We carried on without any incident and I was beginning to enjoy the ride. The FIAT has double wishbone suspension and even in its state - having not been lubricated or serviced for decades and the rock hard tyres that have dry rot on the side walls as well as between the tread, the ride was quite nice.
We crossed the Trakki toll plaza as it was beginning to get dark and mentally calculated another 45 minutes to an hour before we'd be home.
Yeah sure!
As we approached Sohawa we noticed some activity ahead. The police station is located right on the GT road and there were at least half a dozen policemen waving excitedly.
The discovery of a car in dry storage after all these years may be exciting for some vintage car enthusiasts but why would the police ....maybe they wanted to escort us so we don't face any difficulty along the way... I half expected a GEO OB van to appear from the shadows. Hurriedly I straightened the brim of my Tilley hat and ....but the police just wanted to ask us a few questions.
The SHO had the same look in his eye the Marines must have had after they captured one of the AQ suspects. He wanted us to park the cars along the police station wall and come inside the thana. Romano refused to comply but knowing how things work i decided to co-operate.
Inside the police station the SHO started making a series of calls. ....
It turns out that someone (and my hunch is, it was one of the truck drivers we denied business) called the army intelligence (OK I know its an oxymoron) and then the ISI reporting two "foreign looking" men driving a Peshawar registered vehicle and towing a funny looking van behind them. Some Major T. of the ISI called the DPO Jehlum who radioed ahead and set up the 'Naka'
The SHO was trying to call Major T. who by then had switched off his mobile so he called his adjutant who gave the number of ...and who asked him to call....Yawnnnnnnn!!!!
They checked the van, asked us what we were doing checked the papers, checked them again, checked our ID cards, checked them again, called the seller of the van, reconfirmed our story and all this while I could see him getting increasingly disappointed.
Here he was thinking he would get a medal or something for nabbing the ..well who knows what..After all Major T. of the ISI wants these guys and he is in a position to deliver. ..and now Major T. is not reachable. Our story seemed credible too and aside from the fact that we were towing a vehicle that was not legally registered in our names (yet) we had done nothing wrong. To cover that base we had a sale deed on 'Ashtaam paper' notarized and all....
It was now more than an hour we had been stopped.
....we'll be back after these commercials......
