SALIM MUST DIE

by Deva, Mukul

  Pulling himself together, Mai hardened his heart and accelerated towards the new destiny that awaited him.

  A few hours later, the jet carrying Mai was airborne and heading swiftly towards Beijing, from where he would take the China Airlines flight to New Delhi. Beautifully camouflaged, the aerosolized VX Gas and Variola Major vials were safely nestled in the baggage that he had checked in.

  Keeping in view the latest security stipulations, Mai had sealed the aftershave and room-freshener sprays in the See-Buy-Fly plastic security pouches with ‘Open only at the Destination’ printed boldly across, that all duty-free shops at all airports use these days. In each of these plastic pouches he had also neatly placed the required bill of sale from the Delhi duty-free shop that it was supposed to have been bought at. All the bills were clever forgeries, but one would have to open the packets and check them carefully to know this.

  Salim had been right: The best security precaution becomes redundant the minute it becomes routine. By now security men the world over have become so used to seeing such items in sealed pouches that they rarely give them a second glance.

  Mai had no doubts about being able to get through airport security at Beijing. His rank and status were more than adequate to ensure he sailed through all the security checks.

  The airport security at Delhi will be the real challenge. Let us see if those cretins have the mental capability to see through the camouflage.

  Mai smiled to himself. He was confident he would get through unscathed.

  MAI'S JET WAS ACCELERATING DOWN THE RUNAWAY WHEN the first of Salim's chosen killers, Erik Segan, also took off. In the next few hours, one by one, from various points of the compass, Karl Gunther, Ben Ashton, Abrahim Reis, and Sahiba and Kismat Khan also became airborne.

  The ruthless terrorist armada was starting to converge yet again. This time the destination was New Delhi.

  KARACHI, PAKISTAN

  THE MAN WHO CARRIED THE FIRST NUKE DOWN TO KARACHI delivered it to a small house on the outskirts of town. The dishevelled looking man who took it from him did not look or behave like the highly trained naval commando that he was. The man had totally submerged himself in his role, and looked perfectly at home in the fishing dhow that sailed away from Karachi harbour a little later. The three other people in the dhow with him were also similarly attired. Like him, two of them were Pakistani naval commandos.

  The third was a highly talented man named Sohail Ahmed. The thirty-year-old had been employed as a postman in the Indian Postal Service for the past seven years. For four of those seven years he had also been on the payroll of the Pakistani ISI.

  It was Sohail who took charge of the Chote Miyan when the dhow finally hit the Indian coastline in the dead of the night.

  THE RANN OF KUTCH, INDIA

  ALL ALONG THE COASTLINE, ON BOTH SIDES OF THE international border (IB) between India and Pakistan, there are hundreds of small channels where the Arabian Sea forays inland. Just south of the IB is one of the larger channels which runs right up to the town of Lakhpat in the Rann of Kutch.

  Travelling without any lights, the dhow swept silently out of the ocean and hit land at the mouth of this channel. Waiting for them was a rugged Mahindra Bolero jeep driven by Yusuf, Sohail's younger brother. The camouflaged nuke was rapidly transferred to the rear of the Bolero. The two brothers bid a quiet farewell to the men in the dhow and quickly drove off into the darkness. Simultaneously, the dhow pulled away towards the safe anonymity of international waters.

  Crossing Lakhpat in the darkness of night, the Ahmed brothers used the bypass to circle around the city of Bhuj and were at Radhanpur by morning. They stopped there for a quick, though somewhat late breakfast, and then Sohail continued onward in the Bolero while Yusuf took a bus home.

  It was way past dinner time when Sohail drove off the highway onto the road that would take him to the picturesque hill town of Mount Abu. Pulling off the road, into the shadow of a large tree a couple of miles short of town, he used his mobile phone to make a call. Then he sat down to wait.

  Twenty minutes later, a maroon Tata Safari SUV drove up the dark road. It pulled over about a hundred metres away. Sohail was reaching for his mobile phone when it began to ring. ‘Yes. It's me in the Bolero. You're in the Tata Safari… right?’

  The Tata Safari maintained a stoic watch over the deserted road as Sohail took the Chote Miyan out of the Bolero, propped it against the tree on the side of the road, got back into his vehicle and drove away.

  FROM BEHIND THE WHEEL OF THE TATA SAFARI, YAKUB KHAN watched Sohail drive away. He saw the Bolero hit the highway and accelerate. It was only after the red glow of the rear tail lamps had receded into the darkness that he started the engine and drove down to where the nuke rested.

  You must ensure that none of the other operatives you come in contact with get to see you, and whatever conversation you have with them must be kept to the bare minimum. Be damn careful you don't give away anything about your identity. Cheema had drilled this into their heads during the training, and Yakub was good at following orders. He had even blacked out the number plate of his Tata Safari with mud for this brief but critical rendezvous.

  Removing the large, round, hardened plastic cover placed over the Safari's spare wheel, which was fixed onto the outer side of the vehicle's rear door, he quickly loosened the four bolts that held the wheel in place. Carefully, he hefted it into the Safari. Where the spare wheel had been, a small rectangular cut had been made in the vehicle's rear door. The cut was almost in the dead centre of the four long metallic bolts which housed the wheel.

  Now Yakub carefully stripped away the bomb's outer layer of camouflage and extracted the control panel from its centre. It was just slightly bigger than a television remote, though a lot heavier. It was connected to the nuke with a set of wires nearly two metres long. Typically, the control panel would have been embedded into the device. However, this was the Chote Miyan whose controller had been detached and then re-fixed with an additional length of wiring at Cheema's instructions. This was to enable Yakub to arm and trigger it from the rear seat of the Safari, without having to remove the nuke from the spare wheel bracket.

  Next he placed the Chote Miyan on the four-pronged bracket, carefully passing the controller through the cut in the door till it came out on the other side, inside the vehicle. He then replaced the layer of camouflage till the Chote Miyan had once again acquired the round wheel shape that had been given to it at the Lahore warehouse. Placing it on the four bolts which had earlier carried the spare wheel, he tightened the nuts carefully, securing the bomb in the place of the spare wheel. The four holes drilled into the plate attached to the bomb fit perfectly.

  Good!

  Though he had sent in the precise measurements himself, Yakub had been worried. To the extent that he had even carried a small drill with him just in case he needed to make minor adjustments. Finally satisfied that the nuke was firmly fixed, he placed the huge plastic cover with Tata Safari emblazoned on it over it, completely concealing the bomb from view.

  Now focusing on the inner side of the door, in the dim illumination of the Safari's rear cabin light, Yakub wrapped the remote controller in a piece of bubble wrapping and slid it into the gap between the car's body and the inner upholstery. This would ensure that it did not rattle or make any noise when the vehicle was in motion. He then fed the extra length of wiring into the gap before closing it from inside with a piece of upholstery. Now the cut was no longer visible from inside the vehicle, not to a casual observer in any case.

  Having rechecked everything once, he wiped the number plate clean and drove back to the hotel in Mount Abu where he was staying.

  Both the children and his wife were fast asleep when Yakub let himself into the hotel room. The excitement of the holiday and traipsing around town the whole day had exhausted them totally. They were still sleeping when he used his laptop to send the confirmatory message to Salim through his meetyourmatch profile.

  Finally, b
efore joining his wife in bed, Yakub switched off his mobile phone, snapping all identifiable links with the outside world. He had left no details of where he would be going either at his office or at his home in Delhi. At the hotel, he was registered under a false name and had paid in cash in advance to ensure there was no electronic trail.

  For all practical purposes, Yakub Khan had dropped off the radar.

  LATE ON THE NIGHT OF 25 APRIL, IN THE COMFORT OF HIS library in Murree, Salim read Yakub's message and smiled with satisfaction.

  So far so good! Allah is definitely watching over us.

  Salim rubbed his hands in glee. After all, the Delhi strike was the most important to him personally.

  NEW DELHI

  ALLAH MUST HAVE BEEN WATCHING OVER THEM BECAUSE neither the security man who frisked Mai, nor the man who screened his baggage were up to speed that day. Maybe it was because of the unearthly hour, for the China Airlines flight from Beijing landed at Terminal 2 of Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport at 0145 hours with a host of other flights. The sheer crush of passengers short-circuited the security checks considerably. Or maybe it was plain and simple luck. Either way, nothing untoward was detected and an hour later Mai found himself in the lobby of the Radisson Hotel, located on the National Highway Number 8, just a couple of miles from the airport. In fact, proximity to the airport was the primary reason Mai had opted for this hotel; it made it very convenient for the other team members to link up with him. Exhausted after the long journey and knowing he had a full day ahead of him, Mai quickly finished unpacking and retired to bed.

  HE WAS STILL SLEEPING WHEN, A FEW HUNDRED MILES TO the northwest, at Mount Abu, Yakub awoke his wife and kids bright and early. An hour later, all four of them were in the huge maroon Tata Safari, speeding down the highway to Udaipur, barely 95 kilometres away. An hour and a half later, they halted at a dhaba on the outskirts of Udaipur. They had finished breakfast and were getting back into the Safari to continue their journey past Udaipur city towards Ajmer when, in Delhi, there was a tentative knock on Mai's door.

  MAI HAD BARELY FINISHED DRESSING AFTER A RUSHED breakfast when Erik Segan knocked on the door. He literally flew inside when Mai opened the door.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ the musician blurted out jerkily without any preamble. ‘But I've got totally confused and you'll need to explain everything to me once again.’ The wasted ex-junkie had a harried, nervous air about him.

  He looks like he desperately needs a fix.

  ‘Don't worry about it,’ Mai replied reassuringly. ‘That's why I'm here. It's always better to be sure than to goof it up.’

  He needs to calm down. If he walks into the airport like this, he will set off every possible alarm. They will stop him just because of the way he looks. At this stage, if even one person is taken, it will jeopardize the whole mission. I need to calm him….

  ‘That's why I came early, even though my flight out is only after midnight,’ Erik said, interrupting Mai's thoughts with an ingratiating smile.

  Together, the two men went over everything in detail. When he finally left the hotel room a little after noon, Erik looked a lot more confident.

  I might as well order lunch from room service. Mai sighed as he checked his watch. That surly German should be here any minute now. He'd been looking forward to stepping out of the room for a bit. Oh well! Maybe later… there's no time now.

  Sure enough, the waiter had hardly cleared the remains of his meal when Karl Gunther arrived. He had the same doubts that Erik had, so Mai had to take him through everything from scratch. Consequently, by the time Karl left, the sun was ready to begin its descent over the horizon.

  This is exhausting. Rotating his shoulders to ease the stiffness that had set in, Mai threw himself on the bed. By now the effects of the long flight and the lack of sleep had begun to take their toll on his body. I hope the others have not forgotten everything that I drilled into them. With a weary sigh, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

  MAI WAS BRIEFING KARL AT THE RADISSON HOTEL WHEN YAKUB drove into Hotel Regency Ajmer. The 450 kilometre long drive from Mount Abu had sapped the energy of the whole family and it was only towards late evening that they finally stepped out of the hotel for a turn about town.

  The dargah of Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chisti, the famous Sufisaint, was a scant five minute walk from their hotel. The haunting, rhythmic music emanating from the dargah tugged at them and they found themselves drawn towards it. Not once did the irony strike Yakub as he basked in the serenity of the dargah of a man who had propagated only love and peace.

  The family was admiring the beautiful façade of the dargah when, in Delhi, the quiet, perennially polite Abraham Reis walked up to Mai Hu's hotel room and knocked on the door softly, snapping Mai out of his restless sleep. Still groggy, he stumbled to the door.

  THE FOCUSED, SOFT-SPOKEN REIS HAD NO DOUBTS ABOUT THE weapon or how to handle it. Much to Mai's relief, Reis collected his deadly package with minimal conversation and fuss, and left. Not long after Reis had gone, the telephone rang, aggravating the migraine that had begun to balloon in the scientist's head. Mai had just finished talking and put down the phone when the housekeeping staff landed up to turn down his bed for the night. They had barely finished and left when Sahiba and Kismat arrived. Though tired by now, Mai greeted them with a smile. He had worked the hardest to put their weapon together and was inordinately proud of the result.

  ‘It was quite a challenge, but I've managed to do them up exactly the way you two wanted it.’ Mai opened two jewellery cases and held up the huge beaded necklaces he had made for the sisters. Each necklace was a strand of round, coloured glass vials. ‘I've even made matching earrings and bracelets.’ He gave a proud, satisfied smile as he held them out. The two sisters reached for them gingerly.

  ‘How strong are the vials?’ Sahiba asked tentatively.

  ‘Don't worry!’ Mai said reassuringly. ‘You can wear them without a care. As long as you don't sit on them or drop them. See…’ Opening one of the remaining jars of cream, he fished out a couple of the round glass vials. Both were covered with cream so, carefully putting down the jar, he retrieved a tissue from the box on the bedside table and wiped them clean. ‘These are also made from the same material as the vials used for the necklaces. See… they're quite hard.’ He handed a vial to Sahiba, who took it rather gingerly. Mai held up the other one between his thumb and index finger. ‘This is how I tested them,’ he said as he released the vial in his hand.

  The air in the room suddenly went stiff with tension as the fragile vial fell towards the ground. It seemed to be rolling through the air in slow motion. All three of them knew what the vial contained and what would happen if it broke. Neither of them was afraid to die. They wouldn't have volunteered for this mission if they were. But none of them wanted to die just yet.

  For an interminably long moment, three pairs of eyes followed the vial of VX Gas as it spun through the air, landed on the thick carpet and bounced gently a couple of times. When it finally stopped rolling and came to rest by the side of the bed, Mai spoke.

  ‘See!’ There was triumph in his voice. ‘They're not as delicate as they look.’ Breath hissed painfully back into their lungs as the two sisters exchanged looks and nodded.

  Taking the glass vial back from Sahiba, he carefully pushed it back into the jar of cream. Mai was heading to pick up the vial he had dropped on the carpet when the phone rang. Changing direction in midstride, he went towards the phone on the study table at the far end of the room. It was Ben Ashton.

  ‘Okay, but you're early,’ Mai said to him in a low murmur, ‘please give me at least two hours… yes, come up to my room. Sure… no, no problem. I'll see you then.’ Putting down the phone, Mai rejoined the sisters. ‘So, like I was saying, you need to ensure….’

  He quickly ran through the basics of VX Gas again and explained how best to optimise the impact of the chemical. Half an hour later, the two women left with their deadly jewellery boxes tucked safely
under their arms.

  BEN ASHTON ARRIVED AT ALMOST THE SAME TIME THAT MAI returned to his room after a rushed dinner. His face was marred by the same anal-retentive scowl that Mai remembered so clearly from their meeting in the Maldives.

  ‘Are you still clear on how to handle this in transit and how to use it?’ Mai asked as he handed over the family-sized jars of cream to him. There was nothing unusual about their appearance; only their weight gave away the difference. Camouflaged and cocooned in the jars of assorted cream were almost a hundred glass vials. Each of these was more than adequate to deliver a torturously agonizing death to at least three or four people and, in the worst case, inflict severe damage on twice as many.

  ‘I'm clear,’ Ben replied gruffly. He did not like the Chinaman. But then, Ben disliked almost everyone he met. ‘It's simple enough. Any fool can handle it.’

  ‘Fine then. All the best.’ Mai showed him to the door, glad to see him go.

  That brings my part of the job to an end. Now I just have to get through the conference and go back home…. For a moment, he idly contemplated the mayhem that would be waiting for him at Urumqi, then shut the door and went straight to his laptop. He had set it up on the study table in the far corner of the hotel room, near the huge glass windows overlooking the new, still-under-construction expressway between Delhi and Jaipur. A constant stream of traffic flowed incessantly over the flyover straddling the expressway. Mai watched it with unseeing eyes as he waited for the laptop to boot up. Soon he was logged onto the meetyourmatch website. A moment later, he had keyed in a message to the smurad234 profile. He knew that Salim would be awaiting the message eagerly.

  I have given the matter due thought and I feel we have lots in common. Don't you think we should take this matter forward?

  Then, as he had been instructed to do for this particular message, Mai used his mobile phone to send a brief, innocuous text message.