The best way to deal with this now was with intel. Collect data from outside the targets and use it to pinpoint possible perpetrators. Then move in on them. Because this much was clear: Now that Hindu targets had been attacked, unless the guilty parties were found and punished, the situation in Kashmir was going to deteriorate very, very quickly. With nuclear war not just an option but a real possibility.
NINE
Sharab was sitting forward in the passenger's seat of the old flatbed truck. To her left the driver sat with his hands tightly clutching the steering wheel. He was perspiring as he guided them north along Route 1A, the same road that had brought the bus to the bazaar. Between them sat Nanda, her right ankle cuffed to an iron spring under the seat. Two other men were seated in the open deck of the truck, leaning against the bulkhead amid bags of wool. They were huddled under a tarp to protect them from the increasingly heavy rain.
The windshield wipers were batting furiously in front of Sharab's dark eyes and the air vent howled. The young woman was also howling. First she had been screaming orders at her team. Get the truck away from the market and stick to the plan, at least until they had additional information. Now she was screaming questions into her cell phone. The young woman was not screaming to be heard over the noise. She was screaming from frustration.
"Ishaq, did you already place the call?" Sharab demanded.
"Of course I placed the call, just as we always do," the man on the other end informed her.
Sharab punched the padded dashboard with the heel of her left hand. The suddenness of the strike caused Nanda to jump. Sharab struck it again but she did not say a word, did not swear. Blaspheming was a sin.
"Is there a problem?" Ishaq asked.
Sharab did not answer.
"You were very specific about it," Ishaq went on. "You wanted me to call at exactly forty minutes past four. I always do what you say."
"I know," the woman said in a low monotone.
"Something is wrong," the man on the telephone said. "I know that tone of voice. What is it?"
"We'll talk later," the woman replied. "I need to think."
Sharab sat back.
"Should I turn on the radio?" the driver asked sheepishly. "Maybe there is news, an explanation."
"No," Sharab told him. "I don't need the radio. I know what the explanation is."
The driver fell silent. Sharab shut her eyes. She was wheezing slightly. The truck's vents had pulled in slightly acrid, smoky air from the bazaar blast. The woman could not tell whether it was the air or the screaming that had made her throat raw. Probably both. She shook her head. The urge to scream was still there, at the top of her throat. She wanted to vent her frustration.
Failure was not the worst of this. What bothered Sharab most was the idea that she and her team had been used. She had been warned about this five years ago when she was still in Pakistan, at the combat school in Sargodha. The Special Services Group agents who trained her said she had to be wary of success. When a cell succeeded over and over it might not be because they were good. It might be because the host was allowing them to succeed so they could be watched and used at some later date.
For years Sharab's group, the Pakistan-financed Free Kashmir Militia, had been striking at select targets throughout the region. The modus operandi for each attack was always the same. They would take over a house, plan their assault, then strike the target. At the moment of each attack whichever cell member had remained behind would telephone a regional police or military headquarters. He would claim credit for the attack on behalf of the Free Kashmir Militia. After that the FKM would move to another home. In the end, the isolated farmers whose homes and lives they briefly borrowed cared more about survival than about politics. Many of them were Muslim anyway. Though they did not want to cooperate and risk arrest, they did not resist the FKM.
Sharab and her people only struck military, police, and government offices, never civilian or religious targets. They did not want to push or alienate the Hindu population of Kashmir or India, turn them into hawkish adversaries. They only wanted to deconstruct the resources and the resolve of the Indian leaders. Force them to go home and leave Kashmir.
That was what they were trying to do in the bazaar. Cripple the police but not harm the merchants. Scare people away and impact the local economy just enough so that farmers and shoppers would fight the inflammatory presence of Indian authorities.
They had been so careful to do just that. Over the past few nights one member of the party would go to the bazaar in Srinagar. He would enter the temple dressed in clerical robes, exit in back, and climb to the roof of the police station. There, he would systematically lift tiles and place plastique beneath them. Because it was in the middle of a night shift, when this section of the city was usually quiet, the police were not as alert as during the day. Besides, terrorist attacks did not typically occur at night. The idea of terrorism was to disrupt routine, to make ordinary people afraid to go out.
This morning, well before dawn, the last explosives were placed on the roof along with a timer. The timer had been set to detonate at exactly twenty minutes to five that afternoon. Sharab and the others returned at four thirty to watch from the side of the road to make sure the explosion went off.
It did. And it punched right through her.
When the first blast occurred Sharab knew something was wrong. The plastique they had put down was not strong enough to do the damage this explosion had done. When the second blast went off she knew they had been set up. Muslims had seemingly attacked a Hindu temple and a busload of pilgrims. The sentiments of nearly one billion people would turn against them and the Pakistan people.
But Muslims had not attacked Hindu targets, Sharab thought bitterly. The FKM had attacked a police station. Some other group had attacked the religious targets and timed it to coincide with the FKM attack.
She did not believe that a member of the cell had betrayed them. The men in the truck had been with her for years. She knew their families, their friends, their backgrounds. They were people of unshakable faith who would never have done anything to hurt the cause.
What about Apu and Nanda? Back at the house they had never been out of their sight except when they were asleep. Even then the door was always ajar and a guard was always awake. The man and his granddaughter did not own a transmitter or cell phone. The house had been searched. There were no neighbors who could have seen or heard them.
Sharab took a long breath and opened her eyes. For the moment, it did not matter. The question was what to do right now.
The truck sped past black-bearded pilgrims in white tunics and mountain men leading ponies from the marketplace. Distant rice paddies were visible at the misty foot of the Himalayas. Trucks bearing more soldiers sped past them, headed toward the bazaar. Maybe they did not know who was responsible for the attack. Or maybe they did not want to catch them right away. Perhaps whoever had framed them was waiting to see if they linked up with other terrorists in Kashmir before closing in.
If that was the case they were going to be disappointed.
Sharab opened the glove compartment and removed a map of the region. There were seventeen grids on the map, each one numbered and lettered. For the purposes of security the numbers and letters were reversed.
"All right, Ishaq," she said into the phone, "I want you to leave the house now and go to position 5B."