by Mainak Dhar
‘That’s good, right? The more firepower they bring to the party, hopefully the more these hijackers realise the Americans won’t cave in and release the hostages. We’re not too far and we’ll try and see if we get a window of opportunity to do something if the Americans can cause some distraction.’
‘Major, that would be fine if this was ISIS.’
I paused, not sure where this was headed.
‘That tattoo on the man’s body which you described. The Americans ignored it, thinking it to be some tattoo some mercenary or terrorist got in a parlour in some godforsaken shithole. I’ve even heard an American analyst dismiss it as a gang tattoo. We have seen this sort of tattoo before. Only once, but we have seen it. We never got official confirmation and never encountered it again, but there was an interesting story around it. And, when you’ve been around as long as I have, you get an instinct for which stories to believe.’
‘Where?’
‘Near Tibet. One of our sources saw it on a man, who had been caught in an avalanche and had been brought in for treatment at a hospital.’
I thought back to the Oriental face I had seen.
‘When that man recovered, it seems he bragged a bit to some nurses about who he was. We got really lucky since our man was working at the hospital as a clerk and was fully plugged into the gossip. We hear his superiors found out and he disappeared, but he had the same tattoo. He told the women what it was. It isn’t the letter ‘t’, it is the number 7, written in Chinese.’
‘Chinese?’
‘Major, that man said this was a tattoo many men in his unit had, that he was from an elite commando unit the Chinese have, a unit hardly anyone knows much about. A unit trained in assassination and secret missions that the official government sources can deny. A unit called Unit Seven.’
Eight
‘Cui bono? Our long dead Greek friend Cicero can help us here when all sorts of fancy drones and satellites cannot. Cui bono, major?’
Karzai and I were huddled in a small cave we had found. Hanif was keeping watch for any unwelcome visitors. We were no more than a few minutes march away from the Korengal post. When I had called in to Sandberg once again, he had no real new news to offer. The hijackers and their supporters clearly had some heavy-duty firepower and the Americans seemed to be gathering even more firepower to take them on.
Neither had Sandberg made any mention of Chinese involvement, leading me to believe that Gopal and the Indian government were keeping that discovery close to their chests. Governments and spooks play those kind of games all the time with each other. The only problem is that it usually puts grunts like me in harm’s way.
So, this time when Karzai’s sat-phone had rung and it was Dhar on the line, I was intrigued. He was a man I trusted, one who didn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade.
‘What do you mean, sir?’
‘The part of the world you’re in is a complicated piece of real estate, but when you get it down to its simplest essence, things become clearer. The Greeks used that phrase to drive their thinking in criminal investigations. It is Latin for ‘who profits from it?’ I don’t think human motivations and instincts have changed much in thousands of years. There’s always someone who profits from a crime. Who is it?’
I had kept the speaker on, and Karzai was leaning over, listening in.
‘The Taliban and ISIS both don’t really gain by getting the Americans to step in again. They need to be exterminated. Few people will shed tears if the Americans bomb the hell out of them, so why would ISIS call attention to themselves? If I add on everything else that we’ve learned from you, including the Chinese involvement, then it’s almost certainly not ISIS.’
‘Who then, sir? What’s with the Chinese angle?’
‘I really don’t know, son. But what I can tell you is that Chinese military elite don’t land up as guns for hire. If they’re there, then the establishment sent them, either covertly or overtly. Before we get to what the Chinese are doing there, let’s back up. Why do you think the war in Afghanistan continues even after al-Qaeda was taken out and Osama went swimming with the sharks?’
I had no idea what the old spy was talking about.
‘Son, the world we live in has all kinds of wars going on. Some are fought on the battlefields, some are fought in the full glare of the media with live telecasts of battles, but most are fought in the darkness. Those dark wars are the ones which often really matter. All three wars are being fought in Afghanistan. But the real war being fought in the darkness is the war that is being waged in millions of American homes. A war that is projected to take the lives of close to two hundred thousand Americans over the next decade. When people talk of weapons of mass destruction, they never talk of this, but it will kill more Americans than any terror attack possibly could.’
I stared at the phone in my hand, my head spinning.
Dhar was not one to make jokes about something like this. I could see Karzai’s eyes narrow and then light up as if he had made some connection.
He said just one word.
‘Heroin.’
Immediately, he realised he had spoken aloud when he should not have. An Afghan villager, helping me out of the goodness of his heart or the promise of some reward, would not have understood this much English.
Karzai closed his eyes, cursing himself silently for his indiscretion.
Dhar chuckled. ‘Yes, Aman Karzai. Heroin. You have clearly been paying attention.’
Both of us froze. Dhar was still chuckling.
‘Aadi, thanks to you I have been forced to get out of retirement and to once again play at being a spy. Just when I thought the rest of my life would be spent trying out new recipes, writing books, and catching up with family, you showed up and made my life so much more interesting. It isn’t always fun, but I must admit, at times I did miss the thrill of the chase. The Americans have their Predators and satellites, but this is our backyard. We have our assets. The Americans think you’re up there with friendly villagers, but our assets came back with news of how your captors and the terrorists at the barracks were shot with high-caliber rifle shots. That got us thinking. We knew the ISI was after him and we intercepted some ISI chatter of him being wounded. So, we had a hunch that he may be there somewhere in Afghanistan. While we normally give that area a wide berth because the Americans can get pretty territorial, we thought it was worth the risk to have an overflight arranged once we got your coordinates from the Americans. You never heard this from me, but you’ll be surprised how good some of our new cameras are. Never a hundred percent accurate, but when we ran the face of your companion through our facial rec, we were pretty sure it was him. Hearing his voice makes it certain that you’re having your little reunion in Afghanistan.’
‘Sir, I didn’t…’
‘Aadi, you don’t need to explain why you didn’t reveal his identity. If I were you, I wouldn’t either. It can be our little secret. After all, your friend has done much to help us with his exploits in Pakistan. While he did play a role in the events in Mumbai, our investigations show that every single man he took out was a bad apple. We would have preferred that they be brought to justice in a court of law, but not too many people lament their passing. He does have innocent blood on his hands, but I doubt he was anything more than a plaything in Karimi’s hand. He can’t undo what he has done, and to be honest, if the Indian government got its hands on him, he would be behind bars, but he did his bit in Pakistan.’
‘How about the Americans? Would they forgive him?’
‘The Americans have their own agenda. Karzai took out a bunch of contractors who worked for a pretty big firm owned by a billionaire who is pretty tight with the current administration. I’ll be the first to say that the men he took out were rapists and thugs, but the Americans may not be so forgiving. They were American citizens, after all. Also, in what is happening right now, we can’t be sure who among the Americans is clean. Which is why Gopal is the official face of the Indian government and I’
m doing what I did back in the service. Too bad your family’s mixed up in this, but let’s try and get them out to safety if we can. Karzai, can you hear me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You don’t know me, and you have no reason to trust me. And, you don’t need to know me or trust me, because this is not about you, me or Aadi. This is about Zoya, her little son and Rachel, the young lady whose only fault is that she is her father’s daughter and she had the courage to speak out about the drug trade. Forget your worries and focus on getting them out. Are you willing to work with me on that?’
Karzai agreed. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll get them out.’
I closed my eyes and exhaled audibly in relief.
All these months of worrying about who knew my secrets had ultimately been in vain, but my worries had also been misplaced. If Dhar knew so much, those in the upper echelons of the government knew as well. Clearly, they were willing to let me live with my secrets.
Dhar’s voice was all business again. ‘Back to Heroin. Afghanistan used to account for over 90 percent of the world’s production of opium, much of it finding its way into the bloodstream of Americans as heroin on the street or as opioids, painkillers, which are abused for addiction. The war in Afghanistan was hard on the people, but was boomtime for those involved in this trade. Opium production reached all-time record levels by 2012. There were murmurs that various foreign parties were involved in their share of the smuggling. There were rumours of bigger players. They suffered most when the US began troop withdrawal and they are the ones who will benefit most when the Americans come back in force. ’
‘Who, sir?’
‘If we knew who they are, we wouldn’t be in this mess, would we? When the American government moved troops out, opium production dropped in Afghanistan. Part of it may be because the ISIS newcomers discouraged it, and the fighting between them and the Taliban would have caused its own disruptions, but some old friends tell me there is an easier answer, one that should be obvious. They could grow all the opium they wanted because the easiest and safest way to get it to the US would have been to put it onto US planes flying off from their Afghan bases. Smuggle them in plain sight.’
I thought back to Khalid and his men. Speaking in English to each other, somehow knowing what the Americans were doing, having military-grade equipment and training. I didn’t like where this was headed.
‘Aadi, if there are rogue US forces or agencies involved in this, who want US boots on the ground back so that they can once again run the drug trade the way they used to, things are much more dangerous than having a bunch of ISIS hijack a plane. They will do everything they can to provoke the US government into overreacting. They are clearly staging most of what they do for maximum impact and outrage in the US media and public. If they kill that young woman, there is no option for the US government but to send in troops.’
What were my Zoya and Aman mixed up in? Ruthless men like these wouldn’t hesitate to kill them both.
Dhar must have read my mind.
‘If anything, that’s good news for Zoya and your son. Killing them doesn’t help their cause, if provoking the US is what they want. They took a special interest in you and your family when Gopal called them to negotiate and rightly assumed that it was on your behalf. So, they may have a separate agenda for our government, which I suspect we’ll know soon enough.’
‘But, sir, what the hell are the Chinese doing in the middle of all this?’
‘That’s for you to find out, son. US drone imagery shows that a small village near the Korengal post has occupants that don’t really look like Afghan villagers. There are about fifty men there, all wearing Afghan civilian clothes, but no women or children visible. No weapons visible, but suspicious, isn’t it? I think Sandberg will tell you the same thing the next time you chat with him. I would think that’s where they’re keeping the hostages – the post on the hill is probably their command post.’
‘How do you know of this before the Americans?’
He chuckled. ‘They don’t tell me everything now that I’m retired, but I suspect some young, smart men and women somewhere in India are hacking into the drone’s footage and we have our own eyes on the target. We are also getting some help to you which will perhaps save you from any trigger-happy Predator pilots. Wait for that, and then go look at that village. That’s where they most likely have Zoya and Aman.’
I wondered what Dhar meant about India having eyes on the target and how we would get any help from Indians in the middle of nowhere so close to an enemy camp.
We sat there for over an hour, when Hanif called out. ‘There’s a man coming towards us. He has a donkey.’
A man with a donkey?
The last thing we needed was a nosey villager, who would see our gear and sound the alarm. We dumped all our gear inside the cave and pulled Hanif in.
I saw the man then, walking by, swaddled in a torn blanket, his face covered with a scarf and leading an emaciated donkey. He was whistling what I could have sworn was the tune from Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. He stopped in front of the cave, as we slunk back into the darkness, hoping he would pass us by. Instead, the man stopped near the cave.
Karzai reached for his pistol, but something made me stay his hand. The man loosened his trousers and began to take a leak.
I could feel Karzai’s grip on the gun relax. Then, we were startled when the man began to speak in English, in a soft, singsong tone, so that anyone watching from a distance would think he was just singing while taking a leak.
‘Cardinal, I know the Paras think they’re tough shit, but a Hellfire missile will ruin your day. I’m dropping three trackers here for you and your friends so that our American couch potatoes flying their drones while munching chips somewhere in Texas know where you are and don’t blow you up by mistake, if things get real cosy in there.’
I saw him discreetly drop a small package on the ground, as he once again covered himself with his blanket. He looked straight at the cave, barely a few feet away from us.
‘Good luck, major.’
‘Who are you?’
He took off the scarf for a second and used it to wipe his face.
I saw now that he was perhaps a few years older than me, but with grey hair and a gaunt face. ‘Major Ankit Sharma. I’ve been in your shoes and wish I could help bring an added gun to the party, but my bosses don’t want me to blow my cover. So, I’ll be babysitting this bloody donkey while you go in there. Good luck.’
As he walked away, whistling a tune, I shook my head in wonder and once again, thanked the old spymaster for once again coming through for me.
***
I felt naked walking towards the small village, knowing that perhaps I was already in someone’s kill sight and one pull of the trigger away from being shot dead.
My face was partially covered with a scarf that I had scavenged from one of the fallen Talibs, and while at the time I had insisted that I be the one to approach the village with Hanif, I was beginning to question my plan.
Yes, Karzai would do a far better job than me of providing cover fire from a distance if things did go wrong and yes, it was my family likely being kept captive in the village, and after a short argument, Karzai did grudgingly accept that I had better skills and training for the role I needed to play, but everything hinged on one ten-year-old boy doing his part well.
We were barely five hundred meters from the village and I could see the ramshackle huts, many of them on stilts built against the craggy rocks that ringed the area. About five hundred meters to our right was the beginning of the snaking path that led up the small hill to the deserted US outpost where the hijackers were supposed to have set up their command centre.
We had emerged from some rough paths carved into the hillside, perhaps used by locals for grazing their animals, but for the last hundred metres or so would have been visible to any guard watching us from the village.
Hanif was holding my hand, and I could feel his hand trembling a bit as we came clos
er to the village.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m scared. I’m not a soldier like you.’
I turned and looked down at him, into his wide, scared eyes.
‘I was a soldier for over ten years and every single time I was in battle, I was scared, and every time I killed a man, I had nightmares about it. That doesn’t make me weak or a coward. It makes me human.’
‘But you and him are so brave.’
I knelt in front of the boy.
‘Bravery is not about not being scared, but about being able to keep going in spite of how afraid you are. I saw how brave you were at the barracks. You don’t have to do this, you know. We can think of some other plan.’
He looked at me, his eyes reflecting a wisdom far greater than his age.
‘Daesh killed my father when he refused to hand me over to join their group as a child soldier. I saw them shoot him down, and I cried for nights because I thought I was too weak to do anything. Then he came, and he taught all of us that we could fight back, that we could stand up for ourselves. I will help get your family back.’
‘Hanif, your father would have been proud of the fine young man you’re growing up into.’
I saw his chest fill up with pride as he seemed to stand a little taller. Then, the twinkle in the eye of a naughty child was back.
‘Besides, why should the two of you have all the fun?’
I patted him on the back and as I took cover behind a rock. He went ahead to the village. I knew Karzai was somewhere behind us, close to a kilometre away, even now scanning the village through his scope, but he would not be able to save us if the men in the village actually took us to be a threat and killed us even before we got into the compound.