The twenty-sixth-richest person on Earth! The guy was off his rocker. Mom always said it is better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you are an idiot than to open it and remove all doubt. But I pretended he was the cat's whiskers. 'Well, sock my jaw, that's pretty impressive!'
'What has fascinated me, Mr Page, is your Page Rank technology. How on earth did you get the idea to use an iterative algorithm which corresponds to the principal eigenvector of the normalized link matrix of the web to determine the ranking of an individual site?'
I didn't have a clue what he was blabbering about, but I said 'Yeah . . . Yeah,' and nodded my head a couple of times. 'Page Rank. Now that was a terrific idea, wasn't it? Third best thing to come along since sliced bread.'
The guy was persistent. 'What exactly was your tipping point, Mr Page?'
'You mean the point when it tipped over?'
'I mean the point when you and Sergey knew that you had a winner.'
'That was in April, I would say. Yeah. In April we knew we had a winner.'
That shut him up.
'Won't you introduce me to your friends?' I asked.
'Oh yes, sorry, Mr Page. This is Abu Khaled,' he said, referring to the turbaned guy. 'He's our emir, our leader, our zimmedar.'
'What about him?' I pointed to the pyjama dude.
'That is Abu Omar.'
'So are you guys brothers or what? All of you are called Abu.'
'We are brothers in arms, Mr Page,' he smiled. 'But we're not related to each other. In fact we don't even speak the same language. I'm from Pakistan, from Rawalpindi. Abu Khaled is from Egypt and Abu Omar is from Afghanistan. I speak Urdu, Abu Khaled speaks Arabic and Abu Omar speaks Pashto. So we talk to each other only in English.'
'Good for me. But what are you folks doing in Kashmir?'
'We are helping our friends like Bilal in their fight against the infidels. I am glad you sympathize with our point of view, Mr Page. It is wonderful to have the support of someone as influential as you.'
'Glad to be of assistance, but when do you think I can get back to Delhi? I got a plane to catch, you know – my private 767.' I winked.
'Soon, Mr Page, very soon. But first we need to take you to a safe place. You need to rest now because tomorrow we will go on a very long journey.'
We slept in a small room which was not half as cosy as the one in Bilal's house. What was worse, I had Abu Teknikal on my left and Abu Omar on my right for company. And they kept pestering me with questions half the night.
'You know what,' Teknikal told me. 'Ever since I was seven, it has been a dream of mine to visit America, abode of the internet and the Xbox 360. Home of the Blue Gene and the BigDog. I actually cried when I saw a picture of the Cray X-MP in my school. But your achievements dwarf even those of Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn. If the internet is heaven, then Google is God. Do you know what that makes you, Mr Page?'
'What?'
'The Godfather,' he said and grinned.
Abu Omar had other interests. 'So how many girls have you banged, Mr Page?' he asked me.
'Excuse me?'
'I mean how many girls have you had sex with? Abu Khaled tells us in America girls start having sex when they are only ten and eleven. Is that true?'
'I dunno. I'd need to ask my niece Sandy. She's ten and she's a girl.'
'I know it is forbidden in Islam, but I keep having these immoral thoughts. All because of this Indian actress.'
'And who would that be?'
'Her name is Shabnam Saxena. The bitch is so hot, I become crazy with desire.'
I felt like walloping the pervert, but restrained myself. 'Have you seen any of her movies?' I asked.
'I can't. Films are un-Islamic.'
'Good for you,' I murmured and laid a protective hand on my wallet, which contained a picture of Shabnam as well as her number.
'Don't tell the zimmedar,' Omar whispered, 'but I once saw an American film at a video parlour in Kabul. It was called Debbie Does Dallas. Have you seen it?'
'Never heard of it. Is it about the tourist places in Dallas? I hope it showed the ballpark in Arlington and the—'
'No, no, Mr Page, the film was full of naked women. Thank Mail-Order Bride 259 God the Taliban closed down that video parlour or else I would have gone blind.'
The guy was hornier than a two-peckered billy goat.
'They say in America you can get these kinds of films even at grocery shops. Is it true?' he continued.
'I dunno. I only buy milk and bread at Quik-Pak,' I said and turned my back on him.
Teknikal was waiting on the other side to pounce on me.'What is your view on anonymous peer-to-peer networks, Mr Page? PC Mag says that the proliferation of such networks increases the risk of a devastating attack on the networked information infrastructure. Do you agree?'
The guy had diarrhoea of words and constipation of thoughts.
'With due respect to Mr Mag, if brains were gasoline, he wouldn't have enough to run a piss ant's go-kart around the inside of a donut!' I said, and before he could figure that one out, I pulled the blanket over my head. 'If y'all excuse me, I'm now gonna get some shut-eye!'
I was sandwiched between two top-notch loonies. The rocks in Teknikal's head would fit the holes in Omar's. I don't remember when I finally fell asleep, dreaming of Shabnam in a valley full of snow.
The next day we left the house around nine a.m. A few minutes later I found myself in a street full of tumbled-down houses and charred temples.
'What the hell happened here?' I asked.
'We kicked out the Hindu Pandits from here,' grinned Teknikal.
These guys obviously knew the area pretty well. Like Bilal, they evaded all the sentry posts, and after an hour of hotfooting it across the city I found myself at a fruit-and-veg market.
They made me travel in a grain truck, hidden among sacks of wheat with a blue tarpaulin over my head. The truck took us to a Podunk town surrounded by mountains and dense forests.
We spent the night in a quaint little cottage, outside which a mad dog kept howling. Luckily, they put me in a room with Abu Khaled this time. He didn't speak a word to me, but I still couldn't sleep coz he kept getting up either to go to the toilet or to pray. The guy got up to pray even at four in the morning.
'Which prayer is this?' I asked him, rubbing my eyes.
'It is called Tahajjud. This prayer is not obligatory for Muslims. But the truly devout do not miss it.' He kneeled and touched his forehead to the ground.
I now knew how he got that dark mark on his forehead. It was from all this praying.
The next morning we took off in an open jeep which Teknikal had arranged from somewhere. From both sides, dense forests seemed to rush in like giant waves at our jeep. The clouds were so low, it felt as if I could reach out and touch them. Thankfully the wind wasn't blowing, otherwise even my warm phiran would have been as useless as a windshield wiper on a goat's ass.
The only trouble was the roads. They were so bad, even buzzards couldn't fly over them, and so crooked you could see your own tail light. Many a time the jeep narrowly avoided going into a pothole or over the edge, and I had to shut my eyes on the hairpin bends and just hang on for dear life.
We came across very little traffic, just the odd farmer tilling his land or a shepherd grazing his cattle. The jeep stopped abruptly near a mosque, and I was ordered by Khaled to get out. Teknikal said there was a big army camp just a short distance away and travelling by jeep would attract attention. So for the next couple of hours we made our way on foot up a steep mountain pathway, with Omar leading the way.
We finally neared a place called Trehgam. As we reached the top of a hill, Omar took me aside and pointed to the village in the distance. I saw a cluster of houses with corrugated-iron roofs. 'See that roof painted green on that single-storey house? That is the house of my zerrgay, my love. She lives there with her mother,' Omar said.
'Then why don't you go down and meet her? I'm sure she will be very happy to s
ee you.'
'Are you out of your mind? The army has its brigade headquarters in Trehgam and keeps a close watch on that house. The moment they see me I will be arrested. I am not afraid of capture, I am ready to die, but I don't want to be tortured.'
We didn't stay in Trehgam village. Khaled made us climb yet another mountain. I was about to faint from exhaustion when suddenly we reached a clearing.
Under a few chinar trees was a hideout. It was a slum hut, inside the ground instead of above it. A rectangular pit had been dug, six feet deep into the ground. Two tree trunks had been planted at two corners, supporting a corrugated sheet which served as the roof. The roof had been covered with branches, leaves and shrubs, so that to a visitor coming up the mountain the foxhole would look like a little bush. There was only one entrance and exit. I descended into the foxhole and discovered there were four men already inside it. They were all young and bearded. One was bent over what seemed like a wireless set, another was reading a book, and two were cooking something. The foxhole was well equipped with provisions, a gas stove and even a pressure cooker. The mud walls were lined with blankets on all sides. There were plenty of guns and rifles lying around, together with magazines and boxes of cartridges. I reckoned the foxhole had enough ammo to take the Fidelity Bank of Texas.
'Make yourself at home, Mr Page,' Teknikal told me. 'This is where you will be staying with us for a while.'
The space inside the hideout was barely big enough to sleep six people, and there were eight of us. I'd rather have jumped barefoot into a bucketful of porcupines than stayed in that dump. In two shakes of a goat's tail, I was out of that foxhole.
'I'm sorry, folks, but I don't think this is such a good idea.'
'But there is no other place to stay,' Teknikal protested.
'I'm fixin' to go over yonder to that village. I'm sure they'll have a hotel there.'
'But the army will catch you if you go to Trehgam.'
I looked Teknikal in the eye. 'Something doesn't seem right to me. I've been thinking, why would the Indian army be after me? I've done nothing wrong.'
There was a long pause.
'You're right.' Teknikal nodded his head. 'Actually the army is not after you. It's after us.'
'Why?'
'Oh, we've done a couple of things. Like blowing up the Srinagar bus station, a market in Delhi, a temple in Akshardham, the stock exchange in Mumbai. We escaped recently from Tihar Jail.'
'Well sock my jaw! You guys are terrorists! In that case, I want nothing to do with you folks. And here I was, thinking you were my friends.'
Abu Khaled, standing by my side, laid a hand on my shoulder. 'You moron, we're not your friends. We're your kidnappers.'
'Kidnappers?'
'Yes. You've been kidnapped.'
I laughed. 'You guys are jokers. That's about as funny as a fart in a church.'
'No, Mr Page. We're dead serious. You've been kidnapped. Now we are going to demand a ransom of three billion dollars for your release. We're going to get George Bush to vacate Iraq. We'll get him to force Israel to vacate Palestine. We'll force him to quit meddling in Somalia. We'll ask him to remove the un-Islamic regime in Saudi Arabia. We'll compel him to make reparations to—'
'Whoa, whoa, whoa, just hold your horses for a minute,' I interjected. It was time to set the record straight before these crazies started asking the President to send a man to the moon. 'You folks have got the wrong guy. I am not that Larry Page.'
'What?'
'Yeah. You heard right. I am not that Larry Page. I've got nothing to do with that Google guy. I ain't loaded. So if you were expecting me to eat spinach and shit greenbacks, you'd better think again.' I laughed.
That went down like a lead balloon.
'Come again,' said Teknikal.
'I said I am not rich. I was fooling you guys. If it took a nickle to go around the world, I couldn't cross the street.' I looked at Abu Khaled. 'You catch my drift?'
The big guy moved like greased lightning. Without any warning, he swung his fist at me. I didn't see the blow coming and caught it in the mouth. I staggered back against a tree and collapsed like a pole-axed lap-dancer. When I got up there was blood in my mouth and a ringing in my left ear. I touched my face and felt the cut on my lips burning under my fingers.
Abu Khaled was still glowering at me like a mean rattlesnake.
'Er . . . do you guys take Visa?' I asked hesitatingly.
Teknikal was plumb weak north of his ears, but he finally saw the light. 'So you really are not the Larry Page of Google fame? I had my doubts from the beginning. Who the fuck are you?'
'I am a forklift operator in Walmart.'
'A goddamn hi-lo driver! This guy probably makes less than four-fifty a week. And we thought he was a billionaire! Not only that, we even paid that crook Bilal a million rupees to bring him to us.' Teknikal started laughing like a hyena on helium.
Abu Khaled looked at him sternly. 'Abu Teknikal, behave yourself ! And make sure this infidel doesn't escape.'
I knew two things now. One, that Bilal was nothing but a lowdown, no-good varmint. And two, that I was up shit creek without a paddle.
My hands and feet were tied and I was dumped in a corner of the foxhole like an old sack of clothes. The youths looked at me curiously, then picked up their guns and went out of the hut. I heard them reciting some prayers and running around like they were in boot camp.
It was close to evening when Teknikal and Abu Khaled returned. Teknikal daubed the cut on my lip with some kind of ointment.
'So who exactly are you guys?' I asked them.
'I am Abu Al-Khaled Al-Hamza,' the big guy replied. 'I am number four in the hierarchy of Lashkar-e-Shahadat. The Army of Martyrdom. We are a part of Al Qaeda. Our commander is Abu Abdullah Osama bin Muhammad bin Ladin. You've heard of him, haven't you?'
'Yeah. Isn't he the guy who is supposed to have blown up those towers down in New York City?'
'Correct.'
'And wasn't the President going to smoke him out of some place called Kabool?'
'You mean Afghanistan. Quite right, except we're the ones who've won the war. Your countries are burning with terror and fear and panic, and we are still going strong. Abu Teknikal, tell this infidel how much reward his President has put on my head.'
'A full fifteen million dollars!' announced Teknikal.
Fifteen million my ass, I thought. If bullshit were music, this guy would have a brass band!
'So what do you guys do?'
'We are fighting for a revolution – the creation of an Islamic Caliphate, the Nizam-i-Islami,' Abu Khaled said. 'Our kingdom will be governed by Sharia law, based upon the Holy Koran and the Sunnah. We are responding to the calls of Allah and his Prophet for jihad in the cause of Allah.'
'And who exactly is Mr Allah?' Khaled hit me across my face. 'Don't ever talk about our God like that.'
I rubbed my cheek. 'So what do you folks want from me?'
'We need you to tell that evil Bush to convert all Americans to Islam. He should abolish your usurious banks. He must jail all those homosexual swine. He needs to stop women from degrading themselves by appearing in filthy magazines. He needs to preserve the environment. He needs to—'
'I get your drift, Mr Khaled. And I can tell you, I'll do my darndest to get the President to agree to your demands. But I can't do this sitting here in bumfuck Egypt.'
Khaled stepped forward and slapped me twice this time.
'What's that for?'
'One for interrupting me and the other for abusing my country.'
'But what will you folks do with me?'
'We'll still use you for ransom,' said Khaled. 'You may not be a billionaire, but you are still American. Teknikal, draft a press release for CNN. We will send it out tomorrow with a video. Let's teach Mr George Bush a lesson he won't forget.'
I turned to Teknikal. 'Listen, Teknikal. I'm of no use to you guys. The President won't listen to me. Why don't you let me go? I promise you, I won't tel
l a soul about you folks. It'll remain between you and me and the fencepost.'
'No. Now listen carefully, Mr Page.' He stared at me with eyes shining like light bulbs. 'We are the Army of Martyrdom. We are prepared to die. And we are also prepared to kill.' He traced his fingers over my neck. 'So don't entertain any thoughts of escaping.'
I knew at that moment that Teknikal was as dangerous as Abu Khaled. They were like two peas in a pod. Still I couldn't resist asking him, 'But I thought you liked America.'
'I do,' he answered. 'I just hate Americans.'
That shut me up.
By evening the hideout had become darker than a cow's belly and I was so hungry my belly button was getting awful acquainted with my backbone. One of the boys lit a lantern. In its yellow glow I had my first good look at the other occupants of the foxhole. The youths were named Altaf, Rashid, Sikandar and Munir. They were slim and lanky and aged between sixteen and twenty-two. Altaf told me he was from Naupura in Kashmir, while the other three were from Gujranwala in Pakistan. To me they seemed just like the boys at the call centre, fresh-faced and eager, except they dealt in guns and grenades instead of computers and phones.
The foxhole was warm, but sleeping in it was very uncomfortable. Since space was so limited, you had to sleep in just one position. This time I was sandwiched between Sikandar and Munir, which was a relief, coz I would have had difficulty looking Teknikal in the eye after what he'd done to me.
They took me to the meadow outside the next day, put a black blindfold over my eyes, made me kneel and told me to fold my hands. 'Now beg for your life, pig,' Abu Khaled barked, as Teknikal trained a video camera on me.
'I've been kidnapped by these Al Qaeda dudes. Creek's rising and I'm up to my ass in alligators! Mom, get me outta here,' I said and was rewarded with a kick in my backside.
'This video is going to your president, not to your mother, cretin,' Khaled yelled at me.
I stayed in the foxhole for close to fifty days. It was as boring as watching paint dry. I relished any opportunity of going out into the open – hearing birds chirping every morning and watching the mist rise slowly towards the clouds made me forget for a moment that I was a hostage. But they always had a man to watch over me, even when I was taking a shit.