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fast track.’
    ‘More than that, he desperately needs something to divert the attention of his public from the American body bags that are being flown in from Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course, it is also no great secret that the Americans are always salivating for a bigger share of the huge Indian market.’
    ‘The bastards will do anything to ingratiate themselves with these damn kafirs,’ the General said harshly.
    ‘Undoubtedly,’ Salim nodded. ‘Why else are they running around offering the F-16s and F-18s to the Indians? They are dying to do that despite the fact that they denied us the same planes because of the nuclear tests we conducted. They are treacherous bastards. The American dogs will jeopardize Pakistan’s security without giving it a second thought. This is nothing new for them. They used our Afghan brothers and us against the Russians when they needed to do so. Then they tossed us aside like used toilet paper when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan. They are now happily using Pakistan to bring Afghanistan to heel since there is no way in hell they could do it on their own.’
    ‘Can you imagine, they have about 12,000 soldiers in Afghanistan? 12,000?’ The General’s harsh laugh rent the air: ‘There are more than 12,000 cops in New York alone and I don’t have to tell you how safe New York is.’
    ‘Who cares!’ Salim retorted. ‘It is not as though we are doing anything much beyond feeding their propaganda machine. Our top brass is savvy enough to throw them the middling, meaningless foot soldier once in a while so that they can trumpet to the world that they have taken out another Al-Qaida commander and are winning their war on terror. That keeps the fools happy and as long as they are happy the dollars won’t stop. It is a foregone conclusion that as long as Sheikh Sahib is not found the dollars will keep flowing in.’
    The Americans had no clue that the man they were spending millions of dollars trying to find was safe and sound, right under their very noses. On any given day Salim could have strolled down to the safe house the ISI had placed him in and have tea with him. In fact, very often that is precisely what Salim did. He had tremendous respect for the man’s dedication to the holy cause, not to mention the lethal forces and incredible wealth that lay at his beck and call.
    There was another longish pause as random thoughts skewered through the minds of both men. Yet again it was the General who broke the silence.‘In fact, I often wish we could teach them a nice lesson about what happens to people who stab their friends in the back. Unfortunately, this is not the time…the diplomatic consequences and economic fallout would be too high. We need those dollars right now if we have to salvage our economy and get back on our feet.’ There was another pause. The General gave Salim a long look. ‘Of course, there would be no such problems with punishing the Indian bastards.’
    When the meeting ended a few minutes later and Salim strode out of the office his leader’s unspoken command lay clear in his mind. He had only three months to retire and in this short period of time he had to do something that would make the General proud of him. Salim knew the time had come to deliver one last major strike against the kafirs.
    No matter what the political rhetoric, everyone in the ISI knew that the hunting season on India was always open. In any case, their pussyfooting leadership, full of eunuchs, just begged to be hit. The General would be thrilled; so long as the strike could not be traced back to them overtly. Plausible deniability. That was the name of the game. Whether we do it or not is not the issue, as long as we are not seen to be doing it. That was the mantra of the times they lived in. Salim laughed at the thought.
    ‘I am going to be taking direct charge of every aspect of the operation,’ Salim told Maulana Fazlur Rehman when they met to discuss the final plans in August