‘Money is power, Mahesh,’ KD now said to Dhoble. ‘Money and information. There is information in that server, and I’m getting money in exchange for it. That’s all that matters. Everything else – your ideals, your emotions and whatnot – everything else is an illusion.’

  Dhoble couldn’t even disagree with this. As a policeman he, too, had survived on the same currency of money and information. The first had enabled him to buy the second and the second had led to a career full of successful arrests, seizures, glowing news reports and medals.

  ‘How much longer, my young friend?’ KD asked genially, as if they were waiting at a pav bhaji stall for their order.

  ‘Almost done, almost done,’ Nick said without looking up, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  Dhoble badly wanted a drink. As soon as this was over, he was going to take the rest of the bloody day off and get hammered.

  ‘What about my money?’ Dhoble asked. ‘You promised me five mill—’

  ‘I never forget my promises, my friend,’ Khush Dil said. ‘And you will get it within the first five minutes of us leaving this room. I could have done it right now in real time, but this room is so secure that no cell phones work here. Same reason why our young friend here has to copy the information on his computer and then relay it to the buyer, instead of directly sending it to the buyer’s computer from here.’

  Dhoble mulled over these words carefully for the next five minutes, saying nothing, his brain working furiously.

  He was still thinking when Nick straightened up and said, ‘Done!’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ was all Dhoble said.

  26

  Ajay opened his eyes and immediately sprang out of bed, lunging for his phone.

  For the last three days, ever since his violent confrontation with Asiya, he had only slept fitfully and always woken up fearing he had missed out on some important development in the investigation. During these three days, he had tapped every informant known to him, including some that he hadn’t spoken to in years. He had also touched base with every friendly intelligence agency and even put out feelers to some not-so-friendly ones, with the exception of the ISI. To all of them, he had said the same thing – give me Asiya and name your price.

  Of course, he knew that her name was a cover, as was her entire identity. But it was a damn good cover. And, more importantly, her real identity seemed to be a complete mystery. No one seemed to know anything about this woman who was as dangerous as she was attractive.

  The only information coming in was about the K-e-M. Ajay was astounded that the outfit’s name had stayed secret for so long, despite having been active for over a year, if the intelligence he was getting was to be believed.

  Ajay quickly scrolled through his messages and notifications while shaking off the last cobwebs of sleep from his head. Slipping the phone into the pocket of his shorts, he padded to the bathroom. He hadn’t shaved in three days and there were dark circles around his eyes. He hadn’t run a comb through his hair either.

  He splashed cold water over his face several times, stared at his reflection and once again cursed himself for having fallen prey to Asiya’s wiles. The oldest trick in the book and I walked right into it.

  He walked out of the bathroom and stopped in his tracks, his right hand instinctively going to his back before realizing that his gun was in the drawer near his bed. He clenched his fists and planted his feet firmly into the ground.

  The man in the living room of his officers’ quarters was sitting calmly in a chair, one leg crossed over the other, a slight smile on his face. He was white – obviously a Westerner – dressed in a loose shirt and baggy cargos. He was sitting casually, as if there was nothing wrong with him arriving uninvited into the official residence of a DIG-rank officer.

  ‘Who are you?’ Ajay snarled. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Come on, Ghazi,’ Hoffman replied. ‘I got you into Osama Bin Laden’s house all those years ago. You think I can’t get into yours?’

  Ajay relaxed. Despite all his stress, he found himself smiling just a little.

  ‘Goddammit, man,’ he said, walking over and sitting in the other chair in the room. ‘Nestor, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That was the codename I was using, yes.’ Hoffman smiled. ‘The powers that be didn’t deem it fit for you to know my real identity at the time. Which is why we only spoke on the phone, using codenames.’

  Ajay massaged his forehead.

  ‘But you knew mine?’

  ‘From the beginning. You were one of the men on the ground. Protocol required us to know everything about the men actually conducting the operation. I have big fat dossiers on you, as well as everyone else who set foot on Pakistani soil that night.’

  ‘Seems like an aeon ago now, doesn’t it?’ Ajay said.

  ‘Well, yes and no.’

  Ajay looked at Hoffman suspiciously.

  ‘Nestor …’

  ‘Hoffman,’ the American replied. ‘Jon Hoffman. You can call me Jon.’

  ‘I’ll call you Jeanie if that makes you happy, but that “yes and no” and your expression tells me you have some bad news. And you should know that I have my plate rather full with bad news right now,’ Ajay said morosely.

  ‘Then I must apologize in advance. But what I’m about to tell you is directly connected to the case you’re investigating, as well as the operation we were part of twelve years ago.’

  Ajay opened his mouth but no words came out. His current investigation into Asiya and … the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden? He tried to wrap his head around it but could not.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know. Trust me, I couldn’t believe it either.’

  Hoffman waited till Ajay could speak again.

  ‘You know who she is?’ he finally asked.

  Hoffman reached into one of the many pockets of his cargos and brought out a cell phone with a large screen, almost a small electronic tablet. He quickly powered up the screen and tapped out a series of commands as he started speaking.

  ‘You know we have some pretty advanced facial recognition technology, right?’ he said.

  Ajay nodded. India was centuries behind when it came to the technology that the CIA had at its disposal.

  ‘So, after this Asiya Khan attacked you and you guys sent out a discreet request to all agencies seeking information about her, we looked through our files but found nothing. Which was curious because somewhere, at some point, there had to be a trace, a sighting, a shadow, something. Very little misses our eyes, and I’m not even boasting here.’

  Ajay only nodded and waited for the CIA agent to come to the point.

  ‘So, we ran her face through our facial recognition software, which not only searches for a face as it looks today, but also in the past.’

  Ajay leaned forward.

  ‘Your facial recognition can remove age from a face?’

  Hoffman nodded.

  ‘Just like it can add age to a twelve-year-old photograph to see what the person might look like today, it can remove age to give you an idea of what they might have looked like years ago as well.’

  ‘We’ve been trying to get that AI for years,’ Ajay said. ‘But the ones we sampled are simply not good enough. Apparently there’s one in the market, but the inventor is damn elusive.’

  Hoffman chuckled.

  ‘The inventor is us,’ he said. ‘That’s why we’re elusive.’

  ‘Fuckers,’ Ajay responded, but he was smiling. He understood the need of every intelligence agency for exclusivity.

  ‘So,’ Hoffman resumed, ‘we came up with several options. You know, five years, seven years, ten years. We stopped at fifteen years because Asiya would be in her early thirties now, if not late twenties, so that seemed a safe bet. Then we ran those photos through our records, and we got a hit for twelve years ago.’

  Hoffman passed the tablet to Ajay. The Indian cop took it and looked keenly at the face on the screen. She was younger, but the eyes were the same, as was the shape of the lips. There was also a tiny mole on the right cheek. It was Asiya for sure.

  ‘You know her real name?’

  ‘Nobody knows her real name,’ Hoffman replied. ‘What we do know is that she was Osama Bin Laden’s adopted daughter.

  ‘Now, according to our records, Osama had ten daughters, two of whom were named Aasiah and Aisha. One of them – we do not which – was your lady love.’

  A stunned Ajay looked up at Hoffman.

  ‘Especially when you said that the woman also spoke fluent Urdu …’ Hoffman continued talking while Ajay’s mind trailed off, thinking about Asiya and her unique personality traits.

  For a few minutes, neither man spoke. As the shock started ebbing, Ajay became aware of his cell phone buzzing in his pocket. He didn’t seem to have the energy to reach for it but knew he had to. It could be important, maybe about Asiya.

  With supreme effort, he took out the phone from his pocket and looked at the caller ID flashing on the screen.

  It read ‘Retd ACP M. Dhoble’.

  27

  It had been twelve years since her life changed forever. She remembered the night clearly – the early hours of 2 May 2011. The two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters whirring above their mansion had signalled the beginning of the end for her foster father, the man she called Abba-jaan. The sound of the rotors in her head was so loud that she now wanted to cover her ears with her palms and become immune to the past, to pretend like none of it had happened. But that would mean betraying her Abba-jaan, it would mean betraying Osama Bin Laden.

  She had never seen fear on her foster father’s face until that night. Even when he’d sent the civilian aeroplanes crashing into the symbols of America’s pride, his face had shown no emotion barring an all-knowing smile.

  She was the daughter of one of Bin Laden’s bodyguards. Her biological father had died while saving Bin Laden during the last phase of Russia’s conflict with Afghanistan. To repay the debt, his master had taken her amongst his own children and never treated her differently from his own flesh and blood. Bin Laden had filled the void left by her father.

  Abba-jaan was a man of great fecundity. He had sired twenty-three (known) children from five (known) wives. Fate had denied her direct descendancy from his lineage, but he had loved her far more than his ten daughters and thirteen sons. He had raised her as his favourite child, his protégée.

  A sob choked her throat. Outside, the wind rustled through the poplar trees.

  ‘My dear child,’ he said. ‘The hour has come.’

  ‘The infidels shall pay for this grave misdeed,’ she said. ‘I will fight to my last breath.’

  Bin Laden walked towards a wall and turned over the carpet to reveal a trapdoor. Asiya fervently hoped that her foster father would seek refuge in the deepest pits of the world, only to emerge safe and sound in another land. The fight would continue, after all.

  But her worst fears came true when he pushed her down into the safety of the ventilator instead. For the first time ever, she looked upon her father with questioning eyes. He wanted to save her life and not his own!

  ‘I am tired now. I cannot keep running.’ He clasped her hand tightly. ‘For the sake of the heavens, stay here until you are safe.’

  She shook her head, crying. Tears rolled down her pink cheeks. He had given her an oath she could not break. She did not want to let go of him. But the trapdoor was slammed shut. She muffled her mouth with her hands and cried. The infidels were at the doorstep. A gap through a ventilator allowed her a partial view of the floor above.

  The next few minutes passed in a blur. There was the sound of a door being broken down, and then gunfire, a lot of gunfire. More than was needed to kill a single man. This wasn’t just a mission; it was an execution. She drew her knees close to her chest and hugged them, crying silently. She fought hard to keep her sobs quiet, although it felt as if her heart was going to burst out of her chest any second.

  Already, through the haze of her grief, a new emotion was taking birth: hatred.

  She watched as the black-clad soldiers bent down to examine the face of her fallen Abba-jaan, and told each other who he was. She could understand what they were saying; Bin Laden had spent months teaching her to read, write and speak English.

  They straightened and bumped fists, celebrating the death of her father.

  Then, another man entered. He, too, was clad in black and wearing a mask. He held a pistol in his right hand and was gripping his right wrist with his left hand.

  The man started collecting DNA samples, and seemed familiar. His eyes were brown and intense, and when he took off his gloves for a brief moment, she noticed a scar on his thumb. She tried to recollect. Where had she seen this man before?

  In this house, of course! He had accompanied someone. Yes, this man had carried the bag for the doctor who had vaccinated Abu Ahmed’s son. Her heart burned with the heat of a thousand volcanoes. An American may have fired the bullet but this man, who was now grinning behind the mask, had enabled her Abba-jaan’s death. He must have provided the Americans with the information which had led to the death of the Shaikh.

  She had cursed him with every ounce of emotion back then, because there was nothing else she could do. But times would change, she was sure of that.

  The men zipped up her fallen father inside a black body bag and carried it away. Soon, she again heard sound of a chopper’s blades. People had gathered outside the mansion and were shouting.

  Drenched in sweat, still crying inside the Abbottabad compound, Asiya swore upon the heavens one more time. Every breath she took after this dark night would be a debt that could be repaid only by annihilating the man and the nation which had enabled the killing of her father.

  She was left an orphan in a big bad world, where she would be treated like a pariah. But she would not wallow in self-pity; she would not lead a life of orphanhood. She would let the world know that she was the daughter of the world’s deadliest anarchist. Soon, she would be recognized as the Black Orphan.

  ‘Aa gaya, Madam.’

  The taxi driver’s voice jolted Asiya out of her reverie. She quickly paid him and got out of the taxi.

  It was late morning, but the Worli Sea Face was teeming with people. Some were running, some strolling, others simply sitting and enjoying the cool wind in their faces. A few couples were sitting cosily nestled against each other, oblivious to the world around them.

  Asiya found an empty bench and sat down. She opened the laptop she was carrying and started her cell phone’s hotspot.

  Just as the computer connected to the internet, she received a text from Nick.

  ‘I’m here. You ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied and waited.

  Today would be the first step of her revenge. All the nuclear plans developed by India after years of research would be in her hands and would go directly to the ISI. Pakistan’s scientists would waste no time in creating a nuclear weapon of their own, based on the research. Already, several terrorist outfits were ready to pump money by the billions into the manufacturing process. And the only three scientists who could have created any kind of countermeasure for the weapons were dead, killed by her.

  And then she would turn her entire attention to Ajay Rajvardhan.

  28

  Nick ran his eye over the lobby of the three-star hotel in Worli as he finished hacking the hotel’s Wi-Fi connection. For someone of his capabilities, it was child’s play. He had purposely chosen the hotel as scores of people would be using its Wi-Fi at any given point in time, just as Asiya had chosen the Worli Sea Face because she knew it would be crowded. They were reasonably close to each other.

  Nick opened the folder containing the files he had copied from the IARC server less than an hour ago. Using a secure file-sharing software, he started sending the data to Asiya, who was also using the same software. It would run all the data through heavy encryption before sending the files, and anyone wishing to access it would need a decryption key, which only Asiya had.

  The software worked fast but the data was heavy. It would still take some time.

  The process had just started when two men slid onto the sofa he was sitting on, one on either side. At that very instant, he felt something cold and hard being jammed against the right side of his stomach, while a hand was placed around his shoulder.

  He whirled his head to his left to see Dhoble sitting next to him, his expression grim. He turned to his right and saw Ajay, his left arm around Nick’s shoulder and right hand holding the pistol poking him. He recognized the cop from the news.

  ‘Stop whatever you’re doing,’ Ajay said in a low voice.

  Nick’s fingers froze over the keyboard.

  ‘Look around you,’ Ajay went on. Nick obeyed. All around the lobby, security personnel clad in dark suits were approaching the people and politely but firmly herding them out.

  ‘Soon, it’s going to be just the three of us in this lobby. Which means you don’t get to pull any tricks. No taking advantage of the crowds to try and escape, no pulling any alarms and starting a stampede. Plus, if you so much as twitch without my permission, I will put a bullet in your stomach. And you have no idea how much that hurts.’

  Nick had never been shot before and he sure as hell didn’t wish to find out how it felt.

  ‘Wh … what do you want?’

  ‘What exactly is it that you’re doing?’ Ajay asked.

  Nick told him.

  ‘Okay, keep doing that. Where is she?’

  ‘Worli Sea Face.’

  ‘Where exactly?’

  ‘I … I don’t know … honest … I don’t know …’

  Ajay pressed the gun a little harder.

  ‘I really don’t know!’ Nick hissed, wincing in pain.

  ‘How long will this process take? Roughly?’

  ‘Around an hour, maybe,’ Nick replied, still gritting his teeth due to the pain.

  ‘Can you slow it down?’

  ‘Not … not without making her suspicious. And she will kill me if I make her suspicious. You don’t know her …’