Who Killed Daniel Pearl (19 page)

Two indications lead me to believe that Omar did meet the others that night: Mobile phone calls traced by the police and by Jamil Yusuf, the former businessman who is now director of Karachi's Citizen-Police Liaison Committee, which specializes in the investigation of kidnapping cases; and a statement by the owner of a restaurant in Karachi's squalid Little Bangladesh neighborhood, who insists he saw Omar that night accompanied by a man in an Afghan hat whose description matches that of Bukhari.

The day after going to Binori Town, the 19th, Omar has lunch with Faheem and Saquib at the Village Garden, near the Hotel Metropole, where he plans to stage the kidnapping.

He spends the afternoon not far away, alone at the bar of the Marriott, adding up long columns of figures—the state of his finances? The estimated cost of the operation?

He meets Naseem again, in front of the Village Garden, both of them standing in the cold, whispering, discussing, walking to the Marriott to warm up, returning, then retracing their footsteps, perhaps to count how many, to measure and note the time it takes. Omar writes everything down. In fact, ever since the countdown started, he has been scribbling brief notes incessantly in a brown note pad he carries in the front pocket of his tunic. Where are these notes? What happened to them after his arrest?

Still together, they walk to a neighboring cybercafé. (By coincidence, it is the same café where Pearl had gone to wrap up his investigation of the “shoe bomber,” looking for the place where Reid had received his final instructions to take the Paris-Miami flight.) There, Omar sends a second e-mail to Pearl: Sorry, he says, to have taken so much time in getting back to you . . . but I mislaid your number . . . My wife . . . the hospitals, in Pakistan, are so “miserable and harassing” for “poor people” . . . it “made me realize once again that our family has a lot to be grateful for” . . . But “I have good news” . . . I spoke to “the Sheikh's secretary yesterday” and “he told me that the Sheikh Sahab has read your articles and that you are welcome to meet him” . . . He is in Karachi for the moment . . . Do you wish to wait until he returns to Rawalpindi? Do you want to “put some questions to him,” to “mail them to me” and “I will pass the printout to his secretary”? Or else, “if Karachi is on your program” you may also “see him there.”

Then they wait in front of the computer screen. Five minutes . . . ten . . . Questions by e-mail, what a great idea! Omar tells his companion. He thinks it the mark of a professional to act as if he's asking for nothing and to appear indifferent about the meeting with Gilani! And, sure enough, in barely the time it takes for the message to route through the
Journal
's network, Pearl replies yes, of course, with pleasure—he has another good reason to come, with his wife, to Karachi, and he readily opts for the meeting. Are you in Karachi yourself? Will you be at the meeting?

Omar jumps for joy.

The bait has been taken.

Afterward, without Naseem, he goes to a general store in the old city and comes out with a package wrapped in newsprint under his arm, which he takes back to his aunt's house—a gun?

That evening, he is seen near the Marriott again, buying a set of slides from a street vendor. (Scenes of Kashmir? Crimes of Americans and Russians in Afghanistan? Bosnia?)

He is seen as well in the hotel cafeteria, relaxed and seemingly carefree, writing postcards to his little sister, Hajira Sheikh, and his brother Awais, and a third to an Indian doctor, perhaps the head of the Ghaziabad hospital in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where he was taken in 1994 after being arrested by the New Delhi police, the setting of the pseudo-Guevara photo.

That evening he returns to Binori Town but only for an hour. A final contact? With whom?

Finally, I imagine him afterwards mailing a letter that evening, a real letter, addressed to a lawyer or a journalist or a friend—I can't believe there doesn't exist somewhere, in a strong box, in some safe place, a handwritten document detailing, just in case, the origins of the operation, the number of accomplices, his own role, as well as the network of complicity ultimately reaching to the high places he will have needed to successfully accomplish his task.

Sunday the 20th he sends another message to Pearl, a third one, from another cybercafé. “Gilani can see you Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. His secretary is still in Rawalpindi and will give me the phone number of one of his followers you will call when you arrive and who will take you to him. Give the sheikh my best, tell him not to forget me in his prayers, and tell him we miss him a lot here in Rawalpindi and wait impatiently for his return. What a shame you have to leave Pakistan so soon! I hope you have enjoyed your stay.”

Monday the 21st he meets two of his accomplices in an apartment in the upscale Defence Society neighborhood, and he gives them money to buy a camcorder, a scanner, and a camera. When Naseem returns with the camera, a little Olympus, they go to Clifton Beach, a stretch of gray sand in the middle of the city where the sewers empty out. Omar takes the pictures: A 4x4 Rodeo, a group of silent women hobbled by their burquas, in stockings, getting their feet soaked as they try to avoid the gobs of tar. Another woman, unveiled, with the waxy, anemic complexion of those who have been shut away too long, who cries “rape” when he snaps the photo. A child on a camel. A snake fight. A sign reading, “No photos allowed.” He finds all this highly amusing. He exults. At the end of the afternoon, he walks through the change stalls of Jinnah Road and then back to Binori Town for a meeting with an unknown person, perhaps one of the Yemenis.

On Tuesday, the 22nd of January, he sends a last message to Pearl confirming an appointment for tomorrow, Wednesday, around seven. It's certain, Gilani has decided; they'll have half an hour for the interview and then an hour, if he likes, with the followers who live with him. Omar gives Pearl the phone number—00 2170244—of one of the young disciples who will be in charge of driving him there: His name is Imtiaz Siddique. “He will arrange to meet you.” I am “sure you will gain a lot from the meeting.” Don't forget to tell me “all the details.” After that he goes, ironically, to the Pearl Continental Hotel to change another bunch of dollars, makes a call from the lobby, another from his mobile phone, leaves, notices a storm drain, and throws the mobile phone away.

He sleeps badly that night.

He sleeps alone in a tiny room at the back of his aunt's apartment. In spite of the raincoat, in spite of the relatively mild climate, he shivers with cold—and he sleeps badly.

He spends the night wide awake, alert, his lips moving as though he were praying. As soon as he tries to shut his eyes, images loom in his mind, like nails driven into his soul—his kind aunt tried everything yesterday to lighten the bad atmosphere, but no, the thoughts are still there . . . A puddle of congealed blood in the Sarajevo snow. A wounded man he saw at Zenica, in the throes of death. Another near Thathri, in Kashmir, whose head and face had been bashed in with blows from rifle butts and boot heels—all he could remember was a wound, a pulp, with one ferocious, suffering, gaping eye still shining. The shrieks of a comrade in a neighboring cell, one night at Tihar Jail. Pearl's face the other night at the Hotel Akbar, less disgusting than he had expected, rather frank for a Jew, and clever for an American . . . strangely curious, too, about what a sincere jihadist could be thinking. Unless he was pulling a number, an American Jew trick—play it sly, lull your vigilance, all the better, then, to betray you. He dreams about Pearl, with his skull smashed in, his brains coming out his ears . . . He dreams of Pearl dead before even killing him and can't tell if the idea pleases or scares him . . . Sometimes he has the impression of feeling pain in Pearl's place . . . Then he finds the idea absurd and curses him . . . Sometimes, on the contrary, he is jubilant, and his jubilation makes him shiver . . .

He is groggy, his head heavy when he rises on the morning of the 23rd of January.

He drinks three cups of coffee, one after another, but he still cannot seem to warm up or clear his head.

He tries to eat something, but everything he puts in his mouth tastes like cardboard.

He shaves, and notices that the mirror is cracked—he's sure it wasn't that way last night . . . And this shadow on my face, it's the first time I've seen that, too . . . And what if the son of a bitch had understood everything? What if that was the explanation for his unbelievable gullibility? And what if he were an agent, really a cop, and he came with other cops to the appointment at the Village Garden? What if he's the one, smarter by half, who is setting a trap for us?

The day has come, and he's worried.

Is Omar there at the actual time of the kidnapping? Is he at the Village Garden with the others when Pearl arrives at seven p.m. and gets into the red Suzuki Alto? Or has he invented a last-minute alibi? Has he taken the train back to Lahore in the afternoon, as he stated at the trial, and as his wife confirmed?

I don't know for certain.

On one hand, there's the statement of Nasir Abbas, the taxi driver who picked Pearl up at the Sheraton, drove him to the Village Garden and who, in his second deposition, declared that yes, of course, Sheikh was there. With his own eyes, he saw Sheikh get out of the Suzuki that drove up in front of his cab just as Pearl was paying. He saw them shake hands, and saw Omar open the rear door for Pearl to get in. Moreover, says the prosecutor, how could it be otherwise? How would Pearl have gotten into the car had he not seen the now familiar face of Omar? Would he have been foolish enough to get into an unfamiliar car, with a driver he did not know?

But on the other hand, apart from the Omar's own statements and those of his wife, there is defense lawyer Abdul Waheed Katpur's objection, expressed at the trial and in an interview with
The Guardian
, that Nasir Abbas is a cop, and in Pakistan you can't send a man to the gallows on the sole strength of testimony from a cop. All the more so because— and this is the major argument—Omar had more or less announced in his last two e-mails that he would not be there (“my best to the Sheikh, don't forget to tell me the details of the interview”). Unless there was a counter-order that day, or if Pearl himself thought better of it at the last minute and requested, in one of his two phone conversations with Imtiaz Siddiqui on the afternoon of the 23rd, that Omar be present, it is not absurd to suppose that the American came to the appointment knowing full well that Omar would not be there.

Or did Pearl think better of it?

Did he demand expressly that Omar be there?

To know, you would have had to meet Nasir Abbas, the driver.

And in order to judge whether it was materially possible for Nasir Abbas, cop or not, to recognize Omar at fifty feet, you would have to know what the weather was like that evening, when the sun set, the quality of the light, whether there was any haze. I know it was nice out. The day's weather report announced sunny, dry skies, and I even found a waiter at the Village Garden who says he remembers “it was like summer in January, that's what we all said that day, and since that doesn't happen very often, it stood out in our minds.” Summer weather until the end, all the way up until the evening?

How can one know if Omar was there?

The truth is, I have no idea and on this point I am, more than ever, reduced to conjectures.

My guess, then?

My bet, since I am condemned to bet?

My bet is that Omar was there and not there
at the same time
.

Not there, because he said it was agreed upon with Pearl and I have no reason to believe that either he or Pearl changed their minds.

But there, at the same time, inevitably there, at a distance, where he could see and make sure that the operation was going smoothly as planned, but without being seen, because, after all, he's risking everything! His freedom! Perhaps even his life! Faced with all this and the anxiety that's eating at him, how could he calmly buy a ticket for Lahore and wash his hands of the whole thing? Moreover, how could this kidnapping zealot, this ace, this artist, not be tempted to supervise, right to the very end, the scenario he crafted and that he's certainly not going to leave in the hands of a Siddiqui or a Bukhari?

There are two possible positions for this.

After several scouting sessions, simulations, and reconstitutions, I found two places he could have hidden so as to observe the entire operation without actually participating in it.

A half-demolished wall, opposite the restaurant, where a man can easily stand and watch the entire area where the cars stop.

Or else, inside the restaurant itself, behind the door to the garage, a recess that lends a better perspective of the avenue but has the drawback of affording a view of only half the broad parking lane, since it follows a curve.

I picture him behind the wall.

I imagine him standing there, his face turned toward the sun setting over the city, watching the taxis, thinking, “That's it, he can't be far off now,” or, “What if he doesn't come? What if he gets scared at the last minute and decides not to come?” I suppose that part of him, at this instant, is surprised to find himself hoping that Pearl will not come, or that he'll come with Mariane, or with his fixer, or with a someone from the American consulate. But if this is what I suppose, I also know that it's just a fleeting thought and that, deep down, he realizes that the die is cast and it's a good thing.