Marcos Betrayal

by M J Anand

  They had averted a disaster only to find another one in waiting.

  ‘Who’s handling it? Who are the agents? Where do they come from?’ Amjad needed all those answers immediately.

  ‘I don’t know those things. It’s a different team.’

  It was no time for slow conversations. Amjad needed everything as soon as possible. ‘You must give us everything, Rupesh, everything you know. The pardon letter will not be of any use if I order Abhimanyu to kill you right now. You understand?’

  Amjad screamed as Abhimanyu pressed his boots against Rupesh’s leg wound. ‘Yes, yes. I’m not one of them. I want to live. I do want to live. I have no allegiance,’ Rupesh muttered through his leg pain. ‘Someone named Aaliyah, she seems very important.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Yes, a woman. I haven’t seen her, but I’ve spoken to her a few times. She was supposed to rendezvous with the team in Guwahati and provide the final key to detonate it. Only she has it. Whoever she is, she is surely a woman.’

  ‘How tall? Complexion? Where does she work? You must tell us everything, Rupesh, or you know it won’t work out for either one of us here.’

  Abhimanyu pressed his legs again.

  ‘You must believe me.’ Rupesh could barely speak through the pain this time. ‘I’ve told you everything. They’ve been very protective about her identity. None of us know who she is. I was just supposed to be dropped off before Guwahati. Akhlaq and Jahangir were meant to die with the bomb.’

  Amjad looked at Sonia. ‘She is our detonator. If we find her, we finish this mission.’

  ‘But we have no lead. Just his word and nothing specific.’

  Amjad thought for a moment. ‘Rupesh, could you recognize her voice?’

  ‘Umm … yes. I’ve been taking commands from her. I know her voice.’

  ‘Get every female agents’ voice we have. Past terrorists, defectors, foreign intelligence agents, current and former—basically any foe who has ever been in the Northeast,’ he said to Arup and turned to Rupesh again. ‘How do we find the Bomb, Rupesh?’

  The pain had run its course. Rupesh had gotten used to it. His voice was calmer. ‘Look for abandoned underground bunkers. That’s what they used. Look for even minor radiation surges. Whatever technology they have, I’m told the radiation surges whenever it’s set up in a new place or removed from the bunker. They’ve managed to subdue it but not eliminate it. In normal course, it may not be alarming spikes, but a spike will still occur.’

  The Northeast didn’t contain too many underground bunkers, so it should be easy for ISRO to track radiation surges. ‘If we focus on a few locations, we can even trace back in time through our records.’ Amjad eyed the ISRO Chief.

  ‘ISRO tracks all surges. Natural or unnatural, nothing escapes our eyes in the sky even when the cause is unknown. Though the exact source can only be ascertained once we visit the site.’

  They had a starting point. ‘Arup, can you get Rupesh to us? We have another mission for the MARCOS.’ Amjad shifted gears into the operational maneuvers.

  Army backups swooped in the area around the Teesta River bridge, and a transport chopper lifted the bomb while the terrorists were taken in another MI-35 to the Guwahati command center. Abhimanyu, Akram, and Siddhartha along with other commandos got into their helicopter, wondering where to begin next. Meanwhile, General Arup had been awfully silent for some time. Amjad curiously searched for him and finally found him behind an almirah at one end of the room, looking for something.

  Arup opened a folder titled Project Diamond containing multiple designs of a bomb that could be just as small as Rupesh had explained and could prevent radiations even when activated. ‘I know what Rupesh is talking about. Ghost bombs.’

  Everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing as Arup projected his laptop onto the overhead screen. ‘Chinese military had been testing it as part of their Project Diamond. These are contained in a stabilized graphene uranium-isotope shield. The uranium isotope in the shield acts like a continuous absorber of the radiations while carbon collogues keep it stable.’

  ‘They haven’t stopped the radiation; they’ve just created a shield that absorbs it before it’s emitted,’ Amjad gathered.

  Arup nodded. ‘Which means, unlike the first truck, we can’t detect it even when it’s activated.’

  ‘However, the shield itself emits radiations whenever it requires setting up in any new place or requires to be moved,’ Sonia reasoned.

  ‘While we can’t detect the bomb through typical radiations scanners in the sky, we can review the logs and overlay all the minor leaks ISRO has detected and overlay these with all the old or known defunct bunker locations.’

  ‘Something of this size can’t be hidden easily. We need to flush them out one by one,’ Sonia concluded.

  ‘She’s right. I can get my ground sweepers on it. We have three of them in Eastern command.’ Ground sweepers were low altitude helicopters with built-in technology to scan underground objects.

  It was a good idea, but Amjad was nervous, wondering if they had sufficient time to swoop through the entire East even with the targeted search. ‘We need more than that. We can’t go around sweeping the East.’

  After a few moments, Arup broke the silence. ‘Maybe we need to think like them. What would you do if your plan A of detonating a ten-ton nuke doesn’t succeed? What would be your plan B?’

  ‘Their idea is to do as much damage as possible to a city. So, I would place it near a city so I can transfer it quickly to the city and my detonator, who is in the same area, can still detonate the bomb,’ Amjad added.

  ‘In this case, we know the detonator is somewhere in or near Guwahati, so the second bomb should also be near Guwahati,’ Abhimanyu added.

  ‘Worst case, it would be farther from the city to hide it from the security forces. They’d still need to bring it into the city because the detonator is there,’ Amjad said.

  ‘That leaves us with the outskirts of Guwahati. That’s where we start our search then spread to all other city outskirts once Guwahati is secure,’ Arup finished, and Amjad nodded. ‘Abhimanyu, report to the Guwahati command center. Stay on standby till we find the next specific lead.’

  ‘Roger that.’ Abhimanyu switched on his rotors and lifted off for the command center.

  By the time Abhimanyu and his team reached the Guwahati control room, Amjad and Arup’s men had put together a few pieces of the puzzle. The joint taskforce had generated workable leads. ‘So, what have we got?’.

  ‘We found the second truck,’ Sonia said with delight. ‘The ghost bomb came in from Bangladesh.’

  ‘On the road again?’

  ‘Yes. We took cues from the truck we just captured and designed an approximate version of what a truck carrying this ghost bomb on those roads would look like. Smaller but heavier due to the weight of the shield, it couldn’t go unnoticed.’

  ‘Border Intelligence had reported seeing a similar truck around a month back at the Bangladesh border. The owner of the registered number is a rubber plantation worker in Meghalaya,’ Arup added.

  ‘The plantation is owned by Rakesh Agrawal, a well-known cross-border smuggler. Arrested thrice by local police, each time, his connections bailed him out,’ Amjad added then asked playfully, ‘Guess who called him five times in the last two years?’

  It had to be someone important; Abhimanyu waited for the answer.

  ‘Azghar.’ It all added up now. ‘Rakesh received five calls from Afghanistan from the same area where RAW suggests Azghar operates. I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Rakesh has the resources to get something this big smuggled across the border, and Azghar must have found out.’ After a moment of silence, he added, ‘I suspect Rakesh didn’t have any leverage to say no to someone like Azghar even if he knew what was inside the consignment.’

  Images appeared on the screen. ‘We found two images of this truck in our surveillance records,’ the ISRO Chief added. ‘First one was shot just before it e
ntered the Indian borders at the Agartala checkpoint, and the second photo was clicked in the forests of Meghalaya, after which the truck was never seen again.’ He handed the photographs to Amjad, Arup, and Abhimanyu.

  Amjad’s phone buzzed, and he excused himself. Two minutes later, he returned with a lot more confidence on his face. ‘My guys have picked up Rakesh Agrawal. It didn’t take him long to breakdown with a gun to his mouth. He has confessed he took a handsome payment to transport the explosives, still under the impression it was just a regular weapon cache. Rakesh has no idea he just smuggled a nuclear bomb into his country. ISRO has also confirmed it’s the same truck our surveillance spotted.’

  Whoever was orchestrating the mission had put in a herculean effort to bring together so many moving parts. The network was getting wider at every turn, which only made Abhimanyu’s task tougher. This was not just a terrorist attack but a call for war.

  ‘We just intercepted a nuke that entered India via Nepal, and now we know the Bangladeshi border has been compromised as well. This cannot just be a terrorist outfit. It must be something bigger than that—someone with wider connections, deeper pockets, access to high technology, and an ability to command respect across allegiances.’ Akram’s doomsday scenario showed his frustration, which was the last thing Abhimanyu needed right now.

  ‘War against whom? By whom?’ Abhimanyu regarded him with raised eyebrows for doing what politicians do—speculate. However, as much as he hoped Akram was wrong, the planning and this scale of resource deployment had never been seen before. No country or terrorist organization alone could pull off such an act. But who was the real enemy?

  Amjad saw little merit in the argument. He was pragmatic enough not to be swayed by such theories and focus on the task ahead instead. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it. As far as the data goes, we’re dealing with another open nuke and a terrorist organization who’s better prepared than last time.’

  The ball was in ISRO’s court. All eyes were on Uday now. Uday had been the ISRO Chief for over a year and was the only civilian face in the room. He stayed in touch with Arnab Roy, Head of the Tunnel and also Shankar, the national security advisor, for occasional support, but this was altogether a new experience for him. He had never been in a command room on a live situation. The pressure of any misstep leading to a catastrophe was unnerving. Thankfully, Uday had managed to hold his own so far. ‘We’ve detected a location in Meghalaya with minor spikes in radiation. It was too weak to be caught by radar, but a manual check picked it up. There is nothing natural nearby to suggest it was organic, so we need a reconnaissance team to check the site.’

  Amjad eyed Abhimanyu and nodded.

  He collected his gear. ‘The area has large swathes. We’ll need your on-ground troops for combing operations. As many as we can get.’

  Given the scale of the leaks so far, it was a foregone conclusion that the detonator knew about the capture of their first nuke. Rupesh said they had twenty-four hours. They would need twelve hours to diffuse the nuke safely, which left them with less than twelve hours. In that time, they had to find it and secure it.

  Armed with nothing more than a vague location, MARCOS and the army commandos boarded Abhimanyu’s MI-35M for another tryst with destiny. Neutralizing an enemy was an easy task, but search operations in such large swathes were a different game altogether. Paucity of time meant specialized search teams didn’t have time to fly in from New Delhi and then for MARCOS to move in and neutralize the threat. The MARCOS had to do it both.

  ‘Happy hunting,’ Amjad said, and the MARCOS flew into the horizon.

  Twenty minutes passed as Abhimanyu flew next to the Guwahati Shillong highway—the most probable route for any truck to move into Guwahati. They were in Meghalaya now. However, they hadn’t spotted anything of significance yet.

  ‘For once, I hope the forest cover was thinner,’ Akram remarked.

  ‘Arup, have you guys found anything yet?’

  ‘We’re trying to get a fix on all the coordinates,’ Uday chipped in. ‘We have multiple locations that our algorithm has pinged. The number of iterations can’t be done manually in such a short time. We’re now running it past Altoc, the fastest supercomputer in India. It’s a game of probability now.’

  The line went silent for a moment. ‘Even with the night goggles, this forest cover will trouble us,’ Abhimanyu acknowledged Akram’s point.

  The mics echoed, and Uday’s voice came in sharp. ‘Altoc has given us the first probable location. Coordinates are 33.20 and 66.80. This is the area where the first radiation leak was detected almost a month ago. It’s around fifty kilometers from your location.’

  Abhimanyu pushed forward the collective lever to reach a top speed of 335 kph and reach the location in just nine minutes. No one could see anything except the thick cover of tropical moist deciduous forests covering the highlands. Amongst the most rained areas in the world, these hills were luscious green.

  ‘We’re in the forest,’ Akram quipped. ‘We can’t see anything but the trees. Even daylight wouldn’t help us here.’ He was probably right.

  Abhimanyu hovered above the location and took wide-angled turns to spot anything under the tree cover but to no avail. ‘We’re just losing time doing this. The angles aren’t helping either,’ Abhimanyu said into the mics, frustrated.

  Stress was taking its toll on even Amjad. ‘Arup, why didn’t anyone get serious about it a month ago and try to locate these locations?’ Amjad was furious at himself more than Arup.

  Arup knew it had slipped through the cracks, just like many other leads. The resources needed to follow all the protocols were never there, but why would the bureaucrats in the defense ministry care? ‘Given the location, it was thought to be an abnormal case of terrestrial radiation. The center for geospatial mapping came out with a few images after two weeks. They were inconclusive. We needed a ground recce, but such missions require special gear, and the approval from the ministry never came. You know how it is with the south block. No one gets serious until there is an active emergency.’

  ‘It better be just a case of terrestrial radiations. Heads will roll in the ministry otherwise,’ a frustrated Amjad said.

  ‘We don’t have time to wait for the radiation search team to do on-ground assessments,’ Akram said on coms.

  Amjad was still thinking. ‘I’m sure the defense ministry still has not sanctioned the original request for on-ground surveillance.’

  Arup nodded in affirmative, watching Amjad.

  Amjad stood. ‘This is a classified mission, and I use my authority as class-four lead to sanction the MARCOS to conduct a ground recce. Use your protective suits.’

  Arup realized Amjad was putting himself at risk of a court martial if his judgement was proven wrong—but so were the ways of a true leader.

  Abhimanyu was just waiting for the command. They were already geared in their protective suits. ‘We’re going in.’

  Uday returned to the room, and all eyes turned to him. ‘I have two more locations. Satellite images show they have lesser forest cover. One is en route to the other from your current location.’

  ‘Send us the locations,’ Abhimanyu said.

  ‘34.60 and 66.80 is the first one. 35.80 and 66.90 is the next one. They’re in the plains between the hills. If we were to believe the game of probabilities, Altoc is confident that if a second nuke indeed exists, it has to be in one of these three locations.’

  Akram and Siddhartha got back into the chopper after they found nothing in the forests, and Abhimanyu rushed to the second location. He flew at top speed, and it took him just ten minutes to reach the second location. The moorland covered in heather was a sight to behold in good visibility, but there was no sign of any bunker or any sort of storage facility. Was it worth going down? It was a cruel tradeoff between time and certainty, so Abhimanyu asked Uday, ‘Tell me, Chief, which of the two location has the higher probability as per our friend Altoc?’

  ‘The last one. The one at 3
5.80 and 66.90. Nearest to the city, not far from the highway and no human civilization in many kilometers around it.’

  Abhimanyu realized they had no time. They could never reach to the third location themselves. Swinging at an obtuse, the MI-35 came out of the circular motion and raced straight ahead. ‘Arup, you’ll have to get your troops to do a second check here. I don’t think anything’s here. We’re going to the last one.’

  ‘We have your back. Nearest team to be onsite to join you on your last check. Dispatching another team to 34.60, 66.80 for a verification.’

  Abhimanyu scanned the monitor and tagged the last location.

  Meanwhile, the army’s combing operations in city centers hadn’t yielded much yet. Soldiers on foot and in Jeeps were combing the cities to no avail. Sweeper choppers were moving in on probable locations one by one, but an operation of this scale had never ever been attempted, even in the wargames. They would need as much luck as capability to reach the finish line. MARCOS realized if Altoc was indeed right, by law of exclusion, the nuke would be in the last location. If they reached the spot in time—before the terrorists left—it was certain they would have to deal with the nuke.

  Akram and Siddhartha nervously eyed each other. Akram removed the photo of his wife while Siddhartha looked skyward, seeking more courage.

  ‘Alpha, India coming in. We’re on ground zero. We’re going in.’

  Amjad had an eerie feeling they must be at the end of this relentless chase. If not, they wouldn’t have much time left anyway. So, whether by intuition or by hope, it was the end of the rope for them. ‘Be aware; hostiles expected.’ The terrorists had done years of planning, and they wouldn’t be neutralized without a fierce fight.