The Jugni

by Gagan Saini

  Sinha drove the truck very fast and reached the safe house. It was a simple square building with concrete walls all around and only had a few windows. It had a big boundary wall made up of bricks and had a big solid door. Sinha got out of the truck and walked to the door. The people inside the truck could not see out what happened and why the truck stopped. A little window only wide enough to see the person outside opened. Sinha could only see the eyes of the person.

  “Yes, who are you and what do you want?” A low pitch masculine voice came from that window. He could not see Sinha properly because of the headlights of the truck behind Sinha.

  “I am the monsoon, I brought rain with me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing sir; perhaps I came to the wrong address, sorry and good night,” Sinha said and walked back. The window closed. Someone watched that over the CCTV camera installed near the gate. Sinha got into the truck and reversed it quickly.

  “Our safe house has been compromised,” Sinha placed fingers on the ear and said.

  “What happened Mr. Sinha? The President asked anxiously as the others sitting beside him got worried as well.

  “There are rebels in the safe house. The man at the gate did not know the code-word.”

  “He might have forgotten or must be a new recruit.” The security advisor sitting beside the President said who flew back from the U.S.A. in an emergency.

  “No Sir all the guards of the safe house are appointed by me and I tell them the code-words personally.”

  “Don’t worry Mr. Sinha, we will figure something else, let us discuss,” the security advisor said. All armed forces chiefs and the President started to work out any alternative they could come up with. The security advisor excused himself and went to the toilet.

  The one, who saw Sinha over the CCTV, recognized him and alerted others in the safe house. The gate opened and 5-6 open SUVs and about four armed motorcyclists raced out. Sinha saw the lights in the rare view mirror. He checked all the mirrors and he tried to count but they were too many.

  “We’ve got company. I need a backup, immediately,” Sinha said.

  Sid saw the location of the truck and said, “Mr. Sinha, it is safe to go to the hockey ground where the helicopters are dropping the troops. That ground is fifteen kilometers south-east of your location.”

  “The vehicles chasing me are fast, I don’t think I can make it.” He wasn’t finished talking when a motorcyclist came parallel to the driver seat of the truck and pointed a gun at Sinha. Sinha rotated the steering wheel to his extreme right. The truck touched the motorcycle causing him to fall.

  “What is happening Mr. Sinha?” the Prime Minister opened the window connecting the cockpit and the back side of the truck.

  “We just have some change of plans. Ask everyone back there to stay down.”

  He closed the window and asked everyone to stay down loudly.

  “Mr. Siddarth is right. That is the best option we got. Head towards the ground and our helicopters will pick you guys up.” The Army chief said.

  “I am trying my best,” Sinha said as he shot one motorcyclist on his left side. Everyone heard the gunshot over the microphone.

  “We have redirected the already landed troops towards you; they will meet you in between.”

  Sinha did not reply to that and looked in the mirrors constantly.

  “Sinha Sir, where are you at the moment and where are you heading?” Simar asked as she landed on the ground.

  “I am in sector 23 right now and heading towards Shalimar Bagh.”

  “Sid, the truck is near to you, can’t you do anything? Simar asked.

  “How can I help? All drones are occupied. The only thing I have here is me. I can’t go, I am not a fighter, I am a scientist,” he said and looked at Ana with hesitation.

  “I can look after everything here,” Ana said.

  “You want me to go, Ana?”

  “I know you are not a fighter, but I know you are very smart. People in the truck need help.”

  Sid did an introspection for a minute and walked to Simar’s weapon cupboard. There were only one pistol and one machine gun. He checked the magazine and put the machine gun across his shoulders and tucked a pistol into his belt. He hugged Ana and kissed her on the forehead.

  He was about to leave when he stopped and looked at the end of the basement. Ana looked that side as well and looked at Sid again. Sid answered that look with a smile.

  Simar did not have time to organize any backup for the passengers of the truck. She could see the helicopter just lift off from the ground.

  “Boss, give me your special arrow fast!” she said as she took a bow from her shoulder. She held the bow with the left hand and had the right hand on the string. An arrow came to her bow, and she pulled it back and aimed at the rear blades of the helicopter and released. Back to back two arrows, both hit the rear blades. The explosive in the arrows blasted and so did the whole tail rotor blades.

  The helicopter lost its balance. The pilot tried his best but could not avoid the crash landing. As it was not very high from the ground, not much harm happened to the passengers. It only pissed them off.

  At the front, the commandos had arrived. Zahid gave them his brief introduction and guided the attack. The commandos took shelter wherever they could and a gun battle between them and the rebels started.

  Simar stretched one arrow towards the helicopter as the people started coming out of it. There were 5-6 people and one pilot. Four friends saw a girl standing a few meters away with an arrow pulled back on the bow. Two big men took their guns out and pointed towards Simar. “Drop the bow!” One shouted.

  She did not lower the bow or moved. Junaid came forward, placed a hand on his gun man’s arm and signaled to lower his gun. He and the other men relaxed their arms.

  Junaid came forward and said, “Oh, you are the Jugni! Did not realize we will meet in these situations.”

  “Well, if you do such type of things, you will find me right in front of you.”

  Now Rana came forward, “We are not doing anything wrong. We are changing the system like you. You punish the criminals your way and we have our way. If you see, we are the same. You try to make changes on small levels; we did it on a huge level.”

  “I agree to some extent with you, but this is not the way. You cannot make whole cabinet and opposition the hostage. You just cannot cease the capital of the country and make residents captive of their own homes. You cannot kill or let innocent people die in your endeavors.” Simar did not lower her arrow.

  “Excuse me miss you are trying to say your ways are right and our ways are wrong. Who the hell are you to decide?” Rohit said in a bit higher tone.

  “Well, well, well, we got three bosses. I was thinking it will be too much for one person to plan all this.”

  “We are four. We were the victims of the system. We wanted to change it and we are about to do it. Thanks for the interruption. Come and join us, together we will be a great team. We are happy with the fifth person.” Rohit said again.

  Meanwhile, Sinha got rid of all the motorcyclists, but he still had other vehicles following him. Sid already left for help. He constantly checked his phone for his location and the truck. As the vehicles came closer to the truck, the men sitting in them started firing at the truck. They fired at mirrors and tried to fire at the driver seat. Sinha did not give up, he raced the truck even more.

  One of the men in the SUVs signaled the other vehicles to target the tyres. The four vehicles dispersed and aligned themselves so that they could fire at the tyres. They started firing. After continuously firing for a few seconds, the tyres at all four sides got flat. Sinha lost the balance of the truck, but he kept on driving. The truck could not go beyond a certain distance and came to halt eventually.

  The other vehicles stopped as well, all men j
umped out and surrounded the truck. One man forced Sinha to come out while a couple of others removed the covering from the back side of the truck and pushed the people to jump out. Normally, it is a busy road but today nobody could be seen on either side of the road. Sharma Sinha jumped out and looked at the men and all around; there was no sign of any backup so far. The Prime Minister and other people were out from the truck. The gunmen forced them to kneel.

  One man from the group rang Sam, “We have got the Prime Minister and the DGP, what you want us to do?”

  Sam whispered in Rana’s ear. Rana said to Simar, “Your Prime Minister and DGP is under our custody. If you guys want them to be alive, ensure safe passage for us.”

  “What? The Prime Minister is in your custody?” Simar said loudly, all people connected with her over the earphone heard that. Simar lowered her bow.

  Sam said something to the man on the phone.

  That man placed a knife on the Prime Minister’s throat and asked another man to click the photo. The man with a knife felt something on his head.

  “Drop the knife; otherwise I will blow your head away,” Sid said in a confident tone as he pressed the gun against that man’s head.

  Sinha and the others got surprised with the act of valor of Sid. The man with the knife released the Prime Minister and turned around.

  He started laughing, as he turned.

  “You are alone; I thought the whole army came to the rescue of the Prime Minister.” Then he turned to Sinha, “Really DGP, this is your backup?” the other man came from behind and placed the gun on Sid’s head. The man laughed again, “Sorry mister, you cannot be a hero today, you are not a good backup.”

  Sinha, the Prime Minister, and the others got disheartened; their only ray of hope was gone. The man with the knife snatched the gun from Sid. Now Sid started to laugh.

  “It is funny, isn’t it? Try to help someone but not able to.”

  “Who said I was the backup?” Sid said in a cheeky manner and whistled once. All the people on the ground and the rebel party looked at him with a question mark.

  “I was the distraction,” Sid said and sat down. Sheru jumped at the man with a knife from nowhere. His sudden blow to the throat was enough to knock him down. Then Sheru attacked the man behind Sid. He tried to use his gun, but all bullets went towards the sky. This time Sheru used his claws to tear him open. Sid took the pistol out, hidden under his shirt and threw towards Sinha. Sinha acted quickly.

  He killed two men one after another as soon as he caught the gun. Sid also took the gun from a dead man and started firing. Sheru revealed his beast hidden within. The rebels tried to fire but no one could aim at him because of his jerky movements.

  One man thought it was a good time to kill the Prime Minister so he fired at him, but Sinha jumped in front of him took the shot. The bullet hit his left biceps. The Same man pointed the gun towards them again but Sheru walked in between. He gave his loudest roar. After his loud roar, there was a brief time of silence.

  Everybody got scared, especially the one who had shot Sinha. His pants went wet and we froze completely. Sheru had an eye contact with him. He took one step towards that man. The man dropped the gun and ran away. Only a fewMinister gave support to Sinha and helped him sit on the ground. All the people stood up and walked to Sinha.

  “The Prime Minister is safe, everyone,” Sid said over the microphone.

  “Good job Sid, I am proud of you,” said Ana.

  “Okay Ana, I am sending you our location, forward it to the air force. Mr. Sinha has been shot, he needs immediate medical attention.”

  On the other side, Simar lifted her bow again and pulled the arrow back again.

  “Check again mister, the Prime Minister may be safe, but you are not.”

  “Enough with the games, I am done with this,” Junaid said with frustration. “Girl, get out of our way. We have got a hell lot of money. You can have some share.”

  “But you distributed the money to the common people of the country!” Simar asked with surprise.

  “The money we distributed was the black money of only two politicians,” Rohit replied. “We have got all the money from the rest of them, it’s way more than you can imagine. We can go wherever and do whatever,” he continued.

  Simar said, “Do you hear yourself? You are not different from those greedy politicians. It was all about money. I was thinking before that you guys are right but now you guys are just other criminals.”

  Junaid was losing patience. “We are not in the mood of listening to the lecture. I will demolish everything here. We have bombs placed everywhere in this building. He showed a small remote in his hand. Your small move will kill all the bastards inside.”

  Simar told everyone over the microphone same time, “They have placed bombs in the main building.”

  Ana said, “Okay, working on it.” She pressed some keys on the keyboard and two drones flew into the building and started scanning the building.

  Rohit said to his fellows, “We must leave now. It is time for plan B.”

  They nodded and tried to walk away.

  “Stop everyone; otherwise I will use my arrows.” They ignored her, and two gunmen stayed there with guns pointed at her.

  Simar released the arrow. It was about to hit Junaid on the neck when it stopped. It did not stop by itself, someone caught it right on time. Junaid turned back and said to Simar, “We had an intuition that you will create a problem for us. This is our plan B for you, ‘Tatiana Bogdanov’.”

  The girl turned around and broke Simar’s arrow at the face level. Tatiana was a white tall girl with sharp facial features and green eyes. Her black leather pant held tightly by the well-toned gluteus and other muscles. A short black leather jacket whose open zip showed a white top underneath. This jacket barely covered all her muscle groups. Her high heeled leather boots made her look even taller.

  “Is she the Tatiana Bogdanov?”

  “Yes, she is the Tatiana Bogdanov, the best MMA fighter of all times. She never loses a fight. They say diamond cuts diamond. We got a fighter for a fighter,” Junaid said and continued to walk. Other gunmen left with them. They had a big bulletproof van ready to go. They all hopped in and started to drive. One of their gunmen blew the wall with a rocket launcher and the van raced outside the premises.

  Simar tried to chase but Tatiana stood in front of her.

  “Look, Tatiana, I don’t have any problems with you, please let me go.”

  “You can’t walk past me. I have got paid a lot to do this.”

  “Tatiana, don’t be a part of this conspiracy against a country.”

  “I don’t know about that. The only thing I know is I have been paid more than I will ever earn from my fights. I am very serious about my work and I will not let you chase them.”

  “Tatiana please, I don’t want to fight with you. I am a fighter and I respect another fighter. Don’t let money overshadow your character.”

  “Money is everything. Do you respect me or are afraid of me? Do you fear a fight with a better fighter?” Tatiana said with raised eyebrows.

  “I am afraid of no one. I was trying to stop you from becoming part of this. But if you want, so be it.” Simar threw her bow in the air which folded and flew away. She looked at Tatiana. They both had an eye contact and ran towards each other. Both threw punches at each other, but both had a good defense. The sound of gunshots kept on coming from the front of the building.

  Dawn fully stretched its arms. When the residents of the city woke up, they saw the pamphlet. People were not sure was it serious or was it a prank. They were unaware of the activities happening in the rest of the city. People came out of their houses and talked to their neighbors, who were not sure about the pamphlets as well.

  Small meetings happened within streets. One thing they agreed upon was to take a leap of faith. Their feeling of
captivity had converted into anger. The residents of the city came to the streets. They came out with whatever they could find as a weapon.

  A couple of streets joined together and made a mob. The same happened in independent patches everywhere in the city. The rebels in the city retaliated but common people were more in number. At one place, two rebel parties joined and the gunmen lined up with their guns pointed towards the approaching group of people. The people did not slow down. One gunman said to others, “Don’t be shy and kill everyone.” They all unlocked their guns and were ready to kill the people.

  People heard multiple gunshots. One man in that group closed his eyes when the shooting started. Once the shooting stopped, he felt still alive like other members of the group. When he looked ahead, all the rebel gunmen were on the ground, dead. He could see the army soldiers still in a firing position after killing those gunmen. A couple of Army vehicles became visible and this group of people started to dance with joy.

  “There are so many bombs in the building and they are very powerful. If detonated, the whole building will fall and no one will survive; both inside and within one-kilometer radius outside,” Ana said loudly.

  “Can’t we disarm them?” Zahid paused his firing.

  “We can but they are everywhere, and it will take at least five minutes to diffuse one. It’s not possible to go one by one.”

  “Simar, can you do something about it?” Zahid asked.

  “I am a bit stuck,” Simar said and as soon as she finished talking, Tatiana kicked her in the abdominal area. Simar fell a foot away.

  Ana constantly watched a bomb on her screen via the camera of a drone. In the van, Junaid pressed the button on the remote. All of a sudden, on the little display, a countdown started.

  “Oh my God! Guys, someone triggered the bombs. The explosion will happen in ten minutes.”

  “Ana, are all bombs are showing the same countdown?” Sid asked as he separated from the group to concentrate.