Free LASHKAR by Mukul Deva Page B

before it had picked up speed.
    The middle-aged man who had been standing in the aisle near him eagerly grabbed the newly-vacated seat. He felt as tired as he looked. His rumpled clothing betrayed the long sleepless night and hectic day he had spent at the hospital waiting for his wife to give birth to their second child. She had finally done so a few hours ago and was resting comfortably with her newborn son nestled beside her when he left the hospital. Now he was on his way home to see how their ten-year-old firstborn was faring on her own. He blessed the man who had vacated his seat not knowing that he had just ensured his newborn son would never get to know his father.
    It was precisely seventeen minutes past five when the bus left the terminus carrying its lethal cargo and over fifty passengers blissfully unaware of the ugly death they were hurtling toward. From now on till the time the bomb finally exploded the bus would stop at least eleven times. Some lucky people would get off. Some unlucky ones would get on.
    The man who had instigated their death walked calmly towards the main road outside the bus station. He crossed the road and went up to the first autorickshaw in the queue outside. ‘ Nai Dilli railway station chaloge ?’ he asked him and climbed in when the man nodded. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry. My train is due to leave in twenty-five minutes.’
    ‘Don’t worry, sahib. I will get you there,’ the enthusiastic, beardless youth replied with a wide grin. He swerved his autorickshaw out of the bus station with one hand pressed firmly on the horn and joined the shrill cacophony of Delhi traffic. The man sitting in the back held tightly on to the metal rail in front of his seat as they careened through the traffic. ‘Hey, ease up, will you. You don’t just have to get me there, you have to get me there alive.’
    He was well out of the station when shouts of confusion were heard from the other side of the bus terminus.
    Things were not going well for his younger teammate.
    The younger Lashkar man had also spotted a bus coming into the station barely a few minutes after the older man had sited his target. ‘Thank God!’ he mumbled to himself as he hurried to board it. ‘Here goes.’
    Now that he was alone his bravado had deserted him. Despite all the training, briefing and rehearsals he was deeply nervous. He tried to dissipate his anxiety by talking to himself; a coping behaviour amateurs routinely use to deal with combat stress. Hefting his bag he headed for the bus.
    The bus scheduled to run on route 982 was headed for Model Town. There was a huge crowd waiting to board it when it pulled into its allocated slot at 1715 hours. Due to the sheer press of human beings trying to get on the bus the young terrorist took a while to get on board. By the time he finally managed, there were just a couple of seats left. He rushed forward, squeezed into the first vacant aisle seat and pushed his bag under it. To his surprise there was already something under the seat and the bag he was trying to push in jutted out. ‘Shit!’
    He looked around for another seat, but they had all been taken. Left with no alternative he tried to push his bag in further under the seat and get it out of sight when his co-passenger nudged him gently. ‘Bhaisahib, please be careful, there is glassware in my bag. Gift items, you see.’ The man sitting on the window seat gave an apologetic smile, ‘If you push too hard something in my bag might break.’
    His co-passenger had barely finished speaking when the bus engine revved to a start and the bus got ready to commence its journey. That is when the young inexperienced terror merchant made his first mistake. He should have simply taken his bag, left the bus and tried again on any one of the other buses that were moving out of the station at regular intervals. Instead, the young man reached down, armed the timer device of the bomb, and getting up hurriedly tried to disembark. ‘Excuse