Mehrunisa gave a tentative smile.
‘And your mother?’
‘She passed away.’
‘Oh!’ The woman’s features seemed to soften. She got up abruptly and motioned with her right hand. ‘Let’s take a walk, shall we? Sitting inside is such a bore.’ She skittered across the room on her high heels, opened one of the French windows and stepped out. Mehrunisa followed. They were in the lush garden, a circular walkway bordering it. Begum Ameena was ahead and Mehrunisa caught up. The woman seemed in a hurry. With a toss of her head she asked, ‘Where is Harry currently?’
Mehrunisa hesitated.
‘How badly was he injured in the blast?’
She halted, taken aback by the begum’s intensity.
‘Keep walking,’ she commanded. ‘The reason we are in the open is because they have bugged the house. Hopefully these bushes,’ she shrugged in the direction of the greenery, ‘do not have microphones in them. Walk with me and speak low. And take off that tent, will you?’ Relieved, Mehrunisa removed the burqa and bundled it up.
When they were apace, she said, ‘The fact that Harry is not back in the field can only mean that he was injured in the blast. Which is why he has sent another agent. Though,’ the begum’s eyes narrowed, ‘you don’t look much like an agent. And why do they have to give you the identity of Harry’s daughter!’
‘I am his daughter,’ Mehrunisa said with a fierceness that surprised her. ‘And he told me to meet you because he said you would guide me to your husband who’d know where the President’s Kohinoor is hidden.’
The woman looked at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Why would I trust you?’
‘Zamzama. He said you’d understand.’
Begum Ameena gave a bitter laugh and shook her head. ‘Bastard!’ she laughed softly. ‘My lover sends his daughter to enquire about my husband!’
When Mehrunisa looked shocked, she said, ‘Don’t look so devastated. Looks like we were both in the dark! I didn’t know Harry was married, forget having a daughter! And I have always loved him. Though to be fair to him, he slept with me just once. He has all these notions about honour and loyalty to friends, and Aziz and he have known each other for twenty-odd years. Or,’ she rolled her eyes, ‘he never loved me. Doesn’t matter.’
That was a lot to absorb but Mehrunisa parked it for the time being. ‘What is the significance of Zamzama?’
Once again Begum Ameena snorted. ‘Zamzama, the fire-breathing dragon, you know? Suffice to say that in popular culture that word has allusions to a man’s sexual prowess. I teased Harry with that after he refused to sleep with me again. It was a private joke. That’s probably why Harry told you to mention it to me. You see, besides the two of us, nobody else is aware of that one-night stand. Not even Aziz.’
‘So where is your husband? Harry said he’s gone into hiding.’
‘Harry? Is that what you call your father?’
Mehrunisa tossed her head. ‘Long story. Remind me to tell you another time.’
Begum Ameena paused to scrutinize her. ‘This is a ridiculous situation. You do see that, don’t you? The two men of my life, and both in jeopardy. Should I help one at the risk of the other?’ She cocked her head at Mehrunisa. The silence of the winter night lay taut between them.
Before either could say a word, a deafening noise exploded the quiet and an enormous ball of fire rose in the sky. As their heads turned instinctively toward the entrance gate that was the site of the inferno, the shock wave of the explosion smacked into them, hurling the two women into the night air.
Lahore, Pakistan
Monday 9:53 p.m.
When Mehrunisa came to consciousness she was aware of a ringing in her eardrums. Tiny lights pricked her eyes as she attempted to focus on her surroundings. There had been an explosion, and it had knocked her flat. She felt the grass beneath her palms and attempted to sit up. Her left shoulder felt sore and she touched it gingerly as her eyes scanned the garden. The backpack was near her elbow. It was still dark but the noise in the air was of sirens, bells pealing, excited shouts. Smoke and soot stung her eyes and nose and she could see flames in the distance. Coughing, she felt her body, touching her limbs, chest and face – miraculously she was intact. Where was the begum though?
Mehrunisa staggered up and took a few uncertain steps forward. The house was still standing but the blast had ripped the tall French windows and the floor-length curtains. Potted plants lay hurled about as if a hurricane had swept through the place. The blast had occurred near the gate. That was where she had left Raghav before entering the bungalow. Was he hurt? She narrowed her eyes as she attempted to cut through the tenebrous depths. Then she sighted something stirring in the hedgerow.
From out of the dark emerged a figure with arms held out as if the person were on a trapeze. Slowly but surely Begum Ameena emerged from the thick night. Her hair was tousled, her elegant silken clothes were in disarray, her long dupatta had been misplaced and streaks of soot now covered her erstwhile powdered face. But the red-soled Louboutin heels were still on and Begum Ameena now walked shakily but firmly on them as she sighted Mehrunisa. She approached her, eyes ablaze, head bobbing furiously.
‘Enough!’ Begum Ameena screeched. ‘Enough!’
The force of her emotions kept her from being able to speak more and her breath was heavy as she took in a lungful and exhaled noisily. Still shaking her head, she turned to Mehrunisa, her arms akimbo. ‘I am fed up of this barbarism, this senseless destruction of life, and for what purpose?’ She tossed her head again.
The next moment Mehrunisa was in her embrace. ‘Murree,’ she said throatily. ‘Murree, you know? Hill station north of Islamabad.’ Lowering her voice further, she continued, ‘Go to Murree and look for the shrine of Pir Mohra Sharif, the tomb of a revered saint. Ask anyone, they’ll guide you to it. Request for a meeting with the Sajjada Nasheen, the custodian of the tomb, my brother. Aziz’s sister is married to him – if possible, meet her too. You’ll find what you are seeking.’
She was shaking with the intensity of her emotions and the horror of what had happened. ‘This nonsense has to stop, now!’
Mehrunisa looked around for a spot to seat the begum. She heard feet scrunching towards them and out of the night appeared a hand with a gun aloft, a crouching figure … Raghav! When he sighted the two women he pocketed the gun.
‘Khodaya shokret!’ Mehrunisa exclaimed. ‘You’re okay?’
He nodded. ‘When they didn’t allow me entry, I excused myself on the pretext of a smoke and walked to the rear of the house. I was out of harm’s way when the bomb went off.’ He gave a quick glance in the direction of the gate. ‘It’s a mess out there. A suicide bomber.’ He looked at the two women clinically, as if assessing for damage. ‘Can you walk? We should get out of here before the police arrive.’
‘Yes,’ Begum Ameena urged. ‘Hurry.’ She clutched Mehrunisa’s arm tightly, before sweeping a palm over her head. ‘Allah nigehbaan,’ she murmured the blessing, and as she planted a fierce kiss on her cheek, whispered, ‘Tell Harry I kept my end of the bargain.’
Lahore, Pakistan
Monday 11:09 p.m.
Aziz Mirza’s bungalow and its surroundings swarmed with policemen. From the extent of damage Raghav speculated the suicide bomber had triggered a crude bomb – a device packed with ball bearings, nails, screws, popular with the jihadis. He had blown apart the security cordon at the entrance to the palatial bungalow, and in the process had likely killed all six policemen on guard. Begum Mirza had survived, as had some servants who were crowding her now. Rubble was strewn everywhere. The glass windows and brick enclosures of neighbouring homes were shattered and people could be seen cowering behind their half-lit windows.
As Raghav guided her, Mehrunisa saw a wounded figure on the road, clothes apparently blown off by the force of the blast, screaming for help. Dead security men, some dress
ed in protective vests and helmets, lay where they had fallen. A sniffer dog was dead beside one body. Their vehicle, or what was left of it, was unserviceable, the blast having ripped its roof and door out, leaving a steaming shell. Ambulances and police vehicles were parked on the road, lights flashing in the darkness.
From the relative quiet and privacy of a public park located diagonally across from the bungalow, Raghav and Mehrunisa proceeded to watch the developments. Raghav dialled a contact and asked for a car. Murree was located 313 kilometres from Lahore, he informed her, and considering night-time travel, it would take them anywhere from eight to ten hours to reach.
Raghav’s cell phone vibrated – it was on silent mode – and he answered, then beckoned to Mehrunisa to follow him as he crouched. They kept low behind the henna hedge that bordered the park, craning a neck every now and then to monitor the road leading to the Mirza bungalow. At the other end of the park a jeep stood, its engine growling softly. Raghav walked briskly to the jeep. Mehrunisa jogged behind. The next instant she tripped and fell over. Her hands touched the moist packed earth of the park. The halogen lamp above cast a dim patch of light upon the ground. She cast a look in Raghav’s direction and reached for her backpack. Her hand made contact with something smooth and soft and lighter than the bag. Hoisting it up for a closer look, Mehrunisa froze. Then she flung it, went into a spasm of shivers and screamed.
Raghav pounded down the grass and clasped a hand on Mehrunisa’s mouth as he held her firmly. ‘Shh… shh…’ he hushed as he rocked her back and forth, his eyes having sighted the object on which Mehrunisa was transfixed. He placed a kerchief in her mouth for her to bite and prevent the noise leaking out. When Mehrunisa’s breath steadied, he propped her upright, grabbed her backpack and started to lead her firmly toward the jeep. A man stepped out, handed Raghav a packet. Without looking at Mehrunisa he slunk into the shadows of the park and melted into the night.
Raghav held the passenger door open for Mehrunisa and instructed her to buckle up tight before bounding over and starting the jeep. ‘You okay?’ he asked as she was still shivering, her hands, streaked with blood, trembling.
‘Here,’ he pulled a bunch of tissue papers from a box on the dashboard and wiped her hands clean.
‘It was still w-warm,’ she mumbled.
Raghav understood. The shock would wear off in a few hours. It wasn’t easy, holding a body part in one’s hand, especially a torn bloodied human arm.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here before police come searching for who was screaming.’
Lahore, Pakistan
Monday midnight
It was not the Pakistani police who had heard Mehrunisa scream. Her shrill cries had pierced the night air and reached a man who was hoping for precisely something like that to happen.
He had instructed the suicide bomber to blow up the bungalow into which the Indian agent had walked. After the bomb exploded, Babur Khan, parked at a safe distance, realized things had not gone to plan. The bomber was unable to force his way through the security cordon and ended up pulling the trigger near the entrance gates. In the mayhem that followed the explosion, Babur, dressed as a policeman, walked up to examine the street. He found the head and limbs of the shaheed about fifty metres from the site of the explosion and tossed them into the park.
From his lookout he realized the devastation had failed to kill the Indian agents. The two made for the park but he lost track of them in the smoke blanketing the place.
However, the woman’s shrieking had alerted him – she had likely stumbled over the shaheed’s body part. He saw them get into a vehicle – a Toyota Land Cruiser – and pull away. The ridiculously-priced 4x4 was a powerful SUV. Clearly, the Indians were in a hurry.
Quietly Babur watched them pass and slid into gear. His vehicle though was a kaykra, Urdu for crab. Like its namesake, it could climb over or go through anything. The kaykra was a Dodge Powerwagon two-ton truck. A true six-wheel drive, it was also used by the Pakistani army, the same folks from whom Babur had hijacked the vehicle in the last fight in south Waziristan. The kaykra was unwieldy but unstoppable. He would tail the Indian infidels to hell if needed. They would lead him to Aziz Mirza, the last pawn in the game.
Kohinoor, the General had labelled his secret. But Babur had already hijacked it, giving that name to his operation. Inshallah, the documents would be his soon, Mirza and the Indian agents despatched to Hell, and Operation Kohinoor would deliver such brilliance as would obliterate the infidels once and for all!
En route to Murree, Pakistan
Tuesday 1:01 a.m.
Raghav glanced at the map spread out on his lap as they headed towards M2, the new motorway their contact had suggested instead of the centuries-old Grand Trunk Road. Traffic had thinned as they moved out of Lahore and the night deepened. After crossing the river Ravi, a six-lane highway opened up in front of them. Keen to reach Murree at the earliest, Raghav pressed on the gas, periodically eyeing the rear-view mirror.
Mehrunisa, meanwhile, sat huddled in the front passenger seat, chin resting on her knees. Even as she clenched and unclenched her fingers she could still feel the soft warm flesh of that bodiless arm, which, in turn, set off a concomitant shudder. Instinctively, she reached for the steel bangle on her right wrist, her kara, gifted by Papa as a symbol of his Sikh faith. In childhood it had been her talisman against spirits as she slept alone in her room; when her father became a memory, it became a cherished connect.
A hand clasped tight on the kara, Mehrunisa studied the streetlights whizzing by.
All those years of willing her father to return had borne fruit – Papa was back. All she had to do was retrieve the Kohinoor and they’d be together again. She squeezed her eyes and shoved the image of the torn limb aside. Instead she visualized a white gurudwara set in a verdant garden, regal cannons sitting at its entryway. She recalled the story of the battle of Saragarhi her father had told her, of twenty-one soldiers who defended a fort against an army of ten thousand Afghans. Over whistling wind and howling cries the battle raged from nine in the morning to dusk – how could the Afghans ever foresee that a bare twenty-one men would be able to hold off their assault until reinforcements arrived? Math was on the Afghan side, the ratio totally cockeyed. And yet, in the face of overwhelming odds, the few brave Sikhs had determined to win.
Nishchay kar apni jeet karo.
In an atavistic harking to that memory, she mouthed that war cry silently, over and over, rocking herself to the soundless recitation.
She would will herself to win.
Srinagar, India
Tuesday 1:45 a.m.
Harry was heavily sedated. He had started to thrash in his sleep and the doctor, concerned that the restraints would shred his skin, had administered propofol intravenously. Jag Mishra, who alerted the medic, had overheard Harry’s feverish mutterings and was well aware of what troubled his super spy.
In the labyrinth of his bewildered mind Harry was chasing ghosts, seeking answers. How had his mind given up on his wife and daughter so easily? How could he erase his personal life so completely? Where had his mind banished those days when he was a husband and a father?
In answer his mind kept throwing up images of a darkened study, chilly with winter cold, not a spot of light or fire for warmth but the burning glow in a man’s eyes as he recounted his days as a soldier…
It was the winter of 1971, Harry was eighteen and India and Pakistan were at war, a third time. As Pakistani tanks rolled towards the border Harry fled with his extended family to the relative safety of Chandigarh. In the city, they took shelter with Harry’s great uncle, Harry Sr, a legendary soldier who had partaken in all the great theatres of war that century: WWII, Pakistan’s 1947 invasion of Kashmir, the 1965 Indo-Pak war. The retired Lt. General was running an armchair offensive in that winter of ’71 and Harry was a willing and able lieutenant.
Over Scotch i
n the evenings, Earl Grey in the mornings and adrakwali cha at noon, the Lt. General related his adventures, illustrating them simultaneously through maps, books and journals from his vast library. Other family members would wander in-out but Harry had enrolled, engaging in sorties under the Lt. General’s command: refill the kettle, fetch the bottle of Scotch, lug the atlas of the world.
Harry’s great uncle Harbaksh Singh was commissioned into 5 Sikh in 1936. A graduate of the 1st course at the IMA after a year’s attachment with a British battalion, The Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, he saw active service in the North-West Frontier. There he was severely wounded in the head – a steel plate was inserted in his skull and he lived in harmony with that piece of iron until his last breath.
That extended encounter with Harry Sr over a fortnight was to engender in Harry Jr a love for war lore. When other boys his age could rattle off cricket statistics or recite lyrics of the reigning Bollywood ditty, Harry Jr could recite numbers and figures from the great battles of history. How many elephants did Hannibal take with him when he marched across the Alps in freezing winter? Why did Babur regroup so quickly after losing Fergana? How many Spartans faced off the mighty Persians in the Battle of Thermopylae? How did knowledge of terrain help Moses cross the Sea of Reeds? How did the Indian army repel Pakistani invasion of Kashmir?
The last was learnt firsthand at the feet of the hero of that particular battle. On 21 November 1947, the Lt. General elucidated, word arrived that three thousand troops of Pakistani regulars, irregulars and tribesmen were at the outskirts of Srinagar at Shalateng, preparing to attack.
Col Harbaksh Singh, then second-in-command of 161 Brigade, was tasked with battle. He held off the enemy for three days, time in which two more battalions could enter the fray via Srinagar airfield. After he saved Srinagar, he was assigned with clearing the enemy out of Jhelum Valley – which he managed in a lightning strike.
THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA Page 11