by Rahul Badami
“My friends, I fought against your army many years back in Kargil. Today, it is strange that we have both picked up guns and yet we are not fighting against each other, but fighting together side by side. It is said that soldiers understand the difference between right and wrong.” Tahir pointed outside. “We both know that they are wrong.”
“Terrorists are always in the wrong.” Armaan levelled his gun and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession. Two terrorists approaching near the barracks had their heads blown off. “These illiterate fools are no match for a trained soldier.”
The terrorists at the west side had been completely eliminated by the soldiers at the facility entrance; but only two soldiers had survived the encounter. In the meanwhile, the terrorists at the gate had crossed the compound. They were now only fifty metres from the barracks. They were throwing grenades in their direction.
“You know,” Tahir spoke with a wry laugh, “my only son was killed by terrorists. Today I will avenge his death and rejoin him in heaven. I was once called a traitor by my people. Today I will sacrifice my life and everyone will know that I was a proud soldier who gave his life fighting the real traitors of our country.” Tahir gripped the gun tightly as it recoiled with the barrage of bullets that spewed from it targeting the terrorists with precise accuracy.
Armaan kept his head low against the window sill as he continued to pick the terrorists that came close. There were now less than twenty terrorists that he could see. They continued to hurl grenades around the barracks. He wasn’t sure how many soldiers had survived outside, but he didn’t have time to figure it out. The terrorists were approaching the barrack doors as if no one stood in their path.
A clink.
It sounded very close. Armaan instinctively knew what it was. A grenade had fallen close to where he was. He looked around him trying to locate it. Baldev had also stopped firing and looked at him. It wasn’t in the room. Which meant it was right outside the window.
“Take cover.” Armaan yelled. Armaan and Baldev stood up and ran only a couple of steps when an ear-shattering explosion happened right behind them, tearing off the wall and window. They were slapped forward by the force of the blast; the gun slipped off Armaan’s hand. He landed heavily on the tiled floor. A fraction of a second later, he felt a block of the broken wall hit the back of his head, and he went out like a light.
Shafiq pushed his shoulders and haunches against the door to prop himself into an upright position. He had just observed something that could help him. As he got into a kneeling position he stared at the lowermost hinge of the door. It had been torn halfway off the door. The thin metal sheet protruded perpendicular to the door; the edges were sharp, perfect for what he had in mind.
Shafiq backed himself against the door and brought his hands that were bound behind his back parallel to the door. He positioned his wrists against the sharp metal protrusion and slowly moved his hands back and forth rubbing the ropes that bound him against the sharp hinge using it as a makeshift saw. He estimated that he had fifteen minutes to make his escape.
He breathed heavily, the pain from the wound in his stomach a chronic agony. He still wasn't sure how bad it was, but based on the seeping red blotch on his cloth, he had lost a lot of blood. A normal person would have fallen unconscious by now, but Shafiq was as strong as a bull. He kept his focus on sliding the rope back and forth over the jagged edge hoping that the strands of the thick rope would splice and eventually weaken enough for him to shear apart the ropes that bound him.
Shafiq felt the rope strands tearing under the friction. He grunted with each swipe of the rope. Beads of sweat poured down his face, and his breath became laboured, but he carried on resolutely knowing that he had very little time. Zia and Malik could return at any moment. The thought gave him wings, and he hustled on unmindful of his body weakening against the loss of blood with a single-minded intention to cut free.
Eventually, he felt the rope's grip on his wrists slacken. He forced his hands apart and they jerked free. Shafiq took a deep breath and rubbed his sore wrists. He then untied the bounds on his feet. A few seconds later he was free and he gripped the handle of the closed door to support him as he straightened himself to a standing position.
He pulled up his clothes and looked at his wound in the dim light. A deep black hole oozed dark red blood from the side of his stomach. He tried to plug the hole with his fingers, but the wound didn't look to be clotting fast enough. He looked around hoping to see a piece of cloth in the room, but beyond a table and two chairs, the room was empty. There were no windows, and a solitary bulb illuminated the room.
Shafiq rummaged through his pockets. His fingers felt the magazine. They had taken his gun. He looked at the door and appraised it. It looked sturdy and it was the only exit out of the room. There were no windows or hiding place anywhere.
It appeared that he had to bulldoze his way through. He backed up to one corner of the room, and then dashed towards the door and hurtled himself at the door raising his arms at the last minute to shield his body from the impact. There was a loud crunching sound of metal and wood as the door shuddered against his weight, but the door was impregnable and Shafiq rebounded against the door like a rag-doll. He fell on his side and the shock tore through his wounded body like a tremor igniting all his battered nerve ends.
Shafiq writhed in agony and the pain refused to subside. Outside of the door, he heard voices shouting. “The prisoner is trying to break free. Arms at the ready. Go and alert Malik.”
There were guards posted in front of the door. Shafiq realized that he hadn't accounted for the fact that there would be tight security for him. He hadn't heard the guards maintaining vigil outside while speaking with Zia. He was unarmed and they could enter inside and gun him down if required.
He was clearly trapped, and there was no escape. He was severely wounded and his chances of surviving were dwindling with every minute.
But what anguished Shafiq the most was that he was so close to realizing his mission, yet he couldn't execute it. The terrorist leaders were here and he could do nothing against them.
He raised himself and bolted the door from the inside. If he couldn't get out, they couldn't get in either. Maybe for a few minutes anyways. He had run out of options.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath willing his mind to focus. There had to be a way; that was how they were trained to think.
There is always a way. I just have to find it. His hands suddenly clamped on the magazine inside his pockets. The magazine that was in fact a communication device.
The General. He could tell him what happened.
He pulled out the magazine, and slid off the hidden cover. A minute later he was speaking with the General.
“I have been burned, sir. Unable to execute mission.”
If the General was wondering why Shafiq was unable to complete his mission, he didn't mention it.
The General’s reply was quiet and measured. “Are the leaders still at the location?”
“Yes sir, they are here.”
“I can authorise a strike subject to one hundred percent confirmation of location of the High Value Targets. We needed HUMINT on the ground before we could go ahead with this. Since, you verified the presence of HVTs, I want to know what is our success percentage.”
Shafiq remembered that the leaders were in Hamza’s suite and he had seen them discussing the mission. They wouldn't get another chance like this.
“Target is hot. Success probability at one hundred percent.”
“Excellent, give me the coordinates.”
Shafiq hesitated. A strike would mean a handful of one thousand pound missiles strafing the area. If one of them missed their mark and fell near his vicinity, he could possibly die.
As he dwelled upon it, he heard voices growing louder outside the door. One of them was the manic screeching of Zia. He sounded very angry.
Shafiq's mind was up. He spoke into the communications device.
/> “Here’s the GR.” He gave the Grid Reference he could see on the small screen. “Use this with a circular error probable radius of one hundred metres. Bomb it as hard as you can. Tazi Spay out.”
Shafiq hung up the call as he heard the guards making futile attempts to open the door. He laughed at the irony.
He had just called an air strike on himself.
Chapter 38
“This guy is still alive… He’s twitching…”
There was darkness everywhere. Armaan’s entire body was on fire. It felt like his body had been smashed into pulp. He heard the words spiral up and down through his consciousness. The volume went from high pitched to mute in his eardrums.
A sudden staccato of gunfire pierced his conscious. But it stopped only after a moment. “There,” someone said, “he’s dead now.”
Armaan could hear the jeering laughs of victory. Another round of gunfire cast its shrill resonance on his ears, and he finally returned to consciousness. He slowly opened his eyes, the darkness in his mind giving way to the bright sunlight reflected off the snow-covered hills streaming through a big hole in the barrack wall. He blinked, trying to focus his sight.
The dark, unblinking eyes of Tahir stared back at him from a few feet away. He was stone dead. Armaan felt a momentary sadness for the Colonel; but he was now with his son, hopefully at peace.
“Kill all soldiers that you find.” Armaan heard someone ordering. “They killed our wives and children. It’s time to avenge their deaths. They launch their Radd-ul-Fasaad on us, but the real jadd-e-fasaad” – root of the problem – “are these uniform-clad barbarians who launch airstrikes on our homes, hoping to kill us, but instead kill our families.”
Armaan looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointed right at his head. Behind the gun he could see the cold eyes of the terrorist. His face was veiled behind a black cloth. Armaan waited for him to shoot. The seconds passed by, but the terrorist didn’t shoot him.
Why doesn’t he shoot me like he shot the others? Armaan wondered.
Armaan looked around. While he was no stranger to death, the number of bodies piled around him made his insides twist. He felt the raw taste of bile on his tongue.
Baldev! Armaan remembered and turned to look at him. Baldev was on his knees in a corner, alive but another terrorist had his gun to Baldev’s head. There were around half a dozen terrorists in the barracks.
Armaan heard sporadic shooting outside. He assumed that the remaining soldiers were getting massacred. The fight had been even for a long time, and now it had tilted in the terrorists’ favour. The casualties on both ends had been heavy, especially on the terrorists’ side, where they had gained access to the facility only by the sheer strength of their numbers. He estimated that there would be another dozen terrorists fighting inside the facility.
A few minutes later the firing stopped. Armaan watched as around a dozen terrorists joined the others in the barracks. Most of the terrorists were wounded. One of the terrorists, a heavyset bull of a man spoke, “The soldiers are all dead. Gather up all the scientists and herd them into one of the offices. We can use them as hostages if needed.” He appeared to be the leader of the group. The terrorist looked around, “Where is our friend Abdul?”
A scrawny bespectacled man moved forward from the group. He was dressed like the terrorists but unlike the others, he wasn’t armed; and he gave the appearance of a college fresher about to be ragged by his seniors.
“I am here.” Abdul spoke quietly. Armaan watched the man look around in repulsion. He didn’t look like a terrorist; he seemed more of the geek kind who sat behind keyboards and played digital god. Armaan wasn’t sure what he was doing among the terrorists. Maybe he is being coerced?
“You know what to do?” The terrorist asked.
“Yes, my ID badge has Level 3 authorisation for the Missile Control Room. Once we get in, I will program the coordinates and launch the missiles.”
Launch the missiles? Armaan did a double-take. What was this guy about to do?
A gun poked down into Armaan’s shoulder. “Get up.” The terrorist meandering over him said. “You are to join the other scientists.”
In an instant, Armaan understood why he and Baldev hadn’t been shot. He looked down at his white civilian suit and realized for the first time, that all of the Pakistani soldiers were in uniform. When the terrorists had reached the barracks, they had gunned down everyone in uniform, but spared them as they lay down unconscious on the floor noting their civilian dress and assuming them to be part of the administration staff.
Armaan stood up without resisting and looked at Baldev who was also getting up. The terrorist behind him poked his gun in Armaan’s back again. Armaan started walking towards the facility entrance with Baldev and another terrorist. The two terrorists prodded them through the entrance and up a flight of stairs which Armaan remembered from Tahir’s conversation housed the R&D lab.
The place had metamorphosed into a mess. Computers and monitors were strewn around; the chairs had fallen in the aisles. Armaan pictured a chaotic scene of the terrorists storming the floor and herding the panicked employees under the threat of a gun. They walked past the rows of empty cubicles to the lab room in the far corner. One of the terrorists knocked on the door and announced, “More hostages.”
The door opened and Armaan and Baldev were butted through. Armaan looked around. A terrorist signalled at Armaan with his barrel, telling him to join the others. It was a spacious section divided by glass partitions that housed various equipment. He saw the facility employees bundled together in one corner. Their expressions were resigned and tired. Another gun-toting terrorist hovered over them.
The terrorist at the door unceremoniously pushed them at the group of hostages sitting in the corner. Armaan heard one of the employees from the group ask, “Are you going to kill us?”
“If we wanted to kill you, we would have done that already. Now keep quiet and don’t bother me. We have a mission to complete and will leave you unharmed if you follow our orders.”
Armaan looked up at the terrorist, a realization forming in his mind. Till now he hadn’t consciously thought about why the terrorists were here, but when he heard the word ‘mission’, he understood that the terrorists didn’t just want to kill the soldiers, there was more to it.
The terrorist guarding them continued talking, “Today is a great day for us. We will be remembered for orchestrating the largest terrorist attack ever. Everyone remembers 9/11. From now on, today’s date will be carved in history and our leader will become more famous than Osama Bin Laden.”
Armaan’s brow darkened with each word that the terrorist spoke. He looked at Baldev. Baldev shook his head. He too was completely clueless about the terrorist’s intentions. Armaan suddenly remembered that the thin man with the terrorists had said that he would launch the missiles. It conjured all sorts of foreboding in Armaan’s mind. Maybe he could get more information about the mission.
The terrorist kept gloating. “I don’t understand why you are so sad. Rejoice. Your Army employs you to create weapons, but doesn’t use them against the enemy. Today, we will show you how to use the weapons that you created.”
Armaan knew he had to know the terrorist’s intentions. “You are going to launch the missiles, aren’t you?”
The terrorist stopped and looked at him, “Yes, what use are missiles, if they aren’t launched at the enemy?”
Armaan ventured, “Who is the enemy? What is your target?”
“New Delhi. We will strike a decisive blow and cut the head of the snake.”
The blood froze in Armaan’s veins as the realization swept all other thoughts from his mind. They are going to launch a missile attack on New Delhi.
Armaan looked at Baldev, the shock in his face was visible. They had to do something and prevent the terrorists. He nodded at Baldev. Baldev gestured with his eye at the terrorist near the door. Armaan silently indicated he would take down the terrorist next to the group. He l
ooked at the terrorists. They were walking on the floor in a repetitive pattern. He waited till the terrorist at the door walked close to them and then turned around.
Now! He gave the hand signal to Baldev. Baldev sprinted towards the terrorist, while Armaan charged at the terrorist who looked in surprise at Baldev. As a terrorist, they had been brought up with the belief that if they wielded a gun, the common civilians would submit to their will. They hadn’t counted on the probability that one of those civilians could be a Covert Ops commando with thousands of gruelling hours of training under his belt.
Armaan swivelled in mid-air and landed a brutal kick at the terrorist’s shin knocking him off balance. The gun clattered to the floor. He gave a powerful chop on the man’s neck and he went limp immediately. He looked over at Baldev. Baldev gave him the thumbs–up; the terrorist in front of him was lying motionless on the floor. Armaan looked at the captives. They looked at him as if they had met a real-life comic book hero.
“Don’t go out. You are all safe here.” Armaan advised the hostages. He looked at Baldev. “Grab their guns. Let’s go.”
They opened the lab door and raced through the empty cubicles and reached the exit that went down to the lobby and paused.
“What now?” Baldev asked.
“The geek named Abdul said he was going to the Missile Control Room. It’s on Level 3, two floors below us. We have to stop him before he launches the missiles.”
Chapter 39
Abdul looked at the screen in front of him. It had been a long time since he had sat in front of the console. He still remembered the evening in Hunza Valley when he was abducted by the terrorists. He had feared for his life then. But the terrorists hadn’t harmed him. In fact, they had treated him well.