I knew that face! It was the same one that smirked at me in my dreams every night, right before the bastard dared us to come to him across the courtyard of the haveli that fateful night.
“That’s Nadeem Qureshi,” I snarled.
“The benchod is going around sightseeing in Jaipur in broad daylight,” said Col. Bhagat furiously.
“Can’t you track him down using CCTV footage from the area?”
“We tracked him until Johari Bazaar, but he disappeared from there. You know how that area is, with the crowds and the blind spots. All he had to do was get into one of the tourist trap jewelry shops that are like rabbit warrens. You enter one of those shops of your own accord, but you leave only when the shopkeeper decides to let you go. They have multiple hidden exits that lead out onto tiny lanes and alleys that have no surveillance cameras.”
“Well, he’s bound to show up sooner or later.”
“We don’t have the time to wait for him to show up on another surveillance camera, Deora. We have intel that our neighbouring state has planned something big for GandhiJayanti. And Qureshi’s presence corroborates that. If he’s hanging around, taking in the local sights, it means he plans to stay for a while, unlike his quick visits in the past. He’s here to coordinate whatever attack is being planned on October 2nd. Now, we have teams looking out for him, and I’m sure they will find him before long. But finding Qureshi is just the tip of the iceberg. We need to find the locals who are helping him move his maal across the border.”
“We’ve tried interrogating the locals, sir. It was a complete failure,” I reminded him.
“Yes, because this is bigger and more organised than we’d thought. Nadeem Qureshi goes in and out of the country as if it is his sasural, and each time, he comes bearing presents for his in-laws,” grumbled Col. Bhagat.
“There is a network of underground tunnels that runs under the border, sir. That’s how he gets around so easily. We used to find and close them regularly, but new tunnels pop up all the time.”
“That’s like putting a Band-Aid on a deep wound. We need to go deeper and find the people who run this show. I’m telling you, Deora, there is someone…a shadow figure that we can’t see right now…who’s pulling all the strings. Somebody rich and connected in these parts who runs a gang that helps Qureshi and his men cross the border, and also transports their weapons. It is impossible for him to run an operation on this scale without local support.”
“But nobody’s talking, sir.”
“That’s where you come in, Deora. Don’t forget, you’re a local, too. With deep roots in the community.”
“Well, for now, I’m stuck in my palace, sir. And Deorangir is nowhere close to Munabao, which is where most of the arms and human trafficking happens. And I’m retired.”
“That can change, can’t it? What if I give you a job you can do while still fulfilling your duties to your family?”
I gave him a sardonic smile.
“You want to turn me into a paper-pusher, sir? I’m sorry, but I’ll have to respectfully decline your offer because I’ll die a very painful death if you stick me behind a desk. I’m a field man, Col. Sahab.”
“Don’t I know that?” demanded Col. Bhagat angrily. “Can you just hear me out, Deora? I haven’t travelled so far just to offer you a desk job. The man we’re looking for is rich, connected, and powerful. As are you and a lot of your friends and relatives. You can’t throw a rock in this area without hitting a royal.”
“Most of them are really minor royals. They don’t count, sir,” I said, with a straight face.
“Yes, well, not everyone can have a palace the size of the Red Fort,” he countered with a twinkle in his eye. “Here’s the thing, Deora. I’m convinced you can get to this shadowy figure far more easily than we can.”
“There’s just one hitch with that logic, sir.”
“And what’s that?” he asked exasperatedly.
“It would require me to do something that would kill me even quicker than a desk job. Socialise with the very people I’ve avoided like the plague for years.”
“That’s a small sacrifice, Major,” said Col. Bhagat sternly. “You owe it to your dead friend. You owe it to your unit that’s been broken up and scattered through no fault of theirs. And you owe it to your country.”
Damn it! I knew he was right. That didn’t mean I had to like it.
For the past eight years, I had stayed away from that world. I had turned my back on it that fateful morning when all my illusions about love had been shattered. Meher had shown mewhat she really was, and I had walked away from her without a word. I had thrown myself into my probation for the special forces and cut myself off from my family until I had buried the pain of losing the woman I loved deep under layers of indifference.
But I knew Col. Bhagat was right. Whoever it was that was helping Qureshi run his operations had to be very powerful, and the only people with that kind of power in these areas, who could also command the loyalty of local people, had to be of royal descent. Our families were entwined with royals in so many ways that it didn’t matter that monarchies didn’t exist anymore, or that our old titles were meaningless.
Besides, a lot of minor royals were strapped for cash and had made the jump from being heads of erstwhile jagirs and thikanas to being the lords of the local mafia that ran drugs, weapons, and women quite easily. Some of my old friends had banded together to shut them down, and if anyone could point me in the direction of whoever was Qureshi’s local partner in crime, it was them.
“What do you need from me, sir?” I asked finally, and Col. Bhagat shot me a triumphant grin.
“That’s my boy! I knew you’d come through. You always do,” he said approvingly. “Deora, don’t look at it as socialising. I know you hate that. Look at it as a covert mission. Off the books. For the rest of the world, you’re just a retired army man, wanting to get back to your old life. Your mission is to infiltrate your social circle and try and find the man who plays at being a rich and successful royal or local business owner by day, but is really helping a known terrorist smuggle arms and explosives into our country. Do you accept it?”
