I knew what he meant. We were currently trying to crack down on arms being smuggled into Rajasthan from across the border by the local mafia through deep underground tunnels.
“Who is it?” I asked, trying to tamp down on my excitement.
“Nadeem Qureshi.”
Qureshi used to be a low-level thug for one of Mumbai’s biggest underworld dons, until he moved to Dubai with his boss. Or so we’d thought, until our intelligence agency informed us that he had turned arms dealer and was now based in Pakistan. He was also on the list of India’s most wanted criminals.
“According to my informant, he snuck across the border last night and is hiding in a derelict haveli in Munabao. He has four armed guards. A convoy of camel riders was supposed to pick him up tonight, but they’ve been delayed. They won’t get here before tomorrow,” said Mani. “Let’s grab him tonight, sir.”
“We will grab him, but you won’t go with us,” I said. “You’re taking the night train to Chennai, Mani. Did you forget?”
“With due respect, sir, this is my intel. And Qureshi is a very big fish. You can’t leave me out of it,” he argued. “I’ll leave as soon as we bring him in.”
I couldn’t argue with him because I knew Mani was dying to make his mark in the Special Forces. He was extremely ambitious, and his courage was unparalleled. As his Commanding Officer, I could order him to go home, but as his best friend, I couldn’t rob him of this opportunity.
It was supposed to be a simple extraction. All we had to do was make our way to Qureshi’s hideout under the cover of darkness as part of a convoy of passing camel riders. We’d break away from them and commando crawl to the haveli in the dark, neutralise the guards, and grab the man when he was still asleep.
At least, that was the plan. It was a hastily assembled plan, but it was a good one. Until it went bad.
A knock at the door pulled me out of the past.
“Hukum, there’s someone to see you,” announced the butler, Hira Singh. “He refused to give his name.”
“I don’t want to see anyone,” I grunted, but Hira Singh did not move. There was a peculiar insistence in his silence.
I shot him an irritated look.
“Send him away, Hira Singh. I don’t have to see anyone if I don’t want to. Being Maharaja must count for something, surely,” I said, with a bitter smile.
I never wanted to be a Maharaja. I was happy being the younger brother. It gave me the freedom to live my life as I wanted. As the spare, my life was mine. I could throw it away on a foolhardy mission if I wanted to, and nobody could stop me. But then my brother died, and it turned out that as the new Maharaja, my life and my identity were tied to the title. It was apparently unthinkable for the Maharaja of Deorangir to risk having his head blown off in a black op. Who knew that my life was suddenly more valuable because I held a useless title?
My brother had taken sick soon after the investigation into our botched mission, and since I took the blame for our failure squarely on my own head, I was sent home to cool my heels while the army decided the fate of my unit. I should never have come home, I thought ruefully. Because I had walked into an even bigger ambush than the previous one.
“I’m on my way out,” Bhai Sa had said, with a game smile on his face. “My body has finally given up on me, Sam. It seems to have rejected the new kidney, and my liver’s failing.”
“There has to be a way to save you, Bhai Sa,” I’d said desperately, but he shook his head.
“I don’t mind dying. It’s better than this cursed existence. And after I’m gone, all this will be yours. Which means you need to be around to make sure Nilanjana doesn’t sell it behind your back.”
My lip had curled at the thought of my brother’s wife. She was the most disgusting specimen of humanity I’d ever known. She knew Bhai Sa’s medical history when she married him, and she had taken that to be an unspoken permission to stray. I didn’t care about their personal arrangement, but I had no intention of helping her cuckold my brother. Unfortunately,Nilanjana didn’t seem to understand the word no, and kept trying to seduce me every time she set eyes on me. I knew I was going to be very rude to her very soon, because the very sight of her sickened me.
Clearly, Bhai Sa had no illusions about his wife. She had only married him for money, and she was capable of selling our ancestral palace just to spite our family.
“I’ll make sure she doesn’t get her hands on anything but her share,” I promised.
“The only way to do that is to quit the army, Sam. You have a responsibility to your heritage,” he said softly. “The family will need you here after I’m gone. You will have to hold them all together. And you’ll need to take care of Navya because her mother acts like she doesn’t exist.”
Nilanjana was an awful mother who neglected her three-year-old daughter just because she wasn’t the son she had wanted. Navya was the apple of Bhai Sa’s eye, and I knew he was worried about her.
“I’ll make sure she’s cared for, Bhai Sa. You know I’ll always be there for Navya,” I promised.
He struggled to sit up, agitatedly.
“How the hell will you do that if you’re out on some bloody mission, Sam? You go radio silent on us for months when you’re at one of those forward posts. Navya will be alone in the palace with nobody to protect her from her mother’s schemes,” he said, before a loud cough wracked his body. “You need to retire from the army, Samrat.”
“I can’t retire under a cloud, Bhai Sa. I need to get back and prove my worth before I quit the army. If I quit now, I’ll never outlive the shame of having failed this mission,” I said desperately.
“What shame? You’re a fucking hero, Samrat Singh Deora,” he yelled hoarsely. “One bad mission does not define you.”
