Let Bhutto Eat Grass: Part Three by Shaunak Agarkhedkar

Author:Shaunak Agarkhedkar [Agarkhedkar, Shaunak]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2022-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

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London

‘Quite the situation you’ve got me into.’

It was around three in the afternoon on a balmy summer day, and the emerald green of Regent’s Park was bathed in sunshine. It had been a pleasant walk from Baker Street, and she was humming “Mamma Mia” as she arrived to find Omar sitting at one end of a bench across from an island in the lake, a folded black umbrella resting on his lap, reading the birthday suit girl tabloid. Disappointed that the asset had arrived at the exchange before her — something Almeida had often warned her about — Nissa sat at the other end of the bench, leaving enough distance between them to accommodate another person, and did a quick scan of their surroundings. The park appeared deserted except for the odd person boating in the distance.

‘The profitable kind, as always,’ Nissa replied with a smirk after assuring herself that neither of them was under surveillance.

He placed an envelope on the bench in the vacant space between them. It went unopened into her purse.

‘I find it hard to believe,’ he began with the flicker of a smile, then added: ‘I found out who partners with Weargate.’

They were both keeping up pretences by staring straight ahead at the island in the lake.

‘One step at a time, Omar. Let’s begin with Weargate. Is Peter Griffin an alias?’ Nissa asked, her right foot tapping the ground in a furious frenzy.

The United Kingdom was one of the better regulatory destinations for setting up shell companies, entities with few or no employees. These entities could then keep the true beneficiaries — the people pulling strings from behind the curtain — completely anonymous. Nissa half expected Weargate to serve a similar purpose, which was why she hadn’t shared New Delhi’s excitement at the discovery of that company shipping equipment to Rawalpindi. There was a great big chasm between knowing what name was on shipping manifests, and knowing the people who were truly responsible for it.

‘No, no. He exists, lives in Swansea with his wife, Anna, in a nice Victorian house – three bedrooms, sizeable garden in the back. I’ve included a few pictures in there. The neighbours describe them as a lovely couple. Peter operates Weargate from their home.’

She wasn’t convinced, and felt like arguing against his conclusion, but decided that her scepticism could wait for a moment more suited to analysis.

‘Alright, that’s a good beginning. Is he a cutout?’

‘You would think so, wouldn’t you? A Welshman and his shell company being used by Pakistanis to evade scrutiny would make perfect sense. But that’s not how the Pakistanis see him. They consider him an equal partner, a key cog in their logistics machine. I think for them he is the brains that knows which companies to buy from, how to place orders for the equipment that they need so that it raises as few eyebrows as possible, and how to make sure it gets shipped to Rawalpindi without getting held up in Customs.’

Nissa nodded, taking a few moments to absorb what Omar had just reported.

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