The Prisoner

by Omar Shahid Hamid

  Akbar shrugged his shoulders and sighed. “Arre, Consendine, what can I do? In our business we have to provide some sort of utility to our superiors, to the Agencies, to the politicians. I don’t have a brother or father who is a big shot, a bureaucrat, or a member of parliament. I can’t be a pimp like Maqsood. The only thing I have to offer is my personal ability. That is why when they have a problem, they call me. Yes, they will use me. If not them, then it will be someone else. What can I do? I can’t quietly slip into the shadows like any other man. I am what I am. I cannot break out of this cycle. In the end, my friend, we are all prisoners of our own destiny.”

  The two men shook hands again. As Akbar went through, he turned to Constantine one last time.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come? I could use you out there.”

  Constantine smiled and shook his head. Akbar shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the gates.

  21

  Day 4, December 24, 7:00 a.m.

  The outskirts of the city

  The jeep rolled along on the bumpy road, jumping from one pothole to another, until Akbar was convinced that Aziz was hitting each one deliberately, just to test the shocks on his new toy. The road was barely more than a half-paved track. Although they had not travelled very far since leaving the prison, the scene around them was a far cry from the metropolitan sprawl of the city. The road was a single track which wound round the side of a hill. The hill was barren, pockmarked with stone quarries that had been carved onto its side. Across the road was a line of shanties, where marble cutters were already at work, even at this early hour, cutting and shaping the blocks of stone that had been taken out of the hill. The sole concession to modernity was a shack at the corner that had a faded Coca-Cola advertisement on it. This was Mangopir, one of the last localities of the city before Karachi evaporated into the vast, arid landscape of the Baluch Desert. The area had the look of a frontier town in the American West, not quite part of the encroaching civilization of the city yet also not ready to be swallowed by the neighboring wilderness.

  Akbar sat in the passenger seat of the jeep, preferring to keep the window down, despite the sharp gusts of wind that made the dust on the road swirl and dance like a dervish. Aziz kept looking at Akbar with some alarm, noting the dust coating the dashboard. But Akbar was enjoying the feel of the wind on his face and would have it no other way. He was experiencing the feeling after five years. He took a drag of his cigarette and then exhaled in a leisurely fashion, taking more of the crisp air into his lungs. He would not give up this feeling for all the new jeeps in the inspector general’s motor pool. Freedom.

  Even the settling dust on the dashboard could not dampen Aziz’s spirits for long. “Sahib, which way do you want me to go? Are you taking charge in Mangopir? I would have thought you would have wanted to go back to Orangi, but I suppose this area isn’t too bad either. There’s good money to be made from the mining and reti bajri contracts in the area. There’s so much dirt in the area, I’m sure the thana sells at least two dozen trucks a day. Don’t you think so?”

  “I think that you’re getting ahead of yourself, Aziz. I have no earthly interest in how much the local SHO makes in selling trucks of dirt to the construction mafia in the city. I want you to go towards that madrasa, the one Sheikh Noman used to own. It’s just a little further down the road. How’s your family been?”

  “They are all right, sahib, by the grace of God. It hasn’t been easy since you were locked up. I was suspended for a while because everyone who had worked for you was under suspicion. Then, after a couple of months, I bribed the clerk at headquarters, so he quietly put me back on active duty in the motor pool. But it wasn’t like when I was with you, sahib. It was normal duty, no excitement, no encounters, and no extra cash or rewards. Five years like that, sahib. My God, how do people work like that? I almost went crazy. I couldn’t even afford to buy meat for my family. We have been eating dal for five years. Five bloody years, sahib. I had almost forgotten what chicken tasted like. I swear, sahib, I’m never going back to normal duty again. Now, Inshallah, you are here; things will be good again.”

  “Why didn’t you go get yourself assigned to another officer? Things might have been easier for you.”

  “Arre, no, sahib. I can’t work for any other officer. I have eaten your salt, I can’t turn my back on that. I wouldn’t betray you like that. Besides sahib, I’m too old now to get used to anybody else’s style of working. I’m stuck with you, whether you like it or not. By the way, sahib, I kept your gun for you. I have been oiling it regularly. It’s lying in the glove box.”

  Akbar grunted in amusement and lit another cigarette. The taste of the bitter tobacco felt good. He opened the glove box and felt the cold steel of the weapon. It was a Soviet-made Makarov pistol that he had once expropriated from a dead UF ward boss. His mind went back to when he had first met Aziz. He had been called into headquarters and told of his posting to Orangi. He had gotten the worst thana in the city, and he felt as if the sky had fallen on his head. As he walked out of the chief’s office, the staff standing outside had commiserated with him as if he were a condemned man on death row. That’s what Orangi had been at the time: a death sentence, certainly not a promotion. Only one constable had come forward and begged to go with him. He was sick of being an orderly in the head office, serving tea and biscuits to the bosses. That wasn’t what he had signed up for. Death in Orangi was preferable to serving another round of biscotti. Akbar first thought the constable was stark raving mad, but since he was the only one willing to go with him to Orangi, he had gone back into the chief’s office and requested his transfer. That constable had been Aziz.

  Presently they passed by a jumble of palm trees, next to which was the dilapidated local police station building. Opposite the thana was a Sufi shrine, its multicolored flags and banners fluttering in the morning breeze. It was the shrine of Mangopir, one of the oldest in the city. This one wasn’t very grandiose. Perhaps this had to do with its location, here in the back of beyond. But the curious feature of Mangopir was the crocodile pool next to the shrine. Apparently, the old Pir of Mango had exercised some form of control over the crocodiles. The Pir was long gone, but the poor crocodiles remained, existing on a diet of fruit and popcorn that was thrown into the pool by visitors. They were cared for by a lone, frail old man who would descend once a day into the pool area and throw bits of meat at them. A dozen shops selling flowers, sweets, incense sticks and popcorn for the crocodiles lined the path from the road to the shrine. Akbar told Aziz to stop the car. He bought a plastic bag full of rose petals from the shop and entered the shrine to pay his respects.

  In his younger days, Akbar had never been a particularly religious man. He was never regular in his prayers, and he had enjoyed the odd drink and the odd woman. Even his current conversion had been more a matter of professional convenience. But he was a superstitious man, and he did believe in a higher power. The kind of life he had led made him believe that there had to be someone up there looking out for him. And so he had become an avid visitor of Sufi shrines. He always went to a shrine before any major raid. Akbar had no one patron saint, but he patronized them all, believing in a policy of insurance just in case any one was truly closer to God than the others.

  He came back out and stared absently at the crocodile pool. The creatures were all lying on the sandy bank, waiting for stray morsels to be thrown at them. The animals were endlessly patient. They reminded Akbar of himself. All these years, he had waited patiently for a morsel to be thrown his way. Just like the crocodiles.

  Constantine observed him from his pickup, which was parked behind a nook of the police station wall. He shook his head and cursed himself. He wasn’t quite sure what he was doing here. After Akbar had left the prison, Constantine had been consumed by a strange feeling of guilt and responsibility. Guilt, for having turned Akbar down when he had asked him to go along to recover the American; and a nagging sense of responsibility for Akbar’s well-being.
<
br />   Constantine had always felt guilty about the fact that he had escaped unscathed from the death of Nawaz Chandio. He had often wondered at the fact that, but for the hand of fate, he could so easily have shared Akbar’s fate. After all, it had been Akbar who had dispatched him on the fool’s errand to the interior. Otherwise he would definitely have been on the scene of Nawaz’s death. And Akbar had done it to save him.

  Something about the way Akbar had asked him to come along had triggered these pent-up emotions in him. The minute Akbar’s jeep had left the prison compound, Constantine had felt compelled to go after him. Acting on a whim, he had climbed aboard his pickup and begun to follow Akbar’s jeep, but at a distance, to avoid detection. He had left so quickly that he hadn’t even bothered to take Ashraf or Saeedullah with him. He felt stupid about that now. How did he expect to come to Akbar’s aid without reinforcements?

  He thought about turning around and driving back. But as Akbar’s journey continued towards Mangopir and at the edge of the city, Constantine’s curiosity kept growing. He knew the sheikh had a madrasa in Mangopir, so he assumed that they were close to their destination. It would be silly to turn back now. But this was a dangerous neighborhood, and it would only be prudent to take precautions. He saw Akbar get back into his jeep and drive away from the shrine. So he took his pistol out of his holster and cocked it.

  Aziz drove a little further until a fork in the road took them onto a narrower path, which led into a neighborhood of small, closely clustered houses. At the end of the street, an elaborate mosque complex with whitewashed walls and marble tiles stood in stark contrast to the grim-looking buildings that surrounded it. Quranic inscriptions were written in large letters on the high walls, and mounted security cameras guarded the complex.

  Akbar ordered Aziz to stop the car in front of the gate. He got off and shoved his gun under the folds of his shirt. The gate of the compound opened as though someone was expecting him. A tall, strapping man carrying an ancient shotgun led Akbar through a maze of darkened, interconnecting corridors that led into the inner sanctum of the complex. Students, some as young as seven or eight, rushed to their first study sessions of the day wearing white prayer caps. The guard held open a door at the end of the longest corridor, while Akbar took off his sandals before entering. The room was a small office, richly carpeted but with no chairs. Two men sat on comfortable cushions on the floor, while a third man, a clerical assistant of some sort, sat at a low table, typing on a computer.

  Upon seeing Akbar, one of the men rose from the floor to greet him with a hug. He was rather corpulent and seemed to rub his protruding belly repeatedly. He wore an unusually flamboyant maroon turban and had wrapped himself in an expensive cashmere shawl. The whole room was filled with the overpowering, musky scent of attar. This was the mighty Sheikh Noman. There was a slight unease in his manner as he greeted Akbar.

  The computer typist wordlessly left the room, but the other man remained. He made no effort to greet Akbar. He wore a more orthodox green turban and was far more simply dressed than the sheikh. His beard was closely cropped, but his most striking feature was his cold, dead gray eyes and stern expression. His gaze was fixed on Akbar, and it was far from friendly.

  Akbar ignored him as he sat down on the cushions. “Sheikh, how have you been? It has been a long time since I saw you.”

  “Yes, Akbar. Mashallah, but you look good. Prison hasn’t affected you at all, it seems.” The sheikh nervously stroked his beard.

  “It is God’s Grace. He has watched over me.” Akbar looked at the other man, who seemed to be eyeing him intently. “Salaam alaikum, brother, I do not know who you are.”

  “Uh, Akbar, this is Qari Saif. He is a highly respected scholar from the north. Qari sahib took part in the jihad against the Russians when he was a young man. He has been, uh, visiting us for some time here at the madrasa.”

  “Ah yes, I have heard your name. People say you are a very powerful man, Qari sahib. You have become a very famous man in our city in a very short time. My compliments to you.”

  “I have heard many stories about you as well, Sheikh Akbar. Tell me, is it true that you became a religious scholar during your period of incarceration? I find it hard to believe that you could accomplish such a task without any proper instruction, without a learned Qari to guide you to the correct path. There are so many imposters in our religion, it is hard to decipher whose message is the true one.”

  “Well, heh, I just opened my eyes to God’s truth. It had always been there, but I had never bothered to look. We all end up on the path of righteousness sooner or later. I would love to spend some time discussing theology with you, but, alas, I have some pressing business with Sheikh Noman. Perhaps we can meet another time to discuss, heh, how shall I put it, how to decipher false messengers. Sheikh sahib, I have come to pick up the package that was left in your care. The appointed time is coming closer, and I must deliver it to its owners.”

  “Uh, Akbar, actually, Qari Saif is also here for the same, uh, package. It’s not that simple for me to give you the package. Qari sahib has . . . well, he has a different view of these things.”

  “Oh? And what view is that?” Akbar remained perfectly calm on the outside, but his heart started thumping loudly in his chest.

  Qari Saif remained impassive, twirling his silver rosary, as Sheikh Noman, now more nervous than ever, furiously stroked his beard.

  “Well, uh, he believes that, uh, since the original plan had been to, uh, get rid of the, uh, package, uh, maybe we should continue to do that.”

  “There is no doubt about it. There is no maybe in it. The American unbeliever must be executed. Thousands of our followers will exult in what we do! It is the Will of God! He delivered this unbeliever into our midst, and so his purpose was for him to die here for the sake of our cause!” For the first time, Qari Saif grew animated, his dead gray eyes displaying a fiery passion and his eyebrows arching high into his forehead.

  Akbar looked sharply at the sheikh. “This was not our agreement. I explained to you the consequences of such a move. You know what will happen. The police and the Agencies will figure out your link to the American. They have already arrested some of those idiot boys. They will crack in two minutes. And you know, in a case like this one, none of your supporters or their street protests will be of any use to you. Everyone will abandon you, sheikh. This is the best way to solve this problem. Give him to me, and the rest is my responsibility. That’s what I promised you. Are you seriously agreeing with what this man is telling you?”

  Rivulets of sweat poured down Sheikh Noman’s forehead. “Akbar, I, uh, I see your point, but—”

  “There is no room for doubt in the matters of God, sheikh! There can be no return for the American. He must die! So what if the boys have been arrested? The agreement with them was anyway going to expire on this morning. For all they know, the American should already be dead by now. They will never know. And no one can link it directly with you, or me. Even if they do, I have many friends who will hide us in the tribal areas. No one will be able to touch us there.”

  “Uh, in the tribal areas? You mean we would have to leave Karachi? And what about my madrasas?”

  “Of course. You did not expect to be able to stay here, did you? You have done good work here, sheikh. You have served Allah’s cause well. But you too have profited. You have grown rich on the word of Allah. Now, it is time for you to sacrifice a little and serve in a different capacity. All of the things that you surround yourself with are merely worldly possessions. Your life will be very different from now on, but it will ultimately be far more rewarding. You will be able to openly resist these unbelievers.”

  Akbar stared incredulously at Sheikh Noman, who looked more perturbed than ever at the prospect of losing his worldly possessions. “Listen sheikh, this is madness. You cannot seriously be thinking about going through with what this man is saying. He has nothing to lose. On the other hand, it would be suicidal for you to contemplate this. Ther
e is no way you would be able to run from this. Come on sheikh, let’s be reasonable and go get the American. Your role in this matter is done. Let’s wrap things up. You have already cut a deal, the police will be on their way. There is no other option.”

  Qari Saif had worked himself into quite a frenzied state. “How dare you blaspheme like that! We are not concerned if the police are on the way! We are not answerable to them and their corrupt system. We are answerable only to Allah. You are going to go through with the execution of the American, sheikh. If you do not, your followers will never forgive you. I will not let them. The only thing standing in our way is this man. He is not one of us, he is a police officer, and his loyalty is suspect! He is the only link between you and the police. We need to investigate his real motives. Any man who tries to stop us from carrying out God’s work is an unbeliever! And if someone is an unbeliever, then we must deal with him accordingly.”

  “Oye, who are you to question my loyalty! Ask the sheikh who has been a loyal friend of his all these years! So what if I was in the police? Does that make me any less of a true believer? I have heard many things about you, Qari Saif. I have heard, for instance, that before you became a man of God, you were a pimp selling women in the bazaars of Peshawar! I wonder how that affects your piety. Or did selling whores somehow give you a greater insight into the ways of God?”

  Akbar noted with satisfaction that his outburst had had the desired effect. The color had drained from Qari Saif’s face at the mention of his past. Akbar hadn’t been sure if his allegations were correct, but the Qari’s reaction confirmed their veracity. Akbar had checked up on him after Constantine had mentioned his name, but he hadn’t realized that he was blackmailing the sheikh. And the sheikh, in turn, was so paralysed by the Qari’s threats that he was now unable to take any decisive step regarding the American. Akbar would have to resolve this on his own. As the Qari sat there, ashen-faced, Akbar signalled to the sheikh to join him outside.