Chapter 8
Chomping at the Bit
We needed a breakthrough and fast. I had Chester continue to prod and poke the cops to see if there was anything new or, more importantly, anything promising in terms of solid leads. Kali was finishing up with the intelligence stuff and then was heading to the International School of Delhi to snoop around. I would plod along by calling the RSO in Kabul via secure voice to see if there was anything back on the checks I asked for on the two APPF agents: Mohammed and Kamal. I’d also review the embassy files on Singh. Our team was running out of time and options. Moreover, I suspected that our victims were running out of time and options too. God help us, I thought. Some divine intervention might be necessary to remove the scales from our eyes.
I spoke to a DS agent named Mark, one of several assistant regional security officers assigned to the U.S. embassy in Kabul. I didn’t know him, but he said he’d most definitely heard of me, but I didn’t bother to follow-up on his remark. I asked what feedback he’d received so far regarding the APPF agents’ backgrounds. His boss was aware of Zeenat’s involvement in the kidnapping, but Mark wasn’t. He was curious as hell as to why I was seeking such information. We were an overly inquisitive bunch for trained, government investigators.
I reminded him of the department’s need-to-know dictum and that he shouldn’t ask questions. His feelings were hurt, but I didn’t care. I thought the new crop of young agents were a bit whiny and wimpy to begin with. I remembered the days when the needs of the service really meant something. I could recall many a day and night when I’d have to strap on my gun and protect a foreign official at a moment’s notice—time didn’t belong to us in those days, I thought.
Either drunk or sober, we would answer the call of duty to protect and serve. For the record, I couldn’t remember too many of those days due to my age, certainly not due to my imbibing. Regardless, the young agents seemed to be above the call to duty. How did you define loyalty, self-sacrifice, and professionalism these days?
Mark related that he had assigned two embassy local investigators to the task. He acknowledged it was being treated as an urgent matter. He related that the skinny on Mohammed and Kamal was totally favorable so far and their hands were clean. Their records and reputations were spotless, etc. etc. How come I felt like I was listening to an infomercial for Ivory Soap? I thanked Mark for the information, his assistance, and his own rendering of the clean-hands doctrine.
I got Singh Singh’s official personal folder and security file. Joginder, a.k.a. Joe, had worked for the embassy about three years as a motor pool driver. He was one of many drivers in the pool until he got a promotion and his shot at stardom; the assignment to drive for the ambassador’s family. He should have stayed in the shallow end of the pool because he was now in over his head. I noticed he had worked as a chauffeur for a few years for one of the big multinational companies in Delhi before joining the embassy. I continued to scan his file for any useful information to the point of causing my eyes to water and cross.
His bio reflected that Joe was married and he and his wife had a three year old girl and a three-month old boy. With a male child, Joe could now hold his head high in the neighborhood. They lived in a small, walk-up apartment building in one of Delhi’s lower, middleclass neighborhoods. Lower middleclass in India meant that they lived in a nicer hovel than most people and not on the streets. He and his wife were doing well by local living standards.
The GOI criminal and security checks for Joe had come back clear. He wasn’t a thieving subversive in the eyes of his government. Neighbors and coworkers spoke nice things about him and his former employer recommended him for a position of trust and responsibility with the embassy. There was only one entry, actually a footnote in his security file that caught my attention. His former employer mentioned that Joe had taken a three month, unpaid leave of absence. Joe hadn’t mentioned that bit of information in his personal interview as an applicant for embassy employment. However, it was a short amount of time and not an uncommon omission.
Longer periods of unaccounted time required an explanation and corroboration. Three months was the magical cutoff point for corroboration and he had just made it under the wire. However, an explanation was asked for and received. A note in the file indicated that Joe had to take care of his sick father in Banaras. He stated that he was the eldest son in the family and it was a customary and expected duty. Apparently, the explanation made sense to the investigator.
While Joe’s omission about his unpaid leave of absence on his security questionnaire (and during the personal interview) wasn’t particularly remarkable in itself, it was still something to follow-up on. I was still clinging to hope and grasping at those straws, but I still awaited the divine intervention part. Since Joe was likely tied up at the moment, I’d speak to his wife. Like with the ambassador’s spouse, it wouldn’t be a pleasant meeting, but it had to be done. Anyway, who’s better at reading and understanding the feelings of vulnerable women I would ask?
I got Chester on his cell phone and told him we had to talk to Mrs. Singh about Joe’s missing time issue. I instructed him to buy a baby gift for Joe’s wife as an icebreaker and a gesture of goodwill. There were already rumblings that she was pressing the embassy for compensation. I needed her cooperation and support in the investigation and the gift might help thaw relations.
I had a quick lunch in the chancery cafeteria and a couple of cigarettes as I waited for Chester to collect me and head to Mrs. Singh’s apartment. Kali was still busy with her inquiries at the ISD, so I’d try to catch up with her later. We were doing all the right things in terms of conducting the investigation, but we needed a break. Maybe prayer and wishful thinking would help since I was willing to try just about anything.
Chester and I sat in the back of the embassy sedan as it wove its way through the heavy traffic. We arrived at Mrs. Singh’s home about 30 minutes later, not bad time, all things considered. We didn’t have an appointment and I guessed we wouldn’t need one. With two kids to take care of, she wouldn’t stray far from her apartment. We negotiated the outside stairs, ducking the laundry hanging out to dry on the makeshift clotheslines. It was a noisy, crowded tenement building. She and Joe lived in a unit on the second floor. There was a communal bath and bathroom at the end of the hall and it stunk to high heaven or nirvana.
Chester introduced us and we were invited inside. Mrs. Singh was in her late thirties by my guess. She was dressed in a traditional sari and had her hair tied back in a bun. A dark-haired little girl hid behind her skirts and a baby was sitting in a makeshift crib in the living room. There was a small kitchenette and a separate room off a short hall, the master bedroom I suspected and the only bedroom. Mrs. Singh graciously offered us hot tea and we accepted. It was a customary, social ritual and I didn’t want to offend her so I went along with the drill. I hoped she had some sugar to go with it. That was an accompanying, customary, and social ritual for me because I hated the stuff otherwise. A little milk would be nice touch too, but I wasn’t going to push my luck.
Mrs. Singh’s English was excellent. I wasn’t surprised because the British did a good job imposing their values and language on their colonial subjects. We Americans were similarly blessed by the Brit’s linguistic largesse, but our English ain’t so good.
“Mrs. Singh, I’m sorry to bother you, and I realize the police have spoken to you already, but I have a few questions to ask. I hope you don’t mind.” I also hope you don’t mind if I don’t mention your husband’s severed fingertip. She said she didn’t mind.
“Did your husband ever mention any concerns about his personal safety while working for the embassy?”
She said he never mentioned any specific concerns, but terrorism was a world-wide phenomenon and they talked about world affairs sometimes, especially those events occurring on the subcontinent.
“Did your husband ever indicate that he had been threatened or did he have any enemies who might be responsible for his disappearance?” I knew the answers, but had to go through the standard litany of questions.
She replied that he didn’t have any enemies; they lived a simple, quiet life. There weren’t any threats against his life to her knowledge.
I went to the baby’s crib and picked the boy up. Mrs. Singh beamed and was touched by my act of kindness. I asked her how she was holding up under the circumstances and was there anything the embassy could do to help in this difficult time?
She thanked me and said she was coping as best she could. She was worried about her husband and the family’s future. She mentioned that the Human Resources people at the embassy had been in regular contact with her since the incident. They had been especially helpful and she was grateful for their support.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke and I felt sorry for her and her children. Without a husband bringing in a steady paycheck, she faced a difficult life.
“How are Joginder’s parents and relatives doing?” I asked.
“Joe’s mother is elderly and feeble and not doing particularly well. His sister and brothers are coping on a day-to-day basis, but it’s not easy for any of us,” she cried.
“What about Joe’s father? How’s he doing? It must be very difficult for him as well,” I said, as I put the baby down.
“Joe’s father died when he was an infant and was raised by an uncle in his adopted hometown of Banaras. He’s very worried about him too.”
I told her I was sorry and mentioned that the American embassy and U.S. government were doing their best to bring her husband back to her, quickly and safely. I avoided using the word “alive.” Regardless, I think she got the message loud and clear. I only hoped we would get the same response from our thoughtful gift.
I thanked her for her time and again apologized for intruding. Before leaving, I presented her with the gift that I had Chester buy at one of the electronics stores—a baby monitor. She knew immediately what it was and thanked us profusely. She and her husband could never afford such a luxury on his salary. I told her it was from her good friends in America. She cried, but this time with tears of joy. The gift had taken away some of her grief, at least for a time. I rubbed my eyes too. The overwhelming cooking fumes from the kitchen were making them sting and itch and I couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.
Chester setup the monitoring system and showed her how it worked. She could now leave the children for short periods of time without worrying about them. She placed the small monitoring device, a receiver, on a chain around her neck. It could pick up the slightest sounds of trouble from the kids. Now she could hang the laundry and socialize with the neighbors without having to constantly worry about the safety of her children. The monitor’s speaker would be kept in the living room, just below a statue of the goddess Kali.
The monitoring device was sensitive enough to pick-up minute noises anywhere in the small apartment. Chester continued working with her to set things up properly. He also gave her extra, rechargeable batteries for the unit. I think she felt liberated for the first time in her life. She now had a live-in babysitter—a baby wallah, in the local parlance, that would be the envy of her neighbors. We said our goodbyes and left. I felt good about our conversation and was proud to be a generous, considerate American once again.
After we got to the street, I told Chester to give the second baby monitor, a.k.a. radio receiver, to his security service colleagues sitting in a car down the road. At our instruction, they had set up a 24/7 surveillance of the Singh residence. The IB agents already had the phone tapped and now we had a listening device inside the apartment. It was low-tech, but extremely effective means of monitoring all conversations. The baby monitor I gave Mrs. Singh was a Phillips Model SCD 0590. It worked-off an encrypted, digital signal that other portable communications devices (such as cell phones and cordless telephones) couldn’t interfere with. It would nicely serve our purpose.
With the second receiver, the IB agents could be a distance of up to 900 feet from the building and still receive crystal-clear reception. The portable tape recorder would capture all the gurgles, a random goo-goo and any other gibberish of an incriminating nature. It was $149 of Uncle Sam’s money well-spent.
Sometimes those who served and protected did things on the cheap and in a babyish manner.
Mrs. Singh’s comment that Joe’s father died many years ago when he was a child didn’t jive with what he told the embassy when he was hired. He said he had to take a leave of absence to care for his father. Uncle or father; the terms could sometimes be interchanged in complicated family situations, but I didn’t think so in this case.
It seemed to me that Joe was hiding the fact that he took a three month sabbatical. But why was the question? What could he have done during that three-month period that he didn’t want anyone to know about? What were his secrets? What might they have to do with the kidnapping? What was the meaning of life? I didn’t know the answers to any of those questions, I mused. However, I did know that it had been a long day and I was tired. I directly headed to my hotel room to relax.
The embassy had done well by me in arranging for my digs. They put me up at the Taj Palace Hotel, a Hyatt, just a short walk from the chancery. It was built as a palace in the 1930s and had five stars. I planned to be one of them during my stay and now it was time to unwind and pamper myself.
I finished a long, hot shower and put on thongs, both for my feet and loins. I covered myself with the hotel’s fluffy white robe and turned on the BBC news. It was a smoking room and I guiltlessly enjoyed a cigarette without worrying about the smoking cops knocking on my door. Just as I was thoroughly kicked-back and relaxed, there was a loud knock at the door and I immediately ran to the toilet to flush my cigarette. I had momentarily forgotten that I was legal and had nothing to worry about.
Sometimes old habits and guilt complexes died hard for those who served and protected.
I composed myself and answered the door and it wasn’t the cops or housekeeping. It was Kali McAlister holding a bottle of wine and two glasses. She had brought a chilled bottle of white Zinfandel. I was instantly aroused and excited by the prospects since I couldn’t find a decent Zinfandel on the hotel wine list. Kali asked if she could come in. That was like her asking if I enjoyed whipped cream on my strawberry shortcake. I licked my lips at the image and invited her inside.
"Dick, since we were both out and about and missed each other today, I thought this would be a good time to catch up and compare notes,” she said.
I agreed and suggested she sit down to be more comfortable.
Comparing case notes was a standard investigative strategy between a beautiful black woman and an older, white gentleman, as I recalled from my younger days in DS.
It was evident that Kali was the consummate professional given her demeanor and dress. Her demeanor was hot; her manner of dress even hotter. She was wearing a tight, low-cut blouse and even tighter, low-cut jeans. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her erect nipples pointed in my direction when she was facing me. I took that as an encouraging sign.
Why did some people criticize the younger generation about the way they dressed? I didn’t understand that attitude since I liked what I saw.
“I finished reviewing the satellite imagery and communications intercepts. There was nada, zip, zilch useful information; a total waste of time. I then headed to the ISD and talked to the administrators, teachers, and a few student friends of Alicia’s. Getting onto the grounds and into the administration building was like trying to get into Fort Knox without a formal, gilded invitation. They take security very seriously,” she laughingly said.
She paused to open the wine with the corkscrew she had brought with her. The woman was really organized and thoughtful, probably a result of her vigorous DS training regimen.
“By the way, the school doesn’t have a clue about Zeenat,” she continued. “They bought the embassy party-line that she had been withdrawn from class due to illness and all wished her a speedy recovery. I told them she returned home to Bangladesh to stay with her family until she was feeling better. Regardless, the American sponsored cultural exchange program would continue, I reassured them. I also mentioned she was looking forward to returning to the ISD as soon as possible."
“I told them she already missed her friends and teachers. They all signed a handmade get-well card for her and asked me to get it to her, if I could. She was a good student and would be missed. They were terribly worried and upset about Alicia as well. They were still stunned that something like this could happen in Delhi. They had redoubled student-faculty security awareness training and dusted-off the school’s emergency response plans,” she added.
Kali didn’t seem to be in the least bit embarrassed or bothered that I was sitting across from her wearing just thongs, a thong, and a robe. She looked directly into my eyes when she spoke and she must've been a good poker player since I couldn’t read her mind. My mind wandered so it was doubly difficult to gauge her mental state accurately. Obviously, I was smitten and confused. Smitten meant hard in English, I believed. Regardless, I was thoroughly familiar with the word confused. It was a common denominator for situations like this. Horny was another.
Kali got up from her chair and sat next to me on the sofa and poured us both another glass of wine. I was already feeling its giddy effects. The wine and cigarettes, without any food, made me lightheaded. My nervousness didn’t help either and I was starting to swoon.
“Dick, I have a confession to make.”
I wondered if I should put on a white shirt backwards to hear it, but I decided not to get up. I was already up and didn’t want to look like a moving pup-tent in front of her since the other thong was about to drop.
“I’ve always had a strong thing for a guy who’s a cop, detective, or investigator; private or otherwise."
Kali poured me another glass of wine while she spoke.
“The long and short of it is that I have a dick fetish! As for you, your name simply adds to my desire and fantasy. God, I can’t help myself. Dick, I’m so weak and ashamed of my feelings. I knew I had this hang-up, urge, kink, fetish, thing or whatever, since adolescence. Jim Rockford was one of my many imaginary lovers,” she continued. “God, he was so hot, and you remind me of him! I just loved his sense of humor and his unorthodox style of conducting investigations. I admit I loved the bulge in his trousers too. He was muy sexy, and one damn fine detective in my book. I never missed a single episode and have them all on tape. They’re part of my huge porn stash."
She pressed closer to me and put a hand on my upper thigh. The room was spinning out of control for me. “Why do you think I got into this line of work?” she asked. “It was only natural. Where could I better meet and hook-up with real-life detectives? It was the ideal hunting ground to satisfy my warped desires and outrageous kinks. Of course, the younger guys would hit on me all of the time and it was always a pain. That’s why I’ve been pegged as a dyke for most of my life. I refused to put out for them because I wasn’t interested in boys, only in real men, like you, Dick."
“When I met you I knew I was in trouble. My sexual urges were strong at the very beginning. I rolled your name over-and-over again in my mind and on my tongue. I was having nasty fantasies about being in bed with you——.”
I was starting to doze–off. My ardor had quickly headed due south and went limp. And then I passed out. I crashed hard at that point. I had blacked out and was down for the count, but I had the weirdest fantasies and dreams the entire night. I vividly dreamed that Kali had seduced and sexually abused me in every possible way. That would be up, down, and sideways. During my unconscious state, she performed the most lewd, vile, and disgusting sexual acts on my body. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed every perverted word, gesture, and act. I didn’t remember the curtain call though. Did the fat lady really sing? I didn’t know, but I enjoyed the most satisfying, ultimate, out-of-body experience one could imagine.
I awoke the next morning hung-over and that was very strange since I could easily handle a couple of glasses of Zinfandel and still stay awake to work a protective security detail. However, I simply couldn’t remember what happened the previous night. I knew Kali came over and we talked, but not much else. I was sore and my precious bodily fluids seemed depleted. Maybe I had a wet dream with multiple climaxes. In any case, my bed now looked like Sumo wrestlers had put on a performance during the night. It was a tag-team match, no less. I walked to the sitting room and immediately saw a note on the coffee table and picked it up and read it.
It was from Kali: Dearest Richard, I hope you enjoyed last night. I certainly did. You were a great lover and boy-toy. Thank you for releasing my many pent-up demands and quirks. By the way, your screams resulted in the front desk calling a couple of times for you to hold down the noise. I explained that you were suffering from Delhi-belly and the clerks were sympathetic. There won’t be any formal complaints from the hotel management, so don’t worry. See you in the office. Connie. P.S. Don’t bother scheduling a prostate exam—yours is firm and flat. Salud my friend!
Jesus, I had been screwed-blue without remembering getting a henna tattoo! I had been had and I felt used and cheap. I had been date-raped by a colleague. I would have trouble holding my head up in public with the large scarlet letter hanging around my neck, I ruefully thought. It would be a fluorescent, flashing capital A—for asshole, I suspected. Rape counseling was out of the question. I had to deal with the emotional consequences of this most egregious act on my ego and manhood alone.
Rohypnol truly was a wonder-drug because I wondered what Kali had done unto me. In any event, the chemistry must’ve been good because I didn’t feel or remember a thing. Turnabout wasn’t always fair play. However, payback wouldn’t be a bitch, it would be a Dick. Next time, I vowed to be awake while Dick Junior climaxed. More than anything though, I hoped I’d behaved like a gentleman. Someone must be held responsible for proper bedroom decorum. In good conscience, or in this instance, conscious, Foreign Service manners and comportment should count for something under the circumstances. Shouldn’t they?
I shaved and took a vigorous shower. I finally felt better and more like my normal self, a macho man who had just been neutered.