Sacred Games

by Vikram Chandra

  I knew he was right. And yet my flesh fought against it, against this decision I knew I must make. My stomach bubbled with hopelessness. Was there to be only this great bleakness, left behind by the vanishing illusion of love? I felt like I was standing on an endless open plain, every dead brown yard of which was lit by some strange, equalizing light. I saw this, and I winced away from its emptiness.

  ‘Yes, Arjun,’ Guru-ji said. ‘Everything has been burnt up, and all that is left for you right now is ashes. But this grey desolation is also an illusion, just a step on your path. Trust me. Keep walking with me. Beyond this charnel house of romance, there is peace and a larger love.’

  And he kept me close, for the rest of the day. We were together until I left, late that evening. He held me tightly, and the last words he said to me were, ‘Have faith, Arjun. Don’t falter in your faith. I will be watching over you. Don’t be afraid, beta.’

  I wasn’t afraid. I drove through the night, to Düsseldorf, and caught a plane to Hong Kong. I followed all procedures and protocols, my own tricks learnt over a lifetime, and also K.D. Yadav’s tradecraft, to make sure I wasn’t being followed. I did it out of habit, but I knew I was safe. I had Guru-ji’s protection over my head. On the plane, I leaned my seat far back and went to sleep. I was very tired. In two days I had been reborn. Something had died in me, and now there was a newness in its place. Guru-ji had remade me again. Throughout that long flight, I dreamed of Guru-ji’s hands. That was the one part of him that I took with me, this one close-up shot. He himself may have been divine, but his hands were of this world. They were small, and they were very white. His nails were absolutely clean. When I woke up, I wondered why I kept seeing these hands in my sleep, why they were so vividly real, so present, so human. He had given me a new name, and a new vision. And together we would set in motion a new cycle of time.

  An ambush was waiting for me in Singapore. I went first to Phuket, to the yacht, and organized Guru-ji’s shipment. In two weeks, our new channels of communication were in place and working and impervious to breaches. No doubt that bastard Kulkarni was watching me closely, but he wasn’t going to hear anything. I called Pascal and Gaston, my very old comrades. We had been using their ships and their expanded resources (yes, they had grown with me), but now I told them that they had to make one journey for me themselves. They had to become crew and captain, just like in the old days. Gaston complained, and grew as truculent as a moody child. He had diabetes, he said, and he had an old slipped disk that would bounce around at the slightest bump. I told him to stop whining like an old woman, put on a truss and get his boat ready. He grumbled, but he did as he was told. He owed me. It took us three weeks to put everything in place, and then they set off, Gaston and Pascal, along with two of their best men. The pick-up, off the coast of Madagascar, went cut-to-cut and smooth, and the journey back was peaceful, over calm waters. They dropped the cargo off near Vengurla, and went home. Guru-ji’s people took delivery and carried it further, wherever they needed to. I paid Gaston and Pascal triple their usual rate, and that was that. No problem, no fuss.

  It was time for a trip to Singapore, I thought then. I wanted to see Zoya one last time, to break my connection with her. I had grown past the need for her, I had gone beyond love. I wanted to settle with her and to say goodbye. I had no more bitterness or anger left, and I wanted to finish honourably, with no confusions or resentments. I had not seen Arvind face-to-face for a while, and I didn’t like to let too much time pass without sitting down with my main managers. Useless though this flesh was, there were things you learnt only from it. So I flew into Singapore, two days in advance of Zoya. I caught a night flight in. Arvind picked me up as usual, and we drove to the apartment, observing the usual security procedures on the route. We doubled back, looking for followers and watchers, and we changed cars midway. This tradecraft had become second nature to us by now, and we did it without having to think about it. There was a plump moon hanging low over us. We talked about business, and investments, and personnel problems. And we gossiped a little, about one of Suleiman Isa’s lieutenants, Hamid. This Hamid lived in Karachi, and he had had an affair by e-mail and phone with the wife of his top Bombay controller while the poor maderchod was rotting in jail. Arvind had recently heard one of the tapes from the police taps on the wife’s phones, and he imitated the randi panting and moaning as she told Hamid how she would lick his pole. ‘Bhai,’ he said, ‘we live in amazing times. Her husband is sitting in jail. And she is e-mailing pictures of herself to Hamid, photos of herself in a bikini.’

  ‘It’s good for us, this management technique of theirs. Gives a new meaning to telling the boys, “We’ll take care of the wife and kids if you have to go to jail for us.”’

  ‘Yes, bhai. After all, the husband had been in jail for five years at this point. And a woman has needs that have to be taken care of.’ Arvind was reaching out of the car window to insert a card into a slot in the wall, so that we could get through the double security gates of the apartment building. ‘You know, bhai, at the end of the call, Hamid says to her, “I have never said this to anyone in my life.” Then he says, in English, “I love you.” And she says, in English, “I love you.”’

  ‘I suppose he never said it to his three wives, the bastard.’

  Arvind grinned. ‘Maybe not in English.’

  His own wife looked fat and happy, so I knew he had been telling her that he loved her in many languages. The children were asleep, but I stopped by their separate rooms to take a look at them, the boy and girl. I told Suhasini that they had grown since I had seen them last, two months ago. I wasn’t just flattering. Even with them lying down, I could see the monster length of their legs. They were only seven and five. They would both be six feet tall before they stopped budding, these freakish flowers from Arvind’s garden. I ate some rice and dal, and spoke to their proud parents about the speedy little brats.

  ‘It’s all the protein, bhai,’ Suhasini said, wiping her heavy chin with the end of her pallu. ‘In our time, in India, we didn’t get enough. We were all malnourished. Now, if you have the knowledge, you can give your children what they need. This growth looks unusual only to us. Really, it’s just normal.’

  All her Singapore protein was making her grow into a perfectly round football, but I didn’t tell her that. I praised her children, and then went to bed. Just as I was about to fall asleep, Zoya called from Bombay. ‘I’m so sorry, bhai,’ she said. ‘I’ve been delayed.’ She had finished her shooting on time that day, they had been on location, and on the way back to the city, on the highway, they were stopped by a seven-mile traffic jam. Three speeding trucks had wrapped themselves around each other. It took six hours to clear the tangled mess. She was very sorry, and very scared. She had never missed an appointment with me before.

  But I truly was beyond passion and anger. I told her quietly to get a good night’s rest and catch the flight the next day. And then I closed my eyes and was at rest.

  I was bored the next morning. Arvind and I had our morning conference, I called Bunty. I took care of business, but I had scheduled the day for Zoya. I had expected solemn discussions, maybe some tears. Now, I had nothing to do. I watched some television. I played with the bachchas. Then it was time for lunch, and the big question under discussion was where we were going to order food from. Arvind wanted Indian food, but he was outvoted.

  ‘There’s a new Cantonese restaurant in the Singapore Shopping Centre, bhai,’ Suhasini said, palpitating with greed. ‘Their food is fantastic. But they don’t deliver. Tell him to go.’

  ‘It’s not so close,’ Arvind said. ‘And there’s three Chinese places down the street here.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ Both of them said it, both with the same bafflement.

  ‘I need to get out,’ I said.

  ‘But, bhai?’ Arvind said.

  He didn’t need to say any more. I had never gone out in Singapore, not once. In Thailand, I rarely left the ya
cht. I had emerged to take the trip to Germany, but that had been understood to be a unique, emergency procedure. And here I was, offering to go and get Chinese food. ‘I need the outing,’ I said.

  He knew me well enough not to argue. ‘I’ll send a couple of boys with you.’

  ‘Arre, no, baba.’ I pointed to my face. ‘I’m protected completely by this. Nobody knows me any more.’

  So I went. Once I was out on the main road, I let the car lunge ahead. I sped, I weaved and I felt free. It was good to be a simple man with an unknown face going out to get Chinese food. There was real pleasure for me in this servant’s errand, in walking into the restaurant and ordering the food, in paying for it, in thanking the little Chinese receptionist. I tried to imagine what she saw: an Indian man in his thirties, clean in a sparkling white T-shirt and grey shorts and white Nikes, quite handsome but nevertheless ordinary. Did she see something of who I really was in my eyes? But I was wearing sunglasses with tinted grey lenses. I was safe.

  I settled back into the car and switched on the air-conditioning, and it came on fast and strong, and the thought came to me that it was a very expensive car. The leather under my thighs was as soft as a young girl’s cheeks. The car was a new-model Mercedes, fitted out with all the latest gadgets, including a GPS system. That bastard Arvind. Why did he need a GPS system in this chutiya little city? How did he afford all this? Was he keeping back too much money, were his percentages too large? Or was he lying about his various incomes? All the way back I was bothered by these questions. I listened to the International Dhamaka CD, and worried.

  I was still thinking about money as I parked and went up in the lift. My company was doing well, but our expansion had slowed. Maybe I needed to introduce austerity measures, to impress upon the boys the need for financial restraint and resource management. I realized suddenly, then, that I was very hungry. The packages of food I held in both hands were wafting up spice and meat. The lift stopped at our floor, and I tapped at the door with my toe. Open, gaandu.

  I stepped through. There were two men in the corridor, flanking the door of the lift, facing it.

  I didn’t know them. One was Chinese, one Indian. They both had short hair, clipped close at the sides in military style.

  ‘Where you going?’ the Chinese said.

  What’s it to you, maderchod? is what I wanted to say. It rose from my gut, but I was thinking. In that eternity which nestled inside that fraction of a moment, I was thinking. Thanks be to Guru-ji. I said instead, ‘Food.’ I held up the bags, in both hands. ‘Delivery,’ I said. ‘Penthouse.’

  ‘They don’t need it,’ the Indian said, in Hindi. ‘They have gone out.’

  My body wanted to turn and run. Into the lift, down the stairs, away. But I was thinking. Don’t make them suspicious.

  ‘Money,’ I said. ‘They have to pay.’

  ‘Get out,’ the Chinese said.

  ‘Go,’ the Indian said.

  I muttered quiet curses, turned back into the lift. I pressed a button, and then cursed some more.

  The Indian stepped forward, put a hand on the door. ‘You work for the people in the penthouse?’

  ‘No. For Wong’s Garden.’

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Nisar Amir.’

  ‘Take your glasses off.’

  I was still wearing my Guccis. I put down one bag, and took them off. He scanned my face, gave me that policeman’s look that riffled through thousands of remembered apradhis for a match. I didn’t look away, and I tried not to hate him. I was thinking, be a delivery boy.

  ‘Okay,’ he said, and let go of the door.

  A small thunk of rubber and metal hid me from them, and I collapsed back against the mirror at the back of the lift. My legs were trembling. I took the bags of food with me into the basement, holding them like shields against my chest. I got into Arvind’s fancy car, and I drove away.

  It took me three days to get out of Singapore, and it was difficult. I didn’t know who those men were, who had found me in my penthouse. But after they searched the apartment, they had my new passports, so they had my new face. I had only two mobile phones, and three hundred and seventy-three Singapore dollars. But I could talk to my boys, and I had my intellect. I left finally in a very small rowing boat, which took me to another, bigger boat, in which I lay under slats of wood, under fish-smelling darkness. This boat took me across the Straits of Johor to another small boat, which finally dropped me off on a Malaysian beach. The next day I was in Thailand.

  I was safe, but Arvind was dead. The day after my run for Chinese food, the Singapore police announced that they had found him dead, in the penthouse. He had been shot three times. Suhasini had been shot once, in the head. The children were dead too. The story, according to the Singapore authorities, was that a gun battle had taken place in the penthouse. Suhasini had opened the door to some unknown assailants, and had been killed immediately. Arvind had fired at the attackers, who had retaliated, and in the crossfire both children had perished. And then Arvind had fallen, under the volleys of the assassins.

  That was it. The Singapore police expressed outrage at this unprecedented outbreak of savage gang warfare in their garden city, and announced a tightening of immigration controls. It took them four days to get through Arvind’s alias, to work out who he actually was, and then the newspapers in India published front-page articles about the massacre, and theorized about the identity of the killers. They gave the credit to Suleiman Isa and his lieutenants, and praised their plan and the audacity of executing it in strict Singapore, and printed diagrams of all the rooms in the apartment, with little stick figures shooting at each other. And they asked, ‘But how did Ganesh Gaitonde get away?’

  I had got away, yes. But who from? It was easy to believe that it had been the boys from Dubai once more. That was too easy, too pat. I kept remembering those haircuts. Those two men in front of the lift, hadn’t they held themselves like policemen, like soldiers? Maybe it wasn’t Suleiman Isa who had put this hit in place, maybe it was a government. Kulkarni and his organization were very angry at me, maybe they had decided that it was time to end this particular operation, to close out this account. Maybe they had decided to finish Ganesh Gaitonde. I had run missions exactly like that for them myself, when they had gone after assets who were compromised. Retire this man, they had said, he was once ours but he is now against us. Or at least he is not with us. And I had done it, I had found some poor chutiya, in Kathmandu, in Brussels, in Kampala, and I had killed him. Whoever they had named, wherever. I had done it. And now they were after me.

  No, no – I stopped myself from believing this. Don’t jump to conclusions, I told myself. Don’t hurt yourself like this, don’t believe that your own country despises you enough to want you gone, wiped, finished. I spoke to Kulkarni three times that week, and he was always courteous, concerned about what had happened. He said he was conducting a thorough investigation at his end, and promised that information forthcoming from Singapore would be passed instantly to me. After a conversation with him, I always got off the phone feeling reassured, revived. But five minutes was all it took for me to find the subtle poison in all his honey. Yes, he was reassuring, but maybe he was setting me up for another attack. Maybe they had the observers already in place, maybe the fielding had already started, and they were about to tumble my wicket. Yes. Who had given me away in Singapore, who had the address of the penthouse, and the security codes for the building gate and the elevator, and knowledge enough to cut off the video cameras which lined every corridor? Where had the intelligence come from? Had Zoya betrayed me? Why had she missed her flight? Yes, there had been a traffic jam on the highway that day, I had checked, but why had she left so late from the set? Or was it Arvind, had he made a deal with someone, and then been betrayed himself? Had the killers been instructed to thoko their source as well, to make a clean sweep of it? It was possible. It was all possible.

  Under the full Thai moon, I lay awake struggling with the possibil
ities. And when I rose in the morning, I was afraid. Guru-ji had said there was great danger to my life, and I knew it had not passed. Once again, after years, I started carrying a gun. After two days, I started carrying an additional pistol, strapped to my ankle. I had the world’s best body armour flown in from America, and I wore it under my shirt through the day, comforted by its IIIA protection, which would hold back .44 Magnum bullets before they reached my chest, my back. I increased the number of armed sentries on the yacht, and rotated them in teams three times a day. I slept sometimes on the boat, and sometimes in various houses on land, and varied my routes. I took all possible precautions.

  Meanwhile, the calamities kept coming. Bunty called one afternoon, quite subdued, not his usual cheery self at all. ‘Bhai,’ he said. ‘I’m in a clinic.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I imagined a dozen tragedies all at once: syphilis, bullets, his children ravaged by malaria.

  ‘It’s Pascal and Gaston. They’re both in here, bhai. Both admitted.’

  ‘What, only Gaston had diabetes, right? The other one caught it from him as well?’

  This got a little laugh from him, a very small one. ‘No, bhai. It’s something else. They’re both sick. And both the boys who went with them on the boat on that last run are also. They’re all vomiting, again and again.’