Farangi sustaining an upset stomach is as predictable as the sun rising. He slipped out the back door, trotted down the alley and into a main boulevard. A passing taxi, seeing his wave, swerved to the curb. This was a genuine cab, driven by a simple Pakistani driver trying to make a living. Foreigners can always be driven the long scenic route without realizing it, and dollars are dollars.
The Tracker knew he was going the long way around, but it was better than making a fuss. Twenty dollars later on a five-dollar fare, he was dropped where he wanted. The junction of two streets in the Pink Zone, the fringes of Rawalpindi and the area of military homes. When the cab had gone, he completed the last two hundred yards on foot.
It was a modest little villa, neat but not generous, with a plaque, in English and Urdu, reading “Col. M. A. Shah.” He knew the army started early and broke early. He knocked. There was a shuffling sound. The door opened a few inches. Dark inside, a dark face, careworn but once beautiful. Mrs. Shah? No maid; not a prosperous household.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. I have come to talk with Colonel Ali Shah. Is he in?”
From inside a male voice called, something in Urdu. She turned and replied. The door swung wide open and a middle-aged male appeared. Neatly trimmed hair, a clipped mustache, clean-shaven, very military. The colonel had changed out of uniform into mufti. Even so, he exhaled self-importance. But his surprise at seeing a dark-suited American was genuine.
“Good afternoon, sir. Do I have the honor of addressing Colonel Ali Shah?”
He was just a lieutenant colonel but was not going to object. And the phrasing of the request did no harm.
“Yes, indeed.”
“My lucky day, sir. I would have rung, but I had no private phone number for you. I pray I do not come at a bad moment.”
“Well, er, no, but what is it. .”
“The fact is, Colonel, my good friend General Shawqat told me over dinner last night that you were the man to talk to in my quest. Could we. .”
The Tracker gestured inside, and the bewildered officer backed off and held the door wide open. He would have thrown a quivering salute and stood with his back to the wall if the commander in chief had walked by. Gen. Shawqat, no less, and he and the American dined together.
“Of course, where are my manners? Please come in.”
He led the way into a modestly furnished sitting room. His wife hovered. “Chai,” barked the colonel, and she scuttled away to prepare the tea, the ritual welcome for honored guests.
The Tracker offered his card: Dan Priest, senior staff writer for the Washington Post.
“Sir, I have been tasked by my editor, with the full approval of your government, to create a portrait of Mullah Omar. As you will understand, he is, even after all these years, a very reclusive figure and little known. The general gave me to believe you had met and conversed with him.”
“Well, I don’t know about. .”
“Oh, come now, you’re too modest. My friend told me you accompanied him to Quetta eleven years ago and played a crucial role in bilateral talks.”
Colonel Ali Shah held himself rather straighter as the American lavished on the compliments. So Gen. Shawqat had noticed him. He steepled his fingertips and agreed that he had indeed conversed with the one-eyed Taliban leader.
Tea arrived. As she served it, Tracker noticed that Mrs. Ali Shah had the most extraordinary jade green eyes. He had heard of this before. The mountain people from the tribes along the Durand Line, that wild frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It was said that twenty-three hundred years ago Alexander the Great, Iskandar of Macedon, the young god of the world’s morning, had marched through those mountains from his crushing of the Persian empire to his intended conquest of India. But his men were tired, exhausted by his relentless campaigns, and when he marched back from the Indus campaign, they deserted in droves. If they could not return to the hills of Macedon, they would settle in these mountains and valleys, take brides, farm good land and march and fight no more.
The little child who had hidden behind the robe of Mahmud Gul in the village of Qala-e-Zal had bright blue eyes, not brown like the Punjabis. And the missing son?
The tea had not been drunk when the interview ended. He had no idea it would be so abrupt.
“I believe you were accompanied by your son, Colonel, who speaks Pashto?”
The army officer came out of his chair and stood ramrod straight, clearly affronted and deeply so.
“You are mistaken, Mr. Priest, I have no son.”
The Tracker rose also, putting down his cup, apologetic.
“But I was given to understand. . a young lad named Zulfiqar. .”
The colonel stalked to the window and stood, staring out, hands behind back. He quivered with suppressed anger, though at whom, visitor or son, Tracker could not tell.
“I repeat, sir, I have no son. And I fear I can help you no more.”
The silence was freezing. The American was clearly being asked to leave. He glanced across at the colonel’s wife.
The jade green eyes were flooded with tears. There was clearly a family trauma going on, and it had been going on for years.
Affecting a few bumbling apologies, the Tracker withdrew toward the door. The wife escorted him. As she held the door open, he whispered: “I am so sorry, lady, so terribly sorry.”
It was clear she spoke no English and probably no Arabic. But the word “sorry” is pretty international, and she might have picked up a smattering. She looked up, brimming-eyed, saw the sympathy and nodded. Then he was gone and the door closed.
He walked half a mile before emerging onto Airport Road and hailing a cab heading into town. At the hotel he called the cultural attaché from his room. If the call was monitored, which it would be, it would not matter.
“Hi, this is Dan Priest. I was just wondering whether you had tracked down that material on the traditional music of the Punjab and the tribal agencies?”
“I surely have,” said the CIA man.
“Great. I can make a good piece out of it. Can you drop it off for me at the Serena? Take tea in the lounge?”
“And why not, Dan. Seven o’clock suit you?”
“Terrific. See you then.”
Over tea that evening, the Tracker explained what he needed for the next day. It was to be Friday, the colonel would be going to the mosque for the prayers on the Muslim holy day. He would not dare miss out. But accompanying wives would not be required. This was not Camp Lejeune.
With the CIA man gone, he used the concierge to reserve himself passage on the Etihad evening departure for Qatar, connecting via British Airways for London.
The car was there the next morning when he settled up and emerged with his single bag. It was the usual nondescript car but with CD plates so it could not be entered or its inhabitants harassed.
At the wheel was a middle-aged white American with gray hair — a veteran embassy servant who had been driving this city long enough to know it intimately. With him was a young and junior State Department staffer who, at a language course back home, had chosen and mastered Pashto as his specialty. The Tracker climbed in the back and gave the address. They came down the ramp from the Serena, and their ISI tail slid in behind them.
At the end of the street containing Col. Ali Shah’s house they parked and waited until every male in the road had left for the mosque and Friday prayers. Only then did the Tracker order that he be dropped at the door.
It was again Mrs. Shah who answered. She at once appeared flustered and explained that her husband was not there. He would return in an hour, maybe more. She spoke in Pashto. The embassy man replied that the colonel had bade them wait for him. Uncertain that she had had no such instructions, she nevertheless let them in and took them to the sitting room. She hovered, embarrassed, but did not sit. Nor did she leave. The Tracker gestured to the armchair opposite his own.