The Phoenix

by Bilal Siddiqi

  She let out a sour laugh. ‘It’s not that easy. The formula and the vials are stored in an underground chamber.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a Black Site that the intelligence wing set up for us scientist to operate out of. Appears like a defunct factory from outside. But inside, there are guards manning it. Impenetrable. There’s no way you can get in and survive.’

  Aryaman absorbed the information and thought if this was a serious setback.

  12

  Mumbai

  The next evening, Aryaman went over the plans of the Black Site for the umpteenth time. The fate of his mission depended on him retrieving the antidote from the underground chamber. From what he had gathered after reconnaissance with Randheer, getting into the Black Site was not as tough as getting out of it. He realized that there were probably four officers who guarded the perimeter of the mid-sized factory. There could be more or less, but he couldn’t say for sure based on just one night of surveillance. But he’d take things at face value for now and prepare mentally to take on more guards if needed. Avantika had told him that there were about ten security personnel stationed between the underground chamber and the main entrance.

  While scanning the area, Randheer had made a breakthrough that would make their job marginally easier. There was a large pipeline that supplied water to the underground chamber, possibly for scientific purposes rather than for drinking. If they disabled the water supply, he could crawl in through the pipeline. Along with Avantika.

  At this, there were cries of protest on her part. But she was integral to the plan. In fact, without her being physically present, this entire mission would amount to nothing. The chamber could only unlock either with a key card (which they didn’t have and couldn’t procure), or with a scan of Avantika’s iris.

  The trickiest part of executing this dicey plan was creating an adequate diversion to draw the attention of as many guards as possible out towards the road, instead of having them patrol the interiors of the factory. And towards this, Randheer had come up with a wild solution. When he presented it to Aryaman, he was met with a glare that seemed to suggest anger as well as ridicule.

  A short argument later, Randheer spat out, ‘Well, if you have a better plan, I am all ears.’

  Having tried and failed to come up with something better, Aryaman finally conceded that Randheer’s idea was truly ingenious, though he still worried about its possible consequences.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Randheer placed a hand on Aryaman’s shoulder. ‘This is the best way to divert the guards’ attention. You go in through the pipe with Avantika. I’ll manage the rest with . . .’

  ‘Nothing should happen to them, Randheer,’ Aryaman said through gritted teeth. ‘Or else I will bring hell down upon you.’

  It was a few minutes past six in the evening when Aarti and Aditya jostled their way through a packed crowd and boarded the local air-conditioned bus headed towards Navi Mumbai on the outskirts of the city. Aarti and Aditya grabbed the first seat they spotted as the electronic door closed behind them.

  Aditya had his earphones on and his head resting against the window. Aarti leaned back in her seat, her eyes closed.

  A while later, the constant chatter in the bus came to a sudden halt. The passengers had seen what had just happened. A man in a hoodie had stood up and taken the bus conductor hostage, holding a gun to his head. The hijacker had his face covered with a mask, with only a slit for him to see through. He also had a pair of sunglasses on, in order to prevent anyone from getting a good look at his eyes.

  The passengers began to shriek. Aarti was silent but shocked. She clutched Aditya’s arm. The man pointed the gun at her and gestured for her to stand up. Trembling, she did as she was instructed. He grabbed her, held a gun to her head and walked towards the bus driver’s seat. The driver, a portly old man, looked frightened.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the hijacker growled. ‘Just drive the bus. I’ll tell you where to go. And nobody gets hurt. Don’t stop the vehicle and lock all the doors.’

  The driver did as he was told.

  When the gunman returned to the back of the bus, there was a strained silence.

  ‘I have a very simple demand,’ he said. ‘It’s a plain and simple robbery. Nobody gets hurt if you all cooperate.’ He then opened a bag and held it out.

  As he looked at the hijacker, Aditya tried hard not to seem too amused. He thought Randheer had put on a rather unconvincing act, but it was working nonetheless.

  The masked Randheer looked out of the windshield and saw that the bus was fast approaching the factory. He turned to the hostages and pointed at his open rucksack.

  ‘Money, valuables, mobile phones,’ he said aggressively. ‘Do what I tell you and you will all be free soon. Come on, this won’t take more than half an hour.’

  ‘This can’t take more than half an hour,’ Aryaman said as he tugged the rusty lid off the pipeline. A flood of water came gushing out. ‘It won’t take them long to realize that the water supply has been disabled. We have to act within that window.’

  He crawled into the pipeline, with Avantika in tow. Aryaman was brisk, so Avantika had some catching up to do as they waded through the wet darkness. Within five minutes, they had made their way to the end of the pipeline. Aryaman, with all his strength, turned a valve around and pushed open the lid. He climbed out of the pipeline and found himself in what looked like a storeroom. When he helped Avantika out, she was drenched and panting.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Keep your gun ready. You see anyone, just shoot.’

  ‘I don’t think I can . . .’

  ‘It’s only going to put them to sleep,’ Aryaman said. ‘You’re not killing anyone.’

  ‘I’ve never done this before,’ she said.

  ‘I usually shoot to kill, so I can’t say the same.’ Aryaman cocked his tranquillizer gun and kept it at the ready. ‘Come on, follow my lead.’

  Aryaman tiptoed towards the door and opened it an inch. Outside, the staircase to the basement with the secure chamber was being manned by two guards. Aryaman pressed his ear against the door to hear them speak on their walkie-talkies. Through the crackle of their handsets, he heard something about a civilian bus having been hijacked nearby. The guards, however, were told not to move from their positions. The ones outside the factory were looking into the situation.

  Aryaman shook his head in disbelief. ‘I can’t believe I’ve just allowed my mother and son to be taken hostage . . .’

  ‘And they are being used as human shields,’ Avantika said sarcastically, ‘by your friend. So that should make you feel better.’

  Aryaman shook his head. ‘It doesn’t. Anyway, time to get to business.’

  He pulled out a pistol from a holster at his ankle. This one had real bullets. If shit did go down, he thought, I’d prefer putting these guys to sleep for good.

  ‘On my count.’ He stared at Avantika. ‘Three . . . Two . . . One!’

  He kicked the door open and, with two clean shots, fired at the two guards with his tranquillizer gun. Both were shot in the face. Dazed, the guards tried to reach for their weapons. But Aryaman charged head first at them and rammed one guard into the wall. Avantika took several shots at the other guard, until he collapsed.

  Avantika’s hands were trembling.

  ‘Well, he’s going to sleep like a baby,’ Aryaman said.

  He searched both the bodies and found no key card. He picked up their walkie-talkies, destroying one and keeping the other to listen in on the instructions the remaining guards were receiving. He then went for their guns, dismantling them and holding on to the cartridges. If the two guards were to regain consciousness, which was unlikely, he didn’t want them firing at him.

  ‘Lead.’ Aryaman pointed at the staircase. ‘I’ll cover you, don’t worry about it.’

  Avantika went forward, her legs shaking.

  They went down a short flight of stairs. When they reached the landing, Aryaman told Avan
tika to wait and stuck his neck out to survey the area. It was a large room, sanitized and brightly lit like a hospital facility. There were a few tables with lab equipment placed on them. A narrow passage at the opposite end of the room led to the chamber that held the antidote. Three guards—tough-looking guys—were in position here. They sat on their chairs, talking to each other.

  ‘Okay, this is it,’ Aryaman whispered to Avantika. ‘The minute I move towards them, you rush to the corner of the room and take cover behind that table.’

  ‘Do I tell Randheer we are in?’

  Aryaman nodded. ‘As soon as I knock them out, you rush towards me and unlock that door. We take that antidote and then run through the exit at the back.’

  He held his gun firmly and crept into the room, taking cover behind the furniture. Avantika followed his lead. ‘You sure you can handle three of them?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you have asked me this before we entered?’ he asked with a wry smile. ‘But let’s find out.’

  The next moment, he picked up a Bunsen burner and flung it to his right. Two guards stood up immediately and rushed towards the source of the noise while Aryaman took cover behind some furniture. The third guard ran the other way, towards the reinforced-steel door shielding the antidote. Aryaman raised his gun and took a shot at a guard’s shin; the man instantly fell to the ground. The other guard fired several rounds at Aryaman, who somersaulted out of range, evading the onslaught of bullets that smashed the lab equipment to smithereens. With one well-aimed shot to the shoulder, Aryaman took this guard out as well.

  The third guard was hurriedly inserting a card into the slot that controlled the door. Aryaman realized he was trying to disable the system and to lock the door in a way that even Avantika’s iris wouldn’t be able to open it. He turned to Avantika and said, ‘Go shoot these two and neutralize them now!’

  Avantika picked up her tranquillizer gun and scampered towards the two injured guards. Hesitantly, she shot one of them in the chest. She then aimed at the other guy, who was trying to get to his feet, pressing the wound on his bleeding shoulder. But she was out of darts. The guard grunted and charged at her. She leapt back towards the table, picked up some test tubes and flung them at him. That didn’t seem to have any effect. He grabbed her by her hair and slammed her against the wall. She got winded. The guard picked up his gun and aimed at her head. A shot rang out, but it wasn’t him who had pulled the trigger! Avantika had fired at his kneecap, with a gun she had concealed in her jacket. She hadn’t wanted it on her, but Aryaman had insisted upon it. The guard yelled in pain and fell backwards.

  Aryaman, too, was in the middle of a scuffle. The brawny guard had hit several punches that had thrown Aryaman off balance. But he fought back and landed a set of hard jabs himself. Avantika’s gunshot had distracted Aryaman. And this gave the guard an opportunity to launch a devastating kick into his ribs. Aryaman slumped to the ground, coughing and spitting blood as he watched the guard pull out his keycard. He was about to swipe it when Aryaman sprang to his feet and, with great force, delivered a hard blow to the back of the guard’s skull. The card was still in the slot, almost midway through the swipe. Aryaman took the card out and kept kicking the man until he lost consciousness. He then called out to Avantika, who scurried towards him.

  ‘Quick,’ he said. ‘Unlock the door.’

  Avantika rushed towards it and punched in a code. A software to scan her iris came up on the display.

  ‘I hope they haven’t deleted my details from the database.’

  Aryaman looked at her, aghast. ‘And you mention this now? Could they have?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said worriedly. ‘I’m sorry! I’m new to this!’

  She walked up to the scanner. Aryaman looked on tensely for the next few seconds. He hadn’t thought of that possibility. Clearly, nobody else had either. The door slid open after the software recognized Avantika’s iris. She smiled for the first time since he had seen her. A cloud of steam burst out, and when it cleared away, it revealed the antidote: a set of vials delicately placed on a stand.

  Avantika called Randheer.

  ‘We’re in,’ she said. ‘Should be out in the next five minutes. How are you holding up?’

  She heard Randheer laughing. ‘Aryaman’s kid is one hell of an actor. He is out of the bus and has managed to draw all the guards towards us, as planned.’

  Aryaman lifted the antidote and the file that held the formula. A second later, a blaring alarm went off. The door began to slide shut. He grabbed Avantika by her wrist and rushed towards the opening. But Avantika tripped and fell. The door had all but crushed her foot when Aryaman blocked it with the unconscious guard’s gun until she dragged herself out.

  ‘Fuck,’ he muttered. ‘There will be backup in no time. And they are going to be here to kill us, not capture. Just follow me!’

  He rushed back up the staircase as Avantika struggled to keep up. Aryaman saw a door burst open and several guards run in. He fired at them, not allowing them to assess the situation. Running towards the back door, he fired at them continuously. Finally, he pushed Avantika out and made his own exit.

  A sedan sped towards them and came to a halt near the door. Randheer was in the car, with Aditya. Aryaman fired at the guards as Avantika got in. Then he, too, leapt in. The car sped past the bus that had all the hostages. The guards continued to fire away at them. Aryaman carefully held the vials and placed them in Randheer’s bag, which also carried the loot from his bus heist.

  ‘Where’s Mom?’ Aryaman asked, his mouth agape.

  ‘One of the guards held her back,’ Randheer said, slamming the steering wheel. ‘To question her.’

  Aryaman punched the seat in frustration. ‘Fuck!’

  13

  Istanbul, Turkey

  Eymen and Asra drove towards the port of Istanbul. A large part of their mission depended on this phase going right. Asra kept her eyes peeled throughout their journey for any car that could be tailing them. They were supposed to meet Lior at the port. He had, for an astronomical amount, helped put together a plan to get the weapon out of Turkey. The money did not worry Asra, since her bosses trusted Lior to do his job well. What mattered most to her was getting the weapon smuggled out. And she couldn’t rely on bullish Eymen when it came to making tactical decisions.

  At one point, Eymen wanted to smuggle the weapon by air. He had expressly stated that he didn’t trust this Lior fellow. ‘A person who does things for money alone can never be trusted. What if he took an amount from the enemy to sell us out too? If he isn’t driven by his ideologies, he isn’t to be relied upon,’ Eymen had argued.

  He could be right, Asra had thought at the time. But Lior was their best bet. And that is what everything in intelligence comes down to: the best bet. Not necessarily the safest one.

  Asra lit a cigarette and strolled casually towards the rendezvous point once Eymen had parked the vehicle. She saw the beautiful expanse of the sea before her and took in the view. The birds chirping, the balmy wind. This, she thought, was the serenity that the earth offered to those who sought it.

  Eymen nudged her, and Asra broke out of her daze, reminding herself that she was here for another purpose. She looked at him, letting out a puff of smoke. He pointed at a drab cargo ship. Lior, flanked by two of his huge bodyguards, was waving at them from its deck.

  Lior didn’t really need bodyguards, but he kept them for the same reason some people bought ornaments. He could well take down two people at the same time by himself. But why bother when you can pay someone to do that for you? Lior was a dangerous man who dealt in the machinery of war all around the world. But he was also faceless in many senses. People had heard of him, but no one ever quite got a good look at him. Intelligence agencies had an old file photo of him. But he no longer resembled the man they had photographed. Money can buy a lot of things: fake hair, higher cheekbones, a cleft in one’s chin, you name it. For his part, Lior had no other reason than money to be in this particular deal. So far, he
had got what was promised. And so he delivered.

  Had Eymen and Asra not kept their end of the deal, he would have had to resort to some unsavoury means. He had enough resources to do that. If he needed to pick a beef with someone in the PIA, he always had someone else in a rival agency to help him get what he needed.

  Eymen and Asra walked up the rickety ramp that led to the cargo ship. Lior greeted them with a wide smile and a friendly handshake. He sensed that they weren’t in the mood for conversation. Nor was he, to be honest. So they spoke very little as they made their way to a large, damp, secluded room stacked with crates.

  ‘Welcome to the presidential suite,’ he said mockingly. His joke didn’t have an audience in Eymen and Asra, of course. Their eyes scanned the musty room, looking past the mice scuttling by, for the crate that mattered.

  ‘It’s right here,’ Lior said, leading them to it. It was an ordinary-looking crate. He lifted the lid off it. There were rows of perfume bottles, neatly arranged. Lior moved those aside to reveal a metal container with a keypad panel meant to punch in a passcode. He entered the combination slowly, so that Eymen and Asra could make note, and opened the door to reveal the vials of death.

  ‘The best Turkish delight money can buy you,’ he sniggered. ‘Here, put in a passcode of your own and we’re good.’

  Lior made an exaggerated show of turning around as Asra did the needful.

  ‘Anything from the girl? Advani?’ she asked.

  Lior paused. Eymen watched him with suspicion as Lior turned theatrically around.

  ‘I was hoping you’d ask . . .’

  ‘Did you hear from her?’ Eymen stepped towards him, his voice gruff.

  ‘Calm down, big boy. Always ready to bite someone’s head off!’

  He enjoyed riling Eymen up. Asra was replacing the perfumes into the crate, with her back turned towards them. Lior pointed at her derriere and winked at Eymen.

  ‘Maybe you should blow off some steam,’ Lior mocked him. ‘Can really help calm one down. Trust me!’