by Rohit Gaur
Then, he needed to catch whoever had done this—and make them pay. Already, intelligence forces had fanned out to the dark corners of the city, listening for rumors or information about who was in town, who had authorized the attack, and who had carried it out. Eventually they would find something, make the right person talk. Already the airport had been closed and the roads out of the city were in the process of being shut down. The net was being cast and tightened, inch by inch. Arjun hoped he could be there when it closed entirely and the prey was dragged out into the light. What would the face of this monster be?
A knock at the door and Vishal entered.
“Sir? The local news has arrived and we have your statement ready. Are you ready to give it?”
He looked down at his hands, and then past them to the floor. A worn spot in the carpet lay before his feet, its edges beginning to fray. If I pull on that thread, he imagined, I could unravel this entire carpet, unspooling its weave until it was just a tangle of loose string. Just one tug and it would all be gone.
He stood up and put his jacket on.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Whizzing up the curves of the winding, gently rising road, the black SUV hurried to its destination. Jay sat up front, tense and alert, ears still jangling from the explosion. He watched the forest get thicker as they climbed to the Sharma compound in the foothills that surrounded the valley. A thick and terrible silence had fallen over the car after Parvati finished the phone call with her husband. Everyone sat perfectly still as if in a daze, replaying the events of the previous hour. Jay thought again and again of the moment when Tarun and Kumar had dashed off—if he had only been paying closer attention, been a bit quicker. He had known the festival might be dangerous, that plenty of people would like to hurt the Sharmas, even kill them. Being in the security detail of the chief minister’s family meant preparing for the worst-case scenario, but nothing can prepare you for every possible outcome. How could he have known the boys would run? Still, he knew, could feel it creeping in around the edges of his mind, that he would likely be held responsible for letting Kumar and Tarun run out of sight. Hell, he thought, I hold myself responsible.
Which is why he had insisted on leaving the festival immediately after returning to the SUV. Normally when traveling with Parvati or the kids, a caravan of at least three vehicles accompanied them to ensure their safety. In the confusion of the festival, however, Jay decided to push on without their escort. It was more important to get them out of harm’s way than wait on protocol. What if another bomb went off? What if the attackers remained at the festival, waiting for a chance to approach? No, Jay reasoned, it was best to slip away into the night. He had failed the family once that evening—he would not do it again.
In the backseat, Tarun lay slumped against his mother. Neither spoke but they held each other tightly. Tarun felt as though he had fallen into a trance: his mind, exhausted from working quickly, had quieted into a stupor, and his thoughts came slowly, blurred into one another. His body seemed to be loosening, like a fist unclenching. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the OM necklace that he had taken from Kumar: somehow, despite the force of the explosion, it had remained in the pocket of his kurta. He looked at it in disgust, his mouth pulling into a frown at the memory of what he had done to get it. He wished he could give it back. Or better: he wished that his parents had never given it to Kumar at all. It seemed like a cursed object now and he wanted to get rid of it, throw it out of the window, but Parvati had seen him remove it from his pocket. She took it from his hand and rubbed her fingers over the smooth silver. She looked down at Tarun.
“It wasn’t your fault, Tarun. You didn’t cause this.”
“I shouldn’t have taken it,” he mumbled back, hot tears springing to his eyes again.
“Hush,” she murmured, pulling him in again. “You couldn’t have known.” She placed the necklace over his head, slipping the OM behind his collar. “Kumar cared for you, Tarun, as I know you cared for him. He’d want you to keep this for him.”
The SUV pulled off the highway onto the long driveway that led to the Sharma residence, the headlights flashing across the thickly overgrown forest. The road now rose more steeply, climbing up the side of a broad foothill of the Kashmiri mountains. This road, so familiar to Tarun, suddenly seemed strange again without Kumar next to him. How many times had they driven up this road together, coming to or from school, events, parties? Rarely had they gone anywhere by themselves. Now Tarun would have to go everywhere alone.
The SUV pulled up to the high, forbidding gate that accessed the inner yard of the house, part of the security fence that surrounded the entire property. Normally, the gates slid open as the car approached, but now it stayed firmly closed. As they pulled close, the headlights shown through the bars of the gate, illuminating the empty road on the other side.
“That’s strange,” muttered the agent driving the car. He pulled his phone out of his breast pocket and dialed a number. Jay swiveled around from the front passenger seat and looked at Parvati and Tarun. “I’m sure there’s just some confusion up at the residence because of what happened at the festival. We’ll figure it out in just a minute,” he reassured them.
“I’m not getting through to the house,” the driver said, closing his phone. “I’m going to see if the gates can be opened manually.” He opened the door, stepped out of the vehicle, and walked up to the gate, his movements clearly displayed by the headlights of the car. He tugged on the bars but they didn’t budge. Jay shook his head. “It’s a security fence. You can’t just pull it open,” he sighed. He began to roll down the window to call the agent back when a sharp crack sounded, loud and close. Tarun jumped at the noise and Parvati’s hands tightened on his shoulder as Jay sucked in his breath. All three of them tensed quickly, drowsiness scattered, the explosion at the festival only an hour before still reverberating in their ears.
As they watched helplessly, the agent standing at the gate, lit by the dramatic glare from the headlights, fell forward, bending at an unnatural angle, as a blossom of red spread over his chest.
The next few moments sped by in a blur of noise and movement: Parvati screaming, Jay unholstering his weapon, a dozen figures dressed in black emerging from the woods to surround the SUV, large guns pointed directly at them. “Get down and stay down,” Jay yelled at them. Parvati pulled Tarun to the floor of the SUV, covering him with her body as bullets thudded against the thick plate glass and armored metal of the car. Although Tarun couldn’t see him, the sound of Jay’s gun firing from within the car was unmistakable: shot after shot he fired at the approaching men, until abruptly the shots ceased and a sickening silence fell. It had only been a few seconds but already much had become clear: the bomb had been no accident, they had been the likely targets, and he and his mother would probably die here in this car. Pressed closely to his mother, Tarun could feel her heart beat racing—or was it his own? Tarun’s mind reeled with the new adrenaline pumping through him, quickly trying to formulate a plan. The men would soon open the door and then he would . . . what? Fight back? With what?
Before he could get any farther, the door swung open and a voice, calm and low, commanded them to get out of the car. Parvati, clutching Tarun, didn’t move. The voice spoke again, this time with a little more hardness.
“Get out of the car or I’ll pull you out.”
Parvati whispered in his ear: “It’s going to be okay. Just stay quiet.” She lifted herself from the floor of the SUV carefully and then pulled Tarun up. He tried not to look at Jay slumped over in the front seat as they climbed out of the vehicle. Now standing in front of the men, he took a closer look. About ten men stood in a semicircle around them, dressed entirely in black, armed with an assortment of handguns and long rifles. They looked young, maybe in their late twenties or early thirties, solidly built, the kind of physiques commonly sported by the farmers and ranchers of north Kashmir. Tarun knew these were the militants he had heard discussed by his father and
on television, the men who attacked and killed innocent people. When he had tried to picture them before, Tarun had only been able to imagine monsters with claws and horns and hideous faces like the ones drawn in picture books. Instead, they just looked like the men who came to town selling onions, cabbages, and lamb meat, or who worked as cooks and waiters in the restaurants, with rough hands and tired faces. The tallest one, the one who had spoken to them, seemed to be in command, ordering the other men to quickly bind Parvati’s hands, then Tarun’s. After they were finished, the man spoke:
“Mrs. Sharma, you have a choice to make. You can either come with us peacefully and we will not harm you or your son, or you can resist us and we will shoot your son and carry you off anyway. You have seen how serious we can be. Make no mistake: we mean what we say.”
Parvati, after a quick glance at Tarun, nodded slowly.
“Good,” the man replied. “Then know this: if you run, we kill your son. If you yell for help, we kill your son. But if you cooperate, you can both emerge from this unharmed and go back to your family.”
“Why are you doing this?” Parvati asked with a tremble. “Who are you?”
“You know who we are, Mrs. Sharma, and what we want. I’m sure you’ve learned all about us from your husband. But enough: it’s time we left. Follow me. And remember: no noise.”
They marched at a rapid pace for several hundred yards, the men leading them carefully through the dark forest, helping them over large roots and fallen branches, hands firmly on their arms. They walked without the advantage of any light, but their eyes adjusted quickly. Tarun had never really ventured into the forests that surrounded the home—he and Kumar had been forbidden from leaving the fenced-in area. Tarun’s thoughts returned again to Kumar and the men—these men—who had killed him. Do they know? Tarun thought. Do they know that their bomb killed my brother? Or have they been hiding in these woods like cowards? Anger began rising in Tarun’s chest, a new anger that he hadn’t felt before. Now that he had seen the attackers, seen their grim and lonely faces, he discovered a newfound defiance within him. Why should they be allowed to do this? They can’t get away with it. I’ve got to stop them somehow, I’ve got to save my mother. The difficulties, of course, were insurmountable: hands tied, in the dark, outnumbered, lost. What could he possibly do?
Before long, they emerged into a clearing where two trucks had been left in the care of an additional man. He seems worried, speaking rapidly to the other men.
“I got a call. They’re already blocking the roads out of town. We need to hurry or we’ll never make it.”
The men moved fast: Tarun felt himself pushed into one of the trucks. He yelled for Parvati but she had been shuttled into the other vehicle. The engines roared to life and they dove down through the bush back onto the road, pealing away with a screech of the tires. With the blindfold on, Tarun had no idea where they might be going, but he knew that if they were taking them out of the city, it couldn’t be good.
Arjun had just finished his interview with the local news reporter, condemning the attack, urging calm, and requesting the prayers of the people of Srinagar for his son and the others who had lost their lives. Feeling drained, he glanced at the clock: almost midnight. He wanted to check again on his wife and son since they should have arrived back at the house by now. He dialed the private number of the residence.
“Hello?” their maid, Amma, answered on the second ring.
“Amma, it’s me. Is my wife still awake? Can you put her on?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Sharma, but she has not yet arrived. Would you like me to call you when she does?”
“You’re sure she hasn’t arrived, Amma? She was on her way back from the festival over an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry, no, I haven’t heard from her.”
“Thanks, I’ll try calling her directly.”
He dialed her number, then Jay’s: no answer from either. With a rising sense of alarm, he called the extension for the security personnel that manned his home residence. He asked them to send out a search vehicle to look for the SUV. Where could they have gone? he thought. When I spoke to Parvati, they were only ten minutes away from the residence.
“Vishal,” he called out. “I just called my home. Parvati and Tarun never arrived and no one is answering. I want a squad dispatched to the residence immediately and all highways in the vicinity completely shut down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Arjun’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID: it was his home security team. Well, he thought with relief, that was quick. They must have just arrived home. He answered the call expectantly.
Tarun sat quietly in the truck: he had been trying to count the minutes, but he couldn’t concentrate. Ten? Fifteen? Maybe more. They were taking the back roads, of that he was sure. The rough condition of the paving, the sharp turns, told him that they were trying to avoid the major highways. The driver and one of the men in front were having a sharp argument: from the bits that Tarun could snatch, it seemed that they had deviated from the planned route to avoid the blockades the government had set up faster than anticipated. Now, it seemed, they were all but lost in the winding mountain passes.
“But if we head north . . .”
“It’s too dangerous . . .”
“What else are we going to do?”
The truck lurched back and forth as they navigated up the twisting roads, the driver arguing with his front seat companion. In the heat of the argument and on a particularly difficult turn, Tarun felt the driver lose control of the vehicle, the carriage swaying violently off course. With an ominous thud, the back wheel ran over the lip of the mountain road pulling the truck’s momentum over the edge. In just the space of the breath, the bottom fell out. Tarun felt the truck turn over, his whole body lurching upside down, an involuntary yell escaping from his lips as they tumbled sideways down the steep embankment. The safety belt kept him firmly in place even as he felt the bodies of the men on either side of him crash into the ceiling and windows. Wrenching, disorienting, the fall seemed endless, but it was likely not more than moments before they came to rest with a sickening thud.
Taking stock of his body for the second time that evening, Tarun tested his legs, arms: everything seemed intact, surprisingly. The truck lay on its side and Tarun felt his safety belt digging into waist and shoulder. Carefully, he wiggled his arms out and released the latch, freeing his body and falling on top of the man who had been sitting to his left. He wasn’t moving, or moving much anyway, his face bloodied from shattering the glass window next to him. In fact, Tarun thought as he examined his surroundings, none of the five men in the truck seemed to have been wearing a belt—they were splayed in various unnatural positions in front and behind him. One of them let out a soft groan and Tarun knew that meant he had little time. Thinking quickly, he climbed out the window facing the sky and the canopy of trees overhead, using his bound hands to pull himself up. He slid off the truck onto the ground and listened closely: surely the other truck had stopped when they had slid off the edge. No doubt they would come looking for them, for him. Tarun thought of his mother, still captive in the other truck: it wouldn’t do her any good if he was caught.
Turning decisively, Tarun pushed off into the wood, ignoring the pain in his legs as he limped away as quickly as possible. He needed to put as much distance as possible between him and the men who held his mother. The grade of the terrain was steep and Tarun pitched forward at a fast pace. Branches stung his face as he kept pushing through the thick brush, eventually coming to a low pass. Finally stopping, he listened hard for any pursuers but the night was dark and quiet. He was safe—but now what? He needed to find a place to hide for the evening; then in the morning he could think.
Walking more slowly, he began climbing up the other side of the pass. Some place high up would be better, he thought. He dug his feet into the soft ground and pulled himself up by the thick knots of tree trunks or roots all around. At some point, he figured, he would climb
out onto a more level place where he could lay down and rest. He peered up to gauge the remaining distance and caught a glimpse of a pale light gleaming a few hundred feet ahead. Could someone be out here? he wondered. He began climbing more quickly in the direction of the light. Could it be a hiker? Why would they camp all the way out here? It was pointless to speculate, though: all Tarun knew was that the light likely meant safety, someone who could help him back to the city, to his father. Then they could find and save Parvati.
The light grew stronger as he got closer, finally pulling himself over the ledge to where it seemed to originate. Instead of a campsite, Tarun found himself before the entrance to a large cave, the light issuing from it warm and flickering as if from a fire. Cautiously, he walked forward underneath the arch of rock that outlined the entrance.
“Hello?” he called out, stepping inside.
The floor of the cave was surprisingly clean, almost swept bare of dirt. The walls seemed polished and were decorated with flaming torches and elaborate pictures in red and white paints. Tarun looked closer: the pictures showed people and animals, battle scenes, parades, rituals, elaborate costumes. What is this place? he wondered. Where am I? He continued to step forward, following the cave as it became a winding tunnel, the pictures becoming denser, more elaborate, and the flickering light stronger. He felt impelled by invisible hands down into the cave, drawn by an intense desire to discover what—or who—might be at the end.
As he rounded the last curve, he entered a much larger chamber filled with light from dozens of torches mounted on the wall and—here Tarun could barely believe his eyes—floating in the air above him. Soft music played from invisible instruments and large lotus flowers grew in clumps on the cave floor, which he realized was covered with an inexplicable soft grass. His eyes landed on a small pedestal at the center of the room, painted a luminescent gold and covered with bright gems. On it sat a murti just like the ones at the festival earlier that day, except this one looked older, less colorful than the ones he had seen before. Its gray elephant skin looked cracked and dusty, and its face drooped onto its chest as if resting.
