‘Got him,’ Vikrant said under his breath. From his spot in the back seat, concealed well enough by the semi-tinted glass, Vikrant had just taken several pictures of Ansari using a high-definition camera with a powerful zoom.
‘Deshpande, follow him. We’ll be behind you,’ Mirza said into his wrist-mic. The typical handheld police radio was large and recognizable from afar, and the feedback made too much noise.
Deshpande’s SUV started up and fell smoothly into place behind Ansari’s bike.
In their own SUV, Mankame also started the engine and, after waiting for a full minute, set out behind Deshpande, while Vikrant checked the pictures on the camera’s display screen.
‘Can you see his bike number?’ Vikrant asked, bringing his mic up to his face. A second later, Deshpande’s voice came through his earpiece, reading out the licence-plate number, and Vikrant checked it against the number provided by Rehmat, which Mankame had scribbled down on the back of a train ticket.
‘It’s the same bike,’ Vikrant told Mirza, who only nodded.
The party proceeded at moderate speed till they reached Ansari’s locality in Kausa. Ansari parked his bike outside the building where he had been staying and waved to a couple of old men standing near the gate. Deshpande’s SUV slowed down and stopped a few metres away, while Mankame kept driving till he was out of sight, and then came to a stop.
‘He’s talking to the old men,’ Deshpande reported.
‘Stand by,’ Mirza replied. ‘Wait till he’s alone.’
Five minutes passed.
‘They’re still talking. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.’
Mirza turned to Vikrant.
‘Now, lad,’ he said.
Vikrant, who had his cell phone in his hand, dialled Kamran Sheikh.
‘Go now,’ was all he said before hanging up.
Around a corner, Kamran hung up and started walking. He passed by their SUV without looking at it, and then walked past Deshpande’s vehicle as well. He had his own mic concealed in his front shirt pocket. It was a small, slim device well hidden behind the various items in the pocket, but capable of capturing sound very clearly. A small gift from the CIA to RAW as part of international intelligence agency cooperation.
‘Assalaam walekum!’ Kamran called out, and the cops heard three voices responding to the greeting. They assumed it was Ansari and the two old men.
‘Chacha, do you know Imtiaz bhai? The broker?’
‘Oh yes,’ an ageing voice replied. ‘He’s the one who provided our Sohail beta with the house he’s living in right now. Isn’t that right, beta?’
‘You looking as well? I think Imtiaz bhai still has a couple of houses vacant here.’ The voice was young. Definitely Ansari’s.
‘We recording this?’ Mirza asked. Vikrant nodded. His earpiece was wirelessly attached to a recorder.
‘Yes, yes. I just wanted to make some enquiries. You know, about the building and all.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. The people here are good. Water once a day, but that’s the case all over this town. Electricity isn’t a problem as long as you pay the bills,’ another old voice said.
‘No, no. Bills will all be paid on time, inshallah. It’s just that my brother will be staying here and he might get his wife along with him. So I wanted to make sure that it’s suitable for them…’
‘Perfectly, my friend. Perfectly. I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Kasim. Kasim Qureshi.’
‘Good to meet you, Kasim bhai,’ Ansari said. ‘Anyway, I must get going. Need to cook dinner.’
‘I keep telling you, Sohail beta, get married,’ one of the two old men said.
‘And I keep telling you, chacha, find me a girl.’
They all laughed and Ansari bade khuda hafiz to all of them before leaving. Kamran stayed for a couple of more minutes, chatting with the old men before thanking them and walking away.
‘Get out. You’ve been there for long enough,’ Mirza told Deshpande through his wrist-mic and heard the latter’s SUV start up.
Just as Kamran was walking past their SUV, Vikrant’s cell phone buzzed.
At the same time, he also saw Mirza and Mankame reaching for their respective phones.
Vikrant took his phone out of his pocket. It was a text message from Daniel.
‘We lost him,’ it said.
11
The entire team from the Lakshadweep operation was present. And yet, very few of them were actually there.
The last rites were being conducted at the Hindu crematorium near the Bandra-Kurla complex. Everyone from Prime Minister Desai downwards was in attendance and there were more policemen than civilians on that hot May afternoon.
After two weeks of suffering and pain, Naidu, to Vaishali’s relief, had passed away relatively peacefully. Vaishali, Daniel and everyone else had been expecting it, as the damage to his vital organs was extensive. Quite suddenly, his heart had stopped beating one day and the ECG machine sent out a long beep. Naidu was dead before Vaishali could return to his room with the doctor.
What followed was pure formality. Daniel had led Vaishali to a chair and left her in the care of two nurses before heading out. He had sent the same text message to everyone he thought would want to know – Mirza, Vikrant, Mankame, Goyal, Jaiswal and Major Shaina Verma with the National Security Guard, who had also played an integral part in the Lakshadweep operation.
Mirza had called Daniel within the minute.
‘I don’t want you two to worry about anything,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll take care of whatever needs to be done.’
And Mirza had, as always, been true to his word. In an hour, the DCP of the Bandra–Andheri zone had reached the hospital, followed by the police commissioner himself. An Indian army officer followed, with a representative from the Chief Minister’s Office close on his heels. Government IDs were flashed around and the process of handing over the body was wrapped up in record time. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the PMO, too, was informed and the cremation ground decided. Vaishali’s consent was sought and quickly obtained.
The police and the NSG had dashed to the cremation ground. After the Bandra attack, no one was taking any chances. The city was already on red alert after the attacks, and the PMO had sanctioned reinforcements from central paramilitary forces, if required, at a moment’s notice.
Prime Minister Desai had cancelled all his meetings and flown down to Mumbai. He waited in a suite in the same hotel which Mirza and his team had made their command centre while security forces swept the venue of the last rites.
It took three hours for the cremation ground to be declared safe, after which the attendees had started arriving one by one. Mirza, Vikrant and Mankame had gone to the hospital directly from Mumbra and reached the ground along with Vaishali, Daniel and the body. Goyal and Jaiswal had arrived just as they got there. Shaina, who had flown down from Delhi, reached shortly after them.
Others to arrive included National Security Advisor Pradeep Singh, who arrived with the PM’s cavalcade.
The last rites started in an hour. There was no male member in Naidu’s family and Daniel was Catholic by faith. Vaishali, who had been tying a rakhi around Vikrant’s wrist for the last three years, looked at him and he nodded. Standing up, he told the priest that he would complete the last rites.
Daniel stood next to Vaishali, his hand on her shoulder the whole time as she cried silently, the tears never stopping. Shaina went over and stood on her other side. Mankame took it upon himself to coordinate between the family – Daniel and Vikrant in this case – and the security officers. Goyal and Jaiswal told him that they would be around for whatever was needed.
Mirza stood alone in a corner, taking everything in and saying nothing. No one had seen Mirza at a funeral before this.
As he obeyed the priest’s instructions, Vikrant was only half listening. He had lit his own father’s pyre when h
e was a teenager and knew the procedure well. You never forget something like that once you do it, no matter how long ago.
He was thinking about Sohail Ansari, the suspected handler of the four attackers. A thought had been gnawing at his brain ever since he had first seen Ansari, and he knew he would have to wait till after the funeral to be able to verify it.
Jaiswal had seen Mankame and Kadam talking outside the Crime Branch unit after Pawshe’s interrogation and told Goyal about it. Now, both the cops were wondering if Kadam had told Mankame about the recent episode with Darshan Seth.
They were plotting their next move in their heads while also watching Mankame for any signs that he knew.
Unknown to them, Mankame’s mind was occupied with something completely different. The Bandra attack, the revelation of the Homegrown report and seeing Ansari staying among civilians and behaving completely normally had shaken him. All through his career, he had dealt with domestic criminals and was an expert in crime detection and prevention. Terror, as he was just discovering, was a whole new ballgame. The fact that he was going to be married in two months and the responsibility that would come with it was not helping his state of mind at all.
Vaishali sensed that all her friends – the only family she had now that Naidu was gone – were lost in their own thoughts. She was fine with it. What bothered her, however, was that even Daniel did not seem to be fully present with her, although his gentle grip on her shoulder never wavered and he kept stroking her hair every time a sob escaped her lips.
More than once she had caught him looking over his shoulder, one side at a time, as if he were trying to find someone. She thought about asking him, but also knew that he would tell her if he wanted to. The very fact that she should have to ask was irksome to her. In the last three years that they had been together, she had never had to ask. Neither had he, for that matter. They had been thrown close to each other in literally life-threatening circumstances, and that kind of bond either stays strong or ends in disaster.
Finally, everyone finished paying their last respects. The Indian tricolour was taken off Naidu’s body, folded neatly and handed to Vaishali by a uniformed officer. She accepted it and held on to it tightly.
The priest lit the torch in Vikrant’s hand and he looked at her. Daniel gently pushed her ahead and she moved close to the pyre for one last glimpse of her father.
‘Whatever happens,’ his voice seemed to echo in her ears, ‘I will always love you.’
Her self-control finally gave way and she went down on her knees, crying desperately. Daniel and Shaina gently pulled her to her feet and led her away from the pyre.
An army officer issued the command and the contingent of officers came to attention with a thudding of boots. All the attendees stood up as twenty-one guns boomed thrice in perfect unison.
Vikrant touched the torch to the pyre and repeated the act several times till it was burning from all sides. Then he handed the torch over to the priest, stepped back and went to stand next to Daniel.
After what seemed like a decade and yet a minute, Vaishali became aware of PM Desai standing in front of her with his hands folded. The pyre had stopped burning. The funeral was over.
‘I am really sorry for your loss,’ he said softly. ‘Your father and I did not always see eye to eye on a lot of subjects. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t respect him a lot.’
Vaishali also folded her hands and nodded mutely.
‘Be in touch with my office, okay?’ he said to Daniel, patting his shoulder, and left.
The rest of the attendees followed. Each of them had more or less the same thing to say and Vaishali had the same response.
At the very end, Mankame hugged Daniel and patted Vaishali’s head. They both nodded to each other before he moved away.
Goyal and Jaiswal followed.
‘He was lucky to have you,’ Goyal said to her and Jaiswal nodded. She wiped her tears and took each one’s hand in hers, held on for a minute and then let go.
Mirza was next.
He just stood in front of her for a few seconds, then came forward and enveloped her in a hug.
‘Stay strong, child,’ he said. ‘Stay strong.’
Vikrant was last. Somehow, Vaishali knew he would be. It was in Vikrant’s nature to be there for someone till the very end.
He just stood in front of her and said nothing. She controlled herself for up to five seconds before she gave up and threw herself into his arms, crying uncontrollably.
When Vikrant spoke, his voice was on the verge of breaking.
‘You have us,’ he said. ‘You have all of us.’
Through her tears, her face buried in his chest, she managed to nod. He patted her head and let her cry.
His eyes, however, were on Daniel, who was looking towards one corner of the cremation ground fixedly. And although it passed as quickly as it had come, Vikrant recognized the fury in Daniel’s eyes.
Vikrant quickly stole a glance in the direction that Daniel was looking. There was no one there.
12
In a way, Vikrant thought, it was ironic.
Almost everyone who had been with him during the Lakshadweep operation attended Naidu’s funeral. He had come back from the cremation ground an hour ago and now, sitting in the hotel suite that served as the team’s command centre, he was thinking about the only person who had not been present.
The entire operation had begun with five members of the Indian Mujahideen, who had been arrested by Vikrant during his posting with the ATS, breaking out of the Bhopal central jail. With Mirza and Vikrant hot on their heels, they had ultimately joined their master, Munafiq, aboard a hijacked cruise liner, which was being used as a bargaining chip in exchange for access codes to the INS Dweeprakshak.
What no one, not even Mirza, had known till the last minute, was that one of the five, Mazhar Khan, was actually working for Vikrant.
A product of a broken family, Mazhar had gone undercover after his younger brother, Ayyub, recorded a video of himself declaring that he had renounced the world for jihad and disappeared. Despite his hardest efforts, Vikrant had never been able to find Ayyub. Mazhar, on the other hand, worked with scary levels of patience, getting recruited by an IM module in his area, receiving training in Pakistan and coming back to India with four others. All five were arrested by Vikrant and Mazhar decided to stay in jail with them till the trial began.
So when Munafiq broke them out of prison, Mazhar had had to go along and this in no small part helped Vikrant and Mirza foil Munafiq’s plans.
After the operation was over, Mazhar was spirited away by a RAW team and housed in an undisclosed location for a month till his new identity was ready. Then he shifted to Pune as Irshad Sayyed and set up a gym in the heart of the city. Mirza had personally handled his rehabilitation and apart from him, only Vikrant knew Irshad Sayyed’s real identity.
Vikrant and Mirza had considered informing Mazhar about Naidu’s death. They knew he would have wanted to be there. But in the end, they had agreed that the risk was too great. There was no reason for Irshad Sayyed from Pune to come down to Mumbai for Naidu’s funeral and they didn’t want to jeopardize Mazhar’s safety in any way.
As Vikrant lit a cigarette, standing by an open window of the hotel suite, his cell phone buzzed.
He fished it out of his pocket, downloaded the video that had just landed in his email and played it.
Ayyub was standing in a spartan room. The concrete walls were bare, and no window was visible anywhere. The room, however, was well lit, suggesting artificial lighting.
He was dressed in a simple black salwar-kurta, with a matching black skullcap. His beard was unruly and sparse, as he was barely out of his teens. As he spoke, his voice was flat and devoid of any emotion.
Vikrant, when he had first seen the video, had noticed how Ayyub’s eyes looked completely dead. Whatever his masters had done to brainw
ash him, it seemed to have worked.
The video was hardly three to four minutes long and Vikrant played it thrice before he stopped it. Wordlessly, he finished his cigarette and ground the butt in an ashtray on the windowsill. Mirza hated his smoking habit and the space near the window was the only place where Vikrant could smoke.
Vikrant replied to the email saying that he had sent another voice file, which needed to be compared with the video. Five years had passed in between the two recordings, and the resulting changes in the voice would need to be factored in.
Meanwhile, there was one more thing left to do. Vikrant attached the memory card of the camera he had used in Mumbra to his laptop. Quickly, he downloaded the images he had taken and emailed them to the same tech team from RAW, asking for a facial match test as fast as possible.
Even as he was sending this mail, Vikrant’s phone beeped. Another email.
The report was brief but clear. The voice samples from the audio recording on Kamran’s device were a match for the voice in Ayyub’s video.
Vikrant sat back in his chair with a muttered expletive just as the door to the suite opened and Mirza came in.
‘I just got off the phone with the NSA, lad,’ Mirza said, sitting down on the couch across the table from Vikrant. ‘We’re getting a full surveillance team for Sohail Ansari. Remember Sonam Dhillon? We’d used her in the Lakshadweep operation. She’s coming down with her team.’
Vikrant chuckled mirthlessly. Sonam and her team had camped outside the house of two of the five IM operatives – brothers – and provided a crucial lead in the investigation. Everyone involved in the Lakshadweep operation seemed to be coming back.
Mirza, who had been going through his email on his phone while talking, heard the chuckle and looked up. Those who knew Vikrant well knew that he found very few things funny. The last time he had chuckled like that, he had ended up punching the Pakistan high commissioner in the face.
The Endgame Page 6
