The Bard of Blood

  BILAL SIDDIQI

  THE BARD OF BLOOD

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Contents

  Part I: ‘Come What Come May’

  Part II: The Twelfth Night

  Part III: The Crack of Doom

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PENGUIN BOOKS AND BLUE SALT

  THE BARD OF BLOOD

  Bilal Siddiqi, aged twenty, started writing this book last year. He is a student of St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and is due to graduate in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree in mass media. He wrote the official blog for the Kolkata Knight Riders team of the Indian Premier League in 2014. He is currently working at Red Chillies Entertainment. He lives with his family in Mumbai. This is his first novel.

  For Parwaiz Gul

  Nana Abba, you live on through your beautiful wife and daughter.

  If what they say is true, maybe some day you and I will meet up there and discuss this book . . .

  PART I

  ‘Come What Come May’

  Prologue

  26 August 2014

  Quetta, Balochistan

  A fourteen-year-old boy, the youngest in the crowd, watched the four men rolling on the rocky ground. Their faces were caked with blood. Their bloodshot eyes were half open. A white discharge seeped from the corner of their mouths. The sun beat down hard upon them. The boy looked up at his father’s animated face, quizzically.

  ‘Watch on, son.’

  The boy’s gaze shifted back to the four semi-conscious men on the ground. The people in the crowd, all members of the Taliban, jostled with each other to get a better look at the wounded men. It had been almost two hours since they had been waiting at the venue—a large, barren ground, enclosed within high steel grilles and barbed wire. This killing field was perched atop a low hill. The men wore black kurtas and covered their faces in chequered scarves as protection from the gusts of dusty wind that blew about. As the clock ticked, they began to grow impatient and belted out uncouth slogans. But none left, because they were about to witness the beheading of four nationals of a country they had been taught to loathe. And the moment they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

  Two white Toyota off-road vehicles made their way through a metal gate and up the low hill. The crowd gasped collectively in awe as a turbaned man stepped out of the rear seat of one of the vehicles. He was tall, around six foot four, and had a black eyepatch to go with his black salwar-kurta. He was rather elderly, as the grey in his beard revealed. The man glanced around at the soldiers waiting to catch a glimpse of him and raised one hand to greet them. They cheered raucously.

  ‘Who is that, Abbu?’ the young boy asked his father, curiously.

  ‘That, my son, is the Amir al-Mu’minin.’

  The boy’s gaze shifted back to the mysterious man.

  ‘Amir al-Mu’minin?’

  ‘The Commander of the Faithful, my son. When Allah summoned our beloved Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to jannat, his spot was left vacant on earth. The Almighty needed someone to lead the faithful Muslims on this planet.’

  A few questions popped up in the boy’s head, as he saw machetes being sharpened. The Amir was circling the four Indian prisoners, staring at their twisted forms on the ground.

  ‘So, this is our new Prophet?’ the boy asked innocently.

  ‘There is only one Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.’ His father smiled. ‘But Mohammed Omar is the new leader of the Muslims, son. In the city of Kandahar, there was a large mosque that held our Prophet’s cloak in a series of locked chests. The Prophet had said that anyone who could retrieve the cloak would be his successor. Many tried and failed. Until a Pashtun, like you and me, came along.’

  The boy gazed in admiration at the old man with the eyepatch. The blowing wind made the dust swirl up behind him, making him look heroic. The eyepatch added to the mystery that surrounded him. He had been wounded severely during the 1989 battle in Jalalabad, during the Afghan Civil War. He survived, but his left eye couldn’t. A fragment of shrapnel had destroyed it completely. Since then he had worn an eyepatch. His eye bled sometimes, a sign that he was furious. And when his eye bled, people bled.

  ‘Son, I have brought you here to show you our leader. All of us here are a part of his Taliban. We fight for his cause, because his cause is Allah’s will. You should consider yourself lucky. Not everyone gets to see him because men from foreign lands, the kafirs, are waiting to kill him.’

  ‘He is a good man if he is carrying out Allah’s will,’ the boy reasoned. ‘Why would they want to kill him?’

  The father was about to reply, when the Amir’s voice boomed from a megaphone. He was pointing at the four prisoners that lay near his feet, trussed up like turkeys.

  ‘Four Indians,’ he bellowed into a microphone, to the people that had gathered to witness the execution. He had taken his place behind the four prisoners on the ground. His men stood respectfully behind him, each with a machete of his own.

  ‘Hindustanis,’ he continued, his voice climbing up in decibels. ‘Friends of the Americans. Enemies of Our Cause. Above all, enemies of Islam!’

  He looked down briefly at the captives, as the crowd cursed in unison.

  ‘Yes, my soldiers. These four have been caught spying on us,’ he continued. ‘Indian agents. Jasoos. They don’t seem to understand that meddling in our business and meddling with Allah’s will isn’t good for them. But they still do it. The Indians, the Americans, all of them. Above all, they fail to realize that interfering in my mission to create an Islamic caliphate is going to cost them, and everyone like them, their lives! Today, my loyal mujahideen, I will set an example!’

  The crowd cheered raucously, as the Amir took a machete in his hand and held it high.

  ‘My aim, as many of you know, is to get the haram Americans out of our beautiful land and direct the Talib insurgency against them and the Government of Afghanistan. After that, I will create a greater land . . . Pashtunistan!’ His voice boomed through the speakers. ‘But how can I possibly do this if people like these keep getting in my way?’

  He waved his machete in the air.

  ‘I had promised to destroy America. But I will also destroy its allies,’ he sneered. The crowd cheered as if they were witnessing a well-fought cricket match.

  ‘I want four volunteers,’ he said as he held the machete out and walked towards the crowd that consisted mostly of the members of his army, ranging in age from fourteen to fifty. He scanned the crowd for worthy volunteers with his one good eye. It settled on a group of young boys, who, like everyone else, had their arms stretched out, hoping to be bestowed with the honour of executing the prisoners. He liked young boys.

  ‘Raise your hand, son!’

  The young boy raised his hand. The Amir stopped in front of him and motioned him to step out. The boy walked out, warily. His father’s chest puffed with pride.

  The boy and the other volunteers were handed a machete each. The men had their heads rested on a tree trunk.

  ‘Enjoy the fear in their eyes.’ He smiled as he goaded the young boys. They were just young teens, but the power of having someone’s life at their mercy felt intoxicating. Cries of Allah-o-Akbar echoed through the mountains. The crowd had readied themselves to witness the act. They didn’t notice a Mercedes pulling up right behind the parked SUVs.

  A burly middle-aged man got out of the car and ran hurriedly towards the prisoners. The boys with the machetes had braced themselves, as instructed by their Amir. They raised their machetes and the four captives closed their eyes, ready to accept their fate.

  ‘STOP!’

  The Amir turned to look at the burly man who had just arrived running towards him. He mot
ioned the boys to stop. They lowered their machetes.

  The man stood on his toes and whispered into the tall Amir’s ear. The Amir looked at him angrily and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not negotiate when it comes to such matters.’

  The other man continued to reason. The Amir was visibly furious. The crowd looked on intently, watching their leader lose his cool.

  ‘Let them live for now and then we get to kill more like them,’ the other man said through gritted teeth, holding the Amir’s arm. ‘I have a plan, Amir. At least hear me out!’

  The Amir contained his fury and paused to think. He stroked his wild grey beard and motioned the boys to drop their weapons and go back. They obeyed. The four agents opened their eyes, wondering if they were dead already. Strangely, they were not. They shot confused glances at each other. They saw the Amir walk up towards them and then turn to the crowd.

  ‘My friend here insists that these kafirs should not be killed,’ the Amir said. A collective gasp went through the crowd. And then he made a dismissive gesture. ‘That is all I can tell you for now, my faithful soldiers. Please leave peacefully.’

  The crowd murmured as they walked out. He then turned towards the four agents, and knelt next to them.

  ‘I wanted to kill you,’ he said, ‘but this man and his people have other plans.’ The Amir looked at the four bewildered faces with sadistic pleasure.

  ‘I’m going to give your country a chance to let you live,’ he continued. ‘It is up to them to take this chance . . . which I know they won’t. You come from a country of selfish people. And I will kill you soon enough . . . soon after you realize that dying for them isn’t worth it.’

  He was uncomfortably close to one of the men. The agent spat on him. The Amir, enraged, stood up and sent his boot into the agent’s face, knocking off several of his teeth. The man buckled and fell to the floor, unconscious.

  Before he could do anything more reckless, the other man held his arm firmly and led him towards his car.

  Maulana Mohammed Omar’s—Amir al-Mu’minin’s—right eye began to bleed. And when his eye bled, the people bled.

  1

  28 August 2014

  New Delhi

  A silver Honda sedan drove into the garage of a rather ordinary-looking bungalow in Vasant Vihar. The driver, a tall bespectacled man with carefully combed thinning hair, parked the car and stepped out. Lieutenant General Sadiq Sheikh liked this part about his evenings the most: parking the car in the garage and relaxing until the drive back to the grind the next morning. He usually took the day off on Sundays, unless, of course, he was absolutely required to get down to the Wing, as his office was informally called. Not a rare occurrence for a man in his profession.

  Sadiq was two years short of sixty, and felt it was time to hang up his boots in the coming year. He had served India for thirty-two years. Initially, he spent his time as a field agent for the Military Intelligence—MI—and then rose through the ranks to become the Lieutenant General. But soon enough, his guile and uncanny ability to strategize led to his induction into the Research and Analysis Wing—RAW—overseeing covert operations in Pakistan. Sadiq’s induction was definitely surprising. Not many Muslims had applied or gone through the rigorous preparations to be a part of RAW, solely because of their perception of a non-existent bias. But Sadiq stood as an example for those who felt this way. For a while, he was the link between RAW and the MI. And then he returned to head the MI, as the Director General from the office at Sena Bhavan. He had had a good run so far. A few downs, but more than a few ups. Sometimes, a victory in his profession was all about minimizing damage, and Sadiq had done a good job of that. The current RAW chief, Arun Joshi, had been rather vocal about how they would have a tough time looking for an appropriate replacement for the void that Sadiq was about to leave behind.

  He slipped off his shoes, but kept his socks on. He pulled off his vest, ruffling his neatly combed, scanty hair, and threw it on the single bed as he entered his room. He dropped his car keys and wallet into a drawer, and unstrapped his watch and placed it inside, delicately. He then proceeded to the kitchen to make himself a strong cup of coffee. He slid his hand into his pocket and searched for his pack of Marlboro cigarettes. Smoking wasn’t a habit he liked, but he firmly believed that of all the things he had survived in the world of intelligence work, smoking would be the last thing to kill him. He lit one and took a long drag, while the coffee was brewing. It was during moments like these when he wished he had a family. Someone to welcome him back after a taxing day at work. It had never troubled him in his youth, but now he thought of it almost every other day. He wasn’t celibate, of course, but having a family would have put his loved ones directly in the line of fire. For a man like him, a family would be a weakness. A weakness he couldn’t hide. Though he didn’t regret his decision, he often found himself wondering what it might have been to have a wife and, perhaps, even a son. The coffee was ready, and he poured it into his large ceramic mug. He picked it up in the same hand that squeezed his cigarette between his fingers, and walked into the living room.

  A son. A face flashed in his mind that led him back to his MI days. At least I have known what having a son would be like. And I screwed that up. I wish it hadn’t ended the way it did. He switched on his reading lamp and sat on the sofa beside it. The rest of the room was entirely dark. Sadiq sipped his coffee and then grabbed the television remote. He checked which films were airing. Unlike yesterday, when he had watched Marlon Brando’s Julius Caesar, today had nothing interesting to offer. He enjoyed watching the news as much as some people enjoyed watching TV soaps. For him, the news was his other source of fiction on television. Only a few channels were credible, and Sadiq, in a bid to relax, often turned to the other ones to entertain himself. He liked the fact that he could segregate lies from the truth, propaganda from reality, all the while sipping his evening coffee after a long day of work. He kept his coffee aside and could almost feel himself drifting into a nap that he often took before dinner, when the phone rang.

  He felt the phone vibrate against his left thigh and reached into his pocket. It was the cellphone the Wing had provided him. He put on his spectacles and squinted at the screen. There was no identifiable number on it. His secure phone seldom rang without reason, and though Sadiq wasn’t quite in the mood to answer it, he did.

  ‘Salaam aleikum, Sadiq Sahab,’ a calm voice greeted him. Sadiq was unfamiliar with the voice on the other end.

  ‘Waleikum as-salaam,’ Sadiq replied with an equal measure of courtesy. ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘That’s not important, Sadiq Sahab,’ the caller said. The voice had a slight metallic ring to it. A voice modulator, Sadiq realized.

  ‘Well, if you’ve called me to exchange sweet nothings, now is not a good time.’

  ‘I can assure you it is more than that,’ the voice on the other end replied.

  ‘What’s stopping you?’ Sadiq quipped.

  ‘Remember Vikramjit Singh?’

  Sadiq fell silent. It had been over seven years since the RAW agent Vikramjit Singh was killed in action in Quetta. Someone had sold the operation out.

  ‘What about him?’ Sadiq said softly.

  ‘I’m going to read out an address to you,’ the voice resumed. ‘You meet me there, and you’ll get answers to the questions that are bottled up inside you. You know me, but I’m afraid I can’t let my real voice be heard over the phone.’

  Sadiq scrambled hurriedly for a pen, and grabbed the first piece of paper he could find. He urged the man to go on. The man dictated the address clearly. A place in Dhaula Kuan. ‘I want you here within half an hour.’

  The line went dead.

  Sadiq, suddenly feeling very alert, picked up his mug of coffee and began to walk towards his room. The coffee had gone cold, he gulped it down. This case was back to haunt him. One of the few mysteries that he hadn’t been able to crack in his long and otherwise illustrious career. He tried to live with the fact that he m
ight never get to the bottom of it, but it needled him every single day. As he poured the thick brown dregs at the bottom of the mug into the sink, he began to recap the information he had about that fateful day in the city of Quetta, in the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

  Sadiq still remembered the time he had briefed Vikramjit personally, with the intention to embed him in Quetta and spy on the Shura’s elements. Vikramjit had always been a bright agent. Even though his physique and strength may not have been the best in a crunch situation, despite being well built, he more than made up for it with his well-honed ability to think on his feet. He had always dropped hints about wanting to work there, and Sadiq was impressed with his enthusiasm. So when Sadiq did eventually offer him the assignment, Vikramjit agreed without batting an eyelid. But in 2005, the year when Balochistan was at the height of turmoil, Vikramjit was killed under mysterious circumstances. His death was one of the few cases that disturbed Sadiq the most. Closure evaded him. Along with Vikramjit, Sadiq had also lost the man he considered a son. The man he had put into Balochistan himself. The man who had never spoken to him since he was forced to bow out of the game.

  Just recently, Sadiq’s officers had intercepted a few messages that were directed to the Quetta Shura from a location in India. There has to be a connect, he thought, as he opened his drawer and picked up his car keys. He chose one of the few watches lying in his drawer and casually slipped it on. He forced his feet into his shoes and walked briskly out of his house. It was almost 9 p.m. Sadiq had half an hour to reach his destination. He cursed himself, realizing his car was now parked comfortably in the garage. He jerked the large door open and got behind the wheel. He reversed the Honda City out of the driveway and on to the road. He switched the air conditioner on. Sadiq checked the dashboard for his pistol. Just in case, he thought. He looked at the address on the bit of paper he held in his hand one last time and then put his foot on the gas. For a man advanced in years, Sadiq drove with the precision of a professional race-car driver. Within a half hour, Sadiq had pulled up in front of his destination.