The Phoenix Read online

  The man obediently limped towards that window, brandishing his weapon. Aditya was sobbing as his assailant yanked him by the hair. Aarti tried to stop Chor from barking, but she wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

  ‘Stop that fucking dog,’ the man screamed.

  There were sounds of two gunshots outside. Chor suddenly fell silent. Surmising the worst, Aarti thought that the Aroras had been shot dead. The window in their house opened and the other attacker motioned for his companion to come over.

  ‘We can hold them in here,’ he shouted. ‘Quick.’

  Aarti and Aditya were dragged into the other house. What Aarti saw relieved her. The elderly couple was alive, albeit trussed up on a chair each.

  ‘It’s okay,’ the assailant said. ‘Nobody gets hurt if we get what we want.’

  The men turned towards Aarti.

  ‘What is it that you want?’ Mr Arora interrupted. ‘Money? Jewellery? Take it all and leave.’

  ‘Mr Arora,’ the assailant turned to him. ‘We thought you were an army guy. Did your bravery retire with you? Do you think we’re here for jewellery of all things?’

  Mr Arora wasn’t surprised that they knew of his army background. Almost all of Dehradun knew about it.

  ‘Then untie me and watch the soldier within me take over,’ Mr Arora spat at him.

  ‘Well,’ the assailant shrugged. ‘You should have shot me when you had the chance. Guess old age slows one’s reflexes, doesn’t it?’

  Mrs Arora was trembling with fear.

  ‘What is it that you want then?’ Aarti asked.

  The other man walked over to Aarti. ‘We want you to call your son, Aryaman.’

  18

  Mumbai

  A digital reconstruction of what Eymen and Asra looked like was sent across to all major intelligence and security agency heads, who were tasked with circulating it within their networks and keeping an eye out for anyone that matched the descriptions. All personnel were advised to be discreet.

  Randheer had scoured for leads in the several tapes of potential suspects who could be the duo in disguise that the airport authorities had sent him. None of them really stood out. The manhunt was getting increasingly tense. Randheer, Aryaman and Sharma had deduced that the attack would happen within the next few days—considering that the weapon had, in all probability, made its way to India.

  Ashraf Asif, Eymen and Asra had reconvened at a safe house in a seedy area of Byculla. Their big moment had almost arrived. Ashraf had taken charge of smuggling the weapon from Dubai into India. Even Asra didn’t know how he had done it. He wanted no fuck-ups, and the fact that someone like him was directly involved made it clear to Asra just how much this mission meant to him. What she did not realize was that Ashraf himself had a superior to report to.

  Ashraf locked his room in the safe house and got on a call via his secure laptop after dispensing instructions to Eymen and Asra. He made sure they’d left the house—on a task assigned by him—before he got on the call. Exactly after one sharp ring, the Scorpion came on.

  ‘Aryaman’s family is with my men,’ Ashraf said. ‘He doesn’t know about it yet.’

  The Scorpion was quick to respond. ‘I am not in favour of last-minute improvisations such as these. But because it’s Aryaman, I will make an exception.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Rather well,’ the Scorpion snorted. ‘Aryaman was the bad child of the Indian intelligence community. In 2013, he was part of an Indian team that killed Maqsood Akram. The operation left almost the entire team dead. The old guy who was running the op committed suicide.’

  ‘But has Aryaman done anything to you? Does he . . .’

  ‘Nobody knows who I am, Ashraf. My organization has united able people like yourself to take over the world and change its map one step at a time. If you pull tomorrow’s mission off, I will meet you.’

  ‘I look forward to that,’ Ashraf said gleefully. ‘It will be an honour.’

  ‘I will track the mayhem very closely,’ the leader continued. ‘Your laptop will have a rendezvous point set up as soon as you finish this. And together, we will move on to our next phase of expansion.’

  Ashraf nodded assent.

  ‘Now tell me,’ the Scorpion continued. ‘How do you intend to make Aryaman conduct the attack?’

  Ashraf sat upright and lit a cigarette. ‘If his family is being held at gunpoint, he will go to crazy lengths. His wife is dead. His mentor, whom he loved, killed himself, like you said. He doesn’t really have anyone besides his mother and son.’

  ‘But if you tell him that you have them captured, he will send someone to free them. And that still doesn’t guarantee that he will carry out the attack. You need to bring him before you and give him the bomb yourself. He is not to be underestimated.’

  Exhaling a cloud of smoke, Ashraf said, ‘I have thought that through, sir. We will draw him to us.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Eymen and Asra are on it as we speak.’

  The Indian Daily Report newsroom was its usual self. Jyoti’s death had shaken the staff to the core, but there was still news to report each day. Ehsaan’s work had doubled. After his conversation with Aryaman and Randheer, he lived in constant fear that he was the next target. But it had to be done—the paper had to be kept running—for Jyoti. There was no other way.

  On more than one evening, Ehsaan got piss drunk and attempted to call Randheer. He wanted to ask if the two men supposed to be protecting him were still on duty. But Randheer, who knew exactly why Ehsaan was trying to reach out, never answered his calls, reassuring him with coded text messages on WhatsApp. Something along the lines of, ‘God is always watching us. So we must bow our heads down to him and pray whenever we are free.’ The kind of stuff middle-aged housewives would forward on their WhatsApp groups first thing in the morning. Nonetheless, it served the purpose of calming Ehsaan down.

  But on that evening, what Ehsaan didn’t know was that along with God, two others were watching him. And these two were pretty much the opposite of God: where God created, they wanted to destroy.

  They were Eymen and Asra, who had managed to spot the two agents protecting Ehsaan—ordinary-looking guys who would’ve ranked low in the intelligence system and were allotted basic tasks like surveilling people who weren’t in any real danger. But this is where the Indians would be wrong, Asra thought.

  ‘You grab the journalist before he gets to the scooter,’ she instructed Eymen. ‘I will take care of the agents.’

  Eymen raised an eyebrow at her. ‘You sure? Should I do that instead?’

  She shook her head resolutely. ‘No, I’ve got this.’

  As soon as Ehsaan stepped out of the office and started walking briskly towards his scooter, Eymen jumped out of the SUV he was in with Asra and charged towards him. Ehsaan froze. Everything happened all too quickly for him to understand that he was being abducted and not killed. The lane was relatively quiet, except for a couple of shocked onlookers who saw Eymen land a blow to Ehsaan’s solar plexus. Ehsaan wheezed as he tried to cry out for help, but he was dragged along and forced into the SUV by Eymen.

  Seeing this, the two agents sprang out of the shadows and rushed towards the car. Asra reversed the vehicle, rolled down the windows and with two quick but calculated shots, killed them instantly.

  Ehsaan began to wail. He begged for a quick death. Eymen put a generous amount of duct tape on Ehsaan’s mouth, and they drove to an abandoned mill complex, pulling over in one of the large factories.

  Ashraf Asif, his sedan parked inside, was already waiting for them. There was a cruel smile on his face. Ehsaan was theirs. And soon, Aryaman would be theirs too. They were now in the penultimate phase of the attack.

  Eymen tied Ehsaan to a steel chair. Ashraf leaned forward towards him and tugged the tape off his face. Ehsaan howled, begging them to either kill him or let him go.

  ‘We will let you go,’ Ashraf said. ‘We don’t want to hurt you. We just want your friend to
visit us.’

  ‘Friend?’ Ehsaan looked at Eymen.

  ‘Aryaman,’ Ashraf resumed. ‘Jyoti’s husband. Bring him here and this ends for you. Here, take your phone and call him. Any funny business and a bullet ends this for you.’

  Aryaman had been recovering from his injuries and drinking copiously in the bargain. His safe house smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. Avantika, who had spent hours at the lab facility, had still not made any breakthrough. She was pale as a sheet, ate very little and spoke even less. Her mind was always on the antidote. She was trying to catch spells of sleeping-pill-induced forty winks to power through.

  The entire ordeal had taken a toll on Aryaman physically, even though mentally he was still in the game. His recent exchanges with Bipin Sharma had inspired in him a certain confidence that he would have the agency’s support in taking down the terrorists once they had identified them.

  ‘Randheer,’ Aryaman said worriedly, after trying his mother’s phone for the sixth time. ‘Something’s wrong. They aren’t picking up.’

  Randheer made a quick call to his men who were keeping an eye on Aarti and Aditya. They answered instantly.

  ‘Is the family okay?’

  ‘Sir,’ Randheer’s man replied. ‘They haven’t left the house. Everything’s okay. No need to panic.’

  Randheer put the call on speaker phone and asked the man to repeat his statement. Aryaman seemed relieved to hear it.

  ‘Good,’ Randheer spoke into the phone. ‘Keep a close watch on them and continue to update me.’

  Aryaman decided to wake Avantika up. He needed to drive back to the facility with her and get her to begin work again. He pushed open the door to her room and saw her curled up in a ball on the bed, her red-rimmed, watery eyes already open, watching him.

  ‘Is it time to go?’ she asked.

  ‘Did you sleep?’

  She shrugged and stared at the ground. Her voice lacked all strength. ‘What if I fail, Aryaman?’

  He sat beside her and placed his hand gently on her shoulder.

  ‘You won’t,’ he said, gravely. ‘You can’t.’

  She struggled to sit up and took a sip of water from the bottle he’d handed to her.

  ‘Get ready,’ Aryaman said and left the room. A little later, he saw Jyoti’s phone buzzing on the table. He hurried to it, thinking it was his mother or son calling him. Instead, he saw a name he least expected to see at that moment: Ehsaan.

  He showed the screen to Randheer, who said, ‘Must be one of his paranoid calls.’

  Aryaman answered and put him on speaker.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Aryaman,’ Ehsaan’s voice was unsteady. ‘I will be sending you an address. I need you to come over. Alone. No Randheer, no cops, nobody.’

  Aryaman stood with a sudden alertness. Randheer drew closer to listen in.

  ‘Why? Did you find something?’

  There was a momentary silence.

  ‘Ye . . . Yes. Please. Alone. Immediately.’

  The phone in Aryaman’s hand vibrated, having received a GPS location pin.

  ‘Alone, or else I’m dead, Aryaman. Please.’

  The line went off. Aryaman turned to look at Randheer, who was calling Ehsaan’s security cover. No answer. Aryaman rushed to the table and picked up the car keys.

  ‘I need a gun,’ he said to Randheer, who rushed to the drawer and tossed him a pistol. ‘You take Avantika and head to the facility. I will see what the deal with Ehsaan is. Keep me posted.’

  Aryaman pushed the door open and ran towards his car. Everything about Ehsaan’s call had felt wrong to him.

  He turned the ignition on and zoomed through the streets with complete disregard for traffic laws. His adrenaline was kicking in, and his heart was pounding against his chest. Ehsaan was a paranoid guy, no doubt. But through all his years in intelligence, Aryaman had learned to read people by observing the way they spoke in different situations. Ehsaan didn’t sound like he was simply having a bad case of the nerves. It was much worse. There was someone around him—someone who was controlling what he said. And it was clear that Ehsaan’s life was under immediate threat.

  Aryaman pulled up at an abandoned mill. He stepped out of the car and scanned his surroundings, taking small steps forward, crunching dead leaves under his shoes. It felt like a trap. But if walking into this trap was the only way of getting to the bottom of this, so be it. He came to a large, rusty iron door and pushed it open.

  In the flickering overhead light, he saw Ehsaan tied to a chair. And standing next to the hostage was a man with a pistol: Eymen Arsalan.

  Aryaman wasn’t surprised by this. In his mind, he had played out scenarios much worse than the one he was now faced with. He had imagined Ehsaan dead, with a bunch of men ready to take him out the minute he stepped in.

  ‘So you are Aryaman,’ Eymen said. ‘Good to see you, my friend.’

  Aryaman walked towards them. Ehsaan’s face was purple with bruises and caked with blood. A cloth tied around his mouth prevented him from speaking. Eymen hadn’t been gentle with him, but he had kept him alive, which was a sign that he wanted to negotiate, Aryaman thought. But whatever they wanted from him, they weren’t going to get it, Aryaman was pretty sure of that too.

  ‘Let him go,’ he said. ‘This is between us.’

  ‘Nobody’s going anywhere,’ Eymen stated blankly. ‘Until you do what we need you to.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  Eymen walked nonchalantly to his car, which was parked in the corner, and pulled out a vest with three vials attached to it.

  ‘You do know what this is, don’t you?’

  Aryaman did. The bioweapon was ready to use, strapped on to a vest and fitted with a detonator.

  ‘A poison. Your own country’s creation.’ Eymen smiled. ‘And now it’s going to be used on your own countrymen.’

  Aryaman walked up to Ehsaan and undid the cloth around his mouth. Eymen offered no resistance to that move.

  ‘There are two more of them,’ Ehsaan spluttered. ‘This is it, Aryaman. It’s the end. We can’t do anything about this.’

  Ehsaan broke into tears. Aryaman placed a hand on his head to comfort him and then looked venomously at Eymen. ‘Why did you call me here? You could have carried out the attack, and we would not have found you in time.’

  Eymen laughed. ‘That’s true. But here’s the thing. I would have had to sacrifice myself too.’

  ‘Everyone needs to pay a price.’ Aryaman smiled back at him.

  ‘Yes,’ Eymen said. ‘Exactly. And you will have to pay the price.’

  Aryaman charged at him and attempted to throw a punch at his face. But Eymen swerved to the side and hit Aryaman on the temple with the butt of his gun. Eymen landed another kick to Aryaman’s gut. It was a powerful kick and would have shattered his rib had it been any higher. Aryaman dropped to the ground, but only for a second. He recovered and stood right up. He shoved Eymen against his car.

  Eymen raised his hands in the air and said, ‘You wouldn’t want to waste time, Aryaman.’

  Eymen took out his phone and offered it to Aryaman, who snatched at it. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. His mother, his son and the Aroras were facing the camera. Two large men, their faces covered, stood beside them. He saw tears running down his son’s face. His mother, even though she tried not to show it, seemed scared. It was a live video feed. Aryaman flung the phone aside and launched a kick into Eymen’s chest.

  ‘Stop!’ Ehsaan cried. ‘Or they will kill your family.’

  Aryaman was in a fit of rage. And then he broke down . . .

  Eymen got to his feet, rubbing his chest. ‘The price to pay is yours. Your family or the people of your city.’

  Aryaman’s mind had gone numb.

  ‘You wear that vest tomorrow, at the 26/11 anniversary memorial,’ Eymen said. ‘And amid the crowd, you detonate it.’

  ‘There is strict security. You will never be able to . . .’

  ‘We have t
aken care of the security at the entrance,’ Eymen said. ‘It will be an easy entry for you. Wear the vest under a jacket. Step in among the thousands of people who are there to pay their respects. And detonate the bomb. Your family gets to live.’

  Aryaman dropped to his knees, his head in his hands.

  ‘Don’t do this . . .’ he said. ‘Don’t take their lives. They are innocent.’

  Eymen clucked his tongue. ‘None of that bullshit, Aryaman. Will you do it?’

  Aryaman was silent. Eymen walked over to Ehsaan, grabbed his hand and wrenched his little finger out of joint. Ehsaan howled in pain.

  ‘WILL YOU DO IT?’ Eymen screamed at Aryaman.

  Aryaman shook his head.

  Eymen pressed his gun against Ehsaan’s forehead.

  ‘He dies. Your family dies. You die. And I do the attack anyway.’

  Aryaman’s jaw was trembling as he said, ‘Don’t . . .’

  Eymen’s finger was on the trigger, ready to blow Ehsaan’s brains out.

  ‘You can save a lot of people if you conduct the attack,’ Eymen continued. ‘You couldn’t save your wife. But you can save your son and mother!’

  Aryaman got to his feet, shaking with rage but looking defeated. He saw the vest and closed his eyes.

  ‘Answer me now. We don’t have all day. If you do this, I spare all those who matter to you.’

  There were tears in Aryaman’s eyes as he said, ‘I’ll do it. I’ll conduct the attack.’

  19

  Mumbai

  The Gateway of India was beautifully illuminated in honour of the victims of that fateful night of 26 November 2008. It had now been over a decade since the day those ten Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists swarmed in and carried out a series of attacks that brought the city to its knees. The coordinated massacre had lasted about four days, taking at least 170 lives and leaving some 300 injured. The city had been under siege, but the residents began to pick up the broken pieces soon after, resuming their everyday lives with their indomitable spirit.

  The city was now paying homage to the martyrs of 26/11. Around 200 people had gathered at the Gateway of India, and the number was increasing with every passing minute. A popular actor had just taken to the stage and was addressing the crowd. It was a sombre moment for everyone present—some were reduced to tears as they lit their candles and uttered their prayers. Little did they know that there were plans for an unprecedented attack to be carried out that very night by a patriot who had repeatedly put his life on the line for his country.