The Taliban Shuffle_ Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Kim Barker [73]
On October 18, we waited with the sweaty masses near the airport in Karachi. Bhutto, the woman of the people, had tried to balance her need for security with her need to shake hands. A large armored truck had been fitted with a platform, railing, and bulletproof screen on the top so Bhutto could stand outside but still be protected. Dozens of unarmed Bhutto supporters wearing T-shirts that said they would die for her planned to surround her bus. Their actual role was left unsaid—these volunteers were human shields, expendable. The government had provided little security, indicating that any deal between Bhutto and Musharraf was shaky. Barricades had been set up, but they were as substantial as Tinkertoys. Rabid fans pushed back a police line near the airport, flooding inside. No one was searched.
To get out of the crush of people, Dave, another friend, and I climbed onto the roof of a colorful Pakistani jingle truck, painted with fluorescent scenes of Pakistan—pink trees, purple skies. On a wooden platform just above the driver, we watched the crowd of tens of thousands swell.
Eventually Bhutto was whisked out of the airport and into her truck. She soon swept onto the platform in a green salwar kameez and a white gauzy headscarf, waving gracefully. Chaos, clapping, cheering, screaming. I was happy I wasn’t in the crowd. A kind of fervor, a lunging, hungry fever spread down below, with people lurching toward the T-shirts near the bus, trying to get close to their queen. But the scene was also joyful, seen from above, and as usual, the Pakistanis started dancing to their own inner music. Bhutto treated the bulletproof screen like a nuisance and leaned over the railing instead. We rode along with the convoy for about five hours, or less than a mile, before climbing down, near our hotel, and going inside to write. Like everyone else, I wanted to file a story, sleep for a few hours, and join the convoy in the early morning.
After writing, Dave and I checked the news, set the alarm, and fell into bed before midnight, still wearing our clothes. Then my cell phone rang. A close friend.
“What?” I said.
“A bomb, turn on your TV,” she said, sounding panicked.
I turned on CNN. Nothing.
“Are you sure it was a bomb? It’s not on CNN.”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
She told me to check a Pakistani station. I did, and saw the first images of an explosion, of flames and carnage. I groaned.
“Gotta go.”
Dave and I looked at each other, sighed, ran to the lobby, and begged and bribed our way into a taxi. No driver wanted to go near Bhutto’s convoy or any explosion—rumors were already spreading. The cab dropped us blocks away, and we ran toward the sirens. Bhutto’s truck sat there, surrounded by mangled car parts, people with bloody salwar kameezes, police. I saw friends and body parts, and pulled out my notebook and started taking notes. Dave and I split up. The scene was a free-for-all, no police tape, no sense of preserving evidence. A police officer called me over. He lifted up a white sheet, to show me a head.
“Bomber,” he said.
Over the years my notebook had become my insulation. Around such destruction, such death, I simply took notes. I could deal with it emotionally later, but right now, I had to work.
“Head,” I wrote. “Possibly bomber.”
I wandered around, talking to people, eventually deciding to climb the ladder on the back of Bhutto’s truck to see what was there. The police escorted me as if I were an investigator. On the deck of the truck, I saw blood, shrapnel, pieces of twisted metal. A Bhutto supporter showed me bullet dings in the bulletproof screen, insisting that someone was shooting at the truck when the bomb—or bombs, no one was certain—exploded.
Tired, I grabbed the railing of the truck, and felt something wet. I froze