Ian McDonald - River of Gods

“What is this?” Shiv demands.

Yogendra offers him the knife, turning it so the gleams of light from the distant town catch its steel. It is the length of a forearm, serrated, hooked at the tip, ferruled. He lays open the stretch plastic skins with two swift strokes. He returns the blade to its leather holster, next his skin. Lying in the plastic are two factory-fresh, chrome-bright Japanese trail bikes fuelled and ready to run. They start at first kick. Shiv mounts up. Yogendra walks his around the sand a little, feeling out the capabilities. Then Shiv nods to him and they open up the made-in-Yokohama engines and burn off through the rain-soaked dal fields.

At eleven thirty the huddle of umbrellas moves from the porch of the Rana Bhavan towards the Mercedes parked on the gravel turning circle. The umbrellas are white, an unnatural shade. They press together like a phalanx. Not one drop of water passes through. The rain is torrential now, a thunderous drowning downpour shot through with muggy lightning. At the centre of the cluster of domed umbrellas is Prime Minister Sajida Rana. She wears a white silk sari trimmed with green and orange. It is the most serious business she goes to this night. It is the defence of her country and her authority. All across Varanasi identical Mercedes are pulling away from tasteful government bungalows.

The umbrellas press up against the side of the car like piglets at the teat of a black sow. Safe and dry, Sajida Rana slips into the back seat. She sits instinctively on the left side. Shaheen Badoor Khan should be in the right seat offering analyses, advisements, perceptions. She looks alone as the doors lock and the car pulls off into the rain. She looks like what she is, a middle-aged woman with the weight of a nation upon her. The umbrellas break up and dart back to the shelter of the Rana Bhavan’s deep verandas.

Sajida Rana flicks through the hastily prepared briefing document. The facts are scant and perfunctory. The Awadhi assault was technically flawless. Brilliant. Bloodless. Military colleges will be teaching it for decades to come. Awadhi armour and mechanised infantry are within twenty kilometres of Allahabad, antiaircraft and communication systems have come under sustained aeai attack and the defending battalion is in disarray, its control at the Kunda Khadar dam beheaded, desperately trying to reestablish a line of command with the divisional headquarters at Jaunpur. And it is raining. Sajida Rana is losing a water war in the rain. But it comes too late. Her nation can die of thirst in a deluge.

They knew. The bastards had it calculated to the minute.

In her white, gold, and green sari Sajida Rana tries to imagine how the words of surrender will feel in her mouth. Will they be bloated, choking; will they be dry and acid; will they slip out as easily as a Muslim divorcing his wife? Talaaq talaaq talaaq.

Khan. Faithless Muslim. Betrayed her with another, a thing . When she needs his words, his insights, his presence beside her on the cream leather. If Jivanjee and his karsevaks knew she rode on cow-coloured leather. Let Jivanjee do your work for you , Khan had said. Now he will drive his juggernaut over her bones. No. She is a Rana, daughter of a founder of nations, a seeder of dynasties. She is Bharat. She will fight. Let the Ganga overflow with blood.

“Where are we going?”

“Traffic, ma’am,” the driver says. Sajida Rana settles back on her upholstery and looks out through the rain-streaked windows. Neons and tail lights, the gaudy Diwali illuminations of the trucks. She thumbs the com.

“This is not the usual way to the Bharat Sabha.”

“No, ma’am,” the driver says and sinks his foot to the board. Unbalanced, Sajida Rana reels. She tries the locks knowing it for folly, knowing she heard the solid, German-engineering click of the central locking. She opens her palmer, calls her security as the Mercedes touches one hundred and twenty.

“This is Prime Ministerial emergency code. Lock on to my GPS signal, I am being abducted, I repeat, this is Sajida Rana, I am being abducted.”

Sky hiss. Then the voice of her chief of security says,

“Prime Minister, I will not do that. No one will help you. You have betrayed Holy Bharat and Bharat will punish you.”

Then the Mercedes turns into Sarkhand Roundabout and the screaming starts.

The Bharatiya Vayu Sena Airbus Industries A510 bumps a little as it climbs through the cloud layer over Varanasi. Ashok Rana grips the armrests. He has never been a good flier. He glances out the rain-streaked window at the bright arcs of flares dropping away behind them. The fuselage vibrates as ECM drones launch from the underwing pods. There has been no Awadhi aerial activity over Varanasi for days now but the air force takes no chances with its new Prime Minister. Ashok Rana thinks, from the angle of the raindrops on the glass I should be able to work out my speed. Many such inconsequential thoughts have come to him since the call from Secretary Narvekar in the night.

The plane lurches again, beating through the monsoon. Ashok Rana switches on his armrest screen. The camera shows his wife and daughters back in the press-office compartment. Sushmita’s face tightens with fear as the Airbus jolts again; Anuja gives a word of comfort, takes her hand. In his Prime Ministerial leather armchair, Ashok Rana allows himself a minute smile. He wishes there were a camera here at the front so they could see him. They would not be so afraid, if they could see him.

“Prime Minister.”

His Parliamentary Private Secretary swivels his seat towards him and passes a much be scribbled printout across the table.

“We have a draft of the speech, if you would like to familiarise yourself with its key points.”

The Prime Ministerial transport gives a final buck and breaks free into clear air. Through the window Ashok Rana sees the moonlit surface of a storm-sea of cloud. The pilot bings off the seatbelt light and instantly the plastic tube of the fuselage is filled with call-tones. Every politician and civil servant is out of his seat and pressing around the conference table. They lean forward with expectant, keen faces. They have been wearing those expectant, keen faces since Secretary Narvekar and Defence Minister Chowdhury stooped down through the door of the Bharati Air Force tilt-jet that had landed in his garden to help Ashok Rana and his family aboard. Chief Justice Laxman administered the oath while the military transport dropped towards the remote, secure corner of the airport where Vayu Sena One had been brought. The army nurse with the white white surgical gloves had made the lightest of nicks in his thumb with a scalpel, pressed it to a diagnostic pad and even before Ashok Rana could register the pain she had swabbed it clean with surgical alcohol and slipped on a dressing.

“For the DNA authorisation, Prime Minister,” Trivul Narvekar explained but Ashok Rana’s attention was on the air force officer immediately behind the nurse, gun drawn, muzzle hovering a whisper from the back of her skull. To lose one Prime Minister is tragedy. Two starts to look like conspiracy. Then Chief Justice Laxman’s face loomed into his field of vision.

“I now present you with the seals of state, Prime Minister. You are endowed with full executive authority.”

The A510 swims up towards the huge Bharati moon. Ashok Rana could look at it forever, imagine there is no chaotic, broken nation down beneath the clouds. But the faces expect. He glances over the printout. Measured phrases, memorable sound bites with edit-pauses written in before and after them, resolutions and rousing declarations. Ashok Rana glances again at his family in the little palm-sized screen.