Weapon of Vengeance

by Mukul Deva

  In better times, the bungalow, with its red-tiled roof, would have housed some high-ranking Belgian official. However, most of the tiles had fallen or broken, leaving ugly gaps, like missing teeth. Now it was occupied by a handful of Lord’s Resistance Army terrorists … kidnappers, actually.

  Ruby knew the LRA, despite its grand-sounding name, was a small group of about one hundred men, women, and adolescents, who usually operated in Congo’s northeastern province of Orientale. The group had come to the attention of MI6 because it had managed to lay hands on the British ambassador and his wife, and were now holding the couple hostage for a large ransom and for freedom for their thuggish colleagues languishing in Congo jails. The kidnap had been pure luck (for the LRA) and sublime stupidity (by the ambassador, who had disregarded basic security).

  And now we’re in this hellhole to bail out the nerd and his wife.

  Ruby’s fingers instinctively checked her weapon’s load and confirmed it was set on single-shot fire mode, since the semiauto- or auto-fire mode would not bode well for the health of the kidnap victims. Her feet began to flex inside her black, rubber-soled, lace-ups, getting ready to fly toward the target. Her fingers checked the weapon’s magazine again; the only visible sign of her insecurity.

  Up ahead, the door with peeling paint opened and two men tentatively emerged. Both young; the one in front barely out of his teens. Both were toting AK-47 automatics; not surprising. Cheap and easily available, it was the weapon of choice of Terror Central. They halted on the porch, surveying the area outside.

  The porch ran right around the house. Beyond it was the so-called garden, mostly overgrown grass. The garden ended in a six-foot-high wall, which like the rest of the bungalow was also in disrepair. Beyond it ran the road on which Ruby and her team were deployed. The road was bereft of traffic. In the distance, half a klick away, a handful of children were playing, and occasional shouts of laughter carried with the wind. In closed, air-conditioned cars, none of the agents or paramilitaries heard them. The two terrorists must have heard them, since the children held their attention for a moment before they shifted their attention elsewhere.

  “Bloody amateurs!” Mark snickered, the G36K almost lost in his huge hands, noting that the scouts had their rifles slung on their shoulders and not carried in the half-port position, so they could swing into action instantly, should the need arise. And the need was going to arise. Soon.

  Ruby nodded agreement; no place for amateurs.

  The two kidnappers did not venture out to the road, something any scout worth his salt would have done. Even if they had, unlikely they would have spotted the two concealed cars, one on either side of the road. The vehicles on the other three sides of the bungalow were also safely tucked away.

  It was several minutes before the two scouts were satisfied. Then the younger one went back inside; again with that same casual gait. Another minute ticked away before he emerged again. Following were two more gunmen, also barely out of their teens, but this pair held their rifles in battle positions and appeared more alert.

  They will die first. She was certain that Chance would ensure that; it was the expedient thing to do.

  Following this pair came a short, portly Caucasian man, standing out whitely among the blacks. He had his arm around an equally short but slightly built Caucasian woman. Judging by her halting gait and how the man supported her, she seemed to be sick. Or wounded. Ruby noted.

  “That’s our man,” Ruby breathed as she recognized the ambassador. No one replied. Each was now readying for action. They knew the signal would be coming any second. Nerves drew tauter. Breathing began to even out, as precombat jitters settled down.

  Eight more gunmen emerged. Gun women too. This latter lot arrayed themselves around the hostages and moved toward the yellow minibus parked outside the gate. A handful seemed alert, but none were all that careful. Sure, no one would have known where they were if it had not been for one of their lot who had turned Judas for the silver thrown at him by MI6. Of course, it had been a rather big bag. Ruby wondered which, if any, of them it was.

  Will he live to enjoy the loot?

  “Now!” Ruby half whispered as they stopped near the minibus, trying to second-guess Mission Control, who was located with the sniper facing the main door and would have a bird’s-eye view of the bungalow. Once they got into the vehicle, the job would become much more difficult.

  “Sundown!”

  She was right.

  The code word cracked out of the radio. The Controller’s voice retained its British cool, stiff upper lip.

  A scant second later, the sharp crackle of the team’s sniper rifles rang out. The four kidnappers closest to the hostages fell; the two extra-alert ones among them.

  Nitpicking had begun.

  Four down. Eight to go.

  That was the last thought in Ruby’s head as she levered open the door and flew out, her weapon in her left hand—which was not her master hand, but that did not bother her, she had long ago trained herself to marksman standards with both hands, just one more of the prices she’d had to pay for being a woman in a man’s job.

  She had barely exited when a battered maroon van turned the corner and began to nose its way down the potholed road.

  At the same time, three women on foot came around the bend to the left; they hit the road just meters away from the terror cluster.

  Damn! Ruby cursed. Collateral damage would not go down well on her record.

  She was on her third stride when the first shot left her weapon. Though almost flying, her shot did not miss. Beside her, Mark’s weapon spit lead a millisecond later. Another kidnapper fell.

  The team’s sniper rifles crashed out again. More terrorists fell. The odds were improving. Every inbound agent was firing as fast as they could.

  The terrorists still standing had turned to face their attackers and their guns thundered too. So none of their bullets were aimed at the hostages.

  Reacting smartly, the ambassador had dropped to the ground, dragging his wife down with him.

  The terrorists’ lack of training was evident; they were firing blindly before they had even registered their targets.

  But there was nothing amateurish about the bullets that zipped past her. However, with hyped-up nerves and the kill-or-be-killed instinct overruling everything, Ruby and her team raced in. No other options; they had to kill before they were killed.

  The maroon van, seeing all hell break loose ahead, screeched to a halt and began reversing as fast as the driver could make it go. The three women huddled in a screaming cluster on the dirt. One stopped screaming as a passing bullet found her. The screams of the other two grew louder, but were now no more than a part of the background, as were the gunfire and screams of the dying.

  By time Ruby fired her third shot, all twelve terrorists were down. Two, a thirty-something man and one of the younger women, were writhing on the ground, moaning. She shot both of them, putting one bullet through each head as she weaved past to the ambassador.

  He was huddled in the dust, his arms wrapped around his wife. She was screaming, an ululating, keening sound that set Ruby’s teeth on edge. Controlling the urge to slap her into silence, Ruby reached down to grab him. She did not see the beardless teenager, with blood staining his chest, fallen beside the ambassador, reach for the pistol in his waistband. She became aware of him only when Mark’s weapon crackled to life behind her and he died with a sharp, short scream.

  Ruby froze.

  Damn! That was close.

  She cursed herself before throwing a grateful look at Mark. He gave a fleeting half salute as he continued checking the others for signs of life. Another must have been showing some, since Mark’s weapon spit again, the shot echoing away in the now silent surroundings.

  Ruby hoisted up the ambassador; his wife followed in tow as he clutched her. They hustled toward the Toyota, which had shot forward as soon as the last shot faded away.

  The two women passersby huddled down on
the road had stopped screaming. Shell-shocked. The playing children had faded away. The maroon van was gone. Barring the thrumming of Toyota engines, the silence was complete. And it felt deafening.

  Just eighty-seven seconds had elapsed, and twelve kidnappers had forfeited their lives.

  Score one for the home team, Ruby thought triumphantly as she did a quick visual check and saw that her team was intact, so lucky to have come out unscathed; losing someone always hurt. Nor did it look good on the Operational Commander’s scorecard. That was something that Ruby, keenly aware of her double life, was always concerned about. Like Caesar’s wife, she always wanted to be above reproach.

  Seconds later, the Toyota was racing away with its twin prize safely seat-belted inside. The ambassador’s wife had stopped screaming and gone into the never-never land of shock. Ruby did not care a rat’s ass about that. She only had to get them back alive. Cuckoo or sane, didn’t count.

  The Toyota raced past where the children had been playing. Ruby spotted one of them staring openmouthed from around the corner of a hut; he would have stories to tell for a long time.

  Or maybe not. This was Congo; he may have seen worse.

  They had gone half a mile when the other five vehicles caught up. The convoy pelted down the narrow, potholed road.

  “We have them.” Ruby heard the driver bark into the radio as she replaced the half-empty magazine of her weapon and began to reload. Beside her Mark was doing the same.

  “Jolly good show. Right behind you,” Mission Control intoned, his Brit stoicism intact. “Extractors inbound.”

  Minutes later, the vehicles pulled off the road and ground to a dust-churning halt in a flat, open field. The vehicles drew up in a wide circle; like wagons readying to meet an Apache attack. Kevlar-clad agents spilled out and took positions behind their vehicles, all facing outward. Not that they expected trouble, but security drills were what kept them alive.

  The dust had yet to settle when three choppers swept in. Two of them headed straight into the secured clearing while the third, its guns ready, started circling overhead in a wide loop to ensure nothing on the ground interfered with the extraction. And, though the agents could not see them, high up in the sky, a sortie of RAF fighters ran a protective Combat Air Patrol, just in case air cover or heavier fire support was required.

  The ambassador and his wife were hustled into the first chopper with Ruby’s team. She saw Chance and his sniper team jump into the next one as hers lifted off.

  Clawing upward, the birds raced away.

  Mission Complete!

  There were smiles all around.

  Ruby leaned back and let the stress drain away. Momentarily, the faces of the downed terrorists she had shot flipped into her mind. She shrugged.

  The fuckers should have realized what they’d signed up for. She shrugged again. They are wrong. I am right. Well … if not right, at least on the good team. Isn’t that reason enough for me to pull the trigger? Isn’t it! The thought troubled her only briefly. Of course it is. That is all there is to it … nothing to fret about.

  Closing her eyes, she shut out the clamoring roar of the rotors.

  * * *

  As the Nissan van halted again, Ruby startled back to the reality of Sri Lanka.

  The man whom Ruby and Mark had traveled halfway across the world to meet was waiting when they pulled to a stop outside a seedy hotel in Vavuniya. He was one of the contacts passed on to her by Pasha; she had called him before leaving London.

  Barely five feet, the dark-skinned Chanderan was roly-poly, and like most men Ruby had seen on the streets, he wore a blue-and-white-checked cotton lungi and a white cotton half-sleeves shirt, with its buttons undone almost to the midriff. He led them proudly to the reception desk, a tiny wooden table adorned by a large, thumb-worn guest register and a pink flower vase with plastic flowers sticking out from it. Like the table, both the flowers and the vase had seen better days.

  “It is all taken care of.” He announced grandly. Though afflicted by the typical islander accent, his English was okay. “I will wait while you freshen up.”

  “No worries.” Ruby was in no mood to tarry. “Come on up to the room with us.” She threw a glance at Mark, making it clear that he was to stick with her.

  The first-floor room Chanderan led them to was about the size of two prison cells. It had a queen-size bed in the center, a minuscule wooden table near the window, which overlooked the noisy street outside, and had a chair pulled up against it. The bed was covered with a flowery, cotton bedspread. A stale smell hung in the air, making it obvious that the hirers of these rooms usually took them by the hour, and it had been a while since the room had seen any housekeeping services. With the three of them in it, the room felt claustrophobic. Mark threw an amused look around. No air conditioner. Just an ancient-looking fan slowly churning overhead. Ruby thanked her stars that they were staying just the one night. She waited till Mark closed the door. “Our mutual friend said you could be relied on to get us what we need.”

  “He is most kind. I will try my best.” She saw nothing about this Chanderan that convinced her he had been the primary weapons supplier to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the terrorist group that had held the island captive for two decades. Of course, with the group now destroyed, Chanderan’s business had nosedived. Ruby had been given these inputs by Uncle Yusuf when he called her from Dubai. The memory of what had since happened to him overwhelmed her; the ghastly manner in which he had been killed filling her with fury. She pushed it away.

  This is not the time. I must focus. That will be revenge enough. His death will not go to waste.

  She saw Mark watching her as she focused again on Chanderan. Yes, he would be delighted to supply them with whatever they needed.

  “This is what I need.” Ruby handed over a short list to him. He scanned it, all at once mutating from bumbling hotel manager to seasoned arms supplier. Ruby could see why he had survived.

  “The rocket launcher and the rockets to go with it are not a problem.” Chanderan looked up. “The Glocks will take some time.”

  “How much time?”

  “Two weeks at least. Maybe even more. I will need to check. New stuff stopped coming in a while ago … ever since…” He shrugged.

  Damn! “I don’t have that much time.”

  “Maybe I can give you something else in that category?”

  “No.” Ruby shook her head; the Glock 17 was crucial. With 17 percent of it high-tech plastic polymers, it was almost undetectable. If unassembled, it required an expert manning the detectors to ascertain its presence. And its seventeen-shot magazine capacity offered a huge advantage. She’d need that for the thirteen targets to be taken down. Not to mention the security men between her and the targets.

  Chanderan was about to say something when Mark spoke. “Boss, can I have a word with you?”

  Chanderan took the hint. “Why don’t I organize some refreshments for you … while you two discuss things.” He left.

  “How badly do we need them Glocks?” Mark asked softly as soon as they were alone.

  “We need them for sure.”

  “I know a guy, way bigger and more organized than him”—Mark nodded toward the door through which Chanderan had exited “—who can get them for us in India.”

  “You sure?”

  “As sure as I can be. I have dealt with him.” Mark shrugged. “In any case, what have we got to lose? This guy doesn’t have them for sure. So even if the chap in India doesn’t, we go for the next best option.”

  Ruby nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “We can even get all the rest of the stuff in India … why cart it all the way from here?”

  “No, we need him to get us out,” Ruby explained. “This guy is also our fallback escape route so this is money well spent, just in case things go badly in India.”

  “Makes sense.”

  When Chanderan returned, it took another twenty minutes to seal the deal. Ruby did not bother
to negotiate on the price, even though she knew he was charging way too much for stuff that he’d never be able to sell for years.

  “But, for that price,” Ruby said flatly, making it clear that her demand was nonnegotiable, “you will need to deliver our materials to India and also organize a boat for us.” Her guess had been right: Chanderan needed the business; he agreed without a murmur.

  With everything going according to plan, Ruby should have slept well that night. But she didn’t. With sleep came the recurring dream.

  Once again that faceless, formless man appeared, urging her on, pleading to her. She was feeling nauseated when she jolted awake the sixth or seventh time. Gulping down a glass of tepid water, she reached inside and drew on her inner resources, the way they’d taught her during training. However, it was a while before her calm returned, bringing with it a renewed sense of purpose.

  When she finally fell asleep, it was a deep, dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  By time Ravinder finished checking the games’ village security and returned home, it was almost eleven. The road leading up to his house was in near darkness; the power supply had failed again.

  Ravinder noted the two additional security guards, one patrolling along the boundary wall and the other backing up the gate guard. They seemed alert; Mohite had gotten this one right.

  First thing tomorrow I must caution Simran and Jasmine to be extra careful till those Jaish terrorists have been captured, Ravinder reminded himself as he let himself into the almost dark house. He’d already called Simran earlier that evening and knew she wouldn’t be waiting up for him.

  DAY TWO

  Ruby awoke feeling rested. The bright Sri Lankan sun, streaming in through the thin curtains, warmed her face. Somewhere in the night her mind had scaled a plateau. She felt alive again. Her life had purpose. She felt a spring in her step when she exited the seedy hotel room.

  Mark took note of her buoyancy. He did not say a word, but he was relieved. Her brooding silences were new to him; they had begun to worry him.