The Phoenix

by Bilal Siddiqi

  Asra turned around to see a red-faced Eymen clenching his fists.

  ‘Lior,’ she said. ‘Quit fucking around. Tell me about it.’

  Lior’s posture straightened. He meant business.

  ‘Funnily enough,’ he said. ‘I didn’t have to look too hard for her. She reached out to me earlier today.’

  Asra took an agitated step towards him.

  ‘And you didn’t tell us about this until we asked?’

  Lior pursed his lips and shrugged.

  ‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘It’s good news. She sounded scared. And here’s the fun bit . . .’

  ‘Get on with it before I bash your fucking brains out,’ Eymen growled.

  ‘She wants to cut a deal,’ he said. ‘Money in exchange for the details of the antidote. I have to get back to her with the price I can pay. I suspect she will negotiate. She sounded frightened.’

  ‘She’s ballsy.’ Asra smiled. ‘She knows whoever has taken the virus will also want to know how to control it. And she’d rather not die like her colleagues. Instead, she wants to make money off it.’

  Eymen lit himself a cigarette. This was good news.

  ‘Once she names her price,’ Asra said, ‘I will wire the money to you. The sooner she gets back, the better.’

  Lior gave a nod and shook hands with Asra. He didn’t look at Eymen as he began to leave. Then he turned around and smiled.

  ‘Bon voyage,’ he said. ‘Get in touch with me once you reach your destination. I will have an update on Dr Advani by then.’

  Mumbai

  ‘Your plan was garbage,’ Aryaman said, kicking a chair in frustration. ‘How the fuck do we get Mom out?’

  Randheer bit his lip. Avantika watched on, another silent spectator. Aditya, who had been sitting morosely through most of the conversation, smirked upon hearing the expletive.

  ‘Not in front of the kid.’ Randheer clucked his tongue and walked towards Aryaman to calm him down. But Aryaman pushed him away.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Randheer continued. ‘I’ve spoken to my bosses. The cops will release her in no time. They are holding her to get a better description of the mad dude on the bus. She’s not being treated badly.’

  ‘My problem isn’t how she is being treated, Randheer. My mom is tough as nails. The problem is that they will know she is my mom. And then they will be on to me and realize that I have stolen the antidote. The news will travel far and wide, and I’ll be shipped back to a jail. That is my fucking problem.’

  Aditya shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Language, Dad.’

  Aryaman breathed out sharply and, despite himself, smiled at his son. He lit a cigarette and said to Randheer with an air of finality, ‘Better get my mom out of there before the agency learns of my involvement.’

  His attention shifted to Avantika. She looked pale and exhausted, her hair dishevelled and eyes bloodshot. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she was going through. But he didn’t want to imagine it either. Now was not the time for sentiment.

  ‘Did Lior get back?’ his tone was softer towards her.

  She shrugged and began to look around for her phone.

  ‘Great, you haven’t even been checking your damn phone,’ Aryaman said, losing his patience. ‘He is our only lead to the bioweapon. And you aren’t even keeping an eye out.’

  Aditya got up and held his father’s hands firmly.

  ‘Dad,’ he said. ‘Calm down.’

  Aryaman regarded his son and felt a moment of relief. He hadn’t known before this that the words spoken by his child could have a soothing effect on him. He was finally building a relationship with his son, he thought. Not under ideal circumstances, but life was often far from ideal.

  Avantika threw Aryaman an aggrieved look as she picked up her phone. Nothing from Lior.

  ‘I have lost my wife,’ Aryaman said. ‘I lost my friends. My mentor. I don’t know what is going to happen to my mother. It’s a little tough to calm down, son.’

  Avantika’s phone buzzed. She picked it up immediately. When she read the message, her eyes widened. It was from Lior, but what he wanted from her was something they hadn’t prepared for.

  ‘What is it?’ Randheer asked. ‘Read it out loud.’

  Avantika gulped and read out the message in her shaky voice.

  I want you to meet me in Istanbul at the earliest with the documents. No funny business. You and I meet face to face. I get the formula for the antidote and you get the money.

  ‘He wants her to go to Istanbul!’ Randheer was shocked. ‘I thought he’d set up a rendezvous point in India itself. This is dangerous, Aryaman. Our mission isn’t sanctioned for us to make such decisions . . .’

  Aryaman raised a hand in the air to stop him from speaking. Everyone was silent and all eyes were on Aryaman. He looked out of the window for an entire minute and then, with his back turned towards them, said one word.

  ‘Deal.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Avantika.’ He glared at her. ‘We are going to Istanbul.’

  14

  Istanbul, Turkey

  Aryaman had spent most of the flight telling Avantika what her demeanour should be like and where he would be when she is passing over the details of the antidote to Lior. He made her repeat the plan several times over and only then allowed her to sleep.

  From his window seat, Aryaman looked listlessly at the plane’s wing, fighting the urge to smoke. Arranging the trip hadn’t been as troublesome as he had expected. Randheer had managed to pull a few strings and to procure for Aryaman and Avantika fake identities—courtesy of the agency—along with the plane tickets. What did worry Randheer, however, was the fact that he needed to get Aryaman’s mother and son back to Dehradun in one piece and have them stay there until all of this was over.

  Randheer was hopeful that this would end pretty soon. If he managed to figure out who had bought the bioweapon from Lior, he could pass on the information to the people he believed would take the right action. He and Aryaman would then step back. Considering the severity of the situation, he was hopeful that insubordination would be punished with just a rap on the knuckles for both of them. He hadn’t told Aryaman, of course. Aryaman was against approaching the agency for any help, holding a grudge and rightly so. Aryaman’s words, uttered before he stepped in to catch his flight, still resonated in Randheer’s ears.

  ‘If shit hits the fan,’ he had said in his gravelly voice. ‘Take care of Mom and Aditya. If you feel you owe me anything, this is it.’

  The odds were stacked against Aryaman in Turkey. He could see Avantika’s entire frame trembling as she made her way towards the rooftop cafeteria where she was meeting Lior. Aryaman assured her that he had her back. But in a situation like this, words weren’t really going to comfort her. Not when she was striking a bogus deal with an international arms dealer.

  The Hagia Sophia monument in Istanbul appeared unforgettably stunning in the warm, orange glow of the evening. But Avantika, unlike the other tourists, wasn’t marvelling at its beauty or its imposing structure. She chose a table in the corner of the rooftop cafeteria. As soon as she took her seat, almost as if on cue, Lior stepped out of the designated smoking area and greeted her with a smile that scared her.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ he said as he walked towards her, flanked by his emotionless beefcakes. ‘You’re two minutes before time. Impressive.’

  Avantika shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t turn up late for a deal that is about to get me this much money.’

  Lior smiled, turned to one of his men and whispered something that Avantika couldn’t quite make out. It made her nervous. He had a repulsive quality about him, although there was nothing physically off-putting in his appearance. He dragged a chair and eased himself into it, sitting right across from her. He took off his shades with a flourish and examined her. Following his gaze as it ran down to her neckline, she felt her body stiffen. She looked at her watch and then back at him immediately. Pale, but trying hard to maintain her
composure, she smiled at him. Then, to Avantika’s relief, a waiter strode over to their table with two cups of coffee. Lior pushed one cup towards her.

  ‘I took the liberty of ordering you a special local coffee.’ He grinned. ‘All that travelling must have been tiring.’

  Avantika didn’t even look at the cup. ‘I’m good. Let’s talk shop.’

  Lior laughed exaggeratedly and shook his head in a show of regret.

  ‘And then women say men have lost their manners.’ Lior clucked his tongue. ‘No place for old-world charm anymore, is there?’

  Avantika looked at her watch again.

  ‘Are you getting late?’ Lior’s smile had vanished.

  Avantika countered the question with another question, ‘The money?’

  Lior snapped his fingers at his guard, who placed a briefcase on the table. Avantika snapped it open. The money was there, as promised.

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ Lior said and drained all his coffee in one gulp.

  Avantika, without a moment of hesitation, picked up her handbag, unzipped it and pulled out an iPad. She unlocked the device and held it out to him.

  ‘What if the device tracks my movements once I am out of here?’ he asked hesitantly, raising an eyebrow at her.

  Avantika looked at him, dead in the eye.

  ‘That would be as bad as signing my own death warrant, wouldn’t it?’

  There was something about Avantika, about her confidence, that didn’t feel right to Lior. And then he looked at her eyes shift towards her watch yet again. Nevertheless, he took the iPad from her and opened the file she had pointed to. He studied it for a few minutes and then casually said to her, ‘Seems genuine. But we aren’t done yet.’

  The colour drained from her face. ‘What do you mean?’

  He flashed his dirty grin. ‘I am going to need you to come with me to my facility. You prepare a batch of the antidote for me. I will test it and if it works, you are off the hook and free to enjoy the money.’

  Avantika froze. She was not prepared for this. And as a matter of fact, nor was Aryaman, who dropped all pretence of blending in as a tourist the minute he heard Lior reveal his plan. He began to rush towards the rooftop cafeteria, pressing on the earpiece to hear the conversation playing out.

  ‘You’re wearing a nice watch,’ Lior’s voice crackled through Aryaman’s earpiece. ‘Your friends, if they can hear this through that tiny bug in your watch, should know that they can’t outwit me. Let them pick you up once you have made me an antidote that works!’

  Aryaman looked up at Lior, who, having thrown Avantika’s watch down, stood on the balcony, staring right back at him. Lior’s guards were manhandling Avantika. Aryaman ran towards them, but Lior pulled out a gun and fired three shots in the air, with no real intention of harming anyone. Just causing chaos until he slipped away. People began to rush frenziedly around, screaming for help. Aryaman, caught in the crowd like a fish swimming upstream, kept an eye on Avantika and saw her being shoved into an SUV. Lior took his seat at the wheel and the car set off.

  Aryaman saw a policeman climb off his bike and rush to control the crowd. Going with his instinct and choosing what seemed like his only option, he knocked the cop right to the ground unconscious. He took the cop’s pistol and key and hopped on to the bike. Three other policemen, who had witnessed all this, came to the conclusion that Aryaman was the cause for the chaos. As Aryaman started the bike and began to chase down Lior’s vehicle, the cops called for backup to go after him.

  The streets of Istanbul had seen nothing like this before. Aryaman’s Turkish police-issued bike swerved past traffic in pursuit of Lior’s bulky BMW SUV. Lior drove rashly past the other cars, even bumping them out of the way when required. Aryaman controlled the bike with one hand as he aimed and fired at the SUV, shattering its rear window. He didn’t want to shoot again lest he injure Avantika.

  Lior ducked for cover in his car, dragging Avantika down with him. His men pulled out their weapons and fired at Aryaman. But Aryaman was quick to move to the other side of the road. But now he faced the oncoming traffic. Though he had made it tougher for Lior’s men to fire at him, he now had to manoeuvre his way through vehicles speeding towards him. At the same time, a BMW SUV identical to Lior’s car had joined the other lane. Two men rolled down the windows of this SUV and opened fire indiscriminately in Aryaman’s direction, not quite caring if they hit others. All around them, vehicles screeched to a halt and pedestrians ran for cover.

  Aryaman took careful aim and shot the driver of the other SUV square in the head. The car swerved and rammed into the side of a building. Aryaman saw his chance to pursue Lior’s vehicle, which had sped away and had just taken a sharp right into a narrow lane. Aryaman could smell the burning rubber and hear the sharp sirens of the police vehicles that had joined the chase. He knew how things stood. He was a man who had assaulted a cop. It wasn’t going to go down well. He looked back to see the police firing at his bike’s wheels. Drifting into the narrow lane, which was occupied by some ice-cream vendors, he saw the SUV exit the lane at the other end and enter the main road again. Aryaman followed as quickly as he could. He revved the bike and almost caught up with the SUV. He fired three bullets at its wheels. After the third shot, Lior’s car spiralled out of control and rammed into an oncoming police car.

  Aryaman braked hard and a police car hit his bike from behind, catapulting him into the air. He raised and joined his elbows to protect himself from landing head first. The fall was agonizingly painful, nevertheless. He had landed hard, tearing his shirt and scraping the skin on his forearms. He struggled to his feet and turned to see the Turkish cops aiming their guns at him and at Lior, who was stepping out of his car, holding a gun to Avantika’s head.

  Aryaman and Lior glared at each other. The cops formed a circle around them, yelling out warnings for them to not move.

  ‘A step closer and I blow her brains out,’ Lior announced. ‘Let me leave and nobody dies!’

  Aryaman took a step towards him, his pistol at the ready.

  ‘Go on,’ he growled. ‘Let me see you do it.’

  Avantika was petrified. ‘Aryaman.’ Her lips quivered. ‘What . . . What do you mean?’

  Aryaman smirked as he took another step towards Lior.

  ‘So that’s your name, huh? Aryaman?’ Lior smiled.

  ‘Do it. Or I kill her instead. And you don’t get the formula to produce the antidote.’

  Lior’s finger was on the trigger. Avantika wheezed with fear. The cops were screaming at Aryaman to stand down, but he paid no heed to them.

  ‘Or,’ Aryaman said as he walked closer to Lior. ‘I walk up to you. Get into the car with you. We get away from these men and get her to produce the antidote for us. We sell it and split the money. All three of us win.’

  ‘STAND DOWN OR I SHOOT!’ a cop bellowed through the megaphone. ‘THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING!’

  ‘Sounds like he means business,’ Aryaman said to Lior, cool as a cucumber. ‘What’s it gonna be? We can get back into the car and we can speed out of here together.’

  Lior seemed to consider. He nodded at Aryaman and took a step back towards the car. Aryaman smiled. But his mind was doing the math. He knew he had nothing more than a split second to act. And that split second would be make-or-break.

  As soon as Lior’s body tilted a little to shove Avantika back into the car, Aryaman spotted his chance and took his shot. The bullet grazed past Avantika’s leg and lodged itself into Lior’s shin. Both of them shrieked in pain, almost in unison. Aryaman, seeing Lior aim back at him, fired again. This time the bullet hit Lior’s gun, sending it flying out of his hand and wounding his fingers.

  Aryaman saw that the cops were about to open fire when he turned to them and raised his hands to surrender. He dropped his gun and fell to his knees, interlocking his fingers behind his head. The cops rushed to him and kicked him to the ground. He felt his bloody arms being twisted and the cuffs being tightened around his wrists. He tu
rned to look at Avantika, who had fainted and was being taken to a police vehicle.

  Lior, despite the pain he felt, looked at Aryaman venomously.

  ‘I will end you,’ he spat out.

  ‘Many have tried.’

  Lior was handcuffed and made to sit in a little, stuffy room at a small safe house that the Turkish intelligence had whisked them away to. He leaned forward on the table, looking his Turkish interrogator straight in the eye. He wasn’t perturbed at all, even though this was the first time he’d found himself in such a messy situation. The authorities went through his papers—which, of course, were fake—but found nothing alarming in them. Despite the pressure they put him under, he wasn’t breaking. It was Aryaman who knew about Lior’s true identity, beyond the fake name on his passport.

  So the one person who could get Lior to break was waiting outside the room, smoking a cigarette. Aryaman smoked despite the man in charge of the unit requesting him not to. Avantika sat beside him, a thick layer of gauze wrapped around her injured leg. She was shaken up, but Aryaman ignored her and focused on the thoughts swirling in his head. He was somewhat stressed out. A call to the Indian embassy had led the Turkish officials to an agent only too keen to help Aryaman and Avantika: Randheer.

  Back home, Randheer was in a soup. He had no choice but to tell his higher-ups, who weren’t big fans of his anyway, about all that had transpired. Bipin Sharma’s immediate remark was that they should never have released Aryaman in the first place. But Randheer, thanks to a few supportive people in the system, managed to get the authorities to transfer Aryaman’s mother and son back to Dehradun.

  The Turkey fracas was a tougher one to manage, but Randheer did his bit by communicating to the officers in Istanbul a message supposedly from the Indian intelligence. He told them that one of their men, Aryaman, had nabbed an international gun dealer. Now all they needed in return was permission for their agent to interrogate this dealer. After that, the Turks could keep Lior in their custody and even claim internationally that they were the ones who had caught the elusive bastard. After half an hour of deliberation and working all the angles, the Turkish intelligence gave in.