“Thank you for your advice,” said President Ghandra. “I will take it under advisement. But I will tell you that India
will not back down
. Not today. Not tomorrow. Certainly not as long as I am president.”
KOT COPPER WORKS, LTD.
KAROO OPERATIONS
INDIA-CONTROLLED KASHMIR
At a quarter after eleven in the morning, Gautam finished his second cigarette in succession. He flicked the butt down into the wide tire track that had been left in the mud. He chugged what was left of the water in his tin cup. It was a cool day inside the mine tunnel, at least comparatively speaking; yesterday had reached a hundred degrees inside the mine. Today, the air sweltered around eighty-five. Still, it was early in the shift and his clothing was already drenched in perspiration.
“Hey, Gautam, come on, boy, break over,” came a voice out of the darkness. It was Indiraman, his supervisor. Always trying to prove himself, Gautam thought. As if managing Gautam hard would somehow allow him to rise up the KOT ranks quicker.
“Yes, Indiraman, I know,” called Gautam.
And fuck you, asshole,
he added, but only in his thoughts.
Gautam turned his head. To his right, as far as he could see, a tunnel ran straight off into the distance, into the darkness. The tunnel was more than fifty feet high and wide enough to accommodate three large earthmovers standing side by side. Steel girders ran like a rib cage along the ceiling of the tunnel, holding the loamy earth in place; dangling down from the girders at regular intervals were large, saucerlike halogen lights.
To the left, where the shaft was being extended down into the earth, the girders and lights had yet to be secured in place. The darkness was interrupted only by a canopy of lights surrounding the tunnel-boring machine, or “mole” as it was usually referred to.
The mole looked like a gigantic centipede, hydraulic jacks pressed against the carved-out sides of the tunnel like caterpillar legs, giving the big machine the stability it needed in order to thrust forward into the earth. The mole moved slowly but ineluctably down into the wall of dirt and rock below ground, the cutter head rotating slowly clockwise, its tungsten carbide cutting bits breaking up the earth inch by inevitable inch, creating a rough tunnel more than thirty feet in diameter. The resulting dirt—or “muck” as it was called—spilled onto a makeshift conveyor belt that moved alongside the mole, running the muck up and into piles which Gautam and his team then hauled up to the surface, where it was sifted and processed for copper, then repurposed.
The mole was the oddest and most amazing piece of machinery Gautam had ever seen. He’d gotten used to the sight of it, after nearly three years of looking at it. Still, he always found himself staring at the mole. Harrison, an older man, stood next to him, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee.
“So fucking big,” said Gautam, shaking his head. “What do you think it cost?”
“Why, Gautam?” Harrison chuckled. “Are you thinking of buying one? This cost the company fifty million U.S. dollars. That’s over two hundred million rupees.”
Gautam’s eyes bulged. “Wow,” he said to Harrison. “I guess I will have to bank a few more paychecks. Maybe they will advance me a little, what do you think?”
They both laughed. Gautam watched Harrison throw his cardboard coffee cup onto the ground, then climb into the cab of a Caterpillar R2900. Harrison lumbered the 2900 forward and lifted a pile of rock, turned, and dumped the pile into the back of Gautam’s truck. In a few minutes, the dump truck would be filled and he would drive up the tunnel to the surface.
Gautam walked to the side of his truck. He smiled as he stood next to the large tire. He was more than six feet tall, yet he stood less than halfway up the monstrous tire. He climbed the ladder in front of the tire and got back into the cab. He waited in the cab for the last few arms full of muck and enjoyed another cigarette. Finally, the weight sensor chimed indicating the dump was maxed out. He moved the truck into gear and, turning carefully in the dark mine shaft, he aimed the truck back down the tunnel. He drove slowly, five miles per hour, down the winding tunnel for more than two miles. Finally, he saw the first sprinkling of daylight at the end of the tunnel.
The yellow Caterpillar rumbled out of the mine entrance. He drove the big truck down across the operations field, to the primary crusher, where the big pile of rock and dirt would be quickly crushed, sifted, ground up, sieved, and processed for traces of copper. However, most of the copper would be concentrated in a find somewhere beneath the tunnel. The KOT strategy was for the copper found in the tunnel to finance the initial land acquisition, shaft construction, and equipment purchases. After that, drilling into the surrounding rock would be mostly profit for KOT. Gautam moved the truck to the crusher, backed up the large truck, then flipped the switch that lifted the big dumper slowly into the air.
“And that’s your life,” Gautam said aloud, to no one. He reached for his pack of Marlboros as he sat in the cab, waiting for the load of dirt to fall out of the flatbed. He lit a cigarette. “Thirty-four more years and you will be eligible for retirement!” he yelled to no one.
He laughed. He should be grateful. It had taken every connection his father had to get him a job at KOT. The job paid well, more than $100 a day, almost all of it went automatically into a bank account he had set up with the Bank of India back in New Delhi. After all, there was nothing out here to spend the money on, except for cigarettes and alcohol, and he didn’t like to drink. Still, he was twenty-two years old and more than two hundred miles from the nearest town. While KOT had constructed a makeshift town, with a few shops, four restaurants, a bowling alley, pool hall, and even a movie theater, it just wasn’t the same. It was artificial. Built to make the nearly eight thousand KOT employees and their family members at Karoo feel like they enjoyed a normal life, even though they were so far from civilization.
KOT Karoo was one of seventeen different mining operations KOT had spread across India. KOT was one of India’s largest mining conglomerates. Copper, zinc, plutonium, coal, you name it. Gautam had asked for the copper surface mine outside of Mumbai, but there were no jobs there. This was the only opportunity. Father had used his only connection, the son of someone whose hair he used to cut at his barbershop, who worked in the accounting department at KOT in New Delhi. He remembered listening to Father, practically begging on the pay phone outside the shop. Whenever he remembered the sound of his father’s voice that day, the sound of him begging, it almost made him want to cry. He missed Father. What other father would beg in such a way for his only son?
Now he was here. In Karoo. Beautiful Kashmir. Even he had to admit that the beauty of the place was sometimes almost overwhelming, like the paintings at the museum. Behind the ugly temporary village and the industrial buildings of the mine, the dark green and blue hills spread like a painting. Snow-capped mountains formed a distant frame around them in the distance.
He lit his second cigarette in a row, put one of his work boots up on the dashboard.
“O Kashmir,” he sang to himself, a folk tune from his youth, by Tansen. “May I spend my windswept life in your green embrace, my dear Kashmir?”
AIWAN-E-SADR
ISLAMABAD
Omar El-Khayab sat in the large leather armchair behind the desk in the President’s office.
The room resonated with the chants from Constitution Avenue, a main artery through downtown Islamabad, now completely shut down due to the crowds which had taken it over. In less than four days of demonstrations, the throngs of Pakistanis had grown and spread, filling the land surrounding Aiwan-e-Sadr, the presidential residence, to capacity with more than a million men and women on sidewalks, streets, and any other available space.
The chant from the angry throngs grew louder with each passing hour. The intensity of the words was palpable.
“Death to India! Death to India! Death to India!”
After only four days, more than thirty thousand Pakistani soldiers had already died and thousands more were injured.
El-Khayab sat alone in the presidential office. He didn’t like the office, its size and opulence, which he interpreted in the gasps he heard as visitors walked in, in their comments about the vaulted ceilings, the gold and marble statues along the walls, the floor-to-ceiling windows, the cavernous space.
But today he would use the office. Today, the most important decision by any president in the history of the country would be made.
El-Khayab tried to imagine an image of himself, what he looked like and how he was perceived by others. He was taller than most, with long, bony fingers, a mane of white hair, his face mangled by fire and scars, covered in moles. His looks alone should have relegated him to obscurity and exile, and yet they did not. Why? he asked himself. But he knew. It was his voice. It was a sound unlike any on earth, a voice whose tone in and of itself could inspire either love or fear, even in those who didn’t understand his native tongue, “the Hitler of Islam,” as one writer had called him, a comparison he ignored but which he did little to dispute. It was El-Khayab’s voice that he could ignite in an instant into venom. For he knew that one of his greatest strengths was the irony of his appearance, an ugly man enjoying the love of so many, a gentle man having such violent thoughts, a quiet man having such rabid supporters, a simple man complicating the world in such a dramatic way.
“Today, Omar,” he said aloud to the empty room, “you will complicate the world for Allah.”
El-Khayab knew that history had chosen this time and this place. It was his destiny. Islam would ascend today. He would be Allah’s agent on earth.
El-Khayab had awakened that morning with a vision fresh in his mind. It was the fire that had blinded him as a three-year-old boy in Karachi, the fire that killed his parents, four sisters and one of his two brothers. So painful was the memory, he had learned to blot it out from his mind, to erase the horrible images, of inferno, bright red, orange, and black. El-Khayab realized now that the flames which destroyed his eyes were actually the beginning of his true vision. They were the fingers of Allah, taking his eyesight so that he might see.
Atta, his only surviving brother, had pulled him from the fire. They had grown up in the madrasa, without parents, with the bitter memory of his family, whom he loved so much, gone, destroyed by the smoke and flames.
This morning, Omar El-Khayab awoke to the sight of his parents, his sisters, and his brother, burning to death in the devastating inferno. But instead of the pain, this morning El-Khayab felt nothing but ecstasy. In the middle of the vision, he saw a darkened face, with no eyes. He struggled to interpret the sight. Was it him? Was it Allah? Whoever it was, he knew the sign. He knew what it meant.
He heard the sound of the large brass knocker on the door to the office. He listened as the door opened.
“Mr. President,” said the voice from across the large office. “May we interrupt you, sir?”
“General Karreff,” said El-Khayab, rising from his chair. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
“Of course, sir,” said Karreff.
“Is Minister Khan with you?” asked El-Khayab.
“I’m here, Mr. President.” Osama Khan, Pakistan’s defense minister, was a tall man, dressed in a stylish gray suit, with neatly combed black hair and a mustache.
“Ah, Minister Khan. Thank you for coming.”
“My pleasure, Mr. President. Khalid el-Jaqonda, my deputy, is also with me, sir.”
“Good morning, Mr. President,” said el-Jaqonda.
El-Khayab listened as the three men crossed the marble floor and sat down in front of the desk.
“New Delhi started this war,” said El-Khayab. “The Hindu display no sense of proportion or reason. They have insulted Pakistan for more than half a century now, claiming land which is rightfully ours. We now have a historic opportunity to reclaim it.”
“Kashmir,” said Khan.
“To take back that which is ours,” said El-Khayab. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Mr. President,” said Karreff. “If Minister Khan is here, you obviously have a … well, a
design.
”
“Yes,” said El-Khayab, pausing. “No population centers. But people must die.”
“How many, sir?” asked Khan.
“Thousands.”
“Ten thousand?”
“Yes,” said El-Khayab softly. The sound of the crowd seemed to grow louder, and the old cleric turned his head away from his guests, toward the window.
“
Death to India! Death to India! Death to India! Death to India! Death to India!
”
“How many nuclear devices do we have that are fully functional?” asked El-Khayab.
“One hundred and sixty-one,” said el-Jaqonda. “These are comprised of three primary designs based on kiloton, extensibility, and size.”
“My suggestion, Mr. President, is the following,” said Khan. “Khalid and I shall work with General Karreff to determine a proper target. We shall then return and report back to you.”
“That’s not necessary,” said El-Khayab. He removed his glasses. Khan flinched as he looked at what had once been El-Khayab’s eyeballs, now aimed relentlessly at the window. “What value will I add to what is now an operational process? My decision is made. When you are ready, when the time is proper, then strike.”
“When do you want this to occur, President El-Khayab?” asked Khan.
“As soon as possible. By the hour, our soldiers die in the hundreds. My hope is that this stops the violence. That the Hindu enemy understands our very real intentions.”
“I must caution you, sir.” General Karreff cleared his throat. “Please don’t take this as my being in disagreement. But it is my duty to point out the pitfalls, to play a
devil’s advocate
, so to speak.”
“Speak, General,” said El-Khayab.
“The Indian government will almost certainly respond in kind. If we have one hundred and sixty bombs—”
“Sixty-one,” interrupted el-Jaqonda.