The Prisoner

by Omar Shahid Hamid

  “We can drive till the crossing, a little further up, but then we should abandon the cars. Also Colonel sahib, if Mr. Jim comes along, we will lose our cover.”

  “Yes, we don’t want to take that risk. Okay Jim, you stay here in the car. I’m also going to leave the inspector here with you. Constantine and I will take a couple of plainclothes officers from the other pickup.” Tarkeen took out a pistol from his jacket and cocked it.

  “Where is Major Rommel, sir? It would have been useful to have him with us.” Constantine had noted that Rommel was conspicuous by his absence.

  “I left Rommel at headquarters to coordinate things and to keep sending updates to our superiors. I wanted to supervise the field operation myself.”

  The two men stepped out of the SUV into the cool night air. Constantine liked the cold breeze on his face because it made him focus. He looked at his paunch and sighed. It was at times like these that he wished that he had maintained the fitness of his youth. One could never predict what might happen on a raid like this one, and it was always better to have a trained and tuned body. Constantine knew of policemen who had gotten injured in gunfights and bomb explosions for no other reason than that they were too fat to move fast enough to get out of the way. He selected his second gunman, Ashraf’s partner Saeedullah, to go with them. The other constable they chose was a short, squat, middle-aged fellow, a complete contrast to Saeedullah, who was six feet tall, bearded, and looked extremely intimidating. The only reason the second man was chosen was that he was the only one who was not in uniform. It had been another cock-up from Maqsood Mahr to have sent such few plainclothes officers to assist in a case of such sensitivity. Constantine was not particularly enthused about the choice of the second constable. He was very choosy about the men he would take on raids with him. He usually never moved without having his own trusted men behind him. He had faith in their skill and training. Others, he couldn’t vouch for. The biggest lesson he had learnt from Akbar in their years of working together had been that in these sorts of situations, the greatest danger came not from the enemy you faced but from the untrained exuberance of your own force. Ordinary constables did not have the level of training to execute such tricky operations flawlessly. Constantine’s own men were different. They were from the anti-terrorist squad and were veterans of dozens of such operations. The second constable would be a bit of a gamble, but arranging a larger, better-trained team would have risked the operational secrecy of the mission. The movement of well-trained police commandos in shiny new police pickups would have been a dead giveaway in an area like Orangi.

  Orangi was a maze. The road that the four men started walking on led past Banares Chowk into the massive slum. With a million human beings packed like sardines into a very small area, entering it was like entering another world. Such misery and destitution bred all sorts of problems. Orangi always remained a hotbed of vice, crime, and terrorist activity. The local population was also ethnically diverse, and that added to the Molotov cocktail of problems that plagued the locality. In the years since Akbar and Constantine had been posted here, the number of madrasas in the area had mushroomed. The madrasas represented an affordable means for the inhabitants to enable their children to gain some sort of basic education, even if it was just the rote learning of the Quran. Although the madrasas did not necessarily have any sinister agenda, the abject poverty and hopelessness of the area had made Orangi a rich recruiting ground for jihadis.

  The small party walked off the wide main road, past the police station, into Orangi No. 6. The vehicles had been left outside the police station. It was just as well, because they could not have come any further. Past the station, the road disappeared and became a narrow, unpaved track, intersected by even narrower alleyways on either side, some just wide enough to allow one person to pass at a time. Raw sewage ran in ditches along the road. It had taken Constantine six months to get used to the odor of excrement that constantly hung in the air. The track itself was muddy and littered with black plastic bags and other refuse. It was pitch-dark, the absence of streetlights compounded by power cuts that enveloped the neighborhood in shadows. The party groped their way along, deeper into the labyrinth, and if Constantine had not known the area like the back of his hand, they would surely have gotten lost. The only illumination came from a shop that could be seen some distance away, and the hum of a small electric generator could be heard from the same direction.

  Constantine checked his watch. It was almost eleven, the time at which Kana was supposed to make his rounds of the shop. Ashraf was sitting at a chai shop opposite, waiting for them. The cold weather had ensured that even fewer people than usual were out on the streets at this hour. That at least had worked in their favor, as everything depended on how quietly they picked up their target. If they could do it without raising too much alarm and keep their identities hidden, they would buy some time to interrogate Kana. In a rough neighborhood like this, it was not unusual for somebody to be picked up from the street, and it was not necessarily an automatic assumption that the police had done the picking up. UF wardias, various jihadi and religious parties, and the local land mafia all ran gangs in the area, and abduction, for whatever reasons, was standard practice for all of them.

  The shop where Kana worked was across the street from the tea stall, and it was the same one that had been illuminated from a distance. The four men joined Ashraf at the table. The waiter, a young boy who couldn’t have been older than twelve, brought them cups of wincingly sweet, Pathan-style green tea, served with a stick of cinnamon and a twist of lemon. The mobile phone shop was the only one in the area that had electricity. Ashraf told them that Kana was due any minute. Constantine noticed a rickety taxi cab parked next to the tea stall, with its driver snoozing inside.

  The men sat in silence, nobody really wishing to speak, and all of them stared at the store. Adrenaline was pumping in their veins. After what seemed an interminable wait, a man approached the store just as the attendants were pulling the shutters down. He was dressed in a dirty gray shalwar-kameez. He sported a closely cropped beard and had a blue-colored glass eye in his right socket, where his eyeball should have been. As the store attendant pointed him in the direction of the tea stall, the men scattered from the table, leaving Ashraf sitting there alone. The man walked towards the stall and asked the handful of patrons still sitting there about who had been looking for him. Ashraf rose to ask him if he was Kana. As soon as he answered the question in the affirmative, Constantine and Saeedullah jumped him, one grabbing him by the hair and the other holding on to the elastic of his shalwar. Ashraf brandished a pistol to ward off any of the other occupants of the stall from attempting to help. Constantine and the others dragged the struggling Kana towards the taxi. They threw him hard into the back seat, injuring his head in the process. Then they piled in themselves. The taxi driver, abruptly awakened from his slumber, saw their weapons and thought his vehicle was being snatched. He jumped out without any protest and let Constantine in behind the wheel. He started the ignition and drove like a maniac, straight into narrow alleys that one would have thought would be impossible to drive a car through. Meanwhile, Kana continued to struggle with the two policemen crammed into the back seat.

  Constantine’s heart was racing. It had been some time since he had engaged in an exercise like this. The whole operation had taken under a minute. He turned to Colonel Tarkeen, who was sitting in the passenger seat beside him. “Sir, the best place to take him for interrogation is Orangi Police Station. It’s our only choice. At this time of night, there will only be a skeleton staff there. I know the station munshi. We can occupy a back room and work on him there.”

  “All right. How much time do you think we have?”

  “I reckon a couple of hours. The way we took the taxi, they probably all think we’re local criminals settling scores with him. The taxi driver will come to the police station to report the theft of his vehicle in a bit, but they will keep giving him the runaround for a few hours u
ntil he produces some money for them to write up his report. Till the police declare whether it was a crime or not, his people might imagine that it was some village vendetta or something of that nature. That’s good. If they keep thinking so for a while, the American will be safe.”

  As he spoke, they pulled up to the gate of Orangi Police Station, where they had left their vehicles. Constantine drove the taxi into the police station compound and told the sentry to close the gate. He walked into the duty officer’s room, as Ashraf and the two others dragged Kana, now muffled with a cloth stuffed in his mouth, out of the car. The station munshi, an old man with a wizened face and small pince-nez glasses, was surprised to see Constantine step out from the driver’s seat.

  “Arre, Consendine sahib, what are you doing here?”

  Constantine had always liked the munshi because he was an extremely discreet and efficient individual. “Abdul Rehman, I can’t tell you much except that it’s very important. We need an interrogation room, preferably not a very public one. Ensure that no one comes there. Oh, and if a taxi driver comes to file a report about a stolen taxi, tell the duty officer to give him the runaround and make him come back in the morning.”

  Without batting an eyelid, the old munshi went into action. He led them to a small room on the second floor of the police station. It had a table and a few chairs, and two hooks in the wall from which a suspect could be hung upside down. The walls were thick and the room windowless. The room was situated towards the rear of the station, so that a man’s screams would not be heard in the front courtyard. It was perfect for their purposes.

  As Ashraf and the other two guards secured the prisoner, Constantine turned to the colonel. “Sir, I think we should move our vehicles from the front of the station. There is a little space to park at the back. I will even have the taxi moved there for now. When the driver comes in the morning, they can tell him that it was found abandoned nearby. If you want to bring Mr. Jim, bring him in now, but please cover his face with a cloth so no one figures out that he’s a foreigner. Let them think he is a secret informer and we are working on some major crime figure.”

  “Good idea. I’ll get him and move the cars.”

  As Tarkeen left, Constantine turned to the munshi, who, seeing his shortness of breath, had brought him a glass of water.

  “Is everything okay with you, Consendine sahib?”

  “Yes, thank you, Abdul Rehman. I haven’t done this in a while.”

  “I heard you were in the Prisons, sir. How is Akbar sahib? I pray for him. We all do. All of us still remember those difficult times. It was only when he became the in-charge that we actually started to feel like we were police officers. You two did so much for us, you were like our guardian angels.”

  “Keep praying. Your prayers may be answered sooner than you expect. Where’s that drunkard boss of yours? I don’t want him asking too many questions.”

  “Don’t worry about him, sir. In-charge sahib is only interested in making points with the local ward boss and the wine shop owners. He goes off with his bottle at 8:00 p.m. every day and doesn’t come in till ten, eleven in the morning. He doesn’t even bother to check in by phone during the night.”

  “What if there’s an emergency?”

  “Consendine sahib, these days it’s not like it used to be in your time, when you and Akbar sahib wouldn’t go home for days. Now, everything runs on auto. The local gangs handle everything, whether it’s the UF or the land mafia. The police are just a spare tire in the area.”

  “Well, in case anyone asks, just tell them the intelligence wallahs are doing something.”

  “Arre, sahib, is it something to do with that American’s kidnapping?”

  Constantine gave him a stern look. “Abdul Rehman, you wily old fool, you know better than to ask such questions.”

  Immediately chastened, the old man shook his head. “Never mind sahib, forgive me for asking. I will go and carry out your instructions. I’ll tell the sentry not to let anyone up on this floor. If you need me for anything else, just call me.”

  “Thank you, Abdul Rehman.”

  The munshi passed Colonel Tarkeen and Jim coming up the stairs. Jim’s face was completely covered with a dirty old shawl and he was indistinguishable as a foreigner. Constantine was worried. It would be a miracle if they got two hours to break Kana. He was unlikely to easily succumb to threats or torture. What made things worse for them was, they had such little background information on him. Akbar had just given them a name. They had no way of verifying if he was telling them the truth, even if he did start talking. The clock had begun to tick for the American.

  “All set, Constantine. We’ve parked the cars at the back. No one can see them from the road.”

  “And I’ve spoken with the munshi, sahib. No one will disturb us here.”

  “Then let’s begin. Each minute we waste is precious.”

  The three men entered the room, and Constantine took a good look at the subject for the first time. He was bleeding from a cut above his bad eye. The glass eye was still in place, though spattered with blood. His shirt was now torn, and his arms bruised from the struggle. He had a fair understanding by now of what was happening, so his earlier ferocity had been replaced with a quiet trepidation as he sat on his haunches on the floor in one corner of the room. But there was still a smouldering defiance in his one eye, which only increased when he saw Jim take the shawl off his face.

  Constantine, Tarkeen, and Jim sat down on the three available plastic chairs, while Ashraf and the other two guards stood over Kana. The colonel began the interrogation.

  “What is your name?”

  Kana was silent.

  “Are you the one whom they call Kana?”

  Kana was silent, never for a moment taking his eyes off the American.

  Constantine smiled at him. “Look, we already know you are Kana. We asked for you at the shop, and you responded to our man. So what’s the harm in admitting that?”

  No response.

  “All right, where do you live? We should know where to inform your relatives that you have been picked up by the police.”

  He was silent, but his stare was so intense that it made Jim shift uncomfortably in his seat.

  Tarkeen spoke up. “He’s not going to cooperate this way. Strip him.”

  Ashraf struggled to take off his shirt, while the second guard pulled at his baggy shalwar. Kana thrashed about with increasing desperation. He was a strong man, and it took them a couple of minutes and several blows to undress him. He now stood in front of them, shivering slightly in the cold, trying to cover his nudity.

  “Which camp did you receive your training at?”

  Finally he spoke. “Why are you doing this to me? I haven’t done anything to you. I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know anything about any camp.”

  “Ah. So you do have a voice. You are called Kana in the market. Yes or no? It’s a simple question. You see the man standing behind you, with the bamboo stick? Every time you don’t answer, he’s going to hit you on your balls with the stick. Not hard, but just enough to make you writhe in pain. So, yes or no?”

  “Yes, yes, I am called Kana. Can I put my clothes on?”

  “In a minute. If you answer truthfully. How long have you worked at the store?”

  “Six months.”

  “Where did you work before that?”

  A slight hesitation in answering brought a short, sharp blow from the stick.

  “Ah! Uh, I didn’t work. I was unemployed.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Near the shop. Gully No. 34.”

  “Who lives with you?”

  “My mother and my wife. And my little boy.”

  “How long have you lived at this address?”

  “Six months.”

  “Where were you living before? How long have you been living in Karachi?”

  “Before I lived in another house close by. I have lived in Karachi all my life.”

  �
��You’re lying.” A nod from Constantine brought another blow. “Was your father a fucking factory owner that you could afford to live in Karachi without a job? Don’t try and be smart, madarchod. It will take us two minutes to drag your mother and wife into the thana and confirm what you are saying! You want to see them in here? You want them to see you like this? Or worse, for you to see them like this? We are police wallahs, madarchod, we are real harami. Now, where are you from?”

  “I am from the Khyber Agency.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. A jihadi from the tribal areas, huh? What have you been doing there? Were you involved in the fighting? Is that where you lost your eye?”

  “No, sahib. I was in Karachi before. I moved back for a while to get married. Then I returned to the city six months ago and settled here. I’m not a jihadi, sahib. This eye, this was a childhood accident.”

  “It took you two years to get married? And you left the city and lived in the country in the middle of a war and you didn’t do anything or see anything? I think you’re lying to us again. Do you take us to be idiots? Ashraf, you’re taking it too easy on him.”

  Two hard blows as Kana fell to the floor, screaming.

  “You were fighting us like a trained professional when we picked you up. You must have been to a camp. Come on, make it easy for yourself. Which camp did you go to?”

  “I just went for a few days. They came to my village and took us forcibly. Then I ran away, sahib. I swear. I didn’t do any fighting anywhere. I just came back to Karachi, sahib. I am not involved in any jihadi business. I’m a family man.”

  Tarkeen looked at his watch anxiously and then gave a sideways glance at Constantine. They were working on a very short timetable. It usually took several hours to break a man like this. Constantine was conducting the interrogation expertly, slowly leading the suspect onto the matter that they were interested in. But he knew from Tarkeen’s expression that he would have to rush it. And rushing things like this always led to mistakes.