Age of Shiva (The Pantheon Series) (22 page)

I spun round and launched myself towards a trio of the Indian VIPs, who were in the throes of dropping their drinks and cowering, reacting at last to the missile impact. I bundled all of them down behind a low wall. A length of rebar missed impaling the head of the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha by inches.

The marquee flailed and billowed as debris ripped through it. Parashurama swung his axe and pulverised a piece of concrete the size of a football before it hit Bhatnagar, reducing it to a cloud of gravel that showered harmlessly over the arms dealer and the Cabinet Secretary next to him. Kurma shielded Lombard and the Minister of External Affairs with his armoured bulk. A tide of airborne rubble broke against his back, shattering to dust.

Silence followed in the wake of the explosion. Then screams erupted, some of pain, some of horror. Not everyone present had escaped injury. I saw a member of the Maldivian waiting staff clutching a deep gash in her leg, and one of the lesser Indian dignitaries was cradling a visibly broken arm.

I looked back at Aanandi. She appeared dazed but unhurt. I had saved her, as well as three of the Indians. Back of the net for Hanuman!

A second Baktar-Shikan struck.

This one landed further into the complex, the fourth ring. The island shook underfoot. A pillar of flame roiled upwards. Almost everyone was screaming now, human voices bleating in mad animal panic.

Above the hubbub Parashurama yelled orders. “Avatars! Round people up! Form a perimeter!”

Only we devas were moving. Everyone else was too terror-stricken to budge. Like cornered rabbits, they thought that if they stayed still and kept their heads down, danger might pass them by. We tried pulling them by their arms but they resisted. Even the military brass were having trouble processing what was happening. It had been a long time since any of them had seen action in the field, if ever.

“Be calm,” said Buddha. “Be free of fear. Master your thoughts. Let go or be dragged.”

His words cut through the paralysis that had seized people, pouring honey on their terror. They got up and meekly allowed themselves to be herded together. Parashurama positioned the Avatars around the stunned, huddled humans. We faced outwards, a living bulwark.

Rama squinted at the horizon. “Another one is incoming. Brace yourselves.”

The third missile shrieked overhead and hit Mount Meru’s hub, the tower housing the Trinity’s private apartments. The impact rocked the building, shattering virtually every window in it. One of the upper storeys was gutted in an instant, and I fully expected that the tower would crumple in on itself and collapse. It didn’t. Smoke poured from a gouge in the side, water from broken pipes jetted like arterial blood, but the tower remained erect.

Parashurama suggested that everyone should take cover inside, but Lombard gave the idea short shrift.

“There’s no bloody air raid shelters on Meru. No basements, even. You’ve seen what these damn missiles can do. They’d pick us off just as easily indoors. Might as well stay out here where we can see them coming and have a chance of avoiding them.”

Everyone scanned the sky intently. The three missiles had struck in fairly quick succession. As time passed and no fourth one arrived, it began to seem that the attack was over – although this could just be a lull while our unseen enemy regrouped and prepared for the next salvo.

Finally, after about a quarter of an hour, we all agreed that no more missiles were coming. For now.

Krieger, gazing at the central tower, moaned in dismay. “Straight into my goddamn living room! Son of a bitch! I have a Miró vase in there. My wife bought it for me.”

“Never mind your bloody vase, mate,” growled Lombard. Blood trickled from a tiny gash in his temple. “What about my collection of Miles Davis white label pressings? That’s six years’ worth of collecting there.”

“They’re on the floor above.”

“Still, the chances of them surviving...”

“Records are replaceable. A Miró ceramic isn’t.”
¹

“Still, at least the tower’s mostly intact,” Lombard said. “Could have been worse, eh?” A look passed between him and Krieger.

“Yes,” the Texan said. “When you put it like that...”

“Structurally sound where it needs to be. There are things more valuable than vases and LPs.”

Bhatnagar joined his two colleagues, his arm around his wife’s shoulders. Her sundress was grimy and torn, her whole body trembling. “Who?” he demanded. “That’s what I want to know. Who in hell’s name is firing missiles at us?”

“Who do you think?” Lombard shot back. “Pakistan. Got to be. And on the day we have guests from India. That’s no ruddy coincidence.”

“You say that, but without proof...”

“The timing is the proof. They’ve been keeping an eye on us. They know what this get-together signifies. This is a deliberate act of provocation.”

“If you ask me, I don’t think that’s the intention at all,” said Krieger. “They’ve hit us at the edge, in the middle and at dead centre. It’s a demonstration. They want us to know they can get us any time, with some accuracy. It’s the proverbial warning shot across the bows.”

“Warning shot my arse,” said Lombard. “Warning shots
miss
. Whoever’s responsible, if it’s Pakistan or someone else, they’re calling us out. They’re picking a fight.”

The Cabinet Secretary, who had recovered most of his wits by now, joined in the debate. “Like you, Mr Lombard-ji, I suspect Pakistan of being behind this outrage. It stands to reason. Although our meeting has been carried out under conditions of stringent security and in the strictest secrecy, Pakistan’s intelligence forces are as capable as our own. If not more so, since ours seem to have failed us in not anticipating the attack.”

He broke off to direct a fierce glare at the two intelligence heads among the delegation. Both of them shrugged, part aggrieved, part contrite.

“We are aware that a state of hostility already exists between Mount Meru and the Pakistanis,” he continued. “And of course they have been spoiling for a fight with India for a long time. Our presence at your headquarters has offered them a target too tempting to resist. Two birds with one stone. The Indian government, you can rest assured, will investigate thoroughly and punish the culprits.”

“Thanks for that, but I think we can go one better,” Lombard rumbled. He kicked a hunk of masonry that lay at his feet amid the splinters of a table it had wrecked. “I’m not the sort to bend over, spread my cheeks and take it up the freckle. Not from the Pakistanis, not from anyone. Mount Meru isn’t just our HQ, it’s our home. Any bastard wants a piece of us? Fine. He’s got it. Screw the schedule. Screw negotiations. Gentlemen, ladies? The Dashavatara are at India’s service. Deploy them where and how you like.”

¹
I know what you’re thinking. I was thinking it myself, at the time. How could anyone bicker about possessions, having just narrowly survived a fucking missile attack? But then the rich aren’t like the rest of us, and the ultra-rich
really
aren’t.

26. CHANDIGARH

T
HE
G
ARUDA
TOUCHED
down at Chandigarh airbase on a humid, grey morning, taxiing to a halt outside the low breezeblock structure that was the main administrative building. Around the base stretched a green, tree-dotted plain, with the city of Chandigarh crouching beyond it, just visible to the north-east, a line of foothills biting into the overcast like jagged black teeth. We were on the fringes of the Himalayas, some two hundred kilometres from the border with Pakistan and a similar distance from Kashmir.

During the flight from Meru the mood had been tense and argumentative. The Dashavatara were broadly in favour of the Trinity’s decision to loan them out to India, but there were dissenting voices. Buddha stated that violence was not always the most appropriate response to aggression. Varaha, meanwhile, was of the opinion that the Dashavatara were not a military unit or even a paramilitary one, and shouldn’t behave as if they were.

“We slap down asuras when they rear their ugly heads, all right, no worries,” the Boar said. “I haven’t got a problem with that. It’s our job. But diving headlong into an international conflict? Does anyone else see the potential for that backfiring? Or is it just me?”

“You’re not an eco-warrior any more, Varaha,” said Kalkin, who had recovered from his poisoning in Los Angeles, although his shoulder remained a little stiff. “You don’t have to wring your hands over every little thing.”

“Besides, they attacked us,” said Vamana. “They threw the first punch.”

“And we’re certain it was the Pakistanis?” said Krishna. “It’s beyond doubt?”

“They’ve more or less said so themselves, and India confirms it,” said Parashurama. “India’s RISAT-2 reconnaissance satellite tracked the heat signatures of three unmanned drones making a return journey to and from Karachi. They’re calling it an act of war.”

“One has to be sure,” said Krishna. “My country’s history is full of wars fought for no good reason, started by leaders who lie.”
¹

“Join the club,” said Vamana. “The Iraq War, anyone? The British Prime Minister and the imaginary ‘weapons of mass destruction’? All politicians fib, and they fib the most where war’s concerned. But there’s no question here that the Pakistanis are to blame. They’ve all but copped to it, haven’t they? What did their Foreign Minister say on television?”

“He called it ‘a pre-emptive strike against a potential terrorist threat’,” said Kalkin. “He didn’t actually say who or where the so-called terrorists are, but he didn’t have to. Once you say the words ‘terrorist threat,’ people pretty much stop hearing and start running around like headless chickens.”

“He also omitted to mention the Indian government officials in his statement,” said Matsya, “and how close they came to becoming collateral damage.”

“This is a come-and-have-a-go-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough moment,” said Vamana. “Lombard hit the nail right on the head. The Pakistanis are calling us out into the car park.”

“But why rise to the bait?” said Buddha. “Isn’t that exactly what they want? Why be so predictable?”

“Well, I for one am not letting them get away with it. Those missiles killed five people. You seem to be forgetting that, tubby. Too busy turning the other cheek. Catering staff, a couple of technicians – five innocent people.”

“We’re playing into their hands, though. Think how it’s going to look if the Dashavatara start taking sides, favouring one nation over another. We’ll lose all credibility. Besides, don’t we want peace? Shouldn’t we at least try to seek a nonviolent solution to the crisis?”

“Oh, no, Buddha, mate,” said Vamana. “Don’t you go trying your voice hoodoo on us. You know it only works on civilians, not your own kind.”

“I’m not. But I could make it work on Pakistan’s leadership, if we could just get them to come to the negotiating table and parley with us.”

“Their military is already on a state of high alert,” Parashurama pointed out. “Things have gone too far for talks. Pakistan and India have both poured additional troops into Kashmir. They’re halfway down the road to war as it is, and I don’t think anyone or anything is going to be able to stop them. Even you, Buddha. The effect of your voice isn’t permanent. A half-hour after you’d sweet-talked them, they’d be back to getting ready to rumble. These things have their own unstoppable momentum. Fingers crossed the UN can achieve something, but...” He grimaced.

The United Nations was doing its damnedest to persuade the two sides to pull back from the brink. UN diplomats were shuttling back and forth between Karachi and New Delhi, trying to defuse the tension. India was playing the righteous victim, while Pakistan was putting on a front, claiming it had no knowledge of there being anyone other than “terrorists” in its crosshairs. The Pakistani leadership’s rhetoric was going down well at home, largely because the politicians were skirting around the truth and positioning themselves firmly on the moral high ground. After all, if America could protect its sovereignty through drone strikes, why not anyone else? And if the ire of India had been roused, well, that was just too bad. Relations between the two countries had never been that cordial to begin with.