03:02 (30 page)

‘Of course, what is it?’

‘Can Shaikh and I stay here for a while, use your society as our base of operations?’

I glanced around to see what the others thought, but everyone just looked at me, waiting for me to decide.

‘Of course, now we’re also a part of this fight. What do you want us to do?’

‘We have a lot to plan, but for tonight, you need to get some rest.’

I started to protest, but he stopped me. ‘You’ve taken a few nasty knocks and everyone here needs you fighting fit as soon as possible. We’re all here to take care of security for one night. Now, get some rest.’

As everyone left and I retired to my bed, I wondered just how much sleep I’d get. Megha rested her head on my chest and lay there and I could tell she wasn’t sleeping either. When the Blackout had started, I thought Mumbai had somehow gone dark; but now I realized that the blackness had engulfed the whole world.

When I woke up, it felt like every single inch of my body hurt. I managed to swing my legs out of bed and stand and took a few tentative steps. Walking seemed to make things a bit better so I headed to the balcony, wondering what was happening. I looked at my watch to see that it was ten in the morning. I hadn’t slept so much since the Blackout, and part of me was beginning to get anxious about what had happened while I was sleeping.

When I went to the balcony, I saw to my relief that there was no invading force in our midst, indeed things were only too normal and nobody seemed to be faring any the worse for my absence. I saw a note from Megha on the dining table:
Take these pills and sleep. If you step outside, Mahadev has orders to shoot you
☺.
Love you
.

I smiled, took the pills and, nursing a headache worse than the worst hangover I’d ever suffered, I decided to obey Megha’s instructions and went back to bed. When I next woke up it was one in the afternoon. I felt much better, and realized that, more than medicines, what I had really needed were some hours of uninterrupted sleep and rest. As I went to the dining room, I realized Megha had been at work again, and there was a plate with food on it for me. With the first bite I realized just how hungry I was and I literally licked the plate clean. Feeling much better, I decided to risk being shot by Mahadev and stepped out. When I came down, I did see Mahadev there, and he greeted me with a smile.

‘Megha madam told me you’d come out sooner rather than later.’

‘I hope she’s not actually told you to shoot me on sight,’ I smiled.

He had not been kidding about upgrading his ride to the new jeep and it was waiting outside the society gates.

‘Where to, sir?’

‘You tell me. What have I missed?’

‘Not too much. Shaikh has been working with Nasir and his friends on more bombs and defences, and I think he wants to meet you about the prisoner. Plus, we have about a hundred more people who want to join us. They arrived an hour ago and the committee’s still debating what to do with them right now next door.’

I walked over and found the team in the middle of a discussion. Mrs Khatri was holding forth when I entered.

‘We cannot feed a hundred more people!’

‘But Malini, they want to help us. All they’re asking for is security.’

‘Kundu, they have no weapons or guns, how can they help us? You’re in charge of our supplies so you know that we cannot feed a hundred more people without seriously compromising our long-term stocks.’

Kundu looked like he had no response to that.

I spoke up then. ‘Who are we talking about, folks?’

Everybody got up to greet me and asked me how I was doing.

‘Still largely in one piece, but who are these hundred people?’

Bhagat answered. ‘A group of people from some buildings on LBS Marg. They got the same demands we did, and they say some societies are actually complying and trying to buy peace by giving food stocks as taxes. They were debating what to do when they say they heard the fighting and word’s somehow got around that we defeated an enemy force. They also saw our flag. They say in return for security they will help us fight the enemy. Of course, other than hockey sticks and kitchen knives they have no real weapons.’

I thought about it and said half to myself, ‘At least they want to fight. That’s something.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I said, at least they want to fight. It’s a shame that others are trying to buy peace, because they’re just delaying the inevitable, but I can understand why they’re doing it. Hasn’t that been the story of our country for too long? Haven’t too many of us tried to accommodate and buy peace with invaders instead of uniting to fight them? If people are willing to fight, I say we see how we can help them.’

‘Aadi, I don’t disagree with your sentiments, but how can they help us fight the enemy? They have no weapons to offer.’

I turned to Anu, who had asked the question. ‘I think they may well have a lot to offer. So many of our people are tied up in organizing food and water supplies, and now we’ll have a sizeable group we can train to use guns. But the big reason we survived yesterday were our bombs. Imagine if we had a whole group of people devoted to making bombs. What if, instead of three bombs, we had thirty or fifty? Imagine the firepower that would give us. We could rig up all entrance routes and make an attack on us all but impossible.’

‘But what about food and space?’

‘Let them live in the Meluha. It’s empty now, and as for food, why hoard a year’s stock when our survival hinges on the next few days? You heard Ronald, this war will turn one way or the other in the next three or four days. Let’s focus on being as strong as possible for now.’

Nitish spoke up in my support. ‘He’s got a point. The enemy is reinforcing. We saw four flights come in this morning, so they’ve taken their losses seriously and will attack sooner or later. Having a lot of food six months down the line will mean nothing if we don’t live to eat it.’

The mention of four flights coming in just one morning got my attention. While we were here debating food and supplies, god alone knew what weapons and numbers they were building against us.

‘Get those people in and put them to work. Now, where is this prisoner? I want to know what he has to tell us.’

I passed Ronald on my way to our ‘jail’, which in better times used to be the neighbourhood Vodafone store. He had his guard up after seeing the flights and was on his way to go through our defences at all the checkpoints.

‘Aadi, good to see that you’re up and about. We passed on news of the battle and our Captain sends his regards. I thought they’d be pissed off at us for deviating from the mission, but word that we now have a little army of our own cheered him up, as did the news that civvies are fighting back.’

Then he looked a bit contrite at his last remark and started to apologize. ‘I didn’t mean anything…’

‘No, it’s okay. I’m from a military family and unfortunately people here have always looked to the Army or the police to solve their problems. About time we all did our bit. Where’s this prisoner?’

He pointed inside and I knocked on the door, which was opened by a short but solidly built man in black who smiled and offered his hand.

‘I’m Shaikh, Ron’s partner in crime. Man, you were something out there in that battle.’

‘Thank you for helping out. I gather you took out the man who was about to kill me.’

He gestured to a long sniper rifle in a corner of the room. ‘For that you can thank my girlfriend, the sexy Miss Dragunov.’

Ronald’s voice cut in. ‘I tell you this man is a pervert. He sleeps with his rifle.’

As Ronald left, Shaikh took me deeper inside the store and I saw a figure huddled in a corner. When Shaikh lit a lantern to provide more light, I was shocked by who I saw sitting there. The man was white and had blond hair. Shaikh walked up to him and slapped him across the face.

‘All the fucker will say is that we will die and his friends will behead us and enslave our women.’

I saw that the man’s face was puffed and swollen, his hands were tied behind his back and his leg was bandaged where he had been shot. However, his eyes still burned with defiance. When he saw me, he spat at me.

‘You’re the kafir who killed our brothers. They will hunt you down.’

He spoke with a British accent, and while I had read about foreigners joining the terrorist forces in Iraq and Syria, seeing one of them in our neighbourhood was jarring. What made men so fanatical that they would destroy their own homeland?

I knelt in front of him.

‘What are your friends planning? What are they flying in?’

He spat at me and, as I wiped the spittle off my face, I looked at the fanatical hatred in his eyes and wondered how you could break such a man. I was many things but I was not a torturer, and clearly Shaikh had also not made much headway.

I walked outside and talked to Shaikh.

‘What do you reckon? Will we able to get him to talk? He still hasn’t broken.’

Shaikh looked at me, a grim expression on his face. ‘Everyone talks, Aadi. So far, we’ve only done some gentle persuasion. We’ll see what he does when he is actually presented with a choice between living and dying—but I wanted your permission before I went that far.’

I was taken aback.

‘My permission?’

‘You’re in charge here and I wanted to be sure you’re comfortable with what we do.’

‘Shaikh, do what you must to keep us safe—and, for that, I know we need to understand what the enemy is up to.’

As I walked away, I thought it over. I might have condemned the man to death, but it was something I found myself comfortable with. I knew what they were capable of, and if this was what it took to keep our people safe, I would do it.

I was planning to visit Megha at the clinic when Pandey came up to me, riding in an auto-rickshaw being driven by one of Mahadev’s friends. ‘Aadi, we have a problem. Come on!’

I jumped into the auto-rickshaw and we headed towards the Norita grounds, which had at one time served as a cricket field and also doubled up to host fairs and functions. On the way, Pandey filled me in.

‘Nasir decided to move his bomb-making activities there. He said he would make bombs in the open and then move the finished bombs into the Delphi building. Made sense—if there was an accident, damage would be minimized.’

‘So what’s the problem?’

I could see anger in Pandey’s eyes. ‘A couple of the newcomers made some comments about Nasir being a Muslim terrorist and a fight broke out. I have Subin and Prashant there with guns to keep the peace, but we need to take a call.’

When we reached, I jogged to the field and saw Nasir sitting in a corner, his lip swollen. Three young men were sitting in a corner, with Subin and Prashant watching over them, pistols in their hands.

‘Nasir, what happened?’

He looked up at me and I saw a mixture of anger and shame pass over his face.

‘I was teaching folks how to put the bombs together and one of those guys made a comment about me knowing how to make bombs because I was a Muslim terrorist. I objected and they hit me.’

I didn’t need to hear anything more. I strode over to the three men. Two of them were looking down but one looked defiantly back at me. ‘Those terrorists out there are also Muslim, or haven’t you checked?’

Subin started to say something but I motioned for him to wait.

‘Get out,’ I said. ‘Leave this society and don’t try coming back, otherwise I’ll shoot you myself.’

The boy still had defiance writ large on his face. ‘What did I do that was so wrong? Who the hell are you? You can’t just—’

He never got a chance to complete his sentence. Ignoring the pain in my left side, I hit him, a single punch across the face that laid him down on the ground. As he struggled to get up, I knelt beside him and grabbed his neck in a chokehold.

‘If I apply a little bit more pressure here, you will stop breathing. In a few seconds you will die. So please think through carefully what you say or do next. We offered you shelter so we could join forces in fighting our enemy. Is this how you repay it?’

I got up and addressed the dozens of people gathered there, most of them the newcomers who had arrived that morning.

‘We are alive today because of the bombs made by Nasir and because of the people who gave up their lives for us yesterday. Mira was a Muslim, Yash was a Hindu and the General was a Sikh. I would have thought that after all we’ve been through, we’d have the sense to stop creating divisions between ourselves and start focusing on the common enemy we all have. If you don’t get it, you are free to leave, as these three young men will do.’

‘How will we survive out there?’ the boy on the ground was now pleading.

‘Subin, get him out of my sight and pass the word along. If any of them show up again at our checkpoints, they are to be treated like the enemy.’

I went up to Nasir as he started on his work again.

‘Nasir, what are you working on?’

His smile was back. ‘Bombs with longer detonator cords so that they can be exploded from further away, and also some hand-held bombs. The Molotovs didn’t work out so well. They seemed like a good idea but, in a battle, it was hard to handle them. I’m taking tennis balls, hollowing them out, filling them with explosives, and putting a fuse on them. We should be able to throw them much further, and we don’t have to worry about the fuel sloshing inside or glass breaking.’

‘Good man! I also noticed that we need to get some dedicated bomb throwers. Anagha was brilliant; she has quite an arm, and now she’s seen battle. Hey, Anagha, come here.’

She had been beaming at my compliment and jogged over. ‘Select a dozen of the younger folk with the very best throwing arms and train with them. We need people to not just throw far, but also with accuracy. You are now the leader of our grenadiers. Get to work!’

She smiled and ran off to get people organized, and I turned to Pandey. ‘Zero tolerance for shit like this. If anyone starts any crap to do with religion, arrest them immediately and let me know. Some people will never learn. Half our problems as a country have been because we haven’t united behind one cause but divided ourselves based on religion, caste and region. This is our chance to start over.’