03:02 (40 page)

‘What about Goa?’

Tarapore also nodded in the affirmative.

‘They’ll be in the air as planned. They couldn’t get ammunition for the cannon in the Sea Hawks, but have loaded them with napalm bombs. Those bastards at the airport will be nicely roasted.’

I looked around me and realized that everyone gathered there, other than the very young and the very old, had some role to play in the coming hours. Nasir and his crew had been hard at work with the airmen, rigging up their bombs. Kundu and his crew had taken a break from gathering supplies and ferried materials that had been used to set up barriers along all approach roads. Our nightmare scenario was that we would attack the airport and they would attack our community, resulting in a situation where we might well make inroads into their headquarters but risk them capturing our home. So, hauling whatever they could lay their hands on, or whatever their imaginations conjured, the crew had set up barriers comprising bricks, refrigerators, tables, and even advertising hoardings. They would not stop a concerted attack by the Humvees, but they would certainly cause any attacking force to slow down and corral them into killing zones where our bombs were placed.

Our defences were going to be in the hands of Ismail, who still could not take any part in the fighting, but was leading the cops who had come in from Goa and most of the airmen. They were to be armed with the police .303s, pistols and the sten guns we had got from Sinha’s bodyguards. They stood to one side in formation and saluted. I saluted back. We all knew that they would never be able to hold back a full-scale assault, since most of our fighting strength and firepower were going to be deployed at the airport, but if the enemy was going to launch a full-scale assault on our homes, then our plan had failed anyway and all was lost. They knew that as well, and the grim determination on their faces showed that, if it came to that, at least they would make it as expensive as possible for the enemy.

Mohit and his friends had been busy as well, and he walked up to me, handing me a couple of bags. ‘I told you I’d have a gift for you. We’ve been working on these all morning. They’re fully charged and powered by solar panels.’

When he told me what they were, I smiled and thanked him. We needed all the surprises we could get on our side.

Nitish had his own crew going, made up of Rani and her agriculture team, except that today their job was not to plant crops but to follow Nitish’s instructions in executing a critical part of the plan. And then there were, of course, all the others who would be responsible for ensuring people got water to drink, that the sick were being taken care of, and that the small children were in one room and calmed. The mortar attacks had terrified the kids, and Shwetabh’s wife, Naina, and some of the other officers’ spouses had organized what they were calling a ‘sleepover’. I looked at the small children, many of them smiling and laughing, excited at the prospect of an all-night party. They had no idea of the danger we faced, and that was good. Perhaps the true sign of being secure is when your children can still retain their innocence.

I kept running different elements of the plan through my mind, wondering if we were missing anything, but then I realized we were as prepared as we were going to get. If there was anything I had learned in the last two weeks, it was that when you went to battle, things always changed. What was important was not just having a good plan to start with, but how you adapted and reacted when those plans didn’t work out.

Shwetabh, Pandey and Gurpreet were huddled with their crews and, as I passed them, Pandey saluted.

‘Sir, I wish we were out there from the beginning.’

‘You will be there, Pandeyji, but you know we can’t risk our vehicles being heard too early. Once you see the signal, I do want you to get there as fast as possible with our armoured corps.’

‘Yes, sir!’

I shook hands with Shwetabh and he smiled as we said our goodbyes.

‘Aadi, when we were out there in the bloody Thar desert we would complain about the civvies sitting at home, going about their lives while we slogged to keep them safe. I don’t think I’ll ever say that again. What you’ve done here is amazing, and it sounds clichéd, but it has been a real honour to have the opportunity to fight as part of the Azad Hind Fauj.’

I saw Anu and Mrs Khatri move among the group, holding plates. We had a limited stock of packaged milk, and while Rani had been planning to venture beyond IIT or even as far as Aarey colony to see if we could get cows that had been abandoned or lost, milk was a rarity for us, largely conserved for the kids. Today, Anu and Mrs Khatri had decided to use some of those precious stocks. They went around passing sweets they had made. It was only appropriate, after all; and the choice of the day when we would launch our assault was also appropriate. Given the circumstances, I doubted we’d need firecrackers to provide light and sound—we had more than enough bullets to do that—but there would be a time and role for firecrackers; and with our plan, we would light up the community far more than any number of lamps would. Yes, it was a good day to rid ourselves of the evil that had been plaguing us, and dispel the blackness that had overcome our world. A day when all Indians celebrated a festival that commemorated the victory of good over evil by lighting lamps and bursting firecrackers. As we said our goodbyes, I kissed Megha and said, ‘Happy Diwali.’

We set out at just before two in the morning. There had been no sign till then of an impending attack, and we just had to hope that there would not be one for the next one hour before our plan got into motion.

There were forty of us, most of them from our community—the ones who were the fittest, and with the most combat experience over the last two weeks—and some of our recent additions including the four NDA cadets and six airmen who had worked in search and rescue and were trained to operate behind enemy lines. Shaikh and Ronald were there as well. Between us, we had all our stocks of bulletproof vests and AK-47s. In short, the vast majority of our fighting strength was being used in this one throw of the dice, and I just hoped it worked.

Someone had said it would be a six or seven kilometre jog, and I was setting a pretty good pace with the others slightly behind me, all except one who was right beside me and I suspected could have gone ahead had he wanted. Manish Iyer was a respected doctor with a clinic in the area and also an avid marathoner. He had been helping Guenther with the clinic but had insisted on coming along for this attack. While he professed to have no fighting skills, he thought it would be a good idea to have a doctor along as it signalled to our fighters that, if they got hit, there was help close at hand and we were not going to abandon them. It made a lot of sense to me and so there he was, jogging by my side.

We ran in silence, though with no traffic and no other human voices around, it felt like our breathing could be heard for miles away. We had debated going on bicycles. It would have been quicker and less tiring, but the whole idea was for us to move with the most stealth possible.

Iyer signalled for me to pause as we reached the Western Express Highway and we crouched by the side of the road.

‘Movement ahead,’ he whispered. Ronald came up beside us and he too crouched down, looking through his night vision glasses.

‘It’s a dog. Doc, unless we’re declaring war on mongrels suspected of terrorist affiliations, we’re good to go.’

Iyer chuckled and we moved on. Just before 3 o’clock, we reached the road turning in towards the domestic airport terminals. Ronald warned us that there was a substantial checkpoint there. We had assumed as much, and when I looked through the night vision glasses, I saw at least five men about five hundred metres away. They all seemed to be armed with assault rifles and, no doubt, they would have night vision glasses as well. I could see a heavy machine gun mounted among the sandbags and there was a Humvee parked behind them.

Our plan called for us to get through them without firing a shot, and while that was possible if all parts of our plan worked, I was beginning to consider what would happen if we had to use Plan B and blast our way through them. We had the firepower and numbers to do so, but we would lose the element of surprise that we had hoped to have in assailing the international terminal.

We would know in the next few minutes what the morning held in store for us.

For me, those minutes were the most stressful I had endured in my life. In all our previous operations, I had been there in the thick of the action. Now, I could not see every part of the plan unfold and would only know after the fact if they had worked. I heard a dull boom and saw a glow light up the sky just ahead of us. That had to be Shwetabh taking out the surface-to-air launcher with his last TOW missile. I looked at my watch and grinned.

It was exactly 03:02. Our attack had started exactly on schedule.

I could see the enemy guards at the checkpoint in animated conversation with each other. Clearly word of the strike would have been passed along to them over their radio sets. The next part of the plan was for the MARCOS to start sniping the guards at the international airport approach road. While we would never hear those shots as their silencers would be on, Shaikh showed me a thumbs-up sign to indicate that his buddies had started their part of the operation. Through the night vision glasses, I could see the guards talking with each other and a few of them seemed to be stepping back away from the checkpoint. Then I saw one of them put the radio up to his ear, as if making sure of what he had heard. This was when the next part of our plan would come into motion.

Nitish, Mohit, and a huge team of volunteers had been working to make this happen. The enemy we were fighting against had plunged our world into darkness, and now, after squeezing every generator they could make work, and using every single solar panel Mohit and his team had, together with hundreds of lamps, torches and candles, Hiranandani Gardens Powai was lit up as if none of this had ever happened, shattering the blackness of the city with a powerful beacon of light. A sight that would serve to unsettle our enemies, and also act as a signal for the two Sea Hawks which were now circling in the skies above.

We all heard the jet engines overhead and the guards at the checkpoint now seemed on the verge of panic. Two of them got into the Humvee and headed back towards the international terminal. Our enemies had taken our bait, convinced that the primary threat to them was an air strike and a ground attack from the international airport side.

We heard heavy machine gunfire in the distance as the enemy Humvees opened up on the jets overhead. The ground shook as the first bomb landed and I saw flames light up the sky ahead. Silhouetted against the flames was the shape of a fighter jet which climbed up into the sky, trailed by red tracers from the heavy machine guns. The remaining three guards at the checkpoint were now looking back towards the international terminal, away from us.

It was our turn to get into the action.

Mahadev and I proceeded on all fours till we were a hundred metres away from the checkpoint. Just in front of us was one of the contraptions that Mohit had handed me—a small remote-controlled vehicle controlled by one of the kids behind us. It made a slight whirring noise as it moved, but with the excited chatter on the guards’ radios, they probably didn’t hear it until it was too late. One of them finally looked over the barricade to see what the noise was, and the kid activated the camera flash on top of the vehicle, blinding all the guards. As they brought their hands up to their eyes, one of their heads exploded as Shaikh took him out with a shot from his silenced rifle. The other two were still fumbling with the straps of their rifles when Mahadev and I climbed over the barricade and onto them. My man shouted a challenge but was silenced as I grabbed the back of his neck with my left hand and plunged the knife into his throat with my right. I saw that Mahadev had also got his man. I whistled and the rest of our force moved in, even as we heard the explosion of another bomb landing on the international airport side. We were now in the airport area and nobody had yet detected us.

We ran full tilt towards the international terminal, knowing that we had to make the most of the element of surprise we had. Shwetabh, Pandey and Gurpreet were driving at that very moment to our aid, but it would take them at least fifteen minutes to get to the international airport road. By then, we needed to be inside the terminal.

I saw movement up ahead and, as we ran closer, I saw two masked men sitting under a small guard shack, a small kerosene lamp by their side. One of them said something in an unfamiliar language, perhaps mistaking us for his comrades from the checkpoint. He shouted again, this time with more concern in his voice, before I shot him from just a few metres away. His friend died to another volley fired by Ronald. We raced on and saw a smaller checkpoint up ahead, manned by just two men, the others presumably having moved deeper into the international terminal to help with the battle there. The jets could still be heard overhead and I sent up a silent thanks to the pilots for their courage. They had come in with only two bombs each, and we had asked them to prolong the strike as long as they could so that the enemy forces would concentrate their Humvees and heavier weapons at the tarmac. So far, they had dropped only two bombs and, in effect, they were circling overhead, taking bullets for us, so we would have a chance of getting into the terminal.

The two guards in front of us turned as they heard us approaching but were cut down by fire from at least three weapons. We vaulted over the checkpoint and kept running. Now the international terminal was in sight and, to my right, I could see the skyline lit up at Powai. In the sea of blackness around us, the lights there were almost blinding, and could probably be seen from all over the city.

The terminal ahead was lit and I saw a man silhouetted against the door. I knelt and fired and saw him go down. We ran over his body and were now inside the terminal. We had no idea where the Caliph would be, but one of the airmen had a theory that their command centre would likely be where the Air Traffic Control used to be, a vantage point where they would have a bird’s eye view of the terminal and where they might have patched up their radios and communication equipment. Ronald knew where it was, having been part of a joint counter-terror exercise a few years ago, and headed for it along with a dozen fighters.