The Dust Will Never Settle (38 page)

But it was too late. Ravinder’s cries were drowned out by gunfire.

Both of Ruby’s weapons blazed into action, the soft plop of the silenced one submerged by the booming roar of the other.

The gun in her right hand fired and the senator’s head disintegrated, spraying the table with chunks of bone and blood. Some of it sprayed onto the faces of Yossi Gerstmann and Ghafar Al-Issa, the Jordanian, across the table. Both recoiled. Someone else screamed. But the continuing roar of gunfire drowned it out.

The gun in Ruby’s left hand missed its mark. Instead of shooting out Chance’s throat, it caught him high on the collarbone, just above the upper lip of his body armour, and spun him to the left. Ruby’s gun had meanwhile moved onto Mohite. The bullet slammed into his face and made the back of his head a bloody fresco all over the door he had just raced through.

Simultaneously, Chance jerked his gun hand and fired. He got one shot off before he was hit. As his body took the hit and spun to the left, he fired again. Both bullets took Ruby in the middle of her body and once again, the body armour shielded her. But the double blows delivered at such close range threw her backwards. Chance kept firing till his clip ran out.

As Chance spun to his left, Ravinder’s field of fire cleared. His hand came up like a flash and his gun thudded to life. Once. Twice. Thrice.

In the confines of the conference room, the boom of gunshots was endless thunder.

The terrorist was down.

Ravinder watched Ruby being thrown back as bullets pounded into her. She hit the wall behind her. Then slowly her body slid to the ground. For a moment she lay still, and then painfully curled up in a foetal ball.

The Rehana-like harpy who had terrified them had vanished. All Ravinder could see was the little girl who had once loved pink frocks and lick lollies.

The pistol in Ravinder’s hand felt like a block of ice, but heavier… much heavier. He barely knew when he let go and it hit the carpeted floor with a thud.

Then someone moaned and reality struck like a sledgehammer.

Ravinder the cop stepped forward and kicked the guns away from Ruby. And Ravinder the father knelt beside her.

The door blew open and a horde of security personnel rushed inside.

Kneeling beside Ruby, Ravinder was oblivious to the hullabaloo around him. He had zoned out. The cop had done his duty. He had been made to walk the hardest path that his karma could have called for, and he had not flinched.

But the cop was no longer there. Only the father. Ravinder wished he were dead. He wished he had not fired. He wished
he
had been the target of Ruby’s guns, not the delegates, not Chance, not Mohite. Just him. He would have paid the price eagerly.

Ravinder cradled Ruby in his arms. As he did so, her eyes flickered open. She was alive, but barely. Ravinder sensed that time was abysmally short and he wanted to be with his little girl one last time.

Ruby opened her mouth. She seemed to be trying to say something, but only frothy bubbles of blood emerged.

With her eyes she beckoned him closer. His ear was against her mouth. The low whisper, when it emerged finally, was drawn out, barely audible.

‘Jasmine told me… that whenever… she was hurt… you would… hold her… and put her to sleep.’

He nodded, unable to say a word. ‘I am… hurting… daddy.’ The words emerged in broken gasps. ‘Will you… put… me to sleep… please?’

‘Yes, princess.’ Ravinder managed to speak, a bare whisper. ‘Of course I will.’

Ravinder could feel her slipping away. Never had he felt so helpless. He held her close. He could feel her breath mingle with his; cold, like her blood which soaked his shirt. Her lips touched his cheek. For a moment they were one again – father and daughter.

The pressure on his cheek tightened. And then Ruby lay still in his arms, cold and lifeless. As empty and cold as the void inside him.

By the time they managed to get Ravinder to release her, the light had faded from Ruby’s eyes.

His precious princess was gone – again. And this time she would not be back.

The Days After

W
ith five delegates dead, there was no hope that the Peace Summit would proceed. The surviving few, still shocked delegates left for their homelands just hours after the attack.

People, those in the know and those who would take decisions and could influence change, knew that the dust would never settle, at least not anytime in the near future.

Not until sense and compassion took hold.
If
it ever did.

Safely ensconced in Muridke, Pasha was thrilled to hear of the carnage. And the fact that the British had trained Ruby made his victory all the sweeter. How gratifying, after all, to kill an enemy with his own sword. Poetic justice, since Pasha believed that it was the British who had destroyed the Ottoman Caliphate and were primarily responsible for the plight of the The Dust Will Never Settle The Days After Palestinians. It was on their watch that Israel had crushed the Palestinians.

Pasha was jubilant when he shared the news with Saeed Ahmed, the LeT supremo.

‘We must extract maximum mileage from this,’ Ahmed asserted.

‘True,’ Pasha agreed. ‘Operations with such massive propaganda value rarely happen.’

‘Use this opportunity to strengthen our ties with Hamas. There is much we can do for the jihad if we work together.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

‘Why not go down to Damascus and see what
they
have in mind?’

Pasha agreed that it was worth pursuing.

Miles away in Tel Aviv, a Mossad duty operator put down her headset and reached for the phone.

Two days later, when Pasha left Muridke, a select group of men and women from various cities in Europe moved. Several of them had travelled to Dubai a few weeks ago.

The kidon team was in place when Pasha’s flight landed in Damascus. The deadly ring closed around him as he exited the airport and headed for the safehouse his hosts had arranged.

‘This one is for you, Ean Gellner,’ the lean, hard faced kidon who had once painted
Born to Kill
on his army helmet muttered as he cleaned the blade of his knife on Pasha’s headless body.

As Pasha’s body slumped to the floor, a few thousand miles away, in the holy city of Haridwar, a gleaming black BMW 750 Li came to a halt.

Retired Inspector General of Police, Ravinder Singh Gill, emerged draped in white. He had lost weight, acquired a decade of wrinkles and had a gaunt look. It was as though everything he had ever had, had been lost.

Jasmine, in a pristine white salwar-kameez, alighted and followed as they made their way to the edge of the water. She walked near him, watching him closely; she knew he needed her.

Simran did not leave the car. She could not forgive Ruby. But she had travelled this distance with Ravinder, because him she did care for.

There were thousands of people clustered on both sides of the holy river. An endless sound rumbled on both banks. But none of this impacted Ravinder and Jasmine. They felt alone.

They strode into the water, stopping when it was ankle high. It was icy cold but neither felt it.

Ravinder’s hands trembled as he tried to untie the string holding the red cloth covering the small earthen urn. Jasmine came to his aid. In the past week he The Dust Will Never Settle The Days After had retreated into a cold, silent zone, and his silence frightened her. She could feel his pain as their hands met at the urn.

The red cloth finally came free.

Together they tipped over the urn and a swirl of grey ashes tumbled out and fell into the water. Some were carried away by the wind. Soon no trace remained. Neither in the air nor in the water.

But they didn’t look away from the spot where the ashes had first hit the water. They kept looking, unable to let go. Both believed that in this release lay salvation for the soul that the ashes represented.

The chill from the water began to seep into their bodies, merging with the chill in their hearts. After a long time, both bid a silent farewell to the lovely young woman who had come into their lives, so recently… so briefly… so sadly. A woman who had torn them apart, yet brought them together.

Ravinder and his second-born turned as one and slowly made their way back to the waiting vehicle.

Just before he got into the car, Ravinder looked back at the grey waters of the swiftly flowing Ganges. But it was not the river he saw. Nor did he notice the sky above it.

All he saw was a three-year-old girl in a pretty pink frock. She seemed to be waving at him.

That brought a small smile to his lips. That was how he always wanted to remember Ruby.