The Endgame
Page 13
Goyal continued, ‘One of the big fish we had identified right from the start was Dhanraj Shetty. Supplies drugs all over the western and northern suburbs, from Bandra right up to Borivali. He has an ecosystem of unsavoury characters, from money-launderers to smugglers, and we were hoping to end the whole show for good. It was going to require a lot of time and effort and we weren’t sure who we could trust, so we played it very close to our chests.’
Jaiswal added, ‘Bang in the middle of our preliminary intelligence gathering, we found out that Shetty was seen meeting with Safdar Ghazi.’
Vikrant suddenly looked up.
‘THE Safdar Ghazi? The mover beyond borders?’
Vikrant had read a dossier on Ghazi, according to which the gangster had started off as a drug runner for the underworld when it was active in the city back in the 1980s. When the established mafia dons like Dawood Ibrahim started fleeing the city and found other players close to their base of operations to do their moving for them, Ghazi diversified. He kept running drugs for other players who came in to fill the void, but also started running different types of contraband, like red sanders and endangered species of animals, which were in high demand on the black market. As the years passed, Ghazi’s network grew from within India to its neighbouring countries.
‘I think I’ve heard of him too. Name would keep cropping up back when I was running missions for military intelligence,’ Daniel said.
‘We’d read a recent report – passed on to us informally – which said that Ghazi had made some contacts that allowed him to import drugs of high quality from other countries. We’re talking about the purest of charas from Kashmir and heroin from Afghanistan. That’s why this meeting with Shetty got us so interested,’ Jaiswal said. ‘Our contact in the NIA passed on a picture of Shetty and Ghazi meeting, along with a third man, whom we did not recognize.’
‘But,’ Goyal said, ‘we knew something big was brewing. So we decided to play this differently. We reached out to Shetty, struck a deal with him. He would feed information about his competitors to us and we would keep him safe. We wanted him to get comfortable enough to slip up and give us a chance to catch him with whatever product Ghazi was supplying him. Something that could tie it to Ghazi would be an added bonus.’
‘Kadam wasn’t too happy.’ Jaiswal chuckled.
From his chair, Kadam glared a little, but then smiled.
‘Can you blame me, sir?’ he asked sheepishly.
‘That was dangerous, lad,’ Mirza said to Goyal. ‘A very good plan, but still dangerous. Please tell me you kept someone in the loop.’
‘We’d informed the joint commissioner of the Crime Branch, sir,’ Goyal said. ‘You’d always taught us to keep at least one person in the loop.’
Mirza smiled.
‘So what happened?’ Mazhar asked curiously. ‘You caught this Shetty with a big consignment?’
Jaiswal shook his head.
‘Worse. We identified the third man who attended that meeting, the one in the photograph with Shetty and Ghazi.’
He laid a photograph on the table and slid it across. Vikrant picked it up. One look at it and his face changed.
‘Fuck,’ he said.
The photograph was taken in a restaurant in one of the three-star hotels near the airport. Whoever had been tailing Ghazi must have got pretty lucky. He had managed to take a picture from Shetty’s left while Shetty was seated on a chair. The way the three were positioned, the photograph had captured all of their faces clearly.
The third man, Vikrant realized with a sinking feeling, was Ayyub in his Sohail Ansari get-up.
‘After our beloved NSA’s stunt, these two recognized the man on the news and called me. Shetty has been picked up and is in ATS custody,’ Mirza finished.
‘What are we talking about, if I’m allowed to ask?’ Mazhar said, confused.
Vikrant handed him the photographs.
‘Ayyub?’ Mazhar said, his voice rising. ‘That was Ayyub with Ghazi and Shetty?’
‘Wait, what?’ Goyal asked.
‘That’s Mazhar’s younger brother.’ Vikrant sighed.
‘What the fuck?’ Jaiswal said.
As briefly as he could, Mirza brought them up to speed while Vikrant stepped away and lit a cigarette. He smoked it patiently as he watched the two junior cops come to terms with the new information. Finally, he threw the cigarette out of the window and came back to the table.
‘We can’t afford any more games,’ he said firmly. ‘All of us need to be on the same page from now on.’
‘Agreed,’ Mirza asserted. ‘Agreed.’
‘Where does Mankame’s information tie in?’ Daniel asked. They all looked at him.
‘Mirza sir was saying Mankame has information directly connected to this?’ Daniel said.
Mirza looked at his wristwatch, and then at his phone.
‘Where is Mankame?’ he asked.
27
Mankame’s senses were on full alert as he halted outside the under-construction building on Shil Phata Road. He checked his watch and saw that he was fifteen minutes early.
Good, he thought.
He was dressed in civilian clothes and had arrived on a bike he’d borrowed from a constable at Mumbra police station. He parked and got off, pulling out his cell phone simultaneously.
‘Chaar aadmi. First floor pe hain,’ the text message on WhatsApp said.
‘Tu nikal,’ he replied and deleted the entire conversation before proceeding. He had sent a local informant, one he had cultivated through Rehmat, to scope out the location before he got there. It was a trick he frequently employed in the course of his work.
His informant emerged from another building across the road and walked away without looking at him. Ghazi had said that he had some information about the suspect Mankame was looking for, the one who had killed Rehmat. He had asked him to come exactly at 9 p.m., alone. It was just 8.50.
Mankame removed his gun as he entered the building. If all that he had heard about Ghazi was true, he was taking no chances. Especially if Ghazi had been colluding with someone as dangerous as Ayyub.
He proceeded very cautiously, fully aware that he could be walking into a trap. The ground floor was strewn with piles of construction equipment, providing plenty of cover for someone hiding. There was always a chance that his informant had missed something.
He was halfway across the floor when Ben Solo stepped out from behind a pillar, both hands raised and palms outwards. The right hand was holding a pistol with a silencer.
Even though Solo had moved slowly, Mankame still started. Shaking his head, he walked over to the spy.
‘When did you get here?’ he whispered.
‘Not long ago. I’ve already checked this floor. It’s clear,’ Solo said, pulling Mankame behind the pillar.
‘They’re on the first floor,’ Mankame told him.
Solo slipped a hand into one of his pockets and brought out another silencer.
‘You use Glock 9mm pistols, right?’ he whispered.
Mankame took the silencer and screwed it onto the barrel of his pistol. He was pretty sure Solo already knew what weapons the Maharashtra police used.
Mankame had called up Solo as soon as he’d hung up with Ghazi, and they had worked out a plan between them. They had first wondered if Solo should scope out the building before Mankame got there, but quickly dismissed the idea. Solo, with his non-Indian looks, would stick out like a sore thumb. The local informant could easily blend in without as much risk to himself.
For a minute, they had debated whether to inform the others, but ultimately decided against it. Mirza had sounded busy when Mankame had called him and they didn’t even know what they were heading into. It didn’t make much sense to have the entire team, plus reinforcements, storming the place. If Ghazi really wanted to meet in good faith, that would scare him away and they could lose a valuable lead.
Mankame nodded and Solo swung around, gun half raised, and moved out. Mankame followed.
They ran from cover to cover, knowing that a lot of time had already passed. Someone must have spotted Mankame coming in on his bike and would have started wondering why he hadn’t come up to the first floor or called Ghazi yet. Anyone could be coming down to check.
They quickly made their way to an elevator installed on the outside of the building for labourers to go up and down. It allowed easy access to all the floors. But it also made a lot of noise.
Solo pulled a lever and the motor started with a loud groan, which soon escalated into a roar. Guns raised, they ran to the staircase just as an armed henchman came into view.
The henchman had only just spotted them and was raising his weapon when two rounds from Solo’s gun hit him in the head, landing millimetres away from each other. Solo kept his gun pointed at the staircase and let Mankame draw abreast.
‘Get his gun,’ Solo said. ‘But use it for backup only.’
Mankame picked up the gun. It was a Beretta 9mm pistol. Solo nodded to him and he took the lead. Ghazi was expecting Mankame and Solo didn’t want to be seen till it was imperative.
Mankame stopped at the landing and turned to Solo.
‘We need Ghazi alive.’
Solo only nodded. Mankame craned his neck and peeked around but couldn’t see anything. Swearing inwardly, he started advancing, his gun pointed upwards, finger on the trigger.
As he went up the stairs, three men came into view. They were all standing near the elevator shaft, pointing their pistols at the building entrance.
Mankame kept going till he was almost at the top of the stairs. Just as he set his foot on the last step, one of the gunmen said something to the others and turned around, coming face to face with Mankame.
The gunman wasted one crucial second in being startled. During that second, Mankame squeezed the trigger twice, hitting him squarely in the chest both times. The man went down hard, falling onto his two counterparts in the process.
The resulting confusion gave Mankame and Solo the time they needed to run to the nearest pillar. They got there just as the two remaining gunmen picked themselves up and rounds started slamming into the pillar.
Mankame waited with his back pressed against the pillar till there was a lull. They were reloading.
He swung out of cover, gun raised, and ran sideways. One of the two men had just finished inserting a fresh magazine when Mankame got him in his sight and fired thrice. The man was thrown backward and landed in an awkward sprawl on the ground.
The remaining gunman let loose a volley of rounds but Mankame was already behind another pillar, this one farther away from the staircase. He was counting the rounds as his enemy fired.
Eight … nine … ten…
Mankame waited for three more shots to ring out but heard a whistle instead. Puzzled, he risked peeking out of cover. Solo was standing at the top of the staircase.
Mankame smiled. The gunman had been so focused on him that he hadn’t even noticed Solo coming up the stairs. The spy had put two bullets in his head. Mankame ejected his magazine and slapped in a fresh one.
The MOSSAD assassin looked unhurt and unruffled as they exchanged nods. Quickly, they split up, clearing every corner till they made sure the floor was empty.
Then the elevator’s noise stopped. Mankame turned to look at Solo, who signalled to him that he would go and check.
Just as Solo disappeared down the staircase, there was a tremendous explosion and the ground swayed under Mankame’s feet. Literally. The floor was collapsing.
Mankame struggled to maintain his balance as a large part of the floor caved in and tilted, falling into the second floor below. He tried shouting but the dust made his voice catch in his throat. The last thought he had before he hit his head on a pillar and passed out was that someone had blown the ground-floor ceiling out using explosives.
He fell awkwardly, along with a large portion of the floor under him. The bomb had been placed in the middle and the part that he had been standing on was largely intact. It had just tilted downwards, taking him with it. He came to a rest at the end of its slope, arms and legs entangled. The two figures made their way quickly towards him.
The first one was Ghazi, who bent down and swung Mankame over his shoulder. Behind him, Al Barq said, ‘Move fast. Not much time.’
Ghazi ran over the debris to the rear of the building, where a black SUV was waiting, opened the rear door and threw Mankame across the seat. Then he ran back to the building as Al Barq got into the back seat, pushing Mankame aside.
The SUV sped away as Ghazi started running towards Mankame’s bike parked at the front of the site.
In the SUV, Mankame regained consciousness, wincing hard at the pain. It took him a second to figure out that he was sprawled half on and half off the back seat of a vehicle in motion. Turning his head slowly, as it hurt too much, he managed to look up.
Al Barq looked at him for a second before depressing two fingers on his jugular vein, knocking him out again.
28
The board in the safe house was filling up.
At the top was a picture of Ayyub Khan.
Under it were the photos of the ‘four Sheikhs’ – the Bandra attackers who shared a common surname and a common cause. A little to the right was a picture of Ramesh Pawshe, who had supplied the gelatin sticks for the crude bomb that they had used. To the left was Sopan Patil, who had run over Naidu’s car in his truck.
Mirza was now adding two more pictures to the board – Safdar Ghazi and Dhanraj Shetty. They went in the space between Ayyub and the four Sheikhs.
The atmosphere in the room was grim. Half an hour ago, Ben Solo had called with the news of Mankame’s kidnapping. Mirza had decided not to alert the local authorities and told Solo the address of the safe house.
‘You need a pick up?’ Mirza had asked.
‘Nope. I’m in a car and have GPS. I’ve already reached Thane because I didn’t want to stay anywhere near the site.’
Now, Solo was sitting on a chair next to Vikrant, looking impassive.
‘This is what Shetty has told us,’ Mirza said, turning around towards his team. ‘Around six months ago, Ghazi got in touch with him and said that he wanted to introduce someone who could be a potential business partner. That someone turned out to be Ayyub, who offered to get the purest of heroin from Afghanistan for Shetty in exchange for a huge chunk of his earnings. Sixty per cent, to be precise.
‘The earnings were huge. The heroin was exceptionally pure, thanks to Ghazi’s smuggling routes originating from Afghanistan, passing through Pakistan and Kashmir and then to Mumbai. Shetty could have sold the heroin in its pure form and increased his clientele by the hundreds, as it would have been a runaway hit. Instead, he increased its volume to almost double by mixing more impurities in it than usual. This is something all drug dealers do to maximize their profits. As a result, he had more product to sell and made more money. It was a win-win for him. A straight 60 per cent went to Ayyub, while Shetty got to keep the rest.’
Vikrant stepped in.
‘We now believe that Ayyub used this money to finance his operation here. From Naidu sir’s murder to the attack on Kumar’s convoy, everything was financed using money earned locally. That’s why it didn’t raise any flags. Because the money wasn’t coming in from overseas, or through the known hawala channels.’
‘Textbook narco-terrorism,’ Mirza said.
‘What’s that?’ Mazhar asked. He had been sitting in a corner, quietly listening to the cops and spies in the room, a strong feeling of déjà vu washing over him.
‘Narco-terrorism,’ Vikrant repeated. ‘The use of narcotics to finance terrorism.’
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�That’s an actual thing?’ Mazhar asked.
‘More rampant than you can imagine,’ Mirza said. ‘Radicalists who knowingly misinterpret the Quran for recruitment purposes tell their recruits that while any form of alcohol is forbidden, drugs are not. Almost the entire manpower of the Taliban is always high on heroin. ISIS fighters are dosed up on a drug called Tramadol, a narcotic that numbs pain sensation to such a degree that a man could take two bullets and still keep fighting till his body shuts down.’
‘And of course,’ Daniel added, ‘somewhere down the line, some bright minds that care more about money and less about jihad figured out the sheer profits to be made in drug trafficking. They had the manpower, they had the means, they knew the roads to evade the authorities. So over the years, terrorist outfits started trafficking drugs and the money they made financed their terrorist activities.’
‘Which is exactly what Ayyub did here…’ Mazhar said, understanding.
‘Must have been a massive amount,’ Daniel remarked.
‘Crores, over the period of five months, according to Shetty,’ Goyal said.
‘Which brings us,’ Vikrant said, ‘to the first revelation.’
Mirza sighed.
‘That’s right, lad,’ he said. ‘All this while, we’ve been working on the assumption that Ayyub only arrived in the country recently. We scoured all the arrivals’ lists at airports, not just in Mumbai but all over the country. But if what Shetty is saying is true, Ayyub was already in Mumbai six months ago when Ghazi first contacted him.’
‘Consider the implications of this,’ Vikrant said. ‘For the last six months at least, Ayyub’s been living here. Rehmat told us that he came to stay in Mumbra two months ago. Which means we have no idea where he was for four months before that, and what he was doing.’
Solo spoke up. He had been brought up to speed on Ayyub’s real identity and had offered no response whatsoever until now.
‘He said in his video that he has set some plans in motion for India, plans that even he cannot stop. What if he is not the ultimate mastermind but just a pawn? What if the whole thing has been planned by someone else?’