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Salaam Alaikum
Wednesday, 26 November 2008, 6 p.m.
A bronzed Andreas Liveras, his silver hair swept back, his linen shirt open at the neck, stood on the sun deck of his super-yacht Alysia and contemplated the sea-stippled Taj. He had just returned from an afternoon’s shopping in Chor Bazaar, Mumbai’s famous thieves’ market, accompanied by his good-natured Indian cruise director, Remesh Cheruvoth, who managed his fleet and also carried his bags, bulging with carvings and papier-mâché. Andreas had last visited this city with his wife, Anna, going to the Taj for ‘a memorable curry’ in Masala Kraft. A few months ago an aggressive cancer had killed her, and tonight Andreas, seventy-three, intended to return to the hotel, in memory of Anna, in search of ‘another famous curry’ and to get away from the boat.
His British friend and yacht broker Nick Edmiston was borrowing the Alysia for the launch of a new Indian venture: his first foray into yacht sales and charters in the subcontinent. Andreas was not in the mood for socializing, which was unusual for him. A rambunctious Greek Cypriot exile, he normally loved to brag of the Alysia’s luxurious dimensions: an imposing 280-foot hull, with eighteen state rooms, eighteen suites, a jacuzzi, a helicopter landing pad and a temperature-controlled wine cellar. It took a team of liveried crew to get it sailing. ‘I’m the king of yachting,’ he told people, explaining his simple formula: ‘The bigger the boat, the more expensive, the busier [we] are.’ Built in 2006 at a cost of £70m, the Alysia was listed by Forbes Magazine that year as the most expensive ever and it had represented a high-water mark in Andreas’s mercantile life.
One of nine children born to impoverished Cypriot farmers, in the sixties he had migrated to London, where he had started as a baker’s delivery boy in upmarket Kensington, West London, before building up the hugely profitable Fleur de Lys patisserie and catering chain. After selling the business for £130m, Andreas, in his rose pink suit and thick gold chain, embraced the high life, buying jets and luxury homes all over the world, including Monaco, where he befriended Prince Albert and became a member of the Royal Yacht Club, through which he met Nick Edmiston, another Monaco exile from London.
Andreas and Nick had bonded on a ten-day retreat to the Meteora monasteries in Greece, a backdrop to the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only, both of them sharing a passion for super-yachts, and making good money from private charters. The Alysia cost £500,000 a week to hire; Wayne Rooney, the Manchester United striker, was one of Andreas’s most recent customers, celebrating his wedding to Coleen on board in June, while it was anchored on the Italian Riviera. But Andreas never forgot his humble beginnings and all those who worked on the Alysia, Remesh especially, thought of him as an attentive, generous boss.
To get his Indian venture started, Nick had hired the socialite and entrepreneur Ratan Kapoor, a Delhi-wallah from an affluent family of carpet traders, whose winning pitch had been that when there was blood on the floor, Indians started spending. ‘Appearance is everything,’ Kapoor had told him, when they met earlier in the year, as Nick and Andreas’s London-and Monaco-based yacht businesses were lashed by the global financial crisis.
Kapoor had cut his teeth tempting Irish investors to the subcontinent before the Celtic Tiger became extinct, and he gave Nick a crash course in the city’s elite, pointing out the most significant mansions. ‘If the most important six couples in Mumbai get interested, then the whole city will follow,’ Kapoor promised. He had had to work harder on Andreas, who disliked his constant bragging and sent a string of characteristically direct emails: ‘I don’t want street people on the boat.’ Put out, Kapoor had mailed right back: ‘I don’t know any street people.’ He had reeled off the list of ‘Ultras’ who had already bought into the yachting life, including Vijay Mallya, the Kingfisher beer and aviation tycoon, who owned the boat that Richard Burton had given as a present to Elizabeth Taylor in 1967 when she won an Oscar for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Kapoor’s idea was a simple one: the Alysia was a glamorous advertising hoarding anchored off the Taj. It would also provide the backdrop for a series of exclusive functions. There had already been a press lunch for magazine editors, hosted by Indian Vogue, and tonight Ratan and Nick would throw a lavish dinner sponsored by Moët & Chandon. The sister-in-law of the Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan was hosting tomorrow’s ‘ladies’ lunch’, while on Friday night the megastar Shah Rukh Khan had agreed to show his face, which would lure hundreds on board.
There had been a few last-minute snags. The Alysia had turned up late, dropping anchor 500 metres from the Taj just two hours before the lunch started. Almost immediately a flotilla of Indian officials had streamed on board. Despite filling in every form, paying bribes to the police, the navy and the port authorities, Kapoor was still worried. The anchorage limit of 100 guests would be well exceeded and, since they were in a navy-controlled waterway, severe restrictions on music and the consumption of alcohol would also be disregarded. When Commissioner Gafoor, the city’s police chief, finally accepted an invitation, everyone breathed easier.
Now, as the crew changed into red T-shirts printed with the Edmiston logo, Andreas took Nick to one side. ‘It’s your boat tonight,’ he said to his friend. ‘I’m going to grab a quick curry at the Taj and then I’ll be back.’ At 7.30 p.m., he set out in the Alysia’s tender for the Gateway of India slip, accompanied by Remesh and two Filipino girls who ran the on-board spa. A queue of lacquered Mumbai ‘Ultras’ chugged in the opposite direction, ferried to the Alysia, where foie gras was on the menu. ‘This is going to be some party,’ Nick said to his son Woody. ‘The boat looks great. The location is wonderful.’ The notoriously volatile Arabian Sea was calm and the Taj was bathed in a golden light.
*
Line Kristin Woldbeck, a Norwegian marketing executive and seasoned traveller, looked at her watch. It was 7.45 p.m. and she and her boyfriend, Arne Str⊘mme, were stuck in traffic, creeping along Marine Drive towards Colaba. She tried to block out the racket by staring out to sea. They had flown in from Gujarat for just one night to meet up with a new Facebook buddy Meetu Asrani, a 26-year-old Mumbaiker. For Line it was their last stop on a month-long spiritual journey and Meetu was coming into the city centre specially to see her, meeting them at the Leopold Café, a stroll away from the Taj.
But three lanes were now six, the cars so close together that they were grinding the paint off each other’s doors. Line’s phone whirred. It was Meetu. ‘Sorry, hun. I’m 45 mins late.’ She was caught in the same traffic jam, heading in from the north-western suburbs. ‘See you at Leo’s, mwah.’ Line panicked. In the morning she and Arne had to catch a flight to Delhi to make their connection back home. If they did not make this rendezvous, she would never get to see Meetu.
When they finally reached the café shortly before 9 p.m., it was buzzing. Red-shirted waiters bustled about and Line recognized Meetu from her Facebook profile. Excited, they found a table for three near the far wall, Meetu telling Line that she had just landed her first Bollywood job, as a creative director for Balaji Telefilms, the most prolific TV hit factory in South Asia. She would be working on a TV soap opera that had just been named ‘show of the year’. She also showed Line photos of a wedding she had attended a few days back. ‘Look,’ she said, laughing. ‘My first sari ever.’ They stared at each other. Line was dressed in a loose shalwar kameez. Meetu was wearing skin-tight jeans and T-shirt. Laughing at each other, they felt like old friends. When the waiter came over at last, Line took charge. ‘Let’s order pasta and bruschetta,’ she said.
Outside, the traffic was thick and the air was filled with the noise of hawkers. Sachin Sorte, a security guard manning the doorway of the Benetton store opposite, was watching the crowds of tourists glide by when he caught sight of two young men in their early twenties emerging from a yellow cab, weighed down by bulging rucksacks, as if they had come back from college. He had just logged the time, 9.43 p.m. precisely, in a small exercise book. They looked like clean-cut loc
al kids, the kind who grazed nightly in well-to-do South Mumbai. They stood for a few minutes, looking through the café windows, then he half caught one of them saying, ‘Come on, brother, let’s do Bismillah’ (in the name of God the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful). The two then delved into their sacks and pulled out matt-black and cherrywood assault rifles. What were they up to? As they entered the café, hurling something into the crowd of diners, a flash temporarily blinded Sorte. The thunderclap that followed made his ears whistle, as smoke poured out of the Leopold, followed by a blast wave that smacked him down on the pavement, glass and debris shredding his shirt as the sound of automatic gunfire – ack, ack, ack – rose up.
When the smoke cleared, he could see the two men were drilling rounds into the crowd inside the café and out in the street. Hair-raising, wild screams filled the air as bullets flew all around, some slamming into the metal shutters behind his head. He crawled, moaning, for cover, and put his hands over his ears. They were bleeding and his face was lacerated.
Inside, Line could not move. ‘Oh God,’ Meetu said, standing up, dazed. Arne also staggered to his feet: ‘What the hell?’ Coming to her senses, Line grabbed both of them by their wrists and hauled them under the table, as another blast upturned tables and diners. Then the ack, ack, ack came at them again, in short controlled bursts. ‘Keep quiet! Don’t move!’ whispered Line, hugging Arne and Meetu who lay on either side of her.
‘This can’t be real,’ she kept saying to herself. The ack, ack, ack drove channels into the tiled floor, throwing up cement chips. There were cries followed by more short bursts. Were they executing diners? Right now the gunmen were on the other side of the room, but moving over. Meetu was shaking. ‘Play dead,’ Line whispered. ‘Lie still!’ A gunman was beside them now. She felt hot bullet casings clatter down. She turned to Arne. He was ashen. ‘I love you,’ she mouthed, as everything was drowned out by the thrum of the firing.
A sweet ferrous smell pricked Line’s nostrils: blood. It was unmistakeable. Meetu shook and Line kept hold of her, as short convulsions surged through her body. To Line, it felt as if Meetu were radiating a peaceful wave of energy. She rolled over to Arne, recoiling as she saw that he had been shot in the face and hand. ‘Meetu’s dead,’ she whispered, holding on to her tears and hugging her friend as her body went limp.
Two hundred metres away from the café in Colaba police station, the duty inspector heard the rounds tumble and fizz, wondering if they were from an AK-47. Running down to investigate, he left the TV and the one-day international between England and India and put a mark in the station incident log at 9.45 p.m. His lodgings were on the first floor of the police station and he was certain the firing came from the direction of the Leopold.
At the station gate, nervous-looking constables gathered in a huddle while pedestrians ran by screaming. The inspector walked a few paces and was certain he could see bodies lying ahead in Colaba Causeway. It looked like a bomb had gone off: advertising hoardings had been ripped off the buildings, car sirens were wailing and the streetlights had blown out. He grabbed a subordinate’s walkie-talkie and called South Control. ‘21.48. Police Colaba Walkie-Talkie: Send Colaba 1 to Leopold hotel.’
The inspector buttonholed two constables armed with standard issue .303 bolt-action rifles. They were so antiquated that they were no longer in production in India, making repairs difficult and spare parts scarce. At most city police stations these and bamboo lathis (canes) were the only weapons available. Behind him was a mobile unit of five men, Colaba 1, armed in a similar way. ‘Let’s go,’ he urged them, clapping his hands, as if he were driving hens. Whatever was happening, it was chaotic and bloody. He strode ahead, approaching the café, stepping around the injured. The ack, ack, ack was now softer, as if the attackers had moved off.
After a few minutes, he spotted a face everyone knew: Rajvardhan Sinha, the chief of SB2, galloping over. Relief washed over him. The Special Branch Deputy Commissioner was like a tank, rolling over whatever came in his way. A veteran of many skirmishes, he would know what to do. Rajvardhan had been at home in the police station campus on VT Road with his family when he got a call from the state’s deputy intelligence chief, who suspected this was a scrap between Russian and Israeli gangs who ran drugs in Goa. The inspector shrugged. All he knew was that his men said there were two gunmen, carrying assault rifles, who had shot up the Leopold and were running towards the Taj.
Rajvardhan strode inside. Beside the door were three bodies, two of them Westerners. He estimated that fifteen or sixteen more were dead among the jumble of badly injured. In one corner, a bloodstained waiter was calmly sweeping up, as if a tray had simply fallen. Rajvardhan glanced up to the mezzanine, and saw a diner had been shot dead, falling against the glass, his grimacing face peering down. A constable would have to haul that body back. He blocked out the hysterical weeping and screaming, focusing on the evidence trail. Explosions had ripped large chunks out of the concrete floor. Grenades, he concluded. He followed the flurries of shrapnel pockmarks up the walls. Then, he spotted two empty AK-47 clips taped together on a tabletop and recognized this as a classic combat configuration, allowing a quick change around. This was no goonda (hired thug) drive-by. It was not Russians or Israelis. He wondered if the two gunmen were operating with others or on their own.
He grabbed a passing wireless operator. ‘Where’s the backup?’ he shouted into the handset, already worried that the gunmen who had fled the scene were part of a much bigger operation. The force needed to mobilize. ‘All police patrols operating within a one-mile vicinity of the area should come immediately.’ There was no response from the Control Room. He called it in again. ‘21.49. Police Colaba Walkie-Talkie: Send help, send help.’ This time South Control responded, calling in a pitter-patter of men. Rajvardhan counted. Four units. That meant two dozen officers at best, which was nowhere near enough.
He did a quick tour of the walking wounded, asking for descriptions. He stared at a woman hugging another female diner, who was clearly dead. It was Line Kristin Woldbeck, who stammered that she had seen two or three shooters, young and clean-shaven. Another Westerner described how one gunman was dressed all in black, while the second, who was taller and bulkier, wore black combat trousers and a long-sleeved grey T-shirt with some pattern on the front. South Control called, asking about casualties. The DCP hedged his bets: possibly sixteen needing hospitalization, with a dozen dead. ‘Is the one who opened fire held or did he escape?’ Rajvardhan listened to the now distant shooting. ‘The firing is still on, near Taj hotel.’ South Control called it in: ‘Striking 1, come to Taj hotel immediately.’
Striking 1 consisted of a Bolero jeep, carrying six men. Rajvardhan sighed. They were not going to win like this. The force needed to pull its finger out. He ran off down Nowraji Ferdonji Road, following the ack, ack, ack, working through what he had seen inside the café. ‘It’s the fucking Pakis,’ he said, under his breath. ‘Come to piss in our backyard.’
Manish Joshi, a Taj computer operator, had come off duty at the Taj’s office in Oxford House, on Nowraji Ferdonji Road, when he heard ‘wedding crackers’ at 9.46 p.m. Going outside, he saw something lying in the road. He walked over and found a foreign woman, shivering and bleeding. She had been shot, she stammered, and the gunmen had run on. She pointed towards the Taj. Horrified, and unable to understand what was going on, Manish dragged her inside, and propped her up, while he reached for his mobile phone, ringing colleagues inside the hotel: ‘I think gunmen are coming for you. Get out.’
A Taj security guard on the Oxford House terrace saw two men carrying assault rifles running along the road and he also rang ahead to warn his colleagues inside the hotel: ‘Lock down the hotel. Gunmen are coming.’ The message was relayed up to the Taj’s security chief, Sunil Kudiyadi, on the fifth floor, who knew five entrances were open: the main Tower lobby through which Bob Nicholls and Captain Ravi had arrived; the Palace entrance facing the sea, where the critic Sabina had checked in; the south-s
ide Northcote door, the route Will and Kelly had used returning from the Leopold; the Time Office staff entrance; and another staff door at the rear of Taj Tower.
Out front, Puru Petwal, a young security officer on duty in the Tower lobby, one of Kudiyadi’s so-called ‘Black Suits’, dressed in sombre, well-tailored jackets and trousers, got the message to lock the doors just as a tsunami of guests, diners and passers-by surged through the security barriers and walk-through X-ray machine.
In the crush was Sajjad Karim, a Labour MEP for Blackburn, England, who was part of the EU delegation. Moments earlier, he had spotted another guest carrying a half-conscious, bleeding woman through the main gates, shouting that he had come from the Leopold Café, which was under attack, many drinkers from there having fled to the five-star Taj, assuming it would be safer.
Petwal waded into the torrent, as a second scrum of passers-by – chauffeurs, taxi drivers and policemen – attempted to get inside. ‘Slow down,’ he screamed, panicking. ‘People are getting trampled.’ The MEP Karim allowed himself to be carried through the lobby past the Harbour Bar on his left, then the reception desks and towards Shamiana in the top left-hand corner. ‘I have no option,’ he said to himself.
Back out on the main steps, unnoticed by Petwal, two young men with backpacks also slipped in with the current of people, seen only by the hotel’s CCTV. Inside, they stood for a few seconds, overwhelmed by the opulence. Then one, dressed in a red T-shirt and red baseball cap, calmly turned left towards the Harbour Bar, while the other, dressed in a yellow T-shirt, headed straight on for Shamiana. They knew exactly where they were going.
The Siege: The Attack on the Taj Mumbai Page 8