by Mainak Dhar
I turned to the man who had been on his knees. His eyes were still red and puffed from the pepper spray, he was still disoriented. It was tempting to go for the guy holding Zoya but I couldn’t risk being attacked from behind. The man was still trying to clear his eyes and hardly resisted as I went behind him, grabbed his neck and stabbed him in it once and dropped him to the ground, kicking him in the face for good measure. Both men I had stabbed were moaning in pain and were out of action, at least for now. I now turned to the third man. He flung Zoya aside and faced me, a large, bloodied machete in his right hand.
He was my height and had at least ten kilos on me, most of it muscle, his bulging biceps showing many hours spent in the gym. You needed big muscles to lift weights. You don’t necessarily need them to kill a man. As I saw Zoya on the ground next to him, I resolved I would teach this bastard that lesson.
The surprise in his eyes on seeing me gave way to a flicker of recognition. I had been right. They had been watching me and perhaps had struck Zoya after office, hoping to catch me there. Or perhaps, they had hoped to hold Zoya and get me to turn myself in. If they had succeeded in capturing her, who knew, their plan might have worked.
‘Time for you to die, you kafir.’
Amateurs and rookies, who are into establishing their dominance or 'street cred', waste time talking. Professional killers don’t waste their breath. I just stood there, watching his eyes. As he began to say something else, I moved in, slashing at his outstretched hand with my blade. I drew blood, but when I moved back, I felt the sting of a cut on my hand as he slashed out. Despite his bulk, he was fast, clearly not an amateur at knife fights. He was cut worse than I was, but he had a ten-inch machete and I had a Swiss Army knife. If it came to trading cuts, I would lose sooner or later.
In a knife fight with someone who knows his stuff, you will likely come out bloodied to some extent. Our training focused not only on not getting cut, but also on being able to minimise your own damage and end the fight early. I swung in again, feinting with the right hand. He moved to my left, bringing his machete in a thrust aimed at my midsection. At the last moment, I pivoted the other way, turning his machete away from my body with my left hand and dropping the knife, bringing my open right palm up against the bridge of his nose. It would have killed a weaker or smaller man, breaking his nose and pushing bone fragments back into his brain. His nose was certainly broken and he stumbled as I stepped around him, reached around his head and then dropped suddenly to my knees, with all my body weight and strength focused on jerking his neck down. The man’s neck broke. He was dead before he hit the ground.
I looked up to see Zoya staring at me, her face bloodied, her eyes wide in shock. I grabbed her hand and shouted, ‘Run as fast as you can.’
I had no idea if there were other attackers around and for now, the biggest priority was to get myself and Zoya out of harm’s way. We ran back to my car, and as I started the car and drove away, the shock of the events finally hit Zoya. She began shaking, sobbing, pulling her knees up. My own hands were shaking, and my right hand was cut just above the wrist. It was leaving a bloody mess all over my car, and would likely need stitches.
But for now, my mind was focused on one thing and one thing only. I had been happy to leave town, to get myself and those I cared about, out of harm’s way. I had no desire to provoke a confrontation or to be the hero. I had wanted nothing more than what I had always wanted – to lie low, to blend in, to forget what I had once been. To forget the life I had once led.
By attacking Zoya, they had changed all that.
‘Your shirt is soaked with blood. We need a doctor now!’
Those were Phadke’s first words when I reached him at the station. I looked down at my midsection. I had thought I had suffered only one cut to the hand, but the adrenaline rush had meant that the cut to my midsection had not even registered. Till now.
As I entered Phadke’s office, I slumped down onto a chair. My hands were beginning to shake uncontrollably and I clenched and unclenched my fists to try to get some control back. Zoya was already being tended to by a woman officer. She had suffered nothing more than a split lip and some bruises, but her real scars, those emotional scars that came from knowing she had been moments away from being raped and killed, from that terrible truth all victims of violent attacks knew – for an instant, she had been completely at someone’s mercy – would take much longer to heal. I began to get up to reach her, but Phadke gently pushed me back in the chair.
‘Relax. You’re both safe here. A doctor is on the way. Before you bleed to death all over my office, let me see if I remember any of the stuff they taught us in first aid.’
He said this with a smile on his face, but his eyes were serious. We both knew he was probably saving my life. He peeled off my bloodied shirt and folded it, tying it around my stomach, applying a tourniquet to staunch the flow of blood, and then laid me flat on the sofa in the corner of his office. I grimaced in pain as I felt pressure on the wound and Phadke patted me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t be a sissy. Looking at your body is like looking at the bloody Nazca lines. You’ve been cut in so many places and in so many ways that this latest one probably won’t even find an honourable mention in your list of memorable scars.’
I smiled, but that made the pain worse. He went to his desk and came back with a hip flask. I put it to my lips and took a sip, looking at him with a smile.
‘So, the straightshooting DCP keeps scotch in his office?’
He shrugged.
‘Never on duty.’
I laughed. That made the pain worse and I cursed Phadke again.
The doctor, an elderly Parsi gentleman, arrived soon and took a look at my wounds.
‘Good job on stopping the bleeding, Phadke. Not quite good enough to threaten my daily bread, but adequate enough to save this young man. Not a very deep cut in either place, and looks like nothing vital severed. Will need a few stitches. So let’s get to it.’
He saw the hip flask but didn’t say anything, so I took another swig as he went to work on my wounds.
Half an hour later, I walked out of Phadke’s office, wearing a crumpled, used shirt that one of the constables on the night beat had loaned me, my hand and stomach bandaged. Zoya was sitting by the side. As she saw me, she came up to me and hugged me, burying her face in my chest. I held her, trying to find the words that would comfort her, yet knowing I could do nothing to dispel the nightmares that she would have for many nights to come. Ravi and Rekha were also there. They came up to me as well.
Ravi gave me a once-over, grinning as he spoke, ‘At least you haven’t forgotten everything you were taught.’
He was trying to put on a brave front, but I could see that façade crumbling as his eyes misted over.
‘No way, my boy, no frigging way. You survived all that shit you did in uniform. All those times you went into enemy territory or tangled with the best of their forces and came back untouched. No way could I live with you dying out here in some dirty alley at the hands of some street thugs.’
There were a lot of things to do, a lot of questions to ask, but at that moment, my biggest priority was to see that Zoya was okay. I took her to a corner of the room and we sat down on a sofa, side by side, facing each other, our fingers intertwined.
‘I am so sorry.’
Her eyes widened in surprise at my words.
‘You have nothing to be sorry about. This is not your fault.'
‘No, I do. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t been with me. Having you in my life made me forget who I had been, made me believe I could have a normal life, but look at where that got you.’
She placed her right hand on my cheek, gently caressing me. ‘Aadi, you don’t need to take the blame for this. You did what was right. If I am in harm’s way, it is because we face the same evil, and I want us to face it together. I don’t want this to pull us apart. If anything, it should bring us closer. That’s what I want. I want to face this with you, by yo
ur side. I’m sorry I was weak and I couldn’t get away from those men.’
I looked at her bruised face, I felt her shaking hands and saw her puffed eyes. Then, I remembered her in the alley, trying to fight off three men all on her own.
‘Zoya, I’ve lost my share of fights, and sometimes it’s not only winning that matters, but whether that battle is worth fighting and dying for. What you did back there took courage, more than in many people in uniform that I’ve seen.’
I leaned forward and kissed her.
‘We’re in this together. For better or for worse.’
Phadke interrupted us, coughing gently. ‘I’ve got a guesthouse within the city arranged for all of you. Spend the night there. Then we’ll figure out what to do tomorrow. Ravi and Rekha are going to their place with an escort to pick up any essential stuff.’
Exhausted by the day’s events, and finally feeling like the people who mattered most to me were safe, I slept like a baby that night. Zoya clung to me, as if holding onto me could keep her nightmares from coming.
The next morning, I was awakened by a call from Phadke. The clock read ten o’clock. I didn’t remember the last time I had slept in so much. Zoya was still asleep, and I walked out of the room to speak to Phadke so that I wouldn’t disturb her.
‘Good morning. Get over here fast. We have a visitor who wants to meet you flying in from Delhi.’
By late afternoon, the visitor was there, standing across the room in Phadke’s office. He was about as nondescript as they came. Average height, average build, middle age, slightly receding hairline, thick glasses, nothing remarkable about his clothes, looks or demeanour. Except his eyes, which were at odds with the rest of his demeanour.
The moment I walked into the room and saw him, I knew who I was looking at. I had met many such mild-looking, nondescript men during my time in uniform. During joint operation trainings; during after-action report discussions; and on occasion, when a mission was meant to stay quiet or had been authorised from the very top, during briefings. The man was a spy, either with the Intelligence Bureau or the Research & Analysis Wing. Though with the current mayhem unfolding within our borders, which was the IB’s remit, unlike operations overseas which RAW looked after, my bet was he was an IB man. What he wanted with me was something I was looking forward to finding out.
He smiled in greeting and asked me to sit down. ‘Major Ghosh, my name is Vikram Thapa, and I work with the Home Ministry.’
I smiled back and sat. A spook, indeed. He didn’t look like his name was Thapa. If I had to guess purely based on appearances, I would have figured him to be from Bengal or the South. His calling me Major was meant to make me feel more open to his ideas. I recognised his game, and as much as I hated to admit it, it was working. Nobody in the government had called me Major for years. Just hearing it meant more than I cared to admit.
‘So, Mr. Thapa, I had hoped the IB would have its hands full with what was happening. How can I help?’
He smiled broadly, a genuine smile that made me like him, and sat down opposite me across the small table in Phadke’s office. He motioned Phadke to join us.
‘Come over, Phadke. We need to put our heads together. Major, I’ve seen your files, so I’ll drop the pretence. I am indeed in the IB, and head the Kashmir and counter-terror desks. I’ve been there three years. I think my predecessor interacted with your boys in several operations.’
‘I appreciate the honesty.’
But I did note that he still hadn’t given his real name. Well, a spook was entitled to keep some secrets.
He took out several papers from a folder and spread them in front of me. ‘We’ve learned a lot of things in the last, unfortunately, bloody day. Over the last twenty-four hours, there have been seventeen killings, including Mr. Costanza.’
The mention of Tony’s name made me flinch, as did the high kill count. Terrorists were going on a rampage, and Thapa seemed to anticipate my question with his next words.
‘Only two were sniper killings. The others were all stabbings on the street or home invasions. Bastards put up ten videos on their networks. But we did get a couple of breakthroughs. We nailed the sniper in Delhi.’
Now, he had my attention. I sat up, taking in what he had said.
‘He got his target, a retired Air Vice Marshal, but the old man was with a friend who had served in the Gurkhas. The old soldier saw the muzzle flash and, God bless his soul, charged the sniper position. He was also shot but a police patrol nearby engaged the sniper. Unfit cops with ancient rifles, they probably haven't ever fired in combat, aren’t a good match for a trained sniper and three fell before they got him. The sniper had a Dragunov on him. I’m sure that tells you something.’
It told me a lot. Dragunov was a Russian sniper rifle. I had used one, and they were in broad circulation among jihadis in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Most local jihadis we met were of what we called the ‘spray and pray’ variety. They would shoot off their AK magazines on full auto, hoping to hit someone. You were in more danger of being hit by friendly fire or a ricochet than a direct hit from the enemy. Veterans coming from across the border, blooded in Afghanistan or Iraq, were a different kettle of fish. Someone using a Dragunov would have been trained to a high level, like the sniper I had no doubt seen in Mumbai.
Thapa continued. ‘We also identified the three men you took out. Two are dead and one is in the ICU and not likely to make it. All local thugs, all having spent time in jail. Our gene pool is improved by their removal, but their condition means we won't get any useful intel on who sent them or their network.'
He said this without any humour. I began to see a side to him that put me on guard.
‘The big question is why they would want to abduct you instead of just killing you.’
‘What?’
‘We found masking tape and handcuffs on them. Photos of you, including one of you and Ms. Khan. They were stalking you and must have thought they could use her to get to you when they couldn’t find you. Every hit so far has been on someone who’s been on their kill list. But in your case, they were trying to take you alive. Why not just put a bullet in your head from long range? Why take the risk of using local thugs to try to abduct you? They’ve had well-equipped and trained snipers operating in Delhi and Mumbai, and for the others, they are using thugs and goons, but only to kill their targets. They have never tried to abduct anyone. Why would they take this risk in your case?’
I had no idea, but I did have an idea of what jihadis did to their captives. I had seen enough videos of hostages being tortured and decapitated on camera, and was glad Zoya knew nothing of this. Thapa liked to talk, and he liked to ask rhetorical questions, so I indulged him as he spoke. As he continued, I noticed one tic he had. He would pause every few sentences to clear his throat. At first I thought he had a sore throat, but then I realised it was just a habit he had.
‘We also identified the man you killed in Mumbai in the mall. He was more interesting than those street thugs. Abdul Karzai. Afghan. Spent some time in jail in Kabul for being a Taliban mule, carrying weapons, drugs, that sort of stuff. I gather he had a bad habit of consuming the same drugs he was peddling, so he was a pretty messed-up specimen. More a wannabe than anything else. Never any serious attack. By all accounts, a bit dull, but well-connected. That’s what may have brought him here, to get him some glory. I talked to old friends in Kabul. They had all sorts of interesting things to tell me.’
He saw my raised eyebrows and answered my unasked question, clearing his throat before continuing. ‘I spent three years at the embassy in Kabul. Two car bombings, one home invasion, three gun attacks. I had a fine time there. Really made you wonder what the diplomatic part of my supposedly diplomatic posting was.’
He smiled now, and I realised that Thapa was not just a desk jockey, one of those officers who ran missions from his computer or whiteboard. I nodded, a gesture between two men who had shared danger and respected each other for it.
‘What
makes him interesting is a man called Aman. Was part of the Northern Alliance and fought the Al-Qaeda. In fact, he was at one time trained by the Americans. Then he switched sides and fought the Americans for years. He was rumoured to have taken part in the raid on the coalition base at Helmand in 2012, when they destroyed eight Harrier jets, a raid that was supposed to target Prince Harry, who was stationed there. That really got Aman noticed among the jihadi higher echelons, and he went on to Iraq to become an even tougher bastard with his ISIS buddies and came back to wreak havoc in Afghanistan. Supposed to have orchestrated many sniper attacks. At least twelve NATO soldiers and countless private security contractors and Afghan security men fell to him. He’s the real deal. The Americans had a million-dollar reward on his head. Our Paki friends in their Inter-Services Intelligence got him to serve their agenda here, from what we can tell. His weapon of choice all these years has been the Dragunov sniper rifle and his trademark in Afghanistan was a single 7.62mm shell to the head of his target. What does that tell you?’
I shook my head dismissively.
‘A bit vain and a bit dramatic. Most soldiers would focus on getting the kill in the simplest and easiest way, not on having a signature shot.’
‘True enough, but he seemed to enjoy the attention. The Talibs had a call sign for him on their networks, in honour of his skill. Seven Six Two. We think he’s in Mumbai.’
I whistled, letting out my breath slowly. A hardened killer like that free in an urban environment was a nightmare. With his training and sniper rifle, he could strike at will and get away with it, as he had been doing so far.
‘I get it. The Pakis have unleashed a pretty serious attack unlike anything we’ve seen and brought in heavy hitters like this Aman fellow. I can see why they may have put me on their kill list, once they learned my background and the fact that I killed one of them. But that doesn’t answer the question we began with. If this Aman is such a badass and he wants me dead, he could just get me from a distance, and I could do little about it. Why would he want to abduct me to have his fun with me before killing me? Why go through all that trouble for me? I’m a nobody compared to so many people on their kill list, right?’
