The Dust Will Never Settle

by Deva, Mukul

Both shots went wide, but forced Chance to drop. Coming up from behind, too fast to stop, Ravinder blundered into him. By the time they got up, the distance between them and Ruby had increased.

  Ruby was flying, her feet skimming over the carpeted corridor in long flashing strides. As she skidded around a corner, she spotted Ido Peled standing at the door of the conference room on the right, and knew the delegates had to be behind it. Like a linebacker, the tall, fair Peled stood with his back to the door, weapon in hand. He tensed as she charged around the corner and came at him full tilt.

  The body armour and baseball cap must have confused Peled. He’d seen Jennifer wearing those just a while ago. So he hesitated a second before bringing up his gun. That fraction of time cost him his life.

  Ruby fired the unsilenced gun in her right hand for its longer range and accuracy. The shot boomed and reverberated, spurring on Chance and Ravinder.

  Peled was dead before his body hit the floor. Chance, now within range, raised his weapon and fired twice. The first bullet buzzed past Ruby’s head and thwacked into the thick wooden door of the conference room. The second hammered into Ruby. Jennifer’s jacket limited the damage, but the high velocity shock made her stagger. Still, she managed to throw open the door and charge into the conference room. She hit the door hard with her heel as she raced inside. It slammed shut behind her with a bang.

  That was followed by more bangs, sharper, louder and so close together that Ravinder could not tell how many shots had been fired.

  Then he saw Chance reach the door. Without checking his stride, Chance shouldered it in and raced inside.

  Ravinder burst in hard on his heels.

  Chance ground to a halt, the pistol in his hand still half-raised. He froze; the slightest move and Ruby would put a bullet in his head. Her weapons were up and smoking. Ravinder ran in behind him.

  The pistol in Ruby’s left hand was pointed straight at Chance’s head. Her face was alabaster. Frozen. Immobile. Emotionless. Only her eyes hinted at the turmoil inside her – tiny seething dots, tense with concentration.

  She was about eight feet away, her breath heavy, but the Brownings in her hands were rock steady. The weapon in her right hand was placed against Senator George Polk’s head – now no charm or smile on his face, just sheer panic. A low, almost inaudible, keening sound emanated from of him.

  Raj Thakur, Ghazi Baraguti and Prince Ghanim Abdul Rahman al-Saud lay in grotesque poses around the conference table. They had been the closest when Ruby stormed in and opened fire. It did not matter to her. Every delegate was fair game. And she had gone for the headshot with all three.

  Thakur’s body had slipped to the floor. The top half of his pristine white kurta was bright red. Baraguti was half in his chair and half sprawled across the table, about to stand when he stopped a bullet. Thick blood seeped from his head and onto the teak tabletop. With his face blown away, there was nothing regal about the Saudi prince any more. Bits of blood, brain and bone were sprayed across the other delegates, all frozen in horror. Gun smoke furled in the stark room.

  For one tiny but endless second, everything came to a standstill.

  ‘Ruby, don’t do it. Please,’ Ravinder’s voice broke the frozen tableau. He was having trouble speaking. He could have sworn it was Rehana standing in front of him. ‘Don’t! It’s over. No one else needs to die.’

  ‘No, father, it’s not.’ Ruby’s voice was high-pitched and tightly drawn. Her face was a grim mask. ‘It will never be over till our people are allowed to live in peace and with dignity. The killing has to stop.’

  ‘That is why they are here. To stop the killing!’ Despite her fiery posture, Ravinder could sense an uncertainty within her. Somehow he had to keep her talking. As long as she is talking, her guns will stay silent. His mind lanced out, seeking the right words.

  ‘No,’ she intoned, ‘they are not here for justice. They will sell us out, the way they have always done. This Summit cannot go on,’ she continued in that same high-pitched Rehana-like tone flushed with emotion. ‘Our people cannot be sold out any longer.’

  ‘But there is no need now for more killing, Ruby,’ Ravinder’s voice had taken on a softer, neutral but firm, negotiator’s tone. As he spoke, he inched slowly to his right, trying to ensure Chance was no longer in his line of fire.

  ‘Stop that, father!’ Ruby gestured with her weapon. ‘Don’t move.’

  ‘Fine, I won’t.’ Ravinder slowly raised his left hand, palm forward, in a placating gesture. His right was at his side, still holding his revolver. ‘Don’t you see how pointless all this is? The dust will never settle… neither for the Palestinians nor the Jews… not until they sit down and talk. Drop your weapons,’ Ravinder pleaded, ‘Please. I promise I will do everything possible to defend you in court.’

  ‘No, father, I will not be taken alive.’ He heard the sorrow in her voice. And even though her tone was firm, he sensed flecks of indecision.

  He might be able to talk her down. ‘Ruby…’

  Without warning, the door flew open and Mohite burst in with a gun in his hand. His eyes widened as he took in the scene. His gun hand began to rise.

  Ruby’s eyes narrowed into sharp slits. ‘No!’ Ravinder yelled.

  But it was too late. Ravinder’s cries were drowned out by gunfire.

  Both of Ruby’s weapons blazed into action, the soft plop of the silenced one submerged by the booming roar of the other.

  The gun in her right hand fired and the senator’s head disintegrated, spraying the table with chunks of bone and blood. Some of it sprayed onto the faces of Yossi Gerstmann and Ghafar Al-Issa, the Jordanian, across the table. Both recoiled. Someone else screamed. But the continuing roar of gunfire drowned it out.

  The gun in Ruby’s left hand missed its mark. Instead of shooting out Chance’s throat, it caught him high on the collarbone, just above the upper lip of his body armour, and spun him to the left. Ruby’s gun had meanwhile moved onto Mohite. The bullet slammed into his face and made the back of his head a bloody fresco all over the door he had just raced through.

  Simultaneously, Chance jerked his gun hand and fired. He got one shot off before he was hit. As his body took the hit and spun to the left, he fired again. Both bullets took Ruby in the middle of her body and once again, the body armour shielded her. But the double blows delivered at such close range threw her backwards. Chance kept firing till his clip ran out.

  As Chance spun to his left, Ravinder’s field of fire cleared. His hand came up like a flash and his gun thudded to life. Once. Twice. Thrice.

  In the confines of the conference room, the boom of gunshots was endless thunder.

  The terrorist was down.

  Ravinder watched Ruby being thrown back as bullets pounded into her. She hit the wall behind her. Then slowly her body slid to the ground. For a moment she lay still, and then painfully curled up in a foetal ball.

  The Rehana-like harpy who had terrified them had vanished. All Ravinder could see was the little girl who had once loved pink frocks and lick lollies.

  The pistol in Ravinder’s hand felt like a block of ice, but heavier… much heavier. He barely knew when he let go and it hit the carpeted floor with a thud.

  Then someone moaned and reality struck like a sledgehammer.

  Ravinder the cop stepped forward and kicked the guns away from Ruby. And Ravinder the father knelt beside her.

  The door blew open and a horde of security personnel rushed inside.

  Kneeling beside Ruby, Ravinder was oblivious to the hullabaloo around him. He had zoned out. The cop had done his duty. He had been made to walk the hardest path that his karma could have called for, and he had not flinched.

  But the cop was no longer there. Only the father. Ravinder wished he were dead. He wished he had not fired. He wished he had been the target of Ruby’s guns, not the delegates, not Chance, not Mohite. Just him. He would have paid the price eagerly.

  Ravinder cradled Ruby in his arms. As he did so, her eyes flickered
open. She was alive, but barely. Ravinder sensed that time was abysmally short and he wanted to be with his little girl one last time.

  Ruby opened her mouth. She seemed to be trying to say something, but only frothy bubbles of blood emerged.

  With her eyes she beckoned him closer. His ear was against her mouth. The low whisper, when it emerged finally, was drawn out, barely audible.

  ‘Jasmine told me… that whenever… she was hurt… you would… hold her… and put her to sleep.’

  He nodded, unable to say a word. ‘I am… hurting… daddy.’ The words emerged in broken gasps. ‘Will you… put… me to sleep… please?’

  ‘Yes, princess.’ Ravinder managed to speak, a bare whisper. ‘Of course I will.’

  Ravinder could feel her slipping away. Never had he felt so helpless. He held her close. He could feel her breath mingle with his; cold, like her blood which soaked his shirt. Her lips touched his cheek. For a moment they were one again – father and daughter.

  The pressure on his cheek tightened. And then Ruby lay still in his arms, cold and lifeless. As empty and cold as the void inside him.

  By the time they managed to get Ravinder to release her, the light had faded from Ruby’s eyes.

  His precious princess was gone – again. And this time she would not be back.

  The Days After

  With five delegates dead, there was no hope that the Peace Summit would proceed. The surviving few, still shocked delegates left for their homelands just hours after the attack.

  People, those in the know and those who would take decisions and could influence change, knew that the dust would never settle, at least not anytime in the near future.

  Not until sense and compassion took hold. If it ever did.

  Safely ensconced in Muridke, Pasha was thrilled to hear of the carnage. And the fact that the British had trained Ruby made his victory all the sweeter. How gratifying, after all, to kill an enemy with his own sword. Poetic justice, since Pasha believed that it was the British who had destroyed the Ottoman Caliphate and were primarily responsible for the plight of the The Dust Will Never Settle The Days After Palestinians. It was on their watch that Israel had crushed the Palestinians.

  Pasha was jubilant when he shared the news with Saeed Ahmed, the LeT supremo.

  ‘We must extract maximum mileage from this,’ Ahmed asserted.

  ‘True,’ Pasha agreed. ‘Operations with such massive propaganda value rarely happen.’

  ‘Use this opportunity to strengthen our ties with Hamas. There is much we can do for the jihad if we work together.’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘Why not go down to Damascus and see what they have in mind?’

  Pasha agreed that it was worth pursuing.

  Miles away in Tel Aviv, a Mossad duty operator put down her headset and reached for the phone.

  Two days later, when Pasha left Muridke, a select group of men and women from various cities in Europe moved. Several of them had travelled to Dubai a few weeks ago.

  The kidon team was in place when Pasha’s flight landed in Damascus. The deadly ring closed around him as he exited the airport and headed for the safehouse his hosts had arranged.

  ‘This one is for you, Ean Gellner,’ the lean, hard faced kidon who had once painted Born to Kill on his army helmet muttered as he cleaned the blade of his knife on Pasha’s headless body.

  As Pasha’s body slumped to the floor, a few thousand miles away, in the holy city of Haridwar, a gleaming black BMW 750 Li came to a halt.

  Retired Inspector General of Police, Ravinder Singh Gill, emerged draped in white. He had lost weight, acquired a decade of wrinkles and had a gaunt look. It was as though everything he had ever had, had been lost.

  Jasmine, in a pristine white salwar-kameez, alighted and followed as they made their way to the edge of the water. She walked near him, watching him closely; she knew he needed her.

  Simran did not leave the car. She could not forgive Ruby. But she had travelled this distance with Ravinder, because him she did care for.

  There were thousands of people clustered on both sides of the holy river. An endless sound rumbled on both banks. But none of this impacted Ravinder and Jasmine. They felt alone.

  They strode into the water, stopping when it was ankle high. It was icy cold but neither felt it.

  Ravinder’s hands trembled as he tried to untie the string holding the red cloth covering the small earthen urn. Jasmine came to his aid. In the past week he The Dust Will Never Settle The Days After had retreated into a cold, silent zone, and his silence frightened her. She could feel his pain as their hands met at the urn.

  The red cloth finally came free.

  Together they tipped over the urn and a swirl of grey ashes tumbled out and fell into the water. Some were carried away by the wind. Soon no trace remained. Neither in the air nor in the water.

  But they didn’t look away from the spot where the ashes had first hit the water. They kept looking, unable to let go. Both believed that in this release lay salvation for the soul that the ashes represented.

  The chill from the water began to seep into their bodies, merging with the chill in their hearts. After a long time, both bid a silent farewell to the lovely young woman who had come into their lives, so recently… so briefly… so sadly. A woman who had torn them apart, yet brought them together.

  Ravinder and his second-born turned as one and slowly made their way back to the waiting vehicle.

  Just before he got into the car, Ravinder looked back at the grey waters of the swiftly flowing Ganges. But it was not the river he saw. Nor did he notice the sky above it.

  All he saw was a three-year-old girl in a pretty pink frock. She seemed to be waving at him.

  That brought a small smile to his lips. That was how he always wanted to remember Ruby.

  Acknowledgements

  This book would never have been possible if it had not been for certain people who came into my life at the right time. Al Zuckerman of Writers House, who was invaluable in giving the story shape and holding my hand from start to finish. Fran, Avital, Idit, Gabriella, Jawad, Lilach, Ido, Karim, Amatullah and Lynette, to name a few more, who shared priceless insights to their wonderful countries and various other aspects that flummoxed me. They made me feel emotionally connected to the characters in a special way. To each one of you, I offer my humble and heartfelt thanks.

  To my wonderful family for giving me the time and space to indulge in the (almost) solitary love of my life: writing.

  To P.M. Sukumar, Karthika V.K., Neelini Sarkar, Natasha Puri, N.S. Krishna and Amit Sharma at HarperCollins India – as always for the support and encouragement they have provided me over the past five years.

  To my comrades-in-arms in the Indian Armed Forces who were kind enough to ensure that I did not make any major blunders while writing about tactics, weapons and weapon systems. However, I must stress that all technical data used in this book has not been provided by anyone, it is already in the public domain and available on the Internet and in libraries.

  To the National Arts Council of Singapore for providing me the wonderful opportunity to finish this book in double-quick time. Singapore has been a fantastic breeding ground for me, freed me from so many worries and enabled me to focus single-mindedly on writing.

  And, of course, last but not the least, to each one of you, dear readers, who have egged me on with praise and criticism by writing to me, by blogging about my books and, of course, buying them…

  Any errors, factual or technical, that still exist in this book are solely my fault or have been deliberately left in there by me to prevent any misuse of a technology or an idea.

  About the Author

  An alumnus of La Martiniere College, Lucknow, the National Defence Academy, Pune, and the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Mukul Deva was commissioned in December 1981 into the Sikh Light Infantry of the Indian Army. He took early retirement from the army after fifteen years of service, includ
ing a decade of combat operations in India and overseas. Now settled in Singapore, he is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker and Executive, Business and Creativity Coach. Mukul is also a mentor on the UNITAR Afghanistan Fellowship. He is the author of:

  Time After Time…It All Happened

  S.T.R.I.P.T.E.A.S.E: The Art of Corporate Warfare

  M.O.D.E.L.: The Return of the Employee

  The Lashkar Series

  Lashkar (soon to be a major motion picture)

  Salim Must Die

  Blowback

  Tanzeem

  For more about him, please visit his website:

  www.mukuldeva.com

  Praise for Mukul Deva

  'The God of all things… it is tough describing Mukul Deva.’

  – Business World

  ‘Deva has a Nostradamus touch.’

  – The Statesman

  ‘India’s literary storm trooper.’

  – Business Standard

  ‘You can smell the gunpowder. Such is the power of the words of Mukul Deva… India’s first military action thriller writer.’

  – The Hindu

  ‘India’s only military thriller writer.’

  – The Week

  ‘Here comes India’s Clancy or Ludlum or Forsyth.’

  – Outlook

  ‘Mukul Deva wears the crown of India’s premier military thriller writer with great skill and panache.’

  – www.indepepal.com ‘India finally has a writer of international caliber in the genre of military fiction.’

  – First City

  ‘Deva is a quintessential literary storm trooper… his books are fast-paced thrillers that have broken new ground.’

  – Yuva

  Praise for the Lashkar Series

  ‘Exciting... with some action, some introspection, some retrospection... A racy read.’

  – The Times of India