The Acquaintance Read online

  “Shit”, she cursed under her breath again. She fished out her phone and dialled John, he picked up on the first ring. “This is John Abraham”, he said blithely. Nargis could taste his smugness through the phone. “What is the meaning of this? Why did you send your lackeys to spy on me?”, said Nargis. “Mind your tone Ms. Hussain. Agents Amrik and Hitesh may be spies but they are working for you as I’m sure they told you. And besides I feel bad that you have not availed of any of the unlimited resources that I have given you. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that you didn’t trust me.”

  The words sent a chill down her spine. “Or is it that you’re already paving the way for failure?” “That is not true”, said Nargis. “This is me covering my bases Hussein. So that when this debacle finally blows up in your face, I can solemnly say that I told you so. The agents stay. End of story.”

  He hung up before Nargis could respond. The agents, Ram and Nargis all exchanged awkward glances. Well she had her confirmation. They had indeed been sent by John. “Well to your posts then gentlemen, no one in or out.” Just as she said it the front door opened. Jogi came speed walking out. “What is it?”, said Nargis. “I may have a way to track down the bomb”, he said excitedly. Nargis took him aside. “What do you mean?”, said Nargis. “I’ve been working on an algorithm that can track radioactive waste and explosive ordinance using their composite signature.” Nargis stared at him blankly. “All bombs are made of a particular set of ingredients mixed in a particular way. Only then can they go boom. Once more than one of these ingredients are together, my algorithm can track their chemical signature. Cesium, C4, Uranium, you name it. I’ll be able to tell you where it is.” Nargis had tears in her eyes, she looked pleased. “That sounds like a sophisticated piece of software.”

  “It’s back at my desk at CTU HQ”, he said. “And I also need to shower and change if I could”, he said pointing to his two-day old clothes. They were all in clothes they had been during the morning of the Chor Bazaar attack. Nargis had been so busy, she hadn’t even noticed, but now that Jogi had pointed it out, the rank smell of her soiled clothes attacked her nostrils. “Well go get it then”, she said pushing him towards the other empty car in the compound. She needed to clean up a little.

  Ram looked at Nargis. “You’re lucky you’re a woman.” Oh this ought to be good. “And why is that?”

  Ram inhaled, “It’s a biological fact, women smell good no matter what. You for instance smell like a heavenly English breakfast.”

  “You mean I smell like beans, sausage and eggs?” Ram’s eyes widened as he realised how monumentally he had put his foot in his mouth. He didn’t even try to explain his supposed compliment. “We have to get going”, he said with slumped shoulders.

  She opened the door and revved the engine. She heard the passenger side door open and watched Ram fasten his seat-belt grumbling something under his breath. “You sure about this?”, he asked once more as they barreled out of the compound. They travelled in silence for less than five minutes before Ram spoke up again.

  “So, now that I have you here. We need to address the elephant in the room”, said Ram. Nargis didn’t make eye contact with him, she focused on the road ahead, while her foot pressed down harder on the accelerator. Ram had played his cards well, deciding to ambush her when she was driving a car well above the specified speed limit. “Rizwan Zaid is your husband, is that why this so-called operation of yours is so hush hush? You don’t want your superiors at the DIA to know that you used to literally sleep with the enemy?” Nargis braked hard. She turned to look at him. “You want to do this now?”

  “You are harbouring a person of interest or perhaps even a potential terrorist in a classified dead drop who happens to be your ex-husband. You can see where I would have a hard time trusting your decisions.”

  “Just to be clear, he’s not my ex-husband, we never actually got divorced, so technically we’re still married.” The colour drained from Ram’s face and he went pale.” And secondly, my decisions are well above your pay grade. So you don’t need to worry your little indignant head about the intricacies of my thought process.”

  Nargis watched as Ram’s face went from sheet white to tomato red. She started the car again and they were on their way. She knew that Ram wasn’t going to drop this. The station was still thirty minutes away, even at the insane speed she was going at. It was at the second illegal signal jump did Ram speak up again. “I don’t think I’m a good fit for this covert team of yours. I think after you have Azhar in custody, you and I should part ways. You can keep me under surveillance for the duration of the operation to make sure that I don’t spill any of your secrets. But once we reach the South Region station, we are done.” Nargis couldn’t believe she had to deal with such petulant behaviour from a grown adult. Men. “Why are you behaving like a five-year-old child? We’re not on a joyride here Ram. If you hadn’t noticed there’s a bomb out there that we need to find. And as unorthodox as my methods may seem, trust me they work.”

  Ram snorted, “Trust you, why should I trust you when you have not given me one good reason to do so. No one on this crack team of yours has the complete picture. Playing things close to the chest is one thing, but deliberately keeping vital information from your team is more than counter-productive, it’s downright dangerous.”

  Nargis sighed, “What do you want to know?”

  “Who is Rizwan Zaid? And please spare me the official bullshit. I want to know what he is to you?” The question was a weird one. It was like he wanted to know what Rizwan and Nargis meant to each other on a personal level. It was almost as if Ram was jealous.

  “Rizwan Zaid was a student of chemical engineering and English literature, when we met. I was a stupid kid that got lost in a whirlwind romance. We eloped on a whim, but soon real life got in the way and we had to part ways.”

  “That’s not much to go on”, said Ram, clearly dissatisfied with her answer. “That’s all you’re going to get for now.” Ram did not look pleased. “Next question.”

  “So, who broke whose heart?”

  “Excuse me? How is that relevant to anything that is going on?”

  “Colour me curious?”, said Ram, his eyes still skeptical.

  “It was a mutual decision.”

  “Yet you didn’t get a divorce. And after nearly a decade he is our only link to an international terrorist. I swear you can’t make this stuff up.”

  They drove in silence for a while. Nargis was running a dozen worst case simulations in her head when Ram spoke again. “I know you didn’t exactly answer my questions, but I’m choosing to trust you anyway. I hope when it comes down to it you will deign to trust me too.”

  “Ram I thought I had made it quite clear when I came calling. The only reason you’re on my team is because you’re one of the only few people in this world that I trust.”

  Ram seemed pleased with that answer when she glanced at him. He had a smile playing on his lips. She couldn’t imagine what was going through his head.

  Ram looked at her, “Do you trust Rizwan?”

  “We’re here”, said Nargis as she entered the compound of the South Region police station.

  CHAPTER 30

  The occupants of the Omni van watched as the unmarked car departed. They had been watching the house for a while. From their vantage point they had observed only a handful of people enter and exit the building. They had watched the child enter with her teacher. They had been accompanied by a woman and a man. The new arrivals had been unexpected but not something they couldn’t handle. They had made arrangements for a lot more resistance. Lethal force had been completely forbidden. They had been authorised to maim not kill. The man in the passenger seat put down his binoculars and pulled on his ski mask. There were only two of them, but the firepower they packed would arm an entire militia. It was a pity these weapons wouldn’t take a life. He gripped his Bersa 83 and pulled back the hammer with a satisfying click. But accidents do happen. As long as the gi
rl was unharmed there was no reason he couldn’t test his toy on other collateral damage. The two men who had disembarked that morning had been packing some serious heat. They will not know what hit them. “You remember our instructions, no killing”, said the driver. The passenger sighed.

  The driver pulled on his mask and secured his weapon. Their instructions were clear. Get in, get the girl, get out and it didn’t look like it was going to take much effort at all. The compound was enclosed and private with limited visual access to the street. This was a blessing and a curse. The driver adjusted his Russian Orsis T-5000 long range sniper rifle. He had jerry rigged the stand and suspension to a sitting position for the awkward angle of their vantage point. All this trouble so that no one would get killed. The driver pulled the trigger and the man on the right dropped like a fly, the one on the left was on alert but not for long. The men got out of the car and into the compound. They had received the codes to the gate last night. The driver walked up to the fallen men and pulled out the tranquilizer darts from their necks. The passenger snorted in disgust. The driver punched in the code to the front door and it slid open. The men drew their weapons and stepped inside the facility.

  The hallway was lit by photo luminescent emergency lighting. Cutting power was not an option. If they did anything to disrupt the electronics in the place, the fail safes would engage and the facility would go into lockdown trapping them inside until the woman returned. The driver couldn’t have that. They knew there was no one here, just two more of the new security. On any other mission the driver would have been worried that these unknown variables had access to the surveillance room and would have seen them coming. But last night along with the codes to the gate the driver had received proof that no one had access to the surveillance room except the woman and now, the driver. The men fanned out, the two guards would be stationed around the assets. They reached a hallway that led through the commissary to the detainee rooms.

  The passenger moved ahead of the driver, his laser sight tracking ahead. He could see the commissary. The place was massive but was not an open plan, it was divided into sections for an open kitchen, the cooler and a well-stocked gantry. He heard laughter and stopped in his tracks, behind him so did the driver. The girl was in the commissary but the driver couldn’t see her. “Not a good time for the kid to be playing hide and seek”, spat the passenger as he rounded the corner. It happened in a split second, the glass window that stood adjacent to the room shattered as a body came hurtling towards the passenger. He was thrown off balance. From the corner of his eye, the driver saw two bodies taking cover behind the gantry and the kitchen island. Shit. They wouldn’t fire blindly, not until they had a clear visual on the girl. He pulled out a device that looked like a four tentacle octopus. A multicopter close quarters combat drone. It had been retrofitted with a spy cam. It wasn’t discreet but then again, they had bypassed discretion a while ago. All he needed was a heat signature. He tried to boot the drone, but it wouldn’t respond. It was being jammed. Shit. He would have to go old school; he would have to piggyback on the facility’s wi-fi. A move so desperate and insane, he never thought he would actually try and execute it. He used the access codes to log onto the dead drops wi-fi and felt the drone whirr to life. He smiled as the copter took to the air and headed for the kitchen. He would only have a split second before they shot it down. The drone went straight up to the open commissary and clicked a picture before being promptly shot down. The driver had what he needed, he looked at his tablet screen. Two heat signatures. He knew where they were placed exactly. The girl was nowhere in sight. He ducked behind the shattered glass and made his way to the open commissary. He would be a sitting duck in that position right between the crossfire of both the gantry and the kitchen.

  He looked at the picture again, ducked behind a table and took aim. The gantry was solid oak. Tranquilizers wouldn’t cut it. He would need armour piercing rounds. He switched magazines. He hoped the solid mass of wood would slow the bullets enough that the man hiding behind the gantry would still be alive at the end of this. He pulled the hammer and fired a barrage of bullets at the wood till he heard a body hit the floor and a pool of blood ooze into sight. He had no time to check on the body. He turned and took aim towards the kitchen, the marble island was more formidable than the wood. The bullets took off chunks from the marble which splintered into misshapen rocks that scattered all over the floor like alabaster confetti. The man behind the counter stood up and laid down suppressive fire. The driver ducked behind the desk but he still didn’t have adequate cover. The drone picture was useless to him now. The shooter would have moved. But he was still in the kitchen. The driver fished around his gear and pulled out a flash bang grenade. He pulled the pin and tossed it into the kitchen. An earth shattering bang erupted from behind the marble. The driver stood up, switching to tranquilizers again. He stepped behind the marble and saw the shooter laying concussed, his weapon abandoned and knocked out cold. He fired a dart into his chest just to be sure.

  He checked on the man behind the gantry. He was bleeding profusely but was still alive. His breathing was ragged but strong. He checked for exit wounds and found them. The driver let out a breath. Out of the twenty or so bullets fired at the man, only two had found their mark and both had been non-lethal. They had been clean, entry and exit through the flesh of his lower abdomen. He could hear a struggle. But he couldn’t spare a moment, he still had the girl to find.

  The bodies were wrestling on the floor when the driver heard a scream. The girl. The driver sprinted towards the sound when he heard gunshots. He ducked behind the door. The passenger was standing over the writhing figure on the ground. The man had been shot. “I told you no lethal force”, said the driver. The passenger spat at him, “He shot himself.”

  The passenger raised his gun for the kill shot. The driver heard someone crying, “Please don’t kill him.” The girl was shaking with racking sobs, she was terrified. She had seen the two guards get shot. The driver didn’t have time to explain to her that the men were still alive. but the driver pushed his own gun to the passenger’s temple. “I don’t like to repeat myself.” The passenger lowered his gun. The driver shot a dart at the girl. She collapsed on the floor. The man screamed for help. The driver would have sedated him but that would be dangerous and counter-productive, in stasis he could bleed out and die. The wound was not fatal. He would live. “Grab the girl”, said the driver. The passenger grunted as he hoisted the unconscious form onto his shoulder and made his way out. The driver made his way to the surveillance room. He punched in the key code and hoped that there wasn’t any additional isometric security. He breathed a sigh of relief as the door slid open. The security room was a bank and wall of monitors with every room on every screen. Even the rest rooms were surveilled though not the stalls. The driver inserted the usb into an unsecured open port. He watched as the bug deleted every trace of their visit from the hard-drive and hopefully the cloud. According to his information the cloud was backed up once in twenty-four hours. He hoped he was not too late.

  He had eight minutes to dry clean. The surveillance tapes weren’t the only things they were after. Apart from the girl, their primary objective was to gather intelligence. Locations and timings. There would be disinformation redundancies, but he would cross that bridge when he got to it. A password window popped up and was easily bypassed by his programme. He had expected more resistance from the Case Officer’s computer system. Overconfidence. Women, he smiled. She didn’t think there would be an attack on a dead drop. Bingo. The programme spat a cascade of windows with several redundancies, but it flagged only one with added layers of chicken feed. He collected the relevant data and was about to pull the programme when he spotted “Eyes Only” documents and possible “Paroles” of intelligence agents. “Paroles were passwords used by agents to identify each other during an operation. If he could access that information, he would know how many agents were on the case as well as their identities. But try as he might h
is programme could not break through. Which he found odd, he had not come up against any problems so far. Why was his programme on the fritz when he needed some more information. Then a thought hit him. He had been detected. He sanitized his presence and logged out, leaving no trace of him or his programme on the system. While exiting, he ran a body count. Two throwaways on the front door unharmed, a civilian, possibly a babysitter, critically injured. The asset was unharmed, so was the take. As the driver got into the UV, he smiled, this he could call a successful Black Bag Job.

  CHAPTER 31

  John Abraham paced in his office like an over-excited Pomeranian. His usual neat as a new pin attire was starting to show wear. His collar was damp with sweat. He had abandoned his wool coat and loosened the silk tie around his neck. He looked at the TV screens in his office. A dozen news channels, all reporting the same thing. The attack on Chor Bazaar. The tie was feeling more like a noose with every passing second. His men had not been able to track down anything remotely related to Mahmoud Shahzad or a bomb. Inter-agency co-operation was failing. And to top it all off, Nargis Hussein had successfully managed to stonewall him at every turn. Tensions were escalating on the Harbour line as clashes took place between the Hindus, Muslims and the Parsis. The talking heads demanded answers from the Prime Minister while opposition party leaders demanded his resignation. “Three people had been hospitalised in the clashes all at Sandhurst Road and Cotton Green.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the TVs. He wanted to smash each and every screen with a sledgehammer, but he couldn’t. He was waiting.

  He had been informed half an hour ago of the Prime Minister’s address on the attack. His speech had not been vetted by anyone. The PM was going to speak from the heart apparently. He didn’t like it. The talking heads switched to a podium and John raised the volume. The Prime Minister stood behind a bouquet of microphones, dressed sharply in a navy-blue Nehru-jacket and a bright orange kurta. He sure knew how to make himself pop on camera, John had to give him that. “Brothers and Sisters….”, began the PM with his hands raised. John tuned out the boilerplate babble of his speech. Condemnation of the attacks……unity in tragedy………Stronger as a nation…..Solidarity. John tuned back in. Solidarity. “As a mark of Solidarity I will be leading the Easter mass on Sunday at Saint Margaret Church”, said the PM looking straight at the camera.