 Going home
On Thursday, September 3, just as we thought we were
about to leave our little adventures behind us, we were detained as suspected terrorists.
We were literally inches from entering the timeless, nationless transition zone of
international air travel, at the x-ray machines in the Karachi airport, the final
checkpoint between unpredictable Pakistan and the sterile security of the airplane gate.
We laid the groundwork for this final booby trap in
Peshawar. We bought too many carpets. Jim bought a cheap bag to hold them but the
weight put us way over the baggage limit. On the short flight from Peshawar to Karachi, we
were hit with a severe excess baggage fee, so we sat in the Karachi airport rearranging
our things. I had a big gray SportsSac bag folded away, which we took out now for an
additional carry-on. J stuffed it with the heaviest items from his suitcase and carpet
bag. We were all set.
The flight was delayed for a couple of hours so we
were already deep into our travel torpor by the time we meandered toward the gate about 2
P.M. My bag slipped through on the x-ray conveyor belt without a problem and a female
security guard gave me a quick pat-down. I was about to move on when I was summoned back
with gestures that security wanted to look at my bag. They were opening J's bags too. To
our shock, the security guard held up the damn Darra pen pistol.
"What is this?" he demanded.
"I forgot all about that," J mumbled.
The world stopped. Security agents descended on us
from all directions. What a pain in the ass, I thought. I hope they confiscate the damn
thing so we don't have to go through this at every fucking transfer all the way home. But
they had more than confiscation in mind.
First, they tore apart the rest of our hand luggage
looking for ammo. I watched the security guard check the battery compartment and controls
of my micro-cassette recorder and flashlights. I kept focusing on his hand —
something wrong about it, very wrong, but I couldn't grasp what it was. When I looked at
his ID badge, a line for "distinguishing features" said Two Thumbs. It was the
kind of surreal observation that makes me think I'm dreaming, but no… I got led to
the "ladies searching station" for a more thorough pat-down.
J was shoved up against the wall. He had a panicked
moment when he thought he was about to be shot, but they only took a Polaroid of him.
They kept asking us questions. The 2-thumb man would
record our answers in Urdu script on his incident report then laboriously rewrite it in
Roman letters.
My dreamy irritation turned to alarm when the
2-thumb man barked an order to have our luggage removed from the plane. Our tickets,
baggage claim checks, and passports disappeared into the crowd of officials. It struck
home: the flight to Bangkok was going to leave without us.
With armed guards at our sides, we began our march
to the Airport Security office.
I wrote earlier that, on our trip to the gun-factory
town of Darra, I recorded the sounds of the AK-47 testing and my attempt at a conversation
with one of our entourage of locals. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang…
"Is that a Russian AK-47?" I'd asked, like a regular arms smuggler.
"Yasss, a Rrrr-ussian AK-47," the man confirmed. So as we were being escorted
back into the main building, my tampered-with tape recorder started playing — loudly:
"BANG BANG BANG BANG IS THAT A RUSSIAN AK-47? BANG BANG BANG YASS A RRRRRUSSIAN AK-47
BANG BANG BANG." J whipped around at me in horror as I slapped at the damn thing to
make it turn off. Now we were really in trouble.
In the Airport Security Office we were separated. J
was taken away and I got seated in a crowded anteroom and handed a clipboard with a form
to fill out. The purple-dittoed form was labeled Preliminary Investigation of Suspected
Terrorists. My imagination unhinged. We would be in Pakistan for years to come. I would
call the Embassy but they would refuse to help. What could they do? We were guilty, caught
red-handed. I knew nothing about bribery and we were out of dough. What would my mother
say when I called her to send cash to bribe our way out of jail?
I was interrogated by two officials. One of them
pointed to the Vice President title on my form and asked, "Don't you know
international law?" I didn't have an answer, didn't know what I should say.
"Don't you know it's illegal to carry firearms aboard an aircraft?"
"Yes," I admitted. "But it was just a
stupid mistake."
 They went on with their stern questions about knowing right from
wrong. I tried to keep smiling at them… be open, be genuine, make them see how
perfectly innocent I am and what a mistake it would be to punish me or my husband even
though I'm furious with him for buying that damn "souvenir." They shook
their heads, took my signed form, and left me to contemplate our fate.
Once the terrorism inquiry starts, we were later
told, the routine usually winds up with the suspects being carted off to the police
station. Just that morning, a foreigner was found to have three bullets in his suitcase.
He was now in jail.
 While
I signed my papers — essentially a confession of stupidity, J was also
trying to be pleasant as he fast-talked his way to freedom — making the most of his
medical degree and invoking the name of a former colleague who was now Dean at a Karachi
medical school. The officials who sat around the table played with the pen pistol, asked
him more questions, and finally said they'd let him go if he signed his confession. A
risk, I think, signing a confession. How many docu-dramas are there about Americans
imprisoned in countries with mysterious detention laws, where U.S. lawyers are trying to
secure a release and the local bureaucrats are waving the confession in their faces?
But there we were, signing away. I can't say that
either of us recognized the gamble we were taking. It certainly didn't occur to us not to
sign anything till we'd contacted our pal at the Embassy. Maybe we were just anxious to
get it over with, maybe we were numb with adventure exhaustion, maybe we had grown to
trust our personal experience with Pakistani generosity. But we signed. And they released
us.
The 2-thumb man gave us our papers, led us to our
luggage, and commandeered a porter to help us. "You are a very lucky man," he
said to J and apologized for "only doing his job." And we told him how much we,
as airline travelers, appreciated that.
We were okay. The porter got us to the PIA office,
where they cancelled our exit stamps, rebooked our flight for the next day, and (much to
our surprise) gave us a voucher for a room and three meals. Our emotions were a jumble:
anxiety and relief finally made us giddy by the time we hit our hotel.
Luckily, we'd scheduled our flight from Bangkok with
a day's delay (we'd originally planned a brief shopping spree there), so we made our
flight in the nick of time. Our luggage got sidetracked somehow, but in Tokyo we received
a telex reassuring us that Northwest Airlines was routing it home for us, not to worry.
Home: we arrived on the quiet Labor Day weekend.
Everything was so clean and orderly. I remember the taxi ride from the airport and looking
around at the well-paved highway and the mown grass, so green, everything so easily tamed
and contoured to our convenience.
Our own bed awaited us — no reservations
needed.
THE END |