Chapter 4
“Mir Faiz Qadri Rehman Ali is one of the finest looking men you will see around here,” Dilshad Khan gushed, walking down the red carpeted entryway into the stone palace rising over an ancient giant hill.
The palace looked like a fort. Dilshad Khan’s security fell away from around them but Atharva saw in the periphery his own security continue.
There were people inside the fort, lots of people — commoners, peasants, some men in ancient guard uniform, looking nothing like ready to battle it out if something untoward happened.
“This looks more like a fort than a palace,” Atharva observed, not even remotely interested, his eyes scanning the ceiling that went three storeys high, looking around to spot something that would scream residence.
This entrance would lead them to the Mir’s durbar and offices.
He knew from reading OTP’s map that there was one gully from the maze that connected to the residence.
It was heavily guarded, keeping the womenfolk behind closed doors.
The garden he had described was on the other side of the fort, in a whole other pin code.
A uniformed man stepped up to them and they stopped. He raised his hand in salam to Dilshad Khan and bowed, saying something in rapid-fire Burushaski. Atharva caught stray words, and understood the implication. This is what he had been waiting for.
“Kaul sahab,” Dilshad turned to him. “Security will have to be left here. It is disrespectful to the Mir to go inside with guards and weapons.”
“Oh…” Atharva hesitated, pausing.
“Don’t worry, I am coming in without anything or anybody either. Trust me, you are our diplomatic guest. Humare paas India ki amaanat hai aap. We won’t let anything happen to you,” he smiled.
Atharva glanced at Altaf, looking like he was debating.
“Fikr mat kariye, kuch nahi hoga, Kaul sahab…[23]”
“Sir, we cannot permit this,” Altaf grunted, looking abysmal in his playacting. Atharva could see how much he hated it.
“What if you sanitise the place?” Atharva offered, glancing at Dilshad Khan. “Does that work?”
“What for? My security already swept the palace before we came!”
“It’s protocol,” Atharva pointed, glancing at Altaf. “My security will not allow me out of their sight otherwise.”
Altaf’s scowl was a whole other retort — as if.
Dilshad Khan looked at the Mir’s guard, said something in Burushaski that sounded like ‘keep an eye.’ The way he said it, the tone and the quick, curt command sounded like he owned the palace and the guards. Atharva held onto that thought.
“Alright, Kaul sahab, your security can sweep the area while we wait here. But only until the limits that the fort guards allow. The other side is residence, for the family and the women.”
“Of course. Altaf.”
Atharva crossed his arms across his chest, feet apart, eyeing Altaf and a team of his men branch out, the royal guards tailing each one. Altaf, he noted, went in the direction of the gully to the garden, the head of the guards behind him. Go, find her, go, he prayed under his breath.
“Let me take a few portraits of both of you until then,” Fahad offered, his mobile out.
Dilshad Khan was more than happy to pose.
His photographer joined Fahad with his DSLR, ready.
Atharva indulged them, standing under an antique chandelier with Dilshad Khan, then under a portrait of the deceased Mir — the grandfather.
“Our angel in human guise,” Dilshad Khan pointed, the overly eager tour guide. “What a man, may Allah rest his soul in peace. The entire Nagar was his family. Did you know he fought in the war for freedom?”
“Indian freedom?”
“First from the British, and then India.”
From Atharva’s reading, and his operative of a driver’s rant, it was the other way around.
The old Mir, the grandfather, had in fact resisted the Pakistani occupation, and later interference in his kingdom and governance for long years.
It was his son who had let them in — Atharva could guess why.
Funding, support and promises to unite the two Kashmirs and put his son at the helm, a kingdom of his own.
A country. A united Kashmir, a Tarkhan ruler.
But with what? Pakistani control, military, Chief Mi… he glanced at Dilshad Khan.
The CM of PoK for the seventh term in a row.
Rigged elections, ISI support. 35 years and counting.
He had been there when the Mir had sent his twins across the border.
Realisation dawned. Atharva turned his face quickly away, smiling at the cameras, listening to Dilshad Khan drone on and on about the grand riches of the Mirs, their palaces and properties.
Could he be the only other man who knew about Noorie, Nooran and Ibrahim? The man who was holding Sayyid Butt’s strings? The man who had tried to kill Iram and his unborn children to bury it all?
Did you find the culprit?
I’m sure you would have made him pay.
How did he know that the culprit was one man and not an organisation? The media had speculated Haq Force in all their reports. The real inquiry was classified. The tick of his gut from a few hours ago was now a full-fledged roar.
Dilshad Khan’s arm came around his shoulder, still smiling at the camera.
Atharva held his smile. Did he know that the woman he had set out to kill was in his town, in this palace?
Atharva’s heart began to race. Where was Iram?
What was the story here? He had to take her out of here quicker than ever now.
Without tipping even the air around this man.
“Clear, sir.” Altaf’s loud, solemn words made his head turn. Atharva gaped at him.
“All clear, sir, no restriction.” He reiterated. No. She wasn’t here. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Let’s go then,” Dilshad Khan opened his arm towards the staircase. Atharva nodded, passing his gaze over Fahad. Try again, he commanded with his eyes. If you don’t, I will, his smile threatened.
“Umm… excuse me, where is the bathroom?” He heard Fahad ask one of the guards behind him. Atharva entered the embellished domed stairs and the doors closed behind him to the guard’s directions.
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The Mir’s office was not an office. Or maybe he had one but chose to sit in an open pergola with a round ceiling and arches of pillars opening on all sides.
The sky and the mountains and the fleecy white clouds formed the backdrop and there wasn’t any security to gatekeep anything.
Only a young man, in his mid twenties, sitting on a wooden bench seat, laid in rich, jewelled tapestries.
“Salamaliakum, Mir sahab,” Dilshad Khan addressed reverentially.
It sounded too reverential to be true. The young man looked up, his expression bland, schooled, as if he was to welcome guests without giving away his pleasure or displeasure.
Atharva took his time sizing up the man’s face — his wife’s younger brother.
Alabaster skin — pale but clear, brown beard that had specks of gold, eyes just as honeyed, the shape exactly like…
his wife’s. And now his son’s. Atharva held his mind from wandering away again and soldiered on.
“Walaikumasalam. Khunjee,[24]” the boy-king nodded. His hand held a pen and there sat a pile of long books by his side. Account books. Dilshad Khan strode forward, “Please come, Kaul sahab.”
To the Mir, he let loose a litany of Burushaski.
Atharva heard his name in there somewhere and figured that was his introduction when the Mir’s eyes fell on him.
They didn’t look like intelligent eyes. They looked lost, schooled, like a puppet.
The Mir nodded. He was dressed in a brown kurta and salwar, a matching plain woollen cloak on his shoulders.
His head was covered by a local flat topi, wisps of brown hair peeping from under its edge.
“Welcome,” he said in slow, accented English.
“Thank you for having me,” Atharva nodded, not about to fold his hands or offer salam to a king he did not recognise.
There was no protocol put forth either, making his calculations solid — after his father’s death, this boy was just a puppet in the hands of the Pakistanis, in the hands of Dilshad Khan, possibly even their ISI and the military.
“You come from Indian-occupied Kashmir?” The boy-king observed in a clipped but pleasant tone. “How is it there?”
“Just as beautiful,” Atharva answered, keeping it neutral. Didn’t the boy know he was talking to the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir?
“Atharva Singh Kaul,” Dilshad Khan finally introduced. “The Chief Minister of Indian-occupied Kashmir.”
“I know,” the Mir smiled. It did not reach his eyes. “I have seen your photo.”
“In reference to something good, I hope,” Atharva had to retort, praying he did not say the name that was between them. He hadn’t thought about this. What if Iram had confided in him? What if this man knew him…
“I saw…”
“I have never seen your photo, though,” Atharva cut him off just as pleasantly. “I have heard about you, but there is not much available about your family or history in public.”
“Yes,” he pushed his hands in front of him, clasping one hand over his other wrist. “My late father, Allah rest his soul in peace, did not like media.”
Dilshad Khan chuckled — “Smart man. Cameras and journalists do nothing but spoil the peace of a land. The more you are famous, the more you are in trouble.”
Atharva smirked. The more you are famous, the more you are in the crosshairs, especially if you are planning a conspiracy and a coup and an infiltration and a civil war.
“For how long you are here?” The Mir inquired politely.
“Two da…” Atharva’s words were cut off by the shrill ringtone of Dilshad Khan’s mobile phone. He saw the sharp cutting of the Mir’s eyes to the device.
“Excuse me,” Dilshad Khan began to take steps back. “I have to take this. Jaga Bakhshinda at. [25]Forgive me,” he bowed in front of the Mir and marched towards the far edge of the terrace’s extension.