by R. SREERAM
‘Simple,’ his deputy replied. ‘We have to flush him out. If Gyandeep’s alive, then these attacks make sense. It’s Powerhouse hitting back at us and at the government. It’ll stop only if we stop Powerhouse, maybe even the big ones. And to do that, we need to take him out once and for all. Him, and whoever helped him escape. My guess is that’s the next guy higher up on the totem pole in Powerhouse.’
‘And because you say it’s simple, can I assume that you have a simple plan to go with it?’ Nelson asked.
Jagannath nodded. ‘It’s what we primed him for from the start. It’s time we made use of him.’
Nelson understood instantly. ‘Selvam?’
‘Selvam.’
21
11th October, 2012. New Delhi. 9.58 a.m.
She didn’t answer my call but returned it a few minutes later as I was retrieving my luggage from the carousel. ‘Hi,’ she said. I picked up on the shadows in her voice immediately.
‘Hi,’ I replied, wondering if I should say anything. What the heck, I thought. ‘What happened? You sound a little . . . down.’
‘JNU,’ Richa explained, referring to the Jawaharalal Nehru University that was the source of the four conflicting seasonings of thought in India – a bit of right, a dash of centre, a lot of left and a splash of the far left. ‘There’s been a bombing in the campus. One student died, a few more injured. That makes it six campus bombings in the last three days.’
‘Campus politics? Or something more sinister, like Powerhouse?’
‘Powerhouse? Is that why you’re here?’
‘Powerhouse is the reason I’m here,’ I agreed, catching sight of the first of my bags. ‘But I don’t know if they’re behind these attacks. That’s why I asked you. Has anyone claimed responsibility yet?’
‘No one. I’ve been trying to reach Raghav for a tip but he’s not answering. If you see him, give him hell from me, okay?’
‘Will do,’ I said, feeling a little more cheerful. ‘He’s picking me up from the airport. Why don’t we swing by and you can grill him yourself, huh?’
That would also give me the chance to see her at the earliest, instead of waiting for an evening when she would be free. Since the presidential announcement, the demand for her services had multiplied, starting with her old firm NDNN that had offered her five times her last-drawn. She had turned all those offers down in favour of the BBC, explaining to me that the BBC would have more sense than to ever hire that ‘clown’ she once answered to.
‘Sounds good,’ she finally said, much to my relief.
‘Okay. So . . . it should take us what, about thirty minutes to get there?’
‘Thereabouts. I’ll need that much time anyway to clean up my footage and send it back to the studio. Once you get here, give me a call. I’ll let you know how much longer I’ll take.’
I was about to agree and hang up when she whispered my name urgently, as if she was checking if I had hung up. ‘Yeah?’ I asked, bringing the phone back to my ear.
‘When you get here, find a way to talk to me. Alone.’
10.02 a.m.
‘Is all this really necessary?’ the chief asked.
Gyandeep Sharma looked almost bored with the question. The chief was starting to get on his nerves with his constant double-guessing their – his – plans. What did he have to be so uptight about? There had been no problems so far, even with the entry into India via Maldives. Their passports – genuine, but illegal – had been worth every dollar they had paid for them.
‘Relax, Chief. Don’t you want to be there for the climax? When Powerhouse triumphs once again over its enemies, especially when these enemies have probably been the most serious threats to us in recent memory?’
‘I would have been quite content to do all that from Singapore, thank you,’ said the chief testily. ‘What I don’t understand is your decision to risk both of us on this madcap mission of yours. And why did you need to pull Jacob out of his assignment?’
‘Jacob has not been pulled out of his assignment,’ Gyandeep said. ‘In fact, I’ve probably made his task easier. And, as for being there on the ground when everything happens . . . look at it this way. If anything happens to me, you will be able to take charge immediately. And if things go off as smoothly as they have so far – well, why worry?’
Touch wood, the chief thought absently. He didn’t mention his biggest concern – of flying. It was bad enough to have to fly in and out of the spit of land that passed for the airstrip in Male, but to actually spend hours more on a private charter from the southernmost airport in the mainland to the national capital – and the turbulence they had suffered en route – was something he would have paid millions not to suffer. I’m flying direct on the way back, he promised himself. That, and the thought that they were just under an hour from landing in New Delhi, made him feel better.
A soft alarm sounded over the intercom and the pilot’s voice came through the cabin speakers. ‘Mr Sharma, this is the captain. The Delhi ATC has cleared our flight path – we should be touching down on schedule in about thirty minutes, although we are already over the outskirts. You can plug your SatPhone into the port now.’
10.07 a.m.
Raghav looked suitably apologetic when I told him that Richa had been trying to reach him all morning.
‘I know,’ he said, placing my luggage into the trunk of his car. ‘I saw her missed calls. But there have been more urgent concerns this morning. Get in. I’ll brief you on the way.’
But it was like a switch had been thrown. As soon as we had pulled away from the kerb, Raghav changed topics without any further explanation. ‘How’s your new book coming along?’ he asked.
‘Haven’t you read today’s papers?’ I asked sarcastically, still slightly resentful about the way my latest assignment had found its way to the public domain before I had even understood its terms completely. When I accepted Jagannath’s proposal to write a complete exposé on Powerhouse – supported by every possible documentation, classified or otherwise – I hadn’t expected him to turn it into a three-ring PR circus. Unlike the last time, the advance was already paid into my account before I had signed the deal with the publisher he had set up; before the end of the day, according to E!, I was, ‘Busy with my next path-breaking bestseller, an insider’s look at the shadowy world of Powerhouse – a cartel that has determined the fates of this world more than once.’
Raghav grinned. ‘I guess you aren’t entirely thrilled by the attention they are giving you now, are you?’
‘You have to see it to believe it,’ I told him. ‘I went to the Nungambakkam RTO yesterday to renew my licence. By evening, they were reporting that I was following up on a connection between Powerhouse and the RTO.’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘With everything that’s happening around us, you’d think they’d have better things to do.’
‘Speaking of which,’ Raghav said, dropping the bombshell, ‘that’s why we’ve brought you here. We intercepted some chatter about an attempt on your life in Chennai. Jagannath thought it would be better if you moved here, where we can keep an eye on you all the time.’ Guessing correctly that I was about to protest, he added quickly, ‘It’s just a short-term measure. We can’t spare a team to look out for you in Chennai until things settle down. But over here, we’ve got enough spare staff to have someone with you 24/7.’
10.12 a.m.
‘Jagannath Mitra?’
‘Who’s this?’
‘How sad that you should fail to recognize my voice. True, we’ve spoken to each other only once before, but surely you should be more familiar with my voice if you’ve investigated me thoroughly. In case you’re still wondering . . . no, I have not dropped off the face of the earth over the Sea Link. Is that a sufficiently enlightening clue?’
‘Gyandeep Sharma!’
Gyandeep chuckled. He could imagine Jagannath’s stunned expression, could empathize with the other’s sense of incredulity. He had felt the same barely a month ago. How quickly the tables
had turned!
‘Yes, and thank you. At least my so-called death was noticed. You are a busy man, Jagannath, and I have commitments on my time as well – so let me cut to the chase here. And don’t bother tracing this call. I’ll tell you where I am. We are in a private flight just a few minutes away from landing at New Delhi, and I’d appreciate it if you could send someone to pick us up. Direct them to the private flights’ terminal – we are in a golden Dornier. And the reason I’ve decided to extend an olive branch is because, obviously, neither of us is really winning anything here. Let’s call a truce. You get your peace, and, if you’ll pardon the pun, we’d like to close down that piece about Powerhouse your man is writing.’
‘I’ll have to think about that.’
‘Oh, Jagannath . . . Jagannath! You know this is as good a bargain as you’ll ever get. Even if you don’t want it, I’m sure your boss, the eminently diplomatic Nelson Katara would. Why don’t you check with him and let me know? You have my number. If he too passes on this offer . . . well, I can only hope that history will not judge you too harshly for the consequences.’
‘Can your threats, Mr Sharma. Your Powerhouse is all but destroyed – no thanks to your own cannibalism. Why do I even have to waste time talking to you? I could just shoot you out of the sky.’
‘True, but we are already over the city. You don’t know what we are carrying – for all you know, I could be having a dirty bomb with me that’ll go off if anything happens to the plane. Again, the consequences will be on your head. A dirty bomb over Delhi . . . tch! The casualty numbers would be mind-boggling.’
He paused to let that possibility sink in. ‘Look, maybe I do need this meeting more than you do. So let me make it sweeter. We’ll do it on your turf. Your headquarters. Two hours from now. And I’m coming with the Asian head of operations for Powerhouse, so you could potentially make a deal with us across the continent.’
He heard what might be hurried whispers at the other end and surmised that Jagannath was probably discussing it with Nelson. After a long minute, Jagannath came back on the line. ‘Okay, let’s do it.’
‘My friend has a concern, though, and the more I think about it, the more I find it worthy of addressing. We want a guarantee of safe-passage. In writing as soon as your vehicle arrives to pick us up at the airport. And we want two moderators present as well.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘One is President Gopi Kishan. I would feel a lot safer in his presence. Tell him this is a one-time offer only and if he takes it up, he might very well end up with a truly golden legacy.’
Both of them knew enough of GK to know that it would indeed appeal to the man’s ego. ‘Who’s the other?’
‘Your author. Mr Balamurali Selvam. Don’t bother telling me that he’s in Chennai – I know as well as you do that he’s just landed in Delhi. I want him to destroy, in our presence, everything he’s written about Powerhouse.’
10.30 a.m.
‘Today. Time nt sure. Airport. Qazi’
‘Shit!’ said the handler when he saw the SMS. An attack on the Indira Gandhi International Airport was on the ‘worst-case scenarios’ list. ‘Any idea who’s behind it?’ he typed back.
A few seconds later, he got the reply. ‘A man Yakub in charge. V r gng nw. Will stop if poss.’
The handler took a minute to compose his reply. ‘Will ask men not to shoot you if they can identify you. Any way to do that?’
He waited, but when five minutes passed without a reply, he gave up. He could only hope that Qazi had been sensible enough to destroy both the phone and the SIM card so that it couldn’t be traced back to him. But without any way to identify him as a friendly, Qazi’s fate would be of his own making if and when the attack started. The handler couldn’t risk his commandos’ safety by asking them to ask first and shoot later.
He uttered a silent prayer for the young man before raising the alert. As the rest of his team assembled, he made his decision – he would join the defences at the airport. He was the only one of his current squad who knew what Qazi looked like – the rest of the team that had hit the terrorists at Vagamon had returned to their post in Kochi.
Within minutes, everyone was geared up. As he boarded the van that would take them to the airport, the handler glanced heavenwards and asked his God to help out in any way He saw fit.
Inshallah.
10.32 a.m.
We used Raghav’s law-enforcement badge to find and make our way to where Richa was winding up her work. She was a bit surprised when we suddenly appeared in front of her, especially since she had not answered my call when we entered the car-park. Before she could voice her question, however, Raghav flashed her his card and she understood instantly.
It took her a few more minutes, time that Raghav and I spent pondering, uselessly, I must admit, the pros and cons of the contributions of the university’s alumni to the country. As she finally walked towards us, snapping her bag closed, she gave me a look that was a clear reminder of her demand for privacy. I didn’t panic – I had already thought of a way.
‘Hey, before we push off, can you point me to the restrooms?’
‘You can use the facilities at the headquarters,’ Raghav said, butting in. ‘We’ll be there soon.’
I shot him a look. ‘It’s urgent.’
He grinned.
‘Come on,’ Richa said, taking the cue. ‘I’ll take you. I need to use it myself, freshen up a little.’ She handed her bag to Raghav, much to his chagrin. ‘Hold this, please.’ As she pulled out a small purse from inside, I grinned back at him. He made quite a sight, standing there with a lady’s handbag in his hand. Hardly the agent provocateur he was supposed to be.
‘What is it?’ I asked when we were sufficiently far away. ‘You said you wanted to talk.’
‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you,’ she said, and my heart sped up a little bit. Hope, you fickle thing . . .
‘Go on,’ I prompted her as she paused.
She stopped in her tracks and turned around. Satisfied that no one was behind us, she continued, ‘Ever since you told me you were coming back, I’ve been wondering the same thing you have – why you?’
‘Oh.’
‘Exactly. Why were you chosen? Sure, you had problems with the current establishment – but how could they have hoped to turn you over to their way of thinking? How sure could anyone at INSAF have been that you would fall in with their plans?’
‘I haven’t,’ I pointed out. ‘I keep telling them this is a bad idea, but nobody seems to listen.’
‘Exactly,’ she repeated. ‘So what else do you have that would be useful to them?’
After a moment’s pause, I realized I was expected to come up with an answer. ‘My writing?’ I offered, imagining a colon and the letter P following it. ‘My sense of moral outrage?’
She gave me the feminine equivalent of the look that I had given Raghav just a minute ago. ‘And the recent fame that has attached itself to you. Doesn’t it seem . . . contrived?’
I did not answer immediately but the truth was that it had occurred to me as well. In today’s world, fame worked in one of only two ways – it either painted you a villain, or set it up so that you could be painted one later. And in the last ten years, as the ever-widening gap between the organized media houses and the unorganized netizen journalists had only served to highlight, it would have been only too easy for someone with deep pockets – like INSAF – to direct the former my way, with instructions.
‘It’s occurred to you too, hasn’t it?’ she asked.
‘It’s too . . . positive,’ I said, nodding, finally voicing my concerns. ‘Everyone’s talking about my book on Powerhouse as if it is going to be something extraordinary. But it’s not. They have to see that. This kind of stuff is . . . pulp fiction. It’s been written and rewritten a thousand times by a thousand authors.’
Richa’s expression softened as I continued. ‘I still have those nightmares,’ I told her.
‘The ones where they come for me at night. Like they did after India, 2012.’
Richa stepped closer and laid a reassuring hand on my cheek. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, standing so close to me I could finally inhale her perfume. She smelt good. And my synapses made that final connection, giving shape to a possibility that had just shimmered under the surface of my consciousness all this while.
‘You know something? I feel like I’ve been put on show, primed to be bait for someone to come after. And when I think of it that way, everything they’ve told me takes a different meaning. From the very beginning, I’ve wondered what role I played here, why I was shown off as much as I was. I never really believed all that crap that Raghav and Jagannath tried to shovel down my throat.’ Jagannath had said I was an inspiration, but that was just bullshit. They wanted me because of my history with Powerhouse. They wanted me because my history made me the perfect bait. Their bait. I would have wanted revenge – even if I didn’t, that’s what Powerhouse would have believed. That would have been enough for them to come after me, this time for good. A permanent solution to their Selvam menace. I would be easier to get at than any of the other ‘symbols’.
‘They don’t want me here to give me greater protection. They want me here so that they’ll have a better shot at knowing who is coming after me.’
10.40 a.m.
‘Yakub? Sounds like Jacob.’
‘Yes,’ Jagannath agreed. ‘Fits his MO too. Violent, disposable teams. But why are they hitting the airport? He’s supposed to be after GK.’
Nelson rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. ‘The airport is between us and Rashtrapati Bhavan. So the real target could be GK on his way here.’
Jagannath reached for the phone. ‘Let’s reroute him then. It’s longer, but his convoy can avoid the airport completely. Our own squad is on their way there already.’
Nawaz Qureshi – heading the security detail for the president – was understandably unhappy about the last-second change. Balanced against the risk of a possible ambush near the airport was the fact that the alternate route was longer and less familiar. It took more than a few exhausting minutes for Nelson and Jagannath to convince him that the chance needed to be taken.