Brutal (19 page)

R
aman was just
out of the building when his phone started ringing.
Patil.

“Give me some good news, Patil.”

“I have bad news. The targets have escaped by climbing over the back wall. Divakar turned out to be a sissy. He got thrashed by one of them and is now lying injured in the hotel.”

“Damn! Are you in pursuit?”

“Yes. We’ve changed direction and will emerge in the road behind the hotel. Let’s hope they are still there when we reach.”

“Make it fast. We can’t let them go,” Raman said and then added with a suspicious tone, “I still can’t believe that they were able to climb that wall. That too so quickly. It looked pretty high from my rifle scope.”

“I was also a bit surprised.”

“Are you sure Divakar wasn’t speaking under duress? Did he mention some code word which may have seemed odd to you?”

Patil thought for few seconds and replied in a slow and doubtful manner, “He did use the words ‘Deep Alpha’. I thought it must be his code name…”

“That is a duress code we use internally, you fool! How the hell aren’t you aware of it?”

“I… I’m new here. You know that, Raman.”

“Don’t give me excuses, motherfucker!” Raman said, scowling. “Tell me how far have you come from the hotel?”
These moronic civvies!

“We can get there in ten… I mean five minutes.”

“Then move!”

“We are already on our way,” Patil said, trying hard to calm Raman. He then added, “And… I’m so sorry, Raman,” sounding like a driver who had just dented his employer’s costliest car.

“I will deal with you later. First, I need to get back into my position.” Raman hung up. He started running back towards the same building he had got down from.

1 minute to reach the top floor. 30 seconds to assemble the rifle. 30 more seconds to focus and spot. That makes it two minutes. Run, Raman, run.

P
rakash looked
at Seema as she cat-crawled out of the hotel room. He was standing in the corridor, having come out of the room the same way as she was doing now. On opening the door, he had expected it to explode with the next barrage of gunshots. Thankfully, it didn’t happen.

“We need to get to the lift,” he said to Seema and sprinted towards the other end of the corridor.

“Keep your head down,” she shouted, pointing at a large window on the wall beside the lift.

Prakash lowered his head in response. The window was large enough for a sniper to spot him and pump in a few bullets. He reached the lift. Crouching in front of it, he pressed the up button and looked at Seema. She was walking towards him with a stooping position. Mrinal was following her.

The lift door opened and Prakash rushed in. He was joined by Seema and Mrinal in a second.

“I don’t want to move into another ambush,” Mrinal said, as the lift started to go down.

Prakash nodded. His friend’s fears were not unfounded. He bit his lips in tension as the lift reached the ground floor and its doors began to open.

The lift area was empty.
Thank God!
“Watch out for people with weapons,” he whispered and walked out.

With careful steps, he reached the reception area. There was no one sitting over the desk.
Everyone’s involved.
From his position, he could see the main gate of the compound clearly. He turned towards Seema and Mrinal and said, “We’ll have to get out of the front gate and find some conveyance.”

All of them dashed towards the main gate – Prakash followed by Seema and Mrinal. Prakash reached the gate first and opened the latch. As soon as he swivelled the door, he heard the sound of a ‘crack’ and then Seema’s shriek.
No!
He immediately turned around and stood there agape with horror.

Mrinal was lying on the ground, with Seema crouched and looking at him.
Oh! No… No… No!

“He’s hit. The sniper is still there!” Seema yelled with terror in her eyes.

“Tell me he’s not dead!” He fell to his knees and dragged himself towards Mrinal. He saw his friend writhing in pain, his shirt soaked with blood.
You’re alive.
There was a thumbnail sized hole on his left shoulder, a few inches from the heart. He slid his fingers behind Mrinal’s neck and checked for any exit wounds on his back. There was one.
Good.

“Just hang on,
dost
. We’re going to get help,” he said, unsure whether his friend could hear him. He then instructed, “Seema, use this gate as a shield, move out and hire a vehicle. I’ll follow you with Mrinal.”

She nodded and crawled out of the main gate. Prakash took Mrinal’s hands in his own and pulled him towards the gate like a sack of potatoes. He wanted to ensure that they remained in cover from the sniper’s range. The metal gate was their saviour now. Even a few seconds’ wait felt like an era.

Seema finally appeared. “I could only find an auto,” she said in a low-pitch, apologetic voice.

“There is no time to think. Let’s go,” Prakash said. He held Mrinal by his torso while Seema held his legs. They shoved him into the auto-rickshaw and then got in themselves.

The driver looked at them with shock. “What is this, Madam? What are you guys getting me involved in?”

“Please,
bhaiya
, help us. We are reporters and have been attacked by some wrong people. Just take us out of here,” Seema pleaded.

The driver thought for a moment, unable to decide. He then shook his head and started the auto. “I won’t take you far,” he barked. “Keep looking for a cab while I drive. I’ll drop you once you find one.”

She nodded.

“
W
here are you guys
?” Raman roared into his phone. He talked while his eyes were on the riflescope.

“We are just about to reach,” Patil replied.

“Where?”

“The… the hotel.”

“They are leaving, you idiot. Drive fast!” Raman snapped. “I have slowed them down for you.”

“How so?”

“Pumped a bullet into one of them.”

“So, only two of them remain?”

“No, I’m not sure whether the target is dead. It was not a headshot. One of them appeared in my scope and I pressed the trigger immediately.”

“Ohhh… but…”

“Wait… wait… wait,” Raman cut him off mid-way in his sentence, his eyes still on the scope. “I think they just got into an auto. I can see an auto-rickshaw nosing out of the main gate.”

“OK. Great. We are going after them,” Patil said and hung up.

Raman dropped his mobile on the ground.
One final shot.
He took a long breath in, and did not breathe out. He turned his rifle slowly, its scope tracing the auto-rickshaw’s line of motion. With a minor adjustment of the focus, he brought the vehicle’s linen covered back into the cross-hairs.

His finger caressed the trigger. The shot was only a millisecond away.

He heard some commotion behind him. Turning around, he saw a couple of workers standing near the staircase, looking at him with suspicion. He sprung from his position, dismantled the gun and wrapped up his things. For once, he thought about killing the witnesses, but decided against it.
That’ll complicate things.
He rushed out of the building, took out his mobile and dialled Patil’s number.

“Patil, pick me up from the main road. I’ll be there in a few seconds.”

S
eema was looking
at a half-awake Mrinal with concern. The handkerchief she had tied over his wound had turned crimson in colour. “We have to find a hospital immediately. He’s losing blood.”

Prakash nodded. He knew time was running out for Mrinal. A wave of guilt swept through him. Mrinal had come to help only at his insistence. And he was going to die now. He looked at him. His eyes were narrowed to slits and his breathing had slowed.

“We are going to save you Mrinal,” Prakash whispered in his ears. “Just hang on.”

He shifted his gaze from Mrinal to look at the road. Just then, he glimpsed something odd in the driver’s side mirror: an SUV, about half a kilometer away, moving at an unusually high speed. His eyes became wide with fear.

“Drive fast,
bhaiya
, people are coming after us,” Prakash yelled.

“You guys have put me in trouble,” complained the driver uneasily. “How fast can an auto run?” He twisted the accelerator to its maximum. In response, the engine growled like an alien creature. The vehicle shook and swayed as its speed touched eighty kilometres per hour.

Prakash looked at the mirror. The SUV was catching up fast.
We can’t run away.
He felt a nudge on his hand. It was Mrinal. He was mumbling something.

Prakash brought his ears near his friend’s lips.

“There’s something… in the small of my back…. Take it out,” Mrinal whispered, with short gasps.

Prakash frowned, but still eased his hand behind Mrinal’s back. He felt something hard and metallic.
A pistol!
He pulled it out and felt his way around its trigger. “You picked up Divakar’s gun?” he asked with surprise.

Mrinal nodded. He had a faint smile on his lips.

“You’re an intelligent bastard!” Prakash said. “But, I don’t know how much it’s going to help.”

He looked at the mirror again. The SUV was only a few dozen meters away. He saw the barrel of a rifle protruding from its rear seat.

Before he could figure out how his puny pistol would match a bunch of rifle-toting men, the big vehicle curved sharply like a cheetah and blocked the path of another auto-rickshaw running parallel to it. The latter stopped with a loud screech. Men carrying guns sprung out of the SUV and thrust them into the smaller vehicle.

Prakash realized what had just happened. Their pursuers had waylaid the wrong vehicle. It would be one minute before the men realized their mistake and resumed their pursuit.
Bhaiya, drive faster. Drive faster.

“Have they ambushed the wrong auto?” Seema asked, intrigued by the scene behind them.

“Yes. We’re next,” Prakash replied. For once, he thought of getting down and running into the bylanes.
But that might prove disastrous. They’ll hunt us down easily.

“What are we going to do? ... Are you going to use that?” she asked with fearful eyes, pointing at the pistol he was holding.

“I don’t know.”

The SUV had started again and was quickly closing in on them. Their auto-rickshaw was grinding its wheels at eighty-five kilometres an hour. The big vehicle took only half a minute to cover the distance between them. The chase was over.

It was time to do something.

Prakash’s heart was beating rapidly. He gripped the pistol hard. In a second, the SUV emerged from behind and began running parallel to their vehicle.

Let’s do it, then.

He fired two bullets at the front wheel.

I
n that scary
, spine-chilling moment when his vehicle veered out of control, Raman knew his time was up. With eyes full of horror, he looked at the man who had just fired a few bullets into the front tyre and sealed his fate. There was going to be no retirement, no hiding away in a blissful countryside.

He closed his eyes for a second and found himself lying on the ground under the dusky sky, staring down the barrel of an HK417 held at his face by a masked man. It was the same dream he often used to have. But, to his surprise, he could actually feel the cold touch of metal against his chin.

“This is the end,” the assailant hissed.

“Who… who are you?”

In the mouth of the balaclava, he could see a smile form on the man’s lips. He removed his mask in an unhurried manner.

Raman shook his head, perplexed. He gazed at his enemy with bulging eyes. “Your face… you are… you are…”

“I am you.”

The man pressed his finger on the trigger. Bang!

Raman opened his eyes in an instant. He was panting, his stomach churning, bile rising up his throat. In slow motion, he saw his vehicle glide towards a concrete wall. The wall kept coming near and near till there was complete darkness.

T
he SUV collided
head-on with the wall of a farmhouse. The impact was brutal. The front part of the big vehicle was pulverized in a second. One tire got flung almost ten meters away.

The auto-rickshaw driver pushed his brake with all his might, making it screech to a halt hardly twenty meters from the accident site.

“What… what the hell have you done?” the driver yelped. He was aghast. “Get down from my auto.
Niklo!
”

“This is the moment,” Prakash said, clenching his jaws. “Get out and run, Seema! I’ll bring Mrinal.”

Seema was too shocked to react. She budged only when Prakash pushed her outwards. She got down from the vehicle and then helped Mrinal get down. Prakash was the last one to emerge.

He eyed the accident site. A plume of smoke was coming out from the place and a small crowd had gathered in front of it – some looking at the obliterated SUV and some looking suspiciously at their auto-rickshaw. He decided to ignore them. There were bigger things at stake.

He wedged Mrinal’s head in his right armpit and passed his left hand around his neck like a necklace. “We will have to walk like this for a few moments till we find a cab,” he whispered to his friend.

Mrinal nodded. He looked tired.

Prakash scanned the place for any exit routes. He saw an alley on the opposite side of the road. It led into a few bylanes a hundred meters away.

“Seema, let’s get into that alley. I’m coming behind you,” he said.

Seema complied and strode into the alley. Prakash plodded behind, carrying Mrinal who seemed to have lost all his energy. She was now walking almost fifty meters ahead of them. At one point, she took a left turn and disappeared into a bylane.

After a few minutes, when Prakash reached the mouth of that bylane, he saw her standing with face towards them about twenty meters away. She had a look of terror in her eyes.

Prakash noticed a couple of cars parked behind her. In a second, the doors of the cars opened and 5-6 men came out. They were holding rifles and pistols – all aimed at him and Mrinal.

Prakash closed his eyes.
Game over.