The Zero-Cost Mission/The Wily Agent

by Amar Bhushan

  They had barely sat down when Reddy broke the news that the Chief had cleared the mission but wanted to ensure that no footprint was left behind. Both officers looked at each other, Vijay feeling relieved and Sujal pleasantly surprised.

  ‘Sir, I do not plan to involve any employee or asset of the Agency. My idea is to engage persons who have never been used by the Agency so that our complicity is not exposed,’ Sujal clarified.

  ‘Are they your old contacts?’

  ‘No, sir, they are men whom I used for unofficial purposes.’

  ‘If they are not trained, how will they carry out their respective tasks?

  ‘Sir, novices are more daring and less demanding.’

  ‘How much money do you expect to pay them?’

  ‘It will be a sizeable sum, amounting to a couple of crores in all probability.’

  ‘I don’t think the project is worth investing so much,’ Reddy responded, a worried look on his face.

  Vijay, sitting quiet, was not surprised by this. He was familiar with Sujal’s habit of paying much higher than other operatives for a job in order to earn the swift and absolute loyalty of his assets. Sujal did not believe in negotiating and went straight for the jugular. An accountant’s nightmare, he usually paid generous sums to secure his sources and did not waste time in cultivating them. Little wonder then that he ran his operations at a breakneck pace.

  ‘Sir, in that case, we should shelve the mission. There is no point in wasting resources in a losing venture,’ Sujal said.

  Although Reddy did not appreciate Sujal’s stance, he didn’t let his displeasure show. ‘Give me a detailed estimate of the likely expenditure. We will see what we can do,’ he said.

  ‘Sir, I will send you the estimate within a few weeks, after talking to my men in the field. If you find it unreasonable, please drop the mission.’

  ‘It is premature to talk about abandoning the project,’ Reddy responded, ‘but your guess seems extravagant. I am not convinced that such a large sum will be necessary.’

  ‘Sir, the amount I am asking for is actually peanuts. I have executed missions that were far more expensive.’

  ‘Be that as it may, submit the estimate as soon as possible so that I can discuss it with the Chief and see whether he is willing to sanction the amount without any cuts.’

  ‘Sir, I will need to go to Calcutta to hold initial discussions with my agents. I will need at least five lakhs to meet their expenses,’ Sujal said.

  ‘Very well, I will give you an advance today itself to meet your expenses.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And one more thing. The Chief does not want you to visit Dhaka again,’ Reddy cautioned.

  ‘Sir, you can assure the Chief that I will do no such thing. As for the estimate of the likely expenditure, if needed, I will come personally to explain where and how I am going to spend the money.’

  ‘That sounds reasonable to me,’ Vijay said.

  Reddy nodded his agreement. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Sir, I need your assurance that if the mission is aborted, I will be relocated to Hyderabad.’

  ‘I cannot guarantee that you will be relocated to Hyderabad because we cannot keep that position vacant for long, but I will certainly have you transferred from Calcutta,’ Reddy assured him.

  As there was nothing more to discuss, he took out an envelope from his safe and handed it to Sujal. It contained two lakh rupees. Sujal thanked him and both he and Vijay left Reddy’s office.

  As they walked towards the lift, Vijay remarked, ‘I’m beginning to feel sorry for you, Sujal. You have now tried twice to wriggle out of this mission, first by taking a secret trip to Dhaka and then by asking for an astronomical amount to accomplish it, but failed on both counts.’

  ‘There must be something about your project that keeps pulling me back,’ Sujal replied, smiling. ‘Let’s just hope the Chief can find the money for it.’

  Atul Kulkarni, head of the Agency’s unit in Calcutta, missed a heartbeat as he read through a cable from headquarters. It conveyed the order transferring Sujal Rath from Hyderabad to Calcutta as his deputy. His first impulse was to call the Chief and protest, but better sense prevailed and he decided to wait till he knew all the facts behind the order. He opted to call Vijay instead to try and discover the reason behind the transfer.

  Vijay, however, pleaded ignorance. ‘It’s a routine matter,’ he said. ‘Someone had to fill in the vacancy after the previous deputy left. Maybe the Chief decided to post Sujal to the Calcutta desk because he served earlier in Bangladesh.’

  ‘Has he worked under Reddy before?’ Atul pressed for some clarity.

  ‘I don’t think so, but how does it matter? He is not going as Reddy’s envoy but as your deputy. Why are you so worked up over his posting?’ Vijay enquired.

  ‘I’m concerned because he is a very difficult subordinate and always tries to run down his seniors.’

  Not wishing to continue the conversation, Vijay hurriedly told him that he was being summoned by Reddy and hung up.

  Over the next couple of days, Atul fretted over the order. His experience of working with Sujal had been anything but pleasant. He had found Sujal overly secretive and in the habit of going over the heads of his reporting officers in operational matters. While it was true that Sujal had a knack for picking up sources that Atul found difficult to even approach, he felt Sujal had a tendency to brag about his achievements and dismiss those of others, which infuriated him. But perhaps what annoyed Atul the most was Sujal’s penchant for arguing, his casual approach to office administration and accounts and his total disinterest in analysing reports. Atul also did not like or trust his large circle of contacts, most of whom were either from the business world or had dubious backgrounds. As upset as he was by the order, Atul eventually decided not to take the matter up with headquarters, consoling himself with the thought that he was unlikely to stay in Calcutta long since he was due for an assignment abroad in the next few months.

  Sujal arrived in Calcutta to a frosty welcome. A rickety jeep was sent to fetch him from Dum Dum airport and drive him to the Agency’s guesthouse in Ulta Danga, which had no cooking facilities. The driver informed him that Mr Kulkarni was on a tour of inspection and would return after three or four days. Sujal was not surprised. He was familiar with Atul’s pettiness. He knew that dealing with him would not be easy. Atul derived pleasure in running him down for ‘writing poorly and speaking incoherently’. Moreover, Atul’s habit of constantly inquiring about his movements and meetings with his assets and his insistence on seeing all his reports irked him. Worse, Atul suffered from such a sense of insecurity that he would often call for Sujal’s phone bills behind his back to check whom he was talking to at headquarters and then demand the details of what had transpired.

  In spite of their mutual animosity, both managed to maintain a civil working relationship for the first few days. But the unspoken truce did not last long. When Reddy sent a cable summoning Sujal to headquarters for consultations, Atul lost his cool.

  ‘What is going on behind my back? Why is he summoning you and not me?’ he confronted Sujal.

  ‘You are asking the wrong person. Why don’t you speak to Mr Reddy?’ Sujal responded, unruffled.

  Atul didn’t back down. ‘Did you check with Vijay why his boss has asked for you?’

  ‘No. I don’t make a habit of verifying the motives behind an order from my senior. Perhaps Mr Reddy doesn’t want Vijay to know about our meeting.’

  Atul frowned. ‘Did you visit headquarters to receive a briefing from Mr Reddy regarding your assignment in Calcutta?’ Atul asked, recalling his fleeting encounter with his deputy in the lift some weeks ago.

  ‘I did meet him, but there was no discussion about the assignment. He merely told me that I should be ready to be posted to Calcutta as your deputy and to wait for further instructions. In fact, I protested my transfer from Hyderabad, but neither he nor the Chief would listen. I told him about my wife’s slow recove
ry after her surgery but it made no difference. In fact, I would be grateful if you could get my posting cancelled,’ Sujal said with a straight face, leaving Atul groping for a suitable response.

  That same evening Sujal left for Delhi.

  At headquarters, Sujal gave Reddy a detailed presentation on his mission plan, listing the areas that he was planning to target, confirming the amount of service money he would need, sharing information on the types of persons he would be recruiting to help him execute the project and the safety measures he would be adopting. Reddy listened intently, and apart from a few clarifications regarding minor details, he did not question Sujal on any major aspect of the plan. Instead, he said that with Sujal in charge of the operation, he felt that he did not have to worry about its execution or any exposure. He also hinted that Atul would soon be recalled to headquarters, leaving Sujal as the virtual head of the Calcutta unit to run his Jamaat operation in the manner he liked.

  Business concluded, both Reddy and Sujal relaxed and Reddy invited Sujal to have dinner with him. He also gave Sujal permission to spend a few days in Hyderabad with his family before returning to Calcutta.

  Feeling refreshed after meeting his wife and children and happy about the unqualified support promised by Reddy for his plan, Sujal threw himself into the task of re-establishing contact with his network in Bangladesh and Calcutta. He knew he would need their help in identifying and selecting people for the project.

  Atul, meanwhile, waited anxiously for Sujal to bring him to speed about what he had discussed with Reddy in Delhi, but his deputy remained silent on the subject. Finally, running out of patience, he summoned Sujal for a meeting.

  ‘How did your meeting in Delhi go?’ he began.

  ‘It wasn’t very productive. Neither Vijay nor Reddy gave me a clear idea of what I am supposed to do here. I was supposed to meet the Chief to discuss the matter, but he was called away on urgent business and I wasn’t able to meet him,’ Sujal replied.

  ‘But they must have given you some idea of why they have sent you here. I’m sure Reddy didn’t call you all the way to headquarters just to entertain you.’

  ‘Actually, he did exactly that. He took me out for dinner and permitted me to visit my wife in Hyderabad.’

  Seething with anger by now, Atul asked, ‘How long have you known Reddy?’

  ‘I had a chance meeting with him only last month when he mentioned that he would like me to assist him in a high-level operation and that I might have to visit headquarters frequently for this purpose,’ Sujal informed him casually.

  Atul was furious. He suspected that his deputy was playing games with him and conspiring behind his back, but it seemed there was not much he could do about it. His suspicion was confirmed when a week later, he was transferred to headquarters, leaving Sujal to manage the Agency’s unit in Calcutta independently.

  Sujal had never had it so good. He was allotted a nice government accommodation in Alipore. Arpita and the children soon moved to Calcutta to join him. The change of place brought about a sea change in her health and she began feeling stronger with each passing day. The kids too were happy—they were attending a good public school and making friends who spoke their language and ate their kind of food.

  As for Sujal, with no one to dictate terms and interfere, he had the freedom to contact his trusted talent spotters in Bangladesh and his old associates in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi and Khulna. He asked them to send him the names of volunteers whom he could trust for a special project. Within a fortnight, he had a list of thirty-five names. From these, he selected five whom he had used earlier to carry out a couple of secret assignments for the Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh and to facilitate the transfer of arms and explosives for his friends in the League to aid their cadres in Jamaat strongholds. To assist him in handling the logistics of the operation, he selected field operative Saumen Bose of the Calcutta unit, whom he found to be loyal, hardworking, discreet and extremely knowledgeable about the Bangladeshis in the city.

  Once the names of the assets were finalized, Sujal called each one of them to set up meetings in Calcutta on different dates. As per his plan, Saumen would help the volunteers enter India illegally through the Ghojadanga check post in Basirhat in West Bengal, and then escort them to Calcutta, where they would be put up in different hotels, depending on which ones were more secure and less frequented by the local police. Sujal would meet the visitors, discuss their individual roles and ask them for their views on the feasibility of their tasks and the difficulties that they could face in executing them. Based on their inputs, he would work out the details of the operation that he named simply as ‘Mission’.

  Events moved rapidly thereafter. Within ten days, the assets began to arrive. Sujal met them, briefed them and allotted them their specific tasks. He ensured that they did not stay longer than absolutely necessary, lest they attracted the attention of the Intelligence Bureau and the watchers of Calcutta police. His asset Aziz was assigned the responsibility of reconnoitering the Jamaat and HuJI posts, their training facilities and madrasas along the border and in other parts of Bangladesh and drawing up a list of their precise locations. Mansoor was to identify volunteers who would carry out the assault. Shaukat, a greedy but highly resourceful asset, was entrusted with the task of procuring explosives from his sources. Mortaza was told to make arrangements for the delivery of the explosives to the marked locations. Each one was to specify how much money he would need to execute his task. The last man Sujal briefed was Israr. He was to play the role of coordinator and remain in Dhaka during the entire operation to deal with unforeseen problems at short notice. Israr was quick to sense what was in the offing. Being a die-hard League supporter, he hated Jamaat and urged Sujal to widen the scope of the operation, so as to really make it count in its impact, and even offered to involve his own men in punishing ‘the rogues’ beyond recovery in the foreseeable future. Sujal advised restraint and cautioned him against doing anything rash that might harm the secrecy of the mission.

  All the assets were also advised to contact Sujal either in person or from designated PCOs and never through mobile phones. The purpose of the mission was not disclosed to anyone except Israr. Nor were they told who else was involved in the project. Most of the men accepted their roles without probing for further details beyond what was required to carry out their respective tasks. Only Shaukat was inquisitive. He wanted to know where the explosives were being sent and who the consignee was. Sujal advised him not to ask too many questions and to focus on what he was going to receive in return for this job, rather than on details that did not concern him. Knowing where his real interest lay, he offered Shaukat 10 per cent of the actual cost of the total shipment as his facilitation fees, which could be in lakhs. Shaukat couldn’t believe his luck and realized he had more to gain by his silence.

  A day after Israr, the last of the agents, was pushed across the border, Saumen met Sujal at the latter’s residence. ‘Sir, I don’t have any idea about the real objective of this mission,’ he began cautiously, ‘which is why I feel neither excited about it nor involved. In fact, handling these Bangladeshis makes me nervous.’

  ‘Did anyone threaten you?’ Sujal asked.

  ‘No, sir. But everything about them was strange. They rarely spoke unless absolutely necessary, they neither ate nor drank during the journey to Calcutta, perhaps suspicious of what I would feed them. They also seemed in a hurry to return home. They were so different from the sources I have worked with so far,’ Saumen confessed.

  Realizing that Saumen had much to learn about dealing with all variety of assets, Sujal chose to allay his concerns by commending him for the way he had handled them.

  ‘You dealt with the situation well, Saumen. More surprises are awaiting you as the mission gets under-way. But I bet you will enjoy having pulled it off in the end.’

  Arpita, who had been quietly listening to the discussion, intervened to calm Saumen’s nerves.

  ‘Your boss has an awful
habit of keeping everyone guessing and seldom shares his antics even with his wife,’ she said. ‘But you need not worry. If he has picked you for a job, he won’t let you down. On the contrary, you may learn a few tricks along the way.’

  Saumen found it unusual for an intelligence officer’s wife to arbitrate in operational matters but guessed that, like Sujal, she was also probably different from the other Agency wives.

  Later that night, after Sujal had gone to bed, Arpita lay quietly next to him, thinking about the past few weeks. She had not seen him this happy and relaxed in the past four years. Every evening when he returned home, he would excitedly tell her whom he had contacted in Dhaka, how he was approaching the mission and ask her to point out the flaws in the plan as an outsider. She noticed that with each passing day, he was becoming increasingly convinced that the mission would be a success.

  Arpita’s sense of the situation, however, was a bit premature. Sujal’s enthusiasm took a beating when Prabhakar Dayal, a voluble officer filled with a sense of his own self-importance, arrived in Calcutta to take over the position held by Atul Kulkarni. Dayal had a high opinion of his skills as an ace operator and believed that senior officers unfairly criticized his suggestions as irrelevant and his ideas as scattered. It was not possible for him to be cogent and precise when discussing a subject. A poor administrator, he could seldom take a decision as he got bogged down with needless clerical details. He derived pleasure in undercutting his junior colleagues and did not mind ruining their career to project himself as a paragon of professional virtue. However, what stood him in good stead was his capacity to suffer humiliation to keep his bosses on his right side. Though Sujal had not served under him before, he was apprehensive. He had heard from Vijay that Dayal was mean and vengeful, lacked the ability to plan a feasible operation and was a veteran at ambushing his rivals to stay close to the top leadership.