Eleventh Hour

by S. Hussain Zaidi

  Vikrant did as he had been told. Pulling the dagger out of the fallen mercenary’s eye, he pounced on the other one just as he was struggling to get up. With all the force that he could muster, Vikrant drove the dagger into the Somali’s thorax. The mercenary clawed at Vikrant’s face but Vikrant kept pushing the dagger till he stopped moving.

  Daniel came up behind Vikrant and together, they pulled both the bodies inside. The previous night, all of them had filled every bucket and bottle they could find with water. As Vikrant and Daniel slid the doors shut, Hakimi, Vaishali, Saahir and Prajakta poured all the water on the fire, dousing it in perfect coordination.

  Daniel stripped Oscar of his guns and ammunition and Vikrant did the same with one of the two others. They then went over to the body of the third mercenary and divided his ammunition between the two of them.

  ‘Watch out!’ Vaishali shouted, and Daniel and Vikrant looked up to see silhouettes of two more men advancing towards the door. It was a chance they had had to take. While there were only two guards on the level of the recreational area, the others were spread throughout the cruise liner and some of them were bound to be close enough to sense that something was amiss. Daniel and Vikrant had decided that they would play it by ear.

  One of the two doors started sliding open and Daniel fired, shooting the mercenary through the door. He shot the other one, whose silhouette was clearly visible, too.

  Moving quickly, Daniel passed the third mercenary’s pistol to Hakimi. ‘Just in case,’ he told the old man and they all got into the formation that they had practised over and over the previous night.

  Daniel and Vikrant were in front, Saahir and Hakimi behind them and Vaishali and Prajakta in the rear. Vaishali had protested at being placed in the back, saying that she wanted to play a more active part, but in the end she conceded to collective reasoning by Daniel, Hakimi and Vikrant.

  ‘Move out!’ Daniel commanded. Vikrant glanced at him. It was as if Madman Dan was back in the battlefield.

  Vikrant slid the door open and they moved out together slowly. Both men kept their eyes peeled for the slightest movement, fingers on the triggers of their Uzis.

  ‘How many more?’ Vikrant asked Daniel.

  ‘Five down. That leaves six Somalis and those five IM fucks,’ Daniel said through gritted teeth as he and Vikrant collected ammunition from the two newly killed henchmen before moving forward.

  They advanced along the corridor and reached the staircase just as three mercenaries appeared at the top of the stairs. Daniel and Vikrant both opened fire simultaneously and all the three went down.

  ‘Fuck, that was lucky,’ Vikrant said.

  ‘Eight to go,’ Daniel responded as he and Vikrant took positions on either side of the stairway. Hakimi and the others gathered behind Daniel.

  Suddenly, in the doorway at the top of the stairs there appeared a tall, stocky figure wearing black combat fatigues and a black mask, holding an M4 assault rifle, with a bald, muscular Somali behind him.

  ‘Who the hell is that?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘I have no clue,’ Vikrant said, puzzled, taking a peek from behind his cover.

  ‘Vikrant, Fernando,’ the masked man said in a deep voice. ‘If I’m guessing right, you are the ones leading this little adventure.’

  Vikrant and Daniel exchanged glances.

  ‘I’m giving you ten seconds to lay down your weapons and surrender. If you don’t, what follows is on your head.’

  The hostages could almost hear the seconds ticking by. Although Daniel and Vikrant had discussed such a situation the previous night, neither of them had been able figure out the best way to respond if they found themselves cornered and had decided to just go with the flow.

  As the seconds passed, both looked at each other and shook their heads, almost at the same time, signifying no surrender. They reloaded their weapons and waited.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ the man in black asked. No one said anything.

  ‘Fine,’ the deep voice said, this time a bit louder. ‘I guess it’s time, Abba.’

  Daniel and Vikrant looked at each other, confused. Just then two shots rang out behind Daniel. He whirled around, his Uzi raised, and saw Hakimi standing behind Vaishali, his gun pressed to her temple. Saahir and Prajakta were lying on the floor, both bleeding from single gunshot wounds to their heads. Daniel could tell that they were already dead.

  ‘Weapons down, boys,’ Hakimi said calmly, pressing the gun harder against a terrified Vaishali’s head. ‘Marwan, beta, come on down.’

  41

  Wednesday morning, Lakshadweep.

  Mirza, Jaiswal and Goyal were sprawled out on chairs, getting some much-needed sleep. None of them had slept for more than an hour after landing on the aircraft carrier. After reconstructing the events leading up to the demand for Lakshadweep, Mirza had insisted that they rest for a bit.

  ‘Dropping dead from exertion isn’t going to help anyone,’ Mirza told Jaiswal and Goyal firmly, and made them put away their files.

  They were woken up at dawn by Shaina’s knocking on the door. She gave Mirza a satellite phone.

  ‘DCP Mankame from Mumbai for you, sir,’ she said. Mirza immediately shook himself awake and took the phone.

  ‘Please tell me you’ve found the bloody ’93 Cache,’ Mirza said as Shaina left the room.

  ‘How I wish, sir,’ Mankame said. ‘But there have been some developments you need to know about.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well, Phadke called.’

  ‘Who?’ Mirza said, struggling to clear the cobwebs from his head.

  ‘Senior Inspector Ravikant Phadke from Pune. The one we’re working with on the Aslam Parkar angle.’

  Mirza sat up.

  ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘They’ve found Parkar’s and his mother’s bodies buried at a construction site on the old Mumbai–Pune highway.’

  Mirza sighed.

  ‘Just as we’d feared,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir. Both of them shot in the heart. We believe one of them was shot inside Parkar’s house and the other at the site. Possibly they shot his mother first. She must have been dead when she was seen being put inside the ambulance. They needed to keep him alive just in case some neighbour was awake. He needed to be seen while getting into the ambulance.’

  ‘Probably shot him in the ambulance itself,’ Mirza said.

  ‘Yes. No one heard any gunshots, so it’s safe to assume they used a silenced pistol. The shell casing in Parkar’s house came from a .45 pistol.’

  Mirza shook his head.

  ‘Any other developments?’

  ‘Yes, sir. The fellow we picked up? Wasim?’

  ‘The auto driver who picked up the Kadir brothers’ mother.’

  ‘Right, sir. Wasim was recruited by a voice on the phone with a shitload of cash and never saw this man’s face. I’m fairly sure he’s telling the truth. But the house in Goregaon, where he was staying, it’s in the name of one Abdul Jabbar Hakimi.’

  Mirza froze. ‘Why is that name familiar?’

  ‘He’s one of the captives on that cruise liner, sir. And according to the updates of the released hostages that you sent me, he’s still there with Vikrant and the others.’

  ‘Okay…’ a puzzled Mirza said. ‘That’s … that’s clever. Hakimi was on the cruise liner and his house would be the perfect place for Wasim to lie low.’

  Mirza could hear Mankame sigh on the other end.

  ‘Well, sir. We went through the details of the guests on board the cruise liner. The guests had submitted photos of themselves along with identity-proof documents. We compared Hakimi’s picture from the cruise liner’s list with some photos of him we found in Hakimi’s house.’

  Mirza felt a sudden sense of impending doom.

  ‘It’s not the same man?’

  ‘It gets worse, sir. On a hunch, I compared the photo in the cruise liner’s list with the one of Rishabh Chawla that we got from the hotel in Bhopal…’
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  ‘God almighty…’ was all Mirza could say.

  ‘The beard is gone and the hair is different, but … I think he’s the man who posed as Rishabh Chawla in Bhopal.’

  Mirza gripped the phone tightly as his heart started racing.

  ‘Munafiq,’ he said.

  Goyal and Jaiswal’s heads shot up.

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir,’ Mankame said.

  ‘You’re sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Find the real Hakimi,’ Mirza said, thinking fast. ‘Find his family. Talk to his neighbours. Get everything you can and get it yesterday.’

  He ended the call without waiting for a response and stormed out of the room, Goyal and Jaiswal on his heels.

  Five minutes later, he was filling in everyone in the Officers’ Room on the developments.

  ‘But … but then … then that means…’ Mishra sputtered.

  A senior IB officer cut him short. ‘That means that one of the most dangerous terrorists we know is on that cruise liner, among the captives, aware of whatever Vikrant is planning along with Fernando.’

  ‘It means we’re fucked,’ Mirza said sourly. Akhilesh Mishra sank into a chair and reached for a bottle of water.

  ‘What should we do?’ Shaina asked.

  ‘Inform the PMO. And start exploring options to storm the cruise liner,’ Mirza said firmly.

  Mishra opened his mouth to protest but at that instant, a naval officer came running into the room.

  ‘We think we hear gunfire from the cruise liner, sir,’ the officer said, and everyone went running to the deck.

  ‘You see anything yet?’ the naval commander puffed into his wireless. One of his officers, who was still viewing the live feed of the cruise liner in the Officers’ Room, answered in the negative.

  Up on the deck, they heard a series of muted booms, which sounded very much like shots fired from Uzis. A long silence followed.

  ‘Call Marwan,’ Mirza said to no one in particular. The naval commander dialled the number and handed the phone to him.

  The phone kept ringing till it rang out but there was no answer. Mirza dialled again; it still kept ringing. He was about to give up when the call was answered.

  ‘What’s happening there?’ Mirza demanded.

  ‘Keep watching the top deck,’ Marwan’s deep voice said at the other end before he hung up.

  Half of the people on the aircraft carrier’s deck went back to the Officers’ Room, including Goyal and Jaiswal. Mirza and Shaina stayed, each holding a pair of binoculars. Mirza glanced at Shaina and noticed that she was clutching the binoculars so tightly, her knuckles were white.

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ he told her softly.

  They waited for more than half an hour before they saw movement on the cruise liner’s deck. Vikrant and Daniel were dragged up into open view by two Somali mercenaries and thrown onto chairs. Their hands and legs were bound to the chairs and they were left alone while the henchmen went down again.

  Mirza and Shaina zoomed in and saw that Vikrant and Daniel were bleeding from several cuts on their faces. An ugly bruise was forming under Daniel’s left eye. Vikrant, from the way he was shifting around in his chair, looked like he had been punched in the gut and was still hurting.

  ‘What the fuck did you boys do?’ Mirza said under his breath. Shaina turned around and walked away.

  The mercenaries returned with Captain Rajeshwar Sahani and another young girl who, according to the roster that Mirza had examined earlier, was a Mumbai resident named Vaishali Sharma. She, too, was pushed onto a chair and tied up.

  Sahani, on the other hand, was kept standing. His uniform was soiled and he looked like he hadn’t shaved for several days.

  Next, Marco came up and joined his five henchmen, who were standing to one side after dragging Sahani and Vaishali up to the deck. He was followed by Marwan and the IM Five.

  ‘You guys seeing this?’ Mirza said into his wireless and the naval commander, who was in the Officers’ Room, replied in the affirmative.

  Marwan marched Sahani to the edge of the deck. Taking a step back, he pulled out a pistol from his hip holster, pointed it at the back of Sahani’s head and pulled the trigger. Everyone on the aircraft carrier watched horrified as Sahani was thrown forward and he fell off, straight into the sea.

  42

  Wednesday late morning, Lakshadweep.

  ‘It’s Marwan,’ the naval commander’s voice crackled on Mirza’s wireless. ‘He’s asking for you.’

  Quickly, Mirza walked down to the Officers’ Room, where the phone was set on speaker mode.

  ‘I’m here. What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Your protégé and Fernando, who we gather is an ex-soldier, tried to stage a hostile takeover. Lives were lost on both sides.’

  ‘Where are the other captives?’ Mirza demanded.

  ‘All dead. A middle-aged man, a young girl and an old man. They’re all dead.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ Mirza said.

  There was a silence.

  ‘The real Hakimi never made it to the cruise liner. I don’t know what you call the man who has been posing as him. But I have a good idea who he is. So tell him that Shahwaz Ali Mirza wants to speak to him.’

  Everyone in the room watched the screen intently as Marwan turned and said something to Marco. The mercenary went below deck and returned two minutes later with a silver-haired man dressed in a simple shirt and trousers. He took the phone from Marwan’s hand and Mirza couldn’t help but notice that the younger man’s demeanour was very respectful.

  ‘Mirza,’ the man said, putting the phone to his ear.

  ‘Munafiq,’ Mirza responded, and Munafiq grinned.

  ‘Yes, I know that’s what you call me. Quite a nice name, in fact. You thought of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come up to the deck, will you? It would be nice to see you.’

  Mirza picked up the phone and headed to the deck, followed by everyone else. He walked up to the edge of the deck and Munafiq followed suit on the liner.

  ‘So, you finally caught on,’ Munafiq said. ‘Too bad your boy wasn’t as bright. But then … I am good at this.’

  ‘Need these?’ Shaina asked Mirza, holding up a pair of binoculars. Mirza took them from her and raised them to his eyes. He stared intently at the man standing on the deck across the water. He was solidly built and despite the fact that he seemed to be over fifty, Mirza had no doubt that he would be able to hold his own in a fight.

  He recalled the photograph of Rishabh Chawla that his team had got from the hotel in Bhopal. As Mankame said, the beard that ‘Rishabh Chawla’ had sported in Bhopal was now gone. The hair, which had been thick and salt-and-pepper then, was now sparse and silver. Chawla had also had a mole on the left side of his face which, although not too prominent, stayed in one’s memory. It was one of the oldest tricks in the art of disguise.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it? Rishabh Chawla?’ Mirza said into the phone, lowering the binoculars.

  ‘Yes,’ Munafiq said. He was clearly savouring the moment. Mirza couldn’t blame him. Munafiq had met his five soldiers right under the noses of the police, orchestrated a prison break and simultaneously planned a hijack and planted himself right in the middle of it.

  ‘Where is the real Hakimi?’ Mirza asked.

  ‘Strange question,’ Munafiq replied. ‘There is so much else you could ask me. Why inquire about one old man?’

  ‘Because if he’s alive, I need to rescue him. And if he’s dead, his family deserves to give him a proper burial. There is plenty of time for me to stoke your fucking ego,’ Mirza snarled.

  There was a moment’s silence before Munafiq responded. ‘You think you’re better than me because you take such pains to be human. But you’re not. We’re all the same, Mirza. Soldiers for different masters, fighting for what we believe in. So go ahead and be a hero to Hakimi’s family if that makes you feel good about yourself. It won’t change the truth.’
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  ‘Don’t you ever tire of that little speech?’ Mirza asked. ‘All the killing of innocents and brainwashing the gullible, and you think one little speech where you refer to yourself as a soldier justifies everything? What was the fault of the two hostages whom you people killed just now?’

  Munafiq burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re not so different from that little adopted son of yours, are you? He punched a diplomat in the face because he let his heart rule instead of the mind. And here you are, raging at me in the middle of a hostage situation, for the same reason. It doesn’t make you better, you know; it makes you worse.’

  ‘I really couldn’t care less what you think of me,’ Mirza said furiously. ‘Are you going to tell me where Hakimi is, or should I find him the way my men found Parkar’s and his mother’s bodies?’

  ‘Yes, that was unfortunate,’ Munafiq said after a long pause. ‘And completely avoidable. But men like Parkar…’

  ‘Are the real Musallam Imaan,’ Mirza cut in. ‘I don’t know what carrot you dangled in front of him or what rhetoric about “Islam being in danger” you tried to feed him, but if you had to hold his mother captive to make him do your bidding, it means he wanted to kick you out on your butt. These are the men that Islam is proud of. And if that doesn’t tell you what a son-of-a-bitch you are, nothing will.’

  ‘If you’re done teaching me what my religion stands for,’ Munafiq said, ‘let’s get down to business. Vikrant and Daniel have tested my patience. But killing them is too small a punishment, so you will pay instead. We had earlier given you forty-eight hours to hand over Lakshadweep to us. Twenty-four have already passed. But instead of twenty-four more, you now only have twelve. And at the end of those twelve hours, I will start a fire in which the entire city of Mumbai will burn to the ground, and I’ll also kill Vikrant, Daniel and Vaishali with my own hands. Then I’ll be gone.’

  ‘Not for long,’ Mirza retorted.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I said, not for long. Because you’ve been a pain in the ass for far too long. And now I’ve seen your real face. And I’m going to fucking kill you if it’s the last thing I do.’