Six Suspects

We didn't stay in Trehgam village. Khaled made us climb yet another mountain. I was about to faint from exhaustion when suddenly we reached a clearing.

Under a few chinar trees was a hideout. It was a slum hut, inside the ground instead of above it. A rectangular pit had been dug, six feet deep into the ground. Two tree trunks had been planted at two corners, supporting a corrugated sheet which served as the roof. The roof had been covered with branches, leaves and shrubs, so that to a visitor coming up the mountain the foxhole would look like a little bush. There was only one entrance and exit. I descended into the foxhole and discovered there were four men already inside it. They were all young and bearded. One was bent over what seemed like a wireless set, another was reading a book, and two were cooking something. The foxhole was well equipped with provisions, a gas stove and even a pressure cooker. The mud walls were lined with blankets on all sides. There were plenty of guns and rifles lying around, together with magazines and boxes of cartridges. I reckoned the foxhole had enough ammo to take the Fidelity Bank of Texas.

'Make yourself at home, Mr Page,' Teknikal told me. 'This is where you will be staying with us for a while.'

The space inside the hideout was barely big enough to sleep six people, and there were eight of us. I'd rather have jumped barefoot into a bucketful of porcupines than stayed in that dump. In two shakes of a goat's tail, I was out of that foxhole.

'I'm sorry, folks, but I don't think this is such a good idea.'

'But there is no other place to stay,' Teknikal protested.

'I'm fixin' to go over yonder to that village. I'm sure they'll have a hotel there.'

'But the army will catch you if you go to Trehgam.'

I looked Teknikal in the eye. 'Something doesn't seem right to me. I've been thinking, why would the Indian army be after me? I've done nothing wrong.'

There was a long pause.

'You're right.' Teknikal nodded his head. 'Actually the army is not after you. It's after us.'

'Why?'

'Oh, we've done a couple of things. Like blowing up the Srinagar bus station, a market in Delhi, a temple in Akshardham, the stock exchange in Mumbai. We escaped recently from Tihar Jail.'

'Well sock my jaw! You guys are terrorists! In that case, I want nothing to do with you folks. And here I was, thinking you were my friends.'

Abu Khaled, standing by my side, laid a hand on my shoulder. 'You moron, we're not your friends. We're your kidnappers.'

'Kidnappers?'

'Yes. You've been kidnapped.'

I laughed. 'You guys are jokers. That's about as funny as a fart in a church.'

'No, Mr Page. We're dead serious. You've been kidnapped. Now we are going to demand a ransom of three billion dollars for your release. We're going to get George Bush to vacate Iraq. We'll get him to force Israel to vacate Palestine. We'll force him to quit meddling in Somalia. We'll ask him to remove the un-Islamic regime in Saudi Arabia. We'll compel him to make reparations to-'

'Whoa, whoa, whoa, just hold your horses for a minute,' I interjected. It was time to set the record straight before these crazies started asking the President to send a man to the moon. 'You folks have got the wrong guy. I am not that Larry Page.'

'What?'

'Yeah. You heard right. I am not that Larry Page. I've got nothing to do with that Google guy. I ain't loaded. So if you were expecting me to eat spinach and shit greenbacks, you'd better think again.' I laughed.

That went down like a lead balloon.

'Come again,' said Teknikal.

'I said I am not rich. I was fooling you guys. If it took a nickle to go around the world, I couldn't cross the street.' I looked at Abu Khaled. 'You catch my drift?'

The big guy moved like greased lightning. Without any warning, he swung his fist at me. I didn't see the blow coming and caught it in the mouth. I staggered back against a tree and collapsed like a pole-axed lap-dancer. When I got up there was blood in my mouth and a ringing in my left ear. I touched my face and felt the cut on my lips burning under my fingers.

Abu Khaled was still glowering at me like a mean rattlesnake.

'Er… do you guys take Visa?' I asked hesitatingly.

Teknikal was plumb weak north of his ears, but he finally saw the light. 'So you really are not the Larry Page of Google fame? I had my doubts from the beginning. Who the fuck are you?'

'I am a forklift operator in Walmart.'

'A goddamn hi-lo driver! This guy probably makes less than four-fifty a week. And we thought he was a billionaire! Not only that, we even paid that crook Bilal a million rupees to bring him to us.' Teknikal started laughing like a hyena on helium.

Abu Khaled looked at him sternly. 'Abu Teknikal, behave yourself! And make sure this infidel doesn't escape.'

I knew two things now. One, that Bilal was nothing but a lowdown, no-good varmint. And two, that I was up shit creek without a paddle.

My hands and feet were tied and I was dumped in a corner of the foxhole like an old sack of clothes. The youths looked at me curiously, then picked up their guns and went out of the hut. I heard them reciting some prayers and running around like they were in boot camp.

It was close to evening when Teknikal and Abu Khaled returned. Teknikal daubed the cut on my lip with some kind of ointment.

'So who exactly are you guys?' I asked them.

'I am Abu Al-Khaled Al-Hamza,' the big guy replied. 'I am number four in the hierarchy of Lashkar-e-Shahadat. The Army of Martyrdom. We are a part of Al Qaeda. Our commander is Abu Abdullah Osama bin Muhammad bin Ladin. You've heard of him, haven't you?'

'Yeah. Isn't he the guy who is supposed to have blown up those towers down in New York City?'

'Correct.'

'And wasn't the President going to smoke him out of some place called Kabool?'

'You mean Afghanistan. Quite right, except we're the ones who've won the war. Your countries are burning with terror and fear and panic, and we are still going strong. Abu Teknikal, tell this infidel how much reward his President has put on my head.'

'A full fifteen million dollars!' announced Teknikal.

Fifteen million my ass, I thought. If bullshit were music, this guy would have a brass band!

'So what do you guys do?'

'We are fighting for a revolution – the creation of an Islamic Caliphate, the Nizam-i-Islami,' Abu Khaled said. 'Our kingdom will be governed by Sharia law, based upon the Holy Koran and the Sunnah. We are responding to the calls of Allah and his Prophet for jihad in the cause of Allah.'

'And who exactly is Mr Allah?' Khaled hit me across my face. 'Don't ever talk about our God like that.'

I rubbed my cheek. 'So what do you folks want from me?'

'We need you to tell that evil Bush to convert all Americans to Islam. He should abolish your usurious banks. He must jail all those homosexual swine. He needs to stop women from degrading themselves by appearing in filthy magazines. He needs to preserve the environment. He needs to-'

'I get your drift, Mr Khaled. And I can tell you, I'll do my darndest to get the President to agree to your demands. But I can't do this sitting here in bumfuck Egypt.'

Khaled stepped forward and slapped me twice this time.

'What's that for?'

'One for interrupting me and the other for abusing my country.'

'But what will you folks do with me?'

'We'll still use you for ransom,' said Khaled. 'You may not be a billionaire, but you are still American. Teknikal, draft a press release for CNN. We will send it out tomorrow with a video. Let's teach Mr George Bush a lesson he won't forget.'

I turned to Teknikal. 'Listen, Teknikal. I'm of no use to you guys. The President won't listen to me. Why don't you let me go? I promise you, I won't tell a soul about you folks. It'll remain between you and me and the fencepost.'

'No. Now listen carefully, Mr Page.' He stared at me with eyes shining like light bulbs. 'We are the Army of Martyrdom. We are prepared to die. And we are also prepared to kill.' He traced his fingers over my neck. 'So don't entertain any thoughts of escaping.'