As they flew, the winding Indus River appeared 40,000 feet below them, and Yousseff turned his thoughts again to his younger self. He had begun to think more and more about his formative teenage years as the pieces of this new plan started to come together. Perhaps it was another way to escape the stress of what he was now setting out to do. He had no experience with the kind of destruction he was planning, and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it. But he had decided to use the Emir to gamble everything he had on this one mission. If things went well, he would be able to take a break from everything else, and relax for a while. It was a breathtaking chance, but these kinds of moves had characterized Yousseff’s path from his earliest years. How old had he been when he took his father and uncle’s horses through the Path of Allah? Twelve? Thirteen? How old had he been when he became Marak’s master at Four Cedars? This plan, this high-stakes chess match, was no different. He wondered why he was suddenly filled with trepidation and uncertainty. Why was he so afraid of failure now, when he had created the Karachi Drydock and Engineering Company, Pacific Western Submersibles, the chains of stores on the West Coast in America and Canada, and the Karachi Star Line, all without any fear or uncertainty? Was this the creeping insidiousness of the years? Was he getting too old for this job? He let his mind drift as he considered. He longed for his opium pipe, but his pilots had made it clear to him that it would not be tolerated on the planes, regardless of whether he owned them or if Mohammed himself had ordered it. Yousseff closed his eyes instead, and thought back to the beginning.
In Yousseff’s early days of drug running, when he was still a teenager, and small in stature, one or two stubborn peasants in the frontier highlands had challenged him. One peasant in particular stood out in his memory. Yousseff had purchased, for a fair price, the lands of one Besham al Gulapur — 30 hectares of fine farmland. The usual arrangements had been made; the lands would be held in trust. Izzy al Din was Yousseff’s eyes and ears in the poppy fields; he managed and oversaw every aspect of the operations there. Yousseff had the power to buy, mortgage, sell, or cultivate the land, and to reap the profits. Izzy managed the land itself. And peasants like Besham kept the legal titles. It was Yousseff’s protection.
One year after the purchase, Besham fraudulently sold the land to one of his cousins. A few days later, Yousseff, Marak, and half a dozen of his men arrived at Besham’s door, heavily armed. He was in the process of moving out, to retire to a nice home by the Indus River in lower Pakistan. At least that was the plan.
“Take him, Rasta,” Yousseff commanded Marak, who, now in his early 20s, had become a muscular and powerful man who struck like a panther, and whose eyes were flat. Gone was the high-tempered youth. He had become Yousseff’s emotionless killing machine. The muscle of the operation, totally dedicated to his master. Now he smashed Besham’s head against a low dining table and ordered his men to pin him there, holding the man’s right arm out along the length of the table. Marak raised his sword, ready to strike.
“You know what the Koran teaches us to do with a thief, do you not?” demanded the young Yousseff.
“Yes, yes, yes,” groaned the hapless and bruised Besham. “Please, not in front of my wife. Not in front of my children. I know your mother. You are a kind man. Please.” Besham had two daughters, not much younger than Yousseff, and both sat shaking, with his wife and cousin, in a corner of the small home. “Please, Yousseff, not in front of them.”
Yousseff ignored the whimpering. “You know it is the Pashtun way. It is the code of the smuggler. I treated you well. Yet you betrayed me. Why should I show you any mercy?”
He motioned to Marak. “Do it, Rasta,” he said in the sharp voice that he used when giving an order. “Now.”
Marak lifted the sword high. He had taken his shirt off to ease his movement, and now the muscles in his forearms rippled. His bulging shoulders caused the newly tattooed snake to twist and coil. The blade came down with great ferocity and speed, accompanied by the screams of the two daughters. It was the way of badal. It was revenge, and the law of the land in the Northwest Frontier Province.
“No. No!” screamed Besham’s wife.
The blade stopped, as though held back by an invisible wire, hovering mere millimeters above the wrist that Marak’s men had stretched across the table. Besham, whose eyes were tightly closed, opened one with trepidation. The daughters’ eyes opened behind their Burkas. There was dead silence for almost 30 seconds… a disturbingly long time to have a razor-sharp blade suspended above an outstretched arm, waiting for the blow to fall. Then Yousseff spoke, so quietly that even in the small room, Besham strained to hear him.
“I have shown you mercy, Besham al Gulapur. By right I could have fed your right hand to the dogs outside. You have deceived me, and I could kill you, and your wife and daughters as well. But I value loyalty above anything. Now you will give your cousin his money back. You will continue to work on my land and do my bidding. And if you take from me again, be it so much as a single poppy seed, I will cut off both your hands and send you to beg in Kabul or Rawalpindi. Do you hear me well?”
“Yes, master, yes I do. I will be your loyal servant until I die, and my family after me. I will never take from you. I will always do your bidding.” The act of badal and nunwatel now ruled Besham’s relationship with Yousseff, as it did the friendship between Yousseff and Marak. Besham was now one among the many who called Yousseff master and served him faithfully.
“Good. I think we have an understanding. Now go and do your work.”
Besham’s story spread like wildfire through the mountain passes, as Yousseff had known it would. His reputation as a natural leader — and a man to be respected and feared — grew with each telling of the story. The only truly disappointed party was Marak. But even he feared Yousseff, and would be loyal to him until death. So he said nothing.
Over the years, of course, there were farmers, and horsemen, and holders of property, ships, and aircraft, who tested Yousseff again. And yes, there were a number of beggars in Rawalpindi or Kabul who were missing both hands, and whose digits had been devoured by pigs or dogs, much to Marak’s glee. It was this road that led to Yousseff’s great wealth, and these techniques that allowed him to hold such power without resorting to that wealth. To legal authorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the other local jurisdictions, it posed a conundrum that they were unable to unravel. On paper, it appeared that Yousseff did not exist at all. And yet it was common knowledge that he controlled everything that took place in those areas.
It was after the confrontation with Besham that Yousseff rediscovered Rika. She was no longer the teary-eyed little girl at the Four Cedars, begging Yousseff to abandon his dispute with Marak. She had grown up to be slender and stunning, even in the tribal costumes that she wore when in the village. Her full name was Amrika Mahafika, and she let people know it. Only Yousseff got away with calling her Rika. In the mountains, on horseback, she discarded the Burka and dressed as the men did. If anyone made a comment about it, they risked Yousseff’s anger. They quickly became the closest of friends.
As things turned out, Rika had a dazzling mind for numbers. She could calculate the exchange rates between currencies in Peshawar or Rawalpindi faster than anyone, even Yousseff. She gradually became the keeper of currencies in Yousseff’s operation, and was often with him when he bought and sold property and goods.