by Mainak Dhar
‘Aaditya, the boss wants to meet you.’
It was Mugdha, the CEO’s executive assistant. Mugdha had joined the firm just a couple of months after I had and was a friendly face I had come to welcome seeing when I came to work. She was a local, and while I had been settling into my new home and city, she had gone out of her way to help. Her husband, who ran a local restaurant located not too far from office, had also become a familiar face, as I would often drop by to pick up dinner.
She was about to congratulate me as well when she saw the look on my face. ‘All the attention must be getting to you, right?’
I couldn’t help but smile. I had no real friends since I had moved to Mumbai, but she and her husband had perhaps been the closest things to friends I’d had – till Zoya showed up, that is.
‘It’s OK, Mugdha. Where’s the boss?’
The boss was the CEO of the India operations of GRS International. GRS was involved in outsourcing services, starting from IT and then moving onto more advanced work for clients largely based in the US. As to where someone like me fit into an organisation like this, there were two parts to the story. One was purely happenstance. The last CEO, Srinivasan, had been an old friend of my previous boss and someone who had spent many years walking in the same boots that I had before joining the corporate world. So when I needed a job, ideally somewhere far from the world I had lived in for ten long years, I had been referred to Srini, and got the job. The second part, something I realised when I joined, was that there was indeed a role for a man of my skills in such an organisation. My role was titled facilities manager, but what that meant was that I was in charge of security and liaison with authorities. Being a subsidiary of a major US company, we got more than our share of international visitors. Part of my job was to ensure that they were safe. GRS also had over three thousand employees who were bussed in from all over Mumbai, more than a thousand of them young women. With contract drivers employed to do the job, and concerns high about employee safety, especially when young women were being ferried home late at night, one part of my job was physical security. The old guy who had the job before me, a retired cop, had done all the hard work. GPS in buses, panic buttons, training. I thanked him when I came in, and then I did what I did best. I called the bus drivers and scared them shitless. I told each driver one by one that if anything happened to an employee, I would hunt him down personally. Zoya, Rajiv and the others in the office saw the soft, polite side of me, but my old side still came in handy at times.
The new CEO had been in the job for just over a week, and I had never met him other than seeing him in a couple of town halls. He was a tall, rather overweight, bald Italian called Gaetano Costanza, whom everyone just called Tony. He greeted me effusively and patted my back with such enthusiasm that I was momentarily rocked off balance.
‘Aadi, I was looking forward to congratulate you in person. What a hero! What a man! We are lucky to have you working for us.’
‘Thank you, Tony. I was looking forward to catching up with you one of these days.’
‘Of course! Anytime, just let me know, and we will meet up.’
As he got back to his work, I told Mugdha to fix up an appointment with Tony soon. Srini had passed away due to a sudden heart attack a couple of months ago, and I had no idea how much Tony knew about my particular circumstances. I hoped to be able to tell him when we met.
As I got back to my desk, Zoya was waiting for me, a broad smile on her face. ‘Still have time for me, or has your celebrity status got to you?’
I walked closer to her, taking her hands in mine. ‘I am still cooking if you’re interested that is.’
Our faces were barely inches apart, and I could feel her breath on my face, but before she could respond, my cellphone rang. I would have ignored it, but it had totally spoilt the moment and Zoya stepped back.
‘Take the call. Must be one of your groupies.’
I took the phone out of my pocket and saw the name of the person calling me. The one man whose call I could never ignore.
Today he wasted no time on pleasantries. Instead, he said only three words to me and disconnected.
‘Meet me now.’
Ten minutes later, I was sitting across the table from Ravi Mathur at Aromas, our preset meeting place. His hair was all grey now, and I could see a little bit of pudginess, but other than that, he looked as fit and as deadly as he had been when I had first crossed paths with him over a dozen years ago. His eyes certainly were as sharp as ever and seemed to bore into me. To anyone looking at him, he might seem like an elderly man meeting a friend for a coffee, but the look in his eyes told me he was pissed, and it was never a good idea to get a man like him upset at you.
‘My boy, I would have thought you were happy staying under the radar, but then you had to go and be a hero.’
I gripped the coffee cup hard, trying to not say something harsh back to the man who’d perhaps been the closest thing to a father I had had. My own parents had died in a car accident when I had been in my first year under Ravi, and his stabilising influence and advice had kept me from going over the edge.
‘Ravi, they murdered him in cold blood. I couldn’t do nothing, could I?’
He smiled, and I saw his eyes soften.
‘I understand. That’s what made you special and so good at who you were. But I’m worried that you’ve got yourself into something that may spiral out of control. After what happened last time, I didn’t want to see you in harm’s way again and certainly not out there – a media spectacle. That’s why I got you in touch with Srini. That’s why I was hoping you could indeed start afresh and get the life you deserve.’
‘Believe me, I had no desire to be a hero or get my face on TV. I’m sure they’ll move on to the next flavour of the day. How long does the media remember terror victims anyways? By all accounts, Thakur was an honest officer and a good man. Our media will always prefer to spend its time on a celebrity scandal or an affair than the death of a good man.’
I could see his eyes and saw something I had never seen in them. Fear.
‘What’s wrong, Ravi? What aren’t you telling me?’
He leaned forward, looking straight at me. ‘As soon as I saw your face on TV, I began reaching out to old friends and networks, trying to learn what they know. I called you as soon as they told me about the new situation that the media hasn’t picked up yet.’
Now, he had my attention. I waited in silence as he took a sip of his coffee and continued.
‘Thirty minutes before I called you, a retired admiral of the Navy, some Parmar fellow, was shot dead outside his home in Khar. Another good man who became a diplomat after retirement. A single bullet through the head. His family was with him. They said they saw nobody. That there was no building within at least a hundred meters or more. Yesterday was not a random terror attack. There’s a trained sniper or snipers on the loose, and they’re hunting down their targets. This is not over.’
People around us had begun murmuring as some of them checked their smartphones and saw the breaking news. One of them asked the waiter to turn on a news channel on the TV, and I saw another young, clueless-looking anchor announce the death of another good man. Another man, who had served the nation, had been killed in front of his loved ones. My photo was flashing on the screen soon after, with the anchor saying something about the fact that the hero of yesterday’s attack had clearly not killed all the terrorists involved, and that more attackers were out there. Several people at the tables around us turned to look at me, and I could hear excited whispers.
I just sat there, looking at the TV, taking in what was unfolding around me. Part of me had been hoping that the events of the past day would fade from everyone’s memory and that I could get back to the life I had been leading for the last three years. I now realised how naïve I had been. I thought back to all that I had done before, all the times that I had wondered if there would ever be a price to pay for the things that I had done in the name of country and duty
. Perhaps that time had come.
I went back to office and tried to get back to work, but it was hopeless. People were only talking about the new attack and by late afternoon, my phone was ringing non-stop. I had taken the first couple of calls not knowing who might be calling. Both turned out to be journalists seeking an interview. I declined both and cursed whoever had let out my number. It could have been anyone – someone at the office, a cop at the police station – and there was no point fretting about it. Pretending that I could have a normal day at work was pointless, so I called it an early day and went home. Zoya joined me in less than thirty minutes and having her over helped more than I could have imagined.
As we sat in my apartment, chatting over dinner, it was easy to believe that I could ignore what was happening outside. That I could ignore the fact that there were killers on the loose out there.
That illusion shattered when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find DCP Phadke there. He was dressed in civilian clothes. The dark circles under his eyes told me that the events of the last two days were taking their toll on him. As I introduced him to Zoya, he told me that he had already met her at the station, and remarked with a slight smile that her spirited defence of me had sent several cops scurrying for cover. I invited him in, and he sat down on the sofa.
‘Coffee, Mr. Phadke?’
‘Just what I need to keep myself going. I would have said a single malt given the kind of day I’m having, but I still have to get through a lot. And please, call me Ashutosh.’
As I went into the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee, Zoya joined me. ‘What does he want? I had hoped the cops were through with you?’
I had been thinking the same thing. While Phadke had seemed to be decent enough, I was certainly not looking forward to any further attention or police scrutiny. As I took the coffee to him, Phadke smiled politely.
But his words put me on guard. ‘Could we talk in private? I wanted your professional opinion on some things that I’m sure would bore Ms. Khan.’
Zoya glanced at me, her eyebrow raised. When I said and did nothing to keep her back, she left, visibly peeved. However, Phadke had mentioned my professional opinion, not just what I had seen as a witness. I wasn’t sure how much I was ready to reveal about my past to her.
‘Mr. Ghosh…’
‘Please call me Aadi.’
‘Aadi, we have the bullets used in both kills. They’re 7.62 mm shells. On the man you killed, we found binoculars, a radio set and an HD camera on which he had recorded the shooting. It seems like he had just shut off the recorder when you jumped him. What do you make of that?’
I was silent as I weighed all he was saying. I had not wanted to get back into my old life, but if I could stop another innocent person from being killed, I would help. Phadke must have sensed my hesitation, so he said reassuringly, ‘Aadi, I understand how someone of your background would not want to get too exposed. This will stay strictly between us. But with your expertise you would be a great help, since you were there.’
‘Ashutosh, the guy I killed must have been a spotter. That tells me this is a trained and well-organised sniper team. Hard to tell if it’s the same shooter in both instances, but could well be. Jihadis in the Middle East and Afghanistan love uploading and sharing videos of their operations, so that’s where the video camera fits in. It also matches what I heard the shooter say on the radio.’
‘What did you hear?’
‘‘Hurry up, brother.’’
Phadke was looking at a small pad he had produced from his pocket and looked at me, as if trying to understand what the big deal was.
‘Ashutosh, didn’t your guys record the fact that I mentioned the language they spoke?’
He frowned and I realised that in the heat of the moment, either the policemen had not highlighted the language or understood its significance. So I told him that the man had spoken in Pashto.
‘These are not local goons or even Kashmiri graduates of the Pakistan-sponsored university of terror. They are Afghans.’
Phadke was looking at me; his eyes narrowed in concentration as he took in what I was saying.
‘It’s a fair bet then that they have local support. Otherwise, they would not know the lay of the land as well as they seem to. Also, a few Afghan jihadis would stand out much more than a Pakistani given the language differences. This thing could be much bigger than just these two attacks.’
Phadke had left his coffee untouched all this while. When he finally raised the cup to his lips, he couldn’t hide his grimace. Whether that was due to my coffee making skills, the fact that it had gone cold or that he was simply disturbed by all that I had said, was unclear. He paused, as if thinking things over.
‘What would your threat assessment be?’
‘No offence, Ashutosh, but our police doesn’t know how to deal with guys like these. You don’t arrest or take these guys to court. You eliminate them as fast as you can. If there are Afghan snipers operating on Indian soil, you need to get your seniors to involve the army or NSG fast.’
When he responded, I could see the look of resignation in his eyes. ‘You know how it works. People will argue about turf, who gets credit, who has jurisdiction. Bloody paper pushers and politicians will be all over this, but what you say makes sense. I’ll push all I can.’
As he was about to leave, I said what was playing on my mind all this while. ‘Ashutosh, I had a request…’
He never let me finish as he responded with a smile that made me warm up even more to him. ‘I know. I know. Nobody will know I got this from you. I’ll do my best to ensure that your background doesn’t get too public.’
He left soon, promising to be in touch. I told him I’d help if I could. Not having anything better to do, I turned on the TV to see if there was any more news about the shootings, and was shocked to see Tony there. He had apparently been suckered into giving an interview by a news channel, perhaps naively believing that this was an opportunity to gain some goodwill and positive PR for the company. The anchor was clearly flattering him. I hoped she was not setting him up for other tougher questions. I had not yet had time to ask him to keep my details discreet. That had been my biggest fear when Srini had passed away suddenly, and we had learned that a new expat CEO was coming onboard. He would have many more priorities than worrying about the personnel files of a mid-level manager like me and would not understand the sensitivities involved like Srini had.
‘So, Mr. Costanza, how does it feel to have one of your employees in the limelight like this?’
He beamed as he answered and I willed him to just shut up. ‘We at GRS International believe in creating a positive impact on the communities where we live, and we are all so proud of Aaditya for stepping up the way he did.’
I was hoping he had landed the PR soundbites he wanted and would close the interview, but the journalist kept fishing for information.
‘Mr. Ghosh has been very secretive. He has refused to talk to the media. While he is entitled to his privacy, we are all amazed at how an ordinary office worker could do what he did. So many of our viewers are inspired by him and would love to know more about him.’
I could see the gleam in Tony’s eyes and had a sinking feeling as he responded. ‘He’s no ordinary office worker. He spent many years in your army before joining us.’
My heart skipped a beat. I hoped he would stop there. That much was still known to many people at work, Zoya included.
Please don’t say any more. Just shut up and close the interview.
But the gleam in Tony’s eye told me he was not done. He continued with a triumphant smile. ‘In fact, he was in some sort of special forces or something. I think the paracommandos, if I’m not mistaken.’
I couldn’t bring myself to be angry at Tony. He had no way of knowing what he had done. But in that one sentence, he had opened up Pandora’s Box from which I feared would come tumbling out the secrets of my past which I had hoped to leave behind.
Soon my worries abou
t my own past coming out in the open were replaced by more immediate concerns. There had been one more killing. A retired army major general had been shot getting out of his car in front of his home in the Delhi suburbs even as his horrified family looked on. That seemed to fit the modus operandi of the killings so far. A rifle shot taken from a distance, the shooter having got clean away. This was, however, the first killing outside Mumbai. And while the news anchor was talking about a killer on the loose, my gut was telling me that there were multiple sniper units out there. The way they were conducting targeted kills was possible only if they had reconnoitered them earlier, perhaps for days, to understand their victims’ routines. At least one of the sniper teams had been Afghan, and all those killed so far had served in uniform. All of them had been killed in front of their families or in crowded places, to add to the psychological damage.
The pieces were beginning to fall in place, and I didn’t like what I saw.
India had been victim to several terror attacks. And, the Mumbai attacks of 2008, as horrifying as they had been, had been more of a ‘typical’ fidayeen attack – youth sent out by their jihadi masters with Kalashnikovs and grenades to cause as much indiscriminate carnage as possible. This was something totally new – trained snipers operating in an urban environment was something I very much doubted our police were ready for. I hoped the Army would be called in before the body count mounted.
My phone rang. It was Zoya.
‘Oh God, Aadi. Have you seen the news? Another killing. And, I saw Tony’s interview. You never told me you were Special Forces. We all heard that you served in uniform somewhere, and whenever I had asked about what you did in the army, you’d always say it was an administrative job without telling me much more. Clearly, it was more exciting than that! Tell me more, please. Maybe I could tempt you to come over with some dinner?’