NAZEER WOKE ME before dawn, and we left the house as the first yawning rays of light stretched into the fading night. When we climbed from our taxi at the airport we saw Khaderbhai and Khaled Ansari near the entrance to the domestic terminal, but we didn’t acknowledge them. Khader had laid out a complex itinerary that would take us, with four major changes of transport, from Bombay to Quetta, in Pakistan, near the Afghan border. His instructions were that we should appear at all times to be individual travellers, and that the travellers shouldn’t acknowledge one another in any way. We were setting out with him to commit a score of crimes across three international boundaries, and to interfere in a war between Afghanistan’s mujaheddin freedom fighters and the mighty Goliath of the Soviet Union. He was planning to succeed in his mission, but he was also allowing for failure. He was ensuring that if any of us were killed or captured at any stage, the trail of connections back to Bombay would be as cold as a mountain climber’s axe.
It was a long journey, and it began as a silent one. Nazeer, scrupulous as ever in his conformity with Khaderbhai’s instructions, never uttered a single word on the first leg from Bombay to Karachi. An hour after we’d checked into our separate rooms in the Chandni Hotel, however, I heard a soft tap on the door. Before the door was halfway open he slipped inside and pressed it shut behind him. His eyes were wide with nervous excitement and his manner was agitated, almost frantic. I was unsettled and a little disgusted by the conspicuousness of his fear, and I reached out to put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Take it easy, Nazeer. You’re freaking me out, brother, with all this cloak-and-dagger shit.’
He saw the condescension behind my smile, even if he didn’t understand the full meaning of the words. His jaw locked around some inscrutable resolve, and he frowned at me fiercely. We’d become friends, Nazeer and I. He’d opened his heart to me. But friendship, for him, was measured by what men do and endure for one another, not by what they share and enjoy. It puzzled and even tormented him that I almost always met his earnest gravity with facetiousness and triviality. The irony was that we were, in fact, similarly dour and serious men, but
‘Russian… everywhere,’ he said, speaking quietly, but with a hard, breathy intensity. ‘Russian… know everything… know every man… pay money for know everything.’
‘Russian spies?’ I asked. ‘In Karachi…’
‘Everywhere Pakistan,’ he nodded, turning his head aside to spit on the floor. I wasn’t sure if the gesture was in contempt or for luck. ‘Too much danger! Not speak anyone! You go… Faloodah House… Bohri bazaar… today…
‘
He allowed me a grim little smile and then opened the door. Glancing briefly along the corridor, he slipped out again as swiftly and silently as he’d entered. I looked at my watch. One o’clock. I had three hours to kill. For my passport-smuggling missions, Abdel Ghani had given me a money belt that was his uniquely original design. The belt was made from a tough, waterproof vinyl and was several times wider than the standard money belt. Worn flat against the stomach, the belt could hold up to ten passports and a quantity of cash. On that first day in Karachi it held four of my own books. The first of them was the British book that I’d used to purchase plane and train tickets, and register at the hotel. The second book was the clean American passport that Khaderbhai required me to use for the mission into Afghanistan. The two others, a Swiss book and a Canadian book, were spares for emergency use. There was also a ten thousand dollar contingency fund, paid in advance, as part of my fee for accepting the hazardous mission. I wrapped the thick belt around my waist, beneath my shirt, slipped my switchblade into the scabbard at the back of my trousers, and left the hotel to explore the city.
