Rising Tiger: A Thriller (34)

She put the question to him again, told him to take his time, but the man remained unable to come up with any names of anyone who might have exposed him.

Asha believed him—both in that the helicopter hadn’t been sabotaged and that he had no clue who had outed him.

She debated whether it was worth her time to visit the crash site. That type of investigation was largely outside her realm of expertise.

There were trained investigators on scene who, ostensibly, would be able to spot any indication that a bomb or a missile of some sort had brought down the helo.

But barring that sort of evidence, she was leaning heavily toward Sergeant Siddiqui’s assessment—pilot error coupled with poor visibility.

She was about to release Siddiqui so that he could take his family over to the temporary base housing that had been arranged for them, when Khan knocked and stuck his head into the office.

“Phone call, ma’am. Line two. Major Badal.”

She picked it up. “Yes, Major?”

“I need you to come to Coonoor.”

“To the crash site?”

“No,” Badal responded, “to the police station. There’s something you need to see.”



* * *



She was flown up on the same HAL Dhruv, with the same Indian Air Force crew, that had hot-washed the rioters and the Coimbatore police.

At her request, the pilots flew the same route as General Mehra’s helicopter and then circled the crash site for several minutes so that she could take it all in.

There were few words she could have chosen to describe it. Wreckage was scattered everywhere. Trees had been snapped like toothpicks. The surrounding forest had been charred black.

On a large patch of grass near the town of Coonoor police station, the Dhruv touched down and disgorged its sole passenger. Major Badal was waiting for her.

She saluted the superior officer and followed him inside. Like every other police station she had ever set foot inside, it smelled like stale chai mixed with cigarettes that had been not-so-covertly smoked in the station restroom. There was a ton of activity going on, no doubt in response to the crash.

Badal led her to a small, empty conference room that had been set up as a war room and closed the door behind them. On the desk was a laptop computer with two attachments—a projector and what appeared to be some sort of SD card reader.

“Next to the head constable, who processed this evidence when it arrived, and the inspector in charge of this station, no one else has seen what I am about to show you,” said Badal.

Asha nodded and, after turning out the lights, Badal pushed a button on the computer, which projected a video on the whiteboard at the front of the room. “We believe this footage is the last sighting of General Mehra’s helicopter before it went down.”

The video appeared to have been taken from a rooftop, in a crowded neighborhood, somewhere on the outskirts of town. She could see a mix of commercial and residential buildings. There were laundry lines, old satellite dishes, and a smattering of billboards. There was also fog, but not as thick as she had expected.

Badal narrated: “The footage was captured by a young man who thought it might be cool for his social media accounts. In a moment, you’ll see the helicopter enter screen left.”

As was true in most cases, you could hear it before you saw it. When the helicopter finally materialized, everything appeared normal. But after a few seconds, it began to dramatically lose altitude. It also began swinging violently from side to side.

She could only imagine how terrifying it must have been for everyone on board, especially the pilots as they fought to bring it under control.

The video stayed with the aircraft until it disappeared from view. Shortly thereafter, an explosion could be heard and a plume of black smoke could be seen on the horizon.

“Wait a second,” said Asha, walking over to the whiteboard. “Rewind it, please.”

Badal did as she asked.

“Right there. Stop.” Pointing at one of the rooftops, she then asked, “Can you tighten in on this?”

The major was impressed. He had watched the video several times, but hadn’t noticed what she had. He’d been focused on the helicopter and what he was certain was a mechanical failure of some sort. “What is that? A sniper?”

“Not in the traditional sense.”

“Meaning?”

Asha used her finger to outline the backpack the figure was wearing, the odd features of his rifle, and what appeared to be some sort of a hose tying it all together.

The tighter Badal zoomed in, the fuzzier and more difficult the image was to view.

“I don’t understand,” he said, zooming out. “What are we looking at?”

“The cause of our crash,” she replied. “And quite possibly an act of war.”





CHAPTER 21


BEIJING

Yang Xin was exhausted. It had been a long, hard day with a lot on the line. His jaw ached from being clenched and his stomach hadn’t been right since before even stepping into the office. The stress of the job was getting to him. By all accounts, however, today’s operations had been a total success.

The helicopter carrying the head of India’s armed forces had gone down in a fiery crash and the Yaomo operative in the United States charged with raining down “Havana Syndrome,” as the Americans had come to call it, on the first member of the Carlton Group had been wildly successful.