A New Faith: Part 3: Chapter 35
Sara bowed her head in abject surrender and raised her hands above her head. She was waiting for Alia to snap the other loop of the handcuff on her right wrist. A moment passed and then another. But nothing happened. It was as if time had stopped in its tracks. She slowly raised her head and saw Alia frozen with a faraway look in her eyes.
Alia's mind was indeed somewhere so far away and back in time.
Along with Santosh and Nadia, she had been trying to get Max to reveal the location where he had stashed the loot. Max was a garden-variety burglar who tended to rob people simply for the adrenaline rush he got from it. He was perpetually feeling unchallenged and hence, would create these elaborate heists every few months. Alia had already caught him thrice. On each occasion, he had given back the stolen property and in return was punished with a several weeks of community service including some hard labor in the Sequoia farms. Every time, he got done with his term, he would gamely try to lead an honest life. But the lure of the thrill was too tempting for him and he would again fall off the wagon.
At that time, he had stolen jewelry from a store. During his last punishment, he had gotten into the habit of reading books, especially, adventure stories. And as a tribute to his latest favorite book - Treasure Island - he had decided to not hide the stolen jewelry in the city, but had gone out in the wilderness to bury it. The idiot had thought it would be a wonderful idea to make an elaborate map on which X marked the spot where his treasure had been buried. But by the time he had gotten back to his apartment, Alia had caught him. All it took was one stern look from Sonia and Max had owned up to the burglary. He took way too much pride in describing how he had beat the security system and gotten into the safe where the jewels were kept. Long story short, he had been trying to remember the spot where he had hidden the loot while Alia, Santosh, and Nadia were fuming at having to trample around the forest for the last few hours.
Max had told them that it was near a clump of three tall pine trees next to a tiny pond. He just couldn’t remember which clump it was. He vaguely remembered it to be in a shallow valley of sorts. After the fifth - or was it the sixth? - site that came up empty, everyone was getting cranky. They had spent the entire day with Max in this quest. But, Max had been having a blast with all this exploring. He genuinely liked Alia and her team, especially, Nadia.
Finally, Alia had told them to wrap up. A storm seemed to be brewing on the horizon. The last thing she wanted was for them to get stuck in all that mud in the middle of nowhere. They had started jogging to the trail where they had parked their electric all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). The incessant chattering of Max all day had made Alia weary in other ways, too. She wanted to have just a few moments to herself before she went back to the city. She had asked Nadia and Santosh to escort Max back to his holding cell. She had told them that she was going to wander around for a bit.
As they were leaving, she had remembered that Santosh had a video drone in the kit strapped to his ATV. They had been too confident about Max remembering the location and hence, had not bothered to use the drone to scout the area from air. And as they had ventured further away from their ATVs, she had decided to not waste any more time in retrieving the drone. Anyway, Max was unlikely to remember things better with a drone. She half-thought that this was an elaborate ruse of Max’s to spend some quality time in the outdoors with the gorgeous Nadia.
Alia had assembled the drone. She had not been that eager to continue working, but then she felt that this might as well be a good use of her time given that she was going to be here for some more time. She had switched on the drone and started guiding it with the remote in her hand. Max had been confident that the clump was to the left of the trail and hence, they had spent all their time looking for the correct location on that side of the trail.
What if that idiot had been wrong? Maybe he had been looking in the wrong direction! So Alia had decided to explore the area on the right of the trail. There was a hillock about half a kilometer away and nothing was visible beyond it. She had sent the drone soaring over the hillock and immediately she caught the sight of a clump of pine trees a couple of kilometers beyond the hillock. As the drone had swooped in closer, she counted exactly three trees and even better, there was tiny pond right next to them. Damn! This must be it! It had perfectly matched Max’s description.
The storm had gotten quite a lot closer by that time. But Alia had been excited. This treasure hunt business had been quite addictive, she had to admit. It was problem-solving of a different kind. And she just loved problem-solving. Instead of trying to walk to the site and back, she had decided to take the ATV to check out the site.
She had driven carefully through the knee-high grass. Luckily, there weren’t too many boulders and dips in the ground. She had strapped the drone’s remote to the handle. Every few meters she would pause and plant a flag to mark the path. There was no way she was going to rely solely on the GPS to find her way back to this site in case it was the real deal.
The ground had turned out to be hard and more or less flat. The ATV had eagerly gobbled up the distance, in a more or less straight line. The vegetation had mostly vacillated between grass and shrubs. In fact, there had been no major trees in her straight line path. Within a few minutes she had reached the pond and Max’s clump of three tall pine trees. Unfortunately, the storm had also closed in much faster than Alia had expected.
She had gotten off the ATV and done a fast circuit around the clump. In almost no time she found the place where Max had hidden the loot. Not only was the ground disturbed, the idiot had gouged a big X on the spot. She had smiled at the abundant child-like enthusiasm of Max. There was no guile in him. No malice. He was just having fun. Every time he was caught, he would become all distressed when he realized that his thieving had caused someone pain. Then he would start apologizing. His big brown eyes would fill up with copious tears as he begged for forgiveness.
She had pulled out the shovel strapped to the ATV and after only a few vigorous heaves, she had struck gold. Max had been too lazy to dig deeper. It had looked like he had been more preoccupied with gouging out the X mark than actually hiding the loot. She had carefully collected all the jewelry and packed it in an evidence bag.
The wind had picked up and the sky had visibly darkened. The storm was, practically, upon her. A few fat drops of rain had splashed on her head as she had been wrapping up. Just as she had been about to fire up the ATV, the clouds had burst and rain had started pouring down in big sheets. She had been forced to seek refuge under the trees where the canopy was quite broad and thick. The ground beneath it had stayed dry for quite some time. But after a while, the rain had started seeping through the trees all the way to the ground. She was not going to be able to stay there long.
When the rain had eased up a bit, the ground had already become quite muddy. She had been unsure if her formidable ATV would be able to get through that mud. Then the rain had stopped. She had decided to use the drone again to check out the mud situation back to the trail before she headed back. The air had been thick with humidity and Alia had been sweating profusely. She had been busy guiding the drone as close to the ground as possible in order to get a clear picture. But after the third instance of the drone hitting a tallish shrub, she had decided to not take any more chances and maneuvered the drone up to a safe altitude.
That’s when she had noticed the light coming from a lantern next to a campsite a few hundred meters away beyond another small hillock. She had seen some movement. Clearly, someone had been camping there. Since, camping for leisure was strictly prohibited, she assumed that it was a research team with the appropriate permit. Still, Alia had thought that she should check if their permit was in order or if they needed any help. She had also been drenched and could use a towel to dry herself before she got back on the ATV.
She had started the ATV and headed toward the camp. The ground was rocky. Yet, the ATV had absolutely no trouble navigating through it. However, she had to switch it off and walk the last few meters to the camp because of too much mud. There had been a small triangular tent that was most likely used for residential purposes and a much larger boxy tent with two sides open where the work was probably being done. Light had spilled out from the boxy tent.
She had walked by it and seen a man bending over the table, carefully measuring something with some sort of instrument. He had not heard her walk up. She had cleared her throat and he had almost jumped out of his skin. So startled was he that he had dropped whatever he was holding and looked up. He had a similar build as Alia. His thick black beard was flecked with a few grey spots. He had been wearing a beret over his shoulder-length curly black hair and dressed in the classic camper’s attire - khaki pants and shirt, both with lots of pockets that seemed to be stuffed with all kinds of things.
“Ohh… you startled me,” he had exclaimed.
“Who are you?” he had asked with a shy smile.
“My name is Qasim,” he had quickly added before she could respond.
“I am Alia. I am with the police. I was in the vicinity because of a case when I noticed your camp.”
“Ohh… how wonderful! How can I help you?”
Instead of answering that question, Alia had asked, “do you have a permit for this?”
Better to get business out of the way immediately. Alia was very conscious of the time. A light drizzle had started again. She had wanted to leave before she got caught in another downpour.
“Yes - of course. Let me find it for you.”
Qasim stepped over to another table set up next to one of the walls of the tent. There were several frames on that wall including one that carried a print-out of the permit. He brought it over to her. She checked it and everything seemed satisfactory. She confirmed the validity of the permit on her tablet by connecting to the central database.
“Looks good! May I ask what your research is about?”
“I am training to be an anthropologist. I am working for a research team based out of Oslo. We are looking for artifacts from human settlements dating before the last Ice Age.”
He had been genuinely excited and his chest had all puffed up with pride as he had described his work. After the first couple of paragraphs, though, Alia had lost all interest in what he was saying. She had stayed behind for some alone time and now had ended up listening to another person who clearly had a lot to say. She had wandered around the tent as Qasim had droned on. She had glanced at the various things, presumably dug up, on the table. She had nodded her head, automatically, every few moments to show that she had been listening. Then she had stepped closer to the wall with the frames. There had been a few maps in addition to the permit and there also had been a few photographs.
Her back had been toward Qasim as she had scanned the pictures. The smallest of them had also been the most faded one. Something about it had vaguely reminded of something from her past. She had felt a familiar tingle at the back of her neck. There had been a faint whiff of danger in the air.
To look at the picture carefully, she had bent down and forward over the table. The light had not been good. But it had been sufficient to show a famous archaeological site in Qom where a young clean shaven boy had been standing next to a beautiful sculpture engraved in the pillar. Most of the sculpture had not been visible but what little of it that she had been able to see was sufficient for her to recognize it. She had known the site - it was an ancient relic from the days of the Persian empire.
More importantly, she had recognized the boy. Her blood had frozen and she had stopped breathing. Despite the stifling heat and humidity, she had felt cold. The hair had been standing up on her forearms. Her eyes had been wide open with panic. Qasim’s voice had cut through as she had stared and stared at the photo praying silently that it was not real.
She had whirled around and barked at him, “who is that in the picture?”
“Which one?”
“This!” she had the frame in her hand.
Qasim had paused just that little bit more than had been necessary. The light had gone out in his eyes as he had stammered, “that’s my cousin. It is an old photo.”
But that pause had conveyed it all. He had lied. She had seen through his beard and long hair. The same eyes. He had obviously gotten older and filled out a bit more. But it had been him. No question about it. Alia had known that she was looking at the man who had executed her father and two brothers in the middle of the market in Iran, fifteen years ago. It was Basheer.
At some point she had started breathing again. Else she would have fainted.
She had casually asked him, “where was the picture taken?”
Qasim - or rather, Basheer - had a guarded look on his face.
“I am not sure where. Probably in the village where my cousin lived. I mean, lives.”
“In Lebanon,” he had added, pointedly.
He had been unable to hold eye contact with her.
Images had flashed across Alia’s mind. Images from the nightmares she had as a teenager. Nightmares that had lasted for months. Every night she had woken up screaming. Her mother had hugged her tightly as she had tried to soothe the tormented soul of her only remaining child. She had smoothed the hair on Alia’s head for hours until Alia stopped shaking and then fallen asleep.
She had remembered that day clearly! Alia had been in her father’s shop on a pleasant Sunday morning. She had been blissfully, scrolling through her elder brother’s smartphone when she had heard a ruckus outside. Her father had ran into the store and wildly looked around for her. “Alia-jaan… you need to get away. NOW! Use the back door and go home. Tell your mother to hide with you in the place that we prepared. Go now!”
Her handsome and strong father had been so scared. Her two elder brothers - Rafiq and Hasan - had also ran in to the store right behind him. Both had been terrified.
“They are here father. What are we going to do now?” Rafiq had whispered.
Her father had pushed her behind a sack of rice and had stepped out of the store with his arms raised.
“May peace be with you!” he had said to the five fighters who had been sitting astride the battered Toyota pickup truck.
The obvious leader among them - who had also been driving the truck - had smirked at him and looked around the small lane full of shops. Most of the shop-keepers had been standing outside with their arms raised similar to Alia’s father. They all had grim expressions on their faces.
One of the flunkies who had been standing next to the machine gun installed on the roof of the pickup’s cab had shouted to nobody in particular, “we have heard that some of you have been providing support to the Kurdish scum! How dare you defy our orders?” He had turned his gun skyward and let loose a burst of gunfire - to emphasize his point.
The leader had looked bored while the yelling had gone on. Bullying these puny shopkeepers had been a pathetic use of his real capabilities. If only his superiors would see him as he saw himself, they would know that he was an awesome warrior who was destined for greatness. He was a true leader of men.
The leader had glanced in his rearview mirror and seen Basheer nervously chewing on his fingernails. He had sighed. This kid had been a disgrace to his team of killers. Always afraid. Always jumping up like a scalded cat when someone had called him. He had to either make a man out of him or encourage him on his way to martyrdom.
Almost reluctantly, the leader had switched off the engine and lazily got out of the truck. He had leaned on the door and beckoned Basheer. For once, Basheer hadn’t jumped. Rather, he had gotten off the truck’s bed and gone to the leader with sagging shoulders. His gun had been trailing behind him as if it was a scarf.
This won’t do. No! This would certainly not do. He had drilled into his fighters that they must always be alert and ready. Basheer had already been punished numerous times for his slovenly demeanor. The leader had fingered his gun debating whether he should just shoot Basheer and be done with it. Unfortunately, that was not an option. The other fighters would rat him out to his superiors. He had decided to try one last time to make Basheer into a killer.
The leader had nodded at one of his fighters who was swaggering around the lane taunting the hapless shopkeepers. “Line up a few bastards,” the leader had said to him quietly.
“We are going to have to make an example out of some and I would like to have Basheer do it on our behalf.”
The fighter had looked up at the leader, clearly bemused by the thought of Basheer killing anybody. Then he had loudly snickered.
Alia had been watching this from her hiding place behind the sack. The window opening on the street had not been closed all the way. The gap had been sufficient for her to see what had been happening outside. But, no one could see her.
The fighters had lined up at least a dozen people including her father and her two brothers. The leader had whispered something in Basheer’s ears. Then she had seen Basheer turn white as a sheet. He had walked up to the person kneeling next to her father. He had slowly lifted his gun to point at the person’s head and hesitated. A brief but harsh order from the leader and Basheer had pulled the trigger. The head of that person had exploded like a watermelon with chunks of bone and brain tissue flying all over the place.
The other fighters had roared with joy and let loose bursts of celebratory gunfire in the sky. The leader had beamed at Basheer. That is when, she had seen Basheer’s face transformed into a broad smile. He should have been ashamed at what he had done. He had killed someone in cold-blood. But all he had seemed to care about was the validation of his fellow warriors. Almost with a relish he had stepped over to Alia’s father and shot him. Another huge toothy grin towards the leader and onward to killing the remaining people including Alia’s brothers. Then Basheer had screamed in exhilaration! That was what Alia had seen. That was what she had kept on seeing in her nightmares night after agonizing night.
That same Basheer had been standing in front of her at the campsite several years later. That evil boy who had nonchalantly killed her loved ones had somehow showed up in Sequoia ready to destroy this new life that she had been building for herself. She could not allow this evil to continue its existence. In a trance, she had picked up the shovel lying next to the table. Seeing her expression and the raised weapon, Qasim had sank down on his knees to beg for mercy. Alia hadn’t heard what he had said. She had not been herself. She had simply heaved up the shovel and in one stroke crushed Qasim’s skull.
She did not remember what had happened next. She must have thrown the shovel away from her. She must have walked to her ATV and taken off. She had no recollection of her journey back home through the rain and the mud. She did not remember anything else from that night. She must have washed her clothes after she had showered. All the traces of the evil must have been erased from her person and more importantly, her consciousness.
It felt like it had been hours, as all those memories swept through Alia’s mind. The realization that she was the one who had initiated the cycle of violence in Sequoia that had spread across the entire world in bloody ripples, was too shameful for her to bear. The shovel dropped from her hands and fell with a clang as she collapsed to the ground in front of Sara.
It was bewildering for Sara to see Alia, literally, wither away in front of her eyes. Alia clasped her hands together and murmured, “please forgive me. I am so sorry. I… I… am so so sorry. Please…” Alia lifted her tear-stricken face to look at Sara. That look of shame was something that Sara recognized, instantly. It was the look Sara had seen on her own face that night after she had gotten back from executing Nadeem. She had also begged for forgiveness in a similar manner.
Tenderly, Sara touched Alia’s face, cradling her cheek.
“You poor thing! You killed him, didn’t you? You killed Qasim and now you are remembering it.”
Sara’s voice was full of kindness and understanding as tears continued to stream down Alia’s face.
The two of them sat together for a long time.