'I can clear the VIPs and alert the cops, but we need to be careful. If we spark panic, a stampede with a hundred thousand people inside could kill more people than any terrorist attack.'
Arnab noticed that the two men with Aggarwal were standing ashen-faced, too shocked to do anything, but Aggarwal had instantly taken charge of the situation.
'You go and see if you can find the terrorists, I'll get the PM and the other VIPs out.'
Arnab was about to protest that clearing a few VIPs was hardly enough when thousands of other lives were at stake, but he decided that rather than argue, he needed to go after the six terrorists still inside the stadium. As soon he entered the stadium, he realized just how difficult it was going to be. The area that he would need to cover was huge, and with the various tunnels and passageways criss-crossing the stadium, locating six men was as hard as finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. He called Balwant's number, hoping that now the Minister would listen to him, and assist with the considerable police force in the stadium. Balwant's voice was dripping anger when he answered the phone.
'So my superhero, I see you're enjoying your day in the spotlight.'
Arnab hurriedly told him what had happened, but Balwant laughed it off, saying he had no time for games. However when Arnab asked him to check with Aggarwal, the Minister seemed hesitant. When Arnab called him after a couple of minutes, Balwant's tone had changed, the belligerence and sarcasm replaced by an emotion Arnab had never heard in his voice before- fear.
'I believe you. We're working on evacuating the VIPs now and will send some police your way.'
Balwant seemed to be in a hurry, probably waiting to lead the list of the VIPs being evacuated, so Arnab asked him to hang on for a few minutes.
'Sir, these are dangerous terrorists, why don't you send the NSG commandos. I saw several of them near the VIP box.'
Balwant cleared his throat before answering.
'There are only a handful of them and the NSG commandos here are tasked with VIP protection, so they will stay with us. With the PM here, I cannot risk leaving him unprotected. We are sending a heavy police force that will be more than enough and in the meanwhile are asking for reinforcements.'
With those words, Balwant hung up, leaving Arnab fuming. Yes, it was important to get the Prime Minister out of harm's way, but he had hoped that the life of a hundred thousand ordinary people would have counted for something. Then he chided himself for expecting anything more from someone like Balwant. He climbed one of the fire ladders and he had a clear view of the VIP box. He could see movement there, and as he looked more closely, he could see that the PM, Balwant, a few other political invitees and Aggarwal had left. He didn't know how they had managed it, but he guessed that those remaining in the box had no idea of what was going on, as they were still watching the match. There were still several dozen people in the box, Mishti and Jayantada included, and it seemed that unless you were a rich tycoon like Aggarwal or a member of the political establishment, your life counted for very little indeed.
Just then, he heard someone clearing his throat behind him and he turned to see Upadhyay. He was leading a group of a dozen policemen, and Arnab noticed to his dismay that only half were armed with guns, the others carrying riot batons and shields which may have been useful for crowd control but would be useless against armed terrorists.
'So we meet again', said Upadhyay with a hard glint in his eyes. Arnab had no time for settling old scores, and jumped down to face Upadhyay.
'This is all you have? You plan to find and kill six heavily armed terrorists with just these men?'
'I would have thought you would have learned by now to keep your nose out of police business. Let us do our job.'
As Upadhyay started instructing his men to fan out, Arnab heard a series of loud pops from the right. He thought they were mere firecrackers, a part of the celebrations planned during the match, but Upadhyay's reaction told him otherwise. The policeman had jumped at the noise, and Arnab heard him mutter under his breath.
'AK-47s.'
Before Upadhyay and the other policemen could react, Arnab ran towards the direction where the gunshots had come from as fast as he could. He burned away from his mind any thoughts of what Balwant or Aggarwal should have done or not, and whether Upadhyay and his men were up to the task. He was focused on only one thing.
He had to stop the terrorists no matter what it took.
***
Upadhyay and his men took off after Arnab, but with his speed and knowledge of where the maintenance tunnels were, Arnab arrived at the scene well before the policemen were even a quarter of the way there. When he reached the scene of the firefight in the basement parking lot, Arnab was taken aback by what he saw. Two private security guards, presumably on Aggarwal's employ, were trying to hold off three terrorists. The guards had small-calibre handguns, while at least two of the terrorists seemed to have AK-47s. It was a lopsided contest, but Arnab's heart went out to the brave guards who were trying to make a stand. They were crouched behind a car that seemed to be pockmarked with bullet holes, and one of the guards was bleeding from his right foot. The terrorists were behind another car across the parking lot, and as Arnab watched, one of the three terrorists was trying to escape the scene, slowly moving from behind one car to another. Two things came to Arnab's mind- the first was a sense of relief. Rather than scattering as six individuals, it seemed the terrorists were working in groups of three, with two gunmen, presumably the role Arif had been recruited for, giving cover to one man seemingly carrying no weapons but wearing a large backpack. The second realization was the fact that while the gunmen posed an immediate threat and had to be neutralized, the main attack was to be carried out by the men with the backpacks, and Arnab could not let them get away.
The terrorists had seen him now, and one of them fired a burst at him, sending Arnab scampering for cover behind a car. As bullets riddled the car, Arnab looked around frantically for something he could do. The parking lot was bathed in fluorescent light from overhead tube lights and he shouted to one of the guards.
'How does one turn off the lights?'
The man motioned to a junction box a few feet behind him, and as Arnab frantically motioned to him to kill the lights, the guard crawled to the junction box and switched off the lights. As darkness fell over the parking lot, the terrorists stopped firing, disoriented and unable to see their targets. Arnab took off his glasses and then stood up, surveying his targets. The two gunmen were still crouched behind the car, while the third man was now even closer to the exit.
He saw a scooter parked a few feet away and ran to it. One of the terrorists heard the noise and fired a burst, but in the darkness his aim was off and the bullets missed Arnab by several feet. Arnab picked the scooter up with both hands and whirled it over his head before flinging it at the terrorists with all his strength. His aim was far from perfect and instead of hitting the car as he had intended it to, the scooter hit the wall behind the gunmen, at a height of at least ten feet. As Arnab dove for cover behind the car, he cursed himself for missing, but he had done quite enough, with his superhuman strength more than making up for his poor aim. The scooter had hit the wall at a speed equivalent to at least a hundred kilometres per hour and had exploded on impact, showering the two terrorists below with shards and pieces of metal that proved no less deadly than if Arnab had fired a rocket at them. The two terrorists were flung aside by the force of the impact and both men lay still, bleeding from a dozen wounds. When Arnab heard the security guards roar in triumph, he looked up to see his handiwork. Arnab rushed after the third terrorist, who after having seen his friends' fate, had given up all attempts at stealth and was running flat out towards a door that led to the playing field.
The man never really stood a chance. In a split-second, Arnab was in front of him, blocking his way. In the darkness, the terrorist nearly bumped into them, and then stepped back, looking at his hooded adversary. The terrorist considered taking out the handgun in his pocket, but remembering the speed and strength the hooded man in front of him had just demonstrated, he stopped himself. As Arnab watched, a look of calm washed over the face of the bearded man facing him, and he reached with his right hand under his shirt, mumbling something to himself in a language Arnab could not understand. At first Arnab thought the man was reaching for a gun, but when he undid a shirt button and put his hand in deeper, Arnab realized he was up to something else completely. In a second, Arnab had pulled the man's hand out, and ripped open his shirt. What Arnab saw shocked him. The man's chest and torso were criss-crossed with wires and tubes, and the man had been reaching for a red switch taped to his chest. As the man struggled futilely to free his hand, screaming at Arnab in his native tongue, Arnab ripped the bomb belt from the man's body and threw it several feet away. Arnab slapped the man, and as he fell to the floor, Arnab pulled the backpack from his shoulders and opened it. What he saw inside made him recoil in fear. Inside the backpack was a metal suitcase, with the following words stencilled in red on it.
'Radioactive material. Highly dangerous.'
As the terrorist struggled to get up, Arnab caught his neck with one hand.
'Where is the other group headed?'
The man spat in his face, and in his anger, Arnab slapped him harder than he would have liked. The man's head jerked to one side, several teeth clattering to the ground. Arnab did not think himself capable of cruelty to an unarmed and helpless captive, but after having seen what was in the backpack, he was on a really short fuse. Arnab asked the man again, and as he raised his hand to strike again, the man looked up at him, and spoke through his blood-filled mouth.
'The VIP box.'
Arnab called to the guards to turn on the lights and come over. As the guards approached, he put on his glasses, still pinning the terrorist down with one hand. The guards were looking at him with scarcely contained awe and he told them to hold the terrorist till the police came, and that he was on his way to the VIP box.
Arnab was about to leave when he saw Upadhyay arrive on the scene. Upadhyay had overheard the conversation and was on his radio, asking reinforcements to head toward the VIP box. He asked the two guards to accompany some of his men away from the scene and instructed his remaining men to secure the terrorists. He then turned towards Arnab, smiling as he lit up a cigarette.
Arnab was in no mood to waste time on pleasantries and shouted to Upadhyay before he started for the VIP box.
'I'm off to the VIP box. Come as soon as you can!'
Arnab turned to run when he felt a sharp stab of pain in his lower back and then heard the ear-splitting report of a gun being fired at point-blank range. Another shot sent him staggering to his knees. It felt as if his entire body was on fire, and it took almost all his strength to pull himself upright. He turned to see Upadhyay looking down at him, his face twisted in a grin.
'The first was for Balwant, and the second for me. We'll stop the terrorists all right, but you die here, you fucking freak.'
Upadhyay raised his gun to fire again, but Arnab jumped at him, ramming him with his head. Upadhyay was flung against a car and fell down with a groan, the impact having dislocated one of his shoulders. When Upadhyay tried to reach out for the gun by his side with his other hand, a kick from Arnab to his foot had him howling in pain as his kneecap shattered. Upadhyay looked up at Arnab, fear in his eyes, waiting for Arnab to finish him off. As much as Arnab wanted to punish him, he remembered what was in the terrorist's backpack and began to run towards the exit, trying to reach the VIP box. His back was now covered in blood and every breath seemed so painful it felt like a knife was being twisted inside him, but he ran with every ounce of energy left in him.
When he reached the stands, he realized that till now the crowd had no inkling that anything was wrong. When he materialized in the midst of the cheering crowd, a sudden hush came over that part of the stadium, the silence spreading across the entire crowd like a wave rippling through a pond. Some people who had got up to greet him recoiled when they saw his blood-soaked back. Arnab was still covering ground at a pace that most professional athletes would find hard to match in an all-out sprint but he was slowing down, and stopping occasionally to catch his breath before continuing towards the VIP box. The players on the field, taking in the sudden silence in the stadium had looked up at the giant screens that were now showing the hooded hero's painful progress up the stands. By now, the terrorists were almost at the VIP box, and in a short firefight had fought their way through the handful of policemen there. The cameras caught it all, and by now, everyone in the stadium knew that something had gone horribly wrong.
Word had spread through the crowd that there were terrorists making their way to the VIP box. As happens, the story changed a thousand times in transmission, so someone said it was an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister, while someone else said that the terrorists had a bomb. Either way, a hundred thousand pairs of eyes were now riveted to two things- the group of armed men running towards the VIP box and the lone hooded figure racing to intercept them.
***
Arnab was within a few feet of the VIP box when he felt his legs buckle under him. As he collapsed onto one knee, he grabbed onto a railing with his right hand to steady himself. To his surprise, he felt several hands reach out to support him. As he looked around, he saw that more than a dozen people had gathered round to help him to his feet. They were all complete strangers, children, adults, men, women, but all of them were now clapping and cheering him. That cheer began to resonate around the stadium, as Arnab launched himself into a final run that brought him directly in the terrorists' path.