Ameerah
Twilight embraced Karachi as the sun's golden rays faded over its horizon. In most places, this would be a time for the day to bid farewell. Yet, in this city of contradictions, people appeared to have come alive even more. Where there were just a few people strolling along the sandy beach, there were now hordes of families, young friends and old acquaintances delighting in the cool evening. Amidst them all, I sat alone in the car.
Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
Yet, Zain never showed up.
Neither was there any indication of where he might have gone. The last I saw of him was when he disappeared behind a large truck that had now driven away exposing a strip of drab mid-sized shops. Just as I was gathering the courage to get out of the car and explore the area in search of the grumpy man, a knock on the window startled me.
"Fiza?" I quickly unlocked the door to the woman dressed in dark jeans and a plain black blazer. "What are you doing here?"
She didn't look pleased at all. "Babysitting you, apparently. God forbid you and Zain give me a moment of peace."
Any relief I had felt at seeing her went straight out the window. I did not need babysitting. "Well I didn't ask you to come. So, you can leave."
Shaking her head, she reached out and grabbed the car keys from me. "Yeah, but Zain asked - that too nicely. And he warned me you'd say that. In fact, his exact words were - 'I bet that stubborn woman will still be sitting there and will tell you to leave. Stay with her. Please'"
Miffed at both her smug tone, and Zain calling me stubborn, I tried to argue back, but she was having none of it. Instead, she made me move over to the passenger side and slid into the driver's seat herself.
"Aren't you going to go find him?" I asked when she shut the car door.
"No."
"But he's been missing for half an hour."
She looked at her wristwatch. "It's been twenty-one minutes to be exact. Besides, he is not missing. He's just following up on a lead for an investigation we are doing."
There were so many questions going through my mind; what investigation? Who did Zain see? Why did he call Fiza? How did he know I wouldn't leave?
Yet, none were as important as this - what if something were to happen to him?
I understood the nature of his work. With Fiza scanning our surroundings and her gaze repeatedly going towards that strip of shady-looking shops across the beach, I could even guess the general area where Zain was. What puzzled me was her remarkable calmness about it all.
"How can you just sit there when your colleague's life is in danger?"
She stuck a chewing gum in her mouth and chuckled. "Oh I can sit quite comfortably, because 1. I know my colleague is very capable of taking care of himself, and 2. I don't have a massive crush on him."
"Neither do -" Denial was about to tumble out when one glance at the detective told me it would be fruitless. She was savvy enough to make out the reason behind my constant fidgeting and sweaty palms.
I was scared, and it showed. Not that fear had ever held me back.
"If he doesn't come back in 5 minutes I am going to go find him," I declared much to her annoyance.
"You will do no such thing," she frowned.
"You're not the boss of me," I snapped back.
She must have noticed the determination on my face because her voice softened. "Okay look, don't worry. He has his phone on so I can hear him," she clarified, pointing towards an earpiece concealed by her hair that I hadn't noticed before.
"He's not going to do anything that will expose him. He saw someone that we've been keeping an eye on and decided to follow him into the auto shop to see who the guy meets and if he can overhear some useful information. That's all."
Admittedly, that new information let me breathe just a tad bit easier. Still, I had more questions. "What if they catch him?"
"Then he'll say the code word and I'll go help him."
"Help how?"
"I can use both a firearm and do hand-to-hand combat. So let your imagination run wild."
Wow. I couldn't help but feel overwhelming respect for the woman sitting next to me. Beautiful, smart as a whip, and a total badass. "You're a pretty cool person," I admitted.
She glanced at me and smiled. "From what Zain tells me, you are too."
Despite the fangirling moment, something she said had caught my attention. "Zain talks about me?"
"The man doesn't shut up about you," she replied.
Perched in a car surrounded by a lively crowd, with a super cool woman by my side, while we staked out an auto shop - definitely not the expected setting for a wide grin or fluttering heart. Yet, there they were.
The grumpy man, who feigned disdain for me, couldn't seem to stop chatting about yours truly. Now, wasn't that a piece of news worth raising a toast to?
I could feel Fiza's eyes fixated on me, and braced myself for her usual teasing. That's why her solemn demeanor took me aback.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I am just puzzled by something," she shrugged. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I trust Zain with my life and more, and I know all that he has done to redeem himself, but..."
"But what?"
Her hesitation soon made sense.
"I've read all of the police reports on Zain. IG Junaid had me compile them and hand them over to the Rangers when his application was being considered by them. I just didn't think that someone who was mentioned in those reports would now have feelings for him." She paused and I recognized the genuine concern in her voice when she added, "Especially a smart, accomplished woman like you."
The smile on my face faded. The fluttering ceased, turning into the slow grinding of a heart forced to confront an ugly past. A woman like me was not supposed to fall for a man who had held her hostage, however briefly, while he threatened her friend. With all the pain I had witnessed Zain inflict on people that I had cared about, how could I have let myself see him as anything other than the villain of our stories.
Though, I suppose if the mind works in mysterious ways, the heart has no shortage of enigmas of its own.
Maybe it was the anguish reflected in his eyes when he sat alone on the cold hard floor of a prison cell, or perhaps it was a vivid memory from the shadows of his past. Whatever it was, every ounce of feminism escaped me when I tried to reconcile his past with my future.
"I don't have a good answer for you," I told her honestly.
Sympathetically, she nodded. "I get it. The man's broodiness can be charming."
Though, that was too easy of an answer. It wasn't his backstory or his mystifying aura that had me nervously tapping my foot at the thought of his life being at risk. Fiza would never know this, but it was what he had done in a split second of clarity while being consumed with rage that made my present so murky.
It would have been so much easier if Zain had been the black and white kind of villain. Instead, he was every shade of grey imaginable.
Despite Fiza not being aware of the entire story, she had noticed a discrepancy within it. After all, she was a damn good detective. "How come you weren't able to identify who shot Osman?" she asked.
"My vision was blocked by someone."
"Who? I saw the marked pictures that Detective Iqbal* took of the locker room you were in. You were supposed to be standing right in-between Zain and the armed guard who shot Osman. But you still couldn't identify the guard as the shooter?"
I had hated Zain with a vengeance on that day, and for many of the following months. Nothing he could have said or done would have made up for the terror I felt at watching my friend on the ground with a pool of blood collecting beside him. Could anyone then fault me for leaving out a detail when Detective Iqbal interviewed me?
Yet, all that was quickly forgotten when Fiza suddenly tensed up. Her gaze snapped back to the auto shop. One hand hovered near the car door, while the other subtly rested on a holstered gun concealed beneath her shirt.
"What's happening?" I asked.
She shushed me, but didn't look away from the shop or move a muscle.
Thirty-long-seconds later I couldn't contain myself any longer. "Fiza, just go help him."
"He hasn't asked for help yet," she insisted while texting a message on her phone.
"Fiza," I gasped when a flurry of caught my attention in front of the auto shop's now shuttered front entrance. Four burly men armed with AR-15s had just shown up in a pick up truck.
"Oh crap," she muttered and was out of the car in a flash, but not before cautioning me to stay put.
Of course, I didn't listen.
"Get back in the car, Ameerah," she whispered as we both crouched behind a car.
"And miss out on a rescue mission? No way."
"This is not the time to joke around," she scowled.
"I am not joking at all." How could I when he was inside and the woman who was supposed to be aiding him seemed to have no plan at all on what to do next.
Exasperated at the inaction I had to ask, "What are you waiting for?"
"He is trying to talk his way out of it. If I go in there they'll recognize me. And two cops in one shop? There is no way to play that off as coincidence. With guns already drawn, things could get dangerous."
I would have questioned why she was afraid of danger or guns as a policewoman, or hesitated to confront potential criminals in the auto shop, but I already knew the answer when I noticed where she was looking. There was a group of clueless kids playing tag just outside the shop while their mothers stood chatting nearby.
Shooting near innocent bystanders did not come without serious risks, and this beachside venue was teeming with them.
Wait. Innocent bystanders? Something came to mind.
No one would recognize me.
"I have a plan," I whispered to her. Before she could stop me I scurried off towards the auto shop.
I would just be a woman there - a damsel in distress - an innocent bystander, who knew nothing about changing the tire of her rickety old car.
Zain
Fiza and I were colleagues for sure, but more than that she was the person whose intuition I was willing to blindly trust, always. Call it friendship or a working relationship extraordinaire, if she thought Haseeb wasn't as innocent as he claimed to be, I was going to believe her even when no one else did.
What I had seen in front of me as I discreetly followed the man was proof enough that she was right. Hidden behind a stack of crates in a deserted garage at the rear of the auto shop, I managed to capture their conversation on tape and snap sufficient photos of Haseeb and his men as they stuffed the tires of secondhand cars with packets of white powder.
It didn't take much to guess what that white powder was, or why the mission we were on a few weeks ago to take down a drug cartel ended up being nothing but a wild goose chase across the province. Though, that's where my adventure ended and the dangers of trying to go undercover started.
Haseeb caught me just as I was about to sneak out of the shop. "Zain?" he frowned. "What are you doing here?"
"Oh Haseeb. Fancy seeing you here man." I replied with my best impression of the friendly colleague we always pretended to be.
His expression lightened, but eyes never left me. "That doesn't answer my question."
"Alright, I'll answer your question. My car's AC is not working. I just wanted to see how much it would cost to fix it."
If he was suspicious of my answer he didn't make it obvious. Instead, his usual smile was back. "Ah, no worries. I'll have one of my men take a look. We'll even give you a discount on repairing it."
"Your men? You own this place?"
"Being a Ranger hardly pays you know. This is just a side gig." He put an arm around my shoulders, like an old pal. "Why don't I take you back and show you the whole place. I think you'll be impressed by our operation."
A man seemed to appear out of nowhere and pulled down the shutter at the front of the shop. I instantly realized what the silent exchange of nods between the two men meant.
Haseeb had seen right through my lies.
With his façade of friendliness evaporated, Haseeb shoved me back into the empty garage. "So what are you really doing here?" he scowled.
"I can ask you the same thing," I replied calmly, knowing that Fiza was listening in with Ameerah within earshot. Saying the code word asking for help wasn't an option at all, not when any resulting action could harm her.
"Answer Sir's question before I slit your throat," one of the workers threatened with the glistening blade of his knife merely inches away from me.
A noise at the front of the store distracted the men long enough that I lunged at the one carrying the knife. I would have overpowered him too had it not been for a burly man whose AR-15 rested against my temple.
Shit. Three more just like him had entered the garage.
"Yeh tou Asif Ghazanfar ka beta hai," the man with an AR-15 slinging from his arm smirked at me. "Aaj tou boss ki Eid ho jayegi." (This is Asif Ghazanfar's son. It will be Eid for boss today)
When Haseeb shot back at that man, "Apne boss ko bolo apne kaam se kaam rakhe," it was obvious to me that I had walked into a meeting of two rival gangs. Which made me wonder if Bashir's killing might be related to this rival gang and their 'boss'. (Tell you boss to mind his own business)
Though, what did any of that have to do with my father?
The two men exchanged more heated words while the man with the knife pushed me onto a chair. I was sure he had every intention of tying me to it, when we were distracted again.
This time by a loud, shrill, very familiar voice.
"Yoohoo. Koi hai?" she called out from the front. (Anyone there?)
Guns and knives were put away in a haste. My throat went dry while the others threw around questioning glances and I cursed Fiza. She had one job - to keep the crazy woman away from this mess, and she'd failed.
"Who the hell is that?" Haseeb asked.
"How am I supposed to know?" one of his men answered.
"Well then go check."
No one needed to move though. The crazy woman had already barged into the empty garage leaving its door wide open exposing its occupants to the street outside. With a frown on her face and her eyes narrowed, she launched into a tirade without even once glancing at me.
"Kitni poor service hai aap ki. Shame on you. I've been waiting outside for so long. No wonder this country is where it is. No work ethics, no manners, leiken baatein jitni marzi karwa lo." (What poor service you have.)(You can make people talk however much you want)
"Oh bibi, we are closed. Andhi hain kya?" someone replied. (Are you blind?)
"Andhe hon ge aap," she shot back at him. "And how can the shop be closed so early? I just need help with a flat tire." (You must be blind)
"We're not..." one of the men with an AR15 started to say when she harshly interrupted him.
"Mujhe ghoorna band karo. Maan, behan nahi hain ghar pe kya?" (Stop staring at me. Don't you have a mother or sister at home?)
I was ready to charge the man when his finger came to rest on the trigger, but stopped when she suddenly pointed at me. "You," her eyes finally locked on mine. "You look like you have some tameez. Get your tools and come fix my tire."
Haseeb started to move just as I did, but the man with the AR-15 held up his hand. "Let him go with her," he said.
Had I dwelled on the abrupt shift in his demeanor, I might have deemed it suspicious. However, my singular focus at the time was on getting Ameerah away from the perilous situation she was in. So I grabbed the opportunity and made my escape, trailing behind a woman who I was convinced would one day give me a heart attack.
Ameerah
"I told you to keep her safe, Fiza," Zain glared at her, completely ignoring me in the back seat as the three of us sat in the car parked on a desolate street, far away from the beach.
"Seriously? You're blaming me? Your woman is insane - how about you yell at her," Fiza crossed her arms over her chest.
"I am not insane..." Offended, I tried to intervene, ignoring what she had just called me like Zain had, but the two kept bickering with each other in the front seat.
"I was handling the situation, I didn't even say the code word."
"That's what I kept telling her, she ran anyway."
"You should have run after her."
"You think I didn't try?"
"Hellooo, I am right here, you know." Finally, the two of them looked towards me. "What does it matter now anyway? We're all safe. That's a good thing," I reminded them.
Fiza huffed and turned away, mumbling to Zain, "You handle her."
He simply sighed, "No one can handle her," and started driving again.
While I sulked at the back, like a child forced to confront the gravity of her actions. Yet, in that quiet contemplation, I was also forced to acknowledge a truth: I would repeat those actions without hesitation. Entering that shop wasn't a mere impulse; it was a deliberate choice I had made. One that I would make again for the man who was ready to pounce on an armed thug to protect me.
Just like he had protected me - even if on impulse - the last time we were in the presence of an armed man and Osman in a hospital locker room.
*******
There will be more on what Zain did on that infamous day when Osman was shot in the next chapter, and by no means will that be the only reason that Ameerah gives in to her feelings for him but it is a small piece of the story.
Haseeb is definitely the mole, but Asif Ghazanfar makes an entrance too - maybe?
Also, thank you so much for all your comments and encouragement so far ❤ It means the world to me! Honestly!
Hope you liked this shorter chapter. Please vote and comment!
* Detective Iqbal was the detective working with Junaid and Kiran in PoP and assigned to Nausheen's case later. I'll put together a chapter on them sometime.
P.s. some of you asked about Maham and Zain's story. I republished PoP, so if you want to read about them, read the first 16 chapters. The locker room scene mentioned here can be found in chapter 18 of PoP. Caution: you will hate Zain in that scene.