As Brigadier TM sat on the edge of the sofa he immediately realised that the seat under him was also unfamiliar, deeper and softer.
General Zia’s overall security was the responsibility of General Akhtar and his Inter Services Intelligence, but the man picked to ensure his personal safety was Brigadier TM, a barrel of a man, actually a barrel-full-of-suspicions of a man who had been Zia’s shadow for the past six years. His team of armed commandos formed a ring around General Zia’s office and living area and then concentric circles around that ring in a two-mile radius. For a further three miles the job of maintaining security fell to ordinary army soldiers. Outside this circle stood the civilian police, but nobody expected them to do much except stop traffic and baton-charge any enthusiasts trying to get a glimpse of General Zia’s convoy. This five-mile circle was ready to move at very short notice, keeping General Zia in the centre, but ever since he’d cancelled all public engagements that might take him out of the Army House, Brigadier TM’s focus of suspicion had become the Army House itself.
When General Zia saw him for the first time TM was a major and a speck in the sky, leading a formation of paratroopers jumping out of a Hercules C13O at the National Day Parade. The speck bloomed into a green-and-white parachute and TM, manoeuvring his parachute’s cord-controls, landed in the one-metre circle marked with white chalk right in front of the dais from which General Zia was inspecting the parade. Commissioned in the military at a time when parachutes were still an exotic entity, General Zia was fascinated by TM’s precision landing. He stepped down from the dais, hugged TM and told him to stick around for the post-parade party. TM was at his back when General Zia went along the reception line of ambassadors and other foreign dignitaries. Then General Zia stepped outside the VIP area and went ‘mingling with the milling crowds’ on the Information Minister’s suggestion. The minister had already dictated the headline to state television and was now obliged to make it happen. The crowd with which Zia mingled comprised an all-male congregation of primary-school teachers, court clerks, office peons and government bureaucrats’ domestic staff, ordered here by their bosses. Many in the crowd were soldiers in civvies bussed in from the neighbouring cantonment. With TM at his side, General Zia felt that the crowd suddenly became more disciplined. TM’s towering, bulky presence made Zia forget his old habit of looking around, scanning the crowd for anyone who might fling a stone or hurl abuse at him. Brigadier TM navigated the crowd effortlessly, his elbows working like the oars of a skilled rower as if the milling crowd was nothing but dead water in a still lake.
“Your jump was perfect. You do that thing beautifully,” General Zia said, making a shapeless flower with his hands in the air. They were in the General’s car going back to the Army House after the post-parade ceremonies. “What if that thing doesn’t open after you jump?”
“Life is in Allah’s hands,” TM said, sitting at the edge of the car seat, “but I pack my own parachute.” General Zia nodded his head in appreciation, expecting to hear more. TM was a man of few words but the silence made him uncomfortable and he volunteered some more information. “I have written a slogan outside our parachute packing cabin: ‘Life-packing in Progress’.” This was TM’s first and last literary flourish; his body was more articulate. TM’s body was a tree trunk, permanently stuck in jungle camouflage uniform. His small head was always covered with a crimson beret, cocked over his left ear. His small brown eyes constantly searched for invisible enemies. Even at official receptions, where the rest of the military wore their ceremonial uniforms with golden braids, there was one man behind General Zia in his drab battle fatigues, his eyes darting from a VIP’s face to a waiter to a lady with her hand in her bag. During his six years as General Zia’s Chief of Security, not only had he kept General Zia safe against all visible and invisible enemies, but also conducted him through so many milling crowds that General Zia had started to think of himself as a man of the people.
Now that General Zia had raised his security threat level to red without consulting the Brigadier, he wanted a proper assessment of the situation. Brigadier TM shifted on the edge of the sofa. He was not used to having a conversation with General Zia while sitting down. He tried hard to sit still and concentrate but his eyes kept scanning the presidential crests on the burgundy velvet curtains and the matching Persian rug. Suddenly all the air went out of his lungs and his shoulders collapsed in disbelief. The curtains and the carpets were new. How did all this stuff get here without his knowledge?
“Who wants to kill me?” General Zia asked in a neutral tone, as if enquiring about the lawnmowing arrangements. Brigadier TM caressed the brocade sofa cover with the tips of his fingers and wondered how someone had managed to change it without his security clearance.
The Brigadier was the only man in General Zia’s military staff with round-the-clock access to his working as well as family quarters. He was also the only man in his inner circle who didn’t join Zia for his five daily prayers, a privilege so exceptional that it baffled the others. Anyone who happened to be around General Zia at prayer time was expected to join him, no matter where they were, be it his official plane or the National Command’s bunker. General Zia would look at his watch and everyone, including the peons and politicians who didn’t even know when to stand up or bow during the prayers, would line up with him as if their piety had been waiting for this very moment to be realised. During these prayers, Brigadier TM stood with his back to the congregation, keeping a close eye on all possible access points. In the beginning it weighed on General Zia’s conscience, and he asked TM how he felt about not being able to join him for prayers.
“Duty is worship, sir,” he said. “If I was in a war I would not be expected to leave my gun and pray.” Subsequently, General Zia always remembered to add a few words for TM, reminding Allah that the Brigadier couldn’t offer his prayers because he was on duty.
Brigadier TM’s eyes darted around the room, feeling irritated with the new textures, the different colours. TM knew that security wasn’t just about throwing yourself in front of an assassin’s bullet or pulling out the fingernails of a potential conspirator; it was more about anticipating the subtle shifts in everyday life patterns. “General Akhtar has all the files, sir. Separate files on all the suspects. And on all possible scenarios,” he said distractedly. His eyes were scanning the wall where a portrait of the Founder of the Nation had appeared, a portrait that he had never seen before.
“Those files lie. I am asking you, not General Akhtar. You are my shadow, you should know. You see everyone who comes to meet me; you know every nook and corner in this house. It’s your job to protect me. As your Commander-in-Chief, I demand to know: who are you protecting me from? Who is trying to kill me?” General Zia’s voice rose, his crossed eyes got entangled with each other, two globs of spit escaped his lips, one lodged itself in the General’s moustache and the other was absorbed in the vine and flowers of the Persian rug under his feet.
Brigadier TM was not used to being addressed in this tone. He had always known that General Zia felt threatened by his physical presence when they were by themselves and only felt comfortable when they had company. Brigadier TM was trained in these matters and he immediately knew that this raised voice, this demanding tone, was actually the voice of fear. Brigadier TM had a lot of experience in smelling fear. When you asked them the last question, when they discovered that the time for explanations was over, when they realised that the interrogation had ended and there would be no court trial. It was only then that they raised their voices, they shouted, they pretended they were not scared. But you could smell it just as you can smell it in goats before the slaughter; a bleat on their lips and piss between their legs, like men shouting when you strode into their room and shut the door behind you.