Her body was mounted in the corner of an open jeep, secured tightly with harness ropes as the vehicle treaded across rough desert terrain for what she estimated was two hours south of the city. The armed surrounding her appeared fearless though she could not be sure in the pitch black night penetrated only by the occasional peering moonlight. Suddenly the driver stopped. They pulled her out to the ground, her hands and legs still bound behind her back. A soldier with a tall build and a full sleeve of tattoos scooted down to her level.
"Welcome Miss Malik", he said.
She twitched in disgust but he didn't seem to care. Ten minutes later she was untied and seated across from a table with the same man.
"Tell me about Amaan".
Her eyelids, heavy with fatigue, shot up as she stared at him in reply.
"You're safe here. We won't hurt you".
"Is that right?" she said in a foreign tongue that he seemed to understand.
"We know what he did to you. We know".
"No you don't. You don't know the first thing about him".
"But we know about you. He raped you, didn't he?"
This scoundrel and his humiliating line of questioning did not deserve answer she decided.
"He forced himself on..."
"He was my husband".
"Answer the question. Did he rape you?"
"No. We made love, together".
"But that's not what you are going to tell the press. You want to go home, don't you?"
"This is home".
"Are you sure? Because there are people hungry for your blood. You step out this door and I cannot guarantee your safety".
"I bet you can't guarantee it inside here either".
"I can if you cooperate".
"If not, you'll kill me?"
"I didn't say that. But someone else might".
"I don't respond to threats very well".
"You do now. We have your daughter".
"What?"
"You heard me. Now you either come with me when I am asking nicely or else".
"I don't have a daughter".
"Don't shit with me."
"I am serious. You are being played captain".
"Is he alive?"
"What? No!"
"Is Amaan alive?" he banged his fists on the table with force.
"Your people shot him down. I was there. For his death, his burial. Either he is dead or I am in hell because I can't be dreaming up this nightmare".
"You're gonna tell me who is doing this?"
"Why? So you can go kidnap my imaginary daughter again. Or figure out if I have any one else I treasure so you can go and kill them too?"
"You need me and you know it. They are after you. I admit, I don't know why but they will not rest until they have you dead. You just talk to me and I will make all of this go away".
"Okay there is one thing I need. But I have my conditions".
"No".
"Good day sir".
"I can get much tougher if I want Malik".
"But you won't. You need me".
"And you me. Talk Malik".
"One. I only talk to you".
"Done".
"Two. Only once a week. No exceptions".
"Done".
"Three. I need a doctor. Not from you guys but someone outside. Someone I can trust. Someone who won't betray my secrets to you".
"And yet you are going to entrust finding this doctor to me Malik?"
"Don't disappoint me captain".
"Now, how did you meet him?"
"Do you really want to spend your one question on our meet-cute story?"
"It's Sunday, I can take the risk Malik".
"He was a nice looking man. Dark hair, deep voice, big built, round glasses, the whole package. He knocked on my office door, wanting to work with me as a post-graduate student. I said no. He asked me out on a date. I said yes. We went to hotel. I told him my answer was still no on the PhD. He introduced me to his parents. We got married. He never got his PhD. Three years later he told me about his job. I'd known, or atleast known the hints but I pretended they didn't exist. I couldn't anymore. I promised I would support him. We moved here and I was pregnant. Everything was going so well until...they shot me".
"Who?"
"I don't know who. But he knew".
"Amaan did?"
"He wouldn't say. Told me I would be in danger. I wouldn't buy it. My baby was murdered. His child. Our child. And he just sat there with the blood on his hands, doing nothing. We were ripped apart. I exploded, said I was leaving him. That was all there was to it. He never got violent with me. He wasn't a coward. That night when you took him out, we were on a date. He was going to take me to a courthouse, get married on paper. But you sent him to the morgue instead. How is that for a love story?"
"Sure isn't a laughing matter".
"What? You aren't going to apologize? Cry patriotism and the sake of a greater good?"
"What happened to you was wrong Miss Malik".
"And yet you keep doing it. Again. Again. And again".
"Your husband was no saint".
"He was. To me, to many people, he was the only saviour they knew. The only one who would put food on their table, roof over their heads when your men were busy bombing our cities. Excuse me if I can't be a little sympathetic to your unjustified torture of civilians".
"He was not a civilian. He was a terrorist".
"Prove it".
"I don't have to. The evidence speaks for itself. Have you seen the amount of artillery we recovered from your marital home?"
"What makes you think I am not a terrorist?"
"You are one of us. You've always been. You were just trying to get him to come back. Like a good woman always does, changing her uncaring man. But he never changes, does he?"
"You are playing the wrong card captain. I accepted him for who he was".
"So you were complicit".
"I was wilfully in the dark".
"Wilfully ignorant".
"Cautiously attentive".
"Complicit".
"..."
"How much do you know Malik?"
"Enough".
"Do you know how many people he killed?"
"None. And you know that".
"But he made the guns that have taken innocent lives".
"He did that to survive. We all do. He didn't start this by choice. He was a teacher once but you flattened all the schools. Factories, families, jobs, all tossed up and lost somewhere in the piles of debris left behind in our land of purity. How was he supposed to feed himself? His people? He started making the only thing that you people seemed to care about. Guns and bullets. He manufactured the very things that destroyed our nation not because he wanted to die but because he wanted to live. More than anyone I have known, he wanted to survive. He wanted a life for the children who are cooped up in bunkers because they are afraid of the world that you created for them. It's on you. Not him, YOU".
"You're brainwashed".
"Is that what you call dissenters nowadays?"
"We're done here Malik".
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