The Bard of Blood (6 page)

31 August 2014

Helmand Province, Afghanistan

The night hit Afghanistan earlier than usual. Helmand, located in the southern part of Afghanistan, was amongst the largest of the thirty-four provinces of the country. It was a part of the Greater Kandahar region before it was carved out into a separate province in the twentieth century. The Helmand and Kabul regions were known as ‘White India’ in the days of pre-Islamic Afghanistan, when the Helmand river valley had a large population of Hindus and Buddhists. Currently, it is rather well developed for a province in a country that seems to have all but lost its way. A healthy fraction of its population of 15 lakh people is tribal, with the ethnic Pashtuns forming the majority. The Balochis, Tajiks and Hazaras make up the rest. And then there are the considerable number of NATO troops, which are supposed to pull out by the end of the coming year.

‘You can tell me when to take over the wheel, Farid.’

Farid Azizi nodded as he slowed down the truck and moved it to the side of the road. He left the engine running as he hopped out. He took in a lungful of the cold, dry air of the desert. His head was covered in a black turban and his face wasn’t much visible behind his dense facial foliage. His companion, Abdul Samadi, took his position at the wheel. They were driving from the Lashkar Gah district into Quetta, almost 400 kilometres.

‘Thank you, brother. I was beginning to feel sleepy.’

‘I could tell,’ Samadi replied in Pashto, as he set the truck into motion again. ‘We should be at the border within an hour and a half.’

‘I hope they don’t trouble us too much there,’ Azizi said with a tinge of fear. ‘This is the first time I’m taking a truck across with so much opium.’

‘Don’t worry, brother. You haven’t been caught all these years, have you? We just hand over a little something to the Border Police and continue. Tonight should be no different. Besides, it is well known that President Karzai turns a blind eye to our business.’

Tonight should be no different,
Azizi repeated in his head.

‘Yes.’ Azizi sounded relieved. ‘We hand the consignment over, stay the night and get back tomorrow evening.’

‘Unless we get intercepted by the Americans. There is always a chance, so we cannot afford to goof up.’

‘I’ll take a short nap, Abdulbhai,’ Azizi said as he eased himself into a more relaxed position. ‘Wake me up when we approach the border.’

He shut his eyes, rested his head back and then he saw
it
again. It happened every time he tried to sleep.
There’s no point in trying to block these memories out,
he thought.
I’ve tried. I’ve tried hard.
And then he relived that wretched day in his head all over again. Sometimes, he felt, this was the only reason that he was still able to maintain whatever little he had of his identity. It was the only factor that helped distinguish himself, Veer Singh, from his cover, Farid Azizi.

The year was 2008, when Veer Singh, a thirty-year-old Sikh, was sent to Kabul along with Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta on a posting for six months. Mehta had been assigned a key role as defence attaché, serving as part of India’s military and logistical help to Afghanistan. He was an experienced analyst, a sea of knowledge on the counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir and the North-East.

Veer was a fresh-off-the-bench RAW agent, who had an extremely high level of endurance and a skill set to match. Being a typical Sikh, and six foot five, he was built like the side of a house. His assignment was to shadow Mehta, be his personal security guard and also serve as a link between Mehta and the HQ back in Delhi to exchange intel on a daily basis.

On 7 July 2008, when Veer drove Mehta and an Indian Foreign Service officer Venkat Rao from their hotel to the Indian embassy in the centre of Kabul, little did he know he would not see them ever again. There was a huge rush that day, as people usually lined up at the embassy gates to apply for visas to India. The meeting that day was supposed to be of high importance and Rao had politely asked Veer to wait it out. Veer decided to take the car for a spin and probably have some morning kahva from a local stall. What happened thence is etched vividly in his mind, frame by frame.

He drove the car out of the gate and he saw a Toyota Camry speeding towards them from the opposite direction, missing his car by a whisker. He spat out a Hindi expletive and didn’t pay it any heed. He had driven a short distance ahead, when he heard a sound that still resonates in his ear. The ground shook, his windshield shattered and his car skidded into a barricade. He staggered out, pistol ready, as he saw plumes of smoke and dust rising from the centre of Kabul city. He was within the blast radius, but luckily enough nothing seemed to have happened to him. The explosive-laden Toyota Camry was being driven by a suicide bomber and had rammed into two vehicles in the embassy and detonated.

Veer remembered running into the smoke and seeing some people running away from it. He pulled off his turban and wrapped it around his mouth to minimize the intake of the black smoke from the bomb. He went inside, his eyes burning. He didn’t have to go far to realize that both Brigadier Mehta and Officer Rao had been burnt to a crisp. However, the top floor of the embassy didn’t look too badly damaged. He rushed upstairs, sidestepping the dead bodies and holding his breath to avoid the smell of smoke and burnt flesh, and found a few embassy personnel unhurt. Later that evening, he recalled this incident to Lieutenant General Sadiq Sheikh. He wished he had paid more attention to the speeding Camry and done something about it. If it had struck him early enough, there could have been an outside chance of him preventing the car from reaching its destination, even if it meant sacrificing himself for the well-being of his fellow countrymen.

‘Don’t fret over it. You did what you could. Anyway, we have reason to believe that the Haqqani Network and the ISI have a role to play in this,’ Sadiq had said, his voice as calm as ever. ‘Veer, I want you to get the rest of the ambassadors to an extraction point. After which you will await my further orders.’

Veer did as he was told in the wee hours of the next morning. And then he got his orders. He was to be posted in Afghanistan from then on. He would be on the list of the officially dead, making him the perfect spook. Non-existent and living in the shadows. He was given the choice to accept the long-term mission or return to India. He accepted the challenge.

The NATO and the American troops had cracked down hard on drug trafficking under the US Agency for International Development programme. Opium had brought in a lot of money into Afghanistan ever since the Soviet occupation. And once the Soviet Army was forced to withdraw, the locals resorted even more to poppy cultivation. However, there was even a phase when a reluctant collaboration between the US forces and Afghan warlords to hunt down drug traffickers spelt more chaos. They used it to settle scores with each other, in order to grow their own businesses. The most significant use of the money generated from the drug trade was the funding of terrorism—or jihad, as the other side chose to call it.

Mullah Omar, in early 2000, had collaborated with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan. ‘Allah wouldn’t approve,’ he had said. This phase led to one of the most successful anti-drug campaigns in the world, with almost three-fourths of the world’s supply of heroin being choked out. However, as soon as the Taliban was deposed and it was discovered that funds were required for their insurgency, Allah miraculously seemed to approve.

Veer moved out of Kabul and spent time in various regions before settling in Helmand. He spent the next few years rebuilding his life. He learnt the finer nuances of Islam and studied the Hadees and the Quran, and changed his personality to blend right in with the Afghans. He was given the cover of being born to an Afghani father and a Pakistani mother, since he never quite looked entirely like an Afghan. It was easy for him to adapt, since in reality, he was an orphan, and orphans like him are quick-change artists. But even so, it took him a while to get used to. He didn’t have too many people in his past, so he was lucky in that sense. The absence of emotional baggage is essential for a good spy.

So now here he was, an insider to the drug trafficking world of Afghanistan. He learnt the technicalities of converting raw opium into heroin using chemicals, but preferred the job of being the courier of the consignment. The job was of relatively lower risk and paid well, too.

‘Wake up, we’re here.’ Samadi tapped Veer on his shoulder.

Veer got up and looked at the Afghan Border Police inspecting the truck.

‘Azizi, pass the bag.’

It took a while for Veer to recall he was Azizi. It always did upon waking up.

He passed over a bag with wads of cash and a large bag with opium. The Border policeman smiled a toothless smile as he waved the truck on into Quetta.

A short distance into Balochistan, where there was no sign of other human beings being around, Veer requested Samadi to pull over. He wanted to take a leak. Samadi stopped the truck and got down to stretch his limbs. Veer went behind to the side of the road. It took Samadi a couple of minutes to realize Veer was taking unusually long to pee.

He called out: ‘Farid?’

No response. And then he shouted out louder.

‘FARID!?’

Still no response. He walked towards the side of the road in search of his friend. He suddenly felt a blow to his right temple. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious. Veer kneeled over his body and strangled him with his bare hands. He got up, dumped the body into the truck and drove away. He felt a tinge of remorse, but allowed himself nothing more than that.

The next morning, the truck, emitting the smell of burnt opium, was found torched in the middle of a deserted road. Abdul Samadi’s body was charred beyond recognition. It was Veer’s signature.

‘Farid Azizi here,’ said Veer into a secure line.

‘I take it you’re in Quetta now, Veer?’

‘Yes, sir. I should be in Gwadar by tomorrow.’

Joshi had asked Veer to find a way into Balochistan the very night he had spoken to Kabir at the Office. He was instructed to meet the team at Gwadar. Veer had assured him he’d find a way and, sure enough, he had delivered on his word. Sometimes Joshi wondered if they had turned the man into a machine. Even Kabir, at the height of his career, had lacked the ruthlessness Veer possessed. In many senses, Veer was Kabir without a conscience—except taller and stronger. But he needed Kabir’s experience and brains to oversee the team he had assembled. It was the best he could muster at such short notice.

‘Your team will arrive shortly.’

‘Give me a date. And remember, sir, that I follow the Islamic calendar.’

1 September 2014

The Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai

It is difficult for anyone to look at the Taj Mahal Palace in Colaba without associating it with the horrific attack of 26 November 2008. The hotel always stood proudly in the most elegant area of Mumbai, where the most influential in society mingled over their champagne and slightly supercilious smiles. It was a symbol of power, a power that was primarily born out of one’s wealth. But those few terrorists had wreaked havoc overnight. They had killed with ease, unflinchingly. Some even smiled as they gunned down helpless women and children. The country had been brought to a standstill, and the repercussions were long-lasting. The memory of it was difficult for someone like Kabir Anand, as he thought of the glaring lacunae in the national security infrastructure he had once worked within.

He walked past the memorial that had been set up for the victims, glancing momentarily at it. In his mind he’d sworn revenge every time he thought of the attacks. At that point there had been absolutely nothing he could have done about it.
But now, I will.

He still recalled vividly the night when it had all happened. He had been asleep, ready to go to work the next day when his cellphone began to buzz constantly with chain messages warning the recipient from stepping out. He had half a mind to call Sadiq, wanting to understand the bigger picture. But he held himself back. Instead, he drove down the next morning and watched the drama unfold from where the news reporters stood. In a reckless moment, he even tried to make a breach past the police barrier claiming to be from an intelligence unit. But he had no proof to back his identity.

‘The Presidential Suite on the fourth floor,’ he said to the receptionist. He gazed nonchalantly at his cellphone, while the receptionist called to confirm. He smoothed his hair with his hand and adjusted his tie. He decided to button up his blazer.
Must be a media person here to interview that Afghani guy,
the receptionist thought. The Afghani guy, on the face of it, was in town to conduct a seminar on terrorism and how to deal with it. The truth, however, was that the RAW chief, Arun Joshi, had requested him to come down to Mumbai for some rather urgently needed assistance. She nodded to him a few seconds later and directed him to the elevator. Kabir thanked her and took the stairs instead.

Following his brisk climb up, he knocked at the door of the Presidential Suite. A large man, with a set jaw and a crew cut, opened it.
Personal security. Afghani, without doubt.
He directed him into the room, and asked him to sit on the sofa. The suite was, needless to say, luxurious. There were two pots, one with coffee and one with tea, already waiting on the little wooden centre-table. The large man nodded, and went into another room to inform the person Kabir had come to meet about his arrival.

Soon enough, a man roughly Kabir’s height and stature walked out, sporting a polite, formal smile. He had mousy features, a receding hairline, and sloping eyebrows set above droopy eyes. He was in his mid-forties, not much older than Kabir. He wore an expensive suit, probably Savile Row, judging by the cut. Kabir got up from the sofa, with his version of a formal smile. They shook hands firmly, one intelligence agent with another.

He got right to the point. ‘Mr Joshi told me about the current situation, Mr Anand. I wouldn’t say I’m surprised.’

He pronounced his Ts flat, with the tongue touching the roof of his mouth. He spoke slowly, as Kabir took the seat opposite him.

‘Yes, Mr Saleh,’ Kabir replied. ‘He’s asked me to meet you to get a better understanding of what I’m getting into.’

Arifullah Umar Saleh had last served as the head of the Afghan intelligence service—the National Directorate of Security or NDS. Earlier, while in his twenties, he had caught Afghan political and military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud’s eye for his uncanny knack of gathering intelligence. The charismatic Massoud—‘The Lion of Panjshir’—appointed Saleh to lead the Northern Alliance liaison and intelligence outfit. At a young age, Saleh had had the weight of responsibility thrust upon his sturdy shoulders, as he led the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Massoud had strongly opposed the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. He was assassinated in a suicide bombing by al-Qaeda two days before the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Saleh had been broken to see someone he admired so much meet such a tragic end. But that only encouraged him to grow even more upright and committed to his cause. Soon enough, after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2004, he was appointed the head of the NDS by President Hamid Karzai. However, a spate of differences that arose during Karzai’s re-election and in the days that followed, led Saleh to quit his position in 2010. Soon, Karzai and Saleh couldn’t stand each other. Saleh was a man reputed to be upright and honest, who loved his country to a fault. He went on to create the strongest pro-democracy and anti-Taliban movement soon after, mobilizing more than 20,000 supporters. Kabir admired few men, but Arifullah Saleh was everything that epitomized nationalism and patriotism. And this appealed to Kabir the most.

‘What you’re getting into is certainly not an easy task, Mr Anand. But then, again, that is what men like us are used to.’ He got up swiftly and went over to the large flat-screen television, proceeding to pull out a pen-drive from the breast-pocket of his coat and plug it in. He switched it on and fiddled with the remote a bit, before a large flow-chart appeared on the screen. He then shuffled back to the sofa opposite Kabir and sat down.

‘The Quetta Shura is nothing but the Afghan Taliban that has set itself up in Balochistan, Mr Anand. It should not be confused with the Pakistani Tehreek-e-Taliban. You do know what the word
talib
means, don’t you?’

‘Student,’ said Kabir. He felt slightly insulted. But then he realized Saleh wouldn’t be expected to know much about his past either. He must be assuming that this was the first time Kabir was entering Pakistan on a mission and therefore was explaining everything like he would to a newbie. But Kabir respected Saleh too much to interrupt him and nudged him on. Besides, Saleh would definitely have a better read of the situation than the entire machinery within the Indian intelligence.

‘Exactly. They both have common traits and common interests at times, but they are separate entities. And, of course, they are primarily funded, directly or indirectly, by those bloodhounds, the ISI.’

Saleh let the words linger as he poured a cup of coffee for Kabir and a cup of tea for himself.

He smiled, and answered the question before Kabir asked. ‘You’re a coffee person, I can tell. Your eyes look tired, but your mind and body seem alert.’

Kabir smiled as he thanked him and took his cup.

Saleh continued on to the more important topic. ‘As I said earlier, it came as no surprise to me when Mullah Omar made his demands to you. I like to call Omar the one-eyed puppet of the ISI. He dances at their whim, and even though he’d like to project it otherwise, he is no spring chicken. At roughly fifty-seven, his reflexes have died down and he isn’t the capable warrior he once was. He requires constant health care, which the ISI provides.’

‘He is their spiritual leader,’ Kabir contributed. ‘Even though he may not be physically able any more, he is highly capable of destruction.’

‘Yes,’ Saleh conceded. ‘But his day-to-day activities are overseen by his rumoured brother-in-law and great friend, Mullah Abdul Ghani, popularly known as Mullah Baradar.’

‘Mullah Brother.’ Kabir shook his head, and sipped the coffee. Saleh was right. While Mullah Omar was certainly still the figurehead and spiritual leader of the Quetta Shura Taliban, his operational expertise, as it stood now, was limited. Moreover, his relative isolation due to fear of capture and his advanced age made it difficult for him to be actively involved in operational work.

‘Baradar and Omar fought side by side against the Soviets,’ Saleh went on, as he took a large gulp of tea. He waited as the warmth spread along his throat and continued, ‘But you cannot discount Mullah Omar. All enemy groups operating in the country have sworn their allegiance, in varying degrees, to him.’

‘Amir al-Mu’minin,’ Kabir scoffed.

Saleh flinched as he heard the words. ‘He is trying to represent a religion as pure as Islam.’ The Sunni Muslim in him overpowered Saleh. His voice rose substantially. ‘Does Islam promote sodomy? Does Islam support child abuse? Does Islam ask its followers to kill each other? Or kill anyone at all? That bastard is misrepresenting an institution that has its very basis in the purity of one’s soul.’

He waited, his face turned a veritable red from his otherwise distinctly pink Afghan complexion. The rage made his cup tremble in his hand. He kept it down and folded his arms.

‘Take a moment,’ Kabir said with a smile. ‘We have fifteen days to get my colleagues back.’

Saleh let out a slight laugh. Kabir refilled his cup of coffee, and poured Saleh another cup of tea. Despite the air conditioning, beads of sweat had formed on Saleh’s hairline.

‘The post-9/11 Taliban, in a nutshell, is largely supported by the Pakistani Army and the ISI,’ Kabir said. ‘And then, of course, there is the booming narcotics trade.’

‘Having said that, they gain a large amount of money through taxes on livestock and agriculture as well.’

Kabir raised an eyebrow. He knew of the money they made through narcotics from regions like Helmand and Kandahar, but taxation on livestock and agriculture was rather new to him.

‘Taxation?’

‘Yes.’ Saleh smiled disappointedly. He waited a brief while, the smile still on his face. ‘This is the part nobody understands, my friend. The West, especially. The Taliban is still in Afghanistan. It’s just that it doesn’t have Mullah Omar in Afghanistan. The Taliban has its elements inside the government itself. We are a poor Third World country. A country which has been fucked over again and again. First, by the Russians. Then the Americans, too. And then by our own people. And to crown it all, by Pakistan.’

Kabir began to understand. ‘Is this why you quit? Because Karzai is spineless?’

‘Spineless would be an understatement. Don’t even get me started on Karzai,’ he spluttered sardonically. ‘Yes, one of the innumerable reasons I quit is that I didn’t want to be working under the Taliban indirectly. And I didn’t want to be looked upon as a fool for working under a man who faked the existence of ballots, which got him more votes than the turnout itself!’

Kabir scratched his beard thoughtfully on hearing this sadly amusing piece of news. It was true, the actual voter turnout in some regions like the Pashtun south was around 5 to 10 per cent. But the ballot stuffing done for Karzai at some polling stations, which didn’t even exist as such, recorded more than a 100 per cent turnout!

‘So Karzai’s presidency has run its course now,’ Kabir replied. ‘Will you go back?’

‘If Abdullah Abdullah wins, I might. He was a friend of Ahmad Shah Massoud. He believes in fighting fire with fire and won’t hesitate to take action against the Taliban,’ Saleh said. ‘I don’t agree with some of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai’s policies, on the other hand. With Abdullah there’s still a ray of hope for Afghanistan. He might just be the saviour we need. Having said that, Ghani is a smart man, too.’

Saleh paused. And then as if remembering something important, he spoke again. ‘Karzai had very smartly asked Omar to run for presidency too! He made a public announcement of the same just recently. He made it look as though he’s asking Omar to leave the gun and run Afghanistan peacefully. Omar obviously declined. He wasn’t going to fall for this. He has his aims, both short and long term, in place. And he wants to achieve them violently.’

‘What you’re saying is the Taliban initially wanted fragmentation in a government they wanted to overthrow eventually anyway,’ he said.

Saleh nodded, adding, ‘In many ways, this situation is similar to the Hezbollah in Lebanon. And to top it all, since Mullah Omar and bin Laden had forged forces early on, a government with the Taliban at its helm will mean a government with elements of al-Qaeda itself.’

Kabir took a while to process this. He let out a deep breath. It had been so long since he had been part of a discussion as heavy as this. He instantly recalled an apt Shakespearean line.
Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

‘I thought Karzai was anti-Taliban, and that they weren’t too particularly fond of him either,’ Kabir said. ‘But he’s played a smart political game thus far. President Obama had made it clear through his actions that he wanted little to do with Karzai on the personal front, unlike Bush. I believe Bush and Karzai used to chat regularly over videoconferencing.’

‘The rest of the world thought Karzai is anti-Taliban too. Till he started his slimy appeasement policies. He tried to keep America happy. He tried to keep India happy. He tried to keep Pakistan happy. And to top it all, he tried to keep the Taliban happy! I don’t know about the others, but he succeeded in keeping the Taliban happy. And since he’s kept them happy, Pakistan seems content. As for me, I’m happy there will be a change soon.’

Kabir countered, ‘But then there are innocent Pakistanis being killed in the tribal regions, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas! What’s worse is that the Pakistani government encourages it.’

‘Yes, but let me explain it this way. The tribal areas are the servants’ quarters of a palace. If a fire breaks out in the servants’ quarters, the rest of the palace will take notice of it for certain, but be thankful that the fire didn’t break out under their asses. The FATA are the servants’ quarters. Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi are the royal quarters of the palace.’

‘Hardly, if the palace is a place like Pakistan,’ Kabir said sarcastically.

A pregnant silence followed. Both men lost in deep thoughts of their own. Kabir had learnt more by looking at the situation from Saleh’s point of view. Saleh, himself, began to reminisce about how his short-lived dream of a perfect Afghanistan had been realized under Ahmad Shah Massoud and then subsequently shattered after his assassination. Their thoughts converged simultaneously to the point that had triggered off this discussion. The four Indian agents held captive in Quetta.