KALYUG (30 page)

‘There was a leak,’ he said brusquely. ‘We buried the traitor, but the risk was too much. There will be another occasion soon.’

The visitor was bobbing his head even before Qazi had finished speaking. ‘Of course, of course . . . you know best. I was merely wondering –’

‘What is it you wished to see me about?’ Qazi interrupted him, deciding that offense was perhaps the best defence against being uncovered.

The visitor’s eyes darted about the room before settling back on Qazi. ‘There is a . . . seminar for our most gifted students. The dates are not fixed yet but we have been asked to prepare the logistics and the speakers. We would like to invite you to join us. It will be an occasion that will surpass your wildest dreams.’

Qazi assumed the man was talking of a terrorist strike, perhaps more than one – after all, The Pathan was known for such things, not plain-vanilla seminars.

‘Where?’

‘Many places,’ the visitor replied, confirming his suspicions. ‘New Delhi. Mumbai. Ahmedabad. Chennai. Bangalore. Many places,’ he repeated, ‘at the same time.’

‘How many . . . students do you need from me?’

The visitor bowed obsequiously. ‘I leave that to your wise judgment. How would you like us to transfer the funds?’

Qazi hesitated, unsure, ignorant. He opted for what he assumed was the safest way out. ‘As usual,’ he said, affecting an air of calmness that was farthest from reality. ‘Same account, same bank.’

The visitor nodded.

And then he lunged for Qazi, surprising him with his speed. ‘Liar,’ he screamed, his claws reaching for Qazi’s neck. ‘Liar! You are not The Pathan! I knew it the moment I saw you. The Pathan would never use the same method twice.’

Qazi was younger and swifter but his attacker used his bulk just as effectively. He slammed into Qazi and knocked him flat on his back, scrabbling for purchase on the ground, keeping him pinned with his weight. Qazi had to struggle for each gasp of air, his torso almost crushed by the other man, even as he fought to keep the hands off his neck.

Even further enraged at being thwarted, the visitor drew his hand back for a blow, creating the opening that Qazi needed. He jabbed the heel of his palm at the larynx of his attacker and the blow hit home with a satisfactorily soft crunch, crushing the cartilage and cutting off the air supply.

As the visitor reached for his neck instinctively, Qazi slammed the heels of both palms into the sides of his head, disorienting him further. The lack of oxygen and the shock to the brain rendered the other man vulnerable and helpless long enough for Qazi to bend his arm and crack his attacker’s jaw with his elbow. The latter collapsed in a heap on top of him and Qazi pushed him off.

He hesitated but for a second before placing his knee on the sternum of the fallen man. And pinched his nose. As the man suffocated to death, his arms flailed wildly but ineffectually – Qazi was able to overpower his weak attempts with one hand. The eyes became bloodshot, then bulged as the inevitability of his fate finally registered . . . before finally losing their focus and glazing over.

Qazi waited for another minute before getting up. Death had come calling on him again. Death would not be leaving empty-handed.

Inshallah
.

24th September, 2012. Bengaluru.

President Gopi Kishan Yadav and his entourage were just a few kilometres away from the Raj Bhavan when the ambush occurred.

A rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the pilot jeep and exploded, killing the occupants instantly and, as envisaged, blocking the road at the exact point where GK’s limousine would be caught in the bottleneck. The NSG commandos in the vehicle following his were luckier – alerted by the earlier explosion, they were already getting out of their stations when the second RPG headed towards them.

The commandos crowded around the limousine and tried to effect a 360-degree angle of fire. GK stared through the glass around him in confusion, at the carnage ahead and behind, trying to remember if the car was bomb-proof. His presidential aide was gripping her armrest tightly, her knuckles white, lips parted in a silent scream.

The third RPG revealed the location of the assassin, but it was not without its cost. The silhouette appeared against the sky, an outline rising above the parapet of one of the buildings that lined the avenue and as one unit, the commandos trained their fire on the last-observed location. The RPG exploded within a few meters of the vehicle, barely causing a dent in its frame . . . but the commandos caught in its blast were blown apart, their flesh and blood splashed against the car, burnt into the metal in an instant. The glass cracked under the heat. GK was horrified by the blackened gore just inches from his face.

The attacker managed to fire off one last RPG before a sharpshooter’s bullet slammed into his head, taking most of it off. His body crumpled to the ground. A few seconds later, the pulse monitor attached to his wrist detonated the fuel in his coat, consuming his body within seconds. The magnesium-driven flame would leave only ashes for investigators to find.

The fourth RPG slammed into the bonnet of the limousine and exploded, its shockwave rocking the vehicle, the windshield cracking under the heat and pressure. None of the commandos were caught in the open, however, as they had taken refuge against the sides of the limousine and the fireball had expanded harmlessly outwards.

Sporadic gunfire was directed at the rooftop for the next few minutes until a helicopter did a quick recce and reported a bonfire where the assassin had last been spotted.

From his perch across the road, inside the seventeenth-floor office he had rented only two days earlier, Jacob shut down his camera, satisfied.

Perfect.

24th September, 2012. Washington D.C.

‘I picked up a cup of coffee from the kitchen,’ Winston told his president as he walked into the Oval Office for the first time that day. ‘Black, just the way you like it.’

‘Thanks,’ replied President Timothy Jackson absently. He did not turn away from the television screen mounted on the wall opposite his chair. ‘Did you hear about this?’

Winston turned to the screen. CNN was reporting an attempt on the Indian president’s life. ‘Did they get him?’

‘Apparently not,’ said the DNI Craig McSmith, rising from his chair. ‘That limousine was built like a tank. Withstood four RPG hits. The poor sods protecting him weren’t so lucky, though.’

Winston glanced around the room, wondering if the Secret Service would take so kindly to such sympathy for their counterparts.

‘Thank God nobody knows we had anything to do with it.’

Winston saw the president wince at McSmith’s faux pas as he reached for the coffee. Without taking his eyes off the TV, Jackson took a long sip before setting it back on the table.

Winston glanced at his watch. The first symptoms would appear within five minutes, the intruder at his home had said.

When President Timothy Jackson started to cough near the two-minute mark, Winston’s pulse raced. Had the man lied? Would his president succumb to the poison before he had a chance to call for help? Before, as he was promised, he could summon a doctor to supply the anti-venom?

When the president’s coughing became more insistent, Winston decided he could not wait any longer. He strode over to the phone and asked the switchboard to page the in-house doctor with a Code Red. A Code Red meant a potentially fatal situation for the POTUS, a call whose response time was to be measured in seconds, not minutes. Even as he hung up and turned to meet the startled looks from the president and the DNI, the door slammed open and the resident physician rushed in.

‘What is it?’ he asked, opening his kit and plugging his stethoscope into his ears even as he covered the distance between the door and the president in rapid strides.

‘It’s nothing, Doc,’ said the president, attempting a weak smile. ‘I’m afraid Winston got a little carried away –’

‘I’m sorry, Mr President,’ Winston interrupted him. ‘You’ve been poisoned.’ He fished a piece of paper from an inner pocket and handed it over to the doctor. ‘This is the anti-venom you need to inject him with. I’ve been told that we have a ready supply of this in the White House itself. Ingestion was about five minutes ago.’

The doctor hesitated. ‘A stomach pump –’

Winston shook his head emphatically. ‘The poison has already entered his bloodstream. Our best bet right now is to get the antidote in him as quickly as possible.’

As realization dawned on the president’s face, Winston turned to him. ‘They have my wife and kids,’ he said. And then he pulled out his phone.

24th September, 2012. Pune.

Gyandeep Sharma hung up, satisfied with the arrangements. Travel down to Goa, where a luxury cruise liner would be waiting to take him onboard; then a transfer mid-sea, via helicopter, to a private airfield outside Karachi. A chartered aircraft, Karachi to Singapore. Total time, about twenty-two hours.

Twenty-two hours to think about Leela and what those bastards had done to her. Twenty-two hours to plot the downfall of everyone who was responsible. Twenty-two hours . . . was more than enough.

He wondered if anyone in INSAF was alert to the possibility that he had survived. It had been absurdly simple, in retrospect, to put together. A pattern established from the very beginning, deliberately, just in case it was ever needed; a similarly-built employee willing to give up his life for the guarantee that his family would be taken care of after his death; a driver who stood to make millions for lending his chauffeur’s uniform and for claiming that he was the one in front on that fateful afternoon. Given enough time, Gyandeep was sure the subterfuge would be discovered – but by then,
he
would be ready to let his enemies know that he was alive and that
they
were the ones on borrowed time.

24th September, 2012. New Delhi.

Llong rubbed the stubble on his cheek as he sipped his coffee at the café opposite the British Embassy. One week of running, hiding and scrimping, not to mention two days of the dreaded Delhi Belly, had given him a great disguise – a leaner body that verged on skinny, a more prominent jaw and a tanned pallor that resembled the British. His own contribution to that effect had been a thicker accent and a black-market conversion of enough rupees to pounds to convince people that he was a true-blood Brit.

Sitting inside the air-conditioned café, he thought back to the first three days of his escape with pride. True, he had stolen – first, a bike to escape from the area before the dragnet closed around him; later, a few muggings to generate the cash reserves he required to upscale himself. His victims had been easy pickings, flattered when they were paid so much attention by a foreigner, incredulous that the White Man’s intentions were less than honourable. A fight with some of the neighbourhood thugs demanding their share had gone his way, again due to their underestimation of his determination and ruthlessness, and he had no regret about the fact that one or two of that gang might never walk properly again. If he had lost,
he
would have been the crippled one.

As the pedestrian gate opened and an old man stepped through, Llong laid his cup back on the table. The man was vaguely familiar – all Llong could recall about him was that he had been shown his picture once, which meant that he must have been someone senior enough for the CIA to at least bother letting their operatives know about – and right now, given how suspicious he was of the American side of things, the man across the street seemed to be his best bet for a ticket back to safety.

Tossing a couple of hundred-rupee notes on the table, forgetting that he had already paid for his coffee, Llong grabbed his jacket – purchased, not stolen – and left the café. He followed the old man at a discreet distance for several blocks, wanting to ensure that it would be safe to approach him before he actually did.

Turning a corner, he found that the old man had vanished. He took a few steps forward before the storefront on his right registered on his senses. He turned around –

And walked right into the old man. As he murmured his apologies, the old man smiled at him. ‘Oh, my dear young man,’ he said good-naturedly. ‘Let’s cut out the chase, shall we? I’ve noticed you following me from the moment I left the embassy. To what do I owe the pleasure of your attention?’

The spiel that he had cooked up suddenly seemed inadequate to Llong. He abandoned his original plans of talking his way into the embassy to seek asylum.

‘My name’s Llong Cox,’ he began.

‘And mine’s Holmes, Harold Holmes.’ the older man interrupted, grabbing him by the elbow. Leaning in closer, he whispered, ‘Don’t look now, but those blokes at two and ten o’clock are preparing to move in on us any second now. I doubt their intentions are as honourable as yours.’ Pulling away, in a voice loud enough to carry, he said, ‘It’s so wonderful to meet someone from the old boys’ association. Come. Let me show you this place where they have the best tea this side of the world!’

24th September, 2012. Washington D.C.

‘President Jackson, I presume? Can you hear me?’

Timothy Jackson opened his mouth to respond, but suffered a bout of coughing so violent that he was out of breath by the time he finished.

‘Winston, are we on the speakerphone? Who else is there?’

‘The DNI McSmith and the doctor. We have sent for the antidote.’

‘Good,’ said the voice at the other end. ‘I hope you save him in time. We do not want anything bad to happen to the president, do we? Or to your family?’

‘He’s here,’ Winston said, trying to ignore the threat, failing miserably. ‘I administered it just as you wanted me to. We’ll have the antidote within a couple of minutes. He’ll be safe, won’t he? That’s what you wanted.’

‘That’s what
you
wanted,’ replied the man at the other end with infuriating calm. ‘Of course, you also wanted your family safe, so you should shut the fuck up and allow me to speak without interrupting.’

Winston almost said ‘Sorry’ but bit his tongue just in time.

After a silence two beats too long, the voice came back over the speaker. ‘Now that’s a good boy. President Jackson, I assume we have your undivided attention. If not . . . well, Winston, please make sure the president is absolutely clear on what I am about to say.’