The Dust Will Never Settle (24 page)

Mohite heard his mobile ring again. This time, seeing Ravinder’s number, he took the call.

‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ Ravinder’s fury erupted in his ear.

‘I want to see who else is with him. Don’t worry, sir, I have it under…’

‘Shut the fuck up, Mohite, and tell the teams to take him down.
Now!
’

The last word exploded like a bullet. Dropping the phone, Mohite reached for the radio and screamed into it. ‘Move!
Move!
Take him down now!’

Chambering a round, Mark was taking out the pistol to shove it into his waistband when he saw the couple in front of him – about thirty feet away – suddenly spring to their feet. He spotted the weapons in their hands and knew he’d been blown. His mind automatically triggered a response.

Instead of pushing the Glock into his waistband, he brought it up and fired – once, twice, thrice – so rapidly that the sound cascaded into one long roar. Despite the distance, his aim was spot on; both cops dropped. Spinning around, Mark saw Nanda, who had started backing away.

‘Son of a bitch!’ Two more shots erupted out of the Glock. Nanda took the first in his chest and the second in his neck. He was thrown backwards and hit the ground with a thud.

Mark turned and ran straight towards the cop couple he had hit with his first burst. He knew the surveillance teams in any such operation would be spread out. With the team in front down, this was the safest way out. Clutching the precious bag, he broke into a sprint. He had to make it to the road. With the office hour rush at its peak, that would give him a fighting chance to melt into the crowd. That would also prevent the cops from firing at him.

Mark was moving fast, but not enough to outrun the bullets that now came at him from two sides. The other cop teams had seen what had happened to the first team. As their guns thundered, the Garden of Five Senses erupted in pandemonium. People scattered and ran senselessly in all directions.

From where Ruby was standing, she could see a flurry of movement and Mark going down. Though the gunfire was barely audible, the picture was clear. She felt an acute pain, not just because she had lost her main man, but also because she saw the Glocks fallen in the grass. She needed those. Her mind screamed at her to get clear of the area before the cops spread a dragnet. Reversing swiftly, she pulled out into the traffic, weaving through the cars as fast as she could.

‘Motherfucker! Stupid bastard!’ Ravinder was unable to contain the string of expletives that exploded out of him as he ran across the road towards the garden. But it was useless. The terrorist had to be dead. No way he could have survived that barrage. Still, hoping for a miracle, Ravinder ran.
Maybe I will get a couple of minutes to question him before he dies
.

I need to know what the target is… and who else is with him…
He was racing forward when he almost ran into a cream-coloured Toyota Innova that came barrelling down the road. Angrily waving it to a halt, he skirted around it and headed for the park. He was halfway towards the fallen body when it struck him that the vehicle had seemed familiar. Ravinder knew he had seen it before – recently. His mind began to strain.

‘He is dead, sir.’ Mohite was feeling the fallen man’s neck.

‘Damn!’ Ravinder slapped a fist into the palm of his hand. ‘Why the hell did you wait so long? You should have ordered them to take him down the minute he took the guns from Nanda! And why had those guns not been dummied?’

‘I wanted to see who else was with him.’ Mohite avoided the second question completely. ‘After all, he was not operating alone. Even Thakur sahib agreed that…’

‘Fuck Thakur sahib! My orders were
very
clear.’ Ravinder checked his urge to slap Mohite. ‘And why did you not have the guns dummied?’

‘I… forgot…’ Mohite muttered sheepishly. ‘I didn’t think it would matter since we were going to catch him…’

‘You didn’t think it would matter?’ Ravinder was having trouble keeping his anger under control. ‘Tell that to the families of those…’ He pointed at the bodies of the two cops who had been gunned down by the terrorist. His finger was quivering with fury.

Taking a deep breath, Ravinder calmed himself. It was pointless, the damage was done. Now he had to ferret out the way ahead, to try and salvage whatever they could out of this fiasco.

There have to be some leads here. There are always leads… one just has to look hard enough… and be lucky, of course.

Praying for a break, he brushed Mohite aside and began searching Mark’s pockets. He struck gold in the first one, an almost new iPhone. Its memory was blank; no record of calls received or made or any numbers stored on it. Mark was too experienced not to delete the call history after every call. However, there was an unread message. Ravinder clicked it open.

Okay. I will meet you at Machan coffee shop at 7 p.m. RG.

Ravinder checked the time at which it had been received. Only four minutes ago. Around the time Mark was shot.

It was almost five.
The bloody hotel is at least an hour’s drive
. He would also need time to deploy the takedown teams. Rapidly making up his mind, he turned to Mohite.

‘Get a team ready to leave with me right away.’

‘What happened, sir?’

‘This bugger was going to meet someone at Machan, the Taj coffee shop, at seven. I’m going to see who it is…’

‘Should I come with you?’

‘No, just give me four men. You clean up the mess here.’

By now cops of all varieties were all over the garden. They seemed to have dropped down from the trees. Soon the media would land up. ‘And Govind,’ he called as he walked away, ‘I want no impromptu media interviews. Just stay with no comments and the matter is under investigation. Got it?’

Fifteen minutes later he was off with four men from the support party in tow. Ravinder briefed them on the way, making sure he covered all possible contingencies. This time he had to take this man… or woman… this RG – alive.

He wondered if RG would turn out to be the person Nanda had spotted with Mark at Dilli Haat.

The thought of Nanda saddened him. Ravinder knew he had a wife and a couple of kids.

Oh, well… at least he is leaving them with plenty of dough. Live by the sword, die by it. He should have chosen a safer profession.

Then he began to focus on the task now confronting them. Hopefully there would be no shoot-out.

In the confines of a hotel coffee shop, the damage would be…
He shuddered and pushed away the horrifying image.

What could RG stand for?
That held his attention briefly. It could be anything.
RG…
There was something about it. Then he remembered Mohite’s ‘G-string’ joke. ‘Each of the delegates has a name starting with G… either the first name or the family name… Even we…’

A wry smile creased Ravinder’s lips. Even the bloody terrorists attacking Delhi had names starting with G. He marvelled at the coincidence.

RG! Ruby Gill?
The shock pulverized him.
Could it be Ruby?

Ruby’s head was still pounding when she reached home. Mark’s death, the loss of the Glocks, and then Ravinder suddenly running in front of her car had shaken her badly. It had been too close a call. If he had spotted her the game would be up. As it was, he had been guarded with her ever since that lunch with Chance and Jennifer. She wanted to be home well before he returned, safely tucked away in bed. That ought to preclude any conversation and awkward questions.

With the loss of Mark and the Glocks she would now have to rework the complete battle plan. Her options had narrowed sharply. And they hadn’t been great to begin with.

‘Would you like me to get your dinner ready, miss?’ the maid called out as Ruby was ascending the stairs. Jasmine had told her that Westerners liked to eat early, much earlier than the Indian dinnertime of nine or ten.

‘No, thank you,’ Ruby replied. ‘I have a headache. I think I’ll lie down for a bit.’ She tore off her clothes and stood under the steaming shower for a good five minutes, finally regaining some semblance of normalcy. Then she lay down to think.

The soft knock on her door caught her by surprise. She was in no mood to chat and hoped it was not Jasmine.

‘May I come in, please?’