The Crimson Conspiracy

by David Singh

  When all were enjoying, intoxicated with fine quality of wine and beer, Gangwar beckoned Samarjeet to the balcony.

  'How did you like Ritu?' He asked under the influence of sprit.

  'Why?' Samarjeet joked, 'would you reconsider marriage if I say no?'

  Gangwar laughed heartily than the joke really was worth then suddenly fell serious. 'What if they shoot me after abducting? What would Ritu do if I die in the mission?'

  Having no answer for Gangawar's worried question, Samarjeet said, 'why speak such nonsense on this auspicious occasion Gangu? Hmm?'

  'Should I tell her what we are up to in coming days?'

  'And compromise the mission? Elite 5 is a ghost. What do you think? If she knows, she would stop you from going and, ask yourself, would you?'

  After a long pause Gangwar spoke, 'I think I shouldn't have got engaged at all.'

  Alcohol is speaking the heart out now.

  Apparently Samarjeet consoled him. 'That too would be a form of deceiving the girl. After all she knows you from past many years. She loves you.'

  'I shouldn't have loved her in the first place.'

  'Abey! daaru pee ke tu sanak gaya hai.' (Man! The booz has screwed your head) Samarjeet said.

  'Samar!' Gangwar's voice modulated to a different tone – gloomy and laden with emotion.

  'Yeah?'

  'Promise me one thing.'

  'What is it?' Samarjeet wasn't taking this drunk-turnedemotional blabber seriously.

  'You will only break the news of my death to Ritu. Only you.' 'If they kill you?'

  'Yes.'

  'Okay, then first let them kill you.' Little irritation was nagging Samarjeet now.

  'Who's killing whom boys?' Vir Bhadra Singh boomed from behind.

  They both turned towards him and Samarjeet said, 'look VB, what nonsense he is talking about.'

  'Afraid of the mission? Bloody, which damned fool had selected you for Elite 5!!' Vir Bhadra Singh frowned with bulging eyes.

  That damned fool was Retired Colonel himself. Samarjeet noted that he was stuck between two heavily drunken men.

  'Retired Colonel!' Gangwar raised his voice, 'are you man enough to break the news to Ritu if I'm killed in the mission?'

  'No!' Vir Bhadra Singh roared over Gangwar's voice, 'I'll shoot you first then do that!'

  Oh my God!

  God listened to Samarjeet instantly. Someone sane enough, outside somewhere, announced the dinner.

  ?

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  January 21, 2014

  Raipur

  The digital map was displayed on HD touch screen table top.

  Makker was holding a long rubber-tipped touch-stick. They all – Elite 5 plus Vir Bhadra Singh - were standing around the table and Makker was explaining, 'This is Narayanpur in the north and opposite to it, in south is Belnar. RK has his first rally in Kanker here in further north far above Narayanpur. His chopper will bring him to Narayanpur at noon. After addressing a rally here at 1300 hrs he will leave for Belnar but here, as per the plan, his chopper will develop a technical fault and a car troop will be arranged for him along with police escort and his personal security. Here, the switch will happen. In the car, instead of RK, Gangwar will board. Gangwar has already spent two days with Karma. His cover is that he is writing Karma's father's biography. This whole month he will train himself to metamorphose into Karma so that abduction is done successfully. One GPS device will sit in his thigh and one he will wear in his kada (metallic bangle worn in wrist). Belnar is roughly two hours drive over State Highway 5 but abduction will happen here – right below the nose of the district administration and just before this CRAF camp – between Chhota Dongar and Narayanpur. This small patch of thick forest, hundred meters wide, sits parallel to the road. As Pissu has confirmed, a troop of twenty will attack here, snatch RK aka Gangu and will disappear in this forest patch. See, this bowl shaped path way around the patch? They will bring Gangu at the bottom of the bowl down in the north. Their vehicle will be waiting here. The vehicle will enter the denser forest ignoring main dust road and will come down here. Samar, you take over from here now.'

  Samar took the pointer from Makker and added, 'The ancient temple ruins where Gangu will be brought are here.'

  He touched on the screen at one point. Instantly, the software application displayed the location: 19°32'53" N/81°13'12.8" E (19 degrees 32 minutes and 53 seconds North to the Equator and 81 degrees 13 minutes and 12.8 seconds East to the Greenwich meridian.) Everyone committed the location to the long term memory immediately.

  Samarjeet continued, 'the vehicle will not be able to cruise farther into the jungle so they will leave it somewhere – where? Pissu has no information – and will continue on foot up to the temple ruins. This is the old dried well guided by no one. Hashima mines area is this side. If everything goes as timed then Gangu will be taken by them at 1320 hours. At 1400 hours they will reach the point of attack that is temple basement. I am parachuting back there two days before the d-day. Raju's three men and I will wait there. When Majumdar will arrive, VB will signal us, I shall move out and contact the naxals on watch around the temple.'

  'What?' Vir Bhadra Singh interrupted in a shock.

  'You heard right VB.' Makker said, 'Samar has a better suggestion. Let's listen to it.'

  Everyone looked back at Samarjeet. He said, 'my ruse will be that I am a wounded tribal who had somehow managed to come and warn Majumdar and his men that they are being followed by and are to be assaulted by police force. Naturally, they will immediately take me to Maj…..'

  Vir Bhadra Singh interrupted. 'My dear Samar, I know you are doing this worrying about Gangwar inside but I believe, you must have calculated the risk involved. If I were Majumdar I would have given clear instructions to my men to shoot anything that moves. Assuming that those fanatics don't shoot you at sight, they will frisk you first. You will be unarmed. Your daredevilry will put my two boys in danger.'

  Gangwar spoke, 'oye Samar, tuney meri daaru waali bakwaas ko seriously le liya kya? (Hey Samar, Have you taken my drunk-blabber seriously?) Do I need to tell you all how well we have been trained to tackle such situations?'

  'Gangu, you will be tied and helpless. And, guys, I'll not be unarmed. On my cue, Pissu will throw me a handgun. I'll be wearing a wig carrying an IED. When moment will arrive, I shall use it to blow away the source of light inside or to create havoc and capture Majumdar. Point is that Gangu will not be alone down there and that way it would be easier for us to capture Majumdar. Makker, take over.'

  IED is Improvised Explosive Device.

  Samarjeet handed over the pointer to Makker. Makker continued further, 'precisely ten seconds after Samar goes inside the basement, I'll signal Mohan and Satya. They will arrive in Nelcopter with Shipon SLRS in seven minutes.'

  Nelcopter ZX002 is an indigenously manufactured VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) Aircraft that can be landed anywhere. Shipon Shoulder Launched Rocket System can be operated by one man and has a range of 500 meters. It fires high explosive rockets that can pierce through 800 mm of steel.

  Makker continued, 'meanwhile I'll climb down the dry well and enter the tunnel to the basement. The same moment Satya will blow away the ruins and ceiling of the basement, I'll break through the iron door to the basement. Satya's assault will create havoc in the basement. I'll eliminate the threats inside. Samar will free Gangu. Together, we three will grab Majumdar. Up there, Satya's firepower will cut down all Majumdar's army. We will handover Majumdar to Satya and Mohan and will take the escape route marked with GPS points set by Samar in the jungle.'

  'And, what about Raju and his men? They will sit and applaud in the pavilion?' Vir Bhadra Singh was clearly not convinced with the plan.

  Makker replied, 'Raju and his men will attack from only one side using all their firepower. That way, the Naxal troops will be busy fighting them in one direction which is just opposite our escape route. That will buy us a lot of time to leave Raju and his men
behind.'

  'And,' Samarjeet added, 'what seems to be a long drill, will actually take not more than twelve to fifteen minutes.'

  'What if that dry well is watched over by Naxals?'

  'Any such threat will be neutralised by a powerful sniper rifle.' 'And behind that rifle will be your friend Malwanker, right?' Vir Bhadra Singh said with a straight face.

  'How do you know?'

  'I am your handler my boy. I have spent more than four years with

  you all. Tell me Samar, can you trust this Malwanker that much.' 'With my life.' Samarjeet replied, 'no doubt on his efficiency and

  moreover he is my friend now. He will also blow away Raju if he comes

  after us. He will be our surprise backup and cover. Out of sight. Out of

  range. Out of reach.'

  Everyone looked at Vir Bhadra Singh's thoughtful face. 'The only thing I would say that,' The old man hid his emotions

  behind his smile, 'pull it off well and stay alive. Hope I am not asking

  too much on your first mission Elite 5.'

  ?

  Dandakaranya, Chhattisgarh

  'Where is he?'

  'He is in one of the villages nearby Hashima mines. I haven't let him know that now we know he is the mole.' Raghav replied in an even tone to Bhanu Majumdar's questions.

  It was an unnamed cluster of huts in the northern region of the forest. The meeting was, like always, called in haste by Bhanu Majumdar. Mobile communication for long distances was out of question in jungles. For a small range of around a hundred meter they had handmade radios which were scarce and available to the group leaders only. The only means to communicate was sending a message to someone reliable in nearby village, who would in turn inform another one and thus through a short chain of villages the intended message reached Majumdar then reply returned, taking the reverse route. Raghav had asked him to discuss about Kisna who had broken into the Hashima mines, had got captured, escaped and, in that effort, stumbled upon the secret tunnel and the basement below the temple ruins.

  'Keep it that way,' Majumdar said, 'don't let him get suspicious. Keep the vigil up on him carefully. We need to assess what intelligence he has gathered and passed on so far. Keep him busy with the Antimining Protest drive.'

  'Sure dada (bro), but what are your views about his strange behaviour? He seems to be a mysterious blend of friend and foe.'

  'No representative of state is our friend. This man, aliased Kisna, definitely has his own covert interest and we have to quietly discover that before getting rid of him. What did he discover inside Hashima mines?'

  'That one Ramdas handles the business himself on behalf of someone higher up and deals with the Japanese owner of the company.'

  'The plan of SEZ is under central government which has its government in the state too. Who could be there higher up? Anyway, wasn't he curious about the tunnel?'

  'I just told him that he was not supposed to know about it.' 'Good. You put your best man on his tail. We need to find the evidence he has collected. Once that is done, let me know.' 'Jairam is already on it.' 'Good.' Majumdar said and then addressed others, 'now, friends, the day we will grab RK, I need Raghav accompany us too.'

  Everyone nodded agreement.

  'Raghav, in coming weeks you delegate your part to someone and come along with me. I need my best warriors to do something very important for me.'

  'I am always ready dada.'

  'Tell me one thing, ever heard of Raju Bopanna - An ex-Salwa Judum?'

  'Never heard of him.' Raghav said, wondering there were still certain things which their leader didn't know about in his own area, 'where did you learn about him from?'

  'Raju Bopanna is an ex-salwa judum who, with his men, is helping armed forces to grab me alive.'

  'Dada, we all know that Salwa Judum is a thing of past now. It's disbanded and destroyed. Pardon me to ask if your information is true.'

  'It is, no doubt. This Raju Bopanna and his about a dozen men are helping armed forces in grabbing me alive after RK's abduction.'

  Everybody present there knew that Majumdar's information was always undisputable but Raghav couldn't contain himself, 'dada, where did you learn all this from?'

  'One of our own is now enemy's informer. They have rightly codenamed him “Pissu”. Ssaalaa, itney dino sey hamara hee khoon choos rahaa thha. (Bloody sucker was feeding on our own blood for past several days.)

  'Then dada,' Raghav suggested, 'shouldn't we drop the mission.'

  Majumdar gave a hearty laugh then replied, 'Raghav, my dear, Bhanu has never turned his face away from death and danger. We will fight with it and conquer it like we always do. Our four innocent tribals are counting on us for freedom. RK's rally is the golden chance. Peace talks with state cannot be delayed anymore.'

  Raghav shook his head in agreement.

  Majumdar continued, 'after learning enemy's plan I have finalized our mission. Watching and overhearing Pissu, we have learnt

  that a group of highly trained select commandos along with this Raju Bopanna and his men will attack us on d-day. We are not aware of their entire plan but, you know, forewarned is forearmed.'

  'Just a score of men! We will slaughter them in a minute dada.' 'Yeah. That's why I need all my expert warriors with me on that day. Do not underestimate state's power. This could be a ploy too. We are thinking of a few commandos and there may come fifty, who knows? So, here, I have a counter plan to handle this.'

  Everyone was intent already. Majumdar looked into each pair of eyes and then said, 'no matter how many and how mighty attack us they will find their certain death in waiting.'

  ?

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  February 13, 2014

  Mission HQ, Raipur

  The young engineer K V Naidu was the communications in

  charge with three operators under his command. He, despite his team, was taking care of the comm. control personally. He was a senior official of Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) Telemetry tRacking And Command (TRAC) Network at Bangalore. Right now he was testing the commands dispatch and execution response with CARTOSAT-2A – Indian armed forces' dedicated remote sensing satellite – the core tool of India's Aerospace Command. Equipped with a highly advance panchromatic camera, it was like a toy in Naidu's hand. Naidu's fingers were busy on the keyboard so fast that they seemed to be just scraping the keys. They just stopped, occasionally, when he turned his head up to look at the huge digital screen, through his specs, on the front wall. Finally, with a satisfied look on the face, he turned towards Vir Bhadra Singh. 'There you are sir.'

  Vir Bhadra Singh stared at the screen, observed the black and white feed from Cartosat and then pointed to one spot. 'This is the dry well I suppose.'

  'Yes sir. And we can zoom into it up to five hundred meters altitude vision.'

  'Right now it is little above 600 kilometers?' Vir Bhadra Singh looked at the value displayed on the upper right corner of the screen. 'No sir that is the physical altitude of the sat. Right now we are looking at the action zone in Dandakaranya as if from 15000 meters. And sir, this rough gray patch hanging below East-West axis and North-South axis is Abujhmad Hills.'

  'Excellent. But most of the part is under dense canopies of foliage so despite all this we run virtually blind.'

  'We are connecting the GPS tracker interface with this screen too sir. Then you will see the moving dots of all the people who are bugged with GPS down there.'

  'Good. How long will it take?'

  'As long as it takes to plug a television, sir.' Naidu smiled. 'In a jiffy, that is.' He turned towards one of his operators. 'Sakshi, is it up?'

  'As we speak.' Sakshi replied flicking a switch on the control panel in front of her.

  Slowly, several coloured dots appeared scattered all over the screen. Each dot was accompanied by a unique number. At the left bottom of the screen a table popped up displaying the names of key persons and corresponding numbers. Vir Bhadra Singh noticed that Killer i.e
. Gangwar's name was grayed since he was off the satellite coverage right now.

  'Sir.' Naidu explained, 'you can tap over the screen like this,' he stepped forward and tapped a blue dot, 'as you can see sir, it shows the name Terminator and his coordinates. And if you drag from one point till any other point over the screen, a dotted line, like this, will appear between the two points showing the distance in meters.'

  Vir Bhadra Singh put his finger over the point where abduction was supposed to happen and dragged it till the middle of the temple ruins. The dotted line displayed 39328 meters – roughly 39 kms. Finally, satisfied, he said, 'So, now we are up and ready to see the action live.'

  'Absolutely sir.'

  'What about night?'

  'No problem, GPS coordinates will display like this and for key places like ruins of the temple, dry well, Hashima mines, Indrâvati River, Narayanpur, State Highway 5 etc. we have tweaked the software a little to show the coordinates constantly.'

  'Can we have the coordinates constantly and dynamically for any other point, which is not yet marked as key place, without tapping?'

  'For that as you double-tap on the screen anywhere the coordinates of that point will freeze on the screen.'

  'What about my conversation with the troop?'

  'It has already been up and running sir. You can talk to them right away.'

  'No, right now let's grab some coffee Naidu.' Vir Bhadra Singh beamed at the young techie.

  ?

  Dandakaranya, Chhattisgarh

  Move light has been the motto of Elite 5. Each of the Elite 5, of course except Gangwar, was donning the Sarkar Tactical Combat Gear Gator-25 including highly advanced headgear, equipped with bullet proof helmet, in-built multifrequency radio, noise suppressor ear lids, dual-function day and night vision gear.

  The body armour comprising helmet friendly neck protector, fire proof outer jacket and inner finely woven Kevlar fiber jacket with advanced sweat management system. The armour was tested against 9 mm bullet travelling at 400 kms per second with less than 40% chance of full penetration.

  The lower extremity body armour provided ballistic protection against the flash burns caused by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) as well as from direct exposure to explosion pressure waves.