Eleventh Hour

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  ‘Oh, you’re gonna be sore? I’ve got love bites all over my neck. Good thing I packed a couple of turtlenecks,’ Daniel now said, gently slapping Vaishali’s buttocks as she laughed.

  ‘I wonder what Abdul uncle will say,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘You should tell him just to see his reaction.’ Daniel laughed.

  Vaishali drew herself up on her elbow and looked at Daniel as he turned and rested on his back.

  ‘I think I’ll tell him. Just to piss him off,’ he said, earning a gentle slap.

  ‘What is it with you two?’ she asked curiously.

  Daniel shrugged. ‘He tried to chat me up on a day when I was in an extremely bad mood. The next time I saw him, he was all dolled up in that suit, looking supremely uncomfortable, and I was afraid I’d start laughing if I tried to say anything.’

  ‘You’re so awful! He wasn’t dolled up!’

  ‘But he was looking utterly uncomfortable.’

  ‘He was looking cute.’

  ‘Fine. I’ll pull his cheeks when I see him today,’ Daniel said, getting off the bed. Vaishali slapped his ass.

  ‘You’re really into slapping, aren’t you? And I don’t mean only this morning,’ he said, looking at her with a smirk as she blushed furiously, hiding her face in the pillow. He went to take a shower. She looked up from the pillow, thought for a second and then went in after him.

  Forty-five minutes later, they were both walking across the deck, Vaishali in a simple t-shirt and jeans, and Daniel in the previous night’s rumpled clothes.

  ‘I’ll change and join you for breakfast,’ he said as they reached his room, kissing her on the lips and sending her on her way with a light slap on her behind.

  ‘Rascal,’ she muttered as she went to the cafeteria on the top deck.

  Daniel entered his room and undressed quickly. Despite the shower, having to put on last night’s clothes had made him uncomfortable and he took a second quick shower before slipping on a pair of cargoes and a t-shirt. Just then his cellphone buzzed with a text message.

  ‘Found myself missing you again last night. It really hurts to not have you,’ it read.

  He stared at the phone for a second, resisting the impulse to smash it on the floor. Taking a deep breath, he told himself that after a long time, he was feeling something resembling happiness and was not going to let this message ruin it.

  ‘Wish you’d thought of that before you cheated on me. Also, I’m blocking your number. Bye,’ he replied.

  After six months of promising to do so, he actually did put the number in the block list and smiled at the enormous sense of peace it gave him. He’d call his service provider today itself and get them to block it permanently.

  Still smiling, Daniel walked out of his room, feeling better than he had in ages and made his way up to the cafeteria, looking forward to seeing Vaishali again. He’d apologize to Hakimi and start afresh with him too, he decided.

  He came up to the top deck and stopped in his tracks. Vaishali, Hakimi and several other guests, along with the captain and the entire crew, were sitting on the ground outside the cafeteria, their hands behind their heads. Behind them, several dark-complexioned men in black fatigues stood with Uzis in their hands. Somalis or Nigerians, he guessed. As his survival instinct kicked in, he felt his fingers curl into fists. At that instant, something jabbed him in his right side. He glanced down to see the barrel of an Uzi against his ribs and up again into the smiling face of a stocky, muscular black man.

  ‘Name’s Marco, friend,’ he said. ‘And as of right now, I be the captain of this little ship.’

  14

  Wednesday morning, Mumbai.

  Vikrant had a headache and it had nothing to do with his recent injuries.

  At the crack of dawn he had been woken up by Mirza, who looked like he had a fishbone stuck in his throat. Almost whispering, he asked Vikrant if he could walk and the younger cop nodded. Mirza waited till Vikrant struggled off the bed and slipped on a pair of slippers, then left the room quietly, gesturing to Vikrant to follow him. Vikrant slowly limped behind.

  As the two of them made their way to the terrace, Vikrant’s curiosity rose with each second. The two men came to a stop in a corner of the terrace and Mirza finally spoke.

  ‘What do you know about the ’93 Cache?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m fairly sure it’s not the next Frederick Forsyth novel. Or an upcoming Ridley Scott movie,’ Vikrant said, leaning against a wall.

  Mirza didn’t smile. Vikrant turned serious.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

  Mirza sighed.

  ‘In 1993, the ISI sent firepower by the crates to Tiger Memon, which was received at Shekhadi in Konkan. Some of it was RDX, which was used to create IEDs that were planted all over Mumbai city, leading to the serial blasts. The rest of it comprised AK-56 assault rifles, fresh off the assembly lines from Pakistani arms’ factories.’

  Vikrant nodded and waited for Mirza to go on. He already knew this part.

  ‘Well, the officers who interrogated the arrested at the time had a theory, one which has since then been passed down the generations. According to this, some part of the arsenal was never used. It was hidden away safely in multiple locations known only to the ISI and those close to them, to be used at a later date. Many of us believe that it is lying ready to be used for another terrorist attack on the city, particularly the assault rifles.’

  Mirza stopped and turned to Vikrant, who was staring at him wide-eyed.

  ‘And that’s the ’93 Cache?’ the protégé asked.

  ‘That is the ’93 Cache.’

  ‘Why don’t I know about this?’ Vikrant wondered aloud.

  Mirza shrugged.

  ‘You do now.’

  ‘Why didn’t I know about this?’ Vikrant snapped.

  ‘It’s a theory, kid. There’s been no evidence to support it. Only whispers from here and there, time and again. Some say the old timers who are still in jail for the ’93 blasts case know the locations and will take the knowledge to their graves. Others say that some of them have revealed the location to their sons, nephews and such. A wilder theory is that someone prepared a map which is regularly passed around among the sleeper cells in Mumbai and Thane,’ Mirza explained.

  It was at this point that Vikrant’s head began to ache.

  ‘Give me the bad news already,’ he said, sighing.

  Mirza reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of paper and handed it over. Vikrant unfolded it and held it against the light on the terrace. It was an enlarged colour photocopy of the piece of paper that the forensic technicians had salvaged from the burnt-out van three hours ago.

  ‘Forensics pulled this out of the van at Palghar,’ Mirza said.

  It looked like the top half of a page from a logbook, torn in a way that suggested that it had happened in a hurry or by accident. It contained two lines of text followed by two entries, one under the other, separated by two blank lines. Both the entries were bullet points written in Urdu.

  Vikrant, at Mirza’s suggestion, had taken up learning to read and write Urdu two years earlier, and hence, he could easily read the entries.

  ‘There is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is His Prophet.

  May this material aid you in your noble quest as it has others before you.

  Sativli. Shafiq. Nephew of Raza. Green cottage. Brooms. Grains.

  Narpoli. Anwar. Son of Aslam. Second floor. Blue building by the park. Soap.’

  ‘Soap,’ Vikrant said.

  ‘Yes,’ Mirza replied.

  RDX is informally referred to as sabun or soap in Hindi. The ISI agents who had trained Indian Muslims in the assembling and handling of IEDs in 1993 would refer to RDX as ‘kaala sabun’ or black soap.

  Vikrant looked at Mirza.

  ‘At least it’s not a map,’ he said to diffuse the tension. His mentor shot him a look of irritation.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mirza asked.

  Vikrant too
k half a minute before he spoke.

  ‘It’s a list maintained and updated with each passing year. If this is about the ’93 Cache, and I’m still hoping to God it isn’t, it means that the arsenal is being passed down from father to son, or uncle to nephew, and its locations and identities of the current caretakers are being updated.’

  Vikrant paused and looked at the image again.

  ‘This, for example, could have been made any time between the last ten days to ten years. And if soap stands for RDX, I’d say brooms are AK-56 assault rifles and grains are ammunition rounds. The vague addresses are obviously a precaution, in case the list falls into wrong hands,’ Vikrant finished.

  Mirza nodded.

  ‘We have teams scouring for the green cottage in Sativli and the blue building in Nashik Camp,’ he said. ‘But I doubt whether finding them is going to be of much use. What concerns me is what might be on the rest of that list.’

  ‘As well as how long the list is. And what it contains, aside from soap, brooms and grains,’ said Vikrant.

  ‘At least now we know where the fuckers got the AKs from,’ Mirza said.

  ‘We also know that they, in all probability, have RDX too.’

  Both men silently pondered over the implications of what they had just discussed.

  15

  Wednesday morning, cruise liner.

  The rest of the morning saw the same scene being played out on loop – the guests would come up to the cafeteria for breakfast, stop at the sight of their fellow passengers being held at gunpoint and then join their ranks. Those who called for room service were told by the head waiter, who had a gun to his head, that due to some issues breakfast would be served only in the cafeteria. The gunmen took away the guests’ cellphones and subjected each one to a body search, including the women, before making them sit on the floor in the middle of the top deck.

  This continued for about two hours. All the while, Omar kept count and finally nodded to Marco.

  ‘Okay!’ Marco said jovially. ‘We have thirty guests up here now. That’s all of them, right, captain?’ he asked the captain of the ship, who only nodded. Omar dragged him to where Marco was standing.

  Marco’s face hardened for a minute as he said, ‘You lie to me, I shoot one of your guests. Clear?’

  Captain Rajeshwar Sahani looked into Marco’s eye, saw that he meant business and nodded.

  ‘Good. How many crew?’

  ‘Seven,’ Sahani said.

  ‘How many staff?’

  ‘Ten.’

  Marco turned Sahani around so that he was facing the captives.

  ‘Anyone missing?’ Marco asked.

  Sahani took his time before shaking his head.

  ‘The count adds up,’ he said.

  Marco nodded, as if in approval of Sahani’s compliance, and ordered four of his men to search the cruise liner.

  ‘If they return with a single person they find hidin’ in some corner, one of the passengers dies,’ he told Sahani before turning to the guests.

  ‘People,’ he said, ‘no need to worry. You do as we say, we treat you with love and care. But you do somethin’ I don’t like, bodies start fallin’. So, help us to help you, eh?’

  Marco was smiling as he turned back to the captain.

  ‘How d’ you communicate with land?’ he asked.

  ‘Radio,’ Sahani replied.

  ‘Show me,’ Marco said.

  He marched Marco down to the engine room, passing one of his soldiers on the way, who reported that he did not find anyone hiding.

  In the engine room, Sahani led Marco to the radio. Marco took a good long look around the room and then marched Sahani back to the top deck. Omar was perched casually atop a table in the cafeteria, Uzi resting against his thigh, chatting with the head waiter.

  ‘Food twice a day for everyone. Water as per need. No alcoholic drinks. Liquor creates heroes and we don’t need no heroes, right?’ Omar was saying.

  The head waiter, numb with fear, could only nod.

  Marco led Sahani to where the others were sitting and pushed him down among them.

  ‘Like you must have observed,’ Marco said, raising his voice, ‘my men are makin’ sure you all be comfortable. So respect our efforts and don’t do nothin’ stupid. We’ll get in touch with your government and soon y’all be sittin’ with your folks back home, tellin’ stories of how you got hijacked and shit.’

  The other Somalis had by now searched the liner and come back up.

  ‘All clear?’ Marco asked them and they responded in the affirmative.

  ‘All right. Take positions,’ he said.

  Ten of his men headed downstairs, while Marco and Omar remained where they were. Five minutes later, Marco’s earpiece crackled. He acknowledged the report and turned to the captives.

  ‘On your feet!’ he ordered, his amiable facade slipping away in a second, jolting everyone.

  Omar stepped forward.

  ‘Get in a single line and walk,’ he told the captives in his gruff voice. ‘Start!’

  The passengers did as they were told, marching down to the second level, heads down. Marco’s men were spread out evenly along the way, guns ready, eyes alert. Only Daniel surreptitiously took stock of each man as he passed by him, taking in his build, stance, weapons and every other detail.

  The second level of the cruise liner had the engine room at one end, and a large recreational area spanning the rest of the floor, where the hostages were led. The shutters on the windows had been drawn by the time they entered the area, where they were made to sit again.

  ‘We’ll leave y’all on your own now. But no tricks, please. My men will be standing outside each door. You stick a finger out without permission, it will be shot off. Your head will be next,’ Marco said before walking out, followed by Omar and the rest of his gang.

  Both the doors to the recreation hall slid shut. And then there was silence.

  For nearly ten minutes, no one spoke. Then Hakimi cleared his throat and everyone turned to him.

  ‘I have a friend in the maritime trade business,’ Hakimi began. ‘He tells me that ships of all kinds, be it commercial, trade or cruise liners like ours, are frequently hijacked by Somali pirates and held to ransom.’

  A few people nodded their heads, murmuring their agreement.

  ‘What we need to bear in mind,’ Hakimi went on, ‘is that every vessel is insured and the owners do not hesitate in paying up whatever the pirates demand. There is also a government authority that helps with the negotiations. I forget the name…’

  ‘Directorate general of shipping,’ said Daniel and everyone now turned to him.

  Hakimi nodded. ‘That’s right, young man. The DG, shipping. So there is really no cause for worry. The pirates have displayed no signs of wanting to harm us as long as we do not give them reason to do so,’ he said with a reassuring smile.

  ‘Except they’re not pirates,’ Daniel said.

  Once again, everyone turned their gaze from Hakimi to Daniel. Hakimi glared a little.

  ‘I’m trying to keep up the morale here, Mr Fernando. So if you’re going to be pessimistic…’

  ‘I’m not being pessimistic. And morale based on false hopes does more damage when shattered,’ Daniel replied.

  ‘Maybe … maybe you should tell us why you think they’re not pirates, Dan,’ Vaishali spoke up.

  ‘Somali pirates hijack vessels because they need food and other stuff for their people back home. They’re usually skinny, though not weak, and are armed with AK-47s, which are far easier to acquire in the illegal weapons market. Their idea of hijacking a vessel is to storm aboard, take over all supplies, wrangle whatever more they can from the owner and get the hell out,’ Daniel said.

  ‘O… okay…’ Vaishali said, trying to wrap her head around it.

  ‘These men are well-built and obviously able to plan and strategize. They sneaked aboard in the dead of night and had the crew in control by the time we woke up. And remember, we were party
ing till late in the night. Who was the last to leave?’ Daniel asked.

  A boy in his twenties raised his hand hesitantly. ‘Me and my friends were pretty wasted but we’re sure there was no one around by the time we left at, say, 4 in the morning,’ he said.

  ‘And who was the first to get up there this morning?’

  ‘That would be me,’ Hakimi said. ‘I’m an early riser and I reached the cafeteria around 7 o’clock.’

  ‘Which means,’ Daniel said, ‘that in three hours, they boarded, went to the engine room, subdued the captain and his crew, took them up to the top deck and overpowered the staff as well. Not to mention they’ve got Uzis, sophisticated Israeli sub-machine guns, plus Glock automatic pistols, another gun of superior quality as well as daggers in their boots. And the way they move and stand indicates that they have been in combat before. Proper battlefield combat.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re just making that last one up,’ a middle-aged woman said. ‘How can you guess that from their movement and stance?’

  ‘Because that’s exactly how I move and stand,’ said Daniel. ‘As do all the others who were in the army with me.’

  16

  Wednesday afternoon, Mumbai.

  The session that had begun at 11 a.m. in the doctor’s office at the Kokilaben Ambani Hospital showed no signs of getting over anytime soon.

  Mirza, DCP Ashok Mankame and DSPs Samar Goyal and Akhil Jaiswal were sitting on chairs while Vikrant was sprawled out on a couch against a pillow, head thrown back, eyes closed. Vikrant often sat that way, in what Mirza called his ‘samadhi’ position, during brainstorming sessions with his colleagues.

  Jaiswal had a brace around his neck, while the others were adorned with bandages of all shapes and sizes. The exceptions were Mirza, whose injuries were nothing more than scars by now, and Mankame, whose ankle had healed.