Chapter 14
The Swap Meet
We had finally caught a break. If things went well, Alicia Thurman would be back in the loving arms of her parents soon. We recognized that we would be getting only half a loaf, but it would still be an important slice we could write home about. Alicia was the daughter of the American Ambassador to India and we all knew on which side our bread was buttered. As to Zeenat Karzai, she would have to bide her time and wait her turn. That meant we didn’t have a freaking clue how to rescue her. I only hoped the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan would be understanding and patient.
Good things supposedly come to those who wait. However, that was another aphorism that never came true for me. I was like the guy stood-up by Godot. My interminable patience didn’t help my career one bit. Success must not involve a waiting game.
We had to prepare for the meet and didn’t have much time to pull things together. I told Chester to brief his IB buddies about the meeting with Kris Amar since we needed their cooperation and support. They would provide necessary security for us in the event Kris tried to double-cross us and pull a fast one. That meant they would put a 7.62 caliber round through his head at 100 yards if he acted up or out. I didn’t think he would because he still held the ace up his sleeve—Zeenat Karzai.
I asked Big Bird to brief Ambassador Thurman, but not to provide too much detail. I didn’t want him to be too witting to what we had planned so he could maintain plausible denial if things went to shit. Under no circumstances should he mention anything to Washington. That would simply complicate matters beyond belief.
I instructed Kali to locate a baby stroller and a pillow. She would go undercover as a pregnant mom with a baby in tow. The stroller would conceal the M-4 assault rifle she would be carrying. I could have thought up any number of different roles and disguises for her; however, I hoped this one would humiliate her a bit. This was just the beginning of my payback for her most unconscionable defilement of my body and ego last week. She initially balked at the idea, but quickly backed down even though Kali had Robo-Cop in mind as a guise.
Sometimes those who served and protected as understudies didn’t get to choose macho costumes for their acting roles.
Our meeting was scheduled for 4 o’clock which was well after my nap and before cocktail time, so it was okay. It would also give the cops plenty of time to position themselves throughout the Red Fort. I would wear my crimson leisure suit and I looked sharp; perhaps muy macho as some might say. With the Spanish motif, I only hoped I’d have the huevos that went with my scrambled Rancheros and self-doubts.
Sometimes those who served and protected couldn’t always make the cover of GQ or Food & Wine magazine.
We reviewed overhead photographs of the Red Fort. Kris and I had agreed to meet at the Hall of Private Audiences—one of several palace outbuildings on the large compound. It was a good spot since it was open on all sides. Only its few structural columns provided places of possible concealment. I told Kali where to position herself and her baby, the M-4, a location adjacent to the Hall.
Chester would serve as liaison officer with the Indian cops and would also be our communications guy. He would be the critical link between our team and the local forces. The Big Bird would hold down the fort at the chancery. We all had specific jobs to do and we had to make sure we knew our roles and responsibilities. Lives, as well as reputations and careers, were once again at stake.
We arrived about a half an hour early and I suspected Kris Amar had done the same, great minds and all of that stuff. That was a scary thought, I thought. Kali was about 200 feet to my left and strolling her stroller up-and-down the asphalt walkway near the Hall. She looked to be about 14 months pregnant. Putting a pillow under her abundant blouse was actually her Idea. Maybe it was a Freudian thing. My guess was she’d need a C-section rather than an episiotomy. I only hoped her water didn't break and spoil things.
Chester was about 150 yards from where I was sitting. He kept saying “test, test, test, one, two, three,” into my earpiece. That was disconcerting to say the least, especially since I couldn’t talk back. I waited on a bench in front of the Hall. We were ready and the rest of the story would be history, as they say; good, bad or ugly.
“Richard, this is Chester,” my earpiece spoke. I knew it was Chester since no one else had my number.
He told me the cops had spotted Kris Amar and his cronies. They had come by speedboat on the Yamuna River, located just behind the fort. He reported there were a total of six people on the boat: five Indian men and a bleached-blonde teenage girl. The police reported her long, dark roots were showing. There would be more of Kris’s goons skulking around the grounds, I thought. As to Alicia's hair, I’d give her a bottle of peroxide as a welcome home gift.
Kris Amar walked toward me with Alicia in one hand and a video cassette in the other, as promised. Two Thugs wearing long robes were trailing him. Kris was wearing a handmade Giorgio Armani suit by the looks of it. The Thug business must be damned prosperous, I jealously thought. I felt underdressed and gauche in my leisure suit and I was terribly chagrined. However, it was much too late to go back to my hotel and change clothes.
I’d have to gut it out fully knowing that haberdasheries, along with haute couture, were serious matters in the Foreign Service. Unfortunately, I’d been one-upped by a fashionable, heathen wog. I hoped Kali wouldn’t blab to our colleagues because the humiliation would be too great. It was my mistake since I had forgotten to ask Kris what he would be wearing to the meeting. I hoped I hadn’t made any other mistakes out of sheer ignorance or whole cloth.
Kris Amar stood in front of me and Alicia was quietly crying. If Kris had touched a hair on her bleached-blonde head, I’d kill him in a New York second, I swore. I immediately instructed him to sit down. I couldn’t abide someone of greater stature lording things over me. He did and we talked. I started the conversation by first asking him if he had picked his toes in Poughkeepsie. He stared back at me with a blank look on his face. Jesus, he had forgotten the response to confirm his true identity, I realized. I could tell by his general anxiety and body language that he was flustered. I couldn’t believe it. The Thug had literally choked on his own words!
This was going to be more difficult than I thought. I had to prompt Kris in order to get him to remember his line. It was just more of the “white man’s burden” nonsense again. I couldn’t wait to leave the country. Ok, it had to be done because there was more than protocol or tradecraft at stake in this exercise. There was a gentlemen’s agreement as to how this would be done and I had kept my part of the bargain. I was bound and determined he would too and it was now a matter of national honor. Uncle Sam never would welsh on his debts and always beat the crap out of those who stiffed him.
“Okay, Kris here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to play charades and by doing so, you will remember your line,” I confidently told him.
I began by tugging on my right ear to indicate “sounds like.” He nodded his head indicating he understood the game. I put one finger in the air to tell him it was the first word of the sentence. I then pointed to my leisure suit. It was terribly wrinkled.
I followed that gesture by pulling up my sleeve and pinching and pulling my skin while waiting for him to guess the first word. I was trying to get him to say rumpled and skin and then we could take it from there. I’d forgotten to bring stilts to work with and mentally chided myself for that oversight. However, there were practical limits on stature I had to consider. I mistakenly believed shoe lifts would have sufficed. Kris thought for a few seconds and then said “A wrinkled white guy in a safari suit trying to act out in a pinch? Is that it? Did I get it right? Was I close?” he genuinely asked.
He was getting into the game and getting excited as well. I shook my head. This was going to be much tougher than I thought.
Alicia had stopped crying and was now staring at Kris and I engaged in a bizarre ritual. She seemed to be dumbfounded and speechless, just a typical teenager, I thought. Maybe she had swallowed her bubble gum. I decided to go for the last word of the sentence. I indicated my backward approach to Kris and he said he understood. Wussy was a bit unusual and probably not directly translatable to either the Sanskrit or Hindi language. Nonetheless, I’d give it a try.
I pointed to a pregnant black woman pushing a baby stroller nearby. I then cupped my hands in the shape of a vagina and positioned the imaginary pussy between my legs. I next made meowing sounds. Pussy, wussy, maybe he would get it and then remember the other words and we could finally get down to business. I heard Alicia laughing; probably feeling more relaxed and secure knowing I was here to save her. Her joy over her imminent release made me feel proud and pleased.
“Niggardly cunt, is that what you’re looking for?” Kris tentatively ventured.
“God no, you fucking moron,” I screamed in frustration. “It’s Rumpelstiltskin was a wussy freak. Jesus, why can’t you remember a simple thing like that?” I yelled at him. I was quickly losing it. Why were foreigners so damn stupid, un-American, and fairytale challenged? I wondered?
“Sorry Dick, I just had a brain fart, as we say here,” he ruefully explained.
So, now it was Dick, huh? Sorry, there was no way his chumminess was going to put me off guard. I didn’t want to get choked-up with sentimentality at a time like this.
“Let’s get this over with.” I was extremely exasperated and disappointed in Kris’ thoughtless performance.
The cocktail hour at my hotel was fast approaching. Drinks were half-price between the hours of six and seven and I’d be damned if I would miss happy-hour because of some ignorant, illiterate Thug, Dalit, Islamic-fascist, Punjabi, mujahedeen extremist who also ran a prosperous crematorium in Banaras. I couldn’t care less how successful the guy was in the religious business or underworld. I needed my glasses of wine!
Kris’ goons continued to scan the huge courtyard. The police swat teams were well-concealed in the ramparts and behind the many grassy knolls. The only unusual thing was the fort’s armaments since they had been turned inward and now faced in our direction. I didn’t think anyone would notice the change. Kris then handed me the videotape. Alicia was already standing close to me.
Kris made me sit through another lecture of what was on the tape, how and when it should be played to the public and again mentioned the release of the two Moe’s in Kandahar. He warned me, and my Uncle Sam, not to screw things up or else. The else part being the slow, painful death of Zeenat Karzai.
As Kris and his cohorts walked to their speedboat, all hell broke loose. There were bursts of automatic gunfire. I pulled Alicia to the grass and positioned her young, lithe body over mine to protect her from any stray ground fire, per standard DS practice. Fortunately, the shooting was over in seconds. I quickly found out that one of Kris’s gunmen had pulled an AK-47 assault rifle from beneath his robe and aimed it in my direction. Kali caught his movement and fired her M-4, on fully-automatic, at the bad guy. He fell to the ground before he could get off any rounds. The Thug was never going to shoot at another frumpily dressed Gringo again.
Kris and company quickly departed the area via the river. It looked like I couldn’t fully trust Kris or perhaps the goon was stupidly acting on his own. I didn’t know or care since we had rescued Alicia Thurman from the terrorists. America hadn’t given up her honor. Score one for the good guys, I thought.
Alicia Thurman got up from the ground, brushed herself off, and put her arms around me, and gave me a big, daughterly kiss on my cheek. Except for her hair, she was a very attractive young woman with a tightly cut and toned body. After kissing and hugging me she dropped to her knees and threw her arms around my legs. As she held them, she looked up and said I was her hero. I had saved her life and that she would be forever grateful to me. She vowed to pay me back in any and every way possible. She pouted and smiled seductively at me. My merest wish was her command, but only after she turned eighteen in another year, four months and three days, she spoke in my mind. “And what time do you have now, Dick?” she soothingly cooed to my alert libido.
Alicia’s shrill voice woke me from my impure thoughts. “Get the hell away from me, you dickhead!” she screamed. I immediately obliged her request.
“It’s about fucking time you rescued me. Jesus Christ, my father should have demanded that the FBI or the military special operators handle the job. But no, they send a guy named Dick to be my hero. Why did it take you so fucking long? Do you have any idea the shitload of work I have to make up at school?” she not so politely asked.
Alicia was most definitely a Foreign Service brat of the first order. I then recalled that the peroxide would be useful in washing out her mouth too. Truthfully, I’d like to take her over my knee. Of course, that was that sort of fantasy that always got me into trouble with department in the first place.
We debriefed Alicia on the way to the residence. She had virtually nothing new to tell us that we didn’t already know. She said she and Zeenat had been held incommunicado the whole time and moved to several different locations. Chester asked Alicia where Communicado was located since he’d never heard of the city before.
Alicia shot him a dirty look and I smiled to myself. Ok, Mr. Braniac, you just stepped on it, big-time, my friend, I mused. However, maybe Alicia was right about the FBI or the Special Forces. Maybe we should have handed-off the case to a higher intelligence authority. I didn’t know or particularly care at that point. Happy Hour was fast approaching and I was thirsty.
Sometimes those who served and protected would gladly share glory and agony with their worthy security partners.
The ambassador and his wife held an impromptu cocktail reception early in the evening to celebrate Alicia’s release. I was invited but declined, feigning too much sun exposure. I simply hated such parties. Why would you want to socialize with same people that you had to work with day-in and day-out? It made no sense to me. Then again, it was the Foreign Service culture.
I decided to draft a cable to Washington and give Jersey the good news about Alicia’s release. He could tout his role in the investigation to his superiors to garner kudos. That was fine by me since I didn’t have a career anymore. I also didn’t have much self-esteem left either. I walked back to my hotel after I wrote the cable. There were still about 20 minutes left on the hotel happy-hour clock so I ordered three drinks at once to make up for lost time and took them to my room. I wasn’t a single-fisted drinker by any means.
I was down and depressed so I decided to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the States. I had to talk to someone about my angst and emotional pain. I simply couldn’t disclose my concerns and misgivings to my colleagues. After all, I was their leader and had to be strong for the team.
The call went through and I was connected to its call-center in Islamabad, Pakistan. I explained to the counselor that I was depressed and just perhaps suicidal. Surprisingly, he was ecstatic and asked if I could drive a truck! I immediately slammed down the phone and yelled several deleted expletives. The nervy bastards never quit, do they? When you were down, they invariably kicked you in the crotch with those funny pointed shoes like the characters in Aladdin wore.
Sometimes those who served and protected just wanted to get through the night and keep on trucking while crying in their beers or whines.