‘If there’s something I need to know, lad…’
Wordlessly, Vikrant picked up his laptop and handed it over to Mirza. The email had both Ayyub’s video as well as the voice samples from Kamran as attachments. Mirza played both the files while Vikrant stood up and went to the window. He was halfway through his cigarette when Mirza spoke from behind him.
‘Bloody hell, boy.’
Vikrant turned around. ‘Yes, sir.’
His cell phone beeped yet again and he looked at it. It was another email, also from the RAW tech team. The results of the facial comparison tests. They had come back positive as well.
On the laptop, Mirza was reading the same email. He looked up from the laptop at the same time as Vikrant looked up from his phone.
‘Bloody hell, boy,’ he said again.
‘Yes, sir,’ Vikrant said once more.
13
‘Where’s Pawshe now?’ Mirza asked.
‘I had him moved from Unit XII, sir. We’re holding him in the lock-up at Unit IX in Bandra, because it’s the closest to our base. We haven’t officially arrested him yet,’ Mankame replied.
Arresting Pawshe would mean putting his name in the system and producing him in court. From there, it was only a matter of time before some enterprising reporter came sniffing around the court records and found out that there had been an arrest in connection with the Bandra attacks. The team wasn’t willing to expose Pawshe to that risk, not if they could help it.
The three were in an unmarked SUV speeding towards Mumbra. All of them were armed with handguns and had bulletproof vests in the vehicle, which they would put on at the last minute. Mankame was driving, while Mirza and Vikrant were in the back seat. Vikrant wasn’t looking at Mirza.
Before they left, Mirza and Vikrant had had a heated debate in their hotel suite on whether to inform Mazhar about Ayyub. Vikrant felt that Mazhar deserved to know, and that after all that he had done for them, keeping him in the dark would be an injustice.
Mirza, on the other hand, insisted that it would be foolish to inform Mazhar.
‘He’s going to come running here the minute he learns about it. We don’t have time, or scope, for emotions right now.’
‘You mean YOU don’t,’ Vikrant snapped. He rarely, if ever, snapped at Mirza.
‘What do you mean?’ Mirza asked sharply.
The argument could have got worse, but Mankame came in at that moment to tell them that they were ready to move out.
Earlier in the day, Sonam Dhillon and her team had arrived in Mumbra. The team had three others, one woman and two men, and Kamran Sheikh took them to the same building where Ayyub was staying. One of them, Rohan Awasthi, was posing as Kamran’s brother, while Sonam posed as Awasthi’s wife. The other two members were posing as Awasthi’s brother and sister-in-law.
With Rehmat’s help, they rented a house on the same floor as Ayyub’s and Kamran was helping them ‘move’ into the house at that very moment.
Concerns were expressed as to whether Sonam and her team, despite their extensive training, would be able to pass off as devout Muslims in a building full of them. However, they only needed to maintain their cover for a couple of hours at most.
Around the same time that Vikrant had confirmed Ayyub’s identity with the RAW tech team, Mirza had sought, and received, official sanction from NSA Pradeep Singh to arrest Ayyub.
‘Kill him if he asks for it. You will have full backing,’ Singh had said.
No chances were being taken this time. A team of twelve NSG commandos – the best of the lot – were handpicked and briefed. Shaina, who was still in Mumbai after attending Naidu’s funeral, volunteered to go along and her request was granted.
All of them, in civilian clothes, had driven from the NSG base on the Jogeshwari–Vikhroli Link Road to a pre-decided spot fifteen minutes away from Mumbra. Now, as Mirza’s team sped towards them and Sonam and her team kept up their cover of moving into Ayyub’s building, Shaina and the other commandos sat in their air-conditioned SUVs and sweated.
Mankame pulled up behind the NSG officers’ vehicles. Shaina came out holding a small duffel bag and got in next to him. Mirza pulled out his cell phone and called the Thane police commissioner, who, in turn, informed the commissionerate’s Quick Response Team to leave from their headquarters. Their orders were to secure the scene as soon as the strike team took Ayyub into custody.
‘We’re ready, sir,’ Shaina told Mirza.
Mirza brought his wrist-mic up to his face.
‘Last chance, sir,’ Vikrant said. Mirza whipped his head around and glared. He knew what Vikrant was referring to. There was a very high possibility that Ayyub might get killed in the next fifteen minutes, and this was their last chance to inform Mazhar.
‘Shut up, boy,’ Mirza said.
Speaking into his wrist-mic, he said, ‘Move out. I repeat, move out. Mission active.’
Grinding his teeth, Vikrant called Kamran and said, ‘We’re coming.’
He waited for an acknowledgement before hanging up.
Every member of the team donned their bulletproof vest. The NSG commandos brought out MP5 submachine guns. In their own SUV, Mankame and Vikrant took submachine guns from the duffel bag Shaina had with her, while Mirza retained his pistol. Extra ammo was passed around. Three minutes after Mirza gave the order, an NSG commando said, ‘Moving out.’
All three SUVs started as one and sped to the building in Kausa. They got there in under ten minutes and screeched to a halt parallel to each other. Doors opened in unison and armed men came piling out.
Kamran Sheikh, who was at the gate ‘supervising’ the ‘unloading of his brother’s luggage’, saw the approaching army and took the cue.
‘Aye!’ he called out, coming forward. ‘Kya ho raha hai yeh sab? What’s going on?’
‘Teri shaadi ho rahi hai bhosdike!’ Vikrant snarled. ‘Chal, bhaag! Get out of here!’
Kamran pretended to notice all the guns and started yelling. Sonam took up the cue and within a minute, her entire team was running away from the building. The panic spread and some others who were loitering around followed suit. Doors and windows started getting slammed shut. No one noticed where Kamran, Sonam and the others had disappeared. Their job had only been to keep an eye on Ayyub, in case he came out of his house before the strike team got there. Their mission was over.
The strike team, with Shaina leading, rushed upstairs with a heavy thudding of combat boots to Ayyub’s first-floor apartment.
Mirza, Vikrant and Mankame, IDs around their necks, stood guard at the gate. Vikrant kicked aside a couple of bags that Sonam’s team had dropped while running away as part of their ruse.
With racing hearts, they waited and listened to the reports in their earpieces.
‘Aye, andar jaa! Andar jao sab log!’
‘Chacha, police ka mamla hai, behas mat karo.’
‘Abey chal na, hero!’
There was a pause which was only a few seconds long but seemed infinitely lengthier.
‘Corridor clear!’
‘In position!’
‘Breaching!’
There was a loud thud, followed by two muted blasts as
flash-bang grenades were tossed into the house to disorient anyone inside. Then there was more thudding of boots. The three cops downstairs tensed and waited.
For around three minutes, there was nothing. Then, at the same time, two vans filled with Thane QRT commandos came roaring up the lane and stopped at the building. The commandos jumped out and started surrounding the building, just as residents of nearby buildings started pouring out. The leader ran over to talk to Mirza, who held his gun hand up to silence him and used his other hand to press his earpiece closer.
Another minute of silence followed before they heard Shaina’s voice through their earpieces.
‘The house is empty. I repeat, the house is empty.’<
br />
Downstairs, Mirza, Vikrant and Mankame looked at each other and raced inside.
Panting slightly, they dashed into the house. Shaina was standing at the door, grinding her teeth. Without saying a word, the three cops fanned out, Mirza taking the living room, Vikrant heading left to the kitchen and Mankame going to the right towards the bedroom.
NSG commandos were already milling about, having confirmed beyond doubt that there was no one inside. It took the three cops five minutes to search the house fully.
‘Fuck!’ Vikrant said, coming out and slamming his fist into the wall near the front door.
The door to the adjacent house opened and a teenager stuck his head out.
‘Andar jaata hai ke daalu goli, bhenchod?’ Shaina snapped at him, the Delhiite in her coming out in full form. The teen popped back inside and slammed his door shut.
‘Where’s Mankame?’ Mirza asked, making both Shaina and Vikrant turn. He was standing in the middle of the living room. They all converged in the bedroom.
Mankame was sitting on the floor, holding his head with one hand. Next to him, a white silk dupatta was lying on the ground, flecked with red stains that looked like blood.
Vikrant knelt beside Mankame and saw he was holding something. Wordlessly, Mankame held it up for the others
to see.
It was a PAN card with a streak of blood across it.
The picture, like most PAN cards, was unrecognizable. But the name was clearly visible.
Rehmat Khan.
14
It was night.
The entire group was silent as their SUV pulled up outside the hotel. Wordlessly, they made their way to the lift and the suite. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have anything to say; they were simply too tired.
In the suite, Mankame sat near the minibar, watching the news on TV, which was on mute.
After discovering Rehmat’s dupatta and PAN card, Mirza had insisted that Mankame leave the scene. For the first time since Vikrant had known him, Mankame had flatly refused a direct order. He had been about to walk past Mirza when the older man took him by both shoulders and held on with surprising strength.
‘What?’ Mirza had snapped. ‘You’re going to pound the pavement looking for her? Go door to door?’
Mankame stared at him uncertainly.
‘You’re a DCP with the state ATS, lad,’ Mirza said. ‘Half the battle against terror is fought in the head. And right now, your head is polluted with anger.’
‘I want to do my part, sir,’ Mankame said through gritted teeth.
‘And you will. But right now, you will go to the hotel and calm the fuck down. Until I can trust you not to put a bullet in some poor sod in this building simply because you think he’s hiding something, I’m not letting you anywhere near this case. You want to fight me on this? Try.’
Vikrant stepped in.
‘Ashok,’ he said calmly. ‘We’ve got this.’
Shaina stepped forward and nodded her assurance as well.
‘You better,’ Mankame seethed. ‘You better.’
He shook Mirza’s hands off his shoulders and stomped off. An NSG commando who had been in actual war zones stepped out of Mankame’s way quickly as he stormed past.
The rest of the team had taken a minute to calm themselves and then got to work. The senior police inspector of the Mumbra police station reached the scene. He quickly touched base with all the members of the local Mohalla Committee, which acted as a liaison between the police and the common people.
Bang in the middle of it, the news media had turned up. Mirza had already anticipated this, as had every other cop on the scene. The Thane police commissioner rushed to them and gave a terse, brief statement, confirming only that a suspect in the Bandra attacks had been traced to the building. But the press refused to move and set up camp beyond the police barricades.
Every member of the Mohalla Committee reached the building within the hour and started talking to the residents, convincing them that their cooperation was of paramount importance.
It was slow work, and it was tiring.
At the hotel, Vikrant climbed onto a stool beside Mankame. Mirza and Shaina sank into a couch behind them.
Mankame had grabbed a bottle of Scotch, which was half empty by now. Vikrant made himself a drink.
‘So?’ Mankame asked. His voice was deadly calm.
Vikrant sighed and lit a cigarette before he started talking. He had a feeling Mirza couldn’t care less about him smoking inside the room right now.
‘Half an hour before we got there, Ayyub had knocked on the door of a family staying on the same floor as theirs. Rehmat was with him. The family knew Rehmat as well. Ayyub told the family that they wanted to get married, but there were some people who didn’t want it to happen. He said he needed help eloping with her, as they were sure the building was being watched.’
Vikrant paused.
‘The family lent them two burqas,’ he went on. ‘A male member went out of the building with them, right past Sonam and her team, and they got into his car. He dropped them till the highway. They said they’d make their own way from there, thanked him and told him he was doing God’s work.’
‘The blood,’ Mankame said.
Vikrant nodded and sipped his drink.
‘Everyone stores their medical history at Rehmat’s rehab centre, including Rehmat herself. We pulled out her file. The blood group is the same.’
Mankame’s hand tightened around his glass.
‘The neighbour saw a bandage around her left wrist. Ayyub told him that she’d tried to kill herself out of depression, as her family would not let her be with him, and appealed to him saying that she’d finish the job if he did not help.’
Mankame drained his drink and reached for the bottle again.
‘She’s only fucking twenty,’ he said in a heavy voice.
Vikrant, Mirza and Shaina looked down.
‘We’ll find her, lad,’ Mirza said.
Mankame burst out laughing. He filled his glass to the brim and turned around on his stool.
‘I’m not that drunk, you know, sir,’ he said. He paused to take a gulp of the Scotch and winced as it went down his throat.
‘Two people in burqas in a town full of burqas? How’re we going to find them? Forget going out of the city, they could hide out in Mumbra forever. He’s already hurt her once and she’s clearly scared. She’s a kid. The most dangerous situation she’s been in is with a sixteen-year-old drug addict who wouldn’t stop shouting because he wanted cannabis.’
Mankame’s voice was starting to slur.
‘We’re trying to track them through CCTV…’ Mirza began.
‘Yeah, yeah. CCTV and cellular locations and all the usual stuff. Why not request your friends at the CIA to turn their fancy satellites towards Mumbra, huh? Isn’t that what your world is all about?’
‘It’s not just my world, lad,’ Mirza said, starting to sound tired.
‘Oh yes, it is! Because this is definitely not my fucking world. My world is finding angry teenagers checking out ISIS websites and scaring them by showing them videos of the terrible deaths that they could die in Syria. My world is attending local religious functions and giving speeches about the dangers of radicalization and accepting fucking bouquets and plaques. But this…’
Mankame took another long gulp.
‘This world, with its bloody sleeper cells and cold-blooded killers and terrorist attacks in broad daylight and fucking twenty-year-olds getting kidnapped by terrorists, is your world. This is not the world I want to raise my child in.’
Mankame drained his glass and turned around on his stool. He was breathing hard as he leaned on the bar and refilled his glass.
Nobody spoke. Nobody knew what to say.
‘I told Anjali,’ Mankame said, his voice breaking.
‘Your fiancée?’ Vikrant asked.
‘What about her?’
Mankame held his head with one hand and held his glass with the other.
‘Ashok, what the fuck did you do?’ Vikrant asked and Mirza came over from the couch.
‘I told her … I told her I’m not ready,’ Mankame said. ‘I told her I’m not sure I can protect her and our children when I can’t even protect my informants. I told her that if she wants to move on, she has every right to. Rehmat … Rehmat was my responsibility.’
Mirza let out a small sigh and Mankame picked up on it.
‘Don’t worry, sir.’ He chuckled. ‘Your precious mission isn’t compromised. I didn’t reveal any details.’
‘That’s not what I meant, boy,’ Mirza said.
Mankame turned to stare at him for a long moment. Then, without taking his eyes away, he picked up his glass.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I almost believed that.’
He poured the rest of the Scotch down his throat, steadied himself against the bar and stood up. Picking up his cigarettes and lighter, he turned to leave the room.
‘Guys…’ Shaina said from the couch and they all looked at her.
‘What?’ Vikrant asked.
Shaina didn’t answer. She only pointed to the TV.
The news channel was playing a grainy video shot in a badly lit room. A man, his face only partly visible due to the bad lighting, was saying something. A ticker underneath screamed, ‘TERROR SUSPECT CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.’
Vikrant found the remote and turned on the sound.
‘Well,’ the man was saying. ‘You found me. A little too late, but still. Not bad. But now that we’re all on the same page, let me show you something.’
The voice, Mirza and Vikrant realized, was unmistakably Ayyub’s.
Ayyub moved to the side and revealed Rehmat sitting on a chair. A small light was pointed directly at her so no one had any trouble recognizing who she was. Her hands and feet were bound and a piece of cloth was tied around her mouth. Mankame leaned forward.
The Endgame Page 7