Bheem Read online

  Aviva had no idea how Bheem had done it, how he had been able to interpret inscriptions obscured by deliberate overpainting and centuries of deposit, writing that was almost destroyed by the grenade’s blast. The scattered marks that her processor had enhanced digitally were fragmented, indecipherable, but Bheem had seen things invisible to the Royce expedition’s state-of-the-art technology. Aviva raised her mobile phone and clicked multiple images. The restored Brahmi aksharas were scrawled under the arrow shapes, the defaced genealogical chart spreading across the six-hundred-square-foot area on which the giant arrow symbol had been inscribed. Except that the characters that Bheem had reconstructed were still meaningless—unconnected letters representing remnants of words. There was just one cluster of symbols, on the lowest rung of the ladder, that could have been a name. And it was incomplete. There were gaps, missing letters, but it was the only group that held out hope.

  ‘I can make no sense of it,’ Bheem said, staring at the marks.

  ‘Could we speak Hindi?’ Vineet ventured. He grimaced nervously, hoping that the lopsided expression would pass for a friendly smile. ‘Or English? Aviva said you speak it—’

  Aviva stared at the incomprehensible lettering. ‘Brahmi is phonetic . . . So that’s “ah”. The next one looks like a “na” . . . or maybe a “ni”. “Ta” . . . “na” . . . missing letter . . . “ra” . . .’

  ‘The names of four saviours . . .’ Bheem glanced at Aviva. ‘That is your understanding of Saragha’s words. If that is a name, I know none like it.’

  ‘Ah-na-ta-na-something-ra . . .’ Aviva muttered, combining the letters.

  ‘Aneeta Nair!’

  Bheem and Aviva turned simultaneously to look at the animated reporter.

  ‘Two words!’ Vineet ejaculated. ‘Two names! Aneeta Nair!’

  ‘Could it be so, Avivafein? Is Vineetsinha correct? Do we have two names? Two saviours?’

  ‘No. Two names but one person.’ Aviva’s face was suddenly alive with excitement.

  ‘Two names for one person? As in “Karan” and “Suryaputra”? Is this a famous warrior or saint?’

  ‘No. It’s common to have two names. First name and surname. As in “Aviva Fein” or “Vineet Sinha”.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Aviva turned to Vineet. ‘That was amazing! How did you guess?’

  ‘He knows this person,’ interjected Bheem. ‘The same name. They have had unsuccessful physical relations.’

  Vineet gaped, flushed.

  ‘Is that true, Vineet?’ Aviva looked at the journalist eagerly. ‘Do you know Aneeta Nair?’

  ‘I . . . She’s Amita Nair—look, there was a reason it was unsuccessful. We were interrupted . . . so . . .’

  But Aviva wasn’t paying attention to his fulminations. She was exasperatedly fiddling with her smartphone.

  ‘Have you found the person, Aviva-Fein?’ Bheem asked, taking care to break up her name into two distinct words. ‘Located Aneeta-Nair?’

  ‘I can’t get a signal. We need to get out of the cave, out of the jungle. The name’s very common, though. She won’t be easy to find.’

  Steel flashed in the warrior’s eyes. ‘We cannot let that hinder us,’ he said. ‘For it will not stop Ashvatthama.’

  Part 2

  The Four

  1

  Kabul, Afghanistan

  24 October 2017

  The child bit down and Major (Dr) Rachvin Singh dropped the tongue depressor. Flustered, he picked it up and looked around.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘it slipped.’

  Aneeta Nair hit pause on her Canon 7D and lowered it. ‘No worries, Major sahab,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Let’s do it again.’

  No one had said being a documentary film-maker was easy. There had first been the problem of obtaining a work visa for Afghanistan—practically an impossibility for a woman travelling alone. Aneeta had finessed her way past that, convincing various mandarins of the PR advantages of allowing a woman to shoot a film in the war-torn country. She had sidestepped the apathetic Indian embassy in Kabul, instead unearthing streetwise locals who showed initiative and provided contacts. And then there was that little big thing, the constant frustration that every documentary shoot faced—getting regular, everyday people, non-actors, to forget there was a camera around. How could one impress on them that it was the trifling, the unexpected—the child’s sudden bite, the doctor dropping the tongue depressor—that made a documentary come alive?

  Aneeta couldn’t blame the major, though. Performing for the camera wasn’t his job. His days and nights were given over to the work that Aneeta had spent the last three months filming—work that had left her humbled. Dr Rachvin Singh belonged to the Indian Army Medical Corps and was the leader of a team working out of the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital in Kabul. But treating children at the hospital, Aneeta had realized, was insignificant when compared with the difficulty of getting them there. Two months earlier, Aneeta had ridden along with the medical team into the heart of an ongoing Taliban attack. Hot, hurtling metal, screams and blood, explosions, madness; amid the horror and churning chaos, the wounded were given first aid and extricated alive. It was exceptional material for her documentary. And despite the terror that had threatened to overwhelm her, Aneeta had forced herself to accompany the team repeatedly. She thanked god that it was almost over. She would edit the footage that night in her room at the Indian expatriate community hotel, the Hamid Lodge at Shahr-e-Nau, in the high-security green zone. She hoped to wrap the shoot the next day and be back in Bangalore in two days. Aneeta smiled. She knew she had something good—Cannes-worthy, perhaps? Quite a coup for a twenty-six-year-old. And there was another reason to hurry back: Ravi. He had been proposing marriage for six months now, and Aneeta had just said yes.

  ~

  Pandit H.S.S. University

  Raipur, Chhattisgarh

  24 October 2017

  Though the media had gathered in fair numbers and TV anchors had tried their best to sensationalize it, the fire in the information services building of Pandit Hari Shankar Sharma University, Raipur, was already petering out under the deluge from the firefighters’ hoses. The editor stationed in the Sach Television OB van watched the footage on his screen and yawned. He was severely sleep-deprived, having stayed awake all night covering the fire that had broken out in the forest on the outskirts of the city. Unlike the previous year’s conflagration in Uttarakhand, which had consumed vast areas of forestland, the blaze that had erupted in the densely wooded heart of the Bastar jungle had mysteriously swept down a corridor barely ten metres wide, reaching the gates of Raipur in just twenty hours. There is more of a story in that, he thought, stretching tiredly, barely glancing at the clouds of smoke billowing from the fading flames. And that’s how he missed it. As the desultory footage flickered to an end, the treetops surrounding the information services building were whipped around abruptly by a peculiarly localized wind. Lightning flashed around the roof. The incident lasted about five seconds before it stopped, just as suddenly. What the editor also failed to notice was an anomaly in the top-left corner of the screen—a ghostly image that looked like two huge men on the roof, ablaze in the lightning, their bodies translucent, dissolving completely a moment before the atmospheric phenomenon ended. An optical illusion, of course, and dismissed as such by other TV channels, even those whose technicians were not as fatigued as the editor of Sach Television.

  The column of smoke and heated air rose from the university grounds almost vertically for forty thousand feet, where it hit an airstream moving swiftly in an unusual north-westerly direction. The rising air froze into ice crystals that were borne along by the streaming wind. The jet of wind and ice streaked through the upper atmosphere at two hundred kilometres an hour, a rate at which it would take little more than nine and a half hours to travel the 1914 kilometres that separated Raipur from Kabul.

  ~

  Kabul

  25 October 2015

  4.45 a.m. GMT />
  Kabul (WPI)—A freak hailstorm battered Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport at 2:08 a.m. (AFT), causing extensive damage to several aircraft belonging to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

  The hailstorm that lasted fifteen minutes sent military and airport personnel scurrying for cover as golf-ball-sized hailstones smashed into aircraft, vehicles and buildings. A local guard caught in the open was killed after being struck by hail hurtling down at over forty metres per second.

  While the damage has been estimated at millions of dollars, ISAF refused to reveal details of its nature or extent.

  ‘Last one,’ said Allen. ‘Let’s get it over and done with.’

  Franco nodded, laconic as ever.

  It was chilly, but for Kabul at 4.55 a.m. in late October, that was hardly unexpected. Fortunately, the night was clear, everything sharply visible in the eerie green of Allen and Franco’s night-vision devices. The two Whitewater operatives stepped out of the ATV and crunched over scattered hailstones, heading for the airport’s eastern perimeter fence. They were unusually big men, well over six feet tall, muscle-ripped, clad in identical grey-brown camouflage wear. But it wasn’t for their physical similarities that Franco and Allen were known as ‘the Twins’. Nor was it due to the fact that both were specialists in electronic surveillance. In the shadowy profession of unofficial security operations that thrived in Afghanistan, the skilful application of violence was crucial. And ever since Franco and Allen had started working as a team four years earlier, they had demonstrated repeatedly that when it came to the art of violence, they painted with the same expert brush.

  For the task at hand, though, the Twins did not expect to use their natural gifts. This was routine—replacement of several sensor devices along the airport perimeter that had been knocked out by the hailstorm. There was a reason that the location and maintenance of the devices had been outsourced to Whitewater: Afghan security forces were riddled with Taliban sympathizers. Even the smallest leak could be catastrophic. Luckily, no harm had been done; a freak hailstorm was something that even the Taliban couldn’t have anticipated. Allen and Franco’s job was almost finished. Once they had this last one operational, they could head back to the comfort of their base in Kabul’s green zone.

  ‘Go for sensor check,’ intoned Franco. ‘Three . . . two . . . one . . . zero.’

  Allen looked at the scanner’s screen. The signal from the sensor was clear and undisturbed.

  ‘No spikes. We’re done here. Let’s get . . .’

  He broke off. Was that a squiggle on the screen or just an electrical disturbance? Kabul’s electricity transmission was notoriously unpredictable.

  ‘Fuck!’ he said, remembering that the sensor wasn’t connected to Kabul’s grid; it was powered by a heavy-duty battery pack, and the Twins had just snapped in a fully charged one. And the squiggle wasn’t flattening out—in fact, it was no longer a shapeless scribble but a series of tiny, inverted ‘V’s.

  ‘Fuck!’ said Allen again, eloquently.

  ‘What? What is it?’

  ‘We have a breach!’

  It wasn’t surprising that the Twins’ preference in weaponry was identical. With smooth, synchronized movements, they slid out Glock 37 pistols from underarm holsters. No panic, precise, very professional, despite their exposed positions.

  ‘Nature and location?’ asked Franco, keeping close to the ground, reducing target size for incoming fire.

  The ‘V’s on Allen’s scanner expanded into spikes, cones. The threat was real . . . and growing.

  ‘It’s ground level . . . getting stronger . . . not an animal.’ Allen concentrated, trying to make sense of the signal. ‘Could be a tunnel . . .’

  ‘Location?’ Franco barked.

  The insurgents could be anywhere, Allen thought. But the signal was intensifying, almost strong enough for isolation. Any moment now . . . Shit!

  ‘Behind us!’ Allen hissed. ‘They’re on this side of the fence!’

  The two men whirled, guns levelled, eyes darting. They had been caught in the open and the danger was extreme. But where was the enemy? The blanket darkness of a few minutes ago was fraying, shapes beginning to emerge. With their night-vision devices, spotting the intruders should have been easy. There! Twelve metres to the left! A hollow, where hail had piled up a metre deep; hailstones slipping, sliding, jerking, like beads being rattled in a giant cup. Something was happening under the hollow. A tunnel about to emerge? As one, the Twins fired, their silenced Glocks spitting rapidly, steel-encased bullets drilling through the ice, dealing out death to whoever was below.

  The hailstones stopped moving. Franco and Allen waited. They had the upper hand now. If there were any insurgents left alive, they could be picked off as they emerged from the hollow—though now that their tunnel had been rumbled, it would be suicidal for the terrorists to continue their attack. A cool breeze blew in from the west. Abruptly, the hailstones moved again—sliding, melting, steaming, boiling. Heat radiated from the hollow. The Twins took a hurried step back. What was this—a precursor to some kind of explosive? A suicide bomb? That was the fanatics’ weapon of choice. The heat was intense. The ice sizzled, unfurling sheets of vapour that swirled and swayed above the hollow. Allen and Franco stared. The wind was chiselling the rising gas, shaping it into distinctly human form, two powerful male figures sculpted from steam. And then, as the Twins watched in disbelief, the steam figures acquired solidity, gained bone, muscle and flesh, skin, hair, eyes. Two beings, fully formed in moments, as big and powerfully muscled as Franco and Allen. The beings turned to look at the Twins. Franco and Allen reacted as most humans would when confronted with the unknown—with hostile panic. Natural ability and years of training had given them quicksilver reflexes; their hands blurred as they brought their guns to bear. But the beings from the beyond were faster. The Twins saw a green streak on the lenses of their night-vision devices. And then they saw nothing at all.

  ~

  Air India Flt No AI 504 Arrvng BLR 2250 Oct 27

  Will be waitng at arprt. My Ma Pa want to come

  Tell them not to trbl. Will be hm bfr 12

  It wasn’t romantic but, under the circumstances, it was the best they could do. Voice conversations between Kabul and Bengaluru were always problematic and after many garbled efforts, Aneeta had given up trying to talk to Ravi. Maybe it’s for the best, thought Aneeta. It was strange, but ever since she had said yes, she had found talking to him gruelling. She was self-conscious, constantly trying to impress, their conversations no longer the natural, free-flowing chatter they had once been. Was this a sudden realization of the intensity of their feelings for each other brought on by the formalization of their relationship? Would they have to text each other even when they were together again?

  Aneeta smiled.

  Just two days, she texted.

  Yes, he responded.

  Miss you . . . she said.

  No instant reply. Aneeta looked at her phone apprehensively. Had she crossed a line, transgressed some unknown rule?

  Then suddenly, Me too.

  She let out a relieved breath. And then grinning like a teenager she read the message that followed immediately.

  Like anything.

  A sudden, insistent buzzing; Aneeta looked around, confused. Then it registered: the room’s telephone, of course. Who could be calling her now?

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Aneeta Nair?’

  The voice was male and flat, uninflected, unfamiliar. And, from the way her name was correctly pronounced, Indian.

  ‘Y—yes?’

  ‘Stay in your room,’ continued the voice in perfectly enunciated Malayalam. ‘We will be there soon.’

  If one pretended that the concrete barriers strewn across the road and the two quietly menacing Humvees didn’t exist, Shahr-e-Nau in Kabul’s green zone looked peaceful and quite beautiful in the soft light of dawn. However, the illusion never lasted very long. At randomly staggered times between
6 a.m. and 7 a.m. every day, the war imposed itself on the tranquil district, a convoy rumbling to the perimeter, relieving the forces of the night guard. The convoy that morning consisted of four highly advanced, much-touted mine-resistant and ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs), recently acquired by the Afghan army from the NATO forces pulling out of Afghanistan. They proved utterly ineffective, their armour breached, their occupants wiped out in under thirty seconds by the ferocious assault that had erupted out of nowhere. Afghan guards stumbling out of high-security compounds nearby couldn’t believe what they were seeing. No explosive device, no rocket-propelled grenade, and yet the MRAPs lay inverted, torn open and smouldering like smashed hookahs. And it wasn’t a large-scale assault—no rattle of guns, no scrambling, screaming jihadis. Then they saw them: two huge men, moving at incredible speed, garbed in the distinctive grey-brown of Whitewater operatives. Who were they? Green-on-blue assaults—rogue Afghan soldiers attacking NATO forces—were everyday occurrences. Blue on green was almost unheard of.

  ‘Dwa saray!’ shouted the leader of the Afghan quick-response team into his headset. ‘Two men! Whitewater agents!’

  Instantly, his earphones crackled. ‘Location? Target?’

  ‘Heading for Safi Landmark Hotel!’ But the attackers suddenly veered away. ‘Correction! Not Safi! Hamid Lodge . . . repeat . . . Hamid Lodge!’

  Ravi stared at his phone’s screen, his mouth suddenly dry. Two unconnected messages from Aneeta had rolled in, one immediately following the other:

  Spoke Malayalam . . . Not Ganesh foolng around. Who?

  Noise . . . guns outside. Somthng happnng.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he muttered. ‘Nothing,’ not convincing even himself, as he fiddled with the touchscreen.

  What is it, Aneeta? What?

  For an impossibly long minute, the phone lay silent in his palm. He ached to call, to hear her voice, to have her say it was nothing, not guns, just a car backfiring, a child’s firecracker, not guns.