KALYUG (12 page)

After a few minutes of dry heaves and coughs, Gyandeep finally managed to pull himself up using the edge of the table. The commando stared at him, stone-like in his demeanour. The pen was offered once again.

His faith in his own safety now thoroughly shaken, Gyandeep took the pen and signed his name wherever required. The amount itself was petty change to the coffers at Infinity, and it was not worth getting beaten up over.

But his own feeling of self-survival could still not prevent him from promising retribution. ‘One day,’ he told the commando as he returned the pen, ‘I’ll get you for this.’

‘You already did,’ said the commando, ignoring the pen. He calmly checked the documents, satisfied himself that everything was in order and then placed it back inside his fatigues. The very next instant, he unleashed a vicious blow to Gyandeep’s jaw. The head snapped back, the knuckles on his hand cracked a little and the older man collapsed in a stunned heap on his back.

The commando inspected his knuckles indulgently as Gyandeep struggled to sit up. Finally, as the latter fought to regain his vision, the commando went down on one knee and gripped Gyandeep’s jaw, forcing him to make eye contact.

‘I’m Nawaz Qureshi. And that one was for my father.’

7

16th September, 2012. New Delhi.

The headquarters of INSAF was situated in an old office complex that had been completely gutted out and renovated, strategically close to the international airport and just a few minutes’ drive from the Metro that connected it to the rest of the city. The four floors above street level advertised an obscure export-import company, hiding within its innards workstations and conference rooms. The building violated many safety rules, particularly when it came to fire escapes and alternate emergency exits, but since it was this part of New Delhi, nobody really cared too much.

If the uninviting façade and the deliberate impression of a shady, fly-by-night operation still failed to dissuade enquiries, there was a reception desk manned by a distinctly unhelpful middle-aged man whose job description required him to be brusque and dismissive. Of the few people who had walked in, shopping for jobs or better services, none ever returned.

The four floors above complemented the three floors underground, but they paled in comparison to the levels of security clearance and intrigue that was associated with the latter. If the conference rooms above ground had multi-layered walls and vacuum curtains to prevent eavesdropping, the underground ones were even more thoroughly secured. Built into solid rock, the perimeter also employed the same sonar technology that submarines used, continuously scanning the area for even minute vibrations. The air-vents were rigged with infrared and piezoelectric sensors, while the only means of egress – a staircase and an elevator – were protected by biometric sensors and pressure pads that even tracked the number of footfalls at any given point of time.

It was from the lowest of these levels that Operation Kalyug was being coordinated.

The moment the liaison officer had used the phrase he had been given, the voice-print engine had swung into work, sifting through the data and identifying the speaker. The built-in algorithm to detect stress-levels – and therefore, if a person was being forced to speak – flagged his tension as normal, which was understandable in the circumstances. Like a call-centre where each agent handled a particular product line, the co-ordination centre had ten operatives manning each aspect of the operations. The call was routed to the officer in charge of Intelligence agencies.

‘The CIA is getting suspicious,’ said Rajeev without preamble. He knew he didn’t need one – he had already been told that everyone who was involved in Kalyug was voice-mapped. ‘One of their men spotted the commandos in Ghaziabad. Nina at Langley called me to check if we know what’s happening. She did not say as much, but I think they are aware that we’ve locked down the conference centre.’

‘Understood,’ said the other. ‘Hold on.’ His fingers moved rapidly over the keypad, connecting in the operative who was tracking the events in Ghaziabad. As the latter came online, he immediately briefed him on the details of the call.

‘Rajeev,’ said the Ghaziabad officer. ‘Wait for another ten minutes – exactly ten – and then call her back. Tell her you think there is cause for concern, but we aren’t sure exactly what the problem is. We are sending our own team in to take a look, but it could be just a drill that was wrongly scheduled. Ask her if she can loop us in on whatever recon details she has, and if her operative will meet up with us near the conference centre. Counting down to nine minutes and thirty seconds. Clear?’

‘Clear,’ affirmed Rajeev before he hung up.

The Ghaziabad officer immediately pressed another button on his console. The speed-dial connected him almost instantly to his point-man in Ghaziabad.

‘The CIA has been warned,’ he said.

‘We know,’ said the man at the other end. ‘He managed to leave the premises and get to a mall nearby. Out of range of our jammers. He must have used a phone there. I have two men watching him right now.’

‘Take him in,’ ordered the Ghaziabad officer. ‘He’s a wild-card we can’t afford to have loose. Have the local cops arrest him or something, but keep him offline.’

‘Roger. Anything else?’

‘Yes. For God’s sake, lock down the entire hotel. In another half hour, it won’t matter – but until then, no leaks!’

‘It’s already done.’

16th September, 2012. Ghaziabad.

Jack looked around him anxiously. For some reason, he felt that he was being watched – it was an unfamiliar, unwelcome feeling. Yet, he saw nothing that should have aroused his suspicions. Families, couples, kids in groups . . . no one seemed out of place. Even the loners he spotted at the Café Coffee Day lounge in the atrium seemed completely immersed in their laptops or books.

Seven minutes had passed since he had hung up after talking to Nina. Seven indecisive minutes. Jack was torn between shopping for a camera and staying put, realizing suddenly that for the first time in his career, he was out in the open without any backup. The milling crowd reassured him, made him feel anonymous; but to walk into a shop, any shop, was to call attention to himself.

Abruptly, he stood up from the bench that he had been sitting on and scurried towards one of the displays, trying to spot any sudden movement behind him through the reflections in the glass panels. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped at him; no one seemed to care about his existence, except for the security guard in front who reached for the door handle, ready to open it if he took one more step in that direction.

Slightly calmer now, Jack walked from display to display, still on the lookout for any tails. Calm down, buddy, he told himself, no one knew that he was here. He himself hadn’t known he was coming here. Besides, there was no reason to pay him any attention. There were other expats here, some single, some in groups, and he hoped that his plain old American looks worked to his advantage – if, indeed, someone was actually looking for him.

He spotted the foreign exchange desk at the far end of the mall, right next to a Nikon showroom. Heaving a sigh of relief at the fact that he would get a better deal there than if he had tried the store, he hurried over. The counter was manned by a young girl who looked barely old enough to work, and the only customer was an Indian – much older – who looked more like he was flirting with her than effecting any financial transaction.

Reaching the desk, Jack slapped down a handful of dollar notes. ‘Indian rupees, please,’ he said, almost breathless, not even looking at the girl. He calculated, on the basis of the conversion rate listed behind her, that he would be getting
roughly twelve thousand rupees for his two hundred and twenty dollars. He reached into his pocket to see if he could make it an even fifteen thousand.

‘Wait a minute,’ said the Indian man as the girl picked up his notes. ‘Let me see that.’

For the first time, Jack studied the face of the other customer. His attention was instantly drawn to the holster and the gun, expertly concealed by the oversized jacket that the man was wearing. Even more alarming was the way in which the man was holding out each note to the light, inspecting them suspiciously. Jack was instantly wary.

‘Can I see some identification, please?’ The Indian now held out his left hand, the notes placed back on the counter, the right hand unnervingly close to his holster.

‘Why? What’s the matter, man?’ said Jack, his rising panic evident. Hearing himself, Jack hoped the other mistook him for an overwrought tourist and nothing more. He had heard horror stories from others at the consulate about the police system, particularly in the National Capital Region; right now, the last thing he wanted was to get entangled with them.

‘Identification, please,’ said the Indian, even more insistently. His right hand moved closer to his holster.

‘Haven’t done anything wrong, man,’ said Jack, reaching for his wallet. ‘Look, I’m with the Press. Thought I’d do a bit of shopping for the missus before the press conference later today – here’s my badge and accreditation.’

The INSAF operative pretended to study the papers while he waited for his partner to come up behind the unsuspecting American. Timing it perfectly, he dropped the sheets on the counter and picked up the notes.

‘These are counterfeit notes,’ he said, waving them in the air. ‘I am arresting you for the possession and circulation of illegal foreign currency.’

Jack evaluated his options and decided that flight was the best one right now. He tried to snatch the money out of the officer’s hand but failed – the other man was too quick for him; his next move was to push the man as heavily as he could, which he managed to do to some extent. The man staggered back but kept his balance, stabilizing just out of reach of the American.

Jack turned around and started to sprint. He had run just a few feet when the other INSAF officer tackled him around the waist, taking him down, knocking the breath out of him. Before he realized what was happening, he was turned over onto his stomach. The first officer joined the melee, wrenched his hands around and snapped a pair of handcuffs in one smooth motion.

Still dazed, he was pulled to his feet. The first officer turned towards the girl at the counter and said, ‘This guy is part of an international ring of counterfeiters. We’d received a tip-off that they would come here today. I’m taking him to headquarters now, but someone will be around later to take your statement. Stay here.’

Jack tried to protest but he was led away before he could utter anything coherent. As they moved towards the exit, the second officer moved closer and whispered, ‘Do you want me to read you your rights, asshole? You have no right to remain silent. And if you don’t say anything, we have ways of making you talk. And believe me, anything you say can and will be used against you.’

24th April, 2012. New Delhi.

‘But we’ve already advertised the exposé for tonight’s exclusive,’ protested Richa.

Her producer waved an impatient hand. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? Top management took a look at it, and they think the story is not solid enough. They want you to take a few more days and get it rock-solid.’

‘Since when have we cared about any of that?’ she exploded. ‘Last week, you ran that story about the prostitution ring inside a mutt that was just a half-baked theory; before that, you led with that double-murder case where the parents were tried and convicted by our channel even before the cops had taken the bodies outside.’

‘Enough!’ the producer flared up. ‘Who are you to talk about editorial policy? I can’t allow the reputation of our channel to be tarnished by the shoddy work of a woman just out of school. You’ve got two days to get more corroboration from the MoD and –’

‘But no one there will talk to me on the record –’

‘And a validation by a forensic lab about the suit becoming brittle at sub-zero temperatures,’ he continued, as if she had not interrupted. ‘Oh, and by the way, you’ll have to get your own cameraman for any more shots. I’ve transferred Vinod to the Entertainment section – he’s earned the break. Which is more than I can say for some others.’

Richa suppressed the impulse to continue to plead her case. The smug son of a bitch, she thought angrily. How she would just love to cock him one on that jaw, right there, knock some sense into him. Ever since he had heard her airing to her colleagues her thoughts on one of his pet projects gone wrong, the producer had had it in for her.
This is his way of getting back at me.

The producer turned to his laptop, dismissing her without further comment. Rather than give him the satisfaction of seeing her stew, Richa walked out of his cabin, slamming the door loudly. Her eyes were welling up but she refused to give in, not wanting to create a scene in front of others.
What do I have to do to get a break around here?

In the rest-room, she splashed water on her face, letting the frustration wash off her. Not for the first time, she questioned the decisions that had led her here. From the time she had opted out of the engineering course, which her parents had been keen on, and gone in for mass communications and journalism at her Pune college, it had been an uphill battle. Every small victory had been scraped out in the midst of many failures; the joy of success had been as short-lived as the pain of failure had been constant.

When she had covered the attack at the mall a few days back, it had seemed like the break she had always waited for. A chance to be on national television, on an issue that every subscriber was sure to tune into. She should have been happy with that, she supposed, milked the moment for all it was worth, instead of wanting to investigate it further.

The meeting with Major-General Qureshi at his farmhouse had been the turning point. A doubtful quest for conspiracy had turned into an all-consuming desire to reveal the truth, forged in the quiet fire of the major-general’s pain and her own sense of righteousness. But what
was
the truth? Had she gotten so caught up in her own story that she failed to see what was wrong with it? Was it that she saw what she wanted to, just as others did?

Splashing her face for the umpteenth time, she forced herself to calm down, to stop the shivers that shook her fingers.
Drive out the emotion. Look at the facts
. One final splash of water.
Only the facts.

Fact – there was an active black-market racket for Army materials. Qureshi had given her the contacts, culled from an under-process investigation he himself was spearheading, through which she had purchased a ViFite fatigue that the Army was actually using. Fact – that fatigue had barely lasted two days in an industrial refrigerator at a temperature
far above the actual conditions the suit was supposedly for. Fact – every document in her possession – except the ones handed over by the major-general himself – spoke of the fatigue in the highest terms, for durability and suitability. Fact – the ViFite tenders had contained serious disclosure errors which should have resulted in an immediate disqualification, instead of being awarded.

All these facts pointed to a clear, undeniable corruption of the checks and balances built into the system. Like the major-general, there were others who knew of it. She had spoken to them, used them to help build her case, but no one wanted to come forward and be quoted. Not one person wanted to blow the whistle on the sordid things that went on in the name of defence procurements.