by R. SREERAM
As he stood up and turned around ponderously, Jagannath stepped back into the room.
A young woman who looked vaguely familiar followed him inside. Intrigued, I stared at her, trying to place her. As if sensing my attention, she turned towards me and gave me a brief smile that was at once impersonal and sympathetic. I was sure I had never met her before, although that did not preclude me never having seen her.
‘Sir,’ said Jagannath, ‘this is Richa Naik from Doordarshan. She will take you through your address to the nation.’
10
16th September, 2012. Washington D.C.
‘What’s happening, people?’ queried the president as he walked into the Crisis Room in the west wing of the White House. As Winston scrambled to place the one-page summary of the latest intel in front of the chair at the head of the table, the rest of the crowd half-rose from their seats in deference to their commander-in-chief, who waved them down absently. Despite the early hour and the short notice, almost every seat was taken. One did not ignore such summons from the White House, which is why one lived typically not more than a few minutes away. Only the vice-president, by virtue of the fact that he was touring Africa, would be excused his absence.
‘GK’s just a few minutes away from going public,’ said the chief-of-staff, taking his own seat only after Jackson had sat down. ‘But it doesn’t seem to be such a big secret anymore. Every single news channel over there has been reporting talk of an Emergency, with some even going so far as to advertise a debate on its constitutional validity by experts about forty minutes from now.’
‘We’ve intercepted a lot of chatter as well,’ said Craig McSmith, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, jumping in. He was already feeling the pressure, having been briefed by Winston about the video conference with GK and how the lack of accurate intel had made the US president look, well, uninformed in front of his Indian counterpart, and was eager to make amends as quickly as possible. ‘Online and offline. About thirty minutes ago, roughly around the time of your conversation with Gopi Kishan, the Internet suddenly exploded with rumours that there’s been a State of Emergency imposed in India. We haven’t been able to pinpoint a singular source, though – there’s been a slew of messages all saying the same thing, but no one knows on whose authority.’
The door opened once again as Andrea Simps, the secretary of state, walked in. She nodded to the president, dispensing with the formality of apologizing to him for being the last one in, letting him – and the others in the room – know that she walked in last because she could. They needed her skills more than she needed their acceptance, and both sides knew it. If McSmith had been Winston’s pet project, Simps had been his pet peeve; the president had maintained peace by taking both of them into his team.
Eyes followed her appreciatively, if surreptitiously, for even at fifty, there was no doubt that Simps was an attractive woman. Suave, well-educated and cultured, the widow of a Southern ore magnate who had left her both immense wealth and influence, Andrea Simps never hid the fact that she lived for the sole purpose of manipulation. Her fundraisers were legendary, as was her ability to string together the unlikeliest of co-conspirators. Pundits were already betting on her as the Democrats’ next big hope once President Jackson served out his second term, and it was in preparation for such a future that she had condescended to take on the role of the secretary of state for the final two years of the current administration.
She took the last vacant seat, a straight-backed chair almost across the length of the table from President Jackson, and pulled out a notepad from her purse. With the air of one almost contemptuous of her company, she opened the pad and flipped through the pages, letting the silence build up around her, enjoying it.
‘Anything from your psych team, Andrea?’ President Jackson asked, a little irritated at her lack of urgency. The team in question was a group of psychological experts – although Andrea herself preferred the team ‘prodigies’ – that worked out of the State Department’s office, reporting directly to Andrea with dossiers compiled on every major player in global politics.
‘As a matter of fact,’ replied Andrea with a smile, drawing out the syllables in the exaggerated manner that she had picked up from her husband, ‘they do. They’ve reviewed the video conversation between you and GK and are of the opinion that GK was reading from a script. Someone else was telling him what to say.’
Before the president could respond, Winston objected. ‘How can you say that? I was there, I saw him. He was talking naturally, not as if he was being fed his lines.’
Andrea smiled patronizingly at Winston, her affection for him no more than his towards her. ‘If that had been the case, he would have spoken more or less – and not closed the call at the point where he knew that he had raised more questions than he’d answered. He must know that we would not sit silently if their prime minister’s life is being threatened – yet, he chooses to answer it enigmatically, which opens up the possibility that we would immediately launch a diplomatic counter-offensive to isolate him and get him to toe our line. Left to himself, he would have taken pains to reassure us that Razdan is perfectly safe and happy – worst case, force us to negotiate a safe passage for the leadership.’
She tapped the cover of her notepad with her pen. ‘The second – and more important – fact is that at the end of the video, just before the screen goes black, he seems to look away from the camera, somewhere to its far left. My video team spotted it right away. A reflection in his eyes that they were able to zoom into and enlarge. We don’t know who it is yet – the facial recognition team is working on it – but there is no doubt that whoever it is, he was clearly congratulating Gopi Kishan with a thumbs-up.’
‘A puppet regime?’
‘Maybe. Depends on factors we still have no intel on. That reminds me, by the way. Craig, has your operative Jack – Llong Cox, I believe, is the poor sod’s name – resurfaced?’
All eyes turned to the director, who had a petrified look on his face. The disappearance of the operative – unimportant as he had been to the CIA’s scheme of things in India – was an issue he had hoped to discuss privately with the president, once he had assured himself that Jack had not merely put himself out of contact. Inside the Crisis Room, with more than its fair share of people who had led teams into battle and prided themselves on bringing everyone back safely, Craig felt the same sense of inadequacy that was becoming a more frequent companion to him these days.
Before he could think of something – anything – Simps issued her rejoinder. ‘After all, there is no reason why he should maintain radio silence any longer. Unless he’s been captured, or worse . . .’
There was pin-drop silence in the room as the others completed her sentence for her. An agent dropping off the grid in the midst of an official operation was not unusual, but with the interest that the media would show in the coming days, the questions that were surely going to be asked about American preparedness and handling of the India situation, a leak would be disastrous. No one knew whether Jack had a family who would make enough noise to put the spotlight on his disappearance – and that was the uncertainty that worried them.
As the president mulled over his options, Andrea Simps moved in for the kill, the look of ruthless pragmatism disguising the thrill she truly felt.
‘Mr President, I would like your permission to draft an actionable plan for the restoration of democracy in India within the shortest possible time-frame, including but not limited to the civil or military destabilization of the new regime.’
24th April, 2012. New Delhi.
The mid-afternoon crowd at the mall milled around him, forcing him to join the flow – for to have stood still would cost him the inconspicuousness he was trying to cultivate. It was an aberration in what, according to him, was a good plan – but as a soldier, he understood only too well that no plan ever survived intact its first contact with reality. Moving around was now unavoidable, but it also made it more difficult f
or him to spot signs of being tracked himself.
And Iqbal Qureshi, who had been scouting around for Raghav Menon and Richa Naik for the last ten minutes, was certainly aware of that possibility. He had arrived at the Fortune Mall in his official vehicle, driving himself, and parked it at the kerb, hopeful – but not really banking on it – that he would not be ticketed due to the official stickers adorning the windshield. Instead of walking through the main doors, which he was sure Raghav would be monitoring, he had made his way around the mall and discovered the loading bays.
His ID card allowed him access to the mall through these loading bays, although he was a little disconcerted by the fact that the security guard who had readily allowed him inside had not found it strange that a senior Army general wanted to investigate the new security measures at the mall. He did not dwell too much on it, though, for it was not his concern – and in the Army, they taught you to do your job well. Not others’.
The ten minutes slowly ticked over to fifteen, and Qureshi realized that he would probably have to move out of cover as a shopper. The aisles of the Big Bazaar afforded him a rather restricted view – narrow and straight ahead – and since the shelves were stacked with items, it would not help him catch anybody’s reflection if, indeed, he was the one being followed.
He worried for Richa to the same extent that he had worried for the hostages during his days in Kashmir, when he had often run operations against terrorists holed up in a civilian’s house, holding the family at gun-point – reducing her to a number, pragmatically obsessive that she should not add to the kills he had been unable to prevent, yet not forgetting the true purpose of his being here.
To capture and interrogate Raghav Menon.
That was the over-arching objective, just as ensuring the terrorists’ unquestionable defeat had been back in Kashmir.
He approached the billing counters cautiously, watchful, with a cart filled with random items – keeping in with his character as a shopper, mindful of attracting attention by loitering around without picking anything – but abandoned it a few feet away and quickly walked out through the exit without a backward glance.
Once outside the supermarket, he scanned the open area around him. He found himself searching out couples – after all, he was expecting two people – but years of training intruded, and he forced his mind to consider even single males, given the possibility that Raghav might have split up from Richa so that he could sneak up on Qureshi instead of the other way around.
A few seconds later, he gave a small grunt of exultation. For, standing less than ten meters away, peering in through the glass walls of the supermarket – got out just in time, Qureshi thought – was Raghav.
16th September, 2012. New Delhi.
Unlike the rest of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Nehru Room was teeming with people by the time we went in. Bright klieg lights shone on a cream wall, the wall itself partly hidden behind a gleaming mahogany table and an old-fashioned chair that resembled a throne. On three different tripods spread in an arc behind the lights sat three cameras, fussed over by their respective crews. It reminded me of the unintelligible murmur of a studio just before a live show – it reminded me of a time two years ago when I was a regular guest on one channel or the other.
To our right, almost at the far end of the room, I saw a table that was covered with digital equipment, box speakers and wires, obviously the sound engineer’s station. Near this, to the right and even closer to the wall, were a bunch of technicians working at a furious pace on their computers – probably the graphics team who were putting the final touches on the background that the telecast would superimpose on the blank wall behind.
By the time all of us were inside – I was bringing up the rear – a rather harried-looking lady was introducing herself to the president. ‘I am Sharmila, head of production for today’s telecast,’ she said, the confusion about the protocol very apparent. Should she extend her hand – a woman’s prerogative – or was that for the president to do? Eventually both of them bowed a little awkwardly at each other and the moment passed. Sharmila turned quickly to the assistant behind her and barked off a few rapid commands in Hindi before turning back to us.
‘Shiva will take care of the president. In the meantime, Mr Katara, I need to go over the script with you once again. There are a couple of things I think we should re-plan.’
As GK followed the assistant across the room and to the seat set up for him, two of the klieg lights were switched off, making it seem as if the room was suddenly cooler. Nelson asked Jagannath to join him as he stepped away after Sharmila, who was already bustling off to the only corner of the room that seemed to be left untouched.
Jagannath turned to me with a smile. ‘Try not to waste your breath convincing Richa that this won’t succeed,’ he said, giving me a pat on the shoulder. Before I could respond, he joined his boss in their short journey across the big room.
There are few things as awkward, I suppose, as suddenly finding yourself alone with a stranger when you have both been part of a larger group, when that group itself was the tenuous common link. You have this feeling that you are supposed to say something to fill the silence, to maybe make the effort to get to know the other person better lest it be seen as insulting indifference; at the same time, you don’t know what to talk about, and you’d rather keep your mouth shut and appear sensible than to open it and commit a verbal faux pas.
I stole a glance at the young lady standing next to me, only to find her seemingly captivated by the chaos around her. I thought she looked quite attractive, with a small face, those thinly-framed spectacles pinching the top of the bridge of her nose, hair that reached down to her jawline and the graceful tension of a horse grazing in a pasture.
Suddenly realizing that my glance had probably turned into a stare, I averted my gaze, feeling quite self-conscious. As I looked away, I had a fleeting impression of Richa turning to look at me. I forced myself not to look back immediately – a resolution that lasted for less than four seconds before I gave in. This time, though, I thought I saw her look away quickly.
This is ridiculous, I thought. There is no need for us to look at each other furtively, like little kids battling a secret crush. Taking a deep breath, I reached out and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.
‘Hi,’ I said as she turned around. And then discovered I’d forgotten what I intended to say after that.
16th September, 2012. Ghaziabad.
Jack – Llong Cox – stared forlornly at the two men in front of him and then once again at the metal frame of the truck they were all in. The paint had peeled away from many places, exposing patches of stained sheet-metal, and there was the smell of stale grease and oil which, inside the hot confines, was overpowering enough to make him queasy.
What concerned him even more was the fact that he had been duped by the two men. After the fracas at the mall, he had resigned himself to being taken into official custody, only to be told – once he had climbed into their jeep meekly – that they were not cops and his arrest was entirely off-the-record. He had tried to struggle then, but the handcuffs rendered him completely ineffectual. The two men had forced him into the gap between the seats, out of sight of anyone outside, and then blindfolded him. The press of a cold, round-shaped metal to his neck, accompanied by the unmistakable click of a hammer being cocked, had impressed upon him the need to stay quiet and docile.
They had driven through the city for a while before turning off onto a dirt track and driving a little longer, finally stopping at an abandoned garage that was as silent as it was dilapidated. He had then been forced at gunpoint to climb into the cargo bay of a truck nearby, the plastic sheet on the floor almost convincing him that he was about to be executed summarily, breathing a little easier only when the man who had tackled him earlier told him to sit down on the small plastic stool at the inner end of the cargo bay, a few feet away from the edge of the sheet.
Try as he might, Llong was unable to pin-point the reason
for his abduction. Had he been mistaken for someone else, perhaps a wealthy American? Or was it related to his work, to the operation he had witnessed at the conference centre?
Either scenario was cause for sufficient alarm from a personal perspective. If it was indeed a case of mistaken identity, what would these kidnappers do once they realized they had taken the wrong man? Having seen their faces, wasn’t it more likely that he would be done away with to ensure their security? On the other hand, if it was related to his job, then it meant there had to be a leak somewhere. Otherwise, how could anyone have known how to find him so quickly? Except for his colleagues on the conference call with Langley, no one else knew – so one of them must have sold him out.
That did not take him any closer to a way out of his predicament, but at least it did make him feel better placed to understand the possibilities. The longer this played out, the surer he was of his chances for survival. If he had not been compromised by someone from his own camp, then it was a certainty that his disappearance would raise enough flags for the machinery to start looking for him, maybe even put pressure on the Indian government to locate and rescue him.
Sufficiently bolstered, he resumed his efforts to eavesdrop on the conversation – sparse as it was – between his captors. They spoke mostly in Hindi, a language he was familiar with enough to recognize but not comprehend, but there was a smattering of English words thrown in from time to time. Llong caught a few random words like ‘emergency’, ‘announcement’, ‘president’ and ‘cricket’, but none of it made any sense to him.
He saw one of the captors reach into his pocket and pull out a mobile phone, and remembered that his own – the one he had purchased from the auto-rickshaw driver – had been thrown out of the vehicle en route to this place. The captor spoke a little, listened a lot and then hung up with a comfortable smile. Then he whispered something to his partner, at which both of them looked at him with – strangely enough – bemused expressions.