03:02 by Dhar Mainak

Author:Dhar, Mainak
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Published: 2016-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Akif was hidden under a car just a few feet away from the school and I was behind the school gate, lying concealed behind the large bin that had served as the garbage dump for the occupants. It was filthy and I was sure I would stink for a long time afterwards, but it was also a safe bet that the terrorists would not dig through the garbage when they came looking for people. Ismail had wanted to stay but we had asked him not to: if we did succeed, a quick getaway on a motorcycle was possible if there were only two of us; and, if we failed, there was no point in losing both the AKs we had.

We did not have to wait long. Within fifteen minutes I heard the growling sounds of a motorcycle engine as it entered the road. The bike stopped just outside the gate. We had left the lamp on upstairs, locked the main door from the inside and climbed out a side window. I peeked around the corner of the bin to see two men walk into the school compound. I had a pistol but waited for the two men to stand before the front door. One of them was tall and thickly built, the other smaller and leaner.

The big man shouted in broken English, ‘Come out and we will not harm.’

When there was no reply, he pounded on the door with his fist and then spoke to the smaller man who repeated the order in Hindi and Marathi. So this was the traitor who was helping the terrorists. Of course there was no reply, and of course they thought whoever was inside had locked themselves in. The big man braced himself, leaning back on one heel, and then landed a mighty kick on the door, sending it flying off its hinges.

That was when I rushed him. He was off balance and focused on who or what was inside and so was taken completely by surprise when I jumped him from behind. With my right hand I brought down a fist-sized rock on the base of his skull and, as he began to go down, with my left I brought up one of the knives we had recovered from the terrorists in our earlier encounter and held it tight against his neck. The man struggled a bit but I had him pinned down with my entire body weight on him and my knees digging into the small of his back. His right hand was now pinioned behind him in a wrist lock and the serrated edges of the seven-inch blade were digging into his neck.

His friend might have reacted had Akif not rushed him from behind and smashed the butt of the AK-47 against his head. He was down, and from the blood I could see pooling under his head, probably dead. The man under me cursed in Arabic, and when Akif said something to him in the same language, he went very still.

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