KALYUG (15 page)

For an instant, there was only silence from the other end. Richa felt a sense of panic growing within her as she considered the possibility that someone else had answered . . . which meant that the major-general was no longer able to do it himself, which, in turn, indicated the possibility that
he
had not been able to get out in time.

She was about to hang up when his voice, as calm and steady as ever, came through the earpiece. ‘Where are you right now?’

Richa looked outside, trying to get her bearings. She did not recognize the area they were in, which meant that she was probably north of her office – the only direction she had not had occasion to travel in. She peered hard at the store signs as they sped by, eventually managing to read the area off one of them. ‘Ashok Marg, heading north towards Sunshine Square,’ she told him. ‘We’ll be at the signal in a few seconds.’

A short pause as Qureshi computed the time and the distances. Then he said, ‘Okay. Now listen carefully. I have not sent Menon, but I do need to talk to him. Can you get him to Fortune Mall?’

As Richa hesitated, the implications of the major-general’s statement still sinking in, he added, ‘If not, I suggest you jump out at the next signal, get an auto and go some place no one will find you.’

Their vehicle started to slow down. Richa wondered if Menon would try to grab the phone – for he must have known the instant he heard the major-general’s name that his bluff had been called – and clutched her instrument even tighter. For a brief instant, she considered the option of running away – but where would she go? For how long?

So running away was not really an option, which meant she would have to trust the major-general to get her to safety once she delivered Raghav Menon to him.

‘We’ll meet you at Fortune,’ she said resolutely.

‘Good,’ he replied immediately, as if he had expected nothing else. ‘I’ll meet you in front of the Big Bazaar supermarket on the first floor. And Richa?’

At that instant, they braked to a complete halt. Menon started to reach for her with his left hand, even as his right hand flicked the switch that would over-ride all the other locks, ensuring that she would not be able to unlock her door. Richa held up a hand, more out of reflex than of conscious thought, and to her surprise, his hand stopped in mid-air.

‘Be very careful,’ continued the major-general, dropping his voice. Richa had to strain to hear the last few words before he hung up. ‘Raghav Menon is not to be trusted. He’s part of Powerhouse.’

9

16th September, 2012. New Delhi.

‘Good afternoon, my dear friends.’

On the huge screen, on each of the nine squares that transmitted pictures of nine different areas inside the convention centre in Ghaziabad, people turned towards the cameras. Some of them seemed to look straight through the camera at us; others looked a little to the right, or a little to the left, which meant that their cameras were probably placed off-centre, perhaps along the walls or on tripods set up specifically for this purpose. Politicians, well-known and obscure alike, nudged and shoved themselves as they fought for better views of the screen on which, I was told, GK would be visible to them.

Along the edges of some of the screens, I could also see a solid line of commandos, automatic weapons held diagonally across the chest and pointing towards the ground, their right hands on the stock and the left under the barrel, a picture of readiness to fire.

The vague murmur of voices that came to us over the speakers died out quickly as the president appeared on the screens. On most faces, I saw a mixture of puzzlement and relief; only a few appeared to be belligerent, as if they had already convinced themselves that GK was the cause of their predicament. Come to think of it, in some weird way, he probably was.

‘I apologize for the inconvenience that has been caused to you,’ began the president, and immediately there was a shout from someone at the back which was muted as quickly as it had been uttered. GK appeared to be flustered momentarily, but he quickly regained his composure. ‘It is not our intention to harm you, or to hold you there for longer than necessary.’

The script that Nelson had prepared for him called for a pause. I knew, because for some vague reason, I had been given a copy of the same before being relegated to an invisible corner of the room. From where I sat, I could see all the three conspirators quite clearly – and for the first time, it struck me that there were too few people in here.

For one, there should have been someone managing the AV equipment. Audio-visual setups are extremely complicated and there should have been at least a couple of technicians at our end, standing by, to ensure that things went off smoothly. Of course, given that this was a room in which top-secret video conferences were probably held every week, it was likely that the system was foolproof and the need for security overrode any technical concerns.

Even discounting the technical aspects, there should have been other people buzzing around the president. Secretaries. Attendants. At the very least, doormen. It was a Sunday, but it was still the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and for the amount that we spend on it, I would have expected to see more people earning their salaries.

I started to move towards Jagannath. He must have sensed my motion and looked at me, shaking his head and indicating that he would join me where I stood. He whispered something to Nelson, who nodded, and then jogged over silently to where I stood.

‘What is it now?’ he asked, his tone clearly indicating that I was wearing out my welcome. I ignored it – in fact, I am not too sure I didn’t welcome it.

‘Where are the others?’ I asked him.

‘What others?’

‘The staff. I mean, I’m sure the president must have an army of secretaries and under-secretaries to take care of his . . . stuff. And others like escorts and security . . .’

‘That’s been taken care of,’ Jagannath said, a hint of patronization in the way he said it. ‘You don’t think we would have walked in here and discussed what we did with the president without evaluating the risk of leaks, do you? As of this moment, two hundred and seven staff members – of various designations and responsibilities – are being refreshed on the protocols and regulations of operating here. Thanks to a bureaucratic screw-up, it just so happened that the entire Sunday crew has been summoned without leaving a skeletal crew behind.’

He smiled at me, though it did not seem to reach his eyes. ‘You are afraid that
we
screwed up somewhere, Selvam, but let me assure you, we haven’t.’

16th September, 2012. Ghaziabad.

As the president’s words sunk in, the murmurs of indignation started up again. He had confirmed what many of them had not even suspected, and his tacit confession of the threat of force that they faced was insulting to their sense of self-entitlement. For many of the delegates, the first reaction was similar – how dare they? – followed by, ‘They can’t do this to me!’ As a result, the protests amped up very rapidly, until most of the delegates, caught up in the rush of emotion, were waving their fists at the president.

After letting the protests hit a crescendo, GK suddenly roared, ‘Silence.
Khamosh
!’

Inside the convention centre, the effect was electric. The technicians, referring to their own manual for the occasion, had observed the cue – the utterance of ‘silence’ – and turned up the volume on all the speakers, with the result that the repetition of the command – in Hindi this time – hit the delegates with all the subtlety of a sonic boom. Many flinched; one of the oldest kingmakers in attendance actually clutched his chest. Unseen, the technicians reset the volume back to normal levels.

They fell silent at once.

‘Thank you,’ said the president, smiling. ‘Now, if there are no more interruptions, I would like to explain to you why you are where you are.’

He stared at the camera in front of him, appearing to the delegates as if he was staring at each and every one of them individually. GK had their undivided attention. He seemed to bask in it.

‘For many years, we have paid lip-service to the demands for good governance. We’ve held so-called seminars – like the one you are at today – with nothing more than horse-trading and boozing on our agenda, and we think we’ve successfully fooled the public into thinking that there is a better future for them.

‘Yet, the truth is that we have not fooled anyone. In fact, even worse, we’ve gone from disappointing them to disgusting them. Look at all the scams that have come out in the last few months. CWG. Spectrum. Gas. Coal. Land. And every time, as if it is a birth-right, we’ve instituted a toothless commission, compromised the investigators and side-stepped the issues with spins and counter-allegations.

‘That is the legacy we are leaving for our next generation. The burden of corruption that has eroded our moral right to pat ourselves on the back.’

Joseph Karpov Thevaraparambil, the young politician who had confronted the commandos earlier, stifled a yawn theatrically, drawing a few sniggers from the others around him. As someone who had seen GK over the years – and more importantly, heard his father speak of him – Joseph did not have a very high opinion of him. Except for the outright mention of the scams, it was a speech that was recycled at the annual conventions across the country every year. Legacy, moral right, et cetera, et cetera. He was the next generation, and he had no problem with what he was being ‘burdened’ with.

Suddenly, the mellow voice turned thunderous. ‘It has to stop now. We have to stop passing the blame and start becoming responsible leaders, working for the nation, then the state, then the constituency, then the community and only after that, our own personal demands – instead of the other way around.’

Oh, please
, thought Joseph. This, from the same guy who had coerced his father into naming a candidate for Rajya Sabha on the basis of the community sub-sect that the person belonged to.

‘And the first thing that we have to do is to revamp the system. There are inefficiencies and loopholes everywhere. Where there aren’t, we – and I mean not just us, but everyone else who follows our example – ignore the laws with impunity.’

With sudden clarity, Joseph realized that whatever the president was up to, he was talking to the gallery and not to the audience gathered before him. Every word that he had spoken so far was a reflection of the populist sentiment, often trotted out during election campaigns – the rare occasions that the public got to meet their elected representatives in person – or during televised debates whenever the other side was on the back foot. To Joseph, it was evident that the president expected his speech to be shared with the public, officially or otherwise, and his bet was on the latter.

‘That is why I have taken the decision, as the constitutional head of our nation, to impose – for only the second time in our history – a national Emergency on political grounds. As of this minute, ladies and gentlemen, the government of India headed by Sri Kuldip Razdan has been dismissed and the Constitution suspended.’

24th April, 2012. New Delhi.

‘I guess you know, huh?’ he asked her with a wan smile.

Richa Naik stared through the windshield at the timer next to the signal. They had another ninety seconds to wait, and as far as she was concerned, to waste, for she knew there was no point in attempting an escape. A few seconds earlier, under the guise of putting her phone back into her purse, she had covered her left hand as she tried to disengage the lock, just to reassure herself that she could if she wanted to, only to discover that the switch would not budge.

She was also confused and not just a little worried about her own fate. Though none of her reports had mentioned anything about Powerhouse, the organization had been there like a shadow, a spectre that had constantly intimidated her sources from revealing everything that they knew. She had heard the whispers, had convinced herself that some of the facts she knew simply did not fit unless an agency such as Powerhouse existed, but to actually be in a vulnerable position with someone who was part of the organization was in equal parts scary and thrilling.

She wondered how to handle Menon. There was no mileage in playing dumb and hoping he fell for her act; his actions back at her office had convinced her about his competency. Yet, would an admission that she knew his bluff be her own death warrant?

She had no illusions about her own worth to either the major-general or to Powerhouse. To one, she was little more than a pawn in his quest to unveil the culprits behind all the deaths that now haunted him; to the other, perhaps an irritant, a voice that had already been muted and could quite easily be silenced permanently.

She remained silent, hoping to draw him out more, hoping for a little more information that would help her plan her move. If only he could give her an opening for something other than the damning statement that she knew he worked for Powerhouse, then she could gauge how informed he was, and attempt to play his ignorance to her advantage. Clutching her purse tighter, she continued to watch the red digits count down, mentally willing him to speak, finding it easier to hold her tongue by silently mouthing the number of seconds remaining for the light to change.

Raghav Menon knew she was watching him intently out of the corner of her eyes, waiting to see if he would make any other move – physical or verbal. He wondered what she thought of him now that she had heard the major-general dismissing his claim as false.

He let her stew in her own silence, a conscious decision borne out of years of experience of questioning many people. Silence was disorienting; silence grew unbearable faster than noise. Silence also led to pessimistic thoughts that could lead to panic, and panic could lead to admissions. Or at the very least, some advantages.

Unlike her, though, he made no bones about studying her as he waited for the lights to change. She was the amateur, he the expert. Despite her efforts, he had noticed the attempt to test the lock on the door and smiled inwardly at her cheek. He was impressed that she had taken that disappointment well, even as he knew that it would make her a little more desperate. And desperation was unpredictable.

They waited out the ninety seconds in complete silence.

Then the lights changed and he switched gears. As he neared the intersection, he was faced with a choice – continue on the road that he was on, or turn right and head towards Fortune Mall. He had a short and rather one-sided debate with himself about the choices, before flicking his right hand upwards, turning on the indicator and cutting across two lines of traffic to take the road to the right.

They drove in silence a little while longer until he decided that it had been long enough. In a few minutes, they would see the mall to their right – and then he would have to make another decision. Let her out at the entrance, or remain with her and meet Major-General Qureshi.

Rewinding her side of the conversation, he realized that Qureshi would have given her a specific location to wait for him, probably inside because – with the heightened security at the mall following the attack – he would not be able to get past the entry points with a weapon of any kind. On the other hand, the major-general would be authorized to carry his weapon if he had his ID ready, and it would be a simple enough matter for him to slip into one of the restrooms and change into plainclothes, making it easier for him to blend into the crowd. Raghav doubted that the major-general was already at the mall. He was probably on the way, though, counting on the assumption that he could slip into the mall unseen through one of the numerous access points, including the loading bays at the rear.

‘Where is he going to meet us?’ he asked her.

His question, seemingly out of nowhere, momentarily flummoxed her. But then she remembered that she had spoken
out aloud to Qureshi that both of them would be there at Fortune, and it must not have taken a lot of imagination to suppose that the major-general must have told her where. She hesitated for just a brief second before answering, ‘By the entrance to the Big Bazaar supermarket on the first floor.’

She saw him nod, as if she had just confirmed his own guess about the location. Thinking about it, she could understand why the major-general had chosen it and why Menon agreed. The supermarket typically had a steady stream of people moving in or out, even on a weekday afternoon, and it would be easy to observe people waiting outside while pretending to browse through the aisles. It also gave her a ray of hope – if things went wrong, she could always seek protection by rushing into the store, where the security was sure to protect her from Menon.