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Chapter 1: An Incomplete Mission

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The Few, The Fearless

The cold winds from Himalayas blew down the dry mountain passes in a race to beat the sunset but felt even colder when one would run against them, fearing for their life. The sun was setting and so were the options for a major general who had dedicated two decades of his service to Border Intelligence Services only to lose eventually. Major General Akash Sinha ran away from everything as much in disbelief as in fear. His life depended on his next step. If he knew he would have lost his life in bargain anyway, perhaps he would have savored these moments instead. Four hours later, he was dead. He looked into his table mirror at his own face and that of his murderer. If only he had known that face earlier, he would have saved himself a life. His profession demanded no margin of error, and he had known it for the last two decades. Major General Akash had developed instincts and failsafes to survive two decades, but, for the first time, he had committed a blunder, and, to understand the only mistake of his career, one must go back a year.

         Major General Akash was an ephemeral being trespassing borders on a whim. It was in his second nature to infiltrate a country and sometimes adopt it as his own till he had extracted enough information to call in the cavalry. His favors had earned him many friends, but his achievements had also earned him a few enemies. Sometimes Akash killed his own ghosts to end these rivalries, but a few sustained. The life of an agent came with many turns, and Akash had passed each in his career.

         Akash had graduated from the academy in 1980 but only found his true calling in 1988 when the National Security Advisor enlisted him for a special covert mission. He learned a new language, Tibetan, infiltrated the Chinese lands and rescued a Tibetan leader due to be assassinated. The Indians got a whiff of it through the Border Intelligence assets and dispatched a young officer, unknown to the enemy. The officer, Major Akash, had returned a changed man.

         Akash realized he was made for it, and the NSA knew he had found a natural talent. Adept at enshrouding communications, proficient at learning new languages, resourceful enough to forge identities and quick enough to evade the checks, he was the perfect fit. His skills only ran out on him after two decades of exemplary service. Akash had infiltrated deep into Pakistan through the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir for the fiftieth time, his last time. He was chasing a lead he had found after one year of eavesdropping. The best in the business had advised him to stay off the lead, and it included his well-wishers in Pakistan, but Akash couldn’t have dropped the ball on a nuclear lead—a plan he thought would eradicate the entire Asian continent.

         Akash reviewed his notes again. It had all started with Al Malik, and it all ended with Al Malik. Who was Al Malik? He would soon have the answer. Akash was following Bilal, an ISI veteran who had infiltrated India for long but was now back in Pakistan. Akash respected him for his skills; in fact, he had even used his name as an alias at times in foreign lands, something Bilal had done to him as well. This time, however, Akash was moving around under the name of Pasha Khan, his lucky mascot. Akash had reached the small town of Chitral in Khyber Phaktuunkhwa. The town got its name from the Chitral River which generated just a few miles up in the Hindu Kush mountains and made its way down to the Kabul River which, in turn, joined the Indus River.

The conspiracy to drown Asia in mayhem was similarly interconnected across the borders from East Asia to the Arabian Sea—or so Akash imagined in his wildest dreams. Once he knew who the Al Malik was, he could solve at least half the puzzle. Pasha Khan had taken a small cottage by the Chitral River before it entered the town. He walked down the river and entered the town dressed in his perahan tunban—a wide and loose version of salwar kameez. Under his choga—an outer robe with sleeves—a Glock .26 stayed concealed but unlocked, ready to fire. Pasha stopped at a street tea shop and ordered a kahwah tea. He sipped it at his own pace.

         Ten minutes later, he saw a fair-skinned man walking on the other side of the road also dressed in the local perahan tunban, but his shoes gave away his identity. The black leather boots were Pakistani military make.

         Pasha paid the tea vendor and followed the leather boots at a safe distance.

         Few minutes later, the man entered a hut—a weak structure by all accounts, perhaps a temporary stay.

         Pasha sat behind the tree down the road from the hut and waited for an hour. Then another hour. He looked towards the mountains, and his own hut was visible from here. He decided to leave for his hut.

         Pasha made a small hole in his hut and sat by it to observe the other hut, till finally, in evening, the hut’s door opened, but a different fair-skinned man exited—the old friend Pasha was here to meet, Bilal. Pasha immediately took a few notes and waited by the window for Bilal to leave the hut. He didn’t leave for the entire night, but through their window, he saw another man. Pasha clicked photos, but they were not clear enough. It would need some processing to identify the other man. After eating a couple ready-to-cook meals heated in the hut’s small stove and drinking more than five glasses of tea, Pasha’s eyes gave up on him. He opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the view from his little window. His face had been resting on the window all this while. Pasha checked the time to see he had slept for an hour. This hour would cost him his life.

         Pasha hadn’t slept for three days, and his body was giving up on him. The sun was yet to appear, so he decided to catch up on sleep. But, before he laid down, he heard a strange noise from the river; he hadn’t heard anything similar to it till now. He looked through the window but saw nothing in the pitch-dark moonless night. He stayed with his instincts, and, to his shock, he saw a shadow at the river line down the mountain slope. It could be an animal, maybe a villager, but no, it was definitely a commando. The stars’ light in the moonless night was enough to expose his gun shadow. Pasha’s eyes were trained to spot minutest movements even in starlight. He unholstered his Glock and went around the hut only to realize the commandos had surrounded it. He couldn’t match their firepower. There was only one way to escape now—the river.

         Akash—alias Pasha—checked for any stray documents to ensure he didn’t leave any trail behind. He violently opened the hut’s door, distracting the commandos. As they converged on the door side, Akash unpinned the only grenade he had, left it in the hut and jumped out the small window on the opposite side. He rolled his body into itself and let it spin down the slope to the river. Only one commando was on the river line, and Akash shot him in the head with a double tap; however, the blast in the hut dwarfed his shots.

         The commandos were dazed. Before they could realize his tricks, Akash had jumped into the river.

         The river took him downstream, and a mile later, he came off the banks. He was farther from the Indian border now and fortunate that the mountain here rose to a great height. It took Akash eight hours to climb the mountain to the top. The sun was out, and he could see the police vehicles moving through the town of Chitral. The commandos had been searching the forest, but their focus was more towards the border, so he decided to do what was never advised: take the main route. National Highway 45 ran through the back side of the mountain.

         Akash took another five hours to reach the highway. He waited for a vehicle with only a single driver. Finally, a Toyota pickup approached. No one else was visible on the road. In one shot, he took out the driver. Luckily, the car was slow at the turn, and a tree stopped it before much damage was done. Akash rushed to the pickup, for he had to dump the body before anyone else appeared. He removed commuter’s papers and dumped his body down the slope. Few kilometers down the highway, he stopped to forge his own photos on the driver’s license and vehicle papers. As the Pakistanis searched for him in the jungles, Akash was out of the area through the main highway. He went east from Booni, south from Mastuj, and then straight to Phander in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Just before Gilgit, he took the bypass toward Skardu. They checked his papers and cleared him. Obviously, no one had discovered the driver’s body yet. From Skardu, it was Akash’s territory. He went south through the Deosai National Park. He abandoned the pickup after sanitizing it and crossed the Line of Control in the Batalik sector.

         Akash went to his safehouse and locked himself inside. He reviewed his notes again and the photos he had taken. Who was the other man? Pasha started processing the photos.

*****

In Pakistan, Bilal was furious at the local commander to let an Indian spy escape. After exhausting all options, with some trepidation he requested a meeting with the Al Malik. He briefed Al Malik and proposed the remedy.

         Al Malik had only one question. ‘Are you sure this will not expose the asset?’

         Bilal responded in affirmative. The next call he placed would put into motion the events that would change the Asian Intelligence forever.

         The asset was reluctant to do it, but Bilal insisted. ‘It needs to be done at any cost.’ They ended the call with that understanding.

*****

In his safehouse, Akash studied the image he had processed. He couldn’t believe it. If Khalid was involved, the nuclear threat was real. He immediately relayed a message to his most trusted courier to meet him at the safehouse at 10:30. Akash tried to sleep but couldn’t after knowing all he had learned. He had to get going again to stop this threat. Akash encrypted the message and uploaded it on a secure satellite link. It was just enough to sound off the top brass in New Delhi but no more, for he was yet to find Al Malik.

         When the clock struck 10:00, his courier arrived—thirty minutes early.

         Akash remained engrossed in his work. Not looking behind him. ‘Take your seat.’

         Something was amiss, for there was no response.

         Akash looked behind him and was shocked to see it was not his courier, and his Glock was an inch too far. Only one person knew his location apart from his courier, and he trusted his courier with his life. As Akash internalized it, he knew the Indian agencies were done this time. Checkmate, was the last thought he had in this life.  

*****

A thousand kilometers away, another agent scanned the list of flights to Guwahati. Abhimanyu was an exceptional find for the forces, but he had run his course—or so he felt. Abhimanyu’s bosses disagreed, but he was ready to begin a new life, unaware destiny had different plans for him. Abhimanyu and his wife held hands with the anticipation only the newly married had. He surveyed the suited corporate flyers, solo travelers, and families in the security line. The serendipity of a normal life had a charm none could match. He noticed the respect of the suits, spontaneity of a solo move, the restless kids, and the vivacious wives—all of them leading a normal life. Abhimanyu was closer to it than ever before. After a long interlude in his life, he waited with great anticipation for it all to begin.

         ‘Your tickets, sir.’

         ‘Yes, please.’

         Abhimanyu and Sasha boarded the flight to fly into the stars, knowing exactly their destination. But the stars had their own alignment. The glitters of the skies, almost wickedly, distracted one from the vast empty spaces between them where even the time bent to pay its dues. For all the plans Abhimanyu had made, his destiny had already put into motion a set of events a thousand miles away in Kashmir that would change his life forever.

 

Intelligence Bureau Headquarter, Delhi

Amjad passed the many maxims, but this one had a special place in his heart. The motto of MARCOS—The Few, The Fearless—was engraved on the walls of the intelligence bureau headquarters along with the maxims of all the other forces. It reminded Amjad of his youthful days when he had been a Marine Commando himself—the days of blithe spirit and extreme courage. Life had slowed remarkably since then. The red carpets in the Delhi halls were now an albatross around his neck. On second thoughts, a Gordian knot or even a constrictor knot—the harder he pulled, the tighter it became. Over the years, he had learned the skills of this game too.

         After overcoming the initial apathy, Amjad had, in fact, excelled at this game by now. First amongst the equals in the RAW fraternity, Amjad had done well to reach the upper echelons of the administrative halls that controlled the Indian Intelligence operations. A former Indian Navy Captain was now the second most important man in RAW. Special Secretary Amjad Khan was a senior Class Four RAW agent. The Chief of Border Intelligence, Sunaina Singh, had summoned him to the headquarters at this hour. The sun was yet to rise over the capital.

         Amjad led a team of five officers in RAW with a class-four clearance across all establishments. Amongst the many blanketed privileges, he enjoyed access to all the embassies of the Indian Government and its allies, secret hideouts, secret weapons caches, and, most importantly, bank accounts in multiple countries with almost unlimited overdraft. However, all these privileges came with a critical string attached. No one in public knew them. Their identity was hidden, and they had to ensure it remained so for their entire tenure. In case of a breach of identity, the Indian Government could simply disown them. Their day-to-day task was simpler—to neutralize any threat to the security of the world’s largest democracy. It could be real or even just perceived. It had to be done as soon as possible in whatever manner they deemed best.

         Amjad’s team, specifically, was tasked with protecting India’s borders from any nuclear infiltration. Their origination had its own share of drama. In the early 1990s, before India and Pakistan publicly went nuclear, Pakistan had already achieved the nuclear capability for some time but hadn’t declared it. Despite having a hint of this development, India wasn’t aware of the miniaturized nuclear bombs the Pakistanis had created with the help of a few international nuclear proliferators. These miniaturized nukes could be carried in no more than a small military jeep. A few hothead generals in the Pakistani Army devised a plan to infiltrate the Indian borders and detonate a nuke in India’s territory, close enough to a nuclear power plant and far enough from their own shores. The target was Kalpakkam Nuclear Power Plant. As per the Pakistanis, it could very well have been termed as a plant explosion—an ideal result.

         Significant damage would have been inflicted on India with no political liability to Pakistan. The combined impact of a nuclear bomb and an active nuclear detector would have made it very hard for anyone to calibrate and deduce the blast source. It would have been very difficult for anyone to prove sabotage then link it to another state, a state with no declared weapons. Daring as it was, it had loopholes. Moving around fissile material, small as it may be, left a long trail, and being a new nuclear power, Pakistan would take some time to understand it completely. Initially, the top bureaucrats in Indian intelligence took a light note of it, but the threat became real when the Pakistanis successfully infiltrated Indian maritime borders, came all the way across to Tamil Nadu and almost reached the Kalpakkam plant, eighty kilometers south of Chennai. It was only due to the bravery of Pankaj Bahadur, Amjad’s senior and mentor, that the Indians got a whiff of the plan through their own network in the nuclear underworld. Eventually, they tracked down the nuke in the Bay of Bengal. By all security standards, it was still considered to be one of the most critical operations of RAW in the nineties. RAW had executed the operation on its own without any backing from the Indian bureaucracy. The people working on it were not known to even the Indian Prime Minister. RAW had siphoned funds from Mauritius and actively destroyed the trails.

         While the bureaucracy had ordered an inquiry into the lapses, RAW had succeeded in exposing the new dangers of a contemporary nuclear world. Subsequently, the Indian President had passed an executive order which led to the formation of a class-four crack team who specialized in tracking nuclear infiltration attempts by land, air, or sea. The bureaucracy had mandated all three services to proactively support the new wing with personnel support wherever needed in case of operations. Live intelligence from RAW, the intelligence bureau, and border intelligence kept them on their toes forever. Special Secretary Amjad Khan, a prodigy of Pankaj Bahadur’s, an ex-commando who was now a spy, had been leading the team for the last ten years. His team had foiled two nuclear bids in the last decade, and his track record made him irreplaceable. Amjad didn’t mind that.

         First of these had happened sometime after India conducted the Pokhran tests. Intelligence from different sources led them to an unexpectedly daring plot to sabotage the Indian fissile material plant in Rajasthan. There, the plan was to detonate a nuclear bomb near the fissile storage facility and watch Indians’ efforts of three decades mushroom into the sky.

         Second time was when the terrorists commandeered one of the miniaturized nukes and wanted to explode it in Pakistan itself. And they wanted to do it while the Indian Prime Minister was on a state visit to the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad. In a rare example of co-operation, the Indian and Pakistani intelligence agencies worked together to foil the attempt. Terrorists’ nefarious designs to bring war upon the subcontinent had failed. However, many questions remained unanswered. Many suspected the real culprits were never caught. Others suspected the real hand behind the terrorists’ act was someone high-ranking in the Pakistani Government or, more likely, the military. It was inconceivable otherwise for the terrorists to acquire a live miniaturized nuke all by themselves.

         Despite being involved in a proxy war, both countries had learned to live together in the last few decades. However, as with most proxies, they tended to go out of control as soon as they were abandoned, sometimes even sooner than they had served their purpose. Over the years, the two countries had realized this the hard way. Finally, India and Pakistan instituted mechanisms at the very top level to ensure at least no nuclear incidents became unmanageable. Indian intelligence toiled hard to track every snippet of information that gave them a hint of nukes. One such intercepted communication had led them to strongly believe someone had smuggled a nuke from the Peshawar Research Facility. It was set to explode the day the Indian PM planned to extend his hand of friendship in the Pakistani Parliament. However, border intelligence___ caught the intercepts on Pakistan’s eastern border with India while Peshawar was in the West. Was it a setup to test Indian intelligence protocols, or was it a genuine threat?

         If the Indians decided to share the information, some standard operating procedures would also have to be inevitably shared. The Pakistanis couldn’t decode the source without it. After many deliberations, Indians decided to share part information with the Pakistanis, and their fear proved valid. Pakistanis were caught napping, but they recovered quickly and mobilized their nuclear crack force. Indian spies monitored the movements very closely after the central command approved the information as credible.

         What surprised the Pakistanis was the involvement of anti-India insurgent groups active on the eastern border in this operation. They had pivoted to the western border. Their sins of the past had come back to bite them. Various powers of the world—US, China, and Russia—didn’t like it either, which only created further pressure on the Pakistanis to act. Preventing a nuclear infiltration became the highest priority, and it forced a review of a Pakistani intelligence setup. In response, the Pakistani intelligence agencies proposed to institutionalize the information sharing mechanisms whenever they detected a nuclear threat. The Indians obliged, even though many in the establishment were ever so concerned on the level of protocols to be shared. The agencies installed human and system firewalls at the highest levels, even as everyone dreaded a breach in time.

         India maintained the independent parallel intelligence lines, and it had detected a lead. The border intelligence had retrieved an encrypted communication. Though they couldn’t decrypt it, but based on the prior reports, the encryption seemed to be the one Pakistan’s highly mobile nuclear battalions used—Cortex. These encryptions had last been heard in 2006 when the militants had tried to place a nuke in Delhi. The Indians had a fearful realization the militants could even use the Pakistan Army’s encryption techniques now. When Indians had sensed it in 2006, they didn’t share it with the Pakistanis, fearing the army itself was involved. Though the militants failed eventually to even cross the border, the incident reminded Indians again of the lurking threat of nuclear infiltration. Delhi was the target, and hence, this realization finally dawned upon even the old school bureaucrats in the administrative halls. It silenced any talks of dismantling the class-four crack team in the new ostensibly peaceful era.

         Prophetically enough, a third one seemed to be coming their way now, and the class--four nuclear crack team had been summoned once again. Delhi’s cyber intelligence wing decrypted the message. It was not so much the immediate threat but the content of the message that had come as a huge shock to the Indian agencies.

         Transfer Cortex 5h. 150908 Date. 8899267567. 8877665789. Poonch A. This was very similar to the one decrypted during the Delhi seize in 2006 which read as Transfer Decot 2. 150806. 7788986756. Barmer Delhi.

         Indians had received reports of upgraded enemy encryptions, and Cortex was the latest terminology used to refer to nuclear battalions in the Pakistani military establishment. This could mean that like in the Kakpakam attack, the Pakistani military personnel were involved in it again. But no one knew who exactly the brain behind this attack could be. What the forces knew for sure was it was a nuclear threat, and it needed to be neutralized immediately.

         If the decrypted message was to be compared to last time—five reflected the grade—it proved a significant upgrade from the grade-two bomb that had been used then. The grades were measured exponentially in the power of ten. Grade three would be ten times deadlier than grade two. Thus, this would be a thousand-times deadlier attack than the previous one. If the previous one eradicate Chennai, this could bury the entire land of Tamil Nadu for centuries. It sent the top intelligence brass into a tizzy. If this were to detonate, India would certainly initiate a second strike. A nuclear war would be inevitable.

         Decryptors had done their job, but the top brass of the intelligence were still trying to decipher the rest of the message. This was new to them. It was followed by two mobile numbers of probable accomplices. The numbers were now switched off and unreachable. There was no other lead. The Border Intelligence Bureau had paid a high human price for the message already, and it had shifted gears into the mission mode. The obvious next step was to call in Amjad. Now!

         Still in his blue jeans and flight jacket, Amjad sat quietly in a corner in Sunaina’s office.

         Draped in her plain saree, she was visibly dizzy. Her eyes were slightly swollen from lack of sleep.

         It had been a few minutes since he’d arrived, and she hadn’t uttered a word. They had history, and Amjad disliked this silence.

         Finally, rolling her eyes, Sunaina asked Amjad, ‘Do you recognize these?’

         It didn’t take him more than a glance to say, ‘Yes,’ in a very low voice, almost murmuring to himself and trying to hide the anxiety he felt deep inside. Amjad had to be sure of its authenticity before he could make any deductions. ‘Can we verify the source?’

         ‘It doesn’t matter. We have lost the source.’ A deep sense of grief dawned upon her. She placed a photo of Major General Akash’s body on the desk. The unsightly bullet hole in his head was still fresh when the photo had been taken. ‘The source is Major General Akash Sinha died while retrieving this information. He was killed near Pakistan border, shot point blank in the head from behind.’

         Amjad studied the photo. The major general’s eyes were still open. Except the head, the other facial features were undamaged and discernible. That was certainly the last expression on his face. ‘He died in shock.’

         ‘As if he had an unexpected visitor,’ Sunaina added.

         Amjad eyed her then held the photo alongside the other surrounding photos. He wondered if a trained and decorated spy like Major General Akash could be surprised so easily from behind.

         With a wheezing breath, she continued, ‘However, before dying, he had managed to upload this message on our satellite systems, marking it as IA10.’ IA stood for immediate action, an acronym used by intelligence officers to highlight the urgency of actions required. They also rated it on a scale of ten where ten meant the highest priority.

         Amjad knew Major General Akash well. They had started their careers around the same time and kept running into each other on various counter insurgency projects. Over the years, they had become friends. It was also a mutually beneficial relationship. He needed information, and Major General Akash needed his teams at times. Though they hadn’t spoken for past few months, Akash had hinted about murmurs of a plan which could possibly be much larger and costlier than any before. Amjad wondered if it was the same plan Major General Akash had spoken to Amjad about around six months ago. Six months was a long time for him to be still working on the same mission. Was he already onto this when they last spoke, Amjad wondered?

         Amjad was usually calm, but even he had his hand on his head as he tried to digest everything he had just heard. Things had been too quiet for too long, and even Amjad needed some time to change gears. He knew Major General Akash was one of the most revered intelligence officers in South Asia. His key skillset lied in information extraction across boundaries, which often meant acting as a double agent. Major General Akash had worked with the Indian Army for thirty years. Unmarried and single, his job was his life. With almost no social circle, he made sure he had no strings attached. Most successful officers who made it big in this game of hide and seek with the bullets and bits of toxic information had to follow the same path. All his life, Major General Akash had spent most of his time along the Indian borders with Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh. Over time, he had developed a unique ability to infiltrate the enemy territory and stay planted for long durations which enabled him to extract specific and authentic information time and again.

         When he had been a regular army major, he had led the Indian contingent in various UN missions across the world. These missions had enabled the major to identify the sympathizers of peace and develop a network of sources which soon turned into invaluable assets for the Indian intelligence. He started parlaying information where he was the sole judge of risk and reward. The Indians trusted his instincts and occasionally leaked information through him to extract something more important in return from other countries. Agent Akash was known to play big and take big risks. Eventually, the odds caught up with him. Death of Agent Akash was a significant blow to Indian Intelligence Agency’s information extraction wing. But even by his death, he had passed on a deadly piece of information which was as scary as helpful.

         That someone of his stature had fallen pointed towards only one thing; he was onto something very big. Major General had handlers in many nations, as he exchanged information from one party to another. He had donned the hat of a double agent for a long time to walk the thin line between the disparate worlds. To stay alive in this trade, they needed exceptional survival skills. For survival, they needed leverage, and leverage could come in any form, be it mental, physical, or social. Major General Akash was brilliant at this game of leverage, disguising just enough from all his enemies. He was ever to professional also. For starters, only his immediate handler would know his coordinates, and even that, of course, was only when Akash himself required it. The only person who could have known major’s coordinates and executed a point-blank headshot would have been one of his handlers or their accomplices.

         But his handlers could come from anywhere across South Asia. He had curated sources in most terrorist organizations and government agencies. From the deserts of Thar to the mountains of Tora Bora, from the hilltops of Hindu Kush to the swamps of Sundarbans, from the stupas of Tawang to the boatmen of Andaman sea, his network spawned across India, Pakistan, Central Asia, and even China. In fact, he didn’t even spare the UN Secretariat in New York where a US General, his friend from the days of his peacekeeping missions, was now in charge of NATO’s anti-terrorist cell. Given all this, his handler had also taken a considerable risk by eliminating Major General Akash. He had risked a backlash, or at least an investigation, from multiple quarters. Question was, why risk it?

         ‘It’s his incomplete mission,’ Sunaina said.

         Amjad eyed the photo and nodded to pay respect to the dead soul. In the intelligence community, whenever a spy died in the field, it was an honor for others to continue their incomplete mission—a matter of pride for those who were lucky enough to be alive to finish the task. Amjad was the lucky one to get this task now.

         After some pause, Amjad stood from his chair. ‘The last message in 2006 meant they were planning to transport the nuke by infiltrating Indian borders at the Barmer. The plan was to then carry it to Delhi. The two phone numbers were of the regional commanders of the militants in India, responsible for logistics and operations. The numbers had gone dead then too, but we did track down their movements.’

         Sunaina signaled Amjad to pause and dialed in the Intelligence Bureau Chief Prem Golwaokar. ‘I have Amjad with me, Prem. Do we have the tracks of the phone number yet?’

         ‘Yes. The number came alive in Lucknow a month back, but they are switched off since yesterday,’ Prem answered promptly, for he was sitting on the same file too.

         ‘What does the GPS show?’ Amjad asked.

         ‘Amjad, the GPS data doesn’t show anything of relevance. The number came alive in Lucknow and has thrown different national and international locations thereafter every day of the month—Delhi, Paris, New York, Beijing, Tokyo. They have rerouted the signals every time. For all we know, even the signal from Lucknow could just be a diversion.’

         They have learnt from our ways last time, he told himself. ‘Can you check the shops where the sim was bought? Send in plain-clothes men to track the people with whom the shop owner might come in contact.’

         ‘That’s the standard procedure. Already on it,’ Prem said in a terse tone.

         Amjad laughed to himself. It was the interdepartmental turf war at its best. The line was off.

         ‘Don’t do that again. I am trying to help you here.’ Sunaina didn’t like Amjad’s attempt to encroach either. ‘Besides, I don’t think we will find anything at that address. Any evidence there would have been thoroughly destroyed’—she rose in frustration—‘shipped back to Pakistan by now. We are already very late on this, Amjad.’

         ‘Never assume, Sunaina.’

         ‘You know they haven’t covered their tracks. It was in his tone.’

         Sunaina was silent, partly agreeing with him. ‘I mean, we need to look elsewhere perhaps.’

         ‘We don’t know anything else to work with now. If we keep an eye on that area, and what if make one mistake? One mistake is all we need!’

         Sunaina nodded. ‘I will close it at my end.’

         ‘In this case, the most important thing to know is while they are trying to come through Poonch, where do they plan to go?’ Amjad fixated on the full-wall-mounted India map.

         ‘Maybe they don’t know yet.’ Sunaina read Akash’s message again.

         ‘Or maybe whoever sent this message doesn’t know it, but someone has to know. We could track the nuke last time because we knew its destination. We never knew its path. They know it now, so they are breaking it up this time. That A in there has something to do with the destination.’

         Sunaina opened the drawer of her classic wood-finish table under the photo of Gandhi. Nicknamed the cabinet, this table was as old as the photo of Gandhi and had adorned this office since independence. She removed a classified file and opened to the last page. She pointed to one particular line. Counter insurgency intelligence has concluded that multiple new sleeper cells have been planted across the country. It looks like a layering operation. Their primary task is just to relay the information.

         ‘That’s wasting a lot of resources to just relay the information.’ It was an unrelated report, but Sunaina was drawing parallels.

         ‘For something big. What else could be bigger than a rogue nuclear attack? Each of these sleeper cells can handle bits of encryptions, broken down enough to ensure no one has it all.’

         Amjad looked at the file and realized this was not just another threat assessment. It had Prime Ministers’ Code Red authorization, which meant Sunaina had blanket privileges to act on these threats. ‘You are right.’ Amjad nodded. ‘It will be impossible to track all these sleeper cells and neutralize them simultaneously. This sort of layering will be impossible to penetrate.’

         This realization quickly brought Sunaina and Amjad to a tacit understanding. If their conjecturing was to be true, the threat was live, and the terrorists may well have started moving their pieces in India already. Though the exact perpetrator or the motive behind this attack wasn’t yet known, this was a far better planned attack than the previous ones. They needed more specific leads before they could put the larger government machinery into motion. Lest they risked losing time for it was the most valuable commodity now.

         Sunaina had already prepared for such a scenario. She switched on the projector and flashed the screen. ‘I have looked through the database and selected a few people. I want you to take charge of this team.’

         Amjad saw four faces—two veteran commandos, one hacker, and one navigator. He knew all of them, at least enough about each to reject them in his mind. Amjad had to find a polite way to convey it to Sunaina. ‘Sunaina, I’m getting older and need to be around people I’m comfortable with. I don’t have patience to build new relationships from scratch. So, let me pick my team. I hope you understand.’

         After some moments of thoughtful silence, Sunaina said, ‘You are the best judge, Amjad. We may not have enough information now, but I want you to appoint a task team. But the team leader should be in direct contact with me and keep me abreast of all movements.’

         ‘Sure. In fact, let me lead the team, and I’ll be in direct touch with you. It certainly means I’ll have to be dismissed from the Miranda murder case. Of course, that goes without saying.’

         Miranda Costello, daughter of an MP, was killed under mysterious circumstances. She was the girlfriend of known terrorist leader, Khawaja Asif, and had left her home long back. They had found her body in a Delhi hotel room a few weeks ago. Her dad, an MP, was a cabinet minister too. He demanded the best counterterrorism officer to be deputed to this case. So none other than the prime minister’s office had asked Amjad to lead the investigation. However, Amjad wasn’t excited by it at all, nor any case even remotely involving politicians—unless, of course, it involved sneaking around politicians to uncover their hidden links and agendas. He knew he had found a case worthy of his time, and now he was only glad to lead it personally. But he also knew Sunaina had bigger problems, which was to manage the egos of their democratically elected but egomaniacal bosses based out of South Block in the Raisina Hill. He knew it would be tough to convince her, but with the prime minister’s attention on this case, it wouldn't be impossible for her to get it done.

         ‘I know you have been looking for an exit ever since you started on that case, Amjad. But I need you. Lest we have a cabinet minister sitting in our office, pulling strings and haggling us to do anything but our job.’

         While Amjad had his sympathies for Sunaina’s precarious position, he found it rather uncomfortable for her to insist him to stay on it for so long, especially when a possible nuke attack was underway. It looked unreasonable by every measure, but he gave up one more time. After all, the Miranda case had helped him stay in Delhi where his adopted grandchildren were studying.

         ‘Then I think I have a man for you. A man of all seasons. He is young, but I think he is ready for this kind of an assignment. Besides, he is a MARCO Z.’

         Sunaina was comforted by the thought; Amjad was himself a MARCOS Z—the elite spy force of Indian intelligence built from the most elite MARCOS commando force. Known for zero error, they were tasked with spying operations in international territories. Their superior physical skills from their field days complemented the intelligence skills they had received from the best in the country. The psychological warfare was just as important as the physical one, so they were trained by RAW’s clandestine Special Activities Division. In the rich history of over thirty years of their existence, they were yet to record any adverse observation by the Committee of Intelligence Services.

         ‘Who do you have in mind?’ Sunaina asked, even though she was unsure if she could trust a young spy with a mission of such criticality.

         ‘Lieutenant Commander Abhimanyu Rathore, a MARCO with ten years of experience in field. He has never fired a stray bullet in ten years or made a wrong bet in the many intelligence operations he has done.’

         Sunaina had heard about him and interrupted Amjad. ‘His evaluators have been consistently proud of him. He was part of the team that blew off the nuclear bomb across the Chennai coast in 2006.’

         He nodded.

         ‘I feel he is too young.’

         ‘Take my word. He won’t disappoint you.’

         ‘I need more than your word on it.’

         Amjad nodded reassuringly. It meant if Abhimanyu botched up by any chance, it would go down in Amjad’s file also, most likely a demotion as well. ‘I understand.’

         It was still only 5 a.m., and the day was yet to start. With that final agreement, Amjad left through the same hallway and saw the MARCOS motto again. Its spirit would be put to test one more time. MARCOS were Indian Navy’s Marine Commando groups responsible for conducting occasional sea raids. Their success had taken them to the top of the pecking order. Frequent sea combat missions and critical roles in all major wars had gained the Marine Commandos a fierce reputation. MARCOS, worked alongside the counter terrorism unit of NSG, the army’s elite para commando forces and air force’s own Garud commando groups. As far as the combatant roles were concerned, MARCOS was the highest distinction one could achieve, even amongst this elite combatants’ circle.

         After many intelligence failures in the post-cold war era, the Indian government decided to have an equivalent of MARCOS in the intelligence wings. Hence, in 1992, the Indian government commissioned a subgroup named MARCO Z for high-priority espionage missions. The filtration was stringent and only the best could qualify for a MARCOS Z posting. A spy in the MARCO Z unit was a lethal combination of deadly combat expertise and intelligent espionage skills—a walking killing machine invisible even to the best of the trained spies.

         And, in this group of elites, Abhimanyu Rathore was one of the best of the lot.

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