Agency Rules - Never an Easy Day at the Office (12 page)

“Stop! Do you realize that no one knew that you were in Timergara?” the visitor seethed. Dawood opened his mouth to answer, but the visitor held up his hand, silencing him. “Your uncle thinks you should come home and I have been told to deliver that message. Are you ready to come home, Dawood?”

Dawood
’s anger was starting to build as he listened to the visitor lecture him on field operations; he was thinking about the amount of intelligence that had been collected while ‘off the reservation’. Thank God he had changed the meeting place from the teahouse to a roadside café in Thakal. How would he show his face after the dressing down he was getting? But as the desk jockey continued to rant, Dawood’s anger overtook his sense.

“Don
’t you see me sitting here? You act as if I’m in a hospital dying, but here I am, safe and sound!” Dawood defiantly said, doing his best to keep his voice low so that others wouldn’t hear him. “There are times when I can tell my uncle if I am planning to leave Peshawar and there are times when it’s not possible. He needs to understand that I’m not a little boy anymore.” He remembered Lt. Col. Akbar’s telling him, so long ago,
it’s much easier to beg forgiveness rather than ask for permission
. He didn’t think that phrase would have any impact on someone whose greatest risk in life was deciding whether to have chocolate or vanilla ice cream on a sundae.

“Timergara was a fantastic trip. I learned a great deal and meet some wonderful people. Please tell my uncle that for me,” Dawood continued, controlling his anger with an effort. “And please tell him, I
’ll come home when I have completed my work. Not a day before.”

The visitor, furious at his authority being challenged, also managed to keep his temper in control. “So tell me then, what great adventures did you have on your trip?”

Unfazed by the darts coming his way from the visitor’s eyes, Dawood replied, “I’ve sent my uncle a letter with all the details of my trip. Tell him to check his mail.” His uncle would understand the message. Along with their intermittent reports to the ‘visitors’, field operatives utilized a number of tactics to forward information. They were careful not to disseminate their intelligence through a single channel, and kept away from technology as much as possible. ‘Check your mail’ was a cloaked reference to old-style dead drops.

As a sniper, Dawood had learned how to make himself invisible in his surroundings, but the visitor was not as adept. As he leaned back in his seat, trying to bring his temper under control, he felt a strange sense of unease, a small prickle of awareness that raised his hackles.
Was someone watching us?
Using the windows of the vehicles parked around him, Dawood surreptitiously surveyed the area. This was not as easy when sitting in the open with people surrounding him.
It could be anyone
, he thought to himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man dart in and out of a small alcove to his left. He shifted his head slightly to bring him into focus.

The visitor was valiantly trying to re-establish his authority to Dawood, but Dawood was no longer listening. He pulled a handful of papers from his
kameez
pocket, rifling through them, removing pieces at random and placing them on the table. Taking one of the scraps, he scribbled, “We are being watched. Don’t react. Don’t look around,” and slid it across the table to the visitor. The visitor tried to pick it up, but Dawood crumpled it into the palm of his hand and waited for the visitor to acknowledge that he had gotten the message. Pulling a cigarette from the pack on the table, Dawood reached for the matchbox and asked the visitor, “Can you remember that?” The visitor nodded, but Dawood could see that nervousness and fear had overtaken him. He was having a ‘deer in the headlights’ moment, which irritated Dawood.
Stupid fool. Stop panicking or you’ll give us away.

In one fluid motion, Dawood lit his cigarette and dropped the burning match along with the scrap of paper into the ashtray, watching it disintegrate with the heat. He turned his attention to the newbie before him, thinking of the best route to get him out of the area and away from any potential danger. The one thing that would compromise any field operative is when a messenger gave in to fear. They went from being an asset to a threat in a matter of seconds, sometimes leaving the operative to decide whether to burn the operation or burn the asset. Dawood
’s eyes moved quickly, searching for a safe passage for the visitor.

Standing up from the table, Dawood motioned to the waiter. He was jovial and friendly, joking with him as he handed over a few hundred rupee notes to cover the tab. He started walking towards the bus stop a few yards away, talking to the visitor as they moved. A quick glance inside showed him that his shadow was also on the move.

The visitor may as well have been deaf – words came out, but nothing registered – because Dawood practically had to drag him towards the bus stop. Two buses pulled up at the stop and Dawood pushed the visitor onto one, telling the conductor to drop him in Saddar. He smiled and waved goodbye to his friend, looking like someone without a care in the world. He turned towards the second bus, but darted in between the two buses and recklessly crossed the four-lane road to another bus on the other side. As he climbed aboard, he looked across to see his shadow still standing on the other side looking for Dawood. The visitor’s bus had already moved off. With a smirk, Dawood realized that he was not working against professionals. He also wondered how long it would take the visitor find the note he had shoved into his pocket when pushing him on the bus.
Let’s hope his training kicks in at some point
, Dawood thought as his bus pulled away from the stop.

Boarding and alighting from a bus in Pakistan requires skill. Buses rarely stop moving for male passengers, so learning to get on and off of a moving vehicle takes more talent than the average person would think. As the bus neared City Towers, Dawood climbed from his seat, an unusual luxury in public transportation, and moved to the back door. Since the bus wasn
’t going to stop, he had to be ready to jump out at his destination.

The conductor, a 15-year old boy with a wad of cash in his hand, slapped the metal plate on the door a couple of times to let the driver know that he needed to slow down and bounded out of the bus, running alongside. “Sherpao, Islamia College, Hayatabad Chowrangi, Bara,” he called out repeatedly to passengers standing at the stop, ushering them in the front door, as other passengers exited from the back. Dawood came off the bus with a running jump, admiring the conductor
’s energy. Conductors in Pakistan were like ticket scalpers outside a stadium, loud, boisterous and full of charisma, but then you had to be when competing with other conductors for passengers on the already overloaded buses. Jumping back on the bottom step, the boy hollered “
challo
!” and the bus picked up speed as it raced to its next stop down the road somewhere.

One thing that Dawood had learned in the past four months was to watch for familiar faces that got on and off buses with him. This was his only protection against potential thieves and prying eyes while undercover. After the tip-off at the café, he was watching carefully to make sure that no one was following him as he entered the shopping complex. It occurred to him that his precautions may have been all in vain if the visitor had not made it back home safely.

* * *

Weeks after the Timergara trip, Dawood and Kaleem had had little interaction outside of work on the construction site. Dawood had saved some money and had decided to move out of the cramped room he shared with his co-workers. Fortunately, he found a man from the masjid who had a small portion available for rent above his family home. It was slightly more expensive than he was currently paying, but with his savings, he would be able to afford it. After a bit of convincing and some embellishing about the conditions that he was living in,  Dawood negotiated a lower rent and moved in to his new rooms, saving him from the squalor that had been his life for the past three months.

Dawood rented it unseen, but he wasn’t too concerned.
Anything would be better than this
, he thought as he packed up his belongings. They fit into a rickshaw without any problems. The portion, as the man called it, was no more than three rooms in the upstairs of his home. The bedroom was slightly smaller than the room that he had been living in previously, but the addition of a sitting room and small kitchenette made things more comfortable. His new landlord had been kind enough to put in a small refrigerator so that he would be able to store essentials. Dawood quickly unloaded the rickshaw and set up his new home, relaxing on the new foam mattress that he had purchased on the way. He drifted off to sleep, glad to be finally away from the stench of rotting garbage.

The first week at his new home was peaceful, minus the occasional shouting match between the husband and wife who lived below him. They had been very good to him since moving in, sharing some old pots and pans, dishes and other household items that they no longer used. Dawood had become quite comfortable very quickly with the calm that came with living in a private home.

Dawood rose from the makeshift bed that the landlord had moved upstairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He’d been woken by a knock on his new front door. As he dropped his feet to the cold floor, he grabbed the t-shirt that had become part of his casual home attire and pulled it over his head. The stench of it reminded him that laundry needed to be done, but he was too tired, most days, to scrub the grime from his clothing himself nor could he afford to use a
dhobi
to wash them for him.
The torture of daily wages
, Dawood thought to himself.

The knock came again, this time with more force than the first. It seemed that whoever was outside was getting impatient. Dawood yelled at the door, “Just a minute. I
’m coming,” as he turned the hot water facet to rinse his face. Cupping his hands, he threw water across his face a few times and looked up, catching his reflection in the mirror. He stroked his beard with both hands to push the water out before grabbing the flimsy towel to dry himself. He stood for a moment, staring at the reflection, thinking of Major Iftikhar’s lessons. “The one lesson, the most important one,” he would tell them, “forget who you are, become what you must. Without it, success in the intelligence world is impossible and death most probable.” Become what I must, Dawood said to himself, opening the door.

On the other side of the flimsy pressboard door stood Kaleem, beaming from ear to ear. Over the past few months, Dawood had gotten to know Kaleem
’s pains and struggles at their rawest, but had never seen him smile out of pure happiness. Kaleem bounded through the door and hugged Dawood fiercely.

“Mubaraksha!” he gleefully said, like a child receiving the
eidi
he so desired. Before Dawood could say anything, Kaleem announced, “I have the money for my sister’s wedding.”

Dawood
’s eyes opened wide in shock. Weddings were expensive.
Where did he get…?
A man followed Kaleem into the apartment.

He towered over both men, having to crouch down to get through the doorway. He was easily over 6
’5” and had the build of an accomplished bodybuilder.
He looks like he has never been to a barber and smells like he doesn’t know that running water exists in the world
, Dawood thought to himself, as he lumbered into the room, leaving a pad of dirt with each footstep.

Kaleem introduced his friend. “This is Adnan. Imam Shahid sent him with a message for us.” Dawood looked at Kaleem and then at Adnan.
You brought this gorilla to my home?
Dawood reached his hand forward to welcome him, only to find it crumpled between them as the giant embraced him, transferring that disgusting stench to Dawood. He pulled away and looked for a place to sit on the floor, but Kaleem grabbed Dawood’s arm to pull him into the other room.

“Imam Shahid sent him here to invite us back to Timergara,”
Kaleem said. “I guess you made a good impression on everyone. Maybe he wants you to speak again.” Dawood wasn’t so sure.
Or maybe he wants to slaughter me and hang me in the bazaar.

Dawood went back to Kaleem
’s first announcement. “You said you had all the money for your sister’s wedding. How?”

“Imam Shahid has offered to pay all the expenses of the wedding,” Kaleem said happily. “What a wonderful gift!”

Not wanting to burst Kaleem’s bubble, Dawood replied, “
Mubaraksha! Bya dei mubaraksha!
That’s a great weight off your shoulders.”

Kaleem embraced Dawood again, unable to control his happiness, before they went back to join Adnan. As a good Pathan, Dawood knew the fundamentals of hospitality in his culture and was not going to offend his friend
’s guest.

“Can I offer you some tea or a cold drink?” Dawood asked Adnan, but no reply came. He paused and then turned to Kaleem, “Does he speak?

Kaleem let out a hearty laugh, shaking his head, “He doesn’t understand Pashto, only Farsi.” He turned to his friend and translated Dawood’s question, sharing a laugh and a snide comment about the paucity of Dawood’s supplies. Not letting on that he was fluent in Farsi, Dawood took note of the insult, but kept his face carefully blank.
So this is what you say about me when you think I don’t understand
.