Authors: R. SREERAM
I did not answer immediately but the truth was that it had occurred to me as well. In today’s world, fame worked in one of only two ways – it either painted you a villain, or set it up so that you could be painted one later. And in the last ten years, as the ever-widening gap between the organized media houses and the unorganized netizen journalists had only served to highlight, it would have been only too easy for someone with deep pockets – like INSAF – to direct the former my way, with instructions.
‘It’s occurred to you too, hasn’t it?’ she asked.
‘It’s too . . . positive,’ I said, nodding, finally voicing my concerns. ‘Everyone’s talking about my book on Powerhouse as if it is going to be something extraordinary. But it’s not. They have to see that. This kind of stuff is . . . pulp fiction. It’s been written and rewritten a thousand times by a thousand authors.’
Richa’s expression softened as I continued. ‘I still have those nightmares,’ I told her. ‘The ones where they come for me at night. Like they did after
India, 2012.’
Richa stepped closer and laid a reassuring hand on my cheek. ‘It’ll be all right,’ she said, standing so close to me I could finally inhale her perfume. She smelt good. And my synapses made that final connection, giving shape to a possibility that had just shimmered under the surface of my consciousness all this while.
‘You know something? I feel like I’ve been put on show, primed to be bait for someone to come after. And when I think of it that way, everything they’ve told me takes a different meaning. From the very beginning, I’ve wondered what role I played here, why I was shown off as much as I was. I never really believed all that crap that Raghav and Jagannath tried to shovel down my throat.’ Jagannath had said I was an inspiration, but that was just bullshit. They wanted me because of my history with Powerhouse. They wanted me because my history made me the perfect bait.
Their
bait. I would have wanted revenge – even if I didn’t, that’s what Powerhouse would have believed. That would have been enough for them to come after me, this time for good. A permanent solution to their Selvam menace. I would be easier to get at than any of the other ‘symbols’.
‘They don’t want me here to give me greater protection. They want me here so that they’ll have a better shot at knowing who is coming after me.’
10.40 a.m.
‘Yakub? Sounds like Jacob.’
‘Yes,’ Jagannath agreed. ‘Fits his MO too. Violent, disposable teams. But why are they hitting the airport? He’s supposed to be after GK.’
Nelson rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. ‘The airport is between us and Rashtrapati Bhavan. So the real target could be GK on his way here.’
Jagannath reached for the phone. ‘Let’s reroute him then. It’s longer, but his convoy can avoid the airport completely. Our own squad is on their way there already.’
Nawaz Qureshi – heading the security detail for the president – was understandably unhappy about the last-second change. Balanced against the risk of a possible ambush near the airport was the fact that the alternate route was longer and less familiar. It took more than a few exhausting minutes for Nelson and Jagannath to convince him that the chance needed to be taken.
As Jagannath rang up Raghav and updated him, Nelson glanced through the day’s security audit. It was routine stuff and required his or his deputy’s sign-off by eleven o’clock every morning; it had become routine to the point of meaninglessness. He absently picked up his pen and initialled in the margins. Then he noticed the anomaly.
‘Raghav’s still with Selvam and they are detouring to JNU to pick up Richa as well. Adds another thirty minutes to the time we expected them here. What’s the matter?’
11.00 a.m.
Nawaz Qureshi reached the headquarters twenty minutes ahead of the president and immediately established his own perimeter around the building, adding to the security already on site. The deployment was swift and smooth, the soldiers taking up their stations like well-oiled robots, and the whole exercise was completed in the time it took Nawaz to appraise the heads of INSAF of his presence.
He spent a few minutes checking in with each team over the radio once again, making sure that the perimeter force stayed in constant line-of-sight with each other and with INSAF forces already covering the area in the compound outside the building. Satisfied, he went on a personal reconnaissance to ensure that they had missed nothing. The margin for error was not slim – it was none. As the officer in command, he was not only responsible for the accomplishment of the objective – the safety of the president – but also the safety of the men under his command.
11.25 a.m.
It was the first time I was meeting the major-general’s son and the family resemblance was even more remarkable in person than the pictures had indicated. Raghav made the introductions and we shook hands.
‘I’m sorry I was a bit abrupt when we last spoke,’ he said. More out of politeness, I supposed. ‘But I still stand by what I said. About my father, I mean.’ Raghav looked puzzled while Richa beamed at both of us, for she was the only one to whom I had reported my brief – and acrimonious – chat with the major-general’s son.
I should have offered my own apologies for asking him that day if his father could have been tempted to make a deal – even with the loftiest of intentions – but something held me back. Maybe it was ego. Maybe it was just letting the whole thing slide. Richa would probably call it escapism and she wouldn’t be completely wrong.
‘You can go in now,’ he said, buzzing us through. ‘They’re expecting you.’
I went into the only place where I was sure I would be safe.
11.28 a.m.
Sir Harold Holmes had to produce his card and verify his fingerprints but Llong was waved in without any need to prove his identity as Qureshi recognized him. He had been updated on the American’s current status where INSAF was concerned.
Witness for the prosecution,
he thought as he watched the two men enter the headquarters.
Or will it be for the defence?
11.35 a.m.
‘Finally,’ Gyandeep remarked cheerfully as he climbed out of the black sedan, ‘a chance to stretch my legs. I was afraid your driver had lost his way.’
Qureshi did not reply, knowing for sure that the man in front of him was fully aware that the whole point of the exercise had been to determine if they’d been followed from the airport. Only after the counter-surveillance team had determined that they were clean had Qureshi even allowed them into the area.
‘I never really got to tell you that day, Major Qureshi. My condolences on the death of your father. He was a fine soldier.’ Gyandeep turned to his co-passenger, explaining, ‘He is Major-General Iqbal Qureshi’s son.’ The chief, more out of habit, gave a slight bow.
Qureshi fought the urge to deck the smugness off Gyandeep’s face. It took all his will-power to control his feelings.
He buzzed them in without comment.
11.45 a.m.
Qureshi waited until he had the all-clear from inside before he allowed the president to exit his armoured S-Class. He walked alongside GK for the short hop from the drop-off zone to the entrance, feeling naked and vulnerable at his back irrespective of the direction he faced. He was sure GK had to be feeling the same. Experiences such as the one in Bengaluru could change your whole outlook on things you usually took for granted.
Nelson was on the other side of the door to personally escort the president to where the conference was being held and Qureshi gave him a nod as soon as the president stepped inside. ‘Thank you, Major,’ Nelson said as the door closed behind him and his guest.
An involuntary sigh of relief escaped the Qureshi’s lips. For the moment, at least, he could relax.
11.46 a.m.
On the sixth floor of an under-construction building behind the headquarters of INSAF, Jacob trained his binoculars on a distant intersection and scanned the area for a yellow luxury bus. There was nothing memorable about the appearance of the bus, nothing to indicate that it was filled not with tourists but with young jihadis waiting to fulfil their lives’ purpose. Jacob pulled a phone out of his pocket and sent a message to the driver. A few seconds later, the headlights blinked twice, the pre-arranged signal for acknowledgment. The big bus started up once again and moved ponderously through the intersection.
Jacob estimated the bus to be at its next checkpoint in seven minutes, on schedule. He pressed the transmit button on his radio and said, ‘First line, come in. Acknowledge positions. Over.’
Six different voices transmitted their affirmatives one after the other. Unlike the cannon fodder inside the bus, these were mercenaries whose loyalty Jacob had purchased with the promise of money for success and the threat of retribution for betrayal. Four of them were snipers. The other two would provide cover fire with RPGs.
Satisfied, Jacob handed the binoculars over to his spotter and walked to the back of the building, where the floor ended in a drop about a hundred feet down. Jacob reached for the black cable that was tied into a hook mounted into the ceiling and tugged once. It held reassuringly. Jacob opened the clamps on his harness and looped the cable through before locking them back in place.
Gripping the rope tightly in his gloved hands, he swung out and away from the building before giving the rope just enough play to slide down towards the ground. When he was just six feet above the ground, he clenched his fist and his descent slowed dramatically. Even before he had come to a complete stop, he let go of the cable and softly dropped the last couple of feet to the ground.
He started the timer on his wristwatch as he opened the clamps and released the cable from the harness. Then he moved through the building and towards the headquarters of INSAF, where both quarry and client awaited him.
22
11.51 a.m.
There were six of us in the conference room on the ground floor when Gyandeep and his friend were ushered in – Richa, Raghav, Jagannath, Nelson, GK and me. Unlike GK, who had greeted us all with an imperious nod of his head, Gyandeep was effusive.
‘So nice of all of you to accommodate my request at such short notice,’ he said. ‘Even you, GK. I hear you’ve had your hands full since you chucked your old pal Razdan. And of course, the intrepid young woman who almost single-handedly exposed the worst defence scam the country has seen in years.
Badiya, beti. Bahut badiya!
’
His cheer seemed to throw everyone off. GK, who had come in looking as if he would summarily pass the sentence of death on all who irritated him, suddenly seemed unsure of himself. Nelson, likewise – the saving grace, in his case, being that he had looked much pleasanter to start with. Jagannath and Raghav were obviously not going to jump in before their bosses could set the tone. And that left Richa and me.
I was finally meeting – this seemed to be a day for such things – in person the man who had created all those problems for me two years ago. And my blood, which had simmered at the thought of Gyandeep once again destroying a work of mine, started to boil the more cheerful he seemed to be.
‘I’m not going to stop writing about Powerhouse,’ I blurted out.
All eyes turned towards me before I had even started to wish I could take my words back. Gyandeep, in particular, looked at me as if he was noticing me for the first time.
‘Mr Selvam! Now why would you say something like that and get us all off on the wrong foot before we’ve even started? Bad negotiation skills, very bad.’
‘You are one sick bastard,’ I told him, angered to the point of not caring anymore. I turned to Jagannath. ‘And you honestly want to deal with
this
guy? Why? Why not just throw him in jail for aiding and abetting Qureshi’s suicide? And for every damn thing his Powerhouse has done in the last few days?’
‘I am sorry if my colleague has offended you, Mr Selvam,’ said the Chinese man beside Gyandeep before anyone else could speak. ‘And if you will allow us to explain, perhaps you yourself might be convinced that it would be counter-productive to reveal everything about Powerhouse.’
Nelson stepped in, as befitting his role as the host. ‘There are many issues at stake here, issues all of us need to address. I suggest we take it on order of priority.’ He looked at each of us in turn, making sure that we were with him. ‘And the highest priority right now is stopping the terrorist attacks that have been happening across the country.’
And right then, almost as if it were choreographed, an explosion rocked the building.
Something was wrong.
As Nawaz Qureshi glanced at the duty roster pinned to the board inside the security guards’ cabin, he saw the same anomaly that had caught Nelson’s attention some time back. Two of the guards’ were marked absent, unremarkable in itself but significant in light of the fact that both of them were in charge of the south-west quadrant of the compound. The security audit had flagged them not only for their absence but also their failure to intimate INSAF; that failure meant that until the next shift, the security crew around the building was short of two people. There was no one guarding that spot of the perimeter.
It set off alarm bells for Qureshi. The south-west corner was also the most vulnerable spot of the building – every branch of the ventilation and electrical systems passed through that corner. Cut off the ventilation – or even poison the air – and you wouldn’t even need to step inside the building to achieve your aim. You could just wait for the suffocation to drive everyone outside and pick them off at your leisure.
That chain of thought immediately led to another association. The under-construction building! He had assumed that the daily security audit had covered that but he doubted it now. He stepped outside the cabin and considered if it would be worth the risk to send someone over, just to verify that there was no cause for concern.
Something caught his attention. There! A shadow. A shadow that had disappeared quickly, almost as if he had imagined it. But Qureshi never imagined things, had too much faith in his own skills to second-guess himself. His eyes tracked the direction in which he had seen the shadow move and he caught sight of it once again . . . there . . . He was just about to reach for the transmit button on his shoulder when he saw a flare in the bushes where the shadow had vanished. The crack of a rifle coincided with an icy-white pain that erupted on his left side.
Qazi gripped his rifle tighter. The final briefing had been given, their target identified. An office building near the
airport. Not the airport itself. Qazi cursed his luck. Whatever this place was, it was not as high-profile as the airport was, and therefore, possibly not as well-defended. On the brighter side, there were bound to be fewer people here than at the airport. He would take whatever silver lining he found.
The tension inside the bus was so palpably heavy it was making the air humid. Qazi glanced at the other passengers, trying to identify the ones who would crack at the first sign of pressure. There were quite a few first-timers, evident by the discomfort with which they handled their weapons; Qazi and an Afghan were among the most experienced of the lot and had, sensibly enough, been deputed by Yakub to lead the others into battle.
He caught sight of a few armed sentries around the compound at the same time that the sentries noticed the bus. Three of them started to walk towards the vehicle, no doubt intending to ask the driver to be on his way, and Qazi found himself hoping that the men would turn away. If they came closer, the group he was travelling with would be forced to open fire – and that would really be the shit hitting the fan, to use a phrase he had heard one of the Americans in the training camps in PoK use.
But before the sentries got too close, there was suddenly a high-pitched whine that reached them even through the supposedly-soundproofed coach. A white plume of smoke seemed to appear in the air in front of them; a second later, the guards’ cabin exploded in a ball of fire, raining debris all around them. Shots rang out in quick succession and some of the sentries fell to the ground like marionettes whose strings were cut.
Instinctively, Qazi’s attention was drawn to the buildings around them – particularly the ones that seemed to be abandoned. The perfect high ground for snipers, he thought. An idea formed in his head.
A cry from the front brought his focus back to the bus. The Afghan opened the door with one more cry of ‘
Allahu Akbar
’ and the other terrorists followed suit.
Qazi did not join in, for he did not want to besmirch the name of His God when the death of innocents were being dedicated to His name. As he switched off his safety and moved to the front, there was just one thought in his head.
Inshallah
.
‘What was that?’ GK asked, almost tumbling out of his chair. Nelson and Jagannath moved as one towards the door just as the lights flickered and an alarm started to shriek. In the blink of an eye, Raghav was beside them, his weapon drawn, cautiously moving towards the door.
‘Everyone stay put,’ Nelson said. His eyes darted around the room.
My first reaction to the explosion had been to reach for Richa, meeting her hand midway and clasping it tightly. It did not occur to me then that her instinct had been to come to me too. There was something so reassuring about the feel of her hand in mine. I noticed that the only other person who looked just as calm was Gyandeep.
My mind made leaps of logic too fast for me to follow, with the result that when I said, ‘You! You set this up!’ I was not really conscious of any sudden deduction on my part.
Gyandeep smiled at me as patronizingly as he could. ‘You really do make the most incredible accusations against me, Mr Selvam. I know you are an author but really . . . you should use that hyperactive imagination for books, not . . . situations like this. First, the accusation that I caused Qureshi’s suicide. Now this.’ He shook his head in theatrical disbelief. ‘Really.’
I glared at him with all the indignation I could muster. ‘Really?’ I mimicked him. ‘So you are still maintaining that you had nothing to do with Qureshi’s death? That you aren’t to blame for pushing him over the edge? That you are still too ashamed to admit that you met with him on the day he died and offered him everything you had and he still refused you?’
It was as if it were only the two of us in the room. None of the others spoke or intervened – or even, in fact, moved. Everyone waited for Gyandeep’s response.
I saw his expression change from smug to confused at my last question but the significance of it would not sink in until much later. For the moment, I waited to see if he would take the bait. I was hoping that his ego would at least make him admit that he was there – that he had been Qureshi’s visitor at eight o’clock on the sixteenth. I needed to hear him say it before I could go back once again to the CJI and tell her my suspicions had been confirmed.
When he answered, he sounded genuinely perplexed. ‘I met him
when
? I’ve never met Qureshi. None of us has.’
Jacob watched as the next RPG round slammed into the south-west corner of the building just a few feet off the ground and was pleased. Not only would the hit compromise the systems inside but it would also weaken the structural integrity of the building as a whole, taking out the load-bearing beams on this corner and stressing the others. The two guards his team had kidnapped the previous night had not lied. He hoped that the information he had tortured out of them regarding the internal layout was just as accurate as well.
As he broke cover and jogged towards the entrance, two sentries appeared from either side of the wall and started to run towards him, trying to level their rifles at the same time. Rookies, Jacob thought contemptuously, firing from his hip three-round bursts that stopped them in their tracks. Even as their bodies jerked from the impact of his bullets, the snipers took their own shots, blowing their heads away. Jacob continued past them without changing pace, knowing that his snipers would take care of any more surprises till he was inside.
But as he passed the man he had shot earlier, his strides slowed down just a little bit. He recognized the man – it was the Army man from the safe-house, the one who had been responsible for letting the American escape. His finger tightened on the trigger as he brought it to bear on the injured soldier, but then the man coughed violently, blood erupting from his mouth. Jacob noticed the smear of blood on the neck and smiled grimly. He had aimed for the torso but had gotten lucky; his enemy would not live long anyway. He decided not to waste precious bullets.
‘Come,’ said Llong urgently, pulling Sir Harold to the door. ‘We don’t have much time.’
‘Where?’ Holmes pointed out. ‘You don’t know this place any more than I do. What if we walk into an ambush?’
‘Trust me,’ Llong said, wishing that he had been allowed to carry a weapon. ‘I’ve been in and out of this place a bit more than you have, and I think I can find our way out of here. At least, I can get us to the conference room where the meeting is being held. That was where I was interrogated. Twice.’
‘All right,’ Sir Harold said. ‘Give me a minute.’
‘What for?’ Llong whispered back urgently. ‘The door’s open now and there’s no one in the corridor. There’s no telling how long our luck will hold.’
‘Fine,’ said Sir Harold throwing up both hands. ‘But find a nice corner. I’ve a baton hidden inside my belt. It may not be much against guns, but I’d rather have something in my hand, if you don’t mind.’
The group of jihadis reached the entrance at the same time as Jacob and waited for further orders. Without hesitation, Jacob separated them into two groups of ten men each, one to establish a cordon around the entrance and the other for the operation inside. Qazi volunteered for the former.
Using a set of sophisticated electronic tools, Jacob was
able to hack his way into the system within seconds. The
door started to slide open. When the gap was just
enough, Jacob reached into his backpack and tossed a couple of flash grenades into the corridor. He waited for a few seconds after the twin bangs before sending in the first wave of attackers.
Qazi started to distribute the troops around the perimeter, knowing full well that the ten of them would be expected to provide at least as much cover as the twenty sentries who had been shot down. Without being obvious about it, he made sure that each man had a lot of territory to cover.
Consciousness continued to tease him, coming close and then moving away just as he reached for it. Qureshi did not want consciousness, wasn’t sure why he kept reaching for it; it felt so much better to just close his eyes and let his mind drift. For he knew that if he woke up, if his brain started to function once again, the first thing he would feel would be excruciating pain from the gunshots, especially the one on his shoulder.
There was another part that kept screaming for him to get up, reminding him that the man he had been hunting for, the man who could make Qureshi fail to achieve his objective, had been just an arm’s distance away. There was something about the man that reminded Qureshi of the masked man
from a few weeks ago. He had the distinct impression they were the same.
Qazi waited until Jacob and his contingent had moved inside before calling out to the four jihadis nearest him. Motioning them to stand around him, he told them, ‘Take up positions there, on those roofs. It’ll give us a great view of the area around the target. We’ll be able to defend our hold better.’
‘What about the snipers?’ one of them asked.
‘I am not sure where their sympathies are,’ Qazi said. ‘But they are
kafir
. They might possibly turn on us once Yakub has achieved his objectives.’
‘Isn’t this a suicide attack anyway?’ asked another.
‘A suicide attack doesn’t mean you let your enemy kill you,’ Qazi replied harshly. ‘Capture those four snipers’ nests. Make sure you cover us – and if you can’t, then . . . do what you have to, to protect us. I trust you, brothers. May God be with you.’ He patted them on their shoulders. ‘Go.’