The Dust Will Never Settle (3 page)

Thakur’s office was tastefully decorated, in contrast to his abrasive personality. Lemon-coloured walls set off the Persian carpet in the centre of the room. On one side was a burnished teak table with a high-back, deep-brown executive chair and four matching leather guest chairs at the opposite end of the table. In the far corner, a trio of single-seater sofas were placed around a smoked-glass centre table with several books. Large paintings hung on the walls. Ravinder could hear the soft hiss of the air-conditioner and the aroma of room freshener reached out to him.

Lavender. One of his favourites.

‘Ah, there you are, Gill.’ In his mid-fifties, Thakur wore the trademark attire of Indian politicians, a white kurta–pyjama. A cream Nehruvian jacket completed the look. He did not bother to get up. ‘Come, come. How are you two? How are the preparations for the Summit and Games coming along?’

‘They are coming along just fine, sir,’ Mohite said without waiting for Ravinder to reply. ‘We have taken over the top two floors of Ashoka hotel and our teams have started installing state-of-the-art equipment to secure the Summit. We have also started putting checkpoints and roadblocks around the hotel.’

‘That’s good.’

‘We have also broken three terror cells and have information about two more sent in from Pak-occupied Kashmir to attack the Games. We hope to catch them before they get anywhere near Delhi,’ Mohite continued.

‘Hope to?’ Thakur raised an eyebrow. ‘No hopes, Govind, just get them.’

‘We will, sir,’ Mohite said.

Thakur drummed his fingers on the table. ‘These damn terrorists never give up, do they?’

‘No, sir, they don’t,’ Ravinder replied. ‘The ISI has given them carte blanche, sir. They will do everything possible to hurt us.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’ Thakur’s smile slipped. The full implications of the threat now dawned on him.

‘But don’t worry about it, sir. We will not allow anything to happen,’ Mohite said, ever eager to keep the boss happy.

‘Excellent.’ Thakur’s smile returned. ‘I know I can rely on you, Govind.’

Ravinder held his peace, not wanting to rain on their parade and point out that it was impossible to stop
every
terror strike. Somewhere, somehow, someone would always manage to break through every cordon, no matter how good it was.

‘Here.’ Thakur pulled out two slim brown files and slid them across the table. ‘A list of the thirteen Summit delegates, with their complete details.’

Damn, thirteen again!
Ravinder frowned.

The minister’s voice intruded. ‘Each delegate is accompanied by two personal security officers. Considering the circumstances, we are permitting the PSOs to carry weapons.’

‘Foreigners running around with guns in our capital?’ Mohite looked up, surprised.

‘Yes, Govind. And… oh, that reminds me, to assist us, the Americans and the British have both sent across an agent each.’

‘Why? What do we need them for?’ Mohite half rose, his agitation palpable. ‘We are more than capable of handling things.’

‘Calm down, Govind.’ Ravinder waved him down, even though having foreign agents mucking around was the last thing he wanted to worry about. ‘We will need all the help we can get.’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Orders from on high, Mohite.’ Thakur glared at him. ‘They will be coming to your office later today, Gill. The Israelis are also sending an agent to brief us about the threats they anticipate. He should be here in a day or so.’

‘Don’t worry, sir,’ Ravinder reassured him. ‘We will ensure things go smoothly. Anyone and anything that helps us get the job done well is more than welcome.’

‘Good attitude, Gill. Now for the most important thing. The PM will be coming on the first day of the Summit – I got the call this morning – and the PMO wants the security plan immediately.’

‘Today?’

‘Why? Any problem with that?’

‘None at all, sir.’ Ravinder kept his chin up, knowing the rest of his day was going down the shitter; the PM’s personal security was paranoid and would question everything till the cows came home.
Oh well! Maybe that will keep Mohite busy and get him up to speed.

‘Good, then send those plans to me as soon as possible and I’ll forward them to the PMO.’

Minutes later they left Thakur’s office.

‘Let us use this time to firm up the details we have to send to the PMO,’ Mohite muttered as he hopped into Gill’s car. ‘I will ask my car to lead. Too much bloody traffic. The siren will clear the way for us.’ Poking his head out, he yelled instructions to his driver.

They headed out with Mohite’s staff car leading, its flashing red siren madly whooping, carving a corridor through the dense traffic. Ravinder detested the siren and would have liked to minimize the time he spent with Mohite, but he recognized that he had made useful suggestions. The sound of turning pages took over as both cops went through the profiles of the Summit delegates.

‘Did you notice this, sir?’ Mohite tapped the file in his hands a few minutes later.

‘What about it?’

‘Look at the list of delegates. The Israelis are sending Ziv Gellner, Yossi Gerstmann and Shahar Goldstein. From the Palestinian side, we have Hisham Gheisari from the Hamas, Mullah Ghassan Ahmed Hussein, the head imam of Al Aqsa mosque, and Ghazi Baraguti from the Fatah.’

‘Interesting,’ Ravinder said as he ran through their profiles.
Thirteen delegates
…
Again that bloody unlucky number.
But he shrugged off the foreboding that snaked through him and nudged his mind back to the profiles.

Ziv Gellner, a former aide of Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli premier, was a staunch Kadima man and one of the chief proponents of a peaceful resolution. Originally a hardliner, he’d lost his wife to cancer and later his first-born son David in an Arab attack on the Yitzhar settlement. Mourning his son, he’d adopted Ean, a boy who had survived the raid but lost both his parents to it.

When Rabin was gunned down, Ziv’s feelings had converted him into a staunch pacifist. Ziv had been right there, a few feet from Rabin, when he was assassinated. He had seen their hopes for peace disappear, blown away by the assassin’s bullet.

‘Damn! Did you read this?’ Ravinder pointed at Gellner’s profile. ‘He also lost his adopted son Ean, in the recent terror attack on Jerusalem…’

‘Really?’ Mohite perused the profile. ‘Hmm… I wonder how he will handle this Summit.’

‘Another coincidence…’ Mohite pointed out a moment later. ‘Like Gellner, Yossi Gerstmann also lost his son and wife during the same Arab raid on Yitzhar.’

Ravinder found Gerstmann’s resume fascinating. A hotshot intelligence professional, he had been earmarked to head the Mossad. But a counter-terrorist operation led by him went wrong and resulted in a bloodbath, putting paid to a promising career. Now a political advisor, Gerstmann was a staunch right-winger who strongly believed that Israel should not part with an inch of land. He was the obvious choice for the hardliners and a foil for the pacifist Gellner.

The third Israeli, Shahar Goldstein, also known as the Prince, was the son of a former Israeli premier and was a respected Likud man. Due to his legacy, Goldstein carried weight in most sections of Israeli society and could be expected to maintain a balance between the opposing viewpoints held by Gellner and Gerstmann. His presence would ensure that whatever solution was recommended would be acceptable to the Israeli public, who still held his late father in high regard.

Of the Palestinian delegates, Hisham Gheisari, a Hamas man based in Gaza, had done a lot of community development work and made life easier for the Palestinians. He was reputed to be incorruptible and there were a dozen schools and hospitals in Gaza that owed their existence to him. Men like him had helped end the corrupt Fatah regime. Though a staunch Hamas man, Gheisari was also a known dove.

Mullah Ghassan Ahmed Hussein, the head mufti of Jerusalem, respected in all circles – Islamic, Jewish and Christian – would also play a pivotal role with the Palestinians, especially in light of the recent Jerusalem terror attacks. In a way, he was Shahar Goldstein’s Palestinian counterpart.

However, the third Palestinian, Ghazi Baraguti, a Fatah man who had been languishing in an Israeli jail until now, was a surprise. For several months there had been talk in Israel about setting him free as a goodwill gesture. But it had ended abruptly when Fatah terrorists made the mistake of capturing some Israeli soldiers and demanding his release. All talks of release had died away.

‘Do you see the point I am making?’ Mohite asked again. ‘From Egypt we have Atef Aboul Gheit, a retired diplomat. Jordon is sending Ghafar Al-Issa, an advisor to their ministry of foreign affairs. Ghada al-Utri, another senior diplomat, is representing Syria, and from Saudi Arabia we have HRH Prince Ghanim Abdul Rahman al-Saud.’

‘And from America we have Senator George Polk,’ Ravinder added, flipping the page.

‘Isn’t he prone to marching to his own drumbeat?’

‘The very man,’ Ravinder replied, double-checking the senator’s profile. ‘No one can be sure what his stance is, though the odds are that he’d be biased against the Israelis.’

‘Surprising. Very surprising.’ Mohite made a clicking sound with his tongue. ‘Right. And from Britain, it’s MP Sir Geoffrey Tang, and lastly we have the Norwegian, Sigurd Gaarder.’

‘Like Polk, Tang too is a wildcard, though he’s more likely to be sitting in the middle. As for Gaarder, he was one of the original Oslo negotiators and could bring invaluable expertise.’

‘Well, yes, but have you noticed something?’ Mohite grinned. ‘Each of the delegates has a name starting with G… first or last.’ He looked up. ‘Even the two of us.’ His smile broadened. ‘We should code name this the G-string Summit!’

Ravinder could not help smiling. ‘Nice, Govind! Now let’s work on keeping that damn G-string intact! We’ve got a lot to protect and not much to do it with. Every damn terror group in the world must be panting to take a shot at us.’

‘True.’ Mohite’s face turned grave. ‘Like you said, bringing peace to the Promised Land will take away a major raison d’être for the jihad.’ He might be an ass-licking busybody, Ravinder thought, but he was no fool.

The two-car mini-convoy slowed as it turned on to the road leading to MSO Building which housed the police headquarters. The traffic was awful and despite the siren, they were now crawling along.

That was when a man caught Ravinder’s attention: medium height, clean-shaven, mid-twenties. Perhaps it was the purposeful manner in which he was approaching Mohite’s car. Or perhaps it was because he was wearing such a bulky overcoat. It wasn’t
that
cold.

An alarm clamoured in Ravinder’s head. Tersely ordering his driver to stop, he pulled out his 9mm Browning and leapt out, even before the car had come to a full stop. Mohite and the driver stared after him, perplexed.

The man was now fifteen feet away. He swivelled and saw Ravinder rushing towards him. He froze for a nanosecond, then threw open his overcoat and reached inside.

Ravinder saw the coat fly open and spotted the bomb strapped around the man’s waist. Instantly his right hand rose up, the gun coming level. Mindful of the crowd, he took aim and fired once. It was enough.

The man came to an abrupt halt, as though he’d run into a brick wall. For a second he was upright, and then fell backwards, his head covered in blood.

Ravinder had gone for the headshot. He could not have let the man detonate the bomb; the casualties on the crowded road would have been horrendously high.

It was over as swiftly as it had begun.

The rest took an hour to sort out. ‘He was Mir Kasab, from the Jaish-e-Mohammed. A known terrorist… we have a thick file on him. Came in from POK last week,’ Mohite reported to Ravinder. ‘We found a map of this area in his pocket and the numbers of three cars: yours, Ashish’s and mine. Apparently he had been tasked to take out senior ATTF cops.’

‘Looks like the terrorists want us out of the picture at this juncture.’

‘I guess so.’ Mohite’s tone was grim; he was still sweating. Ravinder could see that he was shaken up.

‘Don’t think too much about it, Govind. It could well have been my car. Or Ashish’s… he would have gone for whoever had reached first.’ Silence. A shitty feeling. ‘The luck of the draw, my friend. Who knows when one’s time is up.’ Ravinder had to lift the mood, both Mohite’s and his own. ‘Look on the bright side. We got the bugger before he could get us.’

But the words had little effect on either of them. Both knew that the next time the tides might well favour the other side.

‘There is more, sir. He was not alone,’ Mohite almost stammered. ‘He was part of a cell of three men.’

‘Who are the other two? Find any clues on him?’

‘Yes, most probably Javed Khan. We already have a file on him. And another guy, an unknown called Aslam. The three of them came from POK together. Most likely the other two are still out there…’ Mohite stared out the window, ‘somewhere in Delhi.’

‘We have to find them.’

‘I have already issued an APB and also alerted the Int agencies.’

‘We’d better find them… before they find us.’ Ravinder thought for a moment. ‘Have the guards doubled – at the office and all three residences. And caution Ashish.’

Ravinder knew there was nothing more they could do. Not yet. ‘Now let’s focus. We have a Summit to secure, Govind. The PM’s office is waiting for our security plans.’