KALYUG (36 page)

‘Who’s that?’ the chief asked, grabbing his sleeve.

‘One of these guys,’ Jacob replied in Mandarin, sure that only the two of them knew the language. ‘A local nothing.’

‘What does he want?’

‘I won’t know until I open the door, will I? You, Khalid. See what he wants.’

Raghav would have preferred an M40 or even a Dragunov, but knew there was not enough time to run down to the armoury to refit himself. He would have to make do with his H&K and hope that the short distance and muffled report would compensate for everything else.

He moved across the roof until he came to a spot that seemed to be made to his requirements. Probably a contingency plan for the same thing I am doing now, he thought as he climbed on top of the small bunker-like construction and flattened himself on its surface.

He removed the scope, remembering how it was the same thing that had alerted him, and then scanned the rooftops around him, trusting his eyes to be sharp enough to identify the snipers’ positions. He took his time looking at each rooftop, assessing its angle of sight and options for entry/egress, and finally short-listed four possible locations – indeed, the only four options available. And now that he knew where to look, it took him less time to spot the tell-tale signs of a sniper nest.

A man stepped into the gap in the doorway before Khalid could and forced the latter to take a step back into the room. Jacob turned at the intrusion, distracted for just the briefest of intervals.

That was all the opening that Jagannath needed. He was the closest to Jacob and dived for his legs, tackling him around the knees and bringing him to the ground. One of the gunmen stepped closer to the melee and raised the butt of his rifle above his head, waiting, no doubt, for the right moment to crash it down on Jagannath’s head.

Llong did not give him that chance. He was a few feet behind this gunman and he covered that distance in two long strides. He was almost as tall as the gunman, but seemed suddenly more feral. Grabbing the gun by its stock, he brought it crashing down on the gunman’s head, causing him to collapse to the floor.

As Khalid turned around in confusion, I saw a hand snake around his neck and twist it with a crack. Khalid dropped to the ground. Dead, I was sure, because no one could live with their head bent at such an unnatural angle.

That left one final gunman to account for. He was the one who shot the president.

Raghav drew a deep breath and held it in. The iron sight was lined up with the sniper closest to him, practically right across the street. He hoped that the distance was too short for the bullet to drop – he was aiming for the head because he couldn’t risk giving the sniper the chance to fire again.

He was just about to pull the trigger when, with a whoosh, an RPG slammed into the roof he had been looking at. The next second, a fireball engulfed the roof – and the sniper – and the shockwave washed over him.

The AK-47 is the preferred weapon for a lot of nations for the simple reason that it is as deadly as advertised. At close range, a short burst has the same effect as a shotgun, turning insides to unrecognizable masses of meat jelly. I should know – I witnessed it first-hand.

We all did.

Richa gasped as President GK toppled backwards off his chair, his body falling to the earth with a heavy thud that none of us heard because our ears were still humming with the noise of the gunshots. It was pitiful, the way he scrabbled on the ground, but no one held much hope for him. The entire front of his shirt was a bloody mess of cotton and tissue.

Jagannath and Jacob continued their fight as if nothing had happened – as if the first one to relax would be the one killed, which, I suppose, was true. In the midst of their struggle, the gun slipped from Jacob’s grasp and fell to the floor, where, although it’s difficult to say for sure, one of four feet knocked it further away. Towards the chief.

The man who had broken Khalid’s neck stepped in and the terrorist who had shot GK rushed at him. The two men collided against the doorway but the fight was cut short abruptly. I saw the barrel of a gun being pushed against the jaw of the president’s murderer, almost vertical; an instant later, someone pulled the trigger. Brain matter exploded out of the top of his skull.

The door opened wider and I saw Major Qureshi standing there with a smoking gun in his hands.

The chief bent down and picked up Jacob’s pistol. He hesitated but for a second, apparently calculating his options. Then he took a step forward and held it against Jagannath’s head just as he was cocking his hand back for a punch.

‘Drop your guns,’ he told the major and his partner.

Raghav did not want to risk an RPG attack on his roof – it would be almost impossible to overrun, not to mention the increase in the possibility of the building toppling over thanks to the weakened south-west corner. He tracked the plume of smoke to the roof where it ended and studied the area, willing the attacker to raise his head once again.

The head appeared.

Three things happened simultaneously. Raghav fired. One of the snipers fired. And the RPG was fired.

Raghav thought he saw a mist of blood erupt where the head had been a moment later.

The rooftop from where the sniper had fired exploded.

The sniper’s bullet passed through the empty space where the terrorist’s head had been.

Jacob stood up and brushed his sleeves. Keeping the chief between the door and himself, he reached for the AK-47 that Llong had laid down and picked it up. The blood on its stock did not seem to bother him one bit.

‘You two, inside,’ he said, gesturing with his weapon at the now-disarmed Qureshi and the other man. Then he turned to Nelson. ‘You’re coming with us.’

‘Take the girl too,’ the chief said. ‘That will help us convince Nelson if needed.’

Jacob grimaced, as if he found it a horrible idea. But he nodded at Richa. I moved forward along with her but he shook his head. Richa turned to me and shook her head as well.
Don’t do anything stupid,
her look said. Then she winked.

‘Leave that young lady alone,’ Sir Harold said. Jacob ignored him.

‘We
could
just shoot you and leave it for British Intelligence to sort it out with INSAF,’ the chief said, evidently enjoying himself now that he had the upper hand. ‘Come on. Move!’

Richa waited until she was right in front of him before reaching straight for the gun in his hand. He hadn’t expected that. I guess none of us had.

Richa calmly lifted the gun from his hand and stabbed the heel of her right foot into the arch of the chief’s foot. He staggered back in pain, hopping on one foot, and I took the one stride it needed to cover the distance between us.

Punching his nose was one of the most satisfying moments in my life.

Jacob charged Qureshi and lashed out at him with his gun, narrowly missing him. As Qureshi jumped out of the way, he sprinted down the corridor and fired a burst blindly behind him. Both men ducked as the bullets slammed harmlessly into the ceiling above them. A couple of seconds later, I saw Qureshi drop the gun in his hands and take the AK-47 that the other man held out.

Richa came and stood beside me. ‘Well . . . so Delhi has made you tougher after all,’ she said, looking at the prone figure of the chief at our feet.

Qureshi charged after Jacob but the assassin gained ground very quickly. Qureshi followed him as far as the gate and then leaned against the wall, catching his breath as he watched the outline of his body shrink. He pulled the AK-47 up to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel, aiming for the broadest part of Jacob’s back.

He fired.

23

16th October, 2012. New Delhi.

Raghav Menon was waiting at the Indira Gandhi International Airport and jogged over with a wide smile as soon as he saw us. ‘Selvam! So this is the reason you turned down my offer of a lift in the morning.’ We shook hands. I didn’t know if he remembered, but it was exactly a month, almost to the hour, since we’d first met. He turned to Richa. ‘Are you travelling as well?’

‘No, just making sure he gets on that flight,’ she said, answering his smile with one of her own.

‘I took the liberty of checking you in,’ Raghav told me as he handed over my boarding pass.

I glanced at it. ‘Economy? After everything you guys have put me through, the least you could have done is put me in business class!’

‘You should be glad someone remembered to book you the ticket,’ he shook his head. ‘It’s chaotic at the headquarters. What with everything that’s happened . . .’ his voice trailed off. A security guard moved to intercept us at the point from where only the passengers were allowed, probably noticing that the only bag with a tag was mine – or the pass in my hand. ‘It’s okay,’ Raghav said, waving a card at him. ‘She’s with me.’ The guard let all three of us through.

As we hurried towards the security check-in, my mind ran through the immediate aftermath of everything that had happened on the eleventh. I could easily understand what he meant.

The death of the president – a big deal even under normal circumstances – overshadowed everything else, including the bombing at JNU. How they managed the media is still a mystery to me, but the true account of the president’s assassination never came out. It did not happen during a meeting between INSAF and Powerhouse; instead, there were eyewitnesses who swore that his convoy was attacked during a visit to the office of one of the newest counter-intelligence agencies in the country. Every single one of us who was actually present in the room was sworn to silence.

Even the current incumbent, sworn in within hours of the vacancy, appeared to be clueless about what had truly transpired. But that did not stop President Karamchand Patil from making both a martyr and a villain out of GK. A veritable Mark Antony indeed.

All along, I’d also had the distinct impression that Sir Harold, for all his act of the jolly Englishman, had played a larger role than any of us suspected. It was after a hurried conference with him that Jagannath announced the new story for the president’s assassination, and it was Sir Harold himself who convinced the rest of us to play along.

Not that we had a choice. If either Nelson or Jagannath had had the slightest doubt about our silence, we might well have ended up in the same black hole that swallowed the chief.

For there had not been a single mention of the Asian head of Powerhouse anywhere. Nobody reported him missing. None of the embassies made a fuss. It was as if he had never existed.

‘How’s Qureshi now?’

‘He’s better. Couple more days till discharge. Jagannath’s been after him to leave the Army and join INSAF, but I don’t think he will. Too much his father’s son, he is.’

‘What about Jacob?’ Richa asked. Inexplicably, despite Qureshi’s insistence that he had found his mark, the assassin’s body was never found.

‘No trace of him yet,’ Raghav said, ‘except for the blood at the scene. Until we find his body, Jagannath’s going to presume that he is alive.’

‘What about everyone else?’ I asked him as I joined the queue for the scanner.

‘Cox is flying to the UK with Sir Harold later today. Apparently, he’s decided to defect, although I doubt that’s going to make any waves at the CIA. I understand they consider him a pretty expendable resource – and I’m sure the old man pulled some strings on both sides of the Atlantic. With Jackson getting poisoned and the turmoil here, all it took to delete him from the public memory was an appearance on CNN stating that it was all a big misunderstanding. Qazi’s recovering from his surgeries as well. The man’s a mine of information about the camps in PoK. Whoever turned him is in for a promotion.’

‘What about you?’

He gave me his enigmatic smile. ‘I’ll be around, I guess. There is always work for someone with my skills.’

Then the smile widened into a grin. ‘Right, this is where I get off.’ He extended his hand and passed me a small card after I shook it. There was nothing on it except a number. ‘Call me if you ever need anything.’

‘Drake’s not going to be too happy if the PM insists that I return to my old post,’ Sir Harold commented to Cox as they left the embassy. ‘And I am not too sure I want to either.’

Cox stopped mid-stride. ‘I’m not defecting to the SIS if you aren’t going to be around.’

‘Don’t be an ass,’ the older man told him. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ve already arranged for you to go through a few rounds at the SAS training camp off Sennybridge. By the time they are done with you, you won’t recognize yourself.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ Cox grinned as he followed his mentor.

‘So,’ she said.

‘So,’ I said at the same time.

We laughed. I liked her laugh. I liked her smile. But was there something deeper? I did not know. Wasn’t sure I had an answer ready. All I knew was that she was good company, had become a good friend. But only time would tell if there was meant to be anything more, or if Fate had brought us together for a reason that did not exist anymore.

The boarding call sounded then, cutting into my thoughts. Both of us looked at the queue for the security check, realizing perhaps at the same instant that I would have just enough time to clear it before having to head for the boarding gates.

We shook hands. I tried to take my cue from her eyes but they remained inscrutably friendly, giving nothing more than what I already knew for sure.

‘Take care,’ she said before surprising me with a peck on the cheek. ‘And keep writing.’

I nodded, not trusting myself to say or stay. I turned around and passed through the turnstile that marked the beginning of the queue.

When I looked back, she was gone.

‘How soon can you take care of my problem?’

‘I need five days, a week tops. It might get a little messy.’

‘I just want him taken care of. He knows too much about us. He knows too much about
you
.’

‘It will be done.’

The protégé placed the cordless receiver back on its charger and swivelled around in the chair he had sat in front of for so many years. It suited him well, he decided. He would keep it. Everything else would be new, tailored to his tastes.

Five days to a week, Jacob had promised. After that, he wouldn’t have to worry about the chief anymore. He was already altering every process and every protocol that he couldn’t risk the chief revealing, and knew he had to restructure everything even if the chief never opened his mouth. That was okay. It would be a chance to recreate Powerhouse in the ways he had always wanted to. He would change everything, starting with the office.

Nothing would remain to remind him of the chief.