The Good Son (46 page)

“Yes, and I will need some equipment, cousin. Tell me, does Masoud still keep his shop in Karkhani?”

“You require weapons? I can give you anything you need.”

“Again, you’re most generous, but I have special needs, and besides I would like to see Masoud again and remember our old times. And I would also like to go by Kachagari to see if I have any friends left there.” This reminded him that I was a considerable person and might have connections in the refugee camps outside of his control.

“Well, then, do as you think best,” he said lightly. “But, cousin, you will find things much changed in this part of the world. It is hard to know who to trust nowadays.”

“As opposed to the past, when the Pashtuns were famous for their fidelity?”

A brief confusion on his face, then he laughed, and for somewhat longer than the remark was worth.

After that I had to refuse an armed escort to Karkhani, and we parted good pals. I left him my new cell number and he agreed to call me about Gul Muhammed. Bacha Khan could not actually kill me himself, because he was bound by
pashtunwali
as my host, but he could certainly sell me to someone else, in the most indirect way possible. Or perhaps he was as he seemed, a kinsman who wished me and my father well. That I could not determine which of these two possibilities was true merely meant that I had entered once more into the chronic insecurity of Pashtun tribal culture. You just live with it; it can even get to be enjoyable in a funny way, especially to an adrenaline junkie like me. As Ghalib says:

The steed of life gallops on
Out of control.
My hand no longer holds the reins,
The stirrups are torn away.
Who know where it will stop?
Who cares?

Karkhani is the famous smuggler’s bazaar of the Khyber Pass. It’s run by Afridi Pashtuns and has been since the Raj, the deal here being that the Afridis undertake to keep the pass open and the government undertakes not to interfere with the sale of smuggled goods. It has two sections, one full of fairly ordinary shops selling appliances, electronics, and other homely products to tourists and Pakistanis (what we have instead of Costco, in other words), and a restricted section, closed to foreigners, where they sell guns, opium, heroin, and hashish. I walked right into the restricted section through the checkpoint, the guards didn’t give me a second look, and directly over to Masoud’s shop. I hadn’t seen him in twenty years, but we recognized each other all right; we embraced, and he took me to the little terrace behind the shop where he entertained honored guests or special customers and suppliers. He had about a dozen sons by now and all of them gathered on the terrace and stared at us boldly while we drank tea, and the word spread through the neighborhood, and soon the mud walls around the terrace were lined with faces, all there to gawk at legendary me.

I brought up the subject of Gul Muhammed, and Masoud said he’d heard that he was living in Afghanistan, in hiding, more or less. He’d been active in the war against the Taliban and they’d put a price on his head. But he didn’t know what village he was in. I asked him if he’d ever heard of al-Faran.

He stroked his beard. “Yes, I think so. There are so many groups it’s hard to keep them straight. You would not believe what a good AK fetches now, even a Dara copy; the demand is out of control.”

“It’s the insurgency,” I said.

“Yes, the jihad against the Americans, although in the Russian jihad we had the opposite problem, the Americans and the Saudis were sending so many weapons it was almost impossible to make a living.”

“But as to al-Faran?”

“Yes, if I am not mistaken, this is a group based in Swat, I forget where, one of the groups doing jihad against the idolators in Kashmir. I think I sold them some rockets last year. Why do you want to know?”

“They kidnapped some foreigners. One of them is a relative of mine. I’d like to see if there is anything I can do to get them released.”

“Oh, yes. That was on the news. Of course they used this al-Faran, but everyone knows that that was an ISI operation.”

“Do they?”

“Of course. Al-Faran does not take a shit without ISI telling them where to drop it. It was that rich American they wanted. They will have a huge ransom and then they will use the money to fund a coup.”

“And what about the others?”

He brought the edge of his hand sharply down on the back of his neck. “On videos. This is to show that al-Faran are true mujahideen and not merely pawns of ISI. And they will sell a lot of videos, too, with so many executions. I have some in my shop, if you would care to watch one.”

“Not today, thank you,” I said.

“Then how may I serve Kakay Ghazan?” All business now.

I asked him whether he had any of those Speznatz Stechkins left. He grinned and said he did, and we both talked about the day me and Wazir had brought him a case of twenty-four that our group had won in one of our ambushes.

The Stechkin is basically a machine gun you can put in your pocket, and this batch had been modified for the Soviet special forces to include
folding wire stocks and silencers. They’re rare now, and extremely expensive, but Masoud gave me the mujahid discount, and I also bought Makarov 9- mm ammunition for the thing, and five extra magazines.

We took my purchases out to the testing range, which was the roof. They don’t do returns in Karkhani, so you have to make sure the gun works before you leave the shop. I fired the Stechkin on both single-shot and full auto, and it worked fine.

I loaded all the magazines and slung it in its odd wooden holster by a strap around my neck and shoulders, concealing it under my Chinese jacket. I skipped visiting the camp. It was getting late and my bad leg was acting up, complaining about the pounding I was taking from the bike on the bad roads. I went back into Peshawar to the Qissa Khwani Bazaar and had dinner at the Salateen Hotel, which makes the best mutton
karhai
in the world. I could’ve used a drink, but there wasn’t one on offer, which I took as a bad sign for the future of Peshawar.

When I got back to my bike and paid off the street kids I had hired to watch it, I noticed a brown Toyota hatchback with a bent front bumper parked nearby, and I seemed to recall seeing it before, maybe in Kharkani, maybe earlier on the trip, but I was aching and tired now, and I didn’t think much about it; there are lots of brown Toyotas. Leaning against it were two men. One was a burly guy, a Punjabi by the look of him, wearing a khaki safari shirt and slacks. He had cropped hair, aviator sunglasses, and a neat brush mustache, and I thought
soldier
. The man he was with was taller and thinner, a Pashtun, in a shalwar kameez and a round white hat. His beard was thick, long, and black, dropping from peculiar knobby cheekbones that stood out like a couple of golf balls in the rough. In Peshawar they don’t wear T-shirts with TALIBAN written on them, but you can tell who they are.

They seemed to be arguing when I strolled up, but they stopped and the two of them stared at me, and I looked at them and gave them a polite nod. I got on the bike and rode off.

About twenty klicks south of the city, on the long grade up to the Kohat Pass, I saw the same brown Toyota again in my rearview mirror, coming up fast on my tail. I slowed a little and pulled to the left to let him pass, Sometimes in a combat situation you see a threat emerging, or rather you feel it’s going to happen without really knowing how you
know, your mind has just put together a bunch of unconscious details, and so you don’t go through a door or stick your head up or whatever, and I had that feeling then.

So when the Toyota swerved violently toward me to knock me off the road, I jammed on the brakes and put the bike down and skidded for about forty feet, throwing sparks and tearing the leg off my trousers along with some patches of skin. I saw the hatchback screech to a halt in a cloud of dust and then pull a U-ey and come running back to where I was. It stopped and the passenger door and the two rear doors popped open and three guys got out, the military dude from the bazaar, hefting an AK, and two guys I’d never seen before, short wide men who had the dark skin and flat faces of Tajiks.

I pulled myself away from the motorcycle and got to one knee, my upper body bent over like I was hurting, and I lifted the Stechkin from its holster and thumbed it to full auto, and when they were about two yards from me I knocked the three of them over with one long burst.

I pointed the pistol at the driver and yelled out in Urdu to lift his hands from the wheel and get out of the car. After a brief hesitation he did so, and I made him sit on the ground with his hands behind his head. I looked him over: early twenties, shortish hair, a mustache. I figured him for a Punjabi soldier or cop of some kind. He was shaking slightly, like a bush in a faint breeze. I leaned over and checked out his hands.

I know guys who like this part, but I’ve never cared for it, it’s not combat anymore, and it’s embarrassing, to me at least, to have that kind of power over a human person. On the other hand, there are situations, like this one, where you need information.

I said, “What is this all about, brother? Why did you want to kill me?”

“Oh, God, are you going to shoot me now? Oh, God!”

“No, of course not. You are no threat to me, Naik. Is it naik?”

He dared a look up at my face. “Lance-naik. I am only a driver, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

“Shabbir Hussain.”

“Very well, Lance-naik Hussain, why was your officer trying to kill me?”

“He wasn’t trying to kill you! He was going to give you to those Afghans and they would take you away. He would put it out as a kidnapping. It happens all the time on these roads.”

“And why was. . . this officer, what was his name and rank?”

“Captain Ahmed Waqar.”

“What unit?”

He lowered his face. “I am not allowed to say.”

“Don’t be stupid, Shabbir. You have no choice, and no one will ever know what passed between us. I am trying to save your life, so help me, please. What unit?”

“Intelligence. But I am only a driver. I don’t know anything.”

“Thank you. And now, why was Captain Waqar of the ISI trying to have me kidnapped?”

“I told you, sir. I am only a driver.”

“Yes, you keep saying. Would you like a cigarette?”

He would. I gave him one and let him smoke half of it in silence. Then I said, “Let’s begin again, and let’s not continue with this story that you’re only a driver. An ISI captain on a mission like this would not take along a lance-naik driver. He would require someone who could take charge if he were out of action, perhaps a senior NCO, a
havildar
major or a
subedar
, and you are too young to be either of those, so I suspect you are a lieutenant. And by the way, lieutenant, drivers have little cuts and scars on their hands and grease around their fingernails. You have never changed even an oil filter with those soft hands.”

He took in this comment and his shoulders sagged.

“Shoot me, if you like,” he said sullenly. “I’m not saying anything more.”

“Why not? Captain Waqar is dead, and your main problem will be figuring out what to tell Major Laghari when you return to Pindi. Fortunately, I understand he’s not too bright, so you should have little difficulty making up a plausible story.”

He stared up at me. “How did you know—” he began and then realized his mistake.

“How did I know you were sent by Major Laghari? Because, my friend, you have been suckered into a family affair. Major Seyd Laghari is my uncle. I bet he didn’t tell you that.”

He gaped at me. “No. He said you were an American spy.”

“I’m sure. Well, the fact is I’m not here to spy on Pakistan. I’m here to look for my mother. She’s one of the people kidnapped with William Craig. You’d know all about that, too, wouldn’t you?”

I was looking into his eyes when I said that, and I saw them register
surprise and something deeper too. Perhaps guilty knowledge. I thought then that Lieutenant Hussain did not have a shining future as an intelligence agent if he could not lie more convincingly.

“And the Taliban that Captain Waqar was talking to in Peshawar. What’s his story?”

“I don’t know,” said the lieutenant sullenly. “Some Afghan.”

“Name?”

“Baz Khatak.”

“Who is he?”

“Nobody. An informant.”

An insurgent was more like it, but I didn’t press it because I thought I’d got everything I was going to get out of Lieutenant Hussain without actual torture. I made him drag his boss’s body back to the Toyota and heave it into the back compartment, and all the time he was doing that he kept looking at me, like I was going to pull some fiendish trick of the kind we Americans are famous for, maybe shoot him at the last minute. But I did not, and instead made him toss the dead Tajiks and the AK down the dropoff and let him get in his car and drive away.

The Ducati had lost some of its fairing but it was still in running order and I used it to return to Peshawar, because I was not going to try to drive back to Lahore with ISI searching the roads, as they would be as soon as the lieutenant called in what had gone down. I should have capped the poor bastard, but I didn’t have the heart; he looked too much like my cousin Hassan, even though I’ve shot dozens of people who resemble my relatives. It was just not his day to die.

W
hen Rashida comes in the next morning with the eternal naan, dal, and tea, Ashton says, in reasonable Pashto, “Rashida, my gazelle, where are my eggs and bacon? I specifically ordered eggs and bacon this morning, and whole-wheat toast, and strong coffee.”

Rashida ignores him as she always does. She does not acknowedge the presence of strange men; she places her tray and tugs her dupatta more tightly around her face.

“Well, if I can’t get a decent breakfast, we’re never stopping here again,” he continues. “What do you say, Schildkraut? Next time we’ll do the Pearl, I think. Baths, coffee,
and
, I believe, they don’t do decapitations.”

Schildkraut smiles thinly at this, and the captives all gather around the breakfast tray, except for Sonia. She has observed Rashida’s subtle signal. She rises from her charpoy and follows the girl into a corner of the room.