Mainak Dhar: Heroes R Us

The man never really stood a chance. In a split-second, Arnab was in front of him, blocking his way. In the darkness, the terrorist nearly bumped into them, and then stepped back, looking at his hooded adversary. The terrorist considered taking out the handgun in his pocket, but remembering the speed and strength the hooded man in front of him had just demonstrated, he stopped himself. As Arnab watched, a look of calm washed over the face of the bearded man facing him, and he reached with his right hand under his shirt, mumbling something to himself in a language Arnab could not understand. At first Arnab thought the man was reaching for a gun, but when he undid a shirt button and put his hand in deeper, Arnab realized he was up to something else completely. In a second, Arnab had pulled the man's hand out, and ripped open his shirt. What Arnab saw shocked him. The man's chest and torso were criss-crossed with wires and tubes, and the man had been reaching for a red switch taped to his chest. As the man struggled futilely to free his hand, screaming at Arnab in his native tongue, Arnab ripped the bomb belt from the man's body and threw it several feet away. Arnab slapped the man, and as he fell to the floor, Arnab pulled the backpack from his shoulders and opened it. What he saw inside made him recoil in fear. Inside the backpack was a metal suitcase, with the following words stencilled in red on it.

'Radioactive material. Highly dangerous.'

As the terrorist struggled to get up, Arnab caught his neck with one hand.

'Where is the other group headed?'

The man spat in his face, and in his anger, Arnab slapped him harder than he would have liked. The man's head jerked to one side, several teeth clattering to the ground. Arnab did not think himself capable of cruelty to an unarmed and helpless captive, but after having seen what was in the backpack, he was on a really short fuse. Arnab asked the man again, and as he raised his hand to strike again, the man looked up at him, and spoke through his blood-filled mouth.

'The VIP box.'

Arnab called to the guards to turn on the lights and come over. As the guards approached, he put on his glasses, still pinning the terrorist down with one hand. The guards were looking at him with scarcely contained awe and he told them to hold the terrorist till the police came, and that he was on his way to the VIP box.

Arnab was about to leave when he saw Upadhyay arrive on the scene. Upadhyay had overheard the conversation and was on his radio, asking reinforcements to head toward the VIP box. He asked the two guards to accompany some of his men away from the scene and instructed his remaining men to secure the terrorists. He then turned towards Arnab, smiling as he lit up a cigarette.

Arnab was in no mood to waste time on pleasantries and shouted to Upadhyay before he started for the VIP box.

'I'm off to the VIP box. Come as soon as you can!'

Arnab turned to run when he felt a sharp stab of pain in his lower back and then heard the ear-splitting report of a gun being fired at point-blank range. Another shot sent him staggering to his knees. It felt as if his entire body was on fire, and it took almost all his strength to pull himself upright. He turned to see Upadhyay looking down at him, his face twisted in a grin.

'The first was for Balwant, and the second for me. We'll stop the terrorists all right, but you die here, you fucking freak.'

Upadhyay raised his gun to fire again, but Arnab jumped at him, ramming him with his head. Upadhyay was flung against a car and fell down with a groan, the impact having dislocated one of his shoulders. When Upadhyay tried to reach out for the gun by his side with his other hand, a kick from Arnab to his foot had him howling in pain as his kneecap shattered. Upadhyay looked up at Arnab, fear in his eyes, waiting for Arnab to finish him off. As much as Arnab wanted to punish him, he remembered what was in the terrorist's backpack and began to run towards the exit, trying to reach the VIP box. His back was now covered in blood and every breath seemed so painful it felt like a knife was being twisted inside him, but he ran with every ounce of energy left in him.

When he reached the stands, he realized that till now the crowd had no inkling that anything was wrong. When he materialized in the midst of the cheering crowd, a sudden hush came over that part of the stadium, the silence spreading across the entire crowd like a wave rippling through a pond. Some people who had got up to greet him recoiled when they saw his blood-soaked back. Arnab was still covering ground at a pace that most professional athletes would find hard to match in an all-out sprint but he was slowing down, and stopping occasionally to catch his breath before continuing towards the VIP box. The players on the field, taking in the sudden silence in the stadium had looked up at the giant screens that were now showing the hooded hero's painful progress up the stands. By now, the terrorists were almost at the VIP box, and in a short firefight had fought their way through the handful of policemen there. The cameras caught it all, and by now, everyone in the stadium knew that something had gone horribly wrong.

Word had spread through the crowd that there were terrorists making their way to the VIP box. As happens, the story changed a thousand times in transmission, so someone said it was an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister, while someone else said that the terrorists had a bomb. Either way, a hundred thousand pairs of eyes were now riveted to two things-the group of armed men running towards the VIP box and the lone hooded figure racing to intercept them.

***

Arnab was within a few feet of the VIP box when he felt his legs buckle under him. As he collapsed onto one knee, he grabbed onto a railing with his right hand to steady himself. To his surprise, he felt several hands reach out to support him. As he looked around, he saw that more than a dozen people had gathered round to help him to his feet. They were all complete strangers, children, adults, men, women, but all of them were now clapping and cheering him. That cheer began to resonate around the stadium, as Arnab launched himself into a final run that brought him directly in the terrorists' path.

The two terrorists carrying rifles immediately brought their guns up to deal with him, but they had no idea what they were up against. Every movement seemed to hurt, but Arnab stilled his mind, blocking out the pain, blocking out the crowd's noise, and focused all his strength and all his concentration on his right hand as it shot out, straight and level as Khan had taught him, at the nearest terrorist's face. The man's head rocked back as if he had run at full tilt into a brick wall, his head hung loosely from his body and his neck snapped as he fell back. The terrorist was dead before his body hit the ground, but Arnab was now beyond caring how much he hurt his opponents. The other gunman dropped his gun in terror and would have run had Arnab not felled him with another blow that sent him crashing down several rows of seats into the crowd. What Arnab had started was finished by the angry group of spectators who tore into the wounded terrorist.

Before he could take on the third man, the terrorist had taken out a handgun and begun firing at Arnab, emptying the magazine into the hooded devil before him. Arnab managed to dodge one or two bullets but he was spun around like a rag doll as the third bullet tore into his body. The crowd's cheers stopped as suddenly as they had begun. Several people in the crowd began to sob and wail, as the terrorist entered the VIP box.

There were still more than twenty people in the box when the man came in. Jayantada tried to push Mishti behind himself, in an attempt to shield her from what was coming. A couple of people began pleading with the man, only to be shot on the spot. The man was enraged when he saw that the Prime Minister was no longer there, but he still had his larger mission to fulfil. He emptied his magazine, shooting one more person, and then reloaded in case he faced any more resistance. He then put his hand under his shirt and felt for the button on the switch, beginning to say the prayers that would herald his martyrdom.