THE HUNT FOR KOHINOOR BOOK 2 OF THE THRILLER SERIES FEATURING MEHRUNISA (28 page)

Bhakra Dam, India

Wednesday 7 p.m.

The control room set up to his satisfaction, Jag
Mishra
retreated for his evening meditation. A daily routine, it helped him to connect with his morning recitation of the Bhagavad Gita. The prayers were composed two millennia back by nomads in the Punjab. At a time when the west was wilderness. It was an ancient civilization that had continued uninterrupted for years. And Mishra had no intention of seeing it disappear any time soon.

As he said the shlokas that were recited 2000 years back, Mishra was tapping into the prayers and blessings of his ancestors. In parallel, he was streamlining intelligence gathered during the day.

His CIA counterpart had called and apologized for the mole. He claimed no knowledge of it, blaming Saby’s recruitment on another agent. Mishra knew why he was grovelling. He wanted to know what the Kohinoor had revealed. What did the scrolls hold, especially with regard to the US? Mishra had played it cool, refusing to disclose his hand. Of course, he had no idea what the second scroll had said. R.P. Singh had informed him that once Mehrunisa ascertained that only one scroll was pertinent to the Bhakra Dam, she didn’t bother with deciphering the second.

Saby was an undercover agent for the Americans. He reported directly to a General in charge of Special Ops out of Bagram. Babur Khan was based in Bagram, before he went AWOL. Clearly the General’s intel was compromised. Because Babur Khan was getting all the intel that Saby was feeding the General. A mole in the General’s unit. Ha! Mishra sniggered – welcome to the world of spying.

Having sorted that lead, Mishra concentrated on his recitation of the Gayatri mantra. The chants chronicled in the Rig Veda were the fount that connected him with the ancient civilization and culture of India, what it represented and stood for. He would do all in his power to preserve that. Which was why he had played the gamble on Mehrunisa. If his gamble faltered and Harry couldn’t rescue his daughter, or worse, perished in the act, it would be another cross on his shoulder. Mishra would never ever forgive himself for that act of treason against his oldest friend. But Mishra’s shoulders were heavy with the skeletons he had been lugging since he started spying for his motherland. They made sense as long as India was safe.

Chanting softly, Mishra invoked his gods. Harry was out there in the dangerous boondocks, trying to rescue his only child. And he, Mishra, was in Bhakra, trying to prevent the dam from drowning out half the nation.

They could do with divine help.

AfPak Border

Wednesday 9 p.m.

The tandoori roti was chewy and thick. Mehrunisa
bit into it gratefully. Lack of food in her stomach was adding to the feeling of stupor – getting some energy into her limbs was crucial. Accompanying the rotis was a version of scrambled eggs and some curry. Bland but fresh; she wolfed down the food.

However, as she tried to plan her escape she found herself struggling with increased torpor. Then the sickening realization: the food must have been laced with some sleep-inducing powder! Mehrunisa slumped against the mattress again.

She waded through waves, clawing her way through syrupy water that tugged at her ankles. Ahead stood Venus on a seashell, draping her nakedness in long auburn tresses. Venus was close to shore. Mehrunisa had to reach her, and she’d be fine. But her hands were stuck, tied behind her back. And the water, it was weighing her down, down, down.

Then, a man approached Venus and grabbed her tresses. As he tried to pull her out of the painting, another man – in the black robes of a friar – urged him on. The painting was pagan, the friar thundered, it was to be destroyed! Burnt in public as a lesson to others! Mehrunisa gasped, the friar turned to her. Hazel eyes, hooked nose – he was Babur Khan!

He strode in her direction, his sibilant voice washing over her. Paintings are immoral Mehrunisa. They have no place in Islam. Why did you study art? You will have to pay the price now.

Mehrunisa tried to flee. She spun on her toes but the thick water trapped her. The momentum of her movement threw her back. Mehrunisa fell into the sludge. Her tied hands were pinned beneath her. The water pulled her down and blanketed her face.

Adezai, Pakistan

Thursday 12:12 a.m.

Abdus Malik, with his commander, ferreted out the
exact location of the boy’s sighting and Harry traced it on the detailed map. Then he plugged the coordinates into a digital map and zoomed in. One feature of the terrain was instantly clear: it was pockmarked with more caves than onions in a vegetable market. And the Taliban were rats. They used caves to dwell, to take cover after an ambush, to store ammunition, even hostages. And Mehrunisa, according to Aarif the herder, was captive in one such cave.

As Harry pored over the terrain, he thought through his game plan. The temperature had dipped to ten degrees below zero. The fierce wind of the early morning now mixed with sleet. Snow lay on the plains, the ground treacherous. Snowfall did not bother him but the inclement weather would force the jihadis into their caves for shelter. Which meant they would have to be drawn out for battle.

The Snow Leopard had spent a lifetime tracking the enemy amongst some of the highest peaks of the world. Knowledge of the terrain was vital – in that respect Harry would match the militants.

In his three-decade career Harry had been in and out of Afghanistan and Pakistan over a hundred times. He had done it on foot, on horseback, by car, and flight and through the four seasons. He had journeyed through the Khyber Pass, with its faded insignia of long-gone British regiments painted on the rocks. He had travelled by jeep deep into the Hindu Kush, while the Soviets were there, and after they left. He had sipped in the teahouses of tiny isolated villages in the Hindu Kush that were cut off from their neighbours by rushing rivers in spring and heavy snowfall in winter. Through Afghanistan’s Anjuman Pass, northeast of Kabul, he had journeyed into the Panjshir Valley in a blizzard when even horses found it difficult to find their footing in the deep snow. Harry had done it in the month of January as part of his self-developed training manual.

When Harry was first informed his field of operation would be the AfPak region, he was advised to read up all he could on the region’s history. Then he was to go out and spend time in the field. That way he would realize for himself: in the tribal Pakhtoon region, the past was the present.

Harry’s first station was Peshawar. He spent his time devouring books and memoirs in the dusty library of the Peshawar Club in the erstwhile British cantonment area. In a phrase coined by Captain Arthur Connolly of the East India Company before he was beheaded in Bokhara for spying in 1842, a ‘Great Game’ was played between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England for supremacy in Central Asia. At stake was the security of India, key to the wealth of the British Empire. When play began early in the 19
th
century, the frontiers of the two imperial powers lay two thousand miles apart, across vast deserts and almost impassable mountain ranges; by the end, only twenty miles separated the two rivals.

After he had read all he could lay his hands on, Harry went into the field and worked with KHAD operatives on the quiet while he travelled around the region sourcing antiques for his business as an antique dealer. He saw the Soviets depart, the Taliban arrive, and now it was the US-led NATO forces. The Great Game was still on, its principal players mindless of the simple instruct: in this region the past was the present. US administration was rolling out the same inkspot strategy of the ex-Soviet President Gorbachev – some things never changed. The Afghans had beaten the Russians, and before them the British Empire. Harry understood the language of the Afghan guerrilla – he spoke it too.

On his first flight from Pakistan to India in winter, he had realized that the towering white clouds on the northern horizon were actually the massif of the huge snow-covered mountains of Afghanistan. It was a lesson well-learned. Harry did not doubt his ability to manoeuvre the snowy plains of the Orakzai landscape. His concern was for the Lashkar fighters of Abdus Malik. The plummeting temperature and stinging sleet made conditions brutal for launching an offensive.

The jihadis on the other hand were holy war-fighters and once the battle began, it would be a fight to death. With pen and paper Harry drew his battle plan. The Lashkar would be lightly armed – AK-47 assault rifles, IEDs, rocket launchers – and highly mobile. In discussion with Abdus Malik, he’d estimated they would need thirty men. First, a small attack to draw the Taliban out. Once the Taliban figured the small scale of the offensive they would stay and fight. Exactly as intended: Harry did not want them to disperse. If they did, he might never be able to locate Mehr. However, if Malik’s Lashkar engaged them in battle, only a few men would be guarding her. That would be his opportunity to rescue her. Once he had his daughter they would have to exit the area swiftly.

Which was why Harry needed a horse. It was the animal that had helped Genghis Khan make his empire the single largest contiguous one in history. It was the animal that helped Osama bin Laden flee Tora Bora in a driving snow storm in the middle of the night even as US troops attacked. It was the animal the Afghan guerrillas rode when not walking. Harry had ridden horseback on his first trip to the Panjshir Valley and enrolled in formal riding lessons right after. That particular skill had served him well – heavy snow rendered most vehicles useless. The US Marine Corps troops used High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles to conduct mounted patrols in the cold and snowy weather of Afghanistan. However, the marines got stuck in heavy snow and had to move on foot.
 

The page was a mass of black lead by now. And the terrain and operation were imprinted on Harry’s mind. From the corner of his eye, Harry noted one of Malik’s men bending down to whisper in his ear. Malik nodded and instructed him to wait. Turning to his friend he said, ‘Looks like your parcel has arrived. On four legs.’

Harry acknowledged this with a brief smile. Rab Nawaz had delivered, once again. Another link in the chain leading to his daughter had fallen into place. A horse to get him through the night’s ambush and make his getaway.

Jihadis
hiding in caves. Near-zero visibility. Conditions adequately primitive. Time to fight like a medieval cavalryman and take the battle to them.

Bhakra Dam, India

Thursday 3:16 a.m.

With night vision goggles and guns with silencers,
Singh and Raghav investigated the dam’s extensive grounds, which yielded nothing beyond floating mist and security personnel on edge. The nature of the impending attack had not been divulged but the security apparatus knew something big was coming – the men were expectedly keyed-up. Inside Mishra’s control room they went over the security detail once again. Sleep, thereafter, was a couple of hours of intermittent shuteye. Now, pre-dawn, they were gathered at the edge of Gobind Sagar Lake. A heavy mist overlay the massive reservoir and shifted sluggishly with the wind.

The water body lay still. Several boats sat on quiet guard. More would begin patrolling the waters soon. Divers pressed into service in the past fifteen hours had located no submarine, no torpedoes, no missiles.

With a nod at one another the men proceeded in different directions. Jag Mishra would oversee the operation from the control room set up near the Visitors Gallery, R.P. Singh would be at the secure perimeter that CISF manned with the help of state police while Raghav would be on one of the boats that security personnel would soon ride on the lake.

Adezai, Pakistan

Thursday 3:34 a.m.

Jag Mishra had called, and after hearing Harry’s
update, offered two alternatives. The CIA Pakistan Head, in a desperate attempt to bridge the rupture caused by the discovery of Saby as a mole, had offered assistance. One: a military convoy to assist Harry with the attack. CIA would move adequate levers to get Pakistani troops to assist – as prize they could claim another victory against the hardened Orakzai Taliban. Two: a drone attack.

Harry mulled over it. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that he’d have to do it alone.

As he dressed for combat Harry was not underestimating the problem he was facing. Taliban bases and hideouts dotted the rugged Orakzai
landscape, and Taliban
commanders such as Babur Khan were equipped with arms, cash, training camps, hardened foreign fighters and suicide bombers. Plus the Taliban were guerrilla fighters with thirty years of experience. They worked the terrain to their advantage, engaging the enemy in small-unit combats and fighting till they killed all or died themselves. The roadless basins, desolate plateaus and caves of the region were inaccessible to a regular army. A military convoy moving on the road would be easily ambushed from surrounding hillsides. Taking a convoy with him was, therefore, out of the question. There was a reason why the mighty US army relied on drones to target the hideouts. Innocents killed in such attacks were ‘collateral damage’. And how would a US drone distinguish his daughter from the beehive of Babur Khan’s fighters?

One bungle and he could lose Mehr.

Harry discussed his strategy with Abdus Malik: doing a Taliban on the Taliban. Abdus Malik nodded. ‘We become the bees. We buzz over their heads, sting them, disappear and regroup further away. This way we draw them out of their caves.’

In the resulting vacuum he’d sneak into the hideout and rescue his daughter.