by Adrian Levy
Ali prepared to check the route down: ‘OK, now we’ll go. God willing, while coming from there, we will give a surprise. God willing.’ As Ali came down the stairs alone, Wasi reminded him of the drill: ‘Grenades. Remember. Get ready to throw them.’ But Ali was distracted by the opulence of their new surroundings on the fifth floor. ‘Just listen to me,’ he said to Wasi. ‘The entry door is fantastic. Big doors of glass.’
Wasi was wary. Glass would cause them problems. They could be seen through it and cut to pieces if it shattered. But Ali was not listening. He sounded astonished: ‘The room is strong. We can’t find another room like this. It’s big. It’s great. There are mirrors, and it’s very safe, it has two kitchens. There is a washroom. There is a larder. There are mirrors everywhere.’ They would stash their human cargo here and then go after the police.
The ATS texted police control. The intelligence agencies texted Rajvardhan. They had to clear out of the CCTV room now.
Wasi remained concerned. What about the basics: ‘Is there water there?’ Ali shouted to Umer, the terrorist all in black: ‘Is there water here?’ Yes, he replied. Wasi said: ‘Keep a bucket of water close to you. A towel and water, as the towel will save you. If they throw the gas grenades, then the water and towel will save you.’
Ali was in confident mood as he went back up to fetch the hostages: ‘OK. The night is ours, God willing.’ Handler Wasi had one more piece of advice. ‘You tie everyone up when you bring them down. Tight. Make sure no one is left in the open.’ For once, Ali was ahead of him: ‘I have tied them in such a way that they can’t even lift their heads, thanks be to Allah.’ Wasi reiterated the orders, like a schoolteacher. ‘You light the fire upstairs.’ Set the bombs. And bring the hostages down.
The ATS texted again: bombs. An assault could be minutes away. They felt worried for the men in the CCTV room.
Ali said: ‘Pray for us.’ He did have one niggling problem, the bullet injury to his leg. ‘Because of my leg, I can’t do what is in my heart. Walking hurts too much.’ Wasi soothed him: ‘Don’t worry, Allah will help you.’ But Ali worried that he was becoming a burden: ‘This work was mine alone, but everyone is having to do it together. My leg is not helping me. Pray to Allah that we can make them dance.’
2.30 a.m. – room 632
Up in room 632, a face just inches away from Ram’s ear screamed: ‘Get to your feet, fat man.’ The hostage-banker was bound so tight he was in agony and his wrists and ankles were bleeding. ‘Come on, old man, get moving,’ shouted the red-shirted gunman, impatiently kicking him in the ribs like a stray dog, before he was distracted by one of his companions calling him out into the corridor.
It was a moment of respite for Ram, who ached all over. As he lay there, trying to zone out, a tune came to his lips. It was the Carnatic songbird Madurai Subbulakshmi, singing the Hanuman chalisa (devotional hymn) that he had heard so many times as a child: ‘You carry in your hand a lightning bolt along with a victory flag, and wear the sacred thread on your shoulder.’
‘Aaargh.’ Ram was brought back into the present by one of the gunmen hauling him up by his sacred thread, wrapped around his ankles. He screamed. A gun butt dug into the small of his back. ‘Are you listening to us?’ The illogicality of being a hostage got to Ram, his captives trussing him in such a way that he could do nothing, and then becoming frustrated by his immobility. The way they beat him until he was overcome by pain and then was expected to give coherent answers. He tasted tears and wondered what had happened in these young men’s lives to turn them into such thugs.
In Kuttalam, the village where Ram came from, Muslims had been the local healers, let into everyone’s homes, becoming the discreet guardians of the most intimate knowledge. Ram had lived his life free of dogma and the politics of organized religion, shunning sectarianism. Now he struggled to get his head up. Ali, the yellow gunman, was keeping the door open while Abdul Rehman, the red gunman, set the room on fire. What were they doing, burning their own bolthole? Suddenly, the air was sucked out of the space, followed by a deafening ka-boom, as a gigantic sound wave hurled everything up into the air. Even the gunmen looked startled as they held on to the vibrating walls. What had they done? They exchanged glances. They had set a second bomb off, this one on the sixth floor, and it had produced a detonation far larger than anyone anticipated. They started shouting: ‘Get up, get up, quickly get up.’ How much more can the old building withstand?, Ram wondered. He knew he was at the end of his tether.
Still naked, he was pushed forward, after the others. Five bruised and bewildered hostages shuffled out of the room and into a smoke-filled corridor, their movements caught by one semi-functioning CCTV camera. Umer, the gunman in black, was standing guard outside the door. Adil, the poolside waiter, was up front. The naked Ram trailed at the rear. ‘You, fat man, we are going to kill you,’ the red gunman screamed, grabbing Ram by the shoulder. ‘I will shoot you myself if you stop once more.’ Adil feigned breathlessness, slowed up and drew alongside. ‘They will kill you,’ he whispered in English. ‘Please, try to keep with us.’ Around them, everything burned: a lusty fire ravaging the wallpaper and furniture. Wooden ceiling ribs crackled and split as choking ash swirled around their heads. Soon there would be nothing left but the bare steel bones of the building.
They were led through a service doorway and down a concrete staircase; the coolness of the stairwell feeling like a balm. Then they were pushed back out on to the fifth floor and into a lavish suite with sliding glass doors. Ram could see clothes and possessions scattered around. A guest had fled in a panic. He hoped they had made it out. The five hostages were told to get down on the floor and Ram heard a metallic clack. He turned his head and for a while could not figure it out. The gunmen appeared to be setting grenades around this room too. When the fire reached them, nothing would be left.
Three floors down, Florence Martis was in the stationery storeroom when the emergency lights went out. She felt the building shake, a ‘whoosh and a dull rumble’, the entire hotel seeming to heave and shuffle. Then the Data Centre went dark.
The air-conditioning units wound down with a suck, as silence engulfed the room. Something else was coming through the AC system. She could feel its current. Florence pressed her face close to one of the units and recoiled, retching. Smoke was being blown into the Data Centre. The room was filling up.
She struggled to her feet. Her work phone buzzed. ‘It’s security, ma’am, where are you?’ Was she about to be rescued? ‘I am. I don’t know,’ she stuttered, choking. ‘I’m in …’ Florence began coughing. The smoke filled her lungs. She could not speak.
‘Take your time. Where are you?’
‘I am …’ The smoke stung her eyes and addled her brain. She could not get it straight in her own mind and fought to stop herself from fainting, as she felt bile rising in her stomach, her fingers prickled by pins and needles. The line went dead. Then it rang again, this time with a different voice that wrapped itself around her like a blanket. ‘Florence, Florence.’ It was Faustine. ‘Daddy!’ she whispered. ‘Florence, I am coming for you.’ He was saying something about being at the Time Office when she heard a beep and glanced down. The mobile had powered off. She needed to find her personal mobile and a phone charger.
As she hunted about the room, she started back in horror. The Data Centre door had gone. She sat down, quaking. It had been blown down by the blast. Now there was nothing between her and the gunmen. She had to think quickly. Looking around she spotted a desk. She worked herself beneath it. It was a tight fit. She wriggled until she sat flat against the wall, drawing her knees up to her chin. She reached out and grabbed a chair, which she rolled towards her, until it was tucked right under, as if the workstation were empty.
Around the corner, the CCTV room had been plunged into darkness too, the blast throwing Patil’s team to the floor. Rajvardhan texted a senior Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) agent roaming outside the Taj’s perimeter: ‘Bomb has gone off on sixth. Hostages o
n the move.’
Then the fire sprinklers opened up, dousing everyone in warm water, sending the room temperature soaring by ten degrees, the CCTV system fizzing and dying, taking away their sole advantage. Outside the door a roaring could be heard like a waterfall. It made the timber doorframe rattle. A shaken Patil rose and wiped his face. It was 2.45 a.m.
Outside, Karambir Kang stood with his heart in his mouth. He texted Taj security up in the CCTV room, looking for reassurance. The last time anyone had heard from his wife was just after 2 a.m., when she had messaged the switchboard, trying to reach him. Now her phone rang out, unanswered. All the while Karambir fielded calls from staff inside the hotel: ‘The building is on fire, the roof is on fire, the dome is on fire.’ Should he tell them to stay or try their luck and run? He could not be responsible for so many lives in the balance, but he had to be. When Taj security replied it was with bad news. They were going to have to get out of the CCTV room, which felt like it was melting. Karambir walked away from the crowd, trying his wife again and again.
Inside the CCTV room, the Black Suit Puru Petwal and several other Taj staffers had a plan. They knew of a service lift along the corridor that was easy to reach and would bring them out close to the Northcote exit on the ground floor. But Patil disagreed. He had other ideas. He wanted to head for the Grand Staircase, the most direct route out of the inferno. Rajvardhan said nothing. He was still thinking about the blast. As a reflex reaction, he had opened his mouth as the blast wave passed through them, just as an experienced infantryman dropped his jaw when a round passed over his head, feeling the pull of the air to determine the direction of a sniper. He estimated that eight to ten kilos of what was most likely RDX had just gone up. From his experience in Gadchiroli, he knew that it would take at least that much military-grade explosive to make it feel as if a building of this size were lifting off its foundations.
The use of RDX was telling. A complex melange of white fuming nitric acid and hexamine, it was stable even in extreme heat and was difficult to ignite by accident. All of this made it perfect for the military – as did its potency, which was one and a half times that of commercial TNT. It also made it a good choice for terrorists given the bloodbath and inferno raging all around them. The gunmen’s formation in pairs, the hostage taking, their weapons choice, RDX, all mark them out as well trained and motivated, he thought, and backed by a state. They were going to be hard to kill.
Rajvardhan turned to Patil, who continued to argue with Petwal about exit routes. What Patil lacked in tactical sense, he made up for in guts, Rajvardhan thought as his phone vibrated again. It was the state Intelligence Bureau chief. ‘Get out now,’ he messaged. ‘They are talking about blowing the CCTV room, as soon as they’ve secured the hostages.’ Three floors and a fifty-yard walk down the corridor was all that separated the CCTV room from the gunmen on the fifth. That gave them about three or four minutes before they came face to face.
‘Everyone out now,’ Rajvardhan screamed, throwing open the CCTV room door. More than a dozen of them stumbled out, and into a tunnel of fire, singeing their hair and skin. Patil formed the group into a spear. They needed to move fast and low. ‘We will head for the Grand Staircase,’ Patil insisted to Petwal’s alarm. Rajvardhan would give covering fire up into the atrium. Between them, they had one semi-automatic – a Sten gun belonging to an inspector from Colaba police station – but not enough rounds to hold the trigger down.
As they edged forward, the fire was so hot that the sprinkler water transformed into steam. Skeins of soot rose up and then, hitting the buffer of steam, descended in hot wet sheets. Patil was in front, Rajvardhan behind him, followed by Patil’s radio operator. Behind him was Deepak Dhole, a veteran inspector from Colaba police station. Bringing up the rear were three State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) constables. As they turned the corner to face the Grand Staircase, shots rang out: ack, ack, ack. Two AK-47s channelled in fire from above them, rounds chiselling sparks out of the marble and digging into the skirting boards. Rajvardhan glimpsed two corpses on the staircase as more rounds poured in, splitting the line. Patil pushed forward, followed by his batch-mate, who sent a burst of rounds up into the atrium. Next came Inspector Dhole and the radio operator. Then Dhole watched in horror as a gigantic ball of flames rolled forward and struck Patil and Rajvardhan, toppling them over. He stared into fire, even as it made his face sting. The ball exploded, leaving behind a puff of soot. The officers were gone. He could not believe it. They were alone. He was alone. No one could have survived the fireball.
Horrified, the inspector looked around. He was now the ranking officer and needed a plan. But Puru Petwal, the Black Suit, wasn’t waiting. He saw a heavy, antique wood trunk on the staircase landing, and hurtled towards it, diving inside. ‘Not seen and not hurt,’ he said to himself. Looking around in shock, Dhole saw that Patil’s young radio operator had been shot.
Getting down on his knees, Dhole crawled over. The man’s guts were spilling out of a fist-size hole in his stomach. Dhole pressed his hands on the injury, trying to hold everything in, staunching the blood, ripping a strip off his jacket to pad the gaping hole. He clamped an arm around the 21-year-old’s waist, hooking his fingers into his belt, propping him up against the wall. A grenade exploded nearby. Dhole’s ears rang, his eyes dazzled by the flash. Then he saw one of the SRPF constables falling, sliced by shrapnel. On autopilot, Dhole spun around and laid down fire, until he ran out of bullets. A second SRPF constable went down and lay twitching on the ground, seemingly critical. Dhole worked his way over. The constable had been shot in the chest and was deflating like a snagged balloon. Dhole hauled him across his lap, the constable grinding his teeth, as blood and air streamed out of multiple holes. ‘No hope,’ Dhole whispered to himself. ‘He’s bleeding out.’
The firing started up once more. ‘We have to leave him behind,’ Dhole said, turning to the others, cowed and bleeding behind him. ‘To the CCTV room!’ He rolled off the fatally wounded constable, got up and ran back the way they had come, dragging Patil’s wireless operator as bullets pinged across the atrium. But the CCTV room was now a smoking, door-less cave.
Up on the fifth floor the gunmen had remained in telephone contact with their handler, Wasi, throughout the exchange of fire. Inspector Kadam from the ATS technical section had been listening, horrified.
Ali was breathless and distracted as machine-gun fire rang out. Wasi asked what was going on. ‘There is some activity happening,’ replied Ali, as literal as ever, ‘so we are firing a little.’ He dropped the phone, leaving the line open and Wasi calling out for more information: ‘What? What’s happened?’ There was a scuffle of feet and then another voice came on the line. ATS recognized it as Umer, the man who had viciously beaten the hostages: ‘Hello, hello.’ Wasi shouted: ‘What’s happened?’
Everyone listening in could hear the chunter of bullets, and the roar of a grenade. Wasi wanted to know who was shooting whom. ‘Hello?’ he shouted into the phone. ‘What sorts of sounds are coming?’ Umer, who was firing and shouting into the phone at the same time, replied: ‘Guns, they are coming. I think someone has come up.’ Wasi needed details: ‘What’s happening, Umer?’ But the gunman had dropped the phone and run along the corridor to engage the police. Down below, Inspector Dhole had grabbed another weapon and was laying down covering fire. Wasi sounded frustrated by the lack of information.
The ATS and Wasi heard footsteps and more shots. It was Umer pelting back along the corridor to the phone. The gunmen were planning to barricade themselves and the hostages in their new stronghold, the luxurious fifth-floor suite: ‘OK, now we keep our door closed?’ No, that was the worst possible tactic, urged Wasi. He issued a warning: ‘Make sure that all four of you are not in one room. Got it? Keep that in mind.’ Wasi told them to keep up the barrage of fire: ‘When you feel like someone has come close and it’s a problem for us, then you should shake them up.’ Umer understood. ‘God willing, we will shake them up,’ he cried.
&n
bsp; Another voice came on the line. The ATS marked it down as Qahafa the Bull. If anyone understood the mechanics of close-quarters warfare, it was him. ‘Salaam Alaikum,’ he said calmly. ‘What floor are you on?’
Umer replied, still firing his weapon: ‘We are on the floor below the topmost …’ He stopped mid-sentence. ‘One minute. They have fired at Shoaib … We’ll stop now.’ He hung up.
Qahafa called back and spoke calmly: ‘Don’t cut us off, we are listening.’ Now all that could be heard was a roar of continuous fire. Umer returned briefly: ‘One minute,’ he shouted, and then with a clonk dropped the phone on the floor. Qahafa called out, like a coach on the sideline: ‘Remember, change your position. Change your position.’ Silence. ‘OK,’ Umer eventually answered. ‘Shoaib has fired at those people,’ he said panting, but upbeat. Qahafa kept up their spirits: ‘Change your position; don’t sit together. Throw grenades.’ Umer dropped the phone again and Qahafa and the ATS listened to the sound of shoes pounding away down a corridor.
Guns crackled. Grenades grumbled. ‘Hello?’ Umer was back. Qahafa asked: ‘Are they coming from upstairs or downstairs?’ Did they still hold the high ground? Were the police pinned down? Umer was out of breath: ‘We don’t know.’ He sounded like he was losing his cool. Qahafa had a solution. The four gunmen should split into two teams. ‘Divide the prisoners,’ he ordered.
But Umer was distracted. ‘One minute, I’ll talk to you later,’ he cried out. ‘Need water.’ Qahafa backed off: ‘OK, I’ll listen; you work.’ Then he whispered to Wasi, sitting next to him in Lashkar’s Malir Town control room. The police position had been attacked. ‘Shoaib fired at them, so they ran off.’ They needed to press home their advantage. Qahafa shouted into the phone: ‘Divide into two teams; divide the hostages.’
But all he could hear was Umer grunting and screaming. He hoped he was not falling to pieces. ‘Umer, Umer, pray, brother, make less sound. Umer, stop the noise.’ Qahafa tried another tack: ‘Umer, Umer, throw the grenade.’ No response. ‘Umer, Umer, firing is on, my friend, firing.’ Had they been overrun? He shouted into the phone, using the one ploy that always worked. ‘There are twenty thousand rupees for you,’ he said, ‘if you take them out.’