KALYUG (11 page)

‘Why?’

‘Why, what?’

‘Why me?’ I asked. ‘Your man, Raghav Menon, fobbed me off with talk of a cartel and how accurate my book was and all that jazz, but let’s be honest – you don’t really need me here. There are hundreds of people out there who are better writers, who would gladly do this. Even in New Delhi itself . . . What makes me so special that I get this chance to . . . to be a glorified royal scribe?’

Before he answered, Mitra led me out of the president’s office and into a long, empty corridor that had locked doors on both sides. I automatically fell into step beside him.

‘You know what I love about India, Mr Selvam?’ he asked softly. ‘It’s the birthplace of so many new thoughts. Religion. Philosophy. Science. Zero. Geometry. Trigonometry. Governance. But above all, tolerance. Take any topic, any era before the British Raj, and you will see that we’ve never persecuted anyone for the thoughts they had or the beliefs they propagated.

‘Sure, there would have been some idle persecutions here and there, a clash of ideas and egos, but by and large, for the duration that we were the richest and most wonderful of nations in the world, we were also the most tolerant. That tolerance is the fabric that weaved our different states, united our tongues . . .’

We had come to a fork, with one of the arms leading to what was evidently the catering area. The middle tine went straight towards a dead-end. We took the corridor on the left, which gave me the distinct impression that we were at an outer level of the building. Some of the offices on this branch were open, with people absently scurrying back and forth, but it was very evident that we were strolling through on a Sunday. Weekdays, with all the offices open and all the officers running about on their own businesses, must resemble the Outer Ring Road, I was sure.

‘Your book was controversial when it came out, and therein was the reason for its sensational fame. Yet, have you ever thought what might have been if no one had made any fuss about it and treated it as just another book? If they had said, hey, that’s a good afternoon read, maybe worth thinking about, and that’s all I am going to do? Would you yourself have gained so much visibility if it weren’t for these drummers protesting against it so loudly?’

‘Lots of good that did me,’ I grumbled. ‘It was not just that they protested – it was also what they could do, what they actually did. They had the book pulled off the shelves. Slapped a sedition case on me and threatened to do the same to any seller who carried my book. That was when I complained on my blog – and then Google was asked to block my blog. Facebook. Twitter. Everything was blocked.’

‘And that’s precisely what makes you the man for this job,’ said Mitra. ‘You were the victim of a government’s intolerance. Not even civic or communal, but an elected body of representatives did not like the message you were sending out and decided to hold you accountable. Not that we had high expectations from them, but we did want at least our basic rights to be protected. Yet, you had the law minister baying for your blood; the Income Tax Department decided to investigate you; allegations of foreign funding and seditious motives behind the book were trotted out. And you had communal groups demanding a rewrite of the portions that portrayed them in,’ making quote signs in the air, ‘objectionable light.’

‘Yeah, yeah, so I made a few enemies,’ I muttered. ‘Look, I’m flattered that you’ve followed my life so . . . deeply, but what’s the point here?’

‘The point, Selvam, is that it was a turning point for us. It opened our eyes to the kind of state we were turning into. Do you remember that quote by Neimoller? First they came for the Jews and I did nothing because I was not a Jew, then they came for the communists and the socialists . . .’

‘And then they came for me, and there was nobody left to speak for me,’ I completed. It was a quote that had stayed with me from the moment I had first read it; in fact, there were editorial pieces I had written on the theme, before and during those dark days, later realizing how prophetic my bleak outlook had been.

‘Precisely,’ said Mitra. ‘You became their victim, and you became our symbol. Every man who is behind this operation – we call it Operation Kalyug, by the way, for obvious reasons – is committed to a future where a Selvam is not treated like this, where the paranoia of a few will not endanger the rights of the one.’

‘You sound a lot like Raghav,’ I remarked.

He shrugged off the comment with a smile. ‘Like I said, we’re a team that thinks alike.’ As if on cue, he stopped right outside a dark conference room. ‘Ah, here we are.’ He checked the notation above the door – Cr2-E.W. ‘Conference room number 2, east wing. This is the place.’

I followed him inside. He switched on the lights and pulled out a plush leather chair for me to sit on. A Cisco console reposed in the middle of the oval table, a green light blinking on it. Mitra gestured for me to be silent before he pressed a button on it.

‘Hello, Major,’ he said. ‘Are you in position?’

The voice that came through the speaker was clipped, precise. ‘Yes, sir. Awaiting your orders, sir.’

‘Proceed as planned,’ he said. Then he pressed another button and the green light became amber. We could still hear a scuffling sound as Mitra said, ‘Have you ever wondered if the entire controversy behind your book was orchestrated by one person?’

I shook my head.

‘Well, what if I told you that it was? How would that make you feel?’

I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure I cared, if it made any difference anymore. I was trying to move forward, waiting for the first of January, 2013, so that I would not even be reminded of the year.

The speaker said, ‘Sir . . . sir!’

Before he deactivated the mute function, Mitra pointed his index finger at the phone. ‘What if I told you that you are going to hear him speak now?’

As the light changed from amber to green, the major’s voice from the other side came through loud and clear. ‘Sir, I’ve got Gyandeep Sharma on the line here.’

16th September, 2012. Langley, Virginia.

The India desk at the CIA headquarters in Langley was typically active at night-time, given the different time zones. A staff of seven to ten, headed by a floor boss who supervised some of the other Asian desks as well, manned the consoles, scanning news, intel and online gossip, looking for any nugget of information that could give the American spymasters an edge in understanding the state of affairs in the subcontinent. Dedicated lines ran in from the four different consulates in India, sterilized and encrypted. A fifth hotline was linked to the liaison officer at RAW.

Jack’s call was patched through the New Delhi consulate to the floor boss halfway across the world in a matter of minutes, once his own identity had been verified and he had managed to convince his local handler that the heat had not gotten to him. Unknown to Jack, the handler had indeed tried to contact John both through the hotel’s number – ‘All lines in this route are busy. Please try after some time.’ – and through the personal number on file – ‘The number you are trying to reach has been switched off. Please prefix with a hash to leave a voice message.’ – and had been convinced only when both attempts failed.

The floor boss, a career analyst who had been happily lodged at Virginia all her life, listened patiently as her colleagues in India – the handler and the operative called Jack – explained the situation. As Jack wound down, she asked him only one question.

‘Did you take any pictures?’

‘Yes, but they are at the hotel, with John,’ answered Jack. He was kicking himself for not having had the foresight to smuggle the memory card out of the camera – but then again, with John watching him like a hawk, it had been damn near impossible to sneak out, let alone engineer a steal.

‘So you have no proof that there is a coup, just a waiter’s word that the Army there is sticking it to the MPs.’

When you put it like that
. . . Jack wanted to say. ‘Yes.’

Her next words were to the handler. ‘What about any prior chatter? Have we received any indications from any of our other sources?’

‘None,’ said the handler. ‘Except for a few operatives who were suddenly – out of the blue – transferred last week, there has been no unusual activity or chatter here.’

‘Hmm,’ she said, and the two men knew enough to shut up and let her take the call. A long moment of silence passed. Then she said, ‘Okay, Jack, go back to the convention centre. But don’t get in just yet. If they’re using jammers, there’s a maximum radius around the hotel outside which your phone should work. Buy a camera and take some shots – as much detail as you can. When you’ve had enough, find a way to upload them to our server. But keep outside the jammer’s radius – if I need more info, I’ll be calling you directly.’

She hung up without further comment or discussion. If Jack were telling the truth, there was no time to be lost. She needed to take this as high as possible, as soon as possible. One did not sit on news like this.

On the other hand, a coup in India . . . she had heard folklore about how, in 1975, the CIA had known at least twenty-four hours earlier that Indira Gandhi was going to impose a coup-like Emergency. At that time, with limited manpower and a fraction of today’s technology, the secret had still leaked; it seemed improbable that in this day and age, with eyes and ears on the ground and in the skies, with the vast network of informants and the listening stations of NSA, such an event could happen in a country like India without having set off alarms much earlier.

But still . . .

She had almost reached for the in-house telephone which would, just by the action of lifting the handset, connect her to the deputy director of operations for the CIA, when she stopped. Her fingers hovered over the handset, undecided, before they swept towards the fifth phone. She made up her mind; it was better to be safe than to make an ass of yourself. This late in the night, she needed a
lot
of evidence to be safe.

‘Hello, Rajeev,’ she said when the phone was answered. ‘This is Nina, from the CIA. Can we talk?’

Halfway across the world, in his own office inside the Research and Analysis Wing’s headquarters in New Delhi, Rajeev listened to her questions and promised to call her back within a few minutes, as soon as he had checked out his own sources.

The moment she hung up, he called the number he had been given to reach at INSAF.

16th September, 2012. Mumbai.

‘This is Gyandeep Sharma. Who am I talking to?’

‘Gyandeep! I’m sure you’ve heard of me, just as I’ve heard of you – but I believe this is the first time we’ve spoken. This is Jagannath Mitra here, calling from the Rashtrapati Bhavan.’

There was a pause as the older man tried to digest this revelation. So his fears had come true. INSAF was at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

‘And to what do I owe the pleasure of this conversation?’ Gyandeep asked, forcing himself to keep his voice level. ‘I have just been introduced to some of your goons who have, to use a euphemism, been rather liberal with redecorating my office.’

Jagannath’s chuckle echoed around the CEO’s office. ‘I assure you they meant no physical harm. But I understand Leela put up a fight. No, don’t worry, she’s quite all right. Nothing a bit of first aid couldn’t take care of. Once we are done brainwashing her, she’ll be right back where she belongs.’

Gyandeep ignored the jibe. He had too much respect for Leela’s intelligence to believe that she could be brainwashed by anybody, even INSAF. It was probably just a ploy by Jagannath to ensure that he would never trust his niece so unquestioningly again.

‘But you are a busy man, Sharmaji. So I will get right to the point of this call. Infinity has been damaged but not put out of commission. Kalyug is in operation right now – and I know you’ve been trying to stop us ever since you found out about it. But right now, there is very little you can do about it, except what we want you to.

‘And what we want you to do is very simple. Advise your clients to stay put. It is in neither of our interests to have the market tank at a time like this. We need to retain the investors’ confidence and tell them that for the capitalist, it’s still as hunky-dory as ever.

‘But if you try to screw us both, believe me, it will hurt you before it hurts us. And I’ll personally shut you down before you can do any more damage. You are no longer as invincible or untouchable as you were yesterday. I hope I’m being clear.’

‘Crystal,’ said the financier with barely-controlled contempt.

‘Excellent,’ said Jagannath. ‘Oh, and there’s one more thing, but I think I’ll have my major there explain it to you.’

The line went dead. Gyandeep glanced at the commando who stood before him. Tall, thin and wiry, his eyes bored into Gyandeep with undisguised contempt. As soon as the call terminated, the commando returned the satellite phone to its case and latched it shut.

Then, without taking his eyes off the older man, he pulled a sheaf of papers from the inside of his fatigues. He placed them on the table in front of Gyandeep Sharma.

‘Sign it,’ he ordered, extending a pen.

‘What is it?’ Gyandeep asked, making no move to take the offered pen. His ego demanded that he regain at least some of the face he had lost in the exchange with Mitra, and he was confident that the commando would have been expressly forbidden from causing him any physical harm.

‘It’s a release order for forty-five million dollars,’ said the commando, the pen still proffered, steady, nary a shake. ‘Towards the welfare fund for the families of officers killed in peace-time duty.’

‘Forty-five million dollars?’ exclaimed Gyandeep. ‘That’s a little high, don’t you think?’ He picked up the first sheet and pretended to read.

‘What price would you put on their lives then, you son of a bitch?’

Surprised at the invective, Gyandeep looked up. Just in time to see the commando’s left hand rush at his stomach with astonishing speed. The next moment, he dropped to his knees, gasping for breath, a victim of physical violence for the first time in several decades. He tried to swallow large gulps of air, but it seemed that there was no space for it in his body – even as his nerves screamed for more oxygen to ease the pain that seemed to radiate from his very core.