"Which one of you is Colonel Shigri's son?"
If it hadn't been Secretary General's voice, I would have ignored it. If it hadn't been his handcuffed hands raised in air, as if he were trying to raise a point of order in his central committee meeting, I wouldn't have recognised him. I always imagined him to be old and shrivelled and bald, with thick reading glasses. He is much younger than his distinguished career would suggest. A tiny but milk-white shock in his short hair, a village tattooist's idea of an arrow piercing an apple of a heart adorning the left side of his hairless chest. He has the physique of a peasant and a bright open face as if the years of living in dark dungeons have given it a strange glow. His eyes are flitting between me and Major Kiyani. Trust Secretary General to confuse me with Major Kiyani. His eyes scan the table brimming with food and then our faces. It seems he is trying to decide which one is the teapot and which one the cup. A cloud's shadow travels across the lawn. My eyes squint. Major Kiyani reaches for his pistol. Before the shot rings out, I hear Major Kiyani's booming voice.
"I am, comrade. I am Colonel Shigri's son."
TWENTY-FOUR.
The three-member team of marines stationed at the gate of the ambassador's residence was having a hard time matching their guests with the guest list. They were expecting the usual tuxedos from the diplomatic corps and gold-braided khakis from the Pakistan Army, but instead they were ushering in a steady stream of flowing turbans, tribal gowns and embroidered shalwar qameez suits. If this was a fancy-dress party, the ambassador had forgotten to tell the men guarding his main gate. The invitation did say something about a Kabul-Texas themed barbecue, but it seemed the guests had decided to ignore the Texas part and gone all native for the evening.
The floodlight that hung on the tree above the marines' guardhouse-a wooden cottage decked in red, white and blue bunting for the evening-was so powerful that the usually noisy house sparrows who occupied the surrounding trees in the evenings had either shut up or flown away. The monsoon had decided to bypass Islamabad this year and the light breeze carried only dust and dead pollen.
The marines, commanded by twenty-two-year-old Corporal Bob Lessard and helped by a steady supply of beer and hot dogs sneaked out by their colleague on catering duty, managed to remain cheerful in the face of an endless stream of guests who didn't look anything like their names on the guest list.
The local CIA chief, Chuck Coogan, one of the first guests to arrive, sported a karakul cap and an embroidered leather holster hung from his left shoulder. The US Cultural Attache came wearing an Afghan burqa, one of those flowing shuttlecocks that she had tucked halfway over her head to reveal the plunging neckline of her shimmering turquoise dress.
The marines had started their celebrations early. They took turns going into the guardhouse to take swigs from bottles of Coors that were chilling in the cooler as Corporal Lessard crossed off another name on his clipboard and greeted the ambassador's guests with a forced smile. He welcomed a hippie couple draped in identical Afghan kilims which smelled as if they had been used to pack raw hashish.
"Freedom Medicine?" he asked.
"Basic health for Afghan refugees," said the blonde girl with neon-coloured beads in her hair. "For the muj injured in the guerrilla war," said the blond goateed boy in a low voice, as if sharing a closely guarded secret with Corporal Lessard. He let them in, covering his nose with his clipboard. He welcomed Texan nurses wearing glass bangles up to their elbows and a military accountant from Ohio showing otf his Red Army medal, most probably taken off the uniform of a dead Soviet soldier by the muj and sold to a junk shop.
Corporal Lessard's patience ran out when a University of Nebraska professor turned up wearing a marine uniform. "Where do you think you are going, buddy?" Corporal Lessard demanded. The professor told him in hushed tones that his Adult Literacy Consultancy was actually a programme to train the Afghan mujahideen to shoot and edit video footage of their guerrilla attacks. "Some of these guys have real talent."
"And this?" Corporal Lessard fingered the shoulder epaulette on the professor's crisp camouflage uniform.
"Well, we are at war. Ain't we?" The professor shrugged and tucked both his thumbs into his belt.
Corporal Lessard had little patience for soldiers behaving like civilians and none whatsoever for civilians pretending to be soldiers, but he found himself powerless in this situation. This evening he was nothing but a glorified usher. He'd had no say in deciding the guest list, let alone the dress code, but he wasn't going to let this joker get away with this.
"Welcome to the front line," he said, handing his clipboard to the professor. "Here you go. Consider yourself on active duty now." Corporal Lessard retreated into the guardhouse, positioned himself on a stool from where he could keep an eye on the professor and joined the beer pot contest with his staff.
Beyond the guardhouse, the guests could choose between two huge catering tents. In the first one the central spread was a salad the size of a small farm, red cabbage and blueberries, giant ham sandwiches with blueberry chutney, all arranged in the shape of an American flag. Before a row of gas-powered grills, marines stood in their shorts and baseball caps, barbecuing hot dogs, quarter-pounders and piles of corn on the cob. Pakistani waiters in bolo ties and cowboy hats roamed with jugs of punch and paper glasses, dodging children who had already started hot-dog fights, and offering drinks to the few people who had bothered to venture into this tent. A long queue was forming outside the adjacent tent, where eight whole lambs skewered on long iron bars were roasting on an open fire. An Afghan chef was at hand to reassure everyone that he had slaughtered the lambs himself and that everything in the tent was halal.
The ambassador's wife had been feeling sick to her stomach ever since seeing the Afghan chef put an inch-thick iron rod through the first of eight baby lambs that morning. It was Nancy Raphel herself who had come up with the Kabul-Texas theme, but she was already regretting the idea because most of the guests were turning up in all kinds of variations on traditional Afghani clothes and suddenly her own understated mustard silk shalwar qameez seemed ridiculous. The sight of so many Americans decked out like Afghan warlords repulsed her. She was glad that her own husband had stuck to his standard evening wear, a double-breasted blue blazer and tan trousers.
She had planned an evening of culturally sensitive barbecue; what she got was a row of small carcasses slowly rotating on iron skewers, her guests queuing up with their Stars and Stripes paper plates, pretending they were guests at some tribal feast. Under such stressful circumstances Nancy almost collapsed with the sense of relief when her husband took a call from the Army House and told her that President Zia ul-Haq would not be turning up. She excused herself to the wife of the French Ambassador, dressed like an Uzbek bride, and retreated to her bedroom to calm her nerves.
The marines at the guardhouse could afford to party while on active duty not because it was the Fourth of July but because the security for the premises was being managed by a contingent of the Pakistan Army. Five hundred metres before the guardhouse, on the tree-lined road that led to the ambassador's residence, the guests were required to stop at a makeshift barrier set up by Brigade 101. The troops, under the watchful command of a subedar major, greeted the guests with their bomb scanners and metal detectors. They slipped their scanners under the cars, asked their non-white guests to open the boots of their cars and finally waved them towards the guardhouse where an increasingly cheerful group of marines welcomed them. The army contingent had set up their own searchlights to illuminate the road. Here, too, the trees were awash with light so intense that the birds' nests on the trees lining the road lay abandoned. A catering van sent by the district administration delivered their dinner early and the Subedar Major was livid when he discovered that the samovar which came in the van was empty. "How are my men going to stay awake without tea?" he shouted at the civilian van driver, who shrugged and drove off without replying.
Embassy functions were usually select affairs, but watching the guests arrive from the guardhouse, Corparal Lessard thought that the ambassador seemed to have invited everyone who had ever put a bandage on an injured Afghan mujahid and every Afghan commander who had taken a potshot at a Russian soldier. Corporal Lessard relieved the professor of his duty when he saw the first guest in a suit, a lanky man with a flowing beard. "OBL," the bearded man said, and raised his hand as if he wasn't identifying himself to a party usher, but greeting an invisible crowd.
Corporal Lessard went through the list and looked at the man again.
"Of Laden and Co. Constructions." The man patted his beard impatiently and Corporal Lessard ushered him in with a smile and an exaggerated wave of his hand. Taking his turn at the beer pot, Corporal Lessard told a joke. "What does a towelhead wear to disguise himself?" Then choking on his own beer, he blurted: "A suit."
The ambassador had reasons to be inclusive. A year into his job, Arnold Raphel was feeling increasingly isolated as dozens of American agencies ran their own little jihads against the Soviets along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. There were those avenging Vietnam and there were those doing God's work and then there were charities with names so obscure and missions so far-fetched that he had a hard time keeping track of them. Now that the last Soviet soldiers were about to leave Afghanistan and the mujahideen were laying siege to Kabul, some Americans were tearing at each other's throats to claim credit, others were just lingering, reluctant to go home, hoping for another front to open. Just last week he had received a demarche about a group of teachers from the University of Minnesota who were writing the new Islamic books for Afghanistan and sending them to Central Asia. He investigated and was told to keep his hands off as it was yet another branch of yet another covert programme. Every American he met in Islamabad claimed to be from 'the other agency'.
He was certain that if he wanted to bring this chaos under control, he first needed to bring them all under one roof and make a symbolic gesture so it became clear that there was one boss and it was him. And what better way to do it than throw a party? What better time to do it than the Fourth of July? He was hoping that this would be a farewell party where American nuts would be able to meet the Afghan commanders who had done the actual fighting, get their pictures taken, and then everybody would go home so that he could get on with the delicate business of implementing US foreign policy. Arnie had not prepared a speech but he had a few lines ready that he would weave into the big conversation that he wanted to have with his American guests: 'victory is a bigger challenge than defeat', 'answered prayers can be more troublesome than the sad echoes of unanswered prayers'.
He wanted it to be a 'job well done, now push off to wherever you came from' kind of party.
Standing with the ambassador and feeling disgusted at the sight of respectable men gnawing at bones was General Akhtar. He also felt out of place and overdressed. He had turned up in his full ceremonial uniform, with gold braid and shiny brass medals, and now he found himself surrounded by small groups of white men dressed in loose shalwar qameez and the most astonishing variety of headgear he had seen since his last visit to Peshawar's Storytellers' Bazaar. General Akhtar knew before everyone else that General Zia would not turn up for the party. "He is not feeling too well, you know," he told Arnold Raphel, looking closely for any reaction. "Brigadier TM's loss is a big setback. He was like a son to General Zia. One of my best officers." When Arnold Raphel offered indifferent condolences, it only strengthened General Akhtar's resolve to square things with the Americans one last time. He had won them their war against communism. Now he wanted his share of the spoils. He picked up a strawberry from the shortcake on his plate and said to Arnold Raphel, "Mrs Raphel has done a splendid job with the arrangements. Behind every great man..."
OBL found himself talking to a journalist who was nursing a beer in a paper cup and wondering what he should file for his newspaper now that General Zia hadn't turned up. "I am OBL," he told the journalist and waited for any signs of recognition. The journalist, a veteran of diplomatic parties and used to meeting obscure government functionaries from far-flung countries with bizarre motives, pulled out his notepad and said, "So what's the story?"
Out in the guardhouse, the University of Nebraska professor, now fully accepted as an honorary marine for the evening, raised his bottle and proposed a toast to the warrior spirit of the Afghans, then paused for a minute.
"What about our Pakistani hosts?"
"What about them?" Corporal Lessard asked.
"The guys on the trucks out there. Our first line of defence. What are they doing?"
"They are doing their duty. Just like us."
"No, they are doing our our duty," the professor said. "They are keeping the enemy at bay. They are guarding us while we enjoy this feast, this feast to celebrate our freedom. We must share our bounty with them." duty," the professor said. "They are keeping the enemy at bay. They are guarding us while we enjoy this feast, this feast to celebrate our freedom. We must share our bounty with them."
Corporal Lessard looked around the already crammed guardhouse. "There are about two hundred of them. They wouldn't fit in."
"Then we must take our bounty to them."
Corporal Lessard, drunk on Coors and patriotism and the love that one feels for one's fellow human beings on days like this, volunteered to take a tray of food to the Pakistani troops. He thought of throwing in a couple of beers but he had been taught in his cultural sensitivity course not to offer alcohol to the locals unless you had an ulterior motive or the locals absolutely insisted. Corporal Lessard covered a stainless-steel tray with aluminium foil, hoisted it over his head and started walking towards the Pakistani troops. He walked in the middle of the road. The tree branches on both sides of the road hissed like snakes in his drunken vision. The road seemed endless.
OBL and the journalist found each other equally dull. The journalist listened with a smirk on his face when OBL claimed that his bulldozers and concrete mixers had been instrumental in defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. "My editor thinks that it's his pen that forced the Red Army to withdraw, and he can't even compose a sentence," the journalist said with a straight face. OBL gave up on the journalist when he offered to pose for a photograph and the journalist said, "I don't have a camera and even if I did I wouldn't be allowed to carry it into a diplomatic party."
"That is very unprofessional of you," OBL muttered, scanning various groups of guests enjoying themselves. He spotted General Akhtar in the middle of the lawn surrounded by a number of Americans wearing Afghan caps. He walked up and stood behind them, hoping that the circle would part to welcome him. He skulked for a few minutes, trying to catch General Akhtar's eye. To OBL's horror General Akhtar saw him and showed no signs of recognition, but the local CIA chief followed General Akhtar's gaze, moved rightwards, making space for him in the circle and said, "Nice suit, OBL."
General Akhtar's eyes lit up. "We would have never won this war without our Saudi friends. How's business, brother?" General Akhtar asked, holding him by his hand. OBL smiled and said, "Allah has been very kind. There is no business like the construction business in times of war."
Arnold Raphel talked to a group of Afghan elders and kept looking sideways at his wife who had reappeared wearing khaki pants and a plain black Tshirt, replacing the loose ethnic thing she was wearing at the start of the party. On the one hand he was relieved that General Zia hadn't turned up, but on the other hand as a diplomat, as a professional, he felt slighted. He knew it wasn't an official state occasion, but General Zia had never missed any invitation from his office. Arnold Raphel knew that General Zia had gone completely bonkers since his security chief's death, but surely the General knew that a Fourth of July party at the American Ambassador's residence was as safe a place as you could find in this very dangerous country. "Brother Zia is not coming. He is not feeling well," he told the bearded Afghan covered in a rainbow-coloured shawl. The Afghan elder pretended he already knew but didn't care. "This is the best lamb I have eaten since the war started. So tender, it seems you plucked him out of his mother's womb."
A wave of nausea started in the pit of Nancy's stomach and rushed upwards. She put a hand over her mouth, mumbled something and ran towards her bedroom.
OBL soaked up the atmosphere, laughing politely at the light-hearted banter between the Americans and General Akhtar. He felt that warm glow that comes from being at the centre of a party. Then suddenly the CIA chief put his hand on General Akhtar's shoulder, turned towards OBL and said, "Nice meeting you, OBL. Good work, keep it up." The others followed them and in an instant the party deserted him. He noticed a man in a navy-blue blazer talking to some of his Afghan acquaintances. The man seemed important. OBL slowly started drifting towards that circle.
The party moved down to the den, a large basement hall with leather sofas, a forty-four-inch television screen and a bar; a blatant exercise in suburban nostalgia. Arnold had arranged for some of his American staff to see the recording of the Redskins versus Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the previous week's NFL play-off. The den was full of cigar smoke and noisy Americans. Instead of beer, which seemed to be the drink of choice upstairs, here people were serving themselves whiskeys. The Saudi Ambassador sat on a divan with a wad of fifty-dollar bills in front of him taking bets on the game. Somebody had forgotten to explain to him that the game was eight days old and that the Redskins had trampled the Buccaneers.
A tall American wearing a kaftan and a flyer's orange scarf around his neck handed General Akhtar a glass half full of bourbon. General Akhtar felt the urge to throw the whiskey at the stranger's face but then looked around, didn't see any familiar faces except the Americans and the Saudi Ambassador, who himself seemed too sloshed to care. General Akhtar decided to hold on to his drink. The noise in the den, the veteran spymaster in General Akhtar concluded, was the perfect backdrop for sounding out Coogan. Not even the most sophisticated bug would pick out any distinguishable sounds in the incomprehensible chorus that was going up: "Lock him up, Jack, lock him up. Feed them dirt, Jack, feed them dirt." General Akhtar raised his glass like everyone else but only sniffed his drink. It stank like an old wound.
Corporal Lessard was challenged by the Subedar Major from the back of the truck where the Pakistani soldiers were relaxing after security checking the last guests. The Subedar Major aimed his Kalashnikov at Corporal Lessard's forehead and ordered him to halt.
The marine raised his tray above his head, the aluminium foil covering it reflecting the searchlight held by one of the soldiers on the truck. "I brought some chow. For you brave men."
The Subedar Major lowered his rifle and climbed down from the truck. Two rows of soldiers peered down at the swaying American trying to balance the tray on his head.
The Subedar Major and the marine squared off in a circle of light marked by the searchlight.
"Hot dogs," Corporal Lessard said, pushing the tray towards the Subedar Major.
General Akhtar shifted his glass from his right hand to his left and cleared his throat. Then on second thoughts he brought his hand up and mimed General Zia's moustache, a universal sign used in Islamabad's drawing rooms when people didn't want to say the dreaded name. General Akhtar's right thumb and forefinger twirled invisible hair on his upper lip: "...has been having dreams," General Akhtar said, looking into Coogan's eyes.
Coogan, his heart running with the quarterback who had just set off for a fifty-six-yard dash, smiled and said, "He is a visionary. Always has been. They don't change. I am sure TM's free fall didn't help. By the way, nice line, Akhtar: A professional who didn't miss his target even in his death A professional who didn't miss his target even in his death. If your boss had half your sense of humour, this Pakiland of yours would be a much livelier place." Coogan winked and turned towards the TV General Akhtar felt a bit nervous. He had played these games long enough to know that he was not going to get a written contract to topple General Zia. Hell, he wasn't even likely to get a verbal assurance. But surely they knew him and trusted him well enough to give him a nod. "He won't stop the war until you give him the peace prize." General Akhtar decided to press his case. He had looked around and realised nobody was remotely interested in their conversation.
"What prize?" Coogan shouted above the chorus. "Lock him up, Jack, lock him up."
"Nobel Peace Prize. For liberating Afghanistan."
"That is a Swedish thing. We don't do that kind of thing. And you don't know those snooty Swedes. They would never give it to anybody with..." Coogan mimed General Zia's moustache and turned towards the television again, laughing.
General Akhtar could feel an utter lack of interest on Coogan's part in the matter at hand. He had won his war and he wanted to celebrate. General Akhtar knew what a short attention span the Americans had. He knew that in the subtle art of spycraft this non-commitment was also a kind of commitment. But General Akhtar wanted a sign clearer than that. He suddenly smelled the acrid smell of hashish in the room and looked around in panic. Nobody else seemed to be bothered. They were still busy urging Jack to lock them up and feed them dirt. General Akhtar noticed that the man who had poured him a drink was standing behind Coogan puffing on a joint. "Meet Lieutenant Bannon," Coogan winked at General Akhtar. "He has been teaching your boys the silent drill. Our main man."
General Akhtar turned round and gave him a faint yellow smile.
"I am aware of all the good work he has been doing. I think his boys are ready for the real thing," General Akhtar said, looking at the joint in Bannon's hand.
OBL found himself strolling on the empty lawns amid discarded paper plates, half-eaten hot dogs and chewed-up bones. He suddenly remembered that he had not as yet eaten. He went towards the tent from where he had smelled the lamb's fat burning. Inside the Kabul tent the Afghan chef minutely inspected the leftover of his culinary creation. Eight skeletons hung over the smouldering ashes of the barbecue fire. He was hoping to take some home for his family but even his small knife couldn't salvage any bits of meat from the bones. "God," he muttered, packing his carving knives, "these Americans eat like pigs."
Coogan's attention was divided between the misery that the Redskins were going through and this General who had been sitting there with his glass in his hands for ages without taking a sip. Coogan raised his glass to General Akhtar's, one eye fixed on the Redskins' quarterback who was demolishing the Buccaneers' defence and the other winking at the General. Coogan shouted, "Go get him."
General Akhtar knew he had his answer. He didn't want to let this moment go. He raised his glass and clinked it with Coogan's again. "By jingo. Let's get him." He took a generous sip from his glass and suddenly the liquid didn't smell as horrible as it had a second ago. It was bitter but it didn't taste as bad as all his life he had thought it would.
The Subedar Major looked at the tray, looked at the marine's face and understood.
"Tea? Have some?" the Subedar Major asked.
"Tea?" Corporal Lessard repeated. "Don't go all English on me. Here. Chow. Eat."
The marine removed the aluminium foil from the tray, took a hot dog out and started chomping away.
The Subedar Maior smiled an understanding smile. "Dog? Halal?"
Corporal Lessard was running out of patience. "No. No dog meat. Beef." He mooed and mimed a knife slicing a cow's neck.
"Halal?" the Subedar Major asked again.
A house sparrow blundered into the floodlight and shrieked as if trying to bridge the communication gap between the two. Corporal Lessard felt: homesick.
"It's a piece of fucking meat in a piece of fucking bread. If we can't agree on that what the hell am I doing here?" He flung the tray on the ground and started running back towards the guardhouse.
Nancy Raphel buried her head in her pillow and waited for her husband to come to bed. "We should stick to our cocktail menu in future," she said before falling asleep.
General Akhtar was greeted by a very disturbed major as he walked out of the gate of the ambassador's residence.
"General Zia has gone missing," the major whispered in his ear. "There is no trace of him anywhere."
TWENTY-FIVE.
The night in the dungeon is long. In my dream, an army of Maos marches the funeral march carrying their Mao caps in their hands like beggars' bowls. Their lips are sewn with crimson thread.
The brick in the wall scrapes.
Secretary General's ghost is already at work, I tell myself. "Get some rest," I shout. The brick moves again. I am not scared of ghosts; I have seen enough of them in my life. They all come back to me as if I run an orphanage for them.
I pull out the brick, put my face in the hole and shout at strength 5, "Get some sleep, Secretary General, get some sleep. Revolution can wait till the morning."
A hand traces the contours of my face. The fingers are soft, a woman's fingers. Sht passes me a crunched-up envelope. "I found it in my cell," she says. "It's not mine. I can't read. I thought maybe it's for you. Can you read?"
I shove the envelope into my pocket. "Nobody can read around here," I say, trying to terminate the conversation. "This place is pitch dark. We are all bloody blind here."
A moment's silence. "This seems like a message from the dead man. Keep it. I think someone is about to start a journey. It's not going to be me. You should keep yourself ready."
TWENTY-SIX.
General Zia decided to borrow his gardener's bicycle in order to get out of the Army House without his bodyguards, but he needed a shawl first. He needed the shawl not because it was cold but because he wanted to disguise himself. The decision to venture out of the Army House was prompted by a verse from the Quran. To go out disguised as a common man was his friend Ceaucescu's idea.
The plan was a happy marriage between the divine and the devious.
He had returned from Brigadier TM's funeral and locked himself in his study, refusing to attend to even the bare minimum government work that he had been doing since ordering Code Red. He flicked through the thick file that General Akhtar had sent him on the ongoing investigation into the accident. The summary had congratulated General Akhtar for ensuring that Brigadier TM's sad demise wasn't broadcast live on TV. It would have been a big setback for the nation's trust in the professionalism of the army.
General Zia cried and prayed non-stop in an attempt to stop himself from doing the inevitable, but like a relapsing junkie, he found his hands reaching for a volume of the Quran covered in green velvet. He kissed its spine thrice and opened it with trembling hands.
His knees shook with excitement when the book revealed not Jonah's prayer as he had been dreading but a simple, more practical verse. "Go forth into the world, ye believers..."
His tears dissolved into a knowing smile. Even the itch in his rectum felt like a call to action; he rubbed his bottom on the edge of the chair. In his relief, he remembered the advice Nicolae Ceaucescu had given him at a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the summit for the Non-Aligned Movement. It was one of those meetings where heads of states have nothing to discuss and which interpreters try to prolong with an elaborate, flowery translation of the pleasantries. The two leaders came from countries so far apart and so different that Ceausescu couldn't even talk to General Zia about boosting bilateral trade as trade between Romania and Pakistan was non-existent. And General Zia couldn't ask for his support on the Kashmir issue because Ceaucescu wasn't likely to know where Kashmir was, let alone what the issues were. There was one fact General Zia knew about the man that did interest him though: Ceaucescu had been in power for twenty-four years, and unlike other rulers of his longevity and reputation who couldn't get an invitation from any decent country, Ceaucescu had been welcomed by Secretary General Brezhnev and by President Nixon and had just been knighted by the Queen of Great Britain.
And here he was at the Non-Aligned Movement's meeting when his country wasn't even a member. Observer status they had given him, but clearly the man knew how to align himself.
General Zia was genuinely impressed and intrigued by anyone who had managed to stay in office for longer than he had. He had asked a number of veterans of the world stage what their secret was but nobody had ever given him the advice he could use in Pakistan. Fidel Castro had told him to stay true to his mission and drink lots of water with his rum. Kim Il-Sung advised him not to watch depressing films. Reagan had patted Nancy's shoulder and said, "Nice birthday cards." King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia was more forthright than most: "How would I know? Ask my doctor."
With Ceaufjescu, General Zia had the comfort of being a total stranger so he could afford to be direct.