CHAPTER 6 BAD OMENS FOR THE INVESTIGATOR.
After Duba and Kandahar, back again to Karachi.
The coolness of the air, salty and bracing as at the beginning of a storm, that reminds me, as always, of the presence of the sea.
The breathing of the city, under my windows, children crying, car horns, plaintive cries mixed with sounds of joy, right near the Village Garden-strange, the way I am drawn back to this place as though it were a magnet.
Tomorrow is Christmas.
It will be 328 days since Daniel Pearl was murdered.
And for the first time since the beginning of the investigation, I feel the atmosphere getting heavy.
The other morning, Grasset, my French publisher, told me the Pakistani embassy in Paris had requested a copy of my first book, Indes Rouges, which came out at the beginning of the '70s.
"So, what did you tell them?"
"Nothing, we were waiting for the green light from you."
"Well, no, no, of course not. Drag things out. Tell them the book is out of print. Tell the distributor to pretend they're out of stock in case they try to order it directly. I think it's better if they don't have this book in their hands while I'm still in Pakistan."
I sense them wondering, at the other end of the line, if I'm not getting paranoid. But I know this country is crazy and lives under the watch of the secret services, which really are paranoid.
Being a Jew is already less than an asset.
Being interested in Daniel Pearl doesn't earn you any friends here, either.
But worse still would be if these people knew that I am the author of a book you can't read for five minutes without realizing it is scarcely sympathetic to Pakistani policy; even if it was written in my long-ago youth, it would complicate things considerably.
That said, the information is there.
And the call from the embassy is no accident.
In Karachi and in Islamabad, there are naturally people who inevitably ask questions and find the answers.
Ikram Seghal, Danny's friend, proprietor of one of the largest private security companies in the country, welcomed me the other day and told me his mother is Bengali and he is happy to shake the hand of a Frenchman who, in his youth, knew this magnificent country . . .
Another person, the evening before, at a dinner in the home of a judge, suddenly leaning toward me as we were getting up from the table, to whisper, "I'm glad to meet you, I've been told you fought for Bangladesh when you were young . . . "
He is-like Seghal-a good man.
He's an industrialist from Lahore, pro-Western, liberal.
But in this country, how can one possibly know who is who?
How can you be certain people aren't double or triple-dealing?
The friendliest faces suddenly become suspect . . . The journalist who inspires your confidence and who, you discover through conversation, is married to the daughter of a general . . . Another guest at another dinner, who, comes on as a rational man, holding forth to explain to the assembled company that the second wife of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, was a non-Muslim-"So our friends mustn't bother us too much with their Islamist zeal, hmm?" Still another guest, insistent and kind, who took the trouble to ask me if I had thought of encrypting my computer, of not leaving compromising notes in my wastebasket. "For example," he said, in the tone of a new friend initiating you to the mysteries of a dangerous country, "you must never write 'the services' on your personal papers, never. Write 'the bad guys' or 'Islamabad,' or 'the creeps'-anything you like, but never 'the services' . . . " The next day, Abdul tells me that this free spirit that I had listened to in all confidence holds a high position in the services!
You'd have to be an agent yourself to find your way in this labyrinth.
You'd have to be a specialist in semiotics or hermeneutics, in this country where everything is done in signs.
For now, the truth is that I have just received a clear message: my Bangladesh file, something I thought was buried in the depths of the ISI's memory, has resurfaced.
The day before, at my hotel-which no one should know since I change it nearly every night-there was another weird call.
"Hello, Mr. Levy? I'm downstairs in the lobby. I'm a journalist from Zarb e-Momin, the English version. I'd like to see you-I'll be right up."
Amazed, I ask him to repeat himself: "Zarb e-Momin, really? the jihadist paper?"-and, as he confirms, I prefer to go down, quickly, the hotel is so small, two stories only, and I don't want to give him the time to come up.
The man is weird, with a shifty stare, a sugary voice, and a recently clean-shaven chin covered with nicks and razor burns.
His newspaper, English version, spread open on the table, is itself a revelation: on the left, the photo of a fallen "martyr" in Kashmir, with a letter from his mother saying how proud and happy her son's gesture has made her; on the right, a photo supposedly illustrating the "bloodbath" in Palestine, the "genocide" perpetrated by Israel-along with an editorial declaring the murder of Jews, all Jews, throughout the world, a "sacred duty" that "pleases Allah."
An old tape recorder is already running.
Several cassettes, all different kinds, normal and micro, which is absurd.
A leather bag slung over his shoulder bandolier-style, with a strap he hugs tightly.
Who are you? I ask. How did you know I was here? An interview? You really want an interview for the cultural section of Zarb e-Momin? Is this a joke? An error? What can the "cultural section" of a newspaper devoted to spreading the jihadist vision of the world be like?
Yes, he replies. He knows who I am. Pakistanis aren't idiots, you know. They read the international press. Why are you surprised? This paper is not what you think! Could you by chance be confusing it with Voice of Islam, which is the Lashkar monthly? Don't you know that the Zarb has a wide public, and that this public is interested in French thought?
He explains all this and adds, with a look of complicity: "The only thing is, not here, we can't do the interview here, because the police are prowling around, and unfortunately, they make no distinction between the Voice of Islam and the Zarb. Oh! What ever happened to the good old days of the 'Military-Mulla-Market Alliance'? I came, in fact, to take you to a safe house where we won't be bothered and where, given what you're looking for, you will learn a number of fascinating things."
"No thanks," I reply. "It's here or not at all-and if that's the case, why is this tape recorder on for no reason? That's stupid."
And he, then: "Well then, it's not at all, which is too bad, because I'm not allowed here. I really was told to bring you back."
And he packs up his tape recorder and his newspaper (in a plastic sack, not in the leather bag he doesn't open and holds so closely) and gets up with a knowing smile which expresses either sincere disappointment, or provocation that fell flat, or something else-but what?
I've been spotted again, there's no doubt about it.
The day before that, in Lahore, a strange conversation, to say the least, with Irfam Ali, the "Additional Home Secretary" of the State of Punjab . . .
Knowing I've been found out and, this time, having only innocent projects in mind (like going to Dokha Mandi, where Omar's family is from; going to see his house in the old city; and perhaps to see the grand mosque he used to attend), I prefer to be frank. As soon as I arrive I introduce myself officially to the man who is the boss of the police in the region, in his modest, slightly dirty office with metal shelves full of dusty files. All the sensitive files end up here.
I give him my usual speech.
I tell him, as I have the others: a novel, Pearl and Omar, the two characters who complement each other, day and night . . .
I add, especially for him: I am here to breathe in the atmosphere of Omar's father's birthplace . . . It's so interesting, isn't it, the story of this captivating and diabolical individual, endearing and criminal, who passed the most significant years of his adolescence in this city that, personally, I like so well, with its flowers and greenery, its colonial houses, so full of charm . . .
And he, with his beady eyes in a square face, his enormous, plump hands incessantly clenching-as though crushing a nut-while I'm talking to him, and, now and then, when his irritation is more than he can stand, he rakes a long lock of hair back over his bald crown: It's practically a braid, reaching the nape of his neck and then falling back down almost as soon as he's arranged it. Then he interrupts me and starts a long, defensive speech along the lines of "I don't see how you can say that-Omar is still charming, Omar is always charming . . . people don't change just like that, Mr. Levy. Here is a man who does what he says and says what he does, who fights for his principles and remains faithful to his ideas, have you no respect for that? Is that criminal?" All of this is accompanied by an incredible, almost grotesque, and extremely insistent anti-Semitic diatribe I just can't believe is spontaneous and unrelated to who I am and how I might react (unless that homonym that helped me that very first day-the famous and providential "Levy Malakind"-works again . . . ) "Listen," he fumes, with a lisp, furiously refusing to allow me a word in edgewise now, "don't interrupt, listen to me. Omar was convicted, and I'm not going to comment on the verdict much less criticize it. But who, in this affair, is more guilty, the one who did it or the one who, by his attitude, did everything to put himself in harm's way? Can't you see how Mr. Pearl provoked Omar, how he goaded him, how he deserved what happened to him? That's a really Jewish thing. A form of Jewish masochism. No, don't say no. There are Jewish characteristics, everybody knows it. I know that in Europe it's polite to question that. But there's no point in denying it when the charges are overwhelming. Look around you. Listen. Let's say we forget the physical traits, all right? But the moral characteristics? These traits History has given all peoples of the world, and the Jews in particular? You're going to tell me that some of these traits are common to a number of peoples. I'll grant you that as well. A business sense, for example, usury, the Jews and the Hindus undoubtedly have that in common. But duplicity . . . The aptitude to lie . . . The way they invented the genocide of Hitler, to better hide their own depravity. Who would benefit from the crime? In my profession, that's the question we always ask: Someone will benefit from this crime, now who is it? This particular crime, everyone knows it did Hitler no good. And everyone knows it's of extreme benefit to Mr. Sharon. Well, I'm not saying that Mr. Sharon made up the Holocaust. There are people who think America is in the hands of the Jews and the Jews are in the hands of Satan-thank God, I'm not one of those people! I'm not anti-Semitic! But think about how convenient it is. Follow my reasoning: The more we talk about the Holocaust, the less we talk about the bloodbath in Palestine. The more they show you these faked photos of Jewish children in tears, the less you worry about the carnage in Iraq and in all the Muslim countries of the world."
The police chief seems satisfied with his reasoning. More and more incessantly, as if he were keeping a beat, he makes this idiotic gesture that is starting to get on my nerves, of pulling his lone lock of hair back over the top of his head, where it never stays more than a second-but that's all right, he goes back to get it and starts all over again, and it slips back again, and he puts it back again. I'm burning to tell him, "Are you done with your hair, now? After all this time you don't get it? It'll never stay!" But no. He looks so content. And excited. Barely glancing at the note someone brings him. Not listening to the officer who just told him of a vicious crime that's just been committed in the suburbs of Lahore. Guffawing, slapping his thigh when he mentions the "faked photos" of Jewish children.
"Just a minute!" he starts up again, his face turning crimson, clutching his desk as though he were afraid of keeling over. "Now, I'm not saying the Jews haven't suffered, too. The Pakistanis are good people, they don't deny this sort of thing, they sympathize. But, it's just a question: these people who have learned suffering, why can't they learn to love? They had the entire world at their bedside, and now at their feet, why can't they pity others, the persecuted Muslims of Palestine, Iraq, and Jammu Kashmir? In short, all this, to tell you it is the key to the Pearl affair. Put yourself in Sheikh's place. He sees these images of massacred Palestinians. He knows Israel is a splinter in Muslim land. And he sees an Israeli-What do you mean, 'not an Israeli'? Ah! But yes, I beg your pardon- Pearl's father was Israeli, and his grandfather . . . For me, it all adds up. Someone who has an Israeli father and grandfather is objectively Israeli and is therefore responsible for the crimes of Israel. It's logical. So, put yourself in the place of Sheikh. He sees an Israeli who comes to provoke the Pakistanis by intervening in their affairs. We don't concern ourselves with the Israelis' affairs. It wouldn't occur to us and besides, we don't get mixed up in anyone's affairs. But he, Pearl, does. Then, this annoys the Sheikh. He can't stand seeing this fellow who goes rummaging around everywhere, asking sneaky questions. Because that's also a Jewish trait, sneakiness-What? But of course. You only have to look at history. There was a Jewish English minister, Balfour, who decided, in 1918, to install a Jewish state in Palestine. Well, right from that moment, do you hear me, right from 1918, he had secretly planned that the final date would be thirty years later, day for day, to 1948, it's proven. Isn't that sneaky? Isn't that proof of what I'm telling you? All right. The Sheikh has had enough. He's like all of us who see the parade of snoopy Jews who come to stick their big noses in our Pakistani affairs all the time and, now, in the Pearl affair. But Omar is more courageous than the others. He has principles. He sees his principles through. And so he kidnaps the Jew. But, once again: Who is responsible, huh? The one who kidnaps or the one who is kidnapped?"
He stares at me. The expression in his eyes is suddenly nasty, his smile venomous. Something at once brutal and weak in the way he opens his mouth slightly. The gesture, one last time, of pulling his solitary lock of hair back up to the top of his head. A hiss in his breathing.
"But, really, Mr. Levy, I hope I'm not upsetting you. I hope, at least, that you're not a Jew. It's been amusing talking philosophy with you."
And me, dumbfounded, not believing my ears, caught between hatred, pity, the impulse to burst out laughing, and the desire to tell him who I am: "And I hope you are not Muslim, for Islam is a great religion that respects the peoples of the Book."
Still another day, in Islamabad, I have a strange meeting with Asif Farooqi, Daniel Pearl's fixer.
I've wanted to see him for several months.
Right from the beginning of my investigation, he's the first person I tried to contact.
He had always said no, up until now. He invariably told every intermediary who approached him on my behalf, "It's too hard, too painful. I feel so responsible, you understand? After all, I'm the one who made the connection between Danny and the Sheikh, aren't I?"
Once I even talked to him on the phone. I had gotten hold of his mobile phone number. I had arranged it myself, without going through Abdul. And the man who answered was polite, but strangely ill-at-ease, almost frightened.
"You have to understand, I am not alone, I have a wife and children. After Omar's trial, they told me, 'That's enough, never talk about any of this again.' And so, no, thank you, I can't see you, please leave me alone, I beg you . . . "
I had sent him a long e-mail, detailing the kind of questions I wanted to ask: what Danny was like, how he behaved when he was working on a story, if he was imprudent, irresponsible, courageous; the last weeks; the last day; if he was different, the last day; you always feel it, you always know when you're getting into a dangerous area, right? Did Danny feel it too? Did he know it? But Farooqi had replied with two curt lines to repeat that he had promised not to speak again and that he would keep his promise.
And then, that day, my Pakistani cell phone rings and it's the same Asif Farooqi. "In fact, I've been thinking . . . We can meet, if you like."
To my great surprise, the man who had made it a point never to speak of Danny suggests we see each other that very night, in the residential area of Islamabad. "No, it's not my place, it's my office, the Japanese news agency, Jiji. That's where Danny and I used to meet, I thought that would please you."
And here he is in front of me, alone, the Japanese employee having left when I arrived. (When I got there, it seemed to me I saw a parked car across the street, with the lights out, with people inside, but I wouldn't swear to it.) And here he is, the appearance of a well-mannered young man, round glasses, twenty-five, maybe thirty, slim, with a little baby fat around the jowl, a weak chin, and a real sadness when he speaks of the good times he had with Danny and Mariane.
He has all the time in the world now.
Yes, yes, he's thought about it, he's glad to render me this service and he has plenty of time.
It's not every day you can contribute to the book of a writer, right? Ask me the questions that interest you, I'll do my best to answer.
Except that, after half an hour of conversation, an unpleasant impression crosses my mind.
His way of being constantly mistaken about all the details . . .
The dates that are off (the meeting at the Akbar the 13th instead of the 11th), the mistaken names (Bukhari instead of Fazal Karim), the wrong places (locating Danny's prison in Sorhab Goth, when I know very well that it's farther down the Super Highway, at Gulzar e-Hijri) . . .
His way, time and again, of citing one group instead of another, of attributing what belongs to Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami to Lashkar, or what is Sipah-e-Sahaba's to Harkat ul-Jihad al-Islami . . .
Or on the contrary, to mention a precise piece of information- Brigadier Ijaz; Omar's surrender eight days before his arrest-and then to glance at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I'm moved, if I express surprise, or if I let it pass without reacting.
At first, I react. I say, "Hang on, Lahori is the head of the Lashkar, not the Jaish!" or "Of course I know who Brigadier Ijaz is, I think I ran into him in Lahore . . . "
And then, after a while, I stop myself. I wonder if these aren't all traps or snares that I'm falling into and if, instead, I should try not to react. So I let it go, I let him talk, I see him coming with his deceptively innocent manner of talking about the "three letters," or of mentioning the names of Memon or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to see if I'm surprised, or if I pick up on it, or if I take notes, or if I act like someone who is already aware of all this. So, I see him coming. And, smarter by half, I get up at the most opportune moment, pretending to have to make a phone call, or take a leak, or go in the next office to look at the news dispatches on the screen.
The idea occurs to me that, perhaps, Asif is there less to talk than to make me talk.
The idea occurs to me, and rapidly takes root in my mind, that he only agreed to see me to know where I am in all this, what I know, and what areas I'm looking into.
Is Farooqi working for someone? Sent to me? On a mission? Once again, it is a bad sign. Once again, it proves that no one is falling for my story that I'm a novelist fictionalizing the encounter between Pearl and Omar any more.
And then, the bizarre incident whose significance, at the time, I didn't really understand but that, in retrospect, seems to confirm these scattered impressions.
The French embassy for once arranged an appointment for me, with Hamid Mir, the former director of the Islamabad Urdu newspaper Ausaf, who is currently launching a private TV station.
Hamid Mir is an important man. He is a biographer of bin Laden. He's one of the few journalists who's been able to interview him in years. He did so in 1997. Then in May 1998. And while, regarding his last interview, in November 2001, some in Pakistan question the absolute authenticity of his version of the circumstances-blindfolded, shut in the trunk of a car, a scenario from an espionage novel-no one questions that the interview took place, nor the fact remains that he is one of the privileged spokesmen of the master of al-Qaida.
So I go to see Mr. Mir. I must, because I want to talk to him about all this. I must, because I want to question him about Omar who, I read somewhere, he had known and found unstable, intellectually disturbed, dangerous. And I must, because I want to ask him at last about his appointment with Danny the day of the kidnapping, or the eve of it, or even before-I have to verify it, but no matter, that's a detail: What's essential is that he is the only public person to have seen the two of them, the victim and the executioner, at such a brief interval, and for me, this is priceless.
So here I am, a few minutes before noon, in the restricted parking area in front of the offices of Geo TV, the new Urdu satellite television station Mir is starting with a few others.
A group of five men, some in shalwar kameez, another in a djellaba, are standing there in front of the building, watching me approach.
A little farther away are three other men, clean shaven, apparently cops or bodyguards, all carrying arms, keeping the immediate area clear.
Obviously, they're all there for me, because, as soon as I get to the stairs leading up to the entry of the building, the man in the djellaba strides up and takes me wordlessly by the arm, scarcely giving me time to protest, and forces me down to the cellar as the others, the bearded men and the security men together, rush down behind us.
Once downstairs, a stern-faced orderly frisks me, takes the card I show him, disappears into an office at the end of the hall and returns a few seconds later.
"Mr. Mir is not here. Mr. Mir does not have time to see you. Mr. Mir says he knows nothing of this appointment with you. Mr. Mir demands that you leave immediately."
And with that the bearded men and the body guards take me by the arm again, in unison, without listening to my protests, ignoring the typed memo confirming my appointment with Mr. Mir that I've taken from my pocket, and push me towards the stairs, manhandling me out to the sidewalk, to my car.
It all happens very quickly.
Very quickly as well, I call Mir whose mobile phone number I had taken the precaution to note and who answers on the first ring.
"Mr. Mir?
"It's me."
"I'm . . . "
"I know . . . "
"I'm here, right in front of the building, there must be some misunderstanding."
"There's no misunderstanding."
"Yes there is. We had an appointment at twelve sharp and-"
"Your embassy tells me you want me to set up a meeting with Gilani. Well, in that case, the appointment is off, I refuse categorically to see you. I have nothing to say to you."