The Siege

by Adrian Levy

  Petwal and the police party gingerly crossed into the Palace lobby, and almost immediately an ear-splitting blast knocked them off their feet. The gunmen were at the top of the Grand Staircase, hurling down grenades. Rolling clear, Petwal suggested an alternative route, leading the shaken team up a fire exit. Rajvardhan was cursing. Petwal was armed only with his mobile phone. No one had body armour or helmets. The police team of constables and inspectors had about fifty rounds between them. The two DCPs only had side arms, which were practically useless unless there was close-quarters fighting. They faced men with a full complement of firepower.

  ‘The only person you can reliably kill with a high-power 9mm is yourself,’ Rajvardhan whispered to his batch-mate, recalling the old training mantra about drawing your pistol, as they loped along the second floor of the south wing, passing the Taj Data Centre.

  Inside, Florence Martis was agitated. Faustine had finally got through to her at 10 p.m. and had tried to break it to her gently. ‘Don’t get scared,’ he said, ‘but gunmen are inside the building. You should hide.’ Faustine tried to steady his daughter: ‘The Data Centre is not on the hotel map. No outsider can know it’s there. I will come for you. Do you hear?’

  But Florence was scared. She felt like a shaken bottle of cola. She frantically looked around: desks along three walls, half a dozen chairs, a small number of terminals and a printer, a couple of ancient upright fans. There was a small stationery room, where they hung their jackets, and the server room. She entered the latter, and her phone rang. ‘Hello?’ It was Precilla, her mother. ‘Where are you?’ she asked. ‘Mum, I’m trapped in my office.’ Florence felt tears welling, imagining being curled up on the sofa in her mother’s arms. But right now she needed inspiration and not consolation.

  Florence scrabbled for a calming thought, settling on Faustine on a Sunday, the only time all of them were together. He was steaming idli (savoury rice cakes), with mutton stewing on the back ring. Later, they would go to Mass at St Lawrence’s, where they always sat on the same bench. She imagined walking in with her father to greet the congregation.

  She turned off the lights, locked the door and sat in the dark, praying for her father to come. Suddenly all the phones started ringing. Was it the gunmen, hunting for hostages? She left the server room and went into the storeroom, hiding behind the coats. But it felt too claustrophobic.

  There was smashing and splintering. She covered her ears. Someone close by was breaking down a door. Was she imagining this or was it real? Shots rang out below, possibly beside the pool. The smashing stopped and she could hear talking. The voices were in an unfamiliar language. Then there was screaming, gunshots and footsteps.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ she prayed, ‘please save me. We have always prayed to you.’

  One floor above the Data Centre, to the left of the Grand Staircase, and in room 316, Will and Kelly also heard desperate cries and then gunshots. It felt as if the bullets were drilling through the walls. Will got on his hands and knees, hunting for his mobile phone. He recovered it from a pile of clothes beside the bed. Hands trembling, he punched in his father’s number. It was early evening back in England, and Nigel Pike was at home. After Will’s mother had died from cancer five years previously, Will and his siblings had rallied round their father, bringing them closer together.

  ‘Dad, we’re in a situation,’ Will whispered. ‘The hotel is being attacked. It might be terrorists. We need help.’ Nigel could hardly hear his son but caught the gist of it. ‘Sit tight and keep your phones switched on,’ he said, trying to keep the horror out of his voice. A dad was supposed to solve problems and yet he felt engulfed by this one. ‘I’ll make some calls.’ He put down the phone and lit a cigarette. Will and Kelly were almost 4,500 miles away. What could he do to help?

  Back in the Taj, someone knocked on a nearby door. Will and Kelly lay still in the dark, blood rushing to their heads. ‘Answer? Don’t answer?’ Footsteps moved along the corridor. They could hear knocking at another door. Kelly lay down on the carpet, covering her ears, her heart thumping so loud she was sure Will could hear it. Will got up and crept over to the door to peek through the spyhole. ‘Let’s call reception,’ whispered Kelly. ‘They’ll know what to do.’ The call connected to the hotel’s automated answering system. ‘Fuck.’ A dawning realization hit them both. No one was down there. ‘Leave a message,’ said Kelly, clutching at straws. ‘Tell them we are stuck.’ Dear Hotel, we are prisoners on the third floor. It felt ridiculous and, anyhow, Will did not understand the menu choices. He could not work out if he was still stoned or was addled by fear.

  ‘We need to keep busy,’ he said, as he began tearing the room apart, scouring it for hiding places. Kelly joined in, searching for vents in the ceiling, or cavities in the walls, both of them thinking how it was done in films. What tricks were they missing? It sounded stupid, but what would MacGyver do? He had loved the ingenious TV secret agent whose show he had watched obsessively as a child, transfixed by how McGyver had deployed his scientific know-how and his Swiss army penknife to get out of any fix. ‘What about the cleaning cupboard?’ he suggested, remembering an unmarked door he had spotted on their dash back from the staircase. ‘Too exposed,’ Kelly said, ruling it out. At least in this room they could try and get the windows open – if it came to that.

  Will was sweating, every creak and distant footfall pounding in his head. Something was scratching around in the ceiling. They listened intently. There was some kind of scuffle going on up above them, feet drumming, furniture scraping and raised voices. Did they hear gunshots?

  Up on the fourth floor, Rajiv Saraswati, an Indian businessman, had opened his door a chink, thinking that the police had arrived. Seeing a gunman, Saraswati tried to shut it, only for his assailant to let off a burst of rounds, catching Saraswati in the hand and body. Crying out, he shoulder-charged his door, summoning the strength from somewhere deep inside to force it shut before crumpling dead on the floor.

  DCPs Patil and Rajvardhan had reached the CCTV room on the second floor of the Palace, but were struggling to get to grips with the system: half a dozen sub-screens on a monitor, which flicked between different cameras on different floors every few seconds, none of which were clearly marked. ‘What a mess,’ Patil cursed. The Black Suit Petwal took over, competently scrolling back and forth, while Patil’s radio operator radioed Rakesh Maria, the Crime Branch chief: ‘Tell Region Sir that we have sealed some points, operation is on inside.’ There was no response. Patil grabbed the handset: ‘Send help. With weapons, helmets and body jackets.’ Control relayed the information across the grid: ‘Zone 1 Sir is in the Taj.’

  Rewinding the evening’s CCTV recordings, Petwal found something. Patil and Rajvardhan crowded around to watch footage of two gunmen, one dressed in red, the other in olive yellow, entering the Tower lobby at 21.44. They positioned themselves either side of reception, and pulled out rifles. As guests began scattering, many of them falling, one of the gunmen threw a grenade, and the screen flared and popped. Petwal searched and pulled up more footage: catching the same two strolling along to the Northcote entrance, AK-47s cocked, the red one having turned his baseball cap back to front, ready to work.

  Rajvardhan rattled off a quick assessment. Two operational gunmen meant they were working in pairs, which told him that there were at least four and possibly six or eight. If one team were out roving, others were acting as cut-outs, and no doubt stationed at the top of the Grand Staircase, taking control of the high ground, to choke off the main entrance and exit to the upper floors. One of them looks so fragile that if I gave him a slap he’ll snap, Rajvardhan thought. But he studied how he held his AK-47. It was notoriously difficult to shoot a semi-automatic weapon with one hand – unless you were a Bollywood action hero. And yet this gunman wound the weapon’s strap tightly around his forearm, pulling its wooden stock into the crook of his elbow and down on to his bicep, the way that the Special Forces were trained to.

  The Black Suit found them aga
in. In the Palace lobby at 21.55: the gunmen in red and yellow were joined by a third gunman, all in black, and a fourth dressed in a grey long-sleeved T-shirt. The black and the grey men were the two who had shot up the Leopold, crashing into the Taj through the Northcote entrance, surprising the waiter from Aquarius, Adil Irani. Petwal wound on, finding all four gunmen climbing the Grand Staircase to the first floor. One spun round and shot up Faustine Martis’s Sea Lounge, while the others headed towards the Crystal Room, where the newlyweds Amit and Varsha Thadani were supposed to have made their grand entrance.

  A sequence flashed up of Patil engaging the gunmen on the stairs. The DCP grimaced. If only he had had a rifle he would have ended it there and then. Petwal spooled on until 22.27, when the cameras caught the yellow gunman once more. Now he was on the fifth floor of the Palace, ringing the doorbell of room 551. They watched as the unwitting guest answered and was shot, his killer calmly stepping over the body to enter his room. The Black Suit rang through to Kudiyadi, the security chief, to check the guest list. It was Chaitlall Gunness, CEO of the State Bank of Mauritius. Someone would have to inform his family. Thirteen minutes later, the yellow gunman came out followed by the red gunman, who began knocking on neighbouring doors. They seized another guest and dragged him back into 551.

  The police could not hang around. If the gunmen were not stopped, they would continue to pick off guests, turning this assault into a prolonged kidnapping crisis, perhaps the worst of its kind in recent history.

  The next frames showed all four gunmen entering room 551 at 22.48. Fast-forwarding the tape, Petwal turned to the others. ‘I am a hundred per cent sure there are only four terrorists, and they are in that room together,’ he urged. ‘We have to move on them now.’ Patil hesitated. Commissioner Gafoor had told everyone to wait for the NSG or MARCOS. Already they had pushed the boundary by giving chase without authorization.

  Patil got on the radio. If they were going to storm the room, they needed backup. The Control Room agreed but the team sent struggled with the internal layout of the Taj. ‘Assault Team 3 to South Control: We need location of Zone 1 Sir.’ Patil’s radio man tried to assist: ‘Zone 1 Sir is on the second floor of Taj.’ The labyrinthine hotel was confusing everyone. ‘Assault Team 3 to Control: new Taj or old Taj?’

  For ten minutes there was a flurry of muddled messages, before Assault Team 3 vanished. Patil was getting frustrated, and Control sent in a second unit, Assault Team 6: ‘If you have bulletproof jackets, report to Zone 1 Sir on the second floor.’

  Up in the CCTV room, the cameras showed that the four gunmen were still inside 551. But with every passing minute, the police were squandering the opportunity. Exasperated, Patil grabbed the handset: ‘There are three, four terrorists inside Taj … We need help now.’ Control confirmed it had assigned two teams of men and weapons: ‘We have Assault 3 and 6 with weapons and bulletproof jackets.’ But no one had arrived. Was it cowardice or a cock-up? ‘We are still unassisted,’ Patil radioed again. Then, Assault Team 6 came on to the network and revealed it was still lost: ‘New or old Taj?’

  Petwal called everyone over. ‘It’s finished,’ he said, pointing to the screens. The four gunmen had just exited 551 and walked off camera. For the next forty minutes the police scoured the cameras. At 23.23, Petwal found them again. ‘Sixth floor of the Palace,’ he shouted. The gunmen were knocking on the door of the last room before the fire escape, at the pool end of the south wing, 632. ‘Who is in that room?’ Patil demanded. He recalled that Karambir Kang had told him that his wife and children were trapped on the sixth floor. ‘Get the General Manager on the phone,’ the DCP ordered his radio operator. Despite their differences, Patil felt for Karambir.

  The General Manager was standing outside by the Gateway, which he had turned into an improvised control point for hotel staff, along with the Taj’s group security chief and the hotel’s shaken owner, Ratan Tata. He did not react when Patil told him the news, but calmly described his apartment’s exact location on the sixth floor, the sea-facing southern corner at the opposite and of the corridor from 632. When he got off the phone he was agitated. He had told Neeti to sit tight and wait for the security forces to come, fully believing they would. Now the gunmen were up there and there still was no rescue party. Karambir’s universe was caving in. For almost two decades his world-view had been informed by the gusto with which the private sector solved problems, especially the pragmatic Tata group. He had lost sight of the old India and its anaemic, foot-dragging public sector, in whose hands the lives of his wife and two young sons now rested.

  The Taj’s group security chief asked to speak to Petwal. If the police acted now they could trap the gunmen on the sixth. ‘Tell DCP [Patil] to make two teams: one to go from the north and the other from the south,’ he instructed. ‘Our boys will escort the teams.’ Even if the police inside the hotel did not have the firepower to kill the terrorists, they could pin them down in that room.

  Patil agreed. Having lost the gunmen on the fifth, he was not going to let them get away again. But he still needed backup and he had to seek permission. Patil got back on the radio, urging Assault Team 6 to make their way inside: ‘The terrorists are in room number 631 [sic] of the sixth floor of the old building. I am near the CCTV. I have three, four policemen with me. Please, you have to cover the sixth floor. You have to cover lifts of both sides. Control the staircase. You will get them automatically.’

  Finally, Commissioner Gafoor called in and Patil presented a fait accompli: ‘Sir, there are three terrorists in 632 and two in the lobby. In all there are five [sic] terrorists. I have people with me. I need help immediately.’

  Commissioner Gafoor said: ‘Understood.’ But amid the chaos of the multiple attacks and bomb blasts, he had not heard Patil or chose not to listen to him, as he hung up, without issuing any new orders. Incredulous, and egged on by Rajvardhan, Patil radioed Control. The backup must come now: ‘I am watching the CCTV camera. The lobby is safe.’ He radioed again, five minutes later: ‘The terrorists are still in room number 630 or 632. Convey what I am telling you to assault [team].’ In desperation, he tried Rakesh Maria, too, on the private officers’ network: ‘Terrorists are in room number 631 [sic]. I have three, four people with me. DCP Rajvardhan is also here.’ Could they have the green light now? Maria was overwhelmed, but encouraging: ‘Well done [Patil]. I am sending assault teams to you. Army columns are also coming. They will surround the hotel.’

  Patil and Rajvardhan waited. No one showed. Five minutes later one of the gunmen emerged from room 632, walked over to the CCTV camera and tried to smash it with a chair. Through the broken lens Patil could just make out two other gunmen piling up carpets and linen in the corridor, which they set on fire, filling the sixth floor with coils of smoke. The hotel was burning, the flames making the cameras flare, the smoke clouding them. The CCTV room was almost blind.

  In room 632, a sharp double knock had jolted K. R. Ramamoorthy from his slumber. The banking executive from Tamil Nadu, whose friends called him Ram, sat up, his mouth parched. He went over to the window. It was pitch black, the waning moon having slipped away around 11.15 p.m. Down below nothing moved. Half an hour before, the 69-year-old had fallen asleep, waiting for bad news to pass.

  Retired from a career transforming mediocre banks into international success stories, Ram had flown in yesterday to fulfil his non-executive duties at a finance company board meeting. He also had family commitments, and had wanted to catch up with an old colleague from the Reserve Bank of India. Earlier, he had eaten in Masala Kraft and strolled around the Gateway, as was his habit, watching the pony traps carry honeymooners around the bay. He had been disturbed by scurrying figures on the fifth floor of the hotel on his way back up, before being advised by the Taj operator to go to his room as some kind of crisis was under way.

  A woman working for the board he served on had called around 10.30 p.m.: ‘Sir, are you safe?’ For the first time, he had begun to think he might not be. As he got off
the line, he heard shots. He had lain down on the bed, restlessly snoozing. And now, someone was knocking on his door.

  A bright voice called out in English: ‘Room service.’ For a minute, Ram thought of asking for some water. He told himself off and closed his eyes. He had to make the room appear empty in case gunmen were on the prowl. But he was no good at trickery. A modest person, he was a banker whose goal had been to make the institution memorable rather than the man. ‘All my life I struggled not to be seen,’ he told colleagues, explaining that he despised conspicuous consumption, with the Taj perhaps his only perk. ‘Banking is opium: other people’s money. It makes you drunk,’ he warned. ‘I was never fooled by the allure of debt or the promise of credit.’ He disliked the trappings of status and never had a car pick him up from the airport when a taxi would do. ‘We do not want to be above anyone else or to be seen to be,’ he had told one of his teams, extolling the virtues of modesty.

  Fifteen minutes later there was another knock. ‘Shoe polish?’ the voice called. Ram now knew someone was targeting his room. ‘Nahi chahiye [I don’t want]’, he blurted out. Why have I done that?, he cursed. A bullet punctured the door. He ran into the bathroom and crouched on the floor. More shots sounded out and two gunmen barged in, spotting straight away he was in the bathroom. He was weak, they heaved, and the door smashed backwards, leaving him sprawled under the sink.

  Two young men shoved an AK-47 under his chin, so close up that he could smell their sweat. He felt faint. They were only twenty-four or twenty-five years old, younger than his son. The taller one wore a red cap with something written on it, a red T-shirt and looked like a gym trainer, fit and muscular. The other was shorter and thinner. Ram did not know why, but he began to well up. ‘Please don’t kill me,’ he said. The men remained silent. As he tried to make eye contact, they signalled: ‘Pull your shirt off.’