The Good Son by Michael Gruber

father thinks he worked for the CIA during the Russian jihad, but he doesn’t talk about it to us. Which is fair because we don’t talk about my own involvement in that war either.
    Afridi was talking about the situation around where my mother had been taken, and he rolled back a little to bring me up to speed. He confirmed what we already suspected, which was that the group involved, al-Faran, was pretty much a creation of the Pakistani ISI, and that upuntil now they had been operating in Indian-occupied Kashmir. Why they had suddenly decided to kidnap a group of foreigners was something of a mystery, but Mo thought that they never would have done it without a wink from the ISI.
    “So why did ISI wink?” I asked.
    He shrugged and spread his hands. “Well, that would depend on who in ISI you mean. Like all of Pakistani society it’s riven by factions, some more aggressive than others, some religious, some out for the main chance. That they have kidnapped a billionaire suggests a ransom is in the offing, although, as you know, kidnap for ransom has never been a Pashtun specialty. Hostages, yes, but taking people and exchanging them for money is a little . . .” He sniffed and touched his nose.
    “Punjabi?” my father said, and the two of them laughed.
    “You have said it, my friend, not me. No, ransom is not a Pashtun thing; it goes against the idea of hospitality. It is hard for a Pashtun to give someone food and shelter and then sell him. There is a price of twenty-five million dollars on bin Laden’s head but no one has collected it, and the same rule applies, in general, to this kind of kidnapping. It is different from stealing women for wives, which was practically the Pashtun national sport in the old days. On the other hand, Alakazai is a peculiar man.”
    “Who?” I asked.
    “Bahram Alakazai, the leader of al-Faran. I knew him during the war. His mother was Punjabi, so perhaps that explains it.”
    My father said, “Explains what?”
    Afridi was silent for a moment, stroking his beard. “He was not a man at peace with himself. You know, the Pashtuns have many vices but one vice they have avoided, and that is the divided heart. You cannot, of course, trust a Pashtun, but you can trust a Pashtun to be himself, to do the things demanded by the Pashtun code, to seek revenge, to offer hospitality, and so on. Alakazai was not like that. We could never quite understand his goals. He seemed to enjoy playing with people just for the sake of the game. And he was good at it, a master manipulator, far more subtle than the Pashtuns, Pakistanis, and Americans with whom he typically dealt. An educated man, naturally, he studied in both Pakistan and the U.K., and I believe he was in America for a time, in the eighties.”
    My father said, “He seems an unlikely fellow to lead a mujahideen band.”
    “Oh, for that he has Idris Ghulam Khan, his field commander, an entirely different sort, the usual fanatic. Bahram negotiates with the Pakistanis and plans grand strategy and Idris does the shooting. It seems to work, and now they have pulled off this coup. It is just the sort of affair that Bahram is good at. He likes to keep the world guessing.”
    “Can you get to them?” I asked. “Find out what they intend to do with the hostages?”
    He frowned and shook his head. “I can leave messages with people who might be in contact with them, but I could not guarantee that al-Faran would receive them. I feel so helpless in this matter.”
    “You could do something,” I said, and my father looked at me with interest.
    “Anything in my power.”
    “You consult with the U.S. government, don’t you? On politics among the mujahideen?”
    He smiled faintly and replied, “Officially, no, I’m afraid. But should I be asked to consult, what would you like me to do?”
    “Someone must be following the terrorist chatter about this kidnap, in the CIA and the NSA. There can’t be that many people fluent in Urdu or Pashto or