The Siege: 68 Hours Inside the Taj Hotel (31 page)

Tired and hungry, Amit was no longer sure he could think his way out of this, but jumping was not an option. A mercantile entrepreneur, normally brimming with ideas, he needed to figure something out. Crawling over to their broken door he peered through again, seeing only a deep red haze and what looked like bodies lying on the carpet. ‘Get back,’ Varsha hissed. As he turned to reply, both of them heard the
fwap
as a round bored through the door at hip height, narrowly missing him.

He joined Varsha on the other side of the bed. They could hear footsteps and voices right outside their broken door. ‘I think they
are going room to room and killing guests,’ Varsha whispered. They stared at each other. Partying with all their friends on Sunday, married on Tuesday, would they be dead by Thursday? Why had they not stuck to the plan and got married in Goa? Amit berated himself.

He crawled towards the minibar, Varsha watching in the gloom, as he grabbed several beers and a half-bottle of wine. She was about to point out this was hardly the time to get loaded, when he spotted her expression and explained that he was going to throw the bottles at whoever came through that door, going for the tender, breakable bits. ‘Look, I know how to shoot a gun, so if I can take a weapon off them, I’m going to blast our way out of this fucking hotel.’ Although Varsha had known Amit for many years before they got married, she felt that she understood him better now, and she believed him.

Voices started up again. They ducked down, listening to a language they could not understand. ‘It’s
not
Urdu,’ Amit whispered. ‘Do you think its Pashto?’ He hoped these men were not from the Af–Pak border. To him, that conjured up a frightening picture of Pathan tribal mercenaries.

His phone buzzed. It was his brother, well intentioned, asking if he was OK. He had already called about half a dozen times, as had so many other people. Amit snapped, whispering fiercely: ‘Look, shut the fuck up, and get off the phone, there’s people outside the door and we cannot risk talking.’ It sounded harsh but his heightened senses heard the vibration of the phone as an avalanche.

His phone buzzed again. ‘Who is this?’ It was
The New York Times.
‘Get off the fucking line,’ he rasped, incredulous that they had got his number. ‘What you going to do, come and
save
me? We need a fucking helicopter, have you got one of those?’ He turned off the phone. ‘They think I am going to say where we are, you know, broadcast which room we’re in. Idiots. Everyone should stay off their phones,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘There should be a news blackout. Why isn’t there a blackout?’

Tap, tap, tap.
They looked at each other. Don’t breathe. It was
next door.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Someone was rapping on 254. Amit crawled into the bathroom, which had a shared wall, and signalled for Varsha to follow. They listened to a crack and the sound of a boot against a lock, then a security chain splintering off the flimsy frame as the gunmen broke in to the room next door.

Amit recalled seeing its female occupant earlier in the evening. They had come up together in the lift and exchanged pleasantries. Now Varsha clung on to Amit as –
pap, pap, pap
– small-arms fire broke out and angry voices barged into the room. They heard a bed scrape and the TV smash. Since the standard rooms on this floor were identical, they could place every footstep. The bedside cabinets were thrown about and the marble coffee table knocked over. The voices argued, pacing towards the windows and then the bathroom, outside which stood a tall wardrobe. Then they heard a guttural scream; a woman had been found hiding inside.

‘Aaaargh,’ she cried. ‘Get off me. Leave me alone.’ She was so close they could hear her breathing.
Phsk. Phsk.
Rounds came flying through their shared plaster wall, just above their heads. He motioned for Varsha to lie flat. The woman was shouting and being dragged out into the corridor. ‘Help me,’ she cried. ‘Somebody please help!’ Varsha buried her head in her arms, trying to block it out. Amit mumbled under his breath that he was going to rip them apart when they came for them. But he did not move.

After a minute, it sounded as if the shouting woman was being bundled back into her room.
Ack, ack, ack.
Several shots and then yells in that strange language. Then the sound of boots walking away. Listening to the terrible silence, gripping Varsha’s hand, Amit said: ‘They didn’t just shoot her a couple of times, they emptied a magazine into her.’

The woman was not dead. ‘Help me, someone. Please help.’ She sounded weak, as if she was fighting for her life. What should they do? If they went out they, too, would be shot. Amit and Varsha locked eyes and stayed put, trying not to listen as the whimpering became ever fainter.

3.30 a.m.

Directly below them, on the first floor, DCP Vishwas Patil was slumped in the shadows of the Crystal Room, reliving his escape from the ambush and the fire. Starving, thirsty and covered in soot and scratches, he had no idea that outside the hotel the police were mourning his demise – and that of Rajvardhan.

They had escaped by hurling themselves down as the fireball had exploded, taking refuge inside the Crystal Room, where Patil was now nervously checking and rechecking his Glock. Beside him, Rajvardhan cut a tablecloth into strips to bind his ankle, ripped and twisted when he rolled to avoid the flaming cartwheel. He knew he had broken a bone but was trying not to think about it. For hours, grenades and AK-47 rounds had rung out all around them. Singed and soaked, they had listened to hellish screams, incapable of doing anything about it. Now there was just blackness and the throaty roar of the fire.

‘How many times do you have to look in the magazine to know that we only have five rounds between us?’ Rajvardhan snapped. He knew that Patil did not deserve his scorn but he was angry, tired and in agony. Here they lay, the slender resources of the police matched against a well-stocked and superbly trained private terror network. Rajvardhan felt as if he had every right to be armed as well as those he faced, and wanted to be secure in the knowledge that backup was on its way. Right now he could believe in nothing. They both knew they were alone, blocked in by the inferno and the heavily armed gunmen who were still somewhere out there. Rajvardhan’s last sight of Inspector Dhole and the others from the CCTV room was of them retreating, flames closing around them, as bullets rained down. ‘Why
did
Dhole go backwards? You never go backwards. Didn’t he know that?’

Rajvardhan took in his new surroundings, glimpsing the remains of a wedding celebration. Both men needed food and he chomped into a half-eaten apple, while Patil cruised among the abandoned banquet dishes, picking up someone else’s half-drunk Coke.

How ragged this grand salon looked, Patil thought, as he grabbed a slice of cake. People who came here probably earned in a day what he accrued in several months. A forest of pink flowers lay trampled at the far end, of a kind he had never seen before. Platters of elaborate salads spilled on to the floor and had been crushed into a mush. There was a broken sponge cake that resembled an exploded volcano and he made out the two names entwined in hearts on a shot-up plaque beside the door. ‘Amit and Varsha Thadani.’ Had they made it out alive? ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said, rising from the sodden carpet. ‘Attack is the best form of defence.’ Rajvardhan shook his head. He, too, wanted to hunt down the gunmen, but the odds spoke against this plan. He was wounded, this place was a labyrinth, they were outgunned, and he had no more energy.

Reluctantly he hobbled to his feet, and they edged into the murky corridor. In the gloom they pressed their backs against the smooth, cool marble wall, sliding towards the Grand Staircase. ‘You go ahead, whispered Rajvardhan, ‘I’ll cover the rear.’ Patil inched on and then raised a fist: ‘Stop.’ He held up two fingers and pointed: ‘Armed. Straight ahead.’ Rajvardhan caught sight of two dark shadows, scurrying downwards with their weapons. ‘I think I can do it,’ Patil whispered. ‘If I get a clean head shot.’ Rajvardhan pulled Patil closer. ‘I believe you. But what about the others watching their backs?’ He pointed up to the blazing dome. ‘Let’s say you get off a couple of shots. Your pistol’s accuracy beyond fifty feet is massively reduced. Chances are you will wing them.’ By contrast the AK’s curled magazines carried thirty rounds, and a flat, Russian-style clip could pack up to a hundred. ‘If they’ve taped their mags together, you can double that count. Do you get it?’ Patil sagged. The best they could hope for was to retreat and get out alive.

They edged towards a service corridor and Rajvardhan glimpsed another figure and stopped. Staring through the smoke, waiting for it to clear, he saw the silhouette of a Western woman. She was creeping towards the staircase, her clothes blackened and burned, trying to escape. She presented another problem. Without his uniform, he probably looked like a terrorist to her, and any screams
would alert the real gunmen. As he weighed it up, she sensed his presence and turned, staring into his eyes. Rajvardhan had no choice but to motion ‘calm’ with his palms held up. He mouthed: ‘Friendly.’ Her eyes widened, and she bolted like a spooked deer, leaving Rajvardhan thankful that at least she had fled silently.

Limping heavily, he entered the service corridor. Ahead, Patil prayed it would be unguarded. When they reached the outer kitchens, their boots stuck to drying blood. Climbing down a service staircase, they found a passageway that led towards the lobby. After three hours inside, Patil could smell the familiar scent of his beloved city.

He ran on ahead, with both hands raised: ‘Police, police.’ A small throng of officers scurried forward, as he shouted: ‘DCP Zone 1 approaching.’ They looked perplexed and then they cheered, rushing over to greet the dead men. ‘You are a ghost,’ one of them said, patting Patil, who pointed to Rajvardhan. ‘This man needs medical attention.’ Someone called an ambulance as the Joint Commissioner Law and Order and Deven Bharti, the Crime Branch number two, rushed over, delighted. After four frustrating hours with the mobile direction finder, Bharti had been deployed to man the police command post in the Taj lobby.

The Joint Commissioner, who at the start of the attacks had been ordered to run the Taj operation while his street-savvy colleague Maria languished in the Control Room, asked for a debrief. Whatever they knew would be crucial for the Intelligence Branch and Research and Analysis Wing, and for the Special Forces, should they ever arrive.

Rajvardhan looked stunned. He had expected to find the lobby bristling with Quick Response Teams, armed with their AK-47s and 9mm pistols, dressed in bulletproof vests and lightweight helmets, but only a few officers were milling about. There was no rescue operation in play? The JC shrugged. ‘Police Commissioner Gafoor ordered the QRTs to seal the perimeter.’ For the slim-built man who kept his own counsel, this was as good as a slagging off.

‘Where are the Striking Mobiles?’ Rajvardhan asked. Many had failed to report, as the ancient self-loading rifles they carried had no rounds in them. Could anyone blame them? The JC pushed on. This was not the time to conduct a post-mortem, although there were many things he could not fathom, mistakes and errors of judgement that resounded across the city, with stories emerging of no-shows from experienced officers who, as soon as the bullets started flying, were somehow not where they were supposed to be. All hinged now on the National Security Guard. It was the right force for the job. But it had still not arrived in the city and there was not even a clear timetable for its deployment.

The JC made himself a wager: there would be no inquiry worth its salt, when all of this was over. This was not the UK or the US, where a powerful commission would bear down on every institution. The establishment would thwart any such investigation. No one would put their head above the parapet and afterwards the old, inefficient, corrupt regime would continue to rule the roost.

Right now, the JC needed a detailed picture: strategy, terrorist numbers and materiel. He called over a navy commando, one of the MARCOS. Two teams had just arrived. Rajvardhan was nonplussed. Patil looked incredulous. For all these hours they had been made to hold their ground while the Special Forces gathered their might. Now, with the NSG still a no-show, there were fewer than twenty MARCOS in the building from an outfit with a fighting strength of 1,000. Those who had come did not even have Kevlar vests or helmets. And it wasn’t as if they had had any distance to travel. These units had come from Colaba, less than a mile to the south.

Patil prepared to follow the MARCOS in. They would need a guide and he was the logical choice since they had no idea what they faced or how to find it. Rajvardhan, too, pledged to come back, after he got his leg seen to. Patil’s phone buzzed – Commissioner Gafoor: ‘You are not to go up. Repeat. Not to go up.’ Gafoor was afraid of a friendly-fire incident. ‘The MARCOS go up on their
own. The DCP will stay down and make sure the Taj is contained.’ Patil was directed to supervise the perimeter cordons.

Incredulous and frustrated, he took himself outside, dazzled by the lights and camera crews and hubbub, while the MARCOS headed up through the smoke and into the dark, hoping to reactivate the CCTV room. There were still no hotel blueprints available and so they had no inkling of where they were going. Somehow they made it to the first-floor landing unchallenged. They clambered up to the second floor too. And they jogged past the smashed, unmarked door to the Taj Data Centre that no one knew existed.

Crouched in her homemade bunker, squeezed beneath a desk, Florence Martis comforted herself with the thought that it was so dark and smoky no one could see in through the broken door. ‘I’ll deal with daybreak when it comes,’ she told herself as the silence became one degree heavier and she began humming her favourite
filmi
tune. ‘You surely would know. You are the one I’m crazy about.’

Her father Faustine had promised to find her and she did not doubt him. He was a bloodhound and had never let her down. She recalled how, during her terrifying school board exams, when she had been too scared to eat he had turned up on his scooter with rice and chicken. Her mobile rang, shaking her back into the present.