by Mainak Dhar
‘Sir, you don’t need to explain anything. I really don’t care and no excuse makes it okay. Just tell me what you know and how it could help us get out.’
He picked up his tale again. He had made a good amount of money while in Kabul and when he returned to India and retired a couple of years later, Sinha had thought he had left that life behind. His children had benefitted from his ill-gotten wealth with foreign degrees, and he had a nice retirement home in Mumbai where he had thought he would live out the rest of his life in comfort. All that changed when the other officers who had been in on Project Lotus, as they had called it, began reaching out after two were killed in the first days of the sniper attacks. Their panic increased when all their names showed up on the kill list. Terrified that all this had something to do with Lotus, Sinha had confided in a couple of his brother officers. Then a few of them had been killed as well. He had been taken. The only question Karzai had repeatedly posed to him was who else he had told about Project Lotus and who else was involved. Sinha had told Karzai the names over the last three days, the last name being that of his younger brother, an officer still serving in the army. He had given that name the previous night when he had been unable to take any more torture.
‘I never knew who this bloody Lotus was, but it can’t be a coincidence that this sniper is after anyone involved with Lotus or had been told about him. Given how he ruthlessly played me, I wonder if that bastard Lotus is setting all of this up.’
My head was reeling. What did the kill list and terror attacks around us have to do with this scam Sinha had been part of? Were they a sideshow or were they at the centre of it? Who was orchestrating all this and what did they have to do with Sinha and his past? I wanted to hate Sinha for what he had done, but he was beyond hate. The old, shattered man before me with perhaps a few hours left to live could only be pitied. He was pathetic and had paid for his sins. The question was how many more were paying for them?
I used that time to get my own thoughts in order. It was a part of me that I had known well when I had served and used to set out on missions. When you know death is part and parcel of what you've signed up for, fear of death doesn't hold you back. It's fear of letting your mates down, of failing in your mission, of betraying the trust others have placed in you, that drives you. I looked at Sinha and thought of him as being on this mission with me. I didn’t particularly like him or what he had done in Kabul but thinking of him as a comrade gave me a purpose beyond just saving my own sorry ass. Then I thought of Zoya. If indeed the last time she saw me was on a video being killed, let her remember me the way I wanted to be remembered. I felt a surge of strength flow through me. My mind stilled. I didn't know what the next few minutes or hours had in store for me, but I would meet them in a way that would do Ravi, my trainers and officers, my old comrades, Zoya, and myself proud.
The door swung open. The big guard came in, pulling me to my feet roughly.
'Bhai's back and he wants to talk to you.'
I was so tempted to smash his nose in with a head-butt that I had to make a conscious effort to hold back. It would be satisfying but others would come in and shoot me like a dog. If I had to die, it would be for something more worthwhile than satisfying my desire to teach this fat lout a lesson. Plus, I was curious about meeting this sniper, the man called Aman Karzai who went by the callsign of Seven Six Two. I let myself be led out of the room and saw that I was indeed in a decrepit classroom. The cobwebs in the corners told me it had not been used for some time. Along a wall were lined up two assault rifles and a Dragunov sniper rifle. The smell of gun oil was in the air. Clearly whoever owned the weapons took good care of them, cleaning them meticulously. Like a pro.
Sitting with his back to me at a desk in a corner of the room was a lean man who had a headset around his ears. He was speaking to someone in Urdu. Presumably his handler from the drift of the conversation.
'Sinha's brother is dead. I got him this morning along with that cop. Are we done or are there any more targets? I think I have taken out everyone involved with Project Lotus. I am glad I could make them pay… Thank you for the gift. The Major is here and I will deal with him before I pull out.'
I cleared my throat as I cut in, 'Isn't it bad manners to talk about killing someone in front of them?'
He switched off the radio and turned to face me, a smile on his lips. I recognised the wavy hair streaked lightly with grey, the straggly beard, the scar on the left cheek that had come from an American bullet and the striking blue eyes I had seen in the CIA files that Thapa had shown me.
'Good morning, Aman Karzai.'
He got up and walked towards me with the easy grace of someone I could already tell was going to be far more formidable in a fight than the brute holding my shoulders. Though Karzai was a couple of inches shorter and leaner than me, he seemed to have the wiry, muscular build that you see in long-distance runners. Or, highly trained Special Forces snipers expected to spend long days in the field, living off the land.
He spoke in slightly accented, but flawless, English. 'Major, you do your reputation credit. If you hadn't killed my brother, I might have spared you out of admiration, but I think the brothers will enjoy watching your last video. A mighty Indian Para Commando, who killed innocent children as a mark of his bravery, paying for them under the knife of jihad.'
I was watching his facial expressions and could tell that other than the mention of his brother, when his eyes tightened as if in pain, he found the rest somehow amusing. His eyes had twinkled as he spoke, his lips parted in what was almost a smile. Interesting. So our jihadi super-sniper wasn't a true believer?
'I hope you put in a nice soundtrack along with the video. I don't want to bias you, but I'd be quite open to some Coldplay.'
He grinned and asked the guard to get a chair. The brute sulked but did as he was told and I sat a few feet away from Karzai, who also sat down. We could have seemed two friends having a chat, except for the fact that Karzai had shot me the previous night and his big friend had stabbed and beaten me, and now stood with a pistol pointed at my head, in case I had any notions about attacking him. I didn’t. I just wanted to learn as much as I could. All our trainers in counterintelligence had taught us politeness got you very far in most things. I knew Karzai had received similar training and he would be civil for as long as it took for him to decide to finally kill me to repay the blood debt of the death of his brother.
'So, Major. Do you want to kill me?'
I shrugged. 'Not particularly. You, I can almost understand. I've seen your files. Well educated, trained by American special forces when you fought Al-Qaeda as part of the Northern Alliance, joined the government forces after 2001, and then got disenchanted with what seemed to be a new foreign occupation by the Americans. You're on the other side of the line, but you're a soldier, like me. Or you were, till you showed up here and turned psycho terrorist killer, attacking unarmed old men from afar. Not so heroic, right? Maybe your boyfriends in ISIS in some Middle Eastern shithole had something to do with that.'
He smiled and motioned for me to continue.
'Now, your fat friend here. Him, I'd kill with pleasure. He's just a dumb thug who likes to bully those weaker than him. I’d so enjoy making him choke on his broken teeth. That would be fun.'
The pistol jabbed painfully into my temple, but I knew the oaf wouldn't do anything without Karzai's approval.
Anger flashed in his eyes, as he replied, 'My mission here is just a continuation of my war. I am targeting those who have caused the deaths of my countrymen and brothers.'
I looked into his bright, blazing eyes and saw that beyond the civil facade, the training, there was perhaps a fanatic after all. Maybe a mullah at a mosque had influenced him; maybe a charismatic local commander; or maybe the CIA files were right. There had been a girl involved, a girl who had been killed in an American drone strike, or so the rumours went. Who knew what had driven a young, educated man, who could have served with honour in the national army,
into the ranks of jihadi terrorists?
'Aman, dozens of people have been killed. Slaughtered in their homes, including women and children. Those are not the actions of a professional soldier.'
He looked away for a second, and I could tell he found it distasteful. When he spoke, there was a distinct edge to his voice, though his eyes had lost some of their anger. 'Major, I have only shot the targets assigned to me. A single bullet, that is all. I have not harmed any family members or others with them. My handlers chose to use other resources to attack others on the list. They have their own methods. When you went into combat, did you hold yourself responsible for the collateral damage an artillery strike across the LoC might have done or focus on doing your mission the way you were trained to?'
‘This is not a war, Aman. You are not defending your country, if that's what you thought you were doing against the Americans in Afghanistan. You are in another country, killing people who have nothing to do with your war.'
He leaned forward, looking me in the eye. 'Sadly, Major, you don't know what's happening at all? I am here because I volunteered for this. A mission to hunt down officers involved in feeding intelligence to the Americans about my brothers. Intelligence that led to drone and air strikes that killed countless innocent civilians. Intelligence gathered because they infiltrated our leadership and betrayed them. That's why the old man is in there. He was one of them, working on what they called Project Lotus.'
It was the second time Karzai had mentioned Project Lotus but his was a totally different interpretation from what Sinha had told me. I was about to tell Karzai what Sinha had said, of how his understanding of the op was all wrong, but he stood up abruptly, nodded at the big man and spoke in a loud voice, much louder than needed in the small room.
'Now.'
That was all. A simple nod and one word. The door to the classroom swung open and four men came in. Strong, young men who grabbed me. I tried to fight them off, but my hands were tied behind my back and I didn't really stand a chance. I still did get the satisfaction of kicking one of them in the balls and head-butting another. Then I went down under their blows. I was on my knees, with two men holding my shoulders and another with his knee braced against my back.
Karzai spoke to the big man, 'Get him ready, Munaf. I'll be back in an hour. The boss told me his contact had a package for me before I wrapped up here. I’ll get that and return as soon as I can.'
Then he turned to speak to me. 'And then, Major, we will indeed deal with you.'
If Karzai had decided to kill me there and then, I would have been finished. It was a stroke of luck that he had gone out. I had no idea what was so urgent that he had to leave, but I had gathered that his killings were at an end, and that he was going to leave after finishing me and Sinha. Or, he would kill me personally and leave Sinha to Munaf and the other goons. Either way, he was about to wrap up his business in India and leave.
From what he had just told Munaf, he had something he needed to pick up. My guess: a payoff. As idealistic as he was or claimed to be, every soldier has to eat and feed a family. So, maybe he was just picking up his final payment. Either way, as the proverb went, or my version of it, never kick a gift ‘jihadi’ in the mouth. Especially when that mouth had bad breath of the sort Munaf did. He was just a few inches from my face, taking a lot of pleasure in seeing my situation.
'Bhai told us we couldn't kill you, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun.'
I kept my mouth shut. Now that they had subdued me, there was little point in expending energy in shouting defiance at them or sustaining more damage from another beating. I was sitting on a chair in a corner of the classroom, my hands still tied behind me. By now, from feeling around with my fingers, I had gathered that they were using plastic zip ties of the sort baggage handlers use to seal check-in luggage on some domestic flights. While our trainers were quite candid about our prospects if we ended up being captured by jihadis, they did teach us some useful stuff. Stuff that was pretty useless in everyday life for most normal people, but quite useful when your hands are tied behind you and you're facing execution. The problem was I couldn't do much with five of them all over me. Even now, two sets of hands were gripping my shoulders and two more were wrapped around my thighs.
Munaf, getting to be the boss for a change now that Karzai was out, seemed to be enjoying it. 'We have seen videos of what the Americans used to do to our brothers in Iraq. We were told how innocent boys were tortured. Now you can find out what it feels like.'
He walked over to the attached bathroom, and I could hear the tap running.
'Is the fat pig planning on taking a bath? He sure needs one.'
I had asked the question to nobody in particular, but I heard a couple of the guys holding me snigger. So much for Munaf's leadership. Karzai treated him like shit and these guys, who were little more than illiterate street thugs, also seemed to hold him in contempt. No wonder he was so angry all the time. Once Karzai got back, I knew I had very little chance of getting out of this alive. If I had a chance, no matter how slim, it was while I was at the tender mercies of Munaf and his goons. Given everything I had learned about him, he was under orders not to kill me. I doubted Karzai had given him orders to torture me, but now that he was going to, I might as well provoke him into making a mistake, any mistake, that could give me an edge.
Munaf came out of the bathroom with a towel and a bucket full of water. 'So, super-soldier. Let's see how you like this. What did they call it? Waterboating?'
I knew what he had in mind. There was no point in being quiet. I couldn't resist responding. 'It's waterboarding, you fat fuck.'
One of the guys holding me sniggered, and Munaf glared. 'Shut up. What's so funny?'
'You are. Don't you get it?'
My wisecrack earned me instant retribution. The blow struck me on the right cheek, making my ears ring. The guys holding me tightened their grip and inclined the chair back. I knew what was coming. Shit, I had endured it in training, and it was a nightmare. My worry was not that it would hurt. I knew only too well how bad waterboarding could be. My bigger concern was that someone as stupid and untrained as Munaf would probably fuck it up and end up killing me by mistake.
I was now almost parallel to the floor, the chair's back wedged against a wall, my hands and legs still gripped tight by the four men. Munaf put the towel over my face and I shook my head vigorously. The towel slipped away.
I laughed at him. 'Idiot, someone's got to hold the head as well. You clearly didn't watch the right videos.'
He roared in fury as one of his men seemed to laugh.
'You, grab his head!'
With that, the guy grabbing my left hand held my head, his fingers boring into my temples. Munaf was about to put the towel on my face again, but before he did, he sneered, 'How is that?'
'Oh, pretty good. Would be even better if you could apply some pressure to the left temple. Some fat fuck's been hitting me. I have a headache.'
'Funny. Always a wise guy.'
He clamped the towel across my face and then, just as I had predicted, the idiot got it all wrong. The whole idea was that you kept a steady stream of water going through the towel into the victim's mouth, spreading into his body faster than he could hope to expel it with the towel covering his face, thus gradually making him feel like he was being drowned. To do that, you'd need to keep the water coming at a steady pace. This idiot was pouring the bucket's contents onto my face. It felt at first like I had been dunked inside a pool, with someone holding my head down. The water seemed to be everywhere, in my nose, in my mouth, in my bloody eyes. I could feel it working its way down my throat and my body, and within a few seconds, I was actually afraid that I would die there, at the hands of someone like Munaf. Dead because he hadn't done a good enough job of watching some bloody videos. If it was any consolation, Karzai would probably kill him when he found me dead, and I resolved to kick Munaf's ass in Hell.
That was where I was headed, no doubt, with how
much it hurt. After a few more seconds, it began to feel almost comforting. The water seemed to swirl inside me, a bright point of light appeared at the edges of my vision. Would my life pass before my eyes before I died? Would I get a chance to meet my parents, wherever they were, before I was consigned to my final fate?
That was what I was thinking when the hands holding my head and arm suddenly let go. Then I heard the last bloody thing I would have expected to hear there. The battle cry of the Gurkhas.
'Ayo Gorkahli!'
Munaf, caught up in taking his revenge on me for taking out his buddies the previous day, had neglected to lock the door to the room where Sinha and I had been kept. Perhaps, he had thought that Sinha, beaten, bloodied and driven crazy by the torture he had endured, lying shivering under the sheets covered in his own filth, was no threat.
But here he was. The old soldier making his last charge. He had thrown one of the sheets over the two men holding my head and arm, and, surprised and disoriented, they had let go of me. I didn't know what was happening, but the sudden respite made me jerk forward my head, dislodging the towel. I breathed in hard, gasping for air, spitting out water and then retching loudly as a flood of water came out of my mouth. The men holding my legs let go, both to avoid the puke and water spraying towards them and to help their buddies against this unexpected assault.
Munaf just stood there, holding the bucket in his hands, wondering what had just happened. His men were better than him. The two guys who had been holding my legs, quickly registered the threat and were on Sinha, grappling with him as he continued to scream his regimental cry. The two other men were about to fling the sheets off and join the fray. Sinha had only a few seconds before he went down so I rocked back hard, and the chair fell down to the ground.
Raise knees, bring them as close to the body as possible, loop hands out from behind you so that they are in front of you. Raise your hands up as straight as you can, take a deep breath, and then lower them in one fast action with all your strength, each hand going down at about a forty-five-degree angle.
