Sting of the Drone

4

He gave up and dismounted from the Kawasaki. There were just too many people walking in the street to try to drive. Sunset and Iftar had been four hours ago and now, with the heat breaking, everyone seemed to have left their homes and gone for a walk to the market street. After living for years in Canada, surviving this kind of heat was not something that came easily to him. It had been 42 degrees Celsius during the day as he had driven down from Multan. Someday, they said, there would be the new M5 motorway connecting to Multan. But someday had not come.

And so he had dodged trucks in the heat for hours. He knew that Dera Ghazi Khan was now a city of more than two million people, but it was not exactly Karachi or Islamabad. It was not even Multan. Of course, that is exactly why the old man had chosen it to be his latest base of operation. Karachi had become too violent, even for him, and there were too many spies in Islamabad. But here in the heart of the Punjab, white spies stood out.

He had never been to this city, although his father had joked that he had named his son after the town. Although his father had enjoyed a Canadian and then a European lifestyle for years, this kind of place was where his roots were. It was his father who brought him here now, his late father. The thought of him brought waves of emotion, the joy he knew when they were together, the sadness that he was gone, the anger at those who had killed him in Vienna. And he now knew who had killed his father.

The fast would not resume until sunrise. He pushed the bike past groups of young men walking together in the street, taunting each other and laughing. Some families strolled together, the father in the lead. Merchants were reopening their stalls, filled with what they had sold for centuries: spices, incense, and rugs. The street had been closed to vehicles for the evening hours during Ramadan. Stalls and shops on the crowded street sold the twenty-first century additions, mobile phones, tablets, DVDs, T-shirts. One stand sold both leather-bound Korans and cloned Xbox video games, two reflections of Pakistan’s soul.

To snare the nocturnal Ramadan walkers, vendors were setting up outside of their shops with hookahs, sweets, figs, dates, and chai. Ghazi Faqir Nawarz ignored their beseeching and pushed the bike forward through the crowd. They had sent him convoluted directions, but he also had his handheld GPS. The coordinates read 30°3′27.61" N and 70°38′22.66" E. He was close.

After he passed the third mobile phone store on the right side of the street, he saw the alley and the boy, as he had been told he would. Just inside the alley, he removed his pack from the bike and let the boy push the Kawasaki into the alley. From a chain hanging under his shirt, the boy produced a key, opened a wooden hatch door in the wall, crouched, and disappeared into the hole in the wall, pushing the bike ahead of him. In seconds, he was back in the alley, relocking the hatch. Then he spoke for the first time to Ghazi, “Up that stair, at the top.” He turned and walked back to resume his place at the head of the alley.

The alley was narrow, all the more so for the bags and barrels. The stair was metal and attached to the outside of a building halfway down the passageway. As he climbed the steps, Ghazi saw that the bolts were showing signs of detaching themselves from the stucco wall some day soon. The door on the second floor landing was locked. At the third floor, the door was already open and two men stood just inside. They exchanged mumbled Salams. The first man patted Ghazi down, then the second grunted out an order to follow him, “Mere saath aaiyd,” and then led the way to an interior door off the dimly lit corridor.

“Salam Alekhem, Khush Aamdeed.” The old man sitting on the pile of rugs offered warm greetings to Ghazi. Rashid Bakri Qazzani, the leader of his tribal clan, had become so much more. Now men from many tribes worked for him, Punjabis, Baluchis. His international network bought and sold weapons, heroin, vehicles, land, electronics, gold, currencies, and fuel on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and, in the case of heroin, well beyond into Asia and Europe. He did not rise, but did grasp both of Ghazi’s hands and offered his cheeks to be kissed. “My regrets, that your father has gone to Allah before his time,” he whispered in Ghazi’s ear.

“Ramadan Kareem,” Ghazi offered as he joined the circle of five others who sat on rugs in a semicircle around Qazzani. Two boys appeared with chai and dates. When they left, Rashid Bakri Qazzani began.

“Mohsin, as you know, was droned by the Americans. My youngest brother, my brother for fifty-five years. My right arm.” The men in the circle looked at the rugs below them and offered brief words of prayer.

“Now, all of our chiefs in Europe, including Omar Nawarz, your father, Ghazi. Four men from the villages here who years ago we sent to schools in Australia, Canada, Turkey. For decades they built our operations in Europe. Now, gone.”

The men in the circle, Ghazi realized, were of his generation. They could all be in their thirties. One looked maybe younger. Were these the people who would take over now? Was that what this was about?

“But do not doubt that our operations continue, even now. They were designed to withstand deaths. We anticipate deaths in this business. Men have moved up, good men, men trained by those who have been killed.

“But before we move on, we must avenge their deaths.” The old man looked down at the carpet and when his head rose, his voice did, too, and the anger within him. “Who bombs luxury hotels now, in Europe? Who did this?”

The room was silent. No one would say what they were all thinking: the leaders of the European branch of the Qazzani crime cartel were killed because the man sitting in front of them had accepted a lucrative subcontract from the remnants of al Qaeda, had agreed to use Qazzani people to put Yemenis and Somalis into large suicide bombs and then have them explode on commuter railways in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich. Now, the Qazzani leaders in Europe were gone, their operations probably could not really be put back together, and the al Qaeda money would never show up.

Finally, Ghazi coughed. He addressed Qazzani with a deferential title. “Janab, with respect, it wasn’t a bomb. It was a new kind of drone.”

“The Austrians say it was a bomb,” the man next to Ghazi offered. Like the others, except Rashid Qazzani, this was a man that Ghazi did not know. He had said his name, Bahadur, at the greetings. “They say it was Russians, guys in our business.”

“Yes, but there are videos that Austrian Security Police have. They slowed them down and they see a drone like a big black arrow and another black drone watching nearby.” No one asked how Ghazi knew. He was not really part of the clan, not like his father. His mother was a Canadian. He lived sometimes in Karachi but mainly in Vancouver, did his own business, whatever it was. Sometimes it had been special errands for Qazzani. He must have done them well. The old man trusted him, and now he had sent for him. “The Austrian Security Police work with the Americans. They will not tell their own people what they suspect,” Ghazi concluded. “They will keep the Americans’ secret, not tell the Ministers.”

Qazzani threw his head back and looked at the ceiling. “Drones. American drones. They chased al Qaeda from here, but now, now they kill us, they kill my brother when he goes to Afghanistan, they kill the Taliban all the time.” He returned his gaze to the men around him. “Where do they live, these drones, where is the hive?”

“There are many, Janab, around the world.” Again it was Ahmed Bahadur, who ran operations in Asia and Australia. “They fly from bases in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Seychelles, other secret places in Europe and the Arabian peninsula. But their big hive, their television says, is in America, in their city for sin, Vegas.”

“Sin. Yes, these flying robots are very sinful,” Rashid Qazzani agreed. “But how do the robots … who tells them where to fly, and how do they know what to do?”

Bahadur deferred to Ghazi. “They are not really robots, Janab. Men fly them. These men are in Las Vegas and other places. They see what the drone sees, they fly it like an airplane, except their controls are in Las Vegas and what they do there is sent to the drone off a satellite in space using something like the Internet.”

Rashid Qazzani stared at Ghazi. Was he trying to understand what Ghazi had just said? No one spoke for several minutes. It became clear that their leader was thinking, assessing his situation, his options. Some of them had seen this before. Soon there would be a pronouncement, a big decision.

“Ghazi, my friend, we must stop the drones, not just to get revenge for our people, but to save ourselves. If we do not do this now, they will breed. They will come for us one day.

“Flies can be swatted. Men can be killed. These drones can be stopped. Ghazi, I want you to do this. You will understand how and I will give you all that you need.”

Ghazi bowed his head in respect. “Thank you for the honor, Janab. The men I work with in Kiev, they have some people who I have used before for special help. Computer men. They rent out these computer men for a high price.”

“You will have all that you need, my friend,” Qazzani promised. “As will you, Bahadur.”

Ahmed Bahadur looked confused. “Janab?”

“You have a mission, too. We have a job to do, for the Arabs. I agreed we would do it. I gave my word. They paid us half, a big half. We will do it.” Qazzani scanned the circle of men after his announcement, showing the palms of his hands, opening the floor for discussion.

The one who looked perhaps to be in his twenties spoke first. “Father, if the Americans were the ones who killed our people in Europe, it may be that they knew what we were planning. If we go ahead, won’t they be looking for bombs in the metros?”

“Yes, they may be. That is why, son, we will not do the train operations where they were originally planned. I have told the Qaeda people we will do it in the heart of the beast, in America. It will be harder, riskier, more expensive.” He let the thought sink in. “They have already sent the money. For a group that has so few of its own action men left, they still get the gold, from the secret Ikhwan, from the rich ones.”

Bahadur examined his sandals, summoning courage. “Janab, I will do whatever you instruct, of course. My territory is the Pacific, Indonesia, Philippines. I live in Sydney. I do not know America. I do not know people who will do bombings there. And if we do the bombing in America, won’t they come after us here?”

“I know, nephew, I know. Even an old man can learn from his mistakes. Al Qaeda will still provide you with the bombers, from their new groups in the Yemen, Nigeria, and Somalia. But Ghazi Nawarz and his Ukrainians will help you with their computers. If you and Ghazi both succeed, the Americans will think Qaeda did all of it. Or the Taliban. And yes, they will go after them, even more, for a while. But not us, not us. And then they will finally leave.”

Qazzani signaled to Bahadur to help him stand up. The meeting was over. Rising, the older man pulled his nephew close and spoke into his ear in a whisper. “Tomorrow I will go to Iftar at your mother’s house. After we break the fast, you and I will sit alone in your late father’s diwan. We will discuss how you will do this. And your reward, Bahadur, your big reward.”

Everyone stood.

“Friend, Ghazi, walk with me,” Qazzani summoned as he headed for the door. The two men crowded into a small elevator with the guard who had patted Ghazi down earlier. In the basement garage a white step van waited, its rear doors open. Inside, Ghazi could see that the van had been converted into a little room of red carpets and green pillows. The guard lifted Qazzani into the van and strapped him into a seat on the floor. Ghazi sat next to him and the van began to move up a ramp and onto a street, one in which people were not walking, vendors were not selling, people not watching. The van had good suspension, but Ghazi could still feel the bumps through the rugs, through to the bones in his cheeks.

“Ghazi Faqir Nawarz, a man should always leave enough gold aside for his wives, for his boys, for dowries, in case he may be called by Allah. And Allah, he may call at any time. Your father left his gold with me for safekeeping. Now it is yours. I will understand if you just want to take it and go back to your life in Canada.” Qazzani took hold of both of Ghazi’s hands and squeezed them. “Are you sure you want to do this mission? If you do, I will add one rupee for every one your father left with me for you.”

“Janab, the message I sent you was sincere. I asked for a mission to avenge my father. He gave me everything I have, everything I am,” Ghazi replied. “I may seem like a Westerner to the others, but I still hold with many of the traditions. When a man murders my father, I must avenge the death. And with this way of revenge, I can also stop the drones, which are unnatural, a sin against Allah.”

The old man stroked his beard, which he kept black with a dye that Ghazi could now see had clumped in places. “I make honey at my farm, Ghazi. I have many drones, but they do not sting. Drones in nature do not sting. These American drones sting with a lethal venom. They are unnatural. They must be stopped.”

He placed his hand in the hand of the younger man as they sat together. “Ghazi, I know about these Ukrainians. Your father told me about them, what you have done with them. I don’t understand it all, but I understand that with the computers, you have become a rich man. Tell the Ukrainians if they help you stop the American bees from buzzing us and if they help with the operation in America, they can take over the distribution of the poppy paste in Europe.”

“That is a high price to pay for vengeance, Janab,” Ghazi replied.

“Ghazi, with your father gone, you are now my son and I can tell you things that I cannot share with the others,” Qazzani said, no longer sounding like the old man in the meeting. His voice was different. No longer the sage who talked in riddles, he began to sound like the CEO he was. “Your father ran Europe for us, but the men killed with him, his deputies, were the ones who were trained to take over if something happened to him. The men I have there now are not up to the job. In time, the Russians will move in and take over our markets. So what we offer the Ukrainians is a wasting asset. They don’t know that yet.”

The truck began to pick up speed as they left the city. “By attacking their drones, you will distract the Americans and make us safer. Then when the bombs go off in their cities, Qaeda and the Taliban will tell them that the bombs will continue until the foreigners all leave Afghanistan completely. The American people will agree, they are weary of war. After they bomb Qaeda and the Taliban some more for revenge, they will go. This time, they will all actually leave.”

Rashid Qazzani smiled for the first time since Ghazi had been with him that night. “And when the Americans finally leave, it will not really be the Taliban who take over, it will not be Qaeda. Ghazi, it will be us. We will have all the money we need to do it. We have all the growers. They do not want the Taliban in charge. When they were, last time, they stopped the farmers from making the paste from the poppies. But when the Americans finally leave, the drones must stop, too. We cannot have these pilots from their Sin City hitting our people here and in Afghanistan. So while Bahadur’s operation will convince the Americans that the price of keeping their soldiers in our part of the world is too high, you will convince them that using the drones must also stop.”

“I understand, Janab, and I will stop the drones. And I will help Bahadur. But, Janab, why did the Americans kill my father and his men in Europe? Not because of the drugs. They must have known what they were planning to do for al Qaeda.”

Qazzani looked into Ghazi’s eyes, probing them. “You are a wise man, Ghazi. Your father was very proud of all the money you made stealing with the computers. He wished you had brought him grandchildren, but he was very proud of his Canadian son.”

The van stopped abruptly and one rear door opened. “Ghazi, this time there must be no connection to us. Make it look like the ISI is going after the drones. Some of the ISI will help you. And Bahadur will leave a trail from the bombings to Qaeda. Not to us. Not this time.”

Ghazi stared back at the old man. “I will do this, Janab, but not for the extra money, for my father.”

“I feel like the falconer who launches two birds to attack the target. You, Ghazi, and Bahadur are my two attack falcons. I trust you both and you may trust each other, but Ghazi, trust no one else. The Americans would not have killed your father in Vienna, of all places, unless they knew what he was planning. Somewhere, my son, there is a traitor. I will find him and he will die a slow death, but until then, be very careful.”

“Shab bakhair,” Qazzani said in parting. Ghazi stepped out of the van onto an empty road. The van pulled away. In the dark, under the tree, Ghazi could see his Kawasaki. It had been moved from the alley while they were meeting. Qazzani was always thinking several steps ahead, moving pieces on the board while eyes were elsewhere.

Qazzani’s bodyguard moved next to the old man on the floor of the van. “Tell them I will be there shortly and tonight I want a younger one, no hair,” he admonished the guard. The bodyguard removed a mobile from his pocket and inserted a battery. In less than three minutes, he had placed the request, and then removed the battery again and slipped the mobile back into its leather case in his pocket. That was time enough.

Eight kilometers west and five kilometers up, the mobile’s signal triggered a response in an unarmed black object flying quietly in the night. The caller’s number was known. He was a man associated directly with Rashid Qazzani. The small drone dove, sped up, and activated its night vision camera. The onboard computer calculated that the mobile was moving at eighty kilometers an hour off to the east. Just before the mobile shut down, the computer targeted the camera to look at all vehicles heading north within a hundred-meter strip on the highway. There was only one. Its image was recorded. Its license plate imaged. Its route tracked.

The information was bounced to a satellite and then down to a server, for when it might be needed. Then the black bird resumed its patrol.