Marcos Betrayal Read online

  This book is dedicated to the UN Peacekeeping forces working round the clock across the globe.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 12.1 - The Urge

  RAW Safehouse, New Delhi

  IB Headquarters, New Delhi

  Chapter 14 - The Teak House

  Bagyidaw’s Bungalow, Manas River

  January 15, 2009

  January 17, 2009

  IB Headquarters, January 18

  Chapter 15 - Duty Call

  IB Headquarters, January 19

  IB Headquarters, January 23

  Guwahati Airport

  Chapter 16 - Calamity on Wheels

  Northeast, India

  Guwahati Command Center

  Chapter 17 - Pin in the Haystack

  Teesta River, Sikkim

  Chapter 18 - Heart Strike

  ISI Safehouse, Pakistan

  Guwahati Airport

  Chapter 19 - The Flop

  Guwahati Command Center

  Chapter 20 - The Turn

  Ghatakpunji, Assam

  Chapter 21 - The Hand

  Bagyidaw’s Bungalow, January 23

  Four Hours Ago

  Chapter 22 - The Last Laugh

  Guwahati Command Center

  Hindu Kush Mountains, January 25

  Chapter 23 - The River

  Military Hospital, Guwahati

  Polygraph Room, Military Cantonment, Guwahati

  Chapter 12.1 - The Urge

  RAW Safehouse, New Delhi

  RAW’s Delhi hideout was far from the headquarters uptown, which was often under the sharp eyes of enemies scanning the movements. It was a general espionage objective to track anyone who enters or leaves the intelligence headquarters of enemy nations. Sometimes, they tracked it even for friendly nations, be it the Americans, Pakistanis, Chinese, or even the Russians. Everyone had assets in place to game the law enforcement agencies of the land and prey on each other’s intelligence headquarters. A cat and mouse game ensued almost always.

  Amjad had reached the hideout early morning. Abhimanyu had barely got a full night’s sleep but managed to turn up in his pajama and tee. Amjad had sounded unusually rushed on the call earlier. He expected Amjad to be relieved now. Perhaps he was here for a firsthand debrief before the formalities of the headquarter took over later in the day.

  Abhimanyu entered the hallway with his eyes still red. ‘There was no need to come all the way here.’

  Amjad rushed him back to his room and closed the door. ‘Well, I had to. Of all the people I can think of, only you would know about it more than me.’ Amjad threw a red file across the table toward Abhimanyu.

  He was taken aback by Amjad’s anxiety. The file was a regular autopsy report of Major General Akash’s death.

  ‘Go to page eleven.’

  Abhimanyu shuffled through the pages titled, Prime Suspect. It had the fingerprints, shoe prints, and the DNA report of the prime suspect in Major General Akash’s death.

  ‘It matches this report.’ Amjad threw another file.

  Abhimanyu didn’t need to go beyond the first page. The file had an all-too-familiar face, that of Mohamad Ali, alias Pasha. He could make sense of Amjad’s hostility now. Amjad probably knew about Abhimanyu’s meeting with Pasha, but such hostility was still baffling. ‘So, why are you telling me?’ He tried to lead Amjad.

  ‘Last time we spoke about it, you didn’t tell me the whole story.’

  Abhimanyu looked the other way.

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I can’t recall.’

  Amjad was furious at Abhimanyu’s reply, for he indeed had more evidence to push him to a corner. ‘This may help you to recall.’ Amjad opened a few photographs.

  Someone had clicked Abhimanyu with Pasha just after he had located Mohamad Ali, just before he had to chase him down the narrow lanes of Srinagar.

  ‘Would it make any difference if I had known him?’

  ‘It would make all the difference. He was responsible for Akash’s death. Intelligence Bureau had a notice on him, but they couldn’t locate him. Guess how they found him.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘They found him because they had a track on you when you disappeared conveniently in Kashmir. Nobody escapes their eyes in Kashmir.’ Amjad was a little confused, for Abhimanyu still did not show an expression of guilt. ‘You knew the person they couldn’t find for months despite having his biometric details from the death site. He almost didn’t exist, if not for his involvement in Akash’s death.’

  ‘Did you have a tag on me everywhere I went?’

  ‘You went on a holiday during a mission. What are we supposed to do?’

  Head in his hands, Abhimanyu sat on his chair.

  ‘In fact, it was I who asked IB to tag you. They went one step further and verified the people you met in Kashmir.’

  Abhimanyu raised his head. He had heard enough. It was disaster. Pasha’s identity had been exposed. ‘That mission was on a break for a reason.’

  ‘It was a break that landed you in the hotbed of insurgency in Kashmir with Pasha who killed Akash. So, tell me your break had a better reason.’

  Abhimanyu took a deep breath to think. Amjad, and now IB, had a tag on him. So could he really trust Amjad? He had led IB to him, to Pasha. Pasha had successfully hidden from the unknown enemies for so long but no longer. Abhimanyu still didn’t know the mole’s identity, and Pasha was his only hope to get to the mole—his best bet to screen all Akash’s communications, decrypt it and get the leads to the mole.

  ‘If it helps, he’s been killed.’ Amjad threw the information nonchalantly to gauge Abhimanyu’s reaction.

  Abhimanyu was stunned. In shock, he barely managed a stone face. Another line of lead had disappeared. He felt angry and guilty for having led the forces to Pasha. Major General Akash’s missions were again a black box. Khalid was the mastermind, but he was a known enemy. Who was the unknown enemy? The mole had impregnated himself so well he could clear out libraries and flawlessly use the Indian intelligence setup against the Indians. It was time to put up his guard, even with Amjad. He needed another play now—a play on Amjad to start with. ‘Why did you kill him?’

  Amjad was surprised to see a new inquisitive Abhimanyu. The spy in Abhimanyu had resurfaced. The guilt had disappeared. He was in no mood for any nonsense. ‘Do you still need to ask? He killed Major General Akash. We killed him.’

  ‘How do you know he was the killer?’

  ‘Listen, kid. I’m not here to answer your questions. The two files you have in front of you explain everything you need to know. IB had identified him as the murderer, and his biometrics matched with what we had collected from the murder site. All the biometrics.’

  ‘So, by we, you mean someone in IB had identified him as the murderer.’

  Amjad didn’t take time to understand what he meant.

  ‘I need to know who is that someone. Who fed you the information?’

  ‘For your comfort, I can say it has been verified by the best, and it can’t be wrong.’

  Abhimanyu read between the lines. It went even above Amjad, who was being led on not only by the leads but also by command. Someone senior in IB was involved or even someone junior in a staff role in an important office, able to feed this information to the seniors. He couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t do much now, for he had been tagged already.

  Abhimanyu did a quick calculation in his mind. Pasha was gone; he needed a new lead. He couldn’t get it on his own. So, this conversation was the only thing he could play. Amjad had more access to the Indian intelligence systems than Abhimanyu, and the mole had already played Amjad. Abhimanyu had to track the trail back to, hopefully, find a lead to the mole. The only blessing in disguise was that in getting Pasha
killed, the mole had exposed his play. He had proven his existence in the IB. Now, Abhimanyu had to capture Amjad’s curiosity without playing into his hands. ‘I can prove your lead was wrong.’

  ‘Go on. Prove it.’

  ‘A few days ago, someone dropped a mobile phone into my pocket in the busy streets of Delhi. It rang, and when I connected, it was Pasha on the other end. He asked me to come to Kashmir, alone.’

  Amjad was intrigued.

  ‘Alone, so he could share some information. When I met him, he explained everything that had happened on that fateful night.’

  Amjad’s face wrinkled in confusion.

  ‘Major General Akash had called him to hand over some information marked highly critical by Akash himself. He was there on time, but Akash was no longer alive.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this the last time I confronted you?’

  ‘Would you expose your asset so easily? I had to save his identity. From everyone. Even you.’

  Amjad was pensive; Abhimanyu sensed the discomfort. The thought of having killed the wrong lead or an important lead, one’s own lead, would be very perturbing to any officer—at least to the ones whose hearts were in right place. But Amjad was not quick to jump the gun. ‘You didn’t do a good job at that, surely. You need to give me something concrete to believe you.’ Abhimanyu stood and spoke in low voice. ‘Pasha gave me the Kulnagar coordinates. Khalid has been captured because of Pasha.’

  Pasha’s information had proven to be credible. Major General Akash could have shared such information only with a close confidant. Amjad realized he had screwed up, for an ordinary terrorist would never know the future plans of someone like Khalid. In disbelief, he pushed his thoughts further. If Pasha was an assassin sent just to kill Major General Akash, he would mostly be a sleeper resource—someone who laid low, far from the top leadership’s communication lines, a contracted third-party resource or someone junior enough in the hierarchy sent to close the last mile of an operation.

  It had to be someone with Major General Akash’s skillsets who could filter Khalid’s details from the Pakistani system, and, if Major General Akash had shared these co-ordinates with anyone, he was his trusted aide—a friend of India, not foe.

  But the IB couldn’t have gone so wrong either. Amjad’s mind was befuddled. He had too many unanswered questions. He needed time to get those answered. Amjad sat by the sofa to collect himself. ‘If what you say is true, it’s devastating. We have been compromised.’

  Finally, Abhimanyu thought he had Amjad’s ears. He leaned forward. ‘You need to tell me who forwarded you the information.’

  Amjad regained his thoughts and faced him. ‘As much as I wish to now, I can’t. But I promise you, I’ll get to the bottom of this and find the truth.’

  Amjad had stonewalled him. Abhimanyu was desperate to have a lead, but he had no other option but to wait. ‘Do it before it’s too late.’

  The shock for Amjad was too much, and the implications of his actions were too many. Amjad nodded and left quickly without much to say.

  Abhimanyu watched him leave the compound from the window. Things were moving too fast, and he could feel an impending doom. He stared at the sky and broke down, for he had led the intelligence teams to Pasha and another life’s worth was balanced against his own life now.

  IB Headquarters, New Delhi

  It was January twelfth, and the morning office hours had just started. MARCOS arrived at the fifth floor of the Delhi headquarters via a basement lift. Members of covert communications teams who facilitated class-four missions worked from this floor. They were the ones who fed Sonia with all the right feeds in the cross-border operation. This was also the floor from where Amjad and his team of class-four officers operated. The roads of bureaucracy that led to the Defense Ministry in south block started here. In the larger context, this was the only team who knew the details of the impending nuclear strike apart from the designated senior officials—the Prime Minister of India, National Security Advisor, heads of IB, Raw, and later on, Border Intelligence.

  The mission was a success. The Indians didn’t need to abandon their assets. For all the investments made in the MARCOS, the establishment wouldn’t have thought twice. Now that it had gone well, NSA was more than happy to apprise the prime minister of it.

  Abhimanyu looked around. The security firewall was outside this room. Perhaps the mole was watching him right now. Then he recalled the protocols. No one here would have known the mission details till the mission was over. They operated blind till the mission was accomplished successfully. Perhaps that’s why MARCOS could still pull it off. They were ahead all the time.

  Definitely not everywhere. The cyber cell in the Tunnel hadn’t cracked the hard disk yet. Thankfully, the RAW had Khalid now—the key to all those secrets hidden in that hard disk. Hopefully, it will halt the strike. Abhimanyu saw the cyber team, who were called in to take the biometrics after every cross-border mission. Arnab Roy, head of Tunnel, was here himself. They waved, and the MARCOS went to Amjad’s room.

  ‘Has he said anything?’

  ‘Nothing. The Tunnel is our only hope.’ Amjad returned to the files on his desk, and the MARCOS waited in his office.

  Abhimanyu sat quietly in a corner, watching Amjad every few minutes.

  He was engrossed into something—a classified file. He looked up.

  Abhimanyu looked away.

  After almost an hour, Arnab entered. ‘Sir, hard disk has been cracked.’

  Amjad shut his file and approached the data room.

  MARCOS followed him.

  It was Sonia’s territory. She got on with it immediately. ‘It will take time.’

  Abhimanyu and Amjad took a break to the cafeteria. Mutual needs trounced their mutual mistrust for now. The television was on. The horrors of the Mumbai attack still reflected on everyone’s face on the TV and in the cafeteria. Little did they know of what was yet to come.

  ‘I’ve been digging. IB’s sources are classified. Even for the president.’ Amjad broke the silence, but Abhimanyu had a different conversation in mind. Amjad was still his administrative boss.

  ‘It was touch and go.’

  Amjad tried to grasp the change in track.

  ‘I don’t know how long I can be here.’ Abhimanyu looked out the cafeteria window and said it in an uncharacteristic low tone.

  At first, Amjad thought it was just a concern. Soon, he realized there was more to it. ‘What happened out there?’

  Abhimanyu was quiet.

  ‘You have done more, should I say, adventurous missions than this.’ Amjad raised his eyebrow.

  ‘I had a team, and their lives depended on my decisions. Also, their family’s future. I have completed many missions, but it has never felt like this. It’s no longer the same.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, it’s not adventurous anymore.’ Abhimanyu faced him. ‘It’s a burden.’ The harrowing thoughts from when he had been stuck behind that Jeep were all too fresh still. They had turned up ten minutes before time and were almost done for their lives. It dawned on him that everything could have been over in just a second, forever. The margins were always thin, but now they left deep marks behind as well.

  ‘Is it just that?’ Amjad found it hard to believe that Abhimanyu Singh Rathore, a veteran, had been bogged down by one near-death experience. He had done way too many missions to fall apart so easily. He had handled bigger responsibilities earlier, bigger team, so the guilt of miscalculations in decisions also didn’t make sense. Yes, the afterthoughts happened to everyone, but Abhimanyu had tipped over. Could it be a hangover from their earlier conversation?

  For Abhimanyu, there was more to his thoughts, and it went back to the small talk he’d had with Siddhartha in Pasha’s safe abode in the desert—the moment of clarity when it dawned on him that he had a personal life which was shaping up beautifully again. In his entire adulthood, he had never felt so much at peace with himself as he now fe
lt around Sasha. A peaceful family life awaited him, just like the one his parents had built for him. For him, it was not just a momentary thought but a rendezvous with his deep-seated desires to have a commoner’s life—a life where he’d never have to hide from an unknown enemy, a life where he didn’t have to expect the unexpected, a life where he didn’t need a plan B and plan C for safety. A normal life.

  Abhimanyu realized Amjad couldn’t understand his motives and decided it was time to open up and move on. ‘I’m tired of breaking in and running away. Tired of killing day in and day out just to survive. I have another shot at a family life, and I want to grab it. You would also agree the two don’t go together.’ The sacrifices Amjad had made, Abhimanyu wasn’t ready to make.

  ‘We can only choose one,’ Amjad muttered, clearly still flummoxed by Abhimanyu’s thoughts. He nodded sideways to express his disagreement with the decision.

  ‘I’ve made my choice. It was unthinkable for me two years ago perhaps. Time changes perspective and choices too.’

  Amjad took a deep breath. It had nothing to do with the morning talk; there was no game play. He realized he couldn’t bring him back. The more he tried, the more it would push him further away. Abhimanyu was in a different zone, so he decided to salvage what he could and keep the mission going. This was not the right time to change the team, let alone the team leader. Besides, at some level, Amjad agreed with him. He’d had an opportunity himself which he’d let go, but, in his loneliness, he often regretted that decision. Amjad knew the longer he pushed it, the more difficult it was to get out. After some time, there was no way out. At times, Abhimanyu was akin to a son to Amjad. Abhimanyu still had age on his side, and his choice was clear. Amjad didn’t want to stand in his way. ‘If you’re so sure, no one can stop you. But you know it well that the mission needs you.’