KALYUG (17 page)

‘Hi,’ I said as she turned around. And then discovered I’d forgotten what I intended to say after that.

16th September, 2012. Ghaziabad.

Jack – Llong Cox – stared forlornly at the two men in front of him and then once again at the metal frame of the truck they were all in. The paint had peeled away from many places, exposing patches of stained sheet-metal, and there was the smell of stale grease and oil which, inside the hot confines, was overpowering enough to make him queasy.

What concerned him even more was the fact that he had been duped by the two men. After the fracas at the mall, he had resigned himself to being taken into official custody, only to be told – once he had climbed into their jeep meekly – that they were not cops and his arrest was entirely off-the-record. He had tried to struggle then, but the handcuffs rendered him completely ineffectual. The two men had forced him into the gap between the seats, out of sight of anyone outside, and then blindfolded him. The press of a cold, round-shaped metal to his neck, accompanied by the unmistakable click of a hammer being cocked, had impressed upon him the need to stay quiet and docile.

They had driven through the city for a while before turning off onto a dirt track and driving a little longer, finally stopping at an abandoned garage that was as silent as it was dilapidated. He had then been forced at gunpoint to climb into the cargo bay of a truck nearby, the plastic sheet on the floor almost convincing him that he was about to be executed summarily, breathing a little easier only when the man who had tackled him earlier told him to sit down on the small plastic stool at the inner end of the cargo bay, a few feet away from the edge of the sheet.

Try as he might, Llong was unable to pin-point the reason for his abduction. Had he been mistaken for someone else, perhaps a wealthy American? Or was it related to his work, to the operation he had witnessed at the conference centre?

Either scenario was cause for sufficient alarm from a personal perspective. If it was indeed a case of mistaken identity, what would these kidnappers do once they realized they had taken the wrong man? Having seen their faces, wasn’t it more likely that he would be done away with to ensure their security? On the other hand, if it was related to his job, then it meant there had to be a leak somewhere. Otherwise, how could anyone have known how to find him so quickly? Except for his colleagues on the conference call with Langley, no one else knew – so one of them must have sold him out.

That did not take him any closer to a way out of his predicament, but at least it did make him feel better placed to understand the possibilities. The longer this played out, the surer he was of his chances for survival. If he had not been compromised by someone from his own camp, then it was a certainty that his disappearance would raise enough flags for the machinery to start looking for him, maybe even put pressure on the Indian government to locate and rescue him.

Sufficiently bolstered, he resumed his efforts to eavesdrop on the conversation – sparse as it was – between his captors. They spoke mostly in Hindi, a language he was familiar with enough to recognize but not comprehend, but there was a smattering of English words thrown in from time to time. Llong caught a few random words like ‘emergency’, ‘announcement’, ‘president’ and ‘cricket’, but none of it made any sense to him.

He saw one of the captors reach into his pocket and pull out a mobile phone, and remembered that his own – the one he had purchased from the auto-rickshaw driver – had been thrown out of the vehicle en route to this place. The captor spoke a little, listened a lot and then hung up with a comfortable smile. Then he whispered something to his partner, at which both of them looked at him with – strangely enough – bemused expressions.

The captor who had answered the call gave him a mocking smile. ‘Hey Jack,’ he said, holding up his wallet, ‘or should I say Llong? Llong Cox, from Madison city, Wisconsin. You’re a long way from home, Llong.’

Llong stared at him, stunned. As a non-official cover operative, his true identity was supposed to be a closely-guarded secret. Was it possible that the American government had already put out a rescue alert for him? But if they had, it did not make sense that they would reveal his actual name – for all his postings in India had been under the identity ‘Jack’, complete with its own fictional history and papers.

‘
Llong Cox
. No wonder you chose a codename like Jack,’ he sniggered.

‘Ridiculous!’ snapped Llong, in a last-ditch attempt to preserve his cover. ‘My name is Jack.’

‘Really?’ said the captor, sarcasm dripping like acid from his tone. ‘Hey, Shakib. He says he really is Jack – not this Llong schmuck that we were supposed to pick up.’

‘Shit,’ said Shakib, grinning broadly, clearly enjoying the joke. ‘In that case, we’ve wasted enough time with him. Off him quickly and let’s go back to the mall. Hurry!’

The first captor pulled out his gun and held it to Llong’s forehead. And before Llong could react, he pulled the trigger.

24th April, 2012. New Delhi.

The two of them took the stairs down to the basement.

Raghav walked in front of Major-General Qureshi, constantly aware of the gun that was pointed at his spine, knowing that it would not be wise to chance the soldier’s reflexes. Qureshi was aiming right at the centre of the widest mass of Raghav’s body, and it would take but an instant to press the trigger. The shot might not be fatal – in fact, Raghav was sure it would not because Qureshi wanted him alive, at least until he had interrogated him thoroughly – but it would certainly be enough to kill his chances of an escape, and might even cripple him for life.

Iqbal Qureshi kept pace with the man in front of him, although he ensured that he always remained a couple of feet behind Raghav – just in case he tried anything offensive
or
defensive. He kept shuffling his feet as well, disguising his rhythm, knowing that Raghav would need to identify that rhythm to even think about a counter-move.

As they started down the final flight of stairs, Qureshi relaxed a little. Following a brief chase through the mall from the instant Raghav had caught sight of him when he had been just a few feet away, Qureshi had finally trapped Raghav Menon at the entrance to one of the emergency exits – and since then, it had taken all his powers of concentration to ensure that he did not slip up and lose his advantage. A brief interrogation at the beginning of their journey yielded, albeit quite reluctantly, the admission that Richa was inside his car, handcuffed and unable to move, and Qureshi had seized the opportunity.

He would go down to the basement, where there were bound to be fewer people, and continue his interrogation inside Raghav’s own vehicle – that way, after he was done, there were safer options available to him than trying to walk the agent through open ground and to his own vehicle. In the process, he could also free Richa Naik and send her to a safe location until such time as it was all right for her to emerge and continue her exposé on the nation’s enemies.

And the murderers of his wife.

They passed through the open doors and into the basement – another hole in the so-called security, Qureshi thought absently. They saw a bunch of people moving around at the far end, really too far to matter, but otherwise the area they were in was deserted.

Ideal
, the major-general thought.

Raghav Menon echoed his sentiments as he realized that the time to make a move was fast approaching. Not for the first time, he wondered if he had made a mistake in letting himself be taken by Qureshi. That part of his plan had gone smoothly – it was this part, where he had hoped to improvise a way out, that occupied him for the moment.

That chance came as they were finally in sight of his car. For a few seconds, as Qureshi tried to check if there was anyone else in the car besides Richa – which meant a possible ambush – his concentration slipped a little. He was conscious of Raghav, but he was not his sole focus for those few seconds.

As they came closer, Raghav surreptitiously glanced at the windows of the car they were passing. As he crossed the back door, he could see his reflection – translucent, very translucent, but definitely his own – on the windows; behind him, he could make out Qureshi’s form, the extended arm holding a gun level with the lower third of his back.

The shadows filled in whatever additional information he needed. As they continued to walk, Raghav measured the difference between the tips of their shadows, which would be proportional to the distance between them. Even more importantly, the angle of the two shadows indicated that Qureshi was to his left, roughly about half his body’s width away.

And then, as they cleared the last pillar before his vehicle, just about fifteen feet away from where Richa was watching both of them anxiously, he made his move.

16th September, 2012. New Delhi.

‘Hi,’ she replied.

I nodded dumbly at her. She had beautiful eyes, expressive and curious, long and lined with just enough kohl to impress upon you the sincerity within. I was smitten, and I knew it right then.

So I said nothing. And watched as the bemusement appeared, first in her eyes, then at the edges of her lips as they curled up ever so slightly.

‘You’re the author of
India, 2012
, aren’t you?’ she asked me, raising her voice just a little bit, probably wondering if she would have to give me a good shake just to snap me out of my stupor.

Thankfully, I was able to speak before that happened. ‘Yes,’ I said, extending my hand. She shook it, her grip firm, her hand much smaller than mine, cooler too. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Oh?’ she said, and I could see the interest in her eyes spike up. ‘Why is that?’

‘That’s why I am
still
here,’ I said, grinning. ‘I have no idea why these guys have included me in their scheme. Jagannath Mitra kept saying it was their way of making up for what I went through when my book came out, but nothing’s really made much sense, I’m afraid.’

‘Redemption? That sounds right . . . Jagannath’s big on redemption – that’s why I’m here too. This is my big break, their way of making up for the way I was targeted when I exposed that ViFite story.’

‘Right – that’s where I remember seeing you from! Wasn’t that the scam with the Army procurements or something? Thermal suits or camouflage . . . Major-General Qureshi was involved, wasn’t he?’

Immediately, I saw that I had said the wrong thing. Her entire body seemed to stiffen as she looked away. I held my tongue, feeling that I would only make things worse by speaking; a few seconds later, she turned back towards me and said, ‘Yes, he was. He was a good man, and he paid a stiff price for what he was.’

We fell silent, as if that would honour the fallen soldier, and I was unsure once again how to take our conversation forward. It wasn’t just the fact that her voice was pleasant, but I figured she had been around INSAF longer and would be able to make things clearer for me.

Such as, ‘So when were you brought into the picture about . . . this?’

‘This morning,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if you remember, but I was with NDNN at the time of the ViFite story. Well, I’ve been out of work since then – until this morning, when Sharmila called me and offered me a breaking-news assignment. I was asked to report to the Doordarshan office downtown – the next thing I know, I’m being chauffeured into the Rashtrapati Bhavan along with Sharmila. I was given a proper brief about this only about – hmm, let’s say ten, fifteen minutes – before I walked through those doors.’

‘So what
are
you doing here?’

Her smile became wider. ‘Letting the president make his big announcement. Then I’m going up there and asking him what he intends to do about Major-General Qureshi’s death! On a live telecast!’

24th April, 2012. New Delhi.

Raghav Menon bent his left leg and used his right to propel himself into an anti-clockwise spin. He extended his left arm completely, the shoulder twisting back so that the arm was not to his side as much as it was to his back. Too late, Qureshi realized at some sub-conscious level what was happening; he tried to move his pistol to the left, only to have his hand collide with Raghav’s. The blow was quick and sharp, the latter’s hand hard and knife-like, and the impact knocked his index off the trigger.

Raghav completed his turn and dropped down to one knee. In the blink of an eye, even as Qureshi attempted to get a better grip on his weapon, Raghav’s right hand dipped into his ankle holster and pulled out a smaller – but no less deadlier, at this distance – revolver. He drew the gun and placed it to the major-general’s head less than two seconds after his first action.

The look on the major-general’s face was murderous, the rage palpable. Instinctively, Raghav Menon moved backwards without losing his bead on Qureshi’s temple, trying to put some distance between the two of them.

‘I don’t want to shoot you,’ he hissed urgently. ‘Relax.’

Qureshi stared hard right back at him, already calculating the odds of trying to take Raghav’s gun away, furious with himself for being outwitted by his quarry. Fury won out, helped along on its way by a sudden pang of loss at his wife’s death, and Qureshi lunged at the man he held responsible.

Raghav had little choice. He fired.

The bullet whistled above the major-general’s head, the sound of the shot unmistakable to the three of them, a possible backfiring engine to anybody not watching. Qureshi pressed forward, his DNA having been rewritten by training and experience to attack, rather than defend, to get in so close that he could switch to hand-to-hand combat.

Raghav did not give him that chance. The major-general stopped cold in his tracks as the gun suddenly appeared in front of his nose, steady and gleaming, the acrid smell of cordite filling his nostrils. Raghav used the momentary hesitation to his advantage by stepping closer and slamming the butt of his gun into Qureshi’s head, stunning him. As the other man fell to one knee, Raghav shoved him with his foot, pushing him to the floor. Both of them knew that their fight was over the instant Qureshi’s back hit the unforgiving ground, knocking the air out of him, and the operative moved in to press his advantage.