“Okay, okay, Kana, good. You’ve been a good boy. I believe you. That’s not what we’re interested in anyway. Tell us about the store. Have you ever sold a large number of SIM cards to the same customer? Say thirty or forty of them?”
A look of alarm passed through Kana’s good eye for an instant. “What? What do you mean, sahib? There has been no problem in my working at the store. I haven’t given SIM cards to anybody.”
“I didn’t say you did. Why are you so worried at the mention of SIM cards? Which of your friends have you been giving them to?”
Kana reverted to his silent mode.
“Look, the houseboy already told us everything. About the SIMs, everything. Make it easy for yourself. Tell us who you gave the SIMs to and where they are.”
Kana glanced sideways at Jim and then looked directly at Tarkeen and said, in a suddenly harder tone, “I don’t know about any SIM cards. I don’t know anything.”
Ashraf rained blows upon him, but to no avail. They strung him up by his feet, using the hooks on the wall, and started repeatedly caning the soles of his feet until they were raw. A particularly painful exercise, yet one that left no permanent marks on the victim. But apart from his screams, Kana refused to utter a word. Constantine shook his head. He knew they were on to him, but he was buying time for his cohorts through his pain. Tarkeen’s usually calm features were twisted into a grimace. The American, Jim, had a pained expression too, brought on either by witnessing a suspect being tortured or by the realization that the torture wasn’t working. Constantine suspected it was probably the latter.
“Where have you kept the American? Where is he?!?” Tarkeen had suddenly gotten up from his chair and grabbed hold of Kana’s head.
Kana, barely able to speak, just shook his head. The colonel’s frustration had boiled over. A second later, so did Jim’s. “Ah, goddammit, he ain’t gonna tell us nothin’!”
Constantine signalled to both men to follow him out of the room. As they came out once again into the chill air, Tarkeen, having realized his mistake, immediately held his hand up in apology. The American, who hadn’t, irritatedly asked, “Whadoyawant?”
“I apologize sir, but your outburst, and the colonel’s handling of him, shows him that he is getting to us rather than the other way around. He knows he just has to last a few more hours, and then it will be too late to save Friedland. He knows that this is the worst we can do to him. We can’t kill him, after all.”
“You’re right, Constantine, but what do we do? If we can’t break him, we can’t save Friedland.”
“Colonel sahib, we don’t have enough background information on him to interrogate him properly. I think we need to call Akbar. Maybe he can tell us how to unlock this bastard.”
Constantine took out his mobile phone and called Akbar, who answered on the first ring.
“Akbar, we’ve got Kana, but we can’t break him. We don’t have time. Can you help us?”
Akbar briefly asked about the circumstances of the arrest. After Constantine had recounted the story, he told him to put Kana on the line. Constantine was a little skeptical. He didn’t see how Akbar could speed up the process by just talking to the man. Still, he went back into the room, putting the phone on speaker. Kana had managed to get his breath back and was sitting on the floor, trying to cover himself.
“Here, someone wants to talk to you.”
Surprised, Kana took the mobile phone in his hands. At the other end Akbar’s distinct, raspy voice came across.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No . . . uh . . . I don’t know.” Constantine noticed that despite Kana’s denial, there seemed to be some faint recognition of the voice. His eyes widened at the sound of it.
“Think again.”
“Yes . . . you are Akbar, the police wallah.” As he said it, Kana started trembling. It wasn’t just from the cold.
“You know what I do, don’t you?”
“Yes. You kill criminals.”
“That’s right. Pray you don’t meet me; otherwise, your wife will end up a widow. But I don’t want to kill you. I know you don’t fear death. I know your faith is strong.”
“Yes.” The word came out barely above a whisper, and the look on Kana’s face showed that he was anything but unafraid.
“If you recognize my voice and know my name, then you also know my other friends. So you will understand who I am speaking for when I say what I have to say to you. Won’t you?”
“Yes.” The man had begun to sweat despite the cold.
“Good. I salute your efforts. You have done very well. But your role in this is now finished. You don’t have to worry about what happens to your friends, or to the American. You need not fear. You can tell these men what they want to know. Allah is witness to your deeds and will reward you as he sees fit. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Constantine took the phone back from him and went outside the room again, careful to be out of earshot of anyone else. “What have you said to him, Akbar?”
“Don’t worry, Consendine. You shouldn’t have any more problems. If there are, call me again.”
“But Akbar—” Before he could finish the sentence, the phone went dead. Constantine looked at the incredulous expressions on Colonel Tarkeen’s and Jim’s faces. Just as Tarkeen was about to say something, Ashraf came out.
“Sahib, he says he wants to talk to you. But first he wants to cleanse himself and say his prayers.”
“Let him do it. Give him his clothes back. And go with him to the washroom. But don’t let him out of sight for a second. If he wants to take a piss, you hold his dick. When he’s praying, stand next to him. Then bring him back here as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sahib.”
Ashraf went back into the room. He and the other two guards dressed Kana and took him downstairs to clean him up. Jim turned first to Tarkeen, then to Constantine, completely mystified by what was going on. “Now what?” he asked.
“I think we’ve gotten lucky, sir. Usually, these jihadis, when they want to make a confession, cleanse themselves and say their prayers to ask God’s forgiveness. Then, with a clear conscience, they start talking.”
“But what if he’s lying?”
“I think he’ll tell us the truth now. These people do not believe that their actions are criminal so they don’t have a problem confessing, as long as it doesn’t endanger their operational security.”
“So what does that mean? You think they just abandoned the whole plan to kill Friedland? Just like that? Just ’cause your friend spoke with him on the phone?”
“To be honest, I don’t know how he knew Akbar or what Akbar said that has triggered this response.”
“Well,” Tarkeen interjected, “recovering the journalist is all that matters. We can keep working on the whys and wherefores after we’ve gotten Friedland back.”
In the meantime, Ashraf had brought Kana back. He had washed the cut above his eye, but was still limping from the blows to his testicles and feet. They sat him down on the floor, and Ashraf handed him a glass of water, which he gulped down. Before entering the room, Tarkeen signalled to Jim to stay outside.
“Hang on a minute, Jim. He seems to get aggravated by seeing you. Let us see what he says. Stay outside; I’ll give you the entire debriefing when we’re done.”
The American was suspicious of Tarkeen’s request. He suspected that the others were trying to trick him or hide something from him. But considering the circumstances and the gravity of the situation and, above all, his own uselessness in it, he nodded reluctantly and turned to go wait in the car.
Constantine and Tarkeen sat down in front of Kana once again, waiting for him to commence speaking. He seemed to be more relaxed.
“Sahib, it is good you didn’t bring the damn gora in with you. It would have been wrong of me to talk in front of him.”
“Of course. I understand that there are matters that should be discussed only betwe
en us countrymen.” It was Tarkeen who spoke up.
“They are evil, sahib. Out to destroy us. They want to break up our country, and they want to enslave our religion.”
“Well, we must tolerate them from time to time.”
“No sahib, even then you shouldn’t help them. These Americans are our sworn enemies. Especially you army people should definitely not collaborate with them.”
“How did you know I was from the army?”
“Because you don’t act like a police wallah. And you remind me of the major sahib who used to come to our training camp.”
“When were you in your training camp?”
“I was in the camp seven years ago. At the time, they used to train fighters for jihad in Kashmir. Some went to Afghanistan. I stayed there for a while and became a trainer at the camp.”
“But what were you doing there six months ago?”
“When the Americans attacked Afghanistan, the camp was shut down. I left and moved to Karachi to find work. Then six months ago, when the fighting in the tribal areas started, I wanted to go back. The government forces were bombing our villages and killing innocent women and children. I could not watch it on TV anymore. I wanted to fight.”
“Did you?”
“No. I did not get the opportunity. When I got there, the local commanders told me I would be more useful in the city because I had lived here for so long. They told me to wait till they sent me a mission. So I came back and waited.”
“Then what happened?”
“Their call never came. Then one day, this fellow that I had known in the camp came to see me at the shop. He told me that he had gotten involved with some Bengali boys who were running a small organization here. They were going to carry out a big operation, but they needed someone who had the experience of planning these types of operations. He took me to a meeting with them. Those boys were basically criminals. They weren’t as committed to jihad as we had been. No discipline. But they had a source who was giving them information about an American.”
“The houseboy?”
“Yes. That was, in fact, the only thing they had going for them. That, and their enthusiasm. They had no plan, just a few guns, and no place to keep the American once they got him. My friend had contacted me because I used to teach tactics in the camp. I planned the operation for them.”
“So you went with them to steal the car, and then you were one of the men who picked him up from Zamzama?”
“No. I just gave them the plan. And then, because I worked in the shop, I sold them SIM cards in bulk, for their communications. I didn’t go with them, sahib.”
“So where did they arrange to keep him? You said these boys didn’t have any place.”
“Yes, sahib. They didn’t. My friend contacted another group of people that we had known in the camps. They had a hiding place, and they agreed to go along with the plan. But then, when we got the American, some of their contacts from the tribal areas told them that they knew the American. He had been under their protection when he was up north. So the two factions started arguing with each other about what to do with him. The Bengali group wanted to make a video of his execution for the Internet because they didn’t think they would get such an opportunity again. The tribal group felt they were still bound to protect him.”
“So what did they decide?”
“They put the matter up for arbitration to a respected aalim. A learned man, a sheikh, a great man. He decided to keep the American in his custody till it was decided whether to execute him or not.”
“If the decision was never taken, why did you people release that video on the Internet?”
“I had nothing to do with that, sahib. I’m an illiterate man. One of the Bengali boys was good at computers. So he made the video and put it on the Internet. That was just for publicity. Like a movie trailer.”
“Who is the sheikh? Was he the mastermind of the operation? Did he tell you what to do?”
“No, no, sahib. He didn’t order us at all. He is a truly pious man. He only got involved as an honest broker. He is holding the American for safekeeping. His name is Sheikh Noman.”
Constantine had been observing the interview with a growing sense of unease and impatience and, with the mention of the sheikh’s name, Constantine’s unease increased. He had been silently mouthing the same question in his head again and again, wishing that Tarkeen would ask it, ever since he had seen Kana’s response to Akbar. The question was, what was Akbar to this man? Now, with the reference to Sheikh Noman, there was a direct link to Akbar. The sheikh was the same Nomi, Akbar’s one-time whisky-guzzling, land-grabbing business partner, who had really prospered since that night on Akbar’s rooftop all those years ago. He was not only a very wealthy man, but was also considered an important religious leader in the city. His system of building his madrasas next to his gambling dens had worked brilliantly for him. Every time the police tried to raid one of his dens, the poor, unassuming madrasa students would be told that their seminary was being attacked, and they would rally vociferously to defend the premises. The police, facing a mob, would naturally back off. The sheikh’s remote-control mobs had given him quite a bit of leverage over the city administration and the police, leverage that he would then use to garner further benefits for himself. A fine plot of land here, an extra bodyguard there.
But here was the puzzling bit. Although the sheikh had created a sufficient following to consider himself one of the city’s movers and shakers, his name had never come up in relation to any sort of jihadi activities. His madrasas were not known to impart any kind of military training, nor had they sent any of their students to fight in Afghanistan or the tribal areas. In fact, the sheikh himself, in return for the government granting him various favors, expressed distinctly moderate political views. So Constantine could not figure out how he would have sanctioned the Friedland kidnapping. Also, the sheikh had remained a loyal friend to Akbar over the years. He had sent Akbar a cut from his gambling operations even when Akbar was languishing in a far-off village police station. The sheikh did all his posturing for the benefit of the department bosses and government ministers, but never in front of Akbar. If he were involved in this, it would have been impossible for Akbar not to have known.
“Where is the American now?”
“The sheikh has kept him somewhere. None of us know where. He was supposed to announce his decision sometime today. The entire group was supposed to have gone to see the sheikh today, to hear his judgment.”
“Where are your other friends? Where do they live?”
“Most of the boys live in Orangi only. One or two live towards Pakistan Colony. They were all living in their own homes. Since the American wasn’t with us, there was no need to take any elaborate security measures. That would have just raised suspicion. So everybody continued living just as they had been.”
“You can lead us to their houses?”
Kana didn’t answer immediately, as if struggling to reconcile Akbar’s directives and his loyalty to his comrades. “Yes, sahib, I can. But even if they are all picked up, it will do you no good. The agreement was that if for some reason even one member of the group did not show up at the sheikh’s madrasa on the twenty-fourth, the sheikh’s men would immediately execute the American.”
“You don’t worry about that. You just lead us to them, and we’ll figure out the rest.”
Triumphant at last, Tarkeen rose from the chair, signalling the end of the interrogation. Unable to contain himself any longer, Constantine signalled to Ashraf to take all the other men outside as well, and he turned to ask the question that he had been dying to ask.
“By the way, how do you know Akbar?”
“Sheikh Akbar? We have heard many stories about him in the area, from when he was the SHO of Orangi. The sheikh speaks highly of him. He says he was a courageous man who fought against injustice.”
“Yes, but how did you recognize his voice? Have you ever met him?”
“Oh no, sahib, but
the sheikh told us that since he went to jail, he also became very pious. Once or twice, when we had gathered at the sheikh’s for tableegh, he called up Akbar sahib and put the phone on speaker so that he could share his wisdom with us. He lectured us about the nature of jihad. The sheikh said that Akbar sahib was like a brother to him.”
“Did Akbar ever talk to your group regarding the kidnapping of the American?” Constantine waited breathlessly for the answer.
“No, sahib. We last heard from him a few months ago, before the American even came into the picture. We haven’t spoken to him since.”
Constantine was visibly relieved but still perplexed. Tarkeen had been waiting for him at the door, and the two men walked out once more into the crisp night air. The electricity still hadn’t been restored, and there was an eerie glow from the candles that had been lit in some of the rooms of the police station. The candle in the interrogation room had almost reached the end of its wick. Constantine told Ashraf to get another candle from the munshi. He and Tarkeen stood alone on the balcony of the station.
“I think I have heard of this sheikh. Isn’t he in some sectarian peace committee that the IG set up recently?”
“Yes, sir. Akbar knows him very well. But if he is involved, it won’t be easy to move against him. He has a decent following. They would see any direct raid on him as an affront. Besides, we don’t know exactly where he’s holding the American, so even if we were to go after him, there’s a possibility that his followers would kill Friedland anyway.”
“So what do you propose we do, Constantine? It’s already well past two. According to this fellow, if his gang doesn’t show up to see the sheikh later today, Friedland will be executed. Now we have to pick up the others tonight; otherwise, by sunrise, they will try and get word out to the sheikh to kill the American as quickly as possible.”
“Sir, this part of the story doesn’t make sense to me. This Sheikh Noman isn’t a jihadi, he’s a cheater. Why would he involve himself in something like this? Even arguing the fact that they brought him in to arbitrate, the minute he learnt about the American, he should have run a thousand miles from these boys. He speaks to Hanuman ten times a day, about the most mundane matters. Why didn’t he say something?”
The Prisoner Page 27