THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA

by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

  ‘And now, belatedly, they have sent in men to spy. But guess what? The Americans have a chronic weakness: they believe they are the centre of the world. US intel in Afghanistan is clueless and ignorant. You know better than to rely on them, Mishra. Our man is hiding in the hills of FATA.’

  That Mishra was a man of caution and deliberation was etched on his brow in deep furrows. He stared at Harry, his mouth glum. ‘You are relying too much on a stray sound heard over the phone and some untested technology.’

  Harry stared at Mishra and quietly said, ‘What do you think makes a good hunter?’

  Without hesitation Mishra said, ‘Skill. Patience. Perseverance.’

  ‘That makes for a hunting instructor, Mishra. Like yourself. Someone who knows the skills required to hunt and who can write a manual on them for new trainees. That is why you sit in a chair in an office. But to understand a hunter you will have to hark back to your Stone Age ancestors. Those men were hunters – they had intimate knowledge of both the territory and the game to be found in the territory.’

  Mishra rubbed his jaw, his mouth etched in a straight line. ‘How can you be sure?’ The ticking of the clock was growing deafening with each passing hour – they could not afford a miscalculation.

  Harry walked up to Mishra till he was less than a foot away and towering over him. With quiet menace he said, ‘To be a good hunter, you become the predator. And the only way you do it is by spending years learning the lay of the land, understanding its game and the game’s preferred habitat.’ Abruptly he swivelled and in a few lithe steps reached a large map pinned on the wall opposite the computers. He jabbed an index finger at the AfPak border.

  ‘The cadence, the tone, the accent revealed more to me than the man ever intended. But I have spent years in the region, haven’t I, Mishra, courtesy you. So spare me the crap from US intelligence while I figure out where exactly in these hills,’ his fingertip encircling the spot, ‘he could be hiding my daughter.’

  Srinagar, India

  Wednesday 1:01 a.m.

  In a spare room – a wall-mounted TV for furnishing – Jag Mishra sat at a table and watched Harry. His wounds had healed partially but what had transformed him abruptly back into the warrior he was, was the news of his daughter’s capture. The body that was still recuperating from the explosion of a few days back would now bend to his will and perform.

  Mishra watched as the waterproofed bandages disappeared under the dry suit that Harry was pulling on. It would keep him safe from the icy spray from the sub-zero waters of the Neelam River, and in case of accidental immersion were the boat or passenger to take a tumble. Despite the warm air of the room, adequately heated by an oil-filled radiation heater, Mishra felt an icy finger on his spine. It had been a while since he had worked as a field operative and he knew that what lay ahead for Harry would test the endurance of a physically-fit soldier of twenty-five.

  Harry had asked for a dossier on Babur Khan – information on his parents, family background, growing-up years, his years in Afghanistan with the US army and after – and to locate any audio files that might reveal what the man sounded like. If, as Harry was surmising, it was Badshah Khan in the fray, it complicated things multiple-fold, for Mishra knew that the lawless man was a law unto himself.

  Harry’s plan was simple and audacious. Time was of essence, as was stealth. Harry had to reach the federally administered tribal areas in the lawless westernmost region of Pakistan, determine the hideout where his kidnapped daughter was being kept and rescue her – all this in twenty-four hours.

  An airdrop from Srinagar to a quiet spot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was a possibility but fraught with risks. The narrow strip of land that formed Pakistan’s ‘Azad Kashmir’ was populated with terrorist camps and enemy fire from across the Line of Control was a routine occurrence. Harry had proposed a reverse ‘winter infiltration’. Believed to have been crafted by a Lashkar commander, the winter-infiltration strategy was based on a careful study of India’s LoC defences.

  Traditionally, Kashmir had seen infiltration in late spring and early summer, after the snow on the mountains melted. The army’s Srinagar-based defence units prepared for this seasonal offensive by pushing additional troops forward, putting up barbed wire and planting electronic sensors. However, when the passes snowed over in winter, the army and jihadist groups shifted their energies to the southern stretches of the line of control, in Poonch, Rajouri and Jammu.

  Lately however, Lashkar had begun testing India’s winter defences in Kashmir itself. Beginning in February 2008, infiltrators had probed the Keran and Lolab sectors. Using rubber pontoon boats, fifteen feet long, with large outboard motors, militants had started infiltrating Kashmir from the Kupwara district. District Kupwara was situated at an altitude of 5,300 feet above sea level and was the northernmost district of the Kashmir Valley. It shared a long border with PoK in its north and western side and was totally enclosed by Baramulla district on the other side. The Neelam River, also called Kishan Ganga, was a snow-fed canyon river that tumbled from the Himalayas and traversed the district from east to west. Additionally, Kupwara was endowed with dense forests that made it easier for the infiltrators to disappear once they had crossed over.

  Harry’s plan was to take a rubber pontoon down the Neelam all the way to Muzzafarabad, the capital of PoK. If all went well, the journey would not last longer than two hours. Which meant he could do it under cover of darkness. But the freezing temperatures were no guarantee that militants would be asleep. Mishra planned to provide Harry with two escorts, one a sniper. From there he’d use road transport to get to the outskirts of Peshawar. Where he hoped to call in some favours of old Pathan associates.

  Meanwhile, there was no news of Saby or Singh. Mishra switched his gaze from the TV. ‘You will come back Harry, with Mehrunisa, after saving us as you always have in the past. And when you do we will play a game of golf on our favourite course.’

  Harry knew Mishra was referring to the world’s highest golf course located in Gulmarg. The 18-hole, par-72 course was hilly and offered a pleasurable distraction from the challenges of spying. Mishra and he would routinely take off for Gulmarg when time allowed. Gulmarg, the ‘Meadow of Flowers’ was where he had taken young Mehr for a holiday once.

  Harry patted the shoulder where his gun rested. He took the Glock and put it in his waistband. ‘I’m glad you brought the topic up,’ he said, quiet vehemence in his voice. ‘Gulmarg was named by Jahangir, the horticulturist Mughal emperor. Remember your history lessons, Mishra? When not tending to his gardens, the emperor was chopping people’s heads off.’

  His jaw set, he looked at Mishra a final time. ‘You’d be well advised to watch yours.’

  Mishra’s face maintained its placid demeanour. The entire mission was now vested in Harry. Did the legendary spy still have it in him? As he watched him don his Himalayan parka, Mishra reflected that the probability of a nuclear war on the subcontinent rested on the ability of one man to do the impossible. The lives of a billion-plus people were at stake, and Mishra was not a betting man, yet he had staked all on the legend of a particular snow leopard. At this particular moment Harry loathed him, but Mishra had to remind him why he was who he was, a man who always put his country first.

  Mishra swung his head to catch Harry glowering at news on the TV monitor. His jaw set, he hoisted the bag on his shoulder and advanced towards the door.

  As Harry strode past him, Mishra caught his forearm. The two men eyeballed each other. Quietly, Mishra said, ‘You’ll do it Harry. You will bring Mehrunisa home to the safety of her country. The hopes of a billion of your countrymen are with you. You’ll do it Harry, for all of them.’

  AfPak Border

  Wednesday 1:37 a.m.

  Mehrunisa was trapped in a diaphanous billowing drape that refused to part despite her endless flailing. She had been at it for hours, her limbs leaden, her mind fuzzy… Som
ething was wrong, it was all wrong…

  She stilled herself and breathed deeply. With effort she attempted to open her eyes – they seemed weighted in treacle. Darkness. She let her eyes soak up the black. But they kept shutting. She worked her other senses. Her arms were by her side. No wonder she’d felt stifled. The fingers twitched and crawled outwards. After an aeon they found an edge. A narrow bed. She was in it. Under a thick blanket.

  She tried to prise her arms out of the blanket – they wouldn’t lift. Why was she feeling like a slug in stupor? Her captor. Yes, he shot repeatedly at Pratap. Then he hustled her through the dark of the Lahore Fort to his vehicle, jabbed an injection in her arm before depositing her in the back seat. After that, she went dead, until she spoke with Papa. Then dead again…

  How much time had elapsed? Was Pratap – alive? A sob caught in her throat. Where was the Kohinoor? Had the attack been carried out? She sifted her dense mind for information. The attack was due on Thursday … what day was today?

  The dark and the quiet were eerie. What place was this? The air was chilly and she felt a familiar buzz in her ears. She forced her mouth open in a yawn and stretched it wide until her ears popped. Yes.

  Years spent in the mountains in her parents’ company – Zagros in Iran, the Alps in Italy, the Himalayas in Kashmir – told her she was in the mountains somewhere…

  Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir

  Wednesday 2:54 a.m.

  The chopper flew steadily northwest towards Gurez. It was one of the shortest infiltration routes from PoK into Kashmir, one that Harry had used at various points in his career with Indian intelligence. The two recent incursions into Pakistani air space hadn’t gone unnoticed by the host country – with adequate soothing noises Mishra had pacified his counterpart. An airdrop into Pakistani territory would be faster but Harry couldn’t risk this mission.

  At Gurez, the river also changed its name from Kishen Ganga to the older Neelam. His plan was to take a raft from Gurez down into Neelam Valley. The 144-kilometre bow-shaped valley in the thickly forested region of ‘Azad Kashmir’ was the spot where Harry had first started working as an operative. The paradise that has been lost to the outside world for sixty years had become a hotbed of militant training camps, jihadis and counterinsurgents. It would be astonishing to consider that the Gurez Valley, surrounded by the lofty peaks of the Pir Panjal range, with its green meadows, pristine alpine lakes, pine forests and trout-filled aquamarine rivers, was home to a military. Once Gurez was a stop on the old Silk Route, which ran from Srinagar and Bandipora through Gurez, then on to Dras, Kargil, Leh, and Tibet. Now though, it was located right along the LoC, which had made it out of bounds for civilians and traders.

  With his night vision goggles on, Harry watched as the chopper descended into the Gurez Valley from the 11,600-foot high Razdan Pass. Below, the Neelam River – Harry could never get the ‘proper’ name of Kishan Ganga, bequeathed on the river after 1947 – flowed like a silver stream from the belly of Habba Khatoon, the perfect pyramid-shaped peak. The chopper landed in a clearing in a wooded area. Its blades kept spinning as Harry scrambled out.

  The two escorts Mishra had provided were cooling their heels in Srinagar – Harry worked best on his own. By the time he was making for the riverbank, the chopper had disappeared from sight. The idea was to proceed as noiselessly as possible. It was his daughter’s life at stake and Harry could not afford even a whisper of his attempt to reach the jihadis who held her. For that reason he had refused Mishra’s escorts, or the option of distracting fire at another point on the LoC, one which would give him cover under which to sneak down the Neelam.

  The river whooshed down, its force in winter considerably less than summer when it tumbled full of molten snow. A raft was secured some distance away, as pre-arranged. Harry cast a quick glance around, crouching in the grass as he squinted for any sign of life. All quiet except for the riversong.

  Harry secured his backpack, slid the raft into the water and the next instant the current was taking him forward. Deftly he manoeuvred the slim raft with a paddle. The current was strong and took him along, Harry needing a few brisk paddles to guide it. If he faced no interruption, he would be near Muzzafarabad well before dawn. Despite the dark night and the layer of fog that encased him, Harry’s eyes were engaged in a constant reconnaissance of the surrounding area. This, his first step in the journey to FATA, was also the most dangerous. It required only one jihadi from the thousands in the hundred-plus training camps located in the Neelam Valley to spot him and things would deteriorate sharply. He was trusting his instinct, the river, and prior experience to lead him on as his ears and eyes worked the night for signs of the enemy.

  At some point further down were rapids but Harry was still some distance away. In this stretch the river had narrowed. His weapon was in his shoulder holster – he could withdraw it in under a few seconds if required. In the midst of the riversong Harry picked up a faint whirring sound. A motor. Harry paddled swiftly to the right bank. Once there, he dragged the raft up the grassy slope and lay down flat in the high grass.

  The whirr grew louder. Likely the outboard motor of a rubber pontoon, the kind Lashkar had started using to ferry infiltrators. The fog would provide cover unless the militants were looking for him. Soon a ten-foot long pontoon cut through the fog with one man at the motor and another seated at the rear with cargo. Likely arms and money that would be handed over to an aide or thrown over at some unguarded point across the LoC. Every winter, heavy snowfall and avalanches brought down the fence along the LoC. Come summer and the army simply erected new fences.

  Harry waited for five minutes, trying to pick up the sound of another boat. None. He was about to get up when a sharp whistle sounded inches from his head. A shot. Flattening himself on the ground he swivelled his neck. A jihadi loomed over him, the barrel of an AK-47 in his face.

  Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir

  Wednesday 3:01 a.m.

  With the swiftness of the animal whose moniker he was crowned with, Harry spun, inclined his body upwards and simultaneously grabbed the barrel of the gun before it went off. The bullet landed in the grass and the next instant Harry had delivered a kick to the man’s groin. He doubled over. A sharp blow to the side of his face. The man rolled over and tumbled into the icy waters of the Neelam flowing rapidly downstream.

  Harry crouched on the riverbank, assessing the foggy surrounding for another patrol. None. Stealthily he slipped the raft back into the waters and started downstream.

  Well before dawn Harry had reached the outskirts of Muzzafarabad. The river had grown wider with the confluence with Jhelum at Domel and it was here that Harry had to get out. He dragged the raft up the riverbank and proceeded to hide it in the dense foliage of the surrounding woods. With luck, none would sight it. A moment to assess any unusual sounds in the mist of the alpine forest. Then he made for a lone hut that stood less than a kilometre away.

  It belonged to a pastoralist, a wiry old man who went by the name of Pahalwan Shah. Harry had first made his acquaintance thirty years back. His name was a reflection of the humour inherent to the Kashmiri temperament. Or it was a desperate entreaty? Born after five of his siblings had passed prematurely, Pahalwan was named by his parents as an appeal to God to let him survive.

  Indeed, Pahalwan had survived. In fact, Harry knew of no other man who was as hardy. He credited it to the medicinal herbs that grew in the pastures of the verdant valley. Pahalwan was a Dard-Shin, ethnically and culturally distinct from Kashmiris or Pakistani Punjabis and closer to the people of Gilgit and other regions of the Karakoram across the LoC. Traditionally, the Dard-Shin had no involvement in the militancy of the region, preferring to live in the manner of their forbears, cattle being their main source of livelihood.

  A year into his work as a spy Harinder Singh Khosa was shot at while fleeing undercover through the Neelam Valley. Wounded, he sought shelter in an isolated hut.
Under Harry’s guidance the pastoralist managed to pluck the bullet out of his shoulder. Then an exhausted Harry slept for two days straight, two days in which Pakistani soldiers came scouting for the Indian spy. But Harry was hidden by the husband and wife under pellets of straw. When Harry came to, he used the same river upstream to reach Indian Kashmir. But that act of kindness had sealed their friendship and Harry continued to frequent Pahalwan irregularly.

  In the distance he sighted the lone hut, as ancient-looking as the first time he had seen it. A barn stood a short distance away. Inside was a loft where straw was stored. From the barn he would take a milk bucket and place it in front of the hut’s door – an agreed upon sign to Pahalwan that Harry was in the loft.

  A couple of hours to rest his body before sunrise – after that there would be no sleep until he managed to rescue his daughter.

  Muzaffarabad, Pakistan

  Wednesday 6:10 a.m.

  A creaking woke him up. The next instant his hands were cradling a pistol, head cocked towards the ladder which led up to the loft. A throat was cleared, loud and deliberate, and it sounded out in the still pre-dawn air. Harry relaxed.

  A samovar was deposited on the loft, followed by a woven basket and then a pair of thin arms hoisted a man up onto the loft. His face sported a smile, and though it was difficult to see in the dark, Harry could make out the contours of the henna-bearded face.

  ‘Pahalwan Shah,’ Harry said in greeting.

  ‘Janaab! Long time.’ Pahalwan Shah sat down beside Harry and poured out kehwa from the brass kettle into a tumbler. The aroma of crushed cinnamon and cardamom filled his nostrils. The invigorating green tea of the region was the best potion for a drowsy body. Harry accepted the hot drink gratefully and took a big bite out of the thick roti in the basket. They sat in silence. Besides his fealty, one reason for Pahalwan Shah’s longevity as Harry’s associate was that the man asked no questions, realizing that the less information he had, the better it was.