Chapter 9
Raj Americana
Kali greeted me with a big, shit-eating grin. I stuck my tongue out at her to show her I wasn’t in the least bit cowed by last night’s little escapade. Exchanges like that were commonplace between peers who have just screwed each other’s brains out; even though one of them wasn’t the slightest bit cognizant of the circumstances. Was it good for you, Dick? I mused. Hell if I knew, I mused back to my muse. Truthfully, I wasn’t amused one bit by the whole episode. More to the point, I was sorely pissed because I didn’t do her first. I detested playing second fiddle while being one-upped. I had to be seated first-chair—always. In other words, I hated being dicked by someone else!
A meeting was reconvened to go over case developments. It was now show and tell time, I thought. I invited the Big Bird to our get-together. He could get the latest information and status of the investigation directly from the horse’s mouth rather than its opposite end by me telling him later. Information sharing was considered good form and a sound time-management technique by some. However, my sense was that if more than one person knew something, it was no longer a secret.
I asked Kali to give us a rundown on what she had learned yesterday. She recounted her review of the satellite imagery and communications intercepts held by the station. I had heard all of that stuff last night—I thought. She went on to tell about her visit to the ISD. From her monologue, there were only two takeaway points that I could discern. The first was that security was tight at the school and that was why the bad guys didn’t grab the girls there. The second was the fact that Zeenat Karzai’s involvement in the matter wasn’t known or suspected by the school officials. That was a good thing in itself because we still needed time to move the investigation forward before the news media or police unraveled the truth.
I spoke next and briefed them on my telephone conversation with the RSO in Kabul and that Mohammed and Kamal appeared to be squeaky clean. I then turned to Joe Singh’s security file and personnel folder. I explained my concerns about the time discrepancy and told them about our conversation with Mrs. Singh. I mentioned that agents from the IB had tapped her telephone and planted surveillance personnel outside her apartment. Its flap and seal technicians were opening and reading incoming and outgoing letter mail. She didn’t have a computer or cell phone from what we could tell. I informed Big Bird and Kali about secreting a listening device, the baby monitor, inside the Singh residence. Maybe we would get lucky.
Chester had been squirming in his chair for the past thirty minutes. It looked like he was going to burst out of his Nehru jacket. This had better be good, I thought. We needed something tangible to run with. However, his news wasn’t good. It was great!
“I got a call very early this morning from one of the IB surveillance agents assigned to the Singh residence,” Chester began. “Mrs. Singh had a visitor at about 5:30 this morning, almost at sunrise. A man’s voice was heard on the monitor speaking with her. He told her that her husband was safe and doing well and that things were progressing as planned. The voice said Joe would be home in the next week or so if the Americans acquiesced to the demand to pull all of its troops out of Afghanistan. He said that if they didn’t, they were going to be in for another unpleasant surprise. It was clear to the agents that Mrs. Singh knew the visitor and was extremely deferential to him during the conversation. She called him uncle a couple of times.”
“Richard, I tried calling you at your hotel, but didn’t get an answer.”
I told him I had taken a sleeping pill to get a good night’s rest. I discreetly glanced at Kali and frowned. She didn’t respond and looked away. I would discipline her later in private in my good time and way. That would be an interesting test of wills and endurance. I planned to come out on top this time.
“Richard, there’s more,” Chester carried on. “One of the IB agents tailed the visitor to the central train station in New Delhi. Our visitor purchased a one-way, second-class ticket to Banaras. The agent didn’t board the train, but called ahead to his counterparts in Banaras. They were able to identify the suspect when he arrived at the station in the city. He took a municipal minibus to the ghats on the Ganges. They followed him to the entrance to the largest and oldest crematorium in the city. His name is Amar and he’s the head Dalit for the Manikarnika Ghats crematorium. By the way, he’s one freaking, scary guy according to my IB sources.”
We now had the break we’d been looking for. Joginder Singh was dirty and his wife knew something about what was going on. I wasn’t sure how involved or knowledgeable she was, but she knew that her husband was safe from the very beginning of this little drama. Her tears were a crock—crocodilian. Therefore, I’d make sure to skin her alive after all was said and done. Her hide would make a nice purse or belt or other fashion accessory in the end. Ok Mrs. Singh, see you later gator. By the way, don’t leave town, my dear, I thought.
This is the point in an investigation where DS agents shout Eureka! They grab their ass with both hands and thank God for showing them the way. It was a watershed, rather than woodshed, event for a change. There was still much to do, but we could now rock-and-roll with the best of them. It was time to be offensive and I excelled at playing that position.
We had much to do and little time to do it so I enlisted Big Bird’s help. I asked him to contact the HR people in the embassy. They were to call Mrs. Singh and ask her to come to the chancery this afternoon to go over some paperwork so her husband’s pay could continue without interruption. It was just a routine, but necessary, matter to attend to. It was also a ruse to get her out of her apartment. I instructed the Bird to send an embassy car to collect her and return her home after her meeting with the Human Resources folks. While Mrs. Singh was being consoled and scammed at the chancery, IB agents would toss her apartment for evidence of Joe’s complicity in the crime.
I told Kali to get with the CIA station and FBI legal attaché and run Amar’s name through their files to see if he popped up on their radar screens. I instructed Chester to start compiling a biographical profile on Amar. I wanted to know everything about him—from Amar to Zed. I wanted to see all of his warts. Chester didn’t understand that comment, so I had to explain it to him. Fortunately, I didn’t ask him if Amar picked his toes in Poughkeepsie. That would have taken much too long to decipher. I told the team to regroup in the task force room at 4 o’clock sharp to compare notes. In the meantime, I’d head to my hotel room for a nap. I was exhausted for reasons I couldn’t clearly recall. Old age (and a handful of roofies) did that to me every time.
I slept soundly, but still awoke early enough to make our 4 o’clock rendezvous. I looked forward to hearing what the others had learned. I sat down in our conference room just as the clock struck four.
The Big Bird confirmed that Mrs. Singh showed up on time for her 1 o’clock meeting with the embassy’s Human Resources Department; thanks to the scheduling and timing of the embassy driver. The Bird said everything went smoothly and Mrs. Singh didn’t have a clue that she’d been lured away from home. Before she left, the HR folks gave her a bouquet of flowers and assured her everything would be okay.
Kali mentioned that neither the station nor the FBI Legatt had any information on file regarding Amar or the crematorium in Banaras. Both organizations said they would make discreet inquiries with their opposite numbers in the Indian government and get back to us with any results soonest. They understood the matter was a political hot potato and would carefully handle all inquiries with kid gloves.
Since when did the spooks and the FBI start wearing kid gloves? Traditionally, chainmail fists were standard issue for agents of both outfits. Maybe things really had changed for the better since I retired.
The only gloves we ever got from the department were the latex ones used during our annual proctologic exams at Main State. However, these were never given out before the bending-over exercise. No matter, the little ritual constituted regular sex for many Foreign Service officers. And requests for second opinions were commonplace. It was an ideal situation for many officers because the act was free and impersonal too.
Chester spoke up next and said “the black-bag job at Singh’s apartment yielded some interesting things. During the search, the IB agents found Joe’s passport. They took photos of each page showing exit and entrance stamps. Here they are.”
We looked at the 8 x 11 inch, black and white, glossy photographs that Chester handed us. We spread them on the table so everyone could easily examine them. The snapshots were of good quality and it was easy to read the entries since there weren’t too many.
Joe was not a world traveler by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, his only travel outside of India was for a trip lasting about ten weeks in early 2001. More specifically, the pages showed only two entries. Both were stamped by the Indian immigration authorities at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi. Those showed his departure and return dates for India.
The dates in question coincided with the leave of absence Joe took from his former employer. His father must have been resurrected somewhere abroad. Maybe miracles did happen in this part of the world, but I was a bit skeptical. What I found interesting was the fact there were no visas in the passport or any entry or departure stamps from other countries. Several countries did not stamp one’s passport for different reasons. It didn’t mean the traveler didn’t receive a visa, only that it wasn’t affixed inside the passport.
The best known country for this practice was Israel. The Israeli government would issue visas on separate pieces of paper. No entry or departure information would be stamped in the visitor’s passport. The reason was stigmatization since travelers with Israeli stamps in their passports would often be denied entry to Arab and Muslim countries. Issuing a visa detached from the passport got around that problem.
"Joe had disappeared outside his country for ten plus weeks. Where did he go and what did he do?" I wondered aloud. I suspected we were all asking ourselves the same question, but no one ventured a good guess as to his whereabouts. He claimed he was attending to his sick father in Banaras during the time in question. Of course, that was pure bullshit.
Chester then dropped his second shoe. I knew this would be his last surprise for the day since he had only two feet to work with like the rest of us mortals.
“The search also revealed a framed photograph of Joginder Singh, along with unidentified others, dressed in military-style garb and holding an AK-47 assault rifle in a group picture. The photo was undated and the landscape in the background could be almost anywhere in the world,” he said.
Chester then produced a photo of the photo for us to look at. There were three other figures in the photo. Chester believed they were Indian by their general appearance and facial features, but couldn’t be positive since they all looked the same to his American eye. He said the mix of Indian ethnicity, especially in the Punjab where Joe came from, made such identifications almost impossible.
I stopped looking at the photo and thought about what Chester had just said: in the Punjab? I didn’t see Punjab mentioned on Joe’s security questionnaire.
I turned to Chester. “Why did you say that Joe was from the Punjab? I thought he was from a province in the north of India.”
Chester chuckled at my question. “Richard, they’re often one and the same location. Old Punjab was a large land mass in the north of India that was partitioned in 1947 when the nation of Pakistan was created. Arbitrary political lines separated the Punjabis into two parts of the former whole. Most of the Muslim Punjabis lived in the west in the part that is now Pakistan. Most of the Punjabis in the east, in India, were Sikhs and Hindu. There was a lot of disruption and population movement following partitioning due to intolerance and violence among the ethnic and religious clans. Things are still tense today with the Sikh separatist movement in the disputed region of Kashmir.
“Singh is a common Punjabi name and could belong to a Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, or atheist. However, the name Singh is most often associated with the Sikh religion. Regardless, it’s certainly a name originating in the Punjab, despite where Joe was born, or subsequently lived, or which religion he practices. Many Indian names are associated with geographic places. I don’t believe that there’s an exact corollary in the United States,” he said.
“What about the Pennsylvania Dutch?” I pointedly asked. Chester started laughing at my serious question.
“That’s funny, Richard. The Pennsylvania Dutch didn’t emigrate from the Netherlands. Dutch is a transliteration of the word Deutsche or German. The ancestors of many of the original settlers in Pennsylvania were from Germany. Simply pick up a phone directory and look at all of the Germanic names. The real Dutch settled in New York State for the most part,” he added.
I laughed too even though I didn’t know that bit of trivial Americana. No wonder Chester had done so well on the citizenship test we administered to him. I was chagrined and embarrassed by my gaffe, but I didn’t show it. But my pride and ego were sorely bruised since I had been humiliated twice in the past 24 hours. However, my revenge was being chilled since it was best served cold and on the rocks. I had something specifically in mind for Kali, but I couldn’t stick it to Chester in quite the same way.
“Let’s move on,” I said. “Chester, get with the IB and have the passenger manifests checked for all flights for the dates in question. Mr. Singh Singh’s name should be on one of them, regardless of his pedigree,” I added.
It turned out Amar's name meant immortal in Sanskrit. I had just gotten another lesson in the Indian name game from Chester. I didn’t enjoy the tutorial, but managed to grin through my clenched teeth. Amar was his name and immortality was his game, I thought. It was totally befitting his position and vocation as the head Dalit at the Ghats Manikarnika crematorium in Banaras. He was Death Incarnate and personified too; an over-the-top character and one scary ghoul.
The IB branch in Banaras only had a thin file on Amar. He was a mysterious, secretive figure who had run the ghats’ crematorium for at least the past ten years. He was shunned and feared by the people given his profession and because he was a Dalit, the lowest-of-the-low in India’s formal and complicated social order. Amar lived and worked at the crematorium and wasn’t seen often in public. When he was spotted, it was usually at night. He would always be seen wearing a white robe; the color representing perpetual mourning along with a short kris slung around his waist.
Chester pointed out that the kris was not a weapon indigenous to India. Its origins were traced to Malaysia, southern Thailand, Indonesia and the southern Philippines—all Islamic religious strongholds. Functionally, the kris was not a slashing weapon like a Bowie or other fighting knives, but rather a stabbing instrument. If a kris fighter had stealth on his side, the weapon was lethal. There were many stories of a kris being made especially for killing a specific person or ethnic group of people. Regardless, the gashing wound made by a kris was terrible because the edge of the blade danced in the wound and left tatters of dead flesh.
A kris had a cranked hilt which served as a support for the stabbing strike. At the same time, it allowed additional strength of the wrist to the pressure on the blade while slashing and cutting. The knife provided no special protection for the hand, except for the broad blade at the hilt, which offered some limited protection. In rare cases, a kris blade was made to rotate around its axis while fixed in the hilt. The idea was to get the blade automatically turning to slip past the ribs for a fatal strike and it was one nasty weapon in the right hands.
I didn’t think my old gravity knife would measure up in any of these respects. Stilettos must be out of fashion with these folks. People could be so picky when it came to fancy knives and designer footwear these days, I mused.
A man would typically wear a kris for both everyday use and special ceremonies. Heirloom blades were handed down through successive generations. A yearly ritualistic cleansing of the knife was required as part of the mythology and mystique surrounding the weapon. Did you have a happy Knife Cleaning Day, my friend? I wondered.
I’d heard enough. I would never think of kindly Kris Kringle in quite the same way again. For me, he would forever be a jolly Jack-the-Ripper character. What I’d just heard shook my confidence and bravado to my core and then some. However, we now had a second name to tag on Death’s master-of-ceremonies and Kris Amar it would be.
We had to leave for Banaras as soon as possible. I told Chester to fly to the city and meet us there in the morning. Kali and I would take the overnight express train. Kris Amar (and hopefully the two girls) awaited us.
Sometimes those who served and protected anglicized those names and things they couldn’t pronounce or understand or that frightened them.