THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA (24 page)

AfPak Border

Wednesday 5:35 a.m.

She was in a bleak place, for sure. Pushing off the
thick quilt that weighted her, she propped on her elbows to cast a groggy look around. In the dim light her eyes picked up the jagged rock walls, a curving roof and a narrow jute cot piled with thick blankets. Was she in one of those mountain caves that were the Taliban’s refuge – caves so deep and impenetrable that the American forces had given up ferreting them out? She shivered at the chilling thought. The effects of the drug were wearing off now. Her body though was still sluggish. Time to test those limbs.

She stood up and peered at her watch: Wednesday, 5:35 a.m. A day to the deadline.

Outside of the quilt the cold was lethal, rendering the three layers she wore ineffective. Mehrunisa unfurled the crumpled pashmina and wrapped it around herself as she tottered. The mouth of the cave was dark – what lay beyond?

The fact that she wasn’t tied up meant they didn’t expect her to escape, or doing so, go far. She gulped. In any case, her legs were just short of jelly as she lurched on the uneven floor. The exercise would get the blood flowing; she tried swinging her arms and bit back a howl – she might have been dunked in gelatin, the smallest motion meeting stiff resistance.

At the end of a quarter hour she had made it to one end of the cave, ten steps. Frozen, she massaged her upper arms and swivelled her neck. In the shadows she saw a ledge and reached for it. A folder. It was too dark to read. Clutching it against herself she moved gingerly towards the light near her cot. The exercise had greased her limbs and the return took less time. However, her strength was depleted as she dropped onto the cot.

Turning to the folder she discovered an A4-sized drawing pad. Inside were pencil sketches that rolled on for pages, landscape mostly, probably of Afghanistan, lush orchards, craggy cliffs, broken mud houses, and a few of people, children playing amongst mine fields, women – always drawn from the back or from a distance, never showing their faces, men in turbans and blankets… There was impressive detail in the pictures – as a student of art Mehrunisa could see the artist’s passion in the black and white sketches.

‘Salaam.’

She jerked up. A form filled the mouth of the cave.

‘I see you’re awake.’ The form approached her.

Nimblefooted, he was beside her in a second. Dressed as a Pathan in a bomber jacket he towered over her. His brow creased at the sight of the sketchbook.

‘You’ve been exploring.’ His voice held quiet menace. He reached out for the book.

Anger surged within Mehrunisa. This man was the reason her father was in captivity, Raghav had almost died and Pratap – she swallowed back her terror at the thought of what could have happened to him after he was shot.
No!
Anger would show she was vulnerable. She’d channel the glacial Mehrunisa.

She tilted her chin at him. ‘Islam regards the drawing of living things as haraam, right?’

His jaw hardened even as the hand stayed in place, his eyes boring into her.

‘What would your followers think of this?’ Mehrunisa held up the book and waved it idly. To her surprise, she saw his mouth turn up in a smile. Planting a leg on the cot he bent forward, forcing her to lean back.

‘Curious, our passions should meet. But then, we are not very different, are we, Meh-ru-nisa,’ he drawled. ‘We grew up outside of our homelands, more familiar with alien cultures than our own, cosmopolitan. And yet, we came back because our roots pulled us back.

‘The moment I saw you I knew: you were a reflection of me, only a radiant one.’

This man was frightening her and Mehrunisa had to stop cowering. ‘Wrong. Unlike you, I am not confused.’

He frowned.

‘These pictures are a sign of your equivocation. Why haven’t you destroyed them?’

‘It is not equivocation,’ he said quietly. ‘I made these when I first came to Afghanistan as a US soldier. They helped me connect with my homeland. I keep them as a talisman. So I never forget.’

‘Well if you treasure them, then clearly you treasure art. So why not let your people learn art? Why forbid this form of expression? Why do men like you not nurture the Afghan culture instead of destroying it like the Bamiyan Buddhas?’

‘The Buddhas had no place in the land of Islam. Art can be dangerous.’

‘Not more dangerous than a failed artist,’ Mehrunisa hurled back.

He went very still as his hands clenched around the sketchbook. ‘Do you know who I am, Mehrunisa?’ He watched her as he mouthed softly, ‘Babur Khan.’

So, it was true. Babur Khan, the man she had read about, who was the dreaded new face of the Afghan Taliban, was her captor. If the newspapers were to be believed he had made his reputation by burying women alive and skinning men into drums. The thought made bile rise within her. Mehrunisa hoped she was keeping her gaze steely even though her trembling chin would give her away soon.

The next instant Babur Khan relaxed, gave a short laugh and stepped back. ‘Failed artist! You label me Hitlerian, Mehrunisa? I rather see myself as Che Guevara. A rebel. A revolutionary who has to drive the invaders out.’

‘You were one of them.’

He snorted. ‘Do I look like them?’ and removed a syringe from the pocket of his kameez.

Mehrunisa’s eyes widened. So that was what had drugged her. ‘No!’ she screamed.

‘Shhh… Only a few hours, and then it’ll all be over.’ Before she could register anything he had pushed her back on the cot. As she thrashed her arms, he pinned her down with a firm arm that almost choked her. With the other he pushed up her jacket sleeve and Mehrunisa felt a prick.

As he released the chokehold on her neck, she screamed. ‘You’ll never get away with this. Your plan will be foiled. You will lose.’

‘Really? Who’ll stop me? Your RAW man is back in his hospital. The bald bodyguard must be dead by now. Who will sabotage the plan, Mehrunisa?’

Her eyes were blurring. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision. ‘My father will. He’ll save me and kill your plan.’

Babur laughed, a raucous laugh that filled the cave. ‘Your father is capable of many things, Mehrunisa but not this. For one, he will never be able to determine our location. And if he is foolhardy enough to venture here, he will be cut to pieces by my men.’

Mehrunisa flailed through the cloud at the man who was just outside her reach. He continued to laugh. ‘I’m not letting you go, Mehrunisa, so I hope you said goodbye – you’re never seeing him again. On second thoughts, you might – at least a part of him. If he gets here I’ll take his head. A severed human head, one of an enemy especially – nothing relaxes the men more than a game of buzkashi with that head.’

As she slumped Babur arranged her on the mattress and through the thick fog that had blanketed her Mehrunisa registered a hand smoothing her hair back, then a finger trailing down her cheek.

She slurred, ‘He’s coming. Don’t – say – I – didn’t – warn – you...’

Islamabad, Pakistan

Wednesday 8:40 a.m.

Harry was cruising along on the highway from
Islamabad to Peshawar at a speed exceeding 120 kmph. The early morning contributed to the thin traffic on the road and the other vehicles he passed were equally callous about the speed limit. Observation of traffic rules was not a subcontinent habit.

The highway was an enviable piece of roadwork in a country generally bereft of such public works. A slight rain fell. Sloping green hills bordered both sides of the motorway. Every now and then he whistled past a car with music blaring. Punjabi folk, Sufi songs, ghazals were a common heritage of India and Pakistan and Harry had never found it difficult to pass himself off as a Pakistani when the need arose. It amused him when people from the two countries visited each other and were surprised by how alike they were. Yes, the relationship had all the intimacy and angst of two brothers who had grown up in one joint family and in adulthood decided to carve that house into separate homes. Harry had grown up in the border town of Ferozepur, listening to the elders in the family bemoan the division of Punjab and the loss of West Pakistan, especially Lahore.
Batwara
. Partition. And its legacy had been four wars between the two nations. And a job for men like Harry.

Over those years he had seen the two connive and kill and blame each other in one endless loop. Now, however, things were different. What they faced could potentially destroy the fabric of the subcontinent. The band of terror groups under the umbrella of Taliban/Al Qaeda were looking to establish their own medieval regime across the region. What many of their sympathizers did not understand was that the jihadis were not waging a religious war – it was a political game. If, miraculously, the issue of Kashmir was resolved, as was Palestine, these men would find another issue on which to rally young impressionable men across the Muslim world. There was a reason why the pacifist Sufi Islam of Kashmir had been hijacked by the virulent Wahabbi jihadists – they wanted to bring Saudi Arabia, with its medieval social fabric, to the rest of the world. A power grab.

And now his daughter was caught in the crosshairs of the jihadis. Harry would not allow himself to think too much about her – that would be the end of him. Mehr had to be rescued, everything else could come later. He refocused on his mission.

The legendary Snow Leopard was the author of a training manual that was used for new recruits. It was his investigation of ten major modern-day operations – including the 1976 raid at Entebbe to free Israeli hostages held by Palestinian terrorists; Operation Eagle Claw, the botched operation to rescue Americans held captive at the US embassy in Tehran; the snatching of Eichmann from the streets of Buenos Aires by Mossad – and the learnings thereof. Harry summed these up as the Six Pillars of a Successful Op: repetition, surprise, security, speed, simplicity and purpose.

He’d catch the enemy off-guard – surprise. Knowledge of the operation was confined to a select few – security. Speed was of essence – yes. The decision to identify and enter enemy lair – simplicity itself. Purpose – no doubt. Of the six, one wasn’t on his side – repetition.

As he rode on, Harry resorted to the technique he used when time was limited: mental visualization. He worked his way through the steps in his plan, pausing to pursue various possibilities, drafting parallel plans, cooking up contingencies and responses – he was a man walking through a labyrinth that shifted shape constantly.

In just over an hour Harry had completed three-quarters of the distance and was approaching the interchange point of Charsadda. In his rear-view mirror he sighted the jeep again. A muddy M38, it had been on his tail for several kilometres now. A driver and one passenger in front, but were they tailing him? The ‘Willys jeep’, as it was popularly called in Pakistan, had been accelerating in the same fashion as him – which had alerted Harry to begin with. Plus the fact that the jeep looked like it had seen better days. The Pakistan army had owned several of these at one point before they started offloading them.

Ahead a couple of oil tankers had slowed down. Instantly Harry was on alert. They were likely headed to Afghanistan. The Pakistani oil tankers lobby had been petitioning the Government to provide security: militants frequently attacked supplies for US and NATO-led forces fighting Taliban insurgents across the border. US military sent seventy-five per cent of its supplies for troops in Afghanistan from Pakistan, including forty per cent of its fuel. He slowed down and cast a look around. A mini coach had slowed up in front of him, and people were craning their necks to inspect the jam ahead. The jeep, meanwhile, had refused to slow down as it approached the checkpoint.

Harry took one look at the approaching vehicle, veered off-course to the kerb, reversed his motorcycle in a flash and started to ride in the opposite direction. At a distance of about hundred metres from the tankers, he stopped on the side of the road and watched.

The jeep was slowing down. Next, a man jumped out and dashed towards the tankers, his hand reaching for something around his waist. Harry ducked. A loud explosion and the air resounded with crackling and screams.

A huge fire was roaring. The suicide bomber had targeted the oil tankers bound for Afghanistan and blown himself up. The jeep was aflame and people seated inside the mini-coach were decamping. A woman was attempting to flee from the mess with a baby cradled in one arm and a toddler dangling from the other. Harry ran towards her, grabbed the bawling toddler and shepherded the woman to safety. Thick acrid smoke was pouring out of the burning tankers. It stung his throat and made his eyes water. Terrified passengers had gathered at a distance and were watching the inferno blazing in front of them.

The woman collapsed by the roadside. Her two children were in her arms as she watched the fire with resignation. There was nothing else to be done.

Harry mounted his bike and rode it up the slope of the bordering hilly area. He skirted the scene of explosion, staying safe from any debris that might be tossed out of the flaming heap and half a mile down rejoined the motorway. By the time the police responded, he was hoping to be in Peshawar.

Nangal Township, India

Wednesday 9:18 a.m.

As the train pulled out of Nangal town, Qasim
Afzal
leaned out of the open doorway. He had chosen a late train deliberately to avoid dam employees who used the train to commute from Nangal daily.

It had been easy: no ticket required for travel, hence no ticket-checker; one other passenger with nose buried in a folder; and a thirteen-kilometre train ride to his destination, without the hassle of security checks. The challenge lay at Bhakra.

He squared his shoulders and breathed in the crisp air. As the green mountains slid by his eyes ran over the images in his mind: the large lake called Gobind Sagar, the tall dam built to last a thousand years, the underground diversion tunnel, the flanking power plants, the generator room, the inspection galleries… At the last he drew a blank. The handler had supplied photographs of all others but the inspection galleries ran deep within its concrete bulk, inaccessible to tourists. No pictures allowed, no way to reach the galleries even...

The train clattered to a stop at Nangal Dam, the smaller of the two dams. Bhakra, upstream, was the prize. Afzal idly watched people disembark – to an onlooker he would look a tourist, one of the daily throng to Bhakra. He had taken care to dress in a manner that wouldn’t draw attention, shedding his usual shalwar kameez for a pair of old jeans, a checked shirt, an old jacket and a pair of sunglasses. The latter made him squint, he wasn’t familiar with glasses really, but it aided his disguise and, more importantly, hid his eyes. The day ahead would throw up surprises and he didn’t want to give anything away with a startled look.

A group of monkeys on the rail track. Afzal’s fingers itched for his AK-47 as his mind idly picked and popped the furry grey-brown things that studied him with keen eyes as his coach went past. Ha! Afzal grinned, back home none of you would have survived me! But he quickly changed the smirk to a harmless smile as his mind raced ahead furiously.

The lake would be easy – a long leisurely lone boat ride and he’d tip the man enough to allow him sufficient time. Then he would recce the surround… The sallow face of the handler, Ansari, swam into view as Afzal deliberated. His right hand reached a nostril and plucked a hair out. What would have driven another man into a paroxysm of pain only drove a frisson of electricity through Qasim Afzal – he was known to habitually pull his nostril hair when in deep thought.

That particular skill aided in building his aura. It helped that Afzal was a wrestler who tussled with young recruits and ate for breakfast the wrestlers’ soup, kala pacha. Eating an entire sheep head and feet every morning is guaranteed to give superhuman strength – so the Afghans believe. Either way, Afzal could tackle a posse of policemen single-handed, throttling necks, breaking bones, cracking skulls as he went.

When he reached Bhakra, his one concern as he sauntered towards the dam was to somehow mask his six-foot five frame and appear nondescript as he proceeded with his investigation.