by Mainak Dhar
As he looked at me, I knew what was bothering him, how tribal minds like his worked. Pride in the clan and family wouldn't allow him to leave his brother's killer unpunished.
'Karzai, tell your family I took one son but gave them back one alive. That should settle our blood debt. You know as well as I that if I wanted you dead, I could have shot you the moment you walked in. Hell, I could put a bullet in your head right now.’
He nodded reluctantly. 'Let's make that call, Major. I can do that much. Plus, with the gun in your hands, you're the boss.'
The news vans arrived before the commandos. Put that down to leaky information, inefficient cops or super-efficient media vultures.
Either way, Karzai and I were getting a live telecast of the raid, sitting in a small tea shop some three kilometres from the madrassa.
Karzai had made the call. I had asked him to keep the speaker on so both of us could hear what was being said. When he had passed on the news that I was dead and that he was ready to leave, the voice had told him someone would come to pick him up and take him to the airport. If Karzai had any doubts about my theory, he still didn't have much choice as I still had the gun pointed at him.
Someone like Thapa would likely have the building watched. We couldn't just walk out. That where I thought a little distraction would be helpful.
It's quite cool what you can make with a lighter, a zip tie and some masking tape. I found three lighters in the room or on the goons. There were enough zip ties and tape left for what I had in mind. Karzai observed me with interest as I got to work. Remove the flame guard from the lighter, move the ratchet to the '+' position to increase gas flow, use your thumb to lift the ratchet up and disconnect it from the flame adjustment gear, move it to the '-' position again. Then keep repeating till you can feel the gas leaking on its own. Turn the lighter on, tape it with the flame facing the target. I taped one inside the room on a wall just near the door and asked Karzai to step out and taped two a few feet on either side of the door. Then we overturned the table and hid behind it.
When the first lighter bomb exploded inside the room, Karzai grinned at me. 'You would make a good insurgent.'
Then the two outside exploded in quick succession. Karzai had told me the madrassa was on the second floor of a building located in a slum, where the other houses were occupied by poor labourers. Most of them came home late at night, but their families were there. As the small bombs exploded, we heard screams. I peeked out the door to see some men, but mostly women and small children stream out of neighbouring houses and run down the stairs. To make things more interesting, I shot a full magazine from an AK-47 in the air out of the door. Then we picked up our things and joined the crowds running out. We couldn’t carry the AK-47s in the open, but I had a pistol tucked into my belt and the carrying case for the sniper rifle slung across my back. I had changed my clothes. My old clothes were now worn by Munaf's dead friend, while I was dressed in a spare shirt and jeans I had 'borrowed' from Karzai at gunpoint. A little tight for me, but getting the best fit wasn't the highest priority at that moment.
We ran as fast as we could, and saw the news vans arriving before we turned the corner of the road outside the slum. We ran at full tilt for several minutes, me behind Karzai to make sure he didn't try anything funny. When I judged it far enough, we sat down at the tea shop, one that I noticed had a TV on.
So there we were, sipping tea, watching the raid unfold. Local cops were cordoning off the area, while commandos in body armour swarmed the building. The reporter, whom I noticed was none other than my favourite journalist, Varsha Singh, was standing near a group of serious-looking officers.
She stuck the mike in front of one of them. 'Sir, is it true that the terror cell behind the Mumbai sniper attacks is inside the building where the raid is unfolding?'
The officer looked uncomfortably around, perhaps wondering how he could tell the reporters to fuck off in the middle of an op without being crucified in the media. He was put out of his misery when someone pointed in the distance.
Varsha asked the cameraman to follow her, speaking as she walked while listening in on a mike at her ear for information being fed to her. 'We can see some senior officials arriving. I'm told by my sources that a special commando team has been called in.'
The camera panned to the right.
And, there he was. Thapa!
I pointed him out to Karzai, whose eyes were glued to the screen.
Thapa – wearing a bulletproof vest, flanked by two rifle-toting commandos and talking to a group of six pretty dangerous-looking men. Faces blackened, dressed all in black, wearing bulky body armour and carrying MP-5s with suppressors. I took it all in, asking myself questions that the media would never ask, and giving answers they would not dare suggest.
Why was a senior IB officer on the site of an op? Strictly speaking, this was not his concern. Mumbai Police should be handling the first response. If more firepower was needed, they were supposed to call in the NSG.
Who were the men with him? I didn't spot NSG insignia on any of them. So, men he could trust, whom he had paid off to do his dirty work in the open. If any local cop asked, his IB credentials would likely get him through, as would his assertion that his intel had led to the raid. I was sure someone like Thapa would have covered his tracks well.
Why did the guns have suppressors? When attacking a terrorist holed up in an urban area in the middle of the day, the sound of gunshots isn’t a particular concern. However, if you want to mask exactly how many shots are fired and into whom, they come in handy.
Of course, nobody was asking those questions, least of all Varsha Singh. If Karzai and I had not escaped, Thapa would have literally gotten away with murder in broad daylight.
The six men worked their way up the stairs. When they were a few feet from the door, all hell broke loose.
My last surprise. I had hoped it would happen when they entered the room, but it's hard to plan with such precision. Still, I was happy with my handiwork. Several handsful of AK-47 bullets in a pan, placed on top of the small electric stove Karzai had, with the heat turned down as low as possible. Wonder what Zoya would have made of this stroke of culinary genius? Thinking of Zoya brought on a sudden burst of anxiety about what she was doing and feeling, but I tried to bury those thoughts for now.
The shells cooked off. It sounded like someone had fired an AK on full auto, then a brief lull. Then another burst as the remaining shells went off.
'Did you get that? The terrorists are firing! They're firing. Our commandos are going in. Smashing the door open. You can see one of them peeking in. He's throwing a grenade through the gap in the door. Now another!'
Karzai clenched his fists as he saw what his fate had very nearly been. The men had thrown fragmentation grenades, designed to kill, not flashbangs, which would have disoriented anyone inside. Thapa had brought his men in for a kill mission. The men stormed the room. I could see them firing, though there was no sound audible from their suppressed guns. Five minutes later, the first man peeked out and raised a thumbs up. The cameras caught that. The journalists went into a frenzy.
Varsha Singh was back. She listened to the information being relayed to her, seemed to ask for a few clarifications and then faced the camera again. 'Our sources say all the terrorists have been killed. Unfortunately, a hostage has died in the crossfire. We do not yet have confirmation on his identity yet, but we are hearing reports that it could be Aaditya Ghosh, who had intervened in the terror attack in Mumbai last week. It seems he had been abducted by terrorists. I wonder if some of the firing earlier was due to an attempt to escape? If so, he died a hero. But as of now we have no confirmation other than some chatter one of our sources picked up when a commando transmitted in the open. We will be back with official confirmation when we hear more...'
The camera panned again and I caught a glimpse of Thapa.
The bastard was smiling.
That was when a huge explosion rocked the screen and the whole
building collapsed before our eyes. The journalists shouted in alarm. Someone screamed and the camera shook madly before stabilising on a visual that showed a scene of utter devastation.
Varsha Singh was muttering something about her sources telling her that the terrorists might have booby-trapped the room. That was probably the story Thapa wanted to stick.
'Thapa's insurance policy. He took out his own men so that there's nobody alive who knows what went down. Must have put in a bomb in one of their backpacks or rigged the building beforehand and detonated it remotely. Ruthless bastard.'
Karzai looked like he might pop a vein.
I tapped him on the wrist lightly. 'Enjoy your tea. You're far better off than I am. At least you haven't been declared dead on national television.'
'There are seventy-two virgins waiting for a martyr.'
The gruff man at the counter of the old pawn shop, dressed in a filthy vest and pyjamas, looked at Karzai for just a second before responding.
'They won't be virgins if I get there before you.'
I couldn't help but grin. Who would have guessed mobsters and jihadis could have a sense of humour? The code words satisfactory to both parties, the man handed over a set of keys to Karzai, along with a wad of cash in exchange for some dollars that Karzai gave him. It probably didn't match the exchange rate we would have got at American Express, but it was the best two dead men could hope for.
'The address is on the keychain. I want the keys back in three days. No booze, no whores and no bombs.'
Karzai nodded and we came out and headed for our new home. It turned out to be a single, dingy room in a slum in Parel. I had been to the area many times, visiting malls or restaurants, oblivious to the almost separate universe that existed in parallel to those gleaming apartments and malls around it.
There were no glitzy shops, no air-conditioned comfort, no whiff of expensive perfumes in the air. We were in a narrow alley, ringed by two-storey apartments, each no bigger than my kitchen had been back home. As I looked out the one window in the room, I heard the chatter of people all around me, the smell of something spicy cooking, which made my stomach grumble and the laughter of children playing somewhere nearby. The concrete face of Mumbai was clean, sanitised and smelled better, but this face of Mumbai which I had never seen was somehow more alive. When was the last time I had ever spoken to my neighbour? Here all around me, people were chattering to each other. When had I last seen kids running around, playing cricket with a stick and a tattered ball, but laughing and having fun? The national anthem played on a radio somewhere and the kids stopped playing, standing at attention. I smiled as I watched them resume their game once it had stopped. That simple gesture taught me a lot – I lived in an India where it was fashionable to debate whether the anthem should be played in cinema halls and whether one should stand for it. But there was still an India out there, where patriotism was still taken as an article of faith.
I looked back into the room at Karzai. 'Are you sure Thapa won't know about this?'
Karzai looked over his shoulder, as he settled down on the filthy mattress that was the only furniture in the room. 'Can't be sure of anything, but these are contacts given by my people, not his. I wanted some resources of my own, heading into enemy territory, without being totally dependent on my handler here.'
At that, we paused and looked at each other in silence. Enemies. Yes, we were hardly buddies. I didn't doubt that some part of Karzai still wanted to kill me. But here we were, thrown together, dependent on each other.
And of course, I had the gun. I kept the pistol on the floor next to me, next to the case that held the rifle. I saw Karzai looking at me with narrowed eyes. He clearly didn’t like being held at gunpoint. And whether or not he believed that we had both been set up, there was something else that was making him hate me.
I remembered what he had said to me earlier, and I sat down in front of him. ‘What do you think you know about my past, Karzai?’
When he paused, as if wondering where to begin, I waded in. ‘A killer of children? Is that what you think I am? Well, just as you say I shouldn’t believe everything I have been led to believe about you, you should give me the benefit of doubt.’
When I finished telling him as much as I could about what has happened that fateful day, he just sat there, looking at me, as if judging whether I was telling the truth. Finally, he nodded, though I could see a slightly different look in his eyes.
'What's your plan, Major?'
A very good question. I had been busy trying to stay alive, and hadn't really thought it through. It didn't mean I wasn't holding any cards, but how I played them was something I needed to figure out.
'Karzai, we're blind and deaf here. We need some intel about what's happening.'
When he looked at me, wondering where I was going with this, I got up.
'Come on, Karzai. Look friendly. Don't talk too much, in case people wonder about your accent. We're going to make some friends.'
We went to the neighbouring flat and were greeted by a young couple, who had two little boys. The man worked as a labourer at a construction site nearby, while his wife worked as a cleaner at a film studio owned by a Bollywood biggie. We introduced ourselves as new to the city, having come in search of jobs and asked if we could watch the news on their TV. I had half expected them to refuse, but the man smiled and welcomed us in. I overheard his wife whispering to him about dinner.
He looked at me. ‘Stay for dinner. We were about to eat.’
Here was a family, who perhaps earned less in a year than their employers earned in a couple of days, yet openly welcoming us in, willing to share their food with us. I looked at Karzai. I could see something change in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but I realised that he had seen this as a mission – one justified by what he saw as the need to avenge the killing of innocents. The only Indians he had seen up close were those he had marked for death through his scope. Now, he was seeing them as human beings, perhaps no different from those he had once counted as family and friends.
We joined them for dinner, a simple fare of rice and vegetables. Neither Karzai and I had eaten anything for over a day. We wolfed down what was placed in front of us. Then as I looked up, I felt guilty about not leaving enough for this family, which had shared its meal with us.
‘We’ll get some sweets for the kids and come back.’
Karzai and I walked out. I still had the pistol tucked into my belt, hidden under my shirt but I doubted Karzai would try anything. We brought some sweets, chocolates and many packets of cookies from a nearby shop and came back, greeted by the two delighted, screaming children.
We thanked the couple for their hospitality and settled down in front of the television.
ICTV was covering the raid, with pretty much the same footage we had seen earlier. Though this time when they showed the black-clad men with Thapa, I could see that he was helping a couple on with their backpacks. Poor suckers never knew they were headed into certain death.
Varsha Singh was speaking to some security analyst. 'I'm with retired Intelligence Bureau Joint Director and bestselling author M.K. Dhar. Sir, we're hearing that they've found at least twelve bodies in that building. Six more than the commandos who went in. Do we know anything more about whether they got all the terrorists?'
The man on screen looked more like a professor than a spy, but most spies I'd seen didn't look like James Bond. He wore glasses covering his sharp eyes. His thinning hair was combed down flat across his head.
'Varsha, it's not uncommon for cornered terrorists to blow themselves up during a raid. After the Madrid bombings in 2004, when the police raided an apartment where they were holed up, they blew themselves up. Similarly, after the Paris attacks of 2015, when some of the suspects were caught in an apartment, they exploded suicide vests.'
Varsha nodded but her eyes narrowed as Dhar continued, clearly going off-script as far as the official version went. 'There's something peculiar here, though. Normally, t
errorists explode suicide vests to try to take as many cops with them as possible. The explosion I saw on TV, which brought down the whole building, was more than what a few suicide vests could do. It would require something like RDX. Maybe, they had booby-trapped the building; maybe, they had RDX stored for future attacks? We don't know. Secondly, who were those men who went in? Mumbai Police was standing by doing perimeter security as they should. But these guys weren't NSG. So, I'm wondering who these Special Forces were?'
Varsha rolled her eyes a bit. Types of explosive used and the specific unit of Special Forces was not really her area of interest; finding a 'big' story was.
So, she continued probing, 'Do our forces take enough care of collateral damage? We heard reports that a hostage was killed, but nothing has been confirmed. Sources are saying the dead hostage was Aaditya Ghosh. Let me remind our viewers that he was the hero of the R-City attack. Do our forces shoot first and ask questions later?'
Dhar looked at Varsha. I could see his eyes sparkling, as he replied, 'We have no idea of what happened. It's always easy to second-guess actions when you don't know the tactical situation. But then again, one may say that in our media, there is a tendency to question first and think later.'
Once we walked back to our room, Karzai went to sleep instantly, though I found myself unable to sleep. Part of it was being in the same room as a man who had sworn to kill me, a terrorist sniper, who had murdered several people in cold blood and whom I was now stuck with till he could help me get to the bottom of the conspiracy that had destroyed my life. And I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking of Zoya, wondering where she was and how she had reacted to the news of my supposed death. Finally, I couldn't sleep because I kept thinking of how I would take revenge on Thapa for all that he had done.