.
Maqsood Mahr emerged from the other side of the Mercedes, took the doddering Yousaf by the hand, and led him into the hospital. As soon as the two men, followed by Hanuman and the Chief Minister’s military aide, entered the mortuary, the police commandos barred the door, but from their vantage point, Constantine and Tarkeen could still hear what was going on inside. Constantine grimaced as Maqsood Mahr passed by. It was not a good sign if he had set himself up as the mourner-in-chief.
As if on cue, Maqsood started beating his breast and wailing. “Oh, Sayeen Baba! What have they done to you? You were the flower of our nation! What have these police wallahs done to you? Sir, this is why I always advocated restraint. I never wanted an accident like this to happen. Oh, Yousaf Sayeen, they have robbed you of your own brother!”
On hearing this, a guttural cry came from Yousaf Chandio. He started banging on Nawaz’s inert body. “Wake up, Nawaz, wake up. I’m here, Adda Yousaf is here.”
For several minutes, the only sound that Constantine and Tarkeen could hear was the muffled sobbing of Yousaf as he fell to the floor and buried his head in his brother’s bloodied breast. Then, suddenly, he rose with an animal fury and stabbed a finger at a startled Dr. Death, his voice shrill with rage.
“You! I told you to go easy on my brother, didn’t I? I told you! But you had too much pride. You had to go after him, you couldn’t just let it go! Nawaz is dead, and what am I supposed to tell our mother? I will never forgive you for this. I will never forgive any of the people who were responsible for my brother’s death. Never!”
Tarkeen and Constantine looked at each other. Nothing further needed to be said.
Four days later
Constantine awoke from another night of troubled sleep. He was alone in the house. Mary and the children were away on holiday in the north of the country. He had been scheduled to join them, until the Chandio mess had erupted. He cursed himself. Perhaps it would have been better if he had gone with Mary and the kids. He would have been thankful not to have been present in the city these past four days.
Ashraf had brought him his tea from the chai shop and had set all the newspapers on the table for him. Even after four days, the press was still not letting up. The papers were full of details of the shootout. Seventeen men had been killed, all of them Nawaz Chandio’s fidayeen and including, of course, the young prince himself. Tarkeen had been right. The papers harped on about the fact that not a single police officer had been hurt and how this was evidence of the police having pre-planned the encounter. The sharks were circling. The government was under intense pressure, and the media was all too eager to provide the final shove to topple it.
Constantine had always believed in the inherent strength of the State and its institutions. He was, after all, a police officer, a member of the coercive arm of that State. He always held that no one could overthrow the State, no matter how powerful they were, because the State would always be more powerful. So many had tried but, at the end of the day, the State prevailed. It was so strong in its foundations that all it had to do was send out minions like him and Akbar to deal with such pretenders. The UF had been a perfect example. For all the party’s street power and its scores of ruthless militants, ultimately they were no match for the resources of the State. Therefore it had surprised him in these past four days how quickly that same usually self-confident State had begun to unravel.
In fact, it seemed as if the State had vanished altogether. Nawaz’s death had brought about a backlash from his followers. Maddened by their grief, they had gone on the rampage. Fidayeen had been looting and burning with abandon on the streets, and the police didn’t even bother to stop them. After the episode at the hospital, the CM, shaken physically and politically, had retreated to his village, officially in mourning for the death of his brother but more than a little frightened about what the fidayeen might do to him. Nawaz Chandio’s killing had even shaken the usually resolute Dr. Death. And so, while the city had burned, the IG refused to order the police to intervene, for fear of further inciting the fidayeen.
The violence had stopped a day ago, but the recriminations had not. The media had already tried and convicted Akbar. Full-page editorials had condemned him and criticized Dr. Death for relying on such bloodthirsty officers. His record in Orangi, once a source of pride to everyone in the department, had been cited as evidence that Akbar was no better than a hired killer. Maqsood Mahr, with no IG to keep him in check any more, had given interviews in the press claiming that he had been taken off the case specifically because he had refused to kill Nawaz in cold blood. The United Front, never slow to exploit any opportunity, had started announcing that their ward bosses had been exterminated systematically by the same police officers who were responsible for Nawaz’s death, and this was exactly what they had been saying all along: that the police department had become little better than a gang of criminals who were incapable of being controlled by the current political administration. In essence, they had made this case a referendum on Yousaf Chandio’s government.
Constantine went through the papers, grimacing every time there was a reference to Akbar. His own name had not been mentioned anywhere. True, he hadn’t been present at the shooting, but that had hardly stopped the media, the UF, and Maqsood Mahr from implicating dozens of officers against whom they had personal grudges in this case. Mahr had, in fact, become a kind of grand inquisitor, Torquemada in a safari suit. He had set up shop at his office. Every day he would call in dozens of officers and demand that they prove their non-involvement in this case. Most took the easy way out and paid him to clear them. Maqsood was running a roaring business these days.
Constantine had surprisingly not been summoned to these proceedings. He could not fathom a reason why Maqsood had gone easy on him, other than the fact that the ones who were summoned were all officers who Maqsood considered his rivals. Obviously, Maqsood did not think Constantine posed any threat.
Akbar, too, had not yet been summoned, but then Maqsood was probably saving him for last. Constantine found nothing new or alarming in Maqsood’s tactics. That was the nature of the beast. Maqsood was a scavenger, and, sighting a weakened prey, he would always swoop in to feast on the carrion. But Maqsood could only go as far as the IG allowed him to go. And it was Dr. Death’s silence that was the more worrying thing. Constantine could understand the Doctor’s reluctance to use the police against the fidayeen, so soon after what had happened, for fear of an even more severe backlash. The bit he didn’t get was why he was allowing Maqsood to flout every rule and convention that he had stood for so uprightly all these years. Maqsood’s investigation had nothing to do with justice and everything to do with money. So then, why didn’t Dr. Death speak up and put an end to it? Constantine had begun to have his doubts about the IG since he saw him that night at Abbasi Shaheed.
Akbar, however, remained steadfastly loyal to Dr. Death. He had been instructed to keep a low profile for a few days, for his own safety. Under normal circumstances Akbar would never have complied with such an order, but he had been in a very somber mood since the incident, and so he had made no argument. Constantine would go over to his place every day, and he and Akbar would sit together for hours, talking sparingly and mostly just staring into space. Akbar was in shock about what had happened, but his faith in Dr. Death was still unshakeable. He still believed that as soon as he was able to meet the IG and explain what had happened, Dr. sahib would take control of the situation.
Which was why today was all the more important. Up till now, the IG had himself been occupied dealing with the aftermath of th
e incident, so he hadn’t had any time to meet Akbar, or so he claimed. Finally, Akbar had managed to get an appointment, and he had asked Constantine to come along. Constantine had reservations about going to see Dr. Death in the present circumstances, but he felt he had no choice but to go with Akbar even if, as he suspected, the trip would be a futile one.
Constantine put on his uniform and picked Akbar up from his house. Akbar looked cheerful and was in a chatty mood, the first time in days that he had been like this.
“Arre, Consendine, today Inshallah our problems will come to an end. Dr. sahib is back in the saddle.”
“Akbar, he’s been there all along. But he didn’t stop Maqsood from registering a case against the police officers. Look, everybody knows it wasn’t deliberate. Dr. sahib knows that more so than anybody else. Yet he allows the officers to be interrogated as if they were some bloody wardias.”
“He’s been under a lot of pressure. Apparently the CM hasn’t spoken to him since that day. It’s not easy for him. But the fact that he’s agreed to see us proves that he’s still standing with us. I keep telling you, he’s not the sort of officer who’ll cut and run. Trust me, Consendine.”
Constantine did not answer but kept driving to Police Headquarters. They walked up to the IG’s office as they had done a thousand times before, but this time round, everything seemed different. Even the orderly outside the IG’s office greeted them more stiffly. He barred Akbar from entering immediately and instead asked them both to wait in a side room. The wait was not a short one. Several hours passed, and Constantine saw a stream of visitors who had arrived after them get ushered into the IG’s office. All enquiries made to the staff were met with a stony silence. Akbar too seemed perplexed by this attitude, but said nothing.
Finally, near the end of the day, the orderly nodded towards the door to signal that Akbar had been summoned. Constantine rose from the couch with him, but the orderly shook his head, saying that the summons was only for Akbar. Akbar looked at Constantine, shrugged his shoulders, and walked in.
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