Where On Earth Is Mr D?

Where On Earth Is Mr D?

Surprisingly last week I got another call from the South Block. It was my old friend “J”. He was profusely apologetic about our last encounter.  The conversation went along different lines this time: 

J :  How are you Potnis old chap? I am damn sorry we couldn’t fit you in on the Beijing trip. 

Me :  (Recognizing his voice) Ah! So it is you again J? Huh?  Glad to note that you got my name right this time. So where do you want to send me now? (I was still upset at missing out on the all-expense-paid-trip to China)  

J : Sorry Old chap (I don’t know why these secret service types still insist on  addressing each other as “old chap”). Now that the PM is back we won’t be sending any more delegations. 

Me : You mean the PM has exhausted all the countries of the world? 

J : Well.... Not quite. Let me see.... I think he is yet to visit Burkina Faso and Central African Republic. I could pencil you in, if you are keen?

Me : Er.. thanks. But no thanks! (I shuddered at the thought of spending time swatting hordes of tse tse flies and fighting off other insects waiting eagerly to sink their mandibles into me. A bite or two is not an issue but I surely object to these creatures injecting some deadly freshly discovered alpha-numeric virus which has recently jumped over from animal kingdom to humans). 

Me : So what’s new? (trying my to best to divert the spymaster’s attention to something other than serving me as a feast to all those hungry insects).  

J : Well if you must ask. (J seemed to be in an expansive mood). I am working on getting D back!!!

I could picture him in my mind’s eye, sitting in some darkened room in a nameless and faceless building, hunched over his SatPhone twirling dials and instructing his “assets”,  Abdul from Abbottabad, Karim from Kabul and Shabbir from Sharm-el-Sheikh, about how to trace the elusive villain. I could just discern  other details in the sepulchral room, his cloak neatly draped over the back of his chair, a couple of daggers placed carelessly on his desk, the curved one for slitting throats and the stiletto for plunging into the backs of unsuspecting victims.  I had to drag myself away from that fascinating scene.

Me : So where IS D? 

J : Till recently we were secure in the knowledge that he is in Pakistan. 

Me : Isn’t he? I mean, everyone from President of Pakistan to a minor bureaucrat in Islamabad and from ISI top brass to the constables on beat in Karachi is confidently saying that he is not in Pakistan, so it stands to reason that he must be in Pakistan. 

J : Tsk, tsk. How naïve can one get?  Everyone from President of Pakistan to a minor bureaucrat in Islamabad and from ISI top brass to the constables on beat in Karachi knows that we Indians don’t believe one word of what they say, so sometimes they just tell us the truth and hope that we go the other way.  

Me : A sort of double bluff you mean? 

J : Precisely. But we are not that RAW you know! We can see through these subterfuges. (I could picture the satisfied smug look on J’s visage.) 

My admiration of J and his team of nameless and faceless operatives went up by a couple of notches. 

 

Me : So how do you tackle that? 

J : Simple! We made one of our junior ministers make a statement that D is not in Pakistan. 

Me : So? What difference does it make? 

J : Ha! Got you there didn’t we? Now Pakistan has to take a diametrically opposite stand, and declare that D is indeed in Pakistan!!

Me : But then our Home Minister made another statement stating that D IS in Pakistan. Doesn’t that make our position ambiguous?

J : (laughing) That’s the master stroke. By making these two statements we have put Pakistan in a zugzwang. Now they have to make a statement contradicting both our statements, which are themselves contradictory to each other. Now let us see how they get out of this. 

Frankly this was getting too much Machiavellian for me. My head had started spinning. So I went straight to the point. 

Me : So do you know where D is at the moment? 

J : Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we don’t. Only Seymour Hersh knows where he is. 

Me : Aha! Has it occurred to you that you could ask him? Problem solved. QED.

J : Well... he won’t tell us. Not until we actually nab Mr D. 

LazyBee aka Shirish Potnis

 25th May 2015

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