The Indus Intercept

By Aruna Gill

A sharply plotted espionage thriller Balochistan, 2003: a drama of insurgency and international intrigue unfolds in Pakistan's dust bowl province. At the centre of it is the Mir, a militant Baloch separatist driven as much by the need to seek revenge as he is by his ardour for a free homeland. He leads a life in the shadows, eluding the ISI as he flirts with the CIA and RAW. In the midst of this intrigue, American soldiers on the Af-Pak border discover a mysterious note written in the ancient Indus Valley script. The CIA tasks Alejo Covas, a deep cover agent living in Quetta, with deciphering its significance. His investigations lead him to the ancient archaeological site of Mehrgarh where he meets Adiva, an American-born Pakistani woman researching Baloch folklore. They are soon caught up in a chain of events that are unleashed by the Mir, who is planning his boldest strike yet - one that could set South Asia ablaze. As Alejo races to avert a catastrophic war, political expediency intrudes on morality, deception lurks at every step, and love and betrayal go hand-in-hand.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jul 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9789350295359

Aruna Gill

Aruna Gill grew up and was educated in Madras, Ooty and Delhi. She now divides her time between the United States and India. This is her first novel.

Book preview

Prologue

Sibi, Balochistan, 1974

The boy’s chest heaved as he raced home, his breaths coming in short gasps. A moan of relief escaped his lips when he turned off the main bazaar street. Gaining confidence with every stride, he swivelled through the familiar by-lanes, one hand clutching his torn kurta to his chest. It had ripped when he twisted free from the grasping hands of a soldier who tried to shove him onto a truck. He had recognized two of his classmates in the group of cowering men and boys already herded into the military vehicle, staring apprehensively at the Pakistani forces ringed around them.

‘Tach!’ he had shouted at his friends in Balochi to break free, as if they were playing catch in the schoolyard. A glance over his shoulder reassured him no one was in pursuit but none of his classmates were in sight. Cowards, he thought, as he ducked into the service alley that led to his home.

At the threshold he paused to compose himself before opening the door and easing into the courtyard. He could hear his mother in the kitchen, scolding the new servant girl. Pity for the diminutive girl mixed with guilty gratitude for diverting his mother’s attention. With relief, he saw that the door to the room that served as both a dining space and living room was still shut. It meant his father and elder brother Chakar were not back from work at the small family-owned pharmacy.

‘Lay out the sheet for dinner. Your father will be home soon. Do you hear me?’ His mother’s loud command startled him. Her uncanny ability to detect his presence never ceased to amaze him.

‘Yes, Amma,’ he responded loudly as he raced upstairs to change out of his torn kurta.

A half-hour later, just as he finished laying out the plates, water glasses and bowls on a clean white sheet, the power went out. He smacked his hand on the floor in exasperation. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he cursed his fate. Why was he condemned to live here, in godforsaken Sibi, the hottest town in all of Pakistan, probably in the whole wide world? In May, on his twelfth birthday, the radio announcer had proclaimed triumphantly that the temperature had topped 52.6 degrees Celsius, as if this was an achievement worthy of pride. That night too they had suffered through a power failure thanks to Baloch separatists who had sabotaged the power station.

He grew apprehensive thinking about his birthday, remembering the breathless neighbour pounding on the door to deliver frightening news of troop trains pulling into the railway station. Of Pakistani soldiers pouring into the streets, conducting house-to-house searches for Baloch fighters. Beating and arresting anyone in sight. When the neighbour asked his father for help treating the injured, the middle-aged compounder did not hesitate. He slipped out into the night, armed with a black bag of ointments, salves, bandages and medicines, ignoring his wife’s pleas to remain at home. The army had been in Sibi ever since.

But this was the first day of Ramzan and the boy was starving. In the predawn darkness, he had muttered angrily when Chakar had unceremoniously woken him by yanking off his bed sheet. He had fasted all day, after a light meal, like the rest of the family. Now all he could think of was food.

‘At last!’ he muttered below his breath when he heard his father and brother at the front door. His mother had heard them too. She sent the young maidservant in with a tray laden with food. The boy sat salivating in the candlelight, inspecting the iftar meal spread before him, staring longingly at the freshly made naans, browned and crisp at the edges, breathing in the aromatic spices of the goat meat curry drizzled with crunchy fried onions. He rocked back and forth impatiently, sitting cross-legged with his elbows on his thighs, the palms of his hands cupping his cheeks.

The windows were open but the air outside was deathly still that evening, still and quiet, until the ruckus began at the front door. At first, he mistook the loud voices from the entryway for the boisterous greetings of a guest but the sounds quickly swelled to angry shouts, followed by thuds and scuffling feet. Then his brother screamed in pain. The boy leaped up in alarm. His mother appeared, securing her dupatta firmly around her head, one end weighed down by a prodigious bunch of keys to the numerous locks about the house. As they hurried to the entryway, the keys jangled like a dancer’s bells but then fell suddenly silent as his mother stood motionless, staring in shock at the tableau before her.

A group of Pakistani soldiers, in combat boots, some with handguns drawn and others with swinging batons, were circled around his father and brother. His mother cried out when she saw the blood stream from her eldest son’s forehead. She rushed towards him but a thin-lipped officer with a large moustache moved to block her path.

‘Why did you hurt him? Who are you? Where are you taking my husband and son?’ his mother screamed as the soldiers moved out, dragging their prisoners with them. They shoved them into a waiting truck in which the boy recognized at least four other neighbourhood men.

‘Your son is wanted for resisting arrest. And your husband has been assisting the traitors,’ the man in charge, the officer with the handlebar moustache, replied curtly before he climbed into the front seat of a military jeep and drove away.

‘Resisting arrest.’ The words reverberated in the boy’s head. How had they discovered where he lived? His classmates. Those cowards. They must have given him up. But the soldiers had arrested his brother instead. Should he tell his mother? Confess that he had disobeyed his father. And then what?

That night, no one touched any of the carefully prepared food. Women and children from the neighbouring houses gathered in their living room, weeping and discussing what to do next. The following morning, the boy’s anxious mother joined a delegation of women. They went to the maulvi who accompanied them to the police thana, but she returned in tears. There was no news about the arrested men. Four days later, the muezzin’s noontime cry was drowned out by the sound of a horn, a brief toot at first, followed seconds later by an impatient ear-splitting blare. The boy hesitated for a moment before opening the front door.

‘Is this the house of Sohrab Nodhkani and Chakar Nodhkani?’ a soldier shouted from the jeep parked outside the house.

‘Yes. Sohrab Nodhkani is my father.’

‘Call your mother. You must come with me.’

But his mother was already there by his side, anxiously looking inside the vehicle for her husband and elder son. Believing they were being taken to see his brother and father, they eagerly obeyed the soldier’s orders. The boy hurriedly helped his mother clamber over the folded passenger seat, sitting beside her on the narrow metal bench in the rear that was burning from the heat of the noonday sun. At the government medical clinic a few minutes’ drive away, the soldier pointed them towards the entrance.

On the flaking walls inside the small windowless entryway of the clinic was a large framed photograph of Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, with the words ‘All power to the people’ inscribed in large Urdu letters below. They walked quickly across the dirt-streaked floor, strewn with used cotton swabs and cigarette butts. The boy stopped when he recognized the uniformed officer standing with his hands crossed behind his back. It was the man with a stiffly waxed handlebar moustache who had presided over the arrests of his father and brother.

The officer stood ramrod straight to one side of a frayed medical-green curtain, blocking the view of what lay beyond. As he passed by the officer, the boy stared at his name tag, the gleaming single brass crescent moon and star on his lapels, and his shoulder sleeve insignia. Years later, he learned that the brass moon and star indicated a rank of major and the maroon shoulder sleeve insignia denoted the Baloch Regiment. It was also when he learned that Pakistan’s ‘Baloch Regiment’ did not have a single Baloch officer.

Passing through the curtained doorway, the boy did not at first comprehend what he saw. They have brought us to the wrong place, he thought, as he looked at the four shrouded bodies in bloodstained white sheets lying on the floor. But his mother knew right away.

‘Aieee. Ya Allah. My husband. My son. You have murdered my family.’ She staggered forward with outstretched arms to touch the face of her dead son.

The boy felt the hair on the nape of his neck stand on end when he heard his mother’s strangled cries. Somehow he gathered the courage to move closer, to look down at the faces revealed by the opening in the shrouds, with a mixture of disbelief and dawning horror.

‘Stop your wailing. Arrange for the burial of these men. Be grateful that we did not throw the traitors into a common grave.’

The officer turned on his heel and marched out.

The boy saw that the week-old wound on his brother’s forehead had paled to a rose pink but fresh red tears marred his smooth skin; a cut along his swollen distended lower lip, a large black bruise under one eye and a broken jaw, hanging open to reveal his slightly misaligned teeth.

The boy’s breathing slowed as anger quickly replaced sorrow. When a small crowd of their neighbours arrived, accompanied by a timid maulvi, he yanked his mother up roughly. She had been running her fingers rapidly along her prayer beads, eyes glazed in shock, swaying as she murmured blessings for the dead. The maulvi began to instruct the assembly about where to take the bodies for the ghusal, the ritual washing before burial, but he was interrupted by a loud voice.

‘No! There will be no ghusal. These are the bodies of martyrs. They will be buried as we found them. Take them directly to the graveyard. Even a mamh awakens from her winter sleep to protect her cubs. If there are men among you, swear now to avenge these murders. Swear, right now, to avenge these murders.’

It was the father of one of the murdered men who had spoken, his voice shaking with fury. The image he evoked of a hibernating mamh, an Asiatic black bear, waking to fight off an attack on her cubs captured the boy’s imagination but he was unable to speak. He could not join in the chorus of oaths that drowned out the maulvi’s stuttered protests as the men stepped forward to shoulder the plain bamboo and rope litters. The procession paused for the funerary prayers at the point where the potholed road petered out. There was no wall or gate to demarcate the cemetery but the local residents knew its outer limits.

The boy had mechanically followed the motions of the rites but instead of praying silently with the others, he repeated the officer’s name, ‘Mirza Gilani, Mirza Gilani’, chanting it in his mind like a curse, searing it into his memory. The four freshly dug graves were wide enough to hold the bodies, but only two feet deep, as far as the shovels could go before they clanged against the unforgiving rock bed. In a rare show of concern, or foresight, the military had arranged for wheelbarrows and great mounds of earth at the far end of the cemetery. Rocks were piled over the fresh earthen mounds, essential to protect the bodies from the hungry faunal scavengers lurking in the barren hills nearby. Rocks and sand were limitless commodities in this land, spoken of derisively by outsiders as the place where the Creator threw down all the rubbish of the world.

As he stood in the blowing dust of the burial ground, staring at the flecks of blood that had rubbed off onto the palms of his hands, the boy cursed himself for being a coward, for not stepping forward and telling the officer that it was he and not his brother who was with the stone-throwing crowds in the streets of Sibi.

1

Karachi, 13 January 2003

A thickset middle-aged man, with an improbably coal-black handlebar moustache in the favourite Pakistan military style, stepped down from a wide marble veranda. His enormous Spanish Revival style bungalow was located in the upscale Defence neighbourhood of Karachi. ‘Brig. M. Gilani, Retd’, in gold lettering, was etched into a black granite plaque set in the brick gatepost.

In the gloomy darkness, a clang followed by metallic squeals broke the quiet of the early winter morning as a bleary-eyed night watchman pushed open one side of the heavy black iron gates. Shivering in the cold, he adjusted his large fringed shawl so that it hooded his head as he waited for his employer.

‘So, did you have a good night’s sleep?’

The watchman returned the sarcastic greeting with an embarrassed grin and weak-handed salute as Brig. Gilani strode past him into the deserted street.

‘Quiet, Pinky,’ Brig. Gilani spoke with gruff affection to his leashed companion as he paused to adjust his flat tweed cap and regimental scarf. The well-groomed Pomeranian ignored him and continued to prance about. Her high-pitched excited yelps only ceased when Brig. Gilani set off at a brisk pace, his carved walnut walking stick resting on his shoulder. He started down Khayaban-i-Muslim, heading towards 16th street. There he would go north for precisely one mile before turning around. It was the exact same walk he took every morning.

Fifteen minutes earlier, a nondescript white Suzuki Bolan van had entered the leafy colony, driving languidly through the quiet streets. In the back seat, two young men sat silent, their watchful eyes scanning the rear and sides of the road. Standing upright between them was a sarinda, a short, lute-like stringed instrument, wrapped in a white cloth with a horsehair bow resting beside it. The driver, a man barely out of his teens, was crouched over the steering wheel, so tense that the muscles of his face and neck appeared like bloodless ridges. By his imposing bearing and the deference and alacrity with which his instructions were obeyed, it was obvious that the bearded muscular man sitting in the front passenger seat was the leader of the group.

‘This is the road. Turn here, Raheem.’

Raheem slowed down when the leader pointed out a bungalow on Khayaban-i-Muslim built on a large double lot. From the road, only the red tiled roof was visible. Its two sprawling stories were hidden behind tall whitewashed walls. Dense magenta bougainvillea cascaded down either side, concealing the razor-sharp green and amber glass shards embedded in the perimeter wall. The heavy wrought iron gates, as high as the walls, were closed.

‘What if he is late for his walk?’ Raheem asked anxiously, unnerved by the eerily empty streets, the orderly rows of trees with their trunks painted white, the shrubs surrounded by latticed brick enclosures, and the palace-like houses set back against emerald lawns surrounded by tall security walls.

‘His routine never varies. You just concentrate on driving, Raheem.’

As the van rounded the corner on 16th Street, they spotted Pinky and her master walking briskly along the sidewalk. On the leader’s instructions, Raheem accelerated till they were almost alongside. As soon as he braked, the two men in the rear leapt out, one carrying a gunnysack. In an instant, he had it draped over Brig. Gilani’s head, ignoring Pinky’s angry bark. But when she began nipping at their ankles, one of them let out a curse and kicked out, sending her flying through the air and into the storm-water drain running alongside. At the same time, his companion landed a powerful blow with an iron mallet on the crown of Brig. Gilani’s head. As he staggered forward, they grabbed him under the arms, dragged him to the van, and bundled him on to the floor at their feet. It had taken them less than a minute. The only sound was Pinky’s plaintive squeals.

‘Go back and stop that noise,’ the leader ordered the two men back out again to deal with the dog. The men slid open the door, but hesitated. The leader turned around to face them before speaking. ‘If someone hears her, they will raise an alarm too soon. We need time to get away. You have to do this.’

Raheem watched the men approach the ditch, one carrying the iron cosh. As soon as she saw them, Pinky let out an outraged bark. The man with the cosh climbed down into the drain and disappeared, his raised arm holding the heavy metal weapon appearing briefly before moving forcefully downward. Raheem turned his head away when he heard the dog’s howl. The cosh crashed down two more times before there was silence. The men returned wordlessly and climbed into their seats. Raheem immediately drove out of the colony heading towards Creek Road. They travelled east till he picked up Landhi Road. When he was past the Korangi Zoo, the leader directed him south towards Coast Road that ran along the Arabian Sea. Thirty minutes later, he told Raheem to pull up at an isolated spot near the beach in Bin Qasim Town.

As soon as the van doors were opened, an overwhelming stench entered the car and clawed at their throats. The smell of putrefying flesh was so powerful that, like a dose of smelling salts, it revived Brig. Gilani. He moaned and reached out to touch the wound on his head. The two men in the rear pulled and shoved their captive into a sitting position and forced him out of the car.

With the bag removed from his head, Brig. Gilani looked around with growing confusion. The odour of rotten flesh, of burnt hair and bones mixed with the noxious smell of excreta almost made him faint. He gagged and spat up before reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief, perfumed with rose attar by his dutiful wife, which he clamped tightly to his nose and mouth. He scanned the faces of the four men around him and quickly identified the man in charge.

‘Have you no respect, to attack an army officer? How dare you? Where is my dog? What have you done with her?’

‘Take off your clothes.’

‘What? I’ll do no such thing.’ Brig. Gilani’s eyes bulged in disbelief at the insolent tone of the man.

‘Then my comrades will do it for you. Make sure you get his watch and his bracelet. And hand me his scarf.’

When he saw his two attackers move forward, the brigadier held up his hands to stop them. He removed his regimental scarf, holding it out to the leader. Then he put his cap on the ground, before removing his jacket and shirt. Naked from the waist up, he stopped.

‘The belt and pants too. You can keep your shoes on.’

He followed the man’s instructions, taking as long as he dared as he tried to figure out what this was all about. But before he could make another appeal, the leader turned and started walking rapidly towards the shore. The men on either side prodded him to follow. After a few yards, they fell back, positioning themselves as guards. The Arabian Sea was now visible, placid in the horizon at low tide, the faint dawn light illuminating the rippling waves. Looking back, the brigadier saw that the young driver who had kept him moving by waving his handgun, had taken up a position at the foot of a raised path.

Brig. Gilani turned again towards the beach, his teeth chattering from fear and the bitterly cold air. They were now walking along the raised path that ran between what looked like scorched saltpans, but the smell told a different tale. A couple of minutes later, the leader stopped and gestured him forward. With dawning horror, Brig. Gilani stared at the hillocks of bones on either side. From the shape and size of the heaps of sorted animal bones, horns and hooves, he could tell that they were from a mélange of animals – buffalos, cows, goats, and even some camels and mules. The horrific image of his skeletal remains being added to the pile filled him with renewed panic.

‘Is it a ransom you are after? My wife will arrange to give you what you want.’ He had lost his bluster and bravado. ‘What is this place?’

‘You don’t know it? It’s a rendering site. Unmentionable animal parts that even dogs will not eat and tankers full of blood from Cattle Colony become fertilizer here. It’s an illegal operation. A very profitable one. Run under the protection of military officers. Every last vestige of a living thing can disappear here.’

‘I know nothing about it. I am not involved in this business.’ Brig. Gilani began to see a glimmer of hope. His confidence returned as he reasoned that it could be a case of mistaken identity. They were probably local residents, fishermen perhaps, objecting to the misuse of their land – although this man was no indigenous fisherman. Some NGO type? He was obviously educated. He spoke clear and precise Urdu. It was entirely possible that this horrific gristmill was run by military officers, either still in service or retired. After all, Pakistani armed forces personnel did control most business ventures, legal and illegal, everything from banks to housing to the trading floors. He himself was a board member of the enormous lucrative Fauji Fertilizer Company. But he was not aware of this enterprise. Indeed, he did not even know it existed. He was just gathering his wits to argue his case, with conciliatory words instead of his normal imperious manner, when the man spoke again.

‘Do you remember Sibi?’

‘Sibi?’

‘Yes, Sibi. September, 1974. You commanded the Sixteenth Baloch battalion.’

‘Yes?’

‘I am the son of Sohrab Nodhkani and the brother of Chakar Nodhkani.’

‘Who?’

Brig. Gilani was confused. Of course he remembered his time in Sibi decades ago where he was deployed to quell the uprising of Baloch traitors demanding an independent state. The command of Alpha Company, 19 Baloch, had won him commendations and a promotion. As 2IC, the second in command of a battalion, he had ordered the arrest of scores of men. Many were subjected to third-degree methods that they did not survive, but the names Sohrab Nodhkani and Chakar Nodhkani rang no bell.

‘Do you have children?’

The abrupt change in questioning threw him off his train of thought. He hesitated before answering.

‘Answer me!’

‘Yes. Yes, I have three children. All are married. And I have four young grandchildren. My wife is sickly and she relies on my help.’ He spoke in a rush, pleading, hoping his answer would evoke pity.

‘Good.’

Then, without any warning, the leader stepped forward and socked him in the face. The power of the blow snapped Brig. Gilani’s head back. Dazed but still on his feet, he knew his jaw was broken. As he gasped for breath, a second rock-hard fist made contact with his nose. He heard the bone crack and felt his left eye burst into mush at the impact. Stunned by the ferocity of the attack and the agonizing wounds, he struggled to maintain his balance as he held his hands out in front of his face to ward off further blows.

When none came, he peered through his fingers. A gasp of fear and an appeal to god had barely escaped his lips before a curved Khanjar blade struck. He felt the burn as the dagger entered just below his sternum. Then the sharp blade was twisted free and Brig. Gilani began falling. The last things he saw as he lay dying on the gravel path were the deep russet leather boots of his assassin.

The Mir of Sobani Balochistan wiped his bloody dagger clean on his victim’s regimental scarf, which he then tossed into a stack of bones. The wary stray dogs that had hung back, nervously circling the men, moved closer gingerly. They held their noses up in the air, sniffing the fresh blood. The screaming seagulls near the shore sensed something was afoot when the aimless flight of the raptors overhead suddenly changed. They were headed inland, purposeful and swift. As they began their swooping descent to investigate the fresh prone body on the shore, the dogs moved in.

2

Mehrgarh, Balochistan

The mellow sound of a sarinda accompanied by chant-like singing competed with the gusts of wind blowing down from the Brahui Mountains.

Sitting on a mooda in the pale afternoon sun, sipping his tea, Raheem listened to the high-pitched nasal voice of Golo, the Mehrgarh watchman, emanating from under the folds of a tented rough wool blanket. The serenity of the scene was completely at odds with the events in Karachi early that morning. He had watched from a distance, with a mixture of curiosity and awe, as the Mir had killed the retired military officer. No. Not killed. Executed. After delivering a punishing beating, he had struck only once with his dagger. The Mir was a physician, of course, so he knew exactly where to plunge the blade for a quick and clean kill.

The Karachi operation was an example of his scrupulous planning. The routine of the target was known down to the minute. The Mir had used others to spy on the retired officer, to report on his activities and scope out the best possible spot and time for the hit. By using unrelated teams, none of whom knew the extent or scope of the entire operation, he eliminated the risk of failure or security leaks if any team member was arrested. Raheem believed that when the Mir did put lives at risk, as he had that morning, the odds of survival were always in their favour because the Mir believed that strength and bravery had to be tempered by careful strategy.

‘Suicide bombing is for idiots. What good are dead soldiers to our bolak?’ the Mir would say, using the ancient Balochi word for a clan when referring to Sobani Balochistan, or Glorious Balochistan, the name of their separatist group.

It was only when the mobile phone resting on the dashboard had rung, an hour after Raheem had turned onto the N-25, the national highway that led to the Afghan border, that they learnt of the second targeted assassination.

‘You left him there? You are sure he’s gone?’ The Mir had spoken softly but Raheem heard every word. The Mir listened for several minutes without interruption as the caller responded to his questions.

‘You did the right thing. In a war, we must expect casualties. Now listen carefully. Abandon the vehicle. Remove everything, papers, food, clothing. Check the trunk and beneath the seats. Wipe down all surfaces. Then disperse. Do not travel together. Take trains and buses to the meeting point. I’ll see you there.’

The Mir remained silent for a few moments after he disconnected the call and then turned to look at his companions.

‘For security reasons, I did not tell you earlier that a second team was assigned to eliminate a banker who is also a retired officer. The mission was successful. The banker is dead but Roshan was shot and killed by the security guards protecting their target. The others got away safely.’

Roshan was dead, despite all the care and caution and meticulous planning. Raheem was in shock. It was the second death of someone he knew, in the space of a month. Remembering Javed’s death, Raheem’s upbeat mood following the success of the morning’s operation vanished. A fellow soldier from their Toba Kakar camp, Javed had been killed less than one week ago as he was trekking through the mountains with a partner, carrying a directive from the Mir to the Karachi team. Javed was killed instantly but his partner had escaped, and reported watching from a