SALIM MUST DIE Read online

  He was ready for the unbearably harsh explosion of sound and light when it came. He raced into the darkened room. He knew the stun grenade would give him a safe window of opportunity before the men inside could ride down the effect and respond effectively.

  There are three men guarding the hostage, the voice of the Intel Officer echoed in his head as he raced inside. All three are armed with automatic weapons. They have already killed the bodyguards and shown they'll have no hesitation in killing.

  A kaleidoscope of sporadic lights and shouts assaulted his senses. The gunman's aural and visual senses were sharply heightened by the adrenaline powering through his body. Sifting through the confused medley of light and sound, his pistol extended in the classic shooter's stance, he homed in on his targets.

  The one closest to him fell to a neat headshot, right in the middle of the forehead. Fortunately, the second target was almost directly behind the first so he didn't have to alter his line of fire too much. He fired again, twice in quick succession, this time aiming for the upper torso since the target was not clear enough for him to try a headshot. The gunman did not wait to see the effects of the two shots as he swivelled rapidly to seek out the third target.

  His senses were ferreting out the darkness when the twinkling flashes told him he had been fired at. His brain was still registering the alarm when he felt the shots slam into his body. Despite the body armour, the impact was harsh and staggered him. Luckily, his trained fingers had responded to the muzzle flashes instinctively and fired twice in quick succession before the incoming bullets impacted his body. The gunman saw the target fall as he himself staggered back.

  THE GUNMAN WAS RIGHTING HIMSELF WHEN THE LIGHTS came on and two men entered the cordite-laden room. Both were beaming.

  ‘Not bad, sir.’ Captain Vikram Tiwathia of the Indian Army, the first man who entered, surveyed the mock carnage carefully. In his late twenties, the whiplash thin Tiwathia, with a streak of premature white falling over his forehead, walked with a perennial spring in his step. The young captain was a die-hard optimist and never failed to see the bright side of any situation. ‘Not at all bad for an old man.’ There was a wicked grin on his face.

  ‘Old man, my foot,’ Colonel Rajan Anbu shot back. ‘You youngsters need to be shown a trick or two. From now on we will have minimum four targets for this exercise.’

  ‘Yeah right, sir! And maybe just two bullets,’ Captain Mohammed Sami, the second man, added with a laugh. ‘You should thank the dame at DuPont for that jacket.’ Sami pointed to the coloured splashes of paint which had been made by the training bullets on Anbu's body armour. He was referring to Stephanie Kwolek, an American scientist who had been working for DuPont as a research chemist and had discovered poly-paraphenylene terephtalamide, better known as Kevlar, while searching for new synthetic fibres of commercial importance. ‘If it hadn't been for that, you'd be dead twice over for sure.’

  With his six-foot tall frame, Mohammed Sami could well have been Tiwathia's twin, but for the fact that he was darker and more heavily built. Despite that, Sami moved with cat-like agility and gave the impression that he was straining to be unleashed. His relative youth notwithstanding, Sami was the senior most officer in Force 22 and hence Anbu's second-in-command. All three men carried a hard no-nonsense air about them, which seems to be a distinguishing feature of Special Forces men the world over.

  ‘Anyway, you'd better get that phone, sir,’ Tiwathia intervened. ‘It's been screaming for a long time. What happened? Did you forget the wife's birthday?’

  ‘And how likely is that?’ Anbu quipped back as he reached for the mobile phone clamouring in his pocket. The stocky forty-two year old Colonel, born and bred in the suburbs of Chennai, was breathing hard, but he was feeling good about acquitting himself honourably during this morning's training. It was good to know that he could shoot as well as the extraordinary men and women he commanded. And that was no mean achievement considering that his unit, Force 22, comprised the crème de la crème of the country.

  Every officer in Force 22 was handpicked either from the intelligence services or from the Indian Army, Navy or Air Force. Each one of them was a commissioned officer not below the rank of captain and was in superb physical condition, a high achiever amongst his/her peers, trained to fight on land, sea and air, skilled in most known methods of killing, and motivated to the highest possible levels. In fact, if degrees were to be awarded for proficiency in the art of killing, all of them would easily acquire doctorates.

  Born of the bloody crucible of the decade long low intensity conflict that had been thrust upon India by the Pakistani military and intelligence establishments, Force 22 was meant to provide a rapid, highly professional and covert response to certain situations that could not (or should not) be dealt with by more conventional forces in a more conventional manner. This decision had been proved right and the force had acquitted itself honourably when the Indian Prime Minister had tasked it to punish those guilty of the horrific terror bomb attacks in Delhi in October 2005. Living up to its motto of ‘Stealth, Speed and Surprise’, Force 22 commandos struck at the very heart of the Pakistani-run terror organizations. The daring raids deep in Pakistan had taken out several key players and shaken the terror factory to its core.1

  Anbu was not only the first CO of Force 22, he was also a fine example of that peculiar streak of controlled aggression which makes the Special Forces man stand apart and ahead of the pack. As is typical of such forces, Anbu led from the front and never expected from his men anything that he was not willing to do himself.

  BACKING AWAY A BIT FROM THE OTHERS, ANBU REACHED FOR the mobile phone that was still shrilling away. The call was from an unknown outstation number. He slid open the phone and took the call. ‘Anbu.’ His tone was crisp.

  ‘Good morning, sir. It's me, Vinod… Vinod Rai.’

  ‘Rai!’ A smile lit up Anbu's face. ‘What a pleasant surprise!’ The Colonel was very fond of Rai and had tried hard to dissuade him when he'd chosen to opt out of Force 22 last year, but he had finally let him go when he understood Rai's reasons. ‘Long time, Vinod. Where have you been?’

  ‘I'm back with my unit, sir. We're in the Valley these days.’

  ‘That must be exciting.’ Both men laughed. ‘Tell me, Vinod. What reminded you of us today? Planning to rejoin the force?’

  ‘No way, sir! Not until you knock a few miles off the morning run.’ They laughed again. ‘Actually I called to tell you about something I thought might be of interest to you.’ Rai's tone had become serious.

  ‘Go ahead, Vinod.’ Anbu grew sombre as he listened to the story of the man named Iqbal who had been captured along the LOC that morning. There was a long pause when Rai finished. ‘Thanks for the heads up, Vinod. You were right to call me. Please do keep me posted about this… in case there are any further developments.’

  Anbu was deep in thought as he disconnected the call and walked back to the command post. He switched on his laptop and began to access the databases of the various intelligence agencies in the country. As the CO of Force 22, Anbu had nearly unrestricted access and the freedom to seek out whatever information he deemed relevant. An hour later he had the confirmation he sought.

  Maulana Fazlur Rehman was the founder and head of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, the terrorist organization that carried out the Delhi bombings a fortnight ago.

  The intelligence agencies were abuzz with the news of his death, especially the manner in which he had been terminated. There was huge speculation as to who had taken him out.

  So that is how that joker Fazlur Rehman died! It might be interesting to have a chat with the captured man… what did Vinod say his name was? Iqbal? Yes, Iqbal. I wonder what is in the memory of that Thuraya phone and in the phone book that he was carrying. If it did belong to Fazlur Rehman it must be a real gold mine of information.

  Anbu shot off an email to Captain Manoj Khare, the Force 22 Intel Officer. Then he got down to the sheaf of papers that threatened to drown
his IN tray. Damn paperwork! The way things are going, one doesn't have to bother about shooting the enemy… you could just put him on the mailing list, drown the poor slob with paperwork and bore him to death.

  Anbu was reaching for the file on top of the heap when the secure phone on his desk rang. It wasn't the loud trilling that shook him alert. It was the fact that this particular phone rang very seldom and when it did, it generally meant that something seriously important was emerging on the horizon. He reached for it with a sudden sense of urgency.

  ‘Morning sir, it's me… Jaggi.’ Lieutenant Commander Sunil Jaggi of the Indian Navy, currently seconded to Force 22, was a happy-go-lucky man. His bulky build belied the blinding speed he was capable of moving at. Like his comrades in Force 22 the man was a highly skilled killing machine, but unlike several of them he also had an infectious though slightly wacky sense of humour. Today, however, Jaggi's normally exuberant tone was overlaid with a distinct layer of stress.

  ‘How is the stint with the Punjab Police going, Sunil?’

  Jaggi was presently in the first week of his cross-training with the Punjab Police Anti-Terrorist Task Force (ATTF). Anbu had begun short attachments of his officers with the police forces of various states, to enhance their understanding of police functioning and to enable them to impart some specialized warfare methodologies to those policing extra sensitive areas. Quite unexpectedly, Jaggi had found himself in the thick of an anti-terrorist operation that they had stumbled on purely by chance.

  ‘It's going well, sir. I'm here with Mr Balwant Singh. You remember what I spoke to you about the day before? We've been through the whole thing and….’

  ‘It has been confirmed, Colonel.’ Balwant's voice echoed slightly as it came through the speakerphone that they were using at the other end. A veteran of those horrifying days when the ISI-sponsored Khalistani militancy had sapped the soul of the vibrant state of Punjab, Balwant Singh was one of the most experienced cops on the beat, which was why he was the top cop in Amritsar's ATTF. Like Jaggi's, his voice too betrayed tiredness. ‘We have even found the spot from where they have been carrying out the reconnaissance and we are monitoring them continuously.’

  ‘I hope the surveillance teams are keeping it very low key,’ Anbu said softly.

  ‘They are. I have my best people on it. We're handling the whole thing with kid gloves.’

  ‘Who are these guys in touch with? Is it the usual ISI conduit?’

  ‘It is an ISI conduit, but definitely not the usual one.’

  ‘We're still checking things out, sir,’ Jaggi said. ‘But the indications are that this is a rogue ISI element out to derail the Indo-Pak peace process that saner heads in both countries are desperately trying to breathe some life into.’

  ‘Rogue element of the ISI?’ Anbu laughed. ‘Are you trying to be funny, Jaggi? The whole damn ISI is a rogue element.’ There was a long pause as Anbu thought it over. ‘You want me to send some more people down?’ he finally asked.

  ‘No, Colonel. I really appreciate the support, but I think we can handle it on our own.’

  ‘Fine, but don't hesitate to call me if there's anything I can do.’ Anbu did not want to push things any further. He was aware that the states were still coming to terms with the new, enhanced role that the PM was pushing Force 22 into, and acceptance was slow in coming. Better to let things ease into place. ‘Please keep me posted. You guys are doing a great job.’ He added simply, ‘Make sure they don't get to know that we're on to them and let's try to take them red-handed.’

  ‘That's exactly what our Minister said.’ Balwant laughed grimly. ‘Don't worry, Colonel. We will try our best.’

  And they did. They did manage to catch them red-handed.

  Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you looked at it, Balwant's boys did not manage to take them alive.

  1 This part of the story has been told in Lashkar

  Peace Goes to Pieces

  AMRITSAR, INDIA

  THE BRAND NEW VOLVO BUS HAD BEEN WASHED AND POLISHED till it gleamed. It was capable of carrying a maximum of forty-five passengers. That morning, however, there were only twenty-eight people on board when it pulled out of the newly designated International Bus Terminus at 0900 hours and headed towards Radcliffe Point, where it was supposed to cross the Indo-Pak border.

  Sixteen of these twenty-eight comprised an official delegation that also included three State Ministers. The other twelve were ordinary passengers, mostly people who wanted to enter the annals of history by being a part of the first Amritsar-to-Lahore Peace Bus. Had they known about the tremendous explosive power and destructive capability of the rocket launchers that awaited them, they would have willingly given history a miss.

  THE BUS WAS PULLING OUT OF THE TERMINAL WHEN TWO Maruti vans pulled up on either side of the tall white building overlooking the road to Radcliffe Point.

  The van in front came to a halt and there was no further activity. None of the four hard looking men sitting inside with Jaggi moved. They just sat watching the front of the building with unblinking eyes. The van's darkened windows shielded the battle-clad men from the gaze of passers-by and the noisy street around the van smothered the cold metallic snicks of weapons being cocked. The stops were in place to prevent any one from escaping the ambush site from the rear of the building.

  On the other side of the building, as soon as the van came to a halt, five men spilled out from it. Crossing the pavement, they opened the door and raced up the stairs on silent feet. A variety of guns were held steady in their hands as they ran. Bulky body armour concealed by the loose shirts they all wore protected them from the hot, lethal lead that was certain to be thrown at them very soon.

  Right at the top of the staircase was a flimsy wooden door that led to the terrace. The door gave way with a loud crack as the first two men slammed into it, and then all five gunmen erupted onto the terrace.

  Caught in a tight huddle in a corner of the terrace were four men. Two of them shouldered Russian RPG-7V rocket launchers while the other two were assisting them. The rockets were pointed at the road along which the Peace Bus would travel shortly. The men were absorbed in their task and only realized they had company when the door burst open.

  All four terrorists turned at the sound. Three of them froze. The fourth reacted instinctively, the way most armed amateurs do when confronted with anything that threatens their existence. He pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, he happened to be holding a rocket launcher and not a handgun. The rocket sped out of the launcher with a roar and impacted onto the concrete floor three feet away. It blew him and his able assistant into tiny pieces.

  The back blast of the rocket launcher engulfed the remaining two in an unforgiving ball of fire. One of them died instantly. Consumed in flames, the fourth terrorist backed away. He did not even realize when he went over the low parapet wall. He was screaming as he went. The shrill high-pitched scream ended in a dull thud as his burning remains smashed onto the concrete pavement three floors below.

  At the head of the four-man squad that had stormed the rooftop, Balwant watched open-mouthed as the four men in front of him faded away into death. Shit! The Minister wanted them alive. He sighed as he imagined the haranguing that would follow. Had he known how much worse things were soon going to get, he would not have been even remotely worried about the death of the four terror merchants.

  THE THIRD ROCKET LAUNCHER WAS NOT OF RUSSIAN MAKE. It was a Swedish 84 mm Carl Gustav that had been stolen from an Indian Army Ordnance depot a few weeks earlier. The Carl Gustav is a highly versatile and lethally accurate weapon that is capable of firing a High Explosive (HE) round, a High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) round or a Para-illuminating round. This morning, wielded by a surly looking man in his mid-thirties, the rocket launcher in question was loaded with a HEAT round.

  At the precise moment that the four men on the rooftop were attacked and put out of circulation, the man with the third launcher was sitting in the rear of a soft-top Maruti
jeep parked by the side of the road leading to Radcliffe Point. Deep lines of stress creased his nondescript face. Large pools of sweat accumulating in his armpits accounted for the stuffy smell blanketing the enclosed vehicle. He heard the roar of the rocket firing in the distance and knew the first team was blown. That's okay. He shrugged. It was anticipated. In fact, that had been the plan. Of course, those four men had not known that they were simply sacrificial red herrings.

  His breathing quickened as he watched the Peace Bus come up the street. It was about three hundred metres away from him when it turned the corner. The escort was a hundred metres ahead of the bus. At that range, with the weapon he was wielding, the bus was an easy target.

  Like a diver about to plunge into water, he took a deep breath before throwing off the jeep's soft canopy in one swift motion. When the man rose he was settling the already loaded rocket launcher on his shoulder. In one rapid motion he aimed at the bus. He was steadying the weapon to fire when the escort spotted him. The launcher came alive with an ear-shattering, thunderous roar; its flaming back-blast charred the canopy of the Gypsy and then reached out to the car parked just behind him, shattering its windscreen with an explosive snort before reducing it to a smouldering heap.

  Despite the suddenness of the attack, the escort personnel reacted creditably fast. Three of the escort cops fired at the same time at the man with the rocket launcher. Unfortunately, the rocket launcher was a much bigger weapon and in a gunfight it's generally the guy with the bigger weapon who wins.

  The terrorist wielding the rocket launcher took two of the umpteen bullets fired at him smack in his face and chest. But only a second or so after the rocket had left the launcher.

  Whipping out of the tubular barrel, the 84-millimetre HEAT round hurtled through the air towards its target. It slashed past the stunned escort, went unhesitatingly through the front of the bus, then through the partition separating the driver's cabin from the passenger area and, striking the seat occupied by one of the three ministers in the doomed delegation, it exploded with an ear-shattering roar. Instantaneously, it killed most of the thirteen people seated in the front of the bus.