Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

What had I become? I had become someone else, something else. As I tried to grasp how exactly I had changed, what had happened to me, a burrowing little worm of doubt moved through my belly, and up around my heart. Zoya said I was handsome now, that I could be a film star if I wanted. I knew I looked better, that I was younger than ever and sharp-featured. But, but if Arnold was who she dreamed of meeting, could I ever be as large-muscled as the Terminator? If the Terminator came to her in her dreams, even as she slept next to me, could she truly love me? I told myself that the Terminator was a fiction, that I was more powerful than some cheap American actor. I told myself, you have killed more men than some pretend Terminator. A word from you moves money and arms across continents. If anyone should be called the Terminator, it is you.

And yet, when Zoya stirred in the early morning, and nuzzled sleepily at my side, what met her from within me was still that wriggling parasite of disbelief. I looked at the arm that was holding her, my arm, and all I could think of was that it was so scrawny, compared to Arnold's. Actually, even the hero in the film she was shooting in Texas was more of an Arnold than me. He was short, but he had a bulky, steroided chest, and worked-up arms. I knew I could afford the best steroids, and build a gym for myself, and hire trainers, but would I ever be close to the vision that Zoya carried around in her head, this man that she could truly love? Did she love me, this Zoya, this Egotistical Giraffe?

The question was ridiculous, and I knew it, and yet it stayed with me. We ate breakfast sitting at the dining table in the main room, and as usual it was a wonder to watch her eat. She drank a jug of orange juice, and put away three omelettes. I watched her, and she was beautiful again, she was Zoya Mirza the film star herself. Be happy, I told myself. She is with you. And then the phone rang. Not the hotel phone, and not my mobile, but the secure satellite phone which was on the bedside table. I hurried to it. Only Arvind and Bunty had that number, and they would use it only under extraordinary circumstances.

It was Arvind. 'Bhai?' he said. 'You should come back.'

'Why?'

'Our potato business,' he said. The 'potato trade' was our phrase for our armament-smuggling operations, which we ran for Guru-ji. We had been doing this for years now, bringing shipments of arms and ammunition to the Konkan coast and handing them over to his people for transportation. 'They have found out about it. They have one of our shipments.'

'Who has found out?'

'The Delhi people.' Which was Dinesh Kulkarni, otherwise known as Mr Joshi, and his organization, and therefore the maderchod Indian government.

'I will be on the next plane,' I said.

'Please come fast, bhai,' he said. 'They are very angry.'

What he meant was that he was afraid for my safety, exposed as I was in this foreign country, out here in this grand hotel suite without any bodyguards. This is why he was being so careful and cryptic, even on a secure line. 'I understand,' I said. 'Don't worry. I'm on my way.'

I said goodbye to Zoya, and I went.

* * *

'Why did you do it, Ganesh?' This was Kulkarni, who was now being sternly schoolteacherish. 'Why?'

'We needed samaan for our own people.'

'Don't lie to me. In the shipments the police caught, there were one hundred and sixty-two AK-56 rifles, forty automatic pistols and eighteen thousand rounds of ammunition. That's not personal use, Ganesh. That's armament for a war.'

'We might have sold some. It's good business, and income is down from all other sources. The whole economy is down. As you know, saab.'

He came back sharp and quick, 'Are you working with someone? Are these weapons intended specifically for someone? For some group, some party?'

'No, no, saab. We just need the cash, and this was a good market. You know how the situation in the country is nowadays, everyone wants insurance against everyone else. We were just distributors, to everyone.' I was sweating. I was back on the yacht, in Phuket waters, and I was covered and guarded on every side, but I knew our situation was very serious. We had a problem. And Kulkarni was letting me know exactly how bad our problem was. I was wishing now that K.D. Yadav had not retired, and that he was still handling my business with his organization. He was a practical man, he understood our necessities. This bastard Kulkarni was talking to me like some little boy he had caught with stolen goods.

'We overlooked your other projects and businesses,' he said. 'But this…I don't know if we can overlook this. Even with the organization, those who objected to having a relationship with you are now completely justified.' He was certainly very angry himself. 'How many shipments were there?'

I knew he wouldn't believe that there had been just the single shipment, so I told him that there had been one more, a much smaller one. I told him that there would be no more. I tried to talk him out of his anger, and told him how loyal I was. I reminded him of all the operations I had run for his organization, all the hard and completely reliable intelligence I had fed them. I made allusions to our many conversations, and the years of my work for Mr Kumar. He remained grim, and unyielding, and kept burrowing for more information on our arms business. I warded him off, gave him as little as I could and finally put the phone down feeling harried and afraid.

Arvind had come down from Singapore, and he was pacing around on the deck outside. He was on the phone to Bombay, trying to track the police case as it developed, following tips from our sources inside the department. I waited. There was no moon out that night, and the water shifted its silver-black surfaces at the corners of my eyes. Someone was watching me. I was sure of it. They were out there. Maybe they were listening to Arvind's conversation on his phone. The instrument was supposed to be secure, but whatever was secure could be cracked. Mr Kumar had taught me that.

Arvind thumbed off his phone. 'Nothing new, bhai,' he said. 'They're holding a press conference tomorrow morning at ten. Maybe something new will come out then.'

We still didn't know how the police had found our shipments. We didn't know how they had connected the shipments to us. They had had some good intelligence. Who had given it to them? Suleiman Isa and his boys? Or did the police have their own informants high up in our company? Quite possible. We would have to investigate. But I had an urgent, immediate worry. Our potato operation was compromised. I had to alert our client. I had to go to Guru-ji.

* * *

Guru-ji once again foretold my future, and this time he saved my life. I met him in Munich, where he was conducting a five-day workshop and a yagna. I flew alone. Arvind and Bunty tried to keep me from going, and then they tried to send half a battalion of shooters with me. I told them I was much safer alone, that I was protected by my new face. I demonstrated this to them: I walked past boys who had worked for me for years, and none of them recognized me. As long as I kept a low profile, I would be protected.

Guru-ji's security was of course paramount in my thoughts, and I had no wish to taint his reputation in any way. I didn't trust our usual methods of communication any more, I didn't know whether the technology we used was still safe. Our experts were getting new machines, new software, new methods. But I needed to talk to Guru-ji. So I took this risk, of being alone in a foreign country. I used the same approach I had earlier, in Bombay. I attended the Munich yagna and waited afterwards for an audience. Only this time he knew I was coming.

I got to Munich at five in the evening and found the hall where Guru-ji had been holding his workshops. The yagna was a miniature of the one he had done in Bombay, and as the flames leaped and danced he spoke about the cycles of history. I sat at the back of the hall and watched him over the orderly ranks of firangi heads. There were television screens hanging from the roof of the hall, but I only looked at Guru-ji straight-straight, I strained my eyes and focused on him. After all these months of his voice over the telephone and his eyes in fuzzy newspaper photographs, I wanted a direct darshan. And I felt his presence, his great atman and the peace it brought to me. I was soothed, I was healed, I was revived. Only those who have seen him in person know what a light pours from him, what a glowing sweep of clarity comes from his darshan. I sat up like an eager child, and was instructed by him. He was speaking about our times, about the turbulence that was churning our world. 'Do not be afraid,' he said, in his rumbling Hindi, with simultaneous German translation. 'In the last few centuries, you have heard people speak of "progress", but you have seen only suffering and destruction. You have been terrified of science itself, of its rapaciousness and amoral power. You are told by your politicians that things are getting better, but you know they are getting worse. And you are seized by fear. I say to you, do not be afraid. We are approaching a time of great change. It is inevitable, it is necessary, it will happen and has to happen. And the signs of the change are all around us. Time and history are like a wave, like a building storm. We are approaching the crest, the outburst. You can feel it, I know you can, it is a build-up of emotion in your own body as well. The events are mounting in their intensity, they come one after another. But in this maelstrom is the promise of peace. Only after the explosion, we will find silence and a new world. This is sure. Do not doubt the future. I assure you, mankind will step into a golden age of love, of plenty, of peace. So do not be afraid.'