Burned

Yasser Shah puts down the high pressure hose and gestures to two men to get to work. A third man opens the doors and starts hoovering the interior. Soapy sponges squeak against the luxury car. The quartet works fast and efficiently. Mats are removed and hosed down. The boot is cleared of bark, grass and rubbish. Strips are wiped and soon the interior, steering wheel, dashboard, gears, sound system and windows all gleam. It takes them less than ten minutes.

And all for 150 kroner.

The car’s owner, a man in a grey suit with a matching tie, waits outside. At regular intervals, he peers inside to check on progress. Zaheerullah Hassan Mintroza sits in his glass booth, aware of the owner’s scepticism. It’s probably because we’re Pakistanis, he thinks. But we’re cheap, so the guy’s prepared to take a chance.

Wanker. If only you knew who is washing your car.

Hassan lets the quartet finish, then he presses a button which opens the door. The owner isn’t sure if he is expected to go inside. Hassan gets up, comes outside and gestures to the four men to finish off the car in daylight. Yasser Shah gets in and starts the car, which roars aggressively in the acoustically perfect space, and backs out. The others follow with chamois leathers.

Hassan goes over to the owner and accepts the cash.

‘Looks very good,’ the owner remarks. Hassan nods, counts the eight 20-kroner notes and omits to mention there is 10 kroner too much. Quite right, he thinks, since he got the express-while-u-wait service.

Shah gets out of the car and hands the owner the keys. The other three wipe off the remaining moisture on the Audi’s roof, doors and rims.

‘Thank you so much,’ the owner says and gets in. He drives off at a leisurely pace. Hassan looks at the others and signals that they should go back inside. They obey his command and step inside Hassan’s glass cage office. It is the size of a bedroom. There are three chairs and a television in the corner, Al-Jazeera with the sound off. There is a mug of coffee, a computer and piles of documents and newspapers on Hassan’s desk. An old nude picture of Nereida Gallardo Alvarez decorates the wall behind Hassan’s squeaking chair.

‘Close the door,’ Hassan orders Yasser Shah. Hassan presses a button. A red light goes on outside the car wash.

The others wait. Hassan looks at them. His hair is longish, shining with Brylcreem and combed back. He doesn’t have a ponytail, though his hair is long enough for one. He has strips of beard, carefully combed, around his mouth and on his cheeks. He wears a thick gold chain around his neck and earrings that match. He is wearing worn, stonewashed jeans and a white vest which stretches tightly across his stomach and chest. Hassan is thin, but not gangly. The muscles in his arms are noticeable. He has a tattoo of a green frog on one arm and a black scorpion on the other.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ he says, looking gravely at them in turn. ‘We’ve talked about this before, what to do should such a situation arise, and especially if this particular situation should arise.’

The others nod silently. Yasser Shah opens his mouth slightly. Hassan registers it.

‘Yasser — over to you now,’ he says firmly. Yasser’s about to speak, but Hassan interrupts him.

‘We need to send him a message. This is your chance to prove that you’re one of us, that you’re serious about being here.’

Shah looks down. He is short and of heavy build. There is a square of dense beard around his mouth, his skin is smooth, and he has sideburns. His nose is crooked from a fist fight in Gujrat in 1994. His lip was split in the same fight, and he has a scar on his upper lip, to the left. The stud in his left ear looks like a diamond.

‘Do you want to go to jail?’

Shah looks up again.

‘No,’ he mutters.

‘Do you want the rest of us to end up in jail?’

‘No.’

His voice is firmer this time.

‘This way of life demands that we sacrifice ourselves for each other,’ Hassan continues. ‘We can’t take risks.’

The others look at Hassan and then at Shah. Hassan waits a long time before opening a drawer and taking out a black box. He opens it, takes out a pistol and a silencer and gives both to Shah.

‘Nice and easy. No mistakes.’

Shah nods reluctantly.

‘As for the rest of you. As soon as this hits the headlines — make sure you’re near a CCTV camera and have plenty of witnesses who can vouch for you. The cops mightn’t call, but if they do, it’ll be to find out where you were.’

Everyone, apart from Yasser Shah, nods. He stares at the floor.

Chapter 19

Henning opens his laptop again and locates FireCracker 2.0 on the program menu. He hesitates for a few seconds before he double-clicks the icon of a miniature firecracker. Perhaps 6tiermes7 uses a different version now, a more recent one, new applications might have been added which require upgrades, but he clicks anyway. It’s worth a try.