The Duty (Suspense/ Thriller Short Story)

Dr Srinivas Rao finished his paperwork and put aside his reading glasses. He picked up the mug of coffee that was set before him and took a sip, its rich strong taste rejuvenating his senses. Sitting back in his chair, he began to ponder upon the thought that had been lingering in his mind for some time. Was he really guilty of resurrecting the devil?

It had all started the previous night………..

Dr Rao was fast asleep when the jarring noise of his mobile phone rudely awakened him. The caller was no less, the Minister of State for Health, informing him that his colleague, the Minister of State for Petroleum was returning home from a function when his car was ambushed by some unknown people. The assailants had shot him several times in the chest. The victim was in a critical condition and was now en route to Dr Rao’s hospital. He mentioned that Dr Srinivas Rao was expected to personally attend to him.

As the Chief of Cardiothoracic surgery services at the famous Sardar Patel General Hospital and being one of the best in the business, he was used to dealing with ‘VIPs’ and their patients. But he deplored them. They were usually arrogant, demanding and ungrateful. But well, duty is duty, he thought as he made his way to the hospital.

Dr Rao parked his car and turned off the engine. As he began to get out of the car, he felt the presence of a person standing in the shadows watching him intently.

“Excuse me, Dr Rao, may I have a word with you?”

The voice was feminine and sounded strained. Dr Rao squinted and tried to perceive its owner, the darkness concealing her face effectively. She now stepped out of the shadows and hesitatingly walked towards him. The feeble light of the sodium vapour lamp of the parking lot fell on her face and now he could see her more clearly. It belonged to a woman he had never seen before. She was well dressed, but with a face that had aged beyond her years and spoke of a harsh and traumatic past.

Dr Rao closed the door of his car and locked it. He smiled apologetically, “I’m sorry, but I’m busy at the moment. I have to ….”

“I KNOW!!!” the woman suddenly shouted, cutting him short.

Dr Rao looked at her, astonished. The woman looked away, flustered, almost regretting her outburst. Biting her lip, she again turned to him and continued in a more quiet and apologetic, almost pleading tone, “I’m sorry ……….I know….. you are going to operate on Mr Sawant. Please… Dr Rao… I beg of you…”

Dr Rao nodded and smiled reassuringly, “Don’t worry, we will do our best to save him.” He started to move towards the building.

“NOOOO!!” Her anguished scream froze him in his tracks.

He heard a sound behind him and before he could realize it, the woman had rushed up to him. She moved closer and hissed in his face “No, Dr Rao, you MUST NOT save him!:

Dr Rao stared at her, bewildered. She continued in an urgent, pleading tone, “Don’t you understand?! He is a ‘Shaitan’….. doctor..…the Devil! He has destroyed my life. And that of many others! Do not save him Dr Rao, I beg of you….please do not save him.”

Then suddenly becoming aware of what she was doing, she started to back away, a trembling hand pressed over her mouth. Her pale face was tear-stained and her eyes shone with anger and helplessness. And as quickly as she had appeared, she turned and vanished into the darkness of the parking lot, leaving an unnerved Dr Rao staring after her.

As Dr Rao collected himself and made his way to the Operating Room, he tried to recall what he had learnt from the media regarding his patient, the honorable Member of Parliament, Mr Dagdu Sawant.

Starting as a small time thug in the Naigaon area in Mumbai, Sawant’s ruthlessness and shrewd mind helped him ascend the ranks of his gang in no time. There was no crime he had not indulged in and he soon caught the attention of a local political leader. He served the politician well during the elections and in turn, his master ensured him his complete support. Finally, his political patrons granted him a ticket to stand for elections from his native place where he won a unanimous vote, following the ‘sudden ill-health’ of his rivals. His political status virtually bestowed him with complete immunity from the law and he began to carry out his nefarious activities with greater impunity. His lifestyle was rude and extravagant. His loud parties overflowed with liquor. His fascination for women of ill-repute was proverbial. Time and again, the media would expose his crimes which ranged from extortion to murder. But every single time, within a few weeks, witnesses would turn, evidence would disappear and Dagdu Sawant would emerge a free man, stronger and more brazen than before.

‘Truly, the Devil Incarnate,’ thought Dr Rao as he washed up for surgery and entered the Operating Room.

The situation was as bad as he had expected. The patient’s condition was deteriorating by the minute and his assistant-surgeons informed him that there were five bullets in his chest with two of them very close to his heart.

His eyes fell on the face of the unconscious Dagdu Sawant and the woman’s words rang in his ears. For a moment, Dr Rao thought, could it be possible? After all, Sawant was in critical condition and all he had to do was, actually, not do anything at all. Within minutes, the injuries and bleeding would take their toll. And the world would be rid of one more burden.

Dr Rao shook his head in disgust. How could he even consider such a possibility? After all he had to do his duty. He would have to try his hardest to save his patient regardless of anything.

And so for the next six hours, Dr Rao struggled to save the man. Under the expert hands of Dr Rao, all the bullets were extracted and the anatomy was restored to perfection. As he concluded the surgery and pulled off his blood-stained gloves, Dr Rao declared that the surgery had been a grand, albeit miraculous success.

Dagdu Sawant, the ‘Shaitan’ would live.

The thought brought him back to the present.

Had he then, indeed resurrected the devil?

Dr Rao’s musings were interrupted by a knock on the door. The door opened and a nurse entered the room. “Sir, your wife called. I told her you’ve finished the case and will be leaving within 15 minutes.”

“Thanks, Rita and good night, or rather good morning!” Dr Rao rubbed his tired eyes and yawned. He decided to lay his doubts to rest. He needed to get some sleep and there were too many things on his mind anyway. He had done his duty, and that was that. He collected his things and left for home.

Sawant recovered surprisingly well over the next few days and finally the day arrived when he was to be discharged from the hospital. Dr Rao, his wife and a team of staff nurses and resident doctors entered the room. Much to his annoyance, Dr Rao found it teeming with Sawant’s supporters and relatives, noisily talking among themselves. Sawant was himself sitting cross-legged on the bed surrounded by his cronies and Dr Rao was appalled to see, drinking from a bottle of beer. Dr Rao strode up to him and seizing the bottle from his hand, discarded it. Some of the people started to get up and protest but were duly silenced by hard look on Dr Rao’s face.

Dr Rao’s voice was laden with ice, “While you are in this hospital room, Mr Sawant, you will follow the rules of the hospital. Upon your discharge, you can go home and do as you please. Please ask these people to leave immediately. I will not examine you until they do so.”

Dagdu Sawant glared at Dr Rao arrogantly but the latter steadily met his gaze. For a few moments there was a tense silence in the room and then Sawant grudgingly waved his hand. Murmuring their protests, his companions filed out of the room.

Sawant continued to glare at Dr Rao as the nurse disconnected the intravenous set from the needle saline drip from the former’s arm and moved the stand holding the bottle of Saline to one side. Dr Rao ignored Sawant and began his examination. On completion, he instructed the staff nurse to reconnect the intravenous line, finished the formalities for his patient’s discharge and left the room. “Good riddance to bad rubbish!!” he exclaimed to the staff nurse before they left the hospital.

Dr Rao and his wife left the building, got into their car and drove off; unaware of the woman dressed in a staff nurse’s uniform, who was observing them from the second floor.

Five hours later, a young staff nurse arrived and removed the needle and intravenous drip set from Sawant’s arm. She then discarded them along with the empty Saline bottle into the dustbin and hurried away in order to avoid hearing the lewd suggestion from Sawant.

In her haste, she had not noticed the unusual object that was lying in the dustbin amidst the other waste.

Four years later

“We regret to announce the demise of the former Member of Parliament Shri Dagdu Sawant. He passed away in a hospital in Switzerland. For the past three years, Shri Sawant had been suffering from an undisclosed long-standing illness and even had to resign from his Parliamentary post because of the same. Shri Sawant was an outstanding leader and …..”

Dr Rao stared the television set. “Ho! I say, did you hear that? I wonder what happened to him. He was fine when I last saw him, four years ago.”

His wife called out from the dining room, “Please come for dinner, dear. We are waiting for you.”

‘Well, I dare say the world will be far better off without the likes of him,’ thought Dr Rao as he left the room to join his family.

The corporate offices of the MedVaxx Pharmaceutical Company, world-renowned for its revolutionary work in the field of vaccines, are located in a tall, imposing, white coloured structure situated at Nariman Point in Mumbai. The Meeting Room of the Board of Directors is situated on the 23^rd floor of the building and its large French windows offer a spectacular view of the Mumbai skyline and the shimmering Arabian Sea below.

But today, the splendor of the view held no charm for the man looking out of these windows. For the President of MedVaxx Pharmaceuticals was a troubled man. He looked impatiently at his watch. It wasn’t usual for the Head of their Immunology Department to be late.

Just then, the door opened and a smartly dressed lady entered the board room. She waited till everyone took their seats. She looked around, greeted everyone and apologized for being late. She briskly opened and started up her laptop computer, aware that everyone in the room was watching her intently. She calmly took a sip of water and started her presentation.

“Five years ago, we started a project to develop a vaccine for AIDS. We used a virus which is a member of the same family as the HIV; the AIDS virus. We genetically altered it and thus the ‘B99’ molecule was born. The B99 was very similar in structure to the HIV, or AIDS virus. The idea was that when injected as a vaccine into a person, his immune system would be stimulated to recognize and develop a counter-offensive reaction to the actual HIV, if the person were to contract the latter. The goal was to do this without causing harm to the person by itself.”

She paused to take a sip of water. “One fascinating characteristic of the B99 was that for some unknown reason, it was not secreted into other body fluids like saliva and semen. Otherwise, it behaved remarkably like an actual HIV and stimulated an adequate immune response. In fact, the B99 could have been the ideal vaccine for AIDS.”

“Then if the B99 behaved just like the HIV, what indeed was the problem??!!” the President exclaimed.

She patiently nodded and continued. “That sir, was precisely the problem. It behaved too much like the actual HIV. We found that within a day or two after injecting the B99 into an animal, the B99 would mutate and develop the same characteristics as the HIV. Electron Microscope studies of this mutated B99 showed that it structurally resembled the HIV in almost every way. Even the blood tests routinely used for AIDS would show false-positive results in these animals. All our laboratory animals ended up with an illness terribly similar to AIDS.”

She looked around to see if everyone had understood and continued, “In fact I would say, worse than AIDS, because this disease would progress slowly but relentlessly, the complications being more numerous and severe than those seen in AIDS itself. The worst feature about this AIDS-like disease was that it was resistant to all current antiviral therapy. Not one of the animals survived.” She paused to register the shocked expressions on the faces around her.

“Over the next few years we tried our utmost to modify the molecule and make it safer, but all our attempts failed.”

She paused to let the news sink in. The President muttered a curse under his breath and smacked his hand on the table in frustration. He could visualize his billions of dollars disappearing into thin air.

She continued, “In conclusion, we have no option but to declare the B99 Project a complete failure, terminate it and start afresh.”

Fresh sighs could be heard from the audience.

She looked around. “A copy of the report is in front of each of you. I require you all to sign the permission for me to terminate the project and destroy all the material that we have used in our research.” She observed the heads shake in disappointment as the members pulled out their pens to sign the papers in front of them. The meeting concluded and everyone filed out of the boardroom.

Before leaving, the President came up to her and conveyed his sympathies that her project had not been a success. He wished her well in her future endeavors. She smiled politely and thanked him. At the door, the President paused for moment. He could not help but wonder how someone could be so comfortable with the fact that her five years’ hard work had all gone down the drain. In fact, he could have sworn that there was almost a hint of satisfaction in her attitude at certain times during the presentation. He turned and looked back at her. She looked back at him, her face impassive and revealing nothing. He shook his head, gave no further thought to the issue and left the room, closing the door behind him.

She slowly sat down on her plush chair and resting her hands on the large mahogany table, gazed absently around the vacant room. Normally she would have immediately wanted to leave and get back to her unending work.

But not today. She wanted to savor the moment for a while longer. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She felt supremely happy. Five years of hard work had come to an end. Five years of work that the President of the company may have found futile, but which from her point of view had been a resounding success.

She gave a sigh and extracted an old photograph from her purse depicting two small boys in their school uniform. Tenderly, she caressed one of them as a tear rolled out from the corner of her eye.

She remembered the day the photograph was taken. The events of that fateful day were engraved in her mind. She remembered returning home from the photo studio after taking the photograph. The carefree laughter of her children echoing down that lonely street as they walked home, hand in hand.

And then that horrible moment when the car had suddenly come tearing around the street corner and hurtled towards them. Her own desperate scream as she tried to pull her children out of the oncoming vehicle’s path. The blur of the car as it sped past them, seemingly missing them by inches.

And then that horrible, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as she desperately groped for and found her elder son by her side.

But alas, not her younger one.

And she recalled the subsequent events as if she was seeing a film in slow-motion. The car screeching to a halt at a distance. The driver sticking his face out of the window for a few seconds to look back at her. The drunken, hideous grin on his face, before he started his car and sped away again. The cloud of dust that he left in his wake, which ultimately settled, revealing the lifeless, bloodied and broken body of a young boy, sprawled like a rag doll in the middle of the road.

But she had seen his face! A mere glimpse, but it had been enough. Its features had been woven into the very fabric of her memory. The same face would haunt her dreams and waking hours for years to come. The same face would be thrust into her eyes to her everyday thereafter, in the newspapers, in the magazines and on television.

The face of Dagdu Sawant.

And she remembered how she had kept that fact to herself. No one in the world knew that she had seen the face of the driver. She had not told the police, not her relatives and not even her husband.

She had been so thrilled four years ago, when she had heard that Sawant had been shot by some gangsters. She had fervently prayed that he would not make it. And then she had heard on the news that the city’s best cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Srinivas Rao had operated on him and saved him from the jaws of certain death. She had wondered how any doctor, even considering it to be his duty, would try his best and save the life of a demon like Sawant.

And then the next day itself, while working in her laboratory, it had struck her, that as yet, all was not lost. She could still exact her revenge and justice would still prevail. She had waited for an opportunity and finally she had got it. It had been on the day Sawant was to be discharged from the hospital after recovering from his surgery. It had been almost too easy. She had entered Sawant’s room quietly along with Dr Rao and his team of doctors and nurses, unnoticed by anyone.

She had waited until the time when the others were occupied either in assisting Dr Rao, preparing the patient’s medications, or in doing their paperwork. Then she had seized her chance. She had sidled up to the stand holding the intravenous saline bottle. On the pretext of adjusting the intravenous set and saline bottle, unnoticed by anyone, she had injected an entire vial of the B99 virus into it. After Dr Rao had finished with his patient, she had even helped a staff nurse to reconnect the intravenous set to the needle attached to Sawant’s arm. And then she had stood aside and observed with satisfaction, the lethal fluid running down the intravenous tubing into Sawant’s blood. Her plan had been implemented successfully; it was the beginning of the end for Sawant.

She relished unashamedly, the thought of how Sawant must have suffered from the AIDS like illness and its severe, debilitating complications for three long years. She only wished she had been there in person to see him suffer.

The plan had been foolproof. Sawant’s blood tests would come out positive for AIDS and he would be labeled as such. No one would suspect any foul play because Sawant was known for his weakness for prostitutes and everyone would assume he had contracted it from one of them. If the virus sample from his blood was studied in detail by the Microbiologists at his hospital, they would just presume that it was a mutant version of the HIV itself. It would simply become a topic for discussion at an academic level, perhaps even be presented in a paper at a conference. But no one would be able to trace it to her.

And he would not have infected anyone else through sex because the B99 was not secreted in body fluids. This was the reason she had not used the AIDS virus itself because she had not wanted Sawant to transmit it to anyone else. If he donated blood to a blood bank, which was very doubtful, his donated blood would test positive for HIV and therefore be discarded.

In a few more hours, all the material, the evidence, would be destroyed and the B99 would become just a piece of data, a part of the company’s unwanted records.

No one would realize what had actually happened!

That reminded her that in her hurry to get to the meeting on time, she had forgotten to sign the project report herself. As she opened the file, a thought entered her head. She actually felt indebted to Dr Srinivas Rao. By saving Sawant, he had actually created an opportunity for her to take her revenge, all by herself. She smiled to herself at the thought. She whispered to herself, ‘Dr Rao, you may have done your duty and saved his life as a doctor, but I have done my duty as a Mother!’ Then she took out her pen and signed her name in full, ‘Dr. Mrs. Vidya Srinivas Rao.’

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle…..(Suspense/ Thriller Story)

Rehana Khan removed the tiffin-box and handed it to her six year old son. She watched him remove a kebab roll from it with his dirty fingers and chew on it. They were sitting on a bench in the shade of a big banyan tree in a secluded corner of a large park. Jamil looked tired but happy. For the past four days he had thoroughly enjoyed himself. He had been to all those places in Delhi that he had read and heard about.

Ordinarily she would have admonished him for not washing his hands, but she was too troubled to think of anything else. A much more serious issue occupied her mind.

She looked at her watch nervously. He had not yet arrived. She hoped to God he would come back and tell her that the plan had been cancelled. It would be so much better for her and Jamil. She looked back at her son.

‘JAMIIILLL!!!!’ Rehana screamed and sprang from the bench on which she was sitting. She snatched the large toy car that her son had just removed from a duffel bag. She put it back into the bag and zipped it firmly.

She looked at her son angrily, ‘Jamil, this toy is not for you, do you understand?!!!’

Her voice softened on seeing his hurt expression. ‘Listen Jamil, this toy is not for you. I have bought it as a gift for someone else, here in Delhi. Don’t worry, I’ll buy you many more toys, I promise you. Look, why don’t you sit over there on that nice, soft grassy patch and eat your kebab-roll.’

Jamil obediently went over to a grassy patch and continued champing on his roll.

Her gaze returned to the duffel-bag lying by her side containing the toy car. She remembered her husband’s words, ‘It’s much simpler to hide it in a toy. Even at the most stringent check-posts, one rarely takes notice of a child with a toy.’ Rehana bit her lip nervously. Her husband had assured her, it would not go off on its own. It had to be armed and then detonated from a remote device. She shivered involuntarily at the thought.

She pulled the bag close to her and looked around the park. It was the month of May and the park was sparsely crowded. It was getting hotter owing to the steady climb of the sun overhead and the few clouds in the sky were offering scant relief from the former. She sat back on the bench and looked vacantly into the distance.

She found herself going back into her past, something she had been doing over and over again during the past few days. Born and brought up in London, a doctorate in English Literature, she had fallen in love with Hassan, a Pakistani student in her own class. Blinded by her love for him, she had eloped with him to Pakistan where he had promised that they would join the University of Lahore. Her dreams turned to dust when she found herself whisked away to a small town near the North-Eastern border, where she was forced to live her life as per the strict norms of the Shariat Law. Hassan had initially promised her that this was a temporary phase before they moved to Lahore. A few months later, she realized that that was not to be.

She found out to her horror, that her husband was an active member of the Al-Jehad militant organization which specialized in carrying out terrorist activities all over the world. She tried to rekindle the love that they had shared in Oxford together, to persuade Hassan to leave the path of destruction that he had chosen, but to no avail. Every time she thought she had succeeded, he would go for his meetings and come back brimming with even more hatred for the ‘kafirs’ as he called them.

Once, at a family dinner, she had tried to challenge him and point out to him that the Prophet had preached the message of love, and not hatred. Angered by her ‘insolence’, he had dragged her by her hair to their bedroom and whipped her with his belt. The excruciating pain that she felt on her back was nothing compared to the pain of the realization that came to her when she looked into his eyes.

Hassan was no longer the man she had loved. And he would never be.

Rehana deadened herself to the external world and resigned herself to her fate. This was the best way she felt, for herself to cope with her situation. She went about her household activities in an indifferent, uninterested and detached way. The sole spark in her dark life was her son, Jamil, whom she adored and centred her life around. Days passed by, then months and then years, with the future offering neither hope nor respite for Rehana Khan.

Then one day, Hassan had come home and announced that their family would be making a trip to New Delhi, India. He said that they would do a bit of sightseeing and enjoy themselves, for they had never been on a vacation.

Despite herself, Rehana was thrilled! Could it be possible, that Hassan had realized the ill-nature of his ways and decided to change? She had almost hugged Hassan in delight.

Her hopes were soon shattered. After a long journey through the mountains by jeep and later on mule and horseback, they had arrived in Srinagar and checked into a small inconspicuous hotel. Rehana realized that they had entered the country illegally but was too frightened to question her husband about it. She shuddered to think what would happen next.

Her fears were not ill-founded. In the hotel room that night, Hassan had revealed his diabolical plan. They had come here on a mission, he explained. They would go to New Delhi and do a few days of sightseeing to throw off the attention of any police officials that may be watching out for them. Then the bag containing the toy car filled with the explosives was to be taken and placed in a crowded part of a large shopping mall. The bomb would be detonated by him through a mobile phone.

To add to her horror, Rehana was told that SHE herself, accompanied by Jamil, were to do the transfer of the bomb to its final location. It would be less suspicious that way; security personnel were less likely to suspect a woman and her child. She would be greatly appreciated for her efforts in furthering their cause and on completion of their mission, they would be generously rewarded by his leaders.

She had first vehemently opposed his idea. Hassan had then told her that his Masters were ruthless in these matters and that upon her refusal, they would vent their ire upon her and Jamil. Their leaders did not tolerate dissent, especially from their women. In their anger, they would deal with her severely, and even worse, even harm her son to make her regret her actions. Rehana had been paralysed with fear at the thought and agreed to do as told.

As regards their safety while transporting the bomb, Hassan had assured her that the bomb was ‘safe’ even after being armed and could not explode on its own. It would only be detonated by him after Rehana and Jamil had exited the Mall, got into a taxi and were far away from the site. He would be observing their exit from the top of an under-construction building some distance away from the Mall.

The Clock Tower next to the park chimed eleven times bringing Rehana back to the present. She saw Hassan hurriedly approaching them. He said in a low voice, ‘It’s time to go.’ He opened the duffel-bag and armed the explosive device.

‘I’ll leave first. Wait for 20 minutes. Then take Jamil with you in a taxi to the Mall. You know the rest. Here’s the duffel-bag. I’ll take the other one. The rest of the luggage has been disposed off. We’ll meet here after everything’s done. I’ve already checked out of our hotel this morning. The arrangements for us to go back have been made. And yes, take this money,’ He opened his wallet, pulled out a wad of rupee notes and tucked it into her purse.

Jamil tugged at his mother’s sleeve, ‘Ammi, isn’t Abba coming with us? Is he going back home without us? Can’t we go with him?’

Rehana checked her tears, ‘No, darling, but we’ll be meeting him later. Here, why don’t you sit over there and read your book.’

She turned to Hassan and held his arm, “Hassan, please….let us not do it….please…I beg you…’

He looked into her eyes and gently placing his hands on her shoulders, he slowly shook his head, ‘We’re beyond that stage now, Rehana. The decision no longer rests with us.’

Tears streaming down her face, Rehana began to speak, but Hassan placed his finger on her lips and spoke soothingly, ‘Sssshhhh. It’ll be over soon…Remember, we’re doing this for ourselves…..and Jamil…..Wipe your tears now. We don’t want to draw any attention.’

Rehana tried to plead with Hassan for a few minutes but he remained resolute on the matter.

At the end, Hassan caressed her face, kissed his son’s forehead and left. As instructed, Rehana and Jamil left 20 minutes later.

Hassan’s taxi took a left turn off the main road leading to the Big-Shop Mall, rounded the park in front of the Mall and headed on the lonely road towards the deserted, incompletely built skyscraper about a kilometre across from the Mall. Hassan had chosen this spot deliberately. The building’s construction had been halted following a court order and there was no one about to see him come there.

He got out in front of the building and paid off the taxi driver. He bent down to tie his shoelace while the taxi drove off. Hassan could not risk anyone seeing him enter the building.

He pulled his bag onto his shoulder and began to climb the uneven concrete steps of the faceless building. He reached the 4^th floor of the building and bracing himself against the strong wind, he set down his bag. He then checked his mobile phone for the strength of the network signal and put it back in his pocket. Then he pulled out a miniature but powerful pair of binoculars from his pocket and focussed them on the entrance of the mall. After a couple of minutes he watched the taxi carrying Rehana and Jamil come to a halt in front of the Big-Shop Mall entrance.

Earlier he had been slightly concerned that Rehana might back out from the mission at the last minute and attempt to run away. But he felt confident that the threat of any harm coming to Jamil had frightened her enough and would not allow the mother inside her to change her mind. He smiled to himself as he saw them pass through the security counter and enter the building.

Rehana walked as if in a daze towards the coffee-shop on the ground floor. In her one hand, she held the dreaded bag and in the other, Jamil’s hand. The coffee-shop was located at the centre of the building. She was supposed to sit there for 30 minutes and have a coffee and a snack so as not to alert suspicion. Then on the way out, she was supposed to leave the bag under her table and head for the main exit. Around her people passed by, entering and leaving the brightly lit boutiques and shops, talking, laughing. People splurging and enjoying themselves at the numerous shops in the Mall.

People, whose lives would soon be extinguished by her.

Rehana sat down at a table and sipped her coffee. She absently watched a young boy entering the coffee-shop with his mother. He was arguing with his mother about buying a snack for the necessary toy that came with it.

Just like Jamil and herself at MacDonalds’ the other day, Rehana thought to herself.

Rehana suddenly felt nauseous. She just could not do it. These were innocent people, just like her. She could not be responsible for destroying the lives of so many innocent people. She looked at the duffel bag lying under the table and made up her mind.

She decided she would not do it.

She would anonymously call the security counter from a phone-booth inside the Mall itself, informing them about the bomb. They were sure to take action and evacuate everyone from the Mall. She and Jamil would leave the Mall after everyone had left. After all, Hassan would not detonate the bomb until he saw them leave. He could not take the risk of detonating the bomb while Jamil and herself were still inside. Blowing up an empty Mall wouldn’t hurt anyone.

His plan would fail!

Rehana suddenly remembered that she was still a British citizen! She and Jamil could steal away through some back-door exit. She would take her son and drive to the British Embassy. On being confirmed as a British citizen, she would be given shelter at the embassy. She would then go back to the UK, where she had her family and friends. She would start a new life with Jamil, far away from the hatred-filled world of Hassan and his terrorist friends.

She felt a thrill of anticipation. She opened her purse and rummaged for some loose change for the phone booth. She cursed when she found nothing but the bundle of rupee notes that Hassan had given her. She opened them to see if there were any coins therein.

A piece of paper fell out. It had evidently been kept in Hassan’s wallet and had been inadvertently passed on to her by Hassan while giving her the money. It had something written on it. Rehana picked it up and began to read.

Rehana stared at the paper in morbid terror.

She had learnt enough Urdu in Pakistan to understand what was written on it. Instructions to Hassan from his Masters telling him to detonate the bomb exactly 15 minutes after Rehana and Jamil had entered the Mall. She felt as if all her strength had suddenly left her.

She and Jamil were to die along with the others!

Her mind raced with the thought and she felt another wave of nausea building up inside her. No wonder Hassan had insisted that she should sit in the coffee-shop for 30 whole minutes before leaving the Mall. Jamil…. his own son!

Her head was spinning and she tried to focus her thoughts. She looked at Jamil and then the bag and then at her watch. She remembered seeing the time when they had entered the Mall. Almost ten minutes had elapsed since then.

She still had time to save herself and Jamil!

Rehana suddenly rose from her chair and grabbed Jamil. She felt her heart pounding against her chest and her head felt as if it would burst. There was no way she could try and save anybody else. She had to save herself, more importantly, her beloved Jamil. She swiftly walked towards the staircase leading down to the parking lot. Fear lent her wings as she flew down the stairs and found an exit which opened out onto the street behind the Mall, where Hassan and his binoculars could not see her. She got into the nearest taxi and told the driver in a trembling voice to take her to the British Embassy as fast as he could.

As they raced away in the taxi, she hugged Jamil close to her and tried not to think of what would happen back at the Mall.

Two minutes later, Hassan put down his binoculars and looked at his watch. He wiped a tear that had carelessly stolen into his eye. He looked up at the sky and said ‘Allah-Hu-Akbar.’ Then he pulled out the mobile phone and pressed a few numbers.

The explosion ripped through the building and decimated everything and every living entity inside it. The deafening sound reverberated through the neighbourhood and smashed the glass windows of the buildings nearby. A cloud of dust and smoke rose a hundred feet high into the air, the result of hundreds of tons of concrete and steel crashing to the ground. The shock waves travelled up to a kilometre away flattening trees and overturning vehicles within a radius of 500 metres. Screams from terrified people in the vicinity filled the air and there was chaos all around.

The taxi had almost reached the British Embassy when Rehana heard the blast. She gasped at the sound of the explosion and tightly closed her eyes. She could not bring herself to look back in that direction. She screamed to herself in her mind, to try and convince herself, that it was not entirely her fault….she had wanted to stop it….she could not have done anything more…Her drained, fatigued mind gave in to numbing silence.

She just held her son tightly and prayed fervently for the victims’ souls.

The taxi came to a halt outside the Embassy. They slowly got out of the taxi and Rehana paid the alarmed taxi-driver who had also heard the noise. She tried to ignore the loud wails of the sirens of the police vehicles and ambulances that were now racing on the opposite side of the road, in the direction of the Mall. Trying to steady her overwrought nerves, Rehana and her son walked unsteadily towards the formidable gates of the British Embassy.

After a detailed scrutiny by the Embassy Security Personnel, Rehana and Jamil were led into a cosy and exquisitely furnished lounge and asked to make themselves comfortable. A polite but alert, armed guard stood unobtrusively to one side watching over them. But she felt more secure than threatened by his presence. For the first time in many years, she felt herself relaxing, as if she was back home in London. She settled into a comfortable armchair and let out a huge sigh. She was still recovering from the shock at how close it had been for Jamil and herself. Outside the building, there was a mild confusion prevailing on the premises as the security was being enhanced in the wake of the bomb blast.

She had divulged to the authorities that she was a British citizen and she had some important information on terrorism to share with the Ambassador. She hoped to get a permission to return to the UK by telling her story and giving them information of the terrorists’ hideout. When staying in Pakistan, she had once chanced upon a map in Hassan’s bag giving the location of the cave, close to their village, where his terrorist group met and had their headquarters. She had memorised the details. She would have to spend a term in jail in India but she hoped that based on the information she would give them, she could negotiate for a lighter sentence.

Then her thoughts went back to what she had done back at the Mall. She felt sickened by the thought. She herself was a mother, destined to play the role of the originator of life. And she just participated in ending the same for many, many innocent men, women and children. The English Scholar inside her reminded her of the lines from Wallace’s famous poem,

‘Woman, how divine your mission, Here upon our Natal sod!

Keep, oh, keep the young heart open, Always to the breath of God

All true trophies of the ages, Are from Mother-love impearled;

For the hand that rocks the cradle, is the hand that rules the world….’

The lines seem to mock and condemn her for her deeds. She buried her head in her hands and began to sob. The tears started to flow down her face, unchecked. The guard looked at her with concern but chose not to intervene.

The television set in the room was turned on and in the process of relaying the breaking news of the day. Unwillingly, Rehana was drawn to the events on the screen. As she continued to watch them, Rehana’s eyes widened in bewilderment and shock. The camera was transmitting pictures of the bomb-blasted area and a breathless reporter was trying to make herself heard above the noise and confusion in the background,

‘The bomb explosion took place about half an hour ago in a dilapidated building not far from the Big-Shop Shopping Mall at Cross Maidan. The building was completely destroyed in the process. The police officials believe that the structure was vacant on account of a court stay-order on its construction and no one is believed to have been hurt. It is fortunate that the blast did not occur anywhere close to the Big-Shop Mall which at that time was packed with Sunday shoppers. Everyone has been vacated from the area. The officials are clueless about the cause of the blast. They say a terrorist hand cannot be ruled out. The police officials theorize that the unfinished, vacant building may have been used to store explosive material by terrorists and the same may have accidentally blown up. The search is on to retrieve more clues to ascertain the cause of this mysterious blast. We shall keep you updated…..’

Rehana stared at the TV as if frozen in stone. She simply could not comprehend what had happened. She shook her head in bewilderment. How could this have happened? Had Hassan taken the bomb with him by mistake? No, he had checked and armed the bomb himself and kept it inside duffel-bag at the Park, the bag that she was supposed to carry to the Mall. Did he have a second bomb with him that had accidentally gone off? Had there been another plan by someone to kill Hassan?! Did his Masters desire to eliminate Hassan as well, so as to leave no traces? They were certainly capable of that. Then, what of the bomb she had kept in the Mall? Why hadn’t that gone off? Had the detonating device failed? Had Hassan’s colleagues killed him by mistake, before he set off the bomb in the Mall?

Her mind was racing with endless possibilities.

The implication of the events set in. The first one; she was not a murderer! The bomb at the Mall had not exploded. She felt weak with relief at the thought.

Then came the second realization: Hassan. He could not have survived. And yet, strangely enough, she did not feel at all bad about it. She realized that her love for him had ended when she came to know that he had wanted to kill her and Jamil. Jamil, his own son……

‘Ammi, when shall we go back home. I want to meet Abba, he’s gone back home without us, hasn’t he?’ Not knowing what to say, Rehana pulled her son close to her and fresh tears ran down her face.

Jamil pulled back his head and wiped her tears. ‘Don’t cry, Ammi. I’m very sorry, I did not listen to you. I know you want to give it to someone else and not me. It’s all right. I promise I’ll ask Abba to return it to you on reaching home.’

Rehana looked at her son, confused. ‘What are you talking about, Jamil?’

Jamil answered in a small voice, ‘The toy car, of course…..’

Jamil now had his mother’s undivided attention. She pulled him close to her and looked at him intently. ‘Wh…..what….are you saying, Jamil?’ She asked in a trembling voice.

Jamil bent his head sheepishly, ‘I had badly wanted to keep that toy car for myself, but you wanted to give it to someone else. I knew that Abba was to go back home before us. So when Abba and you were talking to each other in the park this morning, I removed the toy-car from your bag and put it into Abba’s bag. That way, Abba would take the car back home with him and you would not be able to give it to anyone else…...’

A smartly dressed gentleman entered the room and addressed Rehana. ‘Madam, I’m Mr Brown, private secretary to Ambassador Smith. We have confirmed your identity; your credentials are perfectly in order. The Ambassador will see you now…..…..’

Epilogue:

‘This is BBC world. In our breaking news tonight, following a tip-off from a secret informer, the combined US and Coalition troops carried out an armed attack on a cave near the mountain town of Mushti, on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, believed to be the stronghold of the militant group ‘Al-Jehad’. Over a hundred and fifty terrorists were killed and all the remaining survivors were taken prisoners. This is one of the most successful missions executed until now in the War on Terror…….’

‘This is Barkha Dutt reporting for NDTV news. For the second time this week, the Bomb Squad was called to the Cross Maidan area in New Delhi, this time to the Big-Shop Mall. An unclaimed duffel-bag was found under a table at the coffee-shop on the ground floor. The Bomb Squad examined it and found it to contain some clothes, probably left by an absent-minded shopper……..’

‘Passengers travelling on British Airways flight 403 from New Delhi to London Heathrow are requested to proceed for Immigration Clearance and Security Check.’

The Immigration Officer at the Indira Gandhi International airport at New Delhi examined the faces of the attractive lady and young boy standing in front of his desk and compared them with those in the photographs on their British Passports. The lady smiled at him sweetly. He smiled back, stamped their passports and handed them back. He watched them walk in the direction of the Security Check section. He gave a sigh and thought, her husband must be one lucky guy……