RESONANCE (16 page)

Dam Security

Aban went to
Siddhartha's office the following day. Siddhartha took possession of Aban's credit and debit cards, his club membership card, the identity card of Cornell, and everything that could prove Aban's identity. He placed them in an envelope, sealed it and then locked it inside the vault.

He asked Aban to sign a few documents that gave Aban a new identity. Protecting Aban was of primary importance to Siddhartha. He signed on an identity protection document, which would enable Aban to get out of legal hassles, in case he got exposed. Two witnesses signed on the paper and it was placed alongside the sealed envelope. Later in the day, it was submitted to the office of the Additional Solicitor General.

Aban told Siddhartha everything that had happened in his meeting with Hafiz Saeed and his
Chacha Jaan
.

Siddhartha tried to solve the riddle. "So, Hafiz Saeed knows you are a civil engineer and have submitted a paper on the environmental impact of big dams and he wanted you to make some calculations."

Aban nodded.

"Hafiz Saeed is the last person to be interested in environmental protection. His interest is clearly big dams and something to do with that. Your
Chacha Jaan
said something about a watch, which your father claimed had codes that could move mountains, make waves in lakes and change the course of a river."Siddhartha was immersed in deep thought, "We know that Hafiz Saeed and Imran Shah Malik worked closely. If we combine what Hafiz Saeed asked you to do and what your
Abba
's watch can do, it only points to one thing'some big dam is under threat. If so, then we are headed for a catastrophe!"

Siddhartha booted his laptop and searched for big dams in India. He found a listing of more than two hundred and fifty medium to big dams. The Central Water Power Commission monitored more than eighty-two dams. He turned to Aban, "After 9/11, dams are the most vulnerable targets for terrorist attacks. Classified intelligence information is being exchanged between countries, which point out that terrorists are planning to blow up dams. Unfortunately, most information is not specific. However, in the month of March, we intercepted calls amongst LeT operatives, discussing the possibility of breaching the Bhakra-Nangal Dam. It seems that they are training their Jihadists to swim in fast current, climb hills, handle underwater explosives and other expertise that would help to blow up the dam. We passed on the information to the State Government of Punjab to tighten security around the lake and dam. In fact, after the Mumbai attacks, not only Bhakra-Nangal, but the security of all important installations: nuclear power plants, dams, missile sites, offshore oil platforms have been elevated to a much higher level than normal and adequate measures for their safety are being taken up on priority.

Unfortunately our security at the dam is not up to the mark. We have old equipment, which is incapable of detecting any underwater terror attack. What we needed were automatic sensors, modern sonars, sophisticated underwater cameras and monitoring software to be installed to thwart these threats. Since we were concerned with these inputs, we brought this issue to the notice of highest level of government. The government acted fast and ordered the concerned department to procure and import the equipment as well as deploy more security personnel at the dams. However, we still have a long way to go. "

Aban introspected for some time. He turned to Siddhartha, "I shudder to think that I could be one of the reasons for an unprecedented catastrophe."

Semtex

The Gaza strip
where Israel and Palestine are engaged in constant battle for a small chunk of land is one of the most volatile regions of the world. The southern part of this hot zone borders the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Though the area was previously controlled by Israel, it decided to demilitarize it and handover the important Rafah border to Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.

When the terrorist group, Hamas of Palestine, assumed power in the Gaza strip, they destroyed several parts of the wall bordering the town of Rafah. They took control of a vital route of the Philadelphi corridor and dug many underground tunnels to ship arms from the Egyptian side to their fiefdom.

Poverty forced thousands of Gazans to cross over to the Egyptian side in search of livelihood. A large number of them were porters, who carried weapons and drugs for a living. Some were such pitiable victims of abject poverty that they were willing to do anything to earn a few shekels, the Israeli currency, and risked their lives for a few dimes.

Many of these Gazans, who have lived for centuries on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, are the world's finest sailors, capable of maneuvering even a small dinghy in the most turbulent waters for thousands of miles without being detected.

Shalim Amār Khan approached some of these boatmen to transship two thousand kilogrammes of brown color plastic brick of semtex to a small apartment opposite Helnan Hotel of Port Said in Egypt.

When the poor sailors delivered the product at the pre-determined destination, two artists separated the malleable plastic into three parts. Two parts were moulded into the cast model of Pyramids of Giza, figurines and small statues of Tutankhamen, Nefertiti and Cleopatra. They were placed inside glass showcases and packed properly. The rest of it was left as received.

Two days later, Shalim Amār Khan completed the export related paperwork. He dispatched the first part to a gift shop located in Millennium Mall in Karachi, the second to a handicraft shop located in Sunder Nagar in New Delhi. The third packet was meant for a shop in the small town of Garudeshwar, Gujarat, barely seven miles from the Sardar Sarovar Dam.

The third largest in the world with its spillway discharging capacity, the Sardar Sarovar Dam is also the second largest in the world in terms of volume of concrete used in its construction. The largest is the Grand Coulee Dam in USA.

The first two packets containing semtex were cleared by the customs of Karachi and New Delhi after charging a flat rate duty for the gift items.

The last packet arrived at Mumbai CST International Airport and x-rayed. The Custom Appraiser was bewildered. He did not know how to ascertain customs duty on a brick coloured product, described as 'Plastic material for manufacturing undergarments'. Such an item was not listed in his custom-duty booklets.

Catastrophe?

Siddhartha wondered how
Aban could be the reason for a catastrophe and gave him a quizzical look.

"During my undergraduate program in Cornell, our professor assigned us a special project to analyze the impact of a dam-break and prepare a computer based simulation model of it. We were four students in the group. We visited the Grand Canyon and studied all fifty dams constructed on the Colorado River. The two biggest dams caught our attention. The first was Glenn Canyon in the upstream and the second was Hoover Dam. These two dams are the biggest reservoirs in the United States. Lake Powell behind the Glenn Canyon is the second largest, while Lake Mead on Hoover, holding a colossal amount of water, is Numero Uno.

We prepared a case scenario wherein the upstream Glenn Canyon Dam collapsed. All small dams in the downstream gave way there and then. Huge walls of water reached the Hoover Dam in four hours, downstream of Colorado River. Even this iconic dam was not able to resist the force of the water, rising to the towering height of one hundred and fifty metres when it hammered against the dam walls for ten consecutive days. An unimaginable cataclysm hit the area after the Hoover failed and the wrath of both the lakes combined. It was a hundred times more devastating than Hurricane Katrina, which inundated New Orleans and the Mississippi Area. Katrina was termed the costliest natural disaster, resulting in property damage worth eighty billion dollars and still counting.

As the two dams and other smaller ones collapsed, the major cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles were immediately wiped out from the face of the earth. Many other stunning places like Flagstaff, Williams and Grand Canyon National Park became bogs of mud and broken steel. Several picturesque places in the downstream like Tusayan, Cameron, Navajo, Hopi, Laughlin, Yuma, Needles and Blythe became ghost towns, swimming in the murky waters.

Electricity supply to these places was cutoff since the hydro power station and transmission lines were all gone. Roadways, rail lines and airports from where the emergency service could be provided went underwater. Even hospitals and food warehouses got submerged.

The agony created in the aftermath continued not only for years, but many decades. The Imperial Valley of Southern California remained under floodwater as if forever. Massive boulders and gravel were carried to faraway farmlands and totally covered the fertile land, rendering it barren. The surging water stripped off the arable land, making it unfit for farming for many generations to come. The cost of rebuilding these dams came out to be more than fifty billion dollars and the overall cost of destruction was worked out to several trillion dollars. America could never be the same again.

In fact, we also studied a report of an organization called Living Rivers, which wanted to drain the Lake Powell to save America from this 'to be catastrophe'. However, the US District Court of Utah did not permit the organization to pursue further studies."

Aban fell silent. His account knocked the wind out of Siddhartha's lungs. He asked Aban, "But how can your project have a connection with Tupac-II?"

"When we completed the mathematical modeling and computer simulation of the project, it was considered the best project ever presented by undergraduate students in any engineering school of the United States. Our professor sent it to the United States Geological Survey and the Lower Colorado Valley Authority for their comments and feedback. In the meantime, I went to Lahore for my Christmas vacation. I told
Abba
about our project on Christmas Day. He asked me to show the simulation and when I did, he patted me on my back, and asked me to save the file in his computer hard disk. I did just that."After a pregnant pause, Aban said under his breath, "I think he used our project to simulate Tupac-II."

"How can you say that?"

"Today is Christmas day again and it just came to me. I hope it's only a wild hunch, but if
Abba
has shown the simulation to the LeT or JeM, those ideas would definitely have bred other ideas."

Siddhartha held his head in his hands. "What happened to the comments and feedback of USGC and LCVA?"

"When I went back to my engineering school after vacation, I got to know that the U.S. government had classified our project as top-secret on the recommendation of both authorities."

"Why?"

"The government could not risk that people believe a plausible, scientifically proven doomsday."

Customs Officer

A day after Christmas,
the Custom Appraiser officer of Mumbai CST Airport Cargo section was still in a festive mood. He planned to clear the backlog only in the coming New Year. He ordered his inspectors to clear the current consignments and leave the pending ones for the following week.

With a bored look, he turned to the late evening edition of the newspaper. His eyes widened when he saw an article'
'Al Qaeda attempt to blow up an American plane averted.'

By our Bureau

25
th
December 2009

On Christmas Day 2009, a Nigerian born American citizen, Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded a Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. He had purchased his ticket in cash in Ghana on December 16. Two eyewitnesses testified live on CNN that they had witnessed a smartly dressed Indian male' with Abdulmutallab near the plane.

Aboard the flight, Abdulmutallab spent twenty long minutes in the bathroom as it approached Detroit. When he returned to his seat, he covered himself with a blanket. A few passengers clearly heard popping noises and smelt a foul odour. His co-passenger watched in horror as Abdulmutallab's trousers caught fire. The fire threatened to spread to the walls of the plane. A Dutch film director leaped on Abdulmutallab and subdued him. In the meantime, flight attendants used fire extinguishers to douse the flames. The steward took Abdulmutallab to the front of the airplane cabin. When the steward asked him what he had in his pocket, he replied, "Explosive device."The device consisted of a six-inch packet that was sewn into his underwear containing the explosive plastic powder PETN.

The Customs officer racked his brains, "This seems to be similar to something that I encountered a few days back."The words "underwear"and "plastics"suddenly coalesced in his mind. He called the duty inspector. "Do we have something in our terminal that has to do with plastics and underwear?"he wanted to confirm.

"Yes sir. A consignment is still with me for determining customs duty valuation. The product description is 'Plastic material for manufacturing undergarments'."

Horror stricken, the Customs officer yelled, "For god's sake, bring it here quickly."

Stones and Waves

There was nothing
that Aban or Siddhartha Rana could do except look for some more leads. Tupac-II and the Dam certainly seemed like a very plausible connection, but it was still not enough for Siddhartha to reach a definite conclusion. Even the conversation between Hafiz Saeed and Aban and Imran Shah Malik's claim about his watch was not conclusive proof.

Siddhartha had already sent the image file of Túpac Amaru II to the National Security Agency in the USA for cryptanalysis. The NSA tried its best with its programs: Enigma, Brute Force Key-space Search, but without success. Siddhartha then sent it to a few other centres: the Government Communications Headquarters of Great Britain, the Canada Communications Security Establishment, the Defense Signals Directorate of Australia and Department of Information Technology of India. All of them failed and a few even said that it contained some hexadecimal or binary garbage, which was not worth trying.

Siddhartha got Imran Shah Malik's watch x-rayed from different angles. He did not open it as Aban's uncle had mentioned that forcibly cracking it open would cause the acid vial to destroy the chip inside the watch. He showed the watch and its x-ray films to watchmakers, distributors, retail sellers, collectors, and even persons claiming to be connoisseurs and experts. Some said that they could not say anything without opening the watch. However, they all agreed that the x-ray film did not show any unusual component in the automatic watch.

Frustrated, Siddhartha asked Aban to take a short holiday instead of hanging around the IB office. He also asked Aban to stay close by, so that he could come to the office if required.

On New Year's Day, Juhi and Aban left for Ajmer by the early morning Shatabadi Express. After offering prayers at the Dargāh, Aban expressed his desire to go to Pushkar Lake. Juhi was surprised. Aban recounted the story that his
Ammi
had told him about the magical charm of Lord Brahma, the Creator.

Both came out of the temple and descended the fifty-two steps of the
Kund
to touch the holy water. A
Panda,
the priest, who stood waist-deep in the water, rotating with hands folded, seemingly rapt in prayer, suddenly sprang into a different kind of action. He ambushed Juhi and Aban, quickly threw his own
angocha,
the cotton towel that hung around his neck, on the grounds of the
ghat.
He instructed Juhi and Aban to sit on it and rapidly began to chant mantras, applied
tilak
and tied a thread around Juhi and Aban's wrists all in such rapid succession that neither of the two friends could utter a word. Before they knew it, the
Panda
blessed them predicting a future together, a brood of four children and a long and happy married life. Even before his 'prediction' was complete, he demanded five hundred and one rupees for the ceremony. An open-mouthed Aban handed him the money as though in a trance.

Shaken and comforted at the same time by the strange episode at the
ghat,
Juhi and Aban settled down on a bench beside the lake.

"To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven,"
Juhi muttered as if in trance. "
Love is portion of the soul itself, like the celestial breathing of the atmosphere of paradise."

A couple of kids were throwing pebbles into the water and playing. "Look at the ripples I have created."One of the kids hopped and jumped with joy.

His younger brother lifted a bigger stone and threw it into the lake. "Look, I have destroyed yours."

Juhi smiled while Aban kept thinking, "Can a huge wave or ripple be destroyed?"He continued staring at the ripples till they disappeared.