Michael Gruber - The Good Son

“Hassan needs a new motorcycle.”

He nodded and made a note on his desk pad. “Not a problem. I’ll have someone see to it. Anything else?”

“Yes. Why are you doing this?”

An expression of innocent inquiry appeared on his face. It was well done, very nearly convincing. “I beg your pardon?”

“Just curious, is all. My mother’s not exactly the family favorite, is she? And you don’t know me from Adam, you were away at school for most of the time I was here as a kid, and then I show up and you open the wallet of Laghari Enterprises Ltd.: flights, money, and the breakage of any number of laws. I was wondering why. You didn’t get to where you are now in Pakistani politics and business by being a sweetheart. No offense, Uncle.”

“None taken. As to your question, your mother is the wife of the head of this family. I’m obliged to do everything in my power to secure her safety.”

He looked at me to see how this was going over, and I guess my expression didn’t quite close out the issue, so he continued, “That would be the official explanation. But in our Pakistan there is always an unofficial or actual explanation, and it is this. If the guests of Nisar Laghari are kidnapped by terrorists working under the aegis of the ISI, at least in part, then it becomes a significant signal in my world. It tells this world, among other things, that my brother Seyd, who owes everything to my patronage, has broken with me and has another patron, someone within the warmongering wing of ISI. I don’t know who this person is yet-but I do assure you that I will find out-and let him beware! The same goes for Seyd himself, although I will continue to invite him to my house and to any family events, and no one will be able to tell that he is my enemy. Whatever feelings I may have about your mother or you-and I assure you that I do have genuine feelings for you both-are of no account in this business. It is an intolerable affront. If I were to let it pass, if my guests can be kidnapped with impunity, nothing I have would be safe; my children, my nieces and nephews, my own person and property would be, as you say, up for grabs. So you come along with this scheme, and I say to myself, Why not? And I may say now that you have not disappointed me. In fact, there is no one in my circle who could have brought it off. So you see, it is really I who owe you. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

“Yes, it does,” I said. “Thank you, Uncle. And thank you for not saying if it works.”

His face turned grave. “Yes, that is the issue. And things are not as well as they could be. I assume you were not following the news on your journey.”

“No. What happened?”

“I’m afraid it’s not good news. First, Craig has been released. It was all over the news, although of course without details of the ransom. I have sources that tell me the funds have already fled the country, to various financial havens. This means the other hostages will be of no further interest to the authorities, if they ever were. In fact, it would benefit the people who set this damn thing up if they did not emerge from their captivity. Next, the terrorists have already executed one of the hostages-an American, I forget his name-in retaliation for one of your bombings. The video is all over the Internet and copies are for sale in every bazaar. There is therefore no doubt that they are serious in their threats. Finally, yesterday, a missile strike near Quetta killed the head of al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan, Khalid al-Zaydun, and about twenty other people. We can expect our terrorists to demonstrate their revenge. I’m sorry.”

I was sorry too. I said, “So if this is going to work, it’s going to have to launch right now. I should get over to Iqbal and Hassan and send the location out to where NSA can intercept it.”

“I’ll get my driver to take you, and may I suggest putting a note of urgency into it. You might say that the bomb is ready and about to be shipped to a target. The suicide plane is all prepared and so on.”

I thought that was a good idea and got up to go.

“No bath?” my uncle asked.

“No time,” I said, and thanked him, and went to call Hassan, and for the rest of the day we did all the necessary things. As it turned out, I didn’t get a chance to change my clothes and clean up until late that night. I was particularly pleased with what Iqbal had done. Framing people on corruption charges is one of the minor arts in Pakistan, and I almost felt sorry for what we were doing to the woman at NSA. Collateral damage, as they say; shit happens.

Then I waited, which anyone who has been in combat will tell you is the hardest part, the death fantasies, the wound fantasies run nonstop on the interior TV, and here it was worse, because in combat you have to think that you’re special, that you’re the best trooper, with that special edge of survival, and you tell yourself that though ten thousand fall at your right hand it will not come nigh thee, this was worse because it was someone else: my mother. I couldn’t sleep. I kept getting up and putting on clothes with crazy thoughts in my head-I was going to take a car and drive to Paidara and bust her out myself, like in the movies-and then undressing again and lying there in a sweat.

The next morning, unrested but at least clean and dressed for the West, I told my uncle that I couldn’t stay in Lahore anymore, I’d done all I could and it would be best if I returned to my unit, because if the disinformation flew, and if Iqbal’s operation to discredit Cynthia Lam worked, it was likely that we would be tasked to go in there and get the fictitious bomb. I wanted to be on the scene to control things to the extent I could, so the hostages didn’t end up being collateral damage themselves.

A couple of hours later I was on a Laghari corporate jet flying to Dubai, where I’d pick up a commercial flight back to Washington, D.C. While I was on the plane I decided that this would be my last stunt as a soldier in the United States Army. I had betrayed America, there was no way around that, and I’d proved to myself that I was really a warrior and not a soldier, that tribe and family came before the chain of command, and wearing the uniform wasn’t honorable anymore. That was one reason, and the other, which I didn’t want to think about, was that if the bastards killed my mother I was going to have to go back into the hills and arm myself, and gather my clan, and go kill a really large number of people in revenge.

W hen Cynthia went to visit Borden she almost went right past his door. It was clean. All the nerd spoor had been removed, exposing an ordinary NSA slab. She paused outside with her hand on the knob and sniffed. No smell. A knock and Borden’s voice answered; that hadn’t changed. Borden was in.

Inside, she paused and let out a whistle. “What happened, Borden? Have you been born again?”

The tiny office had been stripped like the door-no junk, no decorations, no trash. Borden himself had obtained what appeared to be an expensive haircut, and he was wearing a cotton sports jacket over a striped button-down shirt and flannel trousers.

“No,” he said, “the new me is nondenominational. I assume you approve, being fairly tight-assed yourself. So to speak.”

“I’m amazed,” she said. “You realize that you’ll be barred for life from Star Trek conventions if this gets out. What happened?”

He looked at her, and she noticed that he had traded his greasy horn-rims for stylish aviators. He said, “Oh, you know, it was time. I turned thirty-five last week.”

“I didn’t know. Happy birthday.”

“Thank you. No one knew. I say I have no life, but it’s not just a throw-away line or a disguised boast, like I’m so busy and important that I have no time for trivia like relationships. It’s simply the case. So it’s my birthday and I go to Chicago Pizza and, like I always do to celebrate, I order a giant deep-dish pepperoni-mushroom, anchovy, and olive-and I’m scarfing it down when I see two girls at a table nearby sort of watching me, and I can tell they’re grossed out; it’s a classic, a fat, stringy-haired nerd pigging on pizza, nothing new about that; but just then I happen to notice that I’m sitting just where I can see my reflection in one of those mirrors they have on the columns and all of a sudden I’m grossed out too. It was like a revelation. Half my life is over and I’m alone on my birthday grossing out a couple of girls, and I realized that this was going to be it into the indefinite future: no life, no girls, nothing but video games and porn. No child porn, not yet, but I could see it was only a matter of time. It was like I’d been hit on the head and woke up a different person. And strangely enough I thought about you.”