03:02

by Mainak Dhar

  Sometime in the afternoon, Anagha came to see me. ‘I want to be out there as well,’ she said.

  Pandey began to object, saying something about girls fighting.

  ‘Pandeyji, she’s seen combat and she has as much right as anyone else to fight. Anagha, are you sure you want to go out there?’

  I could see the anger in her eyes. ‘Sir, they killed my brother. Yes, I’m sure I want to go out there.’

  I pulled her aside. ‘Anagha, I can feel your rage and I’ll be lying if I said I wasn’t angry as well, but remember that when we’re out there, don’t fight angry. We need to plan out our moves, not fight on impulse.’

  She nodded and left and I could see Pandey didn’t approve. ‘Aadi, you saw what they did to the bodies of our boys. What do you think will happen if a girl gets captured by them?’

  ‘Pandeyji, first, we cannot decide for her or anyone else. They can choose to fight if they want. Second, what if we lose, then what happens to the girls? Isn’t it better that they at least fight?’

  He grunted in agreement and went about his work.

  Truth be told, many of us were secretly hoping that we would hear back from Delhi, that there would indeed be some plan pulled together by the government, that there would be air power and the Army supporting us, that it would not just come down to us against the enemy. However, till late in the afternoon, we had heard absolutely nothing.

  That evening, we laid to rest the six comrades we had lost the previous night. It was truly a terrible ceremony, as the families did not even have the comfort of cremating or burying their loved ones’ bodies. There were tears, of course, but there was a lot of rage. I had seen Anagha’s reaction, and I could feel the mood around me. We were in real danger of turning into an angry mob.

  So far, we had succeeded because we had tried to outsmart the enemy; we had been deliberate while the enemy had rushed in, complacent and overconfident. If we gave into the rage of the mob, I was really worried that we would start making mistakes. I wished the General had been around; his counsel was sorely needed at a time such as this. So I sought out the next person who came to mind—Mr Sinha.

  He was sitting with Guenther in front of the clinic, sipping tea.

  ‘Aadi, how are you doing?’ he asked as I came up and sat down next to them.

  ‘To be honest, I’m worried,’ I confided. ‘People are angry and too many are talking of revenge. They don’t seem to understand that we have survived so far because we haven’t taken the enemy on in open battle. I’m really worried we’ll do something stupid and pay for it.’

  He nodded and I could see the grief in his eyes. ‘Yes, Aadi. They have been terrified for days, now many of them are furious. Try to channel that anger, otherwise, I think your fears are valid.’

  We didn’t have to wait long for our worst fears to be realized.

  It was four in the evening and Megha and I were taking a rare break, sitting in our apartment, talking about what the coming night might bring. We both knew that we could not just wait to be attacked and that the only way to survive was to find a way of throwing the enemy off-balance once again. Mahadev burst into the room, then, breathless and quite agitated.

  ‘Sir, there’s a big problem. A bunch of youngsters are missing and they’ve taken their weapons with them. We can’t find them anywhere. One of the spotters saw an enemy foot patrol quite some distance away, and it’s possible our people took off after them.’

  I ran down with Mahadev. It was not just possible, it was all but certain that the youngsters had gone off in search of payback, thinking a foot patrol would be a softer target. Our enemy was many things, but they were not stupid. Recognizing their capabilities and fighting them on our terms was what had kept us alive. Blustering off after them was certainly not a smart move.

  Downstairs, Ronald confirmed my worst fears. Anagha had told him what the boys were up to. She was there with him, and I could see she was very troubled. I asked her what had happened.

  ‘There were a group of college kids who were friends with Yash and the boys killed yesterday. All day they’d been talking about getting even. A few of them said that you and the others had taken the fight to the enemy and that they were tired of sitting behind the checkpoints.’

  ‘Anagha, did Subin, Prashant or any of the other guys who actually went out on raids go with them?’

  In response, she pointed to Prashant, who was running up to us.

  ‘I’m sorry, I tried to talk them out of it. I told them that it sounds cool, but it’s scary as hell and they shouldn’t be going out alone, but they said that Aadi would have done it. Six of them went out, carrying pistols and three rifles. Idiots didn’t even take a radio, so we can’t contact them. They said that they’d be back in minutes anyway.’

  My heart sank. Six kids, none of whom had actually seen combat, going out on a mission whose only objective was to somehow kill an enemy fighter. That was a recipe for disaster.

  Just how much of a disaster it was would soon unfold before us.

  None of us had heard any shooting, which clearly indicated that they had not encountered the enemy foot patrol close to our society, as they had hoped. I prayed that they would have the common sense to return when they realized that their goal of extracting quick revenge was not going to be as easy as they thought. I feared that the foot patrol could have been a deliberate ruse to lure our people out into an ambush.

  I looked up to see that many people were on balconies and rooftops, having decided to endure the climbs up the stairs to try and catch a glimpse of the missing teenagers. Most of all, I felt for the parents—though some of them were looking at me a certain way, as if I were somehow responsible for their kids putting themselves in harm’s way.

  Ismail had been monitoring the enemy radio sets to see if their transmissions would give us any hints. Our enemy had been quick to adapt once they’d learned that we had people who spoke Arabic. Their transmissions were usually coded and often in languages which none of us could understand. Ismail thought some of them could be in Chechen, but we were not sure. But now, they transmitted a message, and one meant for us, in English. Ismail ran up to me, holding the radio set in his hands so that I could also hear it.

  ‘We have gifts for you near the lake. Come and get them.’

  It was with a sense of dread that I drove down to the lake with Mahadev. Fearing it was an ambush, Ismail had most of our fighters and weapons accompany us, but in hindsight, that worked against us, because many more people saw the horror that was waiting for us on the flyover heading towards Powai.

  I saw the poles stuck on the side of the road, and at first my mind refused to recognize them for what they were. My heart stilled and I stood petrified as the brutal truth sank in.

  On each of those poles was impaled a severed head. Six heads, one for each of our missing teens. Kundu shouted out something, and we looked to our right to see some objects floating in the lake. One glance through the binoculars was enough to confirm that they were indeed bodies.

  ‘Shit, they’ve poisoned our water supplies. Who does that kind of shit? That used to happen in the medieval ages.’

  I didn’t need to answer Kundu. But now that we could see the full extent of their depravity, we were all left asking ourselves the same question.

  How do you face such an enemy without becoming a bit like them yourself?

  The meeting that evening was chaotic, and people certainly had more questions than answers.

  ‘Where are we on water supplies?’

  Kundu tried to allay fears on that count. He stood up and said, ‘We have at least a week’s worth of water stored in our tanks and the pool.’

  ‘And after that? Do you really want us to get water from the lake after today?’

  Kundu didn’t know how to answer that. As he had confided to me, the water could still be boiled and used, but the more emotive question was whether people would drink water which they knew had contained corpses, the bodies of people we knew.
I suspected once we got desperate enough, we would, but by then, in what other ways would we have changed?

  A middle-aged lady pushed her way to the front of the crowd. Her face was ashen and I could see from her puffed, red eyes that she had been crying. She pointed at me and said in a hoarse whisper, ‘My son died today. He died because he believed in your story that we could fight this enemy. Look what they did to him.’

  I stood still, wondering how I could respond to a mother who has just lost her son. It would be of no help to tell her that I would never have condoned the way in which they took off in pursuit, that they had made a terrible mistake, because the truth was that I was responsible in some way.

  Leading by example is one thing, but when others bear the consequences of trying to emulate that example, are you not responsible? Blaming them for flawed execution was the cop-out of a poor leader, was it not?

  I closed my eyes and felt hot tears swell up in them. I had never asked for any mantle of leadership. These people had given it to me. I opened my eyes and the tears fell. The lady in front of me took a step back, perhaps surprised by my reaction.

  ‘I am so sorry for your loss, for all of your losses. And I’m sorry that I am responsible in some way, because I am.’

  A hush fell over the gathered crowd. People had not expected this, I suppose.

  ‘I hold myself responsible for every death we have suffered, and I dream of the faces of those who have died. I am haunted by that responsibility and the burden I will have to bear as long as I live. But you now see the kind of enemy we are faced with. We are all collectively responsible for how we react to their brutality. We can surrender now if we want, but do we really expect any mercy? And what will that mean for the memories of those who have fallen fighting this enemy? Have they all died for nothing?’

  I walked up to the lady and held her hands.

  ‘I come from an Army family, and my father had to deal with the loss of his father and brother. You may say they were soldiers and had signed up for the risk, but we are all soldiers now, not wearing a uniform or earning a salary, but fighting to defend our families and our nation. We are now at war; and while we should grieve those who have fallen, we cannot give up. Instead, we must use that grief and loss to make our resolve stronger.’

  She was crying, and I realized that no words would ever make up for her loss, so I looked her in the eye and said, ‘I promise you this much. I will avenge your son. They will pay dearly for what they have done.’

  I was at my balcony, looking at the airport. Through my binoculars I could see one transport plane parked on the runway, several Humvees and jeeps, and the missile system I had seen earlier. There were also numerous airliners, left over from before the Blackout, lining the tarmac. Little black figures walked around, so close yet I could do nothing about them, just standing there, in plain sight.

  I went back to the living room and busied myself with preparing for the night. There was no question of us waiting to be attacked. We had to take the initiative again and we would do it the only way we knew how. We would slip out into the night and try and engage their mortar teams and vehicles so that we could keep our community safe for one more night.

  Megha was now standing at the balcony, fuming in silence. I knew she was not happy with us going out again in the night, and we had already argued about it. I couldn’t take the silence anymore.

  ‘Megha, what else can we do? We can’t just sit here and wait for them to launch mortars at us all night or for them to come in with their Humvees and overrun us.’

  She gripped the rails on the balcony tight and I could see her knuckles whiten as she replied. ‘There is a difference between attempting an attack and committing suicide. I have never stopped you from going out, but you yourself said that we had survived so far by surprising them, by doing things they did not expect. So why are you doing exactly what you did yesterday? They would have figured out how to counter that tactic. That’s what happened to the six kids this morning.’

  I didn’t need any more reminding of what had happened to the kids who had set out trying to emulate my example, and I burst out, ‘So what can we do?’

  Megha was looking intently at the airport.

  ‘Aadi, do you realize just how close the airport is? Before the Blackout, one of my friends was bitching about spending forty minutes in traffic to get there when it’s less than four kilometres from here as the crow flies, and around ten if you follow the roads. They’re that close to us, and we can’t do anything to them.’

  I barely registered what she was saying. One line had got me thinking.

  As the crow flies.

  To Megha’s surprise, I ran up to her and kissed her on the lips.

  ‘Thanks for the idea!’

  ‘What idea?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  With that, I ran downstairs. I had to get to Shwetabh and find out if this idea would work.

  Shwetabh was briefing the drivers and machine gunners of our two Humvees. He knew that if an attack came with the enemy throwing its Humvees into the fray, we could take out a couple with our bombs, but others would get through, and then our two Humvees with their heavy machine guns would be the most potent weapons we had. He had assumed command of what he was jokingly calling our armoured corps, comprising the two Humvees and the auto-rickshaw with Gurpreet’s makeshift mortar launcher mounted on it. He stopped what he was doing when he saw me running up to him.

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’

  I had run at full tilt to the checkpoint and took a second to catch my breath before I responded. ‘Shwetabh, what’s the range of the TOW missile?’

  ‘Well over four kilometres, but pretty useless in a congested urban environment like this where you can see the enemy only about five hundred metres out or so.’

  I sent up a silent prayer. I’d had no idea what the range of the missile was, but had been hoping that it would be enough.

  ‘That means you could hit the airport from here. As the crow flies, the airport is just about four kilometres from here.’

  Shwetabh looked at me as if I had lost my mind.

  ‘Aadi, look at all the buildings around us. We don’t have a clean shot at the airport, and the TOW is optically and wire guided, meaning I need to have a clear line of sight on the target. And we can’t really get the Humvee up to an apartment rooftop, can we?’

  I grinned as I replied. ‘No, but I know where we can. Get in and drive!’

  Along the way, I told Shwetabh about how a kid in my karate class had once got into trouble with his parents because he had taken his girlfriend to a building that was under construction. It was next to the Supreme Business Park and the boy had sheepishly told me that they had wanted to sit there and watch flights land and take off at night.

  As we approached the business park, I pointed the building out to Shwetabh and I could see his eyes light up in understanding. We drove up the ramps leading up to its higher floors. Perhaps the building had been intended as a parking lot, but that did not matter. What mattered was what it gave us now. A clear view of the airport from a vantage point to which we could drive the Humvee.

  To one side of the building was a small hill, and, till the third floor, the view was obscured by it. But, as we climbed to the fifth floor, we had a clear view of the airport. I laughed out loud. The sun was shining, and it was a clear day. One positive side-effect of the Blackout had been that the smog caused by cars and factories, which used to obscure visibility, was no longer present. So, today, even without binoculars, I could see the large black airplane on the tarmac.

  Shwetabh clapped me on my shoulder. ‘You, my friend, would make a very dangerous insurgent or terrorist.’

  I smiled. Wasn’t that what I was now? I looked through my binoculars as Shwetabh loaded a missile into the launcher.

  ‘Can the missile destroy an airplane that big?’

  Shwetabh looked through the sighting system on the launcher.

  ‘The rangefin
der shows it as just short of four kilometres away. Well within range, buddy. Now, could the missile destroy the airplane? Maybe not destroy it completely, since it is a pretty big plane, but it wouldn’t fly again for sure. But I have another idea. Take a look at what those buggers are doing and keep watching.’

  Through the binoculars, I could see a fuel truck parked next to the plane and several black figures milling around it. Some were carrying boxes away from the plane while others were pulling a hose towards it. They were unloading the plane and also refuelling it so it could fly back to wherever it had come from. And they were doing it in the open, complacent that nobody could attack them in there. I scanned right and left and saw two vehicles with large tubes mounted on them.

  ‘Shwetabh, what are those missiles? They look different from the TOW we have.’

  He replied without taking his eyes off the sight. ‘Humvees mounted with Stinger surface-to-air missiles. They must have captured all this stuff from the Iraqi Army. The US supplied a lot of equipment to them after they started pulling out combat troops, and much of it fell into ISIS hands. Now, time for us to crash their little party. Stay well to one side.’

  I moved a few feet to the left and heard a loud whoosh as the missile left the tube. A few metres out, its motor ignited and it accelerated, trailing a tail of fire. Shwetabh had mentioned the missile was wire guided and I could see the thin wire following the missile as it sped towards the airport. It flew straight and true and then, just as it reached the airport, I saw it jerk up. I looked towards Shwetabh, thinking something had gone wrong, but his face was a mask of concentration, glued to the sighting system. I quickly looked back through the binoculars and saw the missile climb vertically up and then come diving down towards the fuel tanker. Some of the black figures were now moving, having seen that something was very wrong, but they had no chance.

  The missile slammed into the fuel tanker and it exploded in a giant fireball that engulfed the black figures around it. The plane had been just a few metres from it, and it was shredded by shrapnel and burning fragments and exploded in an even larger fireball a few seconds later, all the ammunition and weapons on it contributing to the intensity of the explosion. An airliner parked close by was hit by fragments and exploded as well. Even from the distance, the deep rumble of the explosion was clearly audible and I jumped in excitement.