Marcos Betrayal

by M J Anand

  Few minutes into the ride, before switching off the external communications, Abhimanyu called Sasha. She might have fallen asleep by now, but it was still a good time to check on her before he got on with the long night ahead. The phone rang once, twice, and then thrice to no avail. He tried again. Nobody answered. Abhimanyu tried again. He then tried the common line. The phone rang again, but nobody responded. Even though it was late, this was unusual. With so many guards and Thapa, someone should have surely answered the common line. Even the protocols required the common lines to be kept open twenty-four hours a day. It was perhaps just a matter of coincidence but definitely ill-timed. ‘Amjad, can you check on Bagyidaw’s mainline? It’s nonresponsive.’

  Amjad was surprised. ‘Sure.’

  He dialed the common line and then Thapa’s direct room line. The phone rang incessantly. Amjad tried to connect with the MARCOS on site, but they didn’t respond either. With some anxiety, he called the backup team, who should have reached the site by now. They were unresponsive as well. It was a bad sign. At this stage however, it was even more important to keep Abhimanyu calm. Amjad couldn’t pass this information to him. Abhimanyu needed to be focused on his mission, mentally and not just turn up physically. Whatever be the reason for this uncanny silence at the Bagyidaw’s, the situation was a nightmare for Amjad. Five, ten, and then fifteen minutes had passed. Amjad was now desperate for an idea to get through.

  Meanwhile, Abhimanyu was getting restless. ‘Amjad, do you have anything?’

  Amjad was out of his wits on how to handle the situation. Eventually, he decided to lie for once. ‘Okay. I just confirmed with the MARCOS onsite. They’re practicing a communication blackout. Standard procedure for emergencies. They should have informed us, but they decided it at the last moment. Nothing to worry about.’

  Chapter 19 - The Flop

  Guwahati Command Center

  The moonlight at midnight was not enough to spot the van that snuck up gently on the mansion in sector 50 in Noida. Inside the van, two men studied the monitors. Ravi, a software engineer from Infosys, an Indian IT behemoth, and Raja, a cyber security expert at Intel, had been asked to report at a very short notice. The corporate job was a coverup for their real job with the Indian Intelligence Bureau. Hence, they were surprised they had been asked to snoop on IB’s Deputy Director Mr. Radha Narayanan’s house at this hour. The men waited for the final order to infiltrate his house networks.

  ‘Are we all set?’ Amjad whispered in Sonia’s ears, and she nodded. Amjad checked the time. They had fifteen minutes.

  Sonia donned her hood and exited the control room. She crossed the army compound and stepped into another van outside the base. The success of this mission was critical for the success of their mission in the hills, for neutralising the enemy inside was important to regain the edge.

  ‘What is he doing?’

  ‘Nothing. No movement yet.’ Sonia had infiltrated IB’s most secure protocols to extract a comprehensive list of people in the IB who had access to the hard disk. There were three of them. She tracked all of them independently and finally traced at least four unreported signals from Deputy Director Radha’s house. The frequencies didn’t correspond to any of the Indian stations or intelligence services, and every time Radha got the signal, he left his home, even though it were odd hours.

  Last time Radha got the signal, Sonia was determined to know its content. A digital signal specialist was stationed outside his house to catch the signal. The code simply translated to a location. Presumably, each time Radha got the messages, he left for these locations. Interestingly, the signals only arrived midnight. Today it would be a fake signal, sent by Sonia.

  Amjad entered the van discreetly enough to cover his tracks. He was determined to avoid any hiccups in catching this mole. He had started planning this classified operation the moment they had realized the hard disk had been compromised in Indian custody. Deputy Director Radha was indeed a very senior person and had direct access to the hard disk. In fact, he had personally signed it out before passing it on to Sunaina after the operational team in IB had cleared it. Of course, he had enough time to delete the contents, even though, for some reason, he couldn’t delete everything.

  Amjad could have never gotten a warrant against the Deputy Director of Intelligence Bureau without uncivil drama—something he couldn’t afford at this juncture. Head of IB Prem and even head of Border Intelligence Sunaina, who had lost an irreplaceable asset in Major General Akash, would have fumed fury at him. It was beyond his remit. Hence, Amjad decided to go solo with the people he trusted. Ravi and Raja were from Sonia’s batch. They had a spotless civilian background from birth till today and good recruits for the Indian agencies. They didn’t have the nerves to cross the border, but they had the corporate identity to move around multinationals unrecognized. Amjad had borrowed this modus operandi from the Chinese playbook. Today, they were on a pro bono mission.

  The clock struck midnight, and Ravi pressed the key, releasing a signal at a preset frequency. Ravi and Raja had spent hours insuring their signal was accurate and passed Radha’s stress test. He most likely had some sort of a code or a device to check the authenticity of the incoming signals. It had the latitudes, longitudes of a location around ten kilometers from his house in Noida sector 50. The fake signal was built from the pieces of the four original ones they had intercepted in the past few days. They fixated on the screens. Two drones at a thousand feet high waited for Raja to make his move. It was important that Radha trusted the signal. Five minutes had passed, Radha had still not left his house.

  ‘He’s normally out within five minutes once he receives the signals,’ Sonia said.

  Ten minutes had passed. He was still inside.

  Ravi detected another signal. ‘There’s some sort of transmission. He’s sending a message.’

  ‘Can you read it?’ Amjad was getting nervous. Perhaps Radha had detected the intrusion.

  Ravi was working to get into the transmission. ‘I can’t. It’s a completely different language. Last time, it took us more than a day to decode.’

  ‘He has received something now,’ Sonia interrupted when she saw another spike on the screen.

  ‘His handlers. They’re responding to his message,’ Amjad deduced.

  ‘There he is. Coming out from the back gate.’ Sonia couldn’t miss him even in the dark alleys that led from his home.

  ‘Normally, he comes out the front gate and keeps it very simple,’ Ravi said.

  Amjad and Sonia did not like it. He was already behaving suspiciously, and they had to improvise, hereon.

  Amjad had stationed two commandos outside Radha’s house to tail him and catch him red-handed. The plan had to be changed now. ‘Tango Romeo, Come in.’

  ‘Tango Romeo, ready. Over.’

  ‘Delivery address has changed. Watch the customer. Over.’

  ‘Customer in sight. Over.’

  It was moving too fast for Amjad’s liking. ‘Customer has defaulted and on the run. He may be aggressive. Maintain distance. Over.’

  Radha got into his bulletproof BMW, paid for by the government, and sped from the back gate. Mindful of his surroundings, he kept an eye on the rearview mirror and side paths. Few inebriated people lined the footpaths, but no sane soul was on the road—a norm in this part of the capital at this hour. This sector was still developing, and there were many woody areas where one could hide.

  The MARCOS emerged from one such tree cover. They switched off their headlights and tailed Radha while maintaining a distance of more than a kilometer. He wasn’t in their sight, but the satellites had tagged his car. Ravi and Raja refused to miss him. Radha was going in exactly the opposite direction to the one Amjad had planned. It was also toward the city now. It would be hard to control an operation in the city crowd. Perhaps Radha was already playing this game now, but Amjad couldn’t play along much longer. He still had nothing concrete to nail him.

  Radha parked in a deserted parking area o
f a prominent city mall. It was not a safe place for Radha. Being a professional, Radha could have gone to a more secure place, like his office or his handler’s place, but he chose an open area in the city outskirts—a crime hotspot at midnight.

  It was a bad place for Amjad as well. They couldn’t interrogate him in a public place. ‘Tango Charlie, bring the customer to warehouse. Avoid a scene. Over.’

  The MARCOS were trailing him by a good distance and quickly moved into the fifth gear. It would still take them almost a minute to reach the mall parking.

  Radha entered through the gates and was soon out of the satellite’s vision. He aimlessly wandered inside the mall, ignoring the escalators, for he had been asked to take the stairs. As he climbed the stairs, he saw a group of unkempt men, most probably migrant labors, pass him.

  One of them, visibly intoxicated, brushed against him in anger at Radha for disrupting his path.

  Radha apologized and moved on. A moment later, a phone rang. Radha could hear it loud but didn’t see it till he realized it was in his own jacket. He looked back, but the unkept men were gone. He answered the call. ‘Okay … Okay, I’ll be there.’ Radha’s hands could barely hold the phone now, for the sweat was discomforting. He took some nervous steps to the fourth floor into the food court hosting a decent crowd. Radha felt a little assured and took refuge next to the dim fire exit alley, giving him a good place to hide.

  The MARCOS entered the mall. One stayed back at the exit while the other scanned the ground floor.

  ‘Ground floor clear. No sign.’

  Amjad knew Radha had something to hide or he wouldn’t have given away his cover by reacting so suspiciously. Amjad had his target cornered. He wondered if they should abort the mission and wait for Radha to make a bigger mistake later. It was farfetched to expect Radha to meet his handler when he knew he had a tail. An abrupt sound interrupted his thought.

  ‘Shots fired! Shots fired!’ the MARCOS shouted into the coms.

  The commotion came from the top floor of people rushing to the nearest exit possible. The silence on the stairs was broken by people cutting in on each other to get ahead. Soon, the escalators were choked. Given the hara-kiri, the emergency system had kicked in, stopping the escalators. The ran down the up-stair escalators. The MARCOS rushed to the site through the escalators against the crowd, but they were too late. Radha’s body lay in a pool of blood few meters from the fire exit. The door was half open. The bullet wound hadn’t pierced his body, and the only visible wound was between the shoulder blade and the spiral column. The bullet was stuck in his heart. A professional killer had shot Radha from behind at close range. The MARCOS ran to the exit, but no one was in the stairs. Then they heard the loud sound of the exit door on the ground floor. The killer had slipped out of the building.

  ‘Suspect has escaped from the ground floor fire exit in the southwest wing.’

  Sonia had the exit on her screens in Guwahati. It was impossible to spot the suspect because the mall exit lay right next to it. The killer had already mingled with the crowd, and face recognition didn’t work at these resolutions at nighttime. They had lost him. Radha was the mole indeed, but they had missed the handler.

  Amjad banged his fist on the caravan’s table.

  The MARCOS returned to the body. They unlocked Radha’s phone with a simple fingerprint replica they had been carrying.

  In no time, Sonia had the phone logs on her screen. Radha had sent the three-word phrase Python is Descaled to an unknown number. In response, he had just gotten the mall’s address. Sonia tracked the unknown number to a Pakistani connection registered in Islamabad. ‘That won’t be enough to implicate him. No calls. No hard documents.’ Sonia realized they had a bigger crisis on their hands now. The IB Deputy Director was killed without any material evidence admissible in courts. They were screwed.

  Amjad gathered his thoughts. There had to be a way out. It was still a victory. Sonia had verified all of Radha’s communications, and he was acting alone. They had taken down the mole, and the intelligence systems were no longer compromised. It was a much needed relieve amidst this relentless chase. Amjad thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to share the news with the forces and boost their morale. Even Abhimanyu could finally let his mind rest.

  ‘That’s weird,’ Sonia said, still detecting messages transmitting to Radha’s home. ‘If Radha is dead and they are still contacting him on these frequencies, they still don’t know he is dead.’

  ‘Or more than one module is contacting him.’ Amjad realized there was information asymmetry here, and either way, he could use it to his advantage—both internally to land the news and externally to send the terrorists in a spiral. He dialed in the Delhi Police Commissioner.

  ‘Remember, I owed you one.’

  ‘Yes, a medal.’

  ‘Yes, your medal. You can have it now.’

  ‘Never thought there was a barter possible, but if you say so.’

  ‘It is not possible. But it can be faked. We have a situation on our hands, and you need to create an encounter scene at a mall. The medal is just an afterthought.’

  ‘Enlighten me.’

  ‘We caught Deputy Director of Intelligence Bureau Radha Narayanan red-handed, communicating with terrorist organizations, perhaps ISI. We shot him in the chase that ensued. We can’t take the fall for it. Delhi Police being on the outside can. Search his house and you’ll find evidence. Once everyone accepts he was a mole, your medal will follow.’

  ‘I’m not dumb Amjad. What if we don’t find any evidence? What if he’s innocent? You want me to take a fall for you?’

  ‘That’s not the case. They killed Radha because they knew he had been compromised. But they still don’t know how he had been compromised. That’s the reason his device at his home is still active and receiving signals. We need your help to delay this realization for as long as possible. Can you do that?’

  Delhi Police Commissioner took his time to trust it, but he was not uninitiated to the spy craft. In the given premise, it was an ingenious idea. Besides, it came from Amjad. ‘I hope I don’t regret trusting you. We’ll get some classified documents onsite, create a fake trail. Make it a scene of encounter. Delhi Police observed Radha based on the trail of these documents which led to the file he died with. They’ll take some time to realize the story is fake, and you’ll be ahead till that time.’

  ‘Don’t forget to put it on Doordarshan.’ Amjad smiled.

  Sonia was amazed at Amjad’s maneuvering—or, as some would say, manipulation. Amjad had gotten out of the mess by settling a favor while sending the terrorists on a wild goose chase.

  ‘Search his house. Track down the device he used to communicate and get it in your custody before the Delhi Police arrives.’

  The MARCOS left the mall duly to complete his command.

  After covering all the traces, Amjad tapped Sonia’s shoulder. ’Good job.’

  Sonia was feeling so confident that she decided to ask the question she’d had for a while directly to Amjad. ‘Would you mind if I ask you something?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘If I’m so good, why have neither you nor Abhimanyu sent me on mission yet?’

  Amjad was surprised. ‘You are on a mission.’

  ‘Field mission, I mean.’

  Amjad looked into her confident eyes and knew she wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less. But it was a risk he was not yet ready to take. ‘You should bide your time and increase your strength while you can.’

  Sonia wouldn’t take no for an answer this time. ‘For how long?’

  Amjad was in a spot. He nodded but muttered, ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ and exited the van.

  Sonia found it strange, for these were also Abhimanyu’s lines. What frightened them was still beyond her fancy.

  ‘Come on, let’s go. We have a broken arrow and a safehouse to fix.’

  Sonia followed him quietly. She was disappointed but also curious at his response.

  Arup�
�s men may have zeroed in on the truck location by now, but he was anxious to get an update for Bagyidaw’s, since it had gone eerily silent. They were greeted with dead silence as they entered the control room. Tensed faces doted the walls. Arup saw them first. ‘We were looking for you.’

  ‘Ah, we just had to finish an internal call.’

  Arup could spot the bluff, but he had something more acute at his hands now.

  A young analyst ran to Amjad with a paper in hand. ‘Sir.’ He handed him the latest dossier.

  Amjad‘s eye had caught the mayhem by now. The big screen was telling an unbelievable story. Arup’s unit had reached the Bagyidaw’s bungalow, and they were getting the live feed. ‘Start from the door again.’

  Dead bodies lay at the entrance. The MARCOS Amjad had sent couldn’t even make it to the door. Their bodies lay dead outside the vehicles at the gate. It had been an ambush. Terrorists had reached the bungalow before them. As the camera moved inside, it revealed more bodies. More commandos lay dead across the house, hit with one or two bullets in the head. There was no sign of struggle, as if everyone had been caught by surprise. Amjad couldn’t explain it. No one could. The morbid scenes were beyond belief. Blood spatter blotched the walls, floors, and curtains. The dead faces with their open eyes told a petrifying story of horror that incited more fear.

  Amjad mustered some courage to ask the question that bothered him most. ‘Where is Thapa, Sasha?’ He expected to be hurt.

  The commandos searched for him throughout the bungalow, room by room. They eventually found him in the communication room next to the satellite links.

  ‘He died trying to communicate with us,’ Arup said, his voice hoarse.

  Thapa had been shot point blank, and his body was mutilated beyond recognition. A large paper was stuck to his chest: Tell him we have her. This was beyond Amjad’s worst fears. A dead Sasha was better than this situation. The terrorists had Abhimanyu’s identity. They had Sasha, and they had the nuke. The frightening truth paralyzed him for a moment. Abhimanyu was more than just his protégé—he was a son to him—and his life was unraveling right in front of his eyes. Amjad also knew from experience that terrorists never leave such high-value targets alive. Her name was just a bargaining chip for them, but carrying her around would be foolhardy, for they had a bigger mission. She was probably already dead.