Authors: R. SREERAM
The timer continued its countdown . . .
16th September, 2012. Washington D.C.
President Timothy Jackson took the situation report that his chief-of-staff was holding out. He scanned it quickly before throwing it down on the table in front of him with a grunt. ‘That’s it? That’s
all
about what’s happening there right now?’
Winston Haywood shuffled his feet uncomfortably. The SitRep – rather, a poor excuse of a report unworthy of the effort – reflected badly on him as well, for he was the one who had lobbied for the current incumbent. The information contained within was not only sparse but also outdated, the latter the more serious crime.
‘Fuck it, Win,’ said the president. ‘Something’s gotta have leaked somewhere and our people should have been there to catch it. How the hell can he declare an Emergency without sounding out
any
one about it?’
Winston shrugged, knowing he was not really required to give an answer immediately. The POTUS needed to vent because he had just been sandbagged, and that was not a normal state of existence for the most powerful man in the world. Winston understood the angst. It was election time in a few months and the Republican nominee for the White
House would certainly use this surprise to drive home his argument that it was an inept and clueless administration under Jackson.
‘Do you realize the seriousness of this, Win?’
‘What?’ asked Winston, momentarily sidetracked by thoughts on strategies to combat the Republican opponent. ‘No, I missed it. What did you say?’
The other man shot him an exasperated look. ‘For God’s sake, Win, focus! I was asking you – because you don’t seem to have a clue why this is such a big deal – whether you understand why this
is
a big deal.’
‘He declares a state of Emergency – so what? What’s the worst he can do? He can’t do much worse than what they are doing now, right?’ Winston swept an arm out aimlessly. ‘The last time they reshuffled the Cabinet, every single minister who’s been accused of corruption recently was promoted to a better ministry. It’s like “Who wants to be a millionaire?” and everyone puts his hand up.’
The President sought to control his irritation. Not for the first time, he wondered how he had been able to work his way into the White House with Winston by his side. Almost as instantly as that thought came, he knew the answer too. Winston was the fixer, an organizer without equal and worth his weight in gold when it came to putting together fundraisers or quashing petty infighting in the camps. President Jackson was the man with the vision, the student of history and the creator of the future. That was why they worked well together. They needed each other, knew how limited they were without the abilities that the other possessed.
‘That’s beside the point,’ President Jackson said, gesturing for Winston to take the seat across the table. As Winston complied, President Jackson continued. ‘Do you remember the analysis our profilers put together on GK? Just before his first visit to the US, shortly after he became the president?’
Winston did not.
‘Well, I do. And it wasn’t a very . . . calming read, let me tell you. His early years – in fact, right till about the first time he was elected into the Parliament – were very quiet. Low profile, a silent worker, yada yada. But then, once he became a minister, things changed. He became more aggressive, more attention-hungry. His rise coincided with a leadership vacuum in the party, which he exploited. What he could not get, he would ensure that no one else did.
‘There were rumours that he burnt down entire slums just to clear the area for his real-estate investments; it’s also suspected that he was behind some of the high-profile assassinations at the time, up-and-coming political threats and activists who opposed him.’
President Jackson paused. Winston nodded, saying, ‘I got it. The guy’s ruthless.’
President Jackson spread his hands, as if to say, there you go. ‘But now, we come to the really interesting part. Despite all his efforts, Mrs Pandit came in to reclaim her family’s legacy. For all his ruthlessness, he couldn’t match her cunning. Before he knew it, she was holding the reins to control him. He wisely chose to give in, rather than fight it out . . . but he’s been biding his time, waiting for the moment when everything could be his.’
‘And you think that’s why he could be doing this?’
‘Would I bet on it? No. But would I bet against it? Hell no! If our profilers got at least half that shit right, we are looking at an Indian equivalent of Idi Amin or Gaddafi – and that’s being optimistic. What worries me even more is that he’s been known to be anti-American in his earlier years.’
‘Oh,’ said Winston, realization finally dawning.
‘Yes,’ said President Jackson. ‘And so far, we’ve had Kuldip and Pandit to take our policies across. If they are gone and this guy comes in . . . I don’t know. We’re going to have our work cut out for us.’
‘You want me to take care of it?’ asked Winston after a few seconds of silence. President Jackson looked away, unable to answer immediately. The question was a euphemism for unauthorized and unacceptable actions – where the ends were important enough to want to be ignorant of the means. Even if it was the White House, precautions were always taken against an admission of guilt. This was not for the president’s benefit but for those below him. If the president is not impeached, then he can always offer a presidential pardon to those who carried out his silent intents. It was part of the standard welcome-home briefing for every tenant of the White House and his chief-of-staff.
His eyes settled on the black screen. He stared hard at it, imagining that he could still see GK, that he could still hear the superiority in the other’s voice.
‘No,’ he said finally. ‘Not yet.’
24th April, 2012. New Delhi.
The seconds were few, but the wait was nerve-wracking. Inside the steel confines of a cavernous elevator built for capacity instead of speed, Richa Naik kept flicking her eyes between her phone, hoping to see the no-signal icon change, and the floor-indicator, which seemed to have an almost-human reluctance in counting down the floors. She could imagine the cops rushing down the stairs, overtaking the slowest elevator in the world with ease and waiting for her with handcuffs ready to be slapped on.
As the doors opened, she heaved a cautious sigh of relief. There was no one in sight, and for just a brief moment, she felt stupid at having panicked over a phone call. True, the cops were probably looking for her – but that could have been just a routine enquiry or maybe even a lazy attempt to piggyback on her investigation and claim some credit at the end. Still, she stepped out gingerly, peering around the edge and at the stairs, ears searching for the sound of boots rushing down. Nothing. The muted strains of the hustle and bustle within the building mixed with the distant noises of the traffic were all that she could hear.
She was looking off to the left of the elevator bank, ignoring the right as she knew that there was just a closed-off alcove there, when Raghav Menon stepped out from this space and laid a hand on her shoulder. With a yelp, she jumped away, startled, turning around as she moved. Her back slammed against the wall and sent a shot of pain through her spine. She winced.
His hand covered her mouth immediately. ‘Shh!’ he said, pressing her against the wall, moving closer and glancing at the stairs himself. There was a faint noise – an irregular clickety-clack – growing louder with every passing second. Cursing, he moved his hand from her mouth to her wrist and gripped it roughly. ‘Come on!’
The next few minutes were a blur for Richa. She was pulled forward and had no choice but to run to keep from falling down. The basement was well-lit but also deserted, for the security guards usually stuck to a small circuit around the guardhouse at the egress points, and she saw no one else but the man in front of her. Even in the summer heat, he wore a suit, the flaps of the jacket rustling around him noisily. He was, she saw, leading her to an unassuming red hatchback parked all by itself at one end of the visitors’ bay.
‘Raghav?’ she managed to gasp out. ‘Are you Raghav Menon?’
Without turning around or slowing down, he grunted a ‘Yes’. They were almost at the hatchback now, just a few steps away, and Menon pulled the key fob out of his pocket and pressed the silent-unlock button in one smooth motion. He swerved abruptly near the grille, moving to his left while her momentum caused her to stumble awkwardly to the right. ‘Get in,’ he said, already opening the door on his side.
Dazed and a little disoriented, her fingers reached for the handle . . . and then she hesitated. Who was this man, after all? Someone who had just called her up and introduced himself, someone she had never heard of, and if he hadn’t used Qureshi’s name, she would never even have given his call a second thought. By the time Menon had slid into the driver’s seat, she was already shaking her head. Her hand started to move away from the handle.
One look at her and Raghav knew what she was thinking. Automatically, moving more out of instinct than anything else, he reached across and pulled the lever on her door, pushing it away as soon as he heard the click of the lock releasing. The door swung quickly towards Richa, who reacted by taking a step backward. The edge of the door still caught her left elbow with a dull thud that was felt by the chassis and Raghav winced despite himself. But there was no time to lose!
‘Get in,’ he repeated, holding out his hand. ‘Trust me.’
Richa stared back distrustfully, her right palm absently massaging her elbow, her mind starting to slow down despite the adrenalin rush that was screaming for action. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not coming with you until you show me some proof. That Major-General Qureshi sent you.’
‘For God’s sake,’ he began, the irritation in his voice as evident as his urgency. ‘The cops will be in the basement in seconds! It’s you they want, so I’m not sticking my neck out if you want to stay – but if you want to find out the truth about the ViFite suit and the Fortune Mall attack, you have to be on the outside. Believe me, the moment those cops grab you, even your editor up above is going to swear he’s never even heard of you.’
Still looking at her, he turned the ignition. The engine started with a surprisingly low purr, the vibrations barely noticeable, and a corner of her mind instinctively assumed that he had deliberately tuned his vehicle for silent getaways like this. She clutched her handbag harder as she considered her options.
Her fingers felt the shape of a smooth, round cylinder inside the outer compartment of her bag and she had a sudden rush of confidence. The can of pepper spray that Rakesh had gifted her for her birthday – only a younger brother, she had told her mother later, would consider a weapon an appropriate gift – was still lying unused in her bag, an equalizer against Menon if she ever needed any. Her contemplation of her options was further simplified by a shout from the elevator.
She got in without further comment, the decision made for her by the angry tone of her pursuers. Even as she was closing her door, Menon stepped on the accelerator and the vehicle started to move towards the exit, away from the elevator well and the policemen after her. As the vehicle picked up speed, he reached across her torso and pulled the lever to adjust the angle of the backrest. Richa, whose reflex at his sudden movement had been to move her fingers to the zip of the compartment holding the spray, felt the backrest give away. She fell back and was almost lying horizontally on her seat as the first cop entered the garage and focused on the fleeing car.
His eyes narrowed as he tried to make out if was Richa driving – or a passenger – and his attention was lost the moment he realized the driver was a male. By the time his colleagues swamped the area around him, only the taillights were visible. A few of the cops started to chase after the fleeing car, only to stop short when he shouted out, ‘
Vo koi bandha tha. Usme nahin thi
.’ Not wanting to waste their energies after the assertion from a colleague that Richa was not in the car, the cops split up and moved towards the other vehicles parked in the garage.
By the time they had driven up the ramp, out of sight of the pursuers, Richa was struggling to sit upright. Her left hand grabbed the lever that operated the backrest and she gave it a sharp tug, feeling the spring push the seat back into an upright position. The guard manning the gate gave a cursory glance at the passengers inside and the empty back seat, and waved them off. His job was to ensure that the costly equipment that the studio owned was not taken out without the proper approvals – the people who operated the equipment, however, could come and go as they pleased.
They did not speak to each other until they were back on the main road, coasting along, taking advantage of a lull in the traffic. Raghav weaved left and right as he overtook other vehicles in their path, his eyes both on the road and on the rear-view mirrors to ensure that there was no one following them.
Richa pulled her mobile phone out of the purse and unlocked the screen. To her relief, four bars were lit up in the signal icon, and she quickly navigated to her call history. Major-General Qureshi’s personal number had been one of the last calls the previous night and she found it after just one scroll downwards. She tapped the number and the dialler opened up, the call being put through.
‘Major-General Qureshi?’ she said as soon as he answered. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Menon do a double-take. The vehicle swerved slightly, an unnecessary and out-of-character movement not in keeping with the rest of his calculated moves on the road, and her sixth sense was instantly on high alert. Her intuition told him that he hadn’t wanted her to call the major-general, and this realization fuelled her sense of urgency. She moved her handset to her left ear, away from him, suddenly afraid that he might try to pry it from her and cut the call.
Without waiting for the Qureshi to say anything, she continued. ‘The police were looking for me. I’ve managed to run away from them, but the guy who helped me escape says you sent him. A Raghav Menon.’