Apparently, an intelligence officer at Op-Center found a possible link between that location and the bazaar bombing.
Op-Center did not tell Hank Lewis or their Black Cat liaisons why they thought the farm might be significant or what they believed that significance to be. All they said was that the situation in the bazaar was 'atypical' and that the terrorists had to be taken alive. To Friday that translated as, 'We aren't sure the terrorists did this and we need to talk to them.'
The pair flew to the farm in a fast, highly maneuverable Kamov Ka-25 helicopter. Captain Nazir was at the controls.
The compact sky-blue chopper was one of more than two dozen Ka-25s India bought from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed and the military began cutting costs. Friday was not surprised to be riding in a military bird. A black National Security Guard chopper would stand out. But the skies here were full of Indian military traffic.
Ironically, taking an air force craft was the best way to be invisible on Pakistani radar.
The men flew north at approximately two hundred feet, following the increasingly jagged and sloping terrain.
Though their unusually low passage caused some agitation among sheep and horses, and curses from their owners, Nazir explained over the headset that it was necessary. The air currents here were difficult to manage, especially early in the morning. As the sun rose the lower layers of air became heated. They mixed violently with the icy air flowing down from the mountains and created a particularly hazardous navigation zone between five hundred and two thousand feet up.
It troubled Friday that a single Pakistani operative with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher could take out the Ka-25 with no problem. He hoped that whatever information Op Center had received was not what the intelligence community called a
'TM,' a 'tactical mislead,' a lie precipitated by the desire to slow down pursuit by smoking out and eliminating the pursuers.
The two men reached the farmhouse without incident. Before landing.
Captain Nazir had buzzed the small barn and then the wood-and-stone farmhouse. An old farmer came out to see what was happening. He seemed surprised as he shielded his eyes to look up at the chopper.
Nazir came in lower until he was just above the rooftop.
'What do you think?' Nazir asked.
'Is the farmer alone?'
'Most likely,' Friday replied. Hostages who had been kept a short while tended to be highly agitated, even panicked.
They wanted to get to someone who could protect them.
Even if there were other hostages at risk, including close family members, self-preservation was their first, irrepressible instinct.
Hostages who had been held a long while were usually just the opposite.
They had already bonded with their captors and were very standoffish, frequently antagonistic, The man below them was neither.
Nazir hovered a moment longer and then set down on a nearby field.
After the noisy forty-minute flight it was good to hear nothing but the wind. The cool breeze also felt good as they made their way to the farm. Nazir wore a 38 in a holster on his hip. Friday carried a derringer in the right pocket of his windbreaker and a switchblade in the left. The22 gun did not pack much punch but he could palm it if necessary and easily use it to blind an assailant.
The farmer waited for the men to arrive. Friday made Apu Kumar out to be about sixty-five. He was a small, slope shouldered man with slits for eyes. His features seemed to have a trace of Mongolian ancestry.
That was not uncommon along the Himalayas. Nomads from many Asian races had roamed this region for tens of thousands of years, making it one of the world's truest melting pots. One of the sad ironies of the conflict here was the fact that so many of the combatants had the same blood.
The men stopped a few feet from the farmer. The farmer's dark, suspicious eyes looked them up and down. Beyond the house was the barn. The chickens were still squawking from the fly over
'Good morning,' Nazir said.
The farmer nodded deeply, once.
'Are you Apu Kumar?' Nazir asked.
The farmer nodded again. This time the nod was a little less self-assured and his eyes shifted from Nazir to Friday.
'Does anyone else live here?' Nazir inquired.
'My granddaughter,' the farmer replied.
'Anyone else?'
Kumar shook his head.
'Is your granddaughter here now?' Nazir asked.
The farmer shook his head. He shifted a little now. His expression suggested fear for his safety but now his body language said he was also tense, anxious. He was hiding something. Possibly about his granddaughter.
'Where is she?' Nazir pressed.
