Weapon of Vengeance (31 page)

“Daddy did not want to. If he had, he would have found me.” Ruby's tearful voice rang out from halfway. “Only Mom loved me.”

They heard her bedroom slam shut.

Silence descended on the Gill house.

*   *   *

“Mom?” Then more insistently. “
Mom!
Where are you?” Ruby was sitting on the edge of her bed, her face still blank. “Why is this happening to me? What have I done?” Nothing. “Have you also abandoned me? Please. I need you.”

“I am right here, Ruby. I am always here, you know that.” From the recesses of her fragmented mind, Rehana reached out and began to stroke Ruby's head.

The shock of the night's assault struck now. Hard. Ruby began to cry. Deep, shuddering sobs.

“He was going to kill my daddy.” The words came brokenly, through the sobs. “I couldn't let him … even though daddy did not want me. If he had, he would have found me. He does not even want me to stay. If he did, he would have asked me to.”

“I know, child, I know,” Rehana said. “Hush! Don't worry. Everything will be fine soon.”

“What should I do, Mom?”

“Do what you have to, Ruby. Your duty.”

“But—”

“No buts, Ruby. Nothing has changed. Our lives mean nothing if we falter from our duty.”

“But he is my daddy. I cannot do anything to him, even though he—”

“You don't have to, Ruby. Just finish what you started.” Rehana began to talk slowly, insistently: cajoling, pleading. All the while, allowing Ruby to cry, allowing her pent-up feelings to flow.

Hours later, when the tears stopped, Ruby felt whole again. The terrorist back in control. The embattled, shattered woman had gone underground.

*   *   *

Over the next few hours, one by one, the remaining delegates arrived. Ravinder's team was busy settling them, and Thakur, unwilling to be out of the limelight, ensured he spent time with each of them, assuring them how India was delighted to have them.

As soon as the last delegate arrived, Thakur took all of them for a grand tour of the secure zone, like a man showing off his firstborn child.

Ravinder was half-listening to Thakur when he saw Mohite waving at him from across the room. Quietly peeling away, he went to him.

“How are you, sir? That was horrible … what happened last night.” Mohite paused. “I want you to know that we really tried to catch them … trying everything since the first guy tried to take out my car.”

“That's okay, Govind. Even they get lucky sometimes.”

“Well, we have taken out all three of them now, so maybe not so lucky after all. Your daughter did a very brave thing.

“I know. Thank you. Tell me, why did you—?”

“The officer in charge of PM security is here. He wants to speak to you.”

“What about?”

“The idiot says he will only talk to you.”

Ravinder groaned inwardly. Mohite must've done or said something to piss him off.

“Where is he?”

“In the control room.”

“Okay.”

“I will go with you.”

“No.” Mohite might just add fuel to the fire …
if
he was the one responsible.

As it turned out, Ravinder's intuition was spot on. The PM security man was livid.

“I cannot believe this, Mr. Gill. Your deputy actually told me to…” Ravinder allowed him to vent before smoothing things over. It cost him the better part of an hour.

Ravinder then went back to the eighth floor and buttonholed Mohite. “How can you tell the PM security man to bugger off, Govind?”

“You are always in a hurry to judge me and condemn me, sir. He was being such a nuisance and interfering with everything. I—”

“Come on, Govind, he was only doing his job. The PM will be here tomorrow morning. And they need to do what they need to do. That's their regular drill.”

“How are you, Gill?” Thakur, having finished his networking with the delegates, was calling it a day. “I heard about the tragedy last night. Glad to see you are okay.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I believe your daughter did a fabulous job. Brave girl. You must be proud of her.”

“I am, sir.”

“Excellent. Give her my best.” Thakur threw a pointed look at his watch; he seemed to be in a hurry. “Do you mind if I have Govind for a bit?” Without waiting for a reply, Thakur gestured and Mohite sauntered off behind him like an eager puppy.

Free, Ravinder returned to his room on the seventh floor. He needed to lie down; the painkillers were making him groggy. A bank of monitors displayed the feed from all the cameras set up to maintain a 24/7 watch on all entry and exit points and, more specifically, the seventh and eighth floors. The master feed was being piped into the control room, to the left of the elevator bank, which was manned by four ATTF men per shift.

Ravinder lay on the bed and began to watch the live feed. He saw Chance and Jennifer emerge from the elevator. They said something to the guard. It must have been a joke because all three laughed. Leaving the guard still grinning, the two headed for their rooms: Chance to the one immediately opposite Ravinder's, and Jennifer to the one next to it.

I wonder if they will use the interconnecting door later
. Ravinder smiled at the thought.

He remembered when he had been about that age. Rehana flashed into his memory. Hard on her heels came Ruby. Stress returned. He fretted about her, wondering how she was doing now; Simran's call about her strange behavior at the dining table had alarmed him, he would have gone to her if he could. His eyes flicked at his watch. The last call from the surveillance had come in twenty minutes ago; Ruby had not left the house the whole day.

There was a knock. He looked up at the monitor scanning the corridor. Mohite was outside. He let him in reluctantly, hoping there was no other problem he had created.

“I want your permission to have the city hotels checked again tonight, sir. Maybe we can now get hold of the South African mercenaries.”

“Won't it take away too much manpower … we need every man we have to secure the games villages, the stadiums, and this hotel?”

“I think it is worth making the attempt.”

“Let me check how Ashish feels?”

“He is okay if you say it is. I already checked with him.”

“I will appreciate if you go through me in future.” Ravinder did not hide his displeasure.

Mohite did not reply, merely nodded. “I wouldn't have done it, but Thakur sahib agreed that we need to keep looking for the terrorists.”

“You discussed this with him?” Ravinder confronted him. “How many times have I told you to—?”

“I didn't, sir. We were just talking and he asked me, so I gave him my opinion.”

Realizing it was futile, Ravinder ignored him and considered. “Okay, go ahead, but use only personnel on noncritical duties.”

Ravinder went back to watching the monitors. He could see the delegates moving around on the eighth floor. Several of their PSOs were also mingling on the seventh floor. The guards on the stairwells and elevators were alert and in position. Everything seemed normal.

But will it last?
His instinct was somehow warning him that a storm was about to break.

Unable to sleep, and despite the pain and grogginess, he went down to check the guards at the lobby and the hotel gates. Everyone was alert and in position. Then he walked down the street to the roadblock five hundred meters away. To his surprise, he met Mohite and one of the control room officers walking back.

“What are you two doing here?”

“Checking the guards, sir.” Mohite gave his hard-at-work look.

“And him? What's he doing here? I made it clear that no one is to leave his post.”

“He is just keeping me company sir.” Mohite's expression was sheepish, but it had a defiant edge.

“Get back to your post.” Ravinder waved the control room officer away, then waited till he was out of earshot. “You have to stop doing this, Mohite. No one—I repeat,
no one
—is to leave his post even for a second. I shouldn't be having to tell
you
that.”

They walked back, a sulky silence between them. They were parting at the elevator when Ravinder realized that now only one man was guarding it instead of two.

“Where is the second man?” he asked the guard.

Before he could reply, Mohite jumped in. “I have reduced all nonessential posts by one man each and am using them to beef up the hunt for the two terrorists. I spoke to you about it, sir.”

Ravinder could not believe his ears.

“Only from the nonessential ones, sir,” Mohite continued, almost smugly.

“You consider the main access points nonessential?” Ravinder was seized by an urge to hit him. “How long will it take you to call them back?”

“Call them back, why?”

“Mohite, which part of my question didn't you understand?” Ravinder was on the edge now, on the verge of losing it. If he did not rein himself in, Mohite would be missing a few teeth. He forced himself to calm down. “Call them back.
Now!
I want every damn post in the hotel at full strength. Clear?”

“Right, sir.” Taken aback, Mohite recoiled. “I will have them back in one hour.” He scooted toward the control room.

One bloody hour!
Pulling himself together, Ravinder called Chance and without giving him the reason asked him to keep an eye on the eighth floor. He himself began to patrol the seventh. Hand never too far from his weapon.

When the security posts had been restored he retired to his room and, taking another pill, lay down. He finally dozed off, but the unease stayed with him, and he did not sleep much that night.

 

DAY TEN

The morning light of summit day was but a pale streak on the horizon when Ruby exited the Gill gate. She was dressed in her dark maroon jogging suit with
NIKE
emblazoned across it, her hair tucked inside a matching maroon baseball cap; a bouncy ponytail jutted out as she began to run.

The events of the last thirty-six hours had faded. Having stayed cooped up since the attack, Ruby was raring to go. No trace of the stunned zombie of yesterday. And her mind was at rest, allowing only operational matters to be dwelled upon.

Her pace increased slowly as strong, muscled legs began to chew up the distance. Eager for exercise, her lungs sucked in the slightly chilly, early-morning air. Soon she got her second wind and settled into a steady, loping run.

Her mind was clear. It ticked through the list of actions that she needed to take.

*   *   *

The shrill ring of his mobile startled Ravinder awake.

“She is doing what? Jogging?”

“Yes, sir,” the surveillance commander replied. “Just like before. Following the same route.”

“Stay with her.” Ravinder pushed sleep away. “And keep me informed.” In a way, he was glad Ruby had emerged from her room. Perhaps she was getting over the shock.

He headed for the bathroom. It took several splashes of cold water before he was fully awake.

Today is the first day of the summit … the thirteenth.… Damn that fucking number.…

Throwing off his stupor, he quickly got ready and headed out. There were again a million things to check. To secure. Whatever was coming at them, it had to be stopped.

*   *   *

The surveillance team was crawling along in fits and starts—to ensure Ruby did not stray from their sight, yet not get close enough to be spotted.

Not once did Ruby turn to look over her shoulder. She had heard the car start and knew she was being followed. Slowly, imperceptibly, she began to pick up her pace, but staying on the road, where it would be easy for them to keep an eye on her. The car speeded up commensurately, as though tied to her with an umbilical cord.

Barring the occasional vehicle and a handful of other walkers and joggers, the four-laned road, with a green, waist-high, metallic barrier in the middle, was almost empty. Ruby swerved around an elderly couple, chancing a quick glance over her shoulder; sure enough, the cop car was there. She stayed the course for another two hundred meters. Now no break in the metallic divider for maybe a mile on either side. She slowed her pace and began to bide her time. A minute later, the opportunity presented itself.

She could see that the auto rickshaw coming on the other side was empty. She waited till it was closer and confirmed that. Timing it till the rickshaw was almost abreast, she put on a burst of speed and headed straight for the barrier. By the time she hit it, she was sprinting. Her left hand reached out, landed on the top rail, and leveraged her body across in a neat vault. Ruby landed almost in front of the rickshaw. She grabbed a five-hundred-rupee note from her pocket and thrust it in the startled driver's hand.

“Hyatt Regency. Fast.
Very
fast.”

The money did wonders for the rickshaw driver's driving skills. Like Schumacher hitting the home stretch, the vehicle shot away, as fast as its rickety engine would allow. By the time the surveillance car accelerated and made a U-turn at the next traffic island, her auto was no longer in sight.

The surveillance team took two swift passes on both sides of the Ring Road, even stopped several auto rickshaws, but every time drew a blank.

Ruby had vanished.

At the hotel, she jogged in and headed for the sky blue Maruti van left by Mark in the basement parking lot. Three minutes later, she drove out. This was a part of Delhi she had familiarized herself with and knew that to get to Ashoka Hotel, she had to take a U-turn, go down the road till the next traffic signal, and then turn left. At this time of the morning, it would be ten or fifteen minutes at best. In no hurry, handling the manual gearshift a trifle gingerly, she drove at a sedate pace, ensuring she drew no attention.