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Zain attended the same university to complete his master’s degree. The young Pakistani had discovered that for some reason he had an affinity for numbers and accounting concepts. He enjoyed his time in the mellow city of Zurich with its hot coffee and beautiful landscapes. He also learned how to ski, which apparently was an essential skill if you resided in Switzerland. Zain’s new friends hit the slopes every weekend, and his girlfriend had talked him into learning how to snowboard, too. As with most things he tried, he became proficient at both of these. After years of feeling out of place, Zain finally felt he fit into his new life.
Each summer, however, he would return home to the cave, Switzerland’s antithesis. Attending school after living in a cave had felt like going to Disneyland. But once he had lived in a heated home with soft beds, and running hot water; had savored coffee at Babu’s Bakery, and enjoyed sex with a beautiful woman; returning to a cave, was like, well—like living in a cave. It was literally going back to the days of a cave dweller when daily activities, gathering—and in Zain’s mind enduring a semi-crappy lifestyle. Before, Zain hadn’t given his childhood cave upbringing much consideration. But after living in Zurich, then returning to the cave, he realized everything had changed. During the school year, he was surrounded by inquisitive and intelligent young adults confident in their opinions and possessing the courage to express them.
Most disturbing was that during those long, hot, summer breaks from college, the thing he hated most was not the cave itself, the bad food, or the dirt. The thing he hated most about going home was seeing how drastically his brother had changed.
Naveed was neither the happy young man nor the carefree little brother Zain recalled. Zain also perceived his brother to be dirtier than he remembered. Like many of Farwan’s soldiers who lived around the cave complex and followed their father out on missions, Naveed had become hardened. Once cheerful, Naveed used to have a smile that readily sprang to his face, but that smile now only appeared begrudgingly. It was almost as if his brother was an inactive volcano. All joy was suppressed beneath anger—dangerously pressurized—and might only bubble to the surface once he erupted.
Zain could also see his younger brother’s new adult life revolved around weapons. Indeed, the range of activities to do around the cave was very limited. During those long hot summers, on break from college, Naveed always seemed to have a weapon of some type in his hands. He was either cleaning a gun, sharpening a knife, or loading piles of spare magazines with ammunition.
At first, Zain couldn’t connect the dots, but it hadn’t taken long for Zain to come to understand why guns had become such a big part of Naveed’s life. On his first summer back from college, his father had taken Zain out on his first mission. But this was not his brother Naveed’s first rodeo, so to speak. Their father had, by this time, brought Naveed out on dozens of jihads—some to kill Americans and other times to kill their Muslim Shia enemies.
Like the first missions Naveed had participated in, Zain was stunned by the degree and level of violence present on his first mission. His first taste of human blood occurred in the Pakistani city of Quetta.
The predetermined target was the dormitory of the police cadet building. Farwan instructed his eldest son to stay back to guard their rear. Zain watched as their father and Asfand killed two guards stationed at the front gate. Two quick and vicious shots caused them to fall like rag dolls. Then the militants moved quickly to the hostel where 700 cadets slept.
His father, his men, and his younger brother Naveed entered the building. Once inside, they indiscriminately shot the cadets. Posted as a guard outside, Zain didn’t hear the anguished screams and moans of those dying. All he heard was the unending report of AK-47s doing what they did best—kill.
The reason for this particular attack was that for years, the Pakistani army had carried out operations to track down Farwan and his terrorist sect, and lo and behold, they finally found him. To mitigate this threat, Farwan stood in front of tomorrow’s new officers and mowed the cadets down before they had the opportunity to graduate. Farwan and his men needed to kill most of the Pakistani military. If they could accomplish that, they could create a new government instilling their own harsh brand of Islamic law.
At 11:30 p.m. the attack began. By 3:30 A.M., the TTP was still going strong, albeit ammunition was running low. If they intended to make a clean escape, the element of time for the jihadis was also running out. More men from the Pakistani military had been called in from surrounding areas, and the new arrivals were beginning to secure the perimeter around the training camp.
The area where the militants had entered through the fence was unguarded, so Farwan and his remaining men slipped through the fence a second time, disappearing into the night.
Zain had fired his weapon. He had pointed his rifle at flashes on the other side of the wire and had pulled the trigger. Every third bullet he fired was a tracer round that zipped out into the darkness, landing only Allah knew where. He didn’t know if he had hit anything, but he knew his brother had. How could Naveed have missed? He’d stood mere feet away from young cadets who were still in bed. It was a turkey shoot.
Hidden on a dirt road a kilometer from the cadet school, the militants had huddled in a tight group behind their truck. Sitting on a bench inside the truck’s cargo compartment, illuminated only by the dim light being thrown down from a single bulb, Zain noticed that his brother was covered in droplets of blood. Naveed’s face and clothing gave him the appearance of a ghastly red leopard. Those he had shot had been very close to his rifle’s muzzle.
Their father smiled triumphantly, patting Naveed on the shoulder, telling him how brave he was. Naveed was a stone statue. He returned nothing. No smile or any real emotions were displayed. He said nothing. It was like another day at the office to the twenty-year-old. Just another day spending quality time with his father.
Zain thought this lifestyle bordered on insanity, but this was the family business. His younger brother had accepted it. Did Naveed enjoy it? Zain had never asked him, but what was there to like? And it wasn’t like Naveed had alternatives. Naveed couldn’t run away from it. Run away to where? Do what? The family business was all he knew.
The killing did get easier for Zain as each summer passed. Each horrifying operation was reported by the worlds’ most esteemed newspapers. Practice didn’t necessarily make perfect, but killing and watching others die became tolerable. Watching humans pulverized by bullets was almost as easy as watching the violence play out in a movie in Switzerland with his blonde girlfriend.
He never told his girlfriend what his family did for a living. Zain surmised that it would not go over well as dinner table conversation with her family.
“Zain, tell us what you father does for a living?”
“I’m so glad you asked...”
None of the people in Switzerland had ever had their religious practice put in jeopardy. They had never been persecuted for their beliefs for as long as they could remember, unlike many of his people.
What nagged at Zain was the fact that he could walk around Zurich and see for himself that the Muslim community had a beautiful mosque. Hundreds of Muslims were free to come and go to pray and worship and enjoy all the freedoms that accompanied the religion. As far as he could tell, the congregation was not being persecuted. The Swiss appeared very tolerant of other religions, but what surprised Zain even more was that Sunnis and Shias prayed in the same mosque together—side by side. Mats touched mats. He was certain that his father would stab any Shia who dared pray next to him.
Zain had never taken the opportunity to discuss these inconsistencies with his father. No way. Things were going well for Zain. Money, from some unknown source, paid for his education, and he no longer lived in a cave.
A new bank had been built in Peshawar and needed a president, and Farwan had told his son the job was his upon graduation. No need to rock a boat that was sailing along very smoothly.
If the president of the bank didn’t have to live in a cave, and wasn’t required to make midnight death visits to infidels, Zain looked forward to accepting the job.