Part 3 (2/2)

The sobbing in the next dorm settled into a low whimper.

”Do you have a hobby?”

”I didn't join the armed forces to collect stamps,” I said, pulling the blanket over my head.

I unlace my boots, roll off my socks, take a starched pair of khaki cotton trousers and a s.h.i.+rt from the hanger. My trousers stick to themselves like two pieces of cardboard glued together and make tearing sounds as my legs part them. I tuck my stiff s.h.i.+rt in with one hand and open the door with the other.

”Congratulations, Uncle 303, your prisoner hasn't escaped.”

I look in the mirror. Three days without a shave and there are just a few scattered hairs on my chin. Like cactus thorns, Obaid used to say, spa.r.s.e but p.r.i.c.kly.

I take the razor from the drawer. A few dry strokes get rid of the thorns.

I never saw a hair on Colonel s.h.i.+gri's face. He was freshly shaved when they took him down from the ceiling fan.

I can see in the mirror that my guard, standing behind me, is smiling.

My Silent Drill Squad comes to attention as I arrive in the parade square. Bannon is not there. I can tell he is in his cool-dude phase, which normally entails lighting up a joint with his first cup of Nescafe Instant. I don't have to wait for him. My boys are standing in three rows, eighteen of them, their right hands resting on the muzzles of their 03 rifles, bayonets naked and pointing towards the sky.

I start the dress inspection, a leisurely slow march, my left hand on the sword hilt, my distorted face reflected in the toes of their shoes. They are eighteen of the best: a smudged shoe or a crooked crease or a loose belt is not expected from this bunch, but you can't really complete the inspection without picking on someone. As I approach the second to last person in the third row I mark my victim. I draw the sword with my right hand, turn round and before the guy can blink put the tip just above his belt, on his tummy, which had relaxed after my approving nod. The tummy is sucked in.

Not just by the boy at the tip of my sword-but there is an inaudible sucking-in of tummies all around; spines, already straight, stretch to their full potential. My sword makes an arch in the air, the tip finds the mouth of its scabbard and is pushed into its velvet interior. I start my march as the sword's hilt clicks with the top of the scabbard. Not a word is exchanged. My eyes go on roving along the lines of still, stern faces and unblinking eyes.

Good boys, they are.

We can begin.

All the bulls.h.i.+t about the sound of silence is just that, bulls.h.i.+t. Silence is silence and our Silent Drill Squad has learned that by now. We have done this for one hundred and ten days, seven days a week. The ones with malfunctioning internal clocks, those in the habit of glancing sideways to get their cues, those counting silently to coordinate their manoeuvres and those twiddling their toes in their shoes to keep their blood circulation going, have all been eliminated.

Here, my wish is their command.

Bannon, who has appeared quietly during my inspection, comes to attention with an exaggerated bang of his boot on the concrete, a sign for me to start. I ignore the red ropes unfurling under his drooping eyelids, execute an about-turn and draw my sword; holding it in front of my chest, I bring the hilt level with my lips. Salute performed and accepted in silence, I turn back and march four steps towards the silent squad. As my heel lands at the fourth step, the squad comes to attention in unison.

Perfect start.

My sword goes back into the scabbard and as the hilt clicks into place there is a swish in the air. The rifles leave their left hands with bayonets up in the air, complete a circle above their heads and land safely in their right. Then both hands grip the rifles, hold them in front of their chests and bang the magazines thrice. My rifle orchestra plays for five minutes, rifles swoon and circle in the air. Their hands clapping the magazines are perfectly timed. Ten pounds of metal and wood moulds itself to my silent commands.

My inner cadence rules.

The squad divides itself into two, both flights march ten steps in opposite directions, come to a halt, turn back and, with easy elegance, dissolve into a single row.

Time to show the b.u.g.g.e.rs how it's done.

I stand three feet from the file leader. We are eyeball to eyeball. A single blink or a sideways glance can be fatal. The file leader brings his rifle to chest level and throws it at me. The rifle makes a semi-arch and my practised right hand receives it. One. Two. Three. My right hand throws it spiralling over my head and it lands in my left. For the next sixty seconds it leaps and dances over my head and around my shoulders. For onlookers, the G3 rifle is a blurred swirl of metal and wood, at one with me before it does a triple loop and lands in the file leader's hand.

For the finale, the squad lines up in two rows again and I start my slow march down the middle, sword held straight in front of my chest. Every step I take is a command for both files to throw their rifle to the guy standing opposite them. It's like walking through a calibrated a.s.sault of flying swords. Throw. Catch. You miss a beat and your bayonet can lodge itself in your partner's eye. I am walking between a twenty-metre spiral of rifles circling in the air. It looks spectacular but is easy to achieve with three months of practice.

As I approach the last pair, I give a sideways glance to the guy on my right, just a deflection of my eyeb.a.l.l.s. His hand trembles as he receives the rifle that has just swished past my nose. His right hand is a nanosecond late in his throw, the rifle makes a half-circle in the air and its b.u.t.t comes at my temple.

Perfect.

Blackout.

If the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had delayed it another beat, it would have been the bayonet instead of the b.u.t.t.

The medical orderlies take off my shoes, remove the sword and loosen my belt. The ambulance is silent. Someone slips an oxygen mask on my face. I give in to the stretcher's comfort and breathe deeply. I wish I could afford the luxury of pa.s.sing out but my condition needs to stabilise quickly. I don't want the overefficient b.u.g.g.e.rs to open my skull.

As my back rests on the white sheets in the sickbay's special care room, an orderly slips a needle into my arm. A curtain is drawn. The phone is on the other side of the curtain. I feel calm, too calm even to take a rea.s.suring look at it.

I wake up groggy and immediately know they put a sedative in the drip.

Bannon is sitting on a stool at my bedside.

”It's not about Obaid,” he says. ”There's a plane missing. A whole G.o.ddam machine, gone.”

I hope it's a sedative-induced hallucination, but Bannon's hand is on my shoulder and he is the only person in the Academy who calls an aircraft a plane.

”An MF17 is missing and they think Obaid took it.”

”What do you think?” I ask him, feeling stupid and sleepy at the same time.

Baby O flew away with a whole aircraft?

Emergency procedures for Mushshak, MF17, two-seater, dual-control, propeller aircraft, powered by two hundred horsepower Saab engine: Emergency procedures for Mushshak, MF17, two-seater, dual-control, propeller aircraft, powered by two hundred horsepower Saab engine: Engine on fire Engine on fire: Cut the throttle. Cut the throttle. Go into a thirty-degree descent. Go into a thirty-degree descent. Trim the ailerons. Trim the ailerons. Look for a field to land in. Look for a field to land in. If the fire continues If the fire continues: Release the catch on safety belt. Release the catch on safety belt. Eject the canopy. Eject the canopy. Keep your head down. Keep your head down. Climb onto the right wing. Climb onto the right wing. Jump. Jump.

”Why the right wing?” I had raised my hand in the Emergency Procedures cla.s.s.

So that you die quicker, came the reply.

There are no parachutes on MF17s.

”The plane is still missing,” says Bannon.

”Who the f.u.c.k cares about the plane? It can't be in the air forty-eight hours after it took off. You put the b.l.o.o.d.y idea in his head in the first place. Now don't just sit there, do something,” I shout at him and realise my voice is choked. Must be the sedatives, I tell myself.

”It disappeared off the radar, ten minutes after take-off,” Bannon says in a low whisper.

”Did they scramble the fighters?”

”No, they thought it was a routine training flight,” he says. ”Obaid used your call sign.”

FOUR.

General Zia Ul-Haq was rehearsing his special address to the nation in front of a TV camera when the chief of his security, Brigadier TM, entered the room. Brigadier TM's salute, regardless of the time of the day or the importance of the occasion, was a spectacle to behold. As his foot landed on the thick carpet, the quality of his respect reverberated through the velvet curtains of the Army House's living room and once again General Zia missed his cue to stop reading from his written speech and be spontaneous. This was the point where he was supposed to push aside the stack of papers in front of him with his left hand, remove his reading gla.s.ses with his right hand, look straight into the camera and say: ”My dear countrymen, now I want to say something from the heart...” But his right and left hands didn't seem to be talking to each other. All morning long he had either removed his gla.s.ses while still reading or pushed the written speech aside and stared silently into the camera with his gla.s.ses still on. General Zia looked at his Information Minister, who watched the speech on a TV monitor with his hands folded at his crotch, nodding enthusiastically at every sentence and every pause. The Information Minister asked the TV crew to leave the room.

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