‘Janaab General sir, assalam alaikum, this is Afridi, special operations, ISI speaking.’
‘Haan, waalaikum salaam. Arif, bolo.’ Raheel didn’t seem happy to be disturbed.
‘It’s an emergency, sir, and that’s why I had to disturb you. Those Indians are getting away. They have just got on to a speedboat at Kiamari and may be heading for the Gujarat coast. We need to stop them or destroy them before they manage to leave Pakistani waters,’ Afridi said, the panic mounting in his voice.
‘I’ll get the air chief to scramble the jets,’ Raheel said, ready to sign off.
‘General sir, since we have some frigates and warships at Manora, can we press them into service? They would be the closest and can intercept them,’ Afridi suggested.
‘Do you want to put the entire might of Pakistan behind a bunch of riff-raff? I’ll see what I can do,’ Raheel said and disconnected, without waiting for an answer.
Meanwhile, Vikrant was at the wheel, fully focused on the way ahead. He manoeuvred the speedboat past several dhows, trawlers and fishing nets parked near the coast.
He turned around and saw Brijesh lying face down, clothes drenched with blood. Next to him was a far bloodier Kang, one leg missing. Waris was still weak, reclining against a sack. They had been hit hard, but they had survived.
Laila and Ray were taking turns on the GPS equipment. ‘Turn right, Vikrant, turn right. A wrong turn will take us towards the Chinna Creek mangroves, where we’d be trapped.’
‘Sir, they are closing in on us. There are three or four boats and their numbers seem to be increasing. They may have received assistance from the Manora cantonment,’ Ray yelled over the noise of the engine.
Forty knots was the best they could do. The boat had begun to wobble; any increase in speed would cause it to overturn.
Waris gestured to Laila to come closer and said something in her ear. She nodded and rushed towards Vikrant.
‘He says that once you cross twenty nautical miles, you have crossed Pakistani territorial waters. Sky is sending a submarine for us. But once we are in the submarine, they will not be able to lay their hands on us in international waters,’ Laila said.
Vikrant nodded. He could see a huge dark shadow moving towards them at a steady speed.
‘What is that?’ Ray asked, scared out of his wits.
Afridi now had seven boats chasing the Indians. He instructed them to open fire.
‘Sir, they are out of range, there’s no point in firing,’ said an officer.
‘Fuck you, I said fire at them! Any stray bullet could hit them,’ Afridi shouted.
One of the officers piped up. ‘Sir, I can see a destroyer moving towards them.’
Even before the Indian speedboat was in range, the Tariq class destroyer had opened fire on it.
Laila and Ray fell flat on the floor.
‘How much further?’ yelled Vikrant at the top of his voice
Laila turned on her stomach, looked at her GPS instrument and replied, ‘Only two nautical miles and my coordinates state that soon after we cross it, we will turn east and jump into the water to get into Shalki.’
Vikrant turned back to look. A destroyer class vessel was leading the band of boats that was attacking them, and the distance between them was reducing rapidly.
Just then he heard the sound of a whirring chopper over his head and a volley of bullets.
‘Laila, get everyone the scuba gear and snorkels. Ray, help Brijesh, Kang and Waris get theirs on. We have no time,’ Vikrant ordered.
The chopper had gone ahead and was turning back now.
Vikrant knew how to handle fire from a chopper. Although it had the advantage of altitude, it wasn’t the most accurate. As the chopper came closer, Vikrant pulled the boat into a zigzag movement. He could only see a huge, daunting body of water – nothing but darkness and water. But he kept going doggedly.
‘Vikrant, we are out of Pakistani waters,’ Laila said.
‘But they are still chasing us,’ said Ray.
‘They can claim hot pursuit,’ Vikrant explained. He saw that his entire team had strapped on their snorkels. He asked Laila to grab the wheel, while he picked up a snorkel and put it on.
The destroyer had begun firing at them again.
Just then, he saw a fighter aircraft flying dangerously low towards them.
‘This is it,’ Vikrant said.
Afridi was livid when he was told that the Indians had left Pakistani waters. ‘I can see an airforce plane. Ask the pilot to shoot them,’ he said into his radio.
‘Sir, they have crossed our boundary. Any fire could provoke a war,’ the pilot replied.
‘Shoot at them! It will be my responsibility.’
‘Sir, I also see an Indian warship in the distance. It would not be advisable. There could be war.’
‘Shut the fuck up and shoot!’ Afridi screamed, his eyes red hot with anger.
Vikrant turned towards Laila. Brijesh would go with her. He instructed Ray to take Waris. ‘I will handle Kang,’ he said.
He looked up at the fighter plane and urged Laila to jump before they were bombed. Laila tried to lift Brijesh up, with Vikrant and Ray supporting her, and together they slipped into the water. Then Vikrant helped Waris, who was just about conscious and slowly joined Kang, who summoned the last reserves of his strength and entered the water with them.
Just in time, behind him, a rocket blew up the speedboat. It had served its purpose.
The celebrations aboard the submarine were muted. In their hurry to get out of Pakistan and ensure that no one was left behind, they had failed to put the adequate amount of pressure on Kang’s volcanic bleeding. Somewhere between the time they finally got out of their speedboat and the time that Ray went to share a joke with Kang, he had bled to death.
It was only a short while ago that he had asked Vikrant to keep slapping him to make sure he didn’t die in Pakistani waters. ‘You’re not going to die out here,’ Vikrant had said. ‘You’re far too tough for that.’
Brijesh placed a hand on his face and gently closed the eyelids of one of the most courageous men he had had the privilege to work with.
Brijesh fell to his knees and took Kang’s dead body in his embrace. With his head resting on Kang’s chest, he seemed to breathe his last too.
They sat in silence for the remainder of the journey. The last few days have scarred us all, thought Vikrant. Some more than others, but the price of freedom isn’t cheap and the cost of vengeance is very high. He accepted that someday he would have to pay this cost. But for now, their mission had been accomplished.
The submarine took what was left of the team to a speedboat just off the coast of Mumbai and they slowly climbed into it. Brijesh and Kang would be buried at sea with all the honours the Indian Navy could bestow.
The first person aboard the speedboat was Waris.
‘Is that—? Have we—? Gateway?’ he asked, confused.
Laila looked over at him and Ray leaned in to listen.
‘What was that?’ Ray asked.
‘Is that the Gateway of … of India?’
Ray and Laila turned and peered into the distance. Sure enough, it was the Gateway of India, with the iconic Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in the backdrop.
‘Take some time to look at that sight and let it sink in,’ said Waris, softly but clearly. ‘Let it remind you of what we fought for.
Laila stroked his back, as he began to cough.
‘What I’m trying to say is that your victories are India’s victories. But your names will never be known. If they are known, it will be by those who want to hunt you down and kill you. That is the price we pay for our vengeance. I hope you are all at peace with that. I know I am,’ he said. Those were the last works he spoke
Epilogue
Islamabad, ISI HQ.
‘No, I will not take the call,’ said Afridi, softly but sternly to his PA, as he ran his fingers through his hair. The PA nodded and quietly retreated from his boss’s office, s
hutting the door softly behind him.
Under normal circumstances, the chief of army staff wasn’t a man whose calls could be ignored, but these circumstances were far from normal.
A man of discipline, Arif Afridi had never been one to disrespect his equipment or the facilities of his office, but today he sat on the leather chair with his feet on the table. He stared into blank nothingness in his office, which was usually lit by an array of energy-saving light bulbs. One solitary table lamp provided context to the bleak despondence that had taken over the man who was widely considered to be one of ISI’s most competent officers.
He reached for the television remote control and pressed the standby button. The black LED screen reflected his mood briefly, before flickering to life in an orgy of colours. He skipped past the sports channels. The trials and tribulations of cricketers held little interest for him any more.
‘In an audacious attack on Pakistani soil, militants believed to be of Indian origin destroyed government property and—’ said the anchor of a Pakistani television channel.
He clicked the little plus button on his remote control to change the channel.
‘… unidentified attack on the Pakistani city of Karachi. Authorities are linking this to a series of attacks over the course of—’ said the stoic anchor of a British news channel.
Click.
‘Where is the justice for the innocents killed by these Indian militants? Why is the LoC not being patrolled more carefully and where is—’ came the voice of another Pakistani news anchor.
Click.
‘If you ask me, this is a case of the chickens coming home to roost. By being a terror haven, they effectively set themselves up for the—’ opined a right-wing analyst on an American news channel.
Click.
‘… the anniversary of 26/11. The country wants to know what is happening across the border. Is every Indian man, woman and child entitled to celebrate or should this be a moment of reflection? We will debate this on—’ shrieked a shrill Indian television anchor.
Such was the effect of his voice that Afridi switched off the television set.
He looked across his table at the display cabinet behind it. The medals, trophies, plaques and other memorabilia paid tribute to his sparkling career, but much like the JuD headquarters, that bright, sparkling career lay in ruins. A section of the cabinet that contained a little trophy for a marathon in which he had participated and been placed third, caught his eye.
Beside the trophy were commendations for archery, horseriding and squash, but these didn’t matter much to him now. What did matter was the framed photograph of an army officer with a gigantic collage of medals across his proud chest: Lt Gen. Yusuf Jan Afridi, his father.
He wondered how things had turned out like this. After all, it had been his life’s mission to avenge his father’s humiliation. He had set about his life and career to right all the wrongs that had been committed by India against his father and by association, his country. And at the end of it all, he had let those bastards slip away. It wasn’t even the fact that he had lost so many people who were vital to the ISI’s cause. That he had let his country down hurt, but even that wasn’t the lowest point for him.
The fact was, he had grown up to be a failure, just like his father before him.
Afridi took out a little key from his breast pocket and unlocked a drawer that contained some of his father’s possessions. A little pocket watch that was stuck at ten minutes past eight. A few medals. A letter. And of course, General Abbu’s service revolver. The one with which he had ended his life.
Afridi allowed himself a wry smile despite himself, at the clichéd nature of what he was about to do.
He cocked the revolver, rested the mouth of the barrel on his temple, and closed his eyes.
About the Author
Gabriel Khan is a journalist and writer based in Mumbai.
S. Hussain Zaidi is a Mumbai-based journalist, a veteran of investigative, crime and terror reporting in the media. He has worked for the Asian Age, Mumbai Mirror, Mid-Day, and Indian Express. His previous books include best-sellers like Black Friday, Mafia Queens of Mumbai, Dongri to Dubai and Byculla to Bangkok. He is also associate producer for the HBO movie, Terror in Mumbai, based on the 26/11 terror strikes. He lives with his family in Mumbai.
Copyright
First published in India in 2015 by
HarperCollins Publishers India
Copyright © S. Hussain Zaidi 2015
P-ISBN: 978-93-5136-368-2
Epub Edition © February 2015, E-ISBN: 978-93-5136-369-9
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Gabriel Khan and S. Hussain Zaidi assert the moral right
to be identified as the authors of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover design: HarperCollins Publishers India
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title page
Dedication
Contents
Foreword
Author’s Note
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Epilogue
About the Author
Copyright
Mumbai Avengers Page 33