by Alex Lukeman
Afridi raised his rifle and shot one of the dangling figures. The man fell from the line and hit the ground. A burst from one of his comrades slammed into Afridi's chest, knocking him to the ground. He was aware of pain. He couldn't breathe. He heard the rapid tacktacktack of automatic weapons, the screams of men dying, the indifferent beat of the helicopter blades. His last thought was of the giant, blood red stone he'd found among the jewels.
CHAPTER 53
It was evening in Virginia and day in Afghanistan. The satellite Elizabeth used to observe Afridi came into range. The black and white image was crisp and clear. It wasn't what Elizabeth expected to see.
"What on earth..." she said.
"What happened?" Stephanie asked. "It looks like they're all dead."
Afridi's campground was destroyed. Elizabeth counted thirteen bodies sprawled on the canyon floor. The trucks had been torched, leaving charred hulks. A thin column of black smoke lazed into the sky from one of them.
"People coming," Stephanie said. She pointed to a group of bearded men approaching in a battered pickup. A machine gun was mounted in the back.
"Tribesmen," Elizabeth said. "Probably Shinwari. They must have seen the smoke and decided to take a look."
Stephanie zoomed in on a bearded corpse lying on his back. His mouth was open, his eyes staring at the sky. The front of his light colored shirt was dark with dried blood. A rifle lay on the ground next to him.
"That's Afridi," Stephanie said.
"It wasn't the tribesmen," Elizabeth said. "They're just showing up."
"That leaves Cobra's man."
"Ijay. I guess Cobra decided he didn't want to hear whatever it was Afridi had to say."
"I wish all these people would just kill each other off," Stephanie said. "It would save us a lot of trouble."
"That's a bit bloodthirsty, Steph. Anyway, Afridi isn't a problem anymore."
"I rest my case."
"We've still got Cobra to deal with. I'd better let Nick know about Afridi."
"Look at that mound of rocks," Stephanie said. She pointed at the stones and dirt Afridi's men had moved and piled to the side. "That's some serious labor."
"They were looking for something. We still don't know what."
"If they found anything, Cobra has it now."
On screen, the tribesmen had gotten out of their truck and were fanning out through the site. Elizabeth called Nick.
"Director."
"Afridi's dead," Elizabeth said. "So are all the men he had with him."
"Where do I send the flowers?"
"Very funny, Nick. It looks like Cobra caught Afridi and his men by surprise. There's no one there now, except the locals."
"So we don't need an insertion into Afghanistan or Pakistan after all," Nick said. "I'm not sorry to hear that. I wasn't looking forward to it."
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were getting soft," Elizabeth said.
"You don't give me the chance."
Elizabeth laughed. "I don't want you to get bored."
"What's next?"
"We still have Cobra to deal with."
"Where is he now?"
Stephanie had been listening to the conversation. She pulled up a map on her monitor. Rao's phone was marked by a blinking red dot.
"I've got a lock on his phone," Stephanie said. "He's not that far from you, on a road that goes to a town southwest of Srinagar called Poonch. It's right on the control line, near the border with Pakistan. Ijay would have needed to use a helicopter to get to Afridi. There's an airstrip in Poonch, the only one in the region. I think Cobra is going to meet him there."
"I don't know what this guy looks like," Nick said.
"I can fix that," Stephanie said. She called up a photo of Rao, hacked from his file on the Research Wing servers. "I'm sending a picture now."
Nick looked at the photo. Cobra was an innocuous looking man for someone who had caused so much trouble. There was something hidden in his eyes. Nick had seen it before, in the eyes of men for whom everything was a means to an end. It was the look of a man with no conscience.
"What do you want us to do?" Nick said.
"Go get him," Elizabeth said. "Find out what Afridi was doing in Afghanistan. Cobra went to a lot of trouble to track him down and kill him."
"I'll let you know if his location changes," Stephanie said.
"Copy that," Nick said.
CHAPTER 54
Nick and Selena rode in the front seat of the rental van, Lamont in back. Nick was behind the wheel. Black travel cases loaded with film gear and marked with the logo of the bogus Canadian film company took up most of the cargo space behind Lamont. Their pistols were out of sight.
"Check point coming up," Lamont said.
Concrete barriers placed in a staggered pattern across the pavement blocked the way. Four soldiers in Indian uniforms and carrying INSAS assault rifles waited by a covered truck parked at the side of the road. One of the soldiers stepped out and held up his hand to stop.
The soldiers looked nervous.
"Itchy fingers," Lamont said, as Nick slowed. "Don't piss them off."
Selena said, "Let me do the talking."
Nick came to a stop and rolled down his window. The soldier who approached had two red and gold chevrons on his shoulder boards. A corporal. The man was young, no more than twenty at most. He eyed the foreign faces with suspicion.
"This is restricted area," he said. His English was awkward, heavily accented. "Who are you? Why you come here?"
Nick said, "We're a film crew from Canada, making a documentary on Kashmir."
"No filming here. Turn around."
Selena leaned across Nick and began speaking Hindi. The soldier looked surprised. He answered her and held out his hand.
"He wants to see our passports," Selena said.
They handed over the passports. The soldier looked at each photo, comparing the pictures to the people.
Selena said, "Give him the letter."
Part of their cover was an official looking letter written in Hindi and English from the Indian Ministry of Culture, giving them permission to film anywhere in Indian Kashmir. It instructed anyone who read it to provide full cooperation to the distinguished Canadian film crew. It was signed by the minister himself. The letter had been provided courtesy of Langley's clandestine ops division. Even the minister would think it was his signature.
A second soldier came over to the van. This man had three stripes on his shoulder. The corporal gestured at the van and said something. The sergeant took the documents and studied them.
"You speak Hindi?" he said to Nick.
"Not me. She does." He nodded at Selena.
"Give me the key to the back of the van."
"It's unlocked," Nick said.
The sergeant barked out a command. A third soldier opened the doors and began looking in the cases. Lights. Sound gear. A computer. He held up an expensive steady cam.
"Please be careful with that," Nick said. If they did a personal search they'd find the guns. That wouldn't go over well.
The soldier finished searching and shook his head. He got out of the van and closed the doors.
"Why are you going to Poonch?" the sergeant asked.
Nick didn't have a story ready. He was about to make one up when Selena began talking to the sergeant in Hindi. She spoke for a minute before the sergeant replied. The conversation went back and forth. Nick had no idea what they were talking about.
The sergeant handed the passports and letter back to Nick.
"You may go. Be careful. There are reports of infiltrators from Pakistan. They will not treat you well if they see you."
"Thank you, Sergeant," Nick said.
The sergeant stepped back and saluted. Nick put the van in gear and they eased around the barriers.
Nick turned to Selena. "What did you tell him?"
"I told him we wanted to film the spot where the courageous Indian Army and proud people of the area held back the
Pakistani hoards in 1947 and saved the nation."
"Did you really say that?"
"More or less. Not quite so dramatically."
"What's Poonch got to do with saving the nation?"
"The Kashmir Valley is a major corridor for invasion from Pakistan and Poonch is on a natural strategic choke point. When war started in 1947 there wasn't any airport. Civilian refugees hacked out a dirt runway in six days while a small unit of the Indian Army held the Pakis off. Once the strip was done, reinforcements and supplies could be airlifted in to block the invasion."
"Saving the nation," Nick said.
"Exactly."
Poonch was a city of about 500,000 people. They passed a large mosque on the side of a hill overlooking the city.
"Most of the people here are Muslim," Selena said. "The boundary line runs right through the city."
"Hindus and Muslims," Nick said. "You'd think after a thousand years or so they'd would learn to get along."
"Religion divides everything in India and Pakistan," Selena said.
A marker told them they were on the Surankote Daraba Road. They passed a turnoff with a sign in English, Arabic and Hindi pointing the way to the airstrip. Tall hills surrounded the strip on three sides. They could see the fortified control line between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir, snaking along a hill on the other side of the field. Guard posts and bunkers bristled on the hillside. High barriers of rolled wire in two rows with a narrow dirt path between them marked the line.
"I spy a helicopter," Lamont said.
"Yup. Looks nasty. What is that, a 20mm sticking out in front?" Nick said.
"Looks like it. Rocket pods, too."
Selena had binoculars on the chopper. "People standing around. Sentries on the perimeter. Looks like an elite unit, everyone is armed and wearing black uniforms. Wait a minute."
Selena adjusted the binoculars. "There's a car turning onto the strip."
She watched. The car came to a stop and a man in civilian clothes got out and walked toward the chopper.
"It's Cobra."
"Jackpot," Lamont said.
Nick drove pulled to the side of the road and parked where they could see the helicopter through the trees.
"Now what?" Selena asked.
"Now we wait for Cobra's next move."
CHAPTER 55
Rao turned off the road and onto the landing strip. Ijay's helicopter sat part way down from the end. Four men armed with Kalantak micro assault rifles were stationed around the perimeter.
Ijay's bird was a Rudra Class attack helicopter, named for the Vedic god of the tempest. The aircraft looked the part, lethal and black. Four long blades stretched out over the center of a wide body that could carry twelve heavily armed soldiers. A long-barreled 20mm cannon stuck out like a spear from a chin mounted gun turret in front. Pods mounted out to the sides carried antitank and antiaircraft missiles. The Rudra was a fast attack helicopter designed to put the fear of God in an enemy tanker, right before he got to meet his god in person. The sophisticated systems of the bird placed it with the best of its kind, anywhere in the world. The new radar evading technology on this one put it in a class of its own.
Ijay stood outside the craft talking with several of his men. As he pulled up and parked, Rao could see the pilot and another crewman in the cockpit. It looked as though the pilot was angry. As Rao got out of the car, Ijay broke away from the group and came forward to meet him.
"Ijay," Rao said.
"Sir." Ijay saluted.
"Where is Afridi?"
"Dead. As are all his men. Two of mine were killed. This man has been costly."
Rao thought of Lakshmi and his son, dead on that station platform all those years ago because of Afridi. He wished he had Afridi's corpse at his feet. He would urinate on him, kick him, spit on his face. He wished Lakshmi and Arjuna were here with him, to feel his revenge. But they were not, and all he felt was a numb recognition that his enemy was dead at last. Somehow he'd thought it would be more intense, more satisfying.
"Sir?" Ijay was looking at him.
"Sorry, I was thinking," Rao said. "I'm sorry about your men."
Ijay nodded.
"Tell me what happened," Rao said.
Ijay described the flight across Pakistan and the brief battle for the camp, the death of Afridi. Then he told Rao what they had found.
"We recovered several boxes of gold and one of precious stones," he said. "Old coins. Pieces of gold, finely worked."
"It's all part of the Mughal treasure stolen during the sack of Delhi," Rao said. "We'll use some of it to compensate the families of your men who were killed. Did you look through the box with the jewels?"
"No. We were busy."
"Let me see it."
"It's inside."
The two men walked over to the helicopter. Rao heard cursing, a steady stream of muttered blasphemies.
"That's the pilot you hear," Ijay said. "There's an electrical problem. We almost crashed when we came in and now we can't take off until it's fixed. It's probably a problem with the new gear. We'll find it, but it might take a while."
They climbed into the helicopter. There was a faint, acrid smell of burned insulation in the air. Two black body bags lay at the rear, uneven shapes in the gloom of the interior. The co-pilot had a panel off the side of the cabin, studying the wiring. The boxes from Afridi's campsite were stored under an aluminum bench seat. Ijay pulled one out.
Rao opened the lid.
Ijay said, "I've never seen anything like what's in this box. Never."
Rao pushed aside several stones and saw the Eye.
At last!
He drew the Eye from the box and held it up to the light coming through the open door. His hand trembled.
"We'll use some of the gold to compensate the families of your men. I'll turn the rest of it in," Rao said. "Except for this. This belongs in the temple."
"It's beautiful," Ijay said.
"Do you know the prophecy about the Eye of Shiva?"
"Every good Hindu knows the prophecy," Ijay said. He quoted: "When the Eye is returned, my enemies will be consumed in the divine fire."
"That's right."
"That is the Eye?" There was awe in Ijay's voice.
"Yes. You've served Lord Shiva by bringing this back to Mother India."
"You knew it was there?"
"I had hoped it was. I suspected Afridi had found the Mughal treasure, or some part of it. This was meant to be."
"Karma," Ijay said.
Rao nodded. "I'm going to take this to the temple in New Delhi. Bring everything back to base once you've completed repairs."
Ijay saluted. "Sir."
Rao got back into his car. He felt one of the headaches starting. Eating seemed to help and he could take some of Krivi's pills. He decided to stop at a restaurant he'd noticed in town. After hundreds of years, a few more minutes before the Eye was returned wouldn't matter.
Selena had been watching. Now she lowered the binoculars. "Cobra's getting in his car."
Nick said. "We can't take him here. Those guys are Special Forces. There's no cover and we're outgunned. We wouldn't have a chance."
Lamont swatted at a fly buzzing in the van. "What do you want to do?"
"He has to be going back to Srinagar. There's only one road, the way we came in. He has to go that way. We'll get ahead of him and wait."
"Then what?" Selena asked.
"We ambush him, force him off the road. Once we're out of the city and past that checkpoint, there are long stretches of highway where we could do it."
"You ever do anything like that before?" Selena asked.
"In Iraq. Of course, we had armored vehicles there. Made it easier."
"He's driving a Jaguar. If he wants to ditch us, he'll leave this heap in the dust," Lamont said.
"Then we'll make sure he doesn't get the chance."
Nick started the van and pulled out after their quarry. The Jaguar was already far ahead. They entered th
e city. Soon they were crawling in heavy traffic, stuck behind a large truck belching black smoke. There was no opening to pass.
Nick couldn't see Cobra's car ahead.
"This traffic sucks," he said. "We're going to lose him."
Suddenly Selena pointed off to the side. "There's the Jag."
The Jaguar was parked outside a restaurant.
"Looks like we caught a break," Lamont said.
"Let's hope he takes his time."
The truck in front turned off into a side street. Nick dodged a three wheeled motor bike loaded down with a family of four and a goat and picked up speed. In another ten minutes they reached the outskirts of town.
Different sentries manned the checkpoint. They passed through with no problem and half an hour later were parked on the side of the road in the shade of a cluster of trees, waiting for Cobra.
Dusty fields lined the road on both sides. The sun lit the countryside with a luminous quality of light Nick had never seen anywhere else in the world. In the distance, a man walked behind a plow pulled by a hump-backed ox. It was a scene that hadn't changed much in thousands of years.
Nick chose a place for the ambush where the road rose and made a blind turn into a sharp curve before it opened out onto a long straightaway. He parked the van halfway around the curve under some trees. Nick's plan was to pull onto the road in front of Rao's car as he slowed down in the turn.
He called Harker.
"Director, we're going for Cobra. Have you got us on satellite?"
"Affirmative, Nick. We have a clear view of the area and GPS signals from you and Cobra."
In Virginia, Stephanie and Elizabeth watched the vehicles and the colored dots that marked their location. Nick's dot was stationary. Cobra's moved at a high rate toward the ambush.
"He's moving right along," Elizabeth said. "He must be doing close to a hundred."
"On this road that's suicide," Nick said. "He might save us a lot of trouble and take himself out."
"Everyone drives like that here," Stephanie said. "India has a lot or traffic accidents."
