by R. SREERAM
1st October, 2012. Rashtrapati Bhavan.
‘I have to give the public an answer,’ demanded the president.
‘We don’t have one.’
‘Create one. That shouldn’t be a problem, right? We’ve done it so many times before.’
Jagannath stepped in before Nelson could answer. ‘With all due respect, sir, that’s exactly the problem. We give out so many theories about a single incident that we simply end up confusing everyone, especially – and unfortunately – the investigating agencies themselves. And the defence lawyers then use these theories to discredit our prosecution, to sow the seeds of doubt, to get acquittals because we were simply unable to disprove every other theory that we ourselves trotted out.’
Sensing the rise in the president’s temper, Nelson decided to play the diplomat. ‘What Jagannath is trying to say is that you do not have to give in to those political compulsions anymore. There is no purpose to anyone getting mileage out of this. You can simply issue a statement saying you have been apprised of the investigation’s progress and when the time is right, the appropriate authorities will reveal more details.’
‘And what about the rumours that the government itself is behind the blasts?’ the president asked. ‘What do I say if they ask me about it?’
1st October, 2012. New Delhi.
I hung up the phone and turned to Richa. ‘That was Raghav. Apparently, the CJI has other engagements today.’
‘And tomorrow is Gandhi Jayanti,’ she pointed out.
‘Yep. Which means my appointment has been postponed to the third.’
‘So what are you going to do now?’
‘I don’t know . . . maybe get out and roam around. Call up my friends. It’s been alleged that I don’t do either of those things.’
She grinned. I grinned back at her. ‘Unless you’re prepared to show me around the city. I’ve heard Delhi is pretty dangerous this time of the year.’
She took one last sip of her coffee before placing it back on the table between us and summoning the waiter for the bill. ‘Come on then. And on the way you can explain to me once again why you think that last appointment of Qureshi’s was the one that pushed him over the edge.’
2nd October, 2012. Mumbai.
The school bus had just turned into the parking lot when it exploded. The bomb, fixed to the underside of the chassis, ripped it into two halves, the fire frying everything in its path in the instant of its existence. The two parts toppled in opposite directions, burning masses of metal that blocked the entrance to the school.
2nd October, 2012. Rashtrapati Bhavan.
There was no denying that the president was livid. His face was flushed as deeply red as Nelson had ever seen and his jaw worked silently as he tried to keep his rage in check.
‘A school. A school!’ The president finally found his voice. ‘A few minutes later and all those kids would have died. That’s what everyone will remember – not that it was only the driver inside the bus when it exploded! I need answers, Nelson. And you’d better give me one or else –’
‘Or else what?’ Nelson Katara asked. He had reached his own boiling-point as well. ‘What will you do, GK? Fire me? How? As far as anybody’s concerned, I don’t exist. INSAF doesn’t exist. If you have to fire someone, you’ll have to fire the DGP or the city commissioner, or the head of RAW or IB. So stop wasting time with these threats. I’ve told you we are working on it.’
President GK stared at Nelson with undisguised contempt. ‘Do you think this is some kind of a pissing contest, Nelson? There are people dying out there, and every single time a bomb goes off, our government ends up looking weak. I look weak. Ineffective. If that’s what you wanted, you might have as well have let Kuldip serve out his term!’
Nelson held up the palm of his hand in a placating gesture. ‘I realize that. But – repeating what we said yesterday – it makes no sense to jump in and pretend we have all the answers when we have none. Give us a little more time. I’ll have an answer for you by the end of the week.’
‘No,’ the president shook his head. ‘That’s too long.’
2nd October, 2012. New Delhi.
I started the conversation with, ‘Did you hear about the blast in Mumbai?’
‘Yeah, I’m watching the news right now. Thank God the bomb blew up a few minutes too early. All those kids on their way to the Martyrs’ Memorial on Gandhi Jayanti . . . who would do such a thing?’
‘Some very sick bastards. I’ve been telling you, Richa – look at the evidence. Since GK’s taken over, things have gone from bad to worse.’
‘You can’t blame GK for this!’ she protested. ‘I’m not his fan any more than you are, but it’d be stupid to pin this on him. We’ve had blasts earlier too. It’s a failure of the system.’
I stubbornly refused to concede the point. The events of the past few days, I felt, were validating my concerns about the chaos resulting from INSAF’s cockamamie attempt to solve the country’s problems.
‘Look, forget it,’ Richa said, accurately reading my silence. ‘I was about to call you myself. I’ve been thinking about what you told me yesterday about Qureshi’s death and I still think it’s a bit thin to tie his suicide to the last meeting he had.’
‘It’s a matter of timing. Why would a guy who’s been fighting for almost six months suddenly give up?’
‘Maybe he just realized it was futile. What would he achieve even if he won? A public acknowledgment by the government that the Army was badly ill-equipped? That would be the last thing he wanted.’
‘Wasn’t it his intention to see the guilty punished?’
‘It was, but you’ve seen how these things drag on without ever reaching a conclusion. Look at Bofors. The ’92 blasts. He must have realized that except for the Army getting hurt, nothing else was going to happen in his lifetime. Maybe that’s why he cut it short.’
‘But then,’ I asked, flipping my trump card once again. ‘Why would he write “temptations”? Why not “hopelessness” or something else? Why temptation?’
She offered the same explanation she had the previous day, the same one I kept discounting. ‘What if Powerhouse had reached out to him for some kind of an understanding? Maybe a quid pro quo. You remember what Jagannath told you – maybe they had something on his son.’
‘That’s it,’ I said, snapping my fingers. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? ‘We need to talk to his son. He might be able to shed more light on this.’
‘Selvam,’ she said, drawing the last syllable out so that the warning in it was blindingly clear. Despite the excitement, I smiled. I liked the way my name rolled off her tongue. ‘Are you sure you want to do this? The son’s been through enough without you asking him questions about his father.’
I refused to be discouraged. ‘Let me talk to Raghav. Maybe he can set it up.’ As an afterthought, I added, ‘And maybe we can ask him to be the moderator.’ Just to be sure I don’t get beaten up by Junior Qureshi, I thought.
A few minutes ago, President Gopi Kishan Yadav signed an ordinance to create a new national security agency that will co-ordinate and oversee the intelligence and domestic security operations of existing organizations such as the Research and Analysis Wing, the state Intelligence bureaus, Military Intelligence, even the CBI and central, state and reserve police forces. Over to Rashtrapati Bhavan, where the president is addressing the country in a nationwide telecast:
‘. . . the new agency will be called INSAF – Indian Security Agencies’ Federation – and will always operate under the joint offices of the home minister, the prime minister and the president. This agency will have a broad mandate that, in its simplest terms, simply means that it is their job to protect the country from within just as it is the border forces’ duty to protect us from external dangers . . .’
2nd October, 2012. INSAF HQ.
‘Did you know he was going to do it?’
Nelson massaged his temples. GK, you goddamn . . . he didn’t bother finishing the thought. You can tak
e the politician out of politics, but you can’t take politics out of the politician, he thought.
He glared at Jagannath. ‘Yeah. I encouraged him to go public about INSAF. What do you think?’
Jagannath backed off. ‘Sorry, Boss. Just thought he might have run it by you.’
You don’t have time. Nelson remembered GK’s warning. Trying to shake off his despondency, he stood up and paced the floor. In a way, GK was right. The nation needed the hope that something was being done. The people needed to know that they would be taken care of. GK had done what he had to. Nelson didn’t have to like it, but he could live with it.
‘He didn’t, okay?’ he asked, still feeling defensive. ‘But forget about it. Just because Kalyug is almost done, it doesn’t mean that we get to relax. We’ve still got to figure out who is behind this string of attacks.’
There was a knock on the door and one of their assistants peeked in. ‘Sir,’ he said, addressing Jagannath. ‘You need to see this.’
As Jagannath stood up to follow him, he turned to Nelson with a rueful smile. ‘Do us a favour, Boss. Please make sure that GK doesn’t bring reservation here too.’
2nd October, 2012. New Delhi.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Llong hissed. ‘Get back inside!’
Sir Harold turned to him with a smile that was almost beatific. ‘You’re sure this is the place they held you?’ Behind him, too familiar for comfort, Llong could see the compound he had escaped from. Through the bars of the gates, he could see the debris that was piled high in the middle but the guard’s cabin was still intact. He had seen its exteriors only once, at night, and that too in the midst of a fire-fight, but there was no doubt in his mind.
‘Yes it is, you old fool!’ he said, glancing nervously at the road behind him. Any moment now, he expected a troop of INSAF soldiers to swoop in on their vehicle and take him back into custody. ‘Let’s go.’
Instead of complying, the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service walked to the gate and looked straight up at the surveillance camera mounted high on a pole near the cabin. Then he smiled, pulled a gun out and shot out the lock on the chain. Llong jumped out of his skin at the retort of the weapon. At that moment, if Sir Harold had made the mistake of leaving the keys in the car, he would have driven away without a second’s hesitation. Senile old men deserved what they got.
With a satisfied smile, Sir Harold walked back to their car. ‘And now,’ he said, calmly holstering his pistol. ‘We wait.’
3rd October, 2012. Singapore.
The day had just ticked over to the next when Gyandeep finished relaying his instructions over the phone. Hanging up, he noticed the thoughtful expression on his host’s face.
‘Is all that really necessary?’ the chief asked. ‘You’ve just placed orders for executing almost the entire level of our India team. We were blind without you, but we will almost certainly be crippled now.’
‘Relax,’ said Gyandeep, finally feeling relaxed himself. The end-game was near. He reached out and pulled a cigar from the stash that the chief had placed on the table. ‘Haven’t you realized that we’ve been penetrated too badly not to do this? INSAF knew too much about us – they had to have a senior snitch. We don’t have the time to find that rat, so let’s flush the whole thing and start with a brand new crew.’
‘But that will set us back by years,’ protested the chief. He was worried by the Indian’s attitude. There was an element of the suicidal in the way he had redrawn the plans he, the chief himself, had outlined less than a week earlier . . . almost as if he no longer cared about Powerhouse. As if the only thing he cared about was revenge.
Gyandeep Sharma waved the objection aside with a casual exhalation of smoke. ‘No, it won’t. We have money, and money will get us what we don’t have to pay time for.’ He smiled humourlessly at the chief. ‘See, that’s the thing you haven’t understood about India even after all these years. That’s why your explosions have failed, if you will pardon the pun, to ignite the passion of the average Indian.’
He took another puff before continuing his discourse. ‘You thought the death tolls in the first two cases would outrage them. It won’t. Beyond a point, death becomes a statistic. It’s much more effective to play on the possibilities.’ He tapped the ash off the tip. ‘For instance, what if the bomb had exploded after the kids were on board? What if the bomb had been timed properly? If those kids had died, you wouldn’t have the horror of the what-ifs. And then it wouldn’t have been so horrifying, would it?’
There was a time when Gyandeep had been respectful, almost fearful, of the chief. Now, glancing at the man on the opposite side of the table, he was left only with a profound sense of the futility of their lives. Of all the empires conquered, of all those victories that were powerless in the face of death, and not even their own deaths at that. At that moment, he pitied the chief for having no one to mourn – he knew how that felt.
‘If you really want to pit one Indian against another, you’ve got to hit them where they really feel it. Their temples, their mosques, churches. Their caste symbols. Those are their identities now. That’s the only way to suck in enough of them to create that critical mass. That’s the only way to ensure that India spirals into inescapable chaos.’
He chuckled, almost a replica of the chief’s from the previous evening. ‘Of course, that’s what President Timothy Jackson wants. And you know what, my dear Chief? I don’t really give a damn anymore.’
3rd October, 2012. INSAF HQ.
‘We’ve got good news, bad news, worse news and even-worse news,’ Jagannath informed his boss as soon as he came in.
Nelson Katara looked balefully at his subordinate. ‘Give me the good news first. Then the bad. If the worse can wait, I’d appreciate it.’
Jagannath followed him into the office and shut the door. ‘The good news is that we have an eyewitness for Leela’s assassination now. We finished debriefing Llong last night and he swears that the same team that stormed the safe-house also shot her dead. The way he described it matches our reconstruction of the event, and he confirms that they took pictures of her right afterwards. I guess those are the same pictures we intercepted.’
Nelson nodded. He hoped the bad news was as . . . weak as the good news was. Leela wasn’t very high in the list of his concerns. Llong was even lower.
‘The bad?’
‘Llong was accompanied by Sir Harold Holmes.’
Nelson groaned. ‘Were you able to confirm it?’
‘Yes. He gave us a few protocols that checked out. And though there are very few pictures of him in existence, our man in London came through. We confirmed the bona fides just a few minutes ago. It’s official, I guess. We’ve got the head of British Intelligence in our custody.’
‘Is that all?’
‘No,’ said Jagannath. ‘As of five minutes ago, the British High Commission has passed along to our MEA an official letter of protest against the detention of one of its most honourable citizens. Last known location, right outside our HQ.’
‘Do you mean to tell me we picked him up without checking for a backup detail?’
‘Either that, or he was wearing a transmitter,’ Jagannath conceded. ‘To be fair, we didn’t know who we were dealing with until it was too late.’
‘What’s next on our shit-list?’
‘You remember Qazi?’
‘The terrorist we hope we’ve turned?’
‘The ex-terrorist we hope we’ve turned,’ Jagannath corrected. ‘He called in today. Apparently, the underground jihadi network is buzzing with talk of an impending hit. Any day now. And it’s going to be a big one in Delhi. Most likely a repeat of 26/11. The recruiters are looking for cannon fodder with enough experience with guns and grenades. And before you ask, yes, our guy made the cut. And no, he hasn’t been told what the target is – or targets are, as the case may be.’
Nelson chose to look at the silver lining. ‘But we are slightly better placed to know when and where, tha
n if we didn’t have him. Assuming he can get back in touch with us. Assuming we can trust him. Assuming they trust him with the right info. Slim odds, but still something to hope for. Remind me once again, Jagannath. Why did we ever think we could actually save the world in the first place?’
Jagannath knew an answer was not expected. Nelson just needed to let off some steam.
‘And your last piece of good cheer for the morning?’
Jagannath passed across a sheet with a list of names written on them. He didn’t say anything for the few seconds it took his boss to go through the list and identify the pattern.
‘The first letters of these names spell “Gyandeep”,’ he said sarcastically, shaking the sheet of paper. ‘Very creative, but I hope that, next time, you will either arrange the names alphabetically or leave them as they are. I am sure there are other things that could benefit from the application of your valuable time.’
The sarcasm did not daunt Jagannath in the least. ‘That list is chronological, in the order that they died. In every case, the killer or killers left very clear indicators about the exact time that the murder had taken place. Every single name on that list was killed within fifteen minutes of the previous one. Then there was a pause, an hour’s break. Like the space between two words. Then four more hits, all on known ex-Powerhouse/Infinity personnel. Heeralal Desai in Ahmedabad, Ebenzer James in Puducherry, Rahman Khan in Pune and Eldo Fernandez in Kochi.’
‘Gyandeep here?’ Nelson stared at Jagannath, incredulously. ‘But . . . Gyandeep’s dead, isn’t he?’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ Jagannath answered sombrely. ‘Someone jumped. We assumed it was Gyandeep because the pattern was there. Gyandeep stopping on the Sea Link every day. But what if he had arranged for a double to jump in his place and then made his escape while we were hoping his body would wash up on the shore?’
For the few minutes it took Nelson to absorb the shock, both of them sat silently, caught up in their own thoughts. Finally, deciding that as incredible as it seemed, it was better to operate under the assumption that Jagannath’s theory was correct, Nelson asked him what their next step was.