The Meadow (49 page)

The radio hissed again, for the third time that day. This was a good sign, Tikoo thought as he picked up the handset, primed to go. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘do you need any rations or blankets? Some wheat or rice?’

Jehangir’s response was deadpan as usual: ‘We are not arranging a wedding here.’

Tikoo smiled. DG Sabharwal spoke up, this time taking things slowly: ‘In the end there will be a solution. But it will take time. Why don’t you speak to your commanders and appeal for time?’

This was Tikoo’s idea. For many days now he had wanted to reach out to Jehangir’s commander, Sikander, in the knowledge that intelligence showed Sikander’s hand had strengthened after Ostrø’s death. An intercept by Indian signals had caught an unknown voice from Pakistan, thought to be Farooq Kashmiri, the Movement’s military commander, castigating the Turk for the killing and reminding everyone on the ground that Sikander was running things. Tikoo had another thought, too. Unlike Jehangir, who was from Mirpur or somewhere close by, Sikander and he were both from Indian-administered Kashmir, which meant a lot more than speaking the same language. Regardless of the hatred that had come between them because of the conflict, Tikoo believed that as a Kashmiri, Sikander could be made to understand the need for a peaceful solution. ‘Kashmiris, however virulent and dogmatic, are not an inherently violent people,’ Tikoo said, ‘unlike the Pakistanis who were sent over here.’

‘It can’t be done,’ said Jehangir emphatically. Sikander would not be brought to the radio set. ‘Speak to IG Tikoo at five tomorrow,’ said DG Sabharwal weakly.

‘This can’t be done,’ replied Jehangir, whose tone suggested he felt piqued by the idea of bringing Sikander into the talks.

Tikoo took back the handset, thinking that the Director General’s presence only seemed to aggravate matters. ‘Call me tomorrow and I’ll let you know where we’ve reached,’ he said, hoping he sounded masterful.

But Jehangir was irreconcilable. ‘This is our last conversation,’ he spat back. Tikoo thought: ‘He sounds like we’ve had a lovers’ tiff, but the consequences are far more awful.’ He tried to recall the elation he had felt after first talking to Don Hutchings on 28 August.

Before he replaced the handset, he tried one last trick to appeal to Jehangir’s humanity: ‘Don’t act in haste. It is a question of human lives.’

The line was already dead.

The following day, 4 September, Tikoo was surprised when the VHF started up. Jehangir would not continue to call if al Faran thought there was no deal to be had, he reasoned, despite the recent bad blood between them. But Tikoo felt too tired to joust this morning. ‘Things are getting delayed,’ he said weakly to Jehangir, forgetting the usual pleasantries for once. ‘Appeal to your commander, and please be patient.’ Come on, he thought. ‘Get Sikander on the line. Kashmiri to Kashmiri, we can work something out.’

Jehangir responded right away: ‘There is a limit to waiting. Give me a date, even if it is a year from now.’ Tikoo decoded this to mean that he wanted the bare minimum, to know how long it would take to construct a deal – whatever that deal was.

‘Why are you talking of a year?’ Tikoo replied, hoping to sound reassuring. ‘It will take much less. What are you going to achieve by taking a hasty step?’ He tried another tactic: ‘Give me a few days. So many things have to be decided.’

This sent Jehangir off in the direction Tikoo least wanted him to go. ‘Don’t teach me things!’ the intermediary thundered, before returning to the issue of the wasted weeks spent discussing prisoner releases that were never going to happen. Jehangir was fuming now. ‘The government released militants in exchange for Rubaiya Sayeed and K. Doraiswamy [the Indian Oil director], and it took less than two months.’

Tikoo had long dreaded Jehangir raising this subject. He decided to be honest. ‘But they were locals. This time four Western governments are involved.’ Get him off the subject, he thought, and move this conversation forward. ‘Is there any possibility of any other kind of deal?’ he asked.

But today, Jehangir wasn’t playing: ‘There is not. I have told you that this time you won’t find their dead bodies.’

Tikoo was sick of this. ‘Why do you want to harm them? Why kill poor unarmed guests?’

‘Now we have decided to be stubborn. We will show you. I can give it to you in blood. I have told my accomplices.’

‘I swear to God we are doing something.’ Tikoo tried not to sound rattled. ‘Call me in the morning. That way I’ll get the whole night to
do something. We may even have to send a special plane.’ It was a weak riposte, but in these desperate times, sent in to bat with no pads, gloves or box, it was the best a man could do.

The following day, 5 September, Jehangir called again, but the IG was out, caught up in the aftermath of a massive car bomb that had destroyed Ahdoo’s, a city-centre hotel that had until a few weeks ago been filled with foreign journalists. At least thirteen people were dead, and after the debris and rubble had been cleared Tikoo fought his way through the traffic to General Saklani’s office in Church Lane, where he found the Security Advisor preoccupied with the newspapers. ‘The al Faran talks have collapsed,’ Saklani said, reading aloud. India had no strategy ‘other than obfuscation’. The New Delhi plan was ‘to exhaust al Faran while giving away nothing’, according to anonymous senior sources. Tikoo said nothing, feeling the warmth leaching from his hands. In his most private moments, he was beginning to reach the very same conclusion. But who the hell had broadcast this to the world? As far as Jehangir was concerned, they were still heading towards some kind of deal. This was not a leak, but it was further proof that someone in authority was briefing against the talks.

Saklani seemed genuinely shocked. He blustered that Tikoo should ‘just keep talking’ while he investigated the source of these comments and stomped on them. Tikoo went miserably home to Transport Lane, expecting to hear nothing from Jehangir. But the radio lit up right away, and this time Tikoo got both barrels: ‘You have broken this relationship!’ Jehangir was furious.

‘Can this relationship be broken?’ Tikoo replied sullenly.

‘It has been broken.’

‘Tell me,’ said Tikoo, ‘the papers are saying our contact has snapped, and here we are talking to each other.’

‘Forget all of this long talk. I am going.’ The damage appeared irreparable for Jehangir.

A long pause. ‘Tell me,’ repeated Tikoo sincerely, ‘what can I do?’ He really wanted to fix this. The whole thing was getting under his skin. ‘I understand that you are having problems in the mountains. It is
getting cold. Tell me what you want – food or grain – and I’ll have it sent in tonnes.’

‘There is no need,’ Jehangir replied. It was his turn to be sullen. ‘You will not even find their ashes.’

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, the fucking newspapers,’ Tikoo said to himself. ‘I knew at that point I had to pull the rabbit from the hat, and really fast.’ Money. There was nothing else he could think of at that moment. He told Jehangir that if al Faran was prepared to give up the hostages, he would safeguard the kidnappers’ passage out of Kashmir, with money placed in a bank account that would be accessible once the hostages had been recovered. ‘It was a straight-up deal, effectively a ransom, although that word could never be used in these fraught times.’

He was greeted by silence. He could hear the man at the other end of the line breathing.

‘Good night,’ said Tikoo cautiously.

‘Good night, 108,’ said Jehangir.

6 September: there was no news from the mountains. However, the New Delhi newspapers had another unsourced scoop, this time apparently emanating from the Indian intelligence agencies. Someone had intercepted a letter, allegedly from the Afghani, who was currently in the same high-security ward for terrorist prisoners in Tihar prison as Masood Azhar and Omar Sheikh. According to the newspaper reports, the letter contained an instruction to al Faran: ‘Kill the hostages. What are you waiting for?’

Could it possibly be true, Tikoo pondered, aghast. He contacted his Crime Branch team and requested that they get a look at the letter. He felt he was extremely close to reaching a deal with Jehangir, but this ‘call to kill’, said to be from a man who was universally respected by militants, could undermine everything, and possibly drench the crisis in bloodshed.

Crime Branch’s request to see the note was refused. The Kashmiri detectives were told it was being analysed by Intelligence Bureau agents in New Delhi. Without having examined it themselves, the police, Tikoo included, were inclined to be sceptical. This felt like an
intelligence-agency plot, designed to destabilise al Faran. Tikoo thought hard. ‘Why stop a letter that contains an instruction to kill, and then enable its explosive contents to be known by all?’ Now that the contents of the letter had been relayed into the hills above Anantnag, its authenticity was no longer the issue: the safety of the hostages was. Would a tragedy in the mountains better suit the intelligence guys than a victory? Would Pakistan look worse if the hostages died? Of course it would. Tikoo could not stop himself. These flights of fancy would get him nowhere, but someone had to think the unthinkable. Tikoo was fighting for the lives of the four captives, but with every passing day he was becoming convinced that someone on his own side had other ideas. ‘It terrified and depressed me,’ he recalled.

7 September: still nothing from the mountains. But in New Delhi the adverse reporting continued, the newspapers releasing more supposedly secret details, this time an excerpt from a highly sensitive report said to have come from BB Cantt, the army’s 15th Corps headquarters in Srinagar, which Tikoo and his detectives could also not get hold of. It was said to reveal that in recent days an Indian Army patrol had been scouting close to where the kidnappers were thought to be holed up. In the light of this development, the newspapers said, negotiations had been abandoned altogether, in favour of ‘tactical operations’. One article concluded by revealing that camped in Srinagar alongside hostage negotiators from Scotland Yard and the FBI was a contingent of US and British special forces.

This couldn’t be worse, thought Tikoo as he ripped up the paper. He needed to work on the cash deal, but now he would have to ‘waste valuable time dealing with this
crap
’ and placating Jehangir. The worst thing they could do now, as al Faran teetered, was to threaten it with a full-scale operation by foreigners. Whoever had leaked this latest fantastical detail knew what they were doing, since not only would it spook al Faran, it would enrage the Indian Army too. Foreign forces on the ground in Kashmir undermined India’s authority in a war that was all about sovereignty. Tikoo read in the
Indian Express
that the head of the Northern Command, Lt. General Surinder Singh,
had already tendered his resignation in light of the supposed news. Tikoo’s morale was steadied a little by an emphatic statement from New Delhi that no tactical operation run by Western governments would ever be permitted in Kashmir. ‘First there would be foreign boots, and then foreign mediators, and then New Delhi would be screwed by some deal favouring Pakistan into losing Kashmir,’ he said, recalling the army’s rationale. ‘And anyhow, probably none of this was true, but the debating of it once again undermined the talks, hacking away at the foundations of the process.’ Tikoo wondered if his deal was bust.

The following day, 8 September, the kidnappers released a statement that spoke loudly to Tikoo: ‘The government should announce the release of our jailed militants
without mentioning a number
.’

Since Tikoo had worn down Jehangir’s original demand from twenty-one prisoners to four, they had focused on other ideas, including cash. Tikoo was certain that in this statement, which ostensibly seemed to return to the question of prisoner releases, Jehangir was actually employing a crude code: ‘He was asking for a figure through this message, a hunch that appeared all the more likely when I received a call from Jehangir that night.’ It was the first time they had spoken in three days. Jehangir aggressively challenged Tikoo, accusing him of being unreliable. While Tikoo had promised them a corridor back to Pakistan, an Indian patrol was reported as having moved within sight of al Faran, with the US Delta Force and probably Britain’s SAS also in the area. How could they ever trust him? ‘To be honest, I could see Jehangir’s point,’ said Tikoo. ‘Everything I had said turned out the opposite.’ There was nothing else for it: he would have to try to reposition the idea of a financial guarantee that no one in this charged climate could ever call a ransom.

Despite the eavesdroppers, Tikoo blurted it out. He offered money. He needed to know how much. Now it was Jehangir’s turn to cut things short, saying he would call back the following night.

Twenty-four hours later, he was as good as his word. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, how are you?’ Tikoo replied. After a long silence, Tikoo tried once again to reach out to Sikander. If they were close to a deal, he
would be much more confident dealing with a fellow Kashmiri. ‘OK, you tell me, is your commander from here or from across the border?’ Tikoo asked.

‘He is from here only,’ Jehangir replied. Tikoo followed up with a dig: ‘Aren’t you worried about harming your cause, the Movement, with this prolonged act of cruelty?’ It was a constant worry for Kashmiri militants that they risked alienating the very people they were supposedly fighting for.

Another long pause, then Jehangir replied, ‘The Movement can go to hell.’

After so many exhausting days shepherding the foreigners in the freezing mountains, concealing themselves from the security forces and attempting to negotiate with a slippery interlocutor who seemed unable or unwilling to concede anything, all ideology had bled from the equation, as far as Jehangir was concerned. ‘I was aware that this may not be how Sikander felt, but however hard I tried, I just could not get to him,’ Tikoo recalled. ‘But Jehangir had now jettisoned the prisoner releases. He had also rejected the Movement. It was all about getting this to an ending we all could stomach. I was sure of it.’