Immortals (3 page)

‘What should I do with you,
chotu
?’
Bhai
asked. His voice had a tone of condescending exasperation.

Jai looked up but kept silent.

Jai wanted the ‘killing’ to get over soon. No, he was not in any tearing hurry to get anywhere; just that quick dead would be easy dead.

Jai had indeed planned the entire ‘operation’ well. He had already been paid half his remuneration, which was tucked away somewhere safe. The plan was for
Bhai’s
murder to get over smoothly and for him to vanish with Juliet. He had two unreserved tickets to Dehradun for that night’s train. They could then just disappear into the hills, far away from Mumbai.

Jai realised now that he was not going to make that train ride.

His only mistake had been to surrender his safety in Salim
Bhai’s
hands. He had put his trust in Salim
Bhai
and things had soured fast. Rashique
Bhai
had escaped the killing, marshalled his forces, extracted a swift retribution, and had his hands on him, all in just about a day’s work. Juliet was missing and he had no news of her.

Little did Jai know that Juliet was being held captive in the garage of the farmhouse, just a hundred metres from where he was, where she was being punished for her role in the attempted killing of
Bhai
.
Bhai
had ordered that she be treated like the whore that she was, and she had had a steady stream of
Bhai’s
men visiting her since that evening. She lay tied to the bed-post of a cot in the watchman’s room by the garage, barely conscious and bleeding from her ravaged privates.

Rashique
Bhai
got down to the business of Jai’s betrayal. He had his finest cutlery laid out on the table in front of him.

He was going to make this extra special for Jai.

Not only had Jai betrayed him to his enemies, he had been two-timing with Juliet. This had come as a real shock to him, and it was a huge embarrassment for him in front of his minions.

An SMS message had been found in the sent folder of Juliet’s cell phone telling Jai that the ‘work’ was done, and that she would be at the railway station at the designated time.

Rashique
Bhai
motioned to two of his men who approached Jai, turned him prone on an upturned cart, and divested him of his clothes…

***

Two hours later Jai was left with belt welts all over his body, a broken tailbone, three amputated toes, a displaced hip joint, and a broken nasal cartilage. He was barely conscious, and only a guttural howl emanated from his throat each time his bodily integrity was violated.

Before the torture had started,
Bhai
had whispered in Jai’s ears

‘I know all about you and Juliet and believe me – right now you are having a better time than she is.’ Jai had recoiled with anger and despair and
Bhai
had enjoyed the impotent rage of Jai.

The end came soon afterwards in the form of a Swiss army knife that Rashique pushed through Jai, between the fourth and fifth ribs in the left of his chest. The blade rapidly exsanguinated Jai and he was dead in a heartbeat.

Chapter Two

Purgatory

Domus-Nova

Mouse-tail Galaxy

Domus-Nova Year 2548, Earth Year 7859 AD

Jai’s eyes opened to a white light.

His pulse was racing and the blind panic that he felt contrasted with the starkness of the white light, which was soft and soothing, and bounced gently from the corners of the room he was in.

His eyes quickly scanned the room. The room was sparse, large, and appeared featureless, partly due to the pervasive light that filled the room and bounced off its walls all around. There was a bedstead, a table by the side of the bed, and a large clock face on the wall opposite his bed. There was a white curtain on the wall to his left, behind which could possibly be a large window. The rest of his body was covered in white sheets that hung loose across on both sides of the bed.

There was a strange humming sound from above his head, quite like the buzz of a small fan, only quieter and more measured and refined. He tried but could not turn his head up to see where it came from.

He tried again to look up to locate the source of the noise but he could not, try as he might, turn his head up. He tried lifting his hand but could not. There were no restrains. He was just not able to move any part of his body.

The paralysed state of his body immediately seized him with a claustrophobic urgency that added to the panic he had already been experiencing. The white light that had moments ago soothed him now gave rise to a sense of terror and foreboding.

He wanted to shout, maybe for the nurse.

But was this the hospital? He did not remember reaching the hospital.

It could not possibly be the hospital.

He was dead. He remembered his body drooping down as a knife plunged into his chest.

Where was he?

He had been tortured and most certainly killed by
Bhai
and he had seen bits and pieces of himself being cut away during the torture. He remembered having died, the knife piercing his heart, stopping his heartbeat in an instant and him blacking out after that. He could not be alive after that.

Where was he, then?

The dread that he felt in that room, slowly gave way to a full-blown panic attack. The panic made breathing difficult and he started to gasp and choke. His pupils dilated and he could hear his heart thumping away in his chest. He wanted to shout but he could not even move his lips…

Chapter 3

Was It Another Nightmare?

Ghatkopar

Mumbai, India

7 May, 2012

Jai woke up, panting and sweating in his room. It was very early in the morning.

A stupid fucking nightmare! Not the usual African Jihadi stuff, but it was still a bloody nightmare.

Shit.

Jai had a thing with dreams. He had always had nightmares of being a Jihadi, fighting a bloody war against the infidel Americans in some faraway God-forsaken land. Jai never understood why he had those dreams but he had been having them ever since his childhood.

And now this new stupid shit.

He drew the sheets away and looked at his toes and fingers. He could move them alright. Only that they trembled uncontrollably, the terror of the nightmare clutching at his feet still. He had a terrible headache and his belly cramped intermittently. His hands instinctively went to his chest to pluck out the knife, which, of course, was not there. His whole body continued to shake, recovering slowly from his terrifying nightmare.

He had never been terrified of dying, but this dream was definitely different. This was a real bad one, the worst of them all – the mother-fucker of all bad dreams.

Shit! What a nasty dream.

‘Fuck,’ Jai cursed mutely.

But how did he reach here? 

And why was there not a scratch on his body?

He was sitting on his bed, in his room, in the Ghatkopar
chawl
, miles away from the farmhouse on Pune road. He reached for his mobile and saw the date.

Shit! It was Sunday morning.

But he had been caught, dragged over to the farm, tortured and killed on Sunday. So how could it still be that same fucking Sunday?

Oh shit! Could the whole fucking thing have been a dream? Was that even possible?

It had seemed all too real to have been just a dream.

‘Shit!’ Jai cursed for the second time that morning.

Capture, torture, death and hell, some shitty white paralysing hell; all in a single fucking dream – phew! But it had all seemed so goddamn real.

But that changed everything.

It was still early morning. Too much should have happened in the night. He realised he did not have much time.

If all had gone to plan, Rashique
Bhai
would be dead by now. Maybe the dream was a warning to him not to stick on in the gang and maybe he should make a run for it before anyone found out anything.

But no one would, not too soon, anyway.

There would be lot of trouble once news of Rashique’s death spread. He was sure there would not be anyone seeking revenge anytime soon. There would be a mad scramble for succession within the gang. Munna Bashir, a veteran in the gang, would stake his claim as the new boss. Rashique
Bhai’s
son Abdul, was only twenty-two – too young to be the leader of the gang. Abdul had lots of other issues too.

Abdul was an impulsive bastard who already had three killings on his count and had a couple of court cases going on against him. The bastard spent most of his time spending his father’s money either on high-society whores or at the gambling den.

He lacked the discipline of Rashique
Bhai
.

Rashique
Bhai
had hoped that some sense would be knocked into his son’s head once he became a little older; but an age of twenty-two was old enough and Rashique
Bhai
was a truly worried man.

If Abdul went after the top job, shit would explode. The gang would split into two, with the saner ones siding with Munna and the ambitious ones with Abdul. A split invariably would lead to a bloodbath, which would invariably end with a compromise across the table, mediated either by another don or by the Mumbai police.

A bloodbath is bad news for both the police and the underground. The police would get a very bad rap and the hullaballoo and mayhem always got them unwanted political attention and wrath. This political wrath in turn led to a witch-hunt by the police, which would hurt the other gangs not involved directly in the bloodbath. That would be bad for the other gangs. So, both had a selfish interest in seeing a quieter succession to Rashique
Bhai’s
throne. And that issue had to be settled before they came after the perpetrators.

However, there was another side to the story. 

In the mayhem, rival gangs would see an opportunity and would move in for the kill. If the Rashique gang did not get its house in order soon, they would be finished off in a systematic cleansing act. This act would be orchestrated by the gangs holding the neighbouring territories, or those with similar or competing interests in the underworld trade. The cleansing would of course be done by the Mumbai police in the name of a renewed effort to cleanse Mumbai of the underworld. Nobody likes turmoil and uncertainty, least of all the police. They would be better off without this nuisance, of a faction-ridden gang led by a weak leader; the shitty nuisance of a beheaded chicken running amok.

The police would draw a fat bonus from the likes of Rashique’s rival, Rajan
Bhai
, and would happily hunt the kin, brethren and brood of Rashique
Bhai
. The same police that had, until yesterday, been obeisant on a monthly basis at the doorstep of
Bhai
. The same police, that drew more from
Bhai
every month than what they drew from the government.

In an all-out mayhem scenario, it would be a time for huge paycheques for the police who would take over the job of underworld shooters, being heavily bankrolled by a couple or more of the ambitious gang-lords.

It would herald a new order in the scheme of things and the hierarchy would re-establish itself yet again. Nevertheless, this re-working of the order would entail only one thing for Rashique’s gang – they would be hunted down in the
gullies
of Mumbai like rabid mangy dogs.

Jai knew there were still a few days for the shit to hit the fan.

Jai, though, had only a few hours to get the hell out of there.

If Abdul was saner than he gave him credit for, then things would pan out a bit differently. Munna Bashir was a widower and did not have any children of his own. A little respect and acknowledgement from Abdul for Bashir as the new gang leader would smoothen the transition.

Maybe Hazari
Baba
would be able to talk sense into Abdul.

Once the succession had been settled, the hunt would then begin for the killers of Rashique
Bhai
. The gang would go after Rajan’s gang, it being the most likely of suspects. It was necessary to avenge
Bhai
for the sake of revenge and also to establish the fact that
Bhai
may be dead but that his gang was not. That scenario again led to a bloodbath on the streets of Mumbai.

The similar culmination of all the various trains of thoughts made Jai shudder in alarm.

‘The future is fucked,’ he thought to himself.

He realised that whichever way this broth boiled, it would ultimately curdle to shit.

He had to make sure that by the time this crap boiled over, he should be far, far away.

‘Rashique,
Maader…
,’ thought Jai and then stopped midway in his thoughts. Maybe he should not cuss at a dead man.

Jai was in his room at Ghatkopar. He and Billoo Thakre shared the room and paid the rent, split both ways. Jai looked around. Billoo was nowhere to be seen. Billoo, bastard! He must not have come back last night. He must have sodded off at some whore’s.

He gasped and lay down on the bed again, clutching at his hair. There was a crack that ran across the ceiling and Jai had often wondered if the roof would come crashing down on him one night in his sleep. The rest of the room was basic. There was a fourteen-inch Samsung TV in a corner, perched over a humongous metal trunk. A tiny kerosene stove stood perched on a couple of bricks in a corner and the picture of a semi-nude Bollywood starlet hung on one wall, and one of Sachin Tendulkar on his side of the wall. A calendar with a picture of Lord Shiva completed the décor..

‘There could be some news of
Bhai’s
death on TV,’ thought Jai.

He was about to get up to switch on the TV when Billoo burst into the room in jeans and a half-open shirt.

‘
Saale chutiye
! Get off your ass right now. Some
haraami
took a shot at
Bhai
last night. I just got off the phone with Ali. We need to be at Murtaza’s now.’

Jai suddenly sat bolt upright on the bed. He knew all that already. Still he had to feign outrage and shock. Billoo was turning the bed upside down and thrashing at the pillows.

Billoo was frantically searching for something. Jai knew what that was. He knew that Billoo was looking for his gun. In fact, he had seen him rummage for his gun before. In his nightmare…

‘Looking for your gun?’ Jai murmured, reliving his nightmare once again.

‘
Saale
! Where’s my friggin’ gun?’ Billoo shouted at Jai. Billoo never cared to hide it safely in the room. Jai had told him that, many times.

Jai knew the gun would be found under the bedside table and that the vase on the table would come crashing down during Billoo’s search for the gun.

Billoo turned to the table, pulled the drawers, rifled through them and shut them. He yanked at the table and the vase came crashing down on the floor.

Jai jerked in his thoughts. The vase had indeed come crashing down. He had just thought about it a moment ago. He had thought about it because he had seen it in his dream last night.

What the fuck was going on?
Jai tried to wrap his head around what was happening.

‘
Saale haraami
! Get up. Didn’t you hear what I just told you now?’ Billoo hollered at Jai. Jai looked at him dumbstruck. Billoo pulled aside the bedside table and found his gun under it. That brought a smile to his face and he tucked the gun in his waistband.

‘
Bhai’s
dead?’ Jai tried to look aghast and sad at the same time. He did not know if he was producing the right expressions but he was trying hard to pretend.

The cost of being caught would be a shitload; a shitload that he was sure he did not want to try on just then.

He got off the bed and hurried to the bathroom, took a leak, came out and put on jeans and a tee, slipped a lock on the room’s doors and got into the jeep after Billoo.

‘Is
Bhai
dead?’ Jai repeated to Billoo.

‘Why the fuck should he be dead,
saale haraami
?’ Billoo retorted as he spun the jeep around in reverse.

Jai almost fell out of the jeep as the words hit him.

‘Hold tight,
saale
! Nothing happened to
Bhai
. I don’t know who the shooters were, but it seems
Bhai
was at Juliet’s apartment when the two shooters sneaked into the apartment and pummelled the bed with automatic bullets.’

Jai was still aghast. He opened his mouth to ask something but Billoo continued

‘Only mistake the bastards made was that they never checked if
Bhai
was in the bed.’

‘Where was
Bhai
then?’ Jai mumbled

‘Hah!
Bhai
was shaking his dick in the bathroom when he heard the gunshots in the bedroom. He sneaked out of the window in his underwear, climbed down the pipe, hid in the park nearby and called for Junaid to come get him.’

Jai was aghast. This was what had happened in his dream last night. And it was happening all over again, right down to the last shoddy detail.

‘I never knew that
Bhai
was agile enough to climb down the drain pipe at this age. No wonder he is still the
BHAI
.’ Billoo chuckled yet again.

Jai’s face was sickly pale now.

‘What happened to Juliet?’ Jai incoherently shot another question towards Billoo.

‘Now that’s where it bloody gets interesting. The whore has been missing since then. Not only did the shooters not break into the apartment; by the looks of it, they were led into the house and into the bedroom… by JULIET!
Saali bhadwi
!’

Billoo had by then worked himself into an animated agitation, all visible anger directed at Juliet.

Jai kept mum.

His mind was numb with panic.

In addition, he was worried to the hilt about Juliet. She was on the run and
Bhai’s
men were looking for her.

As per the original plan, she was supposed to have gone to her friend’s house where she had a packed suitcase ready. She was then supposed to sit tight there and wait for Jai’s call.