by Mainak Dhar
As the camera cut to the studio and more discussion followed on the events that had transpired, I muted the TV. It was no surprise that the American government would make no mention of the presence of Chinese bodies at the site.
I wondered if they knew about Ross. Surely Rachel would have told them of his role. Perhaps, they would keep news of his involvement quiet, given that he seemed to be deeply entrenched with parts of the security establishment in the US. Either they would just keep quiet about it, or deal with Ross in the shadows, well away from nosy news reporters and studios.
What did surprise me though was my own conflicted reaction to the report.
Part of me was relieved that my role in the whole affair had not been mentioned. That part of me was happy that everybody would think that the US had conducted the rescue mission all by itself, and if anyone knew any more, it would just be a coincidence that I had been on the flight, been threatened by the hijackers, but gotten away safely with my family. I wanted that part of me to prevail.
After all, all I wanted was the safety and anonymity of civilian life, right?
But a part of me, a surprisingly loud part, was disappointed, even angry.
My family had been in harm’s way. I had risked their lives, and my own, to help rescue Rachel. Also, after a long time, I had felt alive. I had felt the same camaraderie I had when I had been in uniform – of going into harm’s way not because of lofty slogans or speeches, but for the man next to you – in this case, Karzai.
I was also anxious because I had no idea what had happened to him.
Had the Americans killed him, knowing the past he had? It wouldn’t take much to make him disappear, knowing that he had no family that would come asking uncomfortable questions.
Also, I was angry at being ignored, dismissed as a dispensable tool.
It was a feeling I knew well from my time in uniform. When you spend as many years as I had in the special forces, you know you won’t get recognition. If anything, most of your work will be done in the dark, away from the spotlight. But what you do want is respect. The respect that comes from knowing that you are not a tool to be used when needed to do the dirty work, and then sent back into the shadows, almost as if to display you in public would be too offensive to the delicate sensibilities of the people sitting at home in their cosy bedrooms, rooting for the army to be sent in, while being shielded from the brutal reality of war.
Most men in uniform did what we did because we felt we owed a debt to our nation, to our officers, but mostly to the man fighting by our side, our brother in arms. A debt, not measured in money, but of honour. But where was the honour in this?
The way that part of me reacted told realise something about myself.
Almost five years may have passed since I last wore the uniform of the Indian Army or the maroon beret of the Paras, and in the interim I may have tried to convince myself that I could become something or someone else. The truth was that I still was, and perhaps could never really be anything else.
I was a soldier!
***
Ravi and Rekha came in, accompanied by Zoya.
Rekha fussed over me for several minutes, thanking every god known in the Hindu pantheon. I think she threw in a thank you to Jesus as well for good measure.
All the while, Zoya sat there, holding my hand and Aman was by my other side, just lying next to me, not really comprehending what was happening. But I swear that when I looked into his eyes, he smiled.
Rekha, who presumably knew only the official version of events, kept murmuring to herself how lucky I was not to have been more badly hurt a the freak crash that had occurred when I was being released by the hijackers and had needed medical attention. That, I gathered, was the version of events which explained why I had not been with the other released hostages.
I looked up at Zoya, who had lived the brutal reality of what we had confronted in Afghanistan, and could see her lips tighten.
Was she thinking the same thing I was?
When the couple left the room, Rekha took Aman with her so that Zoya and I could have some time together.
‘What’s on your mind, Zo?’
Her eyes blazed with anger, as she looked at me. ‘They made you risk your life. Look at you! God knows how close you were to dying at so many points – all so that the Americans could get Rachel back. I’m not saying it wasn’t right to rescue her, and I’m so glad you came back for us, but how can they totally ignore you now that you aren’t of any more use for them? Don’t they owe you anything?’
I held her hand gently. She was thinking the same thing. And, if I was still a soldier at heart, what was clear was that perhaps without realising it, Zoya was a soldier’s wife.
‘Zo, that’s the way it often is. Besides, I had chosen to go on, it was the only way to get you and Aman out safely. When I was in uniform as well, the government didn’t acknowledge what we did.’
She turned on me, making me the target for her frustration and anger. ‘But you are not in the army anymore! And if you do something like rescuing civilians, they can’t just take you for granted and not acknowledge it.’
I would have tried to pacify her, if the door hadn’t opened and Ashutosh Phadke stepped inside, with Ravi.
Zoya left the room, as it was getting to be Aman’s feeding time, promising to be back soon.
Phadke pulled a chair next to my bed, as did Ravi. One was a senior police officer, the other a former officer in the Paras. The moment they both sat down and looked at me, I knew what was on their minds.
It was Phadke who spoke first. ‘Aadi, you seem to have a habit to getting into trouble and then creating all sorts of mayhem on your way out.’
I tried to feign ignorance, not yet sure how much I should reveal of what had actually happened.
Phadke leaned towards me, speaking in a conspiratorial hush. ‘There are few advantages of being a cop. You don’t get paid much, many people assume you’re corrupt even when you aren’t and all too often, you can’t put real crooks behind bars because they happen to be your political masters.’
Despite the pain I was in, I found myself smiling. But as Phadke continued, my smile disappeared.
‘One of the few advantages of wearing the uniform I do is that when I walk up to a doctor in a hospital and ask him what exactly had happened to a patient I am about to see, he tells me the truth, not some cock and bull story that the media expects me to believe.’
Phadke now had my full attention.
‘It must have been some car accident for it to have left you with cuts consistent with being worked on with a sharp knife, burn marks that seem consistent with torture, and finally being shot with a 9MM pistol. You are lucky to be alive, my friend, and I wonder if you can tell us what actually happened out there.’
I looked at him and then at Ravi. I remembered what Zoya had said to me earlier. I no longer served the uniform and was no longer bound to obey any politician or government official. I had done what I had done in Afghanistan to save my family, and to do what I thought was right.
Damn them, damn them all. Damn those who believed that men like me could be sent into harm’s way and then forgotten.
I owed my family and those closest to me the truth. So, I told Phadke and Ravi everything.
When I finished, Ravi got up and began pacing the room. Phadke was silent. Ravi stopped near my head and ran his hand through my hair. In all the years I had known him, he had never demonstrated affection in such an overt way.
‘My boy, I had no idea. Thank god you got out of there with Zoya and Aman. By the sounds of it, you also made those bastards pay for what they did.’
Phadke had his hands steepled under his chin, deep in thought.
I looked at him, wondering what he was thinking or was going to say. He just kept sitting in that position.
‘Phadke, you’re driving me nuts, sitting there like that. What’s on your mind?’
He lowered his hands slowly. ‘Aadi, you’ve been messing with
some really dangerous people. Ross sounds like a real rotten apple. And, if he’s been involved with rogue CIA in drug running, who knows who his backers really are? Throw in the Chinese and that’s even more bad news. To be honest, I don’t know how much you should trust our government and the Americans. It was convenient for them to use you to get their dirty work done. Yes, you wanted to save your family, but even so, do you think any of them would want their dirty little secrets out? And then, there’s the fact that you know who the Mumbai sniper is…’
I suddenly began to regret having shared everything with them, and wondered if I had put them in danger along with me and my family.
The door opened and Zoya came in. I could see a concerned look on her face.
‘Aadi, there’s a man here to see you. He says it’s important that you meet him now.’
‘Who, Zo?’
‘An elderly man who says you would want to meet him because some old men have interesting connections. What an odd thing to say. Who is this man?’
I knew who it was.
The door opened and Dhar walked in.
***
Within minutes, the room got pretty crowded. I’m sure the doctor would have objected if he hadn’t been faced with the prospect of having to argue with a retired spymaster, a retired special forces officer and a police officer in uniform.
Also, in the room were Zoya and Rekha, and Aman as well, though he was now on the sofa, asleep and blissfully unaware of what was going on around him.
Given how quiet Ravi, Phadke and I had become, and the fact that Dhar stood there looking at us in silence, Zoya sensed that we did not want to talk in front of Rekha. She shepherded the older woman out of the room on the pretext of grabbing a coffee and a bite while the men were there and Aman was asleep.
After the two exited, Dhar looked at me through his thick glasses, his eyes twinkling, as if he was amused.
This was the first time I was meeting him after I had visited his home, posing as a wannabe author, in Mumbai, when Karzai and I had tried and get some insights on our adversary.
‘It looks like they sure worked you over, major. Though, I gather you caused some havoc in return. Intel says that twelve men died in the village during the air strikes and thirty four died on the hill. I don’t know how many of them you and your sniper friend took out, and how many the Americans mopped up, but from what I hear, the Americans reported that they found more than a dozen bodies when they got there and of course, mayhem in the base itself. One of those dead at the base was a Chechen called Karmikov. Made a name for himself by torturing and killing hostages for ISIS in Syria and putting up his handiwork on social media. You really helped by taking out many fine specimens like that.’
‘Not from what the Americans would have us believe? Seems like they did it all.’
He smiled and sat down next to me, and motioned to the others.
‘Make yourselves as comfortable as you can. You all are close to the major and deserve to know what’s going on. I normally would not say the things I am about to, and indeed, I would never have come here in person. But Major Ghosh is owed a debt by many, many people. And, you are not ordinary civilians.’
I realised that Dhar had not just come here to check on my well-being. He may have pretended to be many things – a retired officer, who now focused on writing books, but with his experience and what I had seen unfold in Nangarhar, where he was clearly involved in the operation with Gopal, he was here to pass on messages that the government might not want to directly.
‘The Americans have a lot of skeletons in their cupboard that Ross could expose, major. So, they want to deal with him quietly without the media bringing out his role in the hijacking. Also, the Chinese being there was a real surprise to us all. With all the tensions that both India and the Americans have with China, neither government is keen to have the media talk about dead Chinese soldiers in Afghanistan without figuring out what they were doing there in the first place.’
‘If they’re so keen to keep things under wraps, where does it leave someone like me who knows what actually happened there? Someone who met Ross face to face and killed those Chinese soldiers, who were supposedly not there. And where does that leave someone like Aman Karzai? What’s happened to him?’ I asked.
Dhar’s eyes were twinkling as they always seemed to do, almost like a mischievous schoolboy. Not, I corrected myself, not just any mischievous schoolboy, but the one who knows all the answers to the questions the teacher has but wants to fool around for the fun of it. This time, however, I caught a harder glint in his eyes and reminded myself that for all his outwardly affable nature and the fact that he did seem to have been watching out for me, he had spent decades being an intelligence operative, and could be ruthless.
‘Aaditya, you do realise the situation and the stakes involved.’
That got my attention – his referring to me by my name, and the fact that his voice had softened.
‘I will not bullshit you. In your case, many people would miss you and perhaps ask what happened, but under the circumstances in which you found yourself, it would have been easy to say you died of your wounds after the battle on the hill. Who would know any better?’
He had said it without missing a beat. I hissed a swear word that was perhaps deliberately more than a whisper, so that Dhar would know exactly what I thought. I swear Ravi looked ready to take Dhar’s head off with his bare hands. Phadke, a serving police officer, who perhaps needed to be the most careful about how much of his emotions he let show, got up and slammed his hand into the side of the bed.
‘Damn them all! And damn all these bloody spooks and politicians who think they can just mess with people’s lives.’
Dhar looked at everyone in the room and smiled, holding up his hands as if in surrender.
‘Hey, I am on your side. What do you think I’m doing here? And none of what I said happened, or will. That’s because you aren’t alone and helpless. You have friends in your corner. The Indian government owes a big debt to you. Yes, some spooks and politicians are bastards, but Ajay Gopal is an honest officer and a decent man.’
I couldn’t help but smile as he said the last bit with an impish grin before he continued. ‘And, then there is the young lady you rescued. Rachel Harmening has all the dirt on Ross, and from what I hear, she is repaying the debt she owes you and Karzai. Being the former President’s daughter also helps. Your safety and anonymity was one of the conditions she put on the table to give the dirt she had on Ross to the American authorities. Our own government also helped in its own way. We have our own leverage with the Americans, not the least of which is the intel we have on the Chinese unit involved there which the Americans didn’t know about.’
‘So, what happens next?’
‘What happens next, major, is that you recover and get on with your life, and try to not share more broadly what happened out there.’
I noticed he had not said anything about my sniper friend.
‘What happened to Karzai?’
Dhar got up to leave and responded as he was halfway to the door. ‘Nobody knows. He melted away after the battle, and given how many people want him dead, it’s perhaps best for him if he stays invisible.’
***
A few days later, I was beginning to walk, and though my side hurt, it wasn’t too bad.
This wasn’t the first time I had been shot or stabbed, and while I wouldn’t say it was a normal, everyday part of my life, I wasn’t in shock the way I had been the very first time I had been shot. I had long lost any delusions about my invulnerability, but what I did not like was the realization that I was clearly not as young or as fit as I once had been. My recovery was taking longer and my body was telling me to either decide to become a sedentary civilian or get it back in the shape it had been.
Earlier I may have even contemplated the former, but the events of the recent past had taught me that I was either jinxed or fated to not leave my past behind, that I never knew when troub
le would coming knocking on my door, forcing me to become the man I had once been.
So, as I entered the second week of my stay in hospital, I called Ravi. ‘Sir, I need help.’
‘Been a while since you called me sir. What’s on your mind?’
‘I’m tired of being a wounded civilian. Can you come train me?’
The doctor, being former army, understood what I was going through and didn’t object. And, I began training with Ravi after years. Starting with gentle exercises and weights, working my way up to more by the time the second week ended.
I had to be careful at first with all the stitches, but when they released me from hospital, I hadn’t felt as good for a long time.
The day after we came home, I turned on the TV and saw Rachel Harmening being interviewed on CNN.
‘Miss Harmening, the information you have published in your story is explosive to say the least. Thanks for agreeing to do this exclusive interview with us.’
‘Thank you for having me here.’
The anchor shuffled some papers in his hand, scanning them, as he asked, ‘Your article basically lays bare how private military contractors have been colluding with rogue elements in the American intelligence and military apparatus to smuggle drugs out of Afghanistan and into the United States. You have taken a few names, which will certainly shake things up in Washington.’
Rachel looked at the camera, as if her response was not aimed at the anchor but at the millions watching her on television.
‘Of course, but think of the impact these men have had on the thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of Americans who have died as a result of their greed. And yes, I have taken some names, because the world needs to know who these men are and they need to be brought to justice. The hijacking in Afghanistan that I endured was a part of the plot some of these men had, working together with Islamic State militants who were in on their smuggling racket, to try and destroy the evidence I had gathered before I could share it.’
