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The children were playing in the dining room which had been designated as a toy room. Zain was not big on having a separate space set aside just for dining. When he had lived in the cave, everyone sat on the dirt floor and ate where they sat. In Zain’s mansion, the children’s toy room was adjacent to the immense living room or his man cave. This arrangement provided him a nice vantage point to watch over his children. It was also close enough to interact with them but not close enough to become central to their activities.
Having recently returned from work, Zain sat in his big chair. He enjoyed watching his son, Kahn, interact with his daughter. Zain and his brother had played with whatever nature provided them. In contrast his son had Tinker toys, Lincoln Logs, Playmobiles and other age-appropriate toys. His housekeeper-nanny told him his kids needed the store-bought toys to further their cognitive development. In addition, they had hundreds of DVDs produced by companies such as Pixar and Disney. Zain imagined if someone had brought a battery-powered TV to his cave and he had watched those movies, it certainly would have blown his young mind.
The girl was pretending to cook something on a tiny stove, and his son, Khan, was sitting at a child-sized table being served plastic food by his doting sister.
The girl walked over from the stove and placed an egg on his plate.
“And if you are still hungry after that, I am cooking more eggs.” The girl spoke in heavily accented English. Zain’s children were home-schooled by a competent teacher from 8:00 in the morning to 3:00 in the afternoon; from 3:00 to 5:30 the housekeeper looked after the children until Zain came home. It wasn’t the original agreement he had made with the housekeeper. But she had a knack with children and they liked her. Thus, he had increased her salary. Zain was perfectly capable of caring for his children by himself when he returned home at 5:30 p.m.
“Those eggs were burnt,” Kahn told his sister. “Bring me a chicken instead.”
His sister rushed over and removed the plate with the improperly cooked egg. She rushed back over to her play kitchen and called out, “I’m cooking the chicken now.” She found a plastic chicken in the cabinet, put it in the wooden play oven and pressed a few buttons. A timer started and seconds later the oven beeped three times.
“Your chicken is done,” his sister reported.
Zain watched the kids play from his recliner, a newspaper in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
If he had been raised in the same manner as his children, he pondered how different his life may have turned out. The longer he considered the concept, the more he concluded that his life wouldn’t be much different. Maybe he wouldn’t have become a corrupt banker who helped fund terrorism, but he might have become a lawyer, but still corrupt to some degree. It was his younger brother’s life that would be altered radically. If his brother had the opportunity to be sitting where Kahn was now, the opportunities for him would be unlimited. Although Zain would never allow his son to go on missions with the TTP, he still felt the need to pass on the family legacy, if for no other reason, to justify his own participation. When it was time for Zain to retire, Kahn would take his place at the bank and the money and mayhem would continue.
The bank where Zain worked was called the Farid Bank of Pakistan. In Arabic, the word farid means unique or precious. Zain had named his bank. It was a new facility and had been created for the sole intent of laundering and dispersing funds to terrorist organizations.
His father had always needed to have a financial person on the inside to procure arms for his men and to move money around. After all, he had no access to ATM machines in his cave. Prior to his sons’ births, Farwan had selected the career paths they would pursue for the good of the family business. To get finances in place (as fast as possible), his first-born son would attend college to become the moneyman. Any son born following his firstborn would learn the business from the trenches, literally. In the end, Farwan had been blessed with two sons. Naveed would take over Farwan’s good works if something were to happen to him or when he was too old to continue going on missions. After all, this was not a fight that would be won within a single generation. This jihad would be fought over many generations. The division between the Sunnis and the Shias had been ongoing for 1,400 years and there was as yet no end in sight. Striving for a pure Muslim religion would require more deaths than one could count. More Muslims would die in addition to the infidels who dared interfere with the Sunni way of life. Farwan’s father had fought those who sullied the Muslim religion, as did his father and his father’s father before him. Farwan had resolved as a young man that his sons would also fight for the same cause. It was the family business, and it was not to be questioned. It was simply a fact assumed by both the Shias and the Sunnis.
To become successful and assist his father, Zain had to become an expert in the hawala system. This type of financial system found its roots in the 8th century between Arabic and Muslim traders along the Silk Road. In South Asia, hawala turned into a full-fledged money market instrument.
Briefly, hawala is the transfer of money in one currency to a series of hawala brokers who eventually return the money to the owner, minus their cut as the intermediaries. The unique part of how hawala works is the transactions take place entirely on the honor system.
A banker, a hawala connection, and plentiful amounts of ill-gotten money are gifts from heaven. Much of Zain’s informal education had been focused on what was legal and what was illegal. This was important information for a dishonest banker to know, especially if he wanted to stay out of jail and avoid popping up on the international radar. Understanding hawala was a tool that could be used to meet both goals, and Zain had become an expert.
A banker’s lifestyle suited Zain. His time spent during college had fundamentally changed him. Though he still accepted the life of a terrorist, he could no longer tolerate the lifestyle of a terrorist. Always on the run. Always hiding out in a cave or in a run-down dirty little town. Living in horrible conditions. That would have meant exposing his family to a life in squalid conditions. Zain just couldn’t do that anymore.
“That was good chicken,” he heard his son say. “What do you have for dessert?”
Dessert, Zain thought to himself. Yes, his children did have a very good life.