BLOWBACK

by Deva, Mukul

  Just then, the light on the screen began to blink intermittently and the urgent red colour changed to a more sedate orange.

  ‘The signal has moved to the intermittent mode now, sir,’ Khare called out, sounding relieved.

  ‘Yes, I see that too,’ Sami said when Anbu told him.

  ‘Excellent.’ Anbu felt some of the stress recede. ‘Place the extraction team on standby and activate the milk run.’

  ‘Good idea, sir!’ Putting down the phone, Sami swung into action at once.

  The irritating buzz of the doorbell shattered the early morning calm in the apartment. Even though he had been expecting someone to arrive, by the time Iqbal opened his bedroom door Asif was already out of his room and halfway across the living room. He was either a light sleeper or had already been awake. Though it was slack by his side and almost out of sight, the pistol in Asif’s hand gave Iqbal a cold shock.

  Why am I surprised? Of course he would be armed!

  Peering through the peephole, Asif carefully surveyed the area outside the door. Then he turned to Iqbal and whispered, ‘Seems like the milkman. Doesn’t he just leave the milk outside and go away?’

  ‘That’s what he normally does,’ Iqbal replied, matching his decibel level.

  ‘Then why is he...?’

  The doorbell buzzed again.

  ‘Open the damn door before he wakes up the whole world!’ With an exasperated glare Asif motioned to the door with his pistol and took position to one side, from where he could cover the door if required.

  Although Iqbal had expected one of the Force 22 officers, he had to fight to contain his surprise when he opened the door and saw the man who waited outside. ‘Yes? What is it? Why are you ringing the doorbell at this time?’

  ‘Sorry, sahib, but I need the month’s payment. Memsahib told me to collect it today.’ The accent was typical of the bhaiyya from the cow belt, but the careful observer would have noticed that this particular milkman was well-built and well-fed, almost as though he consumed more milk than he delivered. Luckily, from where he was positioned, Asif couldn’t see beyond the doorway.

  ‘How much is it?’ Iqbal allowed his exasperation to show, the normal reaction of any person woken up so early for such a tiresome task.

  ‘Four hundred and eighty-two rupees, sahib. I had given the details with the bill to memsahib and...’

  ‘Okay, okay! Let me get it for you. Wait.’ He closed the door and turned back to Asif with a shrug. Asif had heard the exchange and returned the pistol to his ankle holster. ‘Pay the idiot and get rid of him,’ he muttered as he returned to the spare bedroom.

  Iqbal went to his bedroom and quickly pulled out his wallet and extracted five hundred-rupee notes from it. He used the special pen Ankita had given him to scribble a short message on the currency note in the middle. Returning the pen to his cupboard, he went out again.

  This is the best way for you to pass on messages even in the face of the enemy. The writing will only be visible under a special lamp.

  ‘Here, this is five hundred.’ Iqbal opened the door and held out the money. ‘Put the balance in our account.’ He kept his tone normal, keenly aware that Asif was listening to every word.

  ‘Thank you, sahib. Here is the milk.’

  Iqbal took the milk and was closing the door again when he stopped and said, ‘Oh, why don’t you give me one more litre? We have a guest today.’

  ‘No problem, sahib.’ Iqbal took the second packet held out by the milkman and closed the door. He went into the kitchen and put the milk in the refrigerator. He was heading back to his room when Asif called out, ‘I don’t drink that much milk, you know.’

  ‘That’s fine, Asif, but you know how it is with tea and all.’

  ‘Thanks, but there isn’t much time for tea and all, Iqbal,’ Asif said with a mysterious smile. ‘We leave in two hours.’

  ‘Oh.’ Iqbal contained his dismay. ‘Then I guess I’d better get my stuff ready and tell Tanaz to give us some breakfast.’

  ‘Do that.’ Asif stepped back inside and closed the door to his bedroom.

  Iqbal had just begun to throw his things into his backpack and Tanaz was in the kitchen getting breakfast ready when the incongruous milkman returned to his destination. He held out the five notes to Ankita, who began to scan them under the special lamp kept beside her laptop. She found the note with the message immediately.

  Asif here. Another strike today. We have no comm.

  She was reading it aloud when the door reopened and Dhankar, who had gone out with the extrication team, entered. Sami was with him. The two of them read the note as well.

  ‘So that’s where Asif is!’ Sami exclaimed. ‘I guessed as much. Let me get the Old Man up to speed.’ He turned and headed for the phone.

  ‘You’re looking good, Vikram,’ Dhankar said with a chuckle as he watched Tiwathia climb out of his milkman’s attire. ‘You may like to consider this as a career option once we retire you.’

  ‘Right!’ Tiwathia grinned back at him. ‘Good to know I won’t starve when the time comes to hang up my boots.’

  The two men laughed again, but their hearts were not in it. They were both thinking about the woman and the man who were at that moment carrying the bombs, literally.

  They didn’t know which city would be targeted, where and how the operation would go, and how they would stop the terrorists. This time they wouldn’t be able to sabotage the bombs to stop them from going off. They would have to find and defuse them, and do it in time.

  SEVENTEEN

  It was almost six in the morning when the 1033 Darbhanga Express from Pune pulled into Varanasi railway station the next day. As usual, Asif was first off the train and he led the way into the city. Despite the early hour, there were enough rickshaw-wallahs hanging around and they didn’t have any problem reaching their destination near the Banaras Hindu University.

  It was yet another ubiquitous, tiny two-room apartment, the kind often rented by students. Both rooms were bustling with an assortment of young men when the quartet from Pune entered. Iqbal was cursorily introduced to the four men who had not been with them during the Surat strike. Instinctively, Iqbal committed their faces, names and whatever else he could glean from them to memory. By now he was confident that a few moments were enough for him to churn out an Identikit picture and a reasonably accurate personal profile even several days later.

  ‘Come on, Imtiaz,’ Asif called out as the others settled down. ‘Let’s get this stuff together.’

  ‘You’re going to help me assemble them?’ Imtiaz asked, sounding surprised and not too pleased.

  ‘Sure! Any problem?’ Asif held his gaze in a clear challenge.

  ‘So!’ Imtiaz could not contain his anger. ‘You think what happened in Surat was my fault?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Imtiaz,’ Asif said brusquely, ‘I just need to be sure that we get it right this time.’

  ‘Fine! Suit yourself.’ Throwing down his duffel bag, Imtiaz stalked across to the table where they would be assembling the bombs. The two of them began to work in uncomfortable silence.

  From across the room, Iqbal watched the interplay between Asif and Imtiaz with interest. He was glad to see that the mistrust was no longer directed at him alone. The fiasco at Surat must have really messed things up for Asif, he thought, feeling pleased. That Mujib bhai, whoever he is, must have really taken his trip… I wonder where the Force 22 team is.

  Iqbal, and because of him Asif, had been under surveillance from the time Iqbal had initiated emergency contact. Dhankar had followed them all the way from Iqbal’s apartment to the railway station and onto the train. When the train pulled out of the platform, Dhankar was seated just two compartments away in the same bogie. The GPS locator in his mobile phone was powered by the phone battery and would keep working even if the phone failed for some reason.

  Ankita was squashed between Sami and Tiwathia in a chopper flying a dozen miles to the right of the train. The chopper was too far to b
e seen or heard by anyone on the train, yet close enough to sweep in and deliver them to the desired destination, wherever and whenever Dhankar disembarked.

  ‘It looks like they’re heading for Varanasi,’ Ankita said as the train swept past Allahabad, the last major city on that route. ‘There’s no other big stop en route.’

  Sami leaned forward and studied the map. ‘You’re right. That sounds logical.’

  Tapping out a fresh string of commands on her laptop, Ankita pulled up a detailed city map of Varanasi on the screen and began to study it intently.

  ‘Is there anything special happening in Varanasi that we need to know about?’ Tiwathia mused.

  ‘Let me find out.’ Sami reached for the horn and began to communicate with Khare at Kasauli. Finally he turned to the others in the chopper. ‘In addition to the usual pilgrimage rush, the CBSE and ICSE board examinations are going on. Otherwise, it’s just business as usual.’

  ‘Fine! In that case, let’s focus on the major temples,’ Ankita replied. She studied the map quietly for a few minutes and then looked up. ‘Damn! There are so many of them here.’

  ‘Of course, didn’t you know that? Why do you think they call it the temple city?’ Tiwathia laughed grimly. ‘Let’s wait and see where these guys go to ground. That should give us a pretty decent idea of what they’re planning to target.’

  ‘Right! Meanwhile, let me activate the local ATTF and have them standing by with the BDS.’

  ‘And with plenty of bomb blankets. This time we don’t have GPS locators to help us find the bombs, so it’s going to be touch and go. We need to be prepared for the worst case scenario.’

  ‘True!’ Ankita added sombrely. ‘Let’s just hope we’re able to find the damn things in time.’

  Silence fell upon the inmates of the chopper. Professionals that they all were, each one knew that in live operations things seldom went the way they should.

  In such ops one can never tell what the blowback will be. Anbu’s words as they had bid farewell to Iqbal at the start of the operation echoed in Sami’s mind. One can never tell which way things will blow… and who they will blow away. Sami suppressed a shiver.

  ‘Why not move in and take them all out?’ Tiwathia wondered aloud.

  ‘You know why, Vikram,’ Sami said impatiently. ‘Not until we identify the real brains behind the YPS and their conduit to the Pakis. Otherwise, this whole operation is meaningless.’

  ‘I know,’ Tiwthia said resignedly, but his eyes reflected his deep unease.

  If they made a mistake the cost would be paid in blood – the blood of innocents.

  Most of the others had dozed off by the time Asif and Imtiaz finished assembling the bombs. They used the same method as the previous time and the bombs were wrapped in similar blue-green pieces of polythene. The amount of explosive and shrapnel used in each was also the same; that was the only way Imtiaz and Asif had been trained to assemble bombs.

  ‘Right, guys,’ Asif called out as he stepped back from the table. ‘Gather around.’ One by one the bombers roused themselves and began to cluster around the table. ‘This is what we’re going to do.’ Giving precise commands, he paired them off into teams and began to brief them over the large city map that had been pulled out of a tourist brochure and spread across the table. The briefing this time took much longer since they had not carried out a dry run or a reconnaissance earlier. ‘As soon as you’re done, I want all of you to head straight to the railway station and take the train to Delhi.’

  ‘Delhi? Aren’t we going back to Pune?’ Imtiaz voiced the question before Iqbal could.

  ‘No, we’ll take the first train out and that happens to be the one going to Delhi. We need to clear out of the city immediately,’ Asif explained. ‘From Delhi, arrangements have been made for us to move back to our own cities.’

  ‘Where do we stay in Delhi?’ one of the others asked.

  ‘Just head straight for Bardhan House.’

  ‘The one near Jamia?’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Asif nodded. ‘You lot stay with Zia, he knows the way… it’s his place.’ Asif indicated five of them. ‘You three,’ he said, pointing at three others, ‘will move with Nissar. The others – Imtiaz, Abid and Iqbal – will be with me. And if anyone gets separated, you know my number, get to a PCO and call me.’

  ‘How about some money, Asif bhai?’ Ashraf, the youngest of the lot, asked sheepishly.

  ‘That’s all you ever think about.’ Asif gave him an almost playful grin. Ashraf was about to protest when Asif cut him off. ‘Don’t worry, I was just kidding. Here.’ He reached into his bag and pulled out some bundles of five-hundred-rupee notes and began to dole out one half of each bundle to every man in the room. Iqbal hid his revulsion as he took the twenty-five thousand rupees that Asif gave him.

  These guys are well funded for sure. I wonder who is doling out such huge chunks of money to them? Is it Mujib bhai? Colonel Anbu was right, we need to get to the root of it if we want to eliminate this group.

  One by one the strike teams began to move out. Once again Iqbal found himself paired with Asif, so they were the last to leave the room. Asif subjected the apartment to a thorough scrutiny, to make sure that nothing incriminating had been left behind. Then, carefully placing the last bomb in his backpack, he led the way out of the apartment, locking it behind him. He hid the key in the flowerpot near the door and then they headed out. They hailed the first empty cycle rickshaw that went past and Asif told the driver, ‘Railway station chalo.’

  ‘Railway station?’ Iqbal asked as he got in behind him. ‘Aren’t we going to first...’ Iqbal stopped when Asif glared at him. Putting his mouth close to Iqbal’s ear, Asif hissed, ‘Just shut up and do what I tell you to.’

  Iqbal subsided as the rickshaw creaked its way through the chaotic city traffic but his mind worked furiously around the possibilities of where they were headed and what might await them there. He suppressed a shudder as he remembered the destruction after the Sarojini Nagar bombings and he thought of Tanaz, by herself at home. Then he forced himself to focus on the present. Looking around at the city trundling past, he tried to spot any of the Force 22 officers. Where are they? he thought worriedly.

  Try as he might, Iqbal was unable to shake off the dark sense of foreboding that nagged at him.

  Dhankar had followed the terror cell moving with Asif from the railway station to the apartment without any problem. None of them was trained and all were complacent enough not to watch for a tail or any surveillance. Holed up in a tea shack across the road, from where he could keep an eye on the entrance to the apartment block that the terrorists had entered, Dhankar reported in to Sami.

  The Force 22 chopper had already landed in Varanasi and the team had hit the ground running. Ankita had set up base at the nearest police station, where the local ATTF and BDS teams had also converged.

  Sami and Tiwathia left immediately and linked up with Dhankar at the tea stall. Dhankar quickly brought them up to speed.

  ‘There are fourteen of them, including Iqbal.’

  ‘That means a minimum of seven targets or a maximum of fourteen,’ Tiwathia surmised.

  ‘I would say seven,’ Sami said thoughtfully. ‘From what Iqbal has told us, after what happened in Surat, Asif is not going to trust anyone to operate alone.’

  They thought about that for a moment.

  ‘I tend to agree with you,’ Tiwathia finally concurred.

  ‘Anyway, you two keep an eye on things here while I coordinate with the local cops. How long do you reckon we have?’

  ‘The last team just got in twenty minutes ago, so I would say we have at least a couple of hours before these bastards go live. No! Wait! I don’t think they’ll execute in the afternoon. That’s the lean time at most temples and wouldn’t make much sense.’

  ‘I think they’ll target the evening aarti, that’s when the temples are most crowded.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ Sami checked his watch. ‘So that gives us at lea
st four hours... three at the very least. That should be enough.’ He got up and headed back to their temporary base. Despite the confidence he had displayed to the others, Sami was sweating; he knew that three hours were barely enough. There was too much to be done.

  All likely targets had to be identified and covered with adequate troops. And all this had to be done discreetly. Neither the terrorists, nor the media or the public could get even a whiff of it. If it leaked, there would be total panic and the operation would blow. Sami arched his back, trying to rid himself of the stress he could feel starting to build. The surveillance teams would have to be in position to follow the terrorist strike teams whenever they moved out. Sami surveyed the area around the tea stall. It occurred to him that it wasn’t the best place to plant surveillance teams. They would stand out like priests in a brothel. We’ll need a ton of luck to pull this one off.

  Luckily, they had a fair share of luck coming their way that day. The first lucky break was Shashank Pandey, the local ATTF boss. Pandey was a completely hands-on guy and one of the first city cops to receive specialized training in anti-terror operations. He was also a local Varanasi lad and knew every narrow lane that meandered through the temple city. The second stroke of luck was that the Varanasi BDS was up to speed and geared for such threats. When Sami walked into the police station, Ankita was busy plotting likely targets with them on the large city map that spanned the wall.

  ‘What have we got so far?’ Sami asked, taking charge of the situation.

  ‘We have firmed up on eighteen likely targets,’ Ankita said, pointing at the red thumbtacks plotted on the map all around the apartment where the bombers were holed up. ‘There are fourteen more if we include the ones that are farther away and of course, the most obvious ones like the bus stations, the railway station, the court house, etc.’ She indicated a second set of orange thumbtacks that were spread out farther away, around the red ones in the inner ring. ‘As for when; we are guessing they will strike around –’