by Deva, Mukul
Ravinder considered this. It was a sticky wicket he was playing on now. If the man turned out to be innocent, there would be hell to pay. His embassy would raise a furor.
But Ravinder knew he wasn’t. There is no way he can be. He made up his mind. Whether it was the Games or the Summit, the stakes were too high. Sometimes one cannot play by the rules. The fucking terrorists never do.
‘Break the bastard,’ Ravinder commanded. ‘Do whatever it takes, but get him to talk. Fast.’
‘Leave it to me, sir. He will talk.’ Jai Ram had a cold grin on his face. ‘You go home. I will call you.’ He was twirling the ends of his moustache. He was quite a contradiction to the godly name his parents had given him.
Ravinder almost felt sorry for the German– Jai Ram was going to give him a taste of hell. Then he thought of the stakes and his heart hardened. What had to be done, had to be done.
‘No, I am staying right here.’
‘It might be a long wait, sir.’
‘No worries.’
The SHO left. This was his chance to score points with such a senior officer. Opportunities such as this came rarely.
Ravinder continued mulling. Too much was coming together too fast. He could also feel the fatigue wearing him down. He called for another cup of coffee, hoping to caffeine away his exhaustion.
He was on his fifth cup when Jai Ram returned, again wiping his hands on a towel. This one was spotted with blood, as were his hands and the front of his shirt.
‘He is talking.’ Ravinder saw a satisfied grin on Jai Ram’s face. ‘In fact, he is more than happy to talk now.’
‘Excellent. Who is he and what is he here for?’
‘He is German… a freelancer, a mercenary. The dead guy – he says his name was Mark Leahy – had called him down to India for an operation.’
‘What operation?’
‘He doesn’t know. Says he was to be briefed by Mark today and would be shown the target tomorrow.’
‘Was it the Commonwealth Games?’
Jai Ram shook his head. ‘He has no clue.’
‘Damn! Are you sure he is telling the truth?’
‘Right now, sir, the motherfu—’ Jai Ram checked himself. ‘He wouldn’t lie if his mother told him to. He doesn’t know what the operation is, but he does know that Mark has also called in two more mercenaries for it. He does not know who they are, but he was told they are from South Africa.’
That should give us something to work on. ‘Keep the pressure on him, Jai Ram. Set up a relay of interrogators and make sure he does not get to sleep. I want to know everything he knows.’
He was pulling out his mobile as he headed out, when it rang. Prophetically, it was Mohite.
‘Govind. Just the man I need.’ Ravinder could not resist the pleasure of ensuring that Mohite would now have to be hard at work. It was because of his idiocy that they’d failed to take Mark alive. ‘The man we captured at Machan has talked.’ He brought Mohite up to speed and told him what had to be done. Then he called Ashish and briefed him as well. As long as they were not sure what the target was, both Ashish and Mohite had to be kept in the loop.
Minutes later an APB went out. The instructions were short. Every available beat constable in Delhi was hauled out.
Every hotel and lodge has to be checked – before sunrise. The two South Africans have to be found. They may be armed. They are dangerous. Exercise precaution and do not approach alone. All sightings are to be reported prior to attempting capture.
Ravinder’s car had yet to reach home when hundreds of boots hit the ground. The hunt was on.
Unfortunately neither Rafael nor the interrogator was to be blamed. Rafael Gerber had not lied. Mark had told him that the other two men were coming from South Africa. What he had forgotten to mention was that both Shaun Ontong and Gary Boucher were Australians. They’d been operating in South Africa, but held Australian passports.
Ruby did not stop crying for a long time after Simran left. The strip of tablets lay forgotten in her hands, mangled. Not that it mattered, they would have been useless. Her pain was beyond medication. The raging conflict had started fragmenting her, loosening the already tenuous hold of sanity on her mind.
‘Why did you lie to me, mom?’ she sobbed. ‘Why? All these years my life has been a lie.’
‘Your life has not been a lie, Ruby.’ From the depths of memory, Rehana tugged at her. ‘Don’t get taken in by all this sweet talk. Ravinder never understood me… us… our cause. For him it had no meaning. He loved the little cocoon he had created for himself. You tell me, can the life of one man be greater than the agony that hundreds of thousands of our people have suffered… continue to suffer? Can it?’
‘No! But why did you…’
‘You cannot falter now, Ruby. We have sacrificed everything to get you ready for this day. You are our revenge. I could have led a normal life too, but I chose our cause over that. Have you forgotten, Ruby? Have you forgotten what they did to us… to our family… to me?’
The thought pounded her, hammering her down memory lane again.
Ruby found herself back in Palestine. She got out of the car and walked up to her uncle Yusuf. He was tall and gaunt.
Unshaven and red-eyed, he was in jeans and a maroon T-shirt. A cap masked most of his face.
‘I can never get over it.’ He took her in his arms. ‘Do you know how much you look like your mother?’
‘Everyone says so.’ Her words were a whisper. She began to cry as Yusuf folded her in his arms.
‘I told her a million times not to come back,’ Ruby heard him as though from far away. ‘But she never listened… You know your mother… she would never listen, even as a child.
‘Rehana was with the peace marchers, at the front with the leaders… to hand in the petition. It was a peaceful march… even some international participants from peace organizations were part of it. That’s when the artillery shell landed, right at the head of the column. Those bloody Israelis! Now they say that one of our people bombed the march… but that’s a lie! The bastards… they killed her!’ He choked. ‘There was nothing much left of any of them…’ He couldn’t go on. Finally he whispered, ‘Come, let us go inside and you can rest for a while. You must be exhausted from the flight.’
‘No, not yet. I want to see my mom.’
‘I don’t think that is a good idea, child. There is not much to see.’
‘Whatever is left, Yusuf uncle, I want to see her. She is… was my mother. I want to see her.’
‘You are so stubborn, just like her. Okay, if you are sure.’
‘I am sure.’
Yusuf called the man who had driven Ruby from the airport. His going to the hospital was out of the question. They would be watching out for him. He had no illusions about what would happen if the Israelis got their hands on him.
An hour later, Ruby was at the hospital morgue, her heart pounding.
‘I want to be alone with her,’ Ruby said. Her tone did not leave room for discussion. The attendant didn’t care; he’d encountered odder behaviour during his decades-long death watch. He flicked on the light.
The ghostly darkness dissipated as white light flooded the room. Puffs of ice-cold air hung in the room, adding to the chill inside her.
The attendant gestured at the long metal tables in the centre. Each one had a body, someone who had once been a person, with a name, a family, friends. ‘The third one from the left,’ he pointed and left the room.
Never before had Ruby felt so alone.
The silence was more unnerving than the screams reverberating in her head.
How can mom be so small? Ruby’s hands were frozen. She willed them to reach out and touch the white sheet which had yellow-red-black stains on it. She pulled the sheet away.
There was so little left of Rehana. The upper body had all but disappeared and even the lower half was charred, tattered bits of flesh and bone. Only her right hand remained untouched, and Rehana’s favourite blue sapphire
ring shone brightly on it. It beckoned to Ruby. That cemented the reality of her death. Ruby now knew her mother was never coming back.
She retched and her vomit sprayed out all over the floor by Rehana’s table. Ruby collapsed. The world around her went black.
When she came to, she was in a bed in an unfamiliar room. The light streaming in told her that she had been out the whole night. Yusuf was sitting by her side.
‘I told you not to go, child.’
Ruby did not reply. How do I explain? She kept looking at him. After a while she began to sob quietly. Soon he too was crying.
A man entered. He whispered something in Yusuf ’s ear and left.
‘It is time.’ Yusuf touched Ruby lightly on the shoulder. ‘We… you need to go. They are waiting.’
‘You will not come?’
‘I cannot, Ruby. They will be looking for me. Say goodbye to her for me.’
‘I will.’
It began to rain as they laid the cloth-covered body into the ground. The lifeless bundle now seemed much bigger than what Ruby had seen in the morgue.
The rain strengthened as they began to throw mud over the body. Soon it was as though Rehana had never existed.
It was pouring now. Claps of thunder boomed out. Slashes of lightning tore up the skies. Everything was grey, cold, dark.
Long after it was all over and the handful of mourners had left, Ruby stood in the rain, watching the spot where Rehana’s body now lay, six feet under. The torrent of water streaming down her face tasted salty. Ruby was crying. But she felt no sense of finality, no closure. She knew it wasn’t over. Something remained unfinished.
Finally she turned and started walking back to the waiting car.
Someone should pay for this. The thought festered. Somebody will.
In the Gill house Ruby lay helplessly in the dark guestroom. The darkness outside slowly faded as a new sun rose but the darkness within her stayed.
They should pay for this. Her silent promise now echoed in her head. I must make them pay.
‘So be it.’ Ruby did not realize that she had spoken aloud. ‘I will do my duty, but I will not harm any of the Gills… they are family too.’
I am not alone. The thought caught her by surprise. I never was.
That was her last thought as she fell asleep, unaware that Gerber had been captured and the noose around her was closing fast.
Ravinder awoke suddenly, his mind crystal clear.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the dead Nanda was saying to him with a sheepish smile, ‘I was too far away to get the number, but the car was a cream-coloured Toyota Innova.’
In his mind’s eye, Ravinder again saw the cream-coloured Innova that had almost run him over outside the garden gate today. He saw his hand come up to stop it and a blur of motion inside the vehicle, as though someone had ducked. He ran the scene in his head a dozen times, but he couldn’t put a face to the person. It had been too fast, too sudden. His attention had been elsewhere. But Ravinder knew it was a woman. He did not know how, but he knew.
So, she had been there for the weapons pick-up… I should have known… I should have put more teams down to look out for her. Damn!
Ravinder cursed himself for the lost opportunity. As he fell asleep he wondered if he would get lucky again or if that damn woman’s luck would continue to hold… that damn thirteenth woman.
Day Eight
Ruby wearily opened her eyes as the alarm on her mobile buzzed. She had barely slept an hour. Again she wished she hadn’t thrown away the medication the shrink had prescribed.
Things were at a disastrous crossroads. The only saving grace was that Mark had not been taken alive. He was the only one who had known her identity and the target.
She was about to fall asleep again when the TV sprang to life; the timer had been set for the morning BBC news.
There was no change in the situation in Israel. The IDF blockade of Gaza was still under way. The turmoil in the Middle East was escalating. The local news came on. Her eyes widened as news of Gerber’s arrest played out. The arrest of a foreign terrorist in Delhi on the eve of the Commonwealth Games was hot news and the news channel milked it for all it was worth.
All vestiges of sleep left her. This news devastated her. She hadn’t yet figured out how to proceed without Mark and the Glocks, and now this…
Ruby felt another headache begin to build. She forced herself to get up and change into her tracksuit. Perhaps a run would clear her head.
‘How is it possible that you have not been able to find those two South African mercenaries? All foreigners have to register,’ Ravinder said, annoyed. ‘Did you get the list from the foreigners’ registration office like I told you? They have to be on it.’
‘We did, sir,’ said Mohite. ‘And we have been tracking everyone on that list.’
‘Then someone has slipped up.’ Ravinder was furious. ‘They have to be somewhere. They cannot check into any hotel without passports.’
‘But we have rounded up almost everyone from South Africa who even remotely fits the bill,’ Mohite repeated, sounding desperate. ‘We have nothing, except some very angry South Africans and a pissed-off embassy official yelling at us.’
‘You handle them. And keep the search going. We have to catch those two.’ Well, at least this would keep Mohite busy and out of trouble. ‘There is no time, Mohite. The Summit starts the day after. The delegates start arriving in twenty-four hours.’
Ravinder put down the phone and sat up to think. What have I missed? There has to be something.
He was still brooding as he walked into his study and took his laptop out of the bag. There was a whole day of e-mails to be replied to.
The water mark on the table had been wiped clean. Now only a faint ring remained. It bothered Ravinder, irritated him.
He pulled out a paper napkin and scrubbed at it. It grew faint, but would not go away completely. He was about to tell the servant to fetch some wood polish when something tugged at his memory.
Ruby had been carrying a jug of water when I ran into her that night.
He froze. An alarm jangled in his head.
He clicked open his inbox to the date on which he had run into Ruby. It had been late at night. Ravinder began to sift through the mails. The e-mail about the LeT financier caught his eye and the cursor hung over it briefly. The next e-mail too was relevant. It was about the meeting with Nanda.
If Ruby had seen these: Ravinder sat back. That would account for the elimination of Rizwan Khan. But then why would she still have sent Mark to pick up the guns? Unless she had read the first mail but not the second.
Ravinder leaned forward and checked the time log. The two had come in almost simultaneously. If she had seen one she would logically have seen the other.
Unless…
He raced out of the study and went looking for Ruby. He had to talk to her and get to the bottom of this. Her room was empty. He checked with the servant who told him that she had left early.
‘Did she say where she was going?’
‘Not to me, sahib. But she was wearing a tracksuit. It looked like she was going for a run.’
Ravinder returned to his study to think. The stakes were too high. He could not allow anything to happen, to the Games or to the Summit. Though, knowing the Rehana angle now, if it is Ruby, it would be the Summit she would be targeting.
His phone buzzed.
‘Yes, Ashish?’
‘We have found three improvised explosive devices near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.’ DIG Ashish sounded grim. ‘Big ones, sir. Had they gone off they would have taken out a large chunk of the stadium.’
‘Where?’
‘Behind the ticketing booth. The bombs seem to have been there a while.’
‘An inside job. Round up all personnel who have access to that area.’
‘Already started that, sir.’
‘Good.’ Ravinder was relieved that Ashish was handling it and not Govind. ‘Ensure everyone’s antecedents a
re checked. I want that bastard found… whoever he is.’
‘Don’t worry, sir, I am on it. Whoever it is, we will find him. Or her.’
‘Fine,’ he said, even though that was not how Ravinder felt when he put the phone down.
Or her.
Ashish’s final words ricocheted in his head. There were too many things happening, on too many fronts.
‘Slow down the game.’
Ravinder heard the voice of his college basketball coach echo in his memory.
The limited options now available to her churned through her mind as Ruby pounded down the silent road. At this early hour, not many people were around. Puddles littered the road, hangovers of last night’s rain. A sense of isolation filled Ruby. She needed help. Or at least someone to talk to.
Should I call Pasha? What will he be able to do from Pakistan? She toyed with the idea. What other options do I have? Even if he can’t help, maybe I can talk it through with him.
She could think of no one else to talk to and the thought depressed her so much that she felt the urge to scream. She stopped and pulled out her mobile. Her fingers dialled the number of his satellite phone, which was embedded in her memory.
Ravinder broke out of his reverie. The father in him could no longer ignore the fact that his own daughter might be a part of this awful threat.
Could Ruby really be part of this conspiracy? An MI6 agent? Was it not possible that she was just a girl hurting from the loss of her mother, who had turned to him because she needed her father to stand by her at this dark hour? Could the sins of her mother…
The father in him begged him to give her the benefit of doubt. The cop firmly urged him to fill in the gaps in his information, to complete the picture and deal with his suspicions.
