by R. SREERAM
Jack was relieved. When he had exited the hotel and discovered that he had left his own phone behind, he’d had only a vague idea about finding a mobile phone or a payphone and putting a call through to his handler at the New Delhi consulate. It was only when the rickshaw had been pulling up to the entrance that he saw the difficulty – there were hardly any payphones in sight, and he remembered hearing that you needed all sorts of documentation to get a mobile connection, even a prepaid one. The idea of buying the driver’s phone had been an inspired one, the price he paid inadequate for the value it promised. He hoped his idea worked, but at the very least, it was a possibility now.
He turned around and had just built up his pace from a trot to a run when he was hailed from behind. ‘Sahib,’ was the cry, a familiar voice, and even as he stopped, the driver was on him.
‘What?’ he said, trying to keep his irritation in check. ‘I’ve paid you already.’
‘Yes, sir. I know. You will need this also,’ said the driver. He pressed a charger into his palm. ‘For the phone. Free. For low battery.’ Cracking a wide grin, before Jack could react, the driver was making his way back to the auto-rickshaw.
Momentarily surprised, Jack stood unmoving at the entrance to the mall. He saw the rickshaw pulling away; he glanced at the phone and accessory in his hand.
He did not see the man on the bike who had followed him from the hotel.
28th March, 2012. New Delhi.
‘I thought you were one of the good guys!,’ Richa almost shouted at the Major-General when he answered the phone.
‘What do you mean?’ he growled
‘The report on ViFite, the inquiry report on the Kuragon tragedy – they don’t match the documents you gave me. The Kuragon report says the soldiers died because they were unable to find their way back to camp in extreme conditions, that the commanding officer for the expedition had been negligent in reading the maps and got them lost. The ViFite report is full of praise about the suit’s performance, about trials and purchases by European armies.’
‘It can’t be,’ said Major-General Qureshi from his farmhouse. ‘I don’t see – whom did you check with?’
‘MoD,’ Richa replied. ‘I found a clerk who was willing to copy the files for me. I gave him the file numbers you had given me, and this is what I got.’
There was stunned silence from the other end of the line as Major-General Qureshi tried to process the implications of Richa’s news. It was possible that the clerk had passed the wrong files to Richa – but in that case, how coincidental could it be that the wrong files too pertained to ViFite and Kuragon? The odds were . . . No, there hadn’t been an error, deliberate or otherwise, by the clerk. Couldn’t have been. Which left only one logical reason.
The files had been replaced.
‘Hang up,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll call you back.’
As soon as the line was free, he dialled his office and instructed his secretary to pull up the access logs of about twenty different files, interspersing the ViFite and Kuragon files amongst others. The secretary – an officer retired by disability to a desk job – was familiar with the major-general’s demands and expectations, and promised to have the logs mailed through the internal email system within thirty minutes. He did it in twenty-five.
As Qureshi opened the access logs for the two files that concerned him the most, he cursed under his breath. The logs showed the clerk’s incursion from a few hours ago; the only entries prior to that had been his own access the day of the terrorist attack – the murder – just after he had returned from the MoD and locked up the files.
Although he was still entitled to another week off on compassionate grounds, he donned his uniform and rushed to the office, much to the surprise of his staff. Most of them had no idea how to react to him, unsure if he would accept their condolences, unsure if they should be bold enough to offer any. The amateur psychologists felt he was trying to cope by throwing himself back into work; the less charitable ones suggested that he was probably not grieving as much as one would expect from a husband who had loved his wife.
He locked himself in his office and opened the safe that held the files. The biometric scanner verified his thumbprint and added the time, date and person to the access log before unlocking the heavy door. His pulse racing, Qureshi searched for the files he was afraid he would not find.
He did not find them.
His next stop was the MoD itself where, not having a specific appointment with any of the apparatchiks, he was made to wait for another twenty minutes before being shown into a small conference room. A clerk – was it the same one Richa had compromised, he wondered – walked in a few minutes later with the files he had requested.
The files matched the copies that Richa now held in her possession. They were files that he had never seen before.
Yet, there was his signature on every document, endorsing the veracity of the findings and opinions mentioned within.
16th September, 2012. New Delhi.
It is said that the converts are often the more fanatical than the original believers. A few minutes with President Gopi Kishan validated that saying for me.
Immediately after shaking hands, President GK asked Katara, ‘So what’s next? How do we do this?’
‘The first group we are going to announce this to,’ Katara said, ‘consists of the top industrialists and financiers in the country. Just a few minutes before you go live on Doordarshan, of course . . . but we definitely need to address the money first, ensure that they don’t panic.’
‘Of course, of course. That would be a disaster. We’ll need to shut down the stock exchanges for a few days too, just until we get the message out to all the markets that we are as stable as we’ve ever been, or even better.’
The smile on Katara’s face was beatific. ‘This is why we’ve chosen you,’ he said. ‘You are the leader we need right now.’
If GK sensed an ominous ring to the last two words, he didn’t show it; instead, his eyes gleamed with an excitement that the public had rarely been witness to in the past few months. It was also obvious his brain was racing in many directions, for he soon asked, ‘What about the Army? I know, you told me they are with us – but are they? With Major-General Qureshi’s death last night –’
‘You will announce the setting up of an inquiry commission headed by yourself and a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, officers for the investigation deputed from whatever agency you see fit, and propose a memorial in honour of his memory. The chiefs will ensure that any dissension in the ranks will be quelled, at least for now.’
The implied threat was obvious – if the inquiry did not identify the culprits soon, or if it was seen to be compromised in any way, the gloves would be off. I wondered what pull the Armed Forces’ chiefs could exert on their own commander-in-chief. Short of a mass resignation that would plunge the entire country into a security crisis – an act so unpatriotic that I doubted it would ever be carried out – there seemed to be little else that they could do.
GK clapped his hands once, pleased. ‘Splendid!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s exactly what I had in mind. No parliamentary committee or anything. Keep politics out of it.’
At that moment, Jagannath Mitra re-entered the antechamber. Katara immediately turned towards him. His subordinate gave him a nod, at which Katara turned towards me. ‘Mr Selvam! I believe this is your first visit to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.’ Without waiting for my answer, he turned to Mitra. ‘Why don’t you give him a quick tour? After all, he’s going to need to familiarize himself with the layout here . . . The President and I have to go over a few minor details before we go public.’
It was a very pointed dismissal of both of us. I was almost about to remark that it seemed silly to bring me in and then keep me out, but a last minute thought cautioned that even I needed to clear my head. Things had been happening too fast for me to answer the questions that were still bouncing around inside my head.
‘I’ve read India, 2012,’
said Mitra, breaking the silence between us as we traversed an empty corridor. The locked offices and the echo of our footsteps had momentarily confused me, before I remembered that it was a Sunday and this section was probably where the routine stuff was managed. ‘If I may say so, it’s a thought-provoking book. You should be proud of your work.’
I snorted derisively. Notorious obscurity for nearly two years . . . and now I come across two ‘fans’ in the span of a few hours.
His smile grew wider at my obvious incredulity. ‘I suppose you are wondering what the role is that you play here.’
‘Your boss said I was going to be this Emergency’s historian.’
His nod was slow, rather grudging, but I got the impression that it was perhaps not personal. It was the gesture of someone who disagrees with the word, not the full import.
‘I wouldn’t call you a historian – or rather, I wouldn’t call you just a historian,’ said Mitra. ‘That was purely for GK’s benefit. As far as he is concerned, you are documenting the events leading up to, during and immediately after the coup – or Emergency, as you call it. We want you to have access to any and all the corridors of power.’
‘Why?’
‘Why, what?’
‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘Your man, Raghav Menon, fobbed me off with talk of a cartel and how accurate my book was and all that jazz, but let’s be honest – you don’t really need me here. There are hundreds of people out there who are better writers, who would gladly do this. Even in New Delhi itself . . . What makes me so special that I get this chance to . . . to be a glorified royal scribe?’
Before he answered, Mitra led me out of the president’s office and into a long, empty corridor that had locked doors on both sides. I automatically fell into step beside him.
‘You know what I love about India, Mr Selvam?’ he asked softly. ‘It’s the birthplace of so many new thoughts. Religion. Philosophy. Science. Zero. Geometry. Trigonometry. Governance. But above all, tolerance. Take any topic, any era before the British Raj, and you will see that we’ve never persecuted anyone for the thoughts they had or the beliefs they propagated.
‘Sure, there would have been some idle persecutions here and there, a clash of ideas and egos, but by and large, for the duration that we were the richest and most wonderful of nations in the world, we were also the most tolerant. That tolerance is the fabric that weaved our different states, united our tongues . . .’
We had come to a fork, with one of the arms leading to what was evidently the catering area. The middle tine went straight towards a dead-end. We took the corridor on the left, which gave me the distinct impression that we were at an outer level of the building. Some of the offices on this branch were open, with people absently scurrying back and forth, but it was very evident that we were strolling through on a Sunday. Weekdays, with all the offices open and all the officers running about on their own businesses, must resemble the Outer Ring Road, I was sure.
‘Your book was controversial when it came out, and therein was the reason for its sensational fame. Yet, have you ever thought what might have been if no one had made any fuss about it and treated it as just another book? If they had said, hey, that’s a good afternoon read, maybe worth thinking about, and that’s all I am going to do? Would you yourself have gained so much visibility if it weren’t for these drummers protesting against it so loudly?’
‘Lots of good that did me,’ I grumbled. ‘It was not just that they protested – it was also what they could do, what they actually did. They had the book pulled off the shelves. Slapped a sedition case on me and threatened to do the same to any seller who carried my book. That was when I complained on my blog – and then Google was asked to block my blog. Facebook. Twitter. Everything was blocked.’
‘And that’s precisely what makes you the man for this job,’ said Mitra. ‘You were the victim of a government’s intolerance. Not even civic or communal, but an elected body of representatives did not like the message you were sending out and decided to hold you accountable. Not that we had high expectations from them, but we did want at least our basic rights to be protected. Yet, you had the law minister baying for your blood; the Income Tax Department decided to investigate you; allegations of foreign funding and seditious motives behind the book were trotted out. And you had communal groups demanding a rewrite of the portions that portrayed them in,’ making quote signs in the air, ‘objectionable light.’
‘Yeah, yeah, so I made a few enemies,’ I muttered. ‘Look, I’m flattered that you’ve followed my life so . . . deeply, but what’s the point here?’
‘The point, Selvam, is that it was a turning point for us. It opened our eyes to the kind of state we were turning into. Do you remember that quote by Neimoller? First they came for the Jews and I did nothing because I was not a Jew, then they came for the communists and the socialists . . .’
‘And then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak for me,’ I completed. It was a quote that had stayed with me from the moment I had first read it; in fact, there were editorial pieces I had written on the theme, before and during those dark days, later realizing how prophetic my bleak outlook had been.
‘Precisely,’ said Mitra. ‘You became their victim, and you became our symbol. Every man who is behind this operation – we call it Operation Kalyug, by the way, for obvious reasons – is committed to a future where a Selvam is not treated like this, where the paranoia of a few will not endanger the rights of the one.’
‘You sound a lot like Raghav,’ I remarked.
He shrugged off the comment with a smile. ‘Like I said, we’re a team that thinks alike.’ As if on cue, he stopped right outside a dark conference room. ‘Ah, here we are.’ He checked the notation above the door – Cr2-E.W. ‘Conference room number 2, east wing. This is the place.’
I followed him inside. He switched on the lights and pulled out a plush leather chair for me to sit on. A Cisco console reposed in the middle of the oval table, a green light blinking on it. Mitra gestured for me to be silent before he pressed a button on it.
‘Hello, Major,’ he said. ‘Are you in position?’
The voice that came through the speaker was clipped, precise. ‘Yes, sir. Awaiting your orders, sir.’
‘Proceed as planned,’ he said. Then he pressed another button and the green light became amber. We could still hear a scuffling sound as Mitra said, ‘Have you ever wondered if the entire controversy behind your book was orchestrated by one person?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, what if I told you that it was? How would that make you feel?’
I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I cared, if it made any difference anymore. I was trying to move forward, waiting for the first of January, 2013, so that I would not even be reminded of the year.
The speaker said, ‘Sir . . . sir!’
Before he deactivated the mute function, Mitra pointed his index finger at the phone. ‘What if I told you that you are going to hear him speak now?’
As the light changed from amber to green, the major’s voice from the other side came through loud and clear. ‘Sir, I’ve got Gyandeep Sharma on the line here.’
16th September, 2012. Langley, Virginia.
The India desk at the CIA headquarters in Langley was typically active at night-time, given the different time zones. A staff of seven to ten, headed by a floor boss who supervised some of the other Asian desks as well, manned the consoles, scanning news, intel and online gossip, looking for any nugget of information that could give the American spymasters an edge in understanding the state of affairs in the subcontinent. Dedicated lines ran in from the four different consulates in India, sterilized and encrypted. A fifth hotline was linked to the liaison officer at RAW.
Jack’s call was patched through the New Delhi consulate to the floor boss halfway across the world in a matter of minutes, once his own identity had been verified and he had managed to convince his local handler that the heat had not gotten to him. Unknown to J
ack, the handler had indeed tried to contact John both through the hotel’s number – ‘All lines in this route are busy. Please try after some time.’ – and through the personal number on file – ‘The number you are trying to reach has been switched off. Please prefix with a hash to leave a voice message.’ – and had been convinced only when both attempts failed.
The floor boss, a career analyst who had been happily lodged at Virginia all her life, listened patiently as her colleagues in India – the handler and the operative called Jack – explained the situation. As Jack wound down, she asked him only one question.
‘Did you take any pictures?’
‘Yes, but they are at the hotel, with John,’ answered Jack. He was kicking himself for not having had the foresight to smuggle the memory card out of the camera – but then again, with John watching him like a hawk, it had been damn near impossible to sneak out, let alone engineer a steal.
‘So you have no proof that there is a coup, just a waiter’s word that the Army there is sticking it to the MPs.’
When you put it like that . . . Jack wanted to say. ‘Yes.’
Her next words were to the handler. ‘What about any prior chatter? Have we received any indications from any of our other sources?’
‘None,’ said the handler. ‘Except for a few operatives who were suddenly – out of the blue – transferred last week, there has been no unusual activity or chatter here.’
‘Hmm,’ she said, and the two men knew enough to shut up and let her take the call. A long moment of silence passed. Then she said, ‘Okay, Jack, go back to the convention centre. But don’t get in just yet. If they’re using jammers, there’s a maximum radius around the hotel outside which your phone should work. Buy a camera and take some shots – as much detail as you can. When you’ve had enough, find a way to upload them to our server. But keep outside the jammer’s radius – if I need more info, I’ll be calling you directly.’