Pinnacle Event

28

“I am not your errand boy,” the General said to the gardener inside his walled yard. The villa was modern, but in a South Asian motif, like a small version of a Bengal palace, complete with turrets and cupolas. The large garden in the back, on the other hand, was pure England, a bit of Britain that a colonial master would have loved during the days of the Raj.

The gardener, who had been on his knees in the dirt, stood and dusted himself off. “No, General, you are not and I am not the gardener. I am the man who pays you in cash every month. For that tidy sum, my head office thinks they have the right occasionally to ask a question on their schedule, not yours.”

“Mohammad, we are both intelligence officers. You know as well as I do that I put myself at risk when I have to ask them a specific question at a specific time. It’s too obvious,” the General protested. “If al Qaeda doesn’t figure it out, my colleagues at ISI will.”

“Nonetheless, you did ask, didn’t you?” the gardener queried.

“Yes, after the Americans announced their border inspection operation. Then it seemed logical to ask, ‘Are you guys trying to slip something into the home of the Far Enemy before their election? Did you get your hands on some WMD?’ I told them we would not like to be surprised by something like that. No more 9/11s. The last one has cost us dearly.”

“And?” the gardener asked.

“They laughed. They wished they had capability in North America. They wished they had some WMD, even sarin, or ricin.”

“And you don’t just take their word for it, do you, General?” the gardener asked.

“If they were planning to do something crazy like that in the next few days, they would all have gone to ground. Instead, they are in their villas in Quetta, in the Swat Valley,” the General reassured the Arab pretending to be his gardener.

“General, if you think the Americans went running around like rabid dogs after 9/11, what do you think they will do if one of their cities goes up in a mushroom cloud, or two, or three?” The gardener moved closer to the General. “And what will happen if they think that the bombs that went off might have come from your arsenal of nuclears? They will team up the Indians and turn your country into an incinerated wasteland.”

“We have our nuclears well hidden now, well secured,” the General insisted. “But I know what you are saying. We do not want it to happen. So I squeezed them. I told them we have to know who recently got the bomb.”

“And they told you what?” the gardener asked.

“Hezbollah. They think the Iranians gave them nuclears,” the General said, proudly, puffing out his chest. “There. That kind of information justifies your money. In fact, I think I shall be asking for more.”

“Where, when, who? Details, General, details that can be traced, acted on, corroborated,” the gardener asked.

“Well, you cannot be expecting to get that kind of information. That work you must do yourself. But now you know where to look. Now, I must get back to say the prayers with my sons. Be gone.”