Red Jihad

  Red Jihad

  Sami Ahmad Khan read Literature at Hindu College and Rajdhani College, University of Delhi. He then completed his master's in English Literature at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is a PhD Scholar at JNU, where he is working on Science Fiction and Techno-culture Studies. Currently, Sami is on a Fulbright Fellowship at The University of Iowa, USA. He has engaged in film production, teaching, theatre and writing. His short stories, plays and articles have been published in magazines and academic journals. This is his first novel.

  Copyright © Sami Ahmad Khan 2012

  First published in 2012 by

  Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.

  7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj,

  New Delhi 110 002

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  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Sami Ahmad Khan asserts the moral right to be

  identified as the author of this work.

  Printed in India by

  Replika Press Pvt Ltd

  310-311 EPIP Kundli

  Haryana 131028 India

  Abbu and Mummy, this is for you

  Prologue

  Spin Boldak, Durand Line, Afghanistan

  Local time: 1030 hours

  Date: 21 February 2014

  Rehan Stanikzai sneezed.

  His hands flew to his nose and tried to cover it in an unsuccessful attempt to suppress the bang, a rather futile gesture as the sound was already away. The thunderclap bounced off the bare walls and came back even louder. Rehan realized a split-second later that it was the echo of the tube shaped, paper-wrapped parcel he had impulsively dropped. He quickly bent to pick it up. It felt warm, almost alive, in his hands. He cautiously peered behind him and gently tiptoed out of the two-storeyed, red-brick house. With clammy hands, he shut the dilapidated, creaking door behind him.

  Do not let her wake up, a voice at the back of his head screamed. He acknowledged it with a curt nod and then forced his mind to calculate the chances of his escape. She was asleep on the first floor. If she had been woken up by his sneezes and heard the creaking of the door, it would take her about ten seconds to get up, another ten to orient herself and realize what was happening, five to wear her chappals, and fifteen seconds to climb down to his current location. Forty seconds that separated freedom from captivity.

  All of a sudden, his left cheek started to sting. Mathematical calculations evoked in him a sensation of his cheeks being hit so often, that it had made the linkage between the stimuli (mental calculation) and the response (pain) almost immediate by now. He muttered a short prayer for her not to have woken up. After all, mothers were the same all over the world, especially those who had a son with an examination the next day.

  He forced the pain out of his head, wiped his nose with the sleeve of his kameez, and zealously jumped over the dog lolling on the steps of his house. He saw the head of the dog rise an inch above the ground. Its eyes followed Rehan curiously, trying to ascertain if he was a threat. Rehan landed on the other side and continued walking without breaking his step. The dog concluded it was in no danger of being kicked. Its ears curled up and it sunk back to sleep.

  Rehan turned his head in the direction of the street. He immediately sensed something was wrong. The old Hollywood film poster was still in its rightful place but the poster of re-released 3 Idiots directly opposite his house was half torn. A growl escaped his throat. Clearly, Adil had tried to take a part of it home the night before. Rehan muttered a curse under his breath and started walking down the street.

  It was not very crowded. An old radio blared out sensuous Bollywood songs straight off the External Services Division of All India Radio. Four men sat at a nearby shop sipping cardamom tea. The skinny hairstylist, a recent hit in post-Taliban Afghanistan, lay on a cot playing carom with a CD shop-owner, another specimen of the diversification of occupational classes. A few boys, young enough to be allowed out of their homes unsupervised but not old enough to have their own full-fledged sports equipment, were half-heartedly trying to fly a torn kite. A few elders, with their hookahs dangling casually from their mouths, sat huddled together remembering old days of rebellion against the Soviets and the Taliban. A hand-driven cart was slowly doing rounds trying to sell household goods.

  None of this was able to capture Rehan's attention for more than a second, his brain instantaneously moving on. There were better things to do, Rehan thought, than ponder over the fate of an insanely beautiful Bollywood heroine, even though she was so gorgeous only because she had Pashtun roots. Rehan felt light-headed all of a sudden, and his blood warmed up to yet pleasanter imaginings. However, his chain of thought was broken as he found what he was looking for.

  A bunch of boys stood in a semicircle at the far end of the street, squinting at a deity in the middle with hope in their eyes and greed in their gait. The deity was nothing special–just a number of chipped bricks balanced delicately on top of each other, against which stood a tall boy holding a pitifully tiny bat, still managing to look intimidating.

  Rehan started to run towards them, tearing off the paper wrapping of the parcel he was carrying. Soon he wielded his own brand new, full-sized BDM bat, a gift Abba got him from Kabul. Rehan clutched the bat firmly in his hands. He would score well. The better bat was his this time.

  He jumped over a drain and started to wave his bat in the air to attract their attention. He was cut short by a sudden commotion. He heard someone scream. It was not a joyful scream of 'catch-it' or 'got-the-queen', nor a wail of despair following a dropped catch or the striker harmlessly rebounding without pocketing anything. Nor was it a housewife shouting at the cart vendor who had given her faulty goods, nor was it the lament of an old guard protesting against how things had changed–or had not.

  A piercing noise cut through the lull of the street, infusing it with a sudden spurt of activity. It was as if, for a minute, the street became an advertisement for an energy drink. The men drinking tea suddenly stood up and started to run for cover. The elders, with agility far past their age, dived behind a wall and reached for their cell phones. A fat, dark man rushed up from behind and pushed Rehan out of his way, motioning at the sky with his smudgy fingers.

  The screaming stopped as abruptly as it had begun. Rather, it was drowned by an even more deafening noise. A steady drone of engines – an attacking aircraft's engines – straining to get out of a bombing dive.

  Two grey birds, roaring and growling, shot into view overhead. Even before Rehan could open his mouth to scream, they swooped down and flung their deadly cargo at him. In the blink of an eye, the birds vanished into the horizon, leaving a trail of smoke behind them in what appeared to Rehan, aesthetically pleasing designs. Something exploded in the distance.

  Rehan knew that aircrafts meant something bad was about to happen. The Afghan DNA was allergic to birds by now. The checkered history of air raids had made the Afghans wary of anything that they could not reach and cut down with their Kalashnikovs. The noise that had receded by now, started to rise again. It seemed the aircrafts were coming back for another pass.

  Five seconds later, they did.

  The tea stall exploded. It seemed to jump two hundred feet in the air and pelted its remains on Rehan, mocking him. He coughed, his cold exacerbated by the smoke. He tried to stand up but felt the street erupt near him. He hit a wall and sank down, air knocked out of his
lungs. Another explosion rocked the street. A stone hit him on the head. Rehan felt warm blood oozing out and dripping down his face. He passed out.

  The world suddenly became more normal. Rehan dreamt that a swarm of angry bees wearing red bonnets was pursuing him, eating a newly launched ice cream and talking in a language he had heard before. His mind kicked in, urging him to wake up and find shelter before he was hurt further. He had, evidently, not reached the 'I-don't-care-just-let-me-die' stage. His mind forced him to come around a short minute later, with stinging eyes, ringing ears, and a splitting head. He instinctively raised his head and looked around.

  His house was no longer standing. There was only the rubble of collapsed buildings all around. A funny feeling struck at his stomach. Before he had a chance to think any further, he heard a foreboding din fill the narrow alley and a deafening whoosh, followed by a loud boom. The ground shook as he hugged the electricity pole tightly to prevent himself from falling down. Thankfully, the first blast had cut off power to the pole.

  He tried getting up and rolled behind a heap of rubble. He saw a wisp of smoke emanate from one of the birds as it flew dangerously close to the newly installed cell phone tower on his street. The tower swayed for a bit, as if drunk, and then fell over their cricket pitch, covering it with rubble and molten steel and rendering it unplayable, thereby destroying in a blink what the boys had worked so hard to perfect for months.

  Months! Rehan felt a wave of anger overwhelm him.

  He jerked his head up, screamed, and thrashed around in frustration. Without thinking, he picked up the largest stone he could find and flung it with all his might at the incoming bird. The stone fell at a puny distance. At the exact moment, he felt another explosion blast away dirt in close vicinity. Rehan pressed his back to the last standing wall of the locality and prayed to God that the damage to the pitch was repairable.

  ♦

  Lieutenant Commander Robbie 'Bozo' Frazer whistled softly as his F/A-18E Super Hornet, swerving for another pass at the target, glinted in the sun. The aircraft was a 4.75-generation upgrade belonging to Strike Fighter Squadron 81, The Moonliners, and was operating from the USS Karl Winston.

  Frazer was on a tactical bombing mission and chose to fly dangerously close to the ground. First, it provided him with even greater accuracy, even though the accuracy of the precision-guided JDAMs and Paveway series of laser-guided bombs he carried was very high even when dropped from heights. Low-flying meant he could also use the air-to-ground missiles and the internal 20mm aircraft-gun more efficiently in such a mission, especially when the ground-to-air resistance had almost been neutralized. The nose mounted M61 Vulcan Gatling gun with its 578 rounds is too handy a weapon not to be used, he thought.

  Two, flying low gave him greater control over the target, apart from the psychological edge. It struck fear in the heart of the enemy. In addition, he could easily collect intelligence and positively verify the completion of the task.

  Third, it minimized collateral damage. Even precision attacks in a populated area were not easy to carry out. Low-flying attacks solved much of the problem. Moreover, even if there was no need to escape radar detection, he thought, staying close to the ground gave him more…spunk. He actually smiled, wiped a drop of sweat off his forehead and adjusted his electronic-integrated visor as the Target Designation Indicator lit up on his heads-up display.

  The CIA had predicted a liaison meet between the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Afghan Taliban warlords as a last-ditch effort to continue waging the war against foreign forces after the death of Osama Bin Laden. Frazer was ordered to bomb the location to disrupt the think-tank meeting. Not that he had any reservations about it, considering how the war on terror was proceeding. The Taliban had started using civilians as human shields of late and ordered the mass killings of civilians who had dared to question its authority. The command had slowed its offensive at first due to public outcry against collateral damage but that had proved to be counterproductive. Consequently, the command was told to crush the Taliban once and for all. With brute force, if need be.

  His orders were clear: annul the meeting and any nefarious plans to counter-attack the last remaining International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base in Afghanistan. Although peace was important, Frazer thought, freedom was paramount. A dead civilian, after all, was far less a threat to democracy than a terrorist alive and kicking. Every soldier involved in counter-insurgency operations knew that. No one wanted to kill–but it was better to kill than to get killed.

  His radio sputtered and jerked him out of his reverie. His wingman awaited further instructions.

  Frazer ordered him to fly another pass. He adjusted his aircraft's camera and started scanning for life forms. His search was abruptly broken when his eyes, which were focusing on every part of the street below, saw a ghastly, half-dead shape rise from the rubble and throw something towards him. Frazer, thinking it to be an armament, jerked his aircraft up in a steep climb, but not before firing at the location of his prospective assailant. Just then he noticed the projectile fall back to the ground in a pathetic, insignificant arc.

  It seemed to be a handheld grenade. Grenades could not touch him where he was, even if he was flying low. Frazer pressed the trigger. He then confirmed that the street below had been blasted and that the group he had attacked was dead. He rechecked the image of the mangled bodies. The task seemed to be complete. He nodded in satisfaction. Then he checked his watch and motioned to his wingman. A bitter taste lingered in his mouth for long. Life was life. Bombing human habitation and killing people sometimes made him feel a little disoriented.

  Frazer shrugged, trying to balance his conscience with his duty. It was time to return home. He wanted to be back on the ship to catch the day's episode of The Simpsons.

  Part I

  IGNITION

  All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.

  –Sun Tzu

  Outer Perimeter, National Missile Research Centre (NMRC) Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

  Local time: 1100 hours

  Date: 23 April 2014

  Droplets of kerosene glistened in the sun and slipped down the smooth semi-naked body, hitting the ground with an inaudible plop. The parched grass absorbed them instantly. A tall, thin man, wearing nothing but a colourful loincloth, his head shaven the way rituals demanded, stood in the middle, screeching. His body shone with the fiery liquid all over it. He screamed–wild eyed, his breath coming in desperate gasps–in a voice that was a rasp of forced courage. With a heave, he hoisted the kerosene bucket and drenched every inch of himself in one quick, final act of defiance.

  Others around him prayed; their heads bowed, their eyes scared. They looked on as their chief muttered an incantation, lit a dry shrub and walked towards the man. Cameras started to click and whirr as two German linguists, currently in the Andamans to study a local language, jostled for perfect shots. Someone shouted in ecstasy.

  A golden flame had subsumed the man.

  The crowd rushed towards him. The chanting got louder, frenzy was setting in, and tempers were beginning to flare. As if in response to the prayers of the mob, the massive doors to the complex they were protesting against flew open and berets, boots and bayonets forced their way through the living mass to the burning bush of a man, dousing him with fire extinguishers and putting out the flame.

  The crowd howled in protest. The linguists shook their heads at losing the opportunity to get some Pulitzer-winning shots. The onlookers sighed, their fists clenched, and then caved in. The boots became softer in their blows, and the tribals covered their eyes with their hands to erase this sacrilegious intervention from their collective memory. Yet some amongst the crowd, who had until then shown no interest in the proceedings, and who were covered in blankets despite the hot
weather, swiftly inched closer to the uniformed men who were spoiling the party, their dead eyes suddenly animated by the sight of olive green.

  Another contingent emerged from the gate, with fire-control equipment ready. The security in-charge of the base had given the order to save the man trying to immolate himself outside the main gate. Force was not to be used. These men were tribal farmers after all, protesting against the missile tests. The gods were angry, the tribals had realized lately and were now trying to make amends. The outworlders had halted their sacrifice to pacify the gods. These mean men did not allow their tribe to complete the ritual to re-infuse their lands with prosperity – that the outworlders themselves had taken away by shooting huge metallic arrows at the gods. All was lost now. The land would be forever fallow.

  The tribals knew that someone would pay, and that it would not be them.

  ♦

  It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Indian in possession of an upper-middle-class stature must be in want of an anti-government demonstration, for Indians are immensely proud of their country but extremely critical of their government. Likewise, an Indian with an empty belly must be in want of a square meal, apart from a pair of Levi's jeans, a fancy sports bike and Ray-Ban sunglasses, though not necessarily in that order. Yadav thought and chuckled, putting down the earmarked copy of Pride and Prejudice he had borrowed from the base library.

  Yadav had already ordered the man to be hospitalized. He had suffered third-degree burns. There was little Yadav could have done for him, apart from intervening at the moment he set himself on fire. He mournfully shook his head. He did not expect these tribals to be capable of such barbarism and abnegation.

  Lieutenant Colonel Ankit Kumar Yadav of the Indian army, on deputation to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) for the past two years, was a slightly balding man with a prominent nose and an even more prominent senex complex. He pondered over the paradoxical dichotomy of the inherently reactionary nature of the Indian middle-class and its often quasi-revolutionary manifestations. He shook his head, casually adjusted the 5.56mm MSMC, an INSAS sub-machine gun, slung over his left shoulder, and tuned his ears to the noises again.