Eleventh Hour

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  ‘Vikrant Singh,’ Das began, glaring at the cop over his spectacles. Vikrant felt an urge to stick his tongue out.

  ‘You are facing an inquiry for assaulting the Pakistan high commissioner while he was on a visit to India, and thereby jeopardizing the already strained relations between the two countries. We have, over the last few days, taken the testimony of several witnesses and they concur that you hit His Excellency Zakir Abdul Khan without provocation. You have now been summoned so that you can present your defence.’

  Vikrant took a deep breath before speaking, and Mirza silently prayed to Allah to ensure that the lad did not make things worse for himself.

  ‘With all due respect, sir, I do not think my actions warrant a defence,’ Vikrant said.

  After a minute’s silence, Das asked, ‘You want to explain that?’

  ‘I have a scar on my arm, sir. A scar from a shrapnel wound I sustained while defending my city, and my country, on 26 November 2008. I look at my arm every morning to remind myself of that night. And while countless people like me relive that night every day, there are others who think it is funny to throw words like “due process” and “democracy” every time someone asks for justice.’

  Das glared. ‘Young man. We are all fully aware of the horrors of those three days. It is a matter of great shame for all of us. But that doesn’t give you the licence to go around hitting diplomats. Nor is this panel interested in your emotional speeches.’

  ‘I understand, sir. I plead guilty.’

  Vikrant made this statement so casually that everyone in the room stared hard at him for a minute.

  ‘You heard me, sir,’ Vikrant said.

  Das nodded. ‘So be it. SP Vikrant Singh, you are hereby…’

  At that moment, the door flew open and two men ran inside, sweating and puffing. One of them went straight to Das and whispered urgently in his ear. Das turned around to look at the man, then blinked several times, digesting the information. The bureaucrat then waved Mirza over.

  Vikrant watched curiously as Das, in turn, whispered in Mirza’s ear and Mirza started smiling. When he was done talking, Das looked sharply at the veteran spy over his glasses.

  ‘You find something funny, Mr Mirza?’ he inquired.

  ‘No, sir,’ Mirza said quickly and walked over to Vikrant, still smiling.

  Before Vikrant could ask him anything, Das said, ‘Mr Singh, you are placed on suspension pending further notice. Mr Mirza will tell you the rest.’

  Vikrant watched as everyone filed out of the room till only Mirza and he remained.

  ‘What?’ Vikrant asked.

  ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you had arranged this,’ Mirza chuckled.

  ‘What?’ Vikrant repeated.

  ‘That Indian Mujahideen module you busted back when you were with the ATS? The terrorists broke out of Bhopal Central Jail this morning. The PMO wants you on the case “only as a consultant” immediately.’

  4

  Monday morning, somewhere between Mumbai and Lakshadweep.

  The breeze ruffled the old man’s silky white hair as he stepped on to the deck of the cruise liner. He smiled, feeling the warmth of the sun on his face. The cruise liner had left Mumbai half an hour ago and was on its way to Lakshadweep for a full tour of the islands and Abdul Jabbar Hakimi, while well past the age to be childishly excited, was definitely looking forward to the trip.

  As he walked down the top deck, he glanced at his co-travellers. He had already become friendly with a young woman of thirty, who was travelling alone.

  ‘Careful!’ Hakimi cautioned as a couple of kids ran past him, laughing loudly. There were thirty passengers in all on the cruise liner. It was a mixed group, ranging from children to people his age, and the atmosphere was festive.

  Hakimi came to a halt against the railing where a man, casually dressed in cargoes and a t-shirt, was standing, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the sea.

  ‘Itne gaur se mat dekhiye, bhaisahab,’ Hakimi said, smiling. ‘Samundar ko nazar na lag jaaye.’

  The man turned his head towards Hakimi and stared at him unblinkingly for several seconds, slowly exhaling smoke through both nostrils. Hakimi raised both hands in a ‘just kidding’ gesture and quickly walked away. He did, however, turn around and steal one last glance at the man, taking in his predatory stance and tattooed, muscular arms.

  As Hakimi rounded a corner and reached the open-air lounge, he came face-to-face with Vaishali, the woman he had befriended. She was stretched out on a deck chair, dressed in a t-shirt and slacks, reading a book. She looked up and smiled at him. He sat down on the deck chair next to her.

  ‘You can lean back on them, you know,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Age, beta.’ Hakimi grinned. ‘There weren’t many of these around where I was born and I’m too old to start learning new sitting positions.’

  Vaishali laughed again.

  ‘Why are you here alone?’ she asked curiously. ‘I mean, no children, grandchildren…?’

  Hakimi nodded. ‘Typical stereotype of an old man on a vacation,’ he said. ‘Babysitting his grandchildren while his children have fun.’

  Vaishali’s curiosity deepened. ‘You say that like there’s something wrong with it,’ she said.

  Hakimi shook his head. ‘I just chose a different life.’

  ‘What, you’re alone?’

  ‘We’re always alone, beta,’ he said.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Now you’re being a stereotype of the wise old man,’ she chided.

  Hakimi smiled.

  ‘I’m not married. Nor have I adopted a child,’ he said.

  ‘Would you mind if I ask…’

  ‘Why?’ Hakimi sighed. ‘Sometimes, things happen that leave a lasting impact on you, and all the advice about moving on doesn’t help. For me, it was the death of my parents. I grew up alone and by the time I was grown up, I began to like it.’

  ‘You mean, you began to find it safer,’ Vaishali said.

  Hakimi gave her a sharp look. She smiled sadly.

  ‘I pretty much grew up alone myself,’ she said.

  Hakimi waited and she went on.

  ‘My father was never around and my mother was so busy making sure my needs were met that there was hardly any interaction between us. It was only in her later years that we began to get close.’

  ‘She’s no more?’ Hakimi asked gently.

  Vaishali nodded, staring out at the sea.

  For a while, neither of them spoke. Then she said, ‘This is my first vacation after I lost her last year. Part of my healing process, I think.’

  But Hakimi was only half listening. The muscular man had just come into view, and Hakimi noticed him taking a good long look at him and Vaishali before slowly walking away.

  5

  Monday afternoon, Bhopal.

  ‘Did any of them ask for a new toothbrush over the last couple of months?’ Vikrant asked the superintendent of the Bhopal Central Jail.

  ‘I … will have to find out,’ the flummoxed SP stuttered, looking at his deputy, who seemed equally clueless.

  ‘Please do,’ Vikrant told him. ‘I think you will find that at least one new toothbrush was requested, and not more than two months ago.’

  Vikrant and Mirza, along with SP Devendra Kumar and DSP Sameer Khare, were standing in the isolated cell block where the five IM members had been lodged before their escape twenty-four hours earlier. The cells were lined up on the left, adjacent to a narrow corridor for the guard to patrol. A chair was placed near the access door to the cell block and there were windows in front of every cell.

  After learning about the jailbreak from Mirza, Vikrant had hastily packed a bag and run into a waiting SUV, which had raced to the airport. Tickets had already been booked for him and Mirza on the first available flight to Bhopal, and they were received by local NIA officers as soon as they landed in the afternoon. Another SUV was waiting to take them to the prison. Vikrant had had to duck to prev
ent being photographed by the press as they drove through the prison gates. The PMO had made it very clear that he was to maintain as low a profile as possible.

  Vikrant now walked the length of the cell block, staring at the five cells. He stopped at the last one and walked inside. The other three men were behind him.

  ‘You thinking what I’m thinking, lad?’ Mirza asked.

  Vikrant nodded.

  ‘A toothbrush can be fashioned into a key,’ he said, looking all over the cell. ‘It’s painfully slow work, scraping it into the right shape bit by bit, and can take up to a month. What were their bathing arrangements?’

  ‘There is a row of bathrooms only for high-security prisoners. Each one would be escorted to and from there separately every morning. Same for using the toilets. Once every morning and later on request,’ DSP Khare said.

  Vikrant nodded. ‘They stole soap from the bathrooms. They’d only need small bits to insert into the lock and get a mould of the levers. Soap is pretty malleable when damp. Using that, they scraped a toothbrush into a key while using the toilet.’

  ‘With what?’ Kumar inquired.

  Vikrant shrugged. ‘Even the edge of a tap would do,’ he said.

  The SP swore and nodded at Khare, who ran out to follow up.

  Vikrant moved from cell to cell, examining each one carefully. ‘They just needed to open one cell door. I’m guessing it was Mazhar Khan. He’s the burliest, and the most vicious.’

  Mirza nodded and continued, ‘So, the bugger waited till the guard had walked past his cell, opened the door and pounced. It would have taken less than a minute, especially if he’d practised opening the lock.’

  ‘The guard’s neck had been snapped,’ Kumar offered. The two veterans nodded in unison.

  ‘And the guard had keys to all the cells?’ Mirza asked.

  Kumar responded in the affirmative.

  ‘Why was there only one guard to patrol the cell block?’ Vikrant queried.

  Kumar looked sheepish. ‘Manpower issues. Plus, it’s a small block, with a separate access, and two guards patrol the outer passage,’ he said, nodding in the direction of the passage beyond the door leading to the cell block.

  ‘And the guard inside the cell block had the keys to the access door as well?’

  Kumar’s face reddened. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Must have been smooth sailing once the guard in the cell block was down. Take his keys, free the others, open the access door…’ Mirza said.

  ‘And they had the guard’s gun too,’ Vikrant finished, heading to the outer passage.

  In their statements, the guards in the outer passage said that the prisoners had grabbed one of them at gunpoint and forced the other to surrender his weapon. The outer passage led directly into the yard where the prisoners were taken for an hour of exercise every day. Once they reached the yard, both the guards were knocked unconscious.

  ‘Human pyramid to climb the wall?’ Mirza asked. The three men had reached the yard by now.

  ‘Most likely. One of them reaches the top and ties the bedsheet to the bars. They climb up and use the same bedsheet to climb down the other side,’ Vikrant surmised, looking at the bedsheet still tied to the bars.

  They heard a movement behind them and turned to see DSP Khare, his face a mix of wonder and admiration.

  ‘Mazhar Khan got a new toothbrush two months ago,’ he said. ‘Told the guard he had dropped his old one down an open drainpipe in the bathroom.’

  ‘We’re done here,’ Vikrant said.

  6

  Monday night, Bhopal.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

  Mirza looked up from the report he was reading. Vikrant sat in front of him with an amused expression.

  ‘Absolutely no idea what you’re rambling about, boy,’

  Mirza said.

  The two men were in the NIA office in Bhopal, planning out the next steps in their investigation. Both of them were looking at reports of the inmates’ behaviour over the last six months, hastily prepared by the prison officials on their demand.

  Vikrant looked sceptical.

  ‘The jailbreak happened before dawn. You’d have got a call from someone or the other within the hour. Which means, when I was sitting in that cabin reading my novel and waiting for the inquiry to start, you had already known about it for several hours,’ he said.

  Mirza didn’t reply.

  ‘Also, I’m sure that whoever took the decision of deputing me to the team on a “consultant” basis,’ Vikrant went on, ‘couldn’t have thought it up on his own. So, what really happened?’

  Mirza only smiled. Vikrant took up the challenge. They had been playing this game for years now.

  ‘I’d say you saw the opportunity to keep me from being stripped of my rank and being thrown in jail and spoke to someone in the home ministry, possibly even the PMO, I wouldn’t put it past you. I don’t know how you got them to agree, though, with the pressure from…’

  ‘From the country that’s been letting the masterminds of a terror attack roam around free for nine years?’ Mirza asked sardonically.

  Just then the door to the office opened and two DSPs

  came in.

  Samar Goyal and Akhil Jaiswal were part of the Special Investigation Team set up by the home ministry to investigate the jailbreak. Headed by Mirza – Vikrant was pretty sure the old man had purposely put himself at the helm – the team had an abundance of resources at its disposal, including personnel, equipment and funds, along with carte blanche to cut through red tape.

  ‘What’s happening, lads?’ Mirza asked.

  ‘We have local railway police watching train stations, while also scanning CCTV footage of the last twelve hours. Toll plazas on highways have also been informed and the police are searching all buses heading out of the state,’ Jaiswal said.

  ‘Buses will be too risky,’ Vikrant responded. ‘They’ll want to lie low, and possibly they’ll have fanned out to rendezvous at a pre-decided point. But I’m willing to bet they’re already out of the city by now, because they had to have known we would search every corner.’

  Goyal nodded. ‘I’m in touch with officers from almost every police station in the city, who’re giving me hourly updates of their search operations. Plus, there are nakabandis and surprise checks happening everywhere.’

  Vikrant and Mirza exchanged glances. Vikrant turned

  to Goyal.

  ‘Get in touch with the Bhopal police commissioner and ask him for any cases where a vehicle has been stolen or forcibly taken in the last twelve hours. If they managed to get vehicles early enough, they could have easily driven out of the city.’

  Next, Vikrant addressed Jaiswal. ‘I’m giving you a list of known relatives and friends of all five. Get our local officers to start checking whether any of them have been in touch. If they didn’t have outside help, they’re going to reach out to someone or the other for money, if nothing else.’

  Jaiswal nodded.

  ‘Are we listening in to known IM members and affiliates?’ Vikrant asked Mirza, referring to the suspects in India whose phones were tapped by the IB.

  Mirza nodded.

  ‘Okay, I’m going to talk to some of my sources,’ Vikrant said.

  As everyone turned to their respective tasks, Mirza’s cellphone beeped. It was an email with a report shared by a friend in the CIA. American satellites had picked up a commercial freighter that had slowed down for five minutes for no apparent reason near three motorboats while passing through Somali waters. Mirza made a mental note to follow up with his American friend.

  7

  Monday night–Tuesday morning, Bhopal.

  It took a good six hours for results to come, but investigative work always requires a lot of patience and doggedness. Mirza described it as ‘shaking every damn tree in the yard, because where the hell else could the cats be hiding?’

  The first cat fell out of a tree in Mumbai, Vikrant’s old stomping ground, where he had cultivated sources after yea
rs of hard work before he was deputed to Delhi. While Mirza coordinated with central agencies and Goyal and Jaiswal worked with the local police, Vikrant called up an old informant staying in Cheetah Camp, Trombay, a huge expanse of slums in eastern Mumbai, where one of the five Indian Mujahideen men, Shaukat Asad, had grown up. His aged parents and younger brother still lived there, and Vikrant’s informant, Kamran Sheikh, stayed three doors away. This was by no means a coincidence or luck.

  Nine years ago, Vikrant, while making inquiries with Asad’s family before and after the latter’s arrest, had quietly identified the most curious among the onlookers in the area. He asked his team to speak to them and get a sense of their personalities, to see if any of them could be cultivated. Kamran Sheikh, with his lack of scruples, love for money and talent for sniffing out gossip, emerged as an easy winner, and Vikrant spent three months turning him into an informant.

  When Vikrant called Sheikh, the latter had already learned about the jailbreak from the news.

  ‘Tension nahin, saheb. My eyes and ears are open,’ he told Vikrant.

  Six hours later, Sheikh called back from a payphone in Kurla, Mumbai. It was nearing midnight, but the entire investigating team was still in the NIA office.

  ‘Did Asad just walk into Cheetah Camp?’ Vikrant asked, half-sarcastic.

  ‘No, sir,’ Sheikh said. ‘But a distant uncle of Asad’s, Shakeel Khan, who stays in Bhiwandi, came all the way here to meet Asad’s father in the middle of the night, and left in ten minutes.’

  Vikrant sat up.

  ‘Please tell me you have more than that.’

  ‘I’m following the uncle.’

  ‘FUCK!’ Vikrant yelled happily, and everyone in the office turned to stare. He gave them a thumbs-up sign and gestured towards his phone.

  ‘He came by bike, and is on his way back,’ Sheikh continued. ‘I’m on my own bike. He stopped for a smoke so I went looking for a payphone…’