The Siege: The Attack on the Taj Mumbai

by Cathy Scott-Clark

  Explosions rolled down the corridor like a massed band. Glass splintered somewhere on the third floor and wood snapped. It sounded as if a boot had been planted through a partition wall and was now being twisted and flexed. At least the woman crying out along the corridor had stopped. Kelly picked up a fruit knife and handed it to Will. It was small and blunt.

  They moved to the bathroom, sliding into the bath, facing one another. If the Goan holiday had brought them closer, what would surviving this do? It was a defining moment. ‘Why are we in the bath?’ she whispered. ‘There isn’t any logic to it.’ Will smiled. ‘At least we are together,’ he said. Kelly grimaced. The line sounded hackneyed. ‘OK, if the worst happens then we’ll die together,’ he added. She closed her eyes, trying not to cry. She wasn’t planning on that.

  The telephone rang. After such a long silence it sounded like a fire alarm. Will scrambled out of the bath, thrilled to receive a call. ‘Hello!’ It was a woman’s voice, calm and reassuring. ‘Hello? Mr Doyle? Mr Doyle?’ When they checked in, this mistake had made him hoot. Now he just wanted to know what they were doing to get them out. ‘Stay in the room, Mr Doyle, the situation is under control. The police are here.’ She rang off.

  Will was stunned. Was that it? More worryingly was this a ploy? The caller had said she was ringing from the switchboard, but for all they knew a gun might have been held to her head. Whoever it was now knew room 316 was occupied and would be sending up their henchmen. Kelly tried to reassure him. But Will was working himself up. As if to make his case, gunfire pattered down the corridor, with a huge shell smacking into the marble floor and walls adjacent to their room. Kelly and Will slipped back into the tub.

  A single shot was followed by a shrill scream. A door was kicked open. Then another shot. Along the corridor they were executing people. ‘We’re going to die,’ Will whispered, surprised that he had said it out loud. Neither of them wanted to seem weak. He leapt up. ‘GET BEHIND THE DOOR!’ They both squeezed behind the bathroom door, Kelly crouching, Will still gripping the fruit knife. ‘What the fuck am I going to do with this?’ She looked into his eyes: ‘He’s going to come in and you’re going to stab him in the neck.’ Will stared at her doubtfully. Then he reached for his whirring phone. ‘Will,’ his father texted, ‘get out of the building now. They have set it on fire.’

  They left the bathroom and crept over to the window. Kelly knew what he was thinking. ‘We’re sixty feet up,’ she said, her heart racing. There was no one coming to help them, he replied. ‘Everything is burning.’ He started pulling the sheets from the bed. ‘Kelly, help me.’ The windows were their only choice. They tied together whatever they could, while she found some scissors in the desk drawer. ‘Look, we can use these to cut up strips. Let’s pull down the curtains too. Get the towels.’

  They cut and knotted lengths together, braiding a lengthy escape cord. Will stepped back and paid out the coil. ‘It’s not strong enough,’ warned Kelly. ‘Let’s give it a try,’ he replied. They pulled a tug-of-war across the bed. The rope held so they dragged it to the windows. Will grabbed the marble coffee table and hurled it, but it bounced, smacking him in the face. ‘What the fuck.’ Bruised, he threw it again. This time the inner pane cracked and the third time, the outer glass exploded too, allowing the cool night air to flow into the sweltering room.

  Will felt a twinge. He looked down and saw he had cut his arm open; blood was dripping on the carpet. He pressed on with the task, knocking out the remaining shards. He leant out, feeling the wind on his face, as Kelly looked at the gaping frame with horror. Will stared up and saw flames flaring off the roof. He looked down and there was no task force of rescuers, only journalists filming from the Gateway. ‘Kelly, we have to give it a try.’ He would go first. She began crying, pleading with him not to. The whole thing seemed so haphazard. But Will was already anchoring the rope to the desk. Testing it, he tried to peer over the bulbous parapet of their balcony. ‘I can’t see the ground,’ he shouted. He turned and gave her a kiss. ‘I love you,’ he mouthed, as he slowly allowed the hand-made rope to take his weight, feeling its resistance, edging to the lip of the balcony and dropping down. Kelly tried to steady him as a tiny flicker of hope sparked inside her. She could see them leaving India with a tale to tell and a story that seemed to have cemented their headlong rush into a relationship.

  The rope went limp. Kelly tugged at it and it rushed up to meet her. ‘Will!’ She hauled up the great, bulky rope in folds, with the disappointment of a fisherman reeling in a broken line. ‘Will!’ She poked her head out of the broken window, but could not see down to the ground. Looking sideways, she spotted a woman at the window of an adjacent room. Kelly started tying the rope around her own waist, and was about to lower herself over the parapet, when the woman waved to her, in an exaggerated mayday.

  She mouthed some words, as shouts might attract the killers. Kelly studied her lips and got some of it: ‘Don’t. Climb. Down.’ Kelly frowned. The neighbour waved and continued mouthing. ‘I can see him. Your boyfriend is dead.’

  One floor down, in 253, the newlywed Amit glanced at his watch and noted, with exasperation, that it was 3.15 a.m. and they were still stranded. When the last big blast had gone off, it had blown their door off its hinges, and he had found himself staring into the corridor, mumbling ‘This is our 9/11’, while Varsha ran around behind him, screaming, ‘Shut the door.’ At more than 80kg, Amit could bring some force to the equation and, after he had come to his senses, he had shoulder-charged the broken door and slid a set of drawers in front of it, while Vasha took a floor lamp, ramming it up against the handle.

  Now he heard a mobile phone ringing out in the corridor. He recognized the tone, a Nokia, as he had one just like it. For some reason he counted . . . eight, nine, ten . . . before a massive detonation rang out. They had to get out now. Presuming that the mobile had set off a bomb, he wondered where the next one was planted. None of their improvised measures were going to last long. Amit ran over to the windows and could see that people were climbing out further along the building, trying to escape. Filmed by the TV crews, these pictures, with their haunting echoes of 9/11, were being broadcast around the world.

  Tired and hungry, Amit was no longer sure he could think his way out of this, but jumping was not an option. A mercantile entre-preneur, normally brimming with ideas, he needed to figure something out. Crawling over to their broken door he peered through again, seeing only a deep red haze and what looked like bodies lying on the carpet. ‘Get back,’ Varsha hissed. As he turned to reply, both of them heard the fwap as a round bored through the door at hip height, narrowly missing him.

  He joined Varsha on the other side of the bed. They could hear footsteps and voices right outside their broken door. ‘I think they are going room to room and killing guests,’ Varsha whispered. They stared at each other. Partying with all their friends on Sunday, married on Tuesday, would they be dead by Thursday? Why had they not stuck to the plan and got married in Goa? Amit berated himself.

  He crawled towards the minibar, Varsha watching in the gloom, as he grabbed several beers and a half-bottle of wine. She was about to point out this was hardly the time to get loaded, when he spotted her expression and explained that he was going to throw the bottles at whoever came through that door, going for the tender, breakable bits. ‘Look, I know how to shoot a gun, so if I can take a weapon off them, I’m going to blast our way out of this fucking hotel.’ Although Varsha had known Amit for many years before they got married, she felt that she understood him better now, and she believed him.

  Voices started up again. They ducked down, listening to a language they could not understand. ‘It’s not Urdu,’ Amit whispered. ‘Do you think its Pashto?’ He hoped these men were not from the Af–Pak border. To him, that conjured up a frightening picture of Pathan tribal mercenaries.

  His phone buzzed. It was his brother, well intentioned, asking if he was OK. He had already called about half a dozen times, as had so many othe
r people. Amit snapped, whispering fiercely: ‘Look, shut the fuck up, and get off the phone, there’s people outside the door and we cannot risk talking.’ It sounded harsh but his heightened senses heard the vibration of the phone as an avalanche.

  His phone buzzed again. ‘Who is this?’ It was The New York Times. ‘Get off the fucking line,’ he rasped, incredulous that they had got his number. ‘What you going to do, come and save me? We need a fucking helicopter, have you got one of those?’ He turned off the phone. ‘They think I am going to say where we are, you know, broadcast which room we’re in. Idiots. Everyone should stay off their phones,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘There should be a news blackout. Why isn’t there a blackout?’

  Tap, tap, tap. They looked at each other. Don’t breathe. It was next door. Tap. Tap. Tap. Someone was rapping on 254. Amit crawled into the bathroom, which had a shared wall, and signalled for Varsha to follow. They listened to a crack and the sound of a boot against a lock, then a security chain splintering off the flimsy frame as the gunmen broke in to the room next door.

  Amit recalled seeing its female occupant earlier in the evening. They had come up together in the lift and exchanged pleasantries. Now Varsha clung on to Amit as – pap, pap, pap – small-arms fire broke out and angry voices barged into the room. They heard a bed scrape and the TV smash. Since the standard rooms on this floor were identical, they could place every footstep. The bedside cabinets were thrown about and the marble coffee table knocked over. The voices argued, pacing towards the windows and then the bathroom, outside which stood a tall wardrobe. Then they heard a guttural scream; a woman had been found hiding inside.

  ‘Aaaargh,’ she cried. ‘Get off me. Leave me alone.’ She was so close they could hear her breathing. Phsk. Phsk. Rounds came flying through their shared plaster wall, just above their heads. He motioned for Varsha to lie flat. The woman was shouting and being dragged out into the corridor. ‘Help me,’ she cried. ‘Somebody please help!’ Varsha buried her head in her arms, trying to block it out. Amit mumbled under his breath that he was going to rip them apart when they came for them. But he did not move.

  After a minute, it sounded as if the shouting woman was being bundled back into her room. Ack, ack, ack. Several shots and then yells in that strange language. Then the sound of boots walking away. Listening to the terrible silence, gripping Varsha’s hand, Amit said: ‘They didn’t just shoot her a couple of times, they emptied a magazine into her.’

  The woman was not dead. ‘Help me, someone. Please help.’ She sounded weak, as if she was fighting for her life. What should they do? If they went out they, too, would be shot. Amit and Varsha locked eyes and stayed put, trying not to listen as the whimpering became ever fainter.

  3.30 a.m.

  Directly below them, on the first floor, DCP Vishwas Patil was slumped in the shadows of the Crystal Room, reliving his escape from the ambush and the fire. Starving, thirsty and covered in soot and scratches, he had no idea that outside the hotel the police were mourning his demise – and that of Rajvardhan.

  They had escaped by hurling themselves down as the fireball had exploded, taking refuge inside the Crystal Room, where Patil was now nervously checking and rechecking his Glock. Beside him, Rajvardhan cut a tablecloth into strips to bind his ankle, ripped and twisted when he rolled to avoid the flaming cartwheel. He knew he had broken a bone but was trying not to think about it. For hours, grenades and AK-47 rounds had rung out all around them. Singed and soaked, they had listened to hellish screams, incapable of doing anything about it. Now there was just blackness and the throaty roar of the fire.

  ‘How many times do you have to look in the magazine to know that we only have five rounds between us?’ Rajvardhan snapped. He knew that Patil did not deserve his scorn but he was angry, tired and in agony. Here they lay, the slender resources of the police matched against a well-stocked and superbly trained private terror network. Rajvardhan felt as if he had every right to be armed as well as those he faced, and wanted to be secure in the knowledge that backup was on its way. Right now he could believe in nothing. They both knew they were alone, blocked in by the inferno and the heavily armed gunmen who were still somewhere out there. Rajvardhan’s last sight of Inspector Dhole and the others from the CCTV room was of them retreating, flames closing around them, as bullets rained down. ‘Why did Dhole go backwards? You never go backwards. Didn’t he know that?’

  Rajvardhan took in his new surroundings, glimpsing the remains of a wedding celebration. Both men needed food and he chomped into a half-eaten apple, while Patil cruised among the abandoned banquet dishes, picking up someone else’s half-drunk Coke.

  How ragged this grand salon looked, Patil thought, as he grabbed a slice of cake. People who came here probably earned in a day what he accrued in several months. A forest of pink flowers lay trampled at the far end, of a kind he had never seen before. Platters of elaborate salads spilled on to the floor and had been crushed into a mush. There was a broken sponge cake that resembled an exploded volcano and he made out the two names entwined in hearts on a shot-up plaque beside the door. ‘Amit and Varsha Thadani.’ Had they made it out alive? ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said, rising from the sodden carpet. ‘Attack is the best form of defence.’ Rajvardhan shook his head. He, too, wanted to hunt down the gunmen, but the odds spoke against this plan. He was wounded, this place was a labyrinth, they were outgunned, and he had no more energy.

  Reluctantly he hobbled to his feet, and they edged into the murky corridor. In the gloom they pressed their backs against the smooth, cool marble wall, sliding towards the Grand Staircase. ‘You go ahead, whispered Rajvardhan, ‘I’ll cover the rear.’ Patil inched on and then raised a fist: ‘Stop.’ He held up two fingers and pointed: ‘Armed. Straight ahead.’ Rajvardhan caught sight of two dark shadows, scurrying downwards with their weapons. ‘I think I can do it,’ Patil whispered. ‘If I get a clean head shot.’ Rajvardhan pulled Patil closer. ‘I believe you. But what about the others watching their backs?’ He pointed up to the blazing dome. ‘Let’s say you get off a couple of shots. Your pistol’s accuracy beyond fifty feet is massively reduced. Chances are you will wing them.’ By contrast the AK’s curled magazines carried thirty rounds, and a flat, Russian-style clip could pack up to a hundred. ‘If they’ve taped their mags together, you can double that count. Do you get it?’ Patil sagged. The best they could hope for was to retreat and get out alive.

  They edged towards a service corridor and Rajvardhan glimpsed another figure and stopped. Staring through the smoke, waiting for it to clear, he saw the silhouette of a Western woman. She was creeping towards the staircase, her clothes blackened and burned, trying to escape. She presented another problem. Without his uniform, he probably looked like a terrorist to her, and any screams would alert the real gunmen. As he weighed it up, she sensed his presence and turned, staring into his eyes. Rajvardhan had no choice but to motion ‘calm’ with his palms held up. He mouthed: ‘Friendly.’ Her eyes widened, and she bolted like a spooked deer, leaving Rajvardhan thankful that at least she had fled silently.

  Limping heavily, he entered the service corridor. Ahead, Patil prayed it would be unguarded. When they reached the outer kitchens, their boots stuck to drying blood. Climbing down a service staircase, they found a passageway that led towards the lobby. After three hours inside, Patil could smell the familiar scent of his beloved city.

  He ran on ahead, with both hands raised: ‘Police, police.’ A small throng of officers scurried forward, as he shouted: ‘DCP Zone 1 approaching.’ They looked perplexed and then they cheered, rushing over to greet the dead men. ‘You are a ghost,’ one of them said, patting Patil, who pointed to Rajvardhan. ‘This man needs medical attention.’ Someone called an ambulance as the Joint Commissioner Law and Order and Deven Bharti, the Crime Branch number two, rushed over, delighted. After four frustrating hours with the mobile direction finder, Bharti had been deployed to man the police command post in the Taj lobby.

 
The Joint Commissioner, who at the start of the attacks had been ordered to run the Taj operation while his street-savvy colleague Maria languished in the Control Room, asked for a debrief. Whatever they knew would be crucial for the Intelligence Branch and Research and Analysis Wing, and for the Special Forces, should they ever arrive.

  Rajvardhan looked stunned. He had expected to find the lobby bristling with Quick Response Teams, armed with their AK-47s and 9mm pistols, dressed in bulletproof vests and lightweight helmets, but only a few officers were milling about. There was no res-cue operation in play? The JC shrugged. ‘Police Commissioner Gafoor ordered the QRTs to seal the perimeter.’ For the slim-built man who kept his own counsel, this was as good as a slagging off.

  ‘Where are the Striking Mobiles?’ Rajvardhan asked. Many had failed to report, as the ancient self-loading rifles they carried had no rounds in them. Could anyone blame them? The JC pushed on. This was not the time to conduct a post-mortem, although there were many things he could not fathom, mistakes and errors of judgement that resounded across the city, with stories emerging of no-shows from experienced officers who, as soon as the bullets started flying, were somehow not where they were supposed to be. All hinged now on the National Security Guard. It was the right force for the job. But it had still not arrived in the city and there was not even a clear timetable for its deployment.

  The JC made himself a wager: there would be no inquiry worth its salt, when all of this was over. This was not the UK or the US, where a powerful commission would bear down on every institution. The establishment would thwart any such investigation. No one would put their head above the parapet and afterwards the old, in efficient, corrupt regime would continue to rule the roost.