BLOWBACK (8 page)

‘Wait!’ the man commanded. ‘And don’t make any sudden moves.’ He turned and walked back to the Hiace minibus. He opened the door and leaned forward to talk to someone, his demeanour clearly deferential. A long moment later, he shut the door and began to walk towards Tanaz. He must have muttered something as he passed the other men because they all shouldered their weapons.

‘Come on, woman. Let’s get the two of you out of here.’

Aware that her options were limited, Tanaz lowered her weapon and asked, ‘Who are you? Are you also mujahideen?’

‘What did you think? The Salvation Army?’ the leader grunted sarcastically, his words eliciting a short, barking laugh from the other men. ‘Come on. Let’s get a move on. We need to get clear of this area before someone else lands up.’

Two of them reached inside the station wagon and hauled out the still unconscious Iqbal. The other two quickly gathered all the arms and ammunition they could lay their hands on from the fallen Pakistani soldiers. Tanaz hurried behind them as they carried Iqbal and laid him on the rear seat of the second Hiace minibus.

‘He has been shot badly,’ the man carrying him said to Tanaz as he put Iqbal down. ‘Try and keep him as still as possible. If he loses too much blood...’ The man shrugged.

‘How long before we can get him to a doctor?’ Tanaz asked worriedly.

‘Not long,’ he muttered, ‘maybe an hour at the most. He’ll take care of him meanwhile.’ He gestured at the man who had just alighted from the other Hiace, toting a large black medical bag. The newcomer was short, though equally heavily bearded and sported a pair of thick horn-rimmed spectacles. He ignored Tanaz as he got into the vehicle beside Iqbal.

As the convoy started up again and carefully nosed its way past the shot-up vehicles, the bespectacled man removed the blood-soaked bandage and began to check Iqbal’s wounds.

‘Are you a doctor?’ Tanaz asked anxiously.

‘Keep quiet, woman, and let me do my work,’ the man said harshly without looking at her. He had a strange accent that Tanaz was unable to place. ‘And keep yourself covered! Have you no shame? Showing your face like that!’

Tanaz suppressed an angry retort as she threw the veil of the bloodied burqa over her face. She kept her mouth shut as she watched the man get rid of the field dressings and clean up both the wounds. The minute the bandages came off, blood began to spurt out again. He reached into his bag and hauled out two silver-green rectangular packets with QuikClot printed on them in large red letters. Slitting them open one by one, he began to sprinkle sand-coloured granules onto the wounds. Tanaz had heard about this wonderous haemostasic agent but this was the first time she was seeing it being used.

She watched in open-mouthed admiration as the thirsty, sand-like granules soaked up moisture from the blood and began to coagulate into a thick clot that completely covered the wound. Amost instantly, the flow of blood ebbed to a trickle and then stopped altogether.

‘What is that? Will it staunch the bleeding?’ Tanaz couldn’t stop herself from asking.

‘Of course it will.’ Perhaps the man was so used to being asked about the miracle powder, as the less literate jihadis were wont to call it, that he forgot he had told her to keep her mouth shut. There was a distinct note of pride in his voice as he explained, ‘The clot is strong enough to withstand high pressure, including blood transfusion. It will even stop blood loss from high volume arterial and venous bleeds. It’s a real life-saver.’ He waved the now empty packet at her before chucking it down. ‘In fact, had it not been for this, the goras would have lost many more lives in Afghanistan by now. Every damn NATO soldier carries one these days.’ Then, just as suddenly as he had begun to talk, his surliness reasserted itself and he clammed up. He gave Iqbal a shot and then jabbed an IV into him, hooking the bottle to the handle above the door.

Still marvelling at the clot, Tanaz refocused on Iqbal, trying to keep him as comfortable and still as possible. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought he was breathing a lot easier by the time the vehicles halted an hour later.

SEVEN

The place they stopped at seemed to be a small village, or a suburb of the town looming large in the distance. From whatever little she was able to make out, they seemed to be near Faisalabad.

Not that it mattered. Tanaz knew she had no option but to go with the flow, at least until Iqbal was fit enough to travel.

The opening of the vehicle door put an end to her thoughts. The two burly mujahids who had carried Iqbal into the Hiace lifted him out and carried him into the compound.

The compound comprised several small houses, most of them mud-walled, though there were a few brick ones too. A shoulder-high mud wall encircled the entire cluster. Cowdung and debris littered the area. Broken furniture was strewn around on the flat roofs of most of the houses. It had the peculiar, unkempt feel of a place that was largely inhabited by men whose minds were occupied with things more important than cleanliness.

Either that, or this place is mostly used by transients who are merely passing through.

Hurrying along behind the two men, she asked, ‘Where are we?’

‘At a safe place,’ the same man who had spoken earlier replied.

‘Safe from the army?’

‘The army? The Pakistan Army?’

‘Which other army is there in this country?’

‘Well, no one talks about it openly, but the American Special Forces slip in and out, conducting raids inside Pakistan. Don’t you know?’

‘Really?’ Tanaz showed an appropriate degree of surprise and anger. ‘Why do we allow it?’

‘Exactly!’ He gestured vehemently. ‘As for the Pakistan Army, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you.’ He looked at her and laughed. ‘This compound belongs to the local ISI commander. No one is likely to bother us here.’

The room they entered would have been known, in a more organized place, as the medical room or the sick bay. Placed squarely in the centre was a steel operating table. Above it hung four large, naked tubelights. To one side was a tall steel cabinet with glass shutters that held an assortment of medicines and supplies. A rudimentary effort had been made to keep the room cleaner than the area outside. A faint but distinct hospital-like smell of disinfectant hung in the air.

They had just finished laying Iqbal down on the operating table when the man who had tended to him in the van strode in. Behind him came a thin, gawky man with a harried air about him.

‘You wait outside, woman,’ the man ordered Tanaz in the same curt manner in which he had spoken to her earlier. ‘We have to operate on him.’

‘No,’ Tanaz replied softly, but firmly. ‘He is my husband. I will stay with him.’

‘Okay, then you will help,’ the man replied with a dismissive shrug. ‘Take these and boil them.’ He pulled out a tray of operating instruments from the corner cabinet and gestured to the cooking gas alongside it. ‘And don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s going to be bloody and painful.’

‘I won’t complain,’ Tanaz countered, though her heartbeat escalated and she could barely contain her anxiety.

There was a glint of admiration in the man’s eyes as he looked at her. ‘I hope you’re strong.’ He paused. ‘Bear in mind that we have run out of anaesthesia. Your man will have to bear the pain on his own.’

‘No anaesthesia! Allah have mercy!’ Tanaz tried to shut out the thought of the knife cutting into Iqbal’s flesh. ‘How will he bear the pain?’ For a moment she felt her will weaken. Then she shut down her mind and began to focus on the task given to her. Of their own accord, her lips began to move in silent prayer.

Iqbal’s body jerked awake as the knife sliced open a neat valley in his chest. Then the doctor dug in, searching for the 7.62 mm slug that had shattered Iqbal’s chest. Seconds later, the scorching pain hit him and Iqbal began to scream. His legs thrashed wildly and the men had to exert every ounce of their energy to keep him down. The more he screamed and thrashed about, the more the doctor scrambled inside, unable to achieve a clean removal of the slug. Finally, Iqbal’s voice deserted him and then, eventually, so did consciousness.

It was some time around then that Tanaz fainted.

W
hen Tanaz came to, she found herself alone in the room, still lying on the floor where she had fallen. Iqbal’s screams echoed in her head, blanketing it with pain, that helpless, endless pain we feel when someone we love is being hurt. Large ugly drops of blood were splattered all around her on the floor.

She sat up hesitantly and saw Iqbal lying still on the operating table. His face was pale and his breath was running shallow. But his heavily bandaged chest heaved rhythmically and he appeared to be in better shape than when they had carried him in.

‘We managed to get both the bullets out of him.’ The sudden, surprisingly squeaky voice from the door startled Tanaz, making her jump. It was the gawky, nervous-looking man who had assisted the doctor in the surgery
.
‘He should live, Inshallah… if he doesn’t catch an infection…’

‘He
will
live,’ Tanaz retorted, more sharply than she had intended. ‘He has to.’

‘Inshallah!’ the man repeated simply, raising his hands heavenwards. ‘So, Ghazi was saying you had a shootout with the army?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s strange... very strange. They never bother us – at least not in this part of the country.’ There was a hint of suspicion in his tone, or so it seemed to the ever watchful Tanaz.

‘Maybe they thought I was helpless,’ she replied, sticking to the version she had given earlier, ‘because my man was injured.’

‘Maybe!’ The man watched her unblinkingly. ‘Where are you two coming from?’

‘Across.’ Tanaz’s answer was monosyllabic.

‘What did you go there for?’

‘We were sent for a task.’

‘What task?’

‘If you were meant to know, you would have been told.’ Tanaz’s eyes dared him.

‘Bitch!’ he spat out. ‘Why don’t you just clean him up instead of chatting me up?’

Tanaz turned away silently, relieved the inquisition was over, at least for the moment. She filled the metal basin lying in the corner with water and taking a wad of cotton from the cabinet, began to clean Iqbal, starting with his face, working her way down his body, careful to keep away from the bandaged parts.

‘Where are we now?’ she asked after a while.

‘It’s a safehouse given to us by the ISI,’ he said. ‘But it’s mostly the Arabs and other foreigners who use it.’

‘Arabs?’ Tanaz couldn’t keep the surprise out of her voice. ‘What are they doing in these parts? I thought they kept to the north.’

‘For a woman, you seem quite well informed about these things.’ The man gave her another keen look.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Tanaz retorted belligerently. ‘So what if I am a woman? Does that make me any less a mujahideen?’ She turned to face him. ‘Don’t you know I’ve sacrificed both my brothers for the cause… not to mention three years of my life?’

‘All right, all right! Don’t get so worked up. I just asked. You know how troubled these times are; one has to be careful and question everything.’

‘I understand.’ Tanaz discarded her belligerence, eager to have him talking again. ‘I know exactly what you mean. These days you can never take anyone at face value.’

‘Well, the Arabs, in fact all the outsiders, began to move out once the goras started sending their drones across the borders on search-and-destroy strikes. Especially the important ones… they are extra careful these days.’

‘The important ones? You mean like those who brought us here?’

‘Those who got you here?’ The man gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Hardly! But the man they are escorting certainly is.’

‘Which one is that? I didn’t see him.’

‘The Ameer is only seen by those he wishes to be seen by.’ He gave another knowing, almost condescending laugh. ‘In fact, you are lucky he even stopped to pick you two strays up…’ The man’s voice trailed away, as though suddenly aware that he was talking too much.

‘The Ameer? Is that his name? Who is he?’

‘There you go again, with your questions!’ the man retorted brusquely, his tone dissuading Tanaz from asking any more questions.

T
hree grim days later, Tanaz was coming out of the hospital room in the morning after checking on the still weak, but now sporadically conscious Iqbal when three men emerged from a hut across the compound, about fifty feet away. Although all three were dressed alike, the one in the centre caught her attention immediately.

Tall and built like a Patton tank, the man had a long, angular scar running across the right cheek of his gaunt face and a strange glow in his eyes. A chill ran down Tanaz’s spine as their eyes met. She looked away hastily and bowing her head, scurried away as she had seen the one or two other women in the compound do.

Almost simultaneously, a posse of men erupted from the huts around and began to make their way towards the mini-convoy of vehicles that had brought Tanaz and Iqbal here. The man she now knew as the Ameer walked into the Hiace van with darkened windows positioned behind the leading Landcruiser. Engines revved to life and moments later, the convoy was moving. Within minutes it had disappeared into the swirling desert sands, heading north.

‘So you have finally seen the Ameer!’ said a reedy, nasal voice just behind her. She turned with a start to see Pervez, the doctor’s assistant.

‘You startled me,’ Tanaz said accusingly.

They stood there, watching the dust settle on the horizon. ‘Where has he gone?’ Tanaz asked.

‘The Ameer? Who knows! He never stays anywhere for more than a day or two.’

‘Really? That’s strange.’

‘Why? It makes perfect sense from the security point of view. Most of the other leaders follow the same rule and the Ameer ul Momineem is, after all, the most important of them all.’

‘Ameer ul Momineem? The Commander of the Faithful?’

‘Yes, woman, that’s who he is!’ Pervez looked at her disdainfully. ‘Not many know of him today, but what he is doing will soon surpass anything even the Sheikh had visualized.’

‘Oh!’ Tanaz purposely kept her tone a little stupid, hoping the man would keep talking, but it didn’t work this time, possibly because he had other things on his mind.